"The usurper's conversion!" murmured the count, looking at the king and Dandré, who spoke alternately, like Virgil's shepherds. "The usurper converted!"
"Decidedly, my dear count."
"In what way converted?"
"To good principles. Explain all about it, baron."
"Why, this it is, M. le Comte," said the minister, with the gravest air in the world: "Napoleon lately had a review, and as two or three of his old grumblers, as he calls them, testified a desire to return to France, he gave them their dismissal, and exhorted them to 'serve their good king.' These were his own words, M. le Comte; I am certain of that."
"Well, Blacas, what think you of this?" inquired the king triumphantly, and pausing for a moment from the voluminous scholiast before him.
"I say, sire, that M. the minister of police or I am greatly deceived; and as it is impossible it can be the minister of police, as he has the guardianship of the safety and honor of your majesty, it is probable I am in error. However, sire, if I might advise, your majesty will interrogate the person of whom I spoke to you, and I will even urge your majesty to do him this honor."
"Most willingly, count; under your auspices I will receive any person you please, but with arms in hand. M, le Ministre, have you any report more recent than this, dated the 20th February, and this is the 3d of March?"
"No, sire, but I am hourly expecting one; it may have arrived since I left my office."
"Go thither, and if there be none — well, well," continued Louis XVIII., laughing, "make one; that is the usual way, is it not?"
"Oh, sire," replied the minister, "we have no occasion to invent any: every day our desks are loaded with most circumstantial denunciations, coming from crowds of individuals who hope for some return for services which they seek to render, but cannot; they trust to fortune, and rely that some unexpected event will give a kind of reality to their predictions."
"Well, sir, go," said Louis XVIII., "and remember that I am waiting for you."
"I will but go and return, sire; I shall be back in ten minutes."
"And I, sire," said M. de Blacas, "will go and find my messenger."
"Wait, sir, wait," said Louis XVIII. "Really, M. de Blacas, I must change your armorial bearings; I will give you an eagle with outstretched wings, holding in its claws a prey which tries in vain to escape, and bearing this device — Tenax."
