"On the contrary, father," said Villefort, "I am delighted. But your visit is so unexpected that I am somewhat dazed by it."

"How now! Do you know, dear Gérard," Noirtier said, looking at his son with an ambiguous smile, "that you do not appear altogether overjoyed at seeing me?"

M. Noirtier (for this was the man who had just entered) kept an eye on the servant until the door had closed. Then, doubtless fearing that he might be listening in the antechamber, he went and opened it again behind him. This was no vain precaution, and the speed of Germain's retreat proved that he was no stranger to the sin that caused the downfall of our first parents. M. Noirtier then took the trouble to go himself and shut the door of the antechamber, returned and shut that of the bedroom, slid the bolts and went over to take Villefort's hand. The young man, meanwhile, had been following these manoeuvres with a surprise from which he had not yet recovered.

"My dear friend," Noirtier continued, taking a seat, "I might say the same myself. How is this! You tell me that you are getting engaged in Marseille on the twenty-eighth of February, and on March the third you are in Paris?"

"Have you heard about a certain Bonapartist club that meets in the Rue Saint-Jacques?"

"If I am here, father," said Gérard, going across to M. Noirtier, "do not complain about it. I came for your sake and this journey may perhaps save your life."

"At Number fifty-three? Yes, I am its vice-president."

"Father! I am amazed by your composure."

"What do you expect, dear boy? When one has been proscribed by the Montagnards, left Paris in a hay-cart and been hunted across the moorlands of Bordeaux by Robespierre's bloodhounds, one is inured to most things. So continue. What has happened in this club in the Rue Saint-Jacques?"

"The king himself."

"Indeed!" said M. Noirtier, casually leaning back in the chair where he was sitting. "Indeed! Tell me about it, Monsieur le Magistrat; I am most curious."

"What has happened is that General Quesnel was called to it and that General Quesnel, having left home at nine in the evening, was pulled out of the Seine two days later."

"Well now, in exchange for your story, I have some news to tell you."

"And who told you this fine story?"

"I beg you not to say such things, father, firstly for your own sake, then for mine. I did know this piece of news; I knew it even before you did, because over the past three days I have been pounding the road between Marseille and Paris, raging at my inability to project the thought that was burning through my skull and send it two hundred leagues ahead of me."

"Three days ago! Are you mad? The emperor had not landed three days ago."

"Father, I think I already know what you are about to say."

"No matter, I knew of his plans."

"How did you know?"

"Ah! So you already know about the landing of His Majesty the Emperor?"

"To me?"

"From a letter addressed to you from the island of Elba."

"To you. I intercepted it in the messenger's wallet. If that letter had fallen into another's hands, father, you might already have been shot."

Villefort's father burst out laughing. "Come, come, it seems that the Restoration has taken lessons from the Empire in how to expedite matters… Shot! My dear boy, you are being carried away! So where is this letter? I know you better than to imagine you would leave it lying around."

"I have done better still, Monsieur. I have saved you."

"I burned it, to make sure that not a scrap remained. That letter was your death-warrant."

"The devil you have! This is becoming more dramatic still. Explain what you mean."

"I am again referring to the club in the Rue Saint-Jacques."

"And a death-knell to your future career," Noirtier replied coldly. "Yes, I understand that; but I have nothing to fear, since you are protecting me."

"The gentlemen of the police seem most attached to this club. Why did they not look more carefully: they would have found it."

"That's the usual phrase, I know. When the police are at a loss, they say they are on the trail -- and the government waits patiently until they come and whisper that the trail has gone cold."

"Yes, but they have found a body. General Quesnel was killed and, in every country in the world, that is called murder."

"They have not yet found it, but they are on the trail."

"Murder, you say? But there is nothing to prove that the general was murdered. People are found every day in the Seine, where they threw themselves in despair, or drowned because they could not swim."

"The king himself."

"Father, you know very well that the general did not drown himself in despair and that no one bathes in the Seine in January. No, no, make no mistake, his death has indeed been attributed to murder."

"Who made the attribution?"

"The king! I thought him enough of a philosopher to realize that there is no such thing as murder in politics. You know as well as I do, my dear boy, that in politics there are no people, only ideas; no feelings, only interests. In politics, you don't kill a man, you remove an obstacle, that's all. Do you want to know what happened? I'll tell you. We thought we could count on General Quesnel. He had been recommended to us from the island of Elba. One of us went round to his house and invited him to attend a meeting in the Rue Saint-Jacques where he would be among friends. He came and was told the whole plan: departure from the island of Elba, the intended landing place. Then, when he had listened to everything and heard everything, and there was no more for him to learn, he announced that he was a Royalist. At this, we all looked at one another. We obliged him to take an oath and he did so, but truly with such little good grace that it was tempting God to swear in that way. In spite of all, however, we let him go freely, quite freely. He did not return home: what do you expect, my dear? He left us and must have taken the wrong road, that's all. A murder! Really, Villefort, you surprise me -- you, a deputy crown prosecutor, making an accusation founded on such poor evidence. Have I ever told you, when you have done your job as a Royalist and had the head cut off one of our people: 'My son, you have committed murder'? No, I have said: 'Very well, Monsieur, you have fought and won, but tomorrow we shall have our revenge.'"

"Are you counting on the usurper's return?"

"Father, beware, our revenge will be terrible when we take it."

"I confess I am."

"The people will rise up…"

"I don't understand."

"My good friend, the emperor is at this moment on the road for Grenoble. On the tenth or the twelfth, he will be in Lyon, and on the twentieth or the twenty-fifth in Paris."

"You are wrong, father; he will no sooner have got ten leagues into France than he will be pursued, hunted down and captured like a wild animal."

"To march before him."

"He has only a handful of men with him and they will send armies against him."

"Which will provide an escort for him to return to the capital. The truth, my dear Gérard, is that you are still only a child. You think you are well informed because the telegraph told you, three days after the landing: 'The usurper has landed at Cannes with a few men. He is being pursued.' But where is he? What is he doing? You have no idea. He is being pursued, that's all you know. Well, they will pursue him as far as Paris, without firing a shot."

"I have to admit," replied Villefort, looking at his father with astonishment, "you seem very well informed."

"Grenoble and Lyon are loyal cities which will offer an invincible barricade against him."

"Devotion?" Villefort laughed.

"Heavens, it's simple enough. You people, who hold power, have only what can be bought for money; we, who are waiting to gain power, have what is given out of devotion."

"Grenoble will open its doors and acclaim him; the whole of Lyon will march in his van. Believe me, we are as well informed as you are and our police are at least the equal of yours. Do you want proof? Here it is: you tried to hide your journey from me, yet I knew about your arrival half an hour after you had entered Paris. You gave your address to no one except your postilion, yet I know your address, and to prove it I arrived here at the very moment when you were sitting down to eat. So ring for your servant to set another place and we shall dine together."

"Yes, devotion. That is the honest way to describe ambition when it has expectations."

"Didn't I tell you your police were idiots?"

"Yes," Noirtier said, looking casually around him. "Yes, if the man is not warned. But," he added, smiling, "he has been warned and he will change his appearance and his clothing."

"However incompetent the Royalist police may be, they do know one dreadful thing."

"Because they lost him, yesterday or the day before, on the corner of the Rue Coq-Héron."

"Ah, ha, so they know that?" said Noirtier. "In that case, why do they not have their hands on this man?"

Villefort's father stretched out his own hand towards the bell-pull to call for the servant, since his son would not do it.

Villefort restrained him: "Father, wait. Another word."

"Dark in colouring, black hair, side-whiskers and eyes, a blue frock-coat buttoned up to the chin, the rosette of an officer of the Legion of Honour in his buttonhole, a broad-brimmed hat and a rattan cane."

"The description of the man who visited General Quesnel on the day of his disappearance."

"Which is?"

"Say it."

"Ah, the fine police know that, do they? And what is the description?"

"Yes, but at any moment they may find him."

At these words, he got up, took off his coat and cravat, went over to a table on which everything was lying ready for his son's toilet, took a razor, lathered his face and, with a perfectly steady hand, shaved off the compromising side-whiskers which had provided such a precious clue for the police. Villefort watched him with terror, not unmixed with admiration.

"How's that?" he said, turning back to his astonished son after completing this sort of conjuring trick. "Do you think that your police will recognize me now?"

Once he had finished shaving, Noirtier rearranged his hair. Instead of his black cravat, he took one of a different colour which was lying on top of an open trunk. Instead of his blue buttoned coat, he slipped on one of Villefort's which was brown and flared. In front of the mirror, he tried on the young man's hat, with its turned-up brim; seemed to find that it suited him and, leaving his rattan cane where he had rested it against the fireplace, he took a little bamboo switch -- that the dandyish deputy prosecutor would use to give himself that offhand manner which was one of his main attributes -- and twirled it in his wiry hand.

"Tell him this: "Sire, you have been deceived about the mood of the country, opinions in the towns and the spirit of the army. The man whom you in Paris call the Corsican ogre and who is still called the usurper in Nevers, is already hailed as Bonaparte in Lyon and as emperor in Grenoble. You think he is being hunted down, hounded and fleeing, but he is marching, as swiftly as the eagle which he brings back with him. His soldiers, whom you believe to be dying of starvation, exhausted and ready to desert, are increasing in numbers like snowflakes around a snowball as it plunges down a hill. Sire, leave -- leave France to her true master who acquired her not for gold, but by conquest. Leave, Sire, not because you are in any danger -- your adversary is strong enough to spare you -- but because it would be humiliating for a grandson of Saint-Louis to owe his life to the man of Arcole, Marengo and Austerlitz." Tell him that, Gérard; or rather, no, tell him nothing; conceal your journey; don't boast of anything that you intended to do or have done in Paris; take the coach and, if you pounded the road in coming, fly like a bird as you return; go back into Marseille at night, enter your house by the back door and stay there, quietly, humbly, secretly and, above all, harmlessly; because this time, I promise you, we shall act as determined men who know their enemies. Go, my son, go, my dear Gérard, and provided you are obedient to your father's orders -- or, if you prefer, respectful of the wishes of a friend -- we shall allow you to keep your office." Noirtier smiled. "This will give you an opportunity to save me for the second time, should the political seesaw one day raise you up again and put me down. Farewell, my dear Gérard. On your next visit, stay with me."

"Oh, father, have no fear," said Villefort.

"Yes, but they are more justly treated in the long run. Suppose there is a second Restoration: then you will be considered a great man."

"Those who prophesy misfortune are unwelcome in court, father."

"I hope, at least, that you are mistaken."

"I may."

"Don't you believe me?"

"No, father," stammered Villefort. "I hope not, at least."

"Do you wish him to think you have the power of prophecy?"

"My dear Gérard, I rely on your prudence to dispose of all these objects that I am leaving in your care."

Villefort shook his head.

"Indeed, I shall not. And now I believe you are right and that you may indeed have saved my life. But rest assured, I shall shortly repay the service."

"So, what must I tell the king?"

"Will you see the king again?"

Villefort, pale and troubled, ran to the window, parted the curtains and saw him go by, tranquil and unmoved, between two or three sinister-looking men who were stationed by the boundary posts or at the corner of the street and who may well have been there to arrest a man with black whiskers, wearing a blue coat and a broad-brimmed hat.

At this, Noirtier left, as calm as he had been throughout the length of this difficult interview.

He remained standing where he was, holding his breath, until his father had vanished beyond the Carrefour Bussy. Then he rushed to the things that Noirtier had left behind, thrust the black cravat and blue frock-coat into the bottom of his trunk, twisted the hat and concealed it in the bottom of a cupboard, and broke the rattan cane into three pieces, which he threw on the fire. Then he put on a travelling cap, called his valet, giving him a look that forbade him to ask any of the thousand questions that were on his lips, settled his account with the hotel, leapt into the carriage which was waiting for him, with the horses ready harnessed, learnt in Lyon that Bonaparte had just entered Grenoble and, in the midst of the turmoil that he found throughout the whole length of the road, arrived in Marseille, a prey to all the agonized feelings that enter a man's heart when he has ambition and has been honoured for the first time.