‘How long will it last?’ Villefort murmured, taking leave of the minister, whose career was finished, and looking around for a cab to take him home. One passed along the quay, Villefort waved it down and the cab drew over. He gave his address to the driver and leapt inside, where he abandoned himself to his ambitious dreams. Ten minutes later he was home. He ordered his horses to be prepared for him to leave in two hours and asked for dinner to be served.
He was about to sit down at the table when a firm, clear ring sounded at the door. The valet went to open it and Villefort heard someone speak his name.
‘Who can know that I am here so soon?’ he wondered.
At that moment, the valet returned.
‘What is it?’ Villefort answered. ‘Who was that ringing? Who is asking for me?’
‘A stranger who will not give his name.’
‘What anonymous stranger is that? What does he want?’
‘He wishes to speak to Monsieur.’
‘To me?’
‘Yes.’
‘He asked for me by name?’
‘Certainly.’
‘And what does this stranger look like?’
‘He is a man of around fifty, Monsieur.’
‘Short? Tall?’
‘About the same size as Monsieur.’
‘Fair or dark?’
‘Dark, very dark, with black hair, black eyes and black eyebrows.’
‘And dressed?’ Villefort demanded urgently. ‘How is he dressed?’
‘In a long blue frock-coat buttoned from top to bottom, with the decoration of the Legion of Honour.’
‘It is he,’ Villefort murmured, going pale.
‘By heaven!’ The person whose description we have twice given appeared on the doorstep. ‘This is a fine way to treat a man. Is it the custom in Marseille for a son to keep his father waiting at the door?’
‘Father!’ Villefort exclaimed. ‘So I was not wrong: I guessed that it must be you.’
‘If you guessed as much,’ the newcomer remarked, putting his cane in a corner and his hat on a chair, ‘then permit me to remark, my dear Gérard, that it is most unfriendly of you to keep me waiting like this.’
‘Leave us, Germain,’ said Villefort. The servant went out with obvious signs of astonishment.
XII
FATHER AND SON
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.
‘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?’
‘On the contrary, father,’ said Villefort, ‘I am delighted. But your visit is so unexpected that I am somewhat dazed by it.’
‘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?’
‘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.’
‘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.’
‘Have you heard about a certain Bonapartist club that meets in the Rue Saint-Jacques?’
‘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?’
‘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.’
‘And who told you this fine story?’
‘The king himself.’
‘Well now, in exchange for your story, I have some news to tell you.’
‘Father, I think I already know what you are about to say.’
‘Ah! So you already know about the landing of His Majesty the Emperor?’
‘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.’
‘No matter, I knew of his plans.’
‘How did you know?’
‘From a letter addressed to you from the island of Elba.’
‘To me?’
‘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 burned it, to make sure that not a scrap remained. That letter was your death-warrant.’
‘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.’
‘I have done better still, Monsieur. I have saved you.’
‘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.’
‘The gentlemen of the police seem most attached to this club. Why did they not look more carefully: they would have found it.’
‘They have not yet found it, but they are on the trail.’
‘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.’
‘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.’
‘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 himself.’
‘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, wh
en 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.” ’
‘Father, beware, our revenge will be terrible when we take it.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Are you counting on the usurper’s return?’
‘I confess I am.’
‘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.’
‘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.’
‘The people will rise up…’
‘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.’
‘Grenoble and Lyon are loyal cities which will offer an invincible barricade against him.’
‘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.’
‘I have to admit,’ replied Villefort, looking at his father with astonishment, ‘you seem very well informed.’
‘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.’
‘Devotion?’ Villefort laughed.
‘Yes, devotion. That is the honest way to describe ambition when it has expectations.’
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.’
‘Say it.’
‘However incompetent the Royalist police may be, they do know one dreadful thing.’
‘Which is?’
‘The description of the man who visited General Quesnel on the day of his disappearance.’
‘Ah, the fine police know that, do they? And what is the description?’
‘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.’
‘Ah, ha, so they know that?’ said Noirtier. ‘In that case, why do they not have their hands on this man?’
‘Because they lost him, yesterday or the day before, on the corner of the Rue Coq-Héron.’
‘Didn’t I tell you your police were idiots?’
‘Yes, but at any moment they may find him.’
‘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.’
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.
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.
‘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?’
‘No, father,’ stammered Villefort. ‘I hope not, at least.’
‘My dear Gérard, I rely on your prudence to dispose of all these objects that I am leaving in your care.’
‘Oh, father, have no fear,’ said Villefort.
‘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.’
Villefort shook his head.
‘Don’t you believe me?’
‘I hope, at least, that you are mistaken.’
‘Will you see the king again?’
‘I may.’
‘Do you wish him to think you have the power of prophecy?’
‘Those who prophesy misfortune are unwelcome in court, father.’
‘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.’
‘So, what must I tell the king?’
‘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.”1 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.’
At this, Noirtier left
, as calm as he had been throughout the length of this difficult interview.
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.
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.
XIII
THE HUNDRED DAYS
M. Noirtier was a good prophet and events moved quickly, as he had said. Everyone knows about the return from Elba, that strange and miraculous return, with no earlier precedent and probably destined to remain unique for all time.
Louis XVIII made only feeble efforts to ward off this terrible blow: his lack of confidence in men deprived him of any confidence in events. Kingship or, rather, the monarchy, which he had barely rebuilt, was already trembling on its uncertain foundations and a single gesture from the emperor brought the entire edifice crashing down, a shapeless compound of old prejudices and new ideas. So Villefort received nothing from his king except gratitude, and that was not only useless for the time being, but actually dangerous; and the cross of the Legion of Honour which he was wise enough not to display, even though M. de Blacas had done as the king required and duly sent him the certificate.