“Then of what other scourge are you afraid, my dear Blacas?”
“Sire, I have every reason to believe that a storm is brewing in the south.”
“Well, my dear duke,” replied Louis XVIII., “I think you are wrongly informed, and know positively that, on the contrary, it is very fine weather in that direction.” Man of ability as he was, Louis XVIII. liked a pleasant jest.
“Sire,” continued M. de Blacas, “if it only be to reassure a faithful servant, will your majesty send into Languedoc, Provence, and Dauphiné, trusty men, who will bring you back a faithful report as to the feeling in these three provinces?”
“Canimus surdis,” replied the king, continuing the annotations in his Horace.
“Sire,” replied the courtier, laughing, in order that he might seem to comprehend the quotation, “your majesty may be perfectly right in relying on the good feeling of France, but I fear I am not altogether wrong in dreading some desperate attempt.”
“By whom?”
“By Bonaparte, or, at least, by his adherents.”
“My dear Blacas,” said the king, “you with your alarms prevent me from working.”
“And you, sire, prevent me from sleeping with your security.”
“Wait, my dear sir, wait a moment; for I have such a delightful note on the Pastor quum traheret—wait, and I will listen to you afterwards.”
There was a brief pause, during which Louis XVIII. wrote, in a hand as small as possible, another note on the margin of his Horace, and then looking at the duke with the air of a man who thinks he has an idea of his own, while he is only commenting upon the idea of another, said: