“In the first place, and before everything else, sir, is the news as bad in your opinion as I am asked to believe?”
“Sire, I believe it to be most urgent, but I hope, by the speed I have used, that it is not irreparable.”
“Speak as fully as you please, sir,” said the king, who began to give way to the emotion which had showed itself in Blacas’s face and affected Villefort’s voice. “Speak, sir, and pray begin at the beginning; I like order in everything.”
“Sire,” said Villefort, “I will render a faithful report to your majesty, but I must entreat your forgiveness if my anxiety leads to some obscurity in my language.” A glance at the king after this discreet and subtle exordium, assured Villefort of the benignity of his august auditor, and he went on:
“Sire, I have come as rapidly to Paris as possible, to inform your majesty that I have discovered, in the exercise of my duties, not a commonplace and insignificant plot, such as is every day got up in the lower ranks of the people and in the army, but an actual conspiracy—a storm which menaces no less than your majesty’s throne. Sire, the usurper is arming three ships, he meditates some project, which, however mad, is yet, perhaps, terrible. At this moment he will have left Elba, to go whither I know not, but assuredly to attempt a landing either at Naples, or on the coast of Tuscany, or perhaps on the shores of France. Your majesty is well aware that the sovereign of the Island of Elba has maintained his relations with Italy and France?”