(“It’s a good thing to have friends everywhere,” observed Montbar, parenthetically.)
“Especially near M. Fouché,” resumed Morgan; “let us hear the news.”
“Am I to tell it aloud, or to you privately?”
“I presume we are all interested, so tell it aloud.”
“Well, the First Consul sent for citizen Fouché at the Louvre, and lectured him on our account.”
“Capital! what next?”
“Citizen Fouché replied that we were clever scamps, very difficult to find, and still more difficult to capture when we had been found, in short, he praised us highly.”
“Very amiable of him. What next?”
“Next, the First Consul replied that that did not concern him, that we were brigands, and that it was our brigandage which maintained the war in Vendée, and that the day we ceased sending money to Brittany there would be no more Brittany.”
“Excellent reasoning, it seems to me.”