"And how have you ascertained these particulars, Baron?"
"Should I be doing my duty, did I not gather every particular? My business is to know all things regarding this infernal plot. Volpetti no sooner learned where the confederates were to meet than he arranged to put up at the same inn. He possessed himself of the papers by the cleverest strategy—"
The King, unmindful of his disabled limbs, half jumped from the couch.
"Then we are saved!" he cried. "For Volpetti surely destroyed them at once."
"Your Majesty, I never trust my agents implicitly. I spy upon my spies. Fruits of research I require to be always delivered into my hands. Otherwise, they might report to me that damning testimony has been destroyed, and meanwhile retain the deadly weapon, to turn it at any moment against me. No, they have express orders to destroy nothing."
"You were saying that Volpetti obtained possession of the papers."
"Yes; now the imbroglio becomes more complicated. A new power intervenes in the individual's behalf. Can your Majesty guess whom I mean?"
"The Carbonari."
"Precisely; the Carbonari,—the association which plants mines under our feet, and which carries on the Revolution beneath the earth. They have written on their statutes: 'The Bourbons have been brought back by foreigners; the Carbonari will restore to France freedom of choice.' Your Majesty, this society has members in every department of government; they are numerous in the army; they exist even in the Royal Council. They make it impossible for us to obliterate devotion to Napoleon; they constitute an incessant protest against the established régime."
"How the devil did the Carbonari become the champions of this pretender?"