"The gods preserve your majesty."
By the force of circumstances, and Captain Pertinax's ingenious idea of red-handed justice, the Chancellor was sitting interned in his own official residence. For a man like Turbo to fail is very hard. Failure was a thing of which he had little experience. Yet now he was obliged to confess that his elaborate manœuvre had not succeeded. True, it had been so far successful as to irrevocably ruin Mlle de Tricotrin's chances of the throne. On that side the King was firmly blockaded in his bachelordom. But the rest of the operation was a disaster.
It was certainly nothing but a piece of pure ill-luck that had upset the strategist's calculations; but Turbo held that a man should be master of his fate, and leave no room for fortune to interfere either one way or the other. In the present case fortune might easily have been held at a distance. He ought to have remembered the gendarmes, and fortune would not have deprived him of half the battle.
Indeed, it was more than half that had been lost. Not only had he failed to secure Penelophon for himself, but he had allowed her to come into the King's possession. So far from finally shutting off his sovereign from matrimony, he had actually hastened his approach to it. His idea that Kophetua intended to marry the beggar-maid, in order to secure the continuance of his reign, became more pronounced than ever. It was an eventuality which he had long foreseen. He had taken unsparing pains to prevent it. His whole powers, as a man and a politician, had been directed to keeping Penelophon away from Kophetua, and the only result had been to place the girl in his very arms. Something, he felt, must be done, or his ruin was complete. After what had occurred his favour in the King's eyes was gone for ever. He was a disgraced minister, whom nothing but a revolution could set on high again. Could he only stay the King's marriage a few months more, the revolution would come by peaceful process of law, otherwise his fall was complete, or a more violent course must be taken.
Into the midst of the Chancellor's perplexity broke M. de Tricotrin. By this time the Marquis had ascertained approximately what had occurred in the morning. The news of the palace was that General Dolabella and an officer of gendarmes had presented a report to the King, which had led to a scene between his majesty and the Chancellor, resulting in the latter being confined to his residence in deep disgrace. This violent splash in the quiet waters of Oneirian politics was generally said, by well-informed persons of unimpeachable authority, to be due to a difference of opinion as to the course to be taken with the beggars, but M. de Tricotrin knew better. From what the Queen-mother had told him, and the facts within his own knowledge, he had now no doubt that the King had got wind of their little plot, and had ordered a party of gendarmes to frustrate it as quietly as possible, and he more than ever felt that an interview with the Chancellor was necessary to establish his own fidelity to the infamous bargain, and to concert measures for the future.
"I thought your excellency would have something to say to me after this disaster," said the Marquis, as soon as the two old schemers were alone.
"Yes?" said Turbo warily.
"You have an accusation to make, no doubt," said the Marquis.
"None in the world," answered Turbo; "why should I?"
"Then whom do you blame for the unfortunate intervention of the gendarmes?"