"'To M. Noirtier, Rue Coq-Héron, Paris.' Had a thunderbolt fallen into the room, Villefort could not have been more stupefied. He sank into his seat, and, hastily turning over the packet, drew forth the fatal letter, at which he glanced with an expression of terror. "'M. Noirtier, Rue Coq-Héron, No. 13,' murmured he, growing still paler. "'Yes,' said Dantès; 'do you then know him?' "'No,' replied Villefort; 'a faithful servant of the king does not know conspirators.' "'It is a conspiracy, then?' asked Dantès, who, after believing himself free, now began to feel a tenfold alarm. 'I have already told you, however, sir, I was ignorant of the contents of the letter.' "'Yes, but you knew the name of the person to whom it was addressed,' said Villefort. "'I was forced to read the address to know to whom to give it.' "'Have you shown this letter to any one?' asked Villefort, becoming still more pale. "'To no one, on my honour.' "'Everybody is ignorant that you are the bearer of a letter from the isle of Elba, and addressed to M. Noirtier?' "'Everybody, except the person who gave it to me.'" * * * * * The Rue Coq-Héron is one of those whimsically named streets of Paris, which lend themselves to the art of the novelist. The origin of the name of this tiny street, which runs tangently off from the Rue du Louvre, is curious and naïve. A shopkeeper of the street, who raised fowls, saw, one day, coming out of its shell, a _petit coq_ with a neck and beak quite different, and much longer, than the others of the same brood. Everybody said it was a heron, and the neighbours crowded around to see the phenomenon; and so the street came to be baptized the Rue Coq-Héron. In the Rue Chaussée d'Antin, at No. 7, the wily Baron Danglars had ensconced himself after his descent on Paris. It was here that Dantès caused to be left his first "_carte de visite_" upon his subsequent arrival. Among the slighter works of Dumas, which are daily becoming more and more recognized--in English--as being masterpieces of their kind, is "Gabriel Lambert." It deals with the life of Paris of the thirties; much the same period as does "Captain Pamphile," "The Corsican Brothers," and "Pauline," and that in which Dumas himself was just entering into the literary life of Paris.