Disease makes noticeable ravages in the royal countenance, which, though still expressing a keen intellectual and reflective penetration, even a repressed enthusiasm, begins to become bloated by an insidious edema. The eyes, back of their swollen lids, betray blood decomposition. When the King changes his position, a medicinal odor floats through the elegant apartment, notwithstanding the profusion of rare flowers in alabaster Pompeian vases,--prodigies of antique art,--flowers, brought by the Countess to her invalid friend. The King economized his conversational forces, replying only when necessity compelled: his words were always affluent and opportune. He listened attentively to the Minister, who was saying: "Greater danger has never threatened the monarchy. I have long foreseen the evil. 'Tis of many years' standing. My predecessors--I must do them justice--took every precaution to obviate the result. Le Coq in Berlin endeavored to prevent what today seems imminent." Lecazes took a pinch of snuff, and resumed: "Your Majesty cannot doubt my zeal and activity. My devotion to the cause has been demonstrated. I have never vacillated in critical moments, never weakly yielded to circumstances. But in spite of my efforts and circumspection, a catastrophe stares us in the face." The King listened attentively and the Minister went on. "I have endeavored to spare your Majesty the annoyance of listening to these alarms. I come now to appeal for your help, for only you may avert the danger. "One of my deputies, the most resourceful of all, my right hand, indeed, by name Volpetti, who for a time was in the service of Caroline, Queen of Sicily;--this Volpetti has for years tracked that--that dangerous creature. So far he has subjected him to living in a position in which mischief was impossible of accomplishment. He has been incapacitated for the attaining of any real advantage--This Volpetti was bequeathed me by Fouché. He was employed in the surveillance of the individual in question when I became Minister. During Napoleon's ascendancy, Volpetti kept this individual well concealed in a Vincennes dungeon; but the Empress Josephine, with the end of employing him as a weapon in view of the contingent divorce, adopted the policy of befriending and, finally of liberating him. After leaving Vincennes, our individual turns up in Prussia. As he had no civil status, he could give no trouble. He was nobody. At that time, Volpetti conceived a brilliant idea, that of playing the friend. He lent him a passport bearing a fictitious name and authorizing him to reside in Spandau. The individual has never been able to shuffle off his name. O there is no prison so secure as a name." "Nevertheless," interposed the King, "when one possesses documents proving one's identity--" "I am coming to that," said the Minister, waving his hand in order to dispel apprehension.