"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?" "A countermine, your Majesty. It happened that in Dover at the same inn were two members of the order having unsettled scores from old Italian days against Jacome Volpetti." "My friend, the spy who was set upon the individual should have had no unsettled scores pending with members of the Carbonari." Lecazes winced, tho he was well aware that the words had for their sole object giving annoyance to him. He continued: "Well, the Carbonari succeeded in murdering the police agent who accompanied our spy. They then despoiled Volpetti of the papers, after which they carried him, tied and gagged, aboard a French vessel, whose captain was also a member of the association. He would have been murdered also, had he not succeeded in freeing himself and leaping into the sea, from which he was rescued by an English schooner. The French vessel gave chase and so riddled the other by cannon balls, that, unable to defend herself, and being moreover the victim of a fire which--" "Bravo, Lecazes, redoubtable romancer!" exclaimed the King mockingly. "Your Majesty, I relate history, beside which romancing is a tame art. Weil, to resume: in spite of piracy and conflagration, Volpetti reached the coast near Pleneuf. At the same time, unaware of their enemy's salvation, the two Carbonari, de Brezé, Naundorff and his daughter disembarked also on French soil." "How do you explain the coalition of the Carbonari and the pretender?"