"Your Majesty is well aware that, provided they work against the present administration, the association has carte blanche to make such combinations as are considered best. In that branch of the Carbonari known as Knights of Liberty, each member is free to follow his own judgment, to take risks and accept consequences. The Knights of Liberty constitute the germinating centre of crime. Notwithstanding the dispatch with which Volpetti issued warnings that the party be denied entry into Paris, he was outwitted. They arrived. The individual is _here_, beneath the powerful shelter of the association. The documents are doubtless well guarded. All efforts to obtain them by violence would be in vain. I have not the slightest clue to their place of concealment." "Is de Brezé with the pretender?" "Yes, and one of the Carbonari, an Italian." "Where is the girl?" "She has been placed for security in the Castle of Picmort. She was guarded by one of the Carbonari, but this man has started on one of those journeys which are characteristic of the society." "Do you not consider it possible that the girl carries the documents?" "I do not think so. In the first place, de Brezé through chivalry,--and he is a Paladin--would never give her a charge of grave peril; besides, the place for those papers is Paris." "Then peace and happiness to the maiden in her Picmort refuge!" sighed the King. "The Duchess informs me that the steward of the castle may prove a formidable rival to the Marquis in the affections of the fascinating intriguante." "My blessing on the sylvan pair! An eclogue, indeed! A peasant lover!" remarked the King with a Voltairian laugh, after which he hummed: "In the lap of Phillis Damon streweth flowers Wet with dews of morning." Lecazes, not heeding the poetical interruption, continued: "With regard to the documents, your Majesty, a subject which seems to bore you, I affirm that they are in Paris, because, among other reasons, the individual would have need of them in order to convince Madame the Duchess, whom it is his intention of addressing--" "Also Ferdinand, I suppose--" "Ferdinand is already convinced. Is your Majesty, perchance, ignorant that he recognizes the pretender? But his action is of no moment compared to that of Madame, the Dauphin's prison companion. Madame should be warned." "What plan do you propose, Lecazes? As for me, I confess myself incompetent to forge methods of outwitting a woman." "Listen, then. If we might arrange that Madame shall receive the individual--" "What!" exclaimed the King. "If she will grant him this secret interview and exact that he deliver to her the documents, in order that she may become convinced of his identity--" The King applauded, cordially, sonorously, as tho he were a spectator at a theatrical representation,--the only character, he used to say, that suited him. He rendered homage to his Minister's genius. "Enough!" he exclaimed. "I comprehend."