"True, monsieur," said the regent, dissembling with difficulty. "I will explain the delay. The messenger who should have brought this dispatch fell ill, and has not left Madrid. The Baron de Valef, my friend, who was in Spain, offered himself; and, after three or four day's hesitation, at length--as he was a man already tried in Cellamare's conspiracy--they trusted him." "In fact," said the regent, "the Baron de Valef narrowly escaped Dubois's emissaries; it needed some courage to renew such a work. I know that when the regent saw Madame de Maine and Cellamare arrested; Richelieu, Polignac, Malezieux, and Mademoiselle de Launay in the Bastille; and that wretched Lagrange-Chancel at the Sainte Marguerite, he thought all was finished." "You see he was mistaken, monseigneur." "But do not these Breton conspirators fear that in thus rising they may sacrifice the heads of the Paris conspirators whom the regent has in his power?" "They hope to save them, or die with them." "How save them?" "Let us return to the dispatch, if you please, monseigneur; here it is." The regent took the paper, but seeing the address to his excellency the Duc d'Olivares, laid it on the table unopened. Strange inconsistency! This man opened two hundred letters a day by his spies; it is true that then he dealt with a Thorey or a Dubois, and not with a Chevalier de Chanlay. "Well, monseigneur," said Gaston. "You know, doubtless, what this dispatch contains, monsieur?" "Not word for word, perhaps; but I know what was arranged." "Well, tell me. I shall be glad to know how far you are admitted into the secrets of the Spanish cabinet." "When the regent is got rid of," said Gaston, without noticing the slight start which his interlocutor gave at these words, "the Duc de Maine will be provisionally recognized in his place. The Duc de Maine will at once break the treaty of the quadruple alliance signed by that wretch Dubois." "I wish La Jonquiere had been here to hear you speak thus; it would have pleased him. Go on, monsieur." "The pretender will start with a fleet for the English shore; Prussia, Sweden, and Russia will then be engaged with Holland; the empire will profit by this war to retake Naples and Sicily, to which it lays claim through the house of Suabia; the Grand Duchy of Tuscany will be assured to the second son of the king of Spain, the Catholic low countries will be re-united to France, Sardinia given to the Duke of Savoy, Commachio to the pope. France will be the soul of the great league of the south against the north, and, if Louis XV. dies, Philip V. will be crowned king of half the world." "Yes, I know all that," said the regent, "and this is Cellamare's conspiracy renewed. But you used a phrase I did not understand." "Which, monseigneur?" "You said, when the regent is got rid of. How is he to be got rid of?" "The old plan was, as you know, to carry him off to the prison of Saragossa, or the fortress of Toledo."