The First Consul was walking with hasty steps up and down his cabinet. His eyes flashed, and his face, which elsewhere was impenetrable, like that of the brazen statues of the Roman emperors, disclosed the fiery impatience and stormy passions which raged within him. His lips, which were pressed closely together, opened now and then to mutter a word of threatening or of anger, and that word he hurled like a poisoned arrow directly at the man who, in a respectful attitude and with pallid cheeks, stood not far from the door, near the table covered with papers.--This man was Fouche, formerly the chief of police in Paris, and now a mere member of the senate of the republic. He had gone to the Tuileries in order to request a secret audience of Bonaparte, who had now forgotten the little prefix of "First" to his consular title, and now reigned supreme and alone over France.
Bonaparte suddenly paused in his rapid walk, coming to a halt directly in front of Fouche, and looked at him with flaming eyes, as if they were two daggers with which he meant to pierce deep into his heart. But Fouche did not see this, for he stood with downcast eyes, and appeared not to be aware that Bonaparte was so near him.
"Fouche," cried the consul, violently, "I know you, and I am not to be deceived by your indifferent, affected air! You shall know that I do not fear you--you and all the ghosts that you can conjure up. You think that you frighten me; you wish that I should pay you dearly for your secret. But you shall know that I am not at all of a timorous nature, and that I shall pay no money for the solution of a riddle which I may perhaps be able to solve without your help. I warn you, sir, you secret-vender, be well on your guard! You have your spies, but I have my police, and they inform me about every thing out of the usual course. It is known, sir, that you are carrying on a correspondence with people out of the country--understand me, with people out of the country!"
"Consul," replied Fouche, calmly, "I have certainly not known that the republic forbids its faithful servants to send letters abroad."
"The republic will never allow one of its servants to correspond with its enemies," cried Bonaparte, in thundering tones. "Be silent, sir! no evasions, no circumlocutions! Let us speak plainly, and to the point. You are in correspondence with the Count de Lille."
"You know that, consul, for I have had the honor to give you a letter myself, which the pretender directed to you, and sent to me to be delivered."
"A ridiculous, nonsensical letter," replied Bonaparte, with a shrug;
"a letter in which this fool demands of me to bring him back to France, and to indicate the place which I wish to occupy in his government. By my word, an idiot could not write a more crazy document! I am to indicate the place which I wish to occupy in his government! Well, I shall do that; but there will be no place left near me for the Bourbons, whom France has spewed out, as one spews out mortal poison. These hated and weak Bourbons shall never attain to power and prestige again. Prance has turned away from them.
France abhors this degenerate race of kings; it will erect a new edifice of power and glory, but there will be no room in it for the Bourbons! Mark that, intriguer, and build no air-castles on it. I demand of you an open confession, for I shall accuse yon as a traitor and a royalist."
"Consul, I shall not avoid this charge," replied Fouche, calmly, "and I am persuaded that Prance will follow with interest the course of a trial which will unveil an important secret--which will inform it that the rightful King of France, according to the opinion of Consul Bonaparte, did not die in the Temple under the tender care of Simon the cobbler, but is still alive, and is, therefore, the true heir of the crown. That would occasion some joy to the royalists, surely!"
The consul stamped on the floor with rage, his eyes shot flames, and when he spoke again, his voice rang like peals of thunder, so angrily and so powerfully did it pour forth.
"I will change the paecans and the joy of these royalists to lamentations and wailings," he cried. "All the enemies of France shall know that I hold the sword in my hands, and mean to use it, not only against foes without, but foes within. France has given me this sword, and I shall not lay it down, even if all the kings of Europe, and all the Bourbons who lie in the vaults of St. Denis, leave their graves, to demand it from me! I am the living sword of France, and never shall this sword bow before the sceptre of a Bourbon. Fresh shoots might sooner spring from the dead stick which the wanderer carries through the desert, than a Bourbon sceptre could grow from the sword of Bonaparte; and all the same, whether this Bourbon calls himself Louis XVII. or Louis XVIII.! Mark that, Fouche, and mark also that when I once say 'I will,' I shall know how to make my will good, even if the whole world ventures to confront me."
"I know that, consul," said Fouche, with deference. "God gave you, for the weal of France, an iron will and a brain of fire, and destined you to wear not only laurels, but crowns."
A flame glared from the eyes of the consul and played over the face of Fouche, but the latter appeared not to notice it, for he cast down his eyes again, and his manner was easy and unconstrained.
"You now speak a word which is not becoming," said Bonaparte, calmly. "I am the first servant of the republic, and in a republic there are no crowns."
"Not citizens' crowns, general?" asked Fouche, with a faint smile.
"I mean, that this noblest of crowns can everywhere be acceptable, and no head has merited such a crown more than the noble Consul Bonaparte, who has made the republic of France a worthy rival of its sister in North America."
Bonaparte threw his head proudly back. "I am not ambitious of the honor," he said, "of being Washington of France."