However, sire, if I might advise, your majesty will interrogate the person of whom I spoke to you, and I will urge your majesty to do him this honor." "Most willingly, duke; under your auspices I will receive any person you please, but you must not expect me to be too confiding.

Baron, have you any report more recent than this dated the 20th February .-- this is the 4th of March ?" "No, sire, but I am hourly expecting one; it may have arrived since I left my office." "Go thither, and if there be none--well, well," continued Louis XVIII., "make one; that is the usual way, is it not ?" and the king laughed facetiously.
"Oh, sire," replied the minister, "we have no occasion to invent any; every day our desks are loaded with most circumstantial denunciations, coming from hosts of people who hope for some return for services which they seek to render, but cannot; they trust to fortune, and rely upon some unexpected event in some way to justify their predictions." "Well, sir, go"; said Louis XVIII., "and remember that I am waiting for you." "I will but go and return, sire; I shall be back in ten minutes." "And I, sire," said M.de Blacas, "will go and find my messenger." "Wait, sir, wait," said Louis XVIII.

"Really, M.de Blacas, I must change your armorial bearings; I will give you an eagle with outstretched wings, holding in its claws a prey which tries in vain to escape, and bearing this device--Tenax." "Sire, I listen," said De Blacas, biting his nails with impatience.
"I wish to consult you on this passage, 'Molli fugiens anhelitu,' you know it refers to a stag flying from a wolf.

Are you not a sportsman and a great wolf-hunter?
Well, then, what do you think of the molli anhelitu ?" "Admirable, sire; but my messenger is like the stag you refer to, for he has posted two hundred and twenty leagues in scarcely three days." "Which is undergoing great fatigue and anxiety, my dear duke, when we have a telegraph which transmits messages in three or four hours, and that without getting in the least out of breath." "Ah, sire, you recompense but badly this poor young man, who has come so far, and with so much ardor, to give your majesty useful information.

If only for the sake of M.de Salvieux, who recommends him to me, I entreat your majesty to receive him graciously." "M.