Dandré Bursts In Distressed, Interrupting the Audience
While Louis XVIII reassures Villefort that a Bonaparte landing in France would be execrated by the population and easily dealt with, expressing royal gratitude for the young magistrate’s service, de Blacas suddenly cries “Ah, here is M. Dandré!” The minister of police appears at the door, pale, trembling, and seemingly ready to faint. The dramatic interruption suggests he brings news far more alarming than the reassurances he gave earlier. Villefort begins to retire, perhaps sensing his audience should end, but M. de Blacas takes his hand and restrains him, keeping him present for whatever catastrophic intelligence Dandré is about to deliver.
第十一章 The Corsican Ogre
Chapter 11. The Corsican Ogre follows the immediate fallout of Napoleon Bonaparte’s secret escape from Elba and landing in southern France, as the Bourbon court of Louis XVIII grapples with the existential threat to the restored monarchy, the ambitious prosecutor Gérard de Villefort gains unexpected royal favor, and Villefort is forced to confront his estranged Bonapartist father shortly before departing Paris for Marseilles.
Announcement of Napoleon’s Landing at Gulf of Juan
In the Tuileries Palace, Baron Dandré, minister of police, arrives in a state of distress to inform King Louis XVIII, the Duc de Blacas, and Gérard de Villefort that Napoleon Bonaparte has landed in France at the small port of Gulf of Juan near Antibes on March 1, having left Elba on February 26. The king reacts with rage and despair, accusing his ministers of gross negligence and betrayal, declaring he would rather face the execution scaffold of his brother Louis XVI than be ousted from the Tuileries by public ridicule. Villefort, who had previously warned the king of Bonapartist plots, suggests mobilizing Languedoc and Provence against Napoleon, though he notes the mountaineers of Dauphiné are loyal to Bonaparte. The king dismisses Blacas and the police minister, then shifts the conversation to the recent assassination of General Quesnel.
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