"Ah, Mme. la Duchesse," sighed M. Fourier ecstatically as he clasped his podgy little hands together and looked on Madame with eyes full of admiration for her wisdom, "how cleverly that was spoken! If only I could be relieved from that awful responsibility . . . five and twenty millions under my charge and that Corsican ogre at our gates! . . ."
"That is all very well!" quoth the Comte with marked impatience, "but how is it going to be done? 'Convey the money to Paris' is easily said. But who is going to do it? M. le préfet here says that the Bonapartists have spies everywhere round Grenoble, and . . ."
"Ah, M. le Comte!" exclaimed the préfet eagerly. "I have already thought of such a beautiful plan! If only you would consent . . ."
M. le Comte's thin lips curled in a sarcastic smile.
"Oh! you have thought it all out already, M. le préfet?" he said. "Well! let me hear your plan, but I warn you that I will not have the money brought here. I don't half trust the peasantry of the neighbourhood, and I won't have a fight or an outrage committed in my house!"
"No, no, M. le Comte!" he said, "I wouldn't suggest such a thing for the world. If the Corsican brigand is successful in capturing Grenoble, no place would be sacred to him. No! My idea was if you, M. le Comte--who have oft before journeyed to Paris and back--would do it now . . . before Bonaparte gets any nearer to Grenoble . . . and take the money with you . . ."
"I?" exclaimed the Comte. "But, man, if--as you say--Grenoble is full of Bonapartist spies, my movements are no doubt just as closely watched as your own."
"No, no, M. le Comte, not quite so closely, I am sure."
The insinuating manner of the worthy man, however, was apparently getting on M. le Comte's nerves.
"Ah, ça, M. le préfet," he ejaculated abruptly, "but meseems that the splendid plan you thought on merely consists in transferring responsibility from your shoulders to mine own."
And M. le Comte cast such a wrathful look on poor M. Fourier that the unfortunate man was stricken dumb with confusion.
"Moreover," concluded the Comte, "I don't know that you, M. le préfet, have the right to dispose of this money which was entrusted to you by M. de Talleyrand in the King's behalf without consulting His Majesty's wishes in the matter."