"
"What!" cried Bonaparte, in amazement. "This so-called Louis XVII.
in Paris, then?" "General, he is still here; he has been living in
Paris for about four years--about as long as M. Regnier has been
head of police."
"And Regnier has told me nothing about it! Has he not known that so
dangerous a person was living in Paris?"
Fouche shrugged his shoulders. "Monsieur Regnier--who doubts the
existence of secret societies in France, and tells you that the
assassins who have so often of late imperilled your life have all
been sent hither from foreign parts by the pretenders to the crown,
and that there are no conspirators in France--Monsieur Regnier could
not of course know the head of this secret society. He left them to
follow their own pleasures unhindered here in Paris. But I know
them, and I give you my word of honor, general, that the so-called
nephew of Kleber is living here in Paris. Directly after his arrival
he came to me, and I handed to him the papers and documents which
Desaix intrusted to me, and which I had solemnly sworn to deliver to
his adjutant Louis. The young man gave me his confidence, and when I
spoke to him regretfully and with enthusiasm about his father and
his mother, and addressed him as 'his majesty,' I won his love. He
opened his heart to me, confessed that he was Louis XVII.
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