Welcome back, everyone to 1001 Stories for the Road.

This is your host and storyteller, John Hagadorn.

Today, Chapter 11, from the Count of Monte Cristo.

A brief summary?

A brief summary.

Courteers rush into the King's study, where he is still standing with Villaport to say that Napoleon has in fact returned to France from Elba. A rebellion

really is in the offering. Villaport is as thunderstruck as anyone, though for a different reason.

His notion of a plot was designed only to protect

himself to keep the evidence of his father's communication with Bonaparte a secret via the imprisonment

of the innocent Dante's. But Villavort, Abel and Adroit, seizes on the moment and begins offering

Louis the 18th military advice. Louis tells the courtiers

who are shocked at this young man's instant influence with the king to listen to Villafort,

as he, more than any of them, has understood this plot from the beginning. Though, of course,

it was only a lucky coincidence for Villefort, a very unlucky coincidence for Dantes.

There's much more to the chapter, but that'll get you started.

And now the Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter 11, the Corsican ogre.

At the sight of this agitation, Louis XVIth pushed from him violently the table at which he was sitting.

"'What ails you, Baron?' he exclaimed.

"'You appear quite aghast. Has your uneasiness anything to do with what Monsieur de Blacchus told me?'

And Monsieur de Villefort has just confirmed?

Monsieur de Blacus moved suddenly towards the Baron, but the fright of the courtier pleaded for

the forbearance of the statesman. And besides, as matters were, it was much more to his advantage

...