The Count of Monte Cristo

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to fifty-two years of age, dark, with black eyes covered with shaggy
eyebrows, and a thick mustache. He was dressed in a blue frock-coat,
buttoned up to the chin, and wore at his button-hole the rosette of an
officer of the Legion of Honor. Yesterday a person exactly corresponding
with this description was followed, but he was lost sight of at the
corner of the Rue de la Jussienne and the Rue Coq-Heron." Villefort
leaned on the back of an arm-chair, for as the minister of police went
on speaking he felt his legs bend under him; but when he learned that
the unknown had escaped the vigilance of the agent who followed him, he
breathed again.

"Continue to seek for this man, sir," said the king to the minister of
police; "for if, as I am all but convinced, General Quesnel, who
would have been so useful to us at this moment, has been murdered, his
assassins, Bonapartists or not, shall be cruelly punished." It required
all Villefort's coolness not to betray the terror with which this
declaration of the king inspired him.