The Little Cabinet in the Tuileries
- Over in Paris, the King and his advisors are chilling at the Palais des Tuileries.
- King Louis XVIII is doing his best to ignore one of his ministers and read some Horace; despite being the king, he's not really into politics.
- The Duke of Blacas is attempting to warn the king that there's some trouble brewing in southern France – that's in the direction of Marseille; Bonaparte, or at least his followers, may be getting up to no good. In fact, he tells the king, there's a visitor from the South carrying with him some very bad news.
- After a brief argument between Blacas and the Minister of Police, the king finally allows Villefort – whose name Louis XVIII actually remembers – to enter the room.
- Villefort informs the king and his ministers that he has it on good authority that Napoleon has left Elba – and may already be in France.
- When the king asks him where he got his information, he says it came from "an interrogation," and that the man he interrogated has been put into prison.
- The king does not seem particularly fazed by Villefort's information – but then the Minister of Police enters the room, looking shaken.