The Count of Monte Cristo Read online

  ‘Madame,’ Villefort replied, ‘I join with Mademoiselle de Saint-Méran in humbly begging you to forget the past. What is the sense in recriminations about things over which the will of God itself is powerless? God can change the future, He cannot alter even an instant of the past. As for us, all we can do, since we are unable to repudiate it, is to draw a veil across it. Well, for my part, I have cut myself off not only from my father’s opinions but also from his name. My father was, and perhaps still is, a Bonapartist named Noirtier; I am a Royalist, and am called de Villefort. Let the last remnants of the revolutionary sap perish in the old stem and see only the young shoot, Madame, which grows away from the trunk, though it is unable – I might almost say unwilling – to break with it altogether.’

  ‘Bravo, Villefort,’ said the marquis. ‘Bravo! Well said! I, too, have always urged the Marquise to forget the past, but always in vain; I hope that you will be more successful.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that is very well,’ the marquise replied. ‘Let us forget the past; I ask nothing better. But let Villefort at least be unyielding for the future. Remember, Villefort: we have answered for you to His Majesty and, on our insistence, His Majesty was willing to forget – just as…’ (she offered him her hand) ‘… as I am, at your request. However, should any conspirator fall into your hands, remember that all eyes will be fixed upon you, the more so since it is known that you belong to a family which might perhaps have dealings with such conspirators.’

  ‘Alas, Madame!’ Villefort exclaimed. ‘My office and, most of all, the times in which we live, require me to be harsh. I shall be so. I have already had some political cases to deal with and, in that respect, I have shown my mettle. Unfortunately, we are not finished yet.’

  ‘You think so?’ asked the marquise.

  ‘I fear so. Napoleon is very close to France on the island of Elba, and his presence almost within sight of our coast sustains the hopes of his supporters. Marseille is full of officers on half pay who daily seek quarrels with the Royalists on some trivial pretext: this leads to duels among the upper classes and murders among the common people.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Comte de Salvieux, an old friend of M. de Saint-Méran and chamberlain to the Comte d’Artois. ‘Yes, but, as you know, he is being moved away by the Holy Alliance.’

  ‘We heard speak of this as we were leaving Paris,’ said M. de Saint-Méran. ‘Where is he being sent?’

  ‘To Saint Helena.’

  ‘Saint Helena! What is that?’ asked the marquise.

  ‘An island lying two thousand leagues7 from here, on the far side of the Equator,’ the Comte replied.

  ‘And about time! As Villefort says, it was a fine folly to leave such a man between Corsica where he was born, and Naples where his brother-in-law is still king, overlooking Italy, the country that he wanted to offer as a kingdom to his son.’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ said Villefort, ‘there are the treaties of 1814, and Napoleon cannot be touched without breaching them.’

  ‘Why, then, they shall be breached,’ said M. de Salvieux. ‘Was he himself so scrupulous, when it came to shooting the poor Duc d’Enghien?’8

  ‘Yes,’ the Marquise said. ‘It’s agreed. The Holy Alliance will cleanse Europe of Napoleon and Villefort will cleanse Marseille of his supporters. Either the king reigns or he does not: if he does, his government must be strong and its agents unyielding: that is how we shall prevent wrongdoing.’

  ‘Unfortunately, Madame,’ Villefort said, smiling, ‘a deputy prosecutor to the Crown always arrives on the scene when the wrong has been done.’

  ‘Then it is up to him to repair it.’

  ‘To which I might again reply, Madame, that we do not repair wrongs, but avenge them, that is all.’

  ‘Ah, Monsieur de Villefort,’ said a pretty young thing, the daughter of the Comte de Salvieux and a friend of Mlle de Saint-Méran, ‘do please try to have a fine trial while we are in Marseille. I have never been to a court of assizes, and I am told it is most interesting.’

  ‘Most interesting, indeed, Mademoiselle, since it is a veritable drama and not an invented tragedy, real sorrows in place of ones that are merely feigned. The man that you see there, instead of returning home, once the curtain is lowered, to dine with his family and go peacefully to bed before starting again the next day, is taken into a prison, there to meet his executioner. You may well understand that, for nervous people who wish to experience strong sensations, no spectacle can equal it. Don’t worry, Mademoiselle; if the opportunity arises, I shall present it to you.’

  ‘He makes us shudder – yet he is laughing,’ said Renée, going pale.

  ‘What did you think? It is a duel. I have already five or six times asked for the death penalty against those accused of political crimes, or others. Well, who can tell how many daggers are at this very moment being sharpened in the shadows, or are already pointed at me?’

  ‘Heavens!’ Renée exclaimed, feeling increasingly faint. ‘Are you really serious, Monsieur de Villefort?’

  ‘I could not be more serious, Mademoiselle,’ the young magistrate said with a smile. ‘And the situation can only get worse with these fine trials that the young lady requires to satisfy her curiosity and which I require to satisfy my ambition. Do you imagine that all these soldiers of Napoleon’s, who are accustomed to walk blindly in the direction of the enemy, pause to think before firing a shot or marching forward with fixed bayonets? And, in that case, will they hesitate to kill a man whom they consider their personal foe, any more than they would to kill a Russian, an Austrian or a Hungarian whom they have never set eyes on? In any case, you understand, this is as it should be, because without it there would be no excuse for my profession. As for me, when I see a bright spark of hatred shining in the eye of an accused man, I feel encouraged, I rejoice: it is no longer a trial, but a duel. I go for him, he ripostes, I press harder, and the fight ends, like all fights, in victory or defeat. That is what advocacy means! That is the risk run by eloquence. If a defendant were to smile at me after my speech, he would make me feel that I had spoken poorly, that what I had said was bland, inadequate and lacking in vigour. Imagine the feeling of pride a crown prosecutor experiences when he is convinced of the defendant’s guilt and sees the guilty man go pale and bend under the weight of his evidence and the blast of his oratory! The head is lowered; it will fall.’

  Renée gave a little cry.

  ‘That’s oratory for you,’ said one of the guests.

  ‘There’s the man we need in times like these,’ said another.

  ‘And in your last case,’ a third remarked, ‘you were magnificent, my dear Villefort. You know: that man who murdered his father. Well, you literally killed him before the executioner had laid a hand on him.’

  ‘Ah, if it’s a matter of parricide,’ Renée said, ‘then I’m not bothered. There is no torture bad enough for such men. But those unfortunate political prisoners…’

  ‘They are even worse, Renée, for the king is the father of the nation, so wishing to overthrow or kill the king is the same as wanting to kill the father of thirty-two million men.’

  ‘Ah, but even so, Monsieur de Villefort,’ said Renée, ‘will you promise me to be indulgent towards those I commend to you?’

  ‘Have no fear,’ said Villefort, with his most charming smile. ‘We shall prepare my speeches together.’

  ‘My dearest,’ said the marquise, ‘you look after your little birds, your spaniels and your ribbons, and let your fiancé get on with his work. Nowadays, the sword has been put aside and the gown is supreme: there is a wise Latin tag to that effect.’

  ‘Cedant arma togae,’ Villefort said, with a bow.

  ‘I did not dare attempt it in Latin,’ the marquise replied.

  ‘I think I should rather that you were a physician,’ Renée went on. ‘The exterminating angel may be an angel, but he has always terrified me.’

  ‘My sweet!’ Villefort murmured, enfolding her in a loving glance.

  �
�Daughter,’ the marquis said, ‘Monsieur de Villefort will be the moral and political physician of our region. Believe me, that is a fine part to play.’

  ‘Which will serve to obliterate the memory of the one played by his father,’ added the incorrigible marquise.

  ‘Madame,’ Villefort replied with a sad smile, ‘I have already had the honour of remarking to you that my father renounced the errors of his past; or, at least, I hope he did, and that he became an ardent friend of religion and order, perhaps a better Royalist than I am myself, since he was fired by repentance, whilst I am fired only by passion.’

  After which well-turned phrases, Villefort looked at the guests to judge the effect of his oratory, as he might have looked up from the court towards the public gallery at the end of a similar declaration.

  ‘Just so, my dear Villefort,’ said the Comte de Salvieux. ‘This is precisely what I replied to the Minister of the King’s Household, two days ago in the Tuileries, when he asked me how I might explain this singular union between the son of a Girondin and the daughter of an officer in Condé’s army; and the minister fully understood. This policy of alliances is that of Louis XVIII. Hence the king, who had been listening to our conversation without our knowing it, interrupted us in the following terms: “Villefort…” – observe that the king did not pronounce the name of Noirtier, but on the contrary stressed that of Villefort – “Villefort”, he said, “has a bright future before him. He is a young man who is already mature, and one of us. I was pleased to see that the Marquis and Marquise of Saint-Méran were taking him as their son-in-law, and I should have recommended the match to them if they had not themselves come to ask my permission for it.” ’

  ‘The king told you that, Comte?’ Villefort exclaimed with delight.

  ‘I give you his very words; and if the Marquis so wishes, he will frankly admit that what I am now telling you accords precisely with what the king told him when he himself spoke with His Majesty, six months ago, about the proposed marriage between you and his daughter.’

  ‘That is true,’ said the marquis.

  ‘Ah! But this means I owe everything to that worthy monarch. What would I not do to serve him!’

  ‘At last,’ said the marquise. ‘That is what I want to hear: let a conspirator come here now, and he will be welcome.’

  ‘Speaking for myself, mother,’ said Renée, ‘I beg God that He does not listen to you, but sends Monsieur de Villefort only petty thieves, puny bankrupts and faint-hearted swindlers; in that case, I shall sleep easy.’

  Villefort laughed: ‘That is as if you were to wish on the physician nothing but migraines, measles and wasp stings, only ailments that are skin-deep. If, on the contrary, you wish to see me as crown prosecutor, you should wish on me those fearful illnesses that bring honour to the doctor who cures them.’

  At this moment, as though chance had merely been waiting for Villefort to express the wish for it to be fulfilled, a valet entered and whispered something in his ear. Villefort excused himself and left the table, to return a few moments later with a smile and a delighted expression. Renée responded with a look of love, for the young man was truly elegant and handsome like this, with his blue eyes, his smooth complexion and the dark side-whiskers framing his face, so that she felt her whole being was hanging on his lips, waiting for him to explain the reason for his brief disappearance.

  ‘Well, Mademoiselle,’ said Villefort, ‘a moment ago you wished to have a physician for your husband: I have this at least in common with the disciples of Aesculapius’9 – they still spoke in such terms in 1815 – ‘that my time is never my own and I may even be interrupted when I am beside you, celebrating our betrothal.’

  ‘And for what reason were you interrupted, Monsieur?’ the young woman asked, with slight misgiving.

  ‘Alas, for a patient who, if I am to believe what I am told, is at the last extremity: this time it is a serious case, and the illness is on the verge of the scaffold.’

  ‘Heaven preserve us!’ Renée cried, paling.

  ‘Truly!’ the whole company exclaimed together.

  ‘It seems that a little Bonapartist conspiracy has been uncovered, nothing less.’

  ‘Can that be?’ said the marquise.

  ‘Here is the letter of denunciation.’ And Villefort read:

  The crown prosecutor is advised, by a friend of the monarchy and the faith, that one Edmond Dantès, first mate of the Pharaon, arriving this morning from Smyrna, after putting in at Naples and Porto Ferrajo, was entrusted by Murat with a letter for the usurper and by the usurper with a letter to the Bonapartist committee in Paris.

  Proof of his guilt will be found when he is arrested, since the letter will be discovered either on his person, or at the house of his father, or in his cabin on board the Pharaon.

  ‘But, this letter,’ said Renée, ‘which is, in any case, anonymous, is addressed to the crown prosecutor, and not to you.’

  ‘Yes, but the crown prosecutor is away and in his absence the missive reached his secretary, who is entitled to open his letters. He opened this one and sent for me; when he did not find me, he gave orders for the arrest.’

  ‘So the guilty man has been arrested,’ said the marquise.

  ‘You mean, the accused man,’ said Renée.

  ‘Yes, Madame,’ Villefort replied. ‘And, as I have just had the honour to tell Mademoiselle Renée, if the letter in question is found, the patient is indeed sick.’

  ‘Where is this unfortunate man?’ Renée asked.

  ‘He is at my house.’

  ‘Go, my friend,’ said the marquis. ‘Do not neglect your duty by staying with us, when the king’s service demands your presence elsewhere: go where duty requires you.’

  ‘Oh, Monsieur de Villefort,’ Renée said, clasping her hands together. ‘Have pity! This is the day of your betrothal.’

  Villefort walked round the table and, coming to the girl’s chair, rested his hand on the back of it and said:

  ‘I should do whatever I could to spare you any anxiety, dear Renée. But if the evidence is correct, if the accusation is true, then this Bonapartist weed must be cut down.’

  Renée shuddered at the word cut, for the weed that was to be cut down had a head.

  ‘Pah, pah!’ said the marquise. ‘Don’t listen to this little girl, Villefort, she will get used to the idea.’ And she offered him a dry hand which he kissed, while giving Renée a look that said: ‘This is your hand I am kissing; or, at least, that I should like to be kissing.’

  ‘Here is an ill omen!’ Renée murmured.

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ said the marquise, ‘your childishness is truly exasperating: what, may I ask, can the destiny of the State have to do with your sentimental fantasies and the mawkish movements of your heart?’

  ‘Oh, mother!’ Renée murmured.

  ‘Be indulgent with her lack of royalist zeal, Madame la Marquise,’ said de Villefort. ‘I promise that I shall do my duty as the crown prosecutor’s deputy conscientiously – that is to say, I shall be utterly pitiless.’

  But, even as the magistrate was addressing these words to the marquise, the fiancé was surreptitiously giving his betrothed a look that said: ‘Have no fear, Renée: for the sake of our love, I shall be merciful.’ Renée replied to that look with her sweetest smile, and Villefort went out with heaven in his heart.

  VII

  THE INTERROGATION

  Hardly had de Villefort left the dining-room than he put off his joyful mask to take on the serious mien of one called upon to exercise the supreme office of pronouncing on the life of his fellow man. However, despite the mobility of his expression, something which the deputy had studied more than once, as a skilled actor does, in front of his mirror, on this occasion it was an effort for him to lower his brow and darken his features. In reality, apart from the memory of his father’s choice of political allegiance (which, if he did not himself completely renounce it, might affect his own career), Gérard de Villefort was at that moment as happy a
s it is possible for a man to be. At the age of twenty-six, already wealthy in his own right, he held a high office in the legal profession; and he was to marry a beautiful young woman whom he loved, not with passion, but reasonably, as a deputy crown prosecutor may love. Apart from her beauty, which was exceptional, his fiancée, Mlle de Saint-Méran, belonged to a family which was among those most highly thought of at court in this time; and, besides the influence of her mother and father (who, having no other children, could reserve it entirely for their son-in-law), she was in addition bringing her husband a dowry of fifty thousand écus which, thanks to her ‘expectations’ – that dreadful word invented by marriage brokers – might one day be increased by a legacy of half a million.

  Hence, the addition of all these elements amounted for Villefort to a dazzling sum of felicity, to such an extent that he thought he was seeing sunspots when he had turned the eyes of his soul for any length of time on the contemplation of his inner life.

  At the door, he found the police commissioner waiting for him. The sight of this sombre personage immediately brought him back from seventh heaven to the solid earth on which we all walk. He composed his features, as we mentioned, and approached the officer of the law: ‘Here I am, Monsieur. I have read the letter, and you did well to arrest this man. Now tell me everything you know about him and the conspiracy.’

  ‘As far as the conspiracy is concerned, Monsieur, we know nothing as yet. All the papers that we seized on him have been tied in a single bundle and deposited, sealed, on your desk. As for the detainee, you know from the letter denouncing him that he is one Edmond Dantès, first mate on board the three-master Pharaon, trading in cotton with Alexandria and Smyrna, and belonging to the house of Morrel and Son, of Marseille.’

  ‘Did he serve in the Navy before joining the merchant marine?’

  ‘No, Monsieur, he is quite a young man.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Nineteen… twenty, at most.’