The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) Page 17

  Villefort would surely have been dismissed by Napoleon, had it not been for the protection of Noirtier, who had become all-powerful at court under the Hundred Days,1 both for the danger that he had run and for the services he had rendered. So, as promised, the Girondin of ‘93 and the Senator of 1806 protected the man who had earlier protected him. Consequently, all Villefort’s efforts during this reincarnation of the empire – which, it was not difficult to predict, would fall again – consisted in suppressing the secret which Dantès had been on the point of divulging. The crown prosecutor alone was dismissed, suspected of lack of enthusiasm for Bonapartism.

  The imperial regime was re-established, which meant that the emperor moved into the Tuileries that Louis XVIII had just left, and began to issue a host of different orders from the little study into which, hard on the heels of Villefort, we recently introduced our readers, and from the walnut table on which he found Louis XVIII’s snuffbox, wide open and still half full. And, no sooner had this happened than Marseille, despite the attitude of its judiciary, began to feel the warmth of those smouldering fires of civil war that are never entirely extinguished in the South. The reprisals threatened to exceed the occasional rowdy outburst against the houses of Royalists who decided to stay indoors, or public insults hurled at those who ventured outside.

  Naturally, the turn of events meant that the worthy shipowner, whom we have already described as a supporter of the people’s party, found himself in these circumstances, if not exactly all-powerful – since M. Morrel was a cautious and slightly timid man, like all those who have made their fortunes in trade by their own laborious efforts – at least able to stand up and lodge a complaint, even though he was dismissed as a moderate by Bonapartist fanatics. And his complaint, as one may easily imagine, concerned Dantès.

  Villefort had remained on his feet, despite his superior’s dismissal, but his wedding, though still agreed in principle, had been postponed until more propitious times. If the emperor should keep his throne, then Gérard would need to marry into another family and his father would find a suitable match for him. If Louis XVIII returned to France under a second Restoration, M. de Saint-Méran’s influence and his own would be greatly increased, and the union become more favourable to him than ever. So, for the time being, the deputy crown prosecutor was the principal magistrate in Marseille; and, one day, his door opened and M. Morrel was announced.

  Anyone else would have hastened to greet the shipowner, betraying his own weakness in his haste. But Villefort was a man of superior intelligence who, though he had little experience of the world, had an instinct for it. He kept M. Morrel waiting, as he would have done under the Restoration, not because he had anyone with him, but simply because it is normal for a crown prosecutor to keep people waiting; then, after a quarter of an hour which he spent reading two or three newspapers of various persuasions, he gave the order for the shipowner to be shown in.

  M. Morrel expected to find Villefort dejected; but he found him as he had seen him six weeks earlier, that is to say calm, firm and full of the distant good manners that make up the most impenetrable of barriers separating a well-bred man from one of the people. He had entered Villefort’s chambers convinced that the magistrate would tremble at the sight of him, only to discover that, on the contrary, he was himself overcome with nervousness and anxiety when confronted with this man who was waiting for him with an enquiring look and his elbows resting on his desk.

  He paused at the door. Villefort examined him, as though he could not quite remember who he was. At last, after studying him in silence for some seconds, during which the good shipowner twisted and untwisted his hat in his hands, Villefort said: ‘Monsieur Morrel, I believe?’

  ‘Yes, Monsieur, I am he,’ the shipowner replied.

  The magistrate gestured protectively with his hand. ‘Come over here and tell me to what I owe the honour of this visit.’

  ‘Have you no idea, Monsieur?’ M. Morrel asked.

  ‘Not the slightest; but that does not in any way prevent me from wishing to serve you, if it is in my power to do so.’

  ‘It depends entirely on you, Monsieur,’ said Morrel.

  ‘So please explain.’

  ‘Monsieur,’ continued the shipowner, gaining in confidence as he spoke, and further strengthened by the justice of his case and the clarity of his position, ‘you remember that, a few days before the news of His Majesty the Emperor’s landing, I came to beg your indulgence for an unfortunate young man, a sailor, who was second mate on board my brig. You will recall that he was accused of being in contact with the island of Elba: this connection, though a crime in those days, is now a recommendation. At that time, you served Louis XVIII and you did so unreservedly, Monsieur – that was your duty. Today, you are serving Napoleon, and you should protect him – that, too, is your duty. So I have come to ask you what became of him.’

  Villefort struggled to contain his feelings.

  ‘What is the man’s name?’ he asked. ‘Please be so good as to tell me his name.’

  ‘Edmond Dantès.’

  Of course, Villefort would have been as happy to confront an armed adversary in a duel at twenty-five paces as to have this name fired at him point blank, yet he did not raise an eyebrow.

  ‘In this way,’ he thought, ‘no one can accuse me of having any purely personal interest in the arrest of this young man.’

  ‘Dantès?’ he asked aloud. ‘Edmond Dantès, you say?’

  ‘Yes, Monsieur.’

  Villefort opened a large register housed in a pigeon-hole near his desk, then crossed to a table and, from the table, went over to some files, before turning back to the shipowner.

  ‘Are you sure that you are not mistaken, Monsieur?’ he asked, in the most natural tone of voice.

  If Morrel had been more sharp-witted or better informed about the matter, he would have found it odd that the deputy crown prosecutor even deigned to answer him on a subject which was entirely outside his competence; and he might have wondered why Villefort did not send him to consult the prison registers, prison governors or the prefect of the département. But Morrel, who had looked in vain for any sign of fear in Villefort, as soon as the man appeared to have none, perceived only a desire to oblige: he was no match for Villefort.

  ‘No, Monsieur,’ Morrel said, ‘I am not mistaken. In any case, I have known the poor lad for ten years and he has served under me for four. Don’t you remember? I came to see you six weeks ago, to ask for clemency on behalf of this unfortunate young man, just as today I am asking for justice. In fact, your manner was quite offhand and you spoke to me as though displeased by my enquiry. Oh, Bonapartists could expect harsh treatment from Royalists in those days!’

  Villefort parried this thrust with his usual agility and cool-headedness. ‘Monsieur, I was a Royalist as long as I considered the Bourbons not only the rightful heirs to the throne but also the choice of the nation. However, the miraculous turn of events that we have just witnessed proved to me that I was wrong. Napoleon’s genius has triumphed: the legitimate monarch is the one who has the love of the people.’

  ‘Pleased to hear it, at last!’ Morrel exclaimed, with bluff sincerity. ‘When you speak in that way, it augurs well for Edmond.’

  ‘Wait,’ Villefort continued, leafing through another register. ‘He was a sailor, isn’t that right… who was marrying a Catalan girl? Yes, yes, I remember now: it was a very serious matter.’

  ‘How, serious?’

  ‘You know that when he left here he was taken to the prison at the Palais de Justice.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, I made my report to Paris and sent the papers that were found on him. That was my duty: what else could I do? A week after his arrest, the prisoner was transferred.’

  ‘Transferred!’ M. Morrel exclaimed. ‘What can have been done with the poor boy?’

  ‘Don’t worry. He would have been taken to Fenestrelle, in Pignerol, on the Iles Sainte-Marguerite, which is officially described as
transportation. One fine day you will see him return to take command of his ship.’

  ‘He can come whenever he likes, the post will be kept for him. But why is he not back already? I should have thought that the first priority of Bonapartist justice would have been to release those who were imprisoned under the Royalist regime.’

  ‘Don’t be too eager to make accusations, my dear Monsieur Morrel,’ Villefort replied. ‘Due process of law must be observed in everything. The order for his incarceration came from the highest authority and the order for his release must do likewise. Napoleon has only been back for a fortnight, so the annulments can only just have been sent out.’

  ‘But is there no way of expediting the formalities, now that we are back in power? I have some friends and some influence: I could have the judgement reversed.’

  ‘There was no judgement in this case.’

  ‘The detention order, then.’

  ‘In political cases there is no register of detainees. It is sometimes in the interest of governments to make a person disappear without trace: detention orders would help to find him.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s how things were under the Bourbons, but now…’

  ‘That’s how things are at all times, my dear Monsieur Morrel: one regime follows another and resembles its predecessor. The penitentiary system established under Louis XIV still applies, apart from the Bastille. The emperor was always stricter than even the Sun King himself when it came to the management of his prisons: the number of prisoners whose names do not figure on any register is incalculable.’

  Even certainty would have been misled by such benevolent concern, and M. Morrel did not even feel suspicion.

  ‘So finally, Monsieur de Villefort,’ he said, ‘what advice would you give me to hasten poor Dantès’ return?’

  ‘Just this, Monsieur: make a petition to the Minister of Justice.’

  ‘Yes, but we know what happens to petitions. The minister gets two hundred a day and doesn’t read four of them.’

  ‘Certainly,’ Villefort agreed, ‘but he will read a petition that is sent by me, certified by me and personally addressed by me.’

  ‘Would you undertake to send such a petition?’

  ‘With the greatest pleasure. Dantès might have been guilty then, but he is innocent now and it is my duty to have him released, just as it was once my duty to have him imprisoned.’

  In this way, Villefort could avoid running the risk, small though it might be, of an enquiry that would certainly prove his undoing.

  ‘How does one go about writing to the minister?’

  ‘Sit here, Monsieur Morrel,’ Villefort said, giving the shipowner his chair. ‘I shall dictate the letter.’

  ‘Would you really be so kind?’

  ‘Of course. Let’s lose no more time, we have wasted enough already.’

  ‘Yes, Monsieur. Consider how the poor lad must be waiting, suffering and perhaps giving way to despair.’

  Villefort shuddered at the idea of the prisoner cursing him in the darkness and silence, but he had gone too far to retreat. Dantès would have to be broken between the cogs of his ambition.

  ‘I am ready,’ the shipowner said, sitting in Villefort’s chair and taking up a pen.

  So Villefort dictated a request in which, undoubtedly with the best of intentions, he exaggerated Dantès’ patriotism and the service he had rendered to the Bonapartist cause. In it, Dantès became one of the most significant figures in ensuring Napoleon’s return: clearly, when he saw the document, the minister must immediately see that justice was done, if it had not been done already.

  When they had completed the petition, Villefort read it out.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Now, count on me.’

  ‘Will the petition be sent soon, Monsieur?’

  ‘This very day.’

  ‘Certified by you?’

  ‘The finest apostil I can put on it is to certify that all you have said in this request is true.’

  Villefort resumed his place and stamped his certification on a corner of the petition.

  ‘So, what do we have to do now?’ asked Morrel.

  ‘Wait,’ Villefort replied. ‘I shall look after everything.’

  Morrel’s hopes were raised by this assurance; he left the deputy prosecutor’s office delighted with himself and went to tell Dantès’ father that he would be seeing his son before long.

  As for Villefort, instead of sending the request to Paris, he put it carefully aside for safekeeping, knowing that what might save Dantès in the present would become a disastrously compromising document in the future, in the event – which the situation in Europe and course of affairs already allowed him to predict – of a second Restoration.

  So Dantès remained a prisoner. In the depths of the dungeon where he was buried, no sound reached him of the resounding crash of Louis XVIII’s throne or of the still more dreadful collapse of the empire.

  Villefort, however, had watched all this closely and listened to it attentively. On two occasions during the brief reappearance of the emperor known as the Hundred Days, M. Morrel had renewed his efforts, always demanding that Dantès be released, and each time Villefort had reassured him with promises and expectations. Finally, Waterloo. Morrel was not again seen at Villefort’s: the shipowner had done everything humanly possible for his young friend and, if he were to make any further attempt under this second Restoration, he would compromise himself, to no useful end.

  Louis XVIII returned to the throne. For Villefort, Marseille was full of memories that were soured with remorse, so he requested and obtained the vacant post of crown prosecutor in Toulouse. A fortnight after moving into his new home, he married Mlle Renée de Saint-Méran, whose father was more in favour at court than ever.

  So it was that Dantès, during the Hundred Days and after Waterloo, remained under lock and key, forgotten, if not by men, at least by God.

  When Danglars witnessed Napoleon’s return to France, he realized the full effect of the blow he had directed against Dantès: his denunciation had been accurate and, like all men with a certain natural aptitude for crime and only average understanding of ordinary life, he described this strange coincidence as ‘a decree of Providence’. But when Napoleon had returned to Paris and his voice, imperious and powerful, was heard once more in the land, Danglars knew fear. At every moment he expected Dantès to reappear, a Dantès who knew everything, a Dantès who was strong and who threatened every kind of vengeance. So he gave M. Morrel notice of his desire to renounce seafaring and obtained a reference from him to a Spanish trader, whose service he entered as accounts clerk towards the end of March, that is to say ten or twelve days after Napoleon’s return to the Tuileries. He left for Madrid and nothing more was heard of him.

  As for Fernand, he understood nothing. Dantès had gone away; that was enough. What had happened to him? Fernand did not try to find out. Throughout the reprieve that this absence gave him, he strove, partly to mislead Mercédès about the reasons for it, and partly to devise plans for emigration and abduction. From time to time – these were the dark moments in his life – he also sat at the extremity of the Cap Pharo, at the point from which you can see both Marseille and the Catalan village, sad, motionless as a bird of prey, watching in case he might see, returning by one or other of these routes, the handsome young man who walked freely, with his head held high; and who, for Fernand also, had become the messenger of a cruel revenge. In that event, Fernand was decided: he would break Dantès’ skull with his gun and then, he thought, afterwards kill himself, to disguise the murder. But Fernand was mistaken: he would never kill himself, because he lived in hope.

  While this was happening, among all these painful changes, the empire called for a final muster of soldiers and every man who was capable of bearing arms marched across the frontier of France in obedience to the emperor’s resounding call. Fernand set off with the rest, leaving his hut, leaving Mercédès, devoured by the dark and dreadful thought that, when he had gone
, his rival might return and marry the woman he loved. If ever Fernand meant to kill himself, he would have done so on leaving Mercédès.

  His attentions to the young woman, the pity which he appeared to feel for her in her misfortune and the care that he took to anticipate the least of her wishes, had produced the effect that an appearance of devotion inevitably produces on a generous heart: Mercédès had always loved Fernand as a friend and now her friendship towards him was increased by a new feeling: gratitude.

  ‘My brother,’ she said, fastening his conscript’s bag across the Catalan’s shoulders, ‘my only friend, do not let yourself be killed, do not leave me alone in the world, where I weep and where I shall be entirely alone if you leave it.’

  These words, spoken on his departure, gave Fernand new hope. If Dantès did not return, then Mercédès might be his.

  Mercédès remained alone in that bare landscape, which had never appeared to her more arid, bounded by the vastness of the sea. Bathed in tears, like the madwoman whose painful story we have heard, she could be seen wandering continually around the little Catalan village, now pausing beneath the burning southern sun, standing motionless and silent as a statue, looking towards Marseille; now seated on the shore, listening to the moaning of the sea, as endless as her sorrow, and ceaselessly wondering if it would not be better to lean forward, sink beneath her own weight into the abyss and let herself be swallowed up, rather than to suffer all the cruel uncertainties of hopeless expectation.

  It was not the fact that Mercédès lacked the courage to carry out this intention, but the succour of religion that saved her from suicide.

  Caderousse was called up as Fernand had been; but, being eight years older than the Catalan and married, he was not recruited until the third wave of conscription and sent to guard the coast.

  Old Dantès, who had been sustained only by hope, lost hope when the emperor fell. Five months to the day after being separated from his son, and almost at the very hour when Dantès was arrested, he breathed his last in Mercédès’ arms.