The Count of Monte Cristo
one bright smiling spot in the desert of her heart, and that is the
shrine of maternal love. “I forgive you. What I was saying, Villefort,
was, that the Bonapartists had not our sincerity, enthusiasm, or
devotion.”
“They had, however, what supplied the place of those fine qualities,”
replied the young man, “and that was fanaticism. Napoleon is the
Mahomet of the West, and is worshipped by his commonplace but ambitious
followers, not only as a leader and lawgiver, but also as the
personification of equality.”
“He!” cried the marquise: “Napoleon the type of equality! For mercy’s
sake, then, what would you call Robespierre? Come, come, do not strip
the latter of his just rights to bestow them on the Corsican, who, to
my mind, has usurped quite enough.”
0085m
“Nay, madame; I would place each of these heroes on his right
pedestal—that of Robespierre on his scaffold in the Place Louis Quinze;
that of Napoleon on the column of the Place Vendôme. The only
difference consists in the opposite character of the equality advocated
by these two men; one is the equality that elevates, the other is the
equality that degrades; one brings a king within reach of the
guillotine, the other elevates the people to a level with the throne.
Observe,” said Villefort, smiling, “I do not mean to deny that both
these men were revolutionary scoundrels, and that the 9th Thermidor and
the 4th of April, in the year 1814, were lucky days for France, worthy
of being gratefully remembered by every friend to monarchy and civil
order; and that explains how it comes to pass that, fallen, as I trust
he is forever, Napoleon has still retained a train of parasitical
satellites. Still, marquise, it has been so with other
usurpers—Cromwell, for instance, who was not half so bad as Napoleon,
had his partisans and advocates.”
“Do you know, Villefort, that you are talking in a most dreadfully
revolutionary strain? But I excuse it, it is impossible to expect the
son of a Girondin to be free from a small spice of the old leaven.” A
deep crimson suffused the countenance of Villefort.
“’Tis true, madame,” answered he, “that my father was a Girondin, but
he was not among the number of those who voted for the king’s death; he
was an equal sufferer with yourself during the Reign of Terror, and had
well-nigh lost his head on the same scaffold on which your father
perished.”
“True,” replied the marquise, without wincing in the slightest degree
at the tragic remembrance thus called up; “but bear in mind, if you
please, that our respective parents underwent persecution and
proscription from diametrically opposite principles; in proof of which
I may remark, that while my family remained among the staunchest
adherents of the exiled princes, your father lost no time in joining
the new government; and that while the Citizen Noirtier was a Girondin,
the Count Noirtier became a senator.”
“Dear mother,” interposed Renée, “you know very well it was agreed that
all these disagreeable reminiscences should forever be laid aside.”
“Suffer me, also, madame,” replied Villefort, “to add my earnest
request to Mademoiselle de Saint-Méran’s, that you will kindly allow
the veil of oblivion to cover and conceal the past. What avails
recrimination over matters wholly past recall? For my own part, I have
laid aside even the name of my father, and altogether disown his
political principles. He was—nay, probably may still be—a Bonapartist,
and is called Noirtier; I, on the contrary, am a staunch royalist, and
style myself de Villefort. Let what may remain of revolutionary sap
exhaust itself and die away with the old trunk, and condescend only to
regard the young shoot which has started up at a distance from the
parent tree, without having the power, any more than the wish, to
separate entirely from the stock from which it sprung.”
“Bravo, Villefort!” cried the marquis; “excellently well said! Come,
now, I have hopes of obtaining what I have been for years endeavoring
to persuade the marquise to promise; namely, a perfect amnesty and
forgetfulness of the past.”
“With all my heart,” replied the marquise; “let the past be forever
forgotten. I promise you it affords _me_ as little pleasure to revive
it as it does you. All I ask is, that Villefort will be firm and
inflexible for the future in his political principles. Remember, also,
Villefort, that we have pledged ourselves to his majesty for your
fealty and strict loyalty, and that at our recommendation the king
consented to forget the past, as I do” (and here she extended to him
her hand)—“as I now do at your entreaty. But bear in mind, that should
there fall in your way anyone guilty of conspiring against the
government, you will be so much the more bound to visit the offence
with rigorous punishment, as it is known you belong to a suspected
family.”
“Alas, madame,” returned Villefort, “my profession, as well as the
times in which we live, compels me to be severe. I have already
successfully conducted several public prosecutions, and brought the
offenders to merited punishment. But we have not done with the thing
yet.”
0087m
“Do you, indeed, think so?” inquired the marquise.
“I am, at least, fearful of it. Napoleon, in the Island of Elba, is too
near France, and his proximity keeps up the hopes of his partisans.
Marseilles is filled with half-pay officers, who are daily, under one
frivolous pretext or other, getting up quarrels with the royalists;
from hence arise continual and fatal duels among the higher classes of
persons, and assassinations in the lower.”
“You have heard, perhaps,” said the Comte de Salvieux, one of M. de
Saint-Méran’s oldest friends, and chamberlain to the Comte d’Artois,
“that the Holy Alliance purpose removing him from thence?”
“Yes; they were talking about it when we left Paris,” said M. de
Saint-Méran; “and where is it decided to transfer him?”
“To Saint Helena.”
“For heaven’s sake, where is that?” asked the marquise.
“An island situated on the other side of the equator, at least two
thousand leagues from here,” replied the count.
“So much the better. As Villefort observes, it is a great act of folly
to have left such a man between Corsica, where he was born, and Naples,
of which his brother-in-law is king, and face to face with Italy, the
sovereignty of which he coveted for his son.”
“Unfortunately,” said Villefort, “there are the treaties of 1814, and
we cannot molest Napoleon without breaking those compacts.”
“Oh, well, we shall find some way out of it,” responded M. de Salvieux.
“There wasn’t any trouble over treaties when it was a question of
shooting the poor Duc d’Enghien.”
“Well,” said the marquise, “it seems probable that, by the aid of the
Holy Alliance, we shall be rid of Napoleon; and we must trust to the
vigilance of M. de Villefort to purify Marseilles of his partisans. The
king is either a king or no king; if he be acknowledged as sovereign of
France, he should be upheld in peace and tranquillity; and this can
best be effected by employing the most inflexible agents to put down
every attempt at conspiracy—’tis the best and surest means of
preventing mischief.”
“Unfortunately, madame,” answered Villefort, “the strong arm of the law
is not called upon to interfere until the evil has taken place.”
“Then all he has got to do is to endeavor to repair it.”
“Nay, madame, the law is frequently powerless to effect this; all it
can do is to avenge the wrong done.”
“Oh, M. de Villefort,” cried a beautiful young creature, daughter to
the Comte de Salvieux, and the cherished friend of Mademoiselle de
Saint-Méran, “do try and get up some famous trial while we are at
Marseilles. I never was in a law-court; I am told it is so very
amusing!”
“Amusing, certainly,” replied the young man, “inasmuch as, instead of
shedding tears as at the fictitious tale of woe produced at a theatre,
you behold in a law-court a case of real and genuine distress—a drama
of life. The prisoner whom you there see pale, agitated, and alarmed,
instead of—as is the case when a curtain falls on a tragedy—going home
to sup peacefully with his family, and then retiring to rest, that he
may recommence his mimic woes on the morrow,—is removed from your sight
merely to be reconducted to his prison and delivered up to the
executioner. I leave you to judge how far your nerves are calculated to
bear you through such a scene. Of this, however, be assured, that
should any favorable opportunity present itself, I will not fail to
offer you the choice of being present.”
“For shame, M. de Villefort!” said Renée, becoming quite pale; “don’t
you see how you are frightening us?—and yet you laugh.”
“What would you have? ’Tis like a duel. I have already recorded
sentence of death, five or six times, against the movers of political
conspiracies, and who can say how many daggers may be ready sharpened,
and only waiting a favorable opportunity to be buried in my heart?”
“Gracious heavens, M. de Villefort,” said Renée, becoming more and more
terrified; “you surely are not in earnest.”
“Indeed I am,” replied the young magistrate with a smile; “and in the
interesting trial that young lady is anxious to witness, the case would
only be still more aggravated. Suppose, for instance, the prisoner, as
is more than probable, to have served under Napoleon—well, can you
expect for an instant, that one accustomed, at the word of his
commander, to rush fearlessly on the very bayonets of his foe, will
scruple more to drive a stiletto into the heart of one he knows to be
his personal enemy, than to slaughter his fellow-creatures, merely
because bidden to do so by one he is bound to obey? Besides, one
requires the excitement of being hateful in the eyes of the accused, in
order to lash one’s self into a state of sufficient vehemence and
power. I would not choose to see the man against whom I pleaded smile,
as though in mockery of my words. No; my pride is to see the accused
pale, agitated, and as though beaten out of all composure by the fire
of my eloquence.” Renée uttered a smothered exclamation.
“Bravo!” cried one of the guests; “that is what I call talking to some
purpose.”
“Just the person we require at a time like the present,” said a second.
“What a splendid business that last case of yours was, my dear
Villefort!” remarked a third; “I mean the trial of the man for
murdering his father. Upon my word, you killed him ere the executioner
had laid his hand upon him.”
“Oh, as for parricides, and such dreadful people as that,” interposed
Renée, “it matters very little what is done to them; but as regards
poor unfortunate creatures whose only crime consists in having mixed
themselves up in political intrigues——”
“Why, that is the very worst offence they could possibly commit; for,
don’t you see, Renée, the king is the father of his people, and he who
shall plot or contrive aught against the life and safety of the parent
of thirty-two millions of souls, is a parricide upon a fearfully great
scale?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” replied Renée; “but, M. de
Villefort, you have promised me—have you not?—always to show mercy to
those I plead for.”
“Make yourself quite easy on that point,” answered Villefort, with one
of his sweetest smiles; “you and I will always consult upon our
verdicts.”
“My love,” said the marquise, “attend to your doves, your lap-dogs, and
embroidery, but do not meddle with what you do not understand. Nowadays
the military profession is in abeyance and the magisterial robe is the
badge of honor. There is a wise Latin proverb that is very much in
point.”
“_Cedant arma togæ_,” said Villefort with a bow.
“I cannot speak Latin,” responded the marquise.
“Well,” said Renée, “I cannot help regretting you had not chosen some