Ah, is it you, Dantès? What’s the matter? and why have you such an air of sadness aboard?


A great misfortune, M. Morrel, a great misfortune, for me especially! Off Civita Vecchia we lost our brave Captain Leclere.


And the cargo?


Is all safe, M. Morrel; and I think you will be satisfied on that head. But poor Captain Leclere——


What happened to him? What happened to the worthy captain?


He died.


Fell into the sea?


No, sir, he died of brain-fever in dreadful agony. Bear a hand there, to take in sail!


And how did this misfortune occur?


Alas, sir, in the most unexpected manner. After a long talk with the harbor-master, Captain Leclere left Naples greatly disturbed in mind. In twenty-four hours he was attacked by a fever, and died three days afterwards. We performed the usual burial service, and he is at his rest, sewn up in his hammock with a thirty-six-pound shot at his head and his heels, off El Giglio island. We bring to his widow his sword and cross of honor. It was worth while, truly, to make war against the English for ten years, and to die in his bed at last, like everybody else.


Why, you see, Edmond, we are all mortal, and the old must make way for the young. If not, why, there would be no promotion; and since you assure me that the cargo——


Is all safe and sound, M. Morrel, take my word for it; and I advise you not to take 25,000 francs for the profits of the voyage. Stand by there to lower the topsails and jib; brail up the spanker! Let go—and clue up! Now, if you will come on board, M. Morrel, here is your supercargo, M. Danglars, coming out of his cabin, who will furnish you with every particular. As for me, I must look after the anchoring, and dress the ship in mourning.


Well, M. Morrel, you have heard of the misfortune that has befallen us?


Yes—yes: poor Captain Leclere! He was a brave and an honest man.


And a first-rate seaman, one who had seen long and honorable service, as became a man charged with the interests of a house so important as that of Morrel & Son,


it seems to me that a sailor needs not be so old as you say, Danglars, to understand his business, for our friend Edmond seems to understand it thoroughly, and not to require instruction from anyone.


Yes, yes, he is young, and youth is invariably self-confident. Scarcely was the captain’s breath out of his body when he assumed the command without consulting anyone, and he caused us to lose a day and a half at the Island of Elba, instead of making for Marseilles direct.


As to taking command of the vessel, that was his duty as captain’s mate; as to losing a day and a half off the Island of Elba, he was wrong, unless the vessel needed repairs.


The vessel was in as good condition as I am, and as, I hope you are, M. Morrel, and this day and a half was lost from pure whim, for the pleasure of going ashore, and nothing else.


Dantès, come this way!


In a moment, sir, and I’m with you. Let go! Half-mast the colors, and square the yards!


he fancies himself captain already, upon my word.


And so, in fact, he is. Except your signature and your partner’s, M. Morrel. And why should he not have this? he is young, it is true, but he seems to me a thorough seaman, and of full experience.


Your pardon, M. Morrel, the vessel now rides at anchor, and I am at your service. You hailed me, I think?


I wished to inquire why you stopped at the Island of Elba?


I do not know, sir; it was to fulfil the last instructions of Captain Leclere, who, when dying, gave me a packet for Marshal Bertrand.


Then did you see him, Edmond?


Who?


The marshal.


Yes.


And how is the emperor?


Very well, as far as I could judge from the sight of him.


You saw the emperor, then?


He entered the marshal’s apartment while I was there.


And you spoke to him?


Why, it was he who spoke to me, sir. Asked me questions about the vessel, the time she left Marseilles, the course she had taken, and what was her cargo. I believe, if she had not been laden, and I had been her master, he would have bought her. But I told him I was only mate, and that she belonged to the firm of Morrel & Son. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘I know them. The Morrels have been shipowners from father to son; and there was a Morrel who served in the same regiment with me when I was in garrison at Valence.’


Pardieu! and that is true! And that was Policar Morrel, my uncle, who was afterwards a captain. Dantès, you must tell my uncle that the emperor remembered him, and you will see it will bring tears into the old soldier’s eyes. Come, come, you did very right, Dantès, to follow Captain Leclere’s instructions, and touch at Elba, although if it were known that you had conveyed a packet to the marshal, and had conversed with the emperor, it might bring you into trouble.


How could that bring me into trouble, sir? for I did not even know of what I was the bearer; and the emperor merely made such inquiries as he would of the first comer. But, pardon me, here are the health officers and the customs inspectors coming alongside.


Well, it appears that he has given you satisfactory reasons for his landing at Porto-Ferrajo?


Yes, most satisfactory, my dear Danglars.


Well, so much the better, for it is not pleasant to think that a comrade has not done his duty.


Dantès has done his, and that is not saying much. It was Captain Leclere who gave orders for this delay.


Talking of Captain Leclere, has not Dantès given you a letter from him?


To me?—no—was there one?


I believe that, besides the packet, Captain Leclere confided a letter to his care.


Of what packet are you speaking, Danglars?


Why, that which Dantès left at Porto-Ferrajo.


How do you know he had a packet to leave at Porto-Ferrajo?


I was passing close to the door of the captain’s cabin, which was half open, and I saw him give the packet and letter to Dantès.


He did not speak to me of it, but if there be any letter he will give it to me.


Then, M. Morrel, not to say a word to Dantès on the subject. I may have been mistaken.


Well, my dear Dantès, are you now free?


Yes, sir.


You have not been long detained.


No. I gave the custom-house officers a copy of our bill of lading; and as to the other papers, they sent a man off with the pilot, to whom I gave them.


Then you have nothing more to do here?


No—everything is all right now.


Then you can come and dine with me?


I really must ask you to excuse me, M. Morrel. My first visit is due to my father, though I am not the less grateful for the honor you have done me.


Right, Dantès, quite right. I always knew you were a good son.


And, do you know how my father is?


Well, I believe, my dear Edmond, though I have not seen him lately.


Yes, he likes to keep himself shut up in his little room.


That proves, at least, that he has wanted for nothing during your absence.


My father is proud, sir, and if he had not a meal left, I doubt if he would have asked anything from anyone, except from Heaven.


Well, then, after this first visit has been made we shall count on you.


I must again excuse myself, M. Morrel, for after this first visit has been paid I have another which I am most anxious to pay.


True, Dantès, I forgot that there was at the Catalans someone who expects you no less impatiently than your father—the lovely Mercédès. Ah, ha. I am not in the least surprised, for she has been to me three times, inquiring if there were any news of the Pharaon. Peste! Edmond, you have a very handsome mistress!


She is not my mistress, she is my betrothed.


Sometimes one and the same thing,


Not with us, sir,


Well, well, my dear Edmond, don’t let me detain you. You have managed my affairs so well that I ought to allow you all the time you require for your own. Do you want any money?


No, sir; I have all my pay to take—nearly three months’ wages.


You are a careful fellow, Edmond.


Say I have a poor father, sir.


Yes, yes, I know how good a son you are, so now hasten away to see your father. I have a son too, and I should be very wroth with those who detained him from me after a three months’ voyage.


Then I have your leave, sir?


Yes, if you have nothing more to say to me.


Nothing.


Captain Leclere did not, before he died, give you a letter for me?


He was unable to write, sir. But that reminds me that I must ask your leave of absence for some days.


To get married?


Yes, first, and then to go to Paris.


Very good; have what time you require, Dantès. It will take quite six weeks to unload the cargo, and we cannot get you ready for sea until three months after that; only be back again in three months, for the Pharaon, cannot sail without her captain.


Without her captain! pray mind what you say, for you are touching on the most secret wishes of my heart. Is it really your intention to make me captain of the Pharaon?


If I were sole owner we’d shake hands on it now, my dear Dantès, and call it settled; but I have a partner, and you know the Italian proverb—Chi ha compagno ha padrone—‘He who has a partner has a master.’ But the thing is at least half done, as you have one out of two votes. Rely on me to procure you the other; I will do my best.


Ah, M. Morrel. M. Morrel, I thank you in the name of my father and of Mercédès.


That’s all right, Edmond. There’s a providence that watches over the deserving. Go to your father; go and see Mercédès, and afterwards come to me.


Shall I row you ashore?


No, thank you; I shall remain and look over the accounts with Danglars. Have you been satisfied with him this voyage?


Yes, yes, father, tell me where it is,” and he opened two or three cupboards.


Heaven pardon me,” cried Edmond, falling on his knees before his father.


Whom does this belong to?” he inquired.


Yes, as you see, neighbor Caderousse; and ready to be agreeable to you in any and every way,” replied Dantès, but ill-concealing his coldness under this cloak of civility.


Yes, to be sure I am. I love and esteem you, because honest folks are so rare. But it seems you have come back rich, my boy,” continued the tailor, looking askance at the handful of gold and silver which Dantès had thrown on the table.


It was offered with good will,” said Dantès. M. Morrel has always been exceedingly kind to me,” replied Dantès. Yes, my dear father,” replied Edmond, smiling at his father’s astonishment at the excessive honor paid to his son.


I hope to be captain without that,” said Dantès.


Mercédès?” said the old man.


No, but according to all probability she soon will be,” replied Edmond. Really?” answered Edmond, with a smile which had in it traces of slight uneasiness.


Eh—eh!” said Caderousse, shaking his head.


I will go directly,” was Edmond’s reply; and, embracing his father, and nodding to Caderousse, he left the apartment.


I have just left him,” answered Caderousse.


You see, Mercédès, here is Easter come round again; tell me, is this the moment for a wedding?


I have answered you a hundred times, Fernand, and really you must be very stupid to ask me again.


Well, repeat it,—repeat it, I beg of you, that I may at last believe it! Tell me for the hundredth time that you refuse my love, which had your mother’s sanction. Make me understand once for all that you are trifling with my happiness, that my life or death are nothing to you. Ah, to have dreamed for ten years of being your husband, Mercédès, and to lose that hope, which was the only stay of my existence!


At least it was not I who ever encouraged you in that hope, Fernand, you cannot reproach me with the slightest coquetry. I have always said to you, ‘I love you as a brother; but do not ask from me more than sisterly affection, for my heart is another’s.’ Is not this true, Fernand?


Yes, that is very true, Mercédès. Yes, you have been cruelly frank with me; but do you forget that it is among the Catalans a sacred law to intermarry?


You mistake, Fernand; it is not a law, but merely a custom, and, I pray of you, do not cite this custom in your favor. You are included in the conscription, Fernand, and are only at liberty on sufferance, liable at any moment to be called upon to take up arms. Once a soldier, what would you do with me, a poor orphan, forlorn, without fortune, with nothing but a half-ruined hut and a few ragged nets, the miserable inheritance left by my father to my mother, and by my mother to me? She has been dead a year, and you know, Fernand, I have subsisted almost entirely on public charity. Sometimes you pretend I am useful to you, and that is an excuse to share with me the produce of your fishing, and I accept it, Fernand, because you are the son of my father’s brother, because we were brought up together, and still more because it would give you so much pain if I refuse. But I feel very deeply that this fish which I go and sell, and with the produce of which I buy the flax I spin,—I feel very keenly, Fernand, that this is charity.


And if it were, Mercédès, poor and lone as you are, you suit me as well as the daughter of the first shipowner or the richest banker of Marseilles! What do such as we desire but a good wife and careful housekeeper, and where can I look for these better than in you?


Fernand. Fernand, a woman becomes a bad manager, and who shall say she will remain an honest woman, when she loves another man better than her husband? Rest content with my friendship, for I say once more that is all I can promise, and I will promise no more than I can bestow.


I understand. I understand, you can endure your own wretchedness patiently, but you are afraid to share mine. Well, Mercédès, beloved by you, I would tempt fortune; you would bring me good luck, and I should become rich. I could extend my occupation as a fisherman, might get a place as clerk in a warehouse, and become in time a dealer myself.


You could do no such thing, Fernand; you are a soldier, and if you remain at the Catalans it is because there is no war; so remain a fisherman, and contented with my friendship, as I cannot give you more.


Well, I will do better, Mercédès. I will be a sailor; instead of the costume of our fathers, which you despise, I will wear a varnished hat, a striped shirt, and a blue jacket, with an anchor on the buttons. Would not that dress please you?


What do you mean? what do you mean? I do not understand you?


I mean, Mercédès, that you are thus harsh and cruel with me, because you are expecting someone who is thus attired; but perhaps he whom you await is inconstant, or if he is not, the sea is so to him.


Fernand. I believed you were good-hearted, and I was mistaken! Fernand, you are wicked to call to your aid jealousy and the anger of God! Yes, I will not deny it, I do await, and I do love him of whom you speak; and, if he does not return, instead of accusing him of the inconstancy which you insinuate, I will tell you that he died loving me and me only. I understand you, Fernand; you would be revenged on him because I do not love you; you would cross your Catalan knife with his dirk. What end would that answer? To lose you my friendship if he were conquered, and see that friendship changed into hate if you were victor. Believe me, to seek a quarrel with a man is a bad method of pleasing the woman who loves that man. No, Fernand, you will not thus give way to evil thoughts. Unable to have me for your wife, you will content yourself with having me for your friend and sister; and besides, wait, wait, Fernand; you said just now that the sea was treacherous, and he has been gone four months, and during these four months there have been some terrible storms.


Say, Mercédès, once for all, is this your final determination?


I love Edmond Dantès, and none but Edmond shall ever be my husband.


And you will always love him?


As long as I live.


But if he is dead——


If he is dead, I shall die too.


If he has forgotten you——


Mercédès! Ah,


Ah, you see he has not forgotten me, for here he is! Here, Edmond, here I am!


Ah, your pardon. I did not perceive that there were three of us. Who is this gentleman?


One who will be your best friend, Dantès, for he is my friend, my cousin, my brother; it is Fernand—the man whom, after you, Edmond, I love the best in the world. Do you not remember him?


Yes! I did not know, when I came with such haste to you, that I was to meet an enemy here.


An enemy! An enemy in my house, do you say, Edmond! If I believed that, I would place my arm under yours and go with you to Marseilles, leaving the house to return to it no more. And should any misfortune occur to you, dear Edmond, if misfortune should occur to you, I would ascend the highest point of the Cape de Morgiou and cast myself headlong from it. But you are deceived, Edmond. You have no enemy here—there is no one but Fernand, my brother, who will grasp your hand as a devoted friend.


Oh. Oh, who will deliver me from this man? Wretched—wretched that I am!


Hallo, Catalan! Hallo, Fernand! where are you running to?


Well Well, why don’t you come? Are you really in such a hurry that you have no time to pass the time of day with your friends?


Particularly when they have still a full bottle before them. He seems besotted. Are we mistaken, and is Dantès triumphant in spite of all we have believed?


Why, we must inquire into that. Well, Catalan, can’t you make up your mind?


Good-day. You called me, didn’t you?


I called you because you were running like a madman, and I was afraid you would throw yourself into the sea. Why, when a man has friends, they are not only to offer him a glass of wine, but, moreover, to prevent his swallowing three or four pints of water unnecessarily! Well, Fernand, I must say. Well, Fernand, I must say, you look uncommonly like a rejected lover;


Bah! a lad of his make was not born to be unhappy in love. You are laughing at him, Caderousse.


No, only hark how he sighs! Come, come, Fernand, hold up your head, and answer us. It’s not polite not to reply to friends who ask news of your health.


My health is well enough,


Ah, you see, Danglars, this is how it is; Fernand, whom you see here, is a good and brave Catalan, one of the best fishermen in Marseilles, and he is in love with a very fine girl, named Mercédès; but it appears, unfortunately, that the fine girl is in love with the mate of the Pharaon; and as the Pharaon arrived today—why, you understand!


No; I do not understand,


Poor Fernand has been dismissed,


Well, and what then? Mercédès is not accountable to any person, is she? Is she not free to love whomsoever she will?


Oh, if you take it in that sense, it is another thing. But I thought you were a Catalan, and they told me the Catalans were not men to allow themselves to be supplanted by a rival. It was even told me that Fernand, especially, was terrible in his vengeance.


A lover is never terrible,


Poor fellow! Why, you see, he did not expect to see Dantès return so suddenly—he thought he was dead, perhaps; or perchance faithless! These things always come on us more severely when they come suddenly.


Ah, ma foi, under any circumstances! under any circumstances Fernand is not the only person put out by the fortunate arrival of Dantès; is he, Danglars?


No, you are right—and I should say that would bring him ill-luck.


Well, never mind. Never mind—in the meantime he marries Mercédès—the lovely Mercédès—at least he returns to do that.


And when is the wedding to be?


Oh, it is not yet fixed!


No, but it will be, as surely as Dantès will be captain of the Pharaon—eh, Danglars?


Well. Well, let us drink to Captain Edmond Dantès, husband of the beautiful Catalane!


Eh, eh, eh! What do I see down there by the wall, in the direction of the Catalans? Look, Fernand, your eyes are better than mine. I believe I see double. You know wine is a deceiver; but I should say it was two lovers walking side by side, and hand in hand. Heaven forgive me, they do not know that we can see them, and they are actually embracing!


Do you know them, Fernand?


Yes. It is Edmond and Mercédès!


Ah, see there, now! and I did not recognize them! Hallo, Dantès! hello, lovely damsel! Come this way, and let us know when the wedding is to be, for Fernand here is so obstinate he will not tell us.


Hold your tongue, will you? Try to stand upright, and let the lovers make love without interruption. See, look at Fernand, and follow his example; he is well-behaved!


I shall get nothing from these fools, and I am very much afraid of being here between a drunkard and a coward. Here’s an envious fellow making himself boozy on wine when he ought to be nursing his wrath, and here is a fool who sees the woman he loves stolen from under his nose and takes on like a big baby. Yet this Catalan has eyes that glisten like those of the vengeful Spaniards, Sicilians, and Calabrians, and the other has fists big enough to crush an ox at one blow. Unquestionably, Edmond’s star is in the ascendant, and he will marry the splendid girl—he will be captain, too, and laugh at us all, unless unless I take a hand in the affair,


Hallo! hallo, Edmond! do you not see your friends, or are you too proud to speak to them?


No, my dear fellow! I am not proud, but I am happy, and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride.


Ah, very well, that’s an explanation! How do you do, Madame Dantès?


That is not my name, and in my country it bodes ill fortune, they say, to call a young girl by the name of her betrothed before he becomes her husband. So call me Mercédès, if you please.


We must excuse our worthy neighbor, Caderousse, he is so easily mistaken.


So, then, the wedding is to take place immediately, M. Dantès,


As soon as possible, M. Danglars; today all preliminaries will be arranged at my father’s, and tomorrow, or next day at latest, the wedding festival here at La Réserve. My friends will be there, I hope; that is to say, you are invited, M. Danglars, and you, Caderousse.


And Fernand. Fernand, too, is invited!


My wife’s brother is my brother, and we, Mercédès and I, should be very sorry if he were absent at such a time.


Today the preliminaries, tomorrow or next day the ceremony! You are in a hurry, captain!


Danglars. I will say to you as Mercédès said just now to Caderousse, ‘Do not give me a title which does not belong to me’; that may bring me bad luck.


Your pardon. I merely said you seemed in a hurry, and we have lots of time; the Pharaon cannot be under weigh again in less than three months.


We are always in a hurry to be happy, M. Danglars; for when we have suffered a long time, we have great difficulty in believing in good fortune. But it is not selfishness alone that makes me thus in haste; I must go to Paris.


Ah, really?—to Paris! and will it be the first time you have ever been there, Dantès?


Yes.


Have you business there?


Not of my own; the last commission of poor Captain Leclere; you know to what I allude, Danglars—it is sacred. Besides, I shall only take the time to go and return.


Yes, yes, I understand. To Paris, no doubt to deliver the letter which the grand marshal gave him. Ah, this letter gives me an idea—a capital idea! Ah; Dantès, my friend, you are not yet registered number one on board the good ship Pharaon; A pleasant journey,


Thank you,


Well, my dear sir, here is a marriage which does not appear to make everybody happy.


It drives me to despair,


Do you, then, love Mercédès?


I adore her!


For long?


As long as I have known her—always.


And you sit there, tearing your hair, instead of seeking to remedy your condition; I did not think that was the way of your people.


What would you have me do?


How do I know? Is it my affair? I am not in love with Mademoiselle Mercédès; but for you—in the words of the gospel, seek, and you shall find.


I have found already.


What?


I would stab the man, but the woman told me that if any misfortune happened to her betrothed, she would kill herself.


Pooh! Women say those things, but never do them.


You do not know Mercédès; what she threatens she will do.


Idiot!


That’s what I call love! That’s love, or I don’t know what love is.


Come, you appear to me a good sort of fellow, and hang me, I should like to help you, but——


Yes, but how?


My dear fellow, you are three parts drunk; finish the bottle, and you will be completely so. Drink then, and do not meddle with what we are discussing, for that requires all one’s wit and cool judgment.


I—drunk! well that’s a good one! I could drink four more such bottles; they are no bigger than cologne flasks. Père Pamphile, more wine!


You were saying, sir——


What was I saying? I forget. This drunken Caderousse has made me lose the thread of my sentence.


Drunk, if you like; so much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts; Tous les méchants sont buveurs d’eau; C’est bien prouvé par le déluge.


You said, sir, you would like to help me, but——


Yes; but I added, to help you it would be sufficient that Dantès did not marry her you love; and the marriage may easily be thwarted, methinks, and yet Dantès need not die.


Death alone can separate them,


You talk like a noodle, my friend, and here is Danglars, who is a wide-awake, clever, deep fellow, who will prove to you that you are wrong. Prove it, Danglars. I have answered for you. Say there is no need why Dantès should die; it would, indeed, be a pity he should. Dantès is a good fellow; I like Dantès. Dantès, your health.


Let him run on, drunk as he is, he is not much out in what he says. Absence severs as well as death, and if the walls of a prison were between Edmond and Mercédès they would be as effectually separated as if he lay under a tombstone.


Yes; but one gets out of prison, and when one gets out and one’s name is Edmond Dantès, one seeks revenge—— And why, I should like to know, should they put Dantès in prison? he has neither robbed, nor killed, nor murdered.


Hold your tongue!


I won’t hold my tongue! I say I want to know why they should put Dantès in prison; I like Dantès; Dantès, your health!


Well, you understand there is no need to kill him.


Certainly not, if, as you said just now, you have the means of having Dantès arrested. Have you that means?


It is to be found for the searching. But why should I meddle in the matter? it is no affair of mine.


I know not why you meddle, but this I know, you have some motive of personal hatred against Dantès, for he who himself hates is never mistaken in the sentiments of others.


I! motives of hatred against Dantès? None, on my word! I saw you were unhappy, and your unhappiness interested me; that’s all; but since you believe I act for my own account, adieu, my dear friend, get out of the affair as best you may;


No, no, stay! It is of very little consequence to me at the end of the matter whether you have any angry feeling or not against Dantès. I hate him! I confess it openly. Do you find the means, I will execute it, provided it is not to kill the man, for Mercédès has declared she will kill herself if Dantès is killed.


Kill Dantès! who talks of killing Dantès? I won’t have him killed—I won’t! He’s my friend, and this morning offered to share his money with me, as I shared mine with him. I won’t have Dantès killed—I won’t!


And who has said a word about killing him, muddlehead? We were merely joking; drink to his health, and do not interfere with us.


Yes, yes, Dantès’ good health! here’s to his health! his health—hurrah!


But the means—the means?


Have you not hit upon any?


No!—you undertook to do so.


True, the French have the superiority over the Spaniards, that the Spaniards ruminate, while the French invent.


Do you invent, then,


Waiter, pen, ink, and paper.


Pen, ink, and paper,


Yes; I am a supercargo; pen, ink, and paper are my tools, and without my tools I am fit for nothing.


Pen, ink, and paper, then,


When one thinks,


there is here wherewithal to kill a man more sure than if we waited at the corner of a wood to assassinate him! I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper, than of a sword or pistol.


The fellow is not so drunk as he appears to be. Give him some more wine, Fernand. Well! Well, then, I should say, for instance, that if after a voyage such as Dantès has just made, in which he touched at the Island of Elba, someone were to denounce him to the king’s procureur as a Bonapartist agent——


I will denounce him!


Yes, but they will make you then sign your declaration, and confront you with him you have denounced; I will supply you with the means of supporting your accusation, for I know the fact well. But Dantès cannot remain forever in prison, and one day or other he will leave it, and the day when he comes out, woe betide him who was the cause of his incarceration!


Oh, I should wish nothing better than that he would come and seek a quarrel with me.


Yes, and Mercédès! Mercédès, who will detest you if you have only the misfortune to scratch the skin of her dearly beloved Edmond!


True!


No, no, if we resolve on such a step, it would be much better to take, as I now do, this pen, dip it into this ink, and write with the left hand (that the writing may not be recognized) the denunciation we propose. The honorable, the king’s attorney, is informed by a friend of the throne and religion, that one Edmond Dantès, mate of the ship Pharaon, arrived this morning from Smyrna, after having touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo, has been intrusted by Murat with a letter for the usurper, and by the usurper with a letter for the Bonapartist committee in Paris. Proof of this crime will be found on arresting him, for the letter will be found upon him, or at his father’s, or in his cabin on board the Pharaon. Very good, now your revenge looks like common sense, for in no way can it revert to yourself, and the matter will thus work its own way; there is nothing to do now but fold the letter as I am doing, and write upon it, ‘To the king’s attorney,’ and that’s all settled.


Yes, and that’s all settled; only it will be an infamous shame;


Yes, and as what I say and do is merely in jest, and I, amongst the first and foremost, should be sorry if anything happened to Dantès—the worthy Dantès—look here!


All right! Dantès is my friend, and I won’t have him ill-used.


And who thinks of using him ill? Certainly neither I nor Fernand,


In this case, let’s have some more wine. I wish to drink to the health of Edmond and the lovely Mercédès.


You have had too much already, drunkard, and if you continue, you will be compelled to sleep here, because unable to stand on your legs.


I? I can’t keep on my legs? Why, I’ll wager I can go up into the belfry of the Accoules, and without staggering, too!


Done! I’ll take your bet; but tomorrow—today it is time to return. Give me your arm, and let us go.


Very well, let us go, but I don’t want your arm at all. Come, Fernand, won’t you return to Marseilles with us?


No. I shall return to the Catalans.


You’re wrong. Come with us to Marseilles—come along.


I will not.


What do you mean? you will not? Well, just as you like, my prince; there’s liberty for all the world. Come along, Danglars, and let the young gentleman return to the Catalans if he chooses. why, what a lie he told! He said he was going to the Catalans, and he is going to the city. Hallo, Fernand! You are coming, my boy!


Oh, you don’t see straight, he’s gone right by the road to the Vieilles Infirmeries.


Well. I should have sworn that he turned to the right—how treacherous wine is!


Come, come, now the thing is at work and it will effect its purpose unassisted.


If you are my friends, rejoice with me, for I am very happy.


Father, sit, I pray you, on my right hand; on my left I will place him who has ever been as a brother to me,


A pretty silence truly! Now, would anybody think that this room contained a happy, merry party, who desire nothing better than to laugh and dance the hours away?


Ah, a man cannot always feel happy because he is about to be married.


The truth is, that I am too happy for noisy mirth; if that is what you meant by your observation, my worthy friend, you are right; joy takes a strange effect at times, it seems to oppress us almost the same as sorrow.


Why, what ails you?


He is the cause of all this misery—I am quite sure of it,


I don’t think so,


You don’t mention those who aided and abetted the deed,


Surely, one cannot be held responsible for every chance arrow shot into the air.


You can, indeed, when the arrow lights point downward on somebody’s head.


What think you, Danglars, of this event?


Why. I think it just possible Dantès may have been detected with some trifling article on board ship considered here as contraband.


But how could he have done so without your knowledge, Danglars, since you are the ship’s supercargo?


Why, as for that, I could only know what I was told respecting the merchandise with which the vessel was laden. I know she was loaded with cotton, and that she took in her freight at Alexandria from Pastret’s warehouse, and at Smyrna from Pascal’s; that is all I was obliged to know, and I beg I may not be asked for any further particulars.


Now I recollect,


Now I recollect, my poor boy told me yesterday he had got a small case of coffee, and another of tobacco for me!


There, you see. Now the mischief is out; depend upon it the custom-house people went rummaging about the ship in our absence, and discovered poor Dantès’ hidden treasures.


Come, come, be comforted, my poor child; there is still hope!


Hope!


Good news! good news! Here comes M. Morrel back. No doubt, now, we shall hear that our friend is released!


What news?


Alas, my friends, the thing has assumed a more serious aspect than I expected.


Oh, indeed—indeed, sir, he is innocent!


That I believe! but still he is charged——


With what?


With being an agent of the Bonapartist faction!


Ah, Danglars, you have deceived me—the trick you spoke of last night has been played; but I cannot suffer a poor old man or an innocent girl to die of grief through your fault. I am determined to tell them all about it.


Be silent, you simpleton, or I will not answer even for your own safety. Who can tell whether Dantès be innocent or guilty? The vessel did touch at Elba, where he quitted it, and passed a whole day in the island. Now, should any letters or other documents of a compromising character be found upon him, will it not be taken for granted that all who uphold him are his accomplices?


Suppose we wait a while, and see what comes of it,


To be sure! Let us wait, by all means. If he be innocent, of course he will be set at liberty; if guilty, why, it is no use involving ourselves in a conspiracy.


Let us go, then. I cannot stay here any longer.


With all my heart! Let us take ourselves out of the way, and leave things for the present to take their course.


Could you ever have credited such a thing, my dear Danglars? Could you have believed such a thing possible?


Why, you know I told you that I considered the circumstance of his having anchored at the Island of Elba as a very suspicious circumstance.


And did you mention these suspicions to any person beside myself?


Certainly not! You understand that, on account of your uncle, M. Policar Morrel, who served under the other government, and who does not altogether conceal what he thinks on the subject, you are strongly suspected of regretting the abdication of Napoleon. I should have feared to injure both Edmond and yourself, had I divulged my own apprehensions to a soul. I am too well aware that though a subordinate, like myself, is bound to acquaint the shipowner with everything that occurs, there are many things he ought most carefully to conceal from all else.


’Tis well, Danglars—’tis well! You are a worthy fellow; and I had already thought of your interests in the event of poor Edmond having become captain of the Pharaon.


Is it possible you were so kind?


Yes, indeed; I had previously inquired of Dantès what was his opinion of you, and if he should have any reluctance to continue you in your post, for somehow I have perceived a sort of coolness between you.


And what was his reply?


That he certainly did think he had given you offence in an affair which he merely referred to without entering into particulars, but that whoever possessed the good opinion and confidence of the ship’s owners would have his preference also.


The hypocrite!


Poor Dantès! No one can deny his being a noble-hearted young fellow.


But meanwhile, here is the Pharaon without a captain.


Oh, since we cannot leave this port for the next three months, let us hope that ere the expiration of that period Dantès will be set at liberty.


No doubt; but in the meantime?


I am entirely at your service, M. Morrel. You know that I am as capable of managing a ship as the most experienced captain in the service; and it will be so far advantageous to you to accept my services, that upon Edmond’s release from prison no further change will be requisite on board the Pharaon than for Dantès and myself each to resume our respective posts.


Thanks, Danglars—that will smooth over all difficulties. I fully authorize you at once to assume the command of the Pharaon, and look carefully to the unloading of her freight. Private misfortunes must never be allowed to interfere with business.


Be easy on that score, M. Morrel; but do you think we shall be permitted to see our poor Edmond?


I will let you know that directly I have seen M. de Villefort, whom I shall endeavor to interest in Edmond’s favor. I am aware he is a furious royalist; but, in spite of that, and of his being king’s attorney, he is a man like ourselves, and I fancy not a bad sort of one.


Perhaps not, but I hear that he is ambitious, and that’s rather against him.


We shall see. But now hasten on board, I will join you there ere long.


You see, the turn things have taken. Do you still feel any desire to stand up in his defence?


Not the slightest, but yet it seems to me a shocking thing that a mere joke should lead to such consequences.


But who perpetrated that joke, let me ask? neither you nor myself, but Fernand; you knew very well that I threw the paper into a corner of the room—indeed, I fancied I had destroyed it.


Oh, no, that I can answer for, you did not. I only wish I could see it now as plainly as I saw it lying all crushed and crumpled in a corner of the arbor.


Then you were aware of Dantès being engaged in a conspiracy? Not I. As I before said, I thought the whole thing was a joke, nothing more. It seems, however, that I have unconsciously stumbled upon the truth.


Still, I would give a great deal if nothing of the kind had happened; or, at least, that I had had no hand in it. You will see, Danglars, that it will turn out an unlucky job for both of us.


Nonsense! If any harm come of it, it should fall on the guilty person; and that, you know, is Fernand. How can we be implicated in any way? All we have got to do is, to keep our own counsel, and remain perfectly quiet, not breathing a word to any living soul; and you will see that the storm will pass away without in the least affecting us.


Amen!


So far, then, all has gone as I would have it. I am, temporarily, commander of the Pharaon, with the certainty of being permanently so, if that fool of a Caderousse can be persuaded to hold his tongue. My only fear is the chance of Dantès being released. But, there, he is in the hands of Justice; and, she will take her own.


Ah, these revolutionists, who have driven us from those very possessions they afterwards purchased for a mere trifle during the Reign of Terror, would be compelled to own, were they here, that all true devotion was on our side, since we were content to follow the fortunes of a falling monarch, while they, on the contrary, made their fortune by worshipping the rising sun; yes, yes, they could not help admitting that the king, for whom we sacrificed rank, wealth, and station was truly our ‘Louis the well-beloved,’ while their wretched usurper has been, and ever will be, to them their evil genius, their ‘Napoleon the accursed.’ Am I not right, Villefort?


I beg your pardon, madame. I really must pray you to excuse me, but—in truth—I was not attending to the conversation.


Marquise, marquise! let the young people alone; let me tell you, on one’s wedding day there are more agreeable subjects of conversation than dry politics.


Never mind, dearest mother, ’tis all my fault for seizing upon M. de Villefort, so as to prevent his listening to what you said. But there—now take him—he is your own for as long as you like. M. Villefort, I beg to remind you my mother speaks to you.


If the marquise will deign to repeat the words I but imperfectly caught, I shall be delighted to answer.


Never mind, Renée. 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, 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! 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.


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, 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.


’Tis true, madame, 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, 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, you know very well it was agreed that all these disagreeable reminiscences should forever be laid aside.


Bravo, Villefort! 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, 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 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, 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.


Do you, indeed, think so?


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.


that the Holy Alliance purpose removing him from thence?


Yes; they were talking about it when we left Paris, and where is it decided to transfer him?


To Saint Helena.


For heaven’s sake, where is that?


An island situated on the other side of the equator, at least two thousand leagues from here,


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, 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. There wasn’t any trouble over treaties when it was a question of shooting the poor Duc d’Enghien.


Well, 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, 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,


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, 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! 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, you surely are not in earnest.


Indeed I am, 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.


Bravo!


that is what I call talking to some purpose.


Just the person we require at a time like the present,


What a splendid business that last case of yours was, my dear Villefort!


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, 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, 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, you and I will always consult upon our verdicts.


My love, 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,


I cannot speak Latin,


Well. I cannot help regretting you had not chosen some other profession than your own—a physician, for instance. Do you know I always felt a shudder at the idea of even a destroying angel?


Dear, good Renée,


Let us hope, my child, that M. de Villefort may prove the moral and political physician of this province; if so, he will have achieved a noble work.


And one which will go far to efface the recollection of his father’s conduct,


Madame. I have already had the honor to observe that my father has—at least, I hope so—abjured his past errors, and that he is, at the present moment, a firm and zealous friend to religion and order—a better royalist, possibly, than his son; for he has to atone for past dereliction, while I have no other impulse than warm, decided preference and conviction.


Do you know, my dear Villefort, that is exactly what I myself said the other day at the Tuileries, when questioned by his majesty’s principal chamberlain touching the singularity of an alliance between the son of a Girondin and the daughter of an officer of the Duc de Condé; and I assure you he seemed fully to comprehend that this mode of reconciling political differences was based upon sound and excellent principles. Then the king, who, without our suspecting it, had overheard our conversation, interrupted us by saying, ‘Villefort’—observe that the king did not pronounce the word Noirtier, but, on the contrary, placed considerable emphasis on that of Villefort—‘Villefort,’ said his majesty, ‘is a young man of great judgment and discretion, who will be sure to make a figure in his profession; I like him much, and it gave me great pleasure to hear that he was about to become the son-in-law of the Marquis and Marquise de Saint-Méran. I should myself have recommended the match, had not the noble marquis anticipated my wishes by requesting my consent to it.’


Is it possible the king could have condescended so far as to express himself so favorably of me?


I give you his very words; and if the marquis chooses to be candid, he will confess that they perfectly agree with what his majesty said to him, when he went six months ago to consult him upon the subject of your espousing his daughter.


That is true,


How much do I owe this gracious prince! What is there I would not do to evince my earnest gratitude!


That is right. I love to see you thus. Now, then, were a conspirator to fall into your hands, he would be most welcome.


For my part, dear mother. I trust your wishes will not prosper, and that Providence will only permit petty offenders, poor debtors, and miserable cheats to fall into M. de Villefort’s hands,—then I shall be contented.


Just the same as though you prayed that a physician might only be called upon to prescribe for headaches, measles, and the stings of wasps, or any other slight affection of the epidermis. If you wish to see me the king’s attorney, you must desire for me some of those violent and dangerous diseases from the cure of which so much honor redounds to the physician.


You were wishing just now, that I were a doctor instead of a lawyer. Well, I at least resemble the disciples of Esculapius in one thing , that of not being able to call a day my own, not even that of my betrothal.


And wherefore were you called away just now?


For a very serious matter, which bids fair to make work for the executioner.


How dreadful!


Is it possible?


Why, if my information prove correct, a sort of Bonapartist conspiracy has just been discovered.


Can I believe my ears?


I will read you the letter containing the accusation, at least. The king’s attorney is informed by a friend to the throne and the religious institutions of his country, that one named Edmond Dantès, mate of the ship Pharaon, this day arrived from Smyrna, after having touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo, has been the bearer of a letter from Murat to the usurper, and again taken charge of another letter from the usurper to the Bonapartist club in Paris. Ample corroboration of this statement may be obtained by arresting the above-mentioned Edmond Dantès, who either carries the letter for Paris about with him, or has it at his father’s abode. Should it not be found in the possession of father or son, then it will assuredly be discovered in the cabin belonging to the said Dantès on board the Pharaon.


this letter, which, after all, is but an anonymous scrawl, is not even addressed to you, but to the king’s attorney.


True; but that gentleman being absent, his secretary, by his orders, opened his letters; thinking this one of importance, he sent for me, but not finding me, took upon himself to give the necessary orders for arresting the accused party.


Then the guilty person is absolutely in custody?


Nay, dear mother, say the accused person. You know we cannot yet pronounce him guilty.


He is in safe custody, and rely upon it, if the letter is found, he will not be likely to be trusted abroad again, unless he goes forth under the especial protection of the headsman.


And where is the unfortunate being?


He is at my house.


Come, come, my friend, do not neglect your duty to linger with us. You are the king’s servant, and must go wherever that service calls you.


Oh, Villefort! be merciful on this the day of our betrothal.


To give you pleasure, my sweet Renée, I promise to show all the lenity in my power; but if the charges brought against this Bonapartist hero prove correct, why, then, you really must give me leave to order his head to be cut off.


Never mind that foolish girl, Villefort. She will soon get over these things. Madame de Saint-Méran extended her dry bony hand to Villefort, who, while imprinting a son-in-law’s respectful salute on it, looked at Renée, as much as to say, “I must try and fancy ’tis your dear hand I kiss, as it should have been.”


These are mournful auspices to accompany a betrothal,


Upon my word, child! your folly exceeds all bounds. I should be glad to know what connection there can possibly be between your sickly sentimentality and the affairs of the state!


Oh, mother!


Nay, madame, I pray you pardon this little traitor. I promise you that to make up for her want of loyalty, I will be most inflexibly severe; Fear not, for your dear sake my justice shall be tempered with mercy, departed with paradise in his heart.


Chapter 7. The Examination No sooner had Villefort left the salon, than he assumed the grave air of a man who holds the balance of life and death in his hands. Now, in spite of the nobility of his countenance, the command of which, like a finished actor, he had carefully studied before the glass, it was by no means easy for him to assume an air of judicial severity. Except the recollection of the line of politics his father had adopted, and which might interfere, unless he acted with the greatest prudence, with his own career, Gérard de Villefort was as happy as a man could be. Already rich, he held a high official situation, though only twenty-seven. He was about to marry a young and charming woman, whom he loved, not passionately, but reasonably, as became a deputy attorney of the king; and besides her personal attractions, which were very great, Mademoiselle de Saint-Méran’s family possessed considerable political influence, which they would, of course, exert in his favor. The dowry of his wife amounted to fifty thousand crowns, and he had, besides, the prospect of seeing her fortune increased to half a million at her father’s death. These considerations naturally gave Villefort a feeling of such complete felicity that his mind was fairly dazzled in its contemplation. At the door he met the commissary of police, who was waiting for him. The sight of this officer recalled Villefort from the third heaven to earth; he composed his face, as we have before described, and said, “I have read the letter, sir, and you have acted rightly in arresting this man; now inform me what you have discovered concerning him and the conspiracy.” “We know nothing as yet of the conspiracy, monsieur; all the papers found have been sealed up and placed on your desk. The prisoner himself is named Edmond Dantès, mate on board the three-master the Pharaon, trading in cotton with Alexandria and Smyrna, and belonging to Morrel & Son, of Marseilles.” “Before he entered the merchant service, had he ever served in the marines?” “Oh, no, monsieur, he is very young.” “How old?” “Nineteen or twenty at the most.” At this moment, and as Villefort had arrived at the corner of the Rue des Conseils, a man, who seemed to have been waiting for him, approached; it was M. Morrel.


Ah, M. de Villefort. I am delighted to see you. Some of your people have committed the strangest mistake—they have just arrested Edmond Dantès, mate of my vessel.


I know it, monsieur, and I am now going to examine him.


Oh, you do not know him, and I do. He is the most estimable, the most trustworthy creature in the world, and I will venture to say, there is not a better seaman in all the merchant service. Oh, M. de Villefort, I beseech your indulgence for him.


You are aware, monsieur, that a man may be estimable and trustworthy in private life, and the best seaman in the merchant service, and yet be, politically speaking, a great criminal. Is it not true?


I entreat you, M. de Villefort, be, as you always are, kind and equitable, and give him back to us soon.


Ah, ah, is Dantès then a member of some Carbonari society, that his protector thus employs the collective form? He was, if I recollect, arrested in a tavern, in company with a great many others. Monsieur, you may rest assured I shall perform my duty impartially, and that if he be innocent you shall not have appealed to me in vain; should he, however, be guilty, in this present epoch, impunity would furnish a dangerous example, and I must do my duty.


Bring in the prisoner.


Who and what are you?


My name is Edmond Dantès. I am mate of the Pharaon, belonging to Messrs. Morrel & Son.


Your age?


Nineteen,


What were you doing at the moment you were arrested?


I was at the festival of my marriage, monsieur,


You were at the festival of your marriage?


I am on the point of marrying a young girl I have been attached to for three years.


Go on, sir. What would you have me say? Give all the information in your power.


Tell me on which point you desire information, and I will tell all I know; only. I warn you I know very little.


Have you served under the usurper?


I was about to be mustered into the Royal Marines when he fell.


It is reported your political opinions are extreme,


My political opinions! Alas, sir, I never had any opinions. I am hardly nineteen; I know nothing; I have no part to play. If I obtain the situation I desire, I shall owe it to M. Morrel. Thus all my opinions—I will not say public, but private—are confined to these three sentiments,—I love my father, I respect M. Morrel, and I adore Mercédès. This, sir, is all I can tell you, and you see how uninteresting it is.


Pardieu! he is a noble fellow. I hope I shall gain Renée’s favor easily by obeying the first command she ever imposed on me. I shall have at least a pressure of the hand in public, and a sweet kiss in private. Sir, have you any enemies, at least, that you know.


I have enemies? my position is not sufficiently elevated for that. As for my disposition, that is, perhaps, somewhat too hasty; but I have striven to repress it. I have had ten or twelve sailors under me, and if you question them, they will tell you that they love and respect me, not as a father, for I am too young, but as an elder brother.


But you may have excited jealousy. You are about to become captain at nineteen—an elevated post; you are about to marry a pretty girl, who loves you; and these two pieces of good fortune may have excited the envy of someone.


You are right; you know men better than I do, and what you say may possibly be the case, I confess; but if such persons are among my acquaintances I prefer not to know it, because then I should be forced to hate them.


You are wrong; you should always strive to see clearly around you. You seem a worthy young man; I will depart from the strict line of my duty to aid you in discovering the author of this accusation. Here is the paper; do you know the writing?


No, monsieur, I do not know the writing, and yet it is tolerably plain. Whoever did it writes well. I am very fortunate, to be examined by such a man as you; for this envious person is a real enemy.


Now, answer me frankly, not as a prisoner to a judge, but as one man to another who takes an interest in him, what truth is there in the accusation contained in this anonymous letter?


None at all. I will tell you the real facts. I swear by my honor as a sailor, by my love for Mercédès, by the life of my father——


Speak, monsieur. If Renée could see me, I hope she would be satisfied, and would no longer call me a decapitator.


My dear Dantès, swear to perform what I am going to tell you, for it is a matter of the deepest importance. I swear, captain. Well, as after my death the command devolves on you as mate, assume the command, and bear up for the Island of Elba, disembark at Porto-Ferrajo, ask for the grand-marshal, give him this letter—perhaps they will give you another letter, and charge you with a commission. You will accomplish what I was to have done, and derive all the honor and profit from it. I will do it, captain; but perhaps I shall not be admitted to the grand-marshal’s presence as easily as you expect? Here is a ring that will obtain audience of him, and remove every difficulty. And what did you do then? What I ought to have done, and what everyone would have done in my place. Everywhere the last requests of a dying man are sacred; but with a sailor the last requests of his superior are commands. I sailed for the Island of Elba, where I arrived the next day; I ordered everybody to remain on board, and went on shore alone. As I had expected, I found some difficulty in obtaining access to the grand-marshal; but I sent the ring I had received from the captain to him, and was instantly admitted. He questioned me concerning Captain Leclere’s death; and, as the latter had told me, gave me a letter to carry on to a person in Paris. I undertook it because it was what my captain had bade me do. I landed here, regulated the affairs of the vessel, and hastened to visit my affianced bride, whom I found more lovely than ever. Thanks to M. Morrel, all the forms were got over; in a word I was, as I told you, at my marriage feast; and I should have been married in an hour, and tomorrow I intended to start for Paris, had I not been arrested on this charge which you as well as I now see to be unjust.


Ah, this seems to me the truth. If you have been culpable, it was imprudence, and this imprudence was in obedience to the orders of your captain. Give up this letter you have brought from Elba, and pass your word you will appear should you be required, and go and rejoin your friends.


I am free, then, sir?


Yes; but first give me this letter.


You have it already, for it was taken from me with some others which I see in that packet.


Stop a moment. To whom is it addressed?


To Monsieur Noirtier, Rue Coq-Héron, Paris.


No, a faithful servant of the king does not know conspirators.


It is a conspiracy, then? I have, however, already told you, sir, I was entirely ignorant of the contents of the letter.


Yes; but you knew the name of the person to whom it was addressed.


I was forced to read the address to know to whom to give it.


Have you shown this letter to anyone?


To no one, on my honor.


Everybody is ignorant that you are the bearer of a letter from the Island of Elba, and addressed to M. Noirtier?


Everybody, except the person who gave it to me.


And that was too much, far too much,


Oh, what is the matter? I give you my word of honor, sir, but what is the matter? You are ill—shall I ring for assistance?—shall I call?


No, stay where you are. It is for me to give orders here, and not you.


Monsieur, it was only to summon assistance for you.


I want none; it was a temporary indisposition. Attend to yourself; answer me. Oh, if he knows the contents of this! and that Noirtier is the father of Villefort, I am lost! Oh, it is impossible to doubt it,


In heaven’s name! if you doubt me, question me; I will answer you.


Sir. I am no longer able, as I had hoped, to restore you immediately to liberty; before doing so, I must consult the trial justice; what my own feeling is you already know.


Oh, monsieur, you have been rather a friend than a judge.


Well, I must detain you some time longer, but I will strive to make it as short as possible. The principal charge against you is this letter, and you see——


you are goodness itself.


Listen, you can now have confidence in me after what I have done.


Oh, command, and I will obey.


Listen; this is not a command, but advice I give you.


Speak, and I will follow your advice.


I shall detain you until this evening in the Palais de Justice. Should anyone else interrogate you, say to him what you have said to me, but do not breathe a word of this letter.


I promise.


You see, the letter is destroyed; you and I alone know of its existence; should you, therefore, be questioned, deny all knowledge of it—deny it boldly, and you are saved.


Be satisfied; I will deny it.


It was the only letter you had?


It was.


Swear it.


I swear it.


Follow him. Alas, alas, if the procureur himself had been at Marseilles I should have been ruined. This accursed letter would have destroyed all my hopes. Oh, my father, must your past career always interfere with my successes? This will do, and from this letter, which might have ruined me, I will make my fortune. Now to the work I have in hand.


Are you come to fetch me?


Yes,


By the orders of the deputy procureur?


I believe so.


Is this carriage for me?


It is for you,


Can all this force be summoned on my account?


Whither are you taking me?


You will soon know.


But still——


We are forbidden to give you any explanation.


Comrade. I adjure you, as a Christian and a soldier, to tell me where we are going. I am Captain Dantès, a loyal Frenchman, thought accused of treason; tell me where you are conducting me, and I promise you on my honor I will submit to my fate.


You are a native of Marseilles, and a sailor, and yet you do not know where you are going?


On my honor, I have no idea.


Have you no idea whatever?


None at all.


That is impossible.


I swear to you it is true. Tell me, I entreat.


But my orders.


Your orders do not forbid your telling me what I must know in ten minutes, in half an hour, or an hour. You see I cannot escape, even if I intended.


Unless you are blind, or have never been outside the harbor, you must know.


I do not.


Look round you then.


The Château d’If? what are we going there for? I am not going there to be imprisoned, it is only used for political prisoners. I have committed no crime. Are there any magistrates or judges at the Château d’If?


There are only, a governor, a garrison, turnkeys, and good thick walls. Come, come, do not look so astonished, or you will make me think you are laughing at me in return for my good nature.


You think, then, that I am taken to the Château d’If to be imprisoned there?


It is probable; but there is no occasion to squeeze so hard.


Without any inquiry, without any formality?


All the formalities have been gone through; the inquiry is already made.


And so, in spite of M. de Villefort’s promises?


I do not know what M. de Villefort promised you, but I know we are taking you to the Château d’If. But what are you doing? Help, comrades, help! Good! this is the way you keep your word as a sailor! Believe soft-spoken gentlemen again! Hark ye, my friend, I have disobeyed my first order, but I will not disobey the second; and if you move, I will blow your brains out.


Where is the prisoner?


Here,


Let him follow me; I will take him to his cell.


Go!


Here is your chamber for tonight. It is late, and the governor is asleep. Tomorrow, perhaps, he may change you. In the meantime there is bread, water, and fresh straw; and that is all a prisoner can wish for. Goodnight.


Have you not slept?


I do not know,


Are you hungry?


I do not know.


Do you wish for anything?


I wish to see the governor.


Well, are you more reasonable today? Come, cheer up; is there anything that I can do for you?


I have already told you it was impossible.


Why so?


Because it is against prison rules, and prisoners must not even ask for it.


What is allowed, then?


Better fare, if you pay for it, books, and leave to walk about.


I do not want books, I am satisfied with my food, and do not care to walk about; but I wish to see the governor.


If you worry me by repeating the same thing, I will not bring you any more to eat.


Well, then, if you do not, I shall die of hunger—that is all.


What you ask is impossible; but if you are very well behaved you will be allowed to walk about, and some day you will meet the governor, and if he chooses to reply, that is his affair.


But, how long shall I have to wait?


Ah. Ah, a month—six months—a year.


It is too long a time. I wish to see him at once.


Ah, do not always brood over what is impossible, or you will be mad in a fortnight.


You think so?


Yes; we have an instance here; it was by always offering a million of francs to the governor for his liberty that an abbé became mad, who was in this chamber before you.


How long has he left it?


Two years.


Was he liberated, then?


No; he was put in a dungeon.


Listen! I am not an abbé, I am not mad; perhaps I shall be, but at present, unfortunately, I am not. I will make you another offer.


What is that?


I do not offer you a million, because I have it not; but I will give you a hundred crowns if, the first time you go to Marseilles, you will seek out a young girl named Mercédès, at the Catalans, and give her two lines from me.


If I took them, and were detected, I should lose my place, which is worth two thousand francs a year; so that I should be a great fool to run such a risk for three hundred.


Well, mark this; if you refuse at least to tell Mercédès I am here, I will some day hide myself behind the door, and when you enter I will dash out your brains with this stool.


Threats! you are certainly going mad. The abbé began like you, and in three days you will be like him, mad enough to tie up; but, fortunately, there are dungeons here. All right, all right, all right, since you will have it so. I will send word to the governor.


Very well,


By the governor’s orders, conduct the prisoner to the tier beneath.


To the dungeon, then. Yes; we must put the madman with the madmen.


Well, Decapitator, Guardian of the State, Royalist, Brutus, what is the matter?


Speak out.


Are we threatened with a fresh Reign of Terror?


Has the Corsican ogre broken loose?


Marquise. I request your pardon for thus leaving you. Will the marquis honor me by a few moments’ private conversation?


Ah. Ah, it is really a serious matter, then?


So serious that I must take leave of you for a few days; so, judge for yourself if it be not important.


You are going to leave us?


Alas. I must!


Where, then, are you going?


That, madame, is an official secret; but if you have any commissions for Paris, a friend of mine is going there tonight, and will with pleasure undertake them.


You wish to speak to me alone?


Yes, let us go to the library, please.


Well, tell me what it is?


An affair of the greatest importance, that demands my immediate presence in Paris. Now, excuse the indiscretion, marquis, but have you any landed property?


All my fortune is in the funds; seven or eight hundred thousand francs.


Then sell out—sell out, marquis, or you will lose it all.


But how can I sell out here?


You have a broker, have you not? Yes. Then give me a letter to him, and tell him to sell out without an instant’s delay, perhaps even now I shall arrive too late.


The deuce you say! let us lose no time, then!


Now, then. I must have another! To whom? To the king. To the king? Yes. I dare not write to his majesty. I do not ask you to write to his majesty, but ask M. de Salvieux to do so. I want a letter that will enable me to reach the king’s presence without all the formalities of demanding an audience; that would occasion a loss of precious time. But address yourself to the keeper of the seals; he has the right of entry at the Tuileries, and can procure you audience at any hour of the day or night. Doubtless; but there is no occasion to divide the honors of my discovery with him. The keeper would leave me in the background, and take all the glory to himself. I tell you, marquis, my fortune is made if I only reach the Tuileries the first, for the king will not forget the service I do him. In that case go and get ready. I will call Salvieux and make him write the letter. Be as quick as possible, I must be on the road in a quarter of an hour. Tell your coachman to stop at the door. You will present my excuses to the marquise and Mademoiselle Renée, whom I leave on such a day with great regret. You will find them both here, and can make your farewells in person. A thousand thanks—and now for the letter.


Say to the Comte de Salvieux that I would like to see him. Now, then, go,


I shall be gone only a few moments.


The young man you speak of, is a great criminal, and I can do nothing for him, mademoiselle.


But, at least, tell me where he is, that I may know whether he is alive or dead,


I do not know; he is no longer in my hands.


Ah, you are there,


I have not quitted you since yesterday,


You say, sir——


That I am exceedingly disquieted, sire. Really, have you had a vision of the seven fat kine and the seven lean kine?


No, sire, for that would only betoken for us seven years of plenty and seven years of scarcity; and with a king as full of foresight as your majesty, scarcity is not a thing to be feared.


Then of what other scourge are you afraid, my dear Blacas?


Sire, I have every reason to believe that a storm is brewing in the south.


Well, my dear duke. I think you are wrongly informed, and know positively that, on the contrary, it is very fine weather in that direction.


Canimus surdis, your majesty may be perfectly right in relying on the good feeling of France, but I fear I am not altogether wrong in dreading some desperate attempt.


By whom?


By Bonaparte, or, at least, by his adherents.


My dear Blacas, you with your alarms prevent me from working. Wait, my dear sir, wait a moment; for I have such a delightful note on the Pastor quum traheret—wait, and I will listen to you afterwards.


Go on, my dear duke, go on—I listen.


Sire. I am compelled to tell you that these are not mere rumors destitute of foundation which thus disquiet me; but a serious-minded man, deserving all my confidence, and charged by me to watch over the south has arrived by post to tell me that a great peril threatens the king, and so I hastened to you, sire.


Mala ducis avi domum,


Does your majesty wish me to drop the subject?


By no means, my dear duke; but just stretch out your hand. Which? Whichever you please—there to the left. Here, sire? I tell you to the left, and you are looking to the right; I mean on my left—yes, there. You will find yesterday’s report of the minister of police. But here is M. Dandré himself; Come in, come in, Baron, and tell the duke all you know—the latest news of M. de Bonaparte; do not conceal anything, however serious,—let us see, the Island of Elba is a volcano, and we may expect to have issuing thence flaming and bristling war—bella, horrida bella.


Has your majesty perused yesterday’s report?


Yes, yes; but tell the duke himself, who cannot find anything, what the report contains—give him the particulars of what the usurper is doing in his islet.


Monsieur, all the servants of his majesty must approve of the latest intelligence which we have from the Island of Elba. Bonaparte—— Bonaparte, is mortally wearied, and passes whole days in watching his miners at work at Porto-Longone.


And scratches himself for amusement,


Scratches himself? what does your majesty mean?


Yes, indeed, my dear duke. Did you forget that this great man, this hero, this demigod, is attacked with a malady of the skin which worries him to death, prurigo?


And, moreover, my dear duke, we are almost assured that, in a very short time, the usurper will be insane.


Insane?


Raving mad; his head becomes weaker. Sometimes he weeps bitterly, sometimes laughs boisterously, at other time he passes hours on the seashore, flinging stones in the water and when the flint makes ‘duck-and-drake’ five or six times, he appears as delighted as if he had gained another Marengo or Austerlitz. Now, you must agree that these are indubitable symptoms of insanity.


Or of wisdom, my dear baron—or of wisdom, the greatest captains of antiquity amused themselves by casting pebbles into the ocean—see Plutarch’s life of Scipio Africanus. Blacas is not yet convinced; let us proceed, therefore, to the usurper’s conversion.


The usurper’s conversion! The usurper converted!


Decidedly, my dear duke.


In what way converted?


To good principles. Tell him all about it, baron.


Why, this is the way of it. Napoleon lately had a review, and as two or three of his old veterans expressed a desire to return to France, he gave them their dismissal, and exhorted them to ‘serve the good king.’ These were his own words, of that I am certain.


Well, Blacas, what think you of this?


I say, sire, that the minister of police is greatly deceived or I am; and as it is impossible it can be the minister of police as he has the guardianship of the safety and honor of your majesty, it is probable that I am in error. However, sire, if I might advise, your majesty will interrogate the person of whom I spoke to you, and I will urge your majesty to do him this honor.


Most willingly, duke; under your auspices I will receive any person you please, but you must not expect me to be too confiding. Baron, have you any report more recent than this, dated the 20th February, and this is the 3rd of March?


No, sire, but I am hourly expecting one; it may have arrived since I left my office.


Go thither, and if there be none—well, well, make one; that is the usual way, is it not?


Oh, sire, we have no occasion to invent any; every day our desks are loaded with most circumstantial denunciations, coming from hosts of people who hope for some return for services which they seek to render, but cannot; they trust to fortune, and rely upon some unexpected event in some way to justify their predictions.


Well, sir, go, and remember that I am waiting for you.


I will but go and return, sire; I shall be back in ten minutes.


Wait, sir, wait,


Really, M. de Blacas, I must change your armorial bearings; I will give you an eagle with outstretched wings, holding in its claws a prey which tries in vain to escape, and bearing this device—Tenax.


Sire, I listen,


I wish to consult you on this passage, ‘Molli fugiens anhelitu,’ you know it refers to a stag flying from a wolf. Are you not a sportsman and a great wolf-hunter? Well, then, what do you think of the molli anhelitu?


Admirable, sire; but my messenger is like the stag you refer to, for he has posted two hundred and twenty leagues in scarcely three days.


Which is undergoing great fatigue and anxiety, my dear duke, when we have a telegraph which transmits messages in three or four hours, and that without getting in the least out of breath.


Ah, sire, you recompense but badly this poor young man, who has come so far, and with so much ardor, to give your majesty useful information. If only for the sake of M. de Salvieux, who recommends him to me, I entreat your majesty to receive him graciously.


M. de Salvieux, my brother’s chamberlain?


Yes, sire.


He is at Marseilles.


And writes me thence.


Does he speak to you of this conspiracy? No; but strongly recommends M. de Villefort, and begs me to present him to your majesty. M. de Villefort! is the messenger’s name M. de Villefort? Yes, sire. And he comes from Marseilles? In person. Why did you not mention his name at once? Sire, I thought his name was unknown to your majesty. No, no, Blacas; he is a man of strong and elevated understanding, ambitious, too, and, pardieu! you know his father’s name! His father? Yes, Noirtier. Noirtier the Girondin?—Noirtier the senator? He himself. And your majesty has employed the son of such a man? Blacas, my friend, you have but limited comprehension. I told you Villefort was ambitious, and to attain this ambition Villefort would sacrifice everything, even his father. Then, sire, may I present him? This instant, duke! Where is he? Waiting below, in my carriage. Seek him at once. I hasten to do so. Justum et tenacem propositi virum.


Come in, M. de Villefort, come in. M. de Villefort, the Duc de Blacas assures me you have some interesting information to communicate.


Sire, the duke is right, and I believe your majesty will think it equally important.


In the first place, and before everything else, sir, is the news as bad in your opinion as I am asked to believe?


Sire, I believe it to be most urgent, but I hope, by the speed I have used, that it is not irreparable.


Speak as fully as you please, sir. Speak, sir, and pray begin at the beginning; I like order in everything.


Sire. I will render a faithful report to your majesty, but I must entreat your forgiveness if my anxiety leads to some obscurity in my language. Sire, I have come as rapidly to Paris as possible, to inform your majesty that I have discovered, in the exercise of my duties, not a commonplace and insignificant plot, such as is every day got up in the lower ranks of the people and in the army, but an actual conspiracy—a storm which menaces no less than your majesty’s throne. Sire, the usurper is arming three ships, he meditates some project, which, however mad, is yet, perhaps, terrible. At this moment he will have left Elba, to go whither I know not, but assuredly to attempt a landing either at Naples, or on the coast of Tuscany, or perhaps on the shores of France. Your majesty is well aware that the sovereign of the Island of Elba has maintained his relations with Italy and France?


I am, sir, and recently we have had information that the Bonapartist clubs have had meetings in the Rue Saint-Jacques. But proceed, I beg of you. How did you obtain these details?


Sire, they are the results of an examination which I have made of a man of Marseilles, whom I have watched for some time, and arrested on the day of my departure. This person, a sailor, of turbulent character, and whom I suspected of Bonapartism, has been secretly to the Island of Elba. There he saw the grand-marshal, who charged him with an oral message to a Bonapartist in Paris, whose name I could not extract from him; but this mission was to prepare men’s minds for a return (it is the man who says this, sire)—a return which will soon occur.


And where is this man?


In prison, sire.


And the matter seems serious to you?


So serious, sire, that when the circumstance surprised me in the midst of a family festival, on the very day of my betrothal, I left my bride and friends, postponing everything, that I might hasten to lay at your majesty’s feet the fears which impressed me, and the assurance of my devotion.


True, was there not a marriage engagement between you and Mademoiselle de Saint-Méran?


Daughter of one of your majesty’s most faithful servants.


Yes, yes; but let us talk of this plot, M. de Villefort.


Sire, I fear it is more than a plot; I fear it is a conspiracy.


A conspiracy in these times, is a thing very easy to meditate, but more difficult to conduct to an end, inasmuch as, re-established so recently on the throne of our ancestors, we have our eyes open at once upon the past, the present, and the future. For the last ten months my ministers have redoubled their vigilance, in order to watch the shore of the Mediterranean. If Bonaparte landed at Naples, the whole coalition would be on foot before he could even reach Piombino; if he land in Tuscany, he will be in an unfriendly territory; if he land in France, it must be with a handful of men, and the result of that is easily foretold, execrated as he is by the population. Take courage, sir; but at the same time rely on our royal gratitude. Ah, here is M. Dandré!


Sire,—— Well, what is it? Will you speak? Oh, sire, what a dreadful misfortune! I am, indeed, to be pitied. I can never forgive myself! Monsieur. I command you to speak. Well, sire, the usurper left Elba on the 26th February, and landed on the 1st of March. And where? In Italy? In France, sire,—at a small port, near Antibes, in the Gulf of Juan. The usurper landed in France, near Antibes, in the Gulf of Juan, two hundred and fifty leagues from Paris, on the 1st of March, and you only acquired this information today, the 3rd of March! Well, sir, what you tell me is impossible. You must have received a false report, or you have gone mad. Alas, sire, it is but too true! In France! the usurper in France! Then they did not watch over this man. Who knows? they were, perhaps, in league with him. Oh, sire. M. Dandré is not a man to be accused of treason! Sire, we have all been blind, and the minister of police has shared the general blindness, that is all. But——


Your pardon, sire, my zeal carried me away. Will your majesty deign to excuse me?


Speak, sir, speak boldly. You alone forewarned us of the evil; now try and aid us with the remedy.


Sire, the usurper is detested in the south; and it seems to me that if he ventured into the south, it would be easy to raise Languedoc and Provence against him.


Yes, assuredly, but he is advancing by Gap and Sisteron. Advancing—he is advancing! Is he then advancing on Paris? Then, he was well informed. And how many men had he with him? I do not know, sire. What, you do not know! Have you neglected to obtain information on that point? Of course it is of no consequence. By the telegraph, sire. So then, seven conjoined and allied armies overthrew that man. A miracle of heaven replaced me on the throne of my fathers after five-and-twenty years of exile. I have, during those five-and-twenty years, spared no pains to understand the people of France and the interests which were confided to me; and now, when I see the fruition of my wishes almost within reach, the power I hold in my hands bursts and shatters me to atoms! It is fatality! What our enemies say of us is then true. We have learnt nothing, forgotten nothing! If I were betrayed as he was, I would console myself; but to be in the midst of persons elevated by myself to places of honor, who ought to watch over me more carefully than over themselves,—for my fortune is theirs—before me they were nothing—after me they will be nothing, and perish miserably from incapacity—ineptitude! Oh, yes, sir, you are right—it is fatality! To fall, to fall, and learn of that fall by telegraph! Oh, I would rather mount the scaffold of my brother, Louis XVI., than thus descend the staircase at the Tuileries driven away by ridicule. Ridicule, sir—why, you know not its power in France, and yet you ought to know it! Sire, sire, for pity’s—— Approach, M. de Villefort. Approach, and tell monsieur that it is possible to know beforehand all that he has not known.


Sire, it was really impossible to learn secrets which that man concealed from all the world.


Really impossible! Yes—that is a great word, sir. Unfortunately, there are great words, as there are great men; I have measured them. Really impossible for a minister who has an office, agents, spies, and fifteen hundred thousand francs for secret service money, to know what is going on at sixty leagues from the coast of France! Well, then, see, here is a gentleman who had none of these resources at his disposal—a gentleman, only a simple magistrate, who learned more than you with all your police, and who would have saved my crown, if, like you, he had the power of directing a telegraph. I do not mean that for you, Blacas, for if you have discovered nothing, at least you have had the good sense to persevere in your suspicions. Any other than yourself would have considered the disclosure of M. de Villefort insignificant, or else dictated by venal ambition.


Sire, the suddenness of this event must prove to your majesty that the issue is in the hands of Providence; what your majesty is pleased to attribute to me as profound perspicacity is simply owing to chance, and I have profited by that chance, like a good and devoted servant—that’s all. Do not attribute to me more than I deserve, sire, that your majesty may never have occasion to recall the first opinion you have been pleased to form of me.


’Tis well. And now, gentlemen. I have no further occasion for you, and you may retire; what now remains to do is in the department of the minister of war. Fortunately, sire, we can rely on the army; your majesty knows how every report confirms their loyalty and attachment. Do not mention reports, duke, to me, for I know now what confidence to place in them. Yet, speaking of reports, baron, what have you learned with regard to the affair in the Rue Saint-Jacques?


The affair in the Rue Saint-Jacques! Your pardon, sire, but my devotion to your majesty has made me forget, not the respect I have, for that is too deeply engraved in my heart, but the rules of etiquette.


Go on, go on, sir, you have today earned the right to make inquiries here. I came a moment ago to give your majesty fresh information which I had obtained on this head, when your majesty’s attention was attracted by the terrible event that has occurred in the gulf, and now these facts will cease to interest your majesty. On the contrary, sir,—on the contrary, this affair seems to me to have a decided connection with that which occupies our attention, and the death of General Quesnel will, perhaps, put us on the direct track of a great internal conspiracy.


Do you not think with me, M. de Villefort, that General Quesnel, whom they believed attached to the usurper, but who was really entirely devoted to me, has perished the victim of a Bonapartist ambush?


It is probable, sire. But is this all that is known?


They are on the track of the man who appointed the meeting with him.


On his track?


Yes, the servant has given his description. He is a man of from fifty to fifty-two years of age, dark, with black eyes covered with shaggy eyebrows, and a thick moustache. 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-Héron.


Continue to seek for this man, sir, 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. How strange, the police think that they have disposed of the whole matter when they say, ‘A murder has been committed,’ and especially so when they can add, ‘And we are on the track of the guilty persons.’


Sire, your majesty will, I trust, be amply satisfied on this point at least.


We shall see. I will no longer detain you, M. de Villefort, for you must be fatigued after so long a journey; go and rest. Of course you stopped at your father’s?


No, sire. I alighted at the Hotel de Madrid, in the Rue de Tournon.


But you have seen him?


Sire, I went straight to the Duc de Blacas.


But you will see him, then?


I think not, sire.


Ah, I forgot. I forgot you and M. Noirtier are not on the best terms possible, and that is another sacrifice made to the royal cause, and for which you should be recompensed.


Sire, the kindness your majesty deigns to evince towards me is a recompense which so far surpasses my utmost ambition that I have nothing more to ask for.


Never mind, sir, we will not forget you; make your mind easy. In the meanwhile in the meanwhile take this cross.


Sire, your majesty mistakes; this is an officer’s cross.


Ma foi! take it, such as it is, for I have not the time to procure you another. Blacas, let it be your care to see that the brevet is made out and sent to M. de Villefort.


And now, may I inquire what are the orders with which your majesty deigns to honor me?


Take what rest you require, and remember that if you are not able to serve me here in Paris, you may be of the greatest service to me at Marseilles.


Sire, in an hour I shall have quitted Paris.


Go, sir, and should I forget you (kings’ memories are short), do not be afraid to bring yourself to my recollection. Baron, send for the minister of war. Blacas, remain.


Ah, sir, you entered by luck’s door—your fortune is made.


Will it be long first?


Who could know that I was here already?


Well, what is it?—Who rang?—Who asked for me?


A stranger who will not send in his name.


A stranger who will not send in his name! What can he want with me?


He wishes to speak to you.


To me?


Yes.


Did he mention my name?


What sort of person is he?


Why, sir, a man of about fifty.


Short or tall?


About your own height, sir.


Dark or fair?


Dark,—very dark; with black eyes, black hair, black eyebrows.


And how dressed?


In a blue frock-coat, buttoned up close, decorated with the Legion of Honor.


It is he!


Eh, pardieu! what a great deal of ceremony! Is it the custom in Marseilles for sons to keep their fathers waiting in their anterooms?


Father! then I was not deceived; I felt sure it must be you.


Well, then, if you felt so sure, allow me to say, my dear Gérard, that it was not very filial of you to keep me waiting at the door.


Leave us, Germain,


Well, now, my dear Gérard, do you know, you seem as if you were not very glad to see me?


My dear father. I am, on the contrary, delighted; but I so little expected your visit, that it has somewhat overcome me.


But, my dear fellow. I might say the same thing to you, when you announce to me your wedding for the 28th of February, and on the 3rd of March you turn up here in Paris.


And if I have come, my dear father, do not complain, for it is for you that I came, and my journey will be your salvation.


Ah, indeed! Really, pray tell me all about it, for it must be interesting.


Father, you have heard speak of a certain Bonapartist club in the Rue Saint-Jacques?


No. 53; yes, I am vice-president.


Father, your coolness makes me shudder.


Why, my dear boy, when a man has been proscribed by the mountaineers, has escaped from Paris in a hay-cart, been hunted over the plains of Bordeaux by Robespierre’s bloodhounds, he becomes accustomed to most things. But go on, what about the club in the Rue Saint-Jacques?


Why, they induced General Quesnel to go there, and General Quesnel, who quitted his own house at nine o’clock in the evening, was found the next day in the Seine.


And who told you this fine story?


The king himself.


Well, then, in return for your story. I will tell you another.


My dear father, I think I already know what you are about to tell me.


Ah, you have heard of the landing of the emperor?


Not so loud, father, I entreat of you—for your own sake as well as mine. Yes, I heard this news, and knew it even before you could; for three days ago I posted from Marseilles to Paris with all possible speed, half-desperate at the enforced delay.


Three days ago? You are crazy. Why, three days ago the emperor had not landed.


No matter, I was aware of his intention.


How did you know about it?


By a letter addressed to you from the Island of Elba.


To me?


To you; and which I discovered in the pocket-book of the messenger. Had that letter fallen into the hands of another, you, my dear father, would probably ere this have been shot.


Come, come, will the Restoration adopt imperial methods so promptly? Shot, my dear boy? What an idea! Where is the letter you speak of? I know you too well to suppose you would allow such a thing to pass you.


I burnt it, for fear that even a fragment should remain; for that letter must have led to your condemnation.


And the destruction of your future prospects, yes, I can easily comprehend that. But I have nothing to fear while I have you to protect me.


I do better than that, sir—I save you.


You do? Why, really, the thing becomes more and more dramatic—explain yourself.


I must refer again to the club in the Rue Saint-Jacques.


It appears that this club is rather a bore to the police. Why didn’t they search more vigilantly? they would have found——


They have not found; but they are on the track.


Yes, that the usual phrase; I am quite familiar with it. When the police is at fault, it declares that it is on the track; and the government patiently awaits the day when it comes to say, with a sneaking air, that the track is lost.


Yes, but they have found a corpse; the general has been killed, and in all countries they call that a murder.