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
Dantes, 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 Dantes on board the Pharaon.'"
"But," said Renee, "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?" said the marquise.
"Nay, dear mother, say the accused person. You know we cannot yet
pronounce him guilty."
"He is in safe custody," answered Villefort; "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?" asked Renee.
"He is at my house."
"Come, come, my friend," interrupted the marquise, "do not neglect your
duty to linger with us. You are the king's servant, and must go wherever
that service calls you."
"O Villefort!" cried Renee, clasping her hands, and looking towards
her lover with piteous earnestness, "be merciful on this the day of our
betrothal."
The young man passed round to the side of the table where the fair
pleader sat, and leaning over her chair said tenderly,--
"To give you pleasure, my sweet Renee, 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." Renee shuddered.
"Never mind that foolish girl, Villefort," said the marquise. "She will
soon get over these things." So saying, Madame de Saint-Meran extended
her dry bony hand to Villefort, who, while imprinting a son-in-law's
respectful salute on it, looked at Renee, 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," sighed poor
Renee.
"Upon my word, child!" exclaimed the angry marquise, "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!"
"O mother!" murmured Renee.
"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;"
then casting an expressive glance at his betrothed, which seemed to say,
"Fear not, for your dear sake my justice shall be tempered with mercy,"
and receiving a sweet and approving smile in return, Villefort quitted
the room.
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, Gerard 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-Meran'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 Dantes, 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," cried he, "I am delighted to see you. Some
of your people have committed the strangest mistake--they have just
arrested Edmond Dantes, mate of my vessel."
"I know it, monsieur," replied Villefort, "and I am now going to examine
him."
"Oh," said Morrel, carried away by his friendship, "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."
Villefort, as we have seen, belonged to the aristocratic party at
Marseilles, Morrel to the plebeian; the first was a royalist, the other
suspected of Bonapartism. Villefort looked disdainfully at Morrel, and
replied,--
"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?"
The magistrate laid emphasis on these words, as if he wished to apply
them to the owner himself, while his eyes seemed to plunge into
the heart of one who, interceding for another, had himself need of
indulgence. Morrel reddened, for his own conscience was not quite clear
on politics; besides, what Dantes had told him of his interview with the
grand-marshal, and what the emperor had said to him, embarrassed him. He
replied, however,--
"I entreat you, M. de Villefort, be, as you always are, kind and
equitable, and give him back to us soon." This give us sounded
revolutionary in the deputy's ears.
"Ah, ah," murmured he, "is Dantes 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."
Then he added, "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."
As he had now arrived at the door of his own house, which adjoined
the Palais de Justice, he entered, after having, coldly saluted the
shipowner, who stood, as if petrified, on the spot where Villefort had
left him. The ante-chamber was full of police agents and gendarmes, in
the midst of whom, carefully watched, but calm and smiling, stood the
prisoner. Villefort traversed the ante-chamber, cast a side glance at
Dantes, and taking a packet which a gendarme offered him, disappeared,
saying, "Bring in the prisoner."
Rapid as had been Villefort's glance, it had served to give him an idea
of the man he was about to interrogate. He had recognized intelligence
in the high forehead, courage in the dark eye and bent brow, and
frankness in the thick lips that showed a set of pearly teeth.
Villefort's first impression was favorable; but he had been so often
warned to mistrust first impulses, that he applied the maxim to the
impression, forgetting the difference between the two words. He stifled,
therefore, the feelings of compassion that were rising, composed his
features, and sat down, grim and sombre, at his desk. An instant after
Dantes entered. He was pale, but calm and collected, and saluting his
judge with easy politeness, looked round for a seat, as if he had been
in M. Morrel's salon. It was then that he encountered for the first
time Villefort's look,--that look peculiar to the magistrate, who, while
seeming to read the thoughts of others, betrays nothing of his own.
"Who and what are you?" demanded Villefort, turning over a pile of
papers, containing information relative to the prisoner, that a police
agent had given to him on his entry, and that, already, in an hour's
time, had swelled to voluminous proportions, thanks to the corrupt
espionage of which "the accused" is always made the victim.
"My name is Edmond Dantes," replied the young man calmly; "I am mate of
the Pharaon, belonging to Messrs. Morrel & Son."
"Your age?" continued Villefort.
"Nineteen," returned Dantes.
"What were you doing at the moment you were arrested?"
"I was at the festival of my marriage, monsieur," said the young man,
his voice slightly tremulous, so great was the contrast between that
happy moment and the painful ceremony he was now undergoing; so great
was the contrast between the sombre aspect of M. de Villefort and the
radiant face of Mercedes.
"You were at the festival of your marriage?" said the deputy, shuddering
in spite of himself.
"Yes, monsieur; I am on the point of marrying a young girl I have been
attached to for three years." Villefort, impassive as he was, was struck
with this coincidence; and the tremulous voice of Dantes, surprised
in the midst of his happiness, struck a sympathetic chord in his own
bosom--he also was on the point of being married, and he was summoned
from his own happiness to destroy that of another. "This philosophic
reflection," thought he, "will make a great sensation at M. de
Saint-Meran's;" and he arranged mentally, while Dantes awaited further
questions, the antithesis by which orators often create a reputation for
eloquence. When this speech was arranged, Villefort turned to Dantes.
"Go on, sir," said he.
"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," added he, with a smile, "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," said Villefort,
who had never heard anything of the kind, but was not sorry to make this
inquiry, as if it were an accusation.
"My political opinions!" replied Dantes. "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 Mercedes. This, sir, is all I can tell you, and you see how
uninteresting it is." As Dantes spoke, Villefort gazed at his ingenuous
and open countenance, and recollected the words of Renee, who, without
knowing who the culprit was, had besought his indulgence for him. With
the deputy's knowledge of crime and criminals, every word the young man
uttered convinced him more and more of his innocence. This lad, for he
was scarcely a man,--simple, natural, eloquent with that eloquence of
the heart never found when sought for; full of affection for everybody,
because he was happy, and because happiness renders even the wicked
good--extended his affection even to his judge, spite of Villefort's
severe look and stern accent. Dantes seemed full of kindness.
"Pardieu," said Villefort, "he is a noble fellow. I hope I shall gain
Renee'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." Full of this idea, Villefort's face became so joyous,
that when he turned to Dantes, the latter, who had watched the change on
his physiognomy, was smiling also.
"Sir," said Villefort, "have you any enemies, at least, that you know."
"I have enemies?" replied Dantes; "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 some one."
