if shaped for their mutual advantage. But the inflexibility of the
procureur should stop there; she would see him the next day, and if she
could not make him fail in his duties as a magistrate, she would, at
least, obtain all the indulgence he could allow. She would invoke
the past, recall old recollections; she would supplicate him by the
remembrance of guilty, yet happy days. M. de Villefort would stifle the
affair; he had only to turn his eyes on one side, and allow Andrea to
fly, and follow up the crime under that shadow of guilt called contempt
of court. And after this reasoning she slept easily.
At nine o'clock next morning she arose, and without ringing for her maid
or giving the least sign of her activity, she dressed herself in the
same simple style as on the previous night; then running down-stairs,
she left the hotel, walked to the Rue de Provence, called a cab, and
drove to M. de Villefort's house. For the last month this wretched house
had presented the gloomy appearance of a lazaretto infected with the
plague. Some of the apartments were closed within and without; the
shutters were only opened to admit a minute's air, showing the scared
face of a footman, and immediately afterwards the window would be
closed, like a gravestone falling on a sepulchre, and the neighbors
would say to each other in a low voice, "Will there be another funeral
to-day at the procureur's house?" Madame Danglars involuntarily
shuddered at the desolate aspect of the mansion; descending from the
cab, she approached the door with trembling knees, and rang the bell.
Three times did the bell ring with a dull, heavy sound, seeming to
participate, in the general sadness, before the concierge appeared and
peeped through the door, which he opened just wide enough to allow his
words to be heard. He saw a lady, a fashionable, elegantly dressed lady,
and yet the door remained almost closed.
"Do you intend opening the door?" said the baroness.
"First, madame, who are you?"
"Who am I? You know me well enough."
"We no longer know any one, madame."
"You must be mad, my friend," said the baroness.
"Where do you come from?"
"Oh, this is too much!"
"Madame, these are my orders; excuse me. Your name?"
"The baroness Danglars; you have seen me twenty times."
"Possibly, madame. And now, what do you want?"
"Oh, how extraordinary! I shall complain to M. de Villefort of the
impertinence of his servants."
"Madame, this is precaution, not impertinence; no one enters here
without an order from M. d'Avrigny, or without speaking to the
procureur."
"Well, I have business with the procureur."
"Is it pressing business?"
"You can imagine so, since I have not even brought my carriage out yet.
But enough of this--here is my card, take it to your master."
"Madame will await my return?"
"Yes; go." The concierge closed the door, leaving Madame Danglars in
the street. She had not long to wait; directly afterwards the door was
opened wide enough to admit her, and when she had passed through, it was
again shut. Without losing sight of her for an instant, the concierge
took a whistle from his pocket as soon as they entered the court, and
blew it. The valet de chambre appeared on the door-steps. "You will
excuse this poor fellow, madame," he said, as he preceded the baroness,
"but his orders are precise, and M. de Villefort begged me to tell you
that he could not act otherwise."
In the court showing his merchandise, was a tradesman who had been
admitted with the same precautions. The baroness ascended the steps; she
felt herself strongly infected with the sadness which seemed to magnify
her own, and still guided by the valet de chambre, who never lost sight
of her for an instant, she was introduced to the magistrate's study.
Preoccupied as Madame Danglars had been with the object of her visit,
the treatment she had received from these underlings appeared to her so
insulting, that she began by complaining of it. But Villefort, raising
his head, bowed down by grief, looked up at her with so sad a smile that
her complaints died upon her lips. "Forgive my servants," he said, "for
a terror I cannot blame them for; from being suspected they have become
suspicious."
Madame Danglars had often heard of the terror to which the magistrate
alluded, but without the evidence of her own eyesight she could never
have believed that the sentiment had been carried so far. "You too,
then, are unhappy?" she said. "Yes, madame," replied the magistrate.
"Then you pity me!"
"Sincerely, madame."
"And you understand what brings me here?"
"You wish to speak to me about the circumstance which has just
happened?"
"Yes, sir,--a fearful misfortune."
"You mean a mischance."
"A mischance?" repeated the baroness.
"Alas, madame," said the procureur with his imperturbable calmness of
manner, "I consider those alone misfortunes which are irreparable."
"And do you suppose this will be forgotten?"
"Everything will be forgotten, madame," said Villefort. "Your daughter
will be married to-morrow, if not to-day--in a week, if not to-morrow;
and I do not think you can regret the intended husband of your
daughter."
Madame Danglars gazed on Villefort, stupefied to find him so almost
insultingly calm. "Am I come to a friend?" she asked in a tone full of
mournful dignity. "You know that you are, madame," said Villefort, whose
pale cheeks became slightly flushed as he gave her the assurance. And
truly this assurance carried him back to different events from those now
occupying the baroness and him. "Well, then, be more affectionate, my
dear Villefort," said the baroness. "Speak to me not as a magistrate,
but as a friend; and when I am in bitter anguish of spirit, do not tell
me that I ought to be gay." Villefort bowed. "When I hear misfortunes
named, madame," he said, "I have within the last few months contracted
the bad habit of thinking of my own, and then I cannot help drawing up
an egotistical parallel in my mind. That is the reason that by the side
of my misfortunes yours appear to me mere mischances; that is why my
dreadful position makes yours appear enviable. But this annoys you; let
us change the subject. You were saying, madame"--
"I came to ask you, my friend," said the baroness, "what will be done
with this impostor?"
"Impostor," repeated Villefort; "certainly, madame, you appear to
extenuate some cases, and exaggerate others. Impostor, indeed!--M.
Andrea Cavalcanti, or rather M. Benedetto, is nothing more nor less than
an assassin!"
"Sir, I do not deny the justice of your correction, but the more
severely you arm yourself against that unfortunate man, the more deeply
will you strike our family. Come, forget him for a moment, and instead
of pursuing him let him go."
"You are too late, madame; the orders are issued."
"Well, should he be arrested--do they think they will arrest him?"
"I hope so."
"If they should arrest him (I know that sometimes prisoners afford means
of escape), will you leave him in prison?"--The procureur shook his
head. "At least keep him there till my daughter be married."
"Impossible, madame; justice has its formalities."
"What, even for me?" said the baroness, half jesting, half in earnest.
"For all, even for myself among the rest," replied Villefort.
"Ah," exclaimed the baroness, without expressing the ideas which the
exclamation betrayed. Villefort looked at her with that piercing glance
which reads the secrets of the heart. "Yes, I know what you mean," he
said; "you refer to the terrible rumors spread abroad in the world, that
the deaths which have kept me in mourning for the last three months, and
from which Valentine has only escaped by a miracle, have not happened by
natural means."
"I was not thinking of that," replied Madame Danglars quickly. "Yes, you
were thinking of it, and with justice. You could not help thinking of
it, and saying to yourself, 'you, who pursue crime so vindictively,
answer now, why are there unpunished crimes in your dwelling?'" The
baroness became pale. "You were saying this, were you not?"
"Well, I own it."
"I will answer you."
Villefort drew his armchair nearer to Madame Danglars; then resting both
hands upon his desk he said in a voice more hollow than usual: "There
are crimes which remain unpunished because the criminals are unknown,
and we might strike the innocent instead of the guilty; but when the
culprits are discovered" (Villefort here extended his hand toward a
large crucifix placed opposite to his desk)--"when they are discovered,
I swear to you, by all I hold most sacred, that whoever they may be they
shall die. Now, after the oath I have just taken, and which I will keep,
madame, dare you ask for mercy for that wretch!"
"But, sir, are you sure he is as guilty as they say?"
"Listen; this is his description: 'Benedetto, condemned, at the age of
sixteen, for five years to the galleys for forgery.' He promised well,
as you see--first a runaway, then an assassin."
"And who is this wretch?"
"Who can tell?--a vagabond, a Corsican."
"Has no one owned him?"
"No one; his parents are unknown."
"But who was the man who brought him from Lucca?"
"Another rascal like himself, perhaps his accomplice." The baroness
clasped her hands. "Villefort," she exclaimed in her softest and most
captivating manner.
"For heaven's sake, madame," said Villefort, with a firmness of
expression not altogether free from harshness--"for heaven's sake, do
not ask pardon of me for a guilty wretch! What am I?--the law. Has the
law any eyes to witness your grief? Has the law ears to be melted by
your sweet voice? Has the law a memory for all those soft recollections
you endeavor to recall? No, madame; the law has commanded, and when it
commands it strikes. You will tell me that I am a living being, and not
a code--a man, and not a volume. Look at me, madame--look around me.
Have mankind treated me as a brother? Have they loved me? Have they
spared me? Has any one shown the mercy towards me that you now ask at my
hands? No, madame, they struck me, always struck me!
"Woman, siren that you are, do you persist in fixing on me that
fascinating eye, which reminds me that I ought to blush? Well, be it so;
let me blush for the faults you know, and perhaps--perhaps for even
more than those! But having sinned myself,--it may be more deeply
than others,--I never rest till I have torn the disguises from my
fellow-creatures, and found out their weaknesses. I have always found
them; and more,--I repeat it with joy, with triumph,--I have always
found some proof of human perversity or error. Every criminal I condemn
seems to me living evidence that I am not a hideous exception to the
rest. Alas, alas, alas; all the world is wicked; let us therefore strike
at wickedness!"
Villefort pronounced these last words with a feverish rage, which gave a
ferocious eloquence to his words.
"But"' said Madame Danglars, resolving to make a last effort, "this
young man, though a murderer, is an orphan, abandoned by everybody."
"So much the worse, or rather, so much the better; it has been so
ordained that he may have none to weep his fate."
"But this is trampling on the weak, sir."
"The weakness of a murderer!"
"His dishonor reflects upon us."
"Is not death in my house?"
"Oh, sir," exclaimed the baroness, "you are without pity for others,
well, then, I tell you they will have no mercy on you!"
"Be it so!" said Villefort, raising his arms to heaven.
"At least, delay the trial till the next assizes; we shall then have six
months before us."
"No, madame," said Villefort; "instructions have been given. There are
yet five days left; five days are more than I require. Do you not think
that I also long for forgetfulness? While working night and day, I
sometimes lose all recollection of the past, and then I experience the
same sort of happiness I can imagine the dead feel; still, it is better
than suffering."
"But, sir, he has fled; let him escape--inaction is a pardonable
offence."
"I tell you it is too late; early this morning the telegraph was
employed, and at this very minute"--
"Sir," said the valet de chambre, entering the room, "a dragoon has
brought this despatch from the minister of the interior." Villefort
seized the letter, and hastily broke the seal. Madame Danglars trembled
with fear; Villefort started with joy. "Arrested!" he exclaimed; "he
was taken at Compiegne, and all is over." Madame Danglars rose from her
seat, pale and cold. "Adieu, sir," she said. "Adieu, madame," replied
the king's attorney, as in an almost joyful manner he conducted her to
the door. Then, turning to his desk, he said, striking the letter with
the back of his right hand, "Come, I had a forgery, three robberies, and
two cases of arson, I only wanted a murder, and here it is. It will be a
splendid session!"
Chapter 100. The Apparition.
As the procureur had told Madame Danglars, Valentine was not yet
recovered. Bowed down with fatigue, she was indeed confined to her bed;
and it was in her own room, and from the lips of Madame de Villefort,
that she heard all the strange events we have related,--we mean the
