that house. Well, now listen."
"We are listening."
"It appears the dear child has obtained possession of a bottle
containing some drug, which he every now and then uses against those who
have displeased him. First, M. and Madame de Saint-Meran incurred his
displeasure, so he poured out three drops of his elixir--three drops
were sufficient; then followed Barrois, the old servant of M. Noirtier,
who sometimes rebuffed this little wretch--he therefore received the
same quantity of the elixir; the same happened to Valentine, of whom he
was jealous; he gave her the same dose as the others, and all was over
for her as well as the rest."
"Why, what nonsense are you telling us?" said Chateau-Renaud.
"Yes, it is an extraordinary story," said Beauchamp; "is it not?"
"It is absurd," said Debray.
"Ah," said Beauchamp, "you doubt me? Well, you can ask my servant, or
rather him who will no longer be my servant to-morrow, it was the talk
of the house."
"And this elixir, where is it? what is it?"
"The child conceals it."
"But where did he find it?"
"In his mother's laboratory."
"Does his mother then, keep poisons in her laboratory?"
"How can I tell? You are questioning me like a king's attorney. I only
repeat what I have been told, and like my informant I can do no more.
The poor devil would eat nothing, from fear."
"It is incredible!"
"No, my dear fellow, it is not at all incredible. You saw the child pass
through the Rue Richelieu last year, who amused himself with killing his
brothers and sisters by sticking pins in their ears while they slept.
The generation who follow us are very precocious."
"Come, Beauchamp," said Chateau-Renaud, "I will bet anything you do not
believe a word of all you have been telling us."
"I do not see the Count of Monte Cristo here."
"He is worn out," said Debray; "besides, he could not well appear in
public, since he has been the dupe of the Cavalcanti, who, it appears,
presented themselves to him with false letters of credit, and cheated
him out of 100,000. francs upon the hypothesis of this principality."
"By the way, M. de Chateau-Renaud," asked Beauchamp, "how is Morrel?"
"Ma foi, I have called three times without once seeing him. Still, his
sister did not seem uneasy, and told me that though she had not seen him
for two or three days, she was sure he was well."
"Ah, now I think of it, the Count of Monte Cristo cannot appear in the
hall," said Beauchamp.
"Why not?"
"Because he is an actor in the drama."
"Has he assassinated any one, then?"
"No, on the contrary, they wished to assassinate him. You know that
it was in leaving his house that M. de Caderousse was murdered by his
friend Benedetto. You know that the famous waistcoat was found in
his house, containing the letter which stopped the signature of
the marriage-contract. Do you see the waistcoat? There it is, all
blood-stained, on the desk, as a testimony of the crime."
"Ah, very good."
"Hush, gentlemen, here is the court; let us go back to our places." A
noise was heard in the hall; the sergeant called his two patrons with
an energetic "hem!" and the door-keeper appearing, called out with that
shrill voice peculiar to his order, ever since the days of Beaumarchais,
"The court, gentlemen!"
Chapter 110. The Indictment.
The judges took their places in the midst of the most profound silence;
the jury took their seats; M. de Villefort, the object of unusual
attention, and we had almost said of general admiration, sat in the
arm-chair and cast a tranquil glance around him. Every one looked
with astonishment on that grave and severe face, whose calm expression
personal griefs had been unable to disturb, and the aspect of a man who
was a stranger to all human emotions excited something very like terror.
"Gendarmes," said the president, "lead in the accused."
At these words the public attention became more intense, and all eyes
were turned towards the door through which Benedetto was to enter.
The door soon opened and the accused appeared. The same impression was
experienced by all present, and no one was deceived by the expression
of his countenance. His features bore no sign of that deep emotion
which stops the beating of the heart and blanches the cheek. His hands,
gracefully placed, one upon his hat, the other in the opening of his
white waistcoat, were not at all tremulous; his eye was calm and even
brilliant. Scarcely had he entered the hall when he glanced at the
whole body of magistrates and assistants; his eye rested longer on the
president, and still more so on the king's attorney. By the side of
Andrea was stationed the lawyer who was to conduct his defence, and
who had been appointed by the court, for Andrea disdained to pay
any attention to those details, to which he appeared to attach no
importance. The lawyer was a young man with light hair whose face
expressed a hundred times more emotion than that which characterized the
prisoner.
The president called for the indictment, revised as we know, by the
clever and implacable pen of Villefort. During the reading of this,
which was long, the public attention was continually drawn towards
Andrea, who bore the inspection with Spartan unconcern. Villefort had
never been so concise and eloquent. The crime was depicted in the most
vivid colors; the former life of the prisoner, his transformation, a
review of his life from the earliest period, were set forth with all the
talent that a knowledge of human life could furnish to a mind like that
of the procureur. Benedetto was thus forever condemned in public opinion
before the sentence of the law could be pronounced. Andrea paid no
attention to the successive charges which were brought against him. M.
de Villefort, who examined him attentively, and who no doubt practiced
upon him all the psychological studies he was accustomed to use, in vain
endeavored to make him lower his eyes, notwithstanding the depth and
profundity of his gaze. At length the reading of the indictment was
ended.
"Accused," said the president, "your name and surname?" Andrea arose.
"Excuse me, Mr. President," he said, in a clear voice, "but I see you
are going to adopt a course of questions through which I cannot follow
you. I have an idea, which I will explain by and by, of making an
exception to the usual form of accusation. Allow me, then, if you
please, to answer in different order, or I will not do so at all."
The astonished president looked at the jury, who in turn looked at
Villefort. The whole assembly manifested great surprise, but Andrea
appeared quite unmoved. "Your age?" said the president; "will you answer
that question?"
"I will answer that question, as well as the rest, Mr. President, but in
its turn."
"Your age?" repeated the president.
"I am twenty-one years old, or rather I shall be in a few days, as I was
born the night of the 27th of September, 1817." M. de Villefort, who
was busy taking down some notes, raised his head at the mention of this
date. "Where were you born?" continued the president.
"At Auteuil, near Paris." M. de Villefort a second time raised his head,
looked at Benedetto as if he had been gazing at the head of Medusa, and
became livid. As for Benedetto, he gracefully wiped his lips with a fine
cambric pocket-handkerchief. "Your profession?"
"First I was a forger," answered Andrea, as calmly as possible; "then I
became a thief, and lately have become an assassin." A murmur, or rather
storm, of indignation burst from all parts of the assembly. The judges
themselves appeared to be stupefied, and the jury manifested tokens of
disgust for cynicism so unexpected in a man of fashion. M. de Villefort
pressed his hand upon his brow, which, at first pale, had become red and
burning; then he suddenly arose and looked around as though he had lost
his senses--he wanted air.
"Are you looking for anything, Mr. Procureur?" asked Benedetto, with his
most ingratiating smile. M. de Villefort answered nothing, but sat, or
rather threw himself down again upon his chair. "And now, prisoner,
will you consent to tell your name?" said the president. "The brutal
affectation with which you have enumerated and classified your crimes
calls for a severe reprimand on the part of the court, both in the name
of morality, and for the respect due to humanity. You appear to consider
this a point of honor, and it may be for this reason, that you have
delayed acknowledging your name. You wished it to be preceded by all
these titles."
"It is quite wonderful, Mr. President, how entirely you have read my
thoughts," said Benedetto, in his softest voice and most polite manner.
"This is, indeed, the reason why I begged you to alter the order of the
questions." The public astonishment had reached its height. There was no
longer any deceit or bravado in the manner of the accused. The audience
felt that a startling revelation was to follow this ominous prelude.
"Well," said the president; "your name?"
"I cannot tell you my name, since I do not know it; but I know my
father's, and can tell it to you."
A painful giddiness overwhelmed Villefort; great drops of acrid sweat
fell from his face upon the papers which he held in his convulsed hand.
"Repeat your father's name," said the president. Not a whisper, not a
breath, was heard in that vast assembly; every one waited anxiously.
"My father is king's attorney," replied Andrea calmly.
"King's attorney?" said the president, stupefied, and without noticing
the agitation which spread over the face of M. de Villefort; "king's
attorney?"
"Yes; and if you wish to know his name, I will tell it,--he is named
Villefort." The explosion, which had been so long restrained from a
feeling of respect to the court of justice, now burst forth like thunder
from the breasts of all present; the court itself did not seek to
restrain the feelings of the audience. The exclamations, the insults
addressed to Benedetto, who remained perfectly unconcerned, the
energetic gestures, the movement of the gendarmes, the sneers of the
scum of the crowd always sure to rise to the surface in case of any
disturbance--all this lasted five minutes, before the door-keepers and
magistrates were able to restore silence. In the midst of this tumult
the voice of the president was heard to exclaim,--"Are you playing with
justice, accused, and do you dare set your fellow-citizens an example of
disorder which even in these times has never been equalled?"
Several persons hurried up to M. de Villefort, who sat half bowed over
in his chair, offering him consolation, encouragement, and protestations
of zeal and sympathy. Order was re-established in the hall, except that
a few people still moved about and whispered to one another. A lady,
it was said, had just fainted; they had supplied her with a
smelling-bottle, and she had recovered. During the scene of tumult,
Andrea had turned his smiling face towards the assembly; then, leaning
with one hand on the oaken rail of the dock, in the most graceful
attitude possible, he said: "Gentlemen, I assure you I had no idea of
insulting the court, or of making a useless disturbance in the presence
of this honorable assembly. They ask my age; I tell it. They ask where I
was born; I answer. They ask my name, I cannot give it, since my parents
abandoned me. But though I cannot give my own name, not possessing one,
I can tell them my father's. Now I repeat, my father is named M. de
Villefort, and I am ready to prove it."
There was an energy, a conviction, and a sincerity in the manner of the
young man, which silenced the tumult. All eyes were turned for a moment
towards the procureur, who sat as motionless as though a thunderbolt had
changed him into a corpse. "Gentlemen," said Andrea, commanding silence
by his voice and manner; "I owe you the proofs and explanations of what
I have said."
"But," said the irritated president, "you called yourself Benedetto,
declared yourself an orphan, and claimed Corsica as your country."
"I said anything I pleased, in order that the solemn declaration I have
just made should not be withheld, which otherwise would certainly have
been the case. I now repeat that I was born at Auteuil on the night of
the 27th of September, 1817, and that I am the son of the procureur, M.
de Villefort. Do you wish for any further details? I will give them. I
was born in No. 28, Rue de la Fontaine, in a room hung with red damask;
my father took me in his arms, telling my mother I was dead, wrapped
me in a napkin marked with an H and an N, and carried me into a garden,
where he buried me alive."
A shudder ran through the assembly when they saw that the confidence of
the prisoner increased in proportion to the terror of M. de Villefort.
"But how have you become acquainted with all these details?" asked the
president.
"I will tell you, Mr. President. A man who had sworn vengeance against
my father, and had long watched his opportunity to kill him, had
introduced himself that night into the garden in which my father buried
me. He was concealed in a thicket; he saw my father bury something in
the ground, and stabbed him; then thinking the deposit might contain
some treasure he turned up the ground, and found me still living. The
man carried me to the foundling asylum, where I was registered under the
number 37. Three months afterwards, a woman travelled from Rogliano to
Paris to fetch me, and having claimed me as her son, carried me away.
