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!" replied M. Morrel. "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 Dantes 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 owner
would have his preference also."
"The hypocrite!" murmured Danglars.
"Poor Dantes!" said Caderousse. "No one can deny his being a
noble-hearted young fellow."
"But meanwhile," continued M. Morrel, "here is the Pharaon without a
captain."
"Oh," replied Danglars, "since we cannot leave this port for the next
three months, let us hope that ere the expiration of that period Dantes
will be set at liberty."
"No doubt; but in the meantime?"
"I am entirely at your service, M. Morrel," answered Danglars. "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 Dantes 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," replied Danglars; "but I hear that he is ambitious, and
that's rather against him."
"Well, well," returned M. Morrel, "we shall see. But now hasten on
board, I will join you there ere long." So saying, the worthy shipowner
quitted the two allies, and proceeded in the direction of the Palais de
Justice.
"You see," said Danglars, addressing Caderousse, "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," replied Caderousse, "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."
"Well, then, if you did, depend upon it, Fernand picked it up, and
either copied it or caused it to be copied; perhaps, even, he did not
take the trouble of recopying it. And now I think of it, by Heavens, he
may have sent the letter itself! Fortunately, for me, the handwriting
was disguised."
"Then you were aware of Dantes 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," argued Caderousse, "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!" responded Caderousse, waving his hand in token of adieu to
Danglars, and bending his steps towards the Allees de Meillan, moving
his head to and fro, and muttering as he went, after the manner of one
whose mind was overcharged with one absorbing idea.
"So far, then," said Danglars, mentally, "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 Dantes being released.
But, there, he is in the hands of Justice; and," added he with a smile,
"she will take her own." So saying, he leaped into a boat, desiring to
be rowed on board the Pharaon, where M. Morrel had agreed to meet him.
Chapter 6. The Deputy Procureur du Roi.
In one of the aristocratic mansions built by Puget in the Rue du Grand
Cours opposite the Medusa fountain, a second marriage feast was being
celebrated, almost at the same hour with the nuptial repast given
by Dantes. In this case, however, although the occasion of the
entertainment was similar, the company was strikingly dissimilar.
Instead of a rude mixture of sailors, soldiers, and those belonging to
the humblest grade of life, the present assembly was composed of the
very flower of Marseilles society,--magistrates who had resigned their
office during the usurper's reign; officers who had deserted from the
imperial army and joined forces with Conde; and younger members of
families, brought up to hate and execrate the man whom five years of
exile would convert into a martyr, and fifteen of restoration elevate to
the rank of a god.
The guests were still at table, and the heated and energetic
conversation that prevailed betrayed the violent and vindictive passions
that then agitated each dweller of the South, where unhappily, for five
centuries religious strife had long given increased bitterness to the
violence of party feeling.
The emperor, now king of the petty Island of Elba, after having held
sovereign sway over one-half of the world, counting as his subjects
a small population of five or six thousand souls,--after having been
accustomed to hear the "Vive Napoleons" of a hundred and twenty millions
of human beings, uttered in ten different languages,--was looked upon
here as a ruined man, separated forever from any fresh connection with
France or claim to her throne.
The magistrates freely discussed their political views; the military
part of the company talked unreservedly of Moscow and Leipsic, while
the women commented on the divorce of Josephine. It was not over the
downfall of the man, but over the defeat of the Napoleonic idea, that
they rejoiced, and in this they foresaw for themselves the bright and
cheering prospect of a revivified political existence.
An old man, decorated with the cross of Saint Louis, now rose and
proposed the health of King Louis XVIII. It was the Marquis de
Saint-Meran. This toast, recalling at once the patient exile of Hartwell
and the peace-loving King of France, excited universal enthusiasm;
glasses were elevated in the air a l'Anglais, and the ladies, snatching
their bouquets from their fair bosoms, strewed the table with their
floral treasures. In a word, an almost poetical fervor prevailed.
"Ah," said the Marquise de Saint-Meran, a woman with a stern, forbidding
eye, though still noble and distinguished in appearance, despite her
fifty years--"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 his 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!" interposed the old nobleman who had proposed the
toast, "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," said a young and lovely girl, with a
profusion of light brown hair, and eyes that seemed to float in liquid
crystal, "'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," said M. de Villefort.
"Never mind, Renee," replied the marquise, with a look of tenderness
that seemed out of keeping with her harsh dry features; but, however all
other feelings may be withered in a woman's nature, there is always one
bright smiling spot in the desert of her heart, and that is the shrine
of maternal love. "I forgive you. What I was saying, Villefort, was,
that the Bonapartists had not our sincerity, enthusiasm, or devotion."
"They had, however, what supplied the place of those fine qualities,"
replied the young man, "and that was fanaticism. Napoleon is the
Mahomet of the West, and is worshipped by his commonplace but
ambitions followers, not only as a leader and lawgiver, but also as the
personification of equality."
"He!" cried the marquise: "Napoleon the type of equality! For mercy's
sake, then, what would you call Robespierre? Come, come, do not strip
the latter of his just rights to bestow them on the Corsican, who, to my
mind, has usurped quite enough."
"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 Vendome. The only difference
consists in the opposite character of the equality advocated by these
two men; one is the equality that elevates, the other is the equality
that degrades; one brings a king within reach of the guillotine, the
other elevates the people to a level with the throne. Observe," said
Villefort, smiling, "I do not mean to deny that both these men were
revolutionary scoundrels, and that the 9th Thermidor and the 4th of
April, in the year 1814, were lucky days for France, worthy of being
gratefully remembered by every friend to monarchy and civil order;
and that explains how it comes to pass that, fallen, as I trust he is
forever, Napoleon has still retained a train of parasitical satellites.
Still, marquise, it has been so with other usurpers--Cromwell, for
instance, who was not half so bad as Napoleon, had his partisans and
advocates."
"Do you know, Villefort, that you are talking in a most dreadfully
revolutionary strain? But I excuse it, it is impossible to expect the
son of a Girondin to be free from a small spice of the old leaven." A
deep crimson suffused the countenance of Villefort.
"'Tis true, madame," answered he, "that my father was a Girondin, but he
was not among the number of those who voted for the king's death; he
was an equal sufferer with yourself during the Reign of Terror, and
had well-nigh lost his head on the same scaffold on which your father
perished."
"True," replied the marquise, without wincing in the slightest degree at
the tragic remembrance thus called up; "but bear in mind, if you please,
that our respective parents underwent persecution and proscription from
diametrically opposite principles; in proof of which I may remark, that
while my family remained among the stanchest adherents of the exiled
princes, your father lost no time in joining the new government; and
that while the Citizen Noirtier was a Girondin, the Count Noirtier
became a senator."
"Dear mother," interposed Renee, "you know very well it was agreed that
all these disagreeable reminiscences should forever be laid aside."
"Suffer me, also, madame," replied Villefort, "to add my earnest request
to Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran's, that you will kindly allow the veil of
oblivion to cover and conceal the past. What avails recrimination over
matters wholly past recall? For my own part, I have laid aside even the
name of my father, and altogether disown his political principles. He
was--nay, probably may still be--a Bonapartist, and is called Noirtier;
I, on the contrary, am a stanch royalist, and style myself de Villefort.
Let what may remain of revolutionary sap exhaust itself and die away
