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 with the
old trunk, and condescend only to regard the young shoot which has
started up at a distance from the parent tree, without having the
power, any more than the wish, to separate entirely from the stock
from which it sprung."
"Bravo, Villefort!" cried the marquis; "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," replied the marquise; "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" (and
here she extended to him her hand) — "as I now do at your entreaty.
But bear in mind, that should there fall in your way any one 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," returned Villefort, "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?" inquired the marquise.
"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 quarrelsdaily, 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."
"You have heard, perhaps," said the Comte de Salvieux, one of M.
de Saint-Meran's oldest friends, and chamberlain to the Comte
d'Artois, "that the Holy Alliance purpose removing him from
thence?"
"Yes; they were talking about it when we left Paris," said M. de
Saint-Meran; "and where is it decided to transfer him?"
"To Saint Helena."
"For heaven's sake, where is that?" asked the marquise.
"An island situated on the other side of the equator, at least
two thousand leagues from here," replied the count.
"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," said Villefort, "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," responded M. de
Salvieux. "There wasn't any trouble over treaties when it was a
question of shooting the poor Duc d'Enghien."
"Well," said the marquise, "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," answered Villefort, "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;"Nay, madame, the law is frequently powerless to effect this;
all it can do is to avenge the wrong done."
"Oh, M. de Villefort," cried a beautiful young creature,
daughter to the Comte de Salvieux, and the cherished friend of
Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran, "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," replied the young man, "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!" said Renee, becoming quite pale;
"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," said Renee, becoming more
and more terrified; "you surely are not in earnest."
"Indeed I am," replied the young magistrate with a smile; "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