that time, will bring them back to as fine, that is as terrifying,
a condition as they were in yesterday. Adieu! I cannot return you
many thanks for the drive of yesterday; but, after all, I ought not
to blame you for the misconduct of your horses, more especially as
it procured me the pleasure of an introduction to the Count of
Monte Cristo, — and certainly that illustrious personage, apart
from the millions he is said to be so very anxious to dispose of,
seemed to me one of those curiously interesting problems I, for
one, delight in solving at any risk, even if it were to necessitate
another drive to the Bois behind your horses. Edward endured the
accident with miraculous courage — he did not utter a single cry,
but fell lifeless into my arms; nor did a tear fall from his eyes
after it was over. I doubt not you will consider these praises the
result of blind maternal affection, but there is a soul of iron in
that delicate, fragile body. Valentine sends many affectionate
remembrances to your dear Eugenie. I embrace you with all my
heart.
Heloise de Villefort.
P.S. — Do pray contrive some means for me to meet the Count of
Monte Cristo at your house. I must and will see him again. I have
just made M. de Villefort promise to call on him, and I hope the
visit will be returned.
That night the adventure at Auteuil was talked of everywhere.
Albert related it to his mother; Chateau-Renaud recounted it at the
Jockey Club, and Debray detailed it at length in the salons of the
minister; even Beauchamp accorded twenty lines in his journal to
the relation of the count's courage and gallantry, thereby
celebrating him as the greatest hero of the day in the eyes of all
the feminine members of the aristocracy. Vast was the crowd of
visitors and inquiring friends who left their names at the
residence of Madame de Villefort, with the design of renewing their
visit at the right moment, of hearing from her lips all the
interesting circumstances of this most romantic adventure. As forinteresting circumstances of this most romantic adventure. As for
M. de Villefort, he fulfilled the predictions of Heloise to the
letter, — donned his dress suit, drew on a pair of white gloves,
ordered the servants to attend the carriage dressed in their full
livery, and drove that same night to No. 30 in the Avenue des
Champs-Elysees.If the Count of Monte Cristo had been for a long time familiar
with the ways of Parisian society, he would have appreciated better
the significance of the step which M. de Villefort had taken.
Standing well at court, whether the king regnant was of the older
or younger branch, whether the government was doctrinaire liberal,
or conservative; looked upon by all as a man of talent, since those
who have never experienced a political check are generally so
regarded; hated by many, but warmly supported by others, without
being really liked by anybody, M. de Villefort held a high position
in the magistracy, and maintained his eminence like a Harlay or a
Mole. His drawing-room, under the regenerating influence of a young
wife and a daughter by his first marriage, scarcely eighteen, was
still one of the well-regulated Paris salons where the worship of
traditional customs and the observance of rigid etiquette were
carefully maintained. A freezing politeness, a strict fidelity to
government principles, a profound contempt for theories and
theorists, a deep-seated hatred of ideality, — these were the
elements of private and public life displayed by M. de
Villefort.
He was not only a magistrate, he was almost a diplomatist. His
relations with the former court, of which he always spoke with
dignity and respect, made him respected by the new one, and he knew
so many things, that not only was he always carefully considered,
but sometimes consulted. Perhaps this would not have been so had it
been possible to get rid of M. de Villefort; but, like the feudal
barons who rebelled against their sovereign, he dwelt in an
impregnable fortress. This fortress was his post as king's
attorney, all the advantages of which he exploited with marvellous
skill, and which he would not have resigned but to be made deputy,
and thus to replace neutrality by opposition. Ordinarily M. de
Villefort made and returned very few visits. His wife visited for
him, and this was the received thing in the world, where thehim, and this was the received thing in the world, where the
weighty and multifarious occupations of the magistrate were
accepted as an excuse for what was really only calculated pride, a
manifestation of professed superiority — in fact, the application
of the axiom, "Pretend to think well of yourself, and the world
will think well of you," an axiom a hundred times more useful in
society nowadays than that of the Greeks, "Know thyself," a
knowledge for which, in our days, we have substituted the less
difficult and more advantageous science of knowing others.
To his friends M. de Villefort was a powerful protector; to his
enemies, he was a silent, but bitter opponent; for those who were
neither the one nor the other, he was a statue of the law-made man.
He had a haughty bearing, a look either steady and impenetrable or
insolently piercing and inquisitorial. Four successive revolutions
had built and cemented the pedestal upon which his fortune was
based. M. de Villefort had the reputation of being the least
curious and the least wearisome man in France. He gave a ball every
year, at which he appeared for a quarter of an hour only, — that is
to say, five and forty minutes less than the king is visible at his
balls. He was never seen at the theatres, at concerts, or in any
place of public resort. Occasionally, but seldom, he played at
whist, and then care was taken to select partners worthy of him —
sometimes they were ambassadors, sometimes archbishops, or
sometimes a prince, or a president, or some dowager duchess. Such
was the man whose carriage had just now stopped before the Count of
Monte Cristo's door. The valet de chambre announced M. de Villefort
at the moment when the count, leaning over a large table, was
tracing on a map the route from St. Petersburg to China.
The procureur entered with the same grave and measured step he
would have employed in entering a court of justice. He was the same
man, or rather the development of the same man, whom we have