last year at Marseilles, when I was coming back from Algiers," said
Chateau-Renaud; "she looked like a woman destined to live to be a
hundred years old, from her apparent sound health and great
activity of mind and body. How old was she?"
"Franz assured me," replied Albert, "that she was sixty-six
years old. But she has not died of old age, but of grief; it
appears that since the death of the marquis, which affected her
very deeply, she has not completely recovered her reason."
"But of what disease, then, did she die?" asked Debray.
"It is said to have been a congestion of the brain, or apoplexy,
which is the same thing, is it not?"
"Nearly."
"It is difficult to believe that it was apoplexy," said
Beauchamp. "Madame de Saint-Meran, whom I once saw, was short, of
slender form, and of a much more nervous than sanguine temperament;
grief could hardly produce apoplexy in such a constitution as that
of Madame de Saint-Meran."
"At any rate," said Albert, "whatever disease or doctor may have
killed her, M. de Villefort, or rather, Mademoiselle Valentine, —
or, still rather, our friend Franz, inherits a magnificent fortune,
amounting, I believe, to 80,000 livres per annum."
"And this fortune will be doubled at the death of the old
Jacobin, Noirtier."
"That is a tenacious old grandfather," said Beauchamp. "Tenacem
propositi virum. I think he must have made an agreement with death
to outlive all his heirs, and he appears likely to succeed. He
resembles the old Conventionalist of '93, who said to Napoleon, in
1814, `You bend because your empire is a young stem, weakened by
rapid growth. Take the Republic for a tutor; let us return with
renewed strength to the battle-field, and I promise you 500,000
soldiers, another Marengo, and a second Austerlitz. Ideas do not
become extinct, sire; they slumber sometimes, but only revive the
stronger before they sleep entirely.' Ideas and men appeared the
same to him. One thing only puzzles me, namely, how Franz d'Epinay
will like a grandfather who cannot be separated from his wife. Butwill like a grandfather who cannot be separated from his wife. But
where is Franz?"
"In the first carriage, with M. de Villefort, who considers him
already as one of the family."
Such was the conversation in almost all the carriages; these two
sudden deaths, so quickly following each other, astonished every
one, but no one suspected the terrible secret which M. d'Avrigny
had communicated, in his nocturnal walk to M. de Villefort. They
arrived in about an hour at the cemetery; the weather was mild, but
dull, and in harmony with the funeral ceremony. Among the groups
which flocked towards the family vault, Chateau-Renaud recognized
Morrel, who had come alone in a cabriolet, and walked silently
along the path bordered with yew-trees. "You here?" said
Chateau-Renaud, passing his arms through the young captain's; "are
you a friend of Villefort's? How is it that I have never met you at
his house?"
"I am no acquaintance of M. de Villefort's." answered Morrel,
"but I was of Madame de Saint-Meran." Albert came up to them at
this moment with Franz.
"The time and place are but ill-suited for an introduction."
said Albert; "but we are not superstitious. M. Morrel, allow me to
present to you M. Franz d'Epinay, a delightful travelling
companion, with whom I made the tour of Italy. My dear Franz, M.
Maximilian Morrel, an excellent friend I have acquired in your
absence, and whose name you will hear me mention every time I make
any allusion to affection, wit, or amiability." Morrel hesitated
for a moment; he feared it would be hypocritical to accost in a
friendly manner the man whom he was tacitly opposing, but his oath
and the gravity of the circumstances recurred to his memory; he
struggled to conceal his emotion and bowed to Franz. "Mademoiselle
de Villefort is in deep sorrow, is she not?" said Debray to
Franz.
"Extremely," replied he; "she looked so pale this morning, I
scarcely knew her." These apparently simple words pierced Morrel to
the heart. This man had seen Valentine, and spoken to her! Thethe heart. This man had seen Valentine, and spoken to her! The
young and high-spirited officer required all his strength of mind
to resist breaking his oath. He took the arm of Chateau-Renaud, and
turned towards the vault, where the attendants had already placed
the two coffins. "This is a magnificent habitation," said
Beauchamp, looking towards the mausoleum; "a summer and winter
palace. You will, in turn, enter it, my dear d'Epinay, for you will
soon be numbered as one of the family. I, as a philosopher, should
like a little country-house, a cottage down there under the trees,
without so many free-stones over my poor body. In dying, I will say
to those around me what Voltaire wrote to Piron: `Eo rus, and all
will be over.' But come, Franz, take courage, your wife is an
heiress."
"Indeed, Beauchamp, you are unbearable. Politics has made you
laugh at everything, and political men have made you disbelieve
everything. But when you have the honor of associating with
ordinary men, and the pleasure of leaving politics for a moment,
try to find your affectionate heart, which you leave with your
stick when you go to the Chamber."
"But tell me," said Beauchamp, "what is life? Is it not a hall
in Death's anteroom?"
"I am prejudiced against Beauchamp," said Albert, drawing Franz
away, and leaving the former to finish his philosophical
dissertation with Debray. The Villefort vault formed a square of
white stones, about twenty feet high; an interior partition
separated the two families, and each apartment had its entrance
door. Here were not, as in other tombs, ignoble drawers, one above
another, where thrift bestows its dead and labels them like
specimens in a museum; all that was visible within the bronze gates
was a gloomy-looking room, separated by a wall from the vault
itself. The two doors before mentioned were in the middle of this
wall, and enclosed the Villefort and Saint-Meran coffins. There
grief might freely expend itself without being disturbed by the
trifling loungers who came from a picnic party to visit