The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (94 page)

‘But I shall never dare to set off with those same horses,’ said Mme de Villefort.

‘Oh, wait and see, Madame,’ Monte Cristo said. ‘In Ali’s hands they will be as mild as a pair of lambs.’

Ali had indeed gone over to the horses, which had with great difficulty been helped back to their feet. In his hand he carried a little sponge dipped in aromatic vinegar, and with this he rubbed the nostrils and temples of the horses, which were covered in sweat and foam. Almost at once they began to snort loudly and for a few seconds trembled in all their limbs.

Then, in the midst of a large crowd, attracted to the street outside the house by the remains of the carriage and the rumour of what had happened, Ali had the horses harnessed to the count’s coupé, took up the reins, got on the box and, to the great astonishment of those present who had seen these same horses rushing forward as though driven by a tornado, was obliged to make good use of the whip before they would set off. Even then, the best he could obtain from these famous dappled greys, now stunned and petrified, was such a listless and uncertain trot that it took Mme de Villefort nearly two hours to return to her home in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

Hardly had she arrived and reassured her family than she sat down to write the following letter to Mme Danglars:

DEAR HERMINE
,

I have just been miraculously saved, together with my son, by that same Count of Monte Cristo about whom we spoke so much yesterday evening, but whom I never thought I should see today. Yesterday you spoke to me of him with such enthusiasm that it took all the strength of my feeble spirit to refrain from mockery, but today I find your enthusiasm falls well below the man who inspired it. On reaching the Ranelagh,
³
your horses bolted as if touched by madness and we should probably have been dashed to pieces, poor Edouard and I, against the first tree on the road or the first village signpost, when an Arab, a Negro, a Nubian, in short, a black man, one of the count’s servants, I believe, at a sign from the count, stopped the horses in their tracks, though at the risk of being run down himself; indeed, it is a miracle that he was not. The count ran out and had us carried into his house, Edouard and me, where he brought my son back to life. I returned home in his own carriage; yours will be sent back to you tomorrow. You will find your horses much enfeebled after the accident. It is as though they were stunned: one would think they could not forgive themselves for having
been tamed by a man. The count asks me to tell you that two days’ rest on straw and no food except barley will restore them to as healthy – that is to say, as terrifying – a state as before.

Farewell! I do not thank you for my ride; yet, on reflection, it is ungrateful of me to blame you for the capriciousness of your horses, because I owe them the opportunity of meeting the Count of Monte Cristo and, apart from his millions, this illustrious foreigner seems to me so odd and so interesting an enigma that I intend to study him at any price, even if it means another ride in the Bois with your horses.

Edouard bore the ordeal with extraordinary courage. He fainted, but before that did not make a sound and afterwards not a tear. You will tell me again that I am blinded by maternal love, but there is an iron will in that frail and delicate little body.

Dear Valentine sends her best wishes to your dear Eugénie. I embrace you with all my heart.

HÉLOÏSE DE VILLEFORT

P.S
. Arrange it so that I can meet the Count of Monte Cristo at your house. I am determined to see him again. In any case, I have just got M. de Villefort to agree to pay a visit to him; I do hope it will be returned.

That evening, the accident at Auteuil was the subject of every conversation. Albert spoke of it to his mother, Château-Renaud at the Jockey-Club and Debray in the minister’s drawing-room. Even Beauchamp paid the count the tribute, in his paper, of a twenty-line news item which presented the noble foreigner as a hero to all the women of the aristocracy. Several people went to leave their cards at Mme de Villefort’s so that they would be able to pay a second visit at the appropriate time and hear the details of this exotic event from her own lips.

As for M. de Villefort, as Héloïse said, he took a black frock-coat, white gloves and his finest livery, then got into his coach which, that same evening, drew up in front of the door of number thirty, Avenue des Champs-Elysées.

If the Count of Monte Cristo had lived longer in Parisian society, he would have been able to appreciate the full significance of M. de Villefort’s gesture towards him. In favour at court, regardless of whether the reigning monarch belonged to the senior or junior branch of the royal family,
¹
and whether the government of the day was doctrinaire, liberal or conservative; considered able by all, as people usually are when they have never suffered a political reverse, hated by many but eagerly protected by a few, though not loved by anyone, M. de Villefort occupied a high position in the judiciary and remained at that height by the same means as a Harlay or a Molé.
²
His salon, though enlivened by a young wife and a daughter from his first marriage who was barely eighteen years old, was nonetheless one of those strict Parisian salons which worship tradition and observe the religion of etiquette. Frigid good manners, absolute fidelity to the principles of the government in power, a profound contempt for theory and theoreticians, and a deep hatred of ideologues made up the elements of his public and private life that M. de Villefort exhibited to the world.

He was not only a magistrate, he was almost a diplomat. His connection with the old court, about which he always spoke with dignity and deference, gained him the respect of the new regime; he knew so much that not only was he always treated with tact but was even asked for his advice from time to time. Things might have been different, had it been possible to get rid of M. de Villefort, but – like a feudal baron in revolt against his monarch – he occupied an impregnable fortress. This was his post as crown prosecutor; he exploited all the advantages of his position and would have left it only to go into parliament, thus replacing neutrality with opposition.

On the whole, M. de Villefort made and returned few visits. His wife visited on his behalf: this was accepted in society, where it was attributed to the amount and gravity of the lawyer’s business – when it was, in reality, deliberate arrogance, an extreme example of aristocratic contempt, in short, the application of the maxim: ‘Admire yourself and others will admire you’, a hundred times
more useful in our days than the Greek one: ‘Know thyself’, which has now been replaced by the less demanding and more profitable art of knowing others.

To his friends M. de Villefort was a powerful protector; to his enemies, a silent but relentless adversary; to those who were neither, he was the statue of the law made flesh. Haughty in manner, impassive in expression, with eyes that were either dull and lifeless, or insolently penetrating and enquiring: this was the man whom four revolutions,
³
neatly stacked one on top of the other, had first elevated, then cemented to his pedestal.

M. de Villefort had the reputation of being the least curious and the least trivial-minded man in France. He gave a ball every year, showing his face in it for a mere quarter of an hour, that is to say, forty-five minutes less than the time the king spends in his balls. He was never seen at the theatre, at a concert or in any public place. Sometimes (but rarely) he would play a hand at whist, and on such occasions they were careful to choose players worthy of him: some ambassador or other, an archbishop, a prince, a president or some dowager duchess.

This was the man whose carriage had just drawn up before Monte Cristo’s door. The valet announced M. de Villefort at the moment when the count was bending across a large table and tracing on a map the itinerary of a journey from St Petersburg to China. The crown prosecutor entered with the same heavy, measured tread that he would adopt on entering court. This was indeed the same man or, rather, the continuation of the same man, whom we met earlier as a
substitut
in Marseille. Nature, consistent with its principles, had changed nothing in the course laid down for him: once slim, he was now thin; once pale, he was now yellow. His deep-set eyes were hollow and his gold-rimmed spectacles, resting in the sockets, seemed to be part of the face. Apart from his white tie, the remainder of his dress was entirely black and this funereal colour was broken only by the fine strip of red ribbon imperceptibly threaded through his buttonhole, like a line of blood painted with a brush.

Though he gave no sign of any other emotion in returning his greeting, Monte Cristo examined the magistrate with visible curiosity. The other man, habitually cautious and, above all, incredulous where fashionable marvels were concerned, was more inclined to see in the Noble Foreigner (as people had already started to call
Monte Cristo) some knight of industry who had come to expand into new realms, or an outlaw creeping back into society, than a prince of the Holy See or a sultan of the
Thousand and One Nights
.

‘Monsieur,’ he said, with that hectoring tone that advocates adopt for addressing the courtroom, and which they are unable or unwilling to set aside in normal conversation, ‘the notable service that you performed yesterday for my wife and son has put me under an obligation to thank you. I have therefore come to accomplish this duty and to express my gratitude to you.’

As he spoke these words, the judge’s strict gaze lost none of its usual arrogance. He had articulated the words in his public prosecutor’s voice, with the inflexible stiffness of the neck and shoulders that, as we have already mentioned, made his flatterers describe him as the living statue of the Law.

‘Monsieur,’ the count replied, in a voice of icy coldness, ‘I am very happy at having been able to preserve a son for his mother, for they say that the feeling of maternal love is the holiest of all; and my enjoyment of this happiness released you, Monsieur, from the necessity of fulfilling a duty, the accomplishment of which undoubtedly flatters me, knowing as I do that Monsieur de Villefort is not prodigal with the honour that he does me, but which, precious though it may be, is less valuable to me than my sense of inner satisfaction.’

Villefort was astonished by this unexpected sally and winced like a soldier feeling a sword-thrust beneath his armour. A scornful curl of his lip showed that he did not henceforth consider Monte Cristo a very civil gentleman. He looked around for something on which to anchor the lapsed conversation (which seemed to have broken apart as it lapsed), and saw the map that Monte Cristo had been studying when he entered.

‘Do you take an interest in geography, Monsieur?’ he asked. ‘It is a rich field of study, especially for someone like yourself who, we are assured, has seen as many countries as are marked in the atlas.’

‘Yes, Monsieur,’ the count replied. ‘I have tried to subject the human race in general to the same analysis you daily apply to the exceptions, that is to say, a physiological one. I considered that it would eventually be easier to move from the whole to the part, than from part to whole. There is an axiom in algebra that requires us to proceed from the known to the unknown, and not the contrary… But, sit down, I beg you, Monsieur.’

Monte Cristo directed the crown prosecutor to a chair so positioned that he had to take the trouble to bring it forward himself, while the count needed only to sit back in the one on which he had been kneeling when the prosecutor entered. In this way the count found himself half turned towards his visitor, with his back to the window and his elbow leaning on the map which, for the time being, was the object of their conversation – a conversation which was taking, as it had done with Morcerf and Danglars, a turn that was analogous, if not to the situation, at least to the persons involved.

‘I see you are a philosopher,’ said Villefort, after a momentary silence in which he had been gathering strength like a wrestler meeting a powerful opponent. ‘Well, Monsieur, I do declare, if, like you, I had nothing to do, I should look for a less melancholy pastime.’

‘Very true, Monsieur,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘Mankind is an ugly worm when you look at it through a solar microscope. But I think you said I have nothing to do. Now, Monsieur, I ask you, do you imagine you have anything to do? Or, to put it more clearly, do you believe that what you do deserves to be called something?’

Villefort’s amazement was only increased by this second blow smartly delivered by his strange adversary. It was a long time since the judge had heard anyone deliver such a powerful paradox; or, more precisely, this was the first time he had heard it. He struggled to find a reply.

‘Monsieur, you are a foreigner and, as I believe you admit yourself, part of your life has been spent in the East; so you may not know the prudence and formality that here surrounds judicial proceedings, which are so expeditiously dealt with in the East.’

‘Very true, Monsieur, very true: the
pede claudo
⁴
of Antiquity. I know all that, because my particular study in every country has been justice, assessing the criminal proceedings of every nation against natural justice; and, Monsieur, I have to tell you that the law of primitive peoples, that is to say, an eye for an eye, seems to me in the end closest to God’s will.’

‘If such a law were to be adopted,’ the prosecutor said, ‘it would greatly simplify our system of laws and the result would be that our judges, as you said a moment ago, would not have very much to do.’