Chapter 6.00: Chapter 6. The Deputy Procureur du Roi

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 Dantès. 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 Condé; 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
Napoléons_” 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-Méran. 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 _à
l’Anglaise_, 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-Méran, 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 has 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, Renée,”
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 ambitious 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 Vendôme. 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 staunchest 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 Renée, “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-Méran’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 staunch 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 anyone 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 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-Méran’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-Méran;

“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; 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-Méran, “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 Renée, 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 Renée, 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 accustomed, at the word of his commander, to rush fearlessly on the
very bayonets of his foe, will scruple more to drive a stiletto into the heart
of one he knows to be his personal enemy, than to slaughter his
fellow-creatures, merely because bidden to do so by one he is bound to obey?
Besides, one requires the excitement of being hateful in the eyes of the
accused, in order to lash one’s self into a state of sufficient vehemence and
power. I would not choose to see the man against whom I pleaded smile, as
though in mockery of my words. No; my pride is to see the accused pale,
agitated, and as though beaten out of all composure by the fire of my
eloquence.” Renée uttered a smothered exclamation.

“Bravo!”
cried one of the guests; “that is what I call talking to some
purpose.”

“Just the person we require at a time like the present,”
said a second.

“What a splendid business that last case of yours was, my dear Villefort!”

remarked a third; “I mean the trial of the man for murdering his father. Upon
my word, you killed him ere the executioner had laid his hand upon him.”

“Oh, as for parricides, and such dreadful people as that,”
interposed Renée,

“it matters very little what is done to them; but as regards poor unfortunate
creatures whose only crime consists in having mixed themselves up in political
intrigues——”

“Why, that is the very worst offence they could possibly commit; for, don’t you
see, Renée, the king is the father of his people, and he who shall plot or
contrive aught against the life and safety of the parent of thirty-two millions
of souls, is a parricide upon a fearfully great scale?”

“I don’t know anything about that,”
replied Renée; “but, M. De Villefort, you
have promised me—have you not? —always to show mercy to those I plead for.”

“Make yourself quite easy on that point,”
answered Villefort, with one of his
sweetest smiles; “you and I will always consult upon our verdicts.”

“My love,”
said the marquise, “attend to your doves, your lap-dogs, and
embroidery, but do not meddle with what you do not understand. Nowadays the
military profession is in abeyance and the magisterial robe is the badge of
honor. There is a wise Latin proverb that is very much in point.”

“_Cedant arma togæ_,”
said Villefort with a bow.

“I cannot speak Latin,”
responded the marquise.

“Well,”
said Renée, “I cannot help regretting you had not chosen some other
profession than your own—a physician, for instance. Do you know I always felt a
shudder at the idea of even a destroying angel?”

“Dear, good Renée,”
whispered Villefort, as he gazed with unutterable
tenderness on the lovely speaker.

“Let us hope, my child,”
cried the marquis, “that M. De Villefort may prove the
moral and political physician of this province; if so, he will have achieved a
noble work.”

“And one which will go far to efface the recollection of his father’s conduct,”

added the incorrigible marquise.

“Madame,”
replied Villefort, with a mournful smile, “I have already had the
honor to observe that my father has—at least, I hope so—abjured his past
errors, and that he is, at the present moment, a firm and zealous friend to
religion and order—a better royalist, possibly, than his son; for he has to
atone for past dereliction, while I have no other impulse than warm, decided
preference and conviction.” Having made this well-turned speech, Villefort
looked carefully around to mark the effect of his oratory, much as he would
have done had he been addressing the bench in open court.

“Do you know, my dear Villefort,”
cried the Comte de Salvieux, “that is exactly
what I myself said the other day at the Tuileries, when questioned by his
majesty’s principal chamberlain touching the singularity of an alliance between
the son of a Girondin and the daughter of an officer of the Duc de Condé; and I
assure you he seemed fully to comprehend that this mode of reconciling
political differences was based upon sound and excellent principles. Then the
king, who, without our suspecting it, had overheard our conversation,
interrupted us by saying, ‘Villefort’—observe that the king did not pronounce
the word Noirtier, but, on the contrary, placed considerable emphasis on that
of Villefort—‘Villefort,’ said his majesty, ‘is a young man of great judgment
and discretion, who will be sure to make a figure in his profession; I like him
much, and it gave me great pleasure to hear that he was about to become the
son-in-law of the Marquis and Marquise de Saint-Méran. I should myself have
recommended the match, had not the noble marquis anticipated my wishes by
requesting my consent to it.’”

“Is it possible the king could have condescended so far as to express himself
so favorably of me?”
asked the enraptured Villefort.

“I give you his very words; and if the marquis chooses to be candid, he will
confess that they perfectly agree with what his majesty said to him, when he
went six months ago to consult him upon the subject of your espousing his
daughter.”

“That is true,”
answered the marquis.

“How much do I owe this gracious prince! What is there I would not do to evince
my earnest gratitude!”

“That is right,”
cried the marquise. “I love to see you thus. Now, then, were a
conspirator to fall into your hands, he would be most welcome.”

“For my part, dear mother,”
interposed Renée, “I trust your wishes will not
prosper, and that Providence will only permit petty offenders, poor debtors,
and miserable cheats to fall into M. De Villefort’s hands,—then I shall be
contented.”

“Just the same as though you prayed that a physician might only be called upon
to prescribe for headaches, measles, and the stings of wasps, or any other
slight affection of the epidermis. If you wish to see me the king’s attorney,
you must desire for me some of those violent and dangerous diseases from the
cure of which so much honor redounds to the physician.”

At this moment, and as though the utterance of Villefort’s wish had sufficed to
effect its accomplishment, a servant entered the room, and whispered a few
words in his ear. Villefort immediately rose from table and quitted the room
upon the plea of urgent business; he soon, however, returned, his whole face
beaming with delight. Renée regarded him with fond affection; and certainly his
handsome features, lit up as they then were with more than usual fire and
animation, seemed formed to excite the innocent admiration with which she gazed
on her graceful and intelligent lover.

“You were wishing just now,”
said Villefort, addressing her, “that I were a
doctor instead of a lawyer. Well, I at least resemble the disciples of
Esculapius in one thing [people spoke in this style in 1815], that of not being
able to call a day my own, not even that of my betrothal.”

“And wherefore were you called away just now?”
asked Mademoiselle de
Saint-Méran, with an air of deep interest.

“For a very serious matter, which bids fair to make work for the executioner.”

“How dreadful!”
exclaimed Renée, turning pale.

“Is it possible?”
burst simultaneously from all who were near enough to the
magistrate to hear his words.

“Why, if my information prove correct, a sort of Bonapartist conspiracy has
just been discovered.”

“Can I believe my ears?”
cried the marquise.

“I will read you the letter containing the accusation, at least,”
said
Villefort:

“‘The king’s attorney is informed by a friend to the throne and the religious
institutions of his country, that one named Edmond Dantès, mate of the ship
_Pharaon_, this day arrived from Smyrna, after having touched at Naples
and Porto-Ferrajo, has been the bearer of a letter from Murat to the usurper,
and again taken charge of another letter from the usurper to the Bonapartist
club in Paris. Ample corroboration of this statement may be obtained by
arresting the above-mentioned Edmond Dantès, who either carries the letter for
Paris about with him, or has it at his father’s abode. Should it not be found
in the possession of father or son, then it will assuredly be discovered in the
cabin belonging to the said Dantès on board the _Pharaon_.’”

“But,”
said Renée, “this letter, which, after all, is but an anonymous scrawl,
is not even addressed to you, but to the king’s attorney.”

“True; but that gentleman being absent, his secretary, by his orders, opened
his letters; thinking this one of importance, he sent for me, but not finding
me, took upon himself to give the necessary orders for arresting the accused
party.”

“Then the guilty person is absolutely in custody?”
said the marquise.

“Nay, dear mother, say the accused person. You know we cannot yet pronounce him
guilty.”

“He is in safe custody,”
answered Villefort; “and rely upon it, if the letter
is found, he will not be likely to be trusted abroad again, unless he goes
forth under the especial protection of the headsman.”

“And where is the unfortunate being?”
asked Renée.

“He is at my house.”

“Come, come, my friend,”
interrupted the marquise, “do not neglect your duty to
linger with us. You are the king’s servant, and must go wherever that service
calls you.”

“Oh, Villefort!”
cried Renée, clasping her hands, and looking towards her lover
with piteous earnestness, “be merciful on this the day of our betrothal.”

The young man passed round to the side of the table where the fair pleader sat,
and leaning over her chair said tenderly:

“To give you pleasure, my sweet Renée, I promise to show all the lenity in my
power; but if the charges brought against this Bonapartist hero prove correct,
why, then, you really must give me leave to order his head to be cut off.”

Renée shuddered at the word _cut_, for the growth in question had a head.

“Never mind that foolish girl, Villefort,”
said the marquise. “She will soon
get over these things.” So saying, Madame de Saint-Méran extended her dry bony
hand to Villefort, who, while imprinting a son-in-law’s respectful salute on
it, looked at Renée, as much as to say, “I must try and fancy ’tis your dear
hand I kiss, as it should have been.”

“These are mournful auspices to accompany a betrothal,”
sighed poor Renée.

“Upon my word, child!”
exclaimed the angry marquise, “your folly exceeds all
bounds. I should be glad to know what connection there can possibly be between
your sickly sentimentality and the affairs of the state!”

“Oh, mother!”
murmured Renée.

“Nay, madame, I pray you pardon this little traitor. I promise you that to make
up for her want of loyalty, I will be most inflexibly severe;”
then casting an
expressive glance at his betrothed, which seemed to say, “Fear not, for your
dear sake my justice shall be tempered with mercy,” and receiving a sweet and
approving smile in return, Villefort departed with paradise in his heart.