Madame de Villefort

“ Madame de Villefort now deliberately descended the staircase. In one hand she held her handkerchief, with which she appeared to be wiping her face, and in the other a bottle of English smelling-salts. Her first look on entering the room was at Noirtier, whose face, independent of the emotion which such a scene could not fail of producing, proclaimed him to be in possession of his usual health; her second glance was at the dying man. She turned pale, and her eye passed quickly from the servant, and rested on the master.
"In the name of heaven, madame," said Villefort, "where is the doctor? ”

“ Valentine was looking at her grandfather with a smile of intense gratitude, and Villefort was biting his lips with vexation, while Madame de Villefort could not succeed in repressing an inward feeling of joy, which, in spite of herself, appeared in her whole countenance.
“But,” said Villefort, who was the first to break the silence, “I consider that I am the best judge of the propriety of the marriage in question. I am the only person possessing the right to dispose of my daughter’s hand. It is my wish that she should marry M. Franz d’Épinay—and she shall marry him.” ”

“ M. de Villefort only replied by offering his arm to his daughter. It was just in time, for Valentine's head swam, and she staggered; Madame de Villefort instantly hastened to her assistance, and aided her husband in dragging her to the carriage, saying -- "What a singular event! Who could have thought it? Ah, yes, it is indeed strange!" And the wretched family departed, leaving a cloud of sadness hanging over the rest of the evening. At the foot of the stairs, Valentine found Barrois awaiting her. ”

“ It was the soul of my husband! -- Well, if my husband's soul can come to me, why should not my soul reappear to guard my granddaughter? the tie is even more direct, it seems to me."
"Oh, madame," said Villefort, deeply affected, in spite of himself, "do not yield to those gloomy thoughts; you will long live with us, happy, loved, and honored, and we will make you forget" --
"Never, never, never," said the marchioness. ”

“ Edward begged for a long while, the maternal kiss probably not offering sufficient recompense for the trouble he must take to obtain it; however at length he decided, leaped out of the window into a cluster of heliotropes and daisies, and ran to his mother, his forehead streaming with perspiration. Madame de Villefort wiped his forehead, pressed her lips upon it, and sent him back with the ball in one hand and some bonbons in the other.
Villefort, drawn by an irresistible attraction, like that of the bird to the serpent, walked towards the house. ”

“ Madame Danglars had risen and stood before the procureir, whose hands she wrung in her feeble grasp.
"I know not; I merely say this, as I might say anything else," replied Villefort, with a look so fixed, it indicated that this powerful mind was on the verge of despair and madness.
"Ah, my child, my poor child!" cried the baroness, falling on her chair, and stifling her sobs in her handkerchief. Villefort, becoming somewhat re-assured, perceived that to avert the maternal storm gathering over his head he must inspire Madame Danglars with the terror he felt. ”

“ Ah! for the sake of our child, let me live!"
"No! no! no! I tell you; one day, if I allow you to live, you will perhaps kill him, as you have the others."
"I!―kill my boy!" cried the distracted mother, rushing toward Villefort; "I kill Edward! Ha! ha! ha!" and a frightful, demoniac laugh finished the sentence, which was lost in a hoarse rattle.
Madame de Villefort fell at her husband's feet. He approached her. ”

“ Valentine's Death. "Ah!" exclaimed d'Avrigny, in a voice in which the horror of a judge unveiling the truth was mixed with the delight of a student discovering a problem. Madame de Villefort was overpowered; her eyes first flashed and
then swam; she staggered toward the door, and disappeared. Directly afterward the distant sound of a heavy weight falling on the ground was heard, but no one paid any attention to it; the nurse was engaged in watching the chemical analysis, and Villefort was still absorbed in grief. ”

“ Franz bowed and left the room. Scarcely had the door closed, when M. de Villefort sent to tell Valentine to be ready in the drawing-room in half an hour, as he expected the notary and M. d'Epinay and his witnesses. The news caused a great sensation throughout the house; Madame de Villefort would not believe it, and Valentine was thunderstruck. She looked around for help, and would have gone down to her grandfather's room, but on the stairs she met M. de Villefort, who took her arm and led her into the drawing-room. ”

“ Besides the pleasure, there is always remorse from the indulgence of our passions, and, after all, what have you men to fear from all this? the world excuses, and notoriety ennobles you.”
“Madame,” replied Villefort, “you know that I am no hypocrite, or, at least, that I never deceive without a reason. If my brow be severe, it is because many misfortunes have clouded it; if my heart be petrified, it is that it might sustain the blows it has received. I was not so in my youth, I was not so on the night of the betrothal, when we were all seated around a table in the Rue du Cours at Marseilles. ”

“ Where do you keep the poison you generally use, madame?" Madame de Villefort raised her arms to heaven, and convulsively struck one hand against the other.
Where Do You Keep Your Poison. "No, no!" she vociferated, "no, you cannot wish that!"
"What I do not wish, madame, is, that you should perish on the scaffold. Do you understand?" asked Villefort.
"Oh, mercy, mercy, sir!" "What I require is, that justice be done. I am on the earth to punish, madame," he added with a flaming glance; "any other woman, were it the queen herself, I would send to the executioner ”

“ Villefort smiled bitterly.
"It is true, then," he said, rather uttering his thoughts aloud than addressing his companion, -- "it is true, then, that all our actions leave their traces -- some sad, others bright -- on our paths; it is true that every step in our lives is like the course of an insect on the sands; -- it leaves its track! Alas, to many the path is traced by tears."
"Sir," said Madame Danglars, "you can feel for my emotion, can you not? ”

“ I cannot cry; at my age they say that we have no more tears,—still I think that when one is in trouble one should have the power of weeping. Where is Valentine, sir? It is on her account I am here; I wish to see Valentine.”
Villefort thought it would be terrible to reply that Valentine was at a ball; so he only said that she had gone out with her step-mother, and that she should be fetched. “This instant, sir—this instant, I beseech you!” said the old lady. Villefort placed the arm of Madame de Saint-Méran within his own, and conducted her to his apartment. ”

“ M. Villefort, my mother speaks to you."
"If Madame la 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 such a look of tenderness as all were astonished to see on her harsh features; for a woman's heart is so constituted that, however withered it be by the blasts of prejudice and etiquette, there is always one spot fertile and smiling, the spot consecrated by God to maternal love. "I forgive you. ”

“ It had been agreed that the old man should express his approbation by closing his eyes, his refusal by winking them several times, and if he had some desire or feeling to express, he raised them to heaven. If he wanted Valentine, he closed his right eye only, and if Barrois, the left. At Madame de Villefort's proposition he instantly winked his eyes. Provoked by a complete refusal, she bit her lip and said, "Then shall I send Valentine to you?" The old man closed his eyes eagerly, thereby intimating that such was his wish. ”

“ Oh, it is impossible -- you must have saved some surer, more subtle and deadly poison than any other, that you might escape the punishment that you deserve. You have done this -- I hope so, at least." Madame de Villefort stretched out her hands, and fell on her knees.
"I understand," he said, "you confess; but a confession made to the judges, a confession made at the last moment, extorted when the crime cannot be denied, diminishes not the punishment inflicted on the guilty!" ”

“ The marchioness raised her head at this word, and beholding the man who so forcibly reminded her of her deeply-regretted child, who still lived for her in Valentine, she felt touched at the name of mother, and bursting into tears, she fell on her knees before an arm-chair, where she buried her venerable head. Villefort left her to the care of the women, while old Barrois ran, half-scared, to his master; for nothing frightens old people so much as when death relaxes its vigilance over them for a moment in order to strike some other old person. ”

“ I am all that is left to her belonging to my poor Renée, whom you have so soon forgotten, sir.”
“Ah, madame,” said Villefort, “you forget that I was obliged to give a mother to my child.”
“A stepmother is never a mother, sir. But this is not to the purpose,—our business concerns Valentine, let us leave the dead in peace.” ”

“ During the evident preoccupation of Madame de Villefort, Monte Cristo scrutinized the features and appearance of the boy she kept folded in her arms, lavishing on him the most tender endearments. The child was small for his age, and unnaturally pale. A mass of straight black hair, defying all attempts to train or curl it, fell over his projecting forehead, and hung down to his shoulders, giving increased vivacity to eyes already sparkling with a youthful love of mischief and fondness for every forbidden enjoyment. ”

“ His father went up to him, took him in his arms, and kissed his forehead. "Go," he said: "go, my child." Edward ran out. M. de Villefort went to the door, which he closed behind the child, and bolted. "Dear me!" said the young woman, endeavoring to read her husband's inmost thoughts, while a smile passed over her countenance which froze the impassibility of Villefort; "what is the matter?"
"Madame, where do you keep the poison you generally use?" said the magistrate, without any introduction, placing himself between his wife and the door. ”

“ Villefort ceased to contend; he only groaned. “He first kills M. de Saint-Méran,” repeated the doctor, “then Madame de Saint-Méran,—a double fortune to inherit.” Villefort wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “Listen attentively.”
“Alas,” stammered Villefort, “I do not lose a single word.”
“M. Noirtier,” resumed M. d’Avrigny in the same pitiless tone,—“M. Noirtier had once made a will against you—against your family—in favor of the poor, in fact; M. Noirtier is spared, because nothing is expected from him. ”

“ Collect all your courage, for you have not yet heard all."
"Ah," exclaimed Madame Danglars, alarmed, "what is there more to hear?"
"You only look back to the past, and it is, indeed, bad enough. Well, picture to yourself a future more gloomy still -- certainly frightful, perhaps sanguinary." The baroness knew how calm Villefort naturally was, and his present excitement frightened her so much that she opened her mouth to scream, but the sound died in her throat. "How has this terrible past been recalled?" cried Villefort ”

“ The child was born, was given to me -- motionless, breathless, voiceless; we thought it dead." Madame Danglars moved rapidly, as though she would spring from her chair, but Villefort stopped, and clasped his hands as if to implore her attention. "We thought it dead," he repeated; "I placed it in the chest, which was to take the place of a coffin; I descended to the garden, I dug a hole, and then flung it down in haste. Scarcely had I covered it with earth, when the arm of the Corsican was stretched towards me; I saw a shadow rise, and, at the same time, a flash of light. I felt pain ”

“ It is not because Mademoiselle Valentine is going to marry you that he is angry, but because she will marry, a union with any other would have caused him the same sorrow. Old age is selfish, sir, and Mademoiselle de Villefort has been a faithful companion to M. Noirtier, which she cannot be when she becomes the Baroness d'Epinay. ”

“ You who are in power have only the means that money produces — we who are in expectation, have those which devotion prompts."
"Devotion!" said Villefort, with a sneer.
"Yes, devotion; for that is, I believe, the phrase for hopeful ambition."
And Villefort's father extended his hand to the bell-rope, to summon the servant whom his son had not called. Villefort caught his arm.
"Wait, my dear father," said the young man, "one word more."
"Say on."
"However stupid the royalist police may be, they do know one terrible thing." ”

“ Villefort fell on his knees. "Listen," said he; "I have not the strength of mind you have, or rather that which you would not have, if instead of my daughter Valentine your daughter Madeleine were concerned." The doctor turned pale. "Doctor, every son of woman is born to suffer and to die; I am content to suffer and to await death." ”

“ The horses, impelled by fear, flew towards the house.
"Yes, yes," repeated Villefort, as he approached his home -- "yes, that woman must live; she must repent, and educate my son, the sole survivor, with the exception of the indestructible old man, of the wreck of my house. She loves him; it was for his sake she has committed these crimes. We ought never to despair of softening the heart of a mother who loves her child. She will repent, and no one will know that she has been guilty. ”