World Literature Classics Library: The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 19 A Hundred Days (2)
"Political cases do not have a prisoner register. Sometimes the government, out of interest considerations, will leave no traces after getting rid of a person. Only by setting up a register can there be a case for investigation."

"It may have been so in the days of the Bourbons, but now..."

"It is always like this, my dear Monsieur Morrel. The government has its ups and downs, but it is always the same. This disciplinary machine built by Louis XIV is, besides the Bastille, the French national prison, a symbol of French feudal rule. On July 1789, 7, the people of Paris revolted, captured the Bastille, released political prisoners, and began the French bourgeois revolution. Besides, it is still in operation today. The prison rules of the current emperor are always stricter than those of Louis XIV. It is not known how many prisoners were not registered and left no trace."

The words were so earnest that any doubts should have been dispelled, and Morrel had no doubts, he just said: "Mr. Come out early, okay?"

"Only one idea, sir, to write a petition to the Attorney General."

"Oh, sir, I understand what these petitions are. The Minister receives two hundred a day, but he himself cannot read three or four."

"That's right, but I will forward the petition and submit it to you. The minister will definitely read it."

"Can you help get the petition up there?"

"Of course. Dantès may have been guilty at that time, but he is innocent today. It is my responsibility to sentence him to prison and return him to freedom today."

In this way Villefort avoided the danger of an investigation, which may or may not have taken place, but which would have been irrevocably and completely over for him.

"But how do you write this petition to the Minister?"

"Come here, Monsieur Morrel," said Villefort, rising to make room for the captain, "I say, and you write."

"Is this bothering you too much?"

"Nothing. Don't waste time, we've already wasted too much."

"Yes, sir, but we must see that the poor fellow is waiting, suffering, and perhaps discouraged."

Villefort shuddered at the thought that the prisoner was cursing him in the darkness and silence of his cell, but he was too deep to extricate himself, and his iron wheels of ambition must crush Dantès to pieces.

"I was expecting you," said the captain, who had seated himself in Villefort's chair, with a pen in his hand.Villefort then dictated a petition.The story was so eloquently told that there was no room for the slightest doubt, and he exaggerated, telling how Dantès was patriotic and how he served Napoleon's cause.This petition made Dantès one of the most powerful men who cooperated with Napoleon's comeback. If justice has not been sought, it is very obvious that this time the minister will immediately come out to uphold justice after seeing such materials.When the petition was written, Villefort read it aloud.

"That's all right," he said, "you leave the rest to me."

"Can the petition be sent at once, sir?"

"Send it away today."

"Issued by you?"

"The best opinion I can sign is to prove that everything you say in your petition is true." Villefort sat down, and signed a corner of the petition.

"What is there to do now, sir?" asked Morrel.

"Wait for the news," replied Villefort, "I'm in charge of the matter."

This assurance revived Morrel's hopes, and he, satisfied with the acting prosecutor, went away cheerfully to tell Dantès' old father that he would soon see his son back.But Villefort did not send the petition to Paris. He carefully kept this material in his own hands, because this petition was written today to save Dantès, and it may also bring him to a severe end in the future. .One event cannot but be foreseen, and the situation and developments in Europe are sufficient to suggest it, namely, the Second Restoration.

So Dantès is still a prisoner.In prison he heard neither the terrible news of Louis XVIII's dethrone, nor the still more terrible news of the fall of the Empire.But Villefort was watching everything with his policeman's eyes, and listening to everything with his ears.Twice during the short-lived days of the Empire known to history as the Hundred Days, Morrel came to trouble, repeatedly demanded Dantès's release, and each time Villefort secured him with promising promises.At last there was the Battle of Waterloo, and Morrel stopped coming to Villefort.In order to rescue his young friend, the captain has tried his best. Now that the dynasty is restored for the second time, trying to rescue him will not only be useless, but will also hurt himself.

Louis XVIII returned to the throne.Marseilles was full of memories that could arouse Villefort's conscience, so he asked and obtained the office of prosecutor in Toulouse, which happened to be vacant, and after two weeks of his transfer, he married Mademoiselle René Saint-Meran, whose father-in-law, the Marquis de Saint-Meran, was at court. more prominent than ever.

This explains how Dantès was always under the bars after the battle of Waterloo in those days of the Hundred Days Dynasty. Although he was not forgotten by people, at least he was forgotten by God.

When seeing Napoleon return to France, Tangra understood that the slap he slapped Dantès was right, and his denunciation hit the nail on the head.A man like him, with a little knack for doing bad things, lived a life of mediocrity, a strange coincidence he called Providence.However, when Napoleon returned to Paris and his majestic and majestic voice sounded again, Tangra was terrified. I understand, I must be eyeing it like a tiger, and I will never be merciless in avenging it.So Tangra expressed to Mr. Morrel that he didn't want to work on the ship anymore, and asked Morrel to introduce him to a Spanish businessman, where he would work as a cashier. At the end of March, on the tenth or twelfth day after Napoleon's return to the Tuileries, he left for Madrid, and was never heard from again.

As for Fernand, everything was muddled.Dantès was gone, which suited him.He didn't bother to ask what was going on with Dantès now.Dantès is not here, he is quiet, but he is always thinking hard, partly looking for reasons to convince Mercedes why Dantès did not come back, partly thinking about how to go away and how to deceive Mercedes .From time to time he would come and sit on the head of Cape Faro, and these were the darkest hours of his life.From the tip of the promontory he could see Marseilles and the village of Catalunya, and he watched, worried, and motionless like a standing bird of prey, on which of the two roads would come a handsome man with his head held high. The young man, this young man will bring him cruel revenge.Fernand had already made up his mind at this time, first shot Dantès's head to explode, and then shot himself to death, "Kill it for fun," he said to himself.However, Fernand was just deceiving himself and others. He would never commit suicide because he was always dreaming his dreams.

In these days, painfully uncertain, the Empire issued the last call to arms, and all men able to bear arms rushed to fight abroad in France at the Emperor's resounding call.Fernand, like everyone else, left his cabin and bid farewell to Mercedes, but he kept haunting the dark and terrible thought that maybe he left behind and his rival returned and married the girl he loved. .If Fernand really wanted to die, he could commit suicide when he left Mercedes.

His not only concern for Mercedes, but an air of sympathy for her misfortune, and his promptness to help her whenever she asked, had the effect which hypocrisy always has on honest people.Mercedes had always been friendly to Fernand, but now besides her friendship with him, she added a new emotion—gratitude.

"Brother," she said as she put the recruit backpack on the shoulders of the Catalan youth, "Brother, you are my only relative, you must not be beaten to death, and you must not leave me alone In this world, if something happens to you, I can only cry and cry alone." This parting message injected a glimmer of hope into Fernand's heart, as long as Dantès does not come back, one day Mercedes Silk would be his.

Mercedes is now alone, the ground under her feet is bare, it seems that it has never been so desolate as it is now, the sea is vast and blue, and the water and the sky are the same color.She cried all day long.Like a madwoman of desolate origin, I saw her wandering around the little Catalan village, sometimes stopping to stand still, motionless and speechless in the hot southern sun, like a statue, her eyes fixed on Sometimes she sits on the shore, listening to the sea's grievances, as endless as her sorrows, and asks herself whether she should throw herself into death instead of dying in hopeless waiting. He jumped forward, let his body fall, floated into the abyss and fell into it.It's not that Mercedes didn't have the courage to act according to this idea, but religion gave her strength and dispelled the idea of ​​committing suicide.

Caderos, like Fernand, was drafted into the army.But he was 8 years older than the Catalan youth, and he was married, and he only left after the third conscription order, and was only sent to the coastal defense line.

Originally, old Dantès' life was only maintained by hope, and once the emperor fell, he lost all hope.Five months after the arrest of the son, almost at the same moment when he was arrested, the old man stopped breathing in the arms of Mercedes.M. Morrel paid funeral expenses and a few pitiful little debts of old age.Being able to do this requires not only kindness, but also courage.The South was in a frenzy, and it would have been a great crime to rescue the father of a Napoleonic partisan as dangerous as Dantès, even in his dying hour.

(End of this chapter)