"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 ambitions 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 Vendome. 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 stanchest
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 Renee, "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-Meran'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 stanch
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 any one
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."



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