The Count of Monte Cristo

an example of disorder which even in these times has never
been equalled?"

Several persons hurried up to M. de Villefort, who sat half
bowed over in his chair, offering him consolation,
encouragement, and protestations of zeal and sympathy. Order
was re-established in the hall, except that a few people
still moved about and whispered to one another. A lady, it
was said, had just fainted; they had supplied her with a
smelling-bottle, and she had recovered. During the scene of
tumult, Andrea had turned his smiling face towards the
assembly; then, leaning with one hand on the oaken rail of
the dock, in the most graceful attitude possible, he said:
"Gentlemen, I assure you I had no idea of insulting the
court, or of making a useless disturbance in the presence of
this honorable assembly. They ask my age; I tell it. They
ask where I was born; I answer. They ask my name, I cannot
give it, since my parents abandoned me. But though I cannot
give my own name, not possessing one, I can tell them my
father's. Now I repeat, my father is named M. de Villefort,
and I am ready to prove it."

There was an energy, a conviction, and a sincerity in the
manner of the young man, which silenced the tumult. All eyes
were turned for a moment towards the procureur, who sat as
motionless as though a thunderbolt had changed him into a
corpse. "Gentlemen," said Andrea, commanding silence by his
voice and manner; "I owe you the proofs and explanations of
what I have said."

"But," said the irritated president, "you called yourself
Benedetto, declared yourself an orphan, and claimed Corsica
as your country."

"I said anything I pleased, in order that the solemn
declaration I have just made should not be withheld, which
otherwise would certainly have been the case. I now repeat
that I was born at Auteuil on the night of the 27th of
September, 1817, and that I am the son of the procureur, M.
de Villefort. Do you wish for any further details? I will
give them. I was born in No. 28, Rue de la Fontaine, in a
room hung with red damask; my father took me in his arms,
telling my mother I was dead, wrapped me in a napkin marked
with an H and an N, and carried me into a garden, where he
buried me alive."

A shudder ran through the assembly when they saw that the
confidence of the prisoner increased in proportion to the
terror of M. de Villefort. "But how have you become
acquainted with all these details?" asked the president.

"I will tell you, Mr. President. A man who had sworn
vengeance against my father, and had long watched his
opportunity to kill him, had introduced himself that night
into the garden in which my father buried me. He was
concealed in a thicket; he saw my father bury something in
the ground, and stabbed him; then thinking the deposit might
contain some treasure he turned up the ground, and found me
still living. The man carried me to the foundling asylum,
where I was registered under the number 37. Three months
afterwards, a woman travelled from Rogliano to Paris to
fetch me, and having claimed me as her son, carried me away.
Thus, you see, though born in Paris, I was brought up in
Corsica."

There was a moment's silence, during which one could have
fancied the hall empty, so profound was the stillness.
"Proceed," said the president.

"Certainly, I might have lived happily amongst those good
people, who adored me, but my perverse disposition prevailed
over the virtues which my adopted mother endeavored to
instil into my heart. I increased in wickedness till I
committed crime. One day when I cursed providence for making
me so wicked, and ordaining me to such a fate, my adopted
father said to me, `Do not blaspheme, unhappy child, the
crime is that of your father, not yours, -- of your father,
who consigned you to hell if you died, and to misery if a
miracle preserved you alive.' After that I ceased to
blaspheme, but I cursed my father. That is why I have
uttered the words for which you blame me; that is why I have
filled this whole assembly with horror. If I have committed
an additional crime, punish me, but if you will allow that
ever since the day of my birth my fate has been sad, bitter,
and lamentable, then pity me."

"But your mother?" asked the president.

"My mother thought me dead; she is not guilty. I did not
even wish to know her name, nor do I know it." Just then a
piercing cry, ending in a sob, burst from the centre of the
crowd, who encircled the lady who had before fainted, and
who now fell into a violent fit of hysterics. She was
carried out of the hall, the thick veil which concealed her
face dropped off, and Madame Danglars was recognized.
Notwithstanding his shattered nerves, the ringing sensation
in his ears, and the madness which turned his brain,
Villefort rose as he perceived her. "The proofs, the
proofs!" said the president; "remember this tissue of
horrors must be supported by the clearest proofs "