FOOTNOTES: [1] “The wicked are great drinkers of water; As the flood proved once for all.” [2] $2,600,000 in 1894. [3] Knocked on the head. [4] Beheaded. [5] Scott, of course: “The son of an ill-fated sire, and the father of a yet more unfortunate family, bore in his looks that cast of inauspicious melancholy by which the physiognomists of

Chapter 11. The Corsican Ogre At the sight of this agitation Louis XVIII. pushed from him violently the table at which he was sitting. “What ails you, baron?” he exclaimed. “You appear quite aghast. Has your uneasiness anything to do with what M. de Blacas has told me, and M. de Villefort has just con

Chapter 12. Father and Son M. Noirtier—for it was, indeed, he who entered—looked after the servant until the door was closed, and then, fearing, no doubt, that he might be overheard in the antechamber, he opened the door again, nor was the precaution useless, as appeared

Chapter 13. The Hundred Days M. Noirtier was a true prophet, and things progressed rapidly, as he had predicted. Everyone knows the history of the famous return from Elba, a return which was unprecedented in the past, and will probably remain without a counterpart in the future. Louis XVIII. made but a faint attempt to parry this unexpected blow; the monarchy he had scarcely reconstructed tottered on its precarious foundation,

Chapter 14. The Two Prisoners A year after Louis XVIII.’s restoration, a visit was made by the inspector-general of prisons. Dantès in his cell heard the noise of preparation,—sounds that at the depth where he lay would have been inaudible

Chapter 15. Number 34 and Number 27 Dantès passed through all the stages of torture natural to prisoners in suspense. He was sustained at first by that pride of conscious innocence which is the sequence to hope; then he began to doubt his own innocence, which justified in some measure the governor’s belief in his mental