Meanwhile, at the Danglars household, the fallout from the Andrea Cavalcanti scandal had shaken the banker to his core. His daughter Eugénie, a fiercely independent young woman who dreamed of a life as a free artist, had long resisted her father’s plans to marry her off to the fake “prince” Cavalcanti, and now that his true identity as escaped convict Benedetto had been exposed, she seized her chance to escape her gilded cage. She and her devoted companion Louise d’Armilly had spent weeks preparing: they had secured a fake passport from Monte Cristo listing Eugénie as the male artist Léon d’Armilly traveling with his sister, stashed 45,000 francs in cash and jewels, and arranged a post-chaise to wait for them. The night of the contract signing, as Danglars struggled to manage the police investigation into Benedetto’s arrest for murdering Caderousse, Eugénie cut off her long, envied hair, dressed in a full men’s outfit, and slipped out of the house with Louise in the dead of night, tricking the sleeping porter with her deep, steady voice. They told the postilion to drive to Fontainebleau, but planned to divert to Belgium, and as their carriage rattled through the Barrière Saint-Martin, Eugénie declared her abduction complete: Danglars no longer had a daughter.
Benedetto, meanwhile, had fled the Danglars’ salon before the police could arrest him, grabbing a handful of jewels from the bridal trousseau on his way out. He hailed a cab, trying to make his way to the frontier, and stopped at the Bell and Bottle inn in Compiègne to rest for the night. In the morning, he spotted gendarmes posted at the inn and panicked, trying to escape down the chimney. He fell into the room below, where Eugénie and Louise were staying, and begged them to hide him. The two women, horrified by his crimes, refused, and when the gendarmes burst in, he surrendered without a fight, sneering that he had friends who would get him out. He was thrown into the Conciergerie, while Eugénie and Louise continued their journey to Brussels, their escape seamless thanks to the chaos of the scandal.
Madame Danglars, desperate to salvage her family’s reputation, first ran to her lover Lucien Debray for help, but he could offer only empty sympathy, and even hinted that marrying Eugénie and her fortune might be his only way out of the mess. Realizing he was useless, she went to see the procureur Villefort, begging him to let Benedetto escape so the family’s shame would be contained. Villefort, pale and hollow-eyed from the string of mysterious deaths in his own home, was unmoved, reminding her that justice had no favorites, not even for her. As he spoke, a messenger arrived with news: Benedetto had been arrested at Compiègne. Villefort was elated, declaring he only needed a murder to complete his session of convictions, while Madame Danglars left his house in despair, realizing her family was ruined.
Far from the chaos of the Danglars and Morcerf scandals, Valentine de Villefort lay weak in her bed, slowly recovering from a poisoning attempt. Her grandfather Noirtier, rendered mute by a stroke, and her lover Maximilian Morrel visited her daily, and Morrel’s fear for her life had led him to confide in Monte Cristo, who promised to protect her. That night, after her nurse had left and the house was quiet, Valentine was startled awake by a soft footstep, and saw a figure emerge from a hidden door in her library. It was Monte Cristo, who revealed he had rented the house next door specifically to watch over her. He explained that Madame de Villefort, Valentine’s stepmother, had been poisoning her to kill her so that Valentine’s younger brother Edward could inherit her vast fortune, and that Noirtier had been secretly giving her small doses of brucine to build up her immunity to the poison. He handed her a pastille to swallow, swore to protect her and Noirtier, and vanished back through the hidden door.
Hours later, as midnight struck, Valentine pretended to sleep, just as Monte Cristo had instructed. She heard the door to Edward’s room creak open, and saw Madame de Villefort slip into the room, pour a clear liquid from a phial into her glass, and tiptoe back out. Monte Cristo reappeared a moment later, confirming she had seen her stepmother, and told her the poison had been swapped with a harmless narcotic. He warned her the attempts would continue, but swore he would always be there to protect her, and Valentine, her fear giving way to trust, promised she would not be afraid.
(Word count: 1627)
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