The Count of Monte Cristo

Salon Tobacco and Smoking Collection

In the small salon downstairs, Albert had arranged every species of tobacco—from Petersburg’s yellow tobacco to Sinai’s black, and including Maryland, Porto Rico, and Latakia—displayed in Dutch crackled earthenware pots. Boxes of fragrant wood held puros, regalias, havanas, and manillas ranked by size and quality. An open cabinet contained German pipes, chibouques with coral mouthpieces, and narghiles with long morocco tubes, all awaiting the caprice of smokers. This was the post-coffee contemplation space for modern breakfast guests.

Arrival of Beauchamp

A moment after Debray’s arrival, the servant announced M. Beauchamp. Albert rose to greet him, introducing Debray, who detested him without reading his work. Beauchamp agreed, noting he criticized Debray without knowing what he actually did. The conversation turned to the Order of Charles III and political affairs, with Beauchamp asking whether they would breakfast or dine, as he needed to go to the Chamber. Albert confirmed they would breakfast immediately upon the arrival of two more expected guests.

Chapter 40. The Breakfast

“And what sort of persons do you expect to breakfast?” asked Beauchamp, who had arrived shortly after. He learned that one was a gentleman, the other a diplomatist, and was prepared to wait hours. Debray was hungry and bored after a night spent writing twenty-five despatches. Beauchamp confessed himself equally out of sorts: he was threatened, he said, with hearing M. Danglars make a speech at the Chamber of Deputies that very morning, and the tragedy of a peer of France at his wife’s salon in the evening; the constitutional government, since they had their choice, was the worst imaginable. “Do not run down M. Danglars’ speeches,” said Morcerf, intervening; “he votes for you, for he belongs to the opposition. Recollect that Parisian gossip has spoken of a marriage between myself and Mademoiselle Eugénie Danglars; I cannot in conscience, therefore, let you run down the speeches of a man who will one day say to me, ‘Vicomte, you know I give my daughter two millions.’” Beauchamp shook his head: the king had made Danglars a baron, and could make him a peer, but could not make him a gentleman; the Count of Morcerf was too aristocratic to consent, for the paltry sum of two million francs, to a mésalliance. Two million francs, Debray answered, were still a pretty little sum—the social capital of a theatre on the boulevard—and every millionaire was as noble as a bastard, that is, he could be. Château-Renaud came in, introducing Captain Maximilian Morrel of the Spahis—a young officer with a refined bearing who had saved Château-Renaud’s life in Africa. Conversation turned to the count’s mysterious origins, Morcerf’s interrupted breakfast at Rome, the bandits of the Maremma, and whether such a man as Monte Cristo could exist in this skeptical age.

At half-past ten precisely, a voice announced, “His excellency the Count of Monte Cristo,” and the count appeared—simply dressed, immaculately tailored, with the calm smile of a man entirely master of himself. Morcerf hastened to greet him; the count spoke a few gracious words about the punctuality of kings. He presented his guests by name, lingering only on Morrel, to whom he said: “You wear the uniform of the new French conquerors, monsieur; it is a handsome uniform.” His voice vibrated strangely and his eye flashed, though he was soon himself again.

The count took his place at table, confessing himself a stranger in Paris living entirely by Eastern customs. He ate but little, revealing he had not eaten since the previous morning. His recipe for sleep was a mixture of Canton opium and hashish from between the Tigris and Euphrates, formed into pills; he drew from his pocket an emerald casket containing several greenish pellets, which the company passed from hand to hand. Debray asked what the Sultan and the Pope had given him for similar emeralds: “The Sultan, the liberty of a woman; the Pope, the life of a man.” He spoke of his friendship with Vampa, the rescue of Peppino, and his personal philosophy—that he never sought to protect a society which did not protect him.

The count then recollected that at Rome Morcerf had spoken of a projected marriage, and begged leave to congratulate him. “The affair is still in projection,” Morcerf replied; “my father is most anxious about it, and I hope, ere long, to introduce you, if not to my wife, at least to my betrothed—Mademoiselle Eugénie Danglars.” The count inquired whether the lady’s father was Baron Danglars, and on being told yes, said that he did not know the baron, but should probably soon make his acquaintance, for he had a credit opened with him by the houses of Richard and Blount of London, Arstein and Eskeles of Vienna, and Thomson and French of Rome. As he pronounced the last two names, his eye glanced at Maximilian Morrel, and the young captain started as though he had been struck: it was the very house that had done the Morrel family a great service in the past, and which had always, for some unknown reason, denied having rendered it. The count bowed and offered his influence with the firm in any inquiry the captain might wish to pursue; Morrel promised to avail himself of the kindness.