Chapter 84. Beauchamp
The daring attempt to rob the count became Paris’s talk for a fortnight. Caderousse had signed a deposition declaring Benedetto the assassin; his knife, dark lantern, keys, and clothing—excepting the missing waistcoat—were deposited at the registry, and the corpse was conveyed to the morgue. The count told everyone the affair had happened during his absence at Auteuil, known only by the Abbé Busoni, who by chance had requested to pass the night in his house. Bertuccio alone turned pale whenever Benedetto’s name was mentioned.
While Paris gossiped, attention drifted to the upcoming wedding of Eugénie Danglars to Andrea Cavalcanti, approved by his fake father in Parma with a 150,000-franc gift. Eugénie hated Andrea, but Danglars, blinded by promised wealth, ignored her distaste. Meanwhile, Albert Morcerf remained furious over the original newspaper insult to his father and had planned a duel with journalist Beauchamp. Three weeks later, Albert was awakened by his valet, who announced Beauchamp at the door. Beauchamp showed his passport with Yanina visas and produced a signed attestation of four notable Yanina inhabitants proving Colonel Fernand Mondego, in Ali Tepelini’s service, had surrendered the castle for two million crowns, then sold Ali’s wife and daughter into slavery for 400,000 francs. Albert, devastated, threw himself into a chair, wept, and begged Beauchamp to destroy the papers. “I should have destroyed myself; or—no, my poor mother!—I could not have killed her by the same blow—I should have fled from my country,” he cried. Beauchamp agreed, and Albert burned every fragment, grateful his father’s secret would not be made public, but heartbroken that his family’s honor was a lie. Beauchamp warned the scandal would return, but Albert was too consumed by grief to listen.
Chapter 85. The Journey
Albert and Beauchamp visited Monte Cristo the next morning, finding him annoyed by the Caderousse paperwork, complaining the police sent him every robber in Paris pretending to be the killer. Monte Cristo invited them to his Normandy estate at Auteuil; Albert agreed, desperate for distraction, while Beauchamp stayed in Paris to watch for further Morcerf scandal. They set off that evening with thirty-two post horses, covering forty-eight leagues in eight hours, arriving just after midnight. The estate was luxurious, with a park, a private creek with a sloop bearing Monte Cristo’s arms, and every amenity. For three days Albert hunted pheasants, fished for trout, and his spirits lifted.
On the third evening, Albert’s valet Florentin arrived with a parcel from Beauchamp: a newspaper and a letter. Albert opened it to find the Morcerf scandal had returned, worse than before, in a government paper, with all the damning Yanina details. He changed into travelling clothes in five minutes, refused a carriage, and rode back to Paris at breakneck speed, while Monte Cristo watched him go, sad that the father’s sin was falling on the son.
Chapter 86. The Trial
Albert arrived in Paris at eight o’clock the next morning; Beauchamp told him a man had arrived from Yanina with proof of Fernand’s treason, threatening to publish it elsewhere, and the government paper had run the story. The House of Peers was in uproar, and a committee of inquiry had been formed.
Morcerf, unaware of the scandal, arrived at the House proud and haughty. A hostile peer demanded an investigation to clear the House’s honor, and Morcerf gave an eloquent defense, producing Ali Pasha’s letters and his ring as proof of loyalty, claiming Ali’s wife and daughter had disappeared after his death. The committee was about to let him off when the president received a letter from a witness: Haydée, Ali Pasha’s daughter. She entered veiled, then revealed herself, producing her birth certificate, baptismal register, and the written record of her sale by slave-merchant El-Kobbir—a document bearing the imperial seal. The House interpreter read it aloud: El-Kobbir acknowledged receiving from Monte Cristo, for the emperor, an emerald worth 800,000 francs as ransom of Haydée, eleven, daughter of Ali Tepelini and Vasiliki; she had been sold seven years earlier, with her mother (who died at Constantinople), by French colonel Fernand Mondego, in Ali’s service, for 400,000 francs. She listed Fernand’s crimes: surrendering Yanina, forging a pardon for Ali, murdering Selim the fire-keeper, and selling his family into slavery, and pointed to the scar on his right hand where the payment gold had fallen. Morcerf could not defend himself and fled like a madman. The committee unanimously convicted him of felony, treason, and conduct unbecoming a peer. Haydée left majestically, veiled, without a trace of emotion.
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