The Count of Monte Cristo

Villefort’s Long Recovery and News of Madame Danglars’ Remarriage

Villefort was taken to Versailles, where he struggled with death for three months before being moved south by litter along the Saône and Rhône to Marseilles. His recovery lasted six months; upon finally returning to Paris, he learned that Madame Danglars, now widowed from M. de Nargonne, had married M. Danglars.

Villefort’s Decades of Torment Over the Supposed Corpse

From the moment his consciousness returned, Villefort was haunted by the image of the child’s corpse rising nightly in his dreams to hover over the grave with menace. On returning to Paris, he learned the Auteuil house had been rented out, and he paid the tenants 6,000 francs to cancel their nine-year lease so he could investigate the site himself.

Villefort’s Plan to Erase All Traces of the Secret at Auteuil

Driven by fear that the Corsican—alive and aware of the burial—might one day use the secret against Madame Danglars, Villefort resolved to destroy every material vestige of the past. He obtained the cancelled lease, galloped to Auteuil, found the house empty, and waited in the red damask room for nightfall, dreading every creak of the doors and the moans he imagined behind him.

Villefort’s Tense Nighttime Search of the Auteuil Thicket

At night, Villefort descended the spiral staircase, trembling in his knees, took up a spade waiting by the lower door, lit a dark lantern, and made his way to the thicket. Working in near-madness, he located the spot beneath a laburnum near an artificial rockery and began digging—first finding only more earth, then enlarging the hole, but encountering nothing. The chest was gone.

Villefort’s Fruitless Daytime Search for the Missing Chest

Refusing to accept the night’s failure, Villefort reasoned that the assassin might have hidden the chest elsewhere and at dawn returned to search the entire thicket and the path to the little gate. He turned over more than twenty square feet of earth to a depth of two feet, but uncovered nothing whatsoever, and returned to the thicket with a bursting heart and no hope left.

CAPÍTULO 67. The Office of the King’s Attorney

Chapter 67, “The Office of the King’s Attorney,” continues the confrontation between Villefort and Madame Danglars over their dark shared secret. Villefort explains his efforts to trace the fate of the child presumed dead, reveals that the child was likely alive and given to a foundling hospital, and ultimately resolves to investigate the Count of Monte Cristo, whom he now suspects of holding damaging knowledge about their past.

Villefort Questions Why the Corpse Was Taken

Villefort questions why the corpse of the child was taken by the Corsican, rejecting Madame Danglars’s suggestion that he needed it as proof, since such evidence would be presented to a magistrate rather than kept for a year. He concludes that no such legal use was made of the body and proposes a more terrifying alternative.

Villefort Suggests the Child May Have Survived

Villefort suggests the chilling possibility that the child may have survived and that the assassin, out of some unknown motive, saved it instead of killing it. This terrifying supposition leaves Madame Danglars in despair over the fate of her offspring.

Madame Danglars Reacts to Her Child Possibly Being Alive

Madame Danglars reacts with violent emotion, crying out that her child was alive and accusing Villefort of burying the child without certainty of its death. She wrings his hands and collapses in grief, while Villefort, on the verge of madness, looks on with a fixed, desperate expression.

Foundling Hospital Clue to the Child’s Location

Villefort, attempting to redirect the mother’s anguish into shared terror, points out that if the child is alive and someone knows it, that person possesses their secret, and Monte Cristo’s mention of a disinterred child implicates him. Madame Danglars, in her turn, wonders aloud whether the child might have been thrown into the river or given to a foundling hospital, with Villefort confirming he investigated both possibilities.