Invitation to Meet the Morcerfs
Albert invites Monte Cristo to accompany him to the apartments of M. de Morcerf, having already written from Rome of the services Monte Cristo rendered him and announced this promised visit, for which both the count and countess have anxiously waited. Monte Cristo accepts the offer without enthusiasm or regret, treating it as one of society’s conventional duties, and Albert summons a servant to inform his parents of the guest’s arrival.
Morcerf Family Heraldry Discussion
In the antechamber, Monte Cristo pauses to examine attentively the Morcerf family shield above the door, with its azure field, seven gold merlets, and quartered shield bearing gules with a silver tower representing the maternal Spanish line. Morcerf confirms these are his father’s arms joined to his mother’s, making him Spanish by her side while the Morcerf family is one of the oldest of southern France. Monte Cristo notes that the blazons point to an ancestor’s participation in the Crusades, possibly even that of St. Louis in the thirteenth century.
Examination of Count Morcerf’s Portrait
In the most conspicuous part of the salon hangs another portrait, this one of a man of five to eight-and-thirty in the uniform of a general officer, wearing heavy bullion epaulettes, the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, the star of a grand officer of the order of the Saviour, and the grand cross of Charles III., indicating service in the wars of Greece and Spain or an equivalent diplomatic mission. Monte Cristo examines this portrait with as much care as the previous one, just as another door opens to reveal Count de Morcerf in person.
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