The Count of Monte Cristo

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.

第六十七章 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.