Danglars’ Flight
Madame Danglars reveals to Debray that Danglars left the previous night at ten o’clock. His horses carried him to the Charenton barrier, where a post-chaise waited. He entered it with his valet de chambre, claiming to be bound for Fontainebleau, and left her a letter. Debray reads the letter, which begins “Madame and most faithful wife,” and Danglars’s coldly candid explanations reveal that he has fled to escape creditors, accusing his wife of pillaging their fortune.
The Farewell Letter
Danglars’s farewell letter bitterly explains his flight: he received five millions only to be hit with another demand for the same sum, and chose to vanish rather than face the ruin. He accuses Madame Danglars of having transformed their house into a vast ruin while enriching herself, telling her she was rich but little respected when he married her and remains so now. He sarcastically restores her “liberty,” invites her to find gold among the ashes, and signs off as her “very devoted husband, Baron Danglars.” After reading it, Debray folds the letter, and Madame Danglars, who sees her husband as inflexible in resolutions concerning his own interests, declares she is now free forever.
Dividing the Proceeds
Debray coolly recommends that Madame Danglars leave Paris, then meticulously settles their six-month partnership. From her 100,000-franc capital, the two have amassed 2,400,000 francs—1,200,000 for each—plus 80,000 francs in interest. He produces 1,340,000 francs in banknotes, a stock certificate, and a banker’s check, the entire fortune having been concealed in a chest under a closet. Despite Madame Danglars’s desperate hope for a kind word, Debray offers only cold detachment, and she leaves in dignified silence. Afterward, he cancels his entries, calculates 1,060,000 francs remain, and regretfully notes the death of Mademoiselle de Villefort, whom he would have married. An Asmodeus-like vision would have seen, above this scene of financial division, the room of Mercédès and Albert.
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