The Count of Monte Cristo

Marquis de Saint-Méran’s Royal Toast

The Marquis de Saint-Méran, an old man wearing the cross of Saint Louis, rises to propose a toast to King Louis XVIII. The toast evokes the king’s patient exile at Hartwell and his peaceful reign, sparking universal enthusiasm. Guests raise their glasses English-style, and the ladies strew the table with flowers from their bouquets in an almost poetical fervor.

Marquise de Saint-Méran’s Bonapartist Critique

The Marquise de Saint-Méran, a stern woman of fifty with a forbidding eye, denounces the revolutionists who drove the nobility from their possessions before purchasing those same lands cheaply during the Reign of Terror. She contrasts the royalists’ sincere devotion—sacrificing rank, wealth, and station to follow their fallen monarch—with the opportunism of those who worshiped the “rising sun.” She brands Napoleon as the “evil genius” and “Napoleon the accursed” of his followers, then turns to Villefort for confirmation.

Villefort’s Comparison of Napoleon and Robespierre

Villefort, who had been distracted by Renée, responds to the marquise’s condemnation of Bonapartism with measured political analysis. He concedes that Bonapartists possessed fanaticism rather than genuine devotion, calling Napoleon “the Mahomet of the West.” When the marquise protests that Napoleon cannot be the type of equality and invokes Robespierre, Villefort distinguishes between the two: Robespierre represents the equality that degrades and brings kings to the guillotine, while Napoleon represents the equality that elevates and raises the people to the level of the throne. He places Robespierre on his scaffold in the Place Louis Quinze and Napoleon on the column of the Place Vendôme, then concedes that both were “revolutionary scoundrels” whose downfalls on 9 Thermidor and 4 April 1814 were fortunate for France.