Bertuccio Follows Villefort to Auteuil
After three months of surveillance at Versailles, Bertuccio discovered that Villefort was making secret nocturnal visits to Auteuil. He traced the magistrate to the very house where they now sit—Villefort’s father-in-law’s property, belonging to M. de Saint-Méran of Marseilles. Villefort would leave his carriage at a nearby inn and slip in through a small garden gate. Bertuccio relocated to Auteuil to lie in wait, and he learned the property was reportedly rented to a mysterious young woman known only as “the Baroness.”
Discovery of Villefort’s Secret Garden Visits
One evening, peering over the wall, Bertuccio saw a young, fair, eighteen- or nineteen-year-old woman in a loose muslin dress, visibly pregnant, walking alone in the garden. Shortly after, Villefort entered through the little door, the lovers embraced, and they retired into the house together. Bertuccio concluded that Villefort would have to cross the garden alone on his way out—a vulnerability he could exploit.
Witnessing Villefort Bury a Mysterious Box
Three days later, after observing a servant gallop to Versailles and return covered in dust, Bertuccio watched Villefort re-enter the garden on foot, muffled in a mantle. Springing over the wall with a sharpened knife, Bertuccio hid in a thicket near the path Villefort would have to take. On a windy late-September night, with moonlight barely piercing the dark shrubberies, he waited through imagined groans. At midnight a faint light appeared, Villefort emerged carrying a spade, and paused near Bertuccio’s hiding place.
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