Villefort’s Account of the Stillborn Child’s Secret Burial
Villefort recounts the dreadful night of the child’s birth, when the infant was given to him motionless, breathless, and apparently dead. He placed the body in a chest meant to serve as a coffin, descended alone to the garden, dug a hasty hole, and flung the chest into the earth.
The Corsican Vendetta Attack on Villefort Post-Burial
No sooner had Villefort covered the grave than the arm of the Corsican assassin struck him from the shadows. A flash of steel, a stab of pain, and an icy shiver overwhelmed him; he fell lifeless to the ground, silencing any cry. Madame Danglars, despite her own near-death state, later displayed sublime courage in helping him back into the house, where the wound was explained away as the result of a duel.
Villefort’s Long Recovery and News of Madame Danglars’ Remarriage
Villefort was taken to Versailles, where he struggled with death for three months before being moved south by litter along the Saône and Rhône to Marseilles. His recovery lasted six months; upon finally returning to Paris, he learned that Madame Danglars, now widowed from M. de Nargonne, had married M. Danglars.
Villefort’s Decades of Torment Over the Supposed Corpse
From the moment his consciousness returned, Villefort was haunted by the image of the child’s corpse rising nightly in his dreams to hover over the grave with menace. On returning to Paris, he learned the Auteuil house had been rented out, and he paid the tenants 6,000 francs to cancel their nine-year lease so he could investigate the site himself.
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