The Count of Monte Cristo

The Route to Italy

Louise admired her transformation, declaring Eugénie adorable. Eugénie proposed their route: Brussels to the nearest frontier, then Liège, Aix-la-Chapelle, up the Rhine to Strasbourg, through Switzerland, and down into Italy via Saint-Gothard. Louise agreed to the plan.

The Escape

The two girls extinguished the lights and, with outstretched necks listening eagerly, opened a dressing-room door leading to a side staircase. Eugénie carried the portmanteau while Louise barely raised her end. They found the porter sleeping in his lodge and slipped past him toward the gateway.

Through the Gateway

Eugénie concealed Louise behind the wall while she stood fully in the lamplight, calling for the gate with her finest contralto voice. The porter, seeing only an impatient young man, opened immediately. Louise slipped through like a snake, and Eugénie followed with apparent calm. They hired a porter to carry the trunk to 36 Rue de la Victoire.

Out of Paris

At their destination, Eugénie sent the porter away after giving him the portmanteau and money. She ordered a post-chaise from a预先联络好的洗衣女工, who had been promised twenty louis. When the postilion asked their destination, Eugénie replied “To Fontainebleau”—planning to change direction later to prevent betrayal. They departed toward Fontainebleau but would soon alter course. A quarter hour later, they passed through the Barrière Saint-Martin, out of Paris at last.

第九十八章 The Bell and Bottle Tavern

This chapter centers on Andrea Cavalcanti, whose ill-timed interruption of his social rise comes after he steals the bridal corbeille (trousseau) from the disrupted Danglars salon. The narrative tracks his frantic escape from Paris, travel via hired cab and stolen horse to the Bell and Bottle tavern in Compiègne, his detailed plan to disguise himself as a woodcutter and flee across the French frontier, and the arrival of gendarmes at the inn pursuing him as the wanted murderer of Caderousse. Chapter 98, titled The Bell and Bottle Tavern, tracks fugitive Andrea Cavalcanti as he evades a gendarme search at the hotel, accidentally falls into a room occupied by Eugénie Danglars and Mademoiselle d’Armilly, surrenders to authorities, and is incarcerated, while the two women depart to avoid public scandal.