CoMC Chapter 67
CHAPTER 67
At the Office of the King’s Attorney
30 minutes
Oooh shoot, the situation has changed–Villefort knows MC is not his friend. Because it turns out he is fully aware there was no baby skeleton buried in the yard for him to find. He tried to dig it up a year after the fact and found it gone. And he even knows it was surrendered to the orphanage and he EVEN knows it was claimed by some lady (although he couldn’t find the lady). And he even knows it’s Andrea Cavalcanti!
Just kidding about that last part, he definitely does not know that.
Interesting monologue about doing regrettable things in a moment of fear that you realize later you could’ve done differently, that clearly applies to what he did to Poor Edmond. Which ends with him saying women don’t feel remorse because there mistakes aren’t due to their own actions, just things that have been done to them. As a woman, oh yeah, that’s definitely my experience. Yup, you’ve got us pegged, Dumas. I mean, I guess it’s not quite fair to attribute a Villefort quote directly to Dumas–he’s a villain, after all, not necessarily a mouthpiece for the author–but this monologue kind of seemed like actual philosophy, not something the narrative was denouncing. But who knows.
Also, we hear the story about Bertuccio’s failed murder–it wasn’t mistaken identity after all, he was only mostly dead.
Also, glad I never tried to spell Mrs. Danglars’s name. Sounds like Ermine, which is an animal and sounded silly so I never wrote it. Turns out it’s (probably) Hermine, hence the H on the baby’s blanket.
Anyway, Villefort is now going to try to figure out just who TF this Monte Cristo guy is. I wonder if MC knows that that particular part of the jig is up…
Also. Importantly. It seems like they totally didn’t intentionally kill the baby? They just thought it was dead and buried it in secret? Which, to me, is… not what infanticide is? I think the evidence MC presented at the dinner party when that possibility was presented was “if it wasn’t murder, why did they bury it in a box in the yard like a hamster? This was never a cemetery.” but obviously we know it’s because it’s an affair baby they’d rather keep secret (although it seems like the husband kind of figured it out when he came home to a very pregnant wife, and he did in fact kill himself in shame, so… there’s that).
But anyway, what passes for infanticide, then? Just… not baptizing it or whatever? Or is it just that they can’t prove it wasn’t? Or… I don’t know, but it seems (operative word) like no one attempted murder after all. Except Bertuccio lol.
You’re right that’s too funny to be in tags. That’s why I gotta reblog it.