Contents
Chapter 71.
Overview
Mercedes privately confronts Monte Cristo, testing intimacy with symbolic offerings and appeals to shared "bread and salt," but he refuses and keeps an austere distance. Albert brings news of M. de Saint-Meran’s death, causing Valentine to faint and delaying her marriage. Mercedes seeks friendship; Monte Cristo remains formal.
Summary
Mercedes leads Monte Cristo from the crowded rooms into the garden conservatory, seeking a private, candid exchange. She offers him grapes and then a peach, testing intimacy and invoking the custom of bread and salt to seal friendship. Monte Cristo pointedly refuses each offering, remaining impassive and distant.
Pressed by Mercedes, Monte Cristo sketches a past love in Malta lost to marriage during his absence, claiming he never returned and has no family. Mercedes probes whether his happiness has softened him and whether he forgives those who wronged him. He grants forgiveness to the woman but disavows hatred for others, maintaining emotional reserve and denying deeper friendship.
Albert interrupts with urgent news: Villefort has arrived to take his wife and Valentine away because Madame de Saint-Meran has reached Paris announcing M. de Saint-Meran’s death. Valentine, realizing the truth, has fainted; the planned acceleration of her marriage to Franz is halted.
Shaken, Mercedes tries once more to bind Monte Cristo and Albert to her by their hands, asking for friendship. Monte Cristo replies with formal respect rather than warmth. They return to the drawing-room, where Valentine and Madame de Villefort have just departed, and Morrel slips away as well.
Who Appears
- undefinedSeeks a private reckoning with Monte Cristo, testing intimacy and pleading for friendship; emotionally shaken.
- undefinedRemains guarded and aloof; refuses symbolic food; recounts a lost Malta love; denies deeper friendship.
- Albert de MorcerfInterrupts with news of M. de Saint-Meran’s death; witnesses tension between his mother and the count.
- Valentine de VillefortFaints upon learning of her grandfather’s death; her marriage plans are postponed.
- Gérard de VillefortArrives to collect his wife and Valentine after the death news.
- undefinedInitially disbelieves the tragedy; leaves with Villefort after the news.
- undefinedArrives in Paris bearing news of her husband’s death.
- undefinedDies en route from Marseilles; his death disrupts Valentine’s impending marriage.
- undefinedFiancé whose wedding to Valentine is delayed by her grandfather’s death.
- undefinedQuietly departs around the time of the family’s sudden exit; his presence underscores Valentine’s situation.