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Count of Monte Cristo: Breakfast Conversation

48:15 recording · EN · 1 speaker

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Brief overview

The Count of Monte Cristo arrives in Paris at Albert's breakfast and astonishes his sceptical friends.

  1. Monte Cristo arrives to the second and proves every story trueHe enters as the clock strikes half-past ten and confirms with pills, emerald and credit letters what the friends had dismissed as Albert's dream.
  2. Two life-savers sit at one table: Morel and the CountChateau Renard owes his life to Morel in Africa; Albert owes his to the Count in the catacombs of St. Sebastian.
  3. The Count openly preaches egotism and reads Morel's name with emotionHe protects only those who protect him, yet colours and trembles when Maximilien Morel is introduced and mentions Thompson and French while watching him.
Executive Summary AI
  • Albert keeps Beecham, Debray and Chateau Renard waiting for an eleven o'clock breakfast while they argue over Parisian gossip of his marriage to Mademoiselle Eugène Danglars and her dowry of two million francs, which Beecham insists the aristocratic Count of Morsuff will never accept.
  • Chateau Renard introduces Maximilien Morel, captain of Saphis, who saved his life in Africa after his horse died of cold and six Arabs rode up to cut off his head, then gave him his whole cloak and sacrificed his English horse to feed him.
  • Albert tells how, at Rome last carnival, Luigi Vampa's bandits dragged him to the Catacombs of St. Sebastian and demanded 4,000 Roman crowns, about 24,000 francs, before six, and how the Count of Monte Cristo said two words to the chief and set him free.
  • As half-past ten strikes, Germain announces the Count, who explains he has not eaten for four and twenty hours, shows opium-and-hashish pills kept in a casket cut from a single emerald, and reveals he captured Vampa and his band years ago and let them go on condition they respect him and his friends.
  • The Count names a credit with Thompson and French of Rome, which electrifies Morel, declines every offer of lodging because his Nubian mute Ali has already bought and furnished his house, and Debray leaves at half past two promising to set the police on discovering who he is.
Key Quote
“The king has made him a baron, and can make him a peer, but he cannot make him a gentleman,”
— Beecham
Key Quote
“To be sure. Besides, every millionaire is as noble as a bastard.”
— Debray
Key Quote
“A grain of sand in the centre of the Mediterranean, an atom in the infinite.”
— Maximilian

Transcript

0:00 THE BREAKFAST what sort of a person do you expect to breakfast said beecham a gentleman and a diplomatist then we shall have to wait two hours for the gentleman and three for the diplomatist i shall come back to dessert keep me some strawberries coffee and cigars i'll take a cutler on my way to the chamber
0:38 do not do anything of the sort for with the gentleman a montmorency and the diplomatist of Metternich, we will breakfast at eleven.
0:49 In the meantime, follow de Bray's example and take a glass of sherry and a biscuit.
0:54 Be it so, I'll stay. I must do something to distract my thoughts.
1:01 You are like de Bray, yet it seems to me that when the minister is out of spirits, the opposition ought to be joyous.
1:04 Ah, you do not know with what I am threatened. I shall hear this morning
1:06 that Monsieur Danglars made a speech at the Chamber of Deputies, and at his wife's this
1:11 evening I shall hear the tragedy of a peer of France. The devil take the constitutional
1:16 government, and since we had our choice, as they say, at least how could we choose that?
1:22 I understand you must lay in a stock of hilarity.'
1:26 "'Do not run down Monsieur Danglars' speeches,' said Debray.
1:30 "'He votes for you, and he belongs to the opposition.'
1:33 "'Pardieu, that is exactly the worst of all.
1:36 "'I am waiting until you send him to speak at the Luxembourg to laugh at my ease.'
1:40 "'My dear friend,' said Albert to Beecham,
1:43 "'it is plain that the affairs of Spain are settled,, for you are most desperately out of humour this morning.
1:49 Recollect that Parisian gossip has spoken of a marriage between myself and Mademoiselle Eugène Danglars.
1:55 I cannot in conscience, therefore, let you run down the speeches of a man who will one day say to me,
2:00 Viscont, you know that I gave my daughter two millions.
2:04 Ah, this marriage will never take place, said Beecham.
2:08 The king has made him a baron, and can make him a peer, but he cannot make him a gentleman,
2:12 and the Count of Morsuff is too aristocratic to consent for the paltry sum of two million francs, to a misalliance.
2:19 The Viscount of Morsuff can only wed a Marchioness.
2:23 But two million francs make a nice little sum, replied Morsive.
2:28 It's the social capital of a theatre on a boulevard or a railroad to the Jardin des Plantes in L'Europe.
2:35 Never mind what he says, Morsive, said Debray. Do you marry her? You marry a moneybag label, it's true.
2:42 But what does that matter? It's better to have a blazon less and a figure more on it. You have seven martlets on your arms. Give three to your
2:50 wife and you'll still have four. That's one more than Monsieur de Guise had, who so
2:54 nearly became King of France and whose cousin was Emperor in Germany."
2:58 On my word, I think you're right, Lucien," said Albert absently.
3:02 To be sure. Besides, every millionaire is as noble as a bastard.
3:07 That is, he can be. Do not say that, Debray, returned Beecham, laughing. For here is Chateau
3:12 Renard, who, to cure you of your maniaper paradoxes, will pass the sword of Renard de Montbaton,
3:18 his ancestor, through your body. He'll sully it then, replied Lucian for i'm low very low oh heavens cried beauchamp the minister quotes baranga what then shall we come to next Now then, to breakfast, said Beecham. For, if I remember, you told me you only expected two persons, Albert.
3:48 Morel, muttered Albert.
3:49 Morel.
3:51 Who is he?
3:52 But before he'd finished,
3:54 Monsieur de Chateau-Renard, a handsome young man of thirty,
3:57 gentlemen all over,

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