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Ideology of Power

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Brief overview

Villefort calls on Monte Cristo and meets a man who claims to be Providence's agent.

  1. Villefort's power is his post, not his charmHated by many and liked by nobody, he holds an impregnable fortress as king's attorney and would leave it only to become a deputy.
  2. Monte Cristo answers law with a wider lawHe says he has compared the criminal procedure of all nations and found the law of retaliation closest to the law of God.
  3. The Count claims a mission, not a fortuneHe tells Villefort he asked to be Providence himself and was made one of its agents, at the price of his soul.
Executive Summary AI
  • The chapter opens with a portrait of Mr. de Villefort, king's attorney, a man of freezing politeness and rigid principle who stands well at court under any government, is hated by many yet consulted by all, and treats his post as an impregnable fortress he would give up only to become a deputy.
  • Villefort, who gives one ball a year and appears at it for a quarter of an hour, arrives at Monte Cristo's door to thank the Count for the service rendered the previous day to his wife and son, and finds the Count bent over a map tracing the route from St. Petersburg to China.
  • The courtesy turns into a duel of ideas: Monte Cristo asks whether what the magistrate does deserves to be called anything, claims the English, Turkish, Japanese and Hindu codes are as familiar to him as the French, and says the law of retaliation of primitive nations is the one he has most often found to match the law of God.
  • Pressed further, the Count declares himself one of those exceptional beings who move unseen among men, bound only by the world, with just two adversaries, time and distance, and a third and worst, his condition as a mortal being; he recounts how, offered the kingdoms of the earth, he asked to be Providence itself, to recompense and punish.
  • Villefort answers by inviting him to see his own father, Mr. Noirtier de Villefort, the old Jacobin struck down overnight into a dumb and frozen carcass tended by his granddaughter Valentine, and reads that ruin as God punishing one man's unknown fault; when the procuror has been shown to his carriage, Monte Cristo sighs, calls the visit poison, and orders his carriage for one o'clock.
Key Quote
“man is but an ugly caterpillar for him who studies him through a solar microscope.”
— Monte Cristo
Key Quote
“And I must say, sir, that it is the law of primitive nations, that is, the law of retaliation, that I have most frequently found to be according to the law of God.”
— Monte Cristo
Key Quote
“I have only two adversaries. I will not say two conquerors, for with perseverance I subdue even them. They are time and distance.”
— Monte Cristo

Transcript

0:00 CHAPTER XLVIII. IDEOLOGY the count of monte-cristo by leon de chapter forty eight ideology if the count of monte-cristo had been for a long time familiar with the ways of parisian society de Willeford had taken. Standing well at court, whether the king regnant was of the older or
0:47 younger branch, whether the government was doctrinine liberal or conservative, looked upon
0:52 by all as a man of talent, since those who have never experienced a political check are generally
0:58 so regarded. Hated by many, but warmly supported by others, without being really liked by anybody mr de willeford held a high position in the magistracy and maintained his eminence like a hallway or a mall scarcely eighteen, was still one of the well-regulated Paris salons, where the worship of traditional
1:26 customs and the observance of rigid etiquette were carefully maintained.
1:31 A freezing politeness, a strict fidelity to government principles, a profound contempt
1:37 for theories and theorists, a deep-seated hatred of ideality—these were the elements
1:44 of private and public life displayed by Mr. de
1:46 Villefort. He was not only a magistrate, he was almost a diplomatist. His relations with the
1:52 former court, of which he always spoke with dignity and respect, made him respected by the
1:58 new one, and he knew so many things, that not only was he always carefully considered, but sometimes consulted.
2:11 Perhaps this would not have been so, had it been possible to get rid of Mr. de Willeford.
2:19 But, like the feudal barons, who rebelled against their sovereign, he dwelt in an impregnable fortress.
2:26 This fortress was his post as king's attorney, all the advantages of which he exploited with marvelous skill, and which he would not have resigned but to be made deputy, and thus to replace neutrality
2:32 by opposition. Ordinarily Mr. de Villefort made and returned very few visits. His wife visited
2:40 for him, and this was the received thing in the world, where the weighty and multifarious
2:45 occupations of the magistrate were accepted as an excuse for what was really only calculated
2:51 pride, a manifestation of professed superiority. In fact, the application of the axiom,
2:58 pretend to think well of yourself and the world will think well of you an axiom a hundred times more useful in society nowadays than that of the greeks know thyself a knowledge for which in our days we who were neither the one nor the other, he was a. Mr. de Willeford had the reputation of
3:47 being the least curious and the least verisome man in France. He gave a ball every year, at which he
3:54 appeared for a quarter of an hour only, that is to say five and forty minutes less than the king is
4:00 visible at his balls. He was never seen at the theatres, at concerts, or in any place of public resort.
4:07 Occasionally but seldom he played at whist, and then care was taken to select partners worthy of
4:13 him. Sometimes they were ambassadors, sometimes archbishops, or sometimes a prince or a president,
4:20 or some dowager duchess. Such was the man whose carriage had just now stopped before the Count
4:26 of Montecristo's door. The valet de chambre announced Mr. de Villefort at the moment when
4:32 the Count, leaning over a large table, was tracing on a map the route from St. Petersburg to China.
4:39 The procurer entered with the same grave and measured step he would have employed in enteringre, once pale he was now
5:07 yellow. His deep-set eyes were hollow, and the gold spectacle shielding his eyes seemed to be
5:12 an integral portion of his face. He dressed entirely in black, with the exception of his
5:18 white tee, and his funeral appearance was only mitigated by the slight line of red ribbon which passed almost imperceptibly
5:27 through his buttonhole, and appeared like a streak of blood traced with a delicate brush.
5:33 Although master of himself, Montecristo scrutinized with irrepressible curiosity
5:38 the magistrate whose salute he returned, and who, distrustful by habit and especially incredulous as to social prodigies,
5:48 was much more despised to look upon the noble stranger, as Montecristo was already called,
5:54 as an adventurer in search of new fields, or an escaped criminal, rather than as a prince of the
6:00 holy sea, or a sultan the Thousand and One Nights.
6:12 Sir, said Villefort, in the squeaky tone assumed by magistrates in their oratorical periods,
6:17 and of which they cannot, or will not, divest themselves in society,
7:06 Sir, the signal service which you yesterday rendered to my wife and son has made it a duty for me to offer you my thanks i have come therefore to discharge this duty and to express to you my overwhelming gratitude He spoke in a voice of the procurator-general, with a rigid inflexibility of neck and shoulders which caused his flatterers to say, as we have before observed, that he say that the sentiment of maternity is the most holy of all.

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