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Vendetta in Nîmes

54:11 recording · EN · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

Bertuccio tells Monte Cristo how he avenged his brother by killing Villefort and saved a buried infant.

  1. Official indifference created the vendettaVillefort called the killing a natural reprisal and said government owed nothing to the family, so Bertuccio swore to kill him.
  2. The buried box held a living childBertuccio, once a hospital assistant at Bastia, blew air into the newborn's lungs for a quarter of an hour until it cried.
  3. Benedetto repaid the rescue with ruinStealing at five or six, keeping company with the worst characters in Bastia at eleven, he laughed at the smuggler's life at twelve.
Executive Summary AI
  • Bertuccio begins his story in 1815, when his elder brother, a lieutenant in a regiment composed entirely of Corsicans, was his only friend and had raised him since they were orphaned at five and eighteen.
  • Carrying five hundred of his thousand francs to Nîmes, he found his brother had been assassinated the previous evening at the innkeeper's door, and the king's attorney, Monsieur de Villefort, refused both to hunt the murderers and to obtain a pension for the widow.
  • Bertuccio declared the vendetta, followed Villefort for three months to the country house where the count and Bertuccio now sit, and one windy night at the end of September stabbed him as he buried a box two feet long in the garden.
  • The box held a newborn, purple and suffocated; Bertuccio inflated its lungs until it breathed, left it at a Paris asylum with half the marked linen kept in his pocket, and his sister-in-law Assunta later reclaimed the boy and called him Benedetto.
  • Benedetto grew thieving and audacious, refused the smuggler's life at twelve, and in June 1829, fleeing custom-house officers, Bertuccio hid at Caderousse's inn between Bellegarde and Beaucaire and watched Caderousse and La Carconte sell the jeweller Joannes a diamond left by the sailor Edmond Dantes for forty-five thousand francs.
Key Quote
“you are mistaken monsieur i replied he has perished by the poniard”
— Bertuccio
Key Quote
“I have already told you. Avenge him.”
— Bertuccio
Key Quote
“Go now at once, or I shall have you put out.”
— Monsieur de Villefort

Transcript

0:00 VENDETTA at what point shall i begin my story your excellency asked bertuccio were you pleased returned monte cristo since i know nothing at all of it i thought that evi bosoni had told your excellency ago, and I have forgotten them. Then I can speak without fear of charring Your Excellency.
0:47 Go on, Bertuccio.
0:48 You will supply the want of the
0:50 evening papers.
0:52 The story begins in 1815.
0:55 Ah,
0:56 said Montecristo,
0:58 1815 is not yesterday.
1:01 No, monsieur,
1:02 and yet I recollect
1:04 all things as clearly as if they had happened but then i had a brother an elder brother who was in service of the emperor he had become lieutenant in a regiment composed entirely of corsicans
1:16 this brother was my only friend we became orphans i at five he at eighteen he brought me up as if i had been his son and in eighteen fourteen he married when the emperor returned from the island of elba my brother instantly joined the army was slightly wounded at waterloo and retired with the army beyond lawyer hundred days, Monsieur Petruchio, said the Count. Unless I am mistaken, it has been already written.
1:48 Excuse me, Excellency, but these details are necessary, and you promised to be patient.
1:54 Go on, I'll keep my word. One day we received a letter. I should tell you that we lived in the
2:01 little village of Rogliano, at the extremity of Cape Corso.
2:07 This letter was for my brother.
2:13 He told us that the army was disbanded, and that it should return by Chateau-Rouques,
2:15 Clermont-Ferrand, Lepuy and Nîmes.
2:22 And, if I had any money, he prayed me to leave it for him at Nîmes, with an innkeeper with whom I had dealings.
2:24 In the smuggling line, said Montecristo,
2:28 Hey, your excellency, everyone must leave. Certainly, go on. I loved my brother tenderly,
2:36 as I told your excellency, and I resolved not to send money, but to take it to him myself.
2:43 I possessed a thousand francs.
2:48 I left five hundred with Assunta, my sister-in-law,
2:52 and with the other five hundred I set off for Nimes.
2:54 It was easy to do so,
2:58 and as I had my boat and a landing to take in and see,
3:00 everything favoured my project.
3:03 But, after we had taken in our cargo,
3:04 the wind became contrary,
3:08 so that we were four or five days without being able to enter the Rhone.
3:12 At last, however, we succeeded and worked up to Arles.
3:17 I left the boat between Bellegarde and Boquer and took the road to Nîmes.
3:20 We are getting to the story now.
3:22 Yes, Your Excellency.
3:46 Excuse me, but, as you'll see see i only tell you what is absolutely necessary just at this heard of these massacres, Your Excellency.
3:50 Vaguely, I was far from France at that period.
3:50 Go on.
3:55 As I entered Nimes, I literally waded in blood.
4:01 At every step you encountered dead bodies and bands of murderers, who killed, plundered and burned.

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