he was a silent, but bitter opponent; for those who were neither the
one nor the other, he was a statue of the law-made man. He had a haughty
bearing, a look either steady and impenetrable or insolently piercing
and inquisitorial. Four successive revolutions had built and cemented
the pedestal upon which his fortune was based. M. de Villefort had the
reputation of being the least curious and the least wearisome man in
France. He gave a ball every year, at which he appeared for a quarter of
an hour only,--that is to say, five and forty minutes less than the king
is visible at his balls. He was never seen at the theatres, at concerts,
or in any place of public resort. Occasionally, but seldom, he played
at whist, and then care was taken to select partners worthy of
him--sometimes they were ambassadors, sometimes archbishops, or
sometimes a prince, or a president, or some dowager duchess. Such was
the man whose carriage had just now stopped before the Count of Monte
Cristo's door. The valet de chambre announced M. de Villefort at the
moment when the count, leaning over a large table, was tracing on a map
the route from St. Petersburg to China.

The procureur entered with the same grave and measured step he would
have employed in entering a court of justice. He was the same man, or
rather the development of the same man, whom we have heretofore seen as
assistant attorney at Marseilles. Nature, according to her way, had
made no deviation in the path he had marked out for himself. From being
slender he had now become meagre; once pale, he was now yellow; his
deep-set eyes were hollow, and the gold spectacles shielding his eyes
seemed to be an integral portion of his face. He dressed entirely in
black, with the exception of his white tie, and his funeral appearance
was only mitigated by the slight line of red ribbon which passed almost
imperceptibly through his button-hole, and appeared like a streak of
blood traced with a delicate brush. Although master of himself, Monte
Cristo, scrutinized with irrepressible curiosity the magistrate whose
salute he returned, and who, distrustful by habit, and especially
incredulous as to social prodigies, was much more despised to look
upon "the noble stranger," as Monte Cristo was already called, as an
adventurer in search of new fields, or an escaped criminal, rather than
as a prince of the Holy See, or a sultan of the Thousand and One Nights.

"Sir," said Villefort, in the squeaky tone a