Pere-la-Chaise,
where M. de Villefort had long since had a tomb prepared for the
reception of his family. The remains of poor Renee were already
deposited there, and now, after ten years of separation, her father
and mother were to be reunited with her. The Parisians, always curious,
always affected by funereal display, looked on with religious silence
while the splendid procession accompanied to their last abode two of the
number of the old aristocracy--the greatest protectors of commerce and
sincere devotees to their principles. In one of the mourning-coaches
Beauchamp, Debray, and Chateau-Renaud were talking of the very sudden
death of the marchioness. "I saw Madame de Saint-Meran only last year at
Marseilles, when I was coming back from Algiers," said Chateau-Renaud;
"she looked like a woman destined to live to be a hundred years old,
from her apparent sound health and great activity of mind and body. How
old was she?"

"Franz assured me," replied Albert, "that she was sixty-six years old.
But she has not died of old age, but of grief; it appears that since
the death of the marquis, which affected her very deeply, she has not
completely recovered her reason."

"But of what disease, then, did she die?" asked Debray.

"It is said to have been a congestion of the brain, or apoplexy, which
is the same thing, is it not?"

"Nearly."

"It is difficult to believe that it was apoplexy," said Beauchamp.
"Madame de Saint-Meran, whom I once saw, was short, of slender form,
and of a much more nervous than sanguine temperament; grief could
hardly produce apoplexy in such a constitution as that of Madame de
Saint-Meran."

"At any rate," said Albert, "whatever disease or doctor may have killed
her, M. de Villefort, or rather, Mademoiselle Valentine,--or, still
rather, our friend Franz, inherits a magnificent fortune, amounting, I
believe, to 80,000 livres per annum."

"And this fortune will be doubled at the death of the old Jacobin,
Noirtier."

"That is a tenacious old grandfather," said Beauchamp. "Tenacem
propositi virum. I think he must have made an agreement with death to
outlive all his heirs, and he appears likely to succeed. He resembles
the old Conventionalist of '93, who said to Napoleon, in 1814, 'You bend
because your empire is a young stem, weakened by rapid growth. Take
the Republic for a tutor; let us return with renewed strength to the
battle-field, and I promise you 500,000 soldiers, another Marengo, and