honor
of being the son of the Marquis Bartolomeo and the Marchioness Oliva
Corsinari. He was now fairly launched in that Parisian society which
gives such ready access to foreigners, and treats them, not as they
really are, but as they wish to be considered. Besides, what is required
of a young man in Paris? To speak its language tolerably, to make a
good appearance, to be a good gamester, and to pay in cash. They are
certainly less particular with a foreigner than with a Frenchman. Andrea
had, then, in a fortnight, attained a very fair position. He was called
count, he was said to possess 50,000 livres per annum; and his father's
immense riches, buried in the quarries of Saravezza, were a constant
theme. A learned man, before whom the last circumstance was mentioned as
a fact, declared he had seen the quarries in question, which gave great
weight to assertions hitherto somewhat doubtful, but which now assumed
the garb of reality.

Such was the state of society in Paris at the period we bring before our
readers, when Monte Cristo went one evening to pay M. Danglars a visit.
M. Danglars was out, but the count was asked to go and see the baroness,
and he accepted the invitation. It was never without a nervous shudder,
since the dinner at Auteuil, and the events which followed it, that
Madame Danglars heard Monte Cristo's name announced. If he did not
come, the painful sensation became most intense; if, on the contrary, he
appeared, his noble countenance, his brilliant eyes, his amiability,
his polite attention even towards Madame Danglars, soon dispelled every
impression of fear. It appeared impossible to the baroness that a man of
such delightfully pleasing manners should entertain evil designs against
her; besides, the most corrupt minds only suspect evil when it would
answer some interested end--useless injury is repugnant to every mind.
When Monte Cristo entered the boudoir,--to which we have already once
introduced our readers, and where the baroness was examining some
drawings, which her daughter passed to her after having looked at them
with M. Cavalcanti,--his presence soon produced its usual effect, and it
was with smiles that the baroness received the count, although she had
been a little disconcerted at the announcement of his name. The latter
took in the whole scene at a glance.

The baroness was partially reclining on a sofa, Eugenie sat near her,
and Cavalcanti was standing. Cavalcanti, dressed in black, l