ecretary in the dressing-room. The count's
well-known courage will render unnecessary the aid of the police, whose
interference might seriously affect him who sends this advice. The
count, by any opening from the bedroom, or by concealing himself in
the dressing-room, would be able to defend his property himself. Many
attendants or apparent precautions would prevent the villain from
the attempt, and M. de Monte Cristo would lose the opportunity of
discovering an enemy whom chance has revealed to him who now sends this
warning to the count,--a warning he might not be able to send another
time, if this first attempt should fail and another be made."

The count's first idea was that this was an artifice--a gross deception,
to draw his attention from a minor danger in order to expose him to a
greater. He was on the point of sending the letter to the commissary of
police, notwithstanding the advice of his anonymous friend, or perhaps
because of that advice, when suddenly the idea occurred to him that it
might be some personal enemy, whom he alone should recognize and over
whom, if such were the case, he alone would gain any advantage, as
Fiesco [*] had done over the Moor who would have killed him. We know the
Count's vigorous and daring mind, denying anything to be impossible,
with that energy which marks the great man. From his past life, from
his resolution to shrink from nothing, the count had acquired an
inconceivable relish for the contests in which he had engaged, sometimes
against nature, that is to say, against God, and sometimes against the
world, that is, against the devil.

* The Genoese conspirator.

"They do not want my papers," said Monte Cristo, "they want to kill
me; they are no robbers, but assassins. I will not allow the prefect of
police to interfere with my private affairs. I am rich enough, forsooth,
to distribute his authority on this occasion." The count recalled
Baptistin, who had left the room after delivering the letter. "Return to
Paris," said he; "assemble the servants who remain there. I want all my
household at Auteuil."

"But will no one remain in the house, my lord?" asked Baptistin.

"Yes, the porter."

"My lord will remember that the lodge is at a distance from the house."

"Well?"

"The house might be stripped without his hearing the least noise."

"By whom?"

"By thieves."

"You are a fool, M. Baptistin. Thieves might strip the house--it would
annoy me less than to be di