Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 4).djvu/44

 

EANWHILE Cavalcanti the elder had returned to his service, not in the army of his majesty the Emperor of Austria, but at the gaming-table of the baths of Lucca, of which he was one of the most assiduous courtiers. It need not be said that he had carried with him every farthing that had been allowed for his journey and as a reward for the majestic and solemn manner in which he had maintained his character of father.

Andrea at his departure inherited all the papers which proved that he had indeed the honor of being the son of the Marquis Bartolomeo Cavalcanti 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 what they really are, but as what 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 card-player, and 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 entitled M. le Comte; he was said to possess fifty thousand 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 Danglars a visit. 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.