Bienvenue à Marseille | 2025 The Count of Monte Christo, read-a-long

Noirtier is a great character though and I'm enjoying how he is managing to exercise power purely via expressions and eye movements!

The bit where Mme de Villefort asks if he would like her darling Édouard to come and visit him is priceless!

I think that I'm forgetting that this is just a rip snorting good yarn, and that quite a lot of things that happen are totally preposterous and don't really stand up to close inspection. Edmond does seem to have supernatural powers when it comes to finding people's weak spots.

Villefort is such an interesting character though. He has desperately wanted to do the right thing and be lauded for it, but the actions he has taken have been to protect his loved ones. They are terrible actions, but he is not entirely unsympathetic.

I’m not sure he does know that Noirtier killed Quesnel.. but maybe he has just joined the dots. He knows Villefort locked him up protecting his father (for the letter). If he had heard the rumours that Villefort alluded to, maybe he remembered that the address on the letter was round the corner from where Quesnel ended up in the Seine, and put two and two together. After all, he has had ten years to do some sleuthing..

So I've just finished the Telegraph, which I believe is today's chapter.

So how would TCOMC know that Nortier killed Franz's father because I think that he does?

He's planing the seed of unfairness on the current Mme Villefort. Marital tensions are going to rise in that household!

And let's talk about Edouard, he's an evil little fella isn't he ? Every time he crops up he's engaging in cruel activities, in this chapter poisoning birds.

Is this supposed to be 'like father like son?'. He couldn't be more different from the lovely Valentine and her relationship with her grandfather makes me warm to Noirtier even though we know he's a murderer.

Really getting back into the story now, I didn't really engage with the Rome bit if I'm honest.

Good point, Fuzzy. Tonton, I do agree that Villefort's strategy seems deeply flawed/farfetched. Maybe Franz's high social status is the primary reason Villefort is so keen on the marriage, and the hope of hushing up rumour is only secondary. But the novel does suggest that the desire to hush up rumour is also a motivation. (Plausibility does not seem to be a big concern for Dumas, as we have noted before, ha. The novel is full of unlikely coincidences.)

Noirtier is a great character though and I'm enjoying how he is managing to exercise power purely via expressions and eye movements! The grandfather / granddaughter relationship is also well done. The tough old man with a dodgy past and the beautiful, caring young woman are an unusual pairing, but that makes it all the more more effective.

It's also interesting to learn in today's chapter that Noirtier is really a Jacobin revolutionary at core, more than a pure Bonapartist. That shores up his left-wing credentials.

In today's chapter, Villefort's reference to 'old rumours' that he has 'tried to suppress' is significant. He wants to erase all traces of shady dealings that reflect on his squeaky clean reputation. Seems far fetched!

Perhaps it's because it seems so deeply flawed as a strategy to me that I'm reading more into it.

If I was Noirtier I would take the view that I had nothing to lose at this point, and would confess to being the assassin.

This is the bit of the chapter that I was thinking of, @TonTonMacoute :

'A mysterious business,' said Villefort. 'The murderers have never been identified, although many people were suspected.'

Noirtier made such an effort that his lips were almost contracted into a smile.

'However,' Villefort went on, 'the guilty parties, those who know that they committed the crime and who may be subject to human justice in their lives and divine justice when they are dead, would be happy indeed to be in our place, with a daughter whom they could offer to Monsieur Franz d'Epinay, to extinguish even the merest glimmer of suspicion.'

Although Noirtier is the guilty party here and not Villefort himself, we have seen before how far Villefort has gone in order to preserve his own reputation. Every time he starts talking about 'justice', there's the dramatic irony of his own deliberate perversions of justice.

The French passage repeats 'soupcon' twice. I suspect (!) it's not just Villefort wanting his father to be free of suspicion; he wants to be free of suspicion himself, through association as it were.

To be fair to Villefort, it's rather more nuanced than that. He does seem to want the marriage to show that old enmity between the families is over.

I don't think anyone else knows that his father was actually the assassin though.

Thank you @JaninaDuszejko , that's very helpful!

What the hell is Villefort thinking I wonder, telling his dad that he can live with the newlyweds? Because clearly it will be so nice for the old man to live with the son of someone he murdered (not).

Presumably there are still rumours and scandal around the death of Franz' father, and Villefort thinks that turning Franz into a member of the Villefort family will be a good way to hush up the truth.

And yes, Shmoop can be very sloppy, gosh!

Shmoop is not entirely accurate is it.

Franz full title is given in the latest chapter. I assume the aristocratic Bonapartists chose not to use their artistocratic titles post Revolution but under the restoration their sons did. Bit like in the 1960s the 2nd Viscount Stansgate campaigning to relinquish his title so he could stand in the House of Commons.

Valentine will still inherit a fortune from her dead mother - the daughter of M and Mme Saint Meran.

I had guessed that Franz was the son of the man that Noirtier had assassinated, but when I checked back the name was different, it's very confusing!

Thank you Janina! That was very helpful particularly about Franz's father.
Noirtier isn't deaf and blind. Why is Shmoop saying that.
Valentine is still very well off though, so him changing his will isn't going to get her out of the marriage.

Thursday
Chapter 58 Summary
M. Noirtier de Villefort

As Max and Valentine are chit-chatting it up, Villefort and his wife go to visit Villefort's dad, Noirtier, in his secret rooms.
Remember that Noirtier has had a terrible stroke. He is deaf and blind. Only Villefort, Noirtier's servant Barrois, and Valentine know how to communicate with Noirtier.
Noirtier LOVES his granddaughter, Valentine. He dotes on her. She loves him with all her heart.
When Villefort and his wife tell Noirtier that Valentine is engaged to Franz, the son of his sworn enemy, he goes ballistic.
Valentine goes to comfort her grandfather and communicates that she's as excited by the idea of marrying Franz as he is.
Noirtier promises to help her get out of this hair-brained marriage scheme.

Friday
Chapter 59 Summary
The Will

Noirtier's got a plan to get his darling granddaughter (Valentine) out of having to marry Franz: he changes his will.
Now, if Valentine marries Franz, all of Noirtier's money and possessions will be given to the poor upon his death.
Villefort still won't change his mind.

I was confused as to who Franz's father was in all this and why he was Noirtier's enemy but it's General Quesnel who we last heard of back in Chapter 11 The Corsican Ogre and Chapter 12 Father and Son where we find out that the murderer of General Quesnel in Rue Saint-Jacques was M. Noirtier. Villefort realised this and helped his father change his clothes so he could escape.

Tuesday
Chapter 56 Summary
Andrea Cavalcanti

• The Count's scheme continues – he wants the younger dude to pretend to be Bartolomeo Cavalcanti's kidnapped son, Andrea Cavalcanti.
• The two dudes will pretend that they have been brought together (father and son) after so many years by the great Count of Monte Cristo.
• The Count outfits them with lots of cool clothes and things and asks them to come to a party he's throwing in a few days.

Wednesday
Chapter 57 Summary
In the Lucerne Patch

• Love is complicated. Especially when you're not in love.
• Max (Morrel) and Valentine (Villefort) are at it again; they are secretly chatting in the garden like Romeo and Juliet.
• Max tells Valentine that her betrothed, Franz, is headed to Paris soon.
• Valentine tells him that she can't not marry Franz; she can't bear to disobey her dad.
• Valentine's stepmom, Mrs. Villefort, wants her to become a nun so that she can't inherit all of the wealth she's going to inherit from her dad. Mrs. Villefort wants her son, Edward, to inherit everything instead. She's really urging Valentine to consider life in a convent.
• The two also discuss Eugénie Danglars. You see, Eugénie wants to marry Albert as much as he wants to marry her, which is to say, not at all.
• Eugénie wants to be a bohemian, an artist – free and in charge of her own life.

Today is Monsieur Noirtier de Villefort but I've not read it yet so not looking at Shmoop yet.

I seem to be accidentally more or less on track.

I've just read the chapter where "father" and "son" meet and had to come straight here to figure out what I'd missed. Sounds like it is supposed to be a mystery at this stage and there will be big reveals at the dinner party.

I have, of course, forgotten who else is going to be at the dinner party but I am looking forward to it and more shenanigans!

Woohoo, I am back on track. Thank you @AgualusasLover for the very helpful chart. Whilst I know Edmund/the Count is manipulating situations, there are an awful lot of coincidences which pre-date his appearance (such as the engagement of the Danglars daughter to Mercedes son; the illicit romance between Villefort's daughter and Morel's son).

I think both the "Major" and his "son" are fakes. In the English version it seemed clear the Count was testing the father on his background story and feeding him lines and given he was approached by the Abbe and offered money (despite being an allegedly rich man) he is definitely an imposter. Had not crossed my mind that it could be Benedetto - although Dumas says he looks like an angel, the physical description of him didn't sound very angelic to me - fair hair, ginger beard and dark eyes.........

I’m enjoying Valentine too - partly because it’s a relief that the Villeforts aren’t all born evil, and partly because her name starts with a V which makes it easier to remember Valentine Villefort and distinguish her from Eugenie!

This is the first time that I haven't managed to get ahead in a readalong.
I'm just keeping up!

I have fallen WAY behind and hope to catch up on the weekend!

Me too, I'm enjoying Valentine as a character.

I liked how Valentine refused to join the Count's fan club. She seems to know her own mind and is not as submissive as is suggested in the footnote. She tackles Maximilien on a couple of points as well.

I have to admit I have no idea what Edmond is up to with his plotting. He's setting up 'Andrea' and his father as being rich, which we know they aren't, so maybe he's trying to short Danglars somehow, and perhaps Villefort.

Villefort has a scheming young wife and another son who needs a good slap ...🤔