"Horrible! A whole family of two or three generations, one after the other! First M. and Madame de Saint-Méran—then Barrois, the old servant of M. Noirtier—then Valentine, and, last of all, Madame de Villefort and Edward, her idol. No wonder that M. le Procureur du Roi himself went mad under such an accumulation of horrors! By the by, Debray, is M. de Villefort still an inmate of the Maison Royale de Charenton?"
"I know nothing to the contrary," replied the Secretary, who had resumed his paper, and to whom the subject seemed not altogether agreeable. "He is an incurable." Then, as if to turn the subject, he continued: "Apropos of the immortals of Algeria, here is a name that seems destined even to a more rapid apotheosis than that of the favored Morrel."
"You mean Joliette?" said the editor. "Who, in the name of all that is mysterious and heroic, is this same Joliette? I have found it impossible to discover, with all the means at the command of the press."
"And I, with all the means at the command of the Government. All we can discover is this—that he is a man of about twenty-five; that he enlisted at Marseilles, and in less than three years has risen from the ranks to the command of a battalion. His career has been most brilliant."
"And to whose favor does he owe his wonderful advancement, Beauchamp?" asked the Deputy, laughing.
"To that of Marshal Bugeaud, Governor-General of Algeria."
"Ah!"
"Who has indulged him with an appointment in every forlorn hope!"
"Excellent!" cried the Count. "What more could a man resolved to be a military immortal desire? Immortality the goal—two paths conduct to it—each sure—death—life!—the former the shorter, and, perhaps, the surer! But there is one name I never see in the war dispatches. Do you ever meet with it, Messrs. editor and Secretary—I mean the name of our brilliant friend, Albert de Morcerf? The rumor ran that, after the disgrace and suicide of the Count, his father, he and his mother went south, and he later to Africa."