“Well,” said Monte Cristo, “it is just as I thought; it was politics which brought Noirtier and M. d’Épinay into personal contact. Although General d’Épinay served under Napoleon, did he not still retain royalist sentiments? And was he not the person who was assassinated one evening on leaving a Bonapartist meeting to which he had been invited on the supposition that he favored the cause of the emperor?”

Villefort looked at the count almost with terror.

“Am I mistaken, then?” said Monte Cristo.

“No, sir, the facts were precisely what you have stated,” said Madame de Villefort; “and it was to prevent the renewal of old feuds that M. de Villefort formed the idea of uniting in the bonds of affection the two children of these inveterate enemies.”