to the Foundling Hospital, where I was inscribed under the number 37. Three months afterward, a woman traveled from Rogliano to Paris to fetch me, and having claimed me as her son, carried me away. Thus, you see, though born in Paris, I was brought up in Corsica."
There was a moment's silence, during which one could have fancied the hall empty, so profound was the stillness.
"Proceed!" said the president.
"Certainly, I might have lived happily among those good people, who adored me; but my perverse disposition prevailed over the virtues which my adopted mother endeavored to instill into my heart. I increased in wickedness till I committed crime. One day when I cursed Providence for making me so wicked, and ordaining me to such a fate, my adopted father said to me, 'Do not blaspheme, unhappy child! the crime is your father's, not yours; your father's, who devoted you to death, or to a life of misery, in case, by a miracle, you should escape.' Since then I ceased to blaspheme, but I cursed my father. This is why I have uttered the words for which you blame me; this is why I have filled this whole assembly with horror. If I have committed an additional crime, punish me; but if you will allow that ever since the day of my birth my fate has been sad, bitter, and lamentable, then pity me."
"But your mother?" asked the president.
"My mother thought me dead; she is not guilty. I did not even wish to know her name, nor do I know it."
Just then a piercing cry, ending in a sob, burst from the center of the crowd, who encircled the lady who had before fainted, and who now fell into a violent fit of hysterics. She was carried out of the hall, and in doing so, the thick veil which concealed her face dropped off, and Madame Danglars was recognized. Notwithstanding his shattered nerves, the stunning sensation in his ears, and the species of madness which turned his brain, Villefort rose as he perceived her.
"The proofs! the proofs!" said the president; "remember this tissue of horrors must be supported by the clearest proofs."
"The proofs?" said Benedetto, laughing; "do you want proofs?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, look at M. de Villefort, and then ask me for proofs."
Every one turned toward the procureur du roi, who, unable to bear the universal gaze now riveted on him alone, advanced, staggering, into the midst of the tribunal, with his hair disheveled, and his face indented with the mark of his nails. The whole assembly uttered a long murmur of astonishment.
"Father!" said Benedetto, "I am asked for proofs, do you wish me to give them!"
