"No, no, it is useless!" stammered M. de Villefort, in a hoarse voice; "no, it is useless!"
"How useless?" cried the president, "what do you mean!"
"I mean that I feel it impossible to struggle against this deadly weight which crushes me. Gentlemen, I know I am in the hands of an avenging God! We need no proofs; everything related by this young man is true."
A dull, gloomy silence, like that which precedes some awful phenomenon of nature, covered with a pall of lead the assembly, who shuddered in dismay.
"What! M. de Villefort," cried the president, "do you yield to an hallucination? What! are you no longer in possession of your senses? This strange, unexpected, terrible accusation has disordered your reason. Come, recover."
The procureur du roi shook his head; his teeth chattered like those of a man under a violent attack of fever, and yet he was deadly pale.
"I am in possession of all my senses, sir," he said; "my body alone suffers, as you may suppose. I acknowledge myself guilty of all the young man has brought against me, and from this hour hold myself at the disposal of the procureur du roi who will succeed me."
And as he spoke these words with a hoarse, choking voice, he staggered toward the door, which was mechanically opened by a door-keeper. The whole assembly were dumb with astonishment at the revelation and confession which had produced a catastrophe so different to that which had been expected during the last fortnight by the Parisian world.
"Well," said Beauchamp, "let them now say that drama is unnatural!"
"Ma foi!" said Château-Renaud, "I would rather end my career like M. de Morcerf; a pistol-shot seems quite delightful, compared with this catastrophe."
"And then, it kills," said Beauchamp.
"And I, too, who thought of marrying his daughter," said Debray. "She did well to die, poor girl!"
"The sitting is adjourned, gentlemen," said the president; "fresh inquiries will be made, and the case will be tried next session by another magistrate."
As for Andrea, who was as calm and more interesting than ever, he left the hall, escorted by gendarmes, who involuntarily paid him some attention.
"Well, what do you think of this, my fine fellow?" asked Debray of the sergent-de-ville, slipping a louis into his hand.
"There will be extenuating circumstances," he replied.
