THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (CHAP 65) A CONJUGAL SCENE
1001 Adventure and Mystery Stories For The Road
Jon Hagadorn
4.7 • 520 Ratings
🗓️ 28 September 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
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Summary
SummaryAnalysis
The narrator turns to the Danglars' home, where Lucien Debray visits the Baroness, asking what is on her mind after the events at Auteuil earlier that day. The Baroness says that it was nothing, that she is simply feeling faint, but she asks that Debray stay with her and read to her in the night. At this, however, the Baron comes in and tells Lucien to leave—that the younger man will have plenty of time to discuss matters with the Baroness the next day. Hermine is surprised, because typically the Baron does not interfere in her affairs so directly and brusquely.
The affair between Lucien and Hermine has been referred to for some time in the novel, but has not been shown "on stage," as an event unfolding in the text itself. Here, however, their affair is again referenced only glancingly, when the Baron appears to acknowledge that he knows what has been going on, and that he wishes, contrary to normal procedures in the family, to spend some time alone with his wife.
The Baron then has a private conversation with Hermine in her chambers. He reveals that he has long known about her affair with Lucien, just as Hermine, surely, has known about his own affairs, and that they have decided to live "no longer as man and wife" for four years, only pretending to maintain a normalcy in marriage. Danglars says that this arrangement has been fine for him so long as he has not lost out financially. But the Baron strongly implies that Lucien, with his diplomatic connections in Paris, arranged the mix-up in the telegram that resulted in the Baron's enormous financial loss.
The Baron seems to understand that someone has been behind the malfeasance with the telegraph operator. Of course, the reader knows that this bungling was caused by the Count, not Lucien, and so we have another instance of dramatic irony. Nevertheless, the Baron seems to sense that his fortune is under attack in some way, and he wishes to do what he can to preserve the money upon which his reputation rests.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back, everyone, everyone, to 1001 Stories for the Road and the Count of Monte Cristo by |
| 0:28.8 | Alexandra Dumas. |
| 0:30.9 | Chapter 65 A Conjugable Scene |
| 0:33.9 | At the Place Louis XIV, the three young people separated, that is to say, |
| 0:42.3 | Morel went to the boulevards, Chateau Renaud to the Pont de la Revolgion, and Debray to the |
| 0:48.9 | Quay. Most probably, Morel and Chateau Renaud returned to their domestic hards, as they say in the |
| 0:55.9 | gallery of the chamber in well-turned speeches, and in the theatre of the Rue Reschalou in well-written |
| 1:00.9 | pieces. But it was not the case with Debray. When he reached the wicket of the Louvre, he turned |
| 1:06.8 | to the left, galloped across the carousel, passed through the Rue St. Roche, |
| 1:11.4 | at issuing from the Rue de la Mischide. He arrived at Monsieur Danglars' door just at the same time |
| 1:17.3 | that Villefort's Landau, after having deposited him and his wife at the Foburg Saint-Hon-Harae, |
| 1:23.2 | stopped to leave the baroness at her own house. Debray, with the air of a man familiar with the |
| 1:28.1 | house, entered first into the court, threw his bridle into the hands of a footman, and returned |
| 1:33.1 | to the door to receive Madame Danglars, to whom he offered his arm, to conduct her to her apartments. |
| 1:39.6 | The gate once closed, and Debray and the Baroness alone in the court, he asked, |
| 1:44.3 | "'What was the matter with you, Hermine?' |
| 1:47.6 | "'And why were you so affected at that story, or rather fable, which the Count related?' |
| 1:53.0 | "'Because I've been in such shocking spirits all the evening, my friend,' said the Baroness. |
| 2:00.0 | "'No, Hermine,' replied Debray. |
| 2:02.7 | "'You cannot make me believe that. |
| 2:04.8 | On the contrary. |
| 2:06.1 | You were in excellent spirits after you arrived to the Counts. |
... |
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