THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (CHAPS 107-108) THE LIONS DEN and THE JUDGE

1001 Adventure and Mystery Stories For The Road

Jon Hagadorn

Arts, Fiction

4.7 • 520 Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The scene shifts to the prison, called the Lion's Pit, where violent criminals are kept awaiting trial. This includes Andrea, who still insists to the other prisoners that he is of royal birth, although they make fun of him, harry him, and threaten him. Late one day, Bertuccio pays off the guards to visit his adoptive son, telling him he has information related to Benedetto's real father. Bertuccio promises to return with this information in due course, and Andrea says he awaits it with great eagerness.
This important interstitial chapter shows that Andrea is once again in prison, a place he's become accustomed to at this stage of the novel. It is not entirely clear to the reader what Bertuccio intends to do to his "son."n this brief chapter, Villefort finally confronts his wife Heloise after many days spent going over evidence—evidence not only of the poisonings in his own home, but also in the case regarding Benedetto, now known publicly as the Benedetto Affair (because it involves the famous Count).
This affair has taken over Paris, and indeed every affair involving the Count seems to be of citywide, and indeed national, importance. In the space of only a few months, the Count has placed himself in the center of French social life.

Villefort abruptly asks Heloise if she still has the poison she has used on the Saint-Merans, Barrois, and Valentine. He says that he asks not because he will denounce her publically, but instead because he expects her to do the honorable thing and commit suicide at her earliest convenience. If she does not do this in the next day, he warns, he will send her to prison, which will result in her eventual execution.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome back everyone everyone to 1001 Stories for the Road.
0:26.8	This is your host and storyteller, John Haggardorn.
0:29.6	Today, chapters 107 and 108 of the Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandra Dumas.
0:36.9	And now, chapter 107, The Lion's Den.
0:41.9	One division of La Force, in which the most dangerous and desperate prisoners are confined,
0:47.3	is called the Court of St. Bernard. The prisoners, in their expressive language,
0:52.0	have named it the Lion's den, probably because
0:55.1	the captives possess teeth which frequently gnaw the bars, and sometimes the keepers also.
1:00.8	It is a prison within a prison. The walls are doubled the thickness of the rest.
1:05.7	The gratings are every day carefully examined by jailers, whose hercculian proportions and cold, pitiless expression
1:12.0	prove them to have been chosen to rein over their subjects for their superior activity
1:16.2	and intelligence. The courtyard of this corridor is enclosed by enormous walls, over which
1:22.5	the sun glances obliquely, when it deigns to penetrate into this gulf of moral and physical deformity.
1:29.3	On this paved yard are to be seen, pacing to and fro from morning till night, pale,
1:35.6	caroorn and haggard, like so many shadows, the men whom justice holds beneath the steel she is
1:41.6	sharpening. There, crouched against the side of the wall which
1:46.2	attracts and retains the most heat, they may be seen sometimes talking to one another, but more
1:51.3	frequently alone, watching the door, which sometimes opens to call forth one from the gloomy
1:56.5	assemblage or to throw in another outcast from society.
2:05.1	The Court of St. Bernard has its own particular apartment for the reception of guests.
2:11.0	It is a long rectangle, divided by two upright gratings, placed at a distance of three feet from one another to prevent a visitor from shaking hands with or passing anything to the prisoners.
2:16.9	It is a wretched, damp, nay, even horrible spot, more especially when we consider the agonizing
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jon Hagadorn, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jon Hagadorn and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.