Story so far
Shattered by the trial, Villefort rushes home resolved to save the wife he sentenced—only to find Madame de Villefort dead by her own poison, and their son Edward de Villefort dead beside her, killed by the 'good mother' who 'cannot depart without her son.' Crying 'Still the hand of God,' the broken magistrate seeks his father and finds the Abbé Busoni, who strips off his disguise: not Busoni, not merely the Count of Monte Cristo, but the man Villefort condemned twenty-three years before—'I am Edmond Dantès!' Villefort drags him to the two corpses—'see, are you well avenged?'—then, as the count carries off the child's body in horror, the procureur's reason gives way: he rushes to the garden and digs frantically in the earth, raving 'It is not here!... I will find him, though I dig forever!' The pitiless judge who buried his own bastard alive at Auteuil, who shielded a poisoner and condemned an innocent, is left mad among the ruins of his house, his whole family destroyed.
Appearance
A gaunt magistrate reduced to a raving wreck, hair dishevelled, chest clawed bloody by his own nails, eyes starting from their sockets, laughing horribly.
Role
The magistrate broken into madness by the deaths of his wife and son and the Count's revelation.
Relationships
Edmond Dantès — The man he condemned to the Château d'If, revealed at last, whose vengeance leaves his house in ruins.
Madame de Villefort — His wife, whom he sentenced to suicide and finds dead, along with the son she took with her.
Edward de Villefort — His son, murdered by his own mother, whose death shatters the last of the magistrate's reason.
Noirtier — His father, to whom he flees for comfort only to meet the disguised count at his side.
Sources — 23 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 6
- Ambitious royalist deputy prosecutor of Marseilles who has disowned his Bonapartist father to secure his career.
Chapter 7
- Convinced of Dantès's innocence, Villefort still buries him alive to protect his own name and career.
Chapter 9
- Villefort races to Paris to warn the king and make his fortune, spurning Mercédès and stifling his remorse.
Chapter 11
- Villefort wins royal favor and the Legion of Honor by warning the king, just as Napoleon's return makes him invaluable.
Chapter 13
- Through the Hundred Days and Restoration, Villefort keeps Dantès buried and secures his own advancement.
Chapter 44
- Bertuccio's confession exposes Villefort's blackest secret: a hidden mistress at Auteuil and a newborn he buried alive in the garden.
Chapter 48
- The rigid magistrate calls to thank the Count and is drawn into a duel of ideas, unwittingly baring his family and his creed.
Chapter 60
- Stung by his father's will, Villefort defies it, insists on the d'Épinay marriage, and lets the Count goad him into hastening it.
Chapter 63
- At Auteuil the procureur is trapped as the Count unearths the buried infant of his old crime, and he arranges a secret meeting with Madame Danglars.
Chapter 67
- In his own office Villefort confesses to Madame Danglars that their buried infant was never in the grave—it may live, and the Count holds their secret.
Chapter 69
- Villefort probes the Count through the police, but the two 'witnesses' are the Count in disguise, and the deceived magistrate sleeps soundly at last.
Chapter 72
- Villefort broods over his list of enemies, half-reassured about the Count, when Saint-Méran's sudden death and his widow's dying demands overtake him.
Chapter 73
- Told by d'Avrigny that his mother-in-law was poisoned, Villefort recoils in horror and begs the doctor to bury the secret to spare his house from scandal.
Chapter 75
- Villefort watches helplessly as his father Noirtier destroys the marriage by confessing to killing Franz's father, then flees the room in horror.
Chapter 78
- A cold letter from Franz formally ends the marriage, striking Villefort's pride; he never knew his father killed d'Épinay in a fair duel, not by assassination.
Chapter 79
- Villefort watches old Barrois die and is forced by d'Avrigny's syrup-of-violets proof to face that a poisoner is at work under his own roof.
Chapter 80
- Hearing d'Avrigny denounce Valentine as the poisoner, Villefort refuses to give his daughter to the law—and catches a gloomy smile on his wife's lips.
Chapter 94
- With Valentine now stricken, Villefort rushes d'Avrigny to her bedside, confessing his house 'accursed' and vowing this time to hunt down the assassin.
Chapter 99
- His house a plague-gloomed lazaretto, Villefort refuses Madame Danglars all mercy for Benedetto, swears before his crucifix to slay every discovered criminal, and exults at the arrest.
Chapter 103
- Confronted over Valentine's murder, Villefort begs the secret be buried and pledges, backed by Noirtier, to take a private vengeance more terrible than justice within three days.
Chapter 108
- Under Noirtier's silent, menacing reminder of his oath, Villefort confronts his wife as her judge and gives her a lethal choice: poison herself before he returns, or face the scaffold.
Chapter 110
- Presiding at the trial he built, Villefort is destroyed when the accused names him as father—and, crushed, publicly confesses his guilt and yields himself to justice.
Chapter 111
- Racing home to save the wife he condemned, Villefort finds her dead and their son murdered beside her; the Count unmasks as Edmond Dantès, and the ruined magistrate goes mad.