Story so far
Madame de Villefort, sentenced by her husband Villefort to die by her own hand, carries out the deed with a final, monstrous devotion. When he bursts into her room she stands 'erect, pale, her features contracted,' clutching a crystal bottle with a golden stopper, and gasps 'It is done, monsieur... what more do you want?' before falling dead. But her crime is worse than her own end: she has taken with her the son for whom she poisoned so many, Edward de Villefort, laid dead in the boudoir, a note folded on his breast in her hand—'You know that I was a good mother, since it was for my son's sake I became criminal.
A good mother cannot depart without her son.' The refined Parisian wife whose greed murdered the Saint-Mérans and Valentine de Villefort ends as a mother who could not conceive of leaving her child behind, killing the one being she truly loved and completing the ruin of the house.
Appearance
A young woman of twenty-five laid dead, features contracted and eyes glaring horribly, a crystal poison-bottle clasped in her stiff white hand.
Role
The poisoner who obeys her death-sentence but murders her beloved son to take him with her.
Relationships
Villefort — Her husband, whose sentence of suicide she obeys, dying as he bursts into the room.
Edward de Villefort — Her adored son, whom she poisons to take with her, unable to 'depart without her son.'
Valentine de Villefort — Her murdered stepdaughter, one of the crimes for which she is finally driven to her own death.
Sources — 12 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 47
- Villefort's young second wife, saved with her son by the Count's staged rescue and instantly fascinated by him.
Chapter 52
- The Count draws out Madame de Villefort's dark fascination with poisons, planting a lethal seed in a mind already inclined to it.
Chapter 57
- The Count draws out Madame de Villefort's dark fascination with poisons, planting a lethal seed in a mind already inclined to it.
Chapter 63
- At Auteuil, Madame de Villefort reveals she has already brewed the Count's deadly red elixir—and calmly uses it to revive the fainting baroness.
Chapter 78
- Covering the broken marriage with a false apoplexy tale, Madame de Villefort coaxes Noirtier to restore his fortune to Valentine—an errand of curious motive.
Chapter 79
- Descending calmly to the dying Barrois, Madame de Villefort betrays herself with cool questions about what he ate, a muttered 'short neck,' and a swift retreat.
Chapter 80
- As the doctor denounces Valentine for her own crimes, the true poisoner keeps her mask—betrayed only by a gloomy smile her husband glimpses.
Chapter 93
- Playing the tender mother as Valentine sickens before her guests, the true poisoner urges the girl to 'drink a glass of pure water' and foretells 'serious illness.'
Chapter 101
- In a white dressing-gown at midnight, the poisoner steals into Valentine's room, tests her sleep, and empties a phial of fresh poison into her glass—watched, unknowing, by her victim.
Chapter 102
- Believing Valentine dead, the poisoner destroys the evidence and lingers in guilty reverie—only to see d'Avrigny expose the poison in the glass and collapse, unmasked.
Chapter 108
- Confronted by her husband as her judge, the exposed poisoner is denied all mercy and ordered to take her own poison—pleading for her life and her son, then fainting in terror.
Chapter 111
- Obeying her husband's sentence, the poisoner takes her own poison—but first kills her adored son Edward, leaving a note: 'a good mother cannot depart without her son.'