The spoiled Villefort child, murdered by his own mother, who poisons him to take him with her into death—an innocent victim caught in his parents' ruin.
Edward de Villefort, the petted, mischievous only son of Villefort and Madame de Villefort, meets a terrible end as his family is destroyed. It was for his enrichment that his mother poisoned the Saint-Mérans and Valentine de Villefort, funnelling their fortunes toward him; and when she is sentenced to die, she cannot bear to leave him behind. Summoned to her room, the boy is poisoned and laid on the blue satin couch, a note on his breast declaring 'a good mother cannot depart without her son.' His father finds him icy and pulseless, and the Count of Monte Cristo (Edmond Dantès) himself tries in vain to recall the child to life before laying him reverently beside his mother.
The innocent boy—whose only faults were a spoiled temper and childish cruelty—becomes the final, blameless casualty of his mother's crimes and his father's ruin, the death that at last makes even the avenger doubt his right to vengeance.
A young boy, spoiled and lively in life, now laid dead, his cheeks icy cold and pale, his small limbs stiffened.
The innocent Villefort child murdered by his own mother to accompany her into death.