The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

"Well, then, your government would do well to choose from the past
something better than the things that I have noticed on your monuments,
and which have no heraldic meaning whatever. As for you, viscount,"
continued Monte Cristo to Morcerf, "you are more fortunate than the
government, for your arms are really beautiful, and speak to the
imagination. Yes, you are at once from Provence and Spain; that
explains, if the portrait you showed me be like, the dark hue I so much
admired on the visage of the noble Catalan." It would have required the
penetration of Oedipus or the Sphinx to have divined the irony the count
concealed beneath these words, apparently uttered with the greatest
politeness. Morcerf thanked him with a smile, and pushed open the door
above which were his arms, and which, as we have said, opened into the
salon. In the most conspicuous part of the salon was another portrait.
It was that of a man, from five to eight and thirty, in the uniform of
a general officer, wearing the double epaulet of heavy bullion, that
indicates superior rank, the ribbon of the Legion of Honor around his
neck, which showed he was a commander, and on the right breast, the star