The Count of Monte Cristo

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they see neither the police commissary with his badge of office, nor the
corporal with his four men; and so the poor fools believe that the whole
thing is as easy as lying. But go a little way from France--go either
to Aleppo or Cairo, or only to Naples or Rome, and you will see people
passing by you in the streets--people erect, smiling, and fresh-colored,
of whom Asmodeus, if you were holding on by the skirt of his mantle,
would say, 'That man was poisoned three weeks ago; he will be a dead man
in a month.'"

"Then," remarked Madame de Villefort, "they have again discovered the
secret of the famous aquatofana that they said was lost at Perugia."

"Ah, but madame, does mankind ever lose anything? The arts change about
and make a tour of the world; things take a different name, and the
vulgar do not follow them--that is all; but there is always the same
result. Poisons act particularly on some organ or another--one on the
stomach, another on the brain, another on the intestines. Well, the