Allow me, then, if you please, to answer in different order, or I will not do so at all."
The astonished president looked at the jury, who in turn looked at Villefort.
The whole assembly manifested great surprise, but Andrea appeared quite unmoved.
"Your age?" said the president; "will you answer that question?"
"I will answer that question, as well as the rest, Mr. President, but in its turn."
"Your age?" repeated the president.
"I am twenty-one years old, or rather I shall be in a few days, as I was born the night of the 27th of September, 1817."
M. de Villefort, who was busy taking down some notes, raised his head at the mention of this date.
"Where were you born?" continued the president.
"At Auteuil, near Paris."
M. de Villefort a second time raised his head, looked at Benedetto as if he had been gazing at the head of Medusa, and became livid.
As for Benedetto, he gracefully wiped his lips with a fine cambric pocket-handkerchief.
"Your profession?"
"First I was a forger," answered Andrea, as calmly as possible; "then I became a thief, and lately have become an assassin."
A murmur, or rather storm, of indignation burst from all parts of the assembly. The judges themselves appeared to be stupefied, and the jury manifested tokens of disgust for cynicism so unexpected in a man of fashion.
M. de Villefort pressed his hand upon his brow, which, at first pale, had become red and burning; then he suddenly arose and looked around as though he had lost his senses--he wanted air.
"Are you looking for anything, Mr. Procureur?" asked Benedetto, with his most ingratiating smile.
M. de Villefort answered nothing, but sat, or rather threw himself down again upon his chair.
"And now, prisoner, will you consent to tell your name?" said the president. "The brutal affectation with which you have enumerated and classified your crimes calls for a severe reprimand on the part of the court, both in the name of morality, and for the respect due to humanity. You appear to consider this a point of honor, and it may be for this reason, that you have delayed acknowledging your name. You wished it to be preceded by all these titles."
"It is quite wonderful, Mr. President, how entirely you have read my thoughts," said Benedetto, in his softest voice and most polite manner. "This is, indeed, the reason why I begged you to alter the order of the questions."
The public astonishment had reached its height. There was no longer any deceit or bravado in the manner of the accused. The audience felt that a startling revelation was to follow this ominous prelude.
"Well," said the president; "your name?"
"I cannot tell you my name, since I do not know it; but I know my father's, and can tell it to you."
A painful giddiness overwhelmed Villefort; great drops of acrid sweat fell from his face upon the papers which he held in his convulsed hand.
"Repeat your father's name," said the president.
Not a whisper, not a breath, was heard in that vast assembly; every one waited anxiously.
"My father is king's attorney," replied Andrea calmly.
"King's attorney?" said the president, stupefied, and without noticing the agitation which spread over the face of M. de Villefort; "king's attorney?"
"Yes; and if you wish to know his name, I will tell it,--he is named Villefort."
The explosion, which had been so long restrained from a feeling of respect to the court of justice, now burst forth like thunder from the breasts of all present; the court itself did not seek to restrain the feelings of the audience.
The exclamations, the insults addressed to Benedetto, who remained perfectly unconcerned, the energetic gestures, the movement of the gendarmes, the sneers of the scum of the crowd always sure to rise to the surface in case of any disturbance--all this lasted five minutes, before the door-keepers and magistrates were able to restore silence.
In the midst of this tumult the voice of the president was heard to exclaim,--"Are you playing with justice, accused, and do you dare set your fellow-citizens an example of disorder which even in these times has never been equalled?"
Several persons hurried up to M. de Villefort, who sat half bowed over in his chair, offering him consolation, encouragement, and protestations of zeal and sympathy.
Order was re-established in the hall, except that a few people still moved about and whispered to one another.
A lady, it was said, had just fainted; they had supplied her with a smelling-bottle, and she had recovered.
During the scene of tumult, Andrea had turned his smiling face towards the assembly; then, leaning with one hand on the oaken rail of the dock, in the most graceful attitude possible, he said:
"Gentlemen, I assure you I had no idea of insulting the court, or of making a useless disturbance in the presence of this honorable assembly.
They ask my age; I tell it. They ask where I was born; I answer. They ask my name, I cannot give it, since my parents abandoned me.
But though I cannot give my own name, not possessing one, I can tell them my father's. Now I repeat, my father is named M. de Villefort, and I am ready to prove it."
There was an energy, a conviction, and a sincerity in the manner of the young man, which silenced the tumult.
All eyes were turned for a moment towards the procureur, who sat as motionless as though a thunderbolt had changed him into a corpse.
"Gentlemen," said Andrea, commanding silence by his voice and manner; "I owe you the proofs and explanations of what I have said."
"But," said the irritated president, "you called yourself Benedetto, declared yourself an orphan, and claimed Corsica as your country."
"I said anything I pleased, in order that the solemn declaration I have just made should not be withheld, which otherwise would certainly have been the case.
I now repeat that I was born at Auteuil on the night of the 27th of September, 1817, and that I am the son of the procureur, M. de Villefort.
Do you wish for any further details?
I will give them.
I was born in No. 28, Rue de la Fontaine, in a room hung with red damask; my father took me in his arms, telling my mother I was dead, wrapped me in a napkin marked with an H and an N, and carried me into a garden, where he buried me alive."
A shudder ran through the assembly when they saw that the confidence of the prisoner increased in proportion to the terror of M. de Villefort.
"But how have you become acquainted with all these details?" asked the president.