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XV . The Trial By now Danglars was nearly ruined . The false news from the telegraph had been followed by other losses , and several banks which owed him money had failed . One morning the Count came to his office with papers from his own bankers and asked for five million francs . The banker had no choice . He took the money from his safe and paid him . Only an hour later the director of the city hospitals arrived . He had come to collect five million francs which the hospitals of Paris had left at the bank . Danglars smiled and promised to have the money ready at noon the next day . That night he packed his bags , left a short letter for his wife , and drove out of Paris towards Italy . In his pocket he had a letter of credit for a large sum from Thomson and French , the bank in Rome . Like many men who had cheated others , he did not imagine that anyone could cheat him . A few days later the trial of Andrea Cavalcanti began . The courtroom was full , because everyone wanted to see the handsome young man whom Paris had called a prince , and who had turned out to be an escaped prisoner and a murderer . He sat in the dock , elegant and calm , and he looked at the crowd as if he were at the theatre . The king’s attorney himself spoke for the state . He had not slept for days , because at home his wife was still free and he had not decided what to do with her . On the morning of the trial he went to her room . “ Madame , ” he said coldly , “ where do you keep your poison ? ” She fell to her knees and begged for mercy , but he did not listen . “ I do not want to send the wife of the king’s attorney to the scaffold , ” he said . “ I am going to court now . When I return , I hope that justice will have been done in this house . If not , I shall arrest you myself . ” At the court the judge asked the prisoner his name and his age . “ I am twenty - one years old , ” the young man answered calmly . “ Or I shall be in a few days , because I was born in the night of the twenty - seventh of September 1817 , in a house at Auteuil . ” The king’s attorney looked up from his papers . “ I do not know my name , ” the prisoner continued . “ My father gave me none . But I can tell you his name . My father is the king’s attorney , Monsieur de Villefort . ” There was a great noise in the court . The prisoner went on calmly while the crowd listened . He told them that his father had buried him alive in a box in a garden , that a stranger had saved him , and that his father believed him dead . Somewhere in the crowd a lady in a thick veil cried out and fainted , and when the people carried her out of the hall , her veil fell , and everyone saw that she was Madame Danglars .
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