1) There don’t seem to be many happy marriages in this story! Do you think that’s a reflection on the men’s characters? Or is it simply that the idea of happiness in marriage is more modern?

2) Did the count somehow arrange for the horses to be spooked? Does the fact that it’s not clear what happened contribute to the aura of mystery around the count?

3) Childhood doesn’t really exist in this story; the children we encounter (Édouard, Benedetto, Luigi, Lucy) seem simply to be miniature adults—no doubt partly because that’s how society viewed children in the nineteenth century, but does the lack of childhood also suggest that innocence is bound to be destroyed in this world?

Final sentence of chapter:

“As for M. de Villefort, he fulfilled the predictions of Héloïse to the letter,—donned his dress suit, drew on a pair of white gloves, ordered the servants to attend the carriage dressed in their full livery, and drove that same night to No. 30 in the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.”

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