The narrative leaves Eugénie's britzka for Andrea Cavalcanti, who crossed the Danglars salons looting the bride's displayed corbeille of diamonds, lace, and shawls before leaping from a window. He hires a cab with escalating bribes toward Louvres, passes Eugénie's post-chaise without knowing it, and walks two leagues after pretending to stop at the Cheval Rouge. Blocked by passport rules in the Oise, he borrows a horse at Chapelle-en-Serval, drops a visiting card so the innkeeper thinks he is the Count of Mauléon, and reaches Compiègne at four in the morning, still counting on Danglars family shame to quiet the rumor once he crosses the frontier.
Andrea knows the Bell and Bottle inn, orders fowl and Bordeaux with perfect composure, sleeps without remorse, and plans a woodcutter disguise to reach the frontier with stolen jewels and ten bank-notes. At seven he wakes to gendarmes in the court, telegraphs having already named Caderousse's murderer. He writes a pin pledge, leaves the door ajar, climbs the chimney while the brigadier smokes the flue, hides on the roof, then descends through another unused stack when a gendarme watches from the Hôtel de Ville tower.
Andrea slips two-thirds down the wrong chimney, crashes into a bedroom, and finds Eugénie Danglars and Louise d'Armilly in one bed. He begs them not to call help; Eugénie names him murderer, refuses to hide him, and tells him to return the way he came. Louise rings the bell; Eugénie adds that he may kill himself rather than face trial. The brigadier bursts the lock, Andrea offers his wrists with a smile, and asks Eugénie whether he should carry a message to her father since he will probably return to Paris.
Manacled as Benedetto re-emerges from the prince, Andrea leaves the girls to crowd sneers while they depart in calash dressed as women. Eugénie closes her eyes but hears every whisper, wishing the world were a wilderness. They reach Brussels the next day; the same evening Andrea is incarcerated in the Conciergerie while Eugénie's flight and the fugitive's alias end on opposite sides of the law.
Coming Up in Chapter 99
While Andrea sits in the Conciergerie, Madame Danglars will seek Debray among his flowers, then beg Villefort behind bolted doors for indulgence toward Benedetto before a ministerial despatch reads Arrested at Compiègne and all is over.
