The Promise
- Romeo and Juliet…oh, excuse us, Max and Valentine meet up in their usual place in the Villefort garden.
- Max tells Valentine that her betrothed, Franz D'Epinay, is back in town and ready to sign the marriage contract.
- Max convinces Valentine that it's a good idea to run away with him.
- Later on that day, Max waits for Valentine, ready to swoop her off to a place where they can live happily ever after.
- But there's not a Valentine in sight.
- Max is worried. He decides to get to the bottom of this, approach the Villefort house, and see if his Valentine is OK.
- Max hears a conversation between Villefort and a doctor. Madame de Saint-Méran has died, and the doctor suspects foul play. More specifically, he suspects that she had been poisoned. The doctor thinks that both the Marquis de Saint-Méran and his wife were poisoned with something called brucine, which is usually what Noirtier (Villefort's father) takes for health reasons.
- Max is super worried at this point and sneaks into the Villefort house in search of Valentine.
- He finds her, and she introduces him to her grandfather, Noirtier. Noirtier tells them that he has a plan to keep Valentine from having to marry Franz D'Epinay.