From time to time, the humble blogger will yield some space to an author of suitable note so that this esteemed man or woman of letters may express an opinion on a political topic. Today, we allow Alexandre Dumas to lecture us on gun control, from his work The Count of Monte Cristo as translated by Robin Buss and published by Penguin Books.
“Franz,” said Albert, “we have here a splendid adventure ready made for us. All we have to do is fill our carriage with pistols, blunderbusses and repeating rifles. Luigi Vampa will try to seize us, and we will seize him. We’ll bring him back to Rome, offer him as a token of our respect to His Holiness, who will ask what he can do to recompense us for such a great service. Then all we have to do is ask for a coach and two horses from his stables and we can see the carnival by coach. Apart from which, the people of Rome will probably be so grateful to us that we shall be crowned on the Capitol and proclaimed, like Curtius and Horatius Cocles, saviours of the fatherland.”
The expression on Signor Pastrini’s face, while Albert was pursuing this train of thought, would be impossible to describe.
“And where, for a start,” Franz asked Albert, “would you find these pistols, these blunderbusses and these rifles which you want to cram into our carriage?”
“The fact is I have no such things in my arsenal,” he said, “because even my dagger was confiscated at Terracina. What about you?”
“The same was done to me at Aqua Pendente.”
“Well, there now!” Albert said, lighting his second cigar from the stub of the first. “My dear host, do you realize how convenient this regulation is for thieves – so much so that I suspect it was introduced in collusion with them?”
Thank you, Alexandre, for your opinion. And thanks to the millions of readers who come to this site every day. We’ll see you next time for The Authors on Politics.
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