Rue du Helder

Rue du Helder is the Parisian address of the Morcerf family, specifically the pavilion of Albert de Morcerf, and serves as the primary setting for the social life of the young Parisian elite, including the breakfast party where the Count of Monte Cristo is introduced to Parisian society.

Location and Description

Rue du Helder is a street in Paris, and the specific address is No. 27, which is the residence of the Count and Countess of Morcerf. Albert de Morcerf inhabits a pavilion situated at the corner of a large court, directly opposite another building where the servants' apartments are located. The pavilion has two windows facing the street, three windows looking into the court, and two at the back into the garden. Between the court and the garden stands the large and fashionable dwelling of the Count and Countess of Morcerf. The entire hotel is surrounded by a high wall, surmounted at intervals by vases filled with flowers, and broken in the centre by a large gate of gilded iron, which serves as the carriage entrance. A small door, close to the lodge of the concierge, gives ingress and egress to the servants and masters when they are on foot. This door, which seems never to have been opened, is actually well-oiled and serves as a secret entrance, opening at a concerted tap from without. At the end of a long corridor, with which the door communicates, is, on the right, Albert's breakfast-room, looking into the court, and on the left the salon, looking into the garden. Shrubs and creeping plants cover the windows, hiding these apartments from view. On the floor above are a salon, a boudoir, and a bedroom. The boudoir communicates with the bed-chamber by an invisible door on the staircase. Above this floor is a large atelier, a pandemonium where the artist and the dandy strive for preeminence, containing a whole orchestra, easels, foils, boxing-gloves, and other equipment for fencing, boxing, and single-stick. The rest of the furniture includes old cabinets filled with Chinese porcelain and Japanese vases, Lucca della Robbia faience, and Palissy platters, and old arm-chairs in which perhaps had sat Henry IV. or Sully. In the centre of the room is a Roller and Blanchet "baby grand" piano in rosewood. On the walls are swords, daggers, Malay creeses, maces, battle-axes, gilded and damasked suits of armor, dried plants, minerals, and stuffed birds.

Social and Narrative Significance

Rue du Helder is the setting for the breakfast party where the Count of Monte Cristo is introduced to Parisian society. The breakfast is held in the small salon downstairs, where a table is surrounded by a large and luxurious divan, and every species of tobacco is exposed in pots of crackled earthenware. The guests include Lucien Debray, Beauchamp, Chateau-Renaud, and Maximilian Morrel. It is here that Monte Cristo meets Maximilian Morrel for the first time, and the conversation reveals the count's mysterious nature and his plans to visit Paris. The address is also the location where Albert de Morcerf makes an appointment with Monte Cristo to meet him in Paris on the 21st of May at half-past ten in the morning. After the scandal of his father's betrayal, Albert and his mother Mercedes leave the house on Rue du Helder, marking the end of their residence there. The house is also the location where the Count of Morcerf commits suicide after his dishonor is exposed. The address is also where the Count of Monte Cristo visits to return the favor of Albert's hospitality in Rome, and where he is formally presented to the Count and Countess of Morcerf.