The scene now changes dramatically. We are in Rome, where two new characters appear: Franz d'Epinay (a young baron) and Albert de Morcerf (a good-looking viscount). The young men are fretting because they have come to Rome to find romance and laughter during the carnival season, but strangely, all of Rome's carriages and horses have been rented. The two young men are furious; men of their class do not "run around Rome on foot like lawyers' clerks." Nevertheless, they decide to deliver their "letters of introduction" to all of Rome's first families and make plans, if need be, to costume themselves as
colorful "Neapolitan harvesters" and ride around in a festive and beribboned oxcart. But at the last minute, the two men are saved by a stroke of good fortune: The hotel-keeper tells them that the "very great" Count of Monte Cristo has heard of their plight and has offered them two seats in his carriage, as well as two seats in his window above the square where most of the merriment will take place.
When Franz and Albert meet Monte Cristo, they are in awe of him and of his palatial quarters and his princely generosity. In addition, both men are startled by Monte Cristo's enthusiastic invitation to join him in witnessing a public execution from a window overlooking the execution site. Both Albert and Franz survive the ordeal, but they are both greatly distraught. Immediately before the execution, Monte Cristo talks of little else except the justice of slow and painful revenge; the guillotine, he feels, offers death too quickly and too painlessly. In contrast to instantaneous decapitation, however, Franz and Albert witness a singularly savage execution: A man is bludgeoned with a mace, his throat slit open, and his stomach trampled on until jets of blood spurt from his mouth like fantastic ruby-colored fountains. Curiously, the other prisoner on the block, a bronzed and handsome young man with a wild, proud look in his eyes, is pardoned at the last minute — as Monte Cristo prophecied earlier that he would be.
