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Updated: May 23, 2025
When Bartolomeo came back from Paris and threw his winnings, amounting to fifty thousand francs, into the lap of the handsome Aurora Vertelli, the practical beauty said: "Bartolomeo, suppose we open a dining-room too. You have been a croupier long enough let us try to turn over the fifty thousand francs." Bartolomeo gleefully assented to this proposal.
An Italian was seldom seen in the Casino, and those that came were generally those who had taken to the Austrian army. On the night of the 15th to the 16th of March, 1848, lively scenes were being enacted in the Casino, and neither Aurora Vertelli herself nor old Major Bartolomeo Batto, who was one of the regular customers at the place, could restrain the excited guests.
In the forties, Signora Aurora Vertelli was the owner of a place near the Scala, at Milan, called the Casino. The Casino was the meeting-place of the Austrian officers, for at that time the old Lombardian city was garrisoned by Austrians, under the special command of Marshal Radetzky.
If Radetzky was a tyrant, his officers were a torture to Italy, and it often happened that the Bohemian and Croatian officers whipped women and children on the open streets, or else ran a dagger through the body of some peaceful citizen. Aurora Vertelli, however, enjoyed the protection of the Austrian police!
From that moment San Pietro became a favorite of the marshal. The Major Bartolomeo had been formerly a croupier in a large gambling house at Lucca. Where he got his major's title from, no one knew; even his mistress, the beautiful Aurora Vertelli, was reticent on this point.
They had caught up to the count, when he suddenly vanished from their gaze. To the bystanders it seemed as if a wall had opened to give him protection. But soon the riddle was solved. The wall through which the Count of Monte-Cristo had escaped belonged to the Vertelli house, and all the officers knew that the building contained several secret passages.
Aurora Vertelli has confessed to me what you will doubtless deny. I forced her to admit the truth at the point of the pistol." The major grew pale, and beneath his clinched lips a terrible feeling raged. "Base coward! to wring a confession from a woman in such a way." "Enough cease your idle talk," cried Benedetto, stamping his foot nervously.
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