maxim

Villefort’s first impression was favorable; but he had been so often warned to mistrust first impulses, that he applied the maxim to the impression, forgetting the difference between the two words.

“There is,” said he, at the end of his meditations, “a clever maxim, which bears upon what I was saying to you some little while ago, and that is, that unless wicked ideas take root in a naturally depraved mind, human nature, in a right and wholesome state, revolts at crime.

“My dear fellow,” replied Albert, with perfect ease of mind, “remember, for the future, Napoleon’s maxim, ‘Never awaken me but for bad news;’ if you had let me sleep on, I should have finished my galop, and have been grateful to you all my life.

Madame de Villefort listened with avidity to these appalling maxims and horrible paradoxes, delivered by the count with that ironical simplicity which was peculiar to him.