Marseille and Château d'If , was a merchant sailor before his imprisonment. (Illustration by
Pierre-Gustave Staal) On the 24th February, 1815 when
Napoleon escapes from
Elba, the
Pharaon arrives in the port of
Marseille. The ship-owner Pierre Morrel learns of the unexpected death of the captain, Leclère, during the journey from the young and charismatic first mate Edmond Dantès. Impressed by his humility and performance as temporary captain, Morrel decides to promote Dantès to the new captain of the
Pharaon, to the distaste of the
supercargo, Danglars
. Attempting to undermine Edmond, Danglars tells Morrel that the ship, despite his disapproval, made an unplanned stop on the island of
Elba. Dantès explains that he, in capacity of first mate, made the detour to honour his captain's last wish, as Leclère charged Dantès to deliver a package to
General Bertrand (exiled with Napoleon) and a letter from Elba to the
Bonapartist Noirtier de Villefort in
Paris. Morrel, a Bonapartist sympathizer himself, approves of the detour and provides Dantès with two weeks furlough to marry his
Catalan fiancée Mercédès Herrera and deliver the letter. Overjoyed by his return to French soil and his newfound promotion, Dantès makes his way to greet his father, Louis Dantès. As he arrives at his father's apartment, Dantès finds him delighted, but
malnourished. Horrified over his father's derelict state, Edmond asks his father where the 200 francs he left him before his departure have gone. His father explains that right after Edmond left for
Smyrna, their neighbor, the
tailor Gaspard Caderousse, arrived at his doorstep demanding he pays back 140 francs for a previous loan. As he gave the money to Caderousse, old Dantès has survived on a mere 60 francs for the entire duration of Edmond's three-month trip. Dantès gives his father part of his salary advance, and tells him to buy as much food as he wants, as Edmond tells him about his newfound success. Having already heard the news of Dantès' promotion, Caderousse congratulates him and Dantès forgives him for what he did to his father. Leaving the Dantès residence, Caderousse goes downstairs and runs into Danglars. The two men discuss their mutual distaste for Edmond's
happiness, success and supposed "arrogance." Edmond visits his
fiancée Mercédès at her home in the
Spanish-speaking community Catalans, outside Marseille. Already there is Mercédès' cousin and suitor, Fernand Mondego, who is trying to court her. Mercédès explains to Fernand that if anything were to happen to Edmond, she would take her own life. When Edmond arrives and embraces his fiancée, Fernand leaves and, frustrated, makes his way back to Marseilles. Soon after, Edmond passes by the inn
La Réserve, where Danglars, Fernand, and Caderousse discuss their
grievances against him. Danglars resents Edmond’s advancement, Fernand seeks to remove him as a rival for Mercédès, and Caderousse observes without intervening. Danglars proposes a plan to denounce Edmond as a
Bonapartist agent and drafts an anonymous accusation. Caderousse disapproves of the scheme, but is calmed when Danglars pretends to discard the letter. When he walks Caderousse home, Fernand retrieves the letter and mails it to the crown prosecutor. As all of Dantès' friends and family gather in
La Réserve to participate in his and Mercédès' engagement feast, the party is interrupted by the
gendarmerie, who apprehend Edmond on the
anonymous claims of his Bonapartist sympathies. Edmond, knowing that he hasn't done anything wrong, willingly follows the
armed guards to the office of the crown prosecutor. Danglars offers to take Edmond's place as captain of
Pharaon until his return, which a confused Morrel accepts. On the other side of Marseilles, a betrothal feast takes place, celebrating the engagement of deputy crown prosecutor Gérard de Villefort and the young
noblewoman Renée de Saint-Méran. During the meal he is questioned regarding the politics of his father, the infamous Bonapartist Noirtier de Villefort. Due to the strategic gains he faces by allying himself with the
royalists during the
Bourbon restoration and reinstatement of
King Louis XVIII, Villefort denounces his father's politics and swears to punish any and all Bonapartists that come his way. As the guests are about to praise his stern political stance, the feast is interrupted as Villefort receives an urgent message requiring him to deal with an
apprehended young man who is part of a recently discovered Bonapartist plot. Villefort arrives at his office and finds Edmond pleading his
innocence. As Villefort confronts him about the allegations, Edmond explains honestly that he is merely fulfilling the
final wish of his dead captain, and that he doesn't even know what the letter contains. Villefort, respecting Dantès' honest and down-to-earth character, and sympathetic about him being arrested in the midst of his own engagement party, deduces that he must have been set up by some kind of conspiracy. As he lets Edmond off, he off-handedly asks him who the letter was addressed to. As Edmond reveals that the recipient of the letter is Villefort's Bonapartist father, Villefort freezes. If word got out about his father's Bonapartist tendencies, it could damage the family name, and worse, Villefort's own career. To protect his own interest, he deceptively affirms Dantès' freedom, while scrambling to get him locked away in the infamous island prison, the Château d'If. Burning the letter and requesting the guards, Edmond is detained and forcibly brought to the port of Marseilles. Unaware of what he has done wrong, Dantès continues to plead his innocence, trying to escape the grasp of the guards. When he tries to jump off of the
skiff into the cold water, he is forced onto his knees with a
gun pressed against his temple. After being locked away in the
Château d'If, Edmond begins begging to see the
Governor of the prison to prove his innocence. When he threatens the guard for not fulfilling his request he is sent into the deepest
dungeon of the prison, where the only other prisoner is a supposedly crazy old Italian
abbot, the Abbé Faria, who is known for unsuccessfully offering ludicrous sums to the guards in exchange for his freedom. (
Marseille) After six years of solitary imprisonment in the
Château d'If, Dantès is on the verge of suicide. However, the Abbé Faria digs an escape tunnel that mistakenly ends in Dantès'
cell. The Abbé, after getting over his immediate suspicion of Dantès, helps him deduce the culprits of his imprisonment. Over the next eight years, Faria educates Dantès in
languages,
history,
culture,
mathematics,
chemistry,
medicine, and
science. After having grown fond of his pupil, and suffering the first of three hereditary attacks of
catalepsy, Faria tells Dantès the location of a vast hereditary treasure hidden by his former employer,
Cardinal Spada, on the island of
Monte Cristo. When Faria
dies, Dantès takes Faria's place in the burial sack, which guards throw into the
sea.
Transformed identity and preparation Dantès cuts through the sack and swims to a nearby island, where, claiming to be a shipwrecked sailor, he is rescued by
Genoese smugglers. Months later, he locates and retrieves the treasure; he later purchases the island of Monte Cristo and the title of
count from the
Tuscan government. Having sworn vengeance on Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort, Dantès returns to Marseille in search of information to accomplish his goal. Travelling as the Abbé Busoni, Dantès finds Caderousse, who regrets not intervening in Dantès' arrest. Caderousse informs him that Mercédès eventually resigned herself to marrying Fernand. He recounts that Dantès' father died of starvation, and that Morrel tried unsuccessfully to secure Dantès' release and save his father, but now Morrel is on the brink of bankruptcy. Both Danglars and Fernand have prospered greatly. Danglars became a speculator, amassed a fortune, married a wealthy widow, and became a
baron. Fernand served in the
French Army, rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Dantès rewards Caderousse with a diamond, but he does not disclose his real identity. Later, Caderousse negotiates the sale of the diamond to a jeweller, but he kills the jeweller to keep the diamond and the money. He is eventually arrested and
sentenced to the galleys. To rescue Morrel from bankruptcy, Dantès poses as a banker, buys Morrel's debts, and gives him three months' reprieve. At the end of the three months, Morrel is about to commit suicide, but learns that the debts have been mysteriously paid and that one of his lost ships has returned with a full cargo; it was secretly rebuilt and laden by Dantès.
Revenge Dantès reappears in 1838 as the mysterious, fabulously wealthy Count of Monte Cristo. Fernand is now the Count de Morcerf, Danglars is a baron and banker, and Villefort is a royal prosecutor. In
Rome, at
Carnival time, Dantès befriends
Viscount Albert de Morcerf, the son of Mercédès and Fernand. He arranges for Albert to be captured by the
bandit Luigi Vampa (an ally of Dantès), and "rescues" the boy, earning his trust. Albert introduces the Count to Parisian
high society. In his guise as the Count, Dantès meets Mercédès for the first time in 23 years and eventually makes the acquaintance of Danglars, Fernand and Villefort. as the Abbé Busoni The Count purchases a home in
Auteuil, a suburb of Paris. He has learnt from his servant Bertuccio that it is the home in which Villefort once had an extramarital affair with Danglars's wife, who gave birth to a child that Villefort buried alive in order to cover up the affair. The infant was rescued by Bertuccio, named Benedetto, and raised by Bertuccio's sister Assunta, but Benedetto turned to a life of crime as a young man, murdered Assunta, and was sentenced to the galleys. Having impressed Parisian society with his wealth and air of mystery, the Count sets up the pieces for his revenge. He persuades Danglars to extend him a credit of six million francs. He discusses the properties of various poisons with Villefort's second wife Héloïse and allows her to borrow some of his supply. He allows his ward, Haydée—the exiled daughter of
Ali Pasha of Janina, whom Dantès purchased from slavery—to see Fernand, recognising him as the man who betrayed and murdered her father and stole his fortune. Under the alias Lord Wilmore, Dantès frees Benedetto and Caderousse from the galleys; then he anonymously hires Benedetto to impersonate an Italian nobleman, Viscount Andrea Cavalcanti, and introduces him to Parisian society. Dantès manipulates the financial markets by bribing a
telegraph operator to transmit a false message, causing Danglars to lose hundreds of thousands of francs. Meanwhile, Villefort's daughter Valentine is engaged to marry Albert's friend Franz, but she is secretly in love with Morrel's son Maximilien. Noirtier, her grandfather, induces Franz to break the engagement by revealing that Noirtier himself killed Franz's father in a duel. Benedetto ingratiates himself to Danglars, who betroths his daughter Eugénie to him after canceling her engagement to Albert. Caderousse
blackmails Benedetto, threatening to reveal his past if he does not share his newfound wealth. Héloïse begins poisoning members of Villefort's family, intending to ensure that all of the family's wealth will be inherited by her son Édouard, rather than her stepdaughter Valentine. However, Noirtier secretly doses Valentine with a drug that will give her limited resistance to the poison. Caderousse attempts to rob the Count's house but is caught by "Abbé Busoni" and forced to write a letter to Danglars, exposing "Cavalcanti" as an impostor. When Caderousse leaves the estate, he is stabbed by Benedetto. Caderousse dictates a deathbed statement naming his killer, and the Count reveals his true identity to Caderousse before he dies. The Count anonymously leaks to the newspapers Fernand's betrayal of Ali Pasha. At the
Chamber of Peers' inquiry into the accusations, Haydée testifies against him as an eyewitness. Albert blames the Count for his father's downfall and challenges him to a
duel. The Count is later visited by Mercédès, who recognized him as Dantès upon their first meeting but chose not to say anything. Mercédès begs Dantès to spare her son. He tells her of the injustices inflicted on him, but he agrees not to kill Albert. Realizing that Dantès intends to let Albert kill him, she reveals the truth to Albert, who makes a public apology to the Count. Albert and Mercédès disown Fernand, renounce their titles and wealth, and depart to begin new lives. Albert enlists as a soldier, while Mercédès lives alone in Dantès' old house in Marseilles. Fernand confronts the Count of Monte Cristo, who reveals his identity. Fernand shoots himself. At the party to celebrate "Cavalcanti"'s engagement to Eugénie Danglars, the police arrive to arrest Benedetto for Caderousse's murder. Benedetto flees, but he is arrested and returned to Paris. Eugénie (who is implied to be a lesbian) flees Paris with her girlfriend. Valentine barely survives Héloïse's first attempt to poison her, and Maximilien begs the Count to protect her from the unknown poisoner. He does so by faking her death, making it appear that the poisoner succeeded. Villefort deduces that Héloïse is the murderer, and before leaving to prosecute Benedetto's trial, he gives her a choice between the shame of a public trial or committing suicide in private. At the trial, Benedetto reveals that he is Villefort's son and was rescued after Villefort buried him alive, having learned the truth from Bertuccio. Villefort admits his guilt and rushes home to prevent his wife's suicide, but he is too late; she is dead and has poisoned her son Édouard as well. The Count confronts Villefort, revealing his true identity, which drives Villefort insane. Dantès tries but fails to
resuscitate Édouard, causing him to question if his revenge has gone too far. As a result of the Count's financial manipulations, Danglars is left with a ruined reputation and 5,000,000 francs he has been holding in deposit for hospitals. The Count demands this sum to fulfill their credit agreement, and Danglars embezzles the hospital fund. He flees to Italy with the Count's receipt for the cash and 50,000 francs of his own, and he is reimbursed the 5,000,000 francs from the Count's own bank account. While leaving Rome, he is kidnapped by Luigi Vampa. The bandits extort Danglars' ill-gotten gains from him by forcing him to pay exorbitant prices for food and water. Dantès anonymously returns the money to the hospitals. Danglars finally repents of his crimes, and a softened Dantès forgives him and allows him to depart with his 50,000 francs.
Resolution and return to the Orient Maximilien Morrel is driven to despair by Valentine's apparent death and considers suicide. Dantès reveals his true identity and persuades Maximilien to delay his suicide for one month. One month later, on the island of Monte Cristo, he reunites Valentine with Maximilien and reveals the true sequence of events. Having found peace, Dantès leaves the couple part of his fortune on the island and departs for
the East to begin a new life with Haydée, who has declared her love for him. The reader is left with a final line: "''l'humaine sagesse était tout entière dans ces deux mots: attendre et espérer!''" ("all human wisdom is contained in these two words: 'Wait and Hope'"). ==Characters==