The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas

Marseille and Château d'If

On the day in 1815 when Napoleon escapes from Elba, Edmond Dantès sails the Pharaon into Marseille after the death of the captain, Leclère. The ship's owner, Morrel, will make Dantès the next captain. On his deathbed, Leclère charged Dantès to deliver a package to General Bertrand (exiled with Napoleon), and a letter from Elba to a Bonapartist in Paris named Noirtier.

Crewmate Danglars is jealous of Dantès's rapid promotion. On the eve of Dantès's wedding to his Catalan fiancée Mercédès, Danglars meets Fernand Mondego, Mercédès's cousin and a rival for her affections, and the two hatch a plot to anonymously accuse him of being a Bonapartist. Dantès's neighbor, Caderousse, is present; he too is jealous of Dantès, but although he objects to the plot, he becomes too drunk to prevent it.

Dantès is arrested, and the cowardly Caderousse stays silent. Villefort, the deputy crown prosecutor in Marseille, is Noirtier's son. Knowing that it would destroy his political career for it to be known that his father is a Bonapartist, he destroys the letter and silences Dantès by sentencing him without trial to life imprisonment.

After six years of solitary imprisonment in the Château d'If, Dantès is on the verge of suicide when another prisoner, the Abbé Faria, an Italian scholarly priest, digs an escape tunnel that by mistake ends in Dantès's cell. The Abbé helps Dantès deduce the culprits of his imprisonment. Over the next eight years, Faria educates Dantès in languages, history, culture, mathematics, chemistry, medicine, and science. Knowing himself to be close to death from catalepsy, Faria tells Dantès the location of a vast treasure hidden on the island of Monte Cristo.

On 28 February 1829, Faria dies. Dantès takes Faria's body to his cell and takes its place in the burial sack. When he is thrown into the sea, Dantès cuts through the sack and swims to a nearby island, where he is rescued by Genoese smugglers. Some 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 for his vengeance. Travelling as the Abbé Busoni, Dantès finds Caderousse, who regrets not intervening in Dantès's arrest. Caderousse informs him that Mercédès eventually resigned herself to marrying Fernand, that Dantès's father died of starvation, and that his old employer Morrel tried in vain to secure Dantès's release and tend after his father in his absence, but is now on the brink of bankruptcy. Both Danglars and Fernand have prospered greatly. Danglars became a speculator, amassed a fortune and married a wealthy widow. Fernand served in the French Army, rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Dantès rewards Caderousse with a diamond. Later, Caderousse negotiates the sale of the diamond to a jeweler, but kills the jeweler to keep both 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 when he learns that they have been mysteriously paid and that one of his lost ships has returned with a full cargo, secretly rebuilt and laden by Dantès.

Revenge

Dantès reappears nine years later, in 1838, as the mysterious, fabulously wealthy Count of Monte Cristo. Fernand is now the Count de Morcerf, Danglars a baron and banker, and Villefort a procureur du roi ('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, and "rescues" the boy, earning his trust. Albert introduces the Count to Parisian high society. Dantès, in his guise as the Count, meets Mercédès for the first time in 23 years, and eventually makes the acquaintance of Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort.

The Count purchases a home in Auteuil, a suburb of Paris. He has learned 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 himself.

Having impressed Parisian society with his wealth and air of mystery, the Count begins setting up the pieces for his revenge. He persuades Danglars to extend him a credit of six million francs (approximately €100,000,000 now). He discusses the properties of various poisons with Villefort's second wife Heloïse, 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, recognizing him as the man who betrayed and murdered her father and stole his fortune. Having freed Benedetto and Caderousse from the galleys (under the alias "Lord Wilmore"), he anonymously hires Benedetto to impersonate an Italian nobleman, "Viscount Andrea Cavalcanti", and introduces him to Parisian society. He 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 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. Heloïse 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; Noirtier secretly begins dosing 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, and 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 had recognised 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 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 Mercedes lives alone in Dantès's 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 is arrested and returned to Paris. Eugénie (who is implied to be a lesbian[2][3]) also takes the opportunity to flee Paris with her girlfriend.

Valentine barely survives Heloïse'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, deducing that Héloïse is the murderer, gives her a choice between the shame of a public trial and committing suicide in private, before leaving to prosecute Benedetto's trial. 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 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 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's ill-gotten gains out of 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'").