Edmond Dantes is a fine young sailor, nineteen years old, aboard the Pharaon.
Their captain died on the voyage and so Dantes stepped in to serve, including skillfully
docking the ship in the harbor at Marseilles.
He is glad to be home because he is about to marry his beautiful fiancée, Mercedes
Herrera.
The Pharaon is owned by Monsieur Morrel, a good man who encourages the official promotion
of Dantes to captain.
But others are jealous of Dantes's abilities and desirous of what he has, and are determined
to ruin him.
Dantes is carrying a letter which the Pharaon picked up on the Isle of Elba – the island
where Napoleon Bonaparte is exiled.
Dantes says it was the captain's dying wish that the letter be delivered to a man in Paris
named Noirtier, who is a Bonapartist – someone who supports Napoleon instead of the king.
But Noirtier's son, Monsieur de Villefort, gets the letter first.
As a prosecuting attorney, Villefort is a powerful man and knows that his father would
be imprisoned by the royalists for receiving such a letter.
Villefort is determined to make both the letter – and Dantes – disappear.
Dantes has gathered with the crew of the Pharaon in a tavern to celebrate being named her captain.
But before the announcement can be made, Dantes is arrested.
Villefort charges him with treason for possessing a letter from a Bonapartist and orders him
confined to the notorious, inescapable prison called Chateau d'If.
Dantes is locked into a tiny dungeon cell.
While he is there, his friend Monsieur Morrel tries to get him out of prison at great risk
to himself; Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo; King Louis XVIII returns to the throne; and
Dantes's fiancée, Mercedes, is heartbroken, but Dantes knows nothing of the world outside.
He is just trying to stay alive and sane.
One day Dantes hears a scratching from the wall.
Another prisoner, an old man named Abbe Faria, is trying to dig out.
Abbe soon becomes Dantes's good friend.
The two dig for many years.
Abbe teaches Dantes history, literature, science, and languages, and says he knows of a huge
fortune hidden in a cave on a small island called Monte Cristo.
When Abbe dies, fourteen years after Dantes was arrested, Dantes hides himself in Abbe's
heavy burial sack and escapes when it's thrown into the sea.
He is picked up by a smugglers' ship and when the ship arrives at Monte Cristo, he actually
does find the fabulous treasure Abbe told him about.
Now extremely wealthy, Dantes begins calling himself the Count of Monte Cristo.
He has two goals: Reward those who helped him, and take painful vengeance on those who
harmed him.
He buys his own ship and begins searching out those responsible for putting him in prison.
The Count begins learning what happened while he was in Chateau d'If, and finds out he was
framed by enemies who were envious of his abilities and possessions.
The conspiracy was started by Monsieur Danglars, who was the purser – the accountant – on
board the Pharaon.
He was simply jealous of the handsome young man who was better than himself in every way
and who got the captaincy that Danglars wanted.
Danglars wrote the letter – entirely fake – that Dantes received on the Isle of Elba
and which framed him for treason as a Bonapartist (a supporter of Napoleon instead of King Louis
XVIII.)
Danglars has become rich by stealing and embezzling from banks and charities.
The second conspirator – the one who actually sent the letter to the Isle of Elba for Dantes
to eventually receive – was Fernand Mondego.
He was in love with Dantes's fiancée, Mercedes Herrera, and hoped to marry her himself.
And eventually, he did, for after Dantes was imprisoned Mercedes lived with Dantes's aging
father and cared for him.
But when the father died, she had nowhere to go and had little choice but to marry.
Fernand amassed a great fortune out of smuggling, slavery, and other crimes.
The third conspirator is Gaspard Caderousse, who helped write the incriminating letter.
He once demanded that Dantes's father immediately pay a debt in full, even though it left the
aging man with next to nothing.
The final enemy is Monsieur Villefort, whom Dantes now knows had him falsely accused and
imprisoned for treason.
But now Villefort is Deputy Minister of France, the most powerful law enforcement office in
the nation.
Villefort is also married and has a daughter, Valentine, a kind and innocent young woman.
Edmond Dantes, the Count of Monte Cristo, begins carrying out his revenge.
For Baron Danglars, the Count orders him kidnapped and held until he is forced to spend all of
the money he stole and is ruined financially.
For Fernand Mondego, Mercedes is informed that her husband is actually a traitor and
a criminal.
She finally leaves him and goes to live peacefully in the home that once belonged to Edmond Dantes'
father.
When Fernand finds that his wife and son have deserted him, he shoots himself.
For Gaspard Caderousse, who continues to commit robbery and murder for personal gain and one
night tries to rob the Count's house, the Count reveals his own true identity just as
Caderousse is killed by an accomplice.
The revenge on Villefort is more complex.
The Count has learned of a past love affair Villefort had with a woman who later becomes
the Baroness Danglars.
When their illegitimate child was born, Villefort told her it was stillborn and took it out
to bury it alive – but he was stopped and the child, Benedetto, survived.
Benedetto grew to be a cruel and criminal young man.
He destroys Villefort by publically accusing him of many crimes, including the attempted
murder of his own infant son.
Yet the Count of Monte Cristo does not simply take cold revenge on his enemies.
He rewards those who have been kind and tried to helped him.
The Count is able to save Monsieur Morrel's life and restore his fortune.
He presents his home on the island of Monte Cristo to Maximillien Morrel, the son of Monsieur
Morrel, even though Maximillien's beloved is Valentine Villefort – the daughter of
the same Villefort who conspired against him.
Dantes could have taken revenge on the child of a despised enemy, but instead unselfishly
arranges for the happiness of the son of one of his greatest friends.
Finished at last with revenge, Edmond Dantes, the Count of Monte Cristo, leaves on a ship
in search of a new life and is never seen again.