The Count of Monte Cristo

Complete and unabridged. The Count of Monte Cristo takes place in France, Italy, and islands in the Mediterranean during the historical events of 1815-1838, beginning from just before the Hundred Days period (when Napoleon returned to power after his exile) and spanning through to the reign of Louis-Philippe of France.

In 1815 Edmond Dant¨s, a young and successful merchant sailor who has just recently been granted the succession of his erstwhile captain Lecl¨re, returns to Marseille to marry his fianc©e Merc©d¨s. Lecl¨re, a supporter of the exiled Napol©on I, found himself dying at sea and charged Dant¨s to deliver two objects: a package to Marshall Bertrand, and a letter from Elba to an unknown man in Paris. On the eve of his wedding to Merc©d¨s, there is an anonymous note accusing Dant¨s of being a Bonapartist traitor. Caderousse, Dant¨s' cowardly and selfish neighbor, is drunk while the conspirators set the trap, and while he objects to the idea of hurting Dant¨s, he stays quiet when Dant¨s is arrested then sentenced, even though his testimony could have stopped the entire scandal from happening. The deputy crown prosecutor in Marseille, while initially sympathetic to Dant¨s, destroys the letter from Elba when he discovers that it is addressed to his own father, a Bonapartist. In order to silence Dant¨s, he condemns him without trial to life imprisonment.