CHAPTER SUMMARIES WITH NOTES

CHAPTER 112 - The Departure

Summary

The Count picks up Morrel at Julie and Emmanuel’s house, where Julie and Emmanuel are discussing their beliefs that the recent disasters of Morcerf, Danglars and Villefort seem to have been guided by a Supreme Being. The Count tells Julie and Emmanuel that he will probably never see them again and leaves with Morrel, who is still grieving. The Count’s slave Ali tells him that Noirtier has accepted the contents of a message in a letter that the Count has sent him. Morrel and the Count arrive in Marseilles and while Morrel visits his father’s grave, the Count goes to his father’s old house to see Mercédès.

The Count and Morrel see Albert de Morcerf, who is leaving Marseilles by ship. The Count comforts Mercédès, telling her that her son is acting nobly. Mercédès is full of self-reproach and grieved by the past, although she is not angry with Edmond. Edmond repeats and explains his belief in his role as the avenger of God. He and Mercédès part, probably forever, and Mercédès seems heavy with her memories of Edmond, who she realizes no longer exists as she remembers him.

Notes

Feeling that he has accomplished all he came to Paris to do, the Count sums up all his actions for the past months: "I believe that the Spirit of God led my steps to thee and that he also enables me to quit thee in triumph; the secret cause of my presence within thy walls I have confided alone to him who only has had the power to read my heart. God only knows that I retire from thee without pride or hatred, but not without many regrets; he only knows that the power confided to me has never been made subservient to my personal good or to any useless cause...I have dug deep into thy very entrails to root out evil thence." The Count finally feels sufficiently revenged for his past sufferings. Explaining his actions to Mercédès, he says, "...when suddenly from captivity, solitude, misery, I was restored to light and liberty, and became the possessor of a fortune so brilliant, so unbounded, so unheard-of, that I must have been blind not to be conscious that God had endowed me with it to work out his own great designs. From that time I looked upon this fortune as something confided to me for an especial purpose...I felt myself driven on like an exterminating angel.

Like adventurous captains about to embark on some enterprise full of danger, I laid in my provision, I loaded my weapons, I collected every means of attack and defence; I inured by body to the most violent exercises, my soul to the bitterest trials; I taught my arm to slay, my eyes to behold excruciating sufferings, and my mouth to smile at the most horrid spectacles. Good-natured, confiding, and forgiving as I had been, I became revengeful, cunning, and wicked, or rather immovable as fate." With this speech, the reader learns why the Count was so changed when we were first reintroduced to him in Italy, and what he spent those missing years doing. His patience and planning were absolute. It is clear that Mercédès still has deep feelings for Edmond here, and that she maintains hope that the two will one day be reunited in heaven.

CHAPTER 113 - The Past

Summary

The Count is expressing self-doubt about his actions and vengeance, particularly since Edward’s death. The Count returns to the Chateau d’If, and his guide there relates "Edmond Dantès’" escape story and the story of the Abbé Faria as a famous incident in the prison’s past. Objectively listening again to his own imprisonment, the Count’s feelings of guilt begin to lessen. The guide gives him a book that he found written by the Abbé Faria, which restores Edmond’s belief that what he has done is right. He returns to Marseilles to see Morrel, who promises to meet the Count on the Island of Monte Cristo on October 5, the day Morrel has promised the Count he will wait for before he takes his own life.

Notes

Stricken by his own conscience, Dantès returns to the Chateau d’If to reassure himself of his own actions and ask himself whether he did not go too far. "..can I have been following a false path? -- can the end which I proposed be a mistaken end? I cannot reconcile myself to this idea - it would madden me." Extraordinarily, despite all the pain he caused, Edmond/The Count finds himself sufficiently justified in his revenge, based on what he believes is another sign from God found in the prison. This discovery allows him closure on his past actions to move into the future with a clean slate. In this case, he believes his new future includes Haidee.

CHAPTER 114 - Peppino

Summary

Danglars makes his way to Rome to the banking house of Thomson & French, followed by Peppino, Luigi VampaÂ’s bandit friend, who we learn is being regularly informed by the clerk at Thomson & French as to the amounts of money with which people are leaving the bank. Danglars collects his 5 million francs on the Count of Monte CristoÂ’s receipt and leaves, and Peppino mentions to the clerk that he and his band have known about Danglars arrival for some time already. Danglars sets out for Vienna (where he intends to live) via Venice the next day in a hired carriage. DanglarsÂ’ carriage driver hijacks him and takes him to Luigi VampaÂ’s headquarters where he is put in a cell. Believing he has been abducted by the same people that abducted Albert months before, Danglars assumes that he will be ransomed for a sum not exceeding 8,000 francs. He is carrying with him only a few louis and receipts for the collection of the 5 million francs from banking houses in Venice and Vienna.

Notes

The CountÂ’s revenge against Danglars still not completely carried out, it is clear that he has been keeping an eye on Danglars as he proceeds to Rome to retrieve his dishonestly- obtained money. The final revenge against Danglars has a sense of comedic irony to it, as Danglars is taken to the bandit headquarters of Luigi Vampa, where he himself will be robbed - the most horrible punishment for a man like Danglars.

CHAPTER 115 - Luigi VampaÂ’s Bill of Fare

Summary

The next day Danglars is left alone in the cell until the end of the day when he finally asks for some food. He is brought an entire fowl, but before being allowed to eat, he is told he must pay 100,000 francs for it. Danglars refuses to eat. When he finally asks for bread some time later, he is told the bread also costs 100,000 francs, particularly as they know he has 5,050,000 francs in his pocket. Danglars realizes what is happening but is so hungry he writes them letter of credit for 100,000 francs so that he can eat.

Notes

The irony and humor of Danglars’ situation is revealed in this chapter as, according to the Count’s instructions, Danglars must pay for food (and, in essence, his life) with all of the (stolen) money he possesses. Of course, Danglars is being placed in the same position as Dantès’ father years before, who starved to death for lack of money as a result of the position he was put in by Dantès’ betrayal by Danglars and the others, and also in the same position as Dantès himself, who almost starved himself to death (also in a prison). Danglars’ willingness to pay to live testifies to the fact that his situation is not nearly as dire as the situations in which both Dantès and his father had found themselves, thanks to him. The Count could very well have the bandits simply take Danglars’ money in this situation, but he is methodically teaching him a lesson of misery.

CHAPTER 116 - The Pardon

Summary

Having saved half his fowl, Danglars is thirsty the next day, but is told that bottles of wine are 25,000 francs each. He demands to see Vampa, who tells Danglars that they want the entire five million francs, which is all Danglars has left in the world. When Danglars tells him they may as well kill him, he is told that Vampa has been forbidden to shed DanglarsÂ’ blood by a chief, but that he may starve to death if he refuses to pay. Danglars gives in two days later, and after another 12 days he has only 50,000 francs left. Danglars goes another five days without eating until he is hallucinating, and finally offers the last of his money to be released.

The Count of Monte Cristo then arrives and asks Danglars if he has now repented of his evil deeds, and reveals his identity as Edmond Dantès, the man betrayed by Danglars and the son of the man Danglars caused to die by starvation. The Count allows Danglars to keep his last 50,000 francs and sets him free. The Count has returned the five million francs to the Paris charities robbed by Danglars, and Danglars finds when he emerges from the bandits’ cave that his hair has turned white.

Notes

The reference to Dantès and his father in this chapter is strong as Danglars begins to starve, having stated ignorantly to the bandits that he would rather die than lose his money. "Three days passed thus, during which his prayers were frequent if not heartfelt. Sometimes he was delirious, and fancied he saw an old man, stretched on a pallet; he, also was dying of hunger." The Count waits until Danglars says he is suffering miserably and is willing to forfeit all his money to survive, and reveals his identity as Edmond Dantès. The Count reiterates that despite Danglars’ belief that he is suffering, "Still, there have been men who suffered more than you," to which Danglars (again ignorantly) replies, "I do not think so." As a final generous gesture, the Count allows Danglars to keep 50,000 francs, proving that he is now less intent on horrible punishment than he was only days ago.

CHAPTER 117 - The 5th of October

Summary

On October 5 ^th , Morrel arrives at the Island of Monte Cristo and is met by the Count, who takes him to his palatial cave. As Morrel is still determined to die, the Count offers him all of his millions if he will live, but Morrel refuses, convincing the Count that Morrel is truly miserable. The Count provides him with a green substance which he tells him is a pleasant poison that will kill him, but then also tells Morrel that he too will kill himself. Morrel refuses to hear of the Count killing himself and takes the substance, and while he lays immobile, the Count brings in Valentine and reunites her with Morrel.

The Count asks Valentine to take care of Haidee for him as he is going to leave her. Haidee overhears and, desolate at losing him, Haidee tells the Count that she will die if he leaves her, and the Count then understands that she loves him as he now loves her. The Count is happy, and feels that Haidee’s love and his future happiness are signs from God that he has been rewarded for his past sufferings and for his triumph in vanquishing those who are evil. He and Haidee leave by the time Morrel regains full consciousness, and Valentine tells Morrel how the Count saved her life. The Count has left Morrel a letter telling him that Noirtier is waiting at Leghorn to bless the couple before they are married, and that he has left everything in the cave and his houses in Paris and Tréport to them. He tells Valentine to give her inherited fortune from her now-insane father to the poor, and that her step-mother and brother have died. The letter sums up the Count’s philosophy of life as "Wait and Hope", expresses his humility in God, and wishes them happiness.

Notes

The novel ends, having come full circle, with the Count rescuing Morrel from extreme suffering on the exact anniversary of his rescue of MorrelÂ’s father years ago. The Count has punished his enemies, and taught those that he loves the power and importance of hope. The Count himself is obviously relieved by the release of his own burden, illustrated when Morrel says, "Count..you are not the same here as in Paris..here you laugh."

The Count believes his rescue of Morrel and Valentine to be important in his own worth as a human being, stating, "May God accept my atonement in the preservation of these two existences!" The novel ends on a happy note, with the Count leaving to seek love, reiterating his belief that "he who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness."

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