The Count of Monte Cristo

Louis Dantès is the elderly father of Edmond. A proud man, he slowly dies of hunger after Edmond’s imprisonment leaves him with no means of support. The discovery that his father starved to death haunts Edmond and avenging his father’s death is central to his quest.

Mercédès, a woman of Catalan descent, is the great love of Edmond’s life. She initially remains faithful to Edmond after he disappears into prison, but is worn down by Fernand’s devotion after the stress of tending Louis Dantès in his final days. A woman of intelligence and character, she educates herself to adapt to her eventual status as a countess and undertakes the education of her son, Albert, as well.

Mercédès is the only person who recognizes Edmond when he reappears as the Count of Monte Cristo, though she keeps this knowledge secret. She appeals to Monte Cristo to spare Albert’s life after Albert challenges Monte Cristo to a duel and succeeds in changing his mind. Mercédès and Albert decide to leave Paris after Morcerf’s exposure and Mercédès stoically accepts her changed circumstances. Monte Cristo tells her where to find the secret dowry he hid before their planned marriage. She speaks of entering a convent, but is last seen living humbly in Edmond’s old house in Marseilles.

Fernand Mondego, originally a fisherman in a small Catalan village outside Marseilles, is Edmond’s rival for the hand of Mercédès and one of his three antagonists. Jealous of Mercédès’s impending marriage to Edmond, Fernand mails the letter Danglars has penned denouncing Edmond as a Bonapartist conspirator. After Edmond’s imprisonment, Fernand eventually succeeds in persuading Mercédès to marry him.

Fernand joins the military and rises through the ranks, in part by managing to desert at a politically advantageous moment and by working as a double agent. Business contacts with Danglars also enable him to amass a fortune. Later, he enters the employment of Ali Pasha, a local ruler in Ottoman-controlled Greece. Fernand betrays Ali Pasha and sells his employer’s daughter and favorite concubine into slavery. After returning to Paris, he adopts the title of Count de Morcerf. Humiliated after Monte Cristo exposes his past, and his wife and son leave him, Morcerf shoots himself.

Albert is the son of Mercédès and Fernand. His mother educated Albert herself, ensuring the strength of his character. Courageous and honorable, he gains the respect of Monte Cristo with his bravery when he is kidnapped and held for ransom by Luigi Vampa in Rome. Albert is expected to marry Eugénie, though he isn’t interested. Albert becomes Monte Cristo’s friend. He feels betrayed when Monte Cristo engineers his father’s exposure and provokes Monte Cristo into agreeing to a duel. However, after learning from his mother the truth of how Monte Cristo was treated by Fernand, Albert apologizes to Monte Cristo. He renounces his father’s wealth and his name, leaving Paris to become a soldier in Algeria using his mother’s family name, Herrera. Monte Cristo promises Mercédès that he will watch over Albert’s career.

Faria, an elderly Italian priest, befriends Edmond in prison and gives him the means to reinvent himself as the Count of Monte Cristo, providing him with an education and sharing with him the secret of the treasure which will fund Monte Cristo’s quest for revenge.

A fellow political prisoner in the Chateau d’If, apparently imprisoned for his activities on behalf of Italian unification, he tunnels into Edmond’s cell while attempting to dig his way to freedom. Highly educated and resourceful, Faria has made all the tools he needs from items found in prison, even writing a book. An expert chemist, Faria has concocted a powerful remedy capable of treating the seizures caused by a mysterious illness that eventually kills him. Like Edmond, he returns from more than one near-death experience. The drug, a red liquid which can also be a deadly poison, also plays a key role in the novel.

After making contact with Edmond, he educates Edmond. Others in the prison think Faria is ill-advised because he speaks of a great treasure that would be his if he ever escapes. Edmond learns that this is not a “delusion” when Faria shares with him a letter describing the treasure’s location, hidden on the island of Monte Cristo. Faria found the letter in the library of a Roman cardinal, whose ancestor had hidden the treasure.

Faria becomes a second father to Edmond, who later tells Maximilien that he always has two friends in his heart: his father, the man who gave him life; and Faria, the man who gave him intelligence. Faria helps Edmond understand the reasons for his  imprisonment, thus planting the idea of vengeance in Edmond’s mind, but he also tries to act as an example of right behavior. He is an almost superhuman figure to Edmond, just as Monte Cristo will later appear as a superhuman figure to the people around him.

Jacopo is the Genoese sailor who pulls Edmond out of the water after his escape from the Chateau d’If and resuscitates him. Out of friendship and gratitude, Monte Cristo makes Jacopo the captain of his yacht.

M. Morrel is the owner of the Pharaon and Edmond’s employer. He recognizes Edmond’s potential and promotes him to captain at the age of 19. An honorable man, Morrel supports Louis Dantès after Edmond’s imprisonment, lends him money, and agitates for Edmond’s release. This leads to him being labeled a Bonapartist, and his business suffers. He is on the verge of ruin when Monte Cristo appears again in Marseilles. Edmond’s first important act in his new life as the Count of Monte Cristo is to rescue Morrel’s business and provide a dowry for Morrel’s daughter, Julie. Before Monte Cristo’s final intervention, Morrel is preparing to die by suicide over the shame of leaving his creditors unpaid.

Julie is the daughter of M. Morrel and the sister of Maximilien. After Monte Cristo prevents the Morrel family business from failing, she marries her father’s employee, Emmanuel Herbaut. She and Emmanuel move to Paris where they live happily with their children, employing another member of her father’s staff, Penelon, as a gardener. Julie keeps the purse in which Monte Cristo placed the note rescuing her father’s business and the diamond intended for her dowry under a crystal globe in the house in Paris, demonstrating how indebted she and her family feel to their mysterious benefactor for their current happiness.

Maximilien, the brother of Julie, is a soldier. After his family’s rescue by an unknown benefactor, Maximilien makes it a practice to try to save another man’s life on the anniversary of their salvation. One of the lives he saves is that of Chateau-Renaud, a friend of Albert’s, who introduces Maximilien into their circle just as Monte Cristo arrives in Paris. Monte Cristo, happy to meet M. Morrel’s son, greatly admires Maximilien’s bravery and sense of honor.

Maximilien is secretly in love with Valentine Morrel. When Maximilien feels depressed after Valentine’s death, Monte Cristo talks him out of killing himself. Before reuniting Maximilien with Valentine, Monte Cristo allows him to take a drug Maximilien believes to be a fatal poison, but which merely sends him to sleep. Maximilien thereby experiences his own near-death and resurrection, after which Monte Cristo informs Maximilien that he and Valentine are now heirs to all Monte Cristo’s wealth after Monte Cristo leaves with Haydée.

Danglars, who first appears in the novel as the purser of the Pharaon, is the chief architect of the plan to denounce Edmond. Envious of Edmond’s promotion to captain, and possessing knowledge of the letter Edmond has carried from Elba, he writes the letter that leads to Edmond’s arrest and imprisonment. Later, Danglars goes to Spain and finds success as a banker, eventually being made a baron. A crude and materialistic man, he seems to value nothing but money. He apparently married his wife for her money, knowing of her affair with Villefort, and later tolerates her infidelities. He happily acts on the stock tips she passes along from Debray as long as they are making him money. Danglars apparently regards his daughter as another means by which he can enrich himself, by ensuring she has a lucrative marriage. He turns his back on the promised engagement to Albert as soon as a richer target, Andrea Cavalcanti, appears.

Monte Cristo destroys Danglars by ruining him financially. Danglars proves resilient, however, and flees to Rome, rather than killing himself, as Morcerf does, or acting erratically like Villefort. Only after Vampa forces him to choose between starving and handing over his remaining money does Danglars break down. Once Danglars repents, seeing the destruction of the Villefort family, Monte Cristo spares him, arranging for his release.

The wife of Danglars and the mother of Eugénie, Mme. Danglars is unfaithful to her husband and uses inside information provided by her lover, Lucien Debray, to make money on the stock market. During her first marriage, she had an affair with and became pregnant by Villefort. Danglars says her first husband died of shame. Mme. Danglars believes her son died at birth and has no idea that Villefort tried to kill him. Though Debray advises her to leave Paris, she is in court during the trial of Benedetto and collapses when he reveals that he is her son, though Benedetto himself still does not know this.

Eugénie, daughter of Danglars and Mme. Danglars, is the intended wife of Albert until her father chooses instead to marry her to Andrea, whom he believes to be rich. Eugénie has no interest in marrying, however. Instead, her chief attachment is to her music teacher and constant companion, Louise d’Armilly. When the arrest of Andrea/Benedetto ends plans for the marriage, Eugénie persuades Louise to elope with her. Before leaving Paris, Eugénie dons men’s clothes and cuts off her hair, intending to travel using a passport identifying her as Leon d’Armilly, Louise’s brother. The two are last seen lodging together at the same hotel where Benedetto is finally apprehended.

Debray is a young government minister and the lover of Mme. Danglars. Through her, he uses inside information gained through his job to guide the financial speculations of Danglars. A cynical and mercenary man, he quickly distances himself from Mme. Danglars when their relationship threatens to become a liability.

Villefort is the prosecutor responsible for Edmond’s imprisonment in the Chateau d’If. The son of the revolutionary Noirtier, he is a Royalist in politics and has adopted an element of the family name that Noirtier abandoned in order to distance himself from his father. When Edmond first appears before him, Villefort is about to marry into the noble and deeply conservative Saint-Méran family. He panics on seeing his father’s name on the letter Edmond is carrying and arranges for Edmond to be jailed indefinitely. Noirtier then gains the attention of Louis XVIII by traveling to Paris to share the rumors of Napoleon’s return from Elba, ensuring him a successful career after the Royalists return to power.

Villefort also has a secret affair with Mme. Danglars, then married to her first husband, and conceals her in the house in Auteuil after she becomes pregnant. He attempts to bury the child alive but is attacked by Bertuccio. Monte Cristo later uses his knowledge of this episode to bring about Villefort’s professional destruction.

Villefort remarries after his first wife’s death. Concerned with appearances, his first response to death by poison of members of his family is to cover up the scandal. Yet he is deeply attached to his children, Edouard and Valentine, and provides a home for his father after the latter’s stroke. Villefort identifies strongly with his profession and sees himself as an instrument of law and order. The strength of this identification contributes to his crisis when confronted in court by Benedetto. The murder of his two children at the hands of his wife then pushes him to behave erratically. Among Monte Cristo’s three antagonists, Villefort appears to be the most complex and conflicted, guilty of terrible crimes in the past but also believing that he is acting in society as a force for good.

The prosecutor Villefort’s second wife is portrayed as greedy and unscrupulous, fascinated by drugs and poisons. She wishes to see Edouard inherit the fortune intended for Valentine. Monte Cristo met her in Italy, in the persona of Abbé Busoni, and discussed the topic of poisons with her then. Monte Cristo takes advantage of her interests to destroy the Villefort family. She obtains some of Faria’s drug, claiming she needs it for her own fainting experiences, then uses it to poison her husband’s former in-laws, the Saint-Mérans. She tries to kill Noirtier but kills his servant, Barrois, instead. She then begins poisoning Valentine and appears to succeed. After her husband confronts her with her crimes, she poisons both herself and young Edouard.

Valentine is the 19-year-old daughter of Villefort and his first wife. A beautiful young woman, she is set to inherit both the fortune of her Saint-Méran grandparents and of her paternal grandfather, Noirtier. She spends hours with her grandfather who is paralyzed and helps him communicate with the rest of the family. Her father plans for her to marry Franz, but Valentine is secretly in love with Maximilien. After Franz breaks the engagement, she plans to live with her grandfather until she is able to marry Maximilien, but then falls ill and apparently dies after her stepmother attempts to poison her. Monte Cristo arranges her escape to the island of Monte Cristo under the care of Haydée, followed by her reappearance (or resurrection) and marriage to Maximilien.

Edouard is the eight-year-old son of M. and Mme. Villefort. Edouard is somewhat precocious and unpleasant. Edouard’s mother chooses to kill him along with herself rather than leave him without her.

Noirtier, originally M. Noirtier de Villefort, is the father of Villefort and the grandfather of Valentine. A strong supporter of the French Revolution, he is the leader of a Bonapartist group in Paris at the time that Napoleon escapes Elba, and he is the intended recipient of the letter Edmond is carrying. He enjoys a high position at Napoleon’s court during the latter’s brief return to power. Later, after experiencing a stroke that leaves him paralyzed and unable to speak, he becomes part of his son’s household. However, his intelligence and will are unaffected, and he actively intervenes to help Valentine and Maximilien and cooperates with Monte Cristo in concealing Valentine’s survival. He has qualities in common with Monte Cristo, in that he has narrowly survived death (his son refers to him as a “frozen corpse”) but nevertheless acts as a protector and benefactor to those around him. His Bonapartist politics also align him more with Edmond and Morrel than with his Royalist son.

Caderousse first appears as the neighbor of Edmond and his father in Marseilles. He demands repayment of a loan from the small amount of money Edmond has left his father to live on when he sails on the Pharaon, causing hardship to the old man and leading Edmond to dislike him. He appears as a neutral observer to the plot to denounce Edmond, neither helping nor stopping it. Years later, he provides Monte Cristo with a detailed account of the conspiracy. By that point, Caderousse and his wife are running a shabby inn near the Pont du Gard. It later emerges that he is part of the same smuggling network as Bertuccio. At the time Monte Cristo visits him, Caderousse seems resigned to his fate, but when Monte Cristo gives him and his wife a diamond, he is inspired to kill both her and the dealer who has arrived with money to purchase the diamond. He goes to prison, but escapes with his fellow convict, Benedetto. He follows Benedetto to Paris and extorts him while Benedetto is living as Andrea Cavalcanti. Unsatisfied with what he is getting from Benedetto, he breaks into Monte Cristo’s house but is confronted by Monte Cristo and stabbed by Benedetto. He dies after signing a declaration naming Benedetto as his murderer.

Benedetto is the child of Villefort and Mme. Danglars born outside of marriage, whose birth Villefort tried to conceal by burying the infant alive. Rescued by Bertuccio and raised by Bertuccio’s sister, Assunta, he nevertheless grows into an angry youth and adult, upset at the unknown father who abandoned him. He murders Assunta and falls into a life of crime, becoming a forger and a smuggler. He later escapes from prison with Caderousse. Benedetto assumes the fictional identity of Andrea Cavalcanti, an Italian nobleman, when Monte Cristo hires him to do so. He courts Eugénie and falls victim to extortion by Caderousse. He murders Caderousse. Benedetto had hoped that Monte Cristo was his true father, but Bertuccio tells him that his father is Villefort, who is prosecuting Benedetto. Benedetto then exposes Villefort in court, blaming his father for his unfortunate fate.

Franz is a close friend of Albert and his companion in the episode at the Roman carnival where they first come to know Monte Cristo. Franz is also engaged to Valentine. Though Valentine does not love him, he is attached to her and refuses to break the engagement when her grandfather disinherits her. However, when he learns that it was Noirtier who killed his father in a duel, he abruptly ends the engagement.

Haydée is the daughter of Ali Pasha and his favorite concubine, Vasiliki. After Ali Pasha’s death, Fernand sells Haydée and her mother to an Armenian enslaver. Monte Cristo eventually redeems Haydée for the price of a magnificent emerald. While Monte Cristo initially implies that Haydée is his mistress as well as an enslaved woman, he acts as a father figure to her, and she is devoted to him. Haydée lives in Monte Cristo’s house, furnishing her rooms and dressing in a “Middle Eastern” style. She illustrates the 18th-19th-century beliefs of “the Orient” as a savage and mysterious region ruled by more “primitive” codes than the “rational” West. Along with Ali, she seems to lack her own method of representation, illustrating the detrimental effect of “Orientalist” thought, where those from the perceived “Orient” were seen as “objects” to the Western “subjects.”

However, when she presents herself at the Chamber of Deputies to provide evidence against Morcerf, she says that her lifestyle is her own choice. Haydée, like Monte Cristo, has long dreamed of revenge against the person who wronged her and her family. (It should be noted, however, that this also corresponds with Monte Cristo’s plans). She aids Monte Cristo in smuggling Valentine out of France. At the end of the novel, she insists on being Monte Cristo’s partner.

Haydée shares a name with Haidée, a character in Byron’s mock-epic poem Don Juan, perhaps highlighting, as with Monte Cristo’s fictional alias Sinbad, the performative and fictional aspects of her identity and the “Oriental” qualities attributed to her.

Bertuccio is a smuggler from Corsica who becomes Monte Cristo’s trusted steward. When Bertuccio is wrongly imprisoned for the murders committed by Caderousse, Monte Cristo, in the persona of Abbé Busoni, corroborates Bertuccio’s story and works for his release. During this time, he confesses a previous murder to Abbé Busoni, telling the story of how he swore a vendetta against Villefort after the latter refused to prosecute the murder of Bertuccio’s brother, a Bonapartist soldier, by Royalist vigilantes. Bertuccio followed Villefort to Paris, finally attacking and stabbing him in the garden of the house in Auteuil. He then rescues the infant Benedetto.

Bertuccio enters Monte Cristo’s service at the suggestion of Abbé Busoni and apparently does not recognize that the two are the same person. Bertuccio has no idea that Villefort survived his attack until he sees Villefort at Monte Cristo’s dinner party. He also recognizes Mme. Danglars as the infant’s mother and Andrea Cavalcanti as Benedetto, who disappeared after murdering Bertuccio’s sister. Bertuccio plays an unwitting but key role in Monte Cristo’s schemes by making him aware of the events in Auteuil. Bertuccio finally reveals to Benedetto that Villefort is his father, leading to Villefort’s exposure.

Ali is Monte Cristo’s devoted servant from Africa, though he is not enslaved, as Monte Cristo insists that all his employees are free to leave him if they wish (several characters also point out slavery is illegal in France). Ali is described as “Nubian,” strictly referring to someone native to a region in Sudan, but it is not clear how precisely the word is used. Ali cannot speak, having had his tongue cut out by his previous employer, problematically linking him to “Orientalist” tropes. Like Monte Cristo, he possesses almost supernatural strength and skills.