His worst enemy was Villefort, who had now become the procureur du roi at Paris.
Was Edmond Dantes to be blamed if he, after he had discovered all this, took the law in his own hands and began to execute his vengeance?
Danglars was his first victim. He ruined him and made him suffer the pangs of hunger which Edmond's father had suffered.
Fernand Mondego, Count de Morcerf, was the second. At first Dantes, who now called himself the Count of Monte-Cristo, wanted to kill Fernand's son, Albert de Morcerf, but he spared the young man for Mercedes' sake.
He looked up Mondego's past history. The latter had risen to power through crime and treachery. He had betrayed Ali Tebelen, Pasha of Yanina, and sold the latter's wife Vassiliki and daughter Haydee into slavery. Haydee herself denounced De Morcerf's infamy in the Chamber of Deputies. De Morcerf, forever dishonored, and knowing the blow came from Monte-Cristo, sought to pick a quarrel with the latter. But the count, glancing him full in the face, said:
"Look at me well, Fernand, and you will understand it all. I am Edmond Dantes."
Then De Morcerf fled, and an hour afterward blew out his brains.
De Villefort's turn was next. Monte-Cristo discovered that he had buried alive a child of Madame Danglars and himself. Bertuccio the Corsican had saved the child and reared it to manhood. The boy had become the bandit Benedetto.
Monte-Cristo found him in the galleys at Toulon. He aided in his escape, and Benedetto assassinated Caderousse. Tried for this murder, Benedetto found himself confronted with his father, the procureur du roi. He boldly announced his relationship, and de Villefort fled from the courtroom only to find on reaching home that his wife had poisoned herself and her son. In that moment of agony Monte-Cristo appeared before him and told him that he was Edmond Dantes. The blow struck home. De Villefort went mad.
His work of vengeance was now accomplished. Monte-Cristo was rich and all-powerful. He married Haydee, and they had a son, Spero. Now, alas! Haydee was dead! Spero was dead!