The Son of Monte-Cristo

by Jules Lermina

He had discovered the secret of immense wealth. And this man threw down the pickaxe in his hand and standing erect, cried aloud:

"Oh! you whose infamy condemned me to fourteen years of imprisonment, and whose name I do not yet know, beware! Dantès is free."

Young and with confidence in the future, Edmond Dantès, the lover of Mercédès, returned to Marseilles, with the promise of a captaincy. He was to marry Mercédès. It was at supper on the evening of the betrothal when soldiers came to arrest him. He was accused of having carried letters to Napoleon, at Elba. In vain did he assert and even prove his innocence before de Villefort, a magistrate. Edmond Dantès was torn from his betrothed, and imprisoned for fourteen years in the Château d'If.

Another prisoner was there, the Abbé Faria. This prisoner was supposed to be mad, because he had offered to buy his liberty with millions. The Abbé imparted to Dantès the secret of the treasure concealed by the Spadas in the caverns of the island of Monte-Cristo, a desolate rock in the Mediterranean. And this was not all, the old man had also imparted other secrets to his young companion.

And now Dantès was master of the treasure of the Spadas, and he started to find his old father and his fiancée. He swore to avenge himself on those who had betrayed him. He left the rock. He went to his father's house. His father had died of hunger. Mercédès, his fiancée, was married to another—to one of the three men who had woven the plot that had cost Dantès fourteen years of his youth. One was named Danglars, a rival claimant to the title of captain. The second was a drunken man, more weak than wicked. The third was Fernando Mondego, a fisherman, who loved Mercédès. And it was this Fernando who had married Mercédès, and was now known by the title of the Comte de Morcerf. Caderousse, still poor, kept a wine shop, and Danglars was one of the first bankers in Paris.

Another enemy, and perhaps the most infamous of them all, was the magistrate, de Villefort, who, knowing the innocence of Dantès, had nevertheless sentenced him to prison. Because Dantès in his explanation used the name of Noirtier, who was the father of Villefort, and said that the letters he brought from the island of Elba were given to him by this man, de Villefort, lest his own position should be compromised, got rid of this person as soon as possible, and sent him to the Château d'If for fourteen years.

These were the crimes that Dantès swore to punish. He did so. Danglars the banker he ruined. Fernando the fisherman, known when Dantès returned as the Comte de Morcerf, was accused in the Chamber of Peers of having betrayed Ali-Pacha of Jamna, and of selling his daughter Haydée to a Turkish merchant. His infamy was proved by Haydée herself, and Fernando Mondego was for ever dishonored. The wretched man, knowing that the blow came from Monte-Cristo, went to him to provoke a quarrel. Then Monte-Cristo said to him:

"Look me full in the face, Fernando, and you will understand the whole. I am Edmond Dantès." And the man fled. Within an hour he blew out his brains.

Then came the turn of de Villefort. His wife, a perverse creature, to ensure an inheritance to her son, committed several murders with poisons. De Villefort himself had buried a child alive, the child of Madame Danglars and himself. But the child was saved by a Corsican, Bertuccio. The child, born of crime, had the most criminal instincts. And one day Monte-Cristo found him in the prison at Toulon. He named him Benedetto. He assisted him to escape, and Benedetto assassinated Caderousse. And then Benedetto, tried for this murder, found himself face to face with his father Villefort, the Procureur de Roi. Benedetto loudly flung his father's crimes in his face, and Villefort fled from the court-room. When he reached home Villefort found that his wife had poisoned herself and his son, the only being he loved. And then Monte-Cristo appeared before him and told him his real name, Edmond Dantès! Villefort became insane.

And the work of vengeance was complete. Monte-Cristo was so rich that he was all-powerful. And yet he was terribly sad, for he was alone. Then it was that the gentle Haydée consoled him. To their son they gave the name of Esperance. And Haydée was dead! Esperance was dead!