The Count Of Monte Cristo
...The Pharaon and he is engaged to his fiancée, Mercedes. However, Dantès is unaware that his shipmate, Danglars, is jealous of his success and promotion as captain, and that Mercedes’ cousin Fernand is jealous of Mercedes’ love for Dantès. Both Danglars and Fernand contrive a plan to frame Dantès as one of Napoleon’s agents, a particularly damning charge as the King at this point is fighting to retain power in the face of Napoleon’s large and loyal following. Danglars and Fernand send a letter denouncing Dantès as a revolutionary agent to Marseilles’ local magistrate, M. de Villefort, a staunch royalist, who is horrified to learn that Dantès was unwittingly going to deliver a letter planning the return of Napoleon (known as The 100 Days) to his father, a revolutionary. In order to save his father from discovery and to gain the good graces of the King, Villefort throws Dantès in prison although he believes him to be innocent, and gains a good post as a magistrate from the King as thanks for the warning of Napoleon’s imminent arrival.
Dantès is thrown in a political prison and forgotten for 14 years, during which time he contemplates suicide, unaware that his father has starved to death while he was imprisoned, that his employer was unable to find out where he was being kept or have him released, and that Mercedes has married Fernand. During his last few years in prison, he and his neighboring prisoner, the Abbé Faria, contrive a plot to escape the prison. As they plan their escape and dig tunnels, the Abbé Faria teaches him everything he knows (which is a substantial amount), helps him to understand that Danglars, Fernand and Villefort were responsible for his imprisonment, and offers to give Dantès half of an immense fortune that the Abbé knows is hidden on the Island of Monte Cristo. Shortly before their planned escape, the Abbé Faria dies, and Dantès replaces...
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