129 pages • 4 hours read
Alexandre DumasThe Count of Monte Cristo
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1844A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 19-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 19 Summary
M. Morrel does his best to renew his credit before his next meeting with the Englishman but fails. He travels to Paris to appeal to Danglars but is rejected. Julie writes to her brother, Maximilien, who is a soldier, and begs him to return home. On the day that M. Morrel’s next payments are due, Julie receives a letter signed “Sinbad the Sailor,” telling her to go to Edmond’s old address and collect a red silk purse left on the mantelpiece.
Maximilien finds his father, disgraced by his inability to repay his debts, preparing to shoot himself. At the last moment, Julie returns with the red silk purse, which contains a notice that M. Morrel’s debts have been paid and an enormous diamond with a note saying it is for Julie’s dowry. The family then receives notice that the Pharaon has reappeared after all. An exact duplicate of the lost ship has just sailed into the harbor, manned by the same crew and carrying the same cargo. As Maximilien and his father embrace by the waterfront, the family is watched by a bearded man who then boards a yacht. As the yacht sails away, its passenger, Edmond, says that he is done with kindness and with rewarding the good: “May the God of vengeance now yield me His place to punish the wicked!” (131).
Chapter 20 Summary
A few years later, the young Viscount Albert de Morcerf, son of Mercédès and Fernand, arrives in Rome for Carnival (Mardi Gras) with his friend, the Baron Franz d’Epinay. Every other room on the floor of their hotel has been taken by a nobleman, the Count of Monte Cristo, whom the owner of the hotel believes to be Sicilian or Maltese. After the two young men learn that no more horses or carriages are available for rent during carnival, an offer arrives from Monte Cristo for them to share his carriage and rented window overlooking the festivities.
When the two call on Monte Cristo to thank him, he invites them to watch a public execution in the Piazza del Popolo. Monte Cristo informs them that one of the two condemned men is in fact scheduled to be reprieved, but they can watch the execution of the other. Monte Cristo reveals that he has watched executions around the world, carried out in many different ways, and is now able to view them with a detached curiosity. He says that he no longer believes death is sufficient to avenge or expiate a wrong. On the contrary, the only appropriate form of vengeance is one that makes the guilty party suffer the same pain he once inflicted on another.
Later, the group watches as the two prisoners are brought out to be executed. When one is given a last-minute reprieve, as Monte Cristo predicted, the other becomes furious at the thought that he has been left die alone and lashes out at his captors. Monte Cristo describes the man’s fury at seeing another man go free as typical of human nature, exclaiming “Oh, mankind, race of crocodiles!” (142). The two young men are horrified by the execution and cannot bear to watch.
Chapter 21 Summary
During the carnival, Albert flirts with a young woman, but when he goes to meet her in response to note she has sent, he is kidnapped by bandits. Franz learns what has happened when a letter arrives from Albert, in which Albert asks his friend to raise 4,000 piastres in ransom money to buy Albert’s freedom. The letter also contains a threat signed by Luigi Vampa, a notorious smuggler. The messenger, Peppino, was the condemned man spared from execution days before.
Franz turns to Monte Cristo for help, and the two set out with Peppino for the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian, where Vampa and his man are holding Albert prisoner. Monte Cristo leads Franz through the catacombs in complete darkness and takes the bandits by surprise. Monte Cristo then greets Vampa as a friend and tells the bandit that he must release Albert immediately, as the young man is also Monte Cristo’s friend. Vampa apologizes and agrees. Franz and Monte Cristo find Albert sleeping calmly, wrapped in one of the bandit’s cloaks, and are impressed by his bravery and self-possession.
Albert tells Monte Cristo that he is now in his debt. As repayment, Monte Cristo asks only that Albert introduce him to Parisian society when Monte Cristo arrives in that city. They make an appointment to meet at Albert’s home in three months.
Chapter 22 Summary
Three months later, Albert, back home in Paris, prepares for Monte Cristo’s visit. He has invited friends, including Lucien Debray, a government minister, to meet him as well. Another friend, Chateau-Renard, arrives with Captain Maximilien Morrel, who saved Chateau-Renard’s life in North Africa. Chateau-Renard explains that Morrel has made it his custom to save a man’s life every year on the anniversary of the day a stranger saved his father. Albert tells the group how he came to know the Count of Monte Cristo and describes Monte Cristo as someone larger than life. The group speculates on his mysterious origins, and one playfully compares Monte Cristo to the devil, asking Albert if he has signed away his soul.
When Monte Cristo arrives, he is visibly moved on meeting Maximilien and hearing the story of his bravery. At lunch, he explains that he has taught himself to be indifferent to food and has not eaten for 24 hours. He also sleeps at will, thanks to pills made from opium and hashish. He shows them the pills and explains that the box in which he carries them was made from one of three enormous emeralds he owned. One was used to buy a woman’s freedom, and another was given to a pope, in exchange for a man’s life. Albert guesses that the man was Vampa’s messenger, Peppino, and that it was Monte Cristo who arranged for him to be spared from execution.
Albert reveals that he is engaged to Danglars’s daughter, Eugénie, and Monte Cristo says he expects to make Danglars’s acquaintance soon. The group discusses where in Paris Monte Cristo should live, and Maximilien offers Monte Cristo a suite in the house of his sister, Julie, who, Monte Cristo is glad to learn, has been happily married for the past nine years. Monte Cristo announces that his “Nubian” servant, Ali, has already found a house, and that he will be living in it with a young enslaved Greek woman, whom he describes as his mistress. Debray points out that she is now free, as slavery is illegal in France, and Monte Cristo responds that everyone in his household is free to leave him if they wish, but they choose to stay.
Chapter 23 Summary
After the others leave, Albert shows Monte Cristo his apartment. A portrait of a beautiful young woman dressed as a Catalan fisherwoman holds Monte Cristo’s attention, and Albert explains that it is a portrait of his mother, Mercédès. Albert then takes Monte Cristo to meet his parents in person. Monte Cristo greets Morcerf (Fernand) and indicates that he is well-acquainted with the details of Morcerf’s military career. Morcerf explains that he is retired from the military and now serving in the Chamber of Deputies and offers to take Monte Cristo there immediately. Monte Cristo declines, saying he wants to meet Morcerf’s wife. Mercédès turns pale when she sees Monte Cristo, but greets him with dignity, bowing to the man who saved her son’s life. Monte Cristo also turns pale, but calmly returns her greeting. Later, Mercédès, who has clearly recognized him as Edmond Dantès, questions Albert about him and warns her son to be cautious of his new friend.
Chapter 24 Summary
Monte Cristo arrives at his house on the Champs-Elysees, where he informs his Corsican steward, Bertuccio, that he has rented a second house in the suburb of Auteuil and wants to visit it immediately. Bertuccio grows increasingly upset as they approach the house, which was previously the property of the Marquis de Meran, Villefort’s first father-in-law. Bertuccio panics as Monte Cristo leads him to a second-floor bedroom, then down a hidden staircase into the garden. Monte Cristo demands that Bertuccio explain his reaction or leave his service.
Bertuccio agrees to reveal a story he has only told one other person, an Italian priest to whom he once gave his confession. Bertuccio, when younger, was a smuggler, but his older brother was a high-ranking Bonapartist officer murdered in the south of France during a wave of anti-Bonapartist violence after the fall of Napoleon. Bertuccio asked Villefort to prosecute his brother’s murder, but Villefort refused on political grounds. Bertuccio then swore a vendetta against Villefort and tracked Villefort to his father-in-law’s house in Auteuil, which had been standing empty but was occupied by a pregnant woman known only as “the baroness.” One night, Bertuccio watched Villefort come down to the garden from the hidden staircase and bury a small box in the garden. Bertuccio stabbed Villefort and escaped with the box, which he thought held money. Instead, inside was a newborn infant. When he told his sister about the child, she insisted on gaining custody of the infant, whom she named Benedetto.
Some years later, while on a smuggling trip in the south of France, Bertuccio stayed at the inn of Caderousse, who was one of his accomplices. He became the sole witness to Bertuccio and his wife’s murder of a jeweler who came to buy the diamond given to them by the Italian priest, now named as Abbé Busoni. Caderousse’s wife was killed as well. Bertuccio was accused of the murders, and it was while struggling to free himself that he made his confession about the incident in Auteuil to Abbé Busoni. Eventually, Caderousse was arrested and Bertuccio set free. Abbé Busoni gave Bertuccio a letter of recommendation addressed to the Count of Monte Cristo. Meanwhile, Bertuccio learned that his sister was murdered by her adopted son Benedetto, a troubled child who has grown up to be a criminal.
Chapters 19-24 Analysis
In this section, Edmond, now known as the Count of Monte Cristo, begins to focus on vengeance. These chapters also present different forms of vengeance, including the duel, vendetta, and capital punishment. Monte Cristo is willing to take as much time as necessary to seek his own vengeance. Mercédès and Fernand’s son, Albert, is already a grown man when Monte Cristo meets him in Rome and uses the acquaintance to re-enter his old enemies’ lives. Monte Cristo articulates his theory of vengeance while watching the execution with Albert and Franz in Rome, then moves on to Paris, where he renews contact with Fernand and Mercédès and learns that Albert is expected to marry Eugénie Danglars.
The episode in Auteuil indicates how thoroughly Monte Cristo has immersed himself in his enemies’ lives over the past years, while introducing new characters and plot elements. Through Bertuccio’s story, the reader learns that Villefort tried to conceal the birth of an infant, likely his own son born outside of marriage, and that this son, raised under the name Benedetto, is now a murderer and a fugitive. Meanwhile, the story of Caderousse’s crime reintroduces an ambiguous character in a clearly negative light. The story of Bertuccio’s vendetta against Villefort reveals that he, too, is motivated by the idea of vengeance as justice.
These chapters also build on themes already introduced. Monte Cristo appears as an almost supernatural figure. He does not require food as normal people do, and sleeps at will thanks to a powerful drug (an echo of Faria’s red liquid). He uses his ability to see in the dark while rescuing Albert and describes his great skill at dueling to Albert and Franz. Monte Cristo also tells them that he has lost any fear of death by witnessing innumerable violent deaths throughout the world.
Bertuccio does not recognize that Monte Cristo and Abbé Busoni are the same person, suggesting how easily and completely Monte Cristo shifts identities. Watching the execution, Monte Cristo appears as an “avenging angel.” Albert’s friends suggest that Monte Cristo is the devil, and Albert compares him more benevolently to a character from One Thousand and One Nights (not knowing that Monte Cristo has used the name Sinbad the Sailor). Albert tells his mother, who has recognized Edmond, that Franz described Monte Cristo as “a man who had come back from the next world” and she starts in terror at the idea that Edmond has in fact somehow returned from the dead, a moment uniting the idea of Edmond as a godlike or demonic figure with the continuing motif of death and rebirth (178). Franz, when he shakes Monte Cristo’s hand, finds it “as cold as the hand of a corpse” (160).
These chapters also continue the motif of debt. Morrel tries to repay his father’s anonymous savior by saving a life himself on each anniversary of the event. Albert and Mercédès feel indebted to Monte Cristo for saving Albert’s life in Rome, and both are quick to acknowledge this. Monte Cristo reveals that his relationship with the Roman smuggler Vampa began when he gave the young Vampa a gold coin for acting as his guide, and Vampa insisted on repaying Monte Cristo by giving him a handmade dagger. Maximilien and Albert, who acknowledge and seek to repay their debts to others, are also presented as unafraid of death, like Monte Cristo himself.
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