Contents
Chapter 114.
Overview
Baron Danglars reaches Rome and draws five million francs at Thomson & French on Monte Cristo’s receipt. Peppino, working for Luigi Vampa, confirms the sum and orchestrates Danglars’s abduction. Escorted along the Appian Way to the catacombs of St. Sebastian, Danglars is imprisoned by Vampa, expecting ransom.
Summary
A French traveler bearing the Legion of Honor ribbon arrives in Rome and heads straight to the bank of Thomson & French. He is Baron Danglars, intent on drawing a large sum. Peppino, posing as an idler, follows him inside and, with help from a clerk, confirms Danglars will withdraw five million on the Count of Monte Cristo’s receipt.
Elated, Danglars returns to the Hotel d'Espagne, guards his pocketbook, and plans to depart for Venice and Vienna. The next day delays with horses and passports attract street onlookers as he sets off. As night falls, unfamiliar exchanges with the postilion and mounted escorts raise his alarm.
Realizing the carriage is circling back toward Rome, Danglars panics, fearing either arrest or bandits. On the Appian Way near Caracalla’s circus, riders stop the coach and order him out. Surrounded and forced down a hidden path, Danglars is led through subterranean corridors lined with tombs.
Peppino brings him before the captain—Luigi Vampa—who coolly orders Danglars to be taken to a cell. Confined in the catacombs of St. Sebastian, Danglars recognizes the place from Albert de Morcerf’s past ordeal and, concluding he is to be ransomed rather than killed, reassures himself by estimating the price of his freedom before falling asleep.
Who Appears
- Baron DanglarsBanker fleeing Paris; withdraws five million in Rome; abducted by bandits and imprisoned in Vampa’s catacombs, expecting ransom.
- PeppinoLuigi Vampa’s lieutenant; tracks Danglars at the bank, confirms the sum, and leads the kidnapping and confinement.
- Luigi VampaBandit chief in the Roman Campagna; receives Danglars in the catacombs and orders his imprisonment.
- undefinedConfidential bank clerk who verifies Danglars’s five-million draft and quietly informs Peppino.
- undefinedHotel-arranged guide who accompanies Danglars’s carriage and facilitates movements before the abduction.
- undefinedHotel d’Espagne proprietor who receives Danglars and manages his lodging.
- undefinedDriver who conveys Danglars out of Rome and, under bandit control, delivers him to the ambush.