Contents
Chapter 13.
Overview
During the Hundred Days, Villefort preserves his career through Noirtier yet secretly sabotages Morrel’s bid to free Dantès by withholding a damning petition. After Waterloo, Dantès remains imprisoned, Villefort advances and marries, Danglars flees, Fernand enlists, and Mercedes loses Edmond’s father, whose funeral Morrel courageously funds.
Summary
As Napoleon’s return triggers the Hundred Days, Noirtier’s influence preserves Villefort in office, though he prudently hides royalist honors. Civil unrest rises in Marseilles, giving shipowner Morrel enough influence to press for Edmond Dantès’s release.
Morrel visits Villefort, who remains icy and controlled. Pretending loyalty to the new regime, Villefort dictates a petition lauding Dantès’s supposed Bonapartist zeal and promises to forward it. Instead, Villefort secretly withholds the document, calculating that a second Bourbon restoration may justify keeping Dantès buried and protect his own ambition.
Morrel renews his pleas twice during the Hundred Days, but nothing changes. After Waterloo, he abandons further efforts, fearing harm to himself. Dantès, unaware of the political convulsions, stays imprisoned.
With Louis XVIII restored, Villefort leaves Marseilles for a post in Toulouse and swiftly marries Mlle de Saint-Méran. Danglars, dreading Dantès’s revenge, quits the sea for a merchant post in Madrid.
Fernand, consumed by jealousy yet clinging to hope, enlists with the new conscription, while Mercedes endures despair, resisting suicide through faith. Caderousse is sent to the frontier. Old Dantès, his hope exhausted after five months, dies in Mercedes’s arms; Morrel bravely pays for the funeral despite royalist hostility.
Who Appears
- Gérard de VillefortCunning magistrate; pretends to help Dantès, then withholds the petition to protect his career.
- undefinedShipowner who repeatedly petitions for Dantès’s release; funds old Dantès’s funeral despite risk.
- Edmond DantèsUnseen prisoner; remains incarcerated through the Hundred Days and after Waterloo.
- undefinedGrief-stricken fiancée; resists suicide through faith and tends old Dantès in his final hours.
- undefinedJealous rival; contemplates murder and suicide, ultimately enlists, still hoping to win Mercedes.
- undefinedScheming clerk; flees to Madrid fearing Dantès’s vengeance during Napoleon’s return.
- undefinedEdmond’s father; hope exhausted, dies in Mercedes’s arms five months after the arrest.
- undefinedInfluential Bonapartist; his standing helps protect Villefort’s position during the Hundred Days.
- undefinedRestored monarch; his return cements Villefort’s advancement and marriage.
- undefinedHis Hundred Days spark upheaval; conscription sweeps Fernand to war; defeat leaves Dantès forgotten.
- undefinedNeighbor; conscripted and sent to the frontier, largely passive amid the turmoil.