Edmond Dantès is the protagonist and title character of Alexandre Dumas, père's novel, The Count of Monte Cristo.
Dumas may have gotten the idea for the character of Edmond from a story which he found in a book compiled by Jacques Peuchet, archivist to the French police.[1] Peuchet related the tale of a shoemaker named Pierre Picaud, who was living in Nîmes in 1807. Picaud had been engaged to marry a rich woman, but four jealous friends falsely accused him of being a spy for Britain. He was imprisoned for seven years. During his imprisonment, a dying fellow prisoner bequeathed him a treasure hidden in Milan. When Picaud was released in 1814, he took possession of the treasure, returned under another name to Paris and spent ten years plotting his successful revenge against his former friends.
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When the reader is first introduced to Edmond Dantès, he arrives in Marseille as first mate aboard the merchant ship Le Pharaon (The Pharaoh). At only 19 years old, the young Dantès seems destined for success. Although the trip was successful, the former Captain, Leclère, has fallen ill and died. Dantès relays these events to his patron, M. Morrel, who tells Dantès that he will try to have him named captain. Dantès rushes off to see his father and then his beloved, the young Catalan woman Mercédès, and the two agree to be married immediately.
The marriage never occurs, however. On the night of their nuptial feast, Dantès is arrested as a suspected Bonapartist a helper to Napoléon, and taken to see the public prosecutor, Gérard de Villefort. De Villefort concludes that Edmond is innocent, and assures him that he will be released. He then asks for a piece of evidence cited in a letter denouncing Edmond to the authorities. The letter claims that on Edmond's last voyage, he made a stopover at the island of Elba, and received a letter from the deposed Emperor Napoléon. Edmond hands over the letter, which he received in the name of Captain Leclère, and of which the contents are unknown to Edmond. De Villefort throws the letter on the fire for the letter is addressed to his father. Once again he promises Edmond's speedy release. De Villefort has renounced his father, a staunch Bonapartist, and destroyed the letter to protect himself, not Edmond; to further protect his name, de Villefort sentences Edmond to imprisonment in the dreaded Chateau d'If, an island fortress from which no prisoner had ever escaped, and to which the most dangerous political prisoners are sent. Villefort is aided in this plot by Danglars, Edmond's shipmate who Edmond was promoted over, and Fernand Mondego, a rival suitor for Mercédès' hand.
After many long years in solitary confinement in the dungeons of the Chateau, Edmond decides to commit suicide by starvation. He throws food out his cell window. Fearing he will be forced to eat, he does this in secrecy. After nearly two weeks, he hears scratching against the wall of his cell. He tries to communicate back with his chair. Concluding that it could only be another prisoner digging his way to freedom, Dantès resolves to live so that they both might gain their freedom. Dantès eventually breaks through into the tunnel with an iron pitcher and the adjoining cell, which belongs to an old Italian abbé named Faria sometimes called the Mad Priest.
The two prisoners become very close, with the learned priest teaching Dantès all he knows about mathematics, science, languages, philosophy, history and economics. Together, the two determine the names of the men who denounced Edmond as a Bonapartist, and although Faria disapproves, Edmond formulates plans of revenge against the men who had betrayed him. Faria dies before the two can escape, but with his dying words bequeaths to Edmond a secret treasure, hidden on the island of Monte Cristo. The night of Faria's passing, Edmond exchanges himself for his mentor in the priest's bodybag, and escapes from the prison. (The jailers, rather than burying him, throw him over the fortress' wall into the sea, weighted with an iron ball tied around his legs. Using a homemade knife, Edmond frees himself of this burden and reaches the surface.) He is rescued from the sea by smugglers, who believe him a shipwreck victim. At his earliest opportunity, Edmond suggests a stopover and trading of goods at the small island of Monte Cristo, during which he confirms the existence of Faria's treasure. On this and subsequent visits, Edmond becomes very wealthy.
Upon returning to Marseille, Edmond learns that his father had died of poverty and that Mercédès had married Mondego 18 months after he was supposedly executed for treason. His old neighbour Gaspard Caderousse is still alive, and under the guise of the Abbé Busoni, Edmond visits him to learn more. Caderousse tells him that Morrel had tried to obtain a fair trial for Edmond, and how Mercédès pleaded for his release. He also learns that those who had remained loyal to him had suffered greatly, while those who had betrayed him had prospered. Edmond thanks Caderousse for the information, paying him with a large diamond that he said had come into Edmond's possession while in prison. Realizing that only Morrel had remained loyal, Edmond creates three disguises — an Englishman named Lord Wilmore, a clerk from the firm Thomson and French, and Sinbad the Sailor — and uses them to save Morrel from bankruptcy and suicide. Dantès then goes into hiding, spending nine years reforming himself as the Count of Monte Cristo.
Nine years later, Edmond emerges into Parisian society as the mysterious and sophisticated Count of Monte Cristo. Having purchased the deed to the island from whence he obtained his treasure, Edmond is able to place himself in the upper strata of Parisian society and assume the role of one of the most influential men in all of France. As such, he is introduced to several other powerful men, most notably Danglars, who is now a wealthy banker; Mondego, who is now Count de Morcerf and a military hero; and M. Villefort, who is now the Procureur du Roi, one of the most powerful advocates in the country. Furthermore, Mondego has married Mercédès, and the two have a son named Albert. Having established himself in Parisian society, and having distanced himself from Edmond Dantès, the Count is able to formulate his plans of revenge against the men who betrayed him.
By the end of the novel, Edmond had exacted his revenge on all of the men who would have seen him rot in prison. He exposes Villefort and Mondego for their part in the conspiracy, ruining their respective reputations and bringing the police down upon them; Villefort goes insane, and Mondego commits suicide. Danglars is for a time captured by the Italian bandit Luigi Vampa, made to understand Edmond's suffering, and stripped of all of his wealth. Edmond, at the end of the novel, departs with Haydee, the daughter of one of his allies, leaving with words of immortal wisdom: "to wait and hope".
Edmond Dantès has been portrayed on film many times by actors such as Robert Donat, Jean Marais, Louis Jourdan, Gérard Depardieu, Richard Chamberlain and, most recently, James Caviezel. Dantès has also been portrayed on stage, including in a musical adaptation of the novel. In the Japanese animated television series Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, which adds the demon known as "Gankutsuou" to Edmond, he is voiced by Jōji Nakata.