In the initial chapters of The Count of Monte
Cristo, Edmund Dantes explains to Monsieur Morrel that the captain of the
merchant ship, Pharaon, has died and in his stead Dantes has delivered a letter to the
island of Elba. It is this letter that lands Edmund Dantes in prison. For when he
arrested as having conspired to bring Napoleon the exiled emperor who ruled shortly
after the French Revolution from Elba, the Deputy Procureur of the King asks him what
has transpired. Dantes replies that he has merely followed his dying captain's orders.
Upon further questioning, Dantes tells Gerard de Villefort that the Marechal gave him a
letter to deliver in Paris, addressed to Monsieur Noirtier. When de Villefort hears
this name, he rescinds his orders to dismiss Dantes and says that he must retain
Dantes. Then he burns the letter to M. Noirtier in the
fireplace.
After this meeting, de Villefort who is a
Royalist, serving under the restored king, Louis XVIII, cannot permit Edmund Dantes to
mention anything about M. Noirtier to anyone. For, he has great political aspirations.
Therefore, he has Dantes charged as a Bonapartist and thrown into prison where poor
Dantes spends fourteen years during which time he meets the Abbe Faria, also a political
prisoner. Ironically, the abbe was imprisoned for being against
Napoleon.
So, while the French Revolution does not have a
direct effect upon the narrative, some of the resulting occurrences in the years
subsequent to it such as the rise of Napoleon to Emperor and his exile with the One
Hundred Days of rule by the Bourbon King definitely affect what happens to certain
characters of Dumas's book.
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