Story so far
Danglars, bled of his five millions meal by meal, at last defies Luigi Vampa's terms and is left to starve. Days of agony break him utterly: he prays, weeps, hallucinates an old man dying of hunger (Louis Dantès), gnaws the matting, and finally crawls to the door begging only to live. When a deep voice asks if he repents, he cries yes and strikes his emaciated breast—and the man in the cloak steps forward.
Taking him first for the Count of Monte Cristo, Danglars hears the truth: 'I am he whom you sold and dishonored... whose father you condemned to die of hunger... I am Edmond Dantès!' The avenger pardons him—'because he hopes to be forgiven'—spares his life, lets him keep his last 50,000 francs, and tells him the five millions he stole from the hospitals have been restored. Fed and freed by Vampa, the broken banker is set on the road; stooping to drink at a stream at dawn, he sees that his hair has 'become entirely white.' The last of Edmond's four great enemies survives, but ruined, humbled, and aged overnight.
Appearance
A once-stout man wasted to a living corpse by starvation, emaciated and trembling, his once jet-black hair turned entirely white overnight.
Role
The last enemy, starved and humbled into repentance, pardoned by Edmond Dantès and freed white-haired.
Relationships
Edmond Dantès — The man he sold and dishonored, who reveals himself, pardons him, and spares his life and last francs.
Luigi Vampa — The bandit chief who starves him to submission and then, on the count's order, feeds and frees him.
Louis Dantès — Edmond's father, starved to death by Danglars's schemes, whom he hallucinates dying in his own agony.
Sources — 22 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 1
- The Pharaon's calculating supercargo, whose envy of Dantès curdles into hatred.
Chapter 4
- The envious supercargo who invents the anonymous denunciation that will destroy Dantès.
Chapter 5
- With Dantès arrested, Danglars smoothly secures temporary command of the Pharaon.
Chapter 13
- Fearing the return of the man he ruined, Danglars quits the sea and vanishes into Spain.
Chapter 17
- Fearing the return of the man he ruined, Danglars quits the sea and vanishes into Spain.
Chapter 27
- The plotter who fled to Spain has become a Paris millionaire and baron with a court-connected wife.
Chapter 46
- The purse-proud banker tries to patronize the Count over his 'unlimited' credit and is crushed by a display of limitless wealth.
Chapter 61
- Panicked by a false telegraph report, Danglars dumps his Spanish bonds and loses a full million—the Count's first blow at his fortune.
Chapter 65
- In a brutal conjugal scene Danglars reveals he has always known his wife's affairs, demands she cover a fourth of his loss, and unmasks her past with Villefort.
Chapter 66
- Reeling from a 1.7-million loss, Danglars is stung by the Count into eyeing Andrea for Eugénie—and set on investigating Morcerf's Yanina past.
Chapter 70
- At the ball Danglars learns from the Count that the failed Frankfurt bankers Franck & Poulmann have cost him another 200,000 francs.
Chapter 76
- Danglars begins hiding his losses, cools toward the Morcerf match in favor of the rich Cavalcanti, and gets a Greek courier's dirt on Fernand and Yanina.
Chapter 78
- Danglars coldly rebuffs Morcerf's formal proposal for Eugénie, hinting at 'calumnies'—then next morning finds the Yanina scandal in print, his weapon ready.
Chapter 81
- His eyes glistening with greed, Danglars eagerly accepts Andrea's proposal for Eugénie, dazzled by talk of millions and a 150,000-livre annuity.
Chapter 87
- Confronted by a furious Albert demanding a duel, the cowardly Danglars refuses to fight and shifts all blame onto the Count of Monte Cristo, who advised the Yanina inquiry.
Chapter 95
- His fortune 'swallowed up in gulfs,' the ruined banker confesses his collapse to Eugénie and stakes his revival on Cavalcanti's three millions and a railway scheme.
Chapter 96
- At the height of his daughter's betrothal feast, Danglars is publicly humiliated when police storm his salon to arrest 'Prince' Cavalcanti as a murderer and escaped convict.
Chapter 104
- Drained of five millions by the Count and dunned for the same sum by the charity office, the ruined banker gathers his cash and passport and prepares to flee Paris.
Chapter 106
- Fled from Paris, Danglars leaves his wife a mocking farewell letter blaming her own greed for the ruin, and sets off to rebuild a fortune 'on his own account.'
Chapter 114
- Reaching Rome to draw his five millions from Thomson & French, the fugitive banker is abducted on the Appian Way by Vampa's bandits and locked in the catacombs.
Chapter 115
- Starving in his cell, Danglars learns the bandits' terms: every meal costs 100,000 francs, drafted on his Roman credit—a scheme to bleed away his stolen five millions bite by bite.
Chapter 116
- Starved to the edge of death and stripped of his millions, the repentant Danglars is pardoned by the Count—who reveals himself as Edmond Dantès—and freed, his hair turned white.