The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count's long campaign of vengeance reaches its climax as each of his three betrayers is destroyed in turn. Fernand Mondego, now the Count de Morcerf, is publicly exposed for betraying and murdering Ali Pasha of Janina, with Haydée testifying against him before the Chamber of Peers. When his son Albert challenges the Count to a duel over the family's disgrace, Mercédès—who has recognized Dantès all along—begs him to spare Albert's life. Dantès agrees, and Mercédès reveals the truth to her son, who publicly apologizes. Disgusted by Fernand's crimes, Mercédès and Albert renounce their titles and fortune and part ways, Albert enlisting as a soldier and Mercédès retreating to Dantès' old family home in Marseille. Fernand himself confronts the Count, learns his true identity as Edmond Dantès, and shoots himself.

Villefort's household collapses under the weight of its secrets. His second wife, Héloïse, has been poisoning members of the family to secure the inheritance for her son Édouard, and after nearly killing Valentine she is confronted by Villefort with a choice between public disgrace or private suicide. Before Villefort can stop her, she poisons herself and Édouard as well. At the same time, the criminal Benedetto—secretly Villefort's illegitimate son, whom Villefort had buried alive as an infant years earlier—is put on trial for murdering Caderousse and publicly reveals his parentage, forcing Villefort to admit his guilt. When the Count then reveals his identity to Villefort, the shock and horror of his ruined family drive Villefort insane. Dantès, having failed to revive the poisoned child Édouard, is left shaken and begins to question whether his revenge has gone too far.

Danglars, the last of the conspirators, is ruined financially through the Count's manipulations of the stock market and is left holding five million francs entrusted to him for hospitals. Desperate, he embezzles the fund to settle his debt with the Count and flees toward Italy, but he is kidnapped en route by the bandit Luigi Vampa, an ally of the Count, and extorted of nearly all his remaining money. Dantès anonymously returns the stolen millions to the hospitals, and when a broken, repentant Danglars is finally released, the Count forgives him and allows him to keep a small remaining sum.

Having orchestrated all of this, Dantès turns to repairing the one relationship he can still save. He had faked the death of Valentine de Villefort to protect her from her stepmother's poison, leaving Maximilien Morrel, son of Dantès' former patron, believing her dead and near suicide. Dantès persuades Maximilien to wait a month before taking his own life, then reunites the couple on the island of Monte Cristo and reveals the truth. Having achieved justice, and unsettled by its costs, Dantès leaves the young couple a portion of his vast fortune and departs for the East to begin a new life with Haydée, who has confessed her love for him. The novel closes on the reflection that all human wisdom is contained in two words: wait and hope.