Bankruptcy of Danglars

The bankruptcy of Baron Danglars represents the culmination of the Count of Monte Cristo's systematic financial revenge against the man who, out of envy, wrote the anonymous letter that led to his fourteen-year imprisonment. Danglars, a self-made millionaire and banker, had risen from a humble clerk to a baron and member of the Chamber of Deputies, but his fortune was built on speculation and treachery. Monte Cristo, having established an unlimited line of credit with Danglars' bank through the Roman house of Thomson & French, set in motion a series of calculated blows designed to strip the banker of his wealth and expose his moral bankruptcy.

The False Telegram and the Crash

The decisive stroke came through a manipulated telegraph. Monte Cristo, disguised as the Abbe Busoni, bribed the operator of the Spanish telegraph line at Montlhery to send a false message stating that Don Carlos had escaped from Bourges and returned to Spain, causing Barcelona to rise in his favor. The operator, a poor gardener who earned a thousand francs a year, was offered twenty-five thousand francs to alter the signal. He complied, and the false news was transmitted to the Minister of the Interior. Lucien Debray, the minister's secretary and Madame Danglars' lover, immediately relayed the information to the baroness, who in turn urged her husband to sell his Spanish bonds. Danglars, acting on this tip, sold at a loss of five hundred thousand francs, only to read the next day in Le Moniteur that the report was a fabrication, caused by a telegraphic signal "improperly interpreted, owing to the fog." The funds then rose one percent higher than before the fall, costing Danglars a total difference of a million francs.

The Run on the Bank and Flight

This loss was merely the beginning of a cascade of financial disasters. Monte Cristo, having previously secured five million francs in bearer bonds from Danglars, presented them for payment, forcing the banker to deplete his reserves. When M. de Boville, the receiver-general of the charities, arrived to collect a five-million-franc deposit, Danglars was unable to pay, having already given the money to Monte Cristo. Faced with imminent exposure and ruin, Danglars wrote a farewell letter to his wife, confessing his flight and abandoning her to face the consequences. He then fled Paris in a post-chaise, heading for Italy with the intention of recovering the remainder of his fortune from correspondents in Venice and Vienna.

Captivity and Final Ruin

Danglars' escape was short-lived. On the road to Rome, he was captured by the bandit Luigi Vampa and his men, who had been alerted to his arrival by Peppino, a former galley-slave who had followed him from the bank. Vampa imprisoned Danglars in the Catacombs of St. Sebastian and subjected him to a cruel extortion: each meal cost a hundred thousand francs. Danglars, who had arrived with five million francs, was forced to sign drafts on his remaining accounts to buy food and water. After twelve days of this systematic plunder, he was left with only fifty thousand francs. Reduced to a state of starvation and despair, he begged for mercy, and it was then that Monte Cristo revealed himself as Edmond Dantes. The count, having achieved his vengeance, forgave Danglars, allowed him to keep the remaining fifty thousand francs, and ordered Vampa to set him free. Danglars emerged from the catacombs a broken man, his hair turned white, his fortune gone, and his spirit crushed.