Leghorn

Leghorn (Livorno), the principal Tuscan seaport, occupies a pivotal position in Edmond Dantes' trajectory from escaped prisoner to the all-powerful Count of Monte Cristo. It is the first civilized city where Dantes, after his harrowing swim to freedom and rescue by the smuggling vessel The Young Amelia, steps ashore as a free man, and it is here that he begins the systematic reconstruction of his identity, wealth, and purpose.

First Metamorphosis and Financial Foundation

Dantes' initial act upon reaching Leghorn is to undergo a physical transformation. He goes to a barber in St. Ferdinand Street to have his long beard and hair, grown during fourteen years of imprisonment, cut and shaved. When he looks into a hand-glass, he is astonished to find that his own face has changed so profoundly that even his best friend could not recognize him; the oval face has lengthened, his mouth has acquired firm lines of resolution, and his eyes are full of melancholy. This moment marks his first conscious step toward becoming a new man. Immediately afterward, he buys a complete sailor's suit of white trousers, a striped shirt, and a cap, and returns to the captain of The Young Amelia as a neat and trim sailor, unrecognizable from the naked, nearly drowned wretch rescued days before. The captain, impressed, renews his offer of employment, but Dantes will only agree to a three-month engagement, already planning his own course. It is also in Leghorn that Dantes converts his first capital into usable wealth. He repairs to the house of a Jewish dealer in precious stones, to whom he disposes of four of his smallest diamonds for five thousand francs each. The cunning purchaser asks no troublesome questions about a bargain that nets him a profit of at least eighty per cent, and Dantes thus acquires the ready money he needs to begin his operations.

Acquisition of a Yacht and the Smuggling Network

Having completed his service on The Young Amelia, Dantes travels to Genoa, but his financial and logistical base remains firmly tied to Leghorn. At Genoa, he purchases a small, fast yacht that has been built for an Englishman, paying sixty thousand francs for immediate possession. He then sails this yacht back to Monte Cristo to retrieve the treasure, but it is from Leghorn that he dispatches his trusted friend Jacopo on a mission to Marseilles to inquire after his father and Mercedes. More significantly, Leghorn is the center of the smuggling fraternity that Dantes joins. The patron of The Young Amelia takes him one evening to a tavern on the Via del' Oglio, where the leading smugglers of Leghorn congregate to discuss their trade. Dantes, who has already visited this "maritime Bourse" two or three times, sees the power that could be wielded by a man who could give a single impulse of will to all these hardy free-traders, who supply the entire coast for nearly two hundred leagues. It is at this tavern that a plan is discussed to land a cargo of Turkey carpets, Levantine stuffs, and cashmeres on the coast of France, and the patron of The Young Amelia proposes the Island of Monte Cristo as the neutral landing ground. This proposal gives Dantes the perfect, unsuspicious opportunity to finally set foot on the island where the Spada treasure lies buried.

A Hub of Commerce and Transit

Beyond its role in Dantes' personal narrative, Leghorn is depicted as a bustling, cosmopolitan commercial port. It is the destination of the Pharaon on its voyage from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples, and it is from Leghorn that Franz d'Epinay sets sail for his excursion to the Island of Elba, which leads him to Monte Cristo. The city is also a point of transit for the novel's other characters; it is where Danglars, after leaving Marseilles, is taken on the recommendation of M. Morrel as a cashier into a Spanish bank, a position that allows him to begin his own rise to fortune. The city's character as a place of trade, smuggling, and international contact makes it the ideal environment for Dantes to gather intelligence, acquire resources, and move undetected as he prepares his elaborate revenge. It is the antechamber to his new life, the place where the ragged prisoner of the Chateau d'If first learns to inhabit the skin of the Count of Monte Cristo.