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Matrimonial Projects

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Brief overview

Monte Cristo measures Danglars' shrinking fortune and steers him toward Cavalcanti and Morcerf's buried past.

  1. A month of losses totalling 1,700,000 francsTrieste took four hundred thousand francs in bills, and the Spanish speculation seven hundred thousand more from the baroness's purse.
  2. Third-rate fortunes are a fourth of their appearanceMonte Cristo values fluctuating bank capital at fifteen millions nominal but five or six millions real, like a locomotive magnified by its smoke.
  3. Danglars trades Albert for Andrea CavalcantiHe rates a bought barony above a self-made countship and begins treating his daughter's marriage as a speculation.
Executive Summary AI
  • The chapter opens with the banker Danglars breaking his routine: he skips his usual call on Madame d'Anglard, watches her carriage leave at half-past twelve from behind a curtain, and spends twelve to two in his study unsealing dispatches and heaping figure upon figure.
  • Receiving Monte Cristo after the Abbe Bussoni has passed through the house, Danglars admits a run of bad news: the Trieste bankrupt Jacopo Manfredi, on whom he drew six hundred thousand francs, and four hundred thousand francs of bills payable in Paris at the end of the month, today being the thirtieth, whose correspondent has disappeared.
  • Danglars blames his wife's Don Carlos dream for a further seven hundred thousand francs in Spanish losses, and Monte Cristo adds it up to one million seven hundred thousand francs lost in the month, classing him among third-rate fortunes of about fifteen millions that are never more than a fourth of what they appear.
  • Turning to Cavalcanti, who allows his son five thousand francs a month, or sixty thousand a year, through the house of Fenzi, Monte Cristo suggests the old major brought Andrea to France to choose a wife and that a banker's daughter could bring the young man one, two or three millions.
  • Danglars, preferring Andrea Cavalcanti to Albert de Morcerf, boasts that he is a baron by creation while Morcerf is no count at all but a fisherman once called Fernand Mondego, and Monte Cristo sends him off to write to Janina about that Frenchman's part in the catastrophe of Ali Tepellini.
Key Quote
“Oh, it's all my wife's fault. She dreamed Don Carlos had returned to Spain.”
— Danglars
Key Quote
“It is true she speculates with her own money, not mine.”
— Danglars
Key Quote
“So that, said Montecristo, you have lost nearly one million seven hundred thousand francs this month.”
— Monte Cristo

Transcript

0:00 CHAPTER XVI. MATRIMONIAL PROJECTS. The day following this scene, at the hour the banker usually chose to pay a visit to Madame d'Anglard on his way to his office, his coupé did not appear.
0:34 At this time, that is, about half-past twelve, Madame d'Anglard ordered her carriage and went out.
0:42 d'Anglard, hidden behind a curtain, watched the departure he had been waiting for.
0:47 He gave orders that he should be informed
0:50 as soon as Madame Donglard appeared.
0:52 But at two o'clock she had not returned.
0:56 He then called for his horses,
0:58 drove to the chamber,
0:59 and inscribed his name to speak against the budget.
1:04 From twelve to two o'clock
1:05 Donglard had remained in his study, unsealing his dispatches, inscribed his name to speak against the budget. From twelve to two o'clock,
1:11 Danglard had remained in his study, unsealing his dispatches, and becoming more and more sad every minute, heaping figure upon figure, and receiving, among other visits, one from Mayor
1:17 Cavalcanti, who, as stiff and exact as ever, presented himself precisely at the hour named
1:23 the night before to terminate his business with the banker on leaving the chamber danglars to wait for a moment in the drawing-room
1:53 while the banker was waiting in the entry-room the door opened and a man dressed as an abbe and doubtless more familiar with the house than he was came in and instead of instead of waiting, merely bowed, passed on to the further
2:06 apartments, and disappeared. A minute after, the door by which the priest had entered reopened,
2:13 and Monte Cristo appeared.
2:15 Pardon me, he said, my dear Baron, but one of my friends, the Abbe Bussoni, whom you perhaps saw
2:21 pass by, has just arrived in Paris. Not having seen him for a long time i could not make up my mind to leave him sooner so i hope this will be sufficient reason for my having made you wait
2:34 nay said danglars it is my fault i have chosen my visit at a wrong time and i will retire not at all all. On the contrary. Be seated. But what is the matter with you?
2:48 You look careworn. Really, you alarm me. Melancholy is a capitalist, like the appearance of a comet.
2:54 Prejudices some misfortune to the world. I have been in ill luck for several days,
3:01 said Donglar, and I have heard nothing but bad news.
3:11 Ah, indeed," said Montecristo. Have you had another fall at the bourse?
3:19 No, I am safe for a few days at least. I am only annoyed about a bankrupt of Trieste.
3:46 Really? Does it happen to be jacopo manfredi exactly so imagine a man who has transacted business with me for i an unheard-of fatality. I draw upon him for six hundred thousand francs. My bills are
3:54 returned and paid. I hold bills of exchange signed by him to the value of four hundred thousand
3:59 francs, payable at his correspondence in Paris at the end end of this month to-day is the thirtieth i present them but my correspondent has disappeared this with my spanish affairs made nothing more. Why, how could you make such a mistake,
4:27 such an old tiger? Oh, it's all my wife's fault. She dreamed Don Carlos had returned to Spain.
4:35 She believes in dreams. It is magnetism, she says, and when she dreams a thing,
4:40 it is true to happen, she assures me. On this conviction, I allow her to speculate.
4:46 She having her bank and her stockbrokers, she speculated and lost.
4:51 It is true she speculates with her own money, not mine.
4:55 Nevertheless, you can understand that, when seven hundred thousand francs leave the wife's pocket,
5:01 the husband always finds it out.
5:03 But do you mean to say you have not heard of this why the thing has made a tremendous noise yes i heard it spoken of but i did not know the details and then no one can be more ignorant than i am of the affairs in the bourse Then you do not speculate? Ay, how could I speculate, while I already have so much trouble in regulating my income?
5:29 I should be obliged, besides my steward,
5:31 to keep a clerk and a boy.
5:33 But touching these Spanish affairs,
5:35 I think that the Baroness did not dream the whole of the Don Carlos matter.

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