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Unlimited Credit

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Brief overview

Monte Cristo uses an unlimited letter of credit to humiliate and dominate the banker Danglars.

  1. Money answers doubt faster than argumentDanglars quibbles over the word unlimited until two orders for five hundred thousand francs each leave him on the verge of apoplexy.
  2. Monte Cristo buys whatever is not for saleTold the baron's horses were never on the market, he offers double the sixteen thousand francs Danglars paid and has them at his door by five.
  3. Service bought outright, on stated termsBaptistin is kept at fifteen hundred francs a year plus a growing fund, on condition he never speaks of or watches his master.
Executive Summary AI
  • Baron Danglars drives to Monte Cristo's house about two o'clock, is told His Excellency receives no visitors, leaves his card, and consoles himself that the Count holds a letter of credit on him.
  • Having watched Danglars through a glass, Monte Cristo rebukes his steward Bertuccio for missing the baron's horses and, on hearing they cost sixteen thousand francs, orders double that sum paid for them.
  • Danglars interrupts a railroad committee to mock the pretended Count sent by the Roman bankers Thompson and French with unlimited credit, saying he suspects a hoax and that they laugh best who laugh last.
  • When Danglars offers a million as a limit, Monte Cristo produces two treasury orders for five hundred thousand francs each and two further letters of credit from Arstein and Escalus of Vienna and Baring of London.
  • Vanquished, Danglars agrees to six millions as the first year's expenditure and to deliver five hundred thousand francs by ten o'clock next morning, half in gold and half in notes, before offering to present the Count to the Baroness.
Key Quote
“He has a letter of credit on me, so I must see him when he requires his money.”
— Danglars
Key Quote
“It seems, Sir Steward, said he, that you have yet to learn, that all things are to be sold to such as care to pay the price.”
— Monte Cristo
Key Quote
“Very well, then offer him double that sum. A banker never loses an opportunity of doubling his capital.”
— Monte Cristo

Transcript

0:00 CHAPTER XLVI. UNLIMITED CREDIT. or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.
0:27 Recording by Heather Duncan.
0:29 The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas. Chapter 46.
0:36 About two o'clock the following day, a collage, drawn by a pair of magnificent English horses,
0:42 stopped at the door of Monte Cristo, and a person, dressed in a blue
0:46 coat, with buttons of a similar color, a white waistcoat, over which was displayed a massive
0:52 gold chain, brown trousers, and a quantity of black hair descending so low over his eyebrows,
0:59 as to leave it doubtful whether it were not artificial, so little did its jetty glossiness assimilate with the deep
1:05 wrinkles stamped on his features. A person, in a word, who, although evidently past fifty,
1:12 desired to be taken for not more than forty, bent forwards from the carriage door,
1:17 on the panels of which were emblazoned the armorial bearings of a baron, and directed his
1:23 groom to inquire at the porter's lodge
1:25 whether the Count of Monte Cristo resided there, and if he were within. While waiting,
1:32 the occupant of the carriage surveyed the house, the garden as far as he could distinguish it,
1:37 and the livery of servants who passed to and fro, with an attention so close as to be somewhat
1:42 impertinent. His glance was keen, but showed cunning rather
1:47 than intelligence. His lips were straight, and so thin that as they closed they were drawn in over
1:53 the teeth. His cheek-bones were broad and projecting, a never-failing proof of audacity
1:59 and craftiness, while the flatness of his forehead, and the enlargement of the back of his skull,
2:04 which rose much higher than his large and coarsely shaped ears, combined to form a
2:10 physiognomy anything but prepossessing, save in the eyes of such as considered that the owner
2:15 of so splendid an equipage must needs be all that was admirable and enviable, more especially when
2:22 they gazed on the enormous diamond that glittered in his shirt,
2:26 and the red ribbon that depended from his buttonhole. The groom, in obedience to his orders,
2:33 tapped at the window of the porter's lodge, saying, Pray, does not the Count of Monte Cristo live
2:38 here? His Excellency does reside here, replied the concierge, but, added he, glancing and inquiring
2:47 look at Ali. Ali returned a sign in the negative. But what? asked the groom. His Excellency does not
2:55 receive visitors to-day. Then here is my master's card, the Baron Dongler's. You will take it to
3:02 the Count, and say that, although in haste to attend
3:05 the chamber, my master came out of his way to have the honour of calling upon him.'
3:10 "'I never speak to His Excellency,' replied the concierge.
3:14 "'The valet de chambre will carry your message.' The groom returned to the carriage.
3:20 "'Well?' asked Danglers. The man, somewhat crestfallen by the rebuke he had received, repeated the concierge had said bless me murmured baron danglars this must surely be a prince instead of a count by their styling him excellency and only venturing to address him by the medium of his valet de chambre it does not signify. He has a letter of credit on me, so I must see him when he requires his money.
3:48 Then, throwing himself back in his carriage, Danglars called out to his coachman, in a voice
3:54 that might be heard across the road, to the Chamber of Deputies. Apprised in time of the visit paid
4:01 him, Monte Cristo had, from behind the blinds of his pavilion, as minutely observed the
4:06 baron, by means of an excellent log-net, as Danglars himself had scrutinized the house,
4:12 garden, and servants. That fellow has a decidedly bad countenance, said the count,
4:18 in a tone of disgust, as he shut up his glass into its ivory case. How comes it that all do not retreat in aversion at sight of
4:26 that flat, receding, serpent-like forehead, round, vulture-shaped head, and sharp-hooked nose like

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