The Count of Monte Cristo

Negotiation of Marriage Financial Terms

The conversation rapidly shifts from sentiment to business. Danglars raises a conscientious objection that Andrea seems rather young to marry, prompting the young man to invoke the Italian aristocratic custom of early marriage. When Danglars asks who should conduct the preliminary arrangements, Andrea produces a persuasive fiction: his prudent father left him a letter promising 150,000 livres per annum from the day of his marriage, presumably a quarter of the marquis’s revenue. Danglars counters with his own offer of a 500,000-franc dowry, making his daughter his sole heiress. Andrea dazzles with talk of placing two or three millions in the banker’s hands at ten percent, and Danglars offers the special rate of five percent to his prospective son-in-law. The two men also discuss Andrea’s expected maternal inheritance from Leonora Corsinari, which Andrea estimates at no less than two million francs.

Danglars Conditionally Approves the Marriage

Danglars is overcome with joy at the financial prospect, comparing his feeling to a miser finding a lost treasure or a shipwrecked man reaching solid ground. He grants Andrea permission to consider the matter a settled thing, provided no obstacle arises from the young man’s side. When Andrea asks why Monte Cristo has not formally proposed on his behalf, the young man blushes slightly and explains that he has just come from the count, who esteems him highly but refuses on principle to make proposals for another. Monte Cristo has, however, promised to answer any questions Danglars may put to him and has offered Andrea a draft for 20,000 francs to cover immediate expenses. The negotiation thus reaches its preliminary financial climax.