The Count of Monte Cristo: Chapter 26 Summary & Analysis

The narrator describes a small, shabby inn in Beaucaire, which is styled with a sign of the Pont du Gard (a bridge in Paris), and is run by a small, nervous man, revealed to be Caderousse, and his wife, known by the nickname La Carconte (the town in which she was born). Caderousse worries about the inn’s finances and lack of guests, and La Carconte spends much of her time angry at Caderousse for the lack of guests at the inn. It is a cruel and unhappy marriage, and La Carconte is frequently ill with unnamed ailments.

As Caderousse is waiting outside the door one day hoping a customer will stop by, he sees a horse and rider hurrying toward the inn. The rider is dressed richly as an Abbe (a man of the cloth with an official position in the government, like the former Abbe Faria), but his named is not provided. When the Abbe (Dantes) stops and speaks with Caderousse, he requests wine for refreshment, and the two begin a conversation in which the Abbe announces he has come to determine if Caderousse indeed used to live in the apartment next to Old Dantes.

The mysterious Abbe then asks Caderousse if he knew young Dantes, and the Abbe admits that he once, briefly, envied the younger Dantes for his “good fortune” in being named captain and marrying Mercedes, and that Dantes was placed in prison for a crime he did not commit. Caderousse, without prompting, insists that what has happened to Dantes was a miscarriage of justice, without a doubt, and that the people responsible for Dantes’ imprisonment have not been punished. The Abbe, betraying no sign of recognition, tells Caderousse that he administered last rites to Dantes in prison and that he is bringing a message from Dantes. He insists that the young man died without ever knowing who placed the false charges against him or why.

The Abbe says that he has a diamond from Dantes (which Dantes himself received in prison, from a fellow inmate, a rich Englishman) to be divided among Dantes’ “last friends on earth.” The Abbe claims these friends were: Caderousse, Danglars, Fernand, Mercedes, and Dantes’ father. The Abbe notes that Dantes’ father is dead, and that Mercedes can no longer be found, according to his sources. This leaves the three other men. On hearing this, Caderousse begins to seem flustered. When his wife, La Carconte, comes downstairs, she urges Caderousse to say nothing more and not to trust this mysterious Abbe who has come into their home.

But when the Abbe takes out the diamond, which is worth 50,000 francs, Caderousse realizes that he has much to gain in telling his story, since as he is about to report, Danglars and Fernand were really no friends at all to Dantes. La Carconte, still sitting on the steps and listening, is torn: on the one hand, she is immensely greedy, as her husband is, for the diamond. On the other hand, she wants to be protective of the strange story her husband seems increasingly willing to tell.

Finally, however, Caderousse agrees to tell the Abbe the whole story of how Dantes landed in prison, convinced more by the idea of a full share of the 50,000-franc diamond than by the righteousness of describing the misdeeds done against Dantes. La Carconte, similarly swayed by Caderousse’s reasoning, though still distrustful of the stranger, allows her husband to continue in his tale, which begins in the next chapter.