The French literary magnate Dumas's "Count of Monte Cristo" caused a sensation as soon as it was published, and to this day, it still has a wide range of readers and fans.
The story tells the story of a Marseille sailor named Edmund Dundes who was framed during the French Restoration, escaped from prison after 14 years in prison to avenge his framers.
The story of Edmund Dundas repaying favors and revenge is boiling with blood, and when one enemy is sanctioned in Dundas's elaborate revenge plan, it is indeed as addictive as the current Shuangwen.
In the 1970s and 1980s, "The Revenge of Monte Cristo" translated by the Translation Factory even caused a wave of Monte Cristo in China, and it still remains in the memory of many people.
Looking through old books in the past few days, I learned that Dumas's "Count of Monte Cristo" is based on a historical book compiled by a man named Bishop based on the archives of the Paris Police. And these archival materials are darker than Dumas's novels.
The archive records the time of Napoleon's reign, the protagonist is called François Bicker, is a poor shoemaker of Nîmes, like the ordinary people of modern times, is a "new Parisian", he is struggling to live in Paris, where he is not familiar with life, but even the most difficult people will inevitably have a few fellow countrymen, and Bicker is the same. One day he went to meet a fellow countryman named Machier Lupian — for the sake of convenience, we tentatively called Bik "Little Bi" and Lupian "Lu Lie".
This Lu deceived to open a Nimes flavor restaurant in Paris, the two people in the restaurant to talk about the day, in the small talk Xiao Bi told Lu Li that he was about to get married, the bride was called Marjalita Wig (Xiaomei), and this little beauty is not only beautiful, but also more dowry.
The speaker has no heart, the listener is intentional, seeing that fellow villager Xiao Bi is about to make good luck, but Lu Cheat's heart is greeting Xiao Bi's ancestors for nineteen generations. Out of admiration for Xiaomei and jealousy of Xiaobi, Lu tricked three other compatriots into planning how to punish Xiaobi. Although a young man named Antuan Athur had objected, Lu deceived and informed the police committee, but unlike in "The Count of Monte Cristo", he did not say that he delivered letters for the Napoleonic Party, but said that Bi was a British spy - a poor shoemaker was a British spy! How poor and vicious the British are to develop such a poor boy from a foreign country into a spy!
It is also with this in mind that when he informs, Lu Deceives that Xiao Bi is actually a nobleman, and he is secretly lurking in Paris.
Savalli, Napoleon's police chief, was so convinced that he ordered Bi to be thrown into prison. Xiao Bi's fiancée Xiaomei and his parents inquired about his whereabouts, but there was no news, and this person was like evaporation in the human world. (So Dumas wrote Dundes to the horrible "Fort d'Ivy Prison"))
In "The Count of Monte Cristo", Dundas is imprisoned in Fort Yves for 14 years, and in reality Bi is imprisoned for 7 years, and as in the novel, Bi also meets a bishop of Milan, leaving him a huge sum of money stored in foreign banks and a collection of precious gold gems. The generous and wealthy bishop was actually a spy who fought on the front lines of the secret war.
In 1814, Napoleon fell, Xiao Bi - it should be renamed Lao Bi - was released from prison, he was only 34 years old, but he had suffered a lot, and his beautiful face had become white-haired.
After his release from prison, Lao Bi first went to Italy and the Netherlands to inherit the property, and then began his "revenge".
He began to explore the reason for his arrest. Of all the clues he found, the saddest thing for him was that his fiancée Xiaomei accepted Lu's marriage proposal after waiting for him for 2 years.
Old Bi's revenge began with the dissenting Aliu. Disguised as an Italian priest, he found Aliu and took out a gem, saying that he had been commissioned by a friend to learn something about Xiao Bi's lawsuit, and if Aliu could provide clues, the gem would belong to him. (This is almost identical to the plot of the Inn at the Count of Monte Cristo.)
Aliu, greedy for money, told Lao Bi the names of lu liars and the other two accomplices, and thus obtained the gem.
Different from the original work, Aliu sold the gem to a jeweler for 60,000 francs, and after hearing that the jeweler sold the gem at twice as much, he actually killed the jeweler at the instigation of his wife and stole the jeweler's money, after which the thief couple fled France and hid in anonymity.
Lao Bi found Lu Li, who had made a fortune, and worked as a running hall in the big hotel opened by Lu Li. It is said that no one else can recognize his appearance, only Lu's deceitful wife, Xiaomei, thinks that his face is familiar, but in the end, because of the disaster of 7 years of imprisonment, his appearance has changed too much, and he has not been able to recognize him.
Subsequently, a serial killer appeared in Paris, two accomplices who had conspired with Lu to frame Lao Bi were stabbed to death, and the police found the numbers "1" and "2" engraved on the dagger left in the body.
Is it difficult to have "3", "4", "5" victims? The police were at a loss.
First Lu Cheat's daughter was seduced by someone who called himself the Marquis, and at the wedding, it was discovered that the so-called Marquis was actually a fugitive slave (like Jean Agen in Les Misérables, who should be locked up on a prison ship for hard labor); then the hotel was burned; then Lu Cheat's son was involved in theft and sentenced to 20 years in prison; and finally Xiaomei died of sorrow.
The multiple blows left Lu into a trance, and in a dark boulevard, he met Lao Bi, who had come to take revenge.
Finally, Lao Bi stabbed the dagger engraved with "3" into Lu Lie's heart and completed his revenge!
However, before the file was finished, just as Lao Bi was preparing to leave the scene of the crime, a black shadow threw himself down, tied him with a rope, blocked his mouth with a handkerchief, and led him to a dark cellar.
This person is actually anonymous - Aliu, he is the ultimate boss.
The later plot also appears in "The Count of Monte Cristo", where Monte Cristo deals with the rich merchant Tanglar, but the reality is that Alu is dealing with Lao Bi. Aliu used hunger, thirst, and humiliation to deal with Lao Bi, every time Lao Bi ate a piece of bread and drank a sip of water, Aliu had to pay Lao Bi tens of thousands of francs, Aliu wanted to take advantage of the other party's wealth through this method, but Lao Bi refused, and finally was driven crazy, Aliu had to kill Lao Bi, and fled to England.
In 1828, on the verge of death, Aliu confessed to the priest, confessed all this, and signed his name on this terrible confession. The archives were eventually delivered to the archives of the Paris Police, and by Bischet they compiled a historical work that became the material for Dumas to write the Count of Monte Cristo.
In Dumas's book, the ugliness of The Old Bi is rewritten as a just, righteous avenger, and ultimately triumphs.