# Unlimited Credit explained — The Count of Monte Cristo

> Chapter companion for The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

## What happens

Baron Danglars visits the Count of Monte Cristo, seeking to establish a credit account. Monte Cristo reveals his immense wealth through letters of unlimited credit from multiple banks, humbling Danglars. They agree on a six-million-franc line of credit, and Danglars invites Monte Cristo to meet his wife and Lucien Debray.

## Themes in this chapter

### Wealth and Corruption

Monte Cristo uses his immense wealth to dominate Danglars, exposing the banker's greed and insecurity.

### Class and Social Mobility

Danglars, a self-made baron, is humbled by Monte Cristo's superior wealth, highlighting the fluidity of social status.

### Identity and Transformation

Monte Cristo's mysterious past and newly acquired fortune allow him to assume a powerful identity that unsettles Danglars.

## Character check-ins

### Baron Danglars

Visits Monte Cristo to open a credit account, is awed by the count's wealth, and invites him to meet his wife.

### Edmond Dantès

As the Count of Monte Cristo, he receives Danglars, displays his unlimited credit, and subtly asserts his power.

### Lucien Debray

Mentioned as being with Madame Danglars when Danglars and Monte Cristo visit.

### Madame Danglars

Danglars's wife, whom Monte Cristo is about to meet; she is of noble birth and has visitors including Debray.

### Albert de Morcerf

Referenced as having been with Monte Cristo during the Carnival in Rome.

### Bertuccio

Summoned by Monte Cristo regarding the purchase of horses.

## Key lines

> About two o’clock the following day a calash, drawn by a pair of magnificent English horses, stopped at the door of Monte Cristo and a person, dressed in a blue coat, with buttons of a similar color, a white waistcoat, over which was displayed a massive gold chain, brown trousers, and a quantity of black hair descending so low over his eyebrows as to leave it doubtful whether it were not artificial so little did its jetty glossiness assimilate with the deep wrinkles stamped on his features—a person, in a word, who, although evidently past fifty, desired to be taken for not more than forty, bent forwards from the carriage door, on the panels of which were emblazoned the armorial bearings of a baron, and directed his groom to inquire at the porter’s lodge whether the Count of Monte Cristo resided there, and if he were within.

The next day around two o'clock, a carriage pulled by two beautiful English horses stopped at Monte Cristo's house. A man in his fifties but trying to look younger, wearing a blue coat and gold chain, leaned out to ask if the count was home.

_Introduces Danglars's arrival and his vain, ostentatious appearance._

> Then, throwing himself back in his carriage, Danglars called out to his coachman, in a voice that might be heard across the road, 'To the Chamber of Deputies.'

Danglars then leaned back and loudly ordered his coachman to take him to the Chamber of Deputies.

_Shows Danglars's self-importance and his role as a politician._

> My dear sir, if a trifle like that could suffice me, I should never have given myself the trouble of opening an account. A million? Excuse my smiling when you speak of a sum I am in the habit of carrying in my pocketbook or dressing-case.

Monte Cristo dismisses a million francs as trivial, saying he carries such sums in his pocket.

_Demonstrates Monte Cristo's immense wealth and his strategy to humble Danglars._

> I must confess to you, count, that I have hitherto imagined myself acquainted with the degree of all the great fortunes of Europe, and still wealth such as yours has been wholly unknown to me.

Danglars admits he thought he knew all the great fortunes in Europe, but Monte Cristo's wealth is entirely new to him.

_Highlights Danglars's astonishment and Monte Cristo's mysterious power._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_count_of_monte_cristo_se/chapters/xlvi-unlimited-credit
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_count_of_monte_cristo_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_count_of_monte_cristo_se/chapters