Le Comte de Monte-Cristo : l'évasion The Count of Monte Cristo: The Escape

Edmond Dantès est enfermé injustement au Château d'If. Un jour, un vieux prisonnier, l'abbé Faria, arrive par un tunnel qu'il creusait depuis des années.

Edmond Dantès, a promising young sailor, is falsely accused by jealous rivals and imprisoned without a fair trial in the Château d'If, a fortress on an island near Marseille. After years of despair, he discovers that an elderly prisoner, Abbé Faria, has tunnelled into his cell by mistake while trying to escape.

Faria enseigne à Dantès l'histoire, les langues et les sciences pendant des années. Dantès devient un homme instruit.

Faria, a learned former scholar, teaches Dantès history, mathematics, chemistry and several languages over the following years through their shared tunnel. The uneducated sailor gradually becomes a cultivated, disciplined man, while Faria keeps digging toward the outer wall in hope of escape.

Faria révèle à Dantès l'existence d'un trésor caché sur l'île de Monte-Cristo. Ensuite, Faria tombe gravement malade.

Faria reveals a secret: before his imprisonment he learned of an immense treasure hidden in a cave on the island of Monte Cristo, and draws Dantès a precise map from memory. Soon after, Faria's health declines sharply as a serious illness takes hold of him.

Faria meurt. Dantès a une idée audacieuse : il met le corps de Faria dans sa cellule et se coud lui-même dans le sac funéraire de Faria.

Faria dies in Dantès's arms. Grief-stricken but resolute, Dantès conceives a bold plan: knowing guards sew dead prisoners into a burial sack and throw it into the sea, he removes Faria's body, hides it, and sews himself inside the sack using a needle Faria had secretly made.

Les gardiens croient que c'est le corps de Faria dans le sac. Ils le jettent de la falaise dans la mer, sans savoir que c'est Dantès à l'intérieur.

The next morning, guards find what they believe is Faria's body sewn into the sack and, following prison custom, carry it to a clifftop and throw it into the sea, unaware of the switch. Dantès lies motionless inside, terrified of discovery, until he feels the shock of the cold water closing over him.

Sous l'eau, Dantès coupe le sac avec un couteau et nage vers la surface. Un bateau de contrebandiers le sauve. Il est enfin libre.

Underwater, Dantès calmly cuts himself free with the hidden knife and swims to the surface, half-drowned and exhausted. Hours later, a passing smugglers' ship finds him and pulls him aboard. After years of unjust imprisonment, Edmond Dantès is finally free, ready to reclaim his life and the treasure of Monte Cristo.