The 2023 Net Worth of the Count of Monte Cristo

A fun one today. I was curious how much, exactly, constitutes the net worth of the Count of Monte Cristo in 2023 dollars. The story itself mostly takes place in the year 1838, the first 30-ish chapters stretching from 1815 to 1829. We all know the Count is stupid rich, but how rich?

What would his net worth be, and would he have been a billionaire today?

Well, I’ve been doing a deep dive into the story written by Alexandre Dumas. I think I’ve come up with the answers. In short: yes, he would be considered a billionaire today with the amount he had in 1838. And I’ve gone through all 100+ chapters to conclude this.

The Brief Overview of the Count of Monte Cristo

As a story recap, The Count of Monte Cristo is held up as THE classic revenge story. Not to go full grandpa-from-The-Princess-Bride on you, but the story has everything you could possibly want. Conspirators, political intrigue, betrayal, religious overtones, drug use, executions, criminal activity, human incompetency, fake identities, stock market manipulation, class divides, long-lost babies, fake deaths, attempted murder, actual murder, actual lesbians, foreign intrigue, and even true love!

The less tag-infested synopsis: this book is 117 chapters, beginning with how three crooked men threw an innocent 19-year-old, Edmond Dantes, in a dungeon cell to rot. All three did so for very shitty reasons (one due to jealousy, one for career ambition, and one was obsessed with Dantes’s fiancee). After almost dying in the French version of Alcatraz, Dantes manages an incredible escape 14 years after being first imprisoned. Roughly ten years after that, he reappears in Paris as the obscenely wealthy Count of Monte Cristo; he takes Parisian high society by storm and who nobody (save one) recognizes. Convinced his revenge is ordained by God, he spends the next several months bringing ruin to the three original crooks, all of whom are now some of the most powerful aristocrats in Europe.

I have loved this story since I read the Great Illustrated Classics version in sixth grade. It more than deserves to have a multi-season adaptation to dig into the vast source material (miniseries and modern-day twists do not cut it). And, being financially-minded, I was really curious if I could find an accurate estimate of the Count’s aforementioned obscene wealth.

The Monte Cristo Monetary Framework

The Count of Monte Cristo story itself has a lot of mentions about money in different denominations. There’s, of course, the French francs. There are also crowns, louis, livres, and one or two mentions of gold napoleons throughout the book. Since francs are the most referenced denomination (which, duh, they’re in France) it’s safe enough to focus only on the monetary amounts in francs.

If you’re an American or European reading the book in 2023, the value of a modern-day dollar or euro translates surprisingly decently. It’s not perfect (hello, Parisian mansion bought for fifty thousand francs!) but you get the idea well enough.

“Fifty thousand francs!” muttered La Carconte when left alone; “it is a large sum of money, but it is not a fortune.” (Chapter 27)

Yeah, that’s true today. Fifty thousand bucks is nothing to sneeze at. That’s a down payment for a good house or wiping the average student loan debt completely. If you manage to invest as much by the time you’re 25 years old, that can grow to $800k by the time you’re 65. However, it’s not going to make you Officially Rich™.

“Let us see the watch,” said Albert.

Signor Pastrini drew from his fob a magnificent Bréguet, bearing the name of its maker, of Parisian manufacture, and a count’s coronet.

“Here it is,” said he.

“Peste!” returned Albert, “I compliment you on it; I have its fellow”—he took his watch from his waistcoat pocket—“and it cost me 3,000 francs.” (Chapter 33)

This rings true today as well. 3,000 is very nicely in the price range for a good watch. Dudes today had that in common with dudes back then.

[…]“Were you even to require a million—”

“I beg your pardon,” interposed Monte Cristo.

“I said a million,” replied Danglars, with the confidence of ignorance.

“But could I do with a million?” retorted the count. “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 pocket-book.” (Chapter 46)

This is just as ridiculous now as it was then! You’re trying to tell me you carry a million around with you as the default?! I am just as flabbergasted as Danglars is here.

What’s also helpful about these amounts is they give us an idea of how much money these people are worth. Danglars (a banker baron and one of the revenge targets) has a fortune of roughly 15 million francs (or over $126 million today, whew). He’s by far the richest of the evildoers. But the other two – Villefort and Fernand – have wealth of their own along with income or pensions.

As for the Count of Monte Cristo, his net worth blows them all out of the water. Unlike the rest of them, he had a very hefty inheritance to use as his starting capital.

The Principal Net Worth Amount in The Count of Monte Cristo

After Dantes escapes his dungeon cell, he makes his way some months later to some buried treasure. He is the sole heir of Abbe Faria, who was the only friend Dantes had while under lock and key. Faria himself, genius that he was, uncovered the location of a grand treasure lost centuries prior. Said treasure used to belong to the family Faria’s old employer Spada descended from, who made Faria his sole heir. So by 19^th century legal and moral rights, Dantes had every claim to the Spada treasure.

Now, to calculate the value of the Spada treasure I had the help of two online calculators. One is a currency converter via historicalstatistics.org. This helped show me how much a franc in 1838 would be worth in USD in 2015. The other is the inflation calculator from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. I wanted as accurate a picture as possible, so I used this one to convert from 2015 dollars to 2023 dollars.

We’re using Faria’s estimate here of the treasure’s worth, credible since he’s the smartest character in the story.

“If we lay hands on this fortune, we may enjoy it without remorse.”

“And you say this treasure amounts to—”

“Two millions of Roman crowns; nearly thirteen millions of our money [francs].”

“Impossible!” said Dantès, staggered at the enormous amount. (Chapter 18)

Faria names this amount in the year 1821 or 1822. Since he was imprisoned in 1811 I used 1811 numbers. Since the treasure is made up of gold coins and precious gems instead of bank notes, I’m going to trust his value approximation instead of calculating how much the treasure chest would have held.

So: in 2023 American dollars the Spada treasure was worth $125,259,909 and change. That much alone would have made Dantes one of the richest men in Europe at the time. It also might just go down as the most generous payout from wrongful imprisonment the world has ever seen, fiction or not.

Portfolio Net Worth Growth of the Count of Monte Cristo

That amount is staggering. It’s also not where Dantes stopped. He goes on to spend another decade outside of France, building his wealth – and influence – ever further.

If you wanted to invest today, one of the best investment options to consider is an index fund tracking the total stock market. With an average yearly return of 10%, stock market index funds beat 4 out of 5 actively managed funds. Purely for illustrative purposes, let’s use this 10% growth as a benchmark for how much Dantes – aka, the Count of Monte Cristo – could have further earned.

Let’s further assume the Count invested all of the treasure, minus the equivalent of $10 million today. (After all, he’s becoming a big spender to establish himself.) With the leftover $115 million gaining an assumed 10% growth for ten years, the net worth of the Count of Monte Cristo would be $230 million by the time 1838 rolled around.

But we know for a fact he had much more than that, thanks to a glimpse into his holdings he himself writes out.

In Chapter 90, the Count sits down to draft his will. Its contents show us the amount of money of his estate:

“I bequeath to Maximilian Morrel, captain of Spahis,—and son of my former patron, Pierre Morrel, shipowner at Marseilles,—the sum of twenty millions […] This will has already constituted Haydée heiress of the rest of my fortune, consisting of lands, funds in England, Austria, and Holland, furniture in my different palaces and houses, and which without the twenty millions and the legacies to my servants, may still amount to sixty millions.”

I don’t know how much the “legacies to my servants” would be, so I’m going to treat that as funds the Count has already spent and separate from the fortune. This means that, in roughly a decade, Dantes has turned the original ₣13 million into over ₣80 million. Averaged out over 10 years, the Count has made a staggering 61% on his investment returns per year. Given that he would have spent some amount of that on other endeavors (such as, I don’t know, bailing out shipowners or buying yachts with secret compartments) that’s even more exceptional.

And in 2023 American dollars, that ₣80 million in 1838 translates to $772,310,066.

Good work, Monsieur le Comte.

My only issue with this estimate is that I don’t believe it’s the Count of Monte Cristo’ entire net worth. It’s how much his measurable estate is worth, sure. But there’s a difference between clean money and, well, money that’s a little dirtier.

The Count’s Other Monetary Holdings

It’s a well-established fact to The Count of Monte Cristo readers that the Count is very familiar with not only the aristocratic elites, but also those who belong to the underbelly of society. And all of his criminal connections sure would make for otherwise-untappable avenues to wealth.

The mystery surrounding the Count – and his exact net worth – is very much intentional for his revenge. By obfuscating his true identity to the nth degree, his three targets will never see him coming. Even when one of the targets gets suspicious and launches an investigation in Chapter 69, the Count has enough tricks up his sleeve to paint himself as a foreigner with zero past connection to France.

The mystery has the added benefit of obfuscating the income streams he has. Said streams may or may not be supplemented by bandits and smugglers and slavers from abroad. I mean, everyone knows slavery is outlawed in mainland France (at this time). However, no one raises the issue when he casually references his own slaves. He even literally appears in public with an enslaved woman. At the opera, too, which was THE place to go to see and be seen by upper society. And how do the rich Parisians react?

“But do you know this mysterious count is a bachelor?”

“You have ample proof to the contrary, if you look opposite,” said the baroness, as she laughingly pointed to the beautiful Greek.

“No, no!” exclaimed Debray; “that girl is not his wife: he told us himself she was his slave. Do you not recollect, Morcerf, his telling us so at your breakfast?”

“Well, then,” said the baroness, “if slave she be, she has all the air and manner of a princess.” (Chapter 53)

If they say nothing about what’s staring them in the face, they’ll say even less about what’s going on behind closed doors.

Plus, the Count was very much into opium and hashish (or marijuana, first outlawed in France under Napoleon and still illegal there today). The man was so proud to show off the pills he’s had made from combining both (Chapter 40). He also readily knows where the best opium and hashish grows in the world. You cannot convince me he has never been involved with its trafficking. (Someone has keep Haydee’s hookah stocked, after all.)

Add to that his influence over the powerful Luigi Vampa syndicate in Italy (Chapter 37). Then add to that ingratiating himself in the Mediterranean smuggler community literally the day after he escaped prison (Chapter 22). Finally, add the fact that the Count knows both the Sultan AND the Pope (Chapter 40) yet isn’t much of a public figure at all. It paints a fascinating picture of deep friendships with both the most elite international players and the most secretive.

Which is all to say that, although we can estimate his estate at almost a billion dollars in 2023, I strongly believe his wealth was over a billion dollars. Illegal holdings continue to be an elusive estimate today; that make it difficult to estimate the true net worth of many of the richest modern-day criminals. I would be surprised if the Count of Monte Cristo’s black market funds were anything less than 40 million francs, making his true net worth 120 million francs in 1838 or over one billion USD in 2023.

Graph:

Type	1838 value	2023 value
Spada treasure (starting value)	13MM	$125.3MM
Portfolio worth in final will	80MM	$772.3MM
Portfolio plus black market funds (est)	120MM	$1.01B

The Count of Monte Cristo and Financial Independence

The Count of Monte Cristo tells Danglars “money mitigates many trials” (Chapter 104). And holy hell is that the case for the Count himself. The dude blows into town and gets his revenge done against some powerful men… and gets it done in less than six months. His revenge has a body count. Three people directly died from his schemes, four if (spoiler!) you count Caderousse, and with at least three more near-deaths he had to directly prevent. And he gets to literally sail away into the sunset after it all! Scot free! Zero criminal charges! You can only do that when you’re supremely wealthy.

It’s true that the Count’s path to wealth is not exactly replicable, unless you have a loyal criminal ring/insider knowledge of stashed treasure. What I do think you can take away from the story is how much easier it is to reach your goals when you know how to use your money towards that. Every single purchase the Count makes at this time is done as part of his ultimate goal of revenge. Having a billion (inflation-adjusted) dollars at his disposal means nothing to him once he’s accomplished his aims. He simply never had further goals once he completed his one and only.

Those pursuing financial independence themselves, learn from this. Make goals that reach further than “hit my FI number and quit my job”. There is so much more you can do with your wealth and your life, no matter if you reach a million or a billion dollar net worth.

Cover image credit: Immo Wegmann via Unsplash