The novel begins in 1815, when Dantès is a happy young man, about to become captain of Morrel's ship, The Pharaon, and is engaged to his fiancée, Mercedes. However, Dantès does not know that his shipmate, Danglars, is jealous of his success and promotion to captain, and that Mercedes' cousin, Fernand, is jealous of Mercedes' love for Dantès. Both Danglars and Fernand hatch a plan to frame Dantès as one of Napoleon's agents, a particularly damning accusation since the king is at this point fighting to maintain power despite Napoleon's large and loyal following. Danglars and Fernand send a letter denouncing Dantès as a revolutionary agent to the local magistrate of Marseille, M. de Villefort, a staunch royalist, who is horrified to learn that Dantès was unwittingly delivering a letter planning Napoleon's return (known as The 100 Days) to his father, a revolutionary. To save his father from discovery and gain the king's good graces, Villefort throws Dantès into prison although he believes him innocent, and obtains from the king a good post as magistrate as thanks for the warning of the imminent arrival. Dantès is locked up in a political prison and forgotten for 14 years, during which he contemplates suicide, unaware that his father starved to death while he was in prison, that his employer failed to find out where he was being held or released him, and that Mercedes married Fernand. During his final years in prison, he and his prisoner neighbor, Abbot Faria, hatch a plot to escape from prison. As they plan their escape and dig tunnels, Abbé Faria teaches him everything he knows (which is a considerable sum), helps him understand that Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort are responsible for his imprisonment, and offers to give Dantès half of an immense fortune that the abbot knows is hidden on the island of Monte Cristo. Shortly before the planned escape, Abbé Faria dies and Dantès replaces the abbot's corpse with his own body, thus escaping prison when the "abbot's body" is thrown into the ocean. After escaping from prison, Dantès spends some time as a smuggler. on a ship in the Mediterranean while deciding what to do, and during a smuggling trip he has the opportunity to travel to the Island of Monte Cristo, where he discovers the incredible treasure.