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The Count Of Monte Cristo Destruction Essay

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Destruction of a French Nation: The Count of Monte Cristo
Human nature, predominantly, is a selfish entity and personal values, grudges, and aversions tend to seep into the larger society. Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo is set in 19th century France during a time when men fought against men, the government and religion was volatile, and those who possessed financial stability looked down upon those who did not. The novel takes place during the Bourbon restoration, the period between Napoleon Bonaparte's reign and that of his nephew Napoleon III, a time in which the revolutionists and the royalists fought quite frequently and created a national divide between the people of opposing factions. The country as a whole lay in a …show more content…

Dantès has no hope of being released because "he is accused of being an agent of the Bonapartist faction" (Dumas 24). With the Bourbon family occupying the throne an allegation of this nature is the worst possible crime anyone can be accused of committing and therefore many innocent men and women, such as Edmond Dantès, are unjustly condemned for crimes they did not commit. The King himself does not work in the best interest of the people and instead attempts to construct a stable nation using unstable means. The lower class people still support Napoleon, which is why he briefly returns to power for a hundred day period, however the elitists of the country quickly restore Louis XVIII to the throne although he constructs a nation wrought with civil unrest and disturbances (Bourbon Restoration). Dumas notes that:
Louis XVIII made but a feeble attempt to parry the blow. The monarchy which he'd but ill reconstructed trembled on its insecure foundation, and a wave of the Emperor's hand brought down with a crash the whole edifice that was naught but an unsightly mass of ancient prejudices and new ideas. (Dumas 55)
The monarchy of France is a repressive force that attempts to appease the enraged people by sparsely using liberalists ideas that only result in the lower class citizens feeling as though they are being pacified and patronized. Furthermore, the justice system is, ironically so, also wrought with

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