How rich is the Count of Monte Cristo?
I'm reading the amazing Count of Monte Cristo, and I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the numbers used for the money. I know that it was a different time, and that money was used differently then, but just to help me understand, from a modern perspective
just how much money is the treasure of Monte Cristo? Are we talking Tony Stark, Warren Buffett or like... all of Indonesia?
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80,000,000 francs x 0.01 oz of gold = 800,000 oz of gold
Current market value of gold in USD = ~$1,380/oz
800,000 oz of gold x $1,380/oz = $1,104,000,000 current USD
Of course, there are lots of ways to figure this, such as converting the value of gold in the mid-1800s, then adjusting for inflation. These different methods could produce some variance up or down.
It's safe to say, however, that Dantes was more or less a billionaire.
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In actual currency? I would say almost certainly not, but it's hard to say for sure. What I would say beyond a doubt is that no single individual possessed that great a fortune purely in cash.
If I remember correctly, a portion of Dante's wealth is gold ingots, and a larger portion is diamonds and other gems/precious stones. On top of that, he buys a lot of property on his return. Very little of his wealth was actually tied up in currency, I would imagine, but again, I'm not sure how explicit the book is on this point.
While I'm here, I'd like to say that The Count of Monte Cristo is a pretty terrible book. Or rather, it's a relic of its time. The plot at its core is a delight (who doesn't love a good revenge story?), but it was written while the modern novel was still coalescing as an art form; if you've read an unabridged version, you've no doubt noticed a great deal of largely unnecessary and unbelievably tedious detail. I would recommend an abridged version.
Even better, I would recommend you skip it entirely, and read a personal favorite of mine, Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination. It tells a virtually identical story, but transports it into the future, and cuts out all the fat. I am not normally a sci-fi fan, but it's a book I make a point of recommending constantly. In fact, here is a write-up I made for a thread in SE++ about 5 years ago:
Seriously, read it.
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As far as skipping the Count of Monte Cristo, I'm afraid I have to disagree. It's an excellent book, and the detail only seems to enhance it, rather than fall to a kind of Dickensian tedium which seems only to exist to pad the word count. I'm afraid I cannot put it down!
The Stars My Destination, on the other hand, is both easily readable and a true classic. It predates many of the SciFi tropes that people don't like. A must-read.
DISAGREE
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The Stars My Destination was published in 1950s but when I first read it last year it felt ground-breaking, wholly original, and full of those moments where you have to take a break and set the book down to just mutter "holy shit!" to yourself a few times.
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i did not realize my mistake until about halfway through
my GOD it was tedious
Oh, also, I think the first time I read it, it was hardbound version that I borrowed from the library and damn it was heavy to lug around. I made the mistake of dragging it to jury duty if I recall correctly. Got tired of lugging it around during that.
Seriously I wonder if we're reading the same book. I've read the abridged and I own the unabridged. No one should ever be subjected to that. I do not see how you can call Dickens a tedium yet this is not.
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For a more period-relevant number, the Treaty of Tilsit forced Prussia to pay the French 120 million francs (this was in 1809). The Prussian state debt went to somewhere over 200 million, which was high enough that traders considered Prussian bonds unsafe investments (although I'm sure risk assessment was different in the early 19th century). Anyway, not Indonesia-levels of wealth.
Gold, I'm quite sure, would be much more valuable in 1821 than today. The majority of the world's gold has been excavated after 1950, I can't find anything suggesting how much of it would've been up in the early 1800s (other than that a lot of gold is South African, and things didn't pick up there until the 1800s), but as mentioned, the values of items were proportionally very different in those preindustrial times.
Finally, my own extremely tenuous piece of math:
The Wikipedia article for the Treaty of Tilsit suggests 154 million francs were worth 41 million thaler, and that 30 million thaler were worth 5 million pounds, which means 41 million thaler were 6.8 million pounds. Using this Official™ currency calculator, that's about 230 million pounds in 2005 money, or, using this surprisingly legitimate-looking calculator that's 280 million pounds in 2013 money, which is 437 million US dollars, give or take a few million to rounding. The second calculator gives the numbers as 493 million pounds (771 million USD) adjusting for the retail price index or 5 billion, 230 million (8.2 billion USD) adjusting for average earnings.
As you can see, the numbers suggest the Count was, at most, about a fifth as rich as Bill Gates and still capable of paying off a good chunk of the Prussians' harsh war indemnities.
=O that's a lot of gold. no wonder he was the man.
However as something that can be taken at leisure, a chapter or two at a time, it can wonderfully create a sense of place which, if you're interested in the place in question, can make for an incredible story.
Between Hugo and Dumas I have a very vivid mental picture of pre-republic France that has helped me enjoy many other works of literature more thoroughly.
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I'm not sure that there is something like a Gini index from the time, but I think most people was very poor and that having any type of personal fortune meant you were very rich so that having huge fortune was pretty extreme.
There's also a Japanese adaptation called Gankutsuou which is on Hulu I believe (Australian here) that is worth giving a try. It's set in the future with a very unique art style, and the locations are pushed farther out to retain the same sense of the exotic. For example the Count and Albert meet in the city of Rome, on the moon. Edmond's travels to the East/Orient took place in the outreaches of space, Danglars is an international stockbroker rather than a banker, Fernand worked his way up through Earth's space fleet and so on.