In 1815 Edmond Dantès, a young and successful merchant sailor who has just recently been granted the succession of his erstwhile captain Leclère, returns to Marseille to marry his Catalanfiancée Mercédès. Leclère, a supporter of the exiled Napoléon I, found himself dying at sea and charged Dantès to deliver two objects: a package to Marshall Bertrand (exiled with Napoleon Bonaparte on Elba), and a letter from Elba to an unknown man in Paris. On the eve of his wedding to Mercédès, Fernand (Mercédès' cousin and a rival for her affections) is given subtle advice by Dantès' colleague Danglars (who is jealous of his rapid rise to captain), to send an anonymous note accusing Dantès of being a Bonapartist traitor. Caderousse (Dantès' cowardly and selfish neighbor) is drunk while the two conspirators set the trap for Dantès, and while he objects to the idea of hurting Dantès, he stays quiet the next day as Dantès is arrested then sentenced even though his testimony could have stopped the entire scandal from happening. Villefort, the deputy crown prosecutor in Marseille, while initially sympathetic to Dantès, destroys the letter from Elba when he discovers that it is addressed to his own father, a Bonapartist. In order to silence Dantès, he condemns him without trial to life imprisonment.