"It is written that the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the sons, even to the third and fourth generation."
- Exodus 20:5

"I want to be Providence, because the thing that I know which is finest, greatest and most sublime in the world is to reward and to punish."
Satan: "All that I can do for you is to make you one of the agents of that Providence."
Count: "The deal was concluded. I shall perhaps lose my soul. But, what matter? If the deal had to be struck again, I should do it."
(Ch 48)

In one of my favorite chapters of Count of Monte Cristo, the Count bribes a telegraph operator to send false information about stocks. He finds the operator's one weakness, gardening: "I have just found out," he tells Max triumphantly, "How to rescue a gardener from the dormice who are eating his peaches."

It's a perfect example of how the Count rarely gets his hands dirty. He uses the weaknesses of his enemies to let them undo themselves. It's like this Rube Goldberg-esque OK Go video; it starts with a toy truck, some tiny thing, and by the end, through an incredibly complicated chain of events, all hell is breaking loose. But it brings up the question: is he this much of a mastermind?

"You have constantly remained enclosed in the realm of general conditions, never daring to rise up on beating wings into the higher spheres that God has peopled with invisible and exceptional beings...I am one of those exceptional beings and I believe that, before today, no man has found himself in a position similar to my own...I have foreseen all those things that men call the vagaries of fate: ruin, change and chance. If some of them might injure me, none could defeat me."
Villefort: "You alone, among these men, as you yourself said, you do not recognize as your brothers...you alone are perfect?"
Count: "Not perfect. Just impenetrable." (ch. 47ish)

This isn't really true. The Count likes it to look like he has everything utterly under control: that he is more than human, the Hammer of God, the agent by which things proceed according to God's plan. Maybe he is, but if so, God's not letting him in on the whole thing. And if he isn't God's agent, then he's just a rich guy throwing gunpowder all over the place and getting surprised by what blows up.

"These are not misfortunes, they are a punishment. I am not the one who has struck [name redacted]. Providence is punishing him."
"So why do you take the place of Providence?" Mercedes cried. (Ch 89)

Count of Monte Cristo is seen as a book about a mastermind doing mastermindy things, but that's not actually Dumas' point. It turns out that the Count is no less fallible than anyone else. His plots succeed, work in unexpected ways, and sometimes just fail. He doesn't always know what he's up to. This is a story about a guy who thinks he can control fate, and learns that he can't. It turns out to be a different book - a more complicated, thoughtful book - and a better book than it's given credit for.

It's also, of course, terrifically entertaining. Underground palaces where guys smoke hash! Lesbians! Murder! Pirates! There's basically nothing that's awesome that's not in this book. One of my favorites ever.

Poison note, because I had fun looking into this:
The idea that by taking small doses of a poison one can build up an immunity is one you recognize from Princess Bride, and that stems from the first-century BC king Mithridates. He was said to have done this with so many poisons that when he eventually tried to commit suicide, no poison on earth could do the job; he had to get some dude to stab him. A universal antidote known as mithridate was sold through the 19th century, known now as theriac.