Gaspard Caderousse is a tailor in Marseille in 1815, a neighbor of old Dantès and a drinking companion. At the tavern where Danglars and Fernand plot the anonymous letter against Edmond, Caderousse is drunk; he protests half-heartedly, sees the letter go, and the next day keeps quiet out of fear. Years later he runs a miserable inn near the Pont du Gard with his sickly wife, La Carconte. A priest, the Abbé Busoni—Dantès in disguise—visits him to hear the story of the conspiracy and, in return, gives him a diamond worth some fifty thousand francs, the inheritance Dantès had meant for his friends. Caderousse sells it to a jeweller for forty-five thousand. A storm breaks out, the jeweller decides to spend the night at the inn, and in the darkness Caderousse and his wife kill him to keep both the money and the diamond; La Carconte dies in the struggle. Caderousse is sentenced to the galleys. He escapes chained to a young convict, Benedetto, and later blackmails him. He tries to burgle the Count of Monte Cristo’s house in Paris; the count catches him and lets him go. On the garden wall, Benedetto stabs him. Dying, Caderousse learns who the count really is.
// The theoryNow rather than later
In A General Theory of Crime (1990), Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi proposed that crimes share a structure: they offer immediate, easy and often small rewards, and they carry long-term costs. People who commit them, therefore, share a trait: low self-control. The person with low self-control is impulsive, prefers simple tasks and physical activity to thought, takes risks, is self-centered and has a short temper. The trait is formed in childhood, through parenting that monitors behavior, recognizes misconduct and corrects it, and it remains relatively stable afterwards. The theory explains why offenders tend to be versatile—they do many different kinds of harm rather than specializing—and why the same people show other imprudent behaviors, such as heavy drinking, accidents and unstable relationships. Crime, for Gottfredson and Hirschi, is what happens when a person with low self-control meets an opportunity.
Versatility and opportunity
Caderousse’s criminal record is a catalogue of the versatility the theory predicts. Complicity by omission in 1815: he could have stopped the letter and did nothing, because the effort and the risk were immediate and the cost to Dantès was distant. Drink as a constant companion. Murder for gain at the inn, unplanned, decided in a single night when the jeweller’s presence turns the money and the diamond into a double prize. Escape, blackmail and burglary afterwards. The pattern is also the one the theory associates with opportunity: Caderousse does not seek out his crimes, but he never resists one that appears. The jeweller’s decision to stay the night, Benedetto’s new wealth and the count’s house left apparently unguarded are three opportunities, and he takes all three.
// The subjectA coward with a conscience
What makes Caderousse more interesting than a simple brute is that he knows. At the tavern in 1815 he says out loud that what they are doing is wrong. When he tells the Abbé Busoni the story of the conspiracy, he shows a regret that seems sincere. He is not a cold calculator like Danglars or an ambitious traitor like Fernand. He is weak: he does not stand up for what he knows is right, he drinks, and when something valuable is in front of him, he cannot let it go. Monte Cristo seems to understand him perfectly. Twice he gives him a chance—the diamond, then the release after the burglary—and both times Caderousse uses it to fall further. The count’s last words to him, as he dies, are a reminder of those chances.
Gaspard Caderousse
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// The crackA trait, or a test he was set up to fail?
The general theory of crime claims that low self-control is set in childhood and stable for life. The novel tells us nothing about Caderousse’s childhood, and its account of his decline points also to circumstances: poverty, a sick wife, an inn that is failing. Critics of Gottfredson and Hirschi argue that self-control can change with age and circumstances, and that the theory too readily treats a trait as the explanation of behavior it was inferred from. Caderousse is impulsive because he does impulsive things; the reasoning is circular if nothing else is measured.
The second crack is moral, and it points at the avenger. Monte Cristo gives a diamond worth a fortune to a poor, greedy and weak man, and later lets him go free knowing exactly what he will do. In criminological terms, that is an opportunity deliberately created for someone known to have low self-control. Caderousse chose to kill the jeweller and to keep stealing. But the theory itself suggests that the count was not merely testing him: he was arranging the situation in which a man like Caderousse was almost certain to fall.
Opportunity and the impulsive offender
One of the practical lessons drawn from Gottfredson and Hirschi’s theory is that, if a stable trait drives much crime, the most effective way to reduce it in the short term is not to change the offender but to reduce opportunities: to make easy gains less easy. That is the logic of situational crime prevention, and Caderousse’s story is a negative example of it. Every crime he commits follows from a situation in which a large reward suddenly becomes available with little effort. The longer-term lesson points to childhood: supervision, consistent correction and the slow building of self-control, which no diamond can buy later.
Three key ideas
- The general theory of crime (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990) holds that low self-control—impulsivity, risk-taking, preference for easy and immediate gain—formed in childhood is the common cause of crime, which happens when that trait meets an opportunity.
- Gaspard Caderousse keeps quiet about the plot against Dantès, kills a jeweller with his wife for the diamond the Abbé Busoni gave him, escapes from the galleys, blackmails Benedetto and tries to burgle Monte Cristo’s house. Benedetto stabs him on the garden wall.
- The crack: the novel says nothing of his childhood, the trait risks being circular, and Monte Cristo deliberately set up the opportunities. Even so, the murder of the jeweller was Caderousse’s choice.
Sources · further reading
- Gottfredson, M. R. and Hirschi, T. (1990). A General Theory of Crime. Stanford University Press.
- Pratt, T. C. and Cullen, F. T. (2000). “The Empirical Status of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s General Theory of Crime: A Meta-Analysis”. Criminology, 38(3), 931-964.
- Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of Delinquency. University of California Press.
- Dumas, A. (1844-1846). Le Comte de Monte-Cristo.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
Who is Gaspard Caderousse?
Gaspard Caderousse is a villain from The Count of Monte Cristo, analysed on KRIMINIS through the lens of criminology. He was given a diamond worth fifty thousand francs and a quiet life.
Why does Gaspard Caderousse become a villain?
Gaspard Caderousse and low self-control: in The Count of Monte Cristo, the neighbor who watched the conspiracy against Dantès being hatched and said nothing receives a diamond as a gift years later and ends up killing for it. Gottfredson and Hirschi explained crime as the inability to resist immediate gain. Caderousse had temptation placed in front of him twice, and fell both times.
Which criminological theory explains Gaspard Caderousse?
Gaspard Caderousse's case is analysed through Low self-control. Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi’s general theory of crime (1990) holds that the common cause of almost all crime is low self-control: a trait formed in childhood that leads people to prefer immediate gratification, risk and the easy way, without thinking about the consequences. Gaspard Caderousse, tailor, innkeeper and finally murderer, is its literary portrait. He keeps quiet out of cowardice when Danglars and Fernand plot the denunciation, kills out of greed when he has a diamond in his hand, and keeps trying to steal even after he has escaped from the galleys.
