 Dumas wrote that the idea of revenge in "The Count of Monte Cristo" came from a story in a book compiled by Jacques Peuchet, a French police archivist, published in 1838 after the death of the author.Dumas included this essay in one of the editions from 1846.Peuchet told of a shoemaker, Pierre Picaud, living in Nîmes in 1807, who was engaged to marry a rich woman when three jealous friends falsely accused him of being a spy for England.