ccessful.
Those that have been crowned with full success have been long meditated
upon, and carefully arranged; such, for instance, as the escape of the
Duc de Beaufort from the Chateau de Vincennes, that of the Abbe Dubuquoi
from For l'Eveque; of Latude from the Bastille. Then there are those for
which chance sometimes affords opportunity, and those are the best of
all. Let us, therefore, wait patiently for some favorable moment, and
when it presents itself, profit by it."

"Ah," said Dantes, "you might well endure the tedious delay; you were
constantly employed in the task you set yourself, and when weary with
toil, you had your hopes to refresh and encourage you."

"I assure you," replied the old man, "I did not turn to that source for
recreation or support."

"What did you do then?"

"I wrote or studied."

"Were you then permitted the use of pens, ink, and paper?"

"Oh, no," answered the abbe; "I had none but what I made for myself."

"You made paper, pens and ink?"

"Yes."

Dantes gazed with admiration, but he had some difficulty in believing.
Faria saw this.

"When you pay me a visit in my cell, my young friend," said he, "I will
show you an entire work, the fruits of the thoughts and reflections of
my whole life; many of them meditated over in the shades of the Colosseum
at Rome, at the foot of St. Mark's column at Venice, and on the borders
of the Arno at Florence, little imagining at the time that they would be
arranged in order within the walls of the Chateau d'If. The work I speak
of is called 'A Treatise on the Possibility of a General Monarchy in
Italy,' and will make one large quarto volume."

"And on what have you written all this?"

"On two of my shirts. I invented a preparation that makes linen as
smooth and as easy to write on as parchment."

"You are, then, a chemist?"

"Somewhat; I know Lavoisier, and was the intimate friend of Cabanis."

"But for such a work you must have needed books--had you any?"

"I had nearly five thousand volumes in my library at Rome; but after
reading them over many times, I found out that with one hundred and
fifty well-chosen books a man possesses, if not a complete summary of
all human knowledge, at least all that a man need really know. I devoted
three years of my life to reading and studying these one hundred and
fifty volumes, till I knew them nearly by heart; so that since I have
been in prison, a very slight effort of memory has enabled me to reca