The Count of Monte Cristo

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"You know," said the abbe, "that I was the secretary and intimate friend
of Cardinal Spada, the last of the princes of that name. I owe to this
worthy lord all the happiness I ever knew. He was not rich, although the
wealth of his family had passed into a proverb, and I heard the phrase
very often, 'As rich as a Spada.' But he, like public rumor, lived on
this reputation for wealth; his palace was my paradise. I was tutor to
his nephews, who are dead; and when he was alone in the world, I tried
by absolute devotion to his will, to make up to him all he had done for
me during ten years of unremitting kindness. The cardinal's house had
no secrets for me. I had often seen my noble patron annotating ancient
volumes, and eagerly searching amongst dusty family manuscripts. One day
when I was reproaching him for his unavailing searches, and deploring
the prostration of mind that followed them, he looked at me, and,
smiling bitterly, opened a volume relating to the History of the City of
Rome. There, in the twentieth chapter of the Life of Pope Alexander VI.,
were the following lines, which I can never forget:--