The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

Count of Spada in his poverty. My patron died. He had reserved from
his annuity his family papers, his library, composed of five thousand
volumes, and his famous breviary. All these he bequeathed to me, with a
thousand Roman crowns, which he had in ready money, on condition that I
would have anniversary masses said for the repose of his soul, and that
I would draw up a genealogical tree and history of his house. All this I
did scrupulously. Be easy, my dear Edmond, we are near the conclusion.

"In 1807, a month before I was arrested, and a fortnight after the death
of the Count of Spada, on the 25th of December (you will see presently
how the date became fixed in my memory), I was reading, for the
thousandth time, the papers I was arranging, for the palace was sold
to a stranger, and I was going to leave Rome and settle at Florence,
intending to take with me twelve thousand francs I possessed, my
library, and the famous breviary, when, tired with my constant labor
at the same thing, and overcome by a heavy dinner I had eaten, my
head dropped on my hands, and I fell asleep about three o'clock in the