“Why,” replied Dantes, “ I see nothing but broken lines and unconnected words, which are rendered illegible by fire.” “Yes, to you, my friend, who read them for the first time; but not for me,” said the abbe, “ I was the secretary and intimate friend of Cardinal Spada when he was alone in the world. He was not rich, although the wealth of his family had passed into a proverb, ‘As rich as a Spada.’