If you are to judge a man, you must know his secret thoughts, sorrows, and feelings; to know merely the outward events of a man's life would only serve to make a chronological table-a fool's notion of history.

Old men are prone to invest the futures of young men with their own past sorrows.

Our most bitter enemies are our own kith and kin. Kings have no brothers, no sons, no mother!

Envy lurks at the bottom of the human heart like a viper in its hole.

Ah! the soft starlight of virgin eyes.

Study lends a kind of enchantment to all our surroundings.

Holding this book in your hand, sinking back in your soft armchair, you will say to yourself: perhaps it will amuse me. And after you have read this story of great misfortunes, you will no doubt dine well, blaming the author for your own insensitivity, accusing him of wild exaggeration and flights of fancy. But rest assured: this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true.