They have rarely been successful.
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.