When Floridor had made every arrangement for the accommodation of Minute, and was satisfied that she could want for nothing in the palace, he began to think of his departure, and he did so more cheerfully as the good Ant assured him of her attention to all that concerned the Queen. During the journey he had lately performed, and the short time he had passed in his own dominions, he had taken the opportunity of declaring his passion to Minute, which she had been kind enough to approve. At length he was obliged to leave her; their adieus were tender, and Floridor set out with no other assistance but that of a letter from Minute, addressed to her good and faithful subjects, in which she required them to obey the commands of King Floridor implicitly. The good Ant neither gave him the walnut nor the little knife which he had returned to her when he came back: the Queen only begged him to accept from her hand the sparrow which he had given her, praying that he would always carry it about with him, as well as a scarf of _nonpareille_[27] which she had herself made for him. The King followed exactly the same road that he had taken in conducting the Queen, not only because lovers are gratified by seeing again the places which are associated in their memories with those whom they love, but because it was also the shortest cut. When he was near the transplanted mountain, the sparrow, rising in the air, took it up with the same facility as before, and carried it back to the spot which it had formerly occupied. The sparrow then in that terrible voice which he knew how to assume when he wished, said to those whom he found shut up under the mountain, "Be faithful to Minute, and do what King Floridor shall command you in her name." This singular sparrow then disappeared.