The advocate remarked in reply, that, as Monseigneur seemed bent on retaining his vantage-ground of professed ignorance of any special knowledge of the affairs of his client—and disclaimed the report respecting the _droit d’aubaine_—it became necessary that he should inform the count that an individual, one Pedro Olivera, whom he believed was not unknown to Monseigneur, had, like his superiors, occasion for more money than he could legitimately obtain, and that, often borrowing of his deceased countryman, the Spaniard, without the power or will of refunding, he was at length reduced, in efforts to obtain further supplies, to place in the hands of his rich friend, what was deemed good security, although of a strange character. He professed to have certain unsettled claims on the Count De Fontrailles for services of espionage, and holding intercourse with underlings of the ministerial bureau in Madrid. From his showing, it appeared that he had been the medium of a negotiation between the Spanish ministry and the count. For this service Fontrailles had not yet bestowed an equivalent, alleging the urgency of his own necessities; but, in one instance, certainly an unguarded one, he had given Pedro an authority in writing to appropriate to himself a certain portion of a sum of money, receivable at the bureau, in Madrid, and to be handed the count. Pedro, however, was unlucky, for, on application, he was informed that satisfaction had been afforded Fontrailles in person. He felt that this conduct of his patron was unhandsome—hence, perhaps, the betrayal of the count’s secrets—there was no proof, indeed, that the money had been paid Monseigneur—but the authority of Pedro to appropriate a portion of what he should receive, was still in existence in the count’s handwriting. Pedro, as before intimated, having drawn all he could obtain by ordinary means from the deceased, inscribed a formal claim on the count for the heretofore named services, which he specially enumerated, and in which he made reference to the count’s authorization appended to the statement. The deceased upholsterer saw in this document, not only a security for the money owing by Pedro, but also a collateral guarantee for the refunding of what Fontrailles, who was also heavily his debtor, owed him. In short, added Giraud, the evidence appeared clearly to convict the Count De Fontrailles of receiving money from Spain. The papers came into the possession of Monsieur De Pontis, and were by him handed to the advocate. It would have baffled the painter’s art to have depicted the changing aspects which dwelt for awhile, and then fled the countenance of the noble. One minute listening attentively—the next he appeared lost in abstraction, or meditating some course of action—then starting up suddenly with menacing looks, the features took such a semblance, that his most intimate friend could not have indentified the face as belonging to the Count De Fontrailles.