"But I had better give you what I promised before the monk comes back," said Edward,--the word _money_ awakening many other ideas. "Let me see how much you have got," said the man: "you will need some for your two selves; and, besides, there is that long thin fellow with a red face,--that servant of yours. Do not let him drink. Let us see." Edward took out his purse of doeskin, which now contained about seventeen hundred livres in gold. What between the purchase of the horses, and various expenses at the inns, the rest was all spent, though it was better furnished when he left Rochelle; and there was more in his bags, probably lost forever. "That is not enough to give me a thousand livres," said the man; "but the three horses are worth something. That one you ride is a good one, and so is the young lady's,--the page's, I mean. Give me five hundred, and write me a promise of the horses in payment of the rest of the sums I have advanced,--the horses to be given up to me when you get to the end of your journey, which will be here, I suppose, but which they will understand as Nantes. That will give me a right to claim them." Now, it is quite possible that one, if not more, of my sagacious readers will be inclined to think that I have been drawing an inconsistent character. It is very true the soldier was a right generous and a kind-hearted fellow. He liked to do a good turn. He liked especially to help two young lovers,--by-the-way, he had been crossed in love himself, though his history would be too long to tell here,--and yet he was not unwilling to take money out of their pockets when they had little enough, and to secure their horses for his own advantage. It was very inconsistent,--very inconsistent indeed. But I have now lived a tolerable number of years in the world, and all my life I have been looking for consistent men, and have not found more than six at the utmost. The fact is, man is a bundle,--a bundle of very contrary qualities,--to say nothing of the mere absolute opposition of body and soul in the mass. There are packages of good feelings and packages of bad feelings; rolls of wit and rolls of dullness; papers full of sense and papers full of nonsense; a lump of generosity here and a lump of selfishness there; and all tied up so tightly together that in a damp and foggy world they sooner or later mould and mildew each other. Thus, if I hear of a great man doing a little action, or a wise man committing a foolish one, instead of crying out, "How inconsistent!" I say, "It is very natural." Now, if it be very natural everywhere, it is still more natural in France; for, having inhabited that beautiful country and lived amongst her gallant and intellectual people a great part of my life, I have come to the conclusion that the most varied creature upon the face of the earth _per se_--in himself, in his own nature and composition--is a Frenchman.