Chavigni gazed at it with evident symptoms of displeasure and uneasiness; for although, when he imagined that the necessities of the State required the severest infliction on any offender, no one was more ruthless than himself as to the punishment, no one more unhesitating as to the means--although, at those times, no bond of amity, no tie of kindred, would have stayed his hand, or restrained him in what he erroneously considered his political duty; yet Chavigni was far from naturally cruel; and, as his after life showed, even too susceptible of the strongest and deepest affections of human nature. In his early youth, the Cardinal de Richelieu had remarked in him a strong and penetrating mind; but above all, an extraordinary power of governing and even subduing the ardent passions by which he was at times excited. As son to the Count de Bouthilliers, one of the oldest members of the Privy Council, the road to political preferment was open to Chavigni; and Richelieu, ever fearful of aught that might diminish his power, and careful to strengthen it by every means, resolved to bind the young Count to his cause by the sure ties of early habit and mutual interest. With this view he took him entirely under his own protection, educated him in his own line of policy, instilled into him, as principles, the deep stern maxims of his own mighty and unshrinking mind, and having thus moulded him to his wish, called him early to the council-table, and intrusted him with a greater share of his power and confidence than he would have yielded to any other man. Chavigni repaid the Cardinal with heartfelt gratitude, with firm adherence, and uncompromising service. In private life, he was honourable, generous, and kind; but it was his axiom, that all must yield to State necessity, or (as he said) in other words, to the good of his country; and upon the strength of this maxim, which, in fact, was the cause of every stain that rests upon his memory, he fancied himself a patriot! Between Chavigni and the Judge Lafemas, who was the Jeffreys of his country, and had received the name of _Le Bourreau du Cardinal_, existed a sort of original antipathy; so that the Statesman, though often obliged to make use of the less scrupulous talents of the Judge, and even occasionally to associate with him, could never refrain for any length of time from breaking forth into those bitter taunts which often irritated Lafemas almost to frensy. The hatred of the Judge, on his part, was not less strong, even at the times it did not show itself; and he still brooded over the hope of exercising his ungentle functions upon him who was at present, in a degree, his master. But to return, Chavigni gazed intently on the spot to which Lafemas pointed. "I believe it is blood, indeed," said he, after a moment's hesitation, as if the uncertainty of the light had made him doubt it at first: "they shall rue the day that they shed it contrary to my command. It is blood surely, Lafemas: is it not?"