With this speech, half kind, half rude, Chavigni left De Blenau. Whether the Statesman's motives were wholly friendly, or whether they might not be partly interested, proceeding from a nice calculation of the precarious state both of the Cardinal's health and of his power, weighed with the authority the Queen might gain from the failure of either, the Count did not stay to investigate, although a suspicion of the latter kind flashed across his mind. In this, however, he did Chavigni injustice. In natural character he was not unlike De Blenau himself, frank, honourable, and generous; but education is stronger than nature; and education had made them different beings. On the departure of the Statesman, the Count returned once more to the apartment he had occupied while a prisoner, with no small self-gratulation on the change in his situation. Here he busied himself in preparations for his departure, and took pains to ascertain that the paper written by the unhappy Caply still remained in the book, as well as that the file was yet in the position which it described. Having finished this examination, which he looked upon as a duty to the next person destined to inhabit that abode, he waited impatiently till the hour should be passed which Chavigni had named as the time likely to elapse before the horse he promised would be prepared. Ere it had flown much more than half, however, the Governor entered the chamber, and with many profound bows and civil speeches, informed him that Monsieur de Chavigni had sent a horse for his use, and an order for the immediate liberation of Philip, the woodman. De Blenau was gratified by Chavigni's prompt fulfilment of his word in this last respect; and remembering the thousand crowns which he had promised the Governor on his liberation, he placed them in his hands, which brought him very near to the end of the large sum of gold that his valise contained. Now De Blenau was perfectly well convinced that the Governor was as great a rogue as need be; but there is something so expansive in the idea of being liberated from prison, that he could not bear the thought of keeping his louis shut up in a bag any longer, and he poured them forth into the Governor's palm with as much satisfaction as if he was emancipating so many prisoners himself. An _ecu courant_ was worth, in that day, about three francs, and a _louis d'or_ somewhere about four-and-twenty (more or less, according to the depreciation), so that eight ecus, or crowns, went to the louis; and, consequently, the sum of one thousand crowns amounted very nearly to one hundred and twenty-five golden louis, which was a very pretty reward for a rogue to receive for being a rascal in a good cause: nevertheless, the Governor, even when he had safely clutched the promised fee, looked very wistfully at a little green silk bag, which De Blenau reserved in his left hand, and which he calculated must contain about the same sum, or more.