"I do not wish to fall," the Count continued imperturbably, "in the terrible struggle which has this day begun between my enemies and myself. I have taken an oath, and that oath I will keep, regardless of the consequences. I am young, hardly twenty-five years of age; up to the present, life has only been one long joy for me, and I have succeeded in everything, plans of ambition, fortune and love. Today misfortune has come to lay its hand on me, and it is welcome; for the man who has not suffered is not a perfect man; grief purifies the mind and tempers the heart. Solitude is a good councillor; it makes a man comprehend the nothingness of small things, expands the ideas, and prepares grand conceptions. I require to steel myself through sorrow, in order to be able one day to repay my enemies a hundredfold all that I have suffered at their hands. It is by thinking over my broken career and my ruined future, that I shall find the necessary strength to accomplish my vengeance. When my heart is dead to every other feeling but that of the hatred which will entirely occupy it, I shall be able pitilessly to trample underfoot all those who today laugh at me and believe they have crushed me, because they have hurled me down; and then I shall be really a man, and woe to those who try to measure their strength with mine. You tremble at what I am saying to you at this moment, my old servant," he added more gently, "what would it be were you able to read in my heart all the hatred, auger, and rage it contains against those who have mercilessly ground me beneath their heel, and who have eternally deprived me of happiness, in order to satisfy the paltry calculations of a narrow and criminal ambition?" "Oh, my lord Count! Permit an old servant of your family, a man who is entirely devoted to you, to implore you to resign these fearful schemes of vengeance. Alas! You will be the first victim of your hatred." "Have you forgotten, Bouillot," the Count replied ironically, "what is said in our country, about the members of the family to which I have the honor of belonging?" "Yes, yes, my lord," he said with a melancholy shake of the head; "I remember it, and will repeat it if you wish." "Do so." "Well, my lord, the distich is as follows--" "'The Counts of Barmont Senectaire, Demon-hate and heart of stone.'" The Count smiled. "Well do you fancy that I have degenerated from my ancestors?" "I suppose nothing, sir, Heaven forbid!" he answered humbly, "I only see with terror that you are preparing a hideous future for yourself." "Be it so! I accept it in all its rigor, if God will permit me to accomplish my oath." "Alas! My lord, you know that man proposes; you are at this moment a prisoner of the Cardinal; reflect, I implore you, who knows whether you will ever leave the prison to which I am conducting you? Consent to be free."