The Count understood that any resistance to the Cardinal would result in his own utter ruin; and there was no lack of proofs to support this reasoning: by escaping from the guards who were taking him to prison, he would remain at liberty, it is true, but he would be exiled, obliged to quit France, and wander about in foreign parts alone, isolated, without resources, ever on the watch, forced to hide himself, and reduced to the impossibility of asking, that is to say, of obtaining the necessary information he required to avenge himself on the man who, by robbing him of the wife he loved, had at the same blow not only destroyed his career and fortune, but also eternally ruined his happiness. He was young, and could wait; vengeance is eaten cold, say the southerners--and the Count came from Languedoc. Besides, as he had said to Bouillot, in a moment of expansiveness, he wished to suffer, in order to kill within him every human feeling that still existed, and to find himself one day armed _cap-à-pie_ to face his enemy. Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII. were both seriously ill. Their death would not fail to produce a change of reign in two, three, or four years at the most, and that catastrophe would arrive, one of whose consequences it is to produce a reaction, and consequently, to open to all the prisoners of the defunct Cardinal the dungeons to which he had condemned them. The Count was twenty-five years of age: hence time was his own, and the more so because, when restored to liberty, he would enter on all his rights, and as an enemy of Richelieu, be favourably regarded at Court, and, through the temporary credit he would enjoy, be in a condition to regain all the advantage he had lost as concerned his foe. Only energetically endowed men, who are sure of themselves, are capable of making such calculations, and obstinately pursuing a line of conduct so opposed to all logical combinations; but these men who thus resolutely enlist chance on their side, and reckon on it as a partner, always succeed in what they purpose doing, unless death suddenly cuts them short. Through the intercession of La Grenade, and the tacit connivance of the Governor, who closed his eyes with a charming inattention, the Count was not only cognizant with all that was going on outside, but also received letters from his friends, which he answered. One day, after reading a letter which la Grenade had given him when bringing in breakfast, a letter from the Duc de Bellegarde, which had reached him through Michael, for the worthy sailor had refused to leave his Commandant, and had turned fisherman at Antibes, with Bowline as his assistant, the Count sent a message to the Governor, requesting a few minutes' conversation with him. The Major knew that every visit he paid his prisoner was a profit to him, hence he hastened to his room. "Have you heard the news, sir?" the Count said at once on seeing him.