A month had rolled by since the Carbonari had met at the house of Von Apsberg. They were as prudent as possible. There was no meeting of the members of this vast society, yet such were the advantages of its mechanism, that communication and intercourse was never interrupted for a day. All action emanated from the high _venta_, which was known only to the presidents of the seven central ventas, through whom its instructions were communicated by means of _agents_ to the secondary ventas; a few men where thus enabled to discipline ten thousand. Count Monte-Leone was the soul of all this enterprise, and on him all the threads of this huge net united. The Count, the invisible providence of this invisible world, alone could give it external life and utter the _fiat lux_ of eternity. More pleasant and delightful ideas had possession of the Count. The future occupied him with a force and intensity he thought most contradictory to his political duties. Since Aminta had unveiled her heart to him, she had, as it were, returned to her usual bearing. The life of Monte-Leone, though, was entirely changed. The happiness he had long desired was about to dawn on him. In a few months he would be the husband of that Aminta he had so much loved and so regretted. The Count was received almost as a son by the Prince, and as a husband by Aminta. Taddeo looked on him entirely as a brother, and began to realize the happiest dream of his life--the marriage he had so desired. Gladly availing himself of the liberty accorded him, of coming familiarly to the hotel of the Prince de Maulear, the Count was perfectly happy. He passed the whole day there, and when night came mingled most unwillingly with society. The order of expulsion which he had received, and which had been so mysteriously revoked, added to the interest which had been entertained for him by all Paris. The opposition was especially attentive to him, for he was esteemed a decided enemy of the French Government, and of all monarchies. This ostracism which he had escaped, attracted the attention to him, for which the people of Paris were already prepared, by the history of his Neapolitan adventures. In 1850 he would have been called the lion of the day, and the greatest curiosity would have been paid to all his adventures. So great was the attention excited by the account of Monte-Leone's loss of fortune, that people were surprised to see him resume his usual mode of life, keep possession of his hotel, indulge in the same expenses of carriages, attendants, etc. He altered nothing, not even the luxury of his house, from what had been its condition before the papers and he himself had announced that the failure of Lamberti made him entirely poor, and forced him to sell his diamonds and other personal property to be able to live, as cheaply as possible.