On this explanation, the money was soon sent for and readily found; for my baggage had all been collected together round the tent, and the ground in the immediate vicinity was kept clear by my own people. After paying over six thousand crowns to Martin Vern, deducting the sum that I had sent him for the redemption of the knife, there still remained in my hands nearly five hundred crowns; and, with many thanks, I repaid to the good pastor the sum I had borrowed from him on quitting the Chateau of Blancford. "I would not take it from you, my son," he said, "but I see your exertions have been blessed with success, and that you have already become what I may well consider enormously rich." I would not tell him how changed my estimation of enormous riches was, as I could not explain to him--perhaps not even to myself--the causes of that change; but, even while we were speaking upon this subject, a messenger from the Prince de Condé came to the tent, seeking his intendant and Martin Vern, who accordingly sped away in all haste to confer with that general. "Will you let some of your men carry this gold for me?" said Martin Vern, adding, with a smile, "This will ensure me a mighty warm reception from his highness." Taking care that he should have a sufficient escort, I turned when the merchant was gone to his nephew, and asked him how he relished the thoughts of this immediate journey to Paris, and whether his military ardour was or was not at an end. To my surprise, however, I found that he was as much changed in some of his feelings as I was in some of mine; and for the first time I learned the cause of his whole conduct. "You must know," he said, "That when I was living in Bordeaux, not long before my father's death, we became acquainted with a merchant's widow and her daughter, so well to do in the world that it was proposed I should marry the young lady. She was very beautiful, and I fancied myself in love with her. Indeed, I believe I was so; but she had got her head filled with ideas of battles and military glory; and though she coquetted with me a good deal, and gave me every encouragement, so as to raise my passion to the highest pitch, yet she declared that she would never give her hand to any one but a soldier, or one, at least, who had seen some service. If I would go and fight, she said, for two or three campaigns, she liked me well enough to promise to marry me; but she would not upon any other conditions. My father was so enraged that he broke off the match altogether; and, dying shortly after, left me under the charge of my uncle, who was even more averse to it than himself.