“My son,” said the burgher, boldly, “do you know that to save the king is to ruin France?  Do you know that this instrument of yours will place the crown of the Valois on the head of the Lorrain who calls himself the heir of Charlemagne?  Do you know that surgery and policy are at this moment sternly opposed to each other?  Yes, the triumph of your genius will be the death of your religion.  If the Guises gain the regency, the blood of the Reformers will flow like water.  Be a greater citizen than you are a surgeon; oversleep yourself to-morrow morning and leave a free field to the other doctors who if they cannot cure the king will cure France.”

“I!” exclaimed Pare.  “I leave a man to die when I can cure him?  No, no! were I to hang as an abettor of Calvin I shall go early to court.  Do you not feel that the first and only reward I shall ask will be the life of your Christophe?  Surely at such a moment Queen Mary can deny me nothing.”

“Alas! my friend,” returned Lecamus, “the little king has refused the pardon of the Prince de Conde to the princess.  Do not kill your religion by saving the life of a man who ought to die.”

“Do not you meddle with God’s ordering of the future!” cried Pare.  “Honest men can have but one motto:  Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra!—­do thy duty, come what will.  That is what I did at the siege of Calais when I put my foot on the face of the Duc de Guise,—­I ran the risk of being strangled by his friends and his servants; but to-day I am surgeon to the king; moreover I am of the Reformed religion; and yet the Guises are my friends.  I shall save the king,” cried the surgeon, with the sacred enthusiasm of a conviction bestowed by genius, “and God will save France!”

A knock was heard on the street door and presently one of Pare’s servants gave a paper to Lecamus, who read aloud these terrifying words:—­

  “A scaffold is being erected at the convent of the Recollets:  the
  Prince de Conde will be beheaded there to-morrow.”

Ambroise and Lecamus looked at each other with an expression of the deepest horror.

“I will go and see it for myself,” said the furrier.

No sooner was he in the open street than Ruggiero took his arm and asked by what means Ambroise Pare proposed to save the king.  Fearing some trickery, the old man, instead of answering, replied that he wished to go and see the scaffold.  The astrologer accompanied him to the place des Recollets, and there, truly enough, they found the carpenters putting up the horrible framework by torchlight.

“Hey, my friend,” said Lecamus to one of the men, “what are you doing here at this time of night?”

“We are preparing for the hanging of heretics, as the blood-letting at Amboise didn’t cure them,” said a young Recollet who was superintending the work.

“Monseigneur the cardinal is very right,” said Ruggiero, prudently; “but in my country we do better.”