“Of course,” replied Calvin.  “And it is you, my son, who will fight for us there.  Be peremptory, be arbitrary.  No one, neither the queen nor the Guises nor I, wants a pacification; it would not suit us at all.  I have confidence in Duplessis-Mornay; let him play the leading part.  Are we alone?” he added, with a glance of distrust into the kitchen, where two shirts and a few collars were stretched on a line to dry.  “Go and shut all the doors.  Well,” he continued when Theodore had returned, “we must drive the king of Navarre to join the Guises and the Connetable by advising him to break with Queen Catherine de’ Medici.  Let us all get the benefit of that poor creature’s weakness.  If he turns against the Italian she will, when she sees herself deprived of that support, necessarily unite with the Prince de Conde and Coligny.  Perhaps this manoeuvre will so compromise her that she will be forced to remain on our side.”

Theodore de Beze caught the hem of Calvin’s cassock and kissed it.

“Oh! my master,” he exclaimed, “how great you are!”

“Unfortunately, my dear Theodore, I am dying.  If I die without seeing you again,” he added, sinking his voice and speaking in the ear of his minister of foreign affairs, “remember to strike a great blow by the hand of some one of our martyrs.”

“Another Minard to be killed?”

“Something better than a mere lawyer.”

“A king?”

“Still better!—­a man who wants to be a king.”

“The Duc de Guise!” exclaimed Theodore, with an involuntary gesture.

“Well?” cried Calvin, who thought he saw disappointment or resistance in the gesture, and did not see at the same moment the entrance of Chaudieu.  “Have we not the right to strike as we are struck?—­yes, to strike in silence and in darkness.  May we not return them wound for wound, and death for death?  Would the Catholics hesitate to lay traps for us and massacre us?  Assuredly not.  Let us burn their churches!  Forward, my children!  And if you have devoted youths—­”

“I have,” said Chaudieu.

“Use them as engines of war! our cause justifies all means.  Le Balafre, that horrible soldier, is, like me, more than a man; he is a dynasty, just as I am a system.  He is able to annihilate us; therefore, I say, Death to the Guise!”

“I would rather have a peaceful victory, won by time and reason,” said de Beze.

“Time!” exclaimed Calvin, dashing his chair to the ground, “reason!  Are you mad?  Can reason achieve conquests?  You know nothing of men, you who deal with them, idiot!  The thing that injures my doctrine, you triple fool! is the reason that is in it.  By the lightning of Saul, by the sword of Vengeance, thou pumpkin-head, do you not see the vigor given to my Reform by the massacre at Amboise?  Ideas never grow till they are watered with blood.  The slaying of the Duc de Guise will lead to a horrible persecution, and I pray for it