“I had supposed,” said Chaudieu to the Prince de Conde, the King of Navarre, and Admiral Coligny, as they left the hall, “that a great State matter would be treated more seriously.”

“Oh! we know very well what you want,” exclaimed the Prince de Conde, exchanging a sly look with Theodore de Beze.

The prince now left his adherents to attend a rendezvous.  This great leader of a party was also one of the most favored gallants of the court.  The two choice beauties of that day were even then striving with such desperate eagerness for his affections that one of them, the Marechale de Saint-Andre, the wife of the future triumvir, gave him her beautiful estate of Saint-Valery, hoping to win him away from the Duchesse de Guise, the wife of the man who had tried to take his head on the scaffold.  The duchess, not being able to detach the Duc de Nemours from Mademoiselle de Rohan, fell in love, en attendant, with the leader of the Reformers.

“What a contrast to Geneva!” said Chaudieu to Theodore de Beze, as they crossed the little bridge of the Louvre.

“The people here are certainly gayer than the Genevese.  I don’t see why they should be so treacherous,” replied de Beze.

“To treachery oppose treachery,” replied Chaudieu, whispering the words in his companion’s ear.  “I have saints in Paris on whom I can rely, and I intend to make Calvin a prophet.  Christophe Lecamus shall deliver us from our most dangerous enemy.”

“The queen-mother, for whom the poor devil endured his torture, has already, with a high hand, caused him to be appointed solicitor to the Parliament; and solicitors make better prosecutors than murderers.  Don’t you remember how Avenelles betrayed the secrets of our first uprising?”

“I know Christophe,” said Chaudieu, in a positive tone, as he turned to leave the envoy from Geneva.

XV

COMPENSATION

A few days after the reception of Calvin’s emissaries by the queen, that is to say, toward the close of the year (for the year then began at Easter and the present calendar was not adopted until later in the reign of Charles IX.), Christophe reclined in an easy chair beside the fire in the large brown hall, dedicated to family life, that overlooked the river in his father’s house, where the present drama was begun.  His feet rested on a stool; his mother and Babette Lallier had just renewed the compresses, saturated with a solution brought by Ambroise Pare, who was charged by Catherine de’ Medici to take care of the young man.  Once restored to his family, Christophe became the object of the most devoted care.  Babette, authorized by her father, came very morning and only left the Lecamus household at night.  Christophe, the admiration of the apprentices, gave rise throughout the quarter to various tales, which invested him with mysterious poesy.  He had borne the worst torture; the celebrated Ambroise Pare was employing all his skill to cure