him.  What great deed had he done to be thus treated?  Neither Christophe nor his father said a word on the subject.  Catherine, then all-powerful, was concerned in their silence as well as the Prince de Conde.  The constant visits of Pare, now chief surgeon of both the king and the house of Guise, whom the queen-mother and the Lorrains allowed to treat a youth accused of heresy, strangely complicated an affair through which no one saw clearly.  Moreover, the rector of Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs came several times to visit the son of his church-warden, and these visits made the causes of Christophe’s present condition still more unintelligible to his neighbors.

The old syndic, who had his plan, gave evasive answers to his brother-furriers, the merchants of the neighborhood, and to all friends who spoke to him of his son:  “Yes, I am very thankful to have saved him.”  —­“Well, you know, it won’t do to put your finger between the bark and the tree.”—­“My son touched fire and came near burning up my house.”  —­“They took advantage of his youth; we burghers get nothing but shame and evil by frequenting the grandees.”—­“This affair decides me to make a lawyer of Christophe; the practice of law will teach him to weigh his words and his acts.”—­“The young queen, who is now in Scotland, had a great deal to do with it; but then, to be sure, my son may have been imprudent.”—­“I have had cruel anxieties.”—­“All this may decide me to give up my business; I do not wish ever to go to court again.”—­“My son has had enough of the Reformation; it has cracked all his joints.  If it had not been for Ambroise, I don’t know what would have become of me.”

Thanks to these ambiguous remarks and to the great discretion of such conduct, it was generally averred in the neighborhood that Christophe had seen the error of his ways; everybody thought it natural that the old syndic should wish to get his son appointed to the Parliament, and the rector’s visits no longer seemed extraordinary.  As the neighbors reflected on the old man’s anxieties they no longer thought, as they would otherwise have done, that his ambition was inordinate.  The young lawyer, who had lain helpless for months on the bed which his family made up for him in the old hall, was now, for the last week, able to rise and move about by the aid of crutches.  Babette’s love and his mother’s tenderness had deeply touched his heart; and they, while they had him helpless in their hands, lectured him severely on religion.  President de Thou paid his godson a visit during which he showed himself most fatherly.  Christophe, being now a solicitor of the Parliament, must of course, he said, be Catholic; his oath would bind him to that; and the president, who assumed not to doubt of his godson’s orthodoxy, ended his remarks by saying with great earnestness: 

“My son, you have been cruelly tried.  I am myself ignorant of the reasons which made the Messieurs de Guise treat you thus; but I advise you in future to live peacefully, without entering into the troubles of the times; for the favor of the king and queen will not be shown to the makers of revolt.  You are not important enough to play fast and loose with the king as the Guises do.  If you wish to be some day counsellor to the Parliament remember that you cannot obtain that noble office unless by a real and serious attachment to the royal cause.”