s, who had immense concealed wealth,
would not run any risks, and was silently preparing a brilliant future
for his son. Instead of having the personal ambition which sacrifices
the future to the present, he had family ambition,--a lost sentiment
in our time, a sentiment suppressed by the folly of our laws of
inheritance. Lecamus saw himself first president of the Parliament of
Paris in the person of his grandson.

Christophe, godson of the famous historian de Thou, was given a most
solid education; but it had led him to doubt and to the spirit of
examination which was then affecting both the Faculties and the students
of the universities. Christophe was, at the period of which we are now
writing, pursuing his studies for the bar, that first step toward the
magistracy. The old furrier was pretending to some hesitation as to his
son. Sometimes he seemed to wish to make Christophe his successor; then
again he spoke of him as a lawyer; but in his heart he was ambitious of
a place for this son as Councillor of the Parliament. He wanted to put
the Lecamus family on a level with those old and celebrated burgher
families from which came the Pasquiers, the Moles, the Mirons, the
Seguiers, Lamoignon, du Tillet, Lecoigneux, Lescalopier, Goix, Arnauld,
those famous sheriffs and grand-provosts of the merchants, among whom
the throne found such strong defenders.

Therefore, in order that Christophe might in due course of time maintain
his rank, he wished to marry him to the daughter of the richest jeweller
in the city, his friend Lallier, whose nephew was destined to present to
Henri IV. the keys of Paris. The strongest desire rooted in the heart
of the worthy burgher was to use half of his fortune and half of that of
the jeweller in the purchase of a large and beautiful seignorial estate,
which, in those days, was a long and very difficult affair. But his
shrewd mind knew the age in which he lived too well to be ignorant of
the great movements which were now in preparation. He saw clearly, and
he saw justly, and knew that the kingdom was about to be divided into
two camps. The useless executions in the Place de l'Estrapade, that
of the king's tailor and the more recent one of the Councillor Anne
du Bourg, the actual connivance of the great lords, and that of the
favorite of Francois I. with the Reformers, were terrible indications.
The furrier resolved to remain, whatever happened, Catholic, royalist,
and parliamentarian; but it s