cidity in his mind, and who, after enduring
such unspeakable sufferings, was determined not to compromise the
results of his devotion. "But she might have spared me much agony be
telling my persecutors herself the secrets that I know nothing about,
instead of urging them on."

Hearing that reply, the doctor took his cap and cloak and left
Christophe, rightly judging that he could worm nothing out of a man of
that stamp. The jailer of Blois now ordered the poor lad to be carried
away on a stretcher by four men, who took him to the prison in the town,
where Christophe immediately fell into the deep sleep which, they say,
comes to most mothers after the terrible pangs of childbirth.

IX. THE TUMULT AT AMBOISE

By moving the court to the chateau of Amboise, the two Lorrain princes
intended to set a trap for the leader of the party of the Reformation,
the Prince de Conde, whom they had made the king summon to his presence.
As vassal of the Crown and prince of the blood, Conde was bound to obey
the summons of his sovereign. Not to come to Amboise would constitute
the crime of treason; but if he came, he put himself in the power of the
Crown. Now, at this moment, as we have seen, the Crown, the council, the
court, and all their powers were solely in the hands of the Duc de
Guise and the Cardinal de Lorraine. The Prince de Conde showed, at this
delicate crisis, a presence of mind and a decision and willingness which
made him the worthy exponent of Jeanne d'Albret and the valorous general
of the Reformers. He travelled at the rear of the conspirators as far
as Vendome, intending to support them in case of their success. When
the first uprising ended by a brief skirmish, in which the flower of
the nobility beguiled by Calvin perished, the prince arrived, with fifty
noblemen, at the chateau of Amboise on the very day after that fight,
which the politic Guises termed "the Tumult of Amboise." As soon as
the duke and cardinal heard of his coming they sent the Marechal de
Saint-Andre with an escort of a hundred men to meet him. When the prince
and his own escort reached the gates of the chateau the marechal refused
entrance to the latter.

"You must enter alone, monseigneur," said the Chancellor Olivier, the
Cardinal de Tournon, and Birago, who were stationed outside of the
portcullis.

"And why?"

"You are suspected of treason," replied the chancellor.

The prince, who saw that his suite were already surrounded by the t