onde, 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 fa