at he had something to say.
Catherine stopped, made a gesture to the father and the two women to
leave her, and said, turning to Christophe:

"What is it?"

"It may serve you to know, madame," replied Christophe, whispering in
her ear, "that the Duc de Guise is being followed by assassins."

"You are a loyal subject," said Catherine, smiling, "and I shall never
forget you."

She held out to him her hand, so celebrated for its beauty, first
ungloving it, which was indeed a mark of favor,--so much so that
Christophe, then and there, became altogether royalist as he kissed that
adorable hand.

"So they mean to rid me of that bully without my having a finger in it,"
thought she as she replaced her glove.

Then she mounted her mule and returned to the Louvre, attended by her
two pages.

Christophe went back to the supper-table, but was thoughtful and gloomy
even while he drank; the fine, austere face of Ambroise Pare seemed
to reproach him for his apostasy. But subsequent events justified
the manoeuvres of the old syndic. Christophe would certainly not have
escaped the massacre of Saint-Bartholomew; his wealth and his landed
estates would have made him a mark for the murderers. History has
recorded the cruel fate of the wife of Lallier's successor, a beautiful
woman, whose naked body hung by the hair for three days from one of the
buttresses of the Pont au Change. Babette trembled as she thought
that she, too, might have endured the same treatment if Christophe
had continued a Calvinist,--for such became the name of the Reformers.
Calvin's personal ambition was thus gratified, though not until after
his death.

Such was the origin of the celebrated parliamentary house of Lecamus.
Tallemant des Reaux is in error when he states that they came originally
from Picardy. It is only true that the Lecamus family found it for their
interest in after days to date from the time the old furrier bought
their principal estate, which, as we have said, was situated in Picardy.
Christophe's son, who succeeded him under Louis XIII., was the father of
the rich president Lecamus who built, in the reign of Louis XIV., that
magnificent mansion which shares with the hotel Lambert the admiration
of Parisians and foreigners, and was assuredly one of the finest
buildings in Paris. It may still be seen in the rue Thorigny, though at
the beginning of the Revolution it was pillaged as having belonged to
Monsieur de Juigne, the archbishop of P