第91章 COMPENSATION(5)

"I accept it, my good man," cried Charles IX.; "and it shall henceforth be my particular drinking cup.""It is beautiful enough," said the queen, examining the masterpiece, "to be included among the crown-jewels. Well, Maitre Ambroise," she whispered in the surgeon's ear, with a glance at Christophe, "have you taken good care of him? Will he walk again?""He will run," replied the surgeon, smiling. "Ah! you have cleverly made him a renegade.""Ha!" said the queen, with the levity for which she has been blamed, though it was only on the surface, "the Church won't stand still for want of one monk!"The supper was gay; the queen thought Babette pretty, and, in the regal manner which was natural to her, she slipped upon the girl's finger a diamond ring which compensated in value for the goblet bestowed upon the king. Charles IX., who afterwards became rather too fond of these invasions of burgher homes, supped with a good appetite.

Then, at a word from his new governor (who, it is said, was instructed to make him forget the virtuous teachings of Cypierre), he obliged all the men present to drink so deeply that the queen, observing that the gaiety was about to become too noisy, rose to leave the room. As she rose, Christophe, his father, and the two women took torches and accompanied her to the shop-door. There Christophe ventured to touch the queen's wide sleeve and to make her a sign that 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 Paris. All the decorations were then destroyed; and the tenants who lodge there have greatly damaged it; nevertheless this palace, which is reached through the old house in the rue de la Pelleterie, still shows the noble results obtained in former days by the spirit of family. It may be doubted whether modern individualism, brought about by the equal division of inheritances, will ever raise such noble buildings.