第89章 COMPENSATION(3)
"Thanks rather to God, who gave you the strength to endure the torture. But what is this I hear? Have you allowed them to make you a solicitor? Have you taken the oath of fidelity? Surely you will not recognize that prostitute, the Roman, Catholic, and apostolic Church?""My father wished it."
"But ought we not to leave fathers and mothers and wives and children, all, all, for the sacred cause of Calvinism; nay, must we not suffer all things? Ah! Christophe, Calvin, the great Calvin, the whole party, the whole world, the Future counts upon your courage and the grandeur of your soul. We want your life."It is a remarkable fact in the mind of man that the most devoted spirits, even while devoting themselves, build romantic hopes upon their perilous enterprises. When the prince, the soldier, and the minister had asked Christophe, under the bridge, to convey to Catherine the treaty which, if discovered, would in all probability cost him his life, the lad had relied on his nerve, upon chance, upon the powers of his mind, and confident in such hopes he bravely, nay, audaciously put himself between those terrible adversaries, the Guises and Catherine. During the torture he still kept saying to himself: "Ishall come out of it! it is only pain!" But when this second and brutal demand, "Die, we want your life," was made upon a boy who was still almost helpless, scarcely recovered from his late torture, and clinging all the more to life because he had just seen death so near, it was impossible for him to launch into further illusions.
Christophe answered quietly:--
"What is it now?"
"To fire a pistol courageously, as Stuart did on Minard.""On whom?"
"The Duc de Guise."
"A murder?"
"A vengeance. Have you forgotten the hundred gentlemen massacred on the scaffold at Amboise? A child who saw that butchery, the little d'Aubigne cried out, 'They have slaughtered France!'""You should receive the blows of others and give none; that is the religion of the gospel," said Christophe. "If you imitate the Catholics in their cruelty, of what good is it to reform the Church?""Oh! Christophe, they have made you a lawyer, and now you argue!" said Chaudieu.
"No, my friend," replied the young man, "but parties are ungrateful;and you will be, both you and yours, nothing more than puppets of the Bourbons.""Christophe, if you could hear Calvin, you would know how we wear them like gloves! The Bourbons are the gloves, we are the hand.""Read that," said Christophe, giving Chaudieu Pibrac's letter containing the answer of the Prince de Conde.
"Oh! my son; you are ambitious, you can no longer make the sacrifice of yourself!--I pity you!"With those fine words Chaudieu turned and left him.
Some days after that scene, the Lallier family and the Lecamus family were gathered together in honor of the formal betrothal of Christophe and Babette, in the old brown hall, from which Christophe's bed had been removed; for he was now able to drag himself about and even mount the stairs without his crutches. It was nine o'clock in the evening and the company were awaiting Ambroise Pare. The family notary sat before a table on which lay various contracts. The furrier was selling his house and business to his head-clerk, who was to pay down forty thousand francs for the house and then mortgage it as security for the payment of the goods, for which, however, he paid twenty thousand francs on account.
Lecamus was also buying for his son a magnificent stone house, built by Philibert de l'Orme in the rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs, which he gave to Christophe as a marriage portion. He also took two hundred thousand francs from his own fortune, and Lallier gave as much more, for the purchase of a fine seignorial manor in Picardy, the price of which was five hundred thousand francs. As this manor was a tenure from the Crown it was necessary to obtain letters-patent (called /rescriptions/) granted by the king, and also to make payment to the Crown of considerable feudal dues. The marriage had been postponed until this royal favor was obtained. Though the burghers of Paris had lately acquired the right to purchase manors, the wisdom of the privy council had been exercised in putting certain restrictions on the sale of those estates which were dependencies of the Crown; and the one which old Lecamus had had in his eye for the last dozen years was among them. Ambroise was pledged to bring the royal ordinance that evening; and the old furrier went and came from the hall to the door in a state of impatience which showed how great his long-repressed ambition had been. Ambroise at last appeared.
"My old friend!" cried the surgeon, in an agitated manner, with a glance at the supper table, "let me see your linen. Good. Oh! you must have wax candles. Quick, quick! get out your best things!""Why? what is it all about?" asked the rector of Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs.
"The queen-mother and the young king are coming to sup with you,"replied the surgeon. "They are only waiting for an old counsellor who agreed to sell his place to Christophe, and with whom Monsieur de Thou has concluded a bargain. Don't appear to know anything; I have escaped from the Louvre to warn you."In a second the whole family were astir; Christophe's mother and Babette's aunt bustled about with the celerity of housekeepers suddenly surprised. But in spite of the apparent confusion into which the news had thrown the entire family, the precautions were promptly made, with an activity that was nothing short of marvellous.
Christophe, amazed and confounded by such a favor, was speechless, gazing mechanically at what went on.
"The queen and king here in our house!" said the old mother.