“I know Christophe,” said Chaudieu, in a positive tone, as he turned to leave the envoy from Geneva.
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 family, Christophe became the object of the most devoted care. Babette, authorized by her father, came very morning and only left the Lecamus household at night. Christophe, the admiration of the apprentices, gave rise throughout the quarter to various tales, which invested him with mysterious poesy. He had borne the worst torture; the celebrated Ambroise Pare was employing all his skill to cure him. What great deed had he done to be thus treated? Neither Christophe nor his father said a word on the subject. Catherine, then all-powerful, was concerned in their silence as well as the Prince de Conde. The constant visits of Pare, now chief surgeon of both the king and the house of Guise, whom the queen-mother and the Lorrains allowed to treat a youth accused of heresy, strangely complicated an affair through which no one saw clearly. Moreover, the rector of Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs came several times to visit the son of his church-warden, and these visits made the causes of Christophe’s present condition still more unintelligible to his neighbors.
The old syndic, who had his plan, gave evasive answers to his brother-furriers, the merchants of the neighborhood, and to all friends who spoke to him of his son: “Yes, I am very thankful to have saved him.”--“Well, you know, it won’t do to put your finger between the bark and the tree.”--“My son touched fire and came near burning up my house.”--“They took advantage of his youth; we burghers get nothing but shame and evil by frequenting the grandees.”--“This affair decides me to make a lawyer of Christophe; the practice of law will teach him to weigh his words and his acts.”--“The young queen, who is now in Scotland, had a great deal to do with it; but then, to be sure, my son may have been imprudent.”--“I have had cruel anxieties.”--“All this may decide me to give up my business; I do not wish ever to go to court again.”--“My son has had enough of the Reformation; it has cracked all his joints. If it had not been for Ambroise, I don’t know what would have become of me.”
