This question Christophe put to himself almost involuntarily as he remembered the tone in which she had said the words, _Povero mio_! It is difficult to believe how egotistical a man can become when he lies on a bed of sickness. Everything, even the exclusive devotion of which he is the object, drives him to think only of himself. By exaggerating in his own mind the obligation which the Prince de Conde was under to him he had come to expect that some office would be given to him at the court of Navarre. Still new to the world of political life, he forgot its contending interests and the rapid march of events which control and force the hand of all leaders of parties; he forgot it the more because he was practically a prisoner in solitary confinement on his bed in that old brown room. Each party is, necessarily, ungrateful while the struggle lasts; when it triumphs it has too many persons to reward not to be ungrateful still. Soldiers submit to this ingratitude; but their leaders turn against the new master at whose side they have acted and suffered like equals for so long. Christophe, who alone remembered his sufferings, felt himself already among the leaders of the Reformation by the fact of his martyrdom. His father, that old fox of commerce, so shrewd, so perspicacious, ended by divining the secret thought of his son; consequently, all his manoeuvres were now based on the natural expectancy to which Christophe had yielded himself. “Wouldn’t it be a fine thing,” he had said to Babette, in presence of the family a few days before his interview with his son, “to be the wife of a counsellor of the Parliament? You would be called _madame_!” “You are crazy, _compere_,” said Lallier. “Where would you get ten thousand crowns’ income from landed property, which a counsellor must have, according to law; and from whom could you buy the office? No one but the queen-mother and regent could help your son into Parliament, and I’m afraid he’s too tainted with the new opinions for that.” “What would you pay to see your daughter the wife of a counsellor?” “Ah! you want to look into my purse, shrewd-head!” said Lallier. Counsellor to the Parliament! The words worked powerfully in Christophe’s brain. Sometime after this conversation, one morning when Christophe was gazing at the river and thinking of the scene which began this history, of the Prince de Conde, Chaudieu, La Renaudie, of his journey to Blois,--in short, the whole story of his hopes,--his father came and sat down beside him, scarcely concealing a joyful thought beneath a serious manner. “My son,” he said, “after what passed between you and the leaders of the Tumult of Amboise, they owe you enough to make the care of your future incumbent on the house of Navarre.” “Yes,” replied Christophe.