"And I will add something more for a house in Paris," said Lallier. "Well, Christophe?" said Babette. "You are talking without the Queen," replied the young lawyer. Some days after this bitter mortification, an apprentice brought this brief note to Christophe: "Chaudieu wishes to see his son." "Bring him in," said Christophe. "O my saint and martyr!" cried the preacher, embracing the young man, "have you got over your sufferings?" "Yes, thanks to Paré." "Thanks to God, who gave you strength to endure them! But what is this I hear? You have passed as a pleader, you have taken the oath of fidelity, you have confessed the Whore, the Catholic, Apostolic, Romish Church." "My father insisted." "But are we not to leave father and mother and children and wife for the sacred cause of Calvinism, and to suffer all things?--Oh, Christophe, Calvin, the great Calvin, the whole party, the whole world, the future counts on your courage and your greatness of soul! We want your life." There is this strange feature in the mind of man: the most devoted, even in the act of devoting himself, always builds up a romance of hope even in the most perilous crisis. Thus, when on the river under the Pont au Change, the prince, the soldier, and the preacher had required Christophe to carry to Queen Catherine the document which, if discovered, would have cost him his life, the boy had trusted to his wit, to chance, to his perspicacity, and had boldly marched on between the two formidable parties--the Guises and the Queen--who had so nearly crushed him. While in the torture-chamber he still had said to himself, "I shall live through it--it is only pain!" But at this brutal command, "Die!" to a man who was still helpless, hardly recovered from the injuries he had suffered, and who clung all the more to life for having seen death so near, it was impossible to indulge in any such illusions. Christophe calmly asked, "What do you want of me?" "To fire a pistol bravely, as Stuart fired at Minard." "At whom?" "The Duc de Guise." "Assassination?" "Revenge!--Have you forgotten the hundred gentlemen massacre on one scaffold! A child, little d'Aubigné, said as he saw the butchery, 'They have beheaded all France.'" "We are to take blows and not to return them, is the teaching of the Gospel," replied Christophe. "If we are to imitate the Catholics, of what use is it to reform the Church?" "Oh, Christophe, they have made a lawyer of you, and you argue!" said Chaudieu. "No, my friend," the youth replied. "But principles are ungrateful, and you and yours will only be the playthings of the House of Bourbon." "Oh, Christophe, if you had only heard Calvin, you would know that we can turn them like a glove! The Bourbons are the glove, and we the hand." "Read this," said Christophe, handing Pibrac's letter to the minister. "Alas, boy! you are ambitious; you can no longer sacrifice yourself;" and Chaudieu went away. * * * * *