"
"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.
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