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Hearing the words, a man rose to his feet and answered, "Ready to serve!" the password of the Reformers who belonged to Calvin. This man was Chaudieu, to whom Tourillon now related the events of the last eight days, during which time he had prudently left the minister alone in his hiding-place with a twelve-pound loaf of bread for his sole nourishment.

"Duplessis-Mornay and Theodore de Beze will speak on our side," replied Chaudieu. "The court will doubtless go to Saint-Germain, and as it would be improper that this colloquy should take place in a royal residence, we will have it in the little town of Poissy," said Catherine. "Shall we be safe there, madame?" asked Chaudieu.

Calvin, de Beze, and Chaudieu were mounting the steep steps of the upper town in the midst of a crowd, but the crowd paid not the slightest attention to the men who were unchaining the mobs of other cities and preparing them to ravage France. After this terrible tirade, the three marched on in silence till they entered the little place Saint-Pierre and turned toward the pastor's house.

A shrewd glance was the cardinal's only answer; showing his brother that he fully understood the advantages to be gained from Catherine's false position. "Who sent you here?" said the duke to Christophe. "Chaudieu, the minister," he replied. "Young man, you lie!" said the soldier, sharply; "it was the Prince de Conde." "The Prince de Conde, monseigneur!" replied Christophe, with a puzzled look.

"The son of my furrier was actually sublime." "We have faith," replied Chaudieu. At this moment the hall presented a scene of animated groups, all discussing the question of the proposed assembly, to which the few words said by the queen had already given the name of the "Colloquy of Poissy." Catherine glanced at Chaudieu and was able to say to him unheard: "Yes, a new faith!"

"Go instantly to the Prince de Conde, brother: ask him to give me a safe-conduct; and find me a horse," cried the minister. "I must start at once." "Write me a line, or he will not receive me." "Here," said Chaudieu, after writing a few words, "ask for a pass from the king of Navarre, for I must go to Geneva without a moment's loss of time."

"My child," said Chaudieu, in the Huguenot style of address, "we are about to do battle for the first time with the Roman prostitute. In a few days either our legions will be dying on the scaffold, or the Guises will be dead. This is the first call to arms on behalf of our religion in France, and France will not lay down those arms till they have conquered.

"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.

"This, my child," resumed Chaudieu, observing a sort of terror in Christophe, "this it is which compels us to conquer by arms instead of conquering by conviction and by martyrdom. The queen-mother is on the point of entering into our views. Not that she means to abjure; she has not reached that decision as yet; but she may be forced to it by our triumph.

"In giving them to you he must have told you whether the queen-mother would receive you with pleasure?" "He told me nothing of that kind," said Christophe. "He merely asked me to give them to Queen Catherine secretly." "You must have seen Chaudieu frequently, or he would not have known that you were going to Blois."