"Are you going to puzzle yourself by trying to find out how God means to dispose of things in the future?" said Paré. "Honest folks have but one motto—'Do your duty, come what may.'—I did this at the siege of Calais when I set my foot on the Grand Master; I risked being cut down by all his friends and attendants, and here I am, surgeon to the King; I am a Reformer, and yet I can call the Guises my friends.—I will save the King!" cried the surgeon, with the sacred enthusiasm of conviction that genius knows, "and God will take care of France!"
There was a knock at the door, and a few minutes later one of Ambroise Paré's servants gave a note to Lecamus, who read aloud these ominous words:
"A scaffold is being erected at the Convent of the Récollets for the beheading of the Prince de Condé to-morrow."
Ambroise and Lecamus looked at each other, both overpowered with horror.
"I will go and make sure," said the furrier.
Out on the square, Ruggieri took Lecamus by the arm, asking what was Paré's secret for saving the King; but the old man, fearing some treachery, insisted on going to see the scaffold. So the astrologer and the furrier went together to the Récollets, where, in fact, they found carpenters at work by torchlight.
"Hey day, my friend," said Lecamus to one of them; "what business is this?"
"We are preparing to hang some heretics, since the bleeding at Amboise did not cure them," said a young friar, who was superintending the workmen.
"Monseigneur the Cardinal does well," said the prudent Ruggieri. "But in my country we do even better."
"What do you do?"