Parliament to whom public opinion attributed the largest share in the
execution of Councillor Anne du Bourg; who was burned on the place de
Greve after the king's tailor--to whom Henri II. and Diane de Poitiers
had caused the torture of the "question" to be applied in their very
presence. Paris was so closely watched that the archers compelled all
passers along the street to pray before the shrines of the Madonna so
as to discover heretics by their unwillingness or even refusal to do
an act contrary to their beliefs.

The two archers who were stationed at the corner of the Lecamus house
had departed, and Cristophe, son of the furrier, vehemently suspected
of deserting Catholicism, was able to leave the shop without fear of
being made to adore the Virgin. By seven in the evening, in April,
1560, darkness was already falling, and the apprentices, seeing no
signs of customers on either side of the arcade, were beginning to
take in the merchandise exposed as samples beneath the pillars, in
order to close the shop. Christophe Lecamus, an ardent young man about
twenty-two years old, was standing on the sill of the shop-door,
apparently watching the apprentices.

"Monsieur," said one of them, addressing Christophe and pointing to a
man who was walking to and fro under the gallery with an air of
indecision, "perhaps that's a thief or a spy; anyhow, the shabby
wretch can't be an honest man; if he wanted to speak to us he would
come over frankly, instead of sidling along as he does--and what a
face!" continued the apprentice, mimicking the man, "with his nose in
his cloak, his yellow eyes, and that famished look!"

When the stranger thus described caught sight of Christophe alone on
the door-sill, he suddenly left the opposite gallery where he was then