pont au Change the question was strangely complicated by the ambitions
of the Guises, who were rivalling the Bourbons. Thus the Crown,
represented by Catherine de' Medici, was able to sustain the struggle
for thirty years by pitting the one house against the other house;
whereas later, the Crown, instead of standing between various jealous
ambitions, found itself without a barrier, face to face with the
people: Richelieu and Louis XIV. had broken down the barrier of the
Nobility; Louis XV. had broken down that of the Parliaments. Alone
before the people, as Louis XVI. was, a king must inevitably succumb.

Christophe Lecamus was a fine representative of the ardent and devoted
portion of the people. His wan face had the sharp hectic tones which
distinguish certain fair complexions; his hair was yellow, of a
coppery shade; his gray-blue eyes were sparkling. In them alone was
his fine soul visible; for his ill-proportioned face did not atone for
its triangular shape by the noble mien of an elevated mind, and his
low forehead indicated only extreme energy. Life seemed to centre in
his chest, which was rather hollow. More nervous than sanguine,
Cristophe's bodily appearance was thin and threadlike, but wiry. His
pointed noise expressed the shrewdness of the people, and his
countenance revealed an intelligence capable of conducting itself well
on a single point of the circumference, without having the faculty of
seeing all around it. His eyes, the arching brows of which, scarcely
covered with a whitish down, projected like an awning, were strongly
circled by a pale-blue band, the skin being white and shining at the
spring of the nose,--a sign which almost always denotes excessive
enthusiasm. Christophe was of the people,--the people who devote
themselves, who fight for their devotions, who let themselves be
inveigled and betrayed; intelligent enough to comprehend and serve an
idea, too upright to turn it to his own account, too noble to sell