merchants Lecamus was always conciliating. Thus a general good opinion
of him consolidated his position among his equals; while his borrowed
characteristics kept him steadily in favor with the court.

Not only this, but having intrigued for the honor of being on the
vestry of his parish church, he did what was necessary to bring him
into the odor of sanctity with the rector of Saint-Pierre aux Boeufs,
who looked upon him as one of the men most devoted to the Catholic
religion in Paris. Consequently, at the time of the convocation of the
States-General he was unanimously elected to represent the /tiers
etat/ through the influence of the clergy of Paris,--an influence
which at that period was immense. This old man was, in short, one of
those secretly ambitious souls who will bend for fifty years before
all the world, gliding from office to office, no one exactly knowing
how it came about that he was found securely and peacefully seated at
last where no man, even the boldest, would have had the ambition at
the beginning of life to fancy himself; so great was the distance, so
many the gulfs and the precipices to cross! Lecamus, who had immense
concealed wealth, would not run any risks, and was silently preparing
a brilliant future for his son. Instead of having the personal
ambition which sacrifices the future to the present, he had family
ambition,--a lost sentiment in our time, a sentiment suppressed by the
folly of our laws of inheritance. Lecamus saw himself first president
of the Parliament of Paris in the person of his grandson.

Christophe, godson of the famous historian de Thou, was given a most
solid education; but it had led him to doubt and to the spirit of
examination which was then affecting both the Faculties and the
students of the universities. Christophe was, at the period of which
we are now writing, pursuing his studies for the bar, that first step