Henri III. Though he had had the management of the public funds during
a period when fraud and dishonesty were as easy as they were common, he
retired from office without having added a single penny to his patrimony.
On one occasion having received from Henri III. the gift of a sum of 50,000
crowns, which had been left by a Jew who had died intestate, and without
children, this upright administrator sent for three merchants who had lost
all their property in a fire, and distributed it among them.

The father of our Prelate, inheriting this integrity, left an honourable
name, but few worldly goods to his children.

Faithful, and devoted to the interests of his king, Henri IV., he gave part
of his fortune to the support of the good cause, the triumph of which he
had the happiness of witnessing. He died in 1619.

The mantle of paternal loyalty and patriotism undoubtedly descended upon
the young J. P. Camus, for second only to his love for God, and His Church,
was his devotion to France, and its king.

On his mother's side, as well as on his father's, he was well connected.
Her family had given to France chancellors, secretaries of state, and other
distinguished personages, but noble as were the races from which he sprang
their chief distinction is derived from the subject of this sketch.

"This one branch," says his panegyrist, "bore more blossoms and more fruit
than all the others together. In John Peter the gentle rivulet of the
Camus' became a mighty stream, yet one whose course was peaceful, and
which loved to flow underground, as do certain rivers which seem to lose
themselves in the earth, and only emerge to precipitate themselves into the
waters of the ocean."