Lecamus, the syndic of the guild of furriers, was a handsome old man of sixty, with white hair, and a broad, open brow.  As court furrier for the last forty years, he had witnessed all the revolutions of the reign of Francois I. He had seen the arrival at the French court of the young girl Catherine de’ Medici, then scarcely fifteen years of age.  He had observed her giving way before the Duchesse d’Etampes, her father-in-law’s mistress; giving way before the Duchesse de Valentinois, the mistress of her husband the late king.  But the furrier had brought himself safely through all the chances and changes by which court merchants were often involved in the disgrace and overthrow of mistresses.  His caution led to his good luck.  He maintained an attitude of extreme humility.  Pride had never caught him in its toils.  He made himself so small, so gentle, so compliant, of so little account at court and before the queens and princesses and favorites, that this modesty, combined with good-humor, had kept the royal sign above his door.

Such a policy was, of course, indicative of a shrewd and perspicacious mind.  Humble as Lecamus seemed to the outer world, he was despotic in his own home; there he was an autocrat.  Most respected and honored by his brother craftsmen, he owed to his long possession of the first place in the trade much of the consideration that was shown to him.  He was, besides, very willing to do kindnesses to others, and among the many services he had rendered, none was more striking than the assistance he had long given to the greatest surgeon of the sixteenth century, Ambroise Pare, who owed to him the possibility of studying for his profession.  In all the difficulties which came up among the 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.