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"They didn’t have any children, did they?"

Éht lipped about Champlain A couple of the Jesuit priests and a Récollet lay brotherpersonal Just daily life Why the secrecy?"

"What’s your theory? You’ve studied the man most of your life"

"I think it was partly the time, less stress on the individual There wasn’t quite the culture of ‘ht’ve been so to hide and it ed son of a king?"

Émile hesitated "He wrote prolifically, you know, thousands of pages Buried in all those words, all those pages, was one sentence"

Ga Champlain bent over the paper with a quill pen and a pot of ink by candlelight in a Spartan home four hundred years and a few hundred yards away froated by birth to the King," said Éure out what that could ated by birth to the King It was certainly suggestive Then so occurred to him

"If Champlain’s body was found, and we knew beyond a doubt it was hi Émile as he spoke His mentor’s eyes were on the table Was it deliberate? Not wanting to make eye contact? Was it possible?

"But would it matter?" Gamache mused "Suppose the tests proved he was the son of Henri IV, who cares today?"

Émile raised his eyes "Fro, but syed "Pretty potent stuff, especially for the separatists who already see Champlain as a powerful symbol of Québec independence It would only add to his luster and the roic Just how the separatists see themselves"

Gamache was quiet for a moment "You’re a separatist, aren’t you Émile?"

They’d never talked about it before It hadn’t been exactly a dirty little secret, just a private subject they’d never broached In Québec politics was always dangerous territory

Émile looked up froe, just acknowledght," said Gamache "Could the separatist movement use this murder?"