The duchess smiled disdainfully.
"What are you whispering there?" said François.
"Madame la Duchesse d'Etampes," Benvenuto replied, "was obliging enough to remind me that your Majesty had promised to grant me a boon in case you were content with my work."
"And the promise was made in my presence, Sire," said the constable, coming forward; "in my presence and Chancelier Poyet's. Indeed, you bade my colleague and myself remind you—"
"True, constable," interposed the king, good-humoredly; "true, if I failed to remember myself; but I remember famously, on my word! So your intervention, while it is perfectly agreeable to me, is quite useless. I promised Benvenuto to grant whatever boon he might ask when his Jupiter was cast. Was not that it, constable? Have I a good memory, chancellor? It is for you to speak, Master Cellini: I am at your service; but I beg you to think less of your own merit, which is immense, than of our power, which is limited; we make no reservations, saving our crown and our mistress."
"Very good, Sire," said Cellini, "since your Majesty is so well disposed toward your unworthy servitor, I will ask for the pardon of a poor student, who fell into a dispute upon the Quai du Châtelet with the Vicomte de Marmagne, and in self-defence passed his sword through the viscount's body."
Every one marvelled at the moderation of his request, and Madame d'Etampes most of all; she gazed at Benvenuto with an air of stupefaction, and as if she thought that she could not have heard aright.
"By Mahomet's belly!" exclaimed François, "you do well to invoke my right of pardon in that matter, for I heard the chancellor himself say yesterday that it was a hanging affair."
"Oh, Sire!" cried the duchess, "I intended to speak to you myself concerning that young man. I have had news of Marmagne, who is improving, and who sent word to me that he sought the quarrel, and the student—What is the student's name, Master Benvenuto?"
"Jacques Aubry, Madame la Duchesse."