As for Jacques des Horloges, he showed little sign of increased age; the clockmaker’s hair was gray now, and there were lines on his brow, but he bore himself with the same appearance of muscular strength, and Madame Michel did not look a day older. Her broad brown face was as smooth as ever, and her glossy black hair was still put back under a large white cap. M. de Turenne was dead, but a lineal descendant still sat in the corner by the great jacquemart.
Since Péron entered the household of Richelieu, there had been much recourse to the shop at the sign of Ste. Geneviève, and when the Palais Cardinal was built it was Michel who furnished the clocks. It was from the Rue de la Ferronnerie that the cardinal obtained the huge clock which stood in one of the smaller salons of the palace; and a famous clock it was, made for Catharine de’ Medici and especially framed to serve the secret purposes of the Italian queen. The dial was of silver, inlaid with gold, and it was surmounted by a silver angel with a trumpet which sounded the hours. The case of the clock was so tall and so broad that a man could stand within it without interfering with the working of the machinery. It was of polished wood inlaid with brass, and there was a small aperture in the door, which could be closed or not, at will, by a slide, so cunningly contrived that it seemed but part of the pattern of brass-work which ornamented the clock,—a strange clock, which had served a double purpose, telling the time and concealing spies, both in the Louvre and the Hôtel de la Reine. It had a strange history: it struck the hour for the bell of St. Germain l’Auxerrois to toll the signal for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; it counted the minutes before the murder of Henri de Guise, and it was throbbing out the measure of time when Henri Quatre was dying. Through Jacques des Horloges it came to stand at last in an apartment of the Palais Cardinal; not in the salon where Richelieu held his court, not in the anterooms crowded with the eager clients of the great minister, but in a long, narrow room overlooking the Rue des Bons Enfants, which was reached by a gallery leading to the entrance of the eastern wing; a room where the cardinal received persons of all conditions who came to him, voluntarily or involuntarily, on secret missions. Here the sting of many a traitor was drawn, the key of many a plot was disclosed, the secrets of the queen-mother were drawn skilfully from her agents. The room was hung with crimson velvet; the chair of the cardinal stood facing the clock of Catharine de’ Medici, and his visitor either stood or sat directly in front of the clock. Only one door to the apartment was visible, and that opened into the gallery; there was another, but it was hidden by the hangings, and it closed the way to the private rooms of Father Joseph la Tremblaye.
It was in this room that Péron stood, waiting the orders of the cardinal. He had been summoned there at an early hour to wait until Richelieu gave him some personal instructions. He had been employed on many missions by his great patron, and he did not regard the occasion as unusual. He stood looking up at the clock, for it recalled many recollections of his childhood on the Rue de la Ferronnerie. He had been a handsome boy and he was a handsome man, with a strong, lithe figure and a face of unusually regular beauty. His glossy hair was parted in the middle and fell in curls to his shoulders, after the fashion of the day. He wore the rich uniform of the cardinal’s musketeers, a wide collar of heavy lace around his throat and ruffles of lace at his wrists. Many thoughts of his humble and lonely childhood, of his training under Condé’s patronage, of his sudden transfer to the household of Richelieu, were passing through the young soldier’s mind. He remembered how the figure of the Bishop of Luçon had fascinated his childish mind; he remembered the beauty of the Princesse de Condé, and the face of Leonora Galigai, the wife of the hapless Maréchal d’Ancre.
He was walking up and down the room when the hangings were put aside, and Richelieu entered alone. His musketeer saluted and came to an attitude of attention not far from his chair. Time had wrought changes in the ruler of France. The pale Italian face had lost none of its keenness, its inscrutable calm; his moustache and chin tuft were still black, but the years had touched his hair with white. He wore his red robe with a cape of priceless lace, and a small red cap on his head; and he moved slowly to his seat. He did not speak for some time after he sat down, but folded and endorsed some papers on the table at his side; then he put them away, and looked up at the young man who stood waiting his pleasure. His first question, though asked in cold and deliberate tones, startled Péron.
“Are you fully armed?” he asked.
“I have my dagger and a pistol, as your eminence can see,” Péron replied, laying his hand on his weapons.
“It is well,” said the cardinal, and he glanced at the clock; “in an hour I shall have a visitor, and I shall receive him alone,—alone, mark you, though I know him to be a violent and dangerous man. There will be no guards in the gallery nor on the stairs; but you see the clock, and doubtless you know its secret. It is my wish that you conceal yourself in that clock; from where it stands you can see every motion of my hand: if I raise it thus to my chin, seize and disarm the visitor; if, however, he makes a sudden attack upon me, before I have time to signal, you know your duty.”
“I know it, monsignor,” Péron said quietly, casting a strange glance of interest at the great clock.
Richelieu saw it, and for a few moments his stern dark eyes studied the young musketeer, and then a slight smile flickered on his inscrutable face.
“You have been with me now many years,” he remarked, speaking slowly; “I remember that you told me you had no name but Péron.”