"I remember. What then?"
"The moment is at hand, monseigneur, when I shall implore you to provide a memory for the king. Will you do it?"
"Is that what you come here to ask me, monsieur?" cried the constable; "have you intruded upon me to beg me to do something I am bound to do?"
"Monseigneur!"
"You're an impertinent fellow, Master Goldsmith. Understand that the Connétable Anne de Montmorency does not need to be reminded to be an honorable man. The king bade me remember for him, and that is a precaution he might well take more frequently, with all due respect; I shall do as he bade me, even though the reminder be annoying to him. Adieu, Master Cellini, and make room for others."
With that the constable turned his back on Benvenuto, and gave the signal for another petitioner to be introduced.
Benvenuto saluted the constable, whose somewhat brutal frankness was not displeasing to him, and took his leave. Still agitated, and impelled by the same feverish excitement and the same burning thoughts, he betook himself to the abode of Chancelier Poyet, near Porte Saint-Antoine, only a short distance away.
Chancelier Poyet formed a most striking and complete contrast, moral and physical, to Anne de Montmorency, who was always crabbed and always incased in armor from head to foot. He was polished, shrewd, crafty, buried in his furs, lost, so to speak, in the ermine. Naught could be seen of him save a bald head surrounded by a grizzly fringe of hair, intelligent, restless eyes, thin lips, and a white hand. He was quite as honest perhaps as the constable, but much less outspoken.
There again Benvenuto was forced to wait for half an hour. But his friends would not have recognized him; he had accustomed himself to waiting.
"Monseigneur," he said, when he was at last ushered into the chancellor's presence, "I have come to remind you of a promise the king made me in your presence, and constituted you not only the witness thereof but the guarantor."