Parlez vouz pierre tombale?

The trip to Paris was uneventful. He drank some coffee ate a croissant and looked out the window as the train ripped through the lands. It was a view he had seen before, he had taken the trip before. Yet the trip seemed to relax him. He noticed the people on the train, one woman gave him a nice smile, he smiled back, tourists and elderly as well as some business types. He relaxed and thought of the letter. He had read up on Aion, there was a lot he never knew. His divinity, his mastery of time. The mirror had given him a few more things. The proof that Euripides got some of the settings of Aion from Sappho; these papers showed that Sappho was told about Aion by one of the muses. The writing was highly poetic yet the papers tell of the muse telling her that time is no friend, it does not care and it merely moves by the graces of Aion. The writing was more descriptive, but the information was clear. In this he has absolutely no idea how Jacques III Thuret fitted into all this. His family had become famous for the clocks made, and they were amazing. He found however no information of any watch that was made by Jacques III Thuret. The trip took a little under 2 and a half hours and when he got off at the Gare du Nord station he knew as much as he was going to learn. As he brooded over the watch and over Jacques III Thuret his other sight looked at the streets and at the objects in the city. He stared at the Eiffel tower but he didn’t see anything. And he started to think on the ‘somewhere obvious’ part. Jacques III Thuret died in 1738, long before that doohickey was build. Then he thought of the places that were important in 1738. There was the Place Vendôme, the Place de la Concorde, the Champs-Élysées, the church of Les Invalides, and the Panthéon. All obvious places. There was the consideration of the late baroque church of Saint-Roch at 196 rue Saint-Honoré (1738–1839), but it wasn’t finished until Jacques III Thuret was dead and buried. He suddenly stopped. Buried! If something was that important, he would take it with him to the grave. That was the obvious place! And after a few searches  he found that he was placed in the Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis Church on rue Saint-Antoine in the Marais quarter of Paris. It was a bit of a walk, but he enjoyed walks so he set course due south on the Bd de Magenta, after he got to the plaza he took the Rue de Turenne, when he got to the end he looked to the right and there was the church, but he also felt like having more than a croissant, as such as he observed the Comptoir des Mers he entered, got a table, ordered a Filet de Sole some local grape juice. He considered asking fr a California wine, but the French were not the humorous at times. He took his time to eat, it was getting closer to 7pm and he had a few hours. As he finished the meal and paid he smiled at the waitress who really smiled at him and walked out. He looked around the church and there was nothing really visible. He took his time to walk around taking in all the details, all the options to enter. There was security, but nothing worth considering. It was a church after all. During the second walk around he saw what he needed to see, he carefully looked around and saw nothing. He turned to the church and saw the opening on the second floor. He had become very accustomed with gravity and he climbed up the side with merely his two hands, it was like he was weightless. He entered the church listening for any presence of people, there weren’t any. He looked again and he saw nothing. He floated down and saw steps leading down. He took them and went through the door, it led to a corridor, then another and another and more steps down. There he saw a room with grave stones. It took a minute until he got to the stone of Jacques III Thuret, he stared and focussed. He saw nothing. So he summoned his bident and got the tips on 2 sides of the corner, he slowly pushed, careful not to make too much damage. He lifted the stone, then grabbed the stone and slowly lifted the stone. He had hi hands on the long sides of the stone and slowly lifted it and walked to the wall where he placed the stone. He then walked to the hole and saw the coffin, something shiny was there, he lifted the coffin and saw the dead and mummified remains of Jacques III Thuret, he saw the shine in his vest pocket. He reached out and grabbed the watch. He saw it was different, but he quickly put it in a leather pouch and paced it in his coat. It took a minute to place the stone back and he took special care for it to be in exactly the same place. He saw the two points of his bident, but they were small enough for people not to notice them, he then got some of the dust of the other stones and rubbed it over the stone edges and into the two small points. Under normal conditions no one would know anyone was ever there.

He walked away and slowly made his way out of the church and out of Paris. He had to think and he decided on a different course. He took the Eurostar to Rotterdam, booked a room in the Hilton and stayed the night. He went to his room, which was a lovely suite, the chair looked comfortable, so he sat down and opened the pouch.

Part 2

To Be Continued.

Yes, I am that mean at times