"Who's there?" he demanded.
"I," the messenger replied.
"Who art thou?" rejoined the goldsmith, although he recognized his man at once.
"Pompeo."
"Thou liest," said Benvenuto; "I know Pompeo well, and he is far too great a coward to venture out into the streets of Rome at this hour."
"But, my dear Cellini, I swear—"
"Hold thy peace! thou art a villain, and hast taken the poor devil's name to induce me to open my door, and then to rob me."
"Master Benvenuto, may I die—"
"Say but another word," cried Benvenuto, pointing the arquebus toward his interlocutor, "and that wish of thine will be gratified."
Pompeo fled at full speed, crying "Murder!" and disappeared around the corner of the nearest street.
Benvenuto thereupon closed his window, hung his arquebus on its nail, and went to bed once more, laughing in his beard at poor Pompeo's fright.
The next morning, as he went down to his shop, which had been opened an hour earlier by his apprentices, he spied Pompeo on the opposite side of the street, where he had been doing sentry duty since daybreak, waiting to see him descend.
As soon as he saw Cellini, Pompeo waved his hand to him in the most affectionately friendly way imaginable.
"Aha!" said Cellini, "is it you, my dear Pompeo? By my faith! I was within an ace last night of making a churl pay dearly for his insolence in assuming your name."
"Indeed!" said Pompeo, forcing himself to smile, and drawing gradually nearer to the shop; "how did it happen, pray?"
Benvenuto thereupon described the incident to his Holiness's messenger; but as his friend Benvenuto had described him in their nocturnal interview as a coward, Pompeo did not dare confess his identity with the visitor. When his tale was finished, Cellini asked Pompeo to what happy circumstance he was indebted for the honor of so early a visit from him.
Pompeo thereupon acquitted himself, but in somewhat different terms, be it understood, of the errand upon which Clement VII. had sent him to his goldsmith. Benvenuto's features expanded as he proceeded. Clement VII. yielded;ergothe goldsmith had been more obstinate than the Pope.
"Say to his Holiness," said Benvenuto, when the message was duly delivered, "that I shall be very happy to obey him, and to do anything in my power to regain his favor, which I have lost, not by any fault of my own, but through the evil machinations of envious rivals. As for yourself, Signore Pompeo, as the Pope does not lack retainers, I counsel you, in your own interest, to look to it that another than you is sent to me hereafter; for your health's sake, Signore Pompeo, interfere no more in my affairs; in pity for yourself, never happen in my path, and for the welfare of my soul, Pompeo, pray God that I be not your Cæsar."
Pompeo waited to hear no more, but returned to Clement VII. with Cellini's reply, of which, however, he suppressed the peroration.
Some time thereafter, in order to put the seal to his reconciliation with Benvenuto, Clement VII. ordered his medallion struck by him. Benvenuto struck it in bronze, in silver, and in gold, and then carried it to him. The Pope was so enraptured with it that he cried out in his admiration, that so beautiful a medallion had never been produced by the ancients.
"Ah, well, your Holiness," said Benvenuto, "had not I displayed some firmness, we should have been at enmity to-day; for I would never have forgiven you, and you would have lost a devoted servant. Look you, Holy Bather," he continued, by way of good counsel, "your Holiness would not do ill to remember now and then the opinion of many discreet folk, that one should bleed seven times before cutting once, and you would do well also to allow yourself to be something less easily made the dupe of lying tongues and envious detractors; so much for your guidance in future, and we will say no more about it, Most Holy Father."
Thus did Benvenuto pardon Clement VII., which he certainly would not have done had he loved him less; but, as his compatriot, he was deeply attached to him. Great, therefore, was his sorrow when the Pope suddenly died, a few months subsequent to the episode we have described. The man of iron burst into tears at the news, and for a week he wept like a child. The Pontiff's demise was doubly calamitous to poor Cellini. On the very day of his burial he met Pompeo, whom he had not seen since the day when he bade him spare him the too frequent infliction of his presence.
It should be said that since Cellini's dire threats, the unhappy Pompeo had not dared to go out unless accompanied by a dozen men well armed, to whom he gave the same pay that the Pope gave his Swiss Guards; so that every walk that he took in the city cost him two or three crowns. And even when surrounded by his twelve sbirri, he trembled at the thought of meeting Benvenuto Cellini, for he knew that if the meeting should result in an affray, and any mishap should befall the goldsmith, the Pope, who was really very fond of him, would make him, Pompeo, pay dearly for it. But, as we have said, Clement VII. was dead, and his death restored some little courage to Pompeo.
Benvenuto had been to St. Peter's to kiss the feet of the deceased Pontiff, and was returning through the street Dei Banchi, accompanied by Pagolo and Ascanio, when he found himself face to face with Pompeo and his twelve men. At the sight of his enemy, Pompeo became very pale; but as he looked around and saw how amply provided he was with defenders, while Benvenuto had only two boys with him, he took heart of grace, halted, and nodded his head mockingly, while he toyed with the hilt of his dagger with his right hand.
At sight of this group of men by whom his master was threatened, Ascanio put his hand to his sword, while Pagolo pretended to be looking in another direction; but Benvenuto did not choose to expose his beloved pupil to so unequal a conflict. He laid his hand upon Ascanio's, pushing the half-drawn blade back into the scabbard, and walked on as if he had seen nothing, or as if he had taken no offence at what he saw. Ascanio could hardly recognize his master in such guise, but as his master withdrew, he withdrew with him.
Pompeo triumphantly made a deep salutation to Benvenuto, and pursued his way, still surrounded by his sbirri, who imitated his bravado.
Benvenuto bit his lips till the blood came, while externally his features wore a smile. His behavior was inexplicable to any one who knew the irascible nature of the illustrious goldsmith.
But they had not proceeded a hundred yards when he stopped before the workshop of one of his confrères, and went in, alleging as a pretext his desire to see an antique vase which had recently been found in the Etruscan tombs of Corneto. He bade his pupils go on to the shop, and promised to join them there in a few moments.
As the reader will understand, this was only a pretext to get Ascanio out of the way, for as soon as he thought that the young man and his companion, concerning whom he was less anxious because he was sure that such courage as he possessed would not carry him too far, had turned the corner of the street, he replaced the vase upon the shelf from which he took it, and darted out of the shop.
With three strides Benvenuto was in the street where he had met Pompeo; but Pompeo was no longer there. Luckily, or rather unluckily, this man, encompassed by his twelve sbirri, was a noticeable object, and so when Benvenuto inquired as to the direction he had taken, the first person to whom he applied was able to give him the information, and like a bloodhound that has recovered a lost scent Benvenuto started in pursuit.
Pompeo had stopped at a druggist's door, at the corner of the Chiavica, and was vaunting to the worthy compounder of drugs the prowess he had shown in his meeting with Benvenuto Cellini, when his eye suddenly fell upon the latter turning the corner of the street, with fire in his eye, and the perspiration streaming down his forehead.
Benvenuto shouted exultantly as he caught sight of him, and Pompeo stopped short in the middle of his sentence. It was evident that something terrible was about to happen. The bravos formed a group around Pompeo and drew their swords.
It was an insane performance for one man to attack thirteen, but Benvenuto was, as we have said, one of those leonine creatures who do not count their enemies. Against the thirteen swords which threatened him, he drew a small keen-edged dagger which he always wore in his girdle, and rushed into the centre of the group, sweeping aside two or three swords with one arm, overturning two or three men with the other, until he made his way to where Pompeo stood, and seized him by the collar. But the group at once closed upon him.
Thereupon naught could be seen save a confused struggling mass, whence issued loud shouts, and above which swords were waving. For a moment the living mass rolled on the ground, in shapeless, inextricable confusion, then a man sprang to his feet with a shout of triumph, and with a mighty effort, forced his way out of the group as he made his way in, bleeding himself, but triumphantly waving his blood-stained dagger. It was Benvenuto Cellini.
Another man remained upon the pavement, writhing in the agony of death. He had received two blows from the dagger, one below the ear, the other at the base of the neck behind the collar bone. In a few seconds he breathed his last,—it was Pompeo.
Any other than Benvenuto, after such a deed, would have taken himself off at full speed, but he passed his dagger to his left hand, drew his sword, and resolutely awaited the sbirri.
But the sbirri had no further business with Benvenuto; he who paid them was dead, and consequently could pay them no more. They ran off like a flock of frightened rabbits, leaving Pompeo's body where it lay.
At that juncture Ascanio appeared, and rushed into his master's arms; he was not deceived by the ruse of the Etruscan vase, but although he had made all possible speed he arrived a few seconds too late.
Benvenuto returned to his abode with Ascanio, somewhat ill at ease, not because of the three wounds he had received, which were all too slight to occasion him any anxiety, but because of the possible results of the affray. Six months before, he had killed Guasconti, his brother's murderer, but had come off scot free by virtue of the protection of Pope Clement VII.; moreover, that act was committed by way of reprisal, but now Benvenuto's protector had gone the way of all flesh, and the prospect was much more ominous.
Remorse, be it understood, did not disturb him for one moment. But we beg our readers not for that reason to form an unfavorable opinion of our worthy goldsmith, who after killing a man, after killing two men perhaps,—indeed, if we search his past very carefully, after killing three men,—although he had a wholesome dread of the watch, did not for one instant fear to meet his God.
For this man, in the year of grace 1540, was an ordinary man, an every day man, as the Germans say. Men thought so little of dying in those days, that they naturally came to think very little of killing; we are brave to-day, but the men of those days were foolhardy; we are men grown, they were hot-headed youths. Life was so abundant in those days that men lost it, gave it, sold it, nay, even took it, with absolute indifference and recklessness.
There was once an author who was calumniated and abused for many years, whose name was made a synonym for treachery, cruelty, and all the words which mean infamy, and it needed this nineteenth century, the most impartial since the birth of humanity, to rehabilitate that author as the grand patriot and noble-hearted man he was. And yet Nicolo Machiavelli's only crime was that he lived at an epoch when brute strength and success were all in all; when folk judged by deeds, not words, and when such men as Cesar Borgia the sovereign, Machiavelli the thinker, and Benvenuto Cellini the artisan, marched straight to their goal, without thought of methods or reasons.
One day a body was found in the public square of Cesena, cut in four pieces; it was the body of Ramiro d'Orco. Now, as Ramiro d'Orco was a considerable personage in Italy, the Florentine Republic sought to ascertain the causes of his death. The Eight of the Signoria therefore wrote to Machiavelli, their ambassador at Cesena, to satisfy their curiosity.
But Machiavelli made no other reply than this:—
"MAGNIFICENT SIGNORIA:—I have naught to say anent the death of Ramiro d'Orco, save this: that no prince in the world is so skilful as Cesar Borgia in the art of making and unmaking men according to their deserts."MACHIAVELLI."
"MAGNIFICENT SIGNORIA:—I have naught to say anent the death of Ramiro d'Orco, save this: that no prince in the world is so skilful as Cesar Borgia in the art of making and unmaking men according to their deserts.
"MACHIAVELLI."
Benvenuto was an exponent of the theory enunciated by the illustrious secretary of the Florentine Republic. Benvenuto the genius, Cesar Borgia the prince, both considered themselves above the laws by virtue of their power. In their eyes the distinction between what was just and what was unjust was identical with the distinction between what they could and what they could not do; of right and duty they had not the slightest conception. A man stood in their path, they suppressed the man. To-day civilization does him the honor of purchasing him.
But in those old days the blood was boiling so abundantly in the veins of the young nations that they shed it for their health's sake.
They fought by instinct, not for their country to any great extent, not for women to any great extent, but largely for the sake of fighting, nation against nation, man against man. Benvenuto made war upon Pompeo as François I. did upon Charles V. France and Spain fought an intermittent duel, now at Marignano, and again at Pavia; all as if it were the most natural thing in the world, without preamble, without long harangues, without lamentation.
In the same way genius was exercised by those who possessed it as an innate faculty, as an absolute royal power, based upon divine right: art in the sixteenth century was looked upon as the natural birthright of man.
We must not therefore wonder at these men who wondered at nothing; we have, to explain their homicides, their whims, and their faults, an expression which explains and justifies everything in our country, especially in these days of ours:—
That was the fashion.
Benvenuto therefore did simply what it was the fashion to do; Pompeo annoyed Benvenuto Cellini, and Benvenuto suppressed Pompeo.
But the police occasionally investigated these acts of suppression; they were very careful not to protect a man when he was alive, but perhaps once in ten times they showed a feeble desire to avenge him when he was dead.
They experienced such a desire in the matter of Pompeo and Benvenuto Cellini. As the goldsmith, having returned to his shop, was putting certain papers in the fire, and some money in his pocket, he was arrested by the pontifical sbirri, and taken to the castle of San Angelo,—an occurrence for which he was almost consoled by the reflection that the castle of San Angelo was where noblemen were imprisoned.
But another thought that was no less efficacious in bringing consolation to Cellini as he entered the castle was this,—that a man endowed with so inventive a mind as his need not long delay about leaving it, in one way or another. And so, when he was taken before the governor, who was sitting at a table covered with a green cloth, and looking through a great pile of papers, he said:—
"Sir Governor, multiply your locks and bolts and sentinels threefold; confine me in your highest cell or in your deepest dungeon; keep close watch upon me all day, and lie awake all night; and yet I warn you that, despite all that, I will escape."
The governor looked up at the prisoner who addressed him with such unheard of assurance, and recognized Benvenuto Cellini, whom he had had the honor of entertaining three months before.
Notwithstanding his acquaintance with the man, perhaps because of it, Benvenuto's allocution caused the worthy governor the most profound dismay. He was a Florentine, one Master Georgio, a knight of the Ugolini, and an excellent man, but somewhat weak in the head. However, he soon recovered from his first surprise, and ordered Benvenuto to be taken to the highest cell in the castle. The platform was immediately above it; a sentinel was stationed on the platform, and another sentinel at the foot of the wall.
The governor called the prisoner's attention to these details, and when he thought that he had had time to digest them, he said:—
"My dear Benvenuto, one may open locks, force doors, dig out from an underground dungeon, make a hole through a wall, bribe sentinels and put jailers to sleep; but without wings one cannot descend to earth from this height."
"I will do it, nevertheless," said Cellini.
The governor looked him in the eye, and began to think that his prisoner was mad.
"Why, in that case, you propose to fly?"
"Why not? I have always believed that man can fly, but I have lacked time to make the experiment. Here I shall have time enough, and, pardieu! I mean to solve the problem. The adventure of Dædalus is history, not fable."
"Beware the sun, dear Benvenuto," sneeringly replied the governor; "beware the sun."
"I will fly away by night," said Benvenuto.
The governor was not expecting that reply, so that he had no suitable repartee at hand, and withdrew in a rage.
In good sooth it was most important that Benvenuto should make his escape, at any price. At another time he would not have been at all perturbed because he had killed a man, and would have been quit of all responsibility by following the procession of the Virgin in August, clad in a doublet and cloak of blue armoisin. But the new Pope, Paul III., was vindictive to the last degree, and when he was still Monsignore Farnese, Benvenuto had had a crow to pluck with him, apropos of a vase which the goldsmith refused to deliver until paid for, and which his Eminence sought to procure by force, the result being to subject Benvenuto to the dire necessity of using his Eminence's retainers somewhat roughly. Moreover, the Holy Father was jealous because King François I. had commanded Monseigneur de Montluc, his ambassador to the Holy See, to request that Benvenuto be sent to France. When he was informed of Benvenuto's imprisonment, Monseigneur de Montluc urged the request more strenuously than before, thinking thereby to render the unfortunate prisoner a service; but he was entirely unfamiliar with the character of the new Pope, who was even more obstinate than his predecessor, Clement VII. Now Paul III. had sworn that Benvenuto should pay dearly for his escapade, and if he was not precisely in danger of death,—a pope would have thought twice in those days before ordering such an artist to the gallows,—he was in great danger of being forgotten in his prison. It was therefore of the utmost importance that Benvenuto should not forget himself, and that was why he was determined to take flight without awaiting the interrogatories and judgment, which might never have arrived; for the Pope, angered by the intervention of François I., refused even to hear Benvenuto Cellini's name mentioned. The prisoner knew all this from Ascanio, who was managing his establishment, and who, by dint of persistent entreaties, had obtained permission to visit his master. Their interviews, of course, were held through two iron gratings, and in presence of witnesses watching to see that the pupil passed neither file, nor rope, nor knife to his master.
As soon as the door of his cell was locked behind the governor, Benvenuto set about inspecting his surroundings.
The following articles were contained within the four walls of his new abiding place: a bed, a fireplace, a table, and two chairs. Two days after his installation there, he obtained a supply of clay and a modelling tool. The governor at first declined to allow him to have these means of distraction, but he changed his mind upon reflecting that, if the artist's mind were thus employed, he might perhaps abandon the idea of escape, to which he clung so tenaciously. The same day, Benvenuto sketched a colossal Venus.
All this of itself was no great matter; but in conjunction with imagination, patience, and energy, it was much.
On a certain very cold day in December, when the fire was lighted on the hearth, the servant changed the sheets on his bed and left the soiled ones upon a chair. As soon as the door was closed, Benvenuto made one bound from the chair on which he was sitting to the bed, took out of the mattress two enormous handfuls of the maize leaves which are used to stuff mattresses in Italy, stowed the sheets away in their place, returned to his statue, took up his tool and resumed his work. At that moment the servant returned for the forgotten sheets, and after looking everywhere for them, asked Benvenuto if he had not seen them. But he replied carelessly, as if absorbed by his work, that some of his fellows doubtless had taken them, or that he carried them away himself without knowing it. The servant had no suspicion of the truth, so little time had elapsed since he left the room, and Benvenuto played his part so naturally; and as the sheets were never found, he was very careful to say nothing, for fear of being obliged to pay for them or of losing his employment.
One who has never lived through some supreme crisis can form no idea of the possibilities of such a time in the way of terrible catastrophes and poignant anguish. The most trivial accidents of life arouse in us joy or despair. As soon as the servant left the room, Benvenuto fell upon his knees, and thanked God for the help He had sent him.
As his bed was never touched until the next morning after it was once made, he quietly left the sheets in the mattress.
When the night came he began to cut the sheets, which luckily were new and strong, in strips three or four inches wide, then tied them together as securely as he could; lastly, he cut open his statue, which was of clay, hollowed it out, placed his treasure in the cavity, then spread clay over the wound, and smoothed it off with his finger and his modelling tool, until the most skilful artist could not have discovered that poor Venus had been made to undergo the Cæsarean operation.
The next morning the governor entered the prisoner's cell unexpectedly, as he was accustomed to do, but found him as usual calm and hard at work. Every morning the poor man, who had been specially threatened for the night, trembled lest he should find the cell empty; and it should be said, in justice to his frankness, that he did not conceal his joy every morning when he found it occupied.
"I confess that you make me terribly anxious, Benvenuto," said the poor man; "however, I begin to think that your threats of escape amount to nothing."
"I don't threaten you, Master Georgio," rejoined Benvenuto, "I warn you."
"Do you still hope to fly away?"
"Luckily it isn't a mere hope, but downright certainty, pardieu!"
"Demonio! how will you do it?" cried the poor governor, dismayed beyond measure by Benvenuto's real or pretended confidence in his means of escape.
"That's my secret, master. But I give you fair warning that my wings are growing."
The governor instinctively turned his eye upon the prisoner's shoulders.
"'T is thus," continued Benvenuto, working away at his statue, and rounding the hips in such fashion that one would have thought he proposed to rival the Venus Callipyge. "Betwixt us there is a duel impending. You have on your side enormous towers, thick doors, strong bolts, innumerable keepers always on the alert; I have on my side my brain, and these poor hands, and I warn you very frankly that you will be beaten. But as you are a very clever man, as you have taken every possible precaution, you will at least, when I am gone, have the consolation of knowing that it is through no fault of yours, Master Georgio, that you have no occasion to reproach yourself at all, Master Georgio, and that you neglected nothing that could help you to detain me, Master Georgio. And now what say you to this hip, for you are a lover of art, I know."
Such unblushing assurance enraged the unhappy official. His prisoner had become his fixed idea, upon which all his faculties were centred. He grew melancholy, lost his appetite, and started constantly, like one suddenly aroused from sleep. One night Benvenuto heard a great noise upon the platform; then it was transferred to his corridor, and finally stopped at his door. The door opened, and he saw Master Georgio, in dressing-gown and nightcap, attended by four jailers and eight guards. The governor rushed to his bedside with distorted features. Benvenuto sat up in bed and laughed in his face. The governor, without taking offence at his hilarity, breathed like a diver returning to the surface.
"Ah! God be praised!" he cried; "he is still here! There's much good sense in the saying,Songe—mensonge" (Dream—lie).
"In God's name, what's the matter?" demanded Benvenuto, "and what happy circumstance affords me the pleasure of a visit from you at such an hour, Master Georgio?"
"Jésus Dieu! it's nothing at all, and I am quit of it this time for the fright. Did I not dream that your accursed wings had grown,—huge wings, whereon you tranquilly hovered above the castle of San Angelo, saying, 'Adieu, my dear governor, adieu! I did not wish to go away without taking leave of you. I go; I pray that I may be so blessed as never to see you more.'"
"What! did I say that to you, Master Georgio?"
"Those were your very words. Ah, Benvenuto, you are a sorry guest for me!"
"Oh! I trust that you do not deem me so ill-bred as that. Happily it was but a dream; for otherwise I would not forgive you."
"Happily it is not true. I hold you fast, my dear friend, and although truth compels me to say that your society is not of the most agreeable to me, I hope to hold you for a long time yet to come."
"I do not think it," retorted Benvenuto, with the confident smile which caused his host to use strong language.
The governor went out, cursing Benvenuto roundly, and the next morning he issued orders that his cell should be inspected every two hours, night and day. This rigid inspection was continued for a month; but at the end of that time, as there was no apparent reason to believe that Benvenuto was even thinking of escape, the vigilance of his keepers was somewhat relaxed.
Benvenuto, however, had employed the month in accomplishing a terrible task.
As we have said, he minutely examined his cell immediately after he was first consigned to it, and from that moment his mind was made up as to the manner of his escape. His window was barred, and the bars were too strong to be removed with the hand or with his modelling tool, the only iron instrument he possessed. The chimney narrowed so toward the top that the prisoner must needs have had the fairy Melusine's power of transforming herself into a serpent to pass through it.
The door remained. Ah, the door! Let us see how the door was made.
It was a heavy oaken door two fingers thick, secured by two locks and four bolts, and sheathed on the inside with iron plates kept in place by nails at the top and bottom. It was through that door that the escape must be effected.
Benvenuto had noticed in the corridor, a few steps from the door, the stairway leading to the platform. At intervals of two hours he heard the footsteps of the relieving sentinel going up, then the steps of the other coming down; after which he would hear nothing more for another two hours.
The question for him to solve, then, was simply this: how to reach the other side of that door, which was secured by two locks and four bolts, and furthermore sheathed on the inside with iron plates kept in place by nails at the top and bottom. The solution of this problem was the task to which Benvenuto had devoted the month in question.
With his modelling tool, which was of iron, he removed, one by one, the heads of all the nails, save four above and four below, which he left until the last day: then, in order that his work might not be detected, he replaced the missing heads with exactly similar ones, modelled in clay and covered with iron filings, so that it was impossible for the keenest eye to distinguish the false from the true. As there were, at top and bottom together, some sixty nails, and as it took at least one hour, and sometimes two, to decapitate each nail, the magnitude of the task may be understood.
Every evening, when everybody had retired, and nothing could be heard save the footsteps of the sentinel walking back and forth over his head, he built a great fire on the hearth, and piled glowing embers against the iron plates on his door; the iron became red hot, and gradually transformed to charcoal the wood upon which it was applied; but no indication of the carbonizing process appeared on the other side of the door.
For a whole month Benvenuto devoted himself to this task, as we have said; but at the end of the month it was finished, and he only awaited a favorable opportunity to make his escape. He was compelled, however, to wait a few days, for the moon was near the full when the work was done.
There was nothing more to be done to the nails, so Benvenuto continued to char the door, and drive the governor to desperation. That very day the functionary entered his cell more preoccupied than ever.
"My dear prisoner," said the worthy man, whose mind constantly recurred to his fixed idea, "do you still propose to fly away? Come, tell me frankly."
"More than ever, my dear host," replied Benvenuto.
"Look you," said the governor, "you may say what you choose, but upon my word, I believe it's impossible."
"Impossible, Master Georgio, impossible!" rejoined the artist; "why, you know full well that word does not exist for me, who have always exerted myself to do those things which are the most impossible for other men, and that with success. Impossible, my dear host! Why, have I not sometimes amused myself by making nature jealous, by fashioning with gold and emeralds and diamonds a flower fairer far than all the flowers that the dew empearls? Think you that he who can make flowers can not make wings?"
"May God help me!" said the governor; "with your insolent assurance you'll make me lose my wits! But tell me, in order that these wings may sustain your weight in the air,—a thing which seems impossible to me, I confess,—what form shall you give them?"
"I have thought deeply thereupon, as you may well imagine, since my safety depends entirely upon the shape of my wings."
"With what result?"
"After examining all flying things, I have concluded that, if I wish to reproduce by art what they have received from God, I can copy the bat most successfully."
"But when all is said, Benvenuto," continued the governor, "even if you had the materials with which to make a pair of wings, would not your courage fail you when the time came to use them?"
"Give me what I need for their construction, my dear governor, and I'll reply by flying away."
"What do you need, in God's name?"
"Oh! mon Dieu! almost nothing; a little forge, an anvil, files, tongs and pincers to make the springs, and twenty yards of oiled silk for the membranes.
"Good! very good!" said Master Georgio; "that reassures me somewhat, for, clever as you may be, you never will succeed in obtaining all those things here."
"'T is done," rejoined Benvenuto.
The governor leaped from his chair; but he instantly reflected that it was a material impossibility. And yet, for all that, his poor brain had not a moment's respite. Every bird that flew by his window he imagined to be Benvenuto Cellini, so great is the influence of a master mind over one of moderate capacity.
The same day Master Georgio sent for the most skilful machinist in all Rome, and ordered him to measure him for a pair of bat's wings.
The machinist stared at the governor in blank amazement, without replying, thinking, with some reason, that Master Georgio had gone mad.
But as Master Georgio insisted, as Master Georgio was wealthy, and as Master Georgio had the wherewithal to pay for insane freaks, if he chose to indulge in them, the machinist set about the task, and a week later brought him a pair of magnificent wings, fitted to an iron waist to be worn upon the body, and worked by means of an extremely ingenious arrangement of springs, with most encouraging regularity.
Master Georgio paid his man the stipulated price, measured the space required to accommodate the apparatus, went up to Benvenuto's cell, and without a word overturned everything therein, looking under the bed, peering up the chimney, fumbling in the mattress, and leaving not the smallest corner unvisited.
Then he went out, still without speaking, convinced that, unless Benvenuto was a sorcerer, no pair of wings similar to his own could be hidden in his cell.
It was clear that the unhappy governor's brain was becoming more and more disordered.
Upon descending to his own quarters, Master Georgio found the machinist waiting for him; he had returned to call his attention to the fact that there was an iron ring at the end of each wing, intended to support the legs of a man flying in a horizontal position.
The machinist had no sooner left him than Master Georgio locked himself in, donned the iron waist, unfolded his wings, hung up his legs, and, lying flat upon his stomach, made his first attempt at flying.
But, try as he would, he could not succeed in rising above the floor.
After two or three trials, always with the same result, he sent for the mechanic once more.
"Master," said he, "I have tried your wings, but they won't work."
"How did you try them?"
Master Georgio described his repeated experiments in detail. The mechanic listened with a sober face, and said, when he had concluded:—
"I am not surprised; as you lay on the floor, you hadn't a sufficient quantity of air under your wings. You must go to the top of the castle of San Angelo, and boldly launch yourself into space."
"And you think that in that way I can fly?"
"I am sure of it."
"If you are so sure of it, would it not be as well to make the experiment yourself?"
"The wings are proportioned to the weight of your body and not of mine," replied the machinist. "Wings to carry my weight would need to measure a foot and a half more from tip to tip."
And with that he bowed and took his leave.
"The devil!" exclaimed Master Georgio.
Throughout that day Master Georgio indulged in various vagaries, which tended to prove that his reason, like Roland's, was penetrating farther and farther into imaginary realms.
In the evening, just at bedtime, he summoned all the servants, all the jailers, all the guards.
"If," said he, "you learn that Benvenuto Cellini is intending to fly away, let him go, and notify me, nothing more; for I shall know where to go to capture him, even in the dark, since I am myself a veritable bat, while he, whatever he may say, is only a false bat."
The poor governor was quite mad; but as they hoped that a night's rest would have a soothing effect upon him, they decided to wait until morning before advising the Pope.
Moreover it was an abominable night, dark and rainy, and no one cared to go out in such weather; always excepting Benvenuto Cellini, who had selected that very night for his escape, in a spirit of contrariety doubtless.
And so, as soon as he heard the clock strike ten, and the footsteps indicating that the sentinel had been relieved, he fell on his knees and offered a fervent prayer, after which he set to work.
In the first place he removed the heads of the four nails, which alone held the iron plates in place. The last yielded to his efforts just at midnight.
He heard the steps of the sentinel going up to the platform; he stood with his ear glued to the door, without breathing, until the relieved sentinel came down, the steps died away in the distance, and silence reigned once more.
The rain fell with redoubled force, and Benvenuto's heart leaped for joy as he heard it heating against the window.
He at once tried to remove the iron plates; as there was nothing to hold them, they yielded to his efforts, and he placed them, one by one, against the wall.
He then lay flat upon the floor, and attacked the bottom of the door with his modelling tool, sharpened like a dagger, and fitted to a wooden handle. The oak was entirely changed to carbon, and gave way at the first touch.
In an instant Benvenuto had made, an aperture at the bottom of the door sufficiently large to allow him to crawl through it. He reopened the belly of his statue, took out the strips of linen, coiled them around his waist like a girdle, armed himself with his modelling tool, of which he had, as we have said, made a dagger, and fell on his knees once more and prayed.
Then he passed his head through the hole, then his shoulders, then the rest of his body, and found himself in the corridor.
He stood erect; but his legs trembled so that he was compelled to lean against the wall for support. His heart was beating as if it would burst, and his head was on fire. A drop of perspiration trembled at the end of each hair, and he clutched the handle of his dagger in his hand, as if some one were trying to tear it away from him.
However, as everything was quiet, as nothing was stirring and not a sound was to be heard, Benvenuto soon recovered himself, and felt his way along the wall of the corridor with his hand, until the wall came to an end. Then he put out his foot and felt the first step of the staircase, or, more properly speaking, the ladder, which led to the platform.
He mounted the rungs, one by one, shivering as the wood creaked under his feet, until he felt a breath of air; then the rain beat against his faee as his head rose above the level of the platform, and as he had been in most intense darkness for a quarter of an hour, he was able to judge at once what reason he had to fear or hope.
The balance seemed to incline toward hope.
The sentinel had taken refuge from the storm in his sentry-box. How, as the sentinels who mounted guard upon the castle of San Angelo were stationed there, not to inspect the platform, but to look down into the moat and survey the surrounding country, the closed side of the sentry-box faced the top of the ladder by which Benvenuto ascended.
The artist crept cautiously on his hands and knees toward that part of the platform which was farthest removed from the sentry-box. There he securely fastened one end of his improvised rope to a jutting projection some six inches in length, and then knelt for the third time.
"O Lord!" he muttered, "O Lord! do Thou help me, since I am seeking to help myself."
With that prayer upon his lips, he let himself down by his hands, heedless of the bruises upon his knees and his forehead, which, from time to time, rubbed against the face of the wall, and at last reached the solid earth.
When he felt the ground beneath his feet, his breast swelled with an infinitude of joy and pride. He contemplated the immense height from which he had descended, and could not avoid saying in an undertone, "Free at last!" But his joy was short-lived.
As he turned away from the tower, his knees trembled under him; directly in front of him rose a wall recently built, and of which he knew nothing; he was lost.
Everything seemed to give way within him, and in his despair he fell to the ground; but as he fell, his foot struck against something hard,—it was a long beam; he gave a slight exclamation of surprise and delight; he was saved.
Ah! no one knows what heart-rending alternations of joy and hope one short minute of life can contain.
Benvenuto seized the beam as a shipwrecked sailor seizes the spar which may save him from drowning. Under ordinary circumstances two strong men would have found difficulty in lifting it; he dragged it to the wall, and stood it on end against it. Then he climbed to the top of the wall, clinging to the beam with his hands and knees, but when he arrived there his strength was insufficient to raise the beam and lower it on the other side.
For a moment his head swam; he closed his eyes, and it seemed as if he were struggling in a lake of flames.
Suddenly he remembered his strips of linen, by means of which he had descended from the platform.
He slid down the beam to the ground once more, and ran to the spot where he had left them hanging; but he had fastened them so securely at the opposite end, that he could not detach them. In his desperation he raised himself from the ground by hanging to them, pulling with all his strength, and hoping to break them. Fortunately one of the knots slipped at last, and Benvenuto fell to the ground, grasping a fragment some twelve feet long.
This was all that he needed; he rose with a bound, and, filled with fresh vigor, climbed up to the top of the wall once more, fastened the cord to the end of the beam, and slid down on the other side.
When he reached the end of the cord he felt in vain for the ground with his feet, and, upon looking over his shoulder, saw that it was still some six feet away. He let go the cord, and dropped.
He lay still for an instant; he was completely exhausted, and there was no skin left upon his legs and hands. For some moments he gazed stupidly at his bleeding flesh; but five o'clock struck, and he saw that the stars were beginning to pale.
He rose; but as he rose, a sentinel whom he had not noticed, but who had undoubtedly witnessed his performance, walked toward him. Benvenuto saw that he was lost, and that he must either kill or be killed. He drew his modelling tool from his belt, and marched straight toward the guard, with such a determined expression that worthy doubtless realized that he had not only a powerful man, but a deathly despair, to contend with. Benvenuto was determined not to give ground, but suddenly the soldier turned his back upon him as if he had not seen him. The prisoner understood what that meant.
He ran to the last rampart, and found himself some twelve or fifteen feet above the moat. Such a trifle was not likely to stop a man like Benvenuto Cellini, in his present predicament, when he had left part of his cord hanging from the top of the tower, and the other part attached to the beam, so that he had nothing left with which to lower himself, and there was no time to lose. He hung by his hands from a ring in the masonry, and, with a mental prayer, let himself drop.
This time he fainted outright.
An hour passed before he came to himself; but the coolness which is always noticeable in the air as dawn approaches, revived him. He lay for an instant with his mind in confusion, then passed his hand over his forehead and remembered everything.
He felt a sharp pain in his head, and saw blood upon the stones where he lay, which had trickled down from his face. He put his hand to his forehead a second time, not to collect his thoughts, but to investigate his wounds, which he found were but skin deep. He smiled and tried to stand up, but fell heavily back; his right leg was broken three inches above the ankle. The leg was so benumbed that at first he felt no pain.
He at once removed his shirt and tore it into strips, then put the ends of the bone together as well as he could, and applied the bandage, binding it with all his strength, and passing it under the sole of his foot now and then, in order to keep the bones in place.
Then he dragged himself on all fours toward one of the city gates which was within five hundred yards. After half an hour of atrocious suffering, he reached the gate only to find that it was closed. But he noticed a large stone under the gate, which yielded to his first attempt to remove it, and he passed through the hole left by it.
He had not taken twenty steps beyond the gate when he was attacked by a pack of famished dogs, who were attracted by the odor of blood. He drew his modelling tool, and despatched the largest and most savage with a blow in the side. The others immediately threw themselves upon their defunct comrade and devoured him.
Benvenuto dragged himself along to the church of La Transpontina, where he fell in with a water-carrier who had just filled his jars and loaded his donkey. He called him.
"Look you." he said; "I was with my mistress; circumstances compelled me, although I went in at the door, to come out through the window. I leaped from the first floor, and broke my leg; carry me to the steps of Saint Peter's, and I will give you a golden crown."
The water-carrier, without a word, took the wounded man on his shoulder, and carried him to the designated spot. Having received his pay, he went his way without so much as looking behind.
Thereupon Benvenuto, still on all fours, made his way to the palace of Monseigneur de Montluc, the French Ambassador, who lived only a few steps away.
Monseigneur de Montluc exerted himself so zealously in his behalf, that at the end of a month Benvenuto was cured, at the end of two months he was pardoned, and at the end of four months he started for France with Ascanio and Pagolo.
The poor governor, who had gone mad, lived and died a madman, constantly imagining that he was a bat, and making the most violent efforts to fly.
When Benvenuto Cellini arrived in France, François I. was at the château of Fontainebleau with his whole court. The artist stopped in the town, sending word of his arrival to the Cardinal of Ferrara. The cardinal, who knew that the king was impatiently awaiting his coming, at once transmitted the intelligence to his Majesty. Benvenuto was received by the king the same day.
"Benvenuto," he said, addressing him in that mellifluous and expressive tongue in which the artist wrote so well, "for a few days, while you are recovering from your fatigue and vexation, repose, enjoy yourself, make merry, and meanwhile we will reflect and determine upon some noble work for you to execute."
Thereupon he ordered apartments in the château to be made ready for the artist, and that he should want for nothing.
Thus Benvenuto found himself at the outset installed in the very centre of French civilization, at that time behind that of Italy, with which it was already struggling for supremacy, and which it was soon to surpass. As he looked around, he could easily believe that he had never left the Tuscan capital, for he found himself in the midst of the arts and artists he had known at Florence; Primaticcio had succeeded Leonardo da Vinci and Rosso.
It was for Benvenuto, therefore, to show himself not unworthy of these illustrious predecessors, and to carry the art of statuary as high in the eyes of the most gallant court of Europe as those three great masters had carried the art of painting. And so Benvenuto determined to anticipate the king's wishes by not waiting for him to command the noble work promised, and to execute it himself, of his own motion, and with his own resources. He had readily discovered the king's affection for the royal residence where he had met him, and determined to flatter his preference by executing a statue to be called the "Nymph of Fontainebleau."
A lovely work to undertake was this statue, crowned at once with oak and wheat-ears and vines; for Fontainebleau is partly field, partly forest, and partly vineyard. The nymph of whom Benvenuto dreamed must therefore be reminiscent of Ceres and Diana and Erigone,—three types of marvellous beauty melted into one, and which, while retaining their distinctive characteristics, should still form but a single whole. Then there should be represented upon the pedestal the attributes of those three goddesses; and they who have seen the fascinating figures about the statue of Perseus know the Florentine master's method of executing those marvellous details.
But it was his misfortune that, although he had in his own mind his ideal of beauty, he was sadly in need of a human model for the material part of his work. Where was he to find this model, in whose single person could be found the threefold beauty of three goddesses?
Certain it is, that if, as in the olden days, the days of Apelles and Phidias, the beauties of the day, those queens of loveliness, had come of their own accord to pose for Benvenuto, he would have found what he sought within the precincts of the court; for there was a whole Olympus in the flower of youth and beauty. There were Catherine de Medicis, then but one and twenty; Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, who was called the Fourth Grace and the Tenth Muse; and lastly, Madame la Duchesse d'Etampes, whom we shall meet frequently in the course of this narrative, and who was known as the loveliest of blue-stockings and the most learned of beauties. In this galaxy the artist could have found more than he needed; but the days of Apelles and Phidias had long gone by, and he must look elsewhere.
It was with great pleasure, therefore, that he learned that the court was about to set out for Paris. Unfortunately, as Benvenuto himself says, the court in those days travelled like a funeral procession. Preceded by twelve to fifteen thousand horse, halting for the night in some place where there were no more than two or three houses, wasting four hours every evening in pitching the tents, and four hours every morning in striking them,—in this way, although the distance was but sixteen leagues, five days were spent in the journey from Fontainebleau to Paris.
Twenty times on the way Benvenuto was tempted to push forward, but as often the Cardinal of Ferrara dissuaded him, saying that, if the king was compelled to pass a single day without seeing him, he would certainly ask what had become of him, and when he learned that he had left the procession would look upon his unceremonious departure as a failure of respect toward himself. So Benvenuto chafed at his bit, and tried to kill time during the long halt by sketching his nymph of Fontainebleau.
At last he arrived at Paris. His first visit was to Primaticcio, who was commissioned to continue the work of Leonardo da Vinci and Rosso at Fontainebleau. Primaticcio, who had lived long at Paris, should be able at once to put him upon the path he was seeking, and to tell him where to look for models.
A word, in passing, as to Primaticcio.
Il Signor Francesco Primaticcio, who was commonly called at this time Le Bologna, from his birthplace, had studied under Jules Romain for six years, and had lived eight years in France, whither François I. had summoned him upon the advice of the Marquis of Mantua, his great purveyor of artists. He was, as any one may see at Fontainebleau, a man of prodigious fecundity, with a broad, florid manner, and irreproachable regularity of outline. For a long time Primaticcio, with his encyclopedic brain, his vast store of knowledge, and his boundless talent, which embraced all varieties of painting,—for a long time, we say, he was despised, but in our day he has been avenged for three centuries of injustice. Under the inspiration of religious ardor, he painted the pictures in the chapel of Beauregard; in moral subjects he personified the principal Christian virtues at the Hôtel Montmorency; and the immensity of Fontainebleau was filled to overflowing with his works. At the Golden Gate and in the Salle du Bal he treated the most graceful subjects of mythology and allegory; in the Gallery of Ulysses and the Chamber of Saint Louis he was an epic poet with Homer, and translated with his brush the Odyssey and a portion of the Iliad. Then he passed from the Age of Fable to heroic times, and historical subjects became his study. The principal incidents in the life of Alexander and Romulus, and the surrender of Havre, were reproduced in the painting with which he decorated the Grand Gallery and the apartment adjoining the Salle du Bal. He turned his attention to the beauties of nature in the great landscapes of the Cabinet of Curiosities. In short, if we care to take the measurement of his eminent talent, to consider the various forms in which it found expression, and to reckon up its work, we shall find that in ninety-eight large pictures and a hundred and thirty smaller ones he has treated, one after another, landscapes, marine views, historical, allegorical, and religious subjects, portraits, and the themes of epic poetry.
He was, as may be seen, a man likely to appreciate Benvenuto; and so, as soon as Benvenuto arrived at Paris, he ran to Primaticcio with open arms, and was welcomed by him in the same temper.
After the first serious conversation between the two friends meeting thus in a foreign land, Benvenuto opened his portfolio, imparted all his ideas to Primaticcio, showed him all his sketches, and asked him if there was any one of the models he was accustomed to use who fulfilled the necessary conditions.
Primaticcio shook his head, smiling sadly. In truth, they were no longer in Italy, the daughter of Greece and rival of her mother. France was in those days, as it is to-day, the land of grace, and prettiness, and coquetry; but in vain would one have sought in the domain of the Valois that imperious loveliness which inspired the genius of Michel-Angelo and Raphael, of John of Bologna and Andrea del Sarto, on the banks of the Tiber and the Arno. To be sure, if the painter or sculptor had been at liberty to choose a model at will among the aristocracy, he would soon have found the types he sought; but like those shades which are detained on this side of the Styx, he was perforce content to see those noble, lovely forms, the constant objects of his artistic aspirations, pass over into the Elysian Fields which he was forbidden to enter.
It turned out as Primaticcio anticipated: Benvenuto passed in review his whole army of models, and saw not one who seemed to combine all the qualities essential for the work of which he was dreaming.
Thereupon he caused all the Venuses at a crown the sitting whose names were furnished him to be summoned to the Cardinal of Ferrara's palace, where he was installed, but none of them fulfilled his expectations.
Benvenuto was almost at his wit's end when, one evening, as he was returning home alone along Rue des Petits-Champs, after supping with three compatriots whom he had met at Paris,—namely, Pietro Strozzi, the Count of Anguillara, his brother-in-law, and Galeotto Pico, nephew of the famous Pico della Mirandole,—he noticed a graceful, lovely girl walking in front of him. Benvenuto fairly leaped for joy: the girl was, of all whom he had thus far seen, by far the best qualified to give shape to his dream. He followed her, therefore. She walked along by the church of Saint-Honoré, and turned into Rue du Pelican; there she looked around to see if she was still followed, and, seeing Benvenuto within a few steps, hastily opened a door and disappeared. Benvenuto went to the same door and opened it in time to see the skirt of the young woman's dress disappear at a bend in the stairway, which was lighted by a smoking lamp.
He went up to the first floor: a chamber door stood ajar, and in the chamber he discovered the girl he had followed.
Without explaining the artistic motive of his intrusion, indeed, without saying a word, Benvenuto, desirous to ascertain whether the outlines of her body corresponded with those of her face, walked around and around the poor, bewildered girl, as he might have done had she been a statue, taking her arms and raising them above her head in the attitude which he proposed that his Nymph of Fontainebleau should assume; and she obeyed his gestures mechanically.
There was little of Ceres in the model now before his eyes, and still less of Diana, but very much of Erigone. The master thereupon made up his mind, in view of the manifest impossibility of finding the three types united in one person, to be satisfied with the Bacchante. But for the Bacchante he had certainly found all that he desired,—sparkling eyes, coral lips, teeth like pearls, graceful neck, well rounded shoulders, and broad hips; and in the slender wrists and ankles, and the long nails, there was a suggestion of aristocratic blood, which removed the artist's last hesitation.
"What is your name, mademoiselle?" Benvenuto, with his foreign accent, at last asked the poor girl, whose wonder momentarily increased.
"Catherine, monsieur, at your service," she replied.
"Very good! Here is a golden crown, Mademoiselle Catherine, for the trouble I have caused you. Come to me to-morrow at the Cardinal of Ferrara's hotel on Rue Saint-Martin, and I will give you as much more for the same service."
The girl hesitated an instant, thinking that he was making sport of her. But the gold crown seemed to prove that he was speaking seriously, and after a very brief pause, she said,—
"At what time?"
"Ten o'clock in the morning: does that suit your convenience?"
"Perfectly."
"So that I may rely upon you?"
"I will come."
Benvenuto saluted her as he would have saluted a duchess, and returned home with a glad heart. He at once burned all his idealistic sketches, and set to work upon one based upon flesh and blood. Having completed the drawing, he placed a quantity of wax upon a pedestal, and beneath his dexterous touch it instantly assumed the shape of the nymph of whom he had dreamed; so that when Catherine appeared at the door of his studio the next morning, a part of his task was already done.
As we have said, Catherine utterly failed to understand Benvenuto's motives. She was vastly astonished, therefore, when, having closed the door behind her, he showed her the statue already begun, and explained why he had asked her to come.
Catherine was a light-hearted, joyous creature, and laughed heartily at her mistake; her bosom swelled with pride at the thought of posing as a model for a goddess to be presented to a king, so she removed her clothing, and of her own motion assumed the pose indicated by the statue,—so gracefully, and withal so exactly, that the artist, when he turned and saw her posed so naturally and well, exclaimed in delight.
Benvenuto at once set to work: his was, as we have said, one of those noble, vigorous, artistic natures in which inspiration is aroused by the work beneath their hands, and which seem to become illumined as their work proceeds. He had thrown aside his doublet, and as he went back and forth from the model to the copy, from nature to art, he seemed, with his bare neck and arms, like Jupiter, ready to kindle everything that he touched into flame. Catherine, accustomed to the commonplace or worn out organization of the young men of the lower classes with whom she had associated, or the young noblemen whose plaything she had been, gazed at this man with the inspired glance, quickened respiration, and swelling breast, with an unfamiliar sensation of wonder. She seemed herself to rise to the master's level; her eyes shone, and the artist's inspiration was communicated to the model.
The sitting lasted two hours; at the end of that time Benvenuto gave Catherine her gold crown, and took leave of her as ceremoniously as before, making an appointment for the following day at the same hour.
Catherine returned to her own room, and did not go out during the day. The next morning she was at the studio ten minutes before the appointed time.
The same scene was repeated. On that day, as on the day before, Benvenuto's inspiration rose to sublime heights; beneath his hand, as beneath that of Prometheus, the clay seemed to breathe. The Bacchante's head was already modelled, and seemed a living head set upon a shapeless trunk. Catherine smiled upon this celestial sister, fashioned in her image; she had never been so happy, and, strangely enough, she was unable to explain the sentiment which caused her happiness.
On the following day the master and the model met again at the same hour; but Catherine was conscious of a sensation, absent on the preceding days, which caused the blood to rush to her face as soon as she began to disrobe. The poor child was beginning to love, and love brought modesty in its train.
On the fourth day it was still worse, and Benvenuto was compelled several times to remind her that he was not modelling the Venus de Medicis, but Erigone, drunken with debauchery and wine. Moreover, her patience would be tried but a little longer; two days more, and the model's services would be no longer required.
In the afternoon of the second day, Benvenuto, having given the last touch to his statue, thanked Catherine for her complaisance, and gave her four gold crowns; but Catherine let them fall to the floor. The poor child's dream was ended; from that moment she must return to her former condition, and that condition had become hateful to her since the day that she entered the master's studio. Benvenuto, who had no suspicion of what was taking place in the girl's heart, picked up the four crowns, handed them to her once more, pressing her hand as he did so, and said to her that, if he ever could be of service to her, she must apply to no one but him. Then he passed into the apartment where his apprentices were at work, seeking Ascanio, to whom he wished to exhibit his completed statue.
Catherine kissed the tools the master had used, one after another, and went away, weeping.
The next morning Catherine appeared at the studio while Benvenuto was alone, and when he, astonished to see her again, asked her why she had come, she knelt at his feet and asked him if he did not need a servant.
Benvenuto had an artist's heart, quick to detect feeling in another. He divined what was taking place in the poor child's heart, and raised her from the floor, kissing her upon the forehead as he did so.
From that moment Catherine was a part of the studio, which, as we have said, she brightened and made cheerful with her childish ways, and enlivened by her unceasing activity. She had become almost indispensable to everybody, above all to Benvenuto. She it was who superintended and managed everything, scolding and caressing Ruperta, who was dismayed at her first appearance in the household, but ended by loving her as everybody else did.
The Erigone lost nothing by this arrangement. Having the model always at hand, Benvenuto had retouched and perfected it with greater care than he had ever before bestowed upon one of his statues, and had then carried it to François I., whose admiration knew no bounds, and who ordered him to execute it in silver. He subsequently conversed for a long time with the goldsmith, asked him if he was pleased with his studio, where it was situated, and whether there were beautiful things to be seen there; and when he dismissed him, he determined in his own mind to take him by surprise some morning, but said nothing to him of his intention.
Thus did matters stand when this history opens,—Benvenuto working, Catherine singing, Ascanio dreaming, and Pagolo praying.
On the day following that on which Ascanio returned home so late, thanks to his excursion in the neighborhood of the Hôtel de Nesle, there was a loud knocking at the street door. Dame Ruperta at once rose to answer the summons, but Scozzone (the reader will remember that this was the name given to Catherine by Benvenuto) was already out of the room.
A moment later they heard her voice, half joyous, half terrified, crying,—
"O mon Dieu! master! mon Dieu! it is the king! The king in person has come to see your studio!"
And poor Scozzone, leaving all the doors open behind her, reappeared, pale and trembling, on the threshold of the workshop, where Benvenuto was at work, surrounded by his pupils and apprentices.
In very truth, François I. was entering the courtyard with all his retinue. He led by the hand the Duchesse d'Etampes. The King of Navarre followed with the Dauphine, Catherine de Medicis. The Dauphin, afterwards Henri II., came next, with his aunt, Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre. Almost all the nobility accompanied them.
Benvenuto went to meet them, without confusion or embarrassment, and welcomed the king, princes, great lords, and beautiful women as a friend welcomes friends. And yet there were in the throng the most illustrious names of France, and the most resplendent beauties in the world. Marguerite charmed, Madame d'Etampes entranced, Catherine de Medicis astonished, Diane de Poitiers dazzled. But Benvenuto was familiar with the purest types of antiquity and of the sixteenth century in Italy, even as the beloved pupil of Michel-Angelo was accustomed to the society of kings.
"You must needs permit us, madame, to admire by your side the marvels we are to behold," said François I. to the Duchesse d'Etampes, who replied with a smile.
Anne de Pisseleu, Duchesse d'Etampes, who since the king's return from his captivity in Spain had succeeded the Comtesse de Châteaubriand in his favor, was at this time in all the splendor of a truly royal loveliness. Her figure was erect and graceful, and she carried her charming head with a dignity and feline grace which recalled at once the cat and panther, which she also resembled in her habit of pouncing upon one unexpectedly, and in her murderous appetites. With all this the royal courtesan was very clever at assuming an air of sincerity and candor which would disarm the most suspicious. Nothing could be more mobile or more treacherous than the features of this pale-lipped woman, to-day Hermione, to-morrow Galatea, with her smile, sometimes cajoling, sometimes terrible,—her glance, at one moment caressing and suggestive, and the next flaming with wrath. She had a habit of raising her eyelids so slowly that one could never tell whether they would disclose a languorous or a threatening expression. Haughty and imperious, she subjugated François I. by holding his passions enthralled; proud and jealous, she insisted that he should call upon the Comtesse de Châteaubriand to return the jewels he had given her; by returning them in the form of bullion, the lovely and melancholy countess did at least protest against the profanation. Supple and deceitful, she had closed her eyes more than once when the king's capricious fancy seemed to distinguish some charming young woman at court, whom, however, he invariably abandoned very soon to return to his beautiful enchantress.
"I was in haste to see you, Benvenuto, for two months have now passed since your coming to our realm, and vexatious affairs of state have since that time forbade my turning my thoughts to things artistic. Impute it to my brother and cousin, the Emperor, who gives me not a moment of repose."