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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Romance of Roman Villas, by Elizabeth W.
+(Elizbeth Williams) Champney
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Romance of Roman Villas
+       (The Renaissance)
+
+
+Author: Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 10, 2009  [eBook #27766]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE OF ROMAN VILLAS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Chuck Greif and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
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+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/7/6/27766/27766-h/27766-h.htm)
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+
+
+
+
+
+ROMANCE OF ROMAN VILLAS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: Pope Julius II. Viewing the Newly-found Statue of the
+Apollo Belvedere
+
+From the painting by Carl Becker. Permission of the Berlin Photographic
+Co.]
+
+(The Renaissance)
+
+by
+
+ELIZABETH W. CHAMPNEY
+
+Author of "Romance of the Italian Villas," "Romance of the
+Feudal Châteaux," "Romance of the French Abbeys," Etc.
+
+Illustrated
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+G. P. Putnam's Sons
+New York and London
+The Knickerbocker Press
+1908
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+    In came the cardinal, grave and coldly wise,
+    His scarlet gown and robes of cobweb lace
+    Trailed on the marble floor; with convex glass
+    He bent o'er Guido's shoulder.
+
+            WALTER THORNBURY.
+
+
+Still unrivalled, after the lapse of four centuries the villas of the
+great cardinals of the Renaissance retain their supremacy over their
+Italian sisters, not, as once, by reason of their prodigal magnificence
+but in the appealing charm of their picturesque decay.
+
+The centuries have bestowed a certain pathetic beauty, they have also
+taken away much, and the sympathy which these ruined pleasure palaces
+evoke whets our curiosity to know what they were like in their heyday of
+joyous revelling.
+
+If we run down the list of the nobler villas of Rome we will find that,
+with few exceptions, they were built by princes of the purple, and that
+the names they bear are not Roman but those of the ruling families of
+other Italian cities.
+
+That the sixteenth century should have produced the most palatial
+residences ever inhabited by prelates was but a natural outcome of the
+conditions then existing. The society of Rome was a hierarchical
+aristocracy made up of the younger sons of every powerful and ambitious
+family of Italy, and the red hat was so greatly desired not for the
+honour or emoluments of the cardinalcy _per se_ but because it was a
+step to the papacy.
+
+"To an Italian," says Alfred Austin, "it must seem a reproach never to
+have had a pope in the family, and you will with difficulty find a villa
+of any pretension, certainly not in Frascati, where memorial tassels and
+tiara carven in stone over porch and doorway do not attest pontifical
+kinship."
+
+The young cardinal's first move in the game which he was to play was at
+all expense to create an impression, and if, as in the case of Ippolito
+d'Este, he had no benevolent uncle in St. Peter's chair to guide his
+career, the parental coffers were drawn upon recklessly and the cadet of
+the great house led a more extravagant life in his Roman villa than the
+duke his elder brother in his provincial court. The object of his
+ambition once attained the new Pope unscrupulously enriched his family,
+and endeavoured to make his office hereditary by elevating his favourite
+nephew to the cardinalcy, and endowing this future candidate for the
+papacy with means from the revenues of the Church to purchase the votes
+of his rivals. This is the constantly reiterated history of the builders
+of the palaces and villas of Rome.
+
+Sixtus IV. made the fortunes of his numerous de la Rovere and Riario
+nephews,--one of whom, Pietro, Cardinal of San Sisto, for whom Bramante
+built the Cancellaria Palace, set the pace for his comrades of the
+Sacred College by squandering in two years the enormous sum of
+$2,800,000. Cardinal Raphael Riario of the next generation began the
+most beautiful of all villas, Lante, which three other cardinals
+subsequently perfected.
+
+Leo X. after his election as pope, proved to be a greater spendthrift
+than Sixtus IV., for he not only repaired the broken fortunes of the
+Medici but eclipsed his father as a patron of art, making the erection
+of monumental buildings and the collection of objects of art a mania
+among all men of wealth and culture. Cardinal Giulio (afterwards
+Clement VII.) in the Villa Madama, and Cardinal Ferdinando in the Villa
+Medici sustained the family tradition, but Cardinal Alexander Farnese
+(Pope Paul III.) outrivalled them both, by filling the Farnese palace
+with the most valuable collections ever amassed by a private
+individual.[1]
+
+Immediately succeeding Alexander Farnese Julius III. built the noble
+Villa di Papa Giulio, and Pius IV. the charming Villa Pia; but nepotism
+did not scandalously reassert itself until the last quarter of the
+century, when the immense Villa Aldobrandini was erected by a nephew of
+Clement VIII.
+
+Pope Paul V. in his turn bestowed more than a million dollars upon his
+Borghese nephews, to one of whom, Cardinal Scipione, we owe the
+delightful Villa Borghese, just outside the Porta del Popolo.
+
+Early in the next century the evil attained greater proportions. Olimpia
+Pamphili, whose name and memory are perpetuated in the villa built by
+her son, received from Pope Innocent X. more than two millions. But
+Innocent seems to have a fair claim to his name when compared with his
+immediate predecessor Urban VIII. who conferred upon his nephews, the
+brothers Barberini, sums amounting to one hundred and five millions!
+
+An architecture of pompous ostentation and riotous overloading of
+ornament, the Baroque, now took the place of the classical beauty of the
+Renaissance and art degraded became the slave of wealth, until the great
+Cardinal Albani erected his villa to serve as her temple.
+
+We are ready to expect great results in the villas and palaces of the
+millionaires of the earlier half of the sixteenth century when we
+reflect that they were executed by Bramante, Peruzzi, San Gallo, Michael
+Angelo, and Raphael with a host of lesser men who would have been great
+in any other age, and that the ruins of imperial Rome furnished them
+with models for their designs and an inexhaustible quarry of statues,
+columns, mosaics, and other materials.
+
+The point of view of the present volume is the life rather than the art
+of these villas, but it is not possible to ignore the stimulus which the
+daily discovery of the masterpieces of ancient art afforded to the
+artists of the day, and the connoisseurship imposed upon the rivalling
+patrons and collectors.
+
+In the chapters entitled: "The Finding of Apollo" and "The Lure of Old
+Rome" I have striven to depict the influence of these discoveries upon
+such sensitive souls as those of Raphael and Ligorio, and the gradual
+education of the financier Chigi and Cardinal Ippolito d'Este in the
+refinements of dilettantism.
+
+But the Fornarina left a more potent impression on Raphael's art than
+the Apollo Belvedere, and her memory and that of Imperia still haunt the
+villa of the Farnesina indissolubly united with that of the master of
+art and the master of revels.
+
+In the noble Colonna palace the personality most vividly present to-day
+is that of Vittoria Colonna, making good the boast of Michael Angelo's
+sonnet,--
+
+    "So I can give long life to both of us
+    In either way by colour or by stone,
+    Making the semblance of thy face and mine,
+    Centuries hence when both are buried thus
+    Thy beauty and my sadness shall be shown
+    And men shall say, 'For her 't was right to pine.'"
+
+But if Michael Angelo carved or painted Vittoria the portrait is lost;
+and it is to his love, not to his art that she owes her immortality. So
+from the history of these beautiful dwellings I have chosen as the focal
+point of each of the following chapters, the half-forgotten face of some
+woman, and were it not that the story of Vittoria Colonna is so well
+known that noble woman might well have led the procession. For the same
+reason, and because her castle of Spoleto could not be classed under my
+topic, I have laid aside a study of Lucrezia Borgia and of another
+Lucrezia who may have resided within its walls.
+
+But from the succession of beauties who kissed their lovers beneath the
+rose-trellises of Rome, I have stolen secrets enough to overfill these
+pages, secrets which few of the gentle shades would forbid my telling,
+since for the most part they are sweet and innocent and true. For the
+others, daughters of disorder, may their sufferings bespeak your pity.
+
+The difficulty in arriving at just estimates has only made the attempt
+the more engrossing, as those will attest who have tracked through the
+mass of conflicting histories the story of the elusive lady who gave the
+name of Madama to the exquisite villa which Raphael designed for Clement
+VII.
+
+The Villa Aldobrandini recalls an ancient legend preserved in more than
+one of the Italian novelli; and reading between the lines of the
+Amyntas we may trace Tasso's love for Leonora which blossomed in the
+terraced garden of the Villa d'Este.
+
+The villas Borghese and Mondragone are still instinct with the
+personality of a romantic little lady of a later period, the bewildering
+Pauline Bonaparte. It is impossible while enthralled by her portrait
+statue to remember any other princess of that noble house; but as we
+wander through the portrait gallery of the Colonna palace it is equally
+difficult to choose a favourite from its brilliant gallery. My apologies
+are due to many another in fixing upon Giulia Gonzaga, wife of Vespasian
+Colonna as my heroine, though such was the fame of her beauty that the
+Sultan of Turkey despatched a fleet for her capture.
+
+In the last decade of the century, Marie de' Medici looked down upon
+Rome from the villa of her uncle, Cardinal Ferdinando, and wandered
+among that wonderful array of statues which now form the glory of the
+Pitti Palace.
+
+This was the time, if ever, that Shakespeare visited Italy, and I have
+attempted to give a true picture of the life and scenes which he may
+have viewed.
+
+To my last chapter is left the confession that the supreme charm of
+Rome of the Renaissance lies not in itself, but in the fact that it is
+the bridge which unites modernity to the Rome of antiquity.
+
+Each statue unearthed in the cardinal's garden, as it reassumed its
+place upon the familiar terrace, must have whispered to its marble
+companions: "They call this the Villa d'Este! We know better, it is
+Hadrian's. Their learned men have labelled you, 'By an Unknown
+Sculptor,' little suspecting that your lips were arched by Praxiteles.
+They have christened our friend in the garden of Lucullus, the 'Venus
+de' Medici,' ignorant of the prouder name she bore, and they call the
+relief in that new villa, 'The Antinous of Cardinal Albani,' not knowing
+that the portrait and its original were alike, Faustina's."
+
+Shall we, indulgent reader, on some fair, future day, led by the lure of
+_old_ Rome, together revisit our loved villas and win the confidences of
+these marble men and women who smile on us so inscrutably, and yet with
+such all-compelling fascination?
+
+    Dear Italy, the sound of thy soft name
+      Soothes me with balm of Memory and of Hope.
+      Mine for the moment height and steep and slope
+    That once were mine. Supreme is still the aim
+      To flee the cold and grey
+      Of our December day,
+    And rest where thy clear spirit burns with unconsuming flame.
+
+    Fount of _Romance_ whereat our Shakespeare drank!
+      Through him the loves of all are linked to thee,
+      By Romeo's ardour, Juliet's constancy
+    He sets the peasant in the royal rank,
+      Shows, under mask and paint,
+      Kinship of knave and saint
+    And plays on stolid man with Prospero's wand and Ariel's prank.
+
+    Then take these lines and add to them the lay
+      All inarticulate, I to thee indite;
+      The sudden longing on the sunniest day,
+    The happy sighing in the stormiest night,
+      The tears of love that creep
+      From eyes unwont to weep,
+    Full with remembrance, blind with joy and with devotion deep.[2]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+I.--THE EYES OF A BASILISK
+(Vatican, Villa of the Belvedere)
+
+II.--THE FINDING OF APOLLO
+(Villa Farnesina)
+
+III.--A CELLINI CASKET
+(Villa Madama)
+
+IV.--FLOWER O' THE PEACH
+(Villa Aldobrandini)
+
+V.--WITH TASSO AT VILLA D'ESTE
+(Villa d'Este)
+
+VI.--MONDRAGONE
+(Villas Borghese and Mondragone)
+
+VII.--THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE
+BRANDISHED LANCE
+(Villa Medici)
+
+VIII.--THE LADIES OF PALLIANO
+(Colonna Palace and Castle of Palliano)
+
+IX.--THE LURE OF OLD ROME
+(Hadrian's Villa. Villas d'Este and Albani)
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+IN PHOTOGRAVURE
+
+
+_Pope Julius II. Viewing the Newly-found
+Statue of the Apollo Belvedere_         _Frontispiece_
+
+_From the painting by Carl Becker. Permission of
+the Berlin Photographic Co._
+
+_The Borgias_
+
+_From a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (Pope
+Alexander VI. regards the dancing children, Lucrezia
+plays the viol, Cesar beats time with his stiletto
+on the stem of a wine glass.) Permission of George
+Bell & Sons._
+
+_Pope Leo X. at Raphael's Bier_
+
+_From the painting by Pietro Michis. Permission of
+Franz Hanfstaengl._
+
+_Face of Young Girl in the Coronation of the
+Virgin_
+
+_By Fra Filippo Lippi. Permission of Alinari._
+
+_The Floral Games_
+
+_From the painting by Jacques Wagrez. Permission
+of Braun, Clement & Co._
+
+_In the Garden of Villa d'Este_
+
+_From a photograph by Mr. Charles A. Platt._
+
+_Choosing the Casket_
+
+_From the painting by F. Barth. Permission of the
+Berlin Photographic Co._
+
+_Antinous as Bacchus, in the Museum of the
+Vatican_
+
+_Permission of Alinari._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+OTHER THAN PHOTOGRAVURE
+
+
+*_Cæsar Borgia_
+
+*_Caterina Sforza. Castle of Forlì in Background_
+_By Palmezzani._
+
+*_Unknown Lady_ (_probably Imperia_)
+_By Sebastian del Piombo. Uffizi._
+
+*_Virgin and Child_
+_By Sodoma. Pinacoteca, Milan._
+
+*_Raphael and Sodoma_
+_Fragment of School of Athens, in the Vatican--Raphael._
+
+*_Villa Farnesina, Rome_
+
+*_Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma_
+_From the portrait by himself in the Abbey of Monte
+Oliveto Maggiore._
+
+*_By permission of Messrs. Alinari._
+
+*_Margherita_ (_La Fornarina_)
+_Attributed to Raphael. Pitti Gallery, Florence._
+
+*_Pope Leo X., Giulio de Medici_ (_afterward Pope
+Clement VII._), _and Luigi de Rossi_
+_By Raphael.   Pitti Gallery._
+
+_Villa Madama_
+
+_Detail of Vault in Villa Madama_
+_Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine._
+
+_Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma, 1586_
+_From an old engraving._
+
+_Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine_
+_Villa Madama._
+
+_Villa Madama--Interior_
+
+*_Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. The Grand
+Cascade and Fountain of Atlas_
+
+*_Upper Cascade, Villa Aldobrandini_
+
+*_Villa d'Este, at Tivoli--Present State_
+
+_Hydraulic Organ, Villa d'Este_
+
+_Villa d'Este in 1740_
+_From an etching by Piranesi._
+
+*_Villa d'Este--Terrace Staircase_
+*_By permission of Messrs. Alinari._
+
+_*Fountain in Gardens of the Villa Borghese_
+
+_*Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese_
+_Portrait statue by Canova at Villa Borghese._
+
+_Henri IV. Receiving the Portrait of Marie de Medici_
+_Painted at her order by Rubens._
+
+_View from the Garden of the Villa Medici_
+
+_Colonna Palace, Rome_--_The Grand Salon_
+
+_Garden of the Colonna Palace, Rome_
+_With permission of Charles A. Platt._
+
+_Castle of Vittoria Colonna at Ischia_
+
+_The Cascade_
+_Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati._
+
+_The Haunted Pool_
+_Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati._
+
+_Vittoria Colonna_
+_From a portrait in the Colonna Gallery._
+
+___Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna_
+_From a portrait in later life by Netscher._
+
+_Court of the Massimi Palace_
+
+_Marie Mancini Colonna, Principessa di Palliano_
+_By Mignard.    Photographische Gesellschaft, Berlin._
+
+_*By permission of Messrs. Alinari._
+
+_Antinous_
+_Bas-relief found at Hadrian's Villa, now in the Villa
+Albani._
+
+_Ruins of a Gallery of Statues in Hadrian's Villa_
+_From an etching by Piranesi._
+
+*_Villa Pia in Garden of the Vatican_
+_Pirro Ligorio, architect._
+
+*_Villa Pia, Vatican_
+_The rotondo--Pirro Ligorio, architect._
+
+_Eros Bending the Bow_
+_Capitoline Museum._
+
+_Faun of Praxiteles_
+_Capitoline Museum._
+
+_Villa Albani_
+
+*_Casino, Villa Albani_
+
+*_Candelabra from Hadrian's Villa_
+_Museum of the Vatican._
+
+*_Urania_
+
+_Museum of the Vatican._
+
+_View through the Key-hole of the Gate of the Villa
+of the Knights of Malta_
+
+*_By permission of Messrs. Alinari._
+
+
+
+
+ROMANCE OF ROMAN VILLAS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE EYES OF A BASILISK
+
+(AN EPISODE OF THE FRENCH WARS IN ITALY, FROM THE MEMOIRS OF THE GOOD
+KNIGHT YVES D'ALLEGRE)
+
+
+I
+
+     There is not one that looketh upon her eyes but he dieth presently.
+     The like property has the basilisk. A white spot or star she
+     carrieth on her head and setteth it out like a diadem. If she but
+     hiss no other serpent dare come near.--PLINY.
+
+A strange story is mine, not of love but of hatred, the slow coiling of
+a human serpent about its prey, with something more than human in the
+sudden deliverance which came from so unexpected a quarter when all hope
+had gone and struggle ceased.
+
+Certes, I am not one of your practised romancers thus to reveal my plot
+at the beginning, and yet, with all I have told, you will never guess in
+what mysterious guise, yet so subtly that it seemed a breath of wind had
+but fluttered a leaf of paper, the enemy we feared was struck with such
+opportune paralysis.
+
+Let those who doubt the truth of this tale or the existence of the
+basilisk question Cesare Borgia, for we saw the creature at the same
+time as we rode together near Imola in northern Italy. It was the
+beginning of that campaign in which I, much against my will, was in
+command of the French troops, which his Majesty Louis XII. had sent to
+aid his ally in the conquest of Romagna. I would far liefer have gone
+with my brother knights deputed to sustain Louis's right to the
+Milanese, for it is one thing to fight honourably for France and
+another, as I soon discovered, to aid a villain in the massacre of his
+own countrymen, and all for aims in which I had no interest. But it was
+only by degrees that I was enlightened concerning the character of
+Borgia. He was brave beyond doubt, and courage had for me great
+fascination. I never saw him flinch but once, and that before a thing
+which seemed so trivial that I counted it but a matter of physical
+repulsion.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Cæsar Borgia]
+
+We were riding thus side by side in advance of our men, when a small
+snake darted from the thicket and hissed its puny defiance. I stooped
+from my saddle, impaled it on my sword, and waved it writhing in the
+air. But Cesare, to my astonishment, turned deadly pale and galloped
+incontinently in the opposite direction.
+
+When I rejoined him after throwing the reptile into the underbrush he
+explained the seizure. The astrologer, Ormes, had predicted that he
+would meet his death neither from natural sickness nor from poison, nor
+yet by the sword or cord, but from the eye of a basilisk.
+
+"And what manner of creature may that be?" I asked, wonderingly.
+
+"It is a serpent," he replied, "but one so rare in Italy that not once
+in a century is it met with. The monster is gifted with the evil eye,
+killing whomsoever it looks upon. It bears a star-shaped spot upon its
+head, and when you whirled yon reptile in the air methought I discerned
+its baleful flash."
+
+"And so you did," I replied, "but you need have no apprehension, the
+creature is blind."
+
+"Blind!" he repeated incredulously.
+
+"Of a verity. Its eyes have long since been removed, for the flesh has
+grown over the empty sockets."
+
+"Then," said Cesare, "some wizard must have extracted them to serve him
+in his black art, and has let the serpent go free knowing that it is
+only by the eye of a living basilisk that this prodigy can be wrought.
+Fortunately you have killed it and there is no longer any danger."
+
+"Nay," I replied, "I but wounded the creature. It crawled away when it
+fell."
+
+"Then he who holds its eyes holdeth my life and by his hand I shall
+die," he stammered with white lips. Little thought I then that Cesare's
+inhuman cruelty and perfidy would cause me to thank God for his belief
+in the creature's malignancy and that the basilisk was to aid in the one
+episode which was in some measure to take the evil taste of this
+campaign from my mouth.
+
+Only a few weeks later, on the first of January, 1500, our combined
+forces began in earnest the assault of the citadel of Forlì, which we
+had held in siege throughout the previous month. Little stomach had I
+for the business, since to my shame I was making war upon a woman.
+Imola which had already surrendered to us, was also her fief, but had
+she commanded its forces in person we would not have taken it so easily.
+For fighting blood ran in the veins of the Lady of Forlì, she being the
+grand-daughter of the great condottiere Francesco Sforza. And this was
+not the first time that she had fought for her castle.
+
+She had come to it first as the bride of Girolamo Riario, but the
+townspeople had refused to recognise his authority and had stabbed him
+to death, throwing his naked, mutilated body into the moat before her
+windows.
+
+The young widow instantly trained the guns of the citadel upon the town,
+and when it surrendered caused the murderers and their families to be
+hacked in pieces; and this was but one of many instances reported of her
+dauntless and vindictive character. She had remarried, but her second
+husband, Giovanni de' Medici, had recently died, and Caterina Sforza
+Riario de' Medici, in spite of her noble birth and connexions, had none
+to help her.
+
+If Cesare Borgia had not already married perchance the opportunity would
+have been offered her to add another great name to those she already
+bore, for he recognised in this tigerish woman a fitting mate. He hated
+her indeed, but one does not hate one's inferiors, one despises or pets
+them, and Cesare hated the Lady of Forlì because he knew that he could
+never master her.
+
+Therefore on New Year's Day, we having, as I have said, drawn our forces
+so closely about the citadel that for weeks past not a mouse could
+escape, Cesare before ordering the assault sent me to its lady with
+sealed conditions of capitulation.
+
+I thought, as I rode across the draw-bridge with the white truce pennon
+fluttering from my lance, how at that other siege when summoned to
+surrender on pain of having her children put to death before her walls,
+this unnatural mother had replied coldly: "Children are more easily
+replaced than castles," and I was unprepared for the vision which
+greeted me in the gloomy hall.
+
+For Caterina was no repulsive termagant, but a woman of marvellous
+charm. This fascination was something quite different from ordinary
+beauty. Its seat was in her eyes, which many thought not at all
+beautiful, for they were like those gems called aquamarine, of a
+puzzling tint varying from blue to green, lustrous and lapping the
+beholder with their gentle lambency, except when passion moved her,
+when I have seen them glow with a menacing light as though they might
+shoot forth green flames. But now she was all loveliness. The
+vicissitudes of her tragic life had left no trace except the slight
+scowl, which might be due to defective vision, for from the curiously
+linked chatelaine there depended a lorgnon with which she had a nervous
+trick of trifling.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Catenna Sforza
+
+Castle of Forlì in Background
+
+By Palmezzani]
+
+She leaned forward as I entered, her lips a little apart and her cheeks
+glowing with excitement.
+
+"You have brought me a message from your commander?" she asked, and I
+presented the letter.
+
+But as she read her colour flamed to deeper crimson and her small hands
+tore the missive in fragments. "And these are the terms proposed by a
+belted knight, companion of Bayard _sans reproche_; this your fufilment
+of your sworn devoir to women in distress? Then here is my answer," and
+she dashed the bits of paper in my face, "for my garrison will prefer
+annihilation rather than permit me to submit to such indignity."
+
+"Believe me," I protested, "that, far from assisting in the framing of
+those terms, I am in utter ignorance of their purport. Believe also that
+though what I have hitherto heard has not prepossessed me in your
+favour, I now count those charges as lying slanders, knowing that no
+evil soul could inhabit so lovely a person."
+
+Her lip curled scornfully. "I have listened to lovers' flatteries ere
+this," she answered, "and know how little they are worth."
+
+"By your pardon," I retorted, "I am a lover indeed, but none of yours.
+It is because I love my good wife in Auvergne that I honour all women."
+
+She had lifted her eyeglass as though to scan my face the more keenly to
+know if I spoke the truth; but apparently my words alone convinced her,
+and, feeling the discourtesy of such an act, she looked about the room
+irresolutely and let the lorgnon fall without meeting my eyes.
+
+"Good," she said at length, "I like you better for that word. 'Tis a
+pity we must be enemies. Tell your master that I shall defend my
+fortress to the last extremity. If I am so unfortunate as to be
+conquered, demand that he appoint you my jailer, for to no one else will
+I submit myself alive."
+
+I have taken part in many sieges but never saw I a more gallant defence
+than the one made by that doomed citadel. Its besiegers were quartered
+within the town, fattening on the supplies which flowed in from the
+country and sleeping warm at night, while the garrison of the castle
+burned its carved wainscotings for fuel and daily buried some
+famine-stricken sentry. Twice with blazing missiles Caterina's archers
+set fire to the houses within range of her guns, striving by destroying
+the homes of her own people to drive us from our shelter, and once in
+the dead of night she made sortie and strove to cut her way through only
+to be beaten back. She seemed more a deluding spirit of evil leading us
+on to our own destruction than an ordinary mortal, and when Cesare gave
+orders to bombard the castle it made our flesh creep to see her seated
+nonchalantly upon the ramparts scanning the artillerymen through her
+lorgnon, laughing when their shots went wild, and clapping her hands
+when they tore off fragments of the parapet on which she leaned as
+though she were but applauding a play. That very night an epidemic so
+deadly broke out among the cannoneers that some foolishly superstitious
+declared she had bewitched them with the evil eye, and others as falsely
+that the springs in the hills above the castle which supplied the
+fountains of the town were poisoned at her command.
+
+But the inevitable day came when the Lady of Forlì announced that she
+was ready to surrender. Even then she demanded lenient and honourable
+terms as though mistress of the situation.
+
+There must be neither bloodshed nor pillage. The allegiance of her
+subjects should be transferred indeed to Cesare as Duke of Romagna, and
+she offered herself and her children as hostages for their loyalty, but
+not to Cesare. They would trust themselves only to the watch-care of the
+Pope, and she stipulated that the French troops should be their
+body-guard to Rome.
+
+Cesare laughed maliciously. "She is as safe in my care as in that of his
+Holiness," he said, "and it is to my interest that the boy alone should
+die. It was the great statesman Machiavelli who counselled that when a
+city was captured every male heir to its former lord should be slain, to
+guard against uprisings in the future. I will take her son into my own
+safe-conduct, but you may escort his sisters and mother in welcome, for
+I have no wish to come within the range of her quizzing glasses."
+
+When I reported this to Caterina she shuddered slightly and answered
+questioningly, "From Cesare's so great personal solicitude I gather
+that the health of the young duke might suffer at the Borgia's table?"
+
+To these alarms I could not reply reassuringly, but the lady presently
+laughed gleefully. "This is not a recent thought of mine," she said.
+"The idea occurred to me when Cesare first laid claim to our estates.
+Tell him that I cannot take advantage of his kind offer for I sent my
+son before the siege to join his cousin and godfather, Cardinal de'
+Medici, in his exile. The Cardinal's family feeling extends even to his
+most distant relatives and the boy could have no better guardian."
+
+"Surely it is fortunate that you were so wise," I replied, and even
+Cesare had no doubt that she spoke truly.
+
+It was the twelfth of January, the very day of the surrender, that I set
+out with my captives for the Eternal City. Caterina was conveyed in her
+litter with her elder daughter, but the younger insisted on riding on
+horseback at my side. She was an ugly little hoyden of five years, this
+Giovanna, who, squat of stature and swarthy as a gypsy, bestrode her
+little pony like a man; but, though by nature stubborn and subject to
+fits of anger in which she bit and scratched like a wildcat, to me she
+had taken a fancy as intense as it was inexplicable.
+
+When I upbraided her manners as ill befitting a little maid, and
+marvelled at her unlikeness to her mother, she made answer: "Nay, but
+mamma can scratch also. You should have seen the face of the messenger
+who told us that the town of Forlì had opened its gates to the
+besiegers. I am like my father in looks, but I have my mother's spirit.
+Cardinal de' Medici said that if my father had worn the petticoat and my
+mother had been the man, the Medici would be ruling now in Florence."
+
+"Would you like to rule, little princess?" I asked.
+
+"Nay, I would rather fight. When I am grown I will be a great
+condottiere like you, Sir Knight."
+
+"Tush!" I reproved her. "A girl a condottiere--who ever heard of such a
+prodigy?"
+
+The child smiled mysteriously. "I have a mind to tell you a secret," she
+said.
+
+"Giovanna, Giovanna!" her mother called, beckoning from her litter, but
+the little maid had fast hold of my stirrup leather, and pulled me close
+while she confided: "I am not Giovanna, I am not a girl at all. I am
+Giovanni de' Medici, Duke of Forlì, and one of these days I will cut
+off that Borgia man's head. But fear not; I will be good to you if only
+you do not tell."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: The Borgias
+
+From a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (Pope Alexander VI. regards
+the dancing children, Lucrezia plays the viol, Cesar beats time with his
+stiletto on the stem of a wine glass.) Permission of George Bell & Sons]
+
+I had no mind to tell, and though I let the Duchess know that her little
+son had betrayed his disguise, and reproached her for bringing him into
+the wolf's jaws, I swore to her that the secret should be safe in my
+keeping.
+
+
+II
+
+                  The bob of gold
+    Which a pomander ball doth hold,
+    This to her side she doth attach
+    With gold crochet or French pennache.
+
+    Then raises to her eyes of blue
+    Her lorgnon, as she looks at you.
+
+Arrived at Rome, the Pope assigned the captives to the Villa of the
+Belvedere, so named from a graceful tower which shot high above the
+encircling walls, and commanded a delightful prospect. A charming garden
+connected the villa with the Vatican, but it was none the less a prison
+whose only approach or egress was through the corridors of the papal
+palace. The Lady of Forlì had been received with hypocritical cordiality
+by the family of the Pope at one of those intimate gatherings in the
+Borgia apartments which, devoted to song, dance, and feasting were
+greatly enjoyed by Alexander and his children, and so shamelessly
+disgraced the residence consecrated to the head of the Church.
+
+Cesare upon his return would find in them an opportunity for meeting his
+prisoner, and, if she denied him further familiarity, he held the power
+of executing swift vengeance. It behooved us therefore to act quickly
+and before the arrival of my superior. The only hope which seemed to me
+at all reasonable was of French interference.
+
+Cardinal d'Amboise was in Milan, having recently arrived from the French
+Court, and acting upon my advice the Lady of Forlì appealed through him
+to the King of France, I urging her petition with every conceivable
+argument.
+
+While anxiously awaiting his reply I took advantage of my authority as
+her body-guard to station a French sentinel at her door, relinquishing
+my own cook to protect her from poisoning, and my faithful valet as
+groom and guardian of the children.
+
+But all these precautions were swept away by Cesare on his arrival in
+the middle of February. For he sent me at that time a curt note stating
+that after we had taken part in the triumph granted him by the Pope in
+recognition of his victories in Romagna, he would have no further need
+either of my troops or myself; and we would be at liberty to report
+ourselves at Milan to the commander of the French army.
+
+The "triumph" to which he referred consisted of a procession with
+allegorical floats and every description of gala costume. The houses
+along its course were hung with brilliant draperies; flags and pennons
+should wave, martial music bray, and salvos of artillery were to be
+fired at frequent intervals.
+
+But the principal feature of the demonstration and the one on which the
+Pope counted to raise popular enthusiasm to the point of delirium was to
+be the parade of the captives.
+
+Cesare, in emulation of the celebration of the conquest of Palmyra by
+the Emperor Aurelian, had conceived the brilliant idea of compelling
+Caterina to walk in the procession bound like Zenobia with golden
+chains.
+
+Hitherto Caterina and I had discussed with each other every plan of
+action, but now unfortunately we had no opportunity of taking counsel
+with one another. Still she had been accustomed too long to
+self-reliance to hesitate for that reason, and divining by a flash of
+woman's intuition how this spectacle might be converted into an
+opportunity of escape, she consented gracefully to Cesare's plans,
+requesting only that the French troops should march as her guard.
+
+To this arrangement Cesare gave his ready acquiescence, promising also
+of his own accord that I should ride directly behind her and beside her
+children. It was well thought out, for she had counted not alone upon my
+assistance, but had determined to use every detail of the programme
+which Cesare had devised to rouse the populace of Rome to aid in her
+rescue.
+
+She robed herself therefore in most becoming though sable garments,
+allowing her veil of thinnest gauze to flutter artfully and display her
+beautiful face while the long velvet sleeves open to the shoulder showed
+the double manacles at the wrist and above the elbow, made purposely too
+tight and cutting into the lovely rounded arm.
+
+Growls of indignation from the men and cries of sympathy from the women
+rose as they marked her fatigue, and how ruthlessly the men-at-arms who
+led her dragged her on, and the demonstration was a triumph to Caterina
+rather than to Cesare. As the float representing the dismantled citadel
+of Forlì tottered by with her little girls upon the battlements,
+waving, the one the bull-blazoned ensign of the Borgias and the other
+the reversed and degraded arms of the Medici, shouts of "Shame, shame!"
+were heard, and the riotous crowd surged so close to the float that it
+was impossible for it to proceed. We had reached at this critical
+juncture the Porta del Popolo and through its open gates the via
+Flaminia stretching straight to the north across the free Campagna was
+discernible. With that sight I comprehended Caterina's intention and at
+the same instant the boy-girl Giovanni let fall the Borgia emblem, which
+was instantly trampled in the mire by the mob, and snatching the banner
+bearing the Medici balls from his sister's hand he waved it triumphantly
+in its proper position, crying "Palle, palle! Rescue, rescue!"
+
+Then it was that Caterina had counted on my trusty Frenchmen to sweep
+her and her children on to liberty while the mob hindered pursuit. But
+alas! Cesare had suspected some such plot, and had interposed between
+the prisoners and my brave troopers his own corps of veteran pikemen.
+For an instant they wavered, for Caterina had sprung upon the float and
+was gazing at them through her lorgnon. They remembered what had
+happened to the gunners at Forlì, and shuddered, but the mob attacking
+them with paving stones interposed a screen between them and the danger
+they dreaded and roused their mettle. With their old war cry their first
+battalion charged the rioters while their second division, halting, kept
+back my men.
+
+As the full signification of this lost opportunity overwhelmed me, I
+could not in my mortification meet Caterina's reproachful eyes. Her last
+gallant stroke for liberty had failed through my lack of co-operation.
+Cesare's pikemen enclosed her with a wall of bristling spears; the
+populace slunk into side alleys, the gates of the Porta del Popolo had
+been closed during the tumult, and the procession resumed its line of
+march in the direction of the castle of St. Angelo. As I cursed my
+stupidity, Cesare, purple with rage, rode back to me with Giovanni
+struggling wildly in his arms.
+
+"Take this brat of a girl to the Belvedere," he commanded, "and beat her
+soundly."
+
+But as I lifted the child before me he ceased not to shriek to Cesare:
+"Beat me if you dare. I am no girl-brat. I am Giovanni de' Medici, Duke
+of Forlì!"
+
+There was a chance that Cesare had not rightly understood him, for I
+had held my hand over the boy's mouth. I would not save him and desert
+his mother, so I rode with him to the Belvedere; but I paused on the way
+to obtain a rope-ladder, and to conceal it in a basket of fruit which I
+bade Giovanni give to his mother. I dared not write a letter had there
+been time to I do so, but the child was intelligent and I made him
+repeat my message again and again.
+
+With the help of the ladder they must descend at midnight into the
+garden of the Belvedere, and climb by the rose espalier to the top of
+the garden wall. I would be on horseback on the other side and would
+receive them in my arms. Then with forged passports I would take them to
+Milan.
+
+A light in the window of the tower at eleven would signify her
+acquiescence in this plan.
+
+But at the time appointed I saw no light, and though my men waited in
+the lofts of the stable where their horses stood ready saddled, and I
+paced the lane on the hither side of the garden wall until dawn, no
+fugitives joined me.
+
+When I returned to my lodgings at daybreak I found a summons from the
+Pope awaiting me which bade me attend him at the Vatican at his morning
+levee. Presently, too, a man in Cesare's livery brought me the basket
+of fruit and the rope-ladder which I had sent to Caterina.
+
+"My master bade me return this to you," said the lackey, "as you may
+find it useful for your own needs in future."
+
+I understood the cold sarcasm of the message. I was to be imprisoned,
+and I did not flatter myself that any opportunity for use of a
+rope-ladder would be left me. But in that supreme moment it was not my
+own doom that I thought upon but that of the unfortunate Lady of Forlì.
+
+As I prepared to obey the papal summons my landlady brought me a letter
+which had arrived during my absence, the long-expected instructions from
+Cardinal d'Amboise. They called me and my troop to Milan--the Pope would
+not dare controvert that command; and as my eye sought eagerly for an
+answer to my appeal for Caterina it caught at the bottom of the page
+this line:
+
+     "As for Caterina Sforza Riario de' Medici and her children----"
+
+Trembling with excitement I turned the leaf but my hopes died within me
+as I read on:
+
+     "----that belligerent and unwomanly woman hath but received her
+     just deserts. We are to be congratulated that her fortresses and
+     her army fell into the power of our ally before it was possible for
+     her to aid her uncle Lodovico Sforza, usurper of Milan, at present
+     our prisoner.
+
+     "Our fortunes are now so assured either by conquest or alliance
+     that all the leading families of northern Italy are on our side.
+     Even the Medici are with us. Sooner or later"----
+
+Here I turned a page again.
+
+     "They must be returned to Florence, as the King desires the good
+     will of the Medici."
+
+There was more to the effect that the Cardinal desired me to kiss for
+him the hands of his Holiness, and to assure both him and Cesare
+that--if their promise to the King of France were carried out--they
+would ever find in the French army a sure defence. But all this seemed
+of little moment to me since the letter contained no hope for Caterina.
+I thrust it in my pouch and pursued my way to the Vatican, cudgelling my
+brains for some other means by which to save her.
+
+Was there, I questioned, no motive within the complicated mechanism of
+Cesare's mind upon which I could play? Was there nothing which he held
+sacred, no terror in earth or hell which could daunt his inexorable
+will?
+
+Then suddenly I remembered the flaw in his armour, and that he who
+could neither be persuaded by friendship nor coerced by authority
+trembled before a baseless superstition--the dread of the evil eye.
+
+I had still a card to play, and would continue the game resolutely to
+the end. It might be that I could arm his captive with the one weapon
+which he feared.
+
+With this thought in my mind I came upon Cesare suddenly, in the
+ante-room of the Pope's audience chamber.
+
+"Ah," he exclaimed maliciously, "you thought to anticipate me in gaining
+my father's ear. I confess I had the same intention. Well, since chance
+will have it so, we will go in together."
+
+"One moment," I replied; "I am glad to have met you thus opportunely,
+for I have a word of warning for you."
+
+"Of warning?" he questioned.
+
+"Yes," I replied, "in return for that you so kindly sent me with the
+rope-ladder this morning. You may need mine first. Let me beg you to
+pursue the Lady of Forlì no further. If you do not instantly let her go
+free she may work you a terrible mischief--the only one you dread."
+
+The scornful smile which had curled his lip died out, and though he
+asked my meaning I knew he already had an inkling of it.
+
+"You remember the eyeless basilisk which we found near Imola?" He nodded
+and caught my hand. "She has the eyes?" he asked. "Nay, you need not
+answer, I know where she keeps them,--in the pomander that hangs always
+at her chatelaine." "That is no pomander," I replied, "but a lorgnon.
+She is near-sighted; have you not noted, as she looks from her window of
+the Belvedere how she scans the objects in the garden through its
+lenses?"
+
+"She was looking for me," he chattered insanely, "she was looking for me
+through the eyes of the basilisk; but I am not so dull as you think. I
+have long suspected this, and when she glared at my men as they charged
+the rioters I struck the diabolical things from her hand with the flat
+of my sword. I know not where they fell but she has them no longer."
+
+"Be not so sure of that," I ventured with a grimace, which I strove to
+make a smile. "I found the lorgnon in the street and carried it back to
+the Belvedere. Be warned and anger her no more."
+
+"It was a thoughtful and friendly act," he sneered exultantly, "but
+useless, dear fellow, quite useless. _Mal vedere_ should that falsely
+named villa be called; but neither for good nor for evil will she
+evermore gaze forth from any casement. She and the son whom she thought
+to palm off as a girl lie at this moment in a windowless dungeon in the
+vaults of the castle of St. Angelo. I had thought for a moment to give
+you guest-room beside her, but you have warned me of her designs, and my
+father argues that we must not anger the French King in any fashion. Had
+he demanded my prisoners I might even have lost this dear revenge, but
+now I shall give orders to their gaoler that he waste no good money on
+their nourishment. In less than a week's time their career and my danger
+will be over."
+
+I would have strangled him as he stood there but at that instant the
+doors of the audience-chamber flew open and the Pope, attended by his
+guards, stood between us.
+
+He extended his left hand, which Cesare kissed, and he gave me his
+benediction with the other.
+
+"I have sent for you, my friend," he said, "to bid you farewell, for I
+have just received word from Cardinal d'Amboise that you and your good
+fellows are needed in the Milanese. The Cardinal informs me that he has
+written you by the same post. May I read the letter? Perchance I may
+gain from it a clearer understanding concerning his desires and how we
+may forward them."
+
+"I will go and fetch it," I stammered, for the request was a demand, and
+the thought came to me that I might cut out all reference to the Lady of
+Forlì from the letter.
+
+"I think we shall not need to trouble you to do so," cried the lynx-eyed
+Cesare. "Your pouch is open, and if I mistake not that is the
+handwriting of the Cardinal."
+
+He had snatched the letter, and it was in his father's hand before he
+had said half these words. I am not a man given to prayer, but from the
+bitterness of my despair my soul cried silently in that instant, "O God,
+save her, for vain is the help of man!"
+
+The Pope ran his eye quickly along the lines without speaking until he
+came to the name of the Lady of Forlì.
+
+"As to Caterina Sforza Riario de' Medici and her children"--he read
+aloud with illy suppressed excitement, and then in his eagerness to know
+more he turned two pages at once, without perceiving that the one which
+should have followed next adhered to that which he had just read--"As to
+Caterina Sforza Riario de' Medici and her children," he repeated, "they
+must be returned to Florence, as the King desires the good will of the
+Medici."
+
+In utter stupefaction, I could not at first understand how this
+misreading had chanced.
+
+"Hem, hem!" grunted the Pope--"but she is only the widow of a member of
+the cadet branch, a person of no importance. I see not why the King of
+France should concern himself with her fate. Nevertheless, since our
+prisoners have his patronage, they shall be detained no longer. I will
+write to the Florentine signory commending the lady and her children to
+their loving watch-care, and as you, Sir Yves, have been their conductor
+hither, so shall you escort them to their destination."
+
+Cesare could not gainsay his father's command. An hour later the gates
+of St. Angelo opened for the departure of the Lady of Forlì and her
+children. I waited not for any chance of fate to turn backward the wheel
+of fortune, and as my faithful troop galloped into line about her
+litter, I gave the triumphant order--
+
+"To Florence."
+
+She dwells there even as I write these chronicles, in the Medicean
+villa of Castello, and as at first she dared not keep her little son
+with her (the men of the Medici being banished from Florence), she
+confided him, still habited in girlish disguise, to the care of a
+community of nuns, who kept a seminary for the daughters of noble
+families. But at length, on the restoration of the Medici, he issued
+from that retreat, and is now being bred to the profession of arms, in
+the which he bids fair to realise the ambitions confided to me as we
+rode from Forlì, what time I deemed him the most unmannerly little
+princess which it had been my lot to meet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE FINDING OF APOLLO
+
+(AN ESCAPADE OF BAZZI'S)
+
+
+I
+
+_Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (called Sodoma) to Giulio Romano, painter
+and architect at Mantua._
+
+_Good Friend and sometime Pot-Comrade:_
+
+By the which epithet I would signify that comradeship at Chigi's villa
+at Rome in orgies of paint pots and brushes, flesh pots and flagons,
+feasts of reason and of unreason, wherein we were alike insatiable until
+the light of our revels went out in the death of our adored Raphael.
+
+You write me that in the intervals of your labour you are piecing
+together memoirs of those glorious Roman days in order to leave to the
+world some record of the more intimate private life of our friend, and
+you ask me for any anecdotes or remembered conversations which may fill
+out this sheaf of tribute.
+
+Faith, you, who have a whole garden of such souvenirs from which to
+cull, in that you shared his labours, his home, his confidence and his
+largess, have come to a wild and barren pasture for such sweet flowers;
+and yet there was love between us, love which ever radiated from him as
+it were sunshine and caused many a briar-rose to blossom in the thorny
+tangle of my life. I knew him also before you, in the summer of 1503, at
+Siena; and it is of certain pranks in that early comradeship that I will
+now write. Raphael was then a youth of scarce twenty years. He had come
+fresh from his apprenticeship to that old pietist Perugino, to assist in
+the decoration of the cathedral library. I was twenty-four, but older
+far in world-knowledge, and exulting in my first success as a painter,
+for though the spoiled favourite of the town I stood _facile princeps_
+among the Sienese of my craft.
+
+We met first at Cetinale, the villa of our patron, Agostino Chigi. From
+the first Raphael's honest admiration of my work warmed me to
+friendship and I strove to enlighten his ignorance. Chigi had placed at
+our joint disposition a loft in his stables which we fitted up as a
+studio and bed-chamber, and hither we resorted for work or play as
+opportunity and inclination moved us.
+
+It was oftener play for me, for I was more interested in my host's
+horses in those days than in my art. Chigi and I were both amateurs of
+the race-track and though he spent enormous sums on his stud I had once
+beaten him at the _palio_. In spite of this we were good friends. I had
+the run of his stables and many a reckless ride have we enjoyed
+together. I was fond of all sports which were spiced with danger, and
+particularly of hunting. But there was no sport I loved so well as a
+practical joke, no game that for me had so delicious a flavour as the
+teasing of my friends and especially the more serious and
+dignified--though such pranks have frequently cost me dear. From the
+multitude of which I have been guilty I recall one which had different
+consequences from those I had foreseen.
+
+I was hunting in the neighbourhood of Siena late one afternoon in the
+summer of which I speak. Chigi was detained at his villa in the
+expectation of guests, and I was alone save for the company of my ape,
+Ciacco, which I had purchased of some strolling Bohemians. I was
+training the creature to retrieve my game, in which service he was
+extremely zealous and clever.
+
+We had ridden far and were both parched with thirst, when I paused to
+rest in the shadow of a ruined tower which crowned a hill and commanded
+the road to Siena. Two sumpter mules, guarded by armed men, had just
+passed on in the direction of the city, and following at some distance
+in the rear two travellers, an elderly man and a young girl, were
+approaching the tower where at that moment I chanced to be stationed.
+
+In spite of the fact that their horses were jaded they were pushing them
+to the utmost, anxious, doubtless, to rejoin their convoy and to gain
+Siena before the closing of the gates.
+
+I doubt not, that, armed as I was, and with wind-disordered hair, I
+presented in front of that grim barbican a sufficiently sinister
+appearance. Certain it is they took me for a bandit and their faces
+blanched. The man retained some vestiges of self-possession, however,
+and, doffing his hat, craved permission to pass.
+
+Apprehending the situation, the spirit of mischief with which I am at
+all times possessed moved me to personate the character for which he
+took me, and I gruffly bade him stand and deliver toll of the valuables
+he carried.
+
+"My property has preceded me," he replied unsteadily, "but I will blow
+this whistle and bid the knaves unload it for your worship's choice."
+
+"Nay," I replied, "my merry men are dealing with your servants. I am a
+robber-knight, it is true, but one not altogether devoid of courtesy. I
+therefore ask but a kiss from your pretty daughter, and that small melon
+which dangles in the netted pouch at her saddle-bow, for which my
+thirsty ape is gibbering."
+
+If the traveller had been pale hitherto he was livid now.
+
+"Not that, not that," he cried; "hold me in ransom if you will, but let
+my niece pass on unmolested. She will send back whatever sum you demand,
+for we have wealthy friends in Siena."
+
+"Is it so?" I replied; "then I will forego the kiss, which is doubtless
+reserved for a wealthier suitor, but the fruit you will not deny, for I
+have ridden far to-day, and have the thirst of the evil one." The man's
+only reply was to cut the girl's horse so savagely across the flanks
+that the frightened creature dashed past while his own horse blocked my
+pursuit.
+
+But Ciacco, perceiving that the coveted fruit was about to be lost, in
+three flying leaps overtook the fugitive and clambering up the lady's
+draperies seized on the swaying pouch, which his sharp teeth managed to
+unravel, and presently came hopping back, man-like upon his hind feet,
+the melon clasped within his hairy arms.
+
+My prisoner uttered a wail of anguish. One would have thought the ape's
+trifling booty an inestimable treasure, for he rode so furiously toward
+Ciacco that the ape dropped the melon and scampered up a neighbouring
+tree. But my blood was up. I was not to be defrauded of my prey, and as
+the traveller was on the point of dismounting, I fired my arquebus in
+the air, and so terrified his horse that it galloped after the fleeing
+maiden. Its rider was also well frightened, for, though he drew rein
+uncertainly when he saw me possess myself of his luncheon, when I fired
+again (though purposely wide of the mark) both travellers resumed their
+flight, nor paused until they had gained Siena.
+
+I laughed to myself at the success of my prank, thinking of the added
+mirth I should enjoy in telling the tale that evening. Meantime I
+hastened to rescue the melon from my pet, but his strong hands had
+already rent it asunder, and to my astonishment there rolled from its
+interior and broke open upon the flinty road a little casket for which
+the rind had been but the concealing envelope.
+
+I was in very truth a highwayman, for unaware I had stolen the
+travellers' treasure. The melon had hidden a quantity of jewels, which
+now besprinkled the dust; rubies, emeralds, pearls, sapphires, beryls,
+as well as semi-precious stones such as jacinths, onyx, and sardonyx,
+rendered more costly than their brilliant fellows by the skill with
+which they had been cut into cameos and intaglios. It needed but a
+glance at an amethyst incised with a scene from the history of Cupid,
+and Psyche, and at another larger stone bearing a marvellous Apollo and
+Marsyas, to realise that they were antiques of inestimable value, the
+collection of some great prince. I gathered up the gems by handfuls and
+stuffed them into my wallet. I was sobered by the realisation of the
+enormity of my crime, for I had possessed myself, _vi et armis_, of
+jewels worth a king's ransom; and I had no clue by which I could safely
+return them.
+
+I sifted the dust with my fingers, explored Ciacco's mouth, and gathered
+up the fragments of the melon-rind that no stray gem should escape me;
+but it was with sincere repentance and the gravest apprehensions that I
+took my way to Villa Cetinale.
+
+Repairing to the stables, I put up my horse and climbed with my booty to
+my loft. Raphael was not there, and tying Ciacco to my bed-post I again
+examined the gems, gloating over their beauty and yet wishing with all
+my heart that they had never come into my possession. I compared them
+with a list in the box, found none missing, and returning them to the
+little casket carefully corded and sealed the same, and sat for a long
+time racking my brains for some issue from the dilemma. I was awakened
+from my dreams by a servant who announced that dinner was served, and
+that his master awaited my coming to present me to his guests. While
+hastily dressing, I resolved at the first opportunity to confide frankly
+in Chigi and to take his advice in the matter. Having thus lightly
+shifted the responsibility from my mind, and not being able to think of
+any better method of concealment, I once more placed the casket within
+the melon with the intention of returning for it in the course of the
+evening, and so hastened to my friend's table.
+
+Here what was my astonishment at being presented to the very persons who
+had figured in my adventure, and who proved to be Messer Bernardo
+Dovizio, Chancellor of his Eminence Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, and
+his niece Maria, whose beauty was somewhat lessened by weariness and the
+traces of recent tears. The Chancellor, also,--who to my relief did not
+recognise me,--was by no means in good form, nor did he regale us with
+any of those witty stories for which he is so justly famed, but sighed
+and groaned between every mouthful. His misfortune had so afflicted him
+that he could not keep silence, and disregarding my presence, which
+indeed he hardly noticed, he poured forth the cause of his woe. The gems
+which he had lost were a part of the famous collection of Lorenzo de'
+Medici, which his son, the Cardinal Giovanni, had carried with him in
+his flight from Florence, and was now secretly sending by his Chancellor
+in the expectation of pledging them to Chigi, in return for bills of
+exchange which would serve him in good stead during his exile in France.
+
+The faithful Dovizio, devoted to the Cardinal's service, as he had been
+to that of his father, was in an agony of despair. "I will bring this
+highwayman to the gallows," he continually repeated. "I will move heaven
+and earth to discover the villain."
+
+"Have you any guess as to whom he may be?" I asked, for the humour of
+the matter grew apace upon me.
+
+"Certainly not of his name," replied Chigi, "but the description given
+by my friend is so exact that he cannot fail to be discovered."
+
+"A man of gigantic stature," repeated the Chancellor, "with eyes of
+green fire gleaming from under his matted hair, a raucous voice which I
+could not fail to recognise; and on his croup an enormous baboon, as
+dangerous and malignant a beast as his master, trained also to like acts
+of brigandage, for it attacked my niece and robbed her while I held the
+bandit in play with my sword."
+
+"The baboon will bring him to justice," said Chigi, for it so happened
+that he had never seen Ciacco; "there is no such creature in Siena. This
+description shall be sent to every town in the vicinity and the
+miscreant will be easily identified."
+
+I could scarcely conceal my amusement, but turning to the Signorina I
+asked her if she could recognise their assailant.
+
+"Of a surety," she rejoined "though I cannot corroborate my uncle's
+description. The brigand's eyes were not green, for I marked them well,
+and they were black and merry as your own, nor was his voice harsh, but
+sweetly cadenced. Indeed now I bethink me you resemble him in other
+particulars."
+
+"You resemble that villain not at all, young man," interrupted her
+uncle. "He was twice your weight and bulk. I would know him anywhere and
+at our next meeting he shall not escape me."
+
+"Truly," I said, "a most lamentable mischance, and to think that you
+lost not only the jewels but your fruit as well. However, since you have
+a fondness for melons I may be able to furnish this repast with a desert
+of your liking, and if our host will excuse my absence I will fetch it."
+
+I ran to my loft bubbling over with appreciation of the exceeding
+wittiness of my own joke, but on opening my door a cry of dismay escaped
+me. My window was broken, the cord which had tied Ciacco gnawed through,
+and both the ape and the casket had disappeared.
+
+Nemesis had now loaded me with a despair identical with that of Bernardo
+Dovizio's. Like him, I foresaw myself suspected of having stolen the
+jewels. The amusing joke had assumed the proportions of a dangerous
+situation, and since I could not restore my ill-gotten gains I rashly
+determined to make no confession. I reflected that though the Signorina
+Dovizio might have shrewd suspicions she could bring forward no proofs.
+Ciacco, my compromising partner in crime, had fled. No one at the villa
+knew that I had ever owned such a pet. Even Raphael had not seen him,
+for he had been busy in Siena for a fortnight, and the Bohemians from
+whom I had bought Ciacco had passed by a week before. In an evil hour I
+determined to hold my peace for the present, hoping that some happy
+chance would lead to the discovery of the lost jewels, for which indeed
+I sought continually with every means at my command.
+
+Chigi too had instituted such search as was possible without putting the
+matter in the hands of the authorities, which would have brought about
+awkward complications with the signory of Florence. In the meantime he
+had invited the Dovizios to remain at the villa as his guests, an
+invitation which was accepted with much content. The Chancellor gave
+himself up to the delay with such resignation that I presently perceived
+that he had business of his own at Cetinale other than procuring funds
+for his patron, that in fact he had brought his niece in the hope of
+securing for her husband the banker Chigi, a good match even then in
+point of fortune. There was in Maria Dovizio such dewy freshness and
+sweetness, such absolute simplicity and purity as could not fail to
+appeal to any man with eyes to see; but Chigi was blind, being enamoured
+of another woman and she of a very different type, the improvisatrice
+Imperia, accounted the most talented singer in all Italy.
+
+While the Dovizios lingered in this unavailing quest, of which the
+gentle Maria was in utter ignorance, Raphael returned to the villa, and
+Love, who is always sharpening his arrows for the unwary, was not idle.
+It was the lady whom he first wounded, though we suspected it not at the
+time. Later, in Rome, the Signora Giovanna de Rovere gave me a letter
+written her by Maria Dovizio when at Cetinale, because forsooth I was
+mentioned therein, though in no complimentary a wise; and as this letter
+showeth forth the trend of affairs better than could any words of mine,
+I enclose it with this memorial.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_ Unknown Lady (probably Imperia), by Sebastian
+del Piombo Uffizi]
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Virgin and Child, by Sodoma
+
+Pinacoteca, Milan]
+
+     _Maria Dovizio to the Lady Giovanna Feltra de Rovere (Sister of the
+     Duke of Urbino), Duchess of Sora and Prefectissa of Rome at
+     Urbino._
+
+     "SIENA, October, 1504.
+
+     "_Most magnificent, most beloved, and most sweet Lady_:
+
+     "For whom my heart longs with true devotion. Truly Madam, since we
+     parted in Urbino most strange adventures have befallen me which I
+     will now relate. On our way to Siena we fell in with a bandit who
+     robbed us, and though my uncle is tarrying here in the hope of the
+     recovery of his property the matter is not altogether simple but
+     presents more complications than I can explain or indeed
+     understand.
+
+     "While we are thus delayed we are the guests of the banker Agostino
+     Chigi at his villa of Cetinale. With the exception of our host and
+     of two young painters, also his guests, we see no one, so, for lack
+     of other material, I will describe these young men. The elder is a
+     conceited prankish fop, if no worse, called Giovanni Bazzi, and why
+     his comrade, Raphael Santi, should hold him in affection I can by
+     no means understand, unless the vulgar saying be indeed true that
+     love goes by contraries. In presenting Raphael to us our host
+     assured my uncle that though as a painter he is as yet unknown he
+     is destined to make for himself a great career. But to these
+     eulogies of Chigi's I scarcely listened, my attention being held by
+     the charm of the artist's personality. Though he said but little,
+     his eyes were eloquent, and a smile of heavenly sweetness lighted
+     from time to time the gravity of his thoughtful face.
+
+     "At our host's insistence Bazzi showed one of his paintings--a
+     Madonna and Child--which I scarce regarded until Raphael praised
+     its excellencies, boldly defending the painting from my uncle's
+     strictures.
+
+     "While he spoke so eloquently I made a feint of examining the
+     picture and was indeed moved by the love which overflowed it, the
+     Madonna caressing her babe and he in turn petting a little lamb;
+     but my uncle pished and poohed, saying that this sentimentality was
+     but a feeble reflection of his master Da Vinci; and our host cut
+     the discussion short by demanding that Raphael should show his own
+     work. This he could not be persuaded to do, modestly persisting
+     that he had naught worthy of our consideration, though he promised
+     later to show us a Sposalizio upon which he was engaged but which
+     was not then finished.
+
+     "With all this, I have not related the circumstance which at once
+     put us upon the familiar footing of old acquaintanceship. It was
+     Chigi's chance remark that Raphael was a native of Urbino, where he
+     had been a favourite with all those choice spirits who make your
+     brother's court the most brilliant in Italy.
+
+     "And when I demanded of Raphael if he knew you and he told me of
+     your goodness to him, and how you were held in love and admiration
+     of all, then it was that our common affection for your ladyship
+     made us to feel that we had known each other from the time that we
+     first knew you.
+
+     "It is true that he did not boast as he might well have done that
+     you had kindly written a letter in his behalf to the Gonfalonier of
+     Florence, whither he intends later to journey. But my uncle
+     learning of this later was duly impressed thereby, and pronounced
+     him a young man of engaging manners who doubtless deserved such
+     distinguished favour.
+
+     "Even with this warrant our acquaintance has made no such rapid
+     strides. I meet him rarely except at our host's table where there
+     are often other guests and always that pest Giovanni Bazzi, whom I
+     can in no wise abide, and concerning whose honesty I have of late
+     entertained very grave suspicions. So serious indeed are they that
+     I will not at present divulge them but shall continue to watch the
+     rogue, knowing that the guilty sooner or later accuse themselves. I
+     think he dreads me for he leaves me always to converse with
+     Raphael, with whom my topic is ever Florence, which I knew as a
+     child before the banishment of the Medici.
+
+     "He tells me that he longs to see the city on account of the
+     artists there assembled and chiefly the painter Frate, formerly
+     known as Baccio della Porta, who turned monk under the preaching of
+     Savonarola.
+
+     "'And truly,' said he, 'I think that art and a monastic life wed
+     well together, and I would willingly retire to some cloistered
+     garden afar from the world if I might carry my box of colours with
+     me, and might sometimes see as in a vision a face like thine to
+     paint from.' Then was I seized with a foolish timidity so that I
+     could in no wise answer--nay, nor so much as lift up my head--but
+     my heart said, 'And why afar from the world? Why not in it making
+     all better and happier?'
+
+     "And while I sat thus silent, abashed, he, continuing to gaze upon
+     me, cried: 'Nay, but I _must_ paint thee: for thou art the very
+     embodiment of the ideal which I am striving to shadow forth in my
+     picture. I wish to depict the Virgin at the time of her betrothal
+     to St. Joseph, And to show a soul as pure as any of Fra Angelico's
+     angels shining through a body that shall have all the perfection
+     and charm of Da Vinci's women. It is what my master, Perugino,
+     strove for but never attained. How could he when he had only his
+     beautiful but soulless wife Chiara Fancelli to paint from?'
+
+     "'And do I look thus to thee?' I asked in wonder. 'Then, indeed, I
+     would that I might pose for thy painting; but, alas! I fear that to
+     this my uncle would in no wise consent.'
+
+     "And so, indeed, it proved. For later, when my uncle fancied that
+     he perceived some likeness to myself in the Sposalizio, though I
+     had given Raphael no sittings, he was vehement in his denunciation
+     of the presumption of all artists.
+
+     "My uncle might not have been so vexed but for the ill-timed
+     jesting of this same Bazzi. We had been asked to inspect the
+     picture before it should be sent to the monks for whom it was
+     painted, and while I stood entranced with its exceeding loveliness
+     and my uncle himself was astonished by the skill displayed, the
+     Signor Chigi explained the details of the composition.
+
+     "'It is a tradition,' he said, 'that the blessed Virgin was sought
+     in marriage by so many young men that her parents besought the
+     high-priest to aid them in their choice of her husband. He
+     accordingly demanded that her suitors should give their staves into
+     his keeping, to be placed over night before the altar, with the
+     understanding, in which Mary herself meekly acquiesced, that he
+     whose staff budded should become her husband. On the morrow
+     Joseph's staff was found to have put forth blossoms. This legend,
+     as you see, our artist has followed in his painting, for not only
+     is Joseph's staff tipped by a cluster of small flowers, but the
+     young men who accompany him, the disappointed suitors, bear
+     flowerless staves, and one of the rejected is breaking his across
+     his knee in token of his vexation.'
+
+     "Of this incident I would make no account, had it not been the
+     occasion for Bazzi's unmannerly trick. For that graceless fellow
+     chancing to spy leaning against his easel, the rod upon which
+     Raphael was wont to rest his hand while painting, he very slyly
+     made fast to it a nosegay of orange blossoms which the Signor Chigi
+     had presented to me on my entrance and which I had carelessly let
+     fall.
+
+     "You cannot imagine the coil which this trick occasioned, for its
+     author speedily called our host's attention to the decorated rod,
+     and the signification of its adornment was at once apprehended to
+     be my own approval of the painter.
+
+     "Raphael alone retained his senses, for he at once divined that the
+     perpetrator of the jest was his scapegrace friend and extorted from
+     him full confession of his prank, asserting that it was
+     inconceivable that I could have had any part in it.
+
+     "My confusion was such that I accepted the explanation with
+     gratitude as an escape from the bantering of the Signor Chigi and
+     the displeasure of my uncle. But as days passed by and Raphael held
+     himself aloof, giving me no opportunity to thank him for his
+     tactful defence, I perceived that it was not so much the meaning of
+     the token which had been imputed to me at which my heart revolted,
+     as the shameless and public way in which it had been thrust upon my
+     friend. In this plight I still remain and turn to you for sympathy
+     in my trouble, to you sweet lady who cannot fail to think me sadly
+     love-sick and bold, but I pray you chide me not, seeing the matter
+     can go no further, for I learn that Raphael has been recalled to
+     Urbino by your ladyship's brother to execute certain commissions.
+     So that your ladyship will soon see him and will have an
+     opportunity of learning from him whether he at all regrets leaving
+     Siena, though I beg that you will ascertain this without so much as
+     suffering him to suspect that I have in any way signified that I
+     have met him. For it is perchance best that he is going, for were I
+     to see him often I do fear me that my heart might become so pitched
+     and set upon him, that I should in time most rashly and
+     inconsiderately fall in love, which were a bold and unmaidenly
+     thing to do, and I mind that you once said that no virtuous woman
+     would allow her affections to conduct themselves thus
+     insubordinately until the Church had by the sacrament of marriage
+     given her good and sufficient license thereto.
+
+     "And so Madam, praying Maria Sanctissima and Maria, the sister of
+     Lazarus, my patroness, to keep me constant in this mind, I rest
+     your ladyship's loving friend and devoted servitor
+
+"MARIA DOVIZIO."
+
+It must be understood that this letter came not to my knowledge until
+long after its writing. I knew not then either the deep affection of the
+writer for Raphael, or her aversion for myself. By an irony of fate we
+had begun our acquaintance by loving at cross purposes. The "prankish
+fop" and "graceless fellow"--whose affection had indeed been hitherto
+no great compliment to a woman, being lightly caught and as lightly
+lost--was to his own surprise falling very honestly in love. So
+accustomed was I to the attraction of false lights that I said to myself
+often in the earlier stages of the malady, "This will pass like the
+others," not realising that I was entering upon the one great passion of
+my life, which all my later experience would but deepen, and death
+itself, if the soul be immortal, will have no power to quench.
+
+
+II
+
+APOLLO PROMISES
+
+
+  Little we see of Nature that is ours.
+
+  * * *
+
+  It moves us not,--Great God! I'd rather be
+  A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
+  So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
+  Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
+  Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
+  Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn.
+
+  W. WORDSWORTH.
+
+Raphael, at the period of which I write, had but one mistress,--his
+art,--and after finishing the Sposalizio he withdrew from the society of
+the Dovizios, painting most assiduously. I remember that his model was
+a pretty maid of seven years, named Margherita, the child of one of
+Chigi's servants, as playful and as ignorant as a little fawn. The
+startled look in her eyes, when spoken to by any one but Raphael,
+reminded me of some wild creature of the woods. But with him she was
+never shy,--singing and prattling the livelong day with the most
+charming and naïve affection. While Raphael painted, Bernardo Dovizio,
+who apparently regretted having wounded him, came from time to time to
+lend him books, much deploring that one so gifted by nature should be
+unread in the classics.
+
+His daughter watched them from a distance, and when Raphael left his
+easel would steal near and study the picture or chat with me and with
+the little Margherita. On such occasions the child, usually merry and
+loving, would sulk and scowl unhandsomely, and though Maria Dovizio was
+sweet and generous to her, she showed an unreasoning prejudice amounting
+to discourtesy, for which at first I was at a loss to account. I mind me
+that she was present when I tied the bunch of orange blossoms to
+Raphael's mahl stick, and after the visitors had left the studio the
+child, believing that the flowers were the gift of the Signorina
+Dovizio, tore them from the rod and trampled them beneath her feet.
+
+When I chid her for such savage behaviour Margherita burst into tears
+and cried out passionately that Raphael was her friend, and that the
+strange lady had no business to try to steal him from her. Seeing her so
+unreasoningly jealous at such a tender age I was mightily amused, having
+no premonition that these two would one day be rivals in good earnest
+for Raphael's love.
+
+But Margherita's jealousy woke in me a curiosity as to how far it was
+well-founded, and bantering Raphael thereon I came to the conclusion
+that he loved Maria Dovizio, but that he had so modest an estimate of
+his own talent and prospects that he would never tell her of his
+affection. The knowledge that I had a rival enlivened mightily my own
+passion, and determined me to lay the matter plainly before the lady and
+demand that she should choose between us.
+
+Finding my opportunity I argued my friend's cause, as it seemed to me
+with great magnanimity, but at the same time I neglected not to set
+forth how superior were my own advantages. To my immense surprise she
+refused me in such terms as to leave me with no ground for
+hope,--persisting at the same time that I was mistaken in regard to
+Raphael's feelings.
+
+In sheer contrariety and because her refusal had temporarily taken away
+my senses, I maintained that I knew whereof I spoke.
+
+"Would that I had known this before," she said turning from me.
+
+"You would not then have disclaimed sending the message implied by the
+flowers which I attached to his mahl stick?" I persisted rudely.
+
+"Nay, nay," she cried all of a tremble, "it is best as it is," and she
+made me swear that I would tell nothing of all this. The oath sat
+lightly on my conscience, and when my pride had somewhat recovered from
+the wound which it had received, my better nature asserted itself for I
+reflected that here were two young creatures whom nature intended for
+one another and I determined to give these bashful lovers another
+opportunity in which to understand each other.
+
+Though I prided myself not a little on the rare nobility of soul which I
+manifested by such unusual procedure, it was not so disinterested as
+might at first appear. For, I reasoned in my heart, when all comes to be
+known Maria Dovizio will give me credit for great self-sacrifice and
+delicacy of feeling, while Raphael cannot fail to be touched by my
+magnanimity. Back of all this self-laudation there was an ulterior
+motive hardly confessed to myself. By springing the mine prematurely I
+would either cement their union or drive them permanently apart, thus
+clearing my path of a dangerous rival while removing any imputation of
+underhand dealing upon my part. I dared the risk for I was nearing that
+point of desperation where uncertainty is worse than the knowledge of
+absolute defeat.
+
+While I sought for some promising way in which to execute my scheme,
+Raphael read the translations of the pagan writers which Dovizio had
+lent him, and this plunge into a bath of the old literature, so new to
+him, had a tremendous effect upon his susceptible mind. He regretted
+deeply that Pico della Mirandola, who strove to harmonise Greek
+mythology with the Christian religion, had been snatched away by death
+before he could have had the opportunity to converse with him. He read
+his writings with avidity and listened to what Dovizio remembered of his
+arguments that the religion of the Greeks was as truly a revelation from
+God as our own, and he could readily believe the assertion of certain of
+the humanist's friends that at Pico's death-bed the Virgin and Venus
+had met, and comforting his dying gaze with their presence, had together
+borne away his soul to the regions of the blest.
+
+Without being any less Christian, Raphael's soul expanded in the
+sunshine of these influences, absorbing all that was joyous and
+beautiful in pagan ideas. Chigi lent him his favourite manuscript, the
+Myth of Psyche, translated from Apuleius, which he declared Raphael must
+one day paint for him. But of all the gods of antiquity the one which
+roused our young enthusiast to deepest admiration was Apollo, whose
+avatar was the sun, but whose spiritual significance was infinitely
+more, the light of the soul, the god of music, art, and poetry and all
+that elevates the spirit of man.
+
+"Listen Giovanni," he said to me one day, "I could pray to such a deity.
+Think you that it would be sin to utter a prayer like this of Socrates:
+'Beloved Pan, and all ye gods who haunt this place, give me beauty of
+the inward soul, and may the outward and the inward man be at one'?"
+
+Seeing sport in the idea I assured him that such adoration was
+commendable and would doubtless meet with a response. I had my own idea
+of what form that response should take. Chigi held revel that night to
+celebrate a visit from the improvisatrice Imperia, who was on her way to
+Rome. Raphael could not be induced to join the company, preferring to
+spend the night devouring some books lately come from Venice. He had
+striven to tell me of a mysterious experience. A stone bearing the image
+of Apollo had fallen before him as he read, and he had accepted it as a
+propitious omen. I laughed rudely and he shrank from me offended.
+
+"I would have shown it to you," he said, "but now you shall not see it."
+
+I repeated this hallucination to Chigi and Imperia, and they also found
+it amusing.
+
+"He is as drunk with poesy," I insisted, "as ever I have been with wine.
+If the Signorina would graciously sing some old Greek chant yonder in
+the garden he would believe that he heard the voice of the gods."
+
+Imperia's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Let us humour this young
+enthusiast to his bent," she said. "I will hide in the laurel copse at
+the foot of the garden if Bazzi here will bring him out upon the
+terrace."
+
+"He could never be content to hear your divine voice," Chigi objected,
+"without seeking you out, and then--"
+
+"And then, my friend, you would imply that the disillusion would be too
+cruel. No, I am too evidently a part of this solid earth to pass as a
+nymph of Apollo."
+
+I remained silent but I looked meaningly at Maria Dovizio, who stood
+near the window, her slight figure outlined against its darkness.
+Imperia followed my glance.
+
+"Ah! there is a girl, graceful and ethereal enough to satisfy an
+artist's ideal."
+
+"What a pity," Chigi said, "that she has not your voice."
+
+"Nay, if the Signora will but deign to sing as she suggested," I
+persisted, "we will robe the Signorina Dovizio in Greek draperies and
+pose her in the little pillared temple in front of the laurel thicket
+and Raphael will not doubt that the voice is hers."
+
+Thus, at last, my scheme was carried out, though we had much difficulty
+in persuading Maria Dovizio to lend herself to it. Only when Chigi
+explained that it was an ovation to Raphael, in which she was to crown
+him with a wreath of laurel and foretell him a glorious future, did she
+consent. Even then she had no suspicion that I had any ulterior motive
+in suggesting the little tableau.
+
+It was late at night, or rather early in the morning, when all our
+arrangements were completed and, returning to the studio, I dragged
+Raphael from his books on pretence that we both had need to cool our
+brains.
+
+The view from the terrace was a favourite one with each of us. In the
+mysterious morning twilight there seemed something supernaturally
+sentient in the atmosphere, as though it quivered in expectation of the
+dawn. A soft trill, faint with rapture, filtered through the foliage of
+the neighbouring wood. It was a solitary nightingale calling his mate;
+and presently he was answered by flute-like notes which soared above the
+soft murmur of a viol still strumming in the villa as a skylark cuts the
+mists. It was not another nightingale as I at first thought, but
+Imperia's voice from the laurel thicket mocking the melody. As she sang
+there appeared within the circle of the tiny temple's columns a
+white-robed figure, outlined against the pale green and lemon yellow of
+the dawn. It might have been a statue save that as the song of the
+improvisatrice, a rhapsody to Apollo, thrilled the air with passionate
+sweetness, it raised its perfect arms in invocation. As though in
+response to the gesture the clouds flushed through delicate rose to
+crimson, while the radiance beneath their exquisite arch burned like
+molten gold, with ever-increasing intensity, until the sun itself
+blinded our eyes with its intolerable white fire.
+
+Though this was exactly the event which I had planned, I was not
+prepared for such phenomenal success, and I stole nearer the temple
+spellbound by my own artifice.
+
+The effect upon Raphael in his exalted mood may readily be imagined. To
+him my little comedy was a supernatural vision, and kneeling before
+Maria Dovizio he exclaimed: "Beautiful priestess, beseech Apollo to
+grant me the power to make the world more beautiful."
+
+Mechanically the Signorina repeated the lines which I had assigned her:
+"To you it is decreed to find Apollo and to bring back the Golden Age."
+
+Then, as she bent to crown him with the wreath of laurel, the perfume
+and warmth of her person intoxicating his senses, her bared arms
+encircling his neck, her soul in her eyes, Raphael awoke to the
+consciousness that this was no phantom but a woman pulsing with life and
+love, and that woman Maria Dovizio.
+
+He might have revolted at the trick and have thrust her from him; but
+look you--it is always the unforeseen which happens. His arms were
+around her and he drew her to him unresisting till for an instant her
+lips touched his forehead and his face was buried in her bosom. Then she
+withdrew herself, pushing him from her very gently and steadying herself
+tremblingly with her hands upon his shoulders.
+
+"And shall I not find you again, O my beloved?" he cried, springing to
+his feet.
+
+"Surely," she answered, "surely, when you have found Apollo."
+
+She had turned from him and was hurrying toward the villa, but he
+followed her, calling her name.
+
+"Claim me not now, not now!" she cried, as he caught her hand.
+
+"When you will," he answered, closing her fingers over some small
+object, "this is my pledge that when you call me I will keep the tryst."
+
+He passed me a moment later, but so great was his preoccupation that he
+did not see me. I knew by the exalted look upon his face that I had
+played and lost. Raphael had awakened from his dreams to love. That
+instant of mutual enlightenment for two such natures was not alone an
+ineffaceable memory but a sacred though wordless betrothal.
+
+Through my pain I vaguely heard Chigi calling and returned to the villa.
+Neither he nor his friends had understood the full significance of what
+had just happened, and Bernardo Dovizio was demanding of his niece an
+explanation of the scene.
+
+"He thought me one of the muses," she said, "and begged me to beseech
+for him the favour of Apollo."
+
+"But he gave you something," said Dovizio. "Show it to me," and he
+wrenched open his niece's fingers.
+
+For one instant he gazed wonder-stricken at the token, and as I pressed
+close with the others I also recognised the famous Apollo intaglio, the
+gem of the collection of Lorenzo the Magnificent, of which for a few
+hours I had been the unlawful possessor.
+
+Exclamations of wonder and admiration arose on all sides. But Dovizio,
+recovering his power of speech, seized Chigi by the arm, exclaiming: "We
+have the thief! Look you Agostino, I have had my suspicions all along.
+It was Raphael who played the bandit, and robbed me of my jewels. I
+demand that you arrest the villain."
+
+Maria's look of anguish cut me to the heart. "Nay, listen to me," I
+cried; "it was not Raphael but I who stole your gems. You shall not
+burst in upon him and kill him with the shock of your accusations.
+Listen while I confess the truth." And then and there I did confess it,
+to the wonder but not to the satisfaction of Dovizio.
+
+"But where are the other gems?" he insisted. "You are a pair of rogues,
+the two of you. Come with me to your confederate and disgorge your
+booty."
+
+"Give o'er, my good Dovizio," said Chigi. "I will sift this matter; come
+with me but keep silence, for I believe in my soul that Bazzi speaks the
+truth. I will hear Raphael's version of how he came by this intaglio;
+since a portion of your lost property has been returned, perchance the
+remainder is on the way."
+
+And so indeed it proved. Raphael had not returned to the studio, but as
+we opened the door we heard a scampering and chattering, and caught a
+glimpse of Ciacco leaping to the top of a high cabinet and thence to a
+rafter where he perched whimpering in fear of punishment.
+
+"Come down, you rogue," I cried, "come down and retrieve your game."
+
+The creature understood and climbing into the hay loft, which joined
+the studio, returned, hugging to his breast the lost casket.
+
+Dovizio, nearly fainting with excitement, counted his treasures, and
+compared them with the list. All were there, excepting the Apollo
+intaglio, which Ciacco, driven by hunger, had that evening restored to
+Raphael.
+
+As it came so pat with the matter of his reading, it is no wonder that
+he imagined it had fallen from the skies, and this view of the case even
+the placated Dovizio took upon reflection.
+
+"It were a pity to rob him of his illusions if they are an inspiration
+to him," he mused. "Let him think himself favoured by Apollo; and as for
+my niece, since our business here is now accomplished and we shall leave
+Siena on the morrow, he will probably never see her again, and it is as
+well that he should not connect her with his visions."
+
+Thus ended our adventures at the villa of Cetinale for Raphael also
+presently left us for Urbino and Florence and all things seemed as they
+had been before our meeting together. But I knew that the day would
+surely come when he would claim his beloved, and that in the spinning of
+their fates so slight a thing as the pranking of a fool had twisted
+itself into the very fibre of their lives, never to be unravelled until
+the shears of Atropos should cut the cords asunder.
+
+
+III
+
+APOLLO FULFILS HIS PROMISE
+
+_Federigo de Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, gives his views of Raphael_
+
+
+  Then why too will he try so many things,
+    Instead of sticking to one single art;
+  He must be studying music, twanging strings,
+    And writing sonnets with their "heart and dart,"
+  Lately he's setting up for architect,
+    And planning palaces, and, as I learn,
+    Has made a statue--every art in turn.
+
+  W. W. STORY.
+
+Raphael, as I have said, betook himself to Florence, that centre of the
+arts, and for a matter of four years I saw him not, nor can I, my
+Giulio, give you any record of his Florentine experiences, vital as they
+were to the flowering of his character and genius. I saw only the
+change; he left me a youth, naïve, ignorant, but filled with a divine
+enthusiasm, inspired as it were by the very spirit of God. In those
+four years he became instructed, absorbing all that was best from
+ancient and modern art, but still a mystic, a young archangel in
+knowledge and power.
+
+He studied first with Fra Bartolommeo in the cloister of San Marco, and
+the painter-monk yearned over him, as the child of his soul. But he
+divined also from the mere beholding of Da Vinci's pictures what I had
+been able to learn only by painful study, the secret of the master's
+charm.
+
+At the same time the strong undercurrent of the Greek spirit rife in
+Florence was bearing him irresistibly on to his mission as leader of all
+that is beautiful, joyous, and noble in classical art. Fra Bartolommeo
+could not fail to be distressed by these tendencies in his disciple.
+Raphael came to him one day saying, "Beloved Master, his holiness the
+Pope has called me to Rome; and I go with joy, for it has been revealed
+to me that there I shall find Apollo."
+
+"Ah! my son," the pious painter replied in anguished warning, "beware,
+for whoso findeth Apollo loseth Christ."
+
+And now I come to our Roman life and especially to that familiar
+intercourse at the Villa Chigi where Raphael and I were nearer of one
+spirit, for all your opportunities, than were you and he, my Giulio. In
+Rome, as in Siena, I preceded him, and had the better chance for
+fortune's favours, which I wilfully threw away. For early in his
+pontificate, Pope Julius II. made Agostino Chigi his banker and farmer
+of the alum mines whose yearly revenue was estimated at $100,000. Nor
+did Chigi with this elevation forget old friends, for in the spring of
+1507 he came to Siena to fetch me as a personal favour to Rome, but on
+our arrival he introduced me to the Pope, and obtained from him my
+commission to decorate the Stanza della Segnatura. But, fool that I was,
+I fancied my luck could not desert me, and painted only when it pleased
+me, ran my horses at all the races in Italy, and played the dandy, the
+spendthrift, and the roistering spark, until his Holiness in disgust
+turned me from the Vatican, and called Raphael to take my place, bidding
+him erase the little work I had done upon the ceiling.
+
+This, however, Raphael refused to do. On the contrary he did me the
+honour to paint my portrait beside his own, where you may see both of
+them to-day in that glorious fresco of the _School of Athens_, the
+serious inspired face of the young maestro cheek by cheek with the
+coarser features of his laughing, devil-may-care friend; and I prize
+more highly that testimony of his esteem than all the other honours of
+my life.
+
+I lingered on aimlessly at Rome, watching him at his work, fascinated by
+the superb conceptions with which he glorified the walls of the Vatican,
+and admiring the daring which enthroned Apollo and his attendant muses
+there in the very sanctuary of Christendom.
+
+It was his homage to the old worship, his endeavour to bring back
+Apollo, and that he thought then of Maria Dovizio's promise that he
+should find her when this was accomplished I had one day convincing
+proof; for, turning over his sketches, I found scribbled upon the back
+of a study for the _Disputa_ this sonnet:
+
+             "LOVE'S BONDAGE"
+
+    "Love, thou hast bound me with a cruel force,
+     The light of her two tender starry eyes,
+     A face like snow flushed rose 'neath sunset skies,
+     With gentle bearing and with chaste discourse.
+     But I would make no plaint, so great my bliss.
+     The more I love, I long to love again.
+     How light the yoke, how sweet the circling chain
+     Of her arms round my neck! And 'neath her kiss
+     Leaps forth the embodied soul in ecstacy.
+     Unloosed those bonds I suffer ceaseless pain,
+     For great joy kills whom it doth wholly move.
+     Though throbbing still with tender thought of thee,
+     My heart is heavy and I speak in vain,
+     But be my silence eloquent of love."[3]
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Raphael and Sodoma
+
+Fragment of School of Athens, in the Vatican--Raphael]
+
+I knew that the poem was addressed to Maria, for it was at this time
+that Bernardo Dovizio, dazzled by the change in Raphael's fortunes and
+repenting of his hasty action at Cetinale, offered my friend the hand of
+his niece.
+
+Raphael had told me of this, begging my congratulations. "She is at
+Urbino," he said, "but has written me confirming our betrothal. She
+tells me, too, that she has loved me all these years. Such constancy is
+miraculous, and I am the happiest of men."
+
+It was with a sore heart that I wished my friend joy. He knew not of my
+trouble, or I think it would have poisoned his happiness, for he
+sympathised so deeply with all his friends that their sorrows were his
+own. I mind me that we met Agostino Chigi that day, and that he told us
+of his prosperity; how he was sole owner of five score banking houses
+outrivalling those of the Medici and, indeed, every other firm in the
+world; how he monopolised not alone the alum, but also the wheat and
+salt industries; how his lakes alone supplied Rome with fish and his
+stock farms its markets; that his fleet numbered upwards of an hundred
+merchant vessels, while thousands of men did him service; that, in
+short, his fortune was now past computation, and his income beyond his
+power of spending.
+
+He explained all this not in a spirit of boastfulness, but, with an arm
+about each of us, told how he desired that we should share in his glory.
+He had determined to build a villa in Lungara upon the Tiber which
+should excel all of the Roman palaces, and while Peruzzi was his chosen
+architect, Raphael and I should divide its decoration. "For if I have
+become a prince of finance," he ended, "you, dear friends, are princes
+of art, and we will all three join in making this villa a worthy
+dwelling-place for one whom you knew and admired at Cetinale."
+
+Thinking for the instant that he referred to Imperia, who was now in
+Rome, Raphael congratulated him warmly and confided his own betrothal to
+Maria Dovizio. But at that news a sudden transformation was wrought in
+the demeanour of our old friend. His face became purple and swollen
+and his arms fell to his sides. Not a word spake he for a full minute,
+but he drew his breath hard, flinging out at length a bitter sarcasm on
+the faithlessness of women, and bidding Raphael trust not too much to
+their promises, he abruptly left us.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Villa Farnesina, Rome]
+
+There was only one construction to be put upon his conduct. Maria's
+loveliness had apparently made no impression upon him at Cetinale, but
+the memory of it had lingered in his heart, and when he met her after a
+lapse of years and saw how her beauty had matured, an affection, of
+which he himself may not have been conscious, flowered suddenly, just as
+a rose-tree set in ungrateful soil and long accounted dead may in the
+fulness of time come to unlooked-for efflorescence.
+
+Sharing his envy, I could only mark it with a laugh, but Raphael said,
+kindly, "Poor fellow, with all his wealth, I am many times richer than
+he."
+
+In my heart I knew that of her three lovers Maria had chosen wisely, and
+Chigi's disappointment would not have added to my own affliction, but
+for the reflection that in the present turn of affairs he would not be
+likely to hasten the building of his villa, and my last hope of
+employment in Rome was fading like a cruel mirage. But Raphael could
+well afford to waive Chigi's patronage, for him it was but another step
+in the golden staircase of success which now mounted invitingly before
+him. The Pope not only overwhelmed him with projects for the decoration
+of the Vatican but made him curator of all antiques which might be
+discovered near Rome, with full power to direct excavations.
+
+Returning to the Vatican from the walk during which we had encountered
+Chigi, Raphael found awaiting him a letter from the Pope, announcing
+that certain ancient statues had been discovered in the gardens of the
+villa of Nero at Antium, (now Porto d'Anzio), and desiring him to
+examine them and arrange for the transportation of the more remarkable
+to Rome.
+
+"Come with me," Raphael cried, "since you have nothing better to
+do--pardon me, my friend--since such an excursion is exactly what you
+would enjoy. We will ride to-morrow morning to Ostia and charter some
+fishing craft there for the sail to Porto d'Anzio."
+
+I accepted the invitation, glad to visit this favourite seaside resort
+of the Roman emperors. Even before we landed we could see the ruins of
+their villas deep in the clear waters of the bay, fish gliding through
+arches and the seaweed waving its pennons from the walls. The cliff at
+the back of the town presented a most impressive appearance, being
+pierced by great arched openings like the portals of a Roman bath. And
+such, indeed, they were, for on the promontory above had been the
+gardens of the imperial villa, and from them staircases carven in the
+rock descended to this subterranean chamber, which at full-tide the sea,
+rushing through a long canal, once converted into a swimming-pool. The
+great cavern had been dry for centuries, for the tides had piled their
+own sandy dykes before it, and the vaulting had fallen bringing with it
+a portion of the garden of the imperial villa and burying its statues
+beneath the debris. It was here that excavations had been begun, and as
+we entered the cave from the beach, our way was bordered by the
+fragments of many a column and capital, by broken vases and by headless
+statues.
+
+But none of these attracted us, for in the centre of the chamber,
+perfectly illumined by a shaft of light which fell upon it slantwise
+from the chasm in the roof, was the most superb statue which our eyes,
+nay, which any human vision had ever beheld.
+
+Apollo's very self stood there, god-like in superhuman majesty, as
+though he were an archangel who had alighted from his flaming chariot to
+lift a threatening hand against the workers of iniquity.
+
+I cannot describe the profound impression which this discovery made upon
+Raphael. He was raised to the seventh heaven, as on that memorable night
+at Siena, and while he gazed at the statue a mysterious voice, clear but
+freighted with intense emotion, chanted the _Hymn to Apollo_ to which we
+had listened at Chigi's villa.
+
+At first we could not tell from whence it came but looked about in
+startled surprise. Presently, however, a branch of laurel fell through
+the opening in the roof, the song ended in a peal of laughter, and we
+knew that some one was looking down upon us from the old Roman garden.
+No one but Imperia could sing like that, and when Raphael exclaimed. "It
+is the same song, the same singer that we heard at Cetinale." I cried
+out. "The same, the same. She is celebrating the discovery of Apollo."
+
+"She promised to come to me when I had found Apollo," he said, and
+bounded up the rude stairway. Even then I did not realise that though
+Raphael had recognised the voice he still supposed that it was Maria
+Dovizio who had sung on that evening, and that it was she whom he now
+believed he was about to meet.
+
+There was no one in the ruined villa. A goatherd at a little distance,
+of whom I inquired, pointed to the shore, and we saw some
+pleasure-seekers embarking in a small sailboat.
+
+"It is Chigi's yacht," said Raphael, "that is his pennon which flaps
+from the mast, and Chigi himself is standing at the stern waving his cap
+to us. There is a lady with him. He is steadying her with his arm. Your
+eyes are better than mine, is it she?"
+
+"It is indeed," I replied, "I would know her anywhere. His arm is around
+her waist and she is clinging to him as of old. The unsteadiness of the
+vessel is but an excuse. Many times at Cetinale have I seen them
+standing thus. What else could you expect of such a woman? He is the
+richest man in Italy."
+
+
+IV
+
+       AN ORGY AT CHIGI'S VILLA
+
+  And Chigi made a joyous feast; I never
+  Sat at a costlier; for all round his hall
+  From column on to column, as in a wood,
+  Great garlands swung and blossomed, and beneath
+  Heirlooms and ancient miracles of Art
+  Chalice and salver, wines that Heaven knows when
+  Had sucked the fire of some forgotten sun
+  And kept it through a hundred years of gloom,
+  Yet glowing in a heart of ruby, cups
+  Where nymph and god ran ever round in gold,
+  Others with glass as costly, some with gems
+  Movable and resetable at will,
+  And trebling all the rest in value.
+         Ah! heavens!
+  Why need I tell you all? Suffice! to say
+  That whatsoever boundless wealth like his,
+  And genius high, can compass, rare or fair,
+  Was brought before the guest.
+
+              TENNYSON:--Altered.
+
+So I found Raphael and so I left him, successful and apparently happy.
+Had I comprehended what the incident which I have just related meant to
+him,--had I even suspected his misconception of the situation,--I might
+have made him understand that neither at Cetinale nor at Porto d'Anzio
+had Maria Dovizio sung the _Hymn to Apollo_, that in both places it was
+Imperia who had chanted, Imperia who had responded to Chigi's caresses,
+and so this woful misunderstanding might never have divided these young
+lovers. Maria, far from being Chigi's guest at the moment of the
+discovery of the _Apollo_, was in Urbino, awaiting in ever-increasing
+wonder and dismay some word of affection from her betrothed. Failing to
+receive it she came to Rome, but Raphael held himself aloof, pleading
+the Pope's demands upon his time. He thought that she would understand
+the cause of his neglect, and herself sunder the engagement, for he
+would not shame her by any accusation.
+
+One ineffaceable picture of my friend I carried with me into my exile,
+for going to the Vatican to bid Raphael farewell, I was told that he was
+in the Pope's villa of the Belvedere superintending the placing of the
+_Apollo_, which had just arrived. The guards barred my entrance to the
+loggia, and indeed I cared not to intrude, for I saw that the Pope was
+there, gazing at the statue with a grim delight, as though he believed
+that the god had descended to earth to expel as of old the barbarian
+Gauls.
+
+Raphael stood entranced, unmindful of the presence of Maria Dovizio, who
+sat a little apart, heart-sick and bewildered, unable to grope her way
+through the thick fog of misconception which had drifted between herself
+and her beloved.
+
+And over all the white form of _Apollo_ gleamed in heartless gladness,
+untouched by any feeling for his votary's sins of ignorance for which he
+would cry in vain repentance, "Had I but known, had I but known!"
+
+It was impossible for me to tarry longer in Rome without employment, and
+I bethought me of the monks of Oliveto, and how they had asked for a
+series of paintings for their cloister. To this refuge, therefore, I
+repaired, completing, in two years, thirty-one great frescoes for little
+more than my sustenance. Yea; and for my belly's sake I might have
+accepted the life of a cowled monk, had not Chigi in the nick of time
+drawn me from that slough with the announcement that Peruzzi had
+completed the building of his villa, and that it was now ready for
+decoration.
+
+Here accordingly, while painting in the upper rooms, I enjoyed the
+comradeship of that brotherhood of choice spirits--Giovanni da Udine,
+Francesco Penni, and the rest--who with thee, my Giulio, wrought so
+lovingly under Raphael's direction, illuminating the lower loggia with
+the legend of _Cupid and Psyche_.
+
+It is true that to my surprise and sorrow Raphael himself came not, but
+I knew that he was overwhelmed with commissions, and to their demands
+upon his time I attributed his avoidance of the villa. In the meantime I
+delayed not to seek him out, and to express my surprise that I found him
+still a bachelor. But at my first probing of that old wound he winced so
+perceptibly that I perceived that it was by no means cured, and I made
+no demand upon his confidence for an explanation of his delay in
+demanding the consummation of an engagement which had not been publicly
+dissolved.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma
+
+From the portrait of himself in the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore]
+
+The world gossiped as to the cause of Raphael's neglect of his
+affianced. The most part declared him cold, absorbed only in love of his
+art, and some whispered that the Pope who was insatiable in his demands
+for his work, feared that marriage would lessen his enthusiasm for art,
+and had put off indefinitely the wedding-day, promising Raphael the
+Cardinal's hat if he remained a celibate.
+
+While I could not believe that this was the true explanation of the
+estrangement between the lovers, I was far from suspecting the truth.
+Though I called upon Maria Dovizio I got no enlightenment in that
+quarter, nay, nor encouragement for my own passion, for when I put forth
+some timid essays, they were promptly crushed by a look of such
+reproach that I called myself brute as well as fool for my persistency.
+
+Longing to do her service, I determined to haunt my friend until he
+should voluntarily confide the secret of the trouble, and if it were
+possible bring them together.
+
+With this end in view, in all my leisure hours I frequented Raphael's
+studio, where he was painting the most glorious of his Madonnas for the
+monks of San Sisto. And here, posing for that divine work, I found again
+our child-model of Cetinale, the little Margherita.
+
+She was no longer a child, for the years which had elapsed had
+transformed her into a woman; but she had retained her old
+characteristics of shyness, simplicity, and a worshipful love of
+Raphael. She had followed him to Rome, so he told me, like some
+faithful, dumb animal which could not live away from its master, and
+moved by her great affection he had given her lodging and employment as
+his model. There lacked not malicious tongues who called her his
+mistress; but so modest yet unabashed was her demeanour that I can well
+believe that she deserved to the end the honour which he paid in
+choosing her face as his ideal of all that is noblest in woman.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Margherita (La Fornarina), Attributed to Raphael
+
+Pitti Gallery, Florence]
+
+While I worked at Chigi's villa my patron gave me much of his
+company; for though the decorations were unfinished he had established
+his residence here. Imperia was his guest at this time, and as we sat at
+table one evening Chigi complained in her presence that Raphael slighted
+his engagements and avoided his company.
+
+"Have I not heard," Imperia hazarded boldly, "that he is to marry the
+Maria Dovizio whom I met at Cetinale?"
+
+"If her uncle speaks true," Chigi replied, "Raphael is but a
+recalcitrant lover, continually putting off the date of the marriage.
+Bernardo Dovizio admitted to me that his niece's patience is at an end,
+and that she could be persuaded to accept a more ardent suitor."
+
+Imperia darted a keen look at Chigi, but replied calmly, "It is plain
+that Raphael has been entangled by some other woman," and she demanded
+of me suddenly if it were not so.
+
+"It may be," I admitted reluctantly, for this possibility had of late
+occurred to me, and I told them of Margherita.
+
+Chigi was delighted. "If Maria Dovizio but knew of that liaison," he
+cried, "she would send her betrothed about his business."
+
+"Have a care, Agostino," Imperia exclaimed. "Let the news reach her
+through any one but you. She would hardly regard with kindness the man
+who brought her proof of Raphael's faithlessness."
+
+Chigi looked at me significantly. "_You_ knew her," he said. "It is in
+your power to serve us both."
+
+"God knows I would give my life to serve her," I cried unguardedly.
+
+Imperia laughed. "You have more than one rival, my Agostino," she said.
+"Bazzi is a good fellow, but not to be trusted with your love affairs."
+
+"I deny the accusation that I am your honour's rival," I cried hotly. "I
+had never any hope in that quarter."
+
+Chigi nodded thoughtfully and pressed my hand. "Do not torment yourself,
+Imperia," he said after a moment, as he left us. "We have neither of us
+any chance with Maria Dovizio; and you shall be mistress of this villa
+and of its master so long as you care for your kingdom."
+
+But Imperia was not deceived though she feigned to believe Agostino's
+protestations. Chigi's information that Maria's hand had been
+practically offered him by her uncle had wakened the most intense alarm
+for her own position, and she instantly determined to effect a
+reconciliation between Maria and Raphael.
+
+"Look you, Bazzi," she said when we were alone, "that hussy, Margherita,
+must leave our friend's house at once. I can see that you love Maria
+Dovizio so disinterestedly that you prefer her happiness to your own.
+Now it is certain that Raphael and Maria love each other; and we must
+not allow any foolishness to part them. Let us work in concert to bring
+them together."
+
+I remember that when I heard Imperia say this it struck me as an
+instance of an angel being served by the machinations of an evil spirit.
+But I hesitated not to make her my fellow-conspirator, nor did I revolt
+that Margherita must suffer, nay, that I myself must relinquish any
+lingering hope of winning my idol's heart if so be that her happiness
+could be secured.
+
+"I am with you in that business," I assured Imperia, "but how can we
+effect it?"
+
+"Very easily," Imperia replied. "Margherita is the daughter of Chigi's
+pastry-cook at Cetinale. Send for him--I will give you money. He shall
+exercise a father's authority to compel his daughter to return to her
+home. His mistress once beyond his reach, Raphael will forget her, and
+imagine that he has never loved any one but his betrothed. I know you
+men--the nearest is ever the dearest."
+
+Imperia's plot was but partially successful. She brought Margherita's
+father indeed from Siena and established him as a baker near the villa;
+but no commands, threats, or bribe of his could induce his daughter to
+renounce Raphael's protection.
+
+Imperia again took counsel with me. "The fool loves him," she said; "we
+must act through her love, not against it."
+
+"And how shall we do that?" I asked.
+
+"We must make her understand that her lover, intoxicated by his delight
+in her company, is disregarding his own advantage in neglecting Chigi's
+commissions, and that she must reside here in order to induce Raphael to
+follow her."
+
+The scheme seemed to me likely to succeed, and one morning, when I
+shrewdly suspected that Raphael would be busied at the Vatican, I took
+Imperia with me to his studio to try her powers of persuasion upon
+Margherita.
+
+Even then she could not have succeeded but for my help, for Margherita,
+trusting in my friendship for Raphael, appealed to me. "It is for his
+good," I assured her.
+
+"Then I will not refuse," she replied, "but will go with you at once. So
+write for me to my master that if he wishes to paint from me, he will
+find me when he is prepared to fulfil his promises to his patron."
+
+Thus, without giving her time to reflect, we carried Margherita in
+Imperia's carriage to Chigi's villa. I guessed that she had no intention
+of sending the girl's message to her lover; that she planned to keep
+Margherita hidden until Raphael, believing her false or losing all hope
+of finding her, would return to his allegiance to Maria.
+
+But there were other forces at work on which I had not counted, and the
+first of these was Chigi.
+
+Something like the same chain of reasoning had been started in his mind
+by my mention of Margherita, but he had reached the conclusion that
+Raphael's infatuation for his pretty model must be encouraged. He
+therefore privately requested me to induce her, by exactly the same
+arguments which we had already employed, to do precisely what she had
+already done.
+
+The humour of the situation was so great that I burst into an
+uncontrollable fit of laughter.
+
+This so angered the unsuspecting man that I managed to ejaculate between
+my paroxysms: "Margherita in this villa! And what pray you would the
+Signora Imperia say to that?"
+
+At this question Chigi whistled. "I had forgotten Imperia," he admitted,
+and then to my utter confusion that lady entered the room with her arm
+about the waist of Margherita.
+
+Never before had I seen Imperia unable to give a plausible account of a
+situation, but while she hesitated, Margherita did her good service by
+telling the simple truth. She thanked Chigi warmly for his patronage of
+Raphael, and explained how Imperia and she had plotted to induce him to
+complete the frescoes.
+
+"And you did this to give me pleasure?" Chigi asked, regarding Imperia
+with wonder and admiration. She felt her advantage and found her tongue.
+"You little know your Imperia," she said, sweetly; and true though the
+words were he understood them falsely, as she meant he should, and the
+recording angel gave her credit for a lie.
+
+"I am more grateful than I can express," cried Chigi, "for I have great
+need of Raphael at this moment, and you, dearest Imperia, shall never
+regret this kindness."
+
+"We have played into the hands of the enemy," Imperia said to me in a
+low voice as Chigi darted away to write to Raphael; "nevertheless the
+game is not yet lost. I know my dear Agostino's cards, and though they
+are good ones I have some which he recks not of and he shall never wed
+the fair Maria."
+
+A wonderful woman was this Imperia, as I was beginning to realise,
+though I had not yet sounded the depths of that strange nature.
+
+Chigi's letter to Raphael was a masterpiece of duplicity. He confided to
+him as the most sacred secret the information that his engagement to a
+certain mutual acquaintance of Cetinale days would soon be announced,
+and he begged his friend, for the sake of the lady, to give his personal
+and inimitable touch to the frescoes of _Cupid and Psyche_, and to other
+decorations in the villa which he was preparing for his bride. Although
+he also confessed the stratagem by which he had secured the presence of
+Margherita, it was the news of Chigi's approaching marriage which
+determined Raphael to accede to his request. Though Agostino had worded
+his allusions to his betrothed so skilfully that they applied with equal
+fitness to either Imperia or Maria Dovizio, Raphael never doubted that
+he referred to the latter. The news simply confirmed the suspicions
+which he had long entertained, and with characteristic magnanimity, he
+determined to leave Maria the highest masterpiece of which his hand was
+capable.
+
+He came at once, and Imperia sat smiling at his side while he painted
+Margherita as the principal figure in the glorious _Triumph of Galatea_,
+Chigi, marking Margherita's look of rapt devotion, drew me aside in
+ecstacy. "It is plain that they love each other," he said. "When the
+picture is nearly finished I will invite Bernardo Dovizio and his niece
+to see it. They will understand the relations of this artist and model.
+He is cutting his own throat with every stroke of his facile brush, for
+Maria Dovizio will brook no divided affection."
+
+But when in alarm I reported this conversation to Imperia--"Children!"
+she cried scornfully; "what children you men are! Can you not see,
+Giovanni, that, though Margherita worships her painter as a god, he
+cares for her only as a piece of stuff, a marble column, or a jewel,
+beautiful truly and therefore serviceable to paint from, but nothing
+more. Let Agostino bring Maria Dovizio here. I desire nothing more
+warmly than to compass her meeting with Raphael. But give me a moment
+with her to prepare her for that meeting, and one in which to withdraw
+Margherita and all others from the scene, and think you that in the joy
+of their reconciliation either he or she will give a thought to his
+picture or to the models who posed for it?"
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Pope Leo X,
+
+Giulio de Medici (afterward Pope Clement VII), and
+
+Luigi De Rossi, by Raphael
+
+Pitti Gallery]
+
+Chigi did not at once carry out his intention of inviting the Dovizios
+to his villa, for another project for the moment eclipsed that design
+and demands a temporary digression from my story; for if he was to be
+reckoned with as a lover, in a review of the hidden causes which brought
+about the catastrophe, he is still less to be neglected in his proper
+rôle of financier.
+
+Pope Leo X. was to discover this as his predecessor Julius had done, and
+with more reason, for Leo was the greater borrower, all of his family
+and the adherents of the Medici descending upon him on his accession to
+the papacy like a flock of buzzards. Julius had left the papal coffers
+well filled, but Leo had not only emptied them, but he had anticipated
+his own revenues and those of his successor. Truly was it said after
+his death, that upon his family and the building of Saint Peter's he had
+spent the income of three pontificates. Chigi was not distressed that
+there was no likelihood that the Pope would ever repay what he owed, for
+he had not only received ample security through Dovizio at Cetinale, but
+there were richer spoils in view which made that transaction seem of
+trifling account. Agostino desired to become the sole manager of the
+papal finances; and he did indeed inaugurate that system of loans by
+which the Pope's entire revenue was not sufficient to meet the interest
+on his debts.
+
+As a means of impressing Leo not only with his friendship but with his
+boundless wealth, he determined to entertain his Holiness with
+hospitality so lavish that it would put to shame the very feasts of
+Lucullus. Leo was in a certain way to blame for this foolish display,
+for Cardinal Riario was building his palace at this time, and his
+Holiness piqued Chigi by insinuating that the residence of Riario would
+rival the one which he was erecting. To this slur Chigi retorted hotly
+that Riario's palace would not be able to compare with his own stables.
+
+It was no empty boast, but in order to realise it our patron
+immediately put a stop to the work upon the main villa and, as you, my
+Giulio, will well remember, set us all to the task of transforming the
+larger building upon the river bank (originally planned to house his
+stud of horses) into an immense banqueting-hall. The stalls of inlaid
+woods were concealed by the Medici tapestries; and by means of stucco,
+paint, lavish gilding, and innumerable sparkling lights, depending in
+crystal lustres and silver lamps, we achieved an effect of magnificence
+unsurpassed by the imaginary creations of oriental enchanters.
+
+In this gorgeous apartment, carpeted by rugs given Chigi by eastern
+princes and crowded with the costliest works of art, was served a feast
+for whose menu the scholars of the city ransacked the records of the
+orgies of the Roman emperors. The cardinals and foreign ambassadors
+invited were surprised by dainties and wines peculiar to their own
+countries, timed to arrive in Rome from many distant lands on the very
+eve of the banquet. Golden beakers richly ornamented in _repoussé_ with
+bacchanalian subjects, and engraved with the coat of arms of the guest
+before whom they were placed, were provided with every different wine,
+and the convives were begged to accept the entire set as trifling
+mementos. To prove that the plates of solid gold on which the many
+courses were served were not used twice, they were when changed
+ostentatiously cast through the open windows into the Tiber.
+
+But here I had contrived to secure my friend the reputation of
+prodigality without its penalty, for we caused nets to be stretched in
+the river under the windows so that the service was presently hauled
+safely in by Chigi's servants, who patrolled the river in small boats.
+
+I was responsible also for another feature, which was in a manner too
+successful. When the fruit was served I placed before Bernardo Dovizio
+(now Cardinal Bibbiena) a melon, which upon cutting open he found filled
+with what he took to be the very gems lost and found at Cetinale in so
+remarkable a manner, and which he had left in pawn with Chigi. As with
+trembling fingers he was attempting to transfer them to his pocket, I
+set free my ape Ciacco, who, previously coached to this performance,
+descended a rope which depended over the table, seized the melon, and
+climbing again beyond Dovizio's reach pelted the company with the
+jewels.
+
+Great was the indignation of the Cardinal as he saw them scrambled for
+and pocketed as souvenirs by the guests, until our host presented Leo
+with the casket containing the original intaglios of which the ones
+placed before Dovizio were but imitations.
+
+The banquet being now concluded, the tapestries concealing the stalls
+were drawn aside, and a hundred pages, each habited like a prince, led
+in as many superb horses caparisoned in cloth of gold, and fastened them
+with silver chains to feeding-racks of the same metal.
+
+Chigi then apologised for having received his Holiness in a stable,
+saying that he would not have dared to do so had not the great Head of
+the Church accepted such humble hospitality for his birthplace. Leo
+graciously admitted that his host had fulfilled his boast, for Riario,
+with all his extravagance, had never attempted a scene like this.
+
+The tapestries were sent to the Vatican on the morrow, but, in
+displaying them and returning publicly the Medici jewels, we had
+over-shot the mark, for the Pope's self-love was wounded by the
+exposition of the straits to which he must have been reduced, to have
+accounted for their having been even temporarily in Chigi's possession,
+and another banker received the patronage which our friend had coveted.
+
+On Bernardo Dovizio, however, this feast made an immense impression, and
+when Chigi invited him to bring his niece to dine more intimately at his
+villa, he accepted the invitation with an alacrity which gave color to
+Agostino's hopes.
+
+Chigi had no intention that Imperia should either preside on this
+occasion or suspect what he was planning. He had asked a sister-in-law
+to do the honours of his villa for the day, and had requested me to
+escort Imperia to the Pope's villa of Magliana, where he had secured her
+an invitation to sing for a party of sport-loving cardinals whom Leo had
+asked to enjoy his favourite pastime of hunting.
+
+"And see to it, my dear Bazzi," Agostino had said to me, "that you on no
+account bring her back until late at night, for Maria Dovizio must not
+know that Imperia is an inmate of my house."
+
+As in duty bound I secretly took counsel with Imperia, discussing, as we
+fancied, every phase of the situation.
+
+Chigi, over-confident in the superiority of his own attractions, had not
+at first deemed it necessary to send Raphael away. It is possible that
+he even thought that Maria would be shocked at seeing her betrothed
+apparently domiciled under the same roof with Margherita, and
+glorifying her charms with such over-appreciation, while Raphael,
+surprised by Maria's sudden appearance as a willing and familiar guest,
+would accept the desired construction as to her relations with his
+patron, and that thus the estrangement between these unhappy lovers
+would become irremediable.
+
+Imperia admitted that if neither of them were previously warned, and, if
+no opportunity were afforded them to converse together alone,
+appearances would be much against Raphael, and Chigi's plot would have a
+fair chance of succeeding. "Especially," she added, "if Maria Dovizio
+has any conversation with Margherita will Raphael's chance of placating
+her be lost, for a woman who loves can not fail to recognise the same
+affection in another, and Margherita's infatuation is so evident that
+the blind might see it."
+
+"Then," said I, "our first concern must be to spirit Margherita away,
+else Maria in her injured pride may accept Agostino."
+
+"'Tis the first step," Imperia replied. "Leave it to me; think you I
+have not long since foreseen and provided for such an emergency?"
+
+As she spoke there was a look in her set face which frightened me. "I
+will ask Margherita's father to send for her for the day," I said,
+uneasy, I knew not why.
+
+"Leave her to me, I tell you," Imperia commanded hastily. "If Raphael
+and Maria Dovizio are to be reconciled Margherita must drop out of his
+life--not for one day but for ever."
+
+I liked this still less, though I laughed and reminded her how she
+herself had said that, when they once understood each other, Margherita
+would be no more to either of them than a lay-figure on which to hang
+draperies.
+
+Imperia smiled bitterly. "I may have thought so once, I know better
+now."
+
+"There is another way to foil Agostino," I suggested. "He will show the
+Dovizios my painting of the _Marriage of Alexander and Roxana_, in his
+own room. Leave such of your jewels on his dressing-case as will prove
+to Maria that you have recently occupied the apartment--that necklace
+which she admired so greatly at Cetinale. She would recognise it at
+once."
+
+Imperia shook her head contemptuously. "Agostino would gather up all
+such equivocal objects before he showed her the room," she said.
+
+"Then, since we cannot hinder Maria Dovizio from accepting this
+invitation, would you dare to return earlier than you are expected, and
+converse with her before she leaves? We might explain to Chigi afterward
+that we had miscalculated the time, or that our appearance was in some
+other way unpremeditated."
+
+"He would never forgive me," she said slowly; "nevertheless, if I do not
+succeed in removing Margherita, I shall return in time to pull the
+strings of my puppets, for Agostino shall never marry another woman."
+
+I well remember the last evening which we spent together. The air was
+sultry, and through the arches of the loggia occasional flashes of
+lightning made fiery crevices in the black heavens. Imperia paced
+uneasily to and fro.
+
+"We shall have a storm," she said. "I have a mind not to go to
+Magliana."
+
+Chigi turned pale and rose and walked beside her. He even attempted to
+put his arm about her waist, but she repulsed him with a savage scowl.
+
+"Do not pretend that you care for me, Agostino," she said angrily; "I
+will believe it only on one condition, that you accompany me to
+Magliana."
+
+"I have told you it is impossible, Imperia. Bazzi is an amusing
+fellow, a hundred times more entertaining than I."
+
+"I am tired of Bazzi. He is an insufferable idiot. I will not go unless
+you escort me, Agostino."
+
+"Then Raphael shall take you. His Holiness will be delighted to welcome
+him, as he desires him to plan some decorations for the villa; and you
+cannot, my Imperia, call Raphael an idiot."
+
+It was Imperia's turn to blanch as Raphael came forward and courteously
+asked the honour of her company.
+
+But she quickly recovered herself, "Raphael is too charming," she said
+guilefully, "and were it not that his heart is given to the beautiful
+Margherita I might be tempted to angle for it."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Chigi, well pleased, "that is good news. Margherita is a
+rare prize, and I am glad to know that the unimpressionable Raphael at
+last really loves."
+
+The eyes of Imperia and Chigi were intently fixed on Raphael's face,
+striving to read his true feelings. He felt and resented the scrutiny.
+
+"I doubt if the man lives who has not loved," he said, flushing.
+"Perhaps it is because I love so deeply that I cannot speak of it."
+
+Imperia softened for an instant, and, taking a lute, sang, _Quant'e
+bella giovinezza_.[4] But the pent-up passion that possessed her this
+evening woke again in the line, _Che si fugge tuttavia_, and she ended
+suddenly with a dry choking sob.
+
+An embarrassing silence fell upon us all, broken finally by Imperia. "A
+little honesty might clear the atmosphere," she said to Raphael;
+"besides what need is there of such secrecy when we have all guessed the
+truth. No, you shall not escort me to Magliana. I will be no man's
+second choice, not even yours, Agostino," and so saying she ungraciously
+departed from us.
+
+"She is in a devil of a humour," Chigi said to me, uneasily, when
+Raphael had bidden us good-night. "What can have angered her? Is it
+possible that she suspects that her reign is over?"
+
+"She suspects nothing," I assured him, truthfully; in my heart I added,
+"but she knows everything."
+
+"But will she go?" Chigi asked, anxiously; "that is the immediate
+question. I cannot put her out by force."
+
+"You will never have to do that," I replied. "She will go, never fear.
+Leave her to herself, her mood will have changed by morning. There is
+only one thing to be relied upon in women, and that is their
+inconstancy, not alone to men but to any fixed idea."
+
+In spite of the flippancy with which I had striven to beguile Chigi, I
+was vaguely but none the less genuinely troubled. Unable to sleep, I
+strolled toward dawn in the garden. A lamp burned in the tiny room
+assigned to Margherita, and to my surprise there flitted across the
+window the shadow of Imperia. What business could she have there at such
+an hour? Certain expressions, to which I had given no weight at the time
+of their utterance, came back to me with sinister significance, and
+especially her declaration that Margherita must disappear, "not for one
+day, but for ever." I continued my watch until a gust of rain drove me
+into the house, and I fell asleep to dream that an oubliette lined with
+the blades of scythes (such as I knew existed in certain old Roman
+houses) had at Imperia's touch yawned beneath the couch of Margherita;
+and that the innocent barrier to Raphael's reconciliation with Maria had
+indeed "dropped from his life."
+
+But I awoke at Chigi's cheery halloo to find that the storms of the
+previous evening had cleared. Imperia had expressed her readiness to
+spend the day at Magliana, and my host desired me to select horses for
+the excursion.
+
+I never saw her gayer than on that day, and when I looked askance as she
+jested with his Holiness and flirted with Riario, daring him to give a
+supper in her honour in his new palace, she pressed my foot beneath the
+table and looked me smilingly in the face, as though striving to assure
+me that all was well.
+
+But she would not comply with Leo's request for his father's canzone,
+_Quant e bella_, which she had sung with such effect the previous
+evening. She left the gay company while they were all clamoring for
+more, and insisted that I should urge the horses to the utmost as we
+dashed back to Rome.
+
+Our common anxiety to know the outcome of Maria Dovizio's visit to
+Chigi's villa, together with her great longing for sympathy in this
+crisis of her life, so wrought with the favouring opportunity of that
+wild drive that Imperia granted me such a revelation of her inmost soul
+as I believe no other man can boast, and I knew her that night as God
+knew her.
+
+She had sought Margherita the night before a criminal at heart, for she
+had determined to sacrifice the girl. Imperia possessed a house in Rome.
+It was on her lips to tell Margherita that Raphael, who had met with an
+accident, was lying there at the point of death, and had sent for her to
+come to him. She had already instructed her servants, and had Margherita
+once entered that house its doors would never again have been opened for
+her.
+
+But Imperia's guardian angel was kind. Before the words could be uttered
+Margherita had poured out her heart in gratitude to the woman whom she
+believed to be her benefactress. While the girl spoke, Imperia strove to
+steel herself, repeating mentally the round of cruel reasoning which had
+been the Ixion's wheel on which her tortured brain had unceasingly
+revolved:
+
+"If Margherita speaks to Maria Dovizio, Maria will never be reconciled
+with Raphael. Unless Maria weds Raphael she will surely marry Chigi.
+Either Margherita or I must perish. Which shall it be?"
+
+But gradually this fiend's chatter grew less insistent and Imperia heard
+instead Margherita's impassioned protestations. She was happy,
+blissfully happy, and owed it all to the disinterested kindness of her
+patroness; for though Raphael had always loved her he had been bound by
+a hateful engagement to a cold, proud woman, who had cast him aside for
+a wealthier suitor. Her memory had rankled in the mind of both,
+poisoning their happiness, for Margherita well realised that she was
+herself but a peasant, not to be compared in birth and breeding to this
+high lady. Until lately she had not deemed herself worthy to mate with
+so exalted a personage as her lover. But since she had known Imperia she
+had comprehended how such a miracle might be. "For," said she, "you are
+just like me, and all of the Signor Chigi's wealth and glory does not
+crush or humiliate you, because when two people really love each other
+it makes them equal, and neither genius nor riches nor anything else in
+all the world is worthy of being compared to the love of a true woman."
+
+That shaft went home. The thought of being classed with this
+single-hearted girl who had sacrificed everything to a great love so
+humiliated and touched the heart of the venal courtesan that in spite of
+all she had at stake, she could not prevail upon herself to do
+Margherita this great wrong. So, finding that she knew not who the great
+lady was to whom Raphael was betrothed, Imperia told her of Maria
+Dovizio's expected visit, as of that of an old friend who had been
+interested in her as a child at Cetinale, and bade her if opportunity
+offered repeat to Maria the story exactly as she had just told it, for
+it would surely be to her advantage to do so.
+
+When Imperia told me this I cried out, "But it will kill Maria, and you
+forget that Raphael is there and will not permit her thus to speak."
+
+"Nay, my friend," Imperia answered. "Raphael is not there, for Agostino,
+on reflection, wisely decided not to risk the meeting, and gave him a
+holiday this morning to work in his own house. Never fear that Chigi
+will not leave Maria Dovizio alone with Margherita, or that her
+revelations will have any such deadly effect. Agostino is an adept in
+consolation, and Maria must long since have divined the truth."
+
+My heart beat in a tumult of conflicting emotions. For an instant a
+wild, unreasoning hope overpowered all the rest. "Imperia," I
+exclaimed, "you shall not lose Agostino. I will surrender my chances
+with Maria to no man but Raphael. If in truth he has ceased to love
+her,--then, for all you think me mad in saying so, we may both, may all
+be happy yet."
+
+[Illustration: Villa Madama]
+
+But such joyous ending to lovers' woes is found only in the fictions of
+romancers. Certes I have often thought I could design a fairer web than
+that the fates weave for us.
+
+Even as I spoke Imperia caught my arm and I drew rein, for we were
+nearing the gateway of Chigi's villa. A carriage was leaving the
+grounds, and as it passed us we saw Maria Dovizio lying in a swoon in
+her uncle's arms. Chigi was not with them, for she had left his house
+apparently indifferent to all that she had seen or heard within it, and
+had succumbed only when beyond his view.
+
+"Poor child," said Imperia, "you are not wounded so deeply as you fancy.
+No, do not drive in, Giovanni, I have learned all I wished to know. In
+spite of her present despair Maria will enter those gates ere long a
+happy bride; but I shall never knock at them again. The end would have
+come soon in any event, for Agostino had ceased to love me, but he shall
+never boast that he cast me out."
+
+I took her to her own house, and when Chigi learned that she had not
+returned with me he but shrugged his shoulders, for she had rightly
+divined his heart. I never saw her again, but I heard much, for Rome
+still rings with wild tales of her notoriously evil life. A nature hers
+that had much of good in it I bear witness, though sadly she mistook her
+way. She mistook it even when she tried to do a kindness to Margherita.
+Shame and heart-break was the guerdon which that poor child received in
+return for her great devotion.
+
+As for me, the glimpse I had caught of Maria's death-struck face so
+rankled in my soul through the long watches of that sleepless night that
+on the morrow, in anguished contrition, I confessed all that miserable
+story to Raphael.
+
+When he knew how cruelly he had misjudged her he was smitten with such
+remorse that he could never forgive himself or take joy in life. For
+though he went to her at once and she forgave him freely, nay, strove to
+comfort him by protesting there was naught to forgive, she had suffered
+overmuch to endure the great joy of their reconciliation. Prattling of
+love and happiness and smiling still when she no longer had strength
+to utter his name, she peacefully died within his arms.
+
+[Illustration: Pope Leo X. at Raphael's Bier
+
+From the painting by Pietro Michis. Permission of Franz Hanfstaengl]
+
+It was Raphael's grief rather than, as reported, a fever taken in
+superintending archæological excavations which truly caused his death on
+his thirty-seventh birthday, upon that Good Friday which neither you nor
+I, my Giulio, can ever forget.
+
+Margherita told me that in his delirium he knew her not, but kissed her
+hands, calling her "Maria" and begging her forgiveness. To the poor girl
+he left by will ample support; but, by the same testament, he was buried
+by the side of Maria Dovizio, beneath whose name he caused to be
+chiselled the inscription, "The affianced wife of Raphael Santi, whom
+death deprived of a happy marriage."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A CELLINI CASKET
+
+INTERLUDE
+
+
+  The trellis that once shut the forest trees
+  From the fair flowers, all torn and broken is,
+  Though still the lily's scent is on the breeze,
+  And the rose clasps the broken images.
+
+             WILLIAM MORRIS.
+
+Neglected but not ruinous, its marbles mossy, its once unrivalled garden
+invaded by sweet wild-flower banditti which run riot among the gentle
+roses, its fountains dry, their cracks and crannies the homes of basking
+lizards, its charming loggia trodden only by enthusiasts for whom every
+spot touched by the genius of Raphael is a shrine of pilgrimage--the
+Villa Madama, though appealing in its desertion, is not a melancholy
+solitude.
+
+[Illustration: Detail of Vault in Villa Madama--Stucchi by Giovanni da
+Udine]
+
+The imagination is intoxicated as by some heady wine as one gazes
+outward upon the dazzling panorama which originally determined the site
+of the loggia; and when, fatigued by the flashing sunlight, our eyes
+turn to the interior they are soothed by the subtler beauties of the
+half-effaced frescoes, the floral arabesques which Giovanni da Udine
+lavished upon the spandrils, the pouting _putti_ in Giulio Romano's
+frieze of cherub faces, carrying out a scheme of decoration which could
+have been designed by no other than Raphael. We are certain as we
+recognise in a more delicate line, or exquisite touch recalling the
+arabesques of the Vatican loggia, that just here the great impresario
+must have caught palette and brushes from the hand of his pupil with,
+"_Me perdone Giovanino mio_, let me frolic a while with these fairy
+creatures and show them to you as I saw them in my childhood dancing in
+the swaying vines that garlanded the pergolas of Urbino." And so they
+revel here, myths of the childhood of the race, monstrous creatures,
+half beast, half human; centaurs, fauns, tritons, mermaids, sphinxes,
+lamias, their grotesquerie no longer repulsive, for it is a foil to the
+utmost elegance and sumptuousness of Renaissance art, their multiplicity
+never wearying, because they are marshalled by the greatest master in
+decorative design that the world has known. They lurk in the
+convolutions of exquisite _rinceaux_, uncoiling themselves from the
+scrolls of acanthus foliage, where sport also more delicate hybrid
+flowers;--women, whose beautiful bodies rise like anthers from the
+calices of impossible blossoms, whose arms are coiling tendrils and
+whose limbs melt into the curves of exuberant leafage unknown to the
+botanist.
+
+But the charm which holds the visitor who penetrates this delicious
+solitude is due not alone to the sense of sight. A haunting
+suggestiveness breathes from these surroundings, like the perfume
+exhaled when one unlocks a long-closed sandal-wood casket, once the
+depository of dainty feminine trifles. It needs not the name of the
+villa to tell us that a lady, sitting in this loggia, once duplicated Da
+Udine's traceries in her embroidery, gathered roses in the garden, and
+looked longingly toward Rome while awaiting the coming of her princely
+lover, and many a visitor has been piqued by the ignorance of the
+custodian of the villa to search history for this mysterious Madama.
+
+[Illustration: Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma, 1586
+
+From an old engraving]
+
+Margaret of Austria, daughter of an Emperor, wife of the reputed son of
+one Pope and of the grandson of another, Grand Duchess of Tuscany,
+and Duchess of Parma, quartered the imperial eagle upon the balls of the
+Medici and the lilies of the Farnese. That the bar sinister was
+conspicuous upon her escutcheon mattered little in the age in which she
+lived, for the Emperor Charles V. acknowledged and advanced the
+interests of his illegitimate daughter with the same lack of
+embarrassment shown by the popes in the favouritism of their "nephews."
+
+A doubtful advantage this, but one with far-reaching consequences, for
+when Margaret was twelve years of age, Charles conquered Rome and the
+child's connection with Italy and the Villa Madama had its beginning.
+
+The villa had been built by Raphael for Pope Clement VII., while he was
+yet only Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, as a pleasure casino to which he
+could retreat from the cares imposed upon him by his cousin, Pope Leo X.
+Later when as successor to the tiara he found that not the least burden
+in the heavy legacy bequeathed him was that of the guardianship of the
+Medici family, it became the resort of his Florentine relatives on their
+quieter visits to Rome and the home of a mysterious child, Alessandro,
+of whom the Pope announced himself the guardian.
+
+When Lorenzo II., (grandson of the Magnificent) died, leaving but one
+legitimate child, Catherine de' Medici, the future Queen of France,
+Clement imposed Alessandro upon Florence as the natural son of Duke
+Lorenzo.
+
+There lacked not shrugging of shoulders at this imputed parentage and
+Florence revolted against receiving a bastard and a mulatto as its
+sovereign.
+
+But trouble was brewing both for Florence and the Pope. Charles V. had
+determined to make himself master of Italy; his forces closed around
+Rome, and Clement, fleeing through the underground passage from the
+Vatican, shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo, and from it beheld
+the horrors of the sack of the city.
+
+From its parapets, too, he witnessed the occupation of his cherished
+villa by Bourbon's savage soldiery.
+
+Benvenuto Cellini relates (with his characteristic self-laudation) his
+prowess in killing the Constable de Bourbon and in defending the castle
+of St. Angelo, and although his perspective is slightly forced from his
+habit of placing his own colossal figure in the foreground, no
+chronicle gives a more vivid account of these stirring events.
+
+[Illustration: Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine
+
+Villa Madama]
+
+What a picture he might have painted for us of the meeting of the Pope
+and the Emperor after the pacification; when Clement crowned his late
+adversary and Charles, reinstating Duke Alessandro over Florence,
+betrothed his beautiful daughter Margaret to that base-born reprobate!
+
+Cellini might also have told us much of the after-life of the Duchess,
+for he knew her well, and mentions her with admiration in his
+autobiography. He served Alessandro too in Florence, and boasts of the
+intimacy which he enjoyed in the ducal household.
+
+There was no one living at that period so well qualified as he to relate
+the inner history of that tragical marriage and of the romance which
+effaced its memory and lingers still like an elusive perfume in her
+exquisite villa.
+
+Judge, lenient reader, if Cellini had told that last story, would not
+its main _facts_ have corresponded with those embodied in the following
+pages, though the tamer phrasing and more conventional attitude of the
+writer compared with the audacity of his racier chronicle
+
+    "Are as moonlight unto sunlight,
+    And as water unto wine."
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CASKET
+
+BEING CERTAIN PAGES NOT INCLUDED IN THE AUTO-BIOGRAPHY OF ITS MAKER
+
+
+I
+
+It will be remembered by those who have read my published memoirs that
+in the year 1535, while I was in Florence in the service of Duke
+Alessandro de' Medici, I received orders from his excellency to execute
+a little _coffre_ in gold to hold his own portrait, a medallion which I
+had previously modelled from life and cast in relievo.
+
+That I dismissed so lightly masterpieces of which I had such reason to
+be proud was due to the fact that certain personages of exalted station
+and of choleric temper, quick and able to revenge any imputation upon
+their honour were concerned in the adventures of the casket, so that I
+deemed it prudent during their lifetime to withhold a recital which I
+trust my present reader may find of a diverting nature.
+
+This casket was conceded by all connoisseurs in such matters to be the
+most admirable work of its kind hitherto produced. It was crowned by a
+statuette of Hercules, with other most exquisite figurines at the
+four corners, set upon feet of crouching sphinxes, half women and half
+panthers, and was further enriched by reliefs of laughing boys holding
+garlands, by grotesque masks and foliages of the most graceful and
+ingenious design that could possibly be conceived.
+
+[Illustration: Villa Madama--Interior]
+
+I had been to infinite pains, as was but fitting since the Duke proposed
+to present it to his betrothed, Margaret Duchess of Parma, daughter of
+the Emperor Charles the Fifth, to whom he was to be married at Naples on
+the return of her father from his glorious expedition against the
+Turkish Corsairs. This marriage had been arranged for his "nephew" by
+Pope Clement VII. on his pacification with the Emperor after the taking
+of Rome, but its consummation had been hitherto delayed on account of
+the tender age of the bride. Now, however, she was upon her way to meet
+her father. Therefore the Duke requested me to serve as his messenger in
+presenting these gifts, whose excellencies I of any person in the world
+was most competent to explain and extol.
+
+Instructed that the Duchess Margaret would rest upon her journey at the
+villa which Raphael had built for the Pope upon the slopes of Monte
+Mario, and which Clement had bestowed upon her as a part of her dowry, I
+repaired thither before entering the gates of Rome.
+
+I had been told by the Duke to ask upon my arrival not for the Duchess
+but for Monna Afra, who had been installed as housekeeper of the villa
+by the Pope when he was as yet only young Cardinal Giulio de' Medici,
+and his personal affairs were not submitted to the glare which surrounds
+the tiara.
+
+Whatever these may have been, Monna Afra, though once a Moorish slave,
+and of dark complexion and uncertain temper, was not without a certain
+savage beauty, or would have been but for the marks of tattooing between
+her eyes, and, though well advanced in years, carried herself erect with
+a dignity worthy of royal descent.
+
+She was dressed in the Moorish fashion, with a profusion of necklaces of
+linked sequins of uncut precious stones and of large turquoises, some of
+them I could judge of great value, though clumsily set. These necklaces
+depended from beneath her gaily striped head-cloth upon her forehead and
+also covered her bosom. Her dark blue robe was girdled by a golden belt
+of curious workmanship, and she wore bangles upon her ankles with
+bracelets of cheap blue glass upon her arms. Her hair, braided in a
+multitude of fine plaits, was jet black and heavily perfumed. She wore
+but one ear-ring, a hoop of gold in which twinkled a great diamond.
+
+I had a letter for her from the Duke, and as it has never been my
+practice to deliver a missive of whose contents I am ignorant, lest I
+might be deputed to give orders for my own execution, I had taken the
+precaution to open it (having first made an impression of the seal so
+that I could reseal it beyond possibility of detection), but all to no
+avail for this letter was written in Arabic, of which language I have no
+knowledge. I was in twenty minds to destroy it, professing that I had
+lost it _en route_, but having calculated that honesty was the more
+gainful part to play, I put my trust in my patron saint and boldly
+presented it. By so doing I came into possession of an important secret,
+for on reading the letter Monna Afra exclaimed: "My son informs me that
+you are an unprincipled rogue whose life he holds in his hands, on
+account of certain murders which you have committed, and that therefore
+I need not fear to trust you with our private affairs."
+
+The opening words of this ungracious speech caused my spirit to leap
+within me, for Duke Alessandro far from confiding to me or to any one
+else the secret that he was the child of a mulattress, and in all
+probability the bastard of the Pope, had persistently maintained that he
+was the legitimatised son and rightful heir of the last Duke of
+Florence, and his mother a princess whose name would in time be
+divulged, and this notwithstanding that his dark complexion proclaimed
+him of Oriental race.
+
+I dissimulated my exultation, swore loyalty to my patron's honoured
+mother, and showed her the portrait of her son, with which she was
+greatly pleased.
+
+"You shall give this to the Duchess, later," she declared, taking the
+casket from me, "but first I desire you to copy the medallion for me,
+and to say nothing of this commission."
+
+The wish to possess the likeness of her son seemed so natural to a
+mother and so flattering to me that I readily consented to oblige her,
+being the more content to do so that I found myself extremely well
+lodged and nourished in one of the dependencies of the villa, with the
+suite of noble attendants appointed to wait upon the Duchess.
+
+Among these I have cause to remember with the utmost vividness a
+beautiful page, the grandson of Cardinal Farnese, who waited upon
+Margaret as her train-bearer. This boy's name was Ottavio, and I was
+drawn to him from the first for his character matched the exceeding
+loveliness of his lineaments.
+
+Monna Afra from some strange whim had desired me to copy the Duke's
+portrait upon glass, and thinking possibly that I might break the slip,
+had given me two of precisely the same size. On one of these I was
+impelled to paint for myself the miniature of this adorable child in the
+court costume of white satin doublet and white silk hose which he was to
+wear at the wedding of the Duchess. To this circumstance was due a
+mischance, which while it seemed to work me ill at the time was in the
+end productive of good.
+
+Though but a child in years the soul of the page, Ottavio Farnese, was
+well-nigh ravished from his body with love for the Duchess, who but six
+years older than himself was still but a slip of a girl. Often as I saw
+these two children pelting each other with roses and playing many
+childish games I wished that by some enchantment I might keep them thus
+forever, for my heart revolted at the thought that this exquisite
+creature was soon to be sacrificed to a brutal profligate twice her own
+age.
+
+"Certes," I said one day to Ottavio, "it is a great pity that you are
+not some ten years older, then would I devote myself to your service and
+it should go hard ere the daughter of Charles V. should wed with that
+swine of an Alessandro de' Medici."
+
+"Is he indeed a hog?" cried the boy, "then will I slay him, for I would
+gladly give my life for her."
+
+Seeing that so precocious and so pure an affection was beyond the
+conception of our comrades (though not of the ancients since they
+figured the love of the boy Cupid for Psyche), I protected Ottavio from
+their ribaldry, declaring that I would punish with my sword any who made
+a jest of a devotion which might have drawn tears from the angels.
+
+While the Duchess Margaret was in her way equally charming, she was not
+of such a heavenly gravity as her little comrade. On the contrary, at
+this time her spirits overflowed in a bewitching and mischievous
+wilfulness, which made her the more irresistible. She was conscious that
+she was soon to be wedded, and this knowledge gave her a sense of
+importance together with mysterious heart throbbings and perturbations,
+a wild curiosity to know what manner of man her future husband might
+be--the coquettishness natural to woman which at times made her rebel at
+being thus fettered, all the more that it was without her consent, and
+at others built up an ideal in her imagination which she was ready to
+fall down and worship.
+
+Seeing her thus curious, Monna Afra had promised Margaret that a
+necromancer should show her the presentment of her future husband; and
+upon a certain morning this designing woman sent for me, saying that the
+slave who ordinarily assisted this magician had suddenly died, and that
+she desired me to aid him in his magic rites.
+
+She neglected not at the same time to remind me again that I was
+completely in her power and that if I did not perform all that was
+demanded of me she would denounce me to the authorities as a murderer.
+Thus admonished, and believing also that the necromancer was able to
+work me a mischief, I put my trust in St. Michael, confounder of Satan,
+and faithfully performed all that I was bidden to do.
+
+Hurrying me into a musician's gallery, which overlooked the chamber in
+which the incantations were about to take place, the sorcerer showed me
+a strange instrument, compounded of lenses set in a black box in which
+burned a small lamp. "Fear not, Benvenuto," he whispered, seeing that I
+hesitated, "but manipulate this machine as I will now show you, placing
+from time to time these slips of painted glass in front of the lamp, and
+when I shall call upon the name of the arch fiend Beelzebub, be careful
+to introduce the copy of the portrait of the Duke which you have just
+made for Monna Afra." He then made some cabalistic signs upon my
+forehead and bidding me be of stout heart descended to the main floor of
+the room, which was but dimly lighted by the flames of a brazier.
+
+I could see, however, that around the light were grouped the Duchess
+Margaret, Monna Afra and Ottavio, who suspecting some design against his
+mistress, had insisted on accompanying her. Around these three the
+necromancer now traced upon the floor a magic circle; entering it and
+directing Margaret to keep her eyes fixed on the wall opposite to the
+little gallery where I stood, he invoked with a loud voice the demons
+Soracil, Sathiel, and Ammon dwellers in the moon, bidding them appear
+with all their legions.
+
+As I had previously witnessed a similar conjuration by which another
+necromancer had filled the tiers of the Colosseum with innumerable
+legions of devils, the horrible fear which I had experienced on that
+occasion returned in so lively a manner that my hands trembled so that I
+could scarcely perform the rites assigned to me. I had hardly introduced
+the first slip of glass when Ottavio cried out that the house was on
+fire and endeavoured to drag the Duchess from the circle, but the
+necromancer held him firmly and commanded him on his life not to stir as
+the demons were gathering in force.
+
+Having placed the next slip of glass in its place I myself perceived
+them, horrid creatures of gigantic stature clutching at their victims.
+Thus the ceremony proceeded, the enchanter uttering strange sentences in
+the Hebrew language, while Monna Afra shrieked and howled in
+blood-curdling tones.
+
+Ottavio also was well-nigh bereft of his senses with fear, and flinging
+his arms about the Duchess cried to the fiends to take him to hell, but
+to spare his beloved lady.
+
+At this point, Margaret, who was strangely unafraid, repeated after the
+necromancer these words: "I conjure thee, Beelzebub, Prince of Darkness,
+to reveal to me the likeness of my lord and husband, and renouncing all
+others I promise to be true to him throughout all eternity."
+
+This was my cue, but fumbling in the casket for the portrait of Duke
+Alessandro I inadvertently introduced into the throat of the infernal
+machine not that bit of glass but the one on which I had painted the
+likeness of Ottavio.
+
+Seeing the beautiful face of the lad gleaming like that of an angel
+between the rifts of the smoke of hell, there was not one of us who for
+the instant doubted that the apparition was miraculous.
+
+Monna Afra ceased her diabolical bellowing, the necromancer was
+speechless with surprise, only Ottavio found his voice, and crying, "It
+is I, it is I!" fainted from stress of emotion.
+
+Comprehending immediately that I would be held responsible for the
+miscarriage of the prodigy I hastily made my escape from the villa, nor
+did I, until long thereafter, meet with any of the parties concerned in
+this adventure. The augury in which I had assisted seemed false for the
+marriage of Margaret to Duke Alessandro took place, as had been planned,
+on the arrival of the Emperor at Naples. Though Charles was greeted with
+acclamations as the champion of the Church against the infidel, he
+having put to flight Hayraddin, admiral of the Sultan, and taken the
+city of Tunis, thus liberating thousands of Christian captives,--yet in
+the midst of the festivities there lacked not those who saw a certain
+inconsistency in the wedding of his sweet daughter to a man notorious
+for his wickedness and of the very race which he professed to hold in
+such abhorrence.
+
+Duke Alessandro after his marriage refrained not one whit from his evil
+ways, but rather exceeded his former profligacy, so that all Florence
+was scandalised thereby and pitied his gentle Duchess. I mind me now,
+however, that to my astonishment there was one who took another view of
+the matter, for Lorenzino de' Medici affirmed that Margaret was
+possessed of that dauntless courage which one sees sometimes in the
+tamers of lions and other savage beasts; that Alessandro was a
+mean-spirited creature cowed by his child wife; and that one had but to
+note the haughty poise of her head and the hang-dog sullenness which he
+maintained in her presence to guess the truth. Though I abhorred the
+Duke, yet as he had made me master of the mint it was necessary that I
+should have commerce with him, and on the first occasion upon which I
+presented myself being made to wait in an ante-chamber, I overheard a
+remarkable conversation which caused me to credit the opinion of
+Lorenzino. The door was ajar between the room in which I sat and the
+next in which the Duke and Duchess had just risen from breakfast.
+
+What he had said to her I know not, but his face was one malignity as he
+leaned toward her across the small table. She faced his snake's eyes,
+her own dark with an intensity which should have warned him, and half
+beneath her breath, as though she told him of some danger with which she
+had nothing to do, as one might have said, "Provoke not that dog, or you
+will inevitably be bitten,"--she very quietly uttered these words:
+
+"Lay so much as your finger upon me and I will kill you."
+
+"And what is to hinder my killing you first, my little tigress?" he
+hissed.
+
+I had gripped my sword in answer to that question, but there was no
+need, for she blazed forth at him, the very daughter of her father.
+
+"The Emperor!" she cried triumphantly, and there she had him; for though
+Charles had sold her like a slave and lifted no finger to avenge the
+indignity which she suffered, yet Alessandro well knew that he would be
+answerable for her life. As she left the room the Duke turned upon his
+heel, and catching sight of me cried out angrily that I was well come,
+for he was on the point of arresting me for feloniously making away with
+the casket and portrait which he had bidden me take to his consort.
+
+I told him truly that I had left the casket in the possession of his
+mother. With that he flew into a rage, demanding who had dared to say
+that this vile hag was in anyway related to him.
+
+I made answer that Monna Afra had herself told me that this was the
+fact, whereupon he swore that he would kill her for spreading such a
+rumour, and offered me a large sum to undertake her execution for him.
+When I respectfully declined this office he replied: "As you please, but
+if you hold not your tongue concerning this matter I will find effectual
+means to silence you."
+
+Then reflecting doubtless that I was not a man to be governed by threats
+but more likely to be moved to generous deeds by appreciation of my
+talents, he admitted that his wife had indeed had the casket in her
+possession after I left Villa Madama, and had not missed it until her
+chests were unpacked at Naples, and that his true reason for choosing
+me to regain and restore it to her was that I was the best fitted of all
+his courtiers for so difficult an undertaking.
+
+I replied that the opportunity to serve the Duchess would be the
+greatest favour and honour which he could confer upon me,--and with that
+he showed me the key of the casket which until now had never quitted
+Margaret's chatelaine, desiring me to duplicate it for him, with this
+difference that the handle was to be ornamented by a crown of thorns.
+
+When I objected that the metal points would inevitably pierce the hand
+of the Duchess when she attempted to unlock the casket, he replied that
+he did not design the key for his wife, and bade me obey orders without
+foolish comment.
+
+As I am an expert in forging metals I soon made a little key with which
+the Duke was delighted. Taking it into his cabinet he returned presently
+with a little box on which were inscribed certain Arabic characters.
+
+"This box," said he, "contains the key which you have just fabricated
+with an order to Monna Afra to deliver the casket into your hands."
+
+"Since I am to bring away the casket," I replied, "for what purpose do
+you send this key? Is it, perchance, that Monna Afra may retain for
+herself any of the contents of the _coffre_?"
+
+"I have already reproached you"--the Duke answered with a most malignant
+expression--"for giving vent to vain imaginings. If you cannot refrain
+from thinking, at least keep silence, and implicitly carry out my
+instructions.
+
+"After delivering this package wait a little, while Monna Afra goes to
+fetch the casket; should she tarry follow her and, no matter what you
+may see or surmise, make no outcry but hasten from the villa failing not
+to bring the casket with you. The Duchess tells me that while at the
+villa she kept it in a hiding-place constructed by the Pope for his
+jewels, which opens by pressing a certain ball upon one of the Medicean
+shields with which the villa is so profusely ornamented. But, on
+reflection, I see no reason for giving you access to our family
+treasure-chest. Monna Afra will not have placed the casket there, since
+she herself showed the Duchess the secret receptacle, and it would be
+the first place in which she would search for it; and if, indeed, it is
+hidden there it is perfectly safe."
+
+Thus commissioned I betook myself again to Rome; but being welcomed by
+old acquaintances, and finding an accumulation of important orders
+awaiting my attention, I naturally thought that the Duke's business
+might wait upon my own, and indeed might have clean forgotten it but for
+the following circumstance.
+
+I had gone fowling one day with a friend in the marshes near the villa
+of Magliana, in the neighbourhood of Ostia. Toward nightfall (as I have
+elsewhere related), happening from a little hill to look in the
+direction of Florence, I saw an extraordinary phenomenon, namely, a
+heavenly body in the shape of a Turkish scimitar, its blade directed
+toward the city. Whereat I exclaimed loudly, "We shall certainly hear
+that some great event has occurred at Florence."
+
+Even as I spoke a stranger wrapped in a long cloak who at a little
+distance from us was attentively observing this appearance, asked me
+what I supposed the portent might signify.
+
+"Nothing less," I replied confidently, giving vent to the first thought
+which came into my mind, "than the assassination of Duke Alessandro."
+With that he uttered an exclamation in Arabic, and hurried in the
+direction of the Tiber. We had ridden but a short distance when some
+peasants rushed toward us with frantic gestures, crying out that a ship
+rigged after the manner of the Turkish corsairs was moored in the river.
+
+This gave us such a fright that we clapped spurs to our horses and rode
+with the utmost speed to Rome. But our fears having somewhat abated, we
+made no report of the alarm upon our arrival, realising that we had cut
+no great figure in the adventure.
+
+The next day, my thoughts being still upon the Duke, I resolved to
+execute his orders and so rode out to the Villa Madama. As I approached
+what was my surprise to see descending its terraces the same man who had
+accosted me near Magliana.
+
+Monna Afra stood in the loggia watching him, her hand, lifted to her
+eyes to protect them from the rays of the setting sun. I told her that I
+had come from the Duke and on what errand, and presented the packet
+which he had given me.
+
+She read it attentively, and without making any objection or inquiry,
+instantly brought the casket. But as she was about to unlock it
+something awoke her suspicions, and examining the key more attentively
+she thrust it before my eyes exclaiming, "Dog of a Christian, you have
+attempted to poison me!"
+
+It needed but a glance to show her fears well founded, for the handle of
+the key once of shining copper was corroded to a virulent green, so that
+it resembled a bit of antique bronze, and I comprehended that her
+villain of a son had dipped the sharp-pointed crown of thorns in some
+deadly acid, hoping that in exercising some force in turning the lock
+she would lacerate her hand, and that he would thus compass her death.
+
+As I remained speechless she took my condition as an evidence of guilt,
+and seizing a torch which hung in a metal _torchère_, rushed upon the
+terrace waving it to and fro like a fury. Though I lacked not the wit to
+perceive that this was a signal of some sort, yet remembering the Duke's
+orders by all means to secure the casket, I did not immediately address
+myself to flight, but strove to wrest it from her by force. She,
+however, opposed me in this design with all her strength, and throwing
+it aside fell upon me with a most ungentle embrace, throttling me and
+burying her nails in my neck.
+
+While we struggled thus I was aware of trampling feet and saw the loggia
+suddenly filled by a horde of barbarous pirates, refugee Moorish
+cut-throats, who had conceived the daring design of making a descent
+upon the outskirts of Rome to plunder its rich villas, and first that of
+Chigi, in revenge for the chastisement received at the hands of the
+Emperor.
+
+For the moment my only thought was one of thankfulness for my release
+from this hell-cat, but as I stood with my arms pinioned Monna Afra
+brought forward a large sack and, as I understood from her expressive
+gestures, demanded that I should be sewn up therein and cast into the
+Tiber.
+
+Though he had thrown aside the cloak in which he had previously
+disguised, I recognised the man whom I had already twice seen in the
+gaudily accoutred officer whom Afra now addressed as Hayraddin.
+
+He spoke to her very earnestly, and I could see that what he said caused
+her the greatest consternation, for she tore her hair, howled and
+scratched her own face as vehemently as she had formerly maltreated
+mine.
+
+Shaking her by the arm he continued to admonish her, until picking up
+the casket she retired into the interior of the villa. Then turning to
+me he addressed me in good Italian in these words:
+
+"Most noble Signor: You cannot fail to have understood that my sister
+desired me to kill you, and that I could readily have done so; but I
+have explained to her that you are a great astrologer, for from the
+appearance of the heavens you announced to me yesterday the
+assassination of her son which news has not yet reached Rome--and has
+but this moment been told to me by a party of my men who intercepted the
+messenger at the Ponte Molle.
+
+"In deference to your supernatural knowledge I spare your life, and
+shall leave you here bound and gagged, where in good time you will
+doubtless be discovered. This news of the death of my nephew has
+effected more than all my arguments and entreaties, for my sister has no
+further desire to remain in this accursed land, but will return with me
+to Africa."
+
+Scarcely had he concluded when Monna Afra entered, heavily veiled and
+carrying an immense bundle. This one of the pirates took from her, and
+supported by two others she followed her brother and I saw her no more.
+
+It was two full days, during which I neither ate nor drank, before I was
+released from my miserable plight, but even so I counted myself
+fortunate to have escaped with my life.
+
+
+II
+
+  "Ye mariners of Spain
+    Bend stoutly to your oars
+  And bring my love again,
+    For he lies among the Moors."
+
+  _Old Spanish Song._
+
+Foreseeing after the death of Duke Alessandro that Florence would long
+remain in a disordered condition, I deemed it a proper season to accept
+the overtures of his majesty, Francis I., King of the French, to enter
+into his service in France.
+
+This patronage I owed solely to my own fame and not, as has been
+asserted, to the favour of his daughter-in-law, Catherine de' Medici,
+for that princess had no love for her supposed half-brother Alessandro,
+or for his Florentine familiars.
+
+Though I could never have been accessory to such vile work as to stab an
+unarmed and unsuspecting man, yet often as I thought of Alessandro's
+satyr leer, and the loathing bravely coupled with defiance which I had
+seen leap in answer to it in the face of his child Duchess, I thanked
+God that Lorenzino had no such squeamish conscience.
+
+And yet,--as in the virgin purity of the orange-blossom, the voluptuous
+perfume yearningly foretells the luscious, perfect fruit, and the blush
+of the peach-bloom shows the flower coyly but triumphantly conscious
+that it will one day ripen into mouth-watering deliciousness,--so even
+then there were hints and prophecies in Margaret's budding womanliness
+that the time was approaching when she would not only awaken love but
+would herself know the joy of loving.
+
+The time and the man were nearer than I thought.
+
+It was a matter of but six years subsequent to our first meeting that,
+chancing to be again in Rome, I next encountered Ottavio Farnese.
+
+He was no longer the pretty page who had served the Duchess at the Villa
+Madama, but had grown into a tall, handsome youth, with the first down
+of manhood upon his lip. Though much lighter in weight than myself and
+his rapier as slender as a child's toy, he had been well taught in
+fencing, as I learned when meeting him by chance in front of St. Peter's
+church, he, to my utter surprise, fell upon me crying out that I was a
+scurvy knave unfit to live.
+
+As I am not the man to swallow insults of this sort we slashed at one
+another without further ceremony until the Papal guards, rushing from
+the Vatican, separated us. Recognising Ottavio as the grandson of the
+Pope (for Cardinal Farnese had on the death of Clement VI. succeeded to
+the tiara), they demanded why we fought. I replied that I had not the
+least idea, but Ottavio declared that it was to force me to confess what
+I had done with the casket which I had been commissioned to bring to the
+Duchess Margaret at Florence.
+
+Laughing a little at his own zeal, but with all due deference I told him
+how the casket had been carried away by the Moors, on the evening when I
+repaired to Villa Madama to fetch it, and I had the happiness to
+convince him of the truth of my statement.
+
+Dismissing the guards he strolled with me in the most amicable manner,
+informing me of many events which had happened during my absence in
+France.
+
+The first in importance to himself was the fact that he was more madly
+than ever in love with the Duchess, and that she having experienced the
+brutality of one husband had no mind to venture another, and had
+announced her firm intention to remain a widow for the rest of her
+life.
+
+In spite of this he had told her of his love, but she had treated him as
+a child and made sport of his passion.
+
+"I shall die of her disdain," he said to me, "for my love is beyond my
+power to conquer."
+
+Taking him by the hand and perceiving that he was in a fever, and that
+unless some hope was extended to him he must lose either his life or his
+reason, I counselled him to keep a stout heart. "For," said I, "though
+you are young it is a fault which will lessen as years go by, and the
+Emperor surely will not look upon his daughter's repugnance to marriage
+with approval. Rumour hath it that he is on his way to punish, for a
+second time, the Moorish pirates who are back in their old nest at
+Tunis. When he visits Rome you should persuade the Pope to intercede
+with him in your behalf."
+
+"As if I had not already thought of that!" Ottavio replied. "I have
+freely opened my heart to my grandfather, and he has negotiated with the
+Emperor, who is as favourable to an alliance with a Farnese Pope as he
+was to a similar compact with the Medici. Charles could force his
+daughter to accept me, as he compelled her to marry Alessandro; but I
+will not win her in that way, and she despises me, doubtless, for what
+she considers my pusillanimity.
+
+"When I pleaded with her but yesterday bidding her set me any task to
+accomplish as a proof of my love--she laughed scornfully, saying that
+she had no lack of pages to fetch and carry unless it were to demand of
+Benvenuto Cellini the casket which he had forgotten to return to her.
+
+"Then, though I knew that you, Benvenuto, were accounted a desperate
+man, I swore to her that I would not enter her presence again until I
+had fulfilled her behest. Yea, and I will fulfil it, for I will sail
+with the Emperor on this expedition to Tunis and will find the hag Afra
+and wrest it from her."
+
+"Your determination," I replied, "is a good one, and, as the adventure
+appeals to me, I will go with you. I have already met Hayraddin,
+commander of the Corsairs and brother of Monna Afra, who should know the
+whereabouts of the casket, and I may be able to aid you in obtaining
+it."
+
+As the affair turned out, though Ottavio did indeed sail for Africa with
+the Emperor, I was not allowed to accompany him, for his father,
+feigning to believe that the casket, together with certain valuable
+jewels stolen from Pope Clement, was in my possession, or at least
+hidden in some spot nearer to Rome than Tunis, caused me to be
+imprisoned in the castle of St. Angelo, until such time as I should make
+restitution.
+
+He did this, moreover, without informing his son of my arrest, so that
+Ottavio departed believing that I had wilfully failed of my promise to
+go with him. But I was not alone in misfortune, for the Emperor far from
+achieving victories similar to those which crowned his previous
+expedition, met with terrible storms which scattered the ships of his
+fleet and wrecked many of them upon the coast of Africa, where the
+savage barbarians, descending upon the drowning mariners, massacred them
+in cold blood.
+
+Word was brought back to Rome that this was the fate both of the Emperor
+and of Ottavio Farnese, and though this proved but an unfounded rumour,
+the heart of the gentle Margaret was filled with remorse as well as
+grief, for having driven so chivalrous a youth and one who loved her so
+devotedly to his death.
+
+She mourned him most sincerely, wearing widow's weeds in his honour as
+though she had in reality been his bride. Such is the strange
+contrariety of a woman's heart that he who living had been the object of
+her scorn, was now loved with the most vehement passion.
+
+When at last it was known that the Emperor and Ottavio had indeed been
+rescued and were returning to Italy, but that the latter was dangerously
+ill, her transports of alternate joy and foreboding were most piteous to
+behold.
+
+I was a witness to them, for at this time by twisting my sheets into a
+rope I had most marvellously escaped from the battlements of St. Angelo.
+
+As I deemed it prudent to remain for a time in hiding and knew that the
+Villa Madama was unoccupied, I had repaired thither under cover of the
+night, and without undressing had slept soundly upon the floor, the
+house being denuded of furniture.
+
+But in the morning I was awakened by a great clatter of trampling horses
+and sumpter mules, and springing to my feet and finding myself
+confronted by the Duchess I gave myself up for lost. This was, however,
+the most fortunate circumstance which could have happened to me, for on
+hearing my story she promised me her protection and her intercession
+with the Pope. She told me also that she had come with all this train of
+servants and household stuff to put the villa in order for the reception
+of her betrothed husband, Ottavio Farnese, as a more salubrious
+residence than her palace at Rome, and more conducive to his rapid
+recovery.
+
+And hither, shortly after, he was borne in a litter and I beheld their
+rapturous meeting, and certes the spectacle of so great joy went far
+toward repaying me for all the misfortunes which I had suffered.
+
+The young Duke, though very weak, extended his hand to me with a smile,
+saying that I was ever Benvenuto (welcome), and reminding me how in that
+very spot I had assisted at incantations which had foretold that he
+would one day be the husband of the Duchess, which prognostication was
+now so miraculously fulfilled. "I have," he added, "but one
+regret--that I come to her forsworn, for I promised ere claiming her
+as my wife to recover the casket."
+
+"That promise, my Lord," I made haste to reply, "you shall keep, for I
+have been more fortunate in my quest than your excellency."
+
+I then showed him the secret hiding-place constructed by Pope Clement
+in the wall; for, while prowling in the villa, I had remembered what
+Duke Alessandro had said of it, and had not failed to press each one of
+the Medici balls, so frequently employed in the decoration of the villa,
+until I lighted upon the ingenious spring which disclosed the recess,
+and within it a package marked with the name of the Duchess.
+
+The wrapper had mouldered away with dampness and discovered the casket
+with the poisoned key still in the lock, having been so left by that
+wicked Afra with the express design of revenging herself upon the
+innocent Margaret for the death of her abominable son, and perhaps also
+upon Margaret's father for the misfortunes which he had occasioned her
+race.
+
+The Duchess being called, evinced the greatest joy and would have fallen
+into the trap and have unlocked the casket at once, had I not first
+discovered the key and sent for a pair of pincers with which I turned
+it. While waiting the arrival of the pincers she asked her consort if he
+had any idea why she set such store upon the casket.
+
+"Doubtless," he replied with a frown, "because it contains the portrait
+of your husband, who, with all his faults, was at least a brave man."
+
+"You have rightly guessed," she answered, "the bravest of the brave and
+the only man whom I have ever loved."
+
+I marvelled to hear her thus speak, until the lid being opened, we
+discovered, not my medal of Alessandro de' Medici, for that Margaret had
+long ago given to his mother as an inconsiderate trifle; but the
+likeness of the pretty page, Ottavio, which I had painted at their first
+acquaintance; and which, in despite all contrariety of womanly
+coquetry, had remained as ineffaceably imprinted upon her heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FLOWER O' THE PEACH
+
+
+        Now for a tale illustrative
+  That shall delight my passion for romance,
+  Embodying hints authentic of some theme
+
+  * * *
+
+  Or incident that to my knowledge came
+  When sojourning abroad, the background true;
+  Like to some faded tapestry retouched
+  With the seductive broidery-work of fancy.
+
+  ANON--altered.
+
+
+I
+
+Let the trovere ease her conscience at the outset--the tale about to be
+recorded is _over_ true.
+
+Even as there was more truth than called for in the testimony of that
+ingenious witness who, being adjured by the judge to speak the truth,
+replied: "Of a surety, your honor, that will I, the truth, the whole
+truth, and--a little more."
+
+But the little more which I shall give you is peradventure the truest
+part of my tale; for, though you will find it not in the chronicles of
+such historiographers as give their quills solely to statecraft and
+wars, yet it lies like a pressed flower between the musty leaves of the
+_novellini_ of Franco Sacchetti and of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, who
+relate with great particularity the artifice by which the head of the
+house of the Aldobrandini won his bride.
+
+Let who will carp that in combining matter from various sources I have
+followed the example of those unscrupulous antiquaries who, discovering
+an antique statue, straightway replace its missing parts by others lying
+near at hand, or, more criminal still, complete it according to the
+whims of their own fancy.
+
+To that accusation needs must that I plead at the outset _mea culpa_,
+advancing only that the original torso as well as the legs and arms
+which I have made free to assemble are still preserved, properly
+ticketed, in the museum of history, while for him who cavils with the
+authenticity of this "restoration" the buried palaces of the ancient
+world patiently await exhumation to yield to each body its own
+particular members, and to each excavator his own treasure trove.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. The Grand Cascade and Fountain of Atlas]
+
+Let thus much suffice for apology--now to our legend.
+
+In the Court of the Cascade of that most magnificent of the Frascati
+villas, namely that of the Aldobrandini, whoso lists may see to-day two
+fountains; the greater, figuring the demigod Atlas, well-nigh crushed
+under the weight of our terrestrial globe, is niched conspicuously to
+the fore of the grand terrace; but the other is in a hidden pleasance,
+and is but a lop-sided vase, considered to have settled thus awry from
+the natural subsidence of the soil rather than to have been so placed by
+design. Nevertheless, our legend will have this to have been done a
+purpose; and there are no acts in all the annals of that illustrious
+house more chivalrous or magnanimous than those supposed to be
+commemorated by this fountain of Atlas and its fellow of the Spilling
+Cup.
+
+And first of Atlas Aldobrandino, lord of that fair estate and many
+others in that dim time centuries before the building of the villa.
+Atlas was he named not at his baptism, but half in admiration, half in
+derision by his mates, for his burliness of body and his inordinate
+greediness of all kinds, for he coveted, say they, the entire earth,
+clutched at a mighty part thereof, and what he seized upheld manfully.
+
+Beside his Italian possessions he was lord of the whole of Venisi in
+Southern France adjoining fair Provence, and though a bachelor of
+upwards of seventy-one winters found himself mightily distraught with
+love for the fair daughter of his neighbour, the figures of whose age
+exactly reversed his own.
+
+Many lords, counts, and barons were sighing suitors for her regard, and
+when Aldobrandino, prefacing his request with lavish gifts of steeds,
+falcons, and hounds, besought her hand of the great Count of Provence,
+her father, the latter, not wishing to offend him, replied:
+
+"I would willingly give her to you, were it not that it might seem
+strange to the multitude of young knights eighteen to twenty years of
+age now in pursuit of her, lords of Baux, of Toulouse, of Perpignan, and
+vavasours of the great Emperor beyond the Rhone, who might all join
+together and fall upon me. It is my one desire to live at peace with my
+neighbours and to this end I have had to fight many hard battles.
+Moreover, the girl herself may have her eye set upon some one of those
+fresher sparks who are continually fluttering about her."
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Upper Cascade, Villa Aldobrandini]
+
+"Friend," returned Aldobrandino, "be not anxious as to the event, for I
+will devise a method of arranging the affair amicably with our young
+friends."
+
+We are informed that the enamoured Aldobrandino slept not a wink that
+night, but concocted a wileful scheme which he confided to his friend.
+
+"Do you announce a tournament at which whoever desires the honour of
+your daughter's hand, and is of a rank and wealth sufficient to warrant
+such pretension, shall have cordial welcome to fight, and in God's name
+let her be the prize of the victor."
+
+This proposition appealed to the lord of Provence, for it seemed a fair
+one to which none of his warlike neighbours could object. Moreover, it
+was even generous, coming as it did from Aldobrandino, who, though he
+had been a doughty knight in his day, could now scarcely sit his saddle
+for corpulency or aim a straight lance-thrust with his shaking arm.
+
+The lists were made ready at Arles, heralds sent into all countries near
+and far, and the tournament given out for the first of May following.
+
+But Aldobrandino was more wily than appeared. He had no over-confidence
+in his own prowess, and he sent immediately to the King of France, with
+whom he was closely allied, begging him to lend him to act as his
+champion for this occasion his most doughty knight, the most invincible
+that could be met with in all feats of arms. In consideration of his
+esteem for Aldobrandino the King sent him his favourite cavalier
+Ricciardo (of whom much more hereafter), who, arriving at the castle of
+the aged lover thus reported himself:
+
+"I am sent," quoth he, "by my royal master to act in whatever capacity
+may be most agreeable to you. Give your orders, therefore; it is my
+devoir to execute them manfully."
+
+"Then hear me," explained Aldobrandino. "It is my wish that you should
+carry all before you at this tournament until I ride into the field,
+when I will engage you, and you must suffer yourself to be vanquished,
+so that I may remain the victor of the day."
+
+Thus far have we followed with exact circumstantiality the relation of
+the Italian writers before mentioned, to which also we shall later
+return; but let us, for the sake of novelty in the telling of an old
+story, for a little space change our view-point and give the play as it
+was acted before the eyes of the fair lady who was herself its heroine.
+
+Sancie was her name, or, if you will, Sanchia, third of the four fair
+daughters of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, who had the singular
+fortune to marry each of the four to a king.
+
+Perilous seemed this honour to this future father-in-law of monarchs, as
+he admitted to his friend, Romeo de Villeneuve, what time he ceded to
+St. Louis of France the strong castle of Tarascon as the dowry of his
+daughter Marguerite. But Villeneuve very shrewdly consoled him. "For,"
+quoth he, "let not this great expense trouble you. If you marry your
+eldest high the mere consideration of that alliance will get the others
+husbands at less cost."
+
+The event approved his sagacity and also the prediction of a soothsayer,
+to whom the four sisters had applied to know the rank of their future
+husbands, for, requested to draw at venture from a pack of cards,
+Marguerite straightway drew the king of swords, Eleanor the king of
+money, Sancie the king of goblets, and Beatrice the king of clubs.[5]
+
+The witch expounded this to mean that Marguerite should wed the
+knightliest king in all the world and in all ages (which indeed came to
+pass in the person of St. Louis); that Eleanor should in her king of
+coins gain the monarch of the wealthiest of all realms, namely, England;
+that Beatrice should have the misfortune to mate with a hard-hitting
+savage, but still a king--a forecast fulfilled in Charles of Anjou,
+brother of St. Louis, who won his kingdom of the two Sicilies by as hard
+and as cruel fighting as ever dinted the armour or soiled the fame of a
+knight; and that, finally, Sancie, the third in order of birth, but last
+to find a lover, should of her own free will choose for her husband a
+king of good fellows, whose kingdom was but that of cups.
+
+This prophecy, I say, had been more than half fulfilled. The two elder
+daughters were queens; the youngest was besought and contracted, when
+their father, fearing perchance that the prediction would be carried out
+in the case of his third and best-loved, set himself against fate and
+called a halt in its proceedings.
+
+It was unfitting, he declared, that Beatrice should be married before
+her elder sister Sancie, and Charles of Anjou must perforce hold his
+amorous desires in leash until his prospective sister-in-law was
+disposed of.
+
+This at first sight seemed no such difficult matter, for while the
+others had each been meted one lover, on Sancie fortune had bestowed a
+full half dozen. But though their numbers flattered the vanity and
+pleased the coquetry of the lady, the quality of no one of them was
+satisfactory to the father.
+
+He had now an appetite for kings. Counts, barons, princes even would not
+suit his palate, and as no monarch or scion of royalty had as yet
+applied for Sancie's hand it struck his humour that a tournament such as
+Aldobrandino proposed, well advertised in every court of Europe, might
+draw some king, or at least an adventurous princeling, to the lists, as
+indeed was proved by the sequel.
+
+The queenly sisters of Sancie took up the project with great enthusiasm.
+Queen Eleanor, consort of Henry III. of England, was visiting her sister
+of France, and together they arranged every detail of the tournament, of
+which King Louis was to be the judge.
+
+The hopes of Beatrice jumped also with this plan as one which would
+remove Sancie from her own path to true love, and of all the four
+daughters of Raymond, Sancie was the only one who looked upon the
+scheme with any dubiety.
+
+But her older sisters, on their arrival at their father's capital city
+of Arles, reassured her, explaining that though there would be a great
+show of fair dealing yet they had plotted so cleverly that Sancie would
+take her own pick from this rich strawberry plot of lovers.
+
+"It is my husband's privilege," expounded Queen Marguerite, "before ever
+the fighting begins, to bar out any knight as the procession files
+before him in the grand entrée of the lists. You shall sit beside him
+and indicate any whom you wish disallowed. Moreover, you can at any
+moment whisper in Louis's ear and he will throw every advantage possible
+in the way of your champion."
+
+"Nevertheless," continued Queen Eleanor, "since it is possible that the
+knight you favour may be notoriously inept in arms, you shall have
+resource to another trial of skill--namely that of minstrelsy. Here
+(like my predecessor of the same name, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine) I
+will be judge.
+
+"From the knights who have previously taken part in the tournament you
+yourself shall winnow out a half dozen, and shall tell me secretly to
+which of these I am to award the prize. Now confess, can anything be
+fairer? Is there a possibility of your true love failing, if so be he
+but enter the contest?"
+
+But Sancie hung her head. "I have no true love," she said, "I am
+absolutely heart-free."
+
+"So much the better," cried the Queen of France, "and this shall be
+announced at the outset. The tournament also shall be delayed a week
+after the time set, to give you an opportunity to meet the contestants
+and to know your own mind."
+
+But the Queen of England caught Sancie's cheeks between her two hands.
+
+"Listen little sister," she said softly, "I have brought with me from
+England the very prince for you, my husband's brother, Richard, Earl of
+Cornwall[6]; well worthy he to bear the name of his great uncle, Coeur
+de Lion. 'King of Good Fellows' he is dubbed by his friends, for he is
+loved by all who know him."
+
+"King of Good Fellows," repeated Sancie softly; "tell me more of him,
+sweet sister. Is he as valiant in arms as he is lovable, as fortunate as
+he is deserving?"
+
+"Accomplished is he in all that becomes a knight," replied Eleanor, "but
+fortunate so far is he not. Always when he stands on the verge of
+success he yields his advantage to another, holding that love, even that
+of an adversary, is the dearest prize of all."
+
+"Would he so yield me, think you?" questioned Sancie.
+
+"Nay, not if he knew you," replied Queen Eleanor; "therefore to your
+instant acquaintance, I have bidden him this afternoon to a game of ball
+in the pleasance of the castle."
+
+King Louis heard this conversation and it irked him, for though he had
+assured the sisters that Richard would take part in the tournament, he
+had not confided to them that he would do so in behalf of Prince
+Aldobrandino. The pretensions of this aged lover had greatly amused the
+ladies. They counted so surely on his discomfiture that even Sancie, who
+abhorred him, had not thought it worth while to ask King Louis to bar
+him from the contest.
+
+Richard also had given his word to play but the part of an understudy in
+this drama before he had seen Sancie, else never would he have consented
+to the compact. King Louis had indeed explained it to him before sending
+him to Aldobrandino, and Richard had demanded carelessly: "Of what sort
+is the maiden?" The King had answered: "All of the daughters of Raymond
+Berenger are fair, and Sancie is next to my Marguerite, who is fairest
+fair."
+
+Then Richard smiled, for he remembered that when he had questioned his
+brother Henry, of England, what time he went to claim his bride, of her
+beauty, he had answered: "All of the daughters of Raymond Berenger are
+fair, but my Eleanor is fairest, and the next in beauty is Sancie."
+
+"Where such difference of opinion exists," thought Richard, "it were
+well to leave the matter to an umpire," and he straightway submitted the
+question to Charles of Anjou.
+
+"Nay, they are both wrong," confidently declared that prince; "my
+Beatrice is fairest, but Sancie is not far beneath her."
+
+Then Richard laughed to himself: "Truly if the girl ranks but second
+when compared with each of these her sisters, whose beauty I esteem not
+at all, she is not worth the winning on my own behalf; and I am safe in
+adventuring for the joy of the mere adventure."
+
+But when Aldobrandino spake to him of her it was in other wise.
+"Consider well," he said, "ere you undertake this business, for should
+the beauty of Sancie drive you to such madness as to play me false then
+of a surety I will kill you. Not in vain am I dubbed Atlas, for all
+things upon earth which I desire I bear away upon my shoulders, and I
+have sworn by the five wounds of God that she and she alone shall sit as
+princess in my palace."
+
+"'Tis a great oath," said Richard, "but you shall not be forsworn by me,
+and verily I marvel that you have set your heart upon her if the opinion
+of her brothers-in-law be credible." And with that he told the several
+answers given to his questions.
+
+Aldobrandino glowered upon him and grunted this reply: "You mind me of a
+_stornello_ sung by our peasants:
+
+    "'Flower o' the peach,
+    Flowers for all fancies, his own love for each.'
+
+"And verily," he added, "it is well that it is so, else should I have
+had for rivals Louis and Henry and Charles, and perchance you also. The
+flower o' the peach suits her well; she is but a homely little bloom o'
+the kitchen garden beside her statelier rose and lily sisters. But, look
+you, what use have I for such useless ornaments as your waxy-pale
+lilies, your flaunting and fragile roses? What fruit bear they, I ask?
+Why, pips and briars. Whereas the peach is a stocky tree, prolific and
+profitable to its owner, for to its unadmired and modest blossom
+succeedeth a toothsome fruitage. Therefore say I the flower o' the peach
+for me. For, hist, Ricciardo, I am past the age when one goes maying for
+flowers only. Women have had no great power over me, and a bachelor I
+should die but that I have regard for what shall happen after me, and a
+natural desire for the continuance of my race upon their old estates. It
+is not so much a wife that I seek as a mother for my children. I would
+see many and goodly sons about me, strong of body, lusty in fight, such
+as only a wholesome and sturdy woman can bear and rear. If she have wit
+enough to rule them it is enough for me; and as for beauty, the less the
+better in the eyes of other men for her whom my descendants shall claim
+with pride as mother of the Aldobrandini."
+
+
+II
+
+THE ORDEAL
+
+  One maiden trimly girt
+  Bore in her gleaming upheld skirt
+  Fair silken balls sewed round with gold;
+  Which when the others did behold
+  Men cast their mantles unto earth,
+  And maids within their raiment's girth
+  Drew up their gown skirts, loosening here
+  Some button on their bosoms dear
+  Or slender wrists, then making tight
+  The laces round their ankles light;
+  For folk were wont within that land
+  To cast the ball from hand to hand,
+  Dancing meanwhile full orderly.
+  Lovely to look on was the sway
+  Of the slim maidens neath the ball
+  As they swung back to note its fall
+  With dainty balanced feet; and fair
+  The bright out-flowing, golden hair,
+  As swiftly yet in measured wise
+  One maid ran forth to gain the prize;
+  Eyes glittered and young cheeks glowed bright
+  And gold-shod feet, round limb and light,
+  Gleamed from beneath the girded gown
+  That, unrebuked, untouched was thrown
+  Hither and thither by the breeze;
+  Shrill laughter smote the thick-leaved trees,
+  Till they, for very breathlessness,
+  With rest the trodden daisies bless.
+
+  WILLIAM MORRIS.
+
+Cold and calculating, nay coarse also seemed the motives of Aldobrandino
+to Richard as he pondered them. "Not so," thought he, "would I set about
+the choosing of my wife--as it were the purchase of a brood-mare." Still
+more his soul revolted at this low animalism when that afternoon he for
+the first time beheld sweet Sancie playing at ball with her sisters in
+the pleasance of the palace of Aries.
+
+The game was set to music, the measured beating of a tambour with the
+light chiming of silver bells. Some said that Marguerite was most regal;
+so stately she moved to the rhythm of the dance, that one might have
+fancied that the glorious statue of the Venus of Arles had descended
+from her ancient shrine to tread a measure with her maidens. But Eleanor
+danced with more vivacity and passion. You would have thought her of
+Spanish blood as she leapt and whirled, catching the ball with the lithe
+ferocity of a panther. For Beatrice, Richard had no eyes, for as he
+watched Sancie, he knew what her three kingly brothers-in-law had meant
+when each could name only his own heart's dearest as her superior. He
+saw, too, why Aldobrandino had likened her to a peach-blossom, for her
+complexion had that even delicate flush, not white and red in spots, but
+roseate everywhere, like the heart of a conch shell or the breast of a
+pink curlew.
+
+Abounding health spake in her buoyant step, but she was fine as well as
+strong. The rounded contours of her cheeks and shoulders were soft as
+those of a babe, and Richard had seen naught in all his life so
+exquisite as her dimpling smile. Would you know with more particularity
+how she appeared to him, look you straightway at the sweet maid in the
+foreground of that _Coronation of the Virgin_ which Fra Lippo Lippi
+painted; and from the framing of wayward little curls that make their
+escape from a veil of silver tissue, a tangle withal to mesh a man's
+heart in, from that face, I say (though the painter-monk had ne'er the
+felicity to see her), Sancie's round eyes will search your soul and will
+remain in your memory for evermore.
+
+You will not wonder then that Richard blessed God in his heart for
+making a thing so fair, and stood as one in amaze until the ball with
+which she was playing fell at his feet.
+
+Needs must then that he return it to her and join in the game, for this
+was the custom when one of the players dropped out, as had Beatrice from
+weariness.
+
+So he played, but he saw not the ball, only her who sped it, and making
+many faults the game was adjudged to her.
+
+[Illustration: Face of Young Girl in the Coronation of
+
+the Virgin
+
+By Fra Filippo Lippi Permission of Alinari]
+
+Then they walked together, others of the company following in twos and
+threes at a discreet distance, in that _allée_ which still retains its
+ancient name, Les Alyscamps (Champs Elysées--Elysian Fields), where
+'neath the taller trees the oleanders shot in long curves bursting in
+pink fire, like rockets, above their heads. Here, seated upon one of
+those carven tombs which now make benches for lovers in that enchanting
+spot, she told him old legends of St. Trophime, how he and his fellows
+sculptured about the portal of his abbey descend from their niches and
+keep here the eve of Toussaint. "You will see them," she said, "when you
+go to hang your shield in the cloister, where it must be displayed, if
+so be you fight in this foolish joust. Truly sorry and shamed am I that
+so many gallant knights must run the risk of wounds and death for little
+me."
+
+"'Tis a small venture for so great a prize," said Richard.
+
+"Then, as you fight, let it be your best, for--" but here she paused and
+ended her sentence differently from her first intention--"for I would
+not have you hurt," and her face grew yet rosier.
+
+Richard cursed his fate that he might not fight his best, but his
+cursing was in his heart, what he said was: "The fortunes of such a
+joust are very fickle and it must needs happen that many a good knight
+will fight his doughtiest and yet not succeed. If I am among that
+number, sweet lady, I pray you set not my mischance down to lack of
+will, for in no tournament that I have ever entered had I so great
+desire to win."
+
+She looked no higher than the Plantagenet leopards gold-embroidered upon
+the breast of his doublet. "Since, to spare the knights the
+mortification of public discomfiture, my father hath decreed that they
+fight incognito (their true names being known only to the _roi d'armes_
+who passes upon their qualifications), will you not tell me the device
+which you have chosen?"
+
+"Choose my device for me," he said, "and I will cause it to be blazoned
+on my shield and embroidered on my pennant."
+
+"It has been foretold," she answered pensively, "that I shall wed the
+King of Cups. Therefore, if you honestly desire to win choose that
+emblem."
+
+"My cup runneth over," he murmured--and their lips met.
+
+Ere they parted there was heard a sound of laughter, as it were the
+crackling of light flame, for there was no mirth in the sound, and
+Aldobrandino stood before them regarding the pair with a derisive leer.
+"There is an old proverb which it were well you should both remember,"
+he said. "If I mistake not it runneth in this wise, 'There is many a
+slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.' It were meet that the cup you blazon
+should be a spilling one."
+
+"Better spilling than swilling," cried Richard, his eyes aflame, and
+Sancie affrighted ran away.
+
+"I forgive you those stolen sweets for this once," said Aldobrandino,
+"for you had great provocation. Said I not rightly a peach-blossom? Nay,
+a peach rather, ripe and luscious. Watered not your mouth in that game
+of ball when the strain of her deep breathing and the violent turning
+and twisting of her lithe body burst the lacing of her corsage and half
+her fair bosom broke covert? What a pillow was that for a bridegroom,
+eh, Ricciardo?"
+
+"Nay," retorted Richard, "while she repaired that accident I lifted not
+my eyes above the hem of her robe, that so her rare modesty might take
+no offence."
+
+"And had you kept them there throughout the game you would have seen
+much to admire," continued Aldobrandino. "Ah! the pretty little feet,
+the shapely ankles! But marked you those of her sisters? Cranes and
+ostriches! storks and sandpipers! And they call themselves not
+water-fowl but women!"
+
+"Swine!" said Richard to himself, "hog, not another word or I shall
+burst. And what unspeakable villainy is this that I should have taken
+service to deliver so pure and precious a maiden into the power of such
+a beast!"
+
+This feeling grew upon him in the short space of time before the
+tournament, for he met her daily, and as he marked her,--the flicker of
+her eyelashes upon her cheeks and the quick in-drawing of breath through
+her sensitive nostrils when the tales of the trouvères and jests of the
+jongleurs offended her exquisite modesty--his heart swelled with pain
+intolerable that so pure a flower should be set up as a prize for the
+hardest fighter to snuff at. Not so, he made bold to express his mind to
+Aldobrandino, should such a maid be won.
+
+"How then," snorted the other in astonishment. "What method were fairer,
+I ask you?"
+
+"What than to appeal to her own heart," Richard made answer, "and that
+by gentle observance, delicate attentions, and such refinements of
+self-sacrifice as in their practice might elevate a lover to some
+worthiness of the honour he courts?"
+
+Aldobrandino sniffed his scorn. "Appeal to her heart in the last resort
+I grant you, but only thus: Lady, will you have me? An she will _not_,
+what would your servility gain? An she _will_, it is needless. In either
+case it is ridiculous. Trust me, a woman sets more store by the man who
+compels her admiration than by him who sues for it. If he breaks the
+bones of other men to win her, that is compliment enough and mark you
+well, Ricciardo, it is all that I demand of you in my service."
+
+So the week sped before the tournament; and Richard loved Sancie more
+and more, and ever Aldobrandino was at his side taunting him until he
+burst forth into many a torrent of indignation, whereat the other but
+laughed and leered, so that Richard loathed and hated him to the death.
+
+At last came the great day, and among the pennons of the challenging
+knights, which made gay the ancient amphitheatre of Arles where the
+lists were staked, there fluttered one bearing the device of a golden
+cup from which ran a stream of silver water. Also when Richard, with
+visor drawn and all in mail of shining steel, caracoled in the field, he
+was hailed Knight of the Spilling Cup, and Sancie's hand at that sign
+trembled so that had it held a beaker her robe would have been well
+besprinkled.
+
+As the prize of this joust was a peculiar one, so was the manner of its
+contention. King René had not then formulated his rules for the conduct
+of a tourney, and the public tournaments at this time were of so savage
+a character that King Louis held them in reprehension and was determined
+that this trial of arms, which was but a friendly joust, should be a
+model of chivalric self-restraint and courtesy. There was much grumbling
+when the rules were published by the heralds that there was to be no
+fighting to the death with weapons of war, no sharp steel points to the
+lances, nor hacking with battle-axes, and though the mace was allowed
+this bludgeon was shorn of its iron knobs and points.
+
+But when it was known that the King had stricken out the mêlée, or
+pitched battle of the second day, when all comers gentle and simple were
+by ancient custom allowed to range themselves in two parties under the
+banners of the victorious knight and him who stood second, all were of
+one opinion, namely that Louis had so emasculated the sport of all its
+zest that now was neither opportunity for young and unknown knights to
+distinguish themselves or a spectacle sufficiently diverting to keep the
+ladies from yawning.
+
+Nevertheless the King would not budge from his ruling, and the
+descendants of the very barbarians for whom Cæsar had built the
+amphitheatre in order that their savage instincts might be sated came
+sulkily to their seats ready to deride this gentle passage at arms. But
+certes they had more thrilling sensations than they had counted upon,
+more of tingling along the spine and lifting of the hair as knight after
+knight went down and esquires dragged their masters from the tawny dust
+clouds that hid the plunging chaos. Tender maids, noble ladies, yea, and
+strong men felt their hearts stop and their stomachs turn as these pale,
+blood-bedabbled contestants were carried away, their heads wagging from
+limp necks, to the pavilion where the leeches provided by Raymond
+Berenger awaited them. But I do anticipate the order of my relation.
+
+Eight noble knights, lords of neighbouring provinces and some as well of
+foreign countries, all sumptuously accoutred and mounted on gaily
+caparisoned steeds, entered the arena in procession, and, having saluted
+the King and the ladies, took their positions in two companies at either
+extremity of the lists. For in this wise had it been ordered--that they
+should tilt in single combat, their adversaries having been previously
+determined by lot, one couple succeeding another until each knight had
+fought once.
+
+And after these four trial courses had been run, the four knights
+adjudged to have won therein the greatest glory must be matched again in
+two other duels, whereof the two victors might contest in the final
+combat for the great prize of the tourney.
+
+Hautboys and trumpets sounded shrilly the onset, and the first pair of
+knights, laying their lances in rest, rushed to the encounter.
+
+It may well be understood that in this series of preliminary single
+combats, Sancie had eyes alone for that in which Richard figured. Easy
+was his victory, for charging against young Raymond of Toulouse (seventh
+of that name) so violent was the shock of his spear against his
+opponent's shield that both Raymond and his steed rolled upon the
+ground. Fortunate was that knight to have broken only his thigh, a
+mischance which Richard strove to mitigate by most assiduous tendance
+during Raymond's convalescence. But now for the glory of the feat he was
+apportioned a weightier warrior, Barral des Baux, who had won like
+renown in the trial contest, having thrust his antagonist out of his
+saddle in such wise that he dinted the field with the back of his head,
+and to such effect that thereafter he had no memory either for good or
+ill, no, not so much as of this astounding adventure or of his
+sweetheart's face. When Richard met the redoutable Des Baux their
+lance-heads were planted squarely each upon the shield of the other, but
+the polished curving surface offering no purchase both lances slipped,
+and Barral's splintering and glancing downward was thrust into the
+haunch of Richard's horse. The creature uttered a piteous, human-like
+cry which was echoed by Sancie, and Richard hearing that wail and
+feeling himself sinking so that his feet touched the ground, believed
+that he had lost the day. But even then a roar echoed around the concave
+of the amphitheatre: "The cup hath it, the cup! the cup!" and he saw the
+Lord of Les Baux lying at a little distance with blood trickling upon
+the sand from the bars of his helmet. For Richard's lance had slipped
+upward and penetrating between gorget and helmet had pierced and
+dislocated Barral's jaw. This alone was enough to give Richard his
+second victory, but there were three added points of humiliation for the
+Knight of Les Baux, namely: his lance had been broken, he had been
+unhorsed, and, with maladroitness worthy of the merest tyro, had injured
+a horse when he had aimed at its rider.
+
+On the other hand Richard was untouched in person, his arms also in good
+condition, and he could not be said even to have quit his saddle since
+he remained astride his steed with his feet still in the stirrups.
+
+But Alphonso of Aragon, had also won laurels for the second time, for
+though his lance had slipped on the shield of his opponent precisely as
+Richard's had done, it had wrought far greater damage, for, tearing away
+the visor from the helmet of his antagonist it had blinded and
+disfigured him for life.
+
+Therefore honours remained equal between these two champions who must
+now run the final and deciding course.
+
+But Richard's good horse was cruelly maimed and could scarce be gotten
+from the arena, nor had he thought to have another ready outside the
+lists. Raymond Berenger sent a page to his own stables for his best
+horse, but ere he returned the loss was repaired by another, and Richard
+entered upon a powerful coal black stallion, tricked with scarlet
+housings. A noise of clapping greeted his entrance for the favourite
+horse of Aldobrandino had been recognised and it was supposed (though in
+this they much mistook their man), that by this courtesy he signified
+his renunciation of any intention to compete.
+
+The heralds also made proclamation that if the knights chose they might
+fight this last passage at arms with swords or maces, and swords being
+chosen each spurred toward the other, their good blades flashing in the
+sunshine and Richard with a sweep of his arm sheared the plume from his
+adversary's crest. But Alphonso, who missed his proper stroke, dealt him
+a dirty thrust in the side as he was passing. It pricked through
+Richard's armour but scratched him only and roused him to such energy
+that he swung around, clasped Alphonso in his arms, and all on horseback
+as they were, wrestled with him till he threw him over his charger's
+crupper to the earth.
+
+Then the King asked Sancie loudly: "Are you content to give your hand to
+the winner of this contest?" and the herald shouted her answer so that
+all heard it: "The high and puissant Lady, Sancie, willingly grants her
+hand as prize to the victor."
+
+But even as he cried, all were aware that the end was not yet, for the
+_roi d'armes_ pricked to the King's balcony and again the herald blew
+his trumpet and announced that another challenger, delayed from
+appearing at the first, contested this decision. Having been bidden
+enter, a burly knight mounted upon a giant percheron rode into the
+lists, all cased in sable armour and carrying a shield which displayed
+Atlas supporting the globe.
+
+Then Charles of Anjou, who fought not, but sat by the side of his
+betrothed, scoffed, "Ho, mountain of flesh, globe of blubber, and
+colossus of conceit, here is a whale indeed among fishes, a
+world-bearing monster, who fancieth that all the affairs of this earth
+rest upon his shoulders. 'Tis a cup which our gallant knight will soon
+spill for him. Hold fast, fair ladies, for the globe is about to topple
+from its foundations!"
+
+But, to the astonishment of the speaker and of all present, the knight
+of Atlas riding full tilt against him of the Spilling Cup, drove him
+backward, as it seemed, by his sheer weight, so that the barrier crashed
+behind his horse's haunches, and the rider, letting fall his lance
+acknowledged himself vanquished.
+
+Only Richard himself knew what that submission cost him. For while their
+spears were crossed, the head of Aldobrandino's tapping his opponent's
+shield, it was with a weak and wavering touch; while Richard's had found
+a joint in the armour of the knight of Atlas, and had he not generously
+and dexterously withdrawn his lance, Aldobrandino by the very force of
+his onset, would have transpierced himself upon it.
+
+For the moment he had his adversary in his power, and even as he
+withheld the spear he cried to Aldobrandino, "What hinders me from
+rolling you in the dust and myself winning that prize inestimable?"
+
+Aldobrandino, knowing well in what emergency he stood, replied calmly,
+"But one thing hinders--your word as a belted knight," and at that
+answer Richard's head drooped and he sank to earth as one sore wounded.
+
+But the spectators knew naught of this byplay. Hearing not the words,
+they put their own construction on the pantomime. Judge then what was
+their surprise, what the vexation of the two Queens and the despair of
+the fair Sancie, when the knight of Atlas, raising his visor, displayed
+the features of Aldobrandino.
+
+King Louis announced him victor, though it was noted that he had never
+done anything with so ill a grace, and indeed the good King's
+conscience smote him so sorely, knowing himself a partner in the trick,
+that he could never have made the ruling but that he hoped it would be
+reversed in the poetical contest yet to come.
+
+
+III
+
+THE "FLORAL GAMES"
+
+  O for a draught of vintage that hath been
+  Cool'd a long age in the deep delved earth,
+  Tasting of Flora and the country green,
+  Dance and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth.
+
+  KEATS.
+
+The tournament of wits seemed to give, Richard one more chance to win
+the prize he coveted; for this purpose it was originally instituted, and
+it seemed to the luckless knight himself that here at last he had fair
+play, since he was under no obligation to Aldobrandino to defer to him
+in this contention, nor did he believe that Aldobrandino's talents were
+superior to his own. The only other knight who had registered for this
+contest was Barral des Baux, and this in despite of his bandaged visage,
+for though his hurt permitted him not either to sing or to speak, yet by
+good fortune he could write, having been instructed by the monks of
+Mont Majour, and being violently in love with the fair Sancie, he would
+bate no effort to win her. So though all the nine who had taken part in
+the passage-at-arms were eligible, there were but three competitors, for
+five had been so desperately wounded that they could not stand, and
+Alphonso of Aragon so shamed and furious that he refused to take part.
+
+But when his friends congratulated Richard that this was so, and
+especially that Raymond of Toulouse was out of the reckoning (for he of
+all the nine was the only troubadour of repute and the one likely to be
+a formidable antagonist) though Richard's heart at first leapt at their
+news, he liked it the less as he gave it more consideration. For he had
+it on his conscience that he was responsible for Raymond's
+incapacitation, and he wished not to win a victory on such terms.
+Therefore he went to his wounded rival, tended and encouraged him, and
+in the end brought him to the contest in a litter, thereby gravely
+jeopardising his own chance of success. Richard, never at any time a
+glib jingler of rhymes, was in sorry case, for now that he had most need
+of his wits, his passion instead of sharpening them seemed to have
+removed them utterly. If he had but known it, he had a good friend in
+Queen Eleanor, who was determined that he should win, and she fancied
+that she had hit upon a scheme which would aid him.
+
+Angry was she that such an accomplished poet as Raymond of Toulouse must
+be admitted to the contest. "But, at all events," she told her sisters,
+"that renowned minstrel shall bring no polished work of long study to
+match against the untutored outpourings of my favourite's heart. Already
+have I ordained, with my assistant judges, that since some one of the
+contestants may be tempted to present a poem not his own, plagiarism
+shall be counted the one unpardonable crime, and, to guard against it,
+we demand that no verses of any sort be brought to the games, but that
+the competitors improvise on the instant upon one and the same theme to
+be given out after their assembling."
+
+This proposal pleased her three sisters. "They shall recite or sing to
+us, 'poesies on the flowers we wear,'" said Queen Marguerite, "and shall
+thus rank and compare our own qualifications for esteem. Clever will he
+be who can do this without offending any of us. But let us each beware
+of imparting to any one this information."
+
+Even while she thus spoke Marguerite's right eyelid, the one nearest to
+Queen Eleanor, quivered ever so slightly, and her foot pressed Sancie's.
+The kindly plotter counted that the girl would straightway convey this
+news to Richard, and she, poor child, was sorely tempted to do so. But
+she knew instinctively that he would refuse to profit by such advantage,
+therefore she told him not so much as the flower which she would herself
+wear, though she had chosen a spray of blossoming peach because he had
+once said it was his favourite, and because in her heart of hearts she
+hoped that rhymes concerning these sweet blooms might be already in his
+mind. But Richard, suspecting nothing of this, came to the Floral Games
+empty headed and as ignorant as the others as to the programme; and when
+he saw the brilliant and distinguished company waiting to pass verdict
+upon his poor verse he was filled with confusion. At the right of Queen
+Eleanor, sat the troubadour Sordello, the friend of Charles of Anjou who
+might easily have vanquished all present in the framing of _coblas_,
+_sirenas_, _sirventes_ and all kinds of poems, as well as in the ruder
+feats which may become a knight; but he for love of his fair Cunizza
+had disdained the prize of the present contest, and had come solely to
+assist the Queen in her decision. Also in the raised arbour by the side
+of Eleanor sat her uncle Boniface of Savoy, whom the King of England had
+made Archbishop of Canterbury. His grace was said to have no little
+skill in the framing of love sonnets, though chants and canticles would
+have better beseemed a churchman.
+
+The pleasance was all abloom with flowers, for the month was May, but
+the ladies in their gauzy robes of delicate rainbow hues were lovelier
+far than the favourites of Flora.
+
+Eleanor having announced the terms of the contest, she and her three
+sisters displayed the flowers which they had chosen as themes for the
+controversy, and the challengers drew lots for order of precedence, with
+the result that Barral des Baux came first, Aldobrandino second, Raymond
+of Toulouse third, and Richard last.
+
+Barral had composed and committed to memory a _sirvente_ or song of
+battle which he proposed to write out, paper and quill being permitted
+him in deference to his broken jaw. Great was his discomfiture to find
+that it fitted not to the theme prescribed, but he cut his cloth to the
+new pattern to the best of his ability. He retained the most effective
+portions of his poem, its high-sounding phrases, and picturesque
+descriptions of marshalling knights, the very category of whose arms,
+plumed helms, hauberks, blazoned shields, flaunting pennons, inlaid
+gauntlets, cross-hiked swords, golden spurs, and caparisoned steeds was
+in itself a pageant. True he gave these champions as a motive for their
+deeds of high emprise the demonstration of the supremacy of the
+differing and rival charms of the four sisters as typified by the
+flowers they affected; but he implied too plainly that those of the
+peach-bloom were alone worthy of such contention. Himself he figured as
+her accepted knight, hacking, slaying, scaling fortresses, pillaging,
+burning, putting to torture or ransoming prisoners, and scorning with
+brutal insults her sisters' flowers. This _sirvente_ which was
+apparently composed during a brief interval during which the jongleurs
+amused the company, was read in a sonorous voice by Archbishop Boniface.
+But had Barral's desire been to antagonise all the daughters of Raymond
+Berenger he could not better have succeeded, and when the Archbishop
+took his seat a glance at the face of Queen Eleanor told des Baux that
+he had lost the prize.
+
+Aldobrandino was no more fortunate. He cast his poem in the form of a
+_serena_ or night song, and spoke sadly and sentimentally of the evening
+of old age, dusky and drear, and of that night of death which he saw
+approaching. Strangely enough, he made no plea for present happiness,
+but begged the flowers, or their ladies, to drop tears upon his grave
+when he declared that he would sleep content.
+
+Though chanted in all earnestness this grave-yard ditty chimed not in
+with the joyous temper of the company. There was sly nudging and
+smiling, a snicker from an ill-mannered page, and the only sighs were
+those of relief when he ended.
+
+It was now the opportunity of Raymond of Toulouse. Besides being an
+accomplished technician in all forms of writing he was a man of shrewd
+and lively apprehension, and his wound had by no means injured his wits.
+As he lay upon the litter engaging the sympathy of the ladies and the
+leniency of the judges he had divined rightly the reason of the
+discomforture of each of his rivals. He saw that Aldobrandino had made
+shipwreck by reason of his indifference to the charms of all, and des
+Baux on account of his zeal for one at the expense of the others, for
+not a single protestation of esteem, not a compliment even had any one
+of Sancie's sisters received, and this in face of the well known fact
+that all were beautiful and eager for appreciation.
+
+In avoiding the conspicuous lapses of his predecessors Raymond with all
+his guile fell into another pitfall. He lauded the Rose, the Daisy, the
+Garland of Vine Leaves worn by Eleanor, Marguerite, and Beatrice in
+three canzonets so perfect in form, so exquisite in diction that they
+rivalled the ditties of Thibault of Champagne, who was hitherto
+accounted as having written "the most delightful and most melodious
+canzonets that at any time were heard."
+
+But in doing this he exhausted all terms of endearment and admiration
+which he could command, and when he attempted to celebrate the Peach
+Blossom he could only repeat utterances already made, so that his
+conclusion was an anticlimax, bad in art and unfortunately giving the
+impression that he was more enamoured of Sancie's sisters than of
+herself.
+
+The insincerity of his graceful verse was apparent to all. Sordello and
+Boniface who had nodded their appreciation at the conclusion of the
+first, second, and third canzonets, scowled and coughed at the fourth,
+and though there was applause sufficient to gratify this poet's vanity
+it misled him as to the impression which he had made upon his judges.
+
+Richard knew not that Raymond had over-shot his mark; it seemed to him
+that he had surely won, and that it was useless for him to offer his
+halting verses, save as a tribute of genuine feeling. Such they were,
+and honesty even in literature and courtship is some whiles best policy.
+But one thought had sunk itself in his distracted brain since noting
+what flower his beloved carried, how that Sancie was Flower o' the Peach
+and be the others what they might she was the flower of all flowers to
+him. He had no knowledge of the complicated metres with which Provençal
+troubadours played so deftly, but he had been in Italy and had marked
+how the peasants bandied back and forth their bright _stornelli_ as
+though the quick play were that of ball, the thought striking the fancy
+and deftly handled as it leapt from one to the other of the players.
+
+Therefore he modestly announced that he would strive to imitate in the
+_langue d'oc_ certain of these _stornelli a fiore_ trusting that their
+rudeness and brevity might be forgiven.[7]
+
+Queen Eleanor was crowned with roses and was throned beneath a canopy of
+those royal flowers. To her Richard, accompanying himself upon the lute,
+addressed his first _stornello_:
+
+      "Flower o' the Briar--
+    Though high on her trellis the Rose o' the Briar,
+    Sits supreme o'er the garden my heart clambers higher."
+
+"How may that be," laughed Eleanor, "if I am 'supreme o'er the garden?'
+'Tis enough for me; but I see not how you can o'ertop that compliment.
+Let me hear what you have to say to my sister of France."
+
+Marguerite, as befitting her name, wore daisies, and squaring his
+shoulders Richard sang lustily,
+
+    "Flower o' the Marguerite;
+    Queen of the garden, fair Reine Marguerite,
+    If my heart were not captive 't would lie at your feet."
+
+"'Tis Beatrice then who holds your heart in thrall?" bantered the
+queen, for she was malicious enough to plunge him in further difficulty.
+Here also was a coil for Beatrice was jealous of Sancie's beauty, and
+her lover, Charles of Anjou, sat beside her quick to resent any
+aspersion upon his mistress.
+
+Beatrice, like a bacchante, had bound her brows with vine leaves one of
+which Charles now broke off and handed to the competing minstrel. With a
+gallant bow and a smile which atoned for the quizzical reservation,
+Richard sang,
+
+    "Flower o' the Vine;
+    For you, merry Charles, the chaplet of vine
+    'T is a guerdon all envy, so pray grant me mine."
+
+Laughter resounded from every side of the pleasance mingled with cries,
+"Your flower! Name your favourite flower."
+
+Then Richard knelt before Sancie, who hid her face behind the blossoms
+which so well matched her blushes, and sang from his heart:
+
+    "Flower o' the Peach,
+    Flower o' the Peach, dearest Flower o' the Peach,
+    A flower for each fancy--his own love for each."
+
+Brief was the consultation between the judges. Queen Eleanor descended
+from her throne and amid clappings and bravoes gave Richard the stalk
+of lilies which had served her for sceptre and was now his palm of
+victory.
+
+[Illustration: The Floral Games
+
+From the painting by Jacques Wagrez. Permission of Braun,
+
+Clement & Co.]
+
+Ere he could take it from her hand, however, with a snort and bellow
+like that of a bull, my lord Aldobrandino faced the Queen.
+
+"Gramercy," he cried, "shall so fair a prize be won foully by false
+plagiarism?"
+
+"What charge is this you make," demanded Queen Eleanor.
+
+"That yon traitor stole from me that songlet of the peach, and though he
+has trussed it out of countenance with gawds of his own invention still
+the root of the matter is mine."
+
+"What answer you to this accusation, Richard?" asked the Queen.
+
+"That he speaks truly," Richard replied, "mine is indeed a spilling
+cup."
+
+The queen was loth to give judgment against her favourite and there was
+wrangling between her advisors as to what amount of theft were
+admissible in literature, but their opinion was stricter than I pray
+yours may be, most gentle reader, and they gave their verdict, "The
+prize is to Prince Aldobrandino."
+
+At that verdict Sancie fainted in the arms of Queen Marguerite, and
+Richard hid his face in his hands, crying, "I cannot bear it."
+
+Then Prince Aldobrandino spoke and they saw how they had misjudged the
+man.
+
+"You cannot bear this disappointment, say you, Ricciardo? Look you at
+the device upon my shield, Atlas, and the motto, _Sustino omnes_. I can
+bear all things, even such loss as this, and, since I see well that the
+lady loves me not, of my own motive yield I the prize to you, Ricciardo,
+who well deserve what you have truly won."
+
+"Nay," cried Richard, for admiration of so great magnanimity fired his
+emulation, and he would not be outdone. "Nay, my lord, the judgment of
+this court cannot be thus lightly set aside. 'The prize' it has decreed,
+'must be to Prince Aldobrandino.' Thy oath also that the Lady Sancie
+shall be mother of the Aldobrandini is registered in heaven."
+
+"I would forfeit neither prize nor oath," replied Aldobrandino, "but
+there is a scripture on which I have pondered much of late--'Who
+knoweth,' quoth the wise man, 'who shall reign after thee, and whether
+thy son shall be a fool?' So might he well be if he resembled me, and
+against such ill-chancing will I now be assured. A son after my own
+heart do I find in thee, Ricciardo, for I have probed and proved thee,
+taking the measure of thy mind until I know thee clean of soul as thou
+art strong of body. I go in fulfilment of a secret vow, neither recently
+nor lightly made, to end my days with the brotherhood of St. Benedict,
+but first I do adopt thee son, and heir to all my estates. Let the
+judgment of this court stand and the prize be to Prince Aldobrandino for
+henceforth that is thy name and title."
+
+The good man could not be swerved from this resolution. The lawyers drew
+up the act of relinquishment, Archbishop Boniface blessed the happy
+pair, who spent their honeymoon in their villa at Frascati, and from
+thence was Richard called by election to be King of the Romans. It was
+an honour which he held not long, nor did children of his continue the
+line of the Aldobrandini. Too careless was he of his own advantage when
+it ran counter to the desires of another; but in the magnificent
+Frascati villa, where he made such short tarrying, you may still find
+Richard's fountain not far from that of Atlas.
+
+To his estates in Cornwall he shortly returned; and testimony to his
+character corroborative of this story, and as credible as that of the
+Italian authorities we have quoted (Sacchetti and Ser Giovanni), you
+may read in the ballad of
+
+      ERL RICHARD, KING OF GOOD FELLOWS.
+
+    "His wine was for others' sipping,
+      For lightly he gave it up,
+    There's slipping 'twixt pouring and lipping
+      And his was a spilling cup.
+
+    "But ne'er for the lost good liquor
+      Was Richard heard to sigh.
+    'I shall not bicker so friends grow thicker,
+      And the cup of love hold I.'
+
+    "So in praise of that loser willing
+      They carved his cup awry,--
+    Spilling----but aye re-filling
+      To witness if I lie!"
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Villa d'Este, at Tivoli--Present State]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WITH TASSO AT VILLA D'ESTE
+
+
+  His weary heart awhile to soothe
+  He wove all into verses smooth.
+
+  * * *
+
+                     for soothly he
+  Was deemed a craft-master to be
+  In those most noble days of old,
+  Whose lays were e'en as kingly gold
+  To our thin brass or drossy lead;
+  Well, e'en so all the tale is said
+  How twain grew one and came to bliss?
+  Woe's me, an idle dream it is!
+
+  WILLIAM MORRIS.
+
+Supreme above all the enchanted gardens of Italy, both in the
+bewildering beauty of its sensuous charm and in the potency of its
+appeal to the imagination, stands the Villa d'Este at Tivoli.
+
+It is a hillside villa, a succession of terraces forming a stairway of
+flowers between the palace and the lower garden, where
+
+  "Cypress and fig tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated,
+  Rose-garden on garden upheaved in balconies step to the sky."
+
+But it is also a superb water-staircase, for the river Anio, turned from
+its course by a gigantic feat of engineering, leaps in a magnificent
+cascade, laughs in the spray of a thousand fountain jets, and makes the
+bosquets which shadow the regal staircase a haunt of the water nymphs as
+well as of the Dryads. You fancy, as your unwary foot presses the
+concealed springs that it is the white hands of mischievous Naiads which
+dash the water in your face, a pensive melancholy settles upon you with
+the mysterious dusk, and you are startled by Undine's "short, quick
+sobs," and are loth to believe that the plaintive sounds with which the
+air pulses are but the dropping of rills in and out of the shadowy
+pools.
+
+The pompous hydraulic organ no longer thunders its "full-mouthed
+diapason," but the nightingales fill the long summer nights with their
+surges of wild rhapsodies. Both the eye and the ear of the artist
+receive refreshment and stimulus here. The garden is a bath of
+verdancy and coolness even upon the most torrid day. The very light
+which filters through the dense foliage is tinged with green. The
+marbles are velvety and moist with moss, and the maidenhair fern drips
+lush and dank. Here Liszt drew inspiration from the harmonies of water
+notes blended with the chiming of distant bells, and Watteau showed in
+the many studies which he made in the garden how potent was its
+influence in investing his _fêtes champêtres_ with the grace of the
+idyl.
+
+[Illustration: In the Garden of Villa d'Este
+
+From a photograph by Mr. Charles S. Platt]
+
+That its appeal was no less powerful to a poet, the "craft-master" of
+his day, it is our purpose later to show.
+
+Many minor poets also have felt and, with more or less success, have
+interpreted its wondrous charm--Story perhaps best of all.
+
+    "What peace and quiet in this villa sleep!
+    Here let us pause nor chase for pleasure on,
+    Nothing can be more exquisite than this.
+    See how the old house lifts its face of light
+    Against the pallid olives that between
+    Throng up the hill. Look down this vista's shade
+    Of dark square-shaven ilexes where sports
+    The fountain's, thin white thread and blows away.
+    And mark! along the terraced balustrade
+    Two contadini stopping in the shade
+    With copper vases poised upon their heads,
+    How their red jackets tell against the green!
+    Old, all is old,--what charm there is in age!
+    Do you believe this villa when 'twas new
+    Was half so beautiful as now it seems?
+    Look at these balustrades of travertine--
+    Had they the charm when fresh and shapely carved
+    As now that they are stained and graved with time
+    And mossed with lichens, every grim old mask
+    That grins upon their pillars bearded o'er
+    With waving sprays of slender maidenhair?
+    Ah, no! I cannot think it; things of art
+    Snatch nature's graces from the hand of Time."
+
+But it is the view afforded by the double arcade of loggias and by every
+window of the palace façade which was the crowning glory of the villa.
+The amethystine Sabine Hills and the immense Campagna encircle the
+Eternal City, from whose mists the dome of Saint Peter's seems to rise a
+buoyant, iridescent bubble.
+
+It was Pirro Ligorio (architect also of the exquisite Villa Pia) who in
+1545 accomplished the miracle of converting the savage cliff into a
+staircase of enchantment. Nature had given the villa its marvellous site
+and genius availed itself of all the resources of art and wealth to
+effect the wonder.
+
+Cardinal Ippolito's orders to Ligorio were: "Surpass the work of Vignola
+in the villas of Caprarola and Lante. Restore the glory of Tivoli in the
+Augustan age."
+
+[Illustration: Hydraulic Organ, Villa d'Este.]
+
+Excavations in the neighbourhood were daily bringing to light
+masterpieces of classical sculpture, and for the "statues which whiten
+the shadow" of Villa d'Este, Ligorio was given carte blanche to despoil
+the gardens of Hadrian's palace. To-day only a long procession of broken
+pedestals bears witness to statues of emperors, gods, and goddesses long
+since removed to different museums.
+
+The exodus began immediately upon the succession of Ippolito's nephew,
+Cardinal Luigi d'Este, who came to his inheritance deeply in debt; but
+that spendthrift prelate retained sixty statues, some of which are seen
+in the etching made by Piranesi, and it was not until 1745 that these
+were purchased by Cardinal Albani.
+
+The creator of this paradise, Cardinal Ippolito d'Este II., son of
+Lucrezia Borgia, was, like his villa, a refined product of the later
+Renaissance and must not be confounded with his uncle, Cardinal Ippolito
+d'Este I.
+
+This first Cardinal Ippolito was a man of very different fibre, as may
+be seen from a single incident. Sent to Rome as his brother's envoy, on
+the occasion of Duke Alphonso's marriage, he fell in love with a pretty
+cousin of Lucrezia Borgia who accompanied the bride on her wedding
+journey to Ferrara.
+
+Unfortunately the coquettish girl praised the beautiful eyes of Giulio
+d'Este, the Cardinal's younger brother, whereupon this prince of the
+Church hired assassins who waylaid his brother and tore out his
+offending eyes.
+
+The Duke banished Ippolito temporarily, but Giulio brooded over the
+injury and conspired to depose Alphonso and place another brother, Don
+Ferrante, on the throne. For this act both Ferrante and Giulio were
+condemned to be imprisoned for life. Ferrante died in confinement but
+Giulio, after fifty-three years spent in a dungeon of the castle, was
+finally released.
+
+It might have been expected that the blending of d'Este brutality with
+the unscrupulous Borgia craft would have given as a result only a more
+refined cruelty; but if this was the case Cardinal Ippolito II.
+completely deceived his contemporaries and has left the reputation
+(through the pen of his panegyrist Mureto) of the utmost affable
+condescension and magnificent patronage of men of genius. He was himself
+a dilettante; and it was his ambition to pose as the most cultured and
+brilliant of the great cardinals of his day. Ippolito I. had been a boon
+companion of Leo X. in his hunting parties at the Villa La
+Magliana, but it was not as a "_cacciator signorile_" or "sporting
+gentleman" that Ippolito II. wished to eclipse the then illustrious
+representative of the house of Medici, Cardinal Ferdinando, who was
+attempting to rival him in his magnificent villa on the Pincian hill.
+
+[Illustration: Villa d'Este in 1740
+
+From an etching by Piranesi]
+
+It does not seem to have occurred to Mureto that both of these men were
+looking forward to the papacy, and desired to emulate in their own
+pontificates that of Leo X. Each piece of sculpture acquired for their
+villas, every literary man attached to their service was a step toward
+that end. Ippolito II. was as keen a hunter of genius as his uncle had
+been of deer or boar; and having once bagged his game, as capable of
+availing himself without scruple of his trophies as Ippolito I. of
+tearing the antlers from a dying stag.
+
+The princely Cardinal entertained on one occasion a house party of two
+hundred and fifty guests in his palatial villa, and established here a
+veritable court. The grandiose frescoes of Zuccari, Tempesta, Muziano,
+and Vasari still celebrate the glories of his family under the guise of
+the heroes of mythology garlanded by troops and bevies of cupids, "_una
+copiosa quantita di Amorini_." But the gods and demigods banquet all
+alone on the ceiling of the great hall where they once looked down upon
+the revels of the Cardinal's convives--noble or distinguished men all of
+them in their day, although the one name that comes to us of all who
+shared Ippolito's lavish hospitality and that sheds most glory upon his
+proud house is that of a poet, by turns patronised as a dependent,
+ungratefully neglected, and cruelly wronged.
+
+The visitor is shown with pride the room so whimsically decorated with
+singing birds, where Tasso wrote his _Amyntas_, and the Fountain of
+Nature in the lower garden where the pastoral was presented with musical
+accompaniment before a distinguished audience.
+
+That Leonora d'Este was among those who listened, and indeed had been
+her uncle's guest and Tasso's good and evil fate during the months which
+he spent at Villa d'Este, is the only conclusion possible for the
+thoughtful reader of the poem; and the idyl composed under such
+circumstances leads inevitably to the tragedy (enacted at that other
+villa) of Belriguardo, of which Goethe has given us so truthful and so
+masterly a transcription.
+
+Cardinal Ippolito, as his portraits make him known to us, has none of
+the sensuality which stamped the face of his grandfather Pope
+Alexander Borgia, or the heaviness of jaw expressing the stubborness and
+brutality of the earlier D'Estes; on the contrary, every line of the
+slight figure is expressive of refinement, the delicate red-stockinged
+feet are as shapely as a woman's, the expressive, almost transparent
+hands might be those of an artist as they finger caressingly his
+collection of intaglios and luxuriate in the smoothness of jades and
+ivory carvings. His excessive pallor and thinness would give an
+expression of asceticism, almost of spirituality to the intellectual
+face were it not in a measure contradicted by the craft in the
+close-set, slanting eyes, which with the pointed, fulvous beard suggest
+a possibility of foxy cunning, and inspire in the beholder an
+uncomfortable, haunting feeling of distrust even when the Cardinal's
+manner is most condescending and cajoling.
+
+So, robed in filmy lace over rosy velvet, we may see him in imagination
+tripping daintily down his monumental staircase, his train islanding his
+figure as in some ensanguined pool and slipping after him adown the
+steps like the drip of some trail of blood which strangely leaves no
+stain upon the white marble.
+
+But his face is wreathed with smiles, for he genuinely loves his two
+beautiful nieces, Lucrezia, Duchess of Urbino, and the gentle Leonora,
+who are his guests, and he loves his villa, whose beauties he is
+pointing out to them.
+
+"You do not see the garden at its best," he cavils. "Wait till the roses
+garland the balustrades. It is too early yet to enjoy Tivoli; the frost
+may have left the ground but it lingers still in the pavements of this
+great palace. The halls are damp as vaults; we would have done well, my
+nieces, to have remained another month in Rome. Not till the middle of
+May will society desert the city for its _villeggiatura_. What do you
+say, Leonora, shall we confess that we have made a mistake and return?"
+
+"Dear uncle, as you say, it is only the palace which, in spite of its
+braziers, retains the winter chill. Here in the garden the air is balmy,
+and the Judas trees are all a crimson mist. See how the green is
+creeping, like an inundation through the russets of last year's grasses.
+In another fortnight all this magical change will have been wrought, and
+those who come later will have missed the fairy spectacle."
+
+"Spectacle! ah! that reminds me," replied the Cardinal; "while Nature is
+shifting the scenes we must prepare the _scenario_. Confess that I have
+provided a worthy theatre, one which should suggest to a poet a worthy
+theme. There, alas! is my great lack--I have no poet. How wastefully on
+those who need them not are the most precious gifts bestowed! My uncle
+and godfather, Cardinal Ippolito--the saints rest his soul!--was a
+dull-brained barbarian and yet he had attached to his service that pearl
+of poets Ariosto, whom he had neither the intelligence to appreciate nor
+the justice to reward. What think you was Ariosto's meed for dedicating
+to his patron the _Orlando Furioso_? He was made governor of that nest
+of bandits, the mountain district of Garfagnana, and it in open
+insurrection against the Duke of Ferrara. A pretty post for a scholar
+and a poet! But to it he went, and conquered the brigands, proving
+himself as expert in the use of the sword as in that of the pen.
+
+"We produce no such men now. Bernardo Tasso, to whom I gave employment
+when he was exiled from Naples, and who wandered freely in this garden,
+felt not its charm, for he was but a third-rate poet, and even he is
+dead. Who in our day can interpret the poetry which I feel here but
+cannot express? And with but so little more of endowment I might have
+done it, for after all is not the inner ear, the second sight, the major
+part of genius?
+
+"Listen, and tell me what you hear. Only the musical plash of the
+fountains and the sonorous undertone of the organ, like the distant roar
+of surf upon the beach? Ah, me! ah, me! how materialistic you are, my
+children. Your old uncle hears in these myriad-voiced fountains the
+musical instruments which Boccaccio gave to the Satyrs; 'cymbals, pipes,
+and whistling reeds,' and the song of the nymphs. Did you note that
+startled cry? It is the Oread Arethusa flying from the river-god
+Alpheus. He is imprisoned in the organ, where he is mightily bellowing,
+and whence he will presently burst forth. But Arethusa will slip away
+(coquette that she is), under ground and under sea to her Sicilian home;
+for fable and stream sing eternally the same story, _Mulier hominis
+confusio est_.
+
+"Tell me, my niece, have we in all Italy a poet who can voice such a
+theme?"
+
+"Yes, uncle," the Duchess of Urbino interposed, "Bernardo Tasso's little
+son heard and understood the song of the fountains when he played here
+in his childhood. He told me that he believed a _folletto_ or tricksy
+spirit talked with him here and promised him that if he came again he
+would find here both love and fame. He can interpret your songs for you,
+for he has grown a man, and is a greater poet than his father."
+
+"And meantime," added Leonora, "he has absorbed all that the
+universities of Bologna and Padua can give him, and has written a
+romantic poem, the _Rinaldo_, on the exploits of one of our ancestors,
+that mythical old peer of Charlemagne, which he has dedicated to our
+house. It is in recognition of this tribute that our brother Luigi has
+made him his secretary."
+
+"And Luigi is at the French Court intriguing with the Queen Mother,
+Catherine de' Medici. Torquato is doubtless with him," replied the
+Cardinal. "I ask you of what good to tantalise me with impossible
+suggestions? He had the eyes of a poet, that lad, and he might have
+served my turn."
+
+"He may still serve you, Uncle Ippolito, for he has quarrelled with
+Luigi, and is in Rome."
+
+"And wherefore in Rome? To curry favour with Cardinal de' Medici?"
+
+"Possibly, for Tasso is writing a great epic on the taking of
+Jerusalem by Godfrey of Bouillon and his crusaders."
+
+"'Tis no epic that I wish, but a pastoral--a mere trifle. Yet not so
+fast. A poem such as you describe, if it were indeed a work of genius,
+might rouse Christendom to another crusade, a life-work worthy of the
+next Pope. Lucrezia, the boy must not submit his poem to Cardinal de'
+Medici. Can you summon him to me, and will he come instantly?"
+
+"If Leonora calls him," the Duchess replied, "he will come."
+
+Cardinal Ippolito lifted his eyebrows almost imperceptibly and darted a
+keen, sidelong glance at Leonora. She had not heard her sister's last
+remark, the name of Torquato Tasso had obliterated the present and she
+was gazing dreamily at the rainbow-tinted dome of St. Peter's.
+
+"Leonora," the Cardinal said softly, "have you heard what Lucrezia was
+saying, that this young poet has written an epic? If I could see it I
+might be able to help him in his career, perhaps give him fame."
+
+"O Uncle, will you? How good you are! I will write him at once."
+
+"My dear, I am not good, or disinterested. I am a selfish, an ambitious
+old man. This festival, given ostensibly for the entertainment of my
+friends and to introduce my charming nieces, is a part of my deep,
+ulterior motives. Come, I will confess the machinations of my wicked old
+heart. Why not, since my ambitions are for you as well as for myself?
+Nay, Leonora, never flush and tremble, I have no wish to buy my own
+advancement by selling you to some degenerate prince. Matchmaking is not
+my kind of diplomacy. I have seen enough in our own family of
+magnificence won through the martyrdom of women. Your mother, Renée of
+France, though a king's daughter, brought with her a dowry of
+unhappiness. My own mother, innocent though she was, bequeathed to us
+the shameful legacy of the Borgias' deeds and instincts. You may be
+happy, Lucrezia, with your Duke of Urbino. I ask no confidences, but I
+am glad that I am not responsible for your marriage.
+
+"You, at least, Leonora, shall live your own life wedded or unwedded as
+you like. I shall be so great that I can ennoble whom I will, and you,
+beloved child, shall be the power behind the throne to advise me on whom
+to shower my benefits."
+
+Lucrezia clapped her hands softly. "Bravo, dear Uncle, I have guessed
+this ambition, have I not? Cardinal de' Medici is already spoken of as
+the Pope's successor. But the Medici balls have been carved too often
+over St. Peter's chair, and you are minded to blazon in their place the
+d'Este eagle. You need not answer for I know that I am right."
+
+The Cardinal smiled mysteriously. "Too shrewd, my niece, too shrewd by
+half. How your woman's intuition leaps over intervening obstacles. Never
+a whisper of this guess at my aims. Remember, it is but your own surmise
+and that I have never breathed such an aspiration. The immediate object
+of my solicitude is to secure a charming play worthy of the setting of
+Villa d'Este breathing the spirit of Ovid and Anacreon, one which will
+make the old Greek gods live again in these delicious haunts and will
+redound to the reputation of your uncle's taste in literature."
+
+"How magnanimous you are," cried Leonora, "to disclaim your principal
+motive, that of helping Tasso! He shall come, and he will give you the
+most beautiful idyl that was ever written."
+
+* * *
+
+And who shall say that Tasso did not make good the promise of his
+patroness? In the _Amyntas_ we have the development of a theme which is
+the inevitable product of such a temperament in such a situation, and to
+the poem itself we will now look for a record of what transpired at
+Villa d'Este during the writing and the presentation of the pastoral.
+
+To us it is true that the archaic quality, the pseudo-classicism of this
+pastoral seems at first artificial. "It has only so much of rustic
+nature as suits a graceful urban fancy." Arcadia is a no man's land, so
+far from our desires that we cannot picture it even in imagination; but
+to one who knows how sincere was the enthusiasm of the Renaissance for
+Greek ideals as well as for modes of expression, how classicism had come
+to be understood as a synonym for perfection in form whether in
+literature or the plastic arts,--all the pretty imagery of the Golden
+Age and its demigods becomes as natural a poetic rendering of sincere
+feeling as the equally formal restrictions of the measure of the sonnet
+or the rules which govern the composition of a concerto. Having once
+learned its technique genius and passion were unconscious of their
+limitations, but flowed with as true and spontaneous an impulse within
+these formal bounds as waters in their marble fountains and conduits.
+
+     "All the melodies that had been growing through two centuries in
+     Italy [says Symonds] are concentrated in the songs of the _Amyntas_
+     and the _Pastor Fido_. The idyllic voluptuousness which permeated
+     literature and art steeps their pictures in a golden glow. While we
+     recognise in both these poems--the one perfumed and delicate like
+     flowers of spring, the other sculptured in pure forms of classic
+     grace--evident signs of a civilisation sinking to decay, we are
+     bound to confess that to this goal the Italian genius had been
+     steadily advancing. They complete and close the Renaissance."
+
+But the living quality in the _Amyntas_ which makes it a thousand-fold
+more real to us than the Elizabethan masques is not its perfectness of
+form but the stamp which it bears of being the expression of personal
+experience and longing but thinly veiled in poetic imagery. Reading the
+poem at Villa d'Este we read between the lines and recognise the _scena_
+of the pastoral and the love which inspired its plot.
+
+In spite of the changes wrought by time we discover the origin of each
+descriptive passage. This rocky reservoir whose shadowy surface seems to
+mirror reflections of mysterious faces is surely--
+
+                      "Dian's pool
+  Where the great plane's cool shade to cooler waves
+  Invites the huntress nymphs."
+
+Its encircling laurel thickets might mask to-day strange woodland
+deities like the Satyr of the play who while Sylvia bathed
+
+    "Crouched lynx-eyed among the thick-set shrubs."
+
+The description of the tumultuous pursuit of this Satyr calls up so
+vividly the Polyphemus in the _Triumph of Galatea_ that we are convinced
+that Tasso must have been influenced by Raphael's great painting in the
+Farnesina.
+
+          "Not all am I
+    A despicable thing,..."
+
+He makes the Satyr say;
+
+    "This ruddy russet front, these shoulders huge,
+    These nervy bull-thewed arms, this silky breast,
+    And these my velvet thighs are manhood's mould robust.
+    Ill favoured I? Not so!"
+
+As one listens to the delirious nightingales in the dim, green-arched
+_allées_, one forgets the trysting trees in other Italian gardens and is
+sure that only here could Daphne have drawn her argument for love from
+their caresses.
+
+    "_Daphne:_
+
+    The gentle, jocund spring,
+    Smiling and wantoning,
+    Makes all things amorous.
+          Thou only thus,
+    Untamed wild creature, wilder than the rest,
+    Deniest love the harbourage of thy breast.
+    List to yon nightingale
+    Singing within the vale
+       'I love, love, love.'
+    With what renewed embracement vine clasps vine,
+    Fir blends its boughs with fir, and pine with pine.
+    Beneath the rugged bark
+    May'st thou mute inward sighings mark,
+    And wilt thou graceless be
+    Less than a vine or tree--
+    To keep thyself unloving, loverless?
+    Bend, bend thy stubborn heart
+    Fool that thou art."
+
+But the physical peculiarity which actually identifies Villa d'Este as
+the locale of the poem is its cliff, the "sheer crag" from whence
+Amyntas leaps in his despair.
+
+    "Now did he lead me where the cloven steep
+    Among the rocks and solitary crags
+    Looms pathless and breaks sheer above a vale.
+    There paused we, and I, peering far below,
+    Shuddered, drew from the brink.
+
+  * * *
+
+  'Sylvia, I come, I follow!' So he cried:
+  Then headlong leaped,--and left me turned to stone."
+
+There are other poems of Tasso's which refer to his residence at Villa
+d'Este, and infer Leonora's presence at that time. We may cite in
+particular the canzone to Leonora at her uncle's villa, beginning "_Al
+nobil colle ove in antichi marmi_":
+
+    "To the romantic hills where free
+    To thine enchanted eyes
+    Works of Greek art in statuary
+       Of antique marbles rise,
+    My thought, fair Leonora, roves,
+    And with it to their gloomy groves
+    Fast bears me as it flies.
+    For far from thee, in crowds unblest,
+    My fluttering heart but ill can rest.
+
+    "There to the rock, cascade, and grove,
+    On mosses dropt with dew,
+    Like one who thinks and sighs of love
+    The livelong summer through,
+    Oft would I dictate glorious things
+    Of heroes to the Tuscan strings
+    On my sweet lyre anew,
+    And to the brooks and trees around
+    Ippolito's high name resound."
+
+This poem would seem to imply that a part of the _Jerusalem_ was written
+here, possibly the episode of Sophronia and Olindo, so dear to Tasso
+himself that though it was not an integral part of the epic he dared the
+Inquisition rather than comply with the demands of the censor that it
+should be stricken out. The description of Sophronia is admitted to have
+been intended to denote Leonora:
+
+    "Amongst them in the city lived a maid
+    The flower of virgins in her perfect prime,
+    Supremely beautiful! but that she made
+    Never her care, or beauty only weighed
+    In worth with virtue; and her worth acquired
+    A deeper charm from blooming in the shade,
+    Lovers she shunned, nor loved to be admired,
+    But from their praises turned to live a life retired."
+
+Equally applicable to Tasso is that of Olindo, the lover who--
+
+    "Feared much, hoped little, and in nought presumed.
+    He could not or he durst not speak, but doomed
+    To voiceless thought his passion."
+
+But during those "livelong summer days" the poet's passion was not
+utterly voiceless. The _Amyntas_ is throughout a continual and
+unequivocal expression, and he daringly in the very prelude makes the
+god of love, who explains the scheme of the play, declare--
+
+    "For wheresoe'er I am, there I am Love,
+    No less in shepherds' than in heroes' hearts,
+    The _unequal lot grows equal_ at my will,
+    My chiefest vaunt, my miracle is this."
+
+Openly and repeatedly Tasso asserts that while he is not indifferent to
+literary distinction it is not the chief end which he has in view in
+writing the _Amyntas._
+
+    "Deem not" (he says) "that all Love's bliss
+      At last is but a breath
+      Of fame that followeth.
+
+    Love's meed is love, it wooeth, _winneth_ this.
+    Nathless the lover steadfast to his end
+    Hath laud ofttimes and maketh Fame his friend."
+
+Goethe makes Tasso confide this double aim to Leonora and her reply
+shows that he did indeed win the meed he sought. "For what" the poet
+asks her "is more deserving to survive and silently to last for
+centuries than the confession of a noble love, confided modestly to
+gentle song?"
+
+We follow step by step that wooing, finding it in the exquisite
+apostrophe to the golden age--which concludes:
+
+    "Then let us live as erst kind Nature's thralls
+    And let us love--since hearts
+    No truce of time may know, and youth departs:
+    Ay! let us love: suns sink but sink to soar--
+    On us, our brief day o'er,
+    Night falls and sleep descends for evermore."
+
+Here again Goethe discovers the personal note, transcribing the poem
+unscrupulously from its setting in the _Amyntas_ and making Leonora
+reply with didactic coldness to Tasso's appeal--
+
+    "_Tasso:_
+
+    The golden age, ah! whither is it flown,
+    For which in secret every heart repines?
+    When every bird winging the limpid air
+    And every living thing o'er hill and dale
+    Proclaimed to man, What pleases is allowed.
+
+    "_Princess_:
+
+    My friend, the golden age hath passed away.
+    Shall I confess to thee my secret thoughts?
+    The golden age, wherewith the bard is wont
+    Our spirits to beguile, that lovely prime,
+    Existed in the past no more than now;
+    Still meet congenial spirits and enhance
+    Each other's pleasures in this beauteous world;
+    But in the motto change one single word
+    And say my friend,--What's fitting is allowed."
+
+Perhaps Leonora did speak thus in the open discussion which followed the
+reading of the poem as in that at the Court of Urbino when Cardinal
+Bembo, distraught by his own rhapsody on love, stood silent as one
+transported, and the lady Emilia to recall him to himself shook him
+playfully, crying, "Have a care, Pietro, lest in this mood your soul
+should be separated from your body."
+
+And the gay Cardinal replied: "Madam, this would not be the first
+miracle which Love hath wrought in me."
+
+Certainly, Tasso's wooing, even at Villa d'Este, was not always a happy
+one. In the following stanzas he tells of temporary despairs, but he
+hints also of a great hope at his darkest moment:
+
+    "By what dim ways at last Love leadeth man
+    Unto his joy and sets him 'mid the bliss
+    Of his heart's heaven of love--then when he most
+    Thinketh him sunk in an abyss of bale;
+    O blest Amyntas--from thy fate
+    I augur for mine own, that so may she,
+    That fair untender maid, who in a smile
+    Of pity sheaths the steel of heartlessness,
+    So may she with true pity heal the hurt
+    Wherewith feigned pity pierced me to the heart."
+
+In another beautiful passage it is not hope which he sings but rapture:
+
+    "Let him who serveth Love
+    Divine it in his heart, though scarce may he
+    Divine or give it voice."
+
+What was the boon which gave Tasso so much bliss? Perchance no greater
+than the one he celebrates in the exquisite lines:
+
+    _Stava Madonna ad un balcon soletta._
+
+    "My lady at a balcony alone
+    One day was standing, when I chanced to stretch
+    My arm on hers; pardon I begged, if so
+    I had offended her; she sweetly answered,
+    'Not by the placing of thy arm hast thou
+    Displeased me aught, but by withdrawing it
+    Do I remain offended!' O fond words!
+    Dear little love words, short but sweet, and courteous!
+    Courteous as sweet, affectionate as courteous!
+    If it were true and certain what I heard,
+    I shall be always seeking not to offend thee,
+    Repeating the great bliss: but my sweet life,
+    By all my eagerness therein remember--
+    Where there is no offence, there must be
+    No visiting of vengeance!"
+
+It must have been early in their acquaintance that such gratitude was
+poured forth for so slight a favour. There are balconies at Villa
+d'Este, balustraded terraces where now the contorted stems of giant
+vines wrestle with the carved pillarets and rend them relentlessly from
+their copings where at intervals the bayonet-leaved aloes keep sentinel
+like the bravi of Cardinal Ippolito I., their long green knives
+unsheathed and ready for any deed of horror. Here, unconscious of spying
+eyes, Leonora may have leant apparently absorbed in that glorious view,
+and Tasso's hand have stolen furtively to her own.
+
+But was there no other guerdon for his long service than this shy
+avowal--no other bliss before that long horror of imprisonment and real
+or imputed madness which ended only after Leonora's death? Only the Duke
+Alphonso and those who so basely read the poet's private papers can
+reply.
+
+Cardinal Ippolito must have guessed to what end the pastoral of Villa
+d'Este was tending; but whether his sympathy was real or feigned for his
+own uses we cannot know.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Villa d'Este--Terrace Staircase]
+
+He never attained his ambition, for death suddenly claimed him before
+the aged Pope whom he had hoped to succeed. Tasso's tragedy culminated,
+as Goethe tells us, at another villa, that of Belriguardo. The pastoral
+of Villa d'Este ends in a chorus or envoy expressive of that tremulous
+hope which flutters so deliciously in every line of the exquisite poem:
+
+    "I know not if the bitterness
+      That, serving long, long yearning, one hath borne
+      In tears and all forlorn,
+      May wholly turn to sweet, and Love requite
+      All sorrows with delight.
+      But if this be and pain
+      That bringeth joy enricheth often gain;
+      I ask thee not, O Love,
+      To give me gain thy common gains above.
+
+    * * *
+
+      If gentle dear disdains
+      And dulcet coy defeats
+      And strifes fond lovers use
+      To fire their hearts--but close with love's long truce."
+
+     NOTE.--The selections from the _Amyntas_ quoted in this article
+     have been selected from the admirable metrical translation of Mr.
+     R. Whitmore.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+MONDRAGONE
+
+
+"'Tis a grave responsibility to play the dragon to a pretty woman."
+
+This was the assertion with which Celio Benvoglio, private secretary of
+her Highness, Princess Pauline Bonaparte Borghese, invariably prefaced
+the following story, and had I a like knack in telling it, you would
+admit the demonstration of that proposition. By dragon you will
+understand that his Excellency, Prince Camillo Borghese, signified a
+guardian and protector. To constitute Celio Malespini a spy and reporter
+was no more in the thought of the Prince than it could have been in
+Celio's performance. He was young, and as chivalric an admirer of the
+Princess as he was loyal in his devotion to her husband. Had he
+discovered anything equivocal in her conduct, wild horses could not have
+torn her secret from him, and it is possible that the Prince counted
+upon this when he said:
+
+"Celio, the Princess is very young and impulsive; that she is a
+foreigner and therefore inexperienced in our strict etiquette will not
+excuse her slightest mistake in the eyes of our severe Roman dames, who
+would be prejudiced against the sister of Napoleon were she as
+circumspect as the Madonna. Her beauty has already made them envious,
+her wit and light-heartedness is considered levity. They will delight in
+wagging their tongues maliciously on the least shadow of suspicion. In
+appointing you secretary to the Princess I place you in a position where
+you will be able to guard her from the appearance of evil. Understand
+well that I have no fear of its reality, but where there are windows
+overlooking one's garden the neighbours may see more than the owner,
+more even than actually occurs."
+
+"Have no fear, my lord," the young secretary rashly promised. "You know
+the Tuscan proverb in regard to avoiding the suspicion of fruit
+stealing. Ah, well, no visitor shall be allowed to tie his shoestrings
+among your strawberries or to use his handkerchief under your plum
+tree."
+
+So the Prince went away to Florence and Celio found that he had more
+than he had bargained for. Not that Pauline Bonaparte committed actual
+indiscretions; but she was wild for admiration, loved dress, and knew
+how to dress well, setting off her marvellous beauty with that
+combination of style and taste that the French call _chic_, which the
+heavier intellects of the Roman modistes with all their pretence to
+fashion can never attain, and which the imperious Roman matrons could
+never forgive.
+
+One of these, hoping to rob this audacious rival of the advantage of
+Parisian modishness, gave a fête in which the guests were requested to
+appear in classical costume, whose severe simplicity she fancied would
+be more becoming to the plenitude of her own Juno-like charms than to
+the slight figure of the French girl. But the Princess vanquished her
+hostess for she came as a Bacchante in a robe of her own designing,
+bordered with vine leaves embroidered in gold and belted beneath the
+breasts with a golden girdle. A mantle of panther's fur swept from her
+shoulders, her arms and her bust were laden with heavy necklaces and
+bracelets taken from some Etruscan tomb, and she waved a golden thyrsus.
+Her entrance illuminated the ball-room and the character which she
+represented gave her authority for giving free vent to her natural
+vivacity and dancing with the utmost grace and abandon. Her victory over
+the male part of the assembly was complete for they saw no one else that
+evening.
+
+They were wrong who supposed that her beauty was enhanced by dress; on
+the contrary it was limited by the clothing which it adorned. The
+sculptor Canova proved this in his portrait statue of her as Venus
+Victorious, and then her detractors, affecting to be greatly
+scandalised, changed their tune and declared that it was false that the
+Princess was too fond of dress, that on the contrary a greater regard
+for it would have been more decent.
+
+The young secretary was not a little troubled by the caprice of his
+patroness to thus display her beauty to the world. "But why not, my
+Celio?" she had argued. "The Prince, my husband, has bestowed upon me a
+great title for which I feel my obligation to his noble family, and I
+shall pay it with interest, for I shall leave the Borgheses this
+incomparable statue, and the glory of having possessed one Princess
+whose beauty cannot be denied or equalled."
+
+Why Prince Borghese should have deputed this dragon service to another
+instead of undertaking it himself, is a question which I cannot answer.
+Some misunderstanding doubtless there was, or two people who loved each
+other would never have agreed that it was better to live apart, but the
+Prince carried a sore and longing heart with him to Florence, and it may
+be that the Princess was no happier, though she had more bravado.
+
+"I will come when you send for me and not before," her husband said to
+her, "and I trust you understand the motives which underlie my
+self-banishment."
+
+"I am grateful to them at least," was her equivocal retort. "Has your
+Highness any preference as to my residence during your absence?"
+
+"None," he replied sadly, "but I shall be happier if you do not make
+choice of your Neapolitan villa."
+
+She flashed at him indignantly, "You wish to estrange me from my family,
+from my sister Caroline."
+
+"I have only the highest respect for her Majesty, the Queen of Naples,"
+he replied; "her devotion to her husband is undoubted. I could wish--"
+and here the Prince paused.
+
+"That I were more like her," the Princess finished his sentence.
+
+"I never said so, Pauline," he said impulsively, "or wished that you
+were like any other than yourself."
+
+His last words should have softened her, but, pained and indignant at
+his desertion, she hardly heeded them; how was she to know that Camillo
+Borghese was, under his cold exterior, very honestly in love with his
+wife and just now cruelly tortured with jealousy of her brother-in-law,
+the dare-devil Murat? For the latter was as unscrupulous as he was
+handsome, as Napoleon was to find to his cost, though in recognition of
+his services as a dashing leader of cavalry he had rewarded him with the
+hand of his sister Caroline and the crown of Naples.
+
+Hitherto the Princess had not even remarked the bold admiration of her
+brother-in-law, and after the departure of her husband she wept and
+sulked for days, when suddenly an event of great political importance,
+which was also of deep personal interest to herself, threw into the
+background every other consideration.
+
+Napoleon's abdication and the treaty of Fontainebleau came upon his
+friends with the shock of an earthquake. Especially to his sister
+Pauline it was as though the foundations of the earth were tottering.
+He had been the Providence of all his family, dividing the nations
+between them; but Pauline had been his favourite, he had loved her
+sincerely, and she had responded with the utmost devotion.
+
+"I will go to him in his trouble," she declared, and though her
+secretary could not see how her presence could aid the deposed Emperor,
+he could not but approve her generous impulse.
+
+She met her brother at Hyères near the frontier of France, from which
+point he embarked for the Island of Elba. The allies had granted him the
+lordship of the island, with an income to support a pseudo court; but
+the framers of that treaty, and Napoleon himself, knew well that its
+terms were a farce and his kingdom in reality a prison.
+
+What transpired between the Princess and her brother in that brief
+interview Celio did not know. Each passed from it calmed and cheerful.
+There was a kindlier look in the Emperor's face, a more assured
+elasticity in his step as the English sailors who transported him to his
+exile shouted their, "Better luck next time"; and sparks were lighted in
+the eyes of the Princess which every one who saw her noted, though
+none guessed what hidden fires of resolve fed their flashes.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Fountain in Gardens of the Villa Borghese]
+
+They called her that season the Firefly, and many misinterpreted her
+illy suppressed excitement and the scrutiny of those lambent eyes
+sending out their flame signals in search of answering lights. Even her
+secretary did not know that the dark shadows which ringed them were not
+due to the balls and other frivolities in which she was so conspicuous;
+but to complicated and dangerous schemes which robbed her of sleep at
+night, and were never forgotten as she danced and chatted and coquetted
+while the most astute diplomats laid their hearts and their secrets at
+her feet.
+
+She received strange visitors too at the magnificent Villa Borghese,
+just outside the Porta del Popolo, wild-eyed agitators and suspects who
+had never before been permitted to enter those aristocratic gates. The
+first had come disguised in a marble-cutter's blouse as an assistant of
+Canova; but he had dropped a word which the noble model understood, and
+the fire signals had flashed between them. After the sculptor had left
+the casino his assistant tarried, and Celio, dismissed by his mistress
+but lingering at the threshold, heard fragments of the man's talk:
+"Liberty, united Italy, and death to the Austrians."
+
+Later, when he attempted to warn the Princess that if the man were not a
+maniac he was more dangerous, she asked him bluntly if her husband had
+constituted him her dragon, and thereafter in half contemptuous banter
+she gave him the nickname of "Mondragone."
+
+It was the name also of another villa belonging to the Borghese, the
+most sightly of all the boldly seated summer resorts of the nobility at
+beautiful Frascati. Not one of these commands a view comparable to the
+one from its terrace of the Pope's Chimneys, so named from the strange
+monumental constructions which are so conspicuous that, with a glass,
+they are plainly visible from Rome.
+
+So when the Princess announced, "I love Mondragone," her secretary did
+not flatter himself that the equivocal utterance bore any reference to
+himself. Had he also had the wit to perceive that if she indeed cared
+for the villa or for any other object at this time, it was only for some
+service which it might render her brother, his duties as dragon would
+have occasioned him far less of mental anguish.
+
+Celio was writing one day in a room adjoining the apartment which
+Canova had used as his studio in the casino of Villa Borghese, when he
+was startled by a heavy step in the room which he had supposed
+unoccupied. Throwing aside the portière he instantly recognised from
+report the imposing figure which confronted him. On a lesser man so
+gorgeous a costume as the one which now dazzled the astonished eyes of
+the secretary would have suggested the mountebank; but there was
+something regal as well as Oriental in Joachim Murat's appearance, and
+the barbarous colour extravagances of his dress became him like those of
+a sultan.
+
+His curling hair, black and long, fell upon a green velvet cloak heavily
+embroidered with gold which hung from his shoulders displaying a
+sky-blue frogged tunic, whose breast was covered with jewelled crosses
+and beribboned decorations. The crimson breeches which met the high
+boots of yellow morocco were braided with gold in the Polish fashion and
+fitted closely his shapely thighs, but the tarnished and battered
+cavalry sabre clanking at his side occasioned him no inconvenience, and
+it needed but a glance at the broken plumes of the ruby-clasped aigrette
+which decorated a shabby wide-brimmed hat to convince the beholder that
+this was no gala costume but the habitual garb of a soldier. He was
+spurred and played nonchalantly with his riding-whip as he returned
+Celio's questioning glance with a smile, half arrogant, half familiar.
+Wheeling upon his heel without deigning any explanation of his presence,
+he returned to his contemplation of the portrait statue of the Princess,
+and the young secretary's blood boiled as he saw that the expression of
+contemptuous familiarity on the sensual face had been elicited not by
+his insignificant self but by the masterpiece of Canova.
+
+"A fair portrait doubtless," he said indifferently, "for I recognise
+certain points of resemblance to her sister, whose perfections, however,
+the Princess Borghese cannot hope to emulate."
+
+"Pardon me, sir," stammered the secretary in tones which he vainly
+strove to render icy,--"but this is the Villa Borghese and not a public
+museum."
+
+The intruder looked down with amused bonhommie. "I am an acquaintance of
+the Prince," he vouchsafed, "and have been invited by him to view his
+art collections."
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese
+
+Portrait statue by Canova at Villa Borghese]
+
+Celio bridled with increased importance. "Prince Borghese's specimens of
+antique sculpture are in the palazzo where, if the Signor will
+announce himself, he will doubtless be accorded the privilege of seeing
+them. This palazzita is the private boudoir of the Princess."
+
+"So much the better," the other laughed. "But when she commanded that
+statue she doubtless contemplated the possibility of its being admired
+by other eyes than her own. No insult is intended, my young popinjay. It
+is all in the family. Restrain your indignation and inform the Princess
+that the King of Naples is waiting here in obedience to her
+appointment."
+
+The secretary was not pleased with this message, and he liked still less
+the manner in which it was received, for the Princess hurried to meet
+her brother-in-law and allowed him to salute her gallantly upon both
+cheeks, and to address her as "Paulette."
+
+Celio, excused from attendance, had no opportunity, though he stood
+sentinel in the loggia, to overhear their conversation. Finally the
+Princess summoned him. "Order my carriage," she commanded, "and the
+caleche, and ask the attendance of my first lady-in-waiting. Tell
+Maurice to arrange a lunch-hamper quickly. His Majesty insists he must
+set out this afternoon for Naples. We will accompany him as far as
+Mondragone and picnic there."
+
+So they dashed away on the road to Frascati, the Princess lolling alone
+in her open carriage, for Murat had declined the seat beside her, though
+he kept his horse recklessly near her wheels, Celio following with the
+maid of honour and the lunch basket in the caleche, and one of Murat's
+orderlies (the other had been dispatched to order his suite to meet him
+at Mondragone) bringing up the rear.
+
+At the wildest and steepest part of the road the party halted, and the
+Princess alighting announced her intention of taking a short cut across
+the hills while the carriages followed the more circuitous driveway.
+Murat threw his reins to his orderly, and Celio, true to his
+self-constituted duties as dragon, left the maid of honour dozing in the
+caleche and followed his mistress. She had brought a tall staff, knotted
+with a tri-colour ribbon, which she used as an alpenstock, springing
+lightly over the steep boulders, while the athletic Murat kept pace with
+the easy swinging stride of a mountaineer. Suddenly Celio saw him catch
+the Princess by the arm and both stood as though instantaneously frozen.
+Then, as the secretary came panting up, Murat handed the Princess to
+him, and taking a few steps forward and apparently addressing the
+landscape, for Celio saw no one said in a voice of calm but inflexible
+authority: "Lay down your gun, and come from behind that rock."
+
+To Celio's astonishment a villainous appearing brigand advanced and
+knelt at Murat's feet.
+
+"Why did you not shoot me when I was at the lower turn of the road, my
+friend?" Murat demanded; "you had the better opportunity then, for I had
+not discovered you, and I was for several minutes within your range."
+
+"True, your Majesty," replied the bandit, "but I said to myself, 'that
+is too magnificent a figure of a man to kill, even though he is a
+king.'"
+
+Murat laughed. "I will return the compliment," he said, writing rapidly
+on a card. "You have too much discrimination and obey orders too well to
+be a brigand. I wonder now if you have heard of a secret organisation
+called the Carbonari? I thought so" (replying by an almost imperceptible
+gesture to a signal made by the bandit); "you see you have made a
+mistake, for I also am a member of the order. All in time, my good
+fellow, and you shall use your rifle against the Austrians. Take this to
+the recruiting office of the Neapolitan army at Castel di Rocca. Never
+fear, it is no trap. This young man will read it for you." And the
+secretary read: "Give this brave fellow a place in the Corps of
+Calabrian Sharpshooters, and assure Captain Castiglione that he can be
+relied upon for expert guerilla service. Giacomo Rè."
+
+The man went away trembling with emotion but Murat called to him: "Come
+back, you have forgotten your gun," and stood carelessly regarding the
+view with his back turned while the would-be assassin regained
+possession of his weapon.
+
+The Princess clapped her hands. "I understand now," she said, "why you
+bore a charmed life when you came dashing out of the smoke of the
+battle-field, sweeping within a few feet of the muzzles of the enemy's
+guns. It needed not the command of the Czar that you were not to be
+fired upon,--the gunners could no more have done so than this poor
+outlaw. I comprehend also how you have managed to augment the roll of
+your army, which on your accession included but fifty thousand names, to
+its present list of seventy-five thousand, and at the same time have so
+marvellously reduced the number of brigands in your kingdom."
+
+"Partly in this way," he acknowledged, lightly, "but the Austrian
+officers would be surprised to know how many of my best disciplined
+soldiers have had the advantage of their drilling."
+
+"Deserters?" the Princess asked.
+
+"And whole companies in Northern Italy waiting for the first symptoms of
+a war with Italy to desert en masse."
+
+When the party reached Mondragone the custodian, surprised at their
+coming (for the villa had been long unoccupied), unbarred the shutters
+and let the light into the dusty salons.
+
+"It is roomy enough for a barracks," Murat remarked as he wandered
+through suite after suite of the great tenantless rooms.
+
+"I forbid you so to use it," the Princess jested, "though you may occupy
+Mondragone yourself when you lay siege to Rome."
+
+"It would not be a bad headquarters," he said as they came out upon the
+terrace. "Imagine a semaphore in the place of those monstrous and absurd
+columns--what are they, by the way? One could waft signals from Rome to
+Calabria and from the Adriatic to the Tirrenian."
+
+That was an exaggeration, of course, but Mondragone would have been a
+good station in such a signal service.
+
+"Those absurd columns," the Princess replied, "might themselves serve
+as semaphores. They are chimneys, colossal enough to serve a foundry,
+though they do duty to simple kitchens, those which prepared the
+excellent dinners with which Pope Paul V. entertained his guests. When
+the smoke rises from that one I can see the cloudy column from my
+windows at Rome."
+
+"And I could see it far on the road from Naples," he mused, and then the
+two wandered away from their watching dragon and leaning on the
+balustrade with their faces toward the magnificent view earnestly
+discussed projects which had nothing to do with that unrivalled
+panorama.
+
+Celio was in torment. What was Murat saying in that low, guarded voice,
+while his hand clenched and crushed the roses that swarmed over the
+balustrade and scattered their petals to the wind? Why did the
+Princess's colour come and go as she listened, her cheek much too near
+his passionate lips?
+
+Since there was no way of overhearing this equivocal conversation, it
+must at all hazards be interrupted, and Celio prematurely announced the
+_al fresco_ supper. Here, while he fluttered behind them in a pretence
+of service, he heard both too much for his peace of mind and too little
+for his complete enlightenment.
+
+At first the talk was of family matters, chiefly of Napoleon at Elba,
+with whom Pauline begged her brother-in-law to be reconciled, for this
+was in the summer of 1814, when Murat, foreseeing that Napoleon's star
+had set, had signed a treaty with the allies.
+
+"One would think I had done enough for your brother," he said, moodily.
+"I left my kingdom to lead the cavalry of the _grande armée_ in the
+Russian campaign. I gained his victories and I commanded the _escadron
+sacrée_ which protected his person in the retreat, and what is my
+reward?"
+
+"What is your present position?" the Princess asked.
+
+"I am your brother-in-law," Murat replied, "but, as I wrote Napoleon, I
+conferred as much honour as I received when I married your sister, and,
+as for my kingship, the Emperor wished only a devoted servant whom he
+could command, and he has discovered his mistake."
+
+The eyes of Pauline Bonaparte shot fire while the other spoke. "You are
+very stupid to talk in this way to me, Joachim," she said, commanding
+herself in time. "You needed Napoleon--you need him now, for your
+scheme will never succeed unless he supports you. It is your good
+fortune that he needs you enough to forgive your defection. The family
+stands or falls together, _mon ami_."
+
+"Evidently your mother does not think so," Murat replied, with pique. "I
+have just brought Madame Mère a present of eight fine carriage-horses.
+She declined them with thanks, and would not see me when I called on her
+in Rome. As for my loving brother-in-law, your noble husband----"
+
+"Why should you mind Camillo's sulks since I do not? He and Madame Mère
+have such amusing ideas. It was not so much Caroline's correspondence
+with your 'dear Metternich' which offended them and my brother, too.
+They have never forgotten that little affair of the silver lemon
+squeezer. Ah, _mon ami_! you had had too much champagne when you brewed
+that bowl of punch at the officers' dinner."
+
+"I never said that it was the Empress who taught me the recipe and gave
+me the lemon squeezer," he retorted, flushing.
+
+"Oh! no; nor told you that oranges and not lemons were used with Jamaica
+rum in the islands; nor why pretty creoles were like lemons."
+
+"Do you mean to provoke me?" Murat exclaimed, rising quickly.
+
+"No, _mon ami_, though I shared in that suspicion, too, for they called
+me a creole on my return from San Domingo."
+
+Murat's jaw fell. "Do you mean that your husband thought I meant _you_?"
+he asked.
+
+"Prince Borghese is too polite a man to voice such a suspicion, and I am
+too clever a woman to show that I have guessed it, but that is reason
+enough why I cannot accept my sister's invitation to take possession of
+the entrancing Neapolitan villa which you so kindly offer me."
+
+"You are like your mother. You refuse my peace-offerings; you will not
+visit us?"
+
+"Peace-offerings, yes; but make me some offerings of war, that fine
+army, for instance; and, by the way, if you will give me a yacht instead
+of the villa I may consent to be your guest. Meantime we understand each
+other. I will give immediate orders to my people that no fire is on any
+account to be lighted in the Pope's kitchens, as the chimneys are
+unsafe. Should I perceive a column of smoke rising from them I shall
+know that you are here, and I will come to you. If, on the other hand, I
+hear that you are in this vicinity on the business of which we spoke, I
+shall make Mondragone my residence; and should you perceive my smoke
+signal----"
+
+"Then," he interrupted, speaking very low, but so distinctly that
+Celio's heart froze as he listened--"then, Paulette, be the danger what
+it may, heaven nor hell shall keep me from you."
+
+They parted in the most commonplace manner, the Princess returning to
+Rome after the conclusion of the repast, but, though she appeared to
+sleep all the way, Celio marked when she alighted that her face,
+illuminated by the strong glare that blazed from the open door of the
+villa, was haggard as from long vigils.
+
+Deeply distressed, the poor dragon spent a sleepless night, but towards
+morning an inspiration came to him. He saw his way to saving his lady
+without arousing the suspicions of her husband. She had forbidden the
+use of the Pope's chimneys to the guardian of the villa, plainly that
+they should serve solely as signals between herself and Murat. But the
+reason which she had given for their disuse, that they were unsafe,
+furnished the secretary with his pretext, and he wrote his master urging
+that they should be taken down.
+
+Before the Prince had time to reply the event which he had dreaded took
+place. The Princess, in direct opposition to her husband's parting
+request, announced her determination to visit her sister at Naples. It
+was not in her secretary's province to remonstrate, and he was soon to
+gain a point of view from which the inexplicable behaviour of his
+mistress presented a very different aspect.
+
+Arrived at Naples the Princess and her suite were met by Queen Caroline
+and installed in a charming villa near the city, and on the succeeding
+day the entire household were taken by the King and Queen for a short
+cruise in the royal yacht.
+
+Outside the island of Ischia the party landed, and climbing to a ruined
+tower which commanded an extensive prospect, they plainly discerned in a
+hidden cove a little craft flying a flag unfamiliar at that time to
+Celio Benvoglio, a striped red and white pennon studded with golden
+bees. It was the ensign chosen by Napoleon while lord of Elba, and
+displayed by the six swift sailing pinnaces which made up the Emperor's
+little navy.
+
+Pauline now informed her suite that she was about to pay a visit to her
+brother, which for important reasons must not for the present be
+suspected. Her maids of honour must therefore return to her Neapolitan
+villa, and, to keep up the fiction of her presence, announce on the
+morrow that the Princess had succumbed to an attack of fever. The Court
+physician would pay daily visits as would the King and Queen, but no
+others would be admitted to the secret.
+
+With feminine fondness for intrigue the three maids of honour entered
+into the plan, while Celio, relieved from his tormenting suspicions
+accompanied his mistress to Elba.
+
+Here, admitted to her conferences with her brother as he fulfilled new
+and arduous duties in the transcription of dispatches, he comprehended
+that the secret alliance between the Princess and Murat had been purely
+political, and with what tact she had won him to reconciliation and
+co-operation with Napoleon.
+
+The Emperor's plans were more audacious and far-reaching than ever. In
+their scope the movement for the independence and unification of Italy
+was but a subordinate detail. Pauline knew that her brother was
+developing a great _coup d'état_, that he would presently escape from
+Elba and seize again the reins of power, and it was she who had first
+perceived and who now explained to him how the undercurrent of events
+in Italy might become a factor in his scheme.
+
+Agitators had been busy in every part of the peninsula firing patriot
+hearts to throw off the domination of the three foreign powers which
+held them enslaved. The King of Naples by naturalising himself as an
+Italian, and compelling his French soldiers to do so, had been permitted
+to take part in the plot. It is possible that the revolutionists, who
+saw the immense advantage of the services of so able a general as Murat,
+intended to repudiate him after they had gained their ends. But at that
+time they flattered him with the hope of becoming the king as well as
+the deliverer of all Italy.
+
+As Celio Benvoglio toiled over his papers he was amazed at the
+imagination of his mistress which had first discerned the possibility of
+making the cause of Italian liberty serve her brother's ambitious
+imperialism, and the marvellous finesse with which she had vanquished
+Murat's gascon envy and resentment and made him once more a tool in the
+hand of the Emperor. Still more he admired Napoleon's acumen and
+resource as he saw order coming out of chaos and all things working
+together for the success of his stupendous undertaking. The Emperor had
+planned to first secure Paris, and then, proclaiming the independence of
+Italy, to make common cause with her against Austria and at the head of
+the united French and Italian armies, one hundred thousand strong, march
+by way of the Julian Alps upon Vienna.
+
+As the impressionable secretary traced the burning proclamation which
+Napoleon dictated to his old soldiers, he doubted not that it would fire
+the heart of every veteran and the great enterprise seemed infallible.
+
+"Take again the eagles you followed at Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and
+Montmirail," pleaded their adored commander. "Range yourselves under the
+banners of your old chief. Victory shall march with every step. In your
+old age you shall say with pride, I also was one of that great army
+which twice entered the walls of Vienna, took Rome, Berlin, Madrid, and
+Moscow, and which delivered Paris from domestic treason and the
+occupation of strangers."
+
+What wonder that, carried away by the immensity and daring of the
+conquest of the continent, the happiness of one longing heart should
+have seemed a very insignificant thing, and that Celio should have quite
+forgotten that his master, Camillo Borghese, was waiting for some
+reassuring word from him, that he had heard of the Princess's reckless
+removal to Naples, and was distracted between anger at her flagrant
+disregard of his wishes, suspicion of what such heartlessness might
+mean, and acute distress on learning of her illness? The Prince could
+not, on account of personal reasons, present himself at the Court of the
+King of Naples, but he had written repeatedly to Celio Benvoglio and
+these letters the first maid of honour, finding no opportunity to
+forward to Elba, had judged best to retain at Naples unopened until the
+return of the secretary.
+
+So the days flew for the Princess and dragged for her husband, until at
+midnight on the twenty-seventh of February, 1815, Napoleon with his
+handful of devoted soldiers embarked for France, and his sister returned
+to Naples with instructions for Murat. Then the Neapolitan villa was
+suddenly vacated and the seven carriages of the Princess took up their
+line of march for Rome.
+
+She had found awaiting her at Naples letters in which her husband
+passionately besought her to return; and, while her face flushed as she
+realised the motives which he attributed to Murat, her heart swelled
+with triumph that he believed in her in spite of all.
+
+"He loves me!" she murmured to herself unguardedly, in the presence of
+her secretary.
+
+"Then give me leave to write him," the young man cried, impulsively,
+"that I may relieve his anxiety. Let me bid him join you at Rome. Think,
+dearest madam, what he must suffer."
+
+But at that word the Princess frowned. "And do you think I have not
+suffered?" she cried. "I am glad that he is jealous, since it proves
+that he can love. Nevertheless I would gladly summon him if I could. But
+do you not see, Celio, that he must not be implicated in our plots? If
+we fail, he must be known to have had no letters from me. I forbid you
+to communicate with him until I give you permission. Camillo is too
+honest to make a good conspirator. If I can wait, cannot you? The game
+may not be worth the candle, but I will play it to the end."
+
+The little cavalcade paused at Mondragone, for the Princess had decided
+to spend a few weeks at her Frascati villa. Here, to her indignation,
+she found engineers preparing to take down the Pope's chimneys.
+
+"On whose authority do you presume to do a thing so outrageous?" she
+demanded, and they showed her the order of Prince Borghese.
+
+"Delay the execution of these instructions until such time as they are
+repeated," she commanded. "I have decided to take up my residence here
+for the present, and cannot be disturbed by repairs and alterations."
+
+When the men were gone she faced her secretary in consternation. "Who
+can have incited Camillo to such a resolution?" she demanded, and the
+consciousness of guilt in his face was a sufficient answer.
+
+"It was you, dear lady, who put the idea into my head," he stammered;
+"you said the chimneys were cracked and might set fire to the villa."
+
+"Spy and traitor," she hissed, "you tried to make it impossible for me
+to communicate with Murat. It is your idiotic suspicions that have
+roused Camillo's jealousy."
+
+"You have said that you were glad of that jealousy," Celio ventured; and
+the Princess laughed bitterly, then softening, said: "I do believe you
+thought yourself acting for my good, oh, foolish little dragon. Confess,
+my poor boy, that Pauline Borghese has the wit to take care of herself."
+
+Very humbly Celio confessed that this was evident, but his troubles were
+by no means over. A fortnight later Italy was electrified by the
+startling rumour that the King of Naples had declared war with Austria
+and was marching toward Lombardy.
+
+The Princess was struck with consternation, for she knew that Napoleon
+could not so soon have perfected his arrangements for making a junction
+with Murat. Though she entertained no one it was noticed by her
+neighbours that the Pope's chimneys smoked continually, as though the
+most elaborate banquets were in preparation and one night the expected
+guest arrived.
+
+Murat had intended to give Rome a wide berth, stealing around it by the
+Abruzzi. But his left wing had scouts on the western slopes of the
+Sabine Mountains and were instructed to keep a lookout for the smoke
+signal from Mondragone, and he had ridden across the mountains for a day
+and half a night to answer her summons.
+
+She gave him food and a fresh horse, but she sent him back to the
+Castello Borghese at Monte Compatri for his lodging, with many
+reproaches and gloomy prophecies for his mad precipitation in
+anticipating the _mot d'ordre_ of Napoleon.
+
+Theirs was no loving tryst, but a stormy altercation, for Murat defended
+his act and refused her entreaties, which were rather in the nature of
+commands, to go back to Naples and wait for advice from his general.
+
+"Why should I put myself under his orders?" he demanded. "Austria has
+taken alarm and is pouring its forces into Lombardy. If I do not secure
+Milan at once it will be too late and the opportunity will be lost. Who
+knows when Napoleon will think of us? They say he is at Paris preparing
+to meet the allies in Belgium. Our little rendezvous for the excursion
+to Vienna is apparently forgotten. He has other matters to attend to.
+Well, so have I. I am weary of governing for him. When I am King of
+Italy I will rule according to the ideas of Joachim Murat."
+
+"You would never have been a King in name but for him," she replied
+hotly, "you are not fit to rule. You are a good soldier, Joachim, but
+you need your master."
+
+So they parted in bitterness, and Celio, who was present at their
+interview, rejoiced that such was the manner of their parting, and
+prayed that they might never meet again, but that prayer was not to be
+answered.
+
+The Princess returned to Rome and soon received information of the
+fulfilment of her prophecy. For a few days Murat held Bologna, then the
+Austrians swooped down upon him and he met them gallantly, but
+disastrously, near Modena. Reverse followed reverse and at Tolentino his
+mad campaign of six weeks ended in total defeat. His army fled in all
+directions, and a refugee brought word that Murat, scorning surrender,
+had fallen sabring desperately to the last.
+
+Pauline received the news, pale but unshaken. "My poor sister," she
+said, and then quickly, "but she knows her refuge; by this time
+doubtless she is on her way to Napoleon." Then a great light illumined
+her face. "The revolution has failed, my work is done. I can now write
+to Camillo."
+
+She was writing when a messenger entered with a letter from her husband.
+"He is coming, Celio," she cried joyfully. "He will be here in an hour.
+He writes that in disaster and grief his place is at my side, and he
+could not wait my summons. Oh, Celio, was there ever such magnanimity?"
+
+As she rang to give orders for her husband's reception, her third maid
+of honour, Pippa Serbonella, a waspish, deceitful creature whom Celio
+had never liked, flung wide the curtain of the window and cried:
+"Eccellentissima, look,--the chimneys of Mondragone!"
+
+It was true, from one of them rose a thin waving scarf of smoke,
+fluttering and beckoning in the light wind. The Princess caught the arm
+of her secretary. "Joachim is not dead!" she cried; "he is there and I
+must go to him."
+
+"Not now, not now, dearest lady," pleaded the young man. "Your husband
+is coming. Think what that means."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," she gasped, wringing her hands, "but I cannot desert
+my brother-in-law in his extremity. I led him into this, Celio. I
+promised to come when he called. I must keep my promise. Stay you, and
+say what you will to Camillo. I will be back this evening."
+
+With many a misgiving the wretched dragon saw her drive away, and a
+little later confronted the eager face of Prince Borghese.
+
+"My wife?" he questioned, and Celio could only stammer, "She has gone
+out for a drive; she will be back presently."
+
+"Did she not receive my letter?" and the Prince had his answer, for it
+lay with broken seal upon her escritoire.
+
+"Did she go to meet me? Have we missed each other?" he asked.
+
+"Not so, your Highness," Pippa Serbonella interpolated, "the Princess
+had another appointment," and again with significant finger and hateful
+smile she pointed to the smoke signal. The Prince stood transfixed, and
+Celio understood from their two faces that the girl had given
+unsolicited full reports of that correspondence written in the air. "Oh!
+you women, you women!" he groaned, and "I will strangle you, traitress,"
+he whispered as she passed him.
+
+But the Prince had other occupation for him at that moment. "Now tell
+the whole truth," he commanded sternly, and the secretary told it,
+exulting that against her will the malicious maid-of-honour must confirm
+his statement that while the Princess had been supposed to be at Naples
+she was really with Napoleon at Elba.
+
+A look of relief smoothed Borghese's forehead for an instant. "I never
+doubted my wife," he declared proudly, "nevertheless the King of Naples
+has certain explanations to make to me. Celio there was in that cabinet
+a case of pistols which the Emperor gave me."
+
+"The Princess took them with her this morning," Pippa vouchsafed
+officiously.
+
+"Ah!" the Prince drew in his breath. "It is of no consequence," he
+added. "General Murat will require but one and will doubtless lend me
+the other. Quick, Celio, our horses. The Princess has only an hour the
+start of us. We will overtake them at Mondragone."
+
+They passed her in fact at Frascati where they saw her carriage standing
+unharnessed before the inn. "She is resting," said the Prince, "we will
+not disturb her until after our business at Mondragone is finished."
+
+At the gate an astonished servant took their horses, and as the Prince
+walked through the shady cypress avenue his brain cooled and he formed a
+resolution differing from the one that had brought him to the villa.
+Upon the fountain terrace they saw the man they had come to seek. Not
+the galliard of his last visit, but a hunted refugee, his gaudy hussar
+uniform soiled and torn, the ballas ruby which had buckled his aigrette
+shot from his hat, and a tiny rill of blood trickling from his matted
+hair upon the golden bees that ornamented the sky-blue velvet tunic.
+Stretched prone upon a marble bench, sleeping the sleep of utter
+exhaustion, his sword-arm beneath his head, the other trailing relaxed
+upon the ground, he was entirely at the mercy of the man who looked down
+upon his haggard face.
+
+The Prince studied it for a moment in silence, then, with finger on lip,
+drew Celio into the loggia. "Let him rest," he whispered, "time enough
+when he awakes."
+
+Ere that happened footsteps were heard and the voice of the Princess
+calling, "Joachim, where are you?"
+
+Murat sprang up instantly.
+
+"Paulette, is it you?"
+
+"It is I. O mon Dieu; how you have changed! but we heard you were
+killed. Thank God, that is not true."
+
+"I am beaten, which is worse," he said bitterly. "You were right, you
+see, quite right, all is lost--why do you not say 'I told you so'?"
+
+"No," she exclaimed, "all is not lost. Go at once to Napoleon, confess
+your error, and atone for it."
+
+"He will never forgive me," Murat replied; "and why should he, with his
+army of three hundred thousand men and an Imperial Guard of forty
+thousand chosen veterans? What have I to offer him? My troops have
+deserted me. I have nothing to fight with and nothing for which to
+fight."
+
+"My brother needs you," the Princess insisted. "He may have soldiers
+enough, but he knows there is no such leader of cavalry in all the world
+as you, and he is about to engage in a crucial struggle with Wellington.
+You have your marvellous leadership to offer. You say you have nothing
+to fight for. Think of your honour, and of Caroline."
+
+"Ah! I had forgotten her, poor child. I will do as you say, Paulette.
+You have the brains of your family in your little head. Perhaps that is
+the reason the good God made Caroline more attractive. Well, one more
+fight for her sake, and she shall thank you for it. I shall get to
+Naples in some way, then by sea to Marseilles, and then to Napoleon."
+
+"Good!" cried the Princess. "Did you find your horse in the stables? I
+gave orders to have him well cared for until you claimed him. I have
+brought a disguise and arms and money. Now, off with you, for I can
+waste no more time. Ah! how much we have already wasted, Joachim, in
+this mad pursuit of ambition, when only love was worth the while. My
+sister will rejoice to retire with you to private life and to know of
+my happiness, for Camillo is waiting for me at Rome, and all the cruel
+misunderstanding is over!"
+
+Thus ended Celio Benvoglio's dragon-service, for the Prince, forced
+either to overhear or interrupt the foregoing conversation, had
+fortunately chosen the former alternative. And here, perchance, should
+the story end, for the after-history of Joachim Murat is a tragical
+addendum to that happy dénouement.
+
+Pauline overestimated her brother's magnanimity, Napoleon coldly refused
+the profferred services of his brother-in-law, confessing afterwards
+that this implacability lost him the battle of Waterloo, for Ney could
+not equal Murat in his skilful manoeuvring of horse.
+
+Murat, desperate, took refuge in Corsica, where he raised a little band
+of two hundred and fifty men, and landed near Naples, believing that his
+old troops would rally to his standard. Indifferent, or perhaps unable
+to help him, they abandoned him to his fate.
+
+He faced his executioners with unbandaged eyes and himself gave the
+order to fire.
+
+According to the account of an eye-witness, he first kissed the
+miniature of his wife, which he carried within the case of his watch,
+and with the request, "Spare my face," directed the aim of the soldiers
+to his breast.
+
+Their firmness did not equal his own, and he was obliged to twice give
+the command before it was obeyed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE BRANDISHED LANCE
+
+I
+
+THE QUEST
+
+
+Robert Devreux, Earl of Essex, was in one of his worst moods as he
+strode the deck of his flag-ship in Cadiz Bay on a certain June morning
+in 1596.
+
+And yet this favourite of Fortune stood then at the summit of his
+career, having by a brilliant assault taken the city for England, while
+a letter whose seal he had just broken assured him of the doting
+infatuation of England's Queen.
+
+It was precisely this letter, as he now explained to his friend, which
+occasioned his dissatisfaction.
+
+"You will not refuse me, Will," he pleaded, "since I can not undertake
+the quest, you must go in my stead. These papers contain negotiations
+of such delicacy that Henry of Navarre dared not send them overland
+through France, and my word is pledged to him to deliver them personally
+into the hands of the Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici, at his villa in
+Rome.
+
+"When I met the King at Boulogne, on our first night out, this seemed an
+easy thing to do, for I had reason to believe that our cruise would
+extend to Italy. But now in the hour of my victory, when I have sacked
+Cadiz, I open the Queen's letter (which was not to be read until the
+accomplishment of that task), and find that, instead of being permitted
+to proceed, I must first sail at once for England; and all forsooth
+because of her love and impatience to reward the valour of her
+favourite! Can such a summons be disregarded? Assuredly not; but my
+honour and the fate of the Protestant cause in France hang upon your
+decision.
+
+"Since it means so much," replied the other, "assuredly I will not fail
+you. But why may I not do this under my own name, as your authorised
+messenger?"
+
+"Because the Grand Duke expects the Earl of Essex, the accredited deputy
+of the King of France. The deputy of a deputy would have no prestige
+with him, and would not even be admitted as guest at the villa. And it
+is with its lady, mark you, that your true errand lies.
+
+"These negotiations have to do with the marriage of Henry of Navarre to
+the Grand Duke's niece Marie de' Medici. Ferdinando will make and break
+treaties as suits his advantage. The lady's heart must be gained, she
+must be made so ardently to desire this marriage that she will refuse
+all other suitors. In short you must woo and win her for the King of
+France. For such a task you have every qualification. You possess a
+knowledge of the Italian language and the understanding of its
+temperament and character which comes from sympathy. The Italians will
+not need to know that you bear the name of Brandilancia to recognise
+that you are the embodiment of the type of chivalry dreamed of by their
+poets. Beware, however, of receiving or giving too much love, for report
+hath it that the heiress of the Medici is surpassingly beautiful."
+
+Brandilancia smiled somewhat bitterly. "You should know," he said, "that
+my heart is in England and though my love should remain forever
+unrequited, it can never be given to another."
+
+"An excellent safeguard, in the present business," the Earl replied
+cheerily, "so here are all objections overcome, and may you have many a
+merry experience to recount when next we meet in England."
+
+Hand met hand upon that compact, and while one Earl of Essex pursued his
+homeward course another in a swift sailing pinnace flew eastward bound
+upon adventures of which the archives of the English Admiralty preserve
+no record.
+
+As the young adventurer Brandilancia, who was to play the part of the
+true Essex, rode up the hill crowned by the Villa Medici he was struck
+by the resemblance of the massive retaining walls to those of some
+medieval fortress. As such they had served in ancient days, holding the
+villa safe in their protecting embrace from any uprising of the populace
+of Rome, while on the side toward the Campagna they had withstood more
+than one siege of the Goths. But high aloft, near the summit of this
+cliff of natural rock and hewn stone the inhospitable windowless expanse
+was broken by a row of arched openings, and silhouetted against the dark
+void of one of these he caught a glimpse of a face framed in golden
+hair.
+
+Though so far above him the lady, who had been gazing down the road from
+sheer ennui, had noticed the graceful figure of the cavalier, and had
+watched his approach until he halted with upturned face beneath her
+window. At that instant a little fan opening as it fell, dropped from
+her hand and fluttered in the light breeze, like a bird with a broken
+wing, beyond the road and into the ravine at its side.
+
+Instantly Brandilancia sprang from his horse and, vaulting over the low
+embankment, clambered down the incline. A smiling contadina, who was
+beating out her linen on the margin of a basin of water, assisted him in
+his search, but having found the fan she was so curious in regard to its
+donor that Brandilancia endeavoured to divert her attention by plying
+her with questions concerning the locality. From her replies he learned
+that the washing pool was fed from an old aqueduct which passed under
+the Villa Medici on its way to supply the fountains of Rome.
+
+"See, Signor," she said, pointing out a nail-studded oaken door
+concealed in the angle of a huge abutment, "they say that if that door
+were not bolted on the inside one might enter the tunnel which brings
+the water through the hill from its source miles away. There is a
+legend, too, that a Roman princess who lived up yonder, centuries ago,
+betrayed the secret to the barbarians, who came through the tunnel and
+sacked Rome."
+
+Brandilancia paid little heed to this information, not dreaming that he
+would one day be indebted to it for escape from the villa which he was
+now so blithely entering. Climbing back to the roadway he waved the fan
+above his head and was greeted by a light clapping of hands from the
+lofty window. Who could the lady be? He would ascertain in time, and
+until he did so it was pleasant to reflect that some one within the
+villa was interested in his coming and had wafted him this welcome.
+
+He had need of hospitality for he was faint from the ride from Ostia in
+the heat of an Italian June. The beautiful gardens glowed in dazzling
+sunshine which the scintillating jets of the fountains reflected and
+intensified. The statues seemed to shrink from the blinding light into
+their niches in the great square-cut hedges, and the tessellated
+pavement was hot beneath his tread.
+
+Every detail of the antique relievi which the façade of the palace had
+been designed to display was brought out by the intense illumination. In
+its lavish ornamentation and elegant proportions the building suggested
+a carved ivory cabinet, but one rifled of its jewels, for except for the
+keeper of the gate-lodge, to whom he had tossed his bridle, he had met
+no guards. The great doorway stood invitingly open, but Brandilancia
+hesitated to enter and looked about for some means of announcing his
+presence.
+
+"Is the villa under some enchantment?" he asked himself. "If so some imp
+or sprite should lurk hereabouts and now make its appearance."
+
+As if in answer to this mental question a peal of elfish laughter
+greeted his ear,--a mirthless, falsetto cackle, like that of a parrot,
+and half hidden behind one of the great marble lions in the shade of the
+loggia he discerned a grotesque little creature, with the figure of a
+child and a woman's face, old in its expression of slyness and
+malignity.
+
+Brandilancia started, although he knew that it was the custom of Italian
+princes to maintain dwarfs in their households. This woman, probably a
+dependent, was dressed like a princess. Her dress though soiled was of
+stiff brocade embroidered with gold thread, and the high lace ruff,
+which made her swarthy complexion darker by contrast with its whiteness,
+was edged with seed pearls.
+
+"Come in, my lord," she croaked. "The Grand Duke regretted that, obliged
+to be temporarily in Florence, he could not receive you, but awaiting
+his return the villa is at your service, and the Grand Duchess and the
+Signorina will endeavour to make the time pass pleasantly."
+
+He followed her, wondering as to her position. "How did you know me?" he
+asked. "You are expected," she replied, "and no one but an Englishman
+would have called at the hour of the siesta. Shall I show your worship
+to your own room, or will you await the ladies in the library?" His hand
+was on the little fan, and he was striving to frame some question whose
+answer would enlighten him as to the giver, but the dwarf's last word
+caught his ear, and acted like the scent of spirits upon a man thirsting
+for drink.
+
+"To the library, by all means," he replied eagerly, and, as the heavy
+portières were drawn aside, the tiny creature at his side and even the
+golden-haired woman who had greeted his coming so graciously were for
+the moment clean forgotten, for he comprehended that one of his dearest
+hopes, long thwarted but never entirely relinquished, the hidden
+personal motive which had been the determining factor in his acceptance
+of this mission, was now about to be realised. The immense room from
+floor to cornice was walled with books: the writings of the fathers of
+the church--huge folios hasped in brass and ornamented with priceless
+illuminations--side by side with pagan literature, Greek manuscripts,
+and volumes of the Roman classics, while all the new harvest of the
+Italian Renaissance, in every department then known, had been carefully
+garnered. But high above the marshalled works of the poets, which his
+fingers lingeringly caressed as he passed them by, Brandilancia had
+detected a row of small volumes, and a thrill of triumphant delight shot
+through his frame as he climbed the step-ladder and with eager fingers
+plucked them from their niches.
+
+For here were the novelli of Boccaccio, Masaccio, and Bandello, of
+Giraldi Cinthio and Ser Giovanni Fiorentino and of many another writer
+of romantic tales of whimsical gaiety, of intrigue, or of tragedy, and
+Brandilancia was a playwright gifted with a most exceptional genius for
+adaptation. He had read a few of these tales and had realised that they
+contained admirable material for dramatisation, but now by a turn of the
+wheel of Fortune the entire inexhaustible mine of absorbing plot of
+piquant situation and contrasting characters, slightly sketched but
+waiting only the touch of genius to spring into life, lay open before
+him.
+
+With a sigh of supreme satisfaction he sank into the nearest chair and
+read like one under the influence of some hypnotic spell.
+
+The secretary of the Grand Duke entered the library, shuffled about
+noisily, coughed, and even addressed him, but the reader was unconscious
+of his presence.
+
+Curious as to what so enthralled the stranger the man of the ink-horn
+tiptoed behind him, read the title over his shoulder, and laughed aloud.
+Brandilancia surprised, laid down the volume and demanded the cause of
+this demonstration.
+
+"Pardon me, Signor," replied the secretary, "but I could not refrain,
+your absorption pays me a great compliment for I am the author of that
+book."
+
+"You, sir?" exclaimed the half incredulous reader.
+
+"I, Celio Malespini, Secretary to his Excellency, the Grand Duke, a man
+of letters who has tried his quill in sundry other fields, as well."
+
+"Then, Signor Malespini, accept my congratulations, for this story of
+the company of the Calza of Venice is one of the merriest I have ever
+read, and makes me eager to see their festival. Have you written other
+books as entertaining?"
+
+"I have as yet written no others," replied Celio, flattered and wholly
+won by the stranger's praise, "but since you care for my poor efforts I
+can lay before your worship those of other authors more worthy of your
+attention."
+
+From inconspicuous nooks and corners he dragged them forth and piled
+them before the appreciative Brandilancia, who forgot all else until a
+servant announced that his hostesses would receive him in the grand
+salon a half hour before the hour of dining.
+
+Even then he would have turned again to the fascinating volumes had not
+the valet's added information that the luggage of the Signor was in his
+room reminded him that dinner in such a house was a function and not
+simply an opportunity for absorbing the provender necessary to sustain
+life.
+
+Fortunately, Brandilancia was an accomplished actor as well as writer,
+and his theatrical experience had taught him to make quick changes not
+only of costume, but of mental points of view and characteristics, and
+Essex's wardrobe became him no more than the grace and manner of the
+gallant young nobleman which he assumed with equal ease.
+
+The transformation effected within the next hour was even deeper than
+this, for as his eyes met those of Marie de' Medici he knew that here,
+either for good or evil, was a woman destined to exert a compelling
+influence upon his life.
+
+It was not love, he told himself, for he was on his guard against that
+passion. She did not impress him as beautiful. Her eyes were overbold
+and searching but cold; but her bearing arrogant at first, softened as
+the days went by into a frank comradeship, and he discovered that she
+possessed a cultured and an appreciative mind.
+
+Hitherto Brandilancia had hidden a sensitive heart craving the sympathy
+that no woman had ever given him, under a gay and sportive exterior
+which made him a prince of good fellows, a man's man, and a loyal lover
+of his comrades, though they were far from appreciating his genius and
+his aims. But every serious conversation held with his young hostess
+confirmed him in his delusion that he had found a friend capable of
+understanding him. That she did not as yet wholly do so was the fault of
+his cursed disguise, which confused her perceptions of his real
+character with preconceived ideas of Essex. He longed to reveal himself
+to her, and did so to a greater degree than he realised.
+
+Especially was this the case upon one memorable morning when, piqued
+that he should spend so much time in the library, she had followed him
+to that retreat.
+
+She had found him absorbed in Luigi da Porto's novel _La Giulietta_, "a
+pitiable history that occurred at Verona in the time of Bartolommeo
+Scala," and she watched him slyly for some minutes amused by his
+preoccupation before interrupting his feast.
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed at length in pleased surprise, "you have chanced
+upon my favourite of all the books in my uncle's library. How many tears
+have I shed for these poor lovers but chiefly because I knew no Romeo so
+brave and noble and handsome to tempt me to die for him, or so devoted
+as to die for me. That was when I was a child of ten, my lord. I have
+learned since that such love exists only in novels, and have ceased to
+cry for it."
+
+"You are very cynical, sweet lady," he replied, "and unkind to the
+novelists, whom I hold in worshipful esteem."
+
+"And I also esteem them. It is precisely because the life they tell of
+is so different from my own, in which nothing ever happens, that a
+book-cover is for me a magic door by whose opening I escape out of the
+unendurable present. Even more than the novels do I love the plays, and
+to see them acted is better than to read them, best of all it must be to
+act in one. Ah! that would indeed be like living another life."
+
+"True, dear lady," he answered eagerly, "but there is a form of
+diversion which to my mind is the most fascinating of all, and that is
+the writing of a drama, for in so doing we create a little world of our
+own, and control the destinies of the men and women whom we bring into
+being."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. "But I care only to be the author of my own
+rôle."
+
+"And what," he asked, "would you choose that rôle to be?"
+
+"I would be a Princess beloved by the King of the greatest nation in the
+world. Beloved, mark you, not bargained for, but sought out personally
+by the King who should love me for myself alone, a manifestly impossible
+plot even for a play."
+
+"On the contrary, 't is a good one. Let us collaborate now in the
+planning of such a scheme. Let us suppose that for political reasons the
+King could not come in his proper person, but having learned to love you
+from report, were to seek you out incognito. Let us also imagine him so
+happy as to win your love. Would you be capable of the devotion which
+you demand of him?"
+
+"Would I wed such a King whom I had learned to love, though in disguise?
+Most certainly."
+
+"Ah! dear lady, you wilfully disregard the point I make. Would you wed
+this true lover, not knowing that he was a King? Let me put it still
+more strongly. Would you give yourself to the _man_ you loved knowing
+that he was not of royal birth?"
+
+"Ah! that is a different question; but I answer yes, for I am certain
+that my intuitions are so true that I could never love a man who was not
+in every sense a King."
+
+He smiled indulgently. "So be it, we will write such a drama and show
+the world how true love pierces all disguise, and knowing its own,
+challenges all dangers."
+
+She listened eagerly, but she attributed an interpretation which he had
+not intended to his perfectly simple suggestion. Placing her own
+personality out of the question was impossible for one so absorbed in
+self as this egoistic young creature. If Henry of Navarre were but like
+his Ambassador how easy it would be to love him! and suddenly it flashed
+through her mind that they were indeed one and the same. What other
+signification could be placed upon this supposititious drama which they
+were to evolve together?
+
+Intrigue ran in her blood and distorted her perceptions. Transparent
+frankness was incomprehensible to her, and it appealed to her romantic
+imagination that the King of France should come like the hero of some
+wonder-tale disguised as his own envoy extraordinary to see and woo his
+princess.
+
+Had she confided this wild idea to the experienced Malespini or to her
+companion, the dwarf Leonora, whose shrewd intellect was out of all
+proportion to her stunted body, she might easily have been disabused of
+her error; but with an overweening confidence in the accuracy of her own
+judgment she determined to weigh every sentence uttered by the man who
+purported to be the Earl of Essex and draw her own conclusions as to his
+identity.
+
+To a mind preconvinced, proofs were not wanting. Brandilancia, fancying
+that the little fan had fallen from the hand of Marie de' Medici by
+accident, naively offered to return it. Her face clouded. "Then you do
+not care to keep my first gift?" she pouted.
+
+"Your gift? _May_ I then keep it?" he asked delighted.
+
+"In exchange for the ring you wear," she replied, and he laid it in her
+hand.
+
+She examined with curiosity the device engraved upon the seal, a
+gauntleted hand holding a lance in rest.
+
+"Essex gave me that ring," he said thoughtlessly, for he was too excited
+to measure his own words. "I value it, not because I have a right to the
+arms it bears, but because he thought me a true knight errant eager for
+any enterprise of honour and gallantry."
+
+"Essex gave it. Then you are not Essex?" she asked smiling.
+
+"'T was but a slip of the tongue," he replied confusedly. "It was the
+King of France who presented it to me when I joined him with the English
+auxiliaries at the siege of Rouen. We were much in each other's company,
+not only in the main business of fighting, but in hawking and hunting in
+the neighbourhood. It was the enemy's country, and this gave zest to our
+escapades." He spoke rapidly but he could not distract her attention
+from his inadvertent admission.
+
+"Yes," she commented thoughtfully, "I have heard that you were friends
+and comrades in many a wild adventure. Tell me more of the King, since
+you of all others should know him best."
+
+[Illustration: _Neurdein_
+
+Henri IV. receiving the portrait of Marie de Medici
+
+P. P. Rubens
+
+From the series of paintings ordered by her for the Palace of the
+Luxembourg]
+
+"I know, dear lady, that he loves you."
+
+"How can that be since he has never seen me?"
+
+"Love enters the heart through many strange portals, and Henry of
+Navarre knows you better than you suspect. Your portrait sent him by
+your uncle is engraved upon his heart. Love gives a mysterious power of
+second sight, and I doubt not that the King of France sees you at this
+moment even as I do, and that Marie de' Medici is for him as for me the
+embodiment of all womanly perfection."
+
+"The Grand Duchess is approaching," she said in a low voice, "and Henry
+of Navarre is a forbidden topic--talk of anything else--talk of art."
+
+The subject was apropos, for they were in the garden and Ferdinando's
+collection of masterpieces was all about them, but the Grand Duchess had
+caught his closing phrase.
+
+"Who is it," she asked drily, "who has the honour of being the
+embodiment of the Earl of Essex's ideal of womanly perfection?"
+
+"The Medicean Venus," Brandilancia replied unhesitatingly, with a wave
+of the hand which took in that famous statue and also the lady at his
+side.
+
+The Grand Duchess sniffed, she was silenced but not deceived, and she
+remained at her niece's side through the remainder of the afternoon.
+
+As several guests joined them and discussed with great connoisseurship
+the merits of the sculpture Brandilancia's thoughts wandered to his
+host. "What manner of man was this Ferdinando de' Medici who had
+converted his garden pleasance into a museum?"
+
+Mentally reviewing what he had heard of the Grand Duke it seemed that
+all that was most admirable in the race must focus in its present
+representative. But Marie de' Medici had let fall a disquieting remark
+which pointed to another side to his character. "See, your grace," she
+had said to Brandilancia, "here is a favourite play of mine, _Il Moro di
+Venezia_, a sad tragedy but it stirs one's blood to read it. Perhaps it
+stirs mine because it is not long since tragedies like that have been
+enacted in my own family. Love and jealousy and revenge are a part of
+our heritage, and at times I long to come into my birthright, for such
+existence as I now lead is not life."
+
+This half-revelation so impressed Brandilancia that he could not expel
+it from his mind, and when next alone with the secretary, Malespini, he
+begged for an explanation.
+
+"Tell me something," he begged, "of the character of the Grand Duke. I
+do not ask you to divulge private matters, but only such as are public
+property and with which I would be acquainted were I not so newly
+arrived in Italy."
+
+Malespini gave him a compassionate glance. "I thought that all the world
+knew that my master was a child of Satan," he replied coolly. "The
+Signorina told you truly. He caused the death of his two sisters-in-law,
+and was responsible for the murder of his own sister, goading her
+husband the Duke of Bracciano to the act. It is commonly reported also
+that the Signorina's father, the former Grand Duke of Tuscany, together
+with his wife, Bianca Capello, were poisoned by Ferdinando, though he
+made the act appear to be that of the murdered Duchess."
+
+"And what," asked the horrified Brandilancia, "was the motive of this
+crime?"
+
+"Is it not apparent? Ferdinando de Medici, then a cardinal, had just
+failed in his candidacy for the pontificate (outwitted by that fox
+Montalto). If he could not be pope it suited him as well to be Grand
+Duke of Tuscany."
+
+"If this is true is the Signorina safe in his power?"
+
+"So long as their interests are the same, Signor. And you who are the
+friend of Henry of Navarre should know that the Grand Duke is anxious to
+place his niece upon the throne of France. Should she set her will
+against her uncle's ambition he would scruple at no perfidity or crime.
+You wonder why I, who am in his service, should tell you this. It is
+because I am strangely drawn to you. From the moment I saw that you
+appreciated what I had written, that we spoke the same language, strove
+after the same ideals, I was yours heart and soul. They talk of love at
+first sight, a foolish matter between man and woman, but when two men
+recognise that they are congenial spirits it is the most natural and
+inevitable thing in all the world. And so I tell you again, be on your
+guard for your personal safety. If, however unjustly, any distrust of
+you should be awakened in the mind of the Grand Duke, if he imagined
+that the Signorina had learned to care for you, then your life, and hers
+as well, would not be worth one soldo."
+
+This conversation occasioned the guest of the villa serious thought. It
+obtruded itself in the very tales of intrigue, passion, and murder which
+he read to drive it from his mind, those fascinating novelli with their
+records of bloody hereditary vendettas, of innocent or guilty lovers
+alike done to death by indiscriminating cruelty.
+
+"Truly," he thought, "in Italy a woman's kiss and that of a poniard go
+often in such close company that the sweet woman's mouth which lets love
+in almost touches the red mouth of the wound which lets life out."
+
+Though not so definitely explained, he had felt the presence of danger
+before; but so long as it threatened himself alone it added a spice of
+excitement to the adventure; now, however, that he realised what grave
+consequences the least indiscretion on his part might bring upon Marie
+de' Medici herself, he determined to be doubly circumspect.
+
+With this intention he held himself aloof from the superb mundane life
+of the villa, and, retiring to the library, occupied himself in
+translating and rearranging old plays. But all day as he wrote, though
+half unconsciously, his thoughts were with his fair hostess, and always
+at the hour of the siesta of the Grand Duchess Marie de' Medici was with
+him in person. It was on the second morning of his seclusion that she
+had tapped at the door and offered her aid in his work; thus converting
+the very means by which he sought to avoid her into a stratagem for the
+uninterrupted enjoyment of her society.
+
+Had Brandilancia been more sophisticated, it might have struck him as
+exceptional that a princess who been brought up in the strictest
+conventionality should have granted the privilege of such intimate
+association even to so exalted a personage as the Earl of Essex. He
+believed her confidence due to girlish innocence, and was more than ever
+determined to protect her from himself. Leonora was always on guard in
+the ante-room, and joined them whenever she heard the sound of
+approaching footsteps. It surprised this world-wise little sentinel that
+on none of these occasions had the young man appeared to have taken any
+advantage of his opportunity, and she was irritated by the amused
+condescension with which he treated her. He could never realise that
+this grotesque and tiny creature was not an uncanny child, and he had
+nicknamed her good-humouredly The Owlet, on account of her large round
+eyes.
+
+"I had not thought the Earl of Essex so blind," she said to him one day
+when they chanced to be alone.
+
+"My eyes are not fashioned to see in the dark like yours, Owlet," he
+replied. "Tell me what it is you see."
+
+"Many things, but the plainest of all to me is that whoever you may be
+you are not the Earl of Essex."
+
+He was off his guard, and his expression confirmed her suspicions. She
+laughed maliciously, and her face, always sly and old beyond her years,
+was absolutely repulsive now as it reflected her gloating sense of her
+advantage.
+
+"Put your mind at rest, my lord," she said, mockingly. "Your secret is
+safe in my keeping. I do not know your aims, but if you will take me
+into your confidence you are sure of success. I am only dangerous when I
+am angered. Why should you not succeed? The Signorina is completely
+infatuated with you. If we make her believe that you have assumed the
+character of the Earl of Essex from love of her she will readily forgive
+you that deceit. Together we can accomplish anything and everything, for
+you have a winning way with women, and I have brains--yes, more than you
+give me credit for--and this doll-faced girl shall make our fortunes.
+When we have sucked the coffers of the Medici dry, take me with you to
+your own country, and I will be your faithful accomplice there also,
+for, misshapen and hideous as I am, I love you, my beautiful adventurer;
+yes, with a devotion of which my mistress is not capable, for she is
+vain and shallow and selfish. Oh, why did God give her the form of an
+angel and put my soul in the body of a demon?"
+
+Brandilancia, up to this point speechless with astonishment, had not
+been able to interrupt her, and the dwarf had climbed to the table,
+where, perched at his elbow, she had poured her confidences into his
+ear; but as she drew his face to hers with her small claw-like hands he
+forgot all considerations of policy in an unconquerable repulsion, and
+wrenched himself rudely from her.
+
+"Imp!" he exclaimed, "your soul matches your body. You are hideous
+through and through."
+
+The look which she gave him was full of malignity. "You shall live to
+learn that the good-will of a devil is better than her ill-will," she
+said, as she slipped from the table and left the room.
+
+Brandilancia's uneasy compunction which immediately followed his hasty
+exclamation was soon effaced by the dwarf's apparent forgiveness. "We
+were both indiscreet," she said to him the following day; "let us forget
+and be friends."
+
+But Leonora would not forget, and the young man had lost his
+opportunity of making her his friend.
+
+She immediately carried her doubts to her mistress. "The man is not the
+Earl of Essex," she asserted. "He is some base impostor, I know not
+whom, but I will make him declare himself ere long."
+
+Marie de' Medici was silent, but her thoughts were voluble. Since it had
+pleased her royal lover to come incognito she would betray him to no one
+nor even allow him to suspect that she had penetrated his disguise, but
+would flatter the King by feigning that she loved him for himself alone,
+and would exert every endeavour to make him sincerely her lover.
+
+In spite of the injunction of the Grand Duchess, they often spoke of
+Henry of Navarre, and Brandilancia in the desire to forward the mission
+upon which he had been sent, told of Henry's unhappy wedded life,
+expressing with great frankness his own detestation of the craft and
+cruelty of Catherine de' Medici and the levity of her daughter
+Marguerite of Valois.
+
+"You forget," Marie de' Medici had replied, "that they are my
+kinswomen."
+
+"I forget many things in your presence which I should remember," he had
+replied. "Sometimes even that I, too, am a married man and, knowing you
+as I do, I can not blame the King of France that he is seeking, through
+divorce, freedom from a marriage into which he was half tricked, half
+forced, and that he is willing to risk salvation for the hope of your
+love."
+
+That answer pleased her well. She had no doubt now that he loved her,
+and did not hesitate to assure him in many covert ways that the feeling
+was reciprocated. Brandilancia would have been blind indeed not to have
+recognised her admiration, but he believed it merely appreciation of his
+genius, whereas her mind was too limited to comprehend it. She was in
+love with the possibility of being a queen upon such easy terms,
+delighted to find that the necessary husband was no uncouth tyrant but a
+man of winsome personality whose delicate assiduities were ever present
+and yet never over passed the restraints of deference.
+
+It would have been difficult for two persons to have more utterly
+misunderstood each other. Brandilancia had reached the full maturity of
+his mental powers. His genius had created many charming women, but the
+ideal for which his lonely heart yearned had only gradually taken shape
+in his mind, and the heroine which he now gave to literature marked an
+epoch in his career.
+
+He had found the plot of his drama sketched in part in one of the
+novelli of Ser Giovanni; but the conception of an aristocratic yet
+gracious lady gifted with all perfection, with which he replaced the
+siren of Belmont, was not, as he supposed, a portrait from life of Marie
+de' Medici. The character sprang directly from his own intense longing,
+and by some unreasoning reflex action, his mind endowed the woman who
+happened to be near him with qualities which he created and which she
+unhappily did not possess.
+
+The idol which he worshipped was absolutely the work of his own hands,
+for it was not until his imagination had cheated his eyes, and he had
+begun to look at Marie de' Medici through its flattering lenses that he
+thought her beautiful. And yet at the age of twenty she possessed very
+real attractions: a southern blond, not milky-veined, like the pale
+maidens of the north, but with all the gold of the hot sunshine in her
+hair, and the rich blood glowing through her fair skin like flame in an
+alabaster lamp. Superbly modelled, but lithe and tall, she carried
+regally the sumptuous opulence with which nature had endowed her, and
+the soft curve of her shoulders, throat, and bosom had not as yet
+blossomed into the plethora which Rubens depicted with so gloating a
+brush. Nor was she precisely the same as when Brandilancia had looked
+upon these charms unmoved. All arrogance and self-confidence were gone
+or lay buried under the most appealing of coquetry, a shy tenderness
+apparently born of irresistible impulse showing itself in little wilful
+sallies, a glance or touch, seemingly instantly regretted, and followed
+by alternations of reticence. He admitted her bewitching but had no idea
+that he was himself bewitched. His was a literary passion. He was a
+student of life as well as of books, and he had never before had the
+opportunity of studying such glorious examples of both at close range.
+
+He completed his portrait of his ideal heroine Portia, the noblest that
+he ever depicted, and found to his surprise that quite another type of
+woman was forming itself in his mind. Powerful outside influences
+mingled their impressions with the long-stifled hunger in his heart. He
+was not in love with his hostess, but he was starving for love, and each
+book that he read, every object of art that he looked upon, and nature
+itself was steeped with the charm and passion of Italy. If he tossed
+aside Boccaccio and his too suggestive _confrères_ to seek refreshment
+in the garden it was only to find himself face to face with the famous
+statue of the most seductive of all women, she who made Cæsar her slave
+and Antony her "floor-cloth."
+
+She obtruded herself upon him everywhere, for his very bed
+
+                     was hanged
+    With tapestry of silk and silver,
+                     the story
+    Proud Cleopatra when she met her Roman.
+
+He had read with Marie de' Medici the history of the Egyptian Queen, and
+had brooded over it until against his will something of the fascination
+of the "Serpent of Old Nile" invested his comrade, and the name of
+Antony ever after called up in her memory also the inspired face of her
+fellow-student in the dangerous science of love.
+
+Realising vaguely the influence which like some mephitic perfume, an
+opiate of the soul, emanated from the purely literary reconstruction of
+such a character, he laid it aside for the heart-breaking story of
+Giulietta, whose very innocence moved him still more profoundly.
+
+It was midsummer, the quivering July heat brought out the pungent scent
+of the freshly clipped box-hedges, and set the mad flood stirring as in
+the brief action of the play. During the day the white glare drove the
+guests of the garden festivals into the shadiest recesses of the cypress
+labyrinths. The flowers themselves seemed to have vanished from the
+parterres, or, like the Cereus, bloomed only at night, plainly visible
+under the luminous sky, when the nightingales vied with the viols of the
+serenaders.
+
+On such a night as this Brandilancia, who had been reading late, closed
+his book and, after the departure of the last reveller, stepped upon the
+terrace to cool his brain heated by inspiration. A kindred restlessness
+brought Marie de' Medici to her balcony and he recklessly sprang upon a
+marble bench which almost enabled him to touch her hand.
+
+"Listen, dearest lady," he said, "it is your favourite story, which I
+have re-written with my own heart's blood."
+
+Enthralled, though only half comprehending, Marie de' Medici listened as
+he poured forth in impassioned improvisation lines which from that day
+to this no one who has ever loved has heard untouched. The actor's
+training gave to the burning words of the poet artistic expression
+worthy of the most finished theatrical production, and as such they
+lacked not their due appreciation and applause though from a most
+undesired audience. A low chuckling and a clapping of hands greeted the
+close of the recital, and the two successful impersonators of Romeo and
+Juliet saw to their confusion that the scene had been witnessed by a
+burly man-at-arms, who now stalked from the shadow of a group of
+cypresses.
+
+"Bravo!" he cried, "da Groto himself did not act that play so well, when
+I saw him years since in the Farnese theatre at Parma. But you have
+taken liberties with the lines and, per Bacco! have improved them.
+Whoever you may be you are too good an actor for such paltry
+assistance."
+
+"And I know no one better qualified to pronounce upon a play than
+Captain Radicofani," replied Marie de' Medici, reappearing from the
+interior of her chamber whither she had retreated on the appearance of
+the intruder. "It is odd that you should have chanced so opportunely
+upon us as we were rehearsing our little comedy. My lord of Essex,
+permit me to present Captain Tuzio Radicofani, as brave a soldier as
+ever wielded sword, and one loyally attached to my uncle's service. What
+news do you bring from the Grand Duke, Captain? Will he soon return to
+us?"
+
+"The Earl of Essex?" the other repeated in surprise disregarding for
+the moment Marie de' Medici's questions. "It is rare indeed to find one
+of Fortune's favourites so variously talented. His Excellency the Grand
+Duke, though he enumerated both your physical and mental accomplishments
+with great particularity spoke not of play-acting."
+
+Brandilancia did not relish the shrewd look in the half-closed eyes, nor
+did he fancy the bullet-shaped close-cropped head with its overweight of
+occiput and bull-dog jaw, but he replied courteously, "such trifling
+diversion on the part of an idle man is surely less remarkable than its
+appreciation by one of action like yourself."
+
+"The Grand Duke would also have been surprised," the soldier continued,
+"could he have assisted at this little scene. Your highness does himself
+discredit in referring to the performance as trifling, for, by the
+Blood, I never saw so accomplished an actor. The Signorina's talent
+likewise astonished me, though it was confined to mere pantomime, one
+might have thought it the languishing of a love-sick girl. By your
+favour, Signorina, there are indeed certain letters in my saddle-bags
+which my groom has in charge, but the varlet has gone to his supper in
+the servants' hall. I, too, am hungry and will seek the steward. The
+letters, with your Highness's permission, shall be presented on the
+morrow, which indeed is almost here."
+
+They entered the villa together in apparent friendliness, but it was
+with a sense of impending evil that Brandilancia retired to his room.
+
+Was it simply that the man had interrupted them at a moment when in
+spite of Marie de' Medici's tactful greeting no audience was desired, or
+was there something sinister in his coming? The more Brandilancia
+reflected the less he liked the familiarity which amounted to an
+assumption of authority. Radicofani's voice had not rung true. "The
+fellow suspects me. Nay, he knows that I am not the Earl of Essex,"
+groaned the young man, as he tossed upon his bed; "and if his creature
+knows, then the Grand Duke knows also, and who can guess on what errand
+this villain comes? He pretended to believe that we were rehearsing a
+comedy, but he doubtless places the worst possible construction upon the
+scene which he has just witnessed. Was it a comedy, or am I in earnest?
+Ah! I have deliberately fallen into the trap against which Malespini
+warned me. I have lingered too long in this fool's paradise. Love and
+its penalty have stricken me in the same instant. Thank Heaven! no
+thought of this madness of mine can have entered the pure mind of my
+lady. Until this night I have breathed no word that could have betrayed
+it, and even now she doubtless thinks my ravings those of a poet. I will
+leave the villa to-morrow, lest my further presence here should bring
+trouble upon her."
+
+Even as he formed the resolution a slight sound caught his ear, the
+cautious opening and closing of the door which led from the ante-chamber
+of his bedroom into the outer hall, the only means of communication
+between his own room and other parts of the villa. A light shone between
+the folds of the portière, and there were sounds of some one moving
+about softly in the ante-room. Springing from his bed, Brandilancia
+seized his sword.
+
+"Who is there?" he demanded.
+
+"'T is I, Radicofani," and the tapestries parted, disclosing the form of
+the Captain, towering beyond a camp-bed which had been spread across the
+doorway.
+
+"I should have informed your worship," he apologised smugly, "that I
+sleep here to-night. Put up your sword, and rest assured that no one
+shall pass this room without my license."
+
+"And could they give you no better lodging than that?" asked
+Brandilancia.
+
+"Room in plenty," the Captain replied, "but it is on the Grand Duke's
+orders that I act as your body-guard, and I enter upon my duties at
+once, for I am responsible for your safety."
+
+The prisoner inquired no further, but letting fall the portière, threw
+himself upon his bed confounded. His resolution to leave the villa had
+been made too late.
+
+But the morning brought a fresh access of hope, as Brandilancia noticed
+between the widely-drawn curtains that the obstructing truckle-bed had
+been set against the wall and that his guard had left his post.
+
+The dwarf Leonora, who was the only occupant of the dining hall when he
+descended, stole to his side and bade him await the Signorina in the
+belvedere in the upper garden.
+
+Here Marie de' Medici presently joined him.
+
+"My lord," she said, between her quick panting, for she was out of
+breath with running, "I shame to tell you, but you must leave us at
+once, indeed you should have done so long since."
+
+"It is what I had upon my mind to say to you, sweet lady," he replied.
+"I have an appointment to meet at Venice ten days hence, and must leave
+my papers for the Grand Duke and proceed upon my journey, much as it
+irks me to tear myself from your company."
+
+"Then you know not that my uncle has sent Radicofani to take you to
+Florence?"
+
+"The Grand Duke does me honour, and under other circumstances I would
+gladly accept his further hospitality; but his Highness will understand
+that Robert Devreux is not free to follow his own inclinations."
+
+"No, you are not free," she answered hastily. "Read this letter which
+Radicofani gave to my aunt this morning and which I purloined from her
+writing-cabinet. Nay, hesitate not but read, for it concerns you
+vitally." At her command he read:
+
+     "_To the Grand Duchess Christina de' Medici._
+
+     "MOST HONOURED AND DEAR SPOUSE:
+
+     "Your letter informing me of the arrival at the villa of a person
+     purporting to be the Earl of Essex has occasioned me great concern
+     inasmuch as the fellow is undoubtedly an impostor.
+
+     "His Eminence, Don Jerome Osorio, Bishop of Algarve, who arrived in
+     this city some five days since, asserts positively that on the date
+     upon which this rascal presented himself at the Villa Medici the
+     Earl of Essex personally conducted the sack of the town of Faro in
+     southern Portugal, and, having feloniously carried the bishop's
+     library on board the English flag-ship, he forth-with set sail for
+     the open ocean, evidently upon his return voyage for England.
+
+     "Imagine, therefore, my anxiety on learning that you have given
+     harbourage to some rascal, who having by base practises learned
+     that the Earl had an errand with me, now usurps his name and
+     credit. I send this letter by my trusty servitor, Radicofani, whom
+     I have charged to bring the villain with all speed to me that I may
+     examine him by the question and learn his motives in assuming this
+     disguise. If he has brought with him any papers (some of which he
+     may easily have stolen from the Earl of Essex) see to it that
+     Radicofani obtains possession of them before the rascal's
+     suspicions are aroused. I tremble when I think how he may have
+     practised upon your unsuspicious nature, and what villainies he may
+     already have accomplished, or rather I would thus tremble did I not
+     know that you inherit the resolution of the race of Lorraine,
+     which, even when a mistake has been committed, knows how to wring
+     success from disaster. Confiding thus in your courage and your
+     woman's wit, I remain,
+
+"Your loving husband,
+
+"FERDINANDO.
+
+     "P.S. For the better furtherance of my desires confide my
+     suspicions to no one not even to my niece, but take leave of this
+     caitiff with all ceremony as though he were indeed him whom he
+     represents."
+
+Brandilancia paled slightly, but not at the danger in which he stood.
+"The Grand Duke is correct in his suspicions," he said, "I have lied to
+you, I am not the Earl of Essex."
+
+She smiled enigmatically. "You have known it all along?" he exclaimed.
+"Then I am a poorer actor than I thought."
+
+"Nay, you acted your part well, but early in our acquaintance I knew you
+for a nobler man than the Earl of Essex. I have no guess as to the
+station to which you may have been born, but you are fitted to play a
+knightly part, on a far different stage from this, my King among men."
+
+"And when I have won my crown," he replied, "the world shall know that
+it was your faith in me which nerved me to the effort, for I shall lay
+it at your feet, my Queen, the only woman who has ever really understood
+or cared for me." His arms were about her and she was sobbing in the
+excitement of her triumph. "Yes, yes," she cried, "you will come again,
+but now you must fly. What am I that I should hold you thus when you
+stand in danger of your life?"
+
+"Have no fear for me dear lady," he replied. "The Grand Duke is
+fair-minded, and will not fail to credit my assertions when I explain
+why I undertook this adventure."
+
+"My uncle believes nothing without absolute proof. Such chivalrous
+motives as yours would seem to him incredible. If you fail to convince
+him of your identity he will execute you as a common rogue. If you prove
+it he will use every inch of his advantage ere you escape his clutches.
+You must fly, but how? On learning an hour since, that Radicofani had
+descended to the city, I ordered our horses for a ride only to learn
+that he had left strict orders at the stables and at the gates of the
+villa that you were not to be allowed to leave the grounds. My friend,
+you are a close prisoner. Think fast. What can you do?"
+
+"Nothing, dear lady, but trust that since I have committed no crime I
+shall not receive the treatment of a criminal."
+
+"What loss of time is this?" exclaimed Leonora as she suddenly made her
+appearance from behind the hedge. "Here I have stood on guard for half
+an hour by the sun-dial and you have wasted it in idle chatter. I tell
+you, Signor, my mistress is right, you are as good as a dead man if you
+trust to the Grand Duke; but take the advice of the Owlet and we will
+foil him nicely."
+
+For an instant a suspicion flashed across his mind that her apparent
+friendliness was untrustworthy. It was she, he suspected, who had
+ushered Radicofani into the garden on the previous evening, or at least
+had failed to give warning of his approach. But he dismissed these
+thoughts as unworthy.
+
+"What expedient do you suggest Leonora?" he asked.
+
+"Do you not recognise that contadina," the dwarf replied, "the one
+standing between the fountain and the parapet yonder? She is a friend of
+yours and will help me save you."
+
+"A friend of mine!" Brandilancia repeated wonderingly.
+
+Leonora laughed maliciously. "Have you forgotten possessing yourself of
+a little fan which my mistress dropped, quite by accident, from a window
+on the day of your arrival, and that you were assisted in finding it by
+the laundress of the villa? The artful jade has a better memory. She
+does not fail to remind me of the incident and to inquire for you
+whenever she calls for the linen. I have been obliged to stop her mouth
+with more than one coin to keep her from blabbing to the Grand Duchess.
+However that incident proves to have been all for the best. Her cart is
+at the kitchen door, she is waiting there at my orders. Summon her to
+your room, purchase and don the costume which she now wears. With her
+kerchief shading your face no one will recognise you, and you will drive
+away in triumph throned upon her hampers, until well beyond the city
+when you can turn the donkey loose and catch the Venetian post."
+
+[Illustration: View from the Garden of the Villa Medici]
+
+His laugh rang out boyishly. "The adventure of Bucciolo, which I read to
+the Signorina, from the tales of Ser Giovanni suggested that expedient,"
+he said. "It were a good motive for a roaring farce, but I must consider
+the dignity of the name I bear."
+
+"Nay speak it not," entreated Marie de' Medici in a whisper, throwing
+her arms about his neck. "I heard a step upon the gravel."
+
+He regarded her wonderingly, "Let who will hear," he persisted. "It
+shall never be said that the Earl of Essex slunk from danger in a
+wench's petticoats."
+
+"Well spoken, I like you the better for that," laughed a loud voice, and
+Captain Radicofani parting the shrubbery suddenly appeared,
+interrupting, for the second time, their confidences. "How
+unsuspectingly you children fell into my trap," he sneered. "I knew that
+the Signorina would warn you. You were acting a tableau I presume just
+now as you held her in your embrace. A pretty scene, i' faith, but one
+of which the Grand Duke will not be amused to hear. I had hoped to learn
+still more of the libretto of this little play, but you know more of
+mine. We will make no further pretence, and lest I lose you by further
+shilly-shallying, we will start upon our journey at once.
+
+"Until we are well upon our way, Signorina, may I beg you, and Leonora
+also, to remain in your own suite of apartments and to attempt to hold
+no communication with this gentleman?"
+
+Marie de' Medici bowed haughtily. "I shall employ the time in writing my
+uncle how unwarrantably Captain Radicofani exceeds his orders," she
+replied as she swept angrily from the belvedere.
+
+Seeing that the indignation of her mistress merely amused the
+condottiere the dwarf took a cajoling tone. "At least your highness will
+remain to luncheon," she said insinuatingly.
+
+"That invitation I am powerless to refuse," replied the Captain, "but
+you may order it served in this gentleman's chamber, whither I will now
+conduct him."
+
+With a disconcerting chuckle Radicofani suited his action to the word,
+and busied himself with preparations for the journey, taking care,
+however, as he strode from ante-room to bed-chamber to keep his prisoner
+constantly in sight. The latter's hope of escape had reached a low ebb
+when Malespini knocked timidly. He had brought certain papers which the
+Signor had left in the library. Captain Radicofani received the
+secretary distrustfully and bestowed the papers among his own effects.
+"I will look them over," he commented, "and if innocent pass them on to
+our friend before we arrive in Florence."
+
+Malespini retreated deferentially, but, once outside the door he
+executed a silent war-dance as an outlet for his rage. In its eccentric
+evolutions he hurtled against a servant bringing the luncheon, and fully
+half of the viands poured like an avalanche down the stairs. While the
+man strove to gather up the broken crockery the secretary snatched the
+tray and with ill-concealed triumph re-entered the apartment.
+
+"Is this all you have brought?" grumbled the disappointed Captain.
+
+"Truly," replied the wily Malespini, "this light collation was intended
+solely for his highness the Earl of Essex, who I hear must keep his
+room. For your lordship dinner awaits in the banquet-room, where the
+Grand Duchess has ordered a boar's-head, stuffed with sage and onions,
+together with a pasty of pheasants, and where she will serve you with
+her own hands a stirrup-cup of the Grand Duke's oldest vintage."
+
+Captain Radicofani sprang up with alacrity, but noticing that Malespini
+was edging nearer to his friend, ordered the secretary gruffly to pass
+out before him.
+
+"Behind the bed," said Malespini in a low voice to the prisoner, as he
+lighted one of the tapers in the mantel candelabra, "and take all of
+these candles, _all_ or you are lost."
+
+"Idiot," shouted the Captain; "it is not yet noon. What need of lights?
+Play me no tricks, but leave the room."
+
+Springing from his chair as soon as the door had closed behind
+Radicofani, Brandilancia examined the huge state-bedstead, and with a
+little exertion trundled it forward. Behind its tapestry hangings a
+secret door, suspected only by a crack in the wainscotting, opened
+beneath his prying fingers, and revealed a spiral staircase leading
+downward into pitchy darkness. Comprehending Malespini's admonition, he
+hastily appropriated the candles, and, drawing the bedstead into its
+place behind him, descended the dizzily circling steps. Eighty-seven he
+counted, twisting round and round within the turret, and then he paused,
+for he distinctly heard the sound of rushing water. The air had become
+moist as well as cool, and the steps were green and slippery with moss.
+Advancing with more caution, he presently found himself in a vaulted
+passage a little higher than his head, where a narrow pathway followed a
+conduit of dark water, which reflected the flame of his candle in a
+thousand glancing sparkles.
+
+
+II
+
+IN WHICH IT IS DEMONSTRATED THAT IT IS SOMETIMES EASIER TO SET OUT UPON
+A QUEST THAN TO RETURN THEREFROM
+
+It was the Aqua Virgo, the old subterranean aqueduct built by the
+Emperor Claudius, that pierced the hill beneath the Villa Medici, in
+which Brandilancia now found himself. If he turned to the left he knew
+he would soon find egress through the doorway to which the chance
+fluttering of Marie de' Medici's fan had led him. But this would be to
+appear upon the streets of Rome in open day, and to run the risk of
+seizure by Radicofani's guards. Moreover, Malespini's advice to provide
+himself with so many candles was significant, and Brandilancia
+unhesitatingly chose the longer way, not doubting that it would finally
+lead him into the open country.
+
+The stream at his side was of considerable volume and flowed with great
+swiftness, while the shelf upon which he was advancing was hardly more
+than ten inches broad. Both it and the wall were slimy with dampness,
+giving no secure hold to hand or foot. The pathway mounted steadily, and
+apparently pursued a straight course, but no opening showed itself in
+the distance, and the light of his taper penetrated but a little way
+into the blackness. As he glanced backward his shadow loomed in a
+gigantic and almost unrecognisable form, following him waveringly like a
+malevolent spirit. His footsteps woke hollow reverberations; the water
+gurgled and sobbed, and an odor suggestive of the tomb added to the
+impression that he was wandering in some unexplored catacomb. He could
+proceed but slowly, and the low temperature chilled him to the bone, but
+he pushed on resolutely as it seemed to him for interminable hours. "I
+shall go mad," he thought, "if there is no change in this deadly
+monotony," and at that instant the vault echoed with the beat of
+hurrying footsteps.
+
+Brandilancia could see the distant flare of torches, and he knew that
+his candle was as plainly visible to his pursuers. He dared not
+extinguish it, but quickened his pace to a run, slipping, almost falling
+into the water as he dashed recklessly forward. Suddenly, but not an
+instant too soon, he halted before a void. The pathway had disappeared;
+another step and he would have plunged into a reservoir of unknown depth
+which yawned without a barrier before him.
+
+As he lifted his candle and peered across the wide expanse he saw that
+the tunnel was closed directly opposite him by a wall of solid masonry,
+and in his dismay almost a minute elapsed before he discovered to the
+left an open archway which indicated that the tunnel here turned at an
+angle. But how should he cross to this doorway? The coping which
+separated the cistern from the canal in the centre of the tunnel was too
+narrow and the water poured over it noisily. He was about to attempt
+swimming when he noticed that he was standing upon a plank, evidently
+placed here to be used as a bridge. He retreated a few steps and pushed
+it cautiously forward. It reached across the cistern and rested upon the
+sill of the arched doorway.
+
+In the brief interval thus consumed the footsteps had gained upon him
+and in the light of the approaching torches he plainly recognised
+Radicofani, who shouted to him to surrender. Thus beset he ventured the
+crossing, but the plank was rotten and broke under his weight, falling
+with him into the reservoir. He struck out in the direction in which he
+imagined the archway to be, by good fortune found it by feeling along
+the wall, and clambered upon the ledge which ran along the side of the
+conduit as in the first tunnel.
+
+He had suffered no other harm than the thorough wetting and the loss of
+his candles, and the torches of his pursuers, who had now reached the
+opposite side of the cistern, showed that the tunnel was slightly wider
+than its opening, and that by hugging the wall he was not visible to
+Radicofani. The latter had heard the splash and regarded the water
+dubiously.
+
+"Have you gone to the bottom?" he shouted, but Brandilancia was wisely
+silent. "If not," cried the Captain, "and you are hiding yonder within
+hearing, let me tell you that you will die like a rat in a sewer unless
+you give yourself up at the entrance to that tunnel, where you will find
+me waiting for you."
+
+Drenched to the skin Brandilancia's teeth chattered with the physical
+cold, and fear numbed his heart. "What if Radicofani spoke the truth?"
+
+But to carry out his threat the Captain must retrace his steps and ride
+to the spot where the aqueduct entered the hill. How far he had
+proceeded Brandilancia could not guess, possibly half or three-fourths
+of the way. If so there was hope of reaching the opening before
+Radicofani, and he hurried on with what speed he could consistent with
+groping his way with hands and feet in the total darkness. The exertion
+stirred his blood but the tunnel seemed to have no end. His hands were
+worn and bleeding with clinging to the rough wall, and a great lassitude
+was stealing over him when he caught a faint glimmer of light like that
+of a star, not the lurid glow of a candle or torch but the blessed white
+light of day. It was the longed-for opening, though still far away. He
+thought that he had out-distanced Radicofani and stumbled on, exultation
+giving him new strength when a sudden eclipse of this star of hope made
+him crouch motionless, grovelling close to the earth. A man's head and
+shoulders were silhouetted blackly against the brightness. The man
+peered cautiously into the tunnel, and listened; but neither hearing nor
+seeing anything, presently withdrew.
+
+Was it Radicofani? Were workmen preparing to wall up the exit? Ought he
+to make a sudden rush for life and liberty?
+
+Every instinct prompted him to this resolution, and he crawled
+cautiously forward to within a few feet of the opening. Again the man
+appeared, with a sudden bound Brandilancia was upon him and both rolled
+in a life-and-death struggle upon the ground.
+
+So dazed was he by the glare of the full light of day, so nearly crazed
+with desperation that he did not recognise the voice that implored him
+to cease his blows, or realise that his supposed antagonist was the
+friendly Malespini, who, on the instant that Radicofani had discovered
+and descended the secret staircase, had slipped his guards and ridden to
+Brandilancia's succour on the swiftest horse obtainable in Rome.
+
+Hastily exchanging his own mire-besmirched garments for the secretary's
+unobtrusive suit, Brandilancia, with many apologies for his onslaught,
+listened to Malespini's explanations of a circuitous route by which he
+could avoid Radicofani, ride to Orte, and, leaving the horse at the inn
+stables, take the diligence on the following day for Venice. Malespini's
+suggestions, acceptable in themselves, were gratifyingly supplemented by
+a tender letter from Marie de' Medici and a purse well filled with gold.
+
+"Of the money I have fortunately no need," Brandilancia replied, "but
+the care of your mistress for my safety and your own pains in my behalf
+command my eternal gratitude. You shall both hear from me from Venice,
+and so farewell."
+
+Malespini's scheme seemed at first likely to be crowned with success,
+and having secured his seat in the Venetian post, Brandilancia naturally
+imagined his troubles at an end; but shortly after leaving Orte, where
+the road turns to the eastward for its climb over the Apennines, the
+lumbering vehicle came to a sudden halt. Shouts and oaths without, the
+shrieks of a woman at his side, and the opening of the door by a masked
+man, formidably armed, sufficiently explained the situation.
+
+The passengers on dismounting were relieved of their purses by the
+bandits, but, with the exception of Brandilancia, were allowed to
+proceed upon their journey. No explanation was offered for this
+discrimination, but there was something familiar in the figure of the
+leader, who, after pointing out Brandilancia, had ridden rapidly on in
+advance of his men, and the captive wondered at the excellent
+accoutrements of the band and the good quality of the horse which he was
+compelled to mount.
+
+They struck at once into a wild mountain gorge, avoiding villages and
+farms, and when at noon the brigands halted for refreshments in a
+little wood, and removed their masks, Brandilancia recognised no
+familiar faces.
+
+Remounting, the brigands pursued their way up a steep bridle path, their
+destination a strong castle, perched high on a spur of the mountain. The
+prisoner's heart sank as he noted its isolation and strength, for here a
+captive might remain for years and finally die undiscovered.
+
+But Brandilancia had not reckoned on the cupidity of his host. His
+capture had been planned not by hatred, but in the hope of ransom, as
+was explained to him by the brigand chief, into whose presence he was
+led upon his arrival at the stronghold.
+
+The man still wore his mask, but at the first word which he uttered
+Brandilancia to his astonishment recognised the condottiere Radicofani.
+Accosted by name, the Captain removed his mask, and coolly confronted
+his prisoner.
+
+"It is as well," he said, "that you should understand the situation.
+Your flight and apparent escape remove my accountability to the Grand
+Duke for your person. I should not have troubled myself further about
+you, were it not that upon my empty-handed return to the villa the
+Signorina Marie de' Medici very indiscreetly taunted me with having
+allowed a far more important personage than the Earl of Essex to slip
+unrecognised through my fingers. Just who you are she did not see fit to
+divulge; but I gathered that you are of sufficient consequence for your
+friends to be willing to pay handsomely for your release. You may
+therefore write to them, and I will see that your letters reach their
+destination on condition that you advise the fulfilment of my demands."
+
+"The Signorina has unwittingly misled you," Brandilancia replied. "The
+Grand Duke was right in his belief that the Earl of Essex had sailed for
+England, but though I am his accredited representative, as I hope to
+prove to your master if you will convey me to him, I am a man of no
+wealth and one whom the world will not miss."
+
+"Tush! my fine fellow; it is useless to attempt to deceive me, and it is
+against your own interest; for you can make better terms with me than
+with the Grand Duke, who is by far a greater brigand than your present
+host."
+
+Thus admonished Brandilancia resigned himself to the inevitable, and
+wrote two letters; the first to the Earl of Essex, expressing his regret
+that he had not been able to personally present to Ferdinando de'
+Medici the papers entrusted to him instead of sending them by the hand
+of Radicofani. While reporting his captive condition, he begged his
+friend to be at no expense or trouble for his redemption, beyond an
+explanation to the Grand Duke that he had undertaken the mission upon
+proper authority and should be allowed to return.
+
+Having dashed off this missive at fever heat Brandilancia paused, pen in
+hand, moodily regarding the blank sheet before him until gruffly
+reminded by Radicofani that he must either write or give over the
+attempt.
+
+He started at the command, for in imagination he had been far away in a
+thatch-roofed cottage behind hawthorne hedges, where Anne, faithful
+Anne, had so often welcomed her wild lover. Their wills had clashed
+after their marriage. She had objected unreasonably when his career led
+him to London, had been sceptical as to his success, and even, so it
+seemed to him, as to his genius. There had been angry reproaches and
+bitter recriminations, but at heart he had never doubted her affection
+and had always intended to convince her of his own when he could also
+prove that in following the call of his talent he had acted for her best
+interest. His stay at the Villa Medici and its very hostess seemed to
+him now a hallucination whose passing left no trace upon his sober
+senses, but could Anne understand this? If she believed him erring was
+the high-spirited wife capable of forgiveness? He saw himself condemned
+and shame-stricken before the tribunal of her unswerving rectitude but
+none the less he ventured his plea in lines that had been forming
+themselves, as always when he was under the stress of emotion, with the
+clarity and perfection of a crystal born from the drip and ooze of some
+dark cavern.
+
+It is of all his sonnets the one which rings most true, ending with its
+appeal for reconciliation after long estrangement.
+
+                          "Your heart
+    My home of love; if I have ranged,
+    Like him that travels, I return again!"
+
+He was not certain that he would be permitted to rejoin her, but he
+would not sadden Anne by his foreboding. His heart had returned to its
+allegiance; this was the important thing, and this she should know.
+
+"I leave you now," said Radicofani as Brandilancia handed him the
+letters, "for I must make speed to wait upon the Grand Duke at Florence.
+Regard yourself as my guest rather than as a prisoner. I leave only a
+few old servants charged to make you as comfortable as the ruinous
+condition of this old castle of my ancestors will permit. The length of
+your stay is conditioned only upon the promptitude of your friends in
+complying with my conditions. I see that your letters are written in
+English. No matter, I have no desire to pry into your private affairs
+and shall send them by the earliest opportunity."
+
+Brandilancia bowed ceremoniously, but sank exhausted into his chair. He
+was shivering in a violent chill, the first stages of Roman fever,
+brought on by his experiences in the subterranean aqueduct. For weeks he
+tossed upon his pallet alternately freezing and burning, much of the
+time delirious--now wandering with Anne through English meadows with
+"daisies pied" and "babbling of green fields"--and anon scorching the
+wings of his soul in the flame of Italian beauty and passion.
+
+With the passing of the fever he eagerly demanded an interview with
+Radicofani but was informed that the Captain was still at Florence. He
+had written that no response of any kind had been received from either
+of the letters sent to England, though ample time had elapsed for their
+arrival. Brandilancia was not, however, to be set at liberty on this
+account, and days lengthened to weeks and weeks to months and he was
+still a prisoner.
+
+The lofty situation of the castle far above the malaria of the valleys,
+swept by every wind of heaven, had completed his cure, and as he paced
+the sightly platform he found himself hungering for liberty and action.
+In this reflux of returning health and energy, on one exhilarating
+morning in early spring, when all nature seemed calling to him to
+escape, Brandilancia hailed with gratitude the arrival of the secretary
+Malespini bringing the almost despaired of tidings that his prison doors
+were open and he was at last free to depart.
+
+"The Grand Duke has commanded this," Brandilancia asked, "through the
+intervention of my faithful friend the Earl of Essex?"
+
+"Not so," Malespini responded drily. "You may thank friends nearer at
+hand, for the Grand Duke knows as little of your existence as your
+English friends apparently care for it."
+
+"Then it is the Signorina who has effected my deliverance?"
+
+Malespini shook his head. "The Signorina believes, as we all did until
+recently, that you made your escape to your own country. She is entirely
+absorbed at present with her approaching marriage, for your embassy was
+successful. Your papers, which Radicofani carried to the Grand Duke,
+initiated negotiations that have been carried to a successful
+termination. The Duke of Nevers, who is a Gonzaga, and a cousin of the
+Marquis of Mantua has come to Italy, as proxy of the French king, to
+betroth the Signorina."
+
+"May she have all happiness," Brandilancia exclaimed fervently, "but to
+whom then do I owe my release?"
+
+"Partly to the friend now before you, but in great measure also to one
+whom you will hardly guess, that little package of ruse and malice
+Leonora Dosi."
+
+"Not the Owlet!"
+
+"My friend you might have rotted in this mountain dungeon but for her
+cleverness, and Radicofani's stupidity. The Grand Duke sent him a
+fortnight since to escort us all from the Villa Medici to Mantua, where
+the Marchioness Eleonora de' Medici Gonzaga is preparing a brilliant
+fête in honour of her sister's approaching marriage. On the way
+Radicofani, who is loquacious in his cups, bragged to Leonora of how
+neatly he had captured you. The Owlet took counsel with me, and together
+we so intimidated the Captain with threats to report him to the Grand
+Duke, convincing him at the same time of your utter insignificance (for
+Leonora declares that you confessed to her mistress in her presence that
+you were not the Earl of Essex), that he consented to your release.
+
+"By good luck I am commissioned to present a comedy in the palace and am
+now supposed to be travelling in search of artists to assist in the
+performance. You shall return with me in that capacity. Though the
+Signorina knows not as yet of your presence in Italy she will be
+rejoiced to see you again and will speed you on your homeward
+journey,--for Mantua is on your way to Venice whence you told me you
+would take ship."
+
+"I would be overjoyed to carry out your plan, my good friend," replied
+Brandilancia, "but shall I be safe? I have found such difficulty in
+tearing myself away from the hospitalities of Italy that I am wary of
+accepting further entertainment."
+
+"I wonder not at your reluctance, but with the Gonzagas at Mantua you
+will be beyond the power of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who though he is
+indeed expected to attend the festivities, will never suspect that you
+played another rôle at his Roman villa. The play is to be acted in part
+by noble amateurs, and the Signorina herself will take the principal
+part. It is the comedy which you dramatised from Ser Giovanni's story of
+the heiress of Belmont, for nothing else would suit the Signorina. You
+shall impersonate the successful lover. There have been many aspirants
+for that rôle but I have held it for you. Can you resist my lord?"
+
+"No, Malespini, I cannot resist, for I am indeed what you would have me
+seem, a simple player. I will go with you since you need my service, and
+will bid your mistress and the Owlet also a grateful farewell."
+
+Thus, though he had thought never again to see the woman who had so
+powerfully influenced his imagination and because he honestly believed
+her influence at an end, Brandilancia ventured himself again within its
+domain.
+
+Tranquil, lily-starred lakes, blue as the heavens they mirror, lapped
+with caressing ripples the foundations of the immense Gonzaga palace and
+gave it the same enchanting environment on the morning of his arrival as
+to-day. Its rosy walls glowed in the morning light like a cluster of
+pink lotus-blossoms, while, a little apart from the main group of
+buildings, a slender tower shot into the air, and suspended from its
+summit, like some bell-shaped flower which droops its head, an iron
+cage was sharply etched against the glowing sky.
+
+"Is that a beacon?" asked Brandilancia. "If so, though unlighted, I
+accept it as a good omen, as it were a signal hung out for my welcome."
+
+"Heaven forfend that it should have aught to do with you, my lord, or
+you with it," replied Malespini. "The flame of many a poor fellow's life
+has gone out in that sinister cresset; but think not of it, for my lady
+awaits you within the palace. You are to learn how the Medici love, not
+how they hate."
+
+Through interminable apartments regal with paintings and statues,
+collected earlier in the century by Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, the
+secretary led Brandilancia to the small writing-room of the Marchesa.
+
+Marie de' Medici was standing alone at the window gazing at the
+darkening lake. She turned as he entered, and her cry, "At last you have
+returned, at last, O my beloved!" broken by sobs and wild caresses, made
+good Malespini's promise.
+
+She believed that the King of France, instead of sending the promised
+proxy, had himself returned to betroth her at the approaching festival,
+when he would doubtless declare himself publicly. Since it pleased him,
+to make further proof of her affection, she accepted his confession that
+he was only a poor comedian with apparent faith and with protestations
+of unshaken love. She told him of the despair with which she faced her
+brilliant future, of the loathing which overcame her at the thought of
+any husband but himself; and she begged him to rescue her from so
+hideous a fate.
+
+How could he brutally tell so adorable a creature that the burning
+words, which he had spoken on the night before his flight from the Villa
+Medici, were but a poetic rhapsody, inspired by a frenzy which had
+passed with the glamour that evoked it? He strove instead to recall her
+to a sense of her own position, and he urged every consideration of
+honour and of interest, apparently with some success; for she became
+calmer, and promised to do whatever he desired, if he would but remain
+and sustain her through the ordeal of her betrothal.
+
+He believed himself abandoned by the woman whom he had loved, but his
+heart was cold. He told himself that he would live henceforth without
+love, but would endeavour in purest friendship to save this woman who
+leaned on him for strength from making shipwreck of her life. They met
+constantly in the intimacy of rehearsals, and as these proceeded
+personal sentiments were occasionally introduced into the lines.
+
+[Illustration: Choosing the Casket
+
+From the painting by F. Barth. Permission of the Berlin Photographic Co.]
+
+"Ah, me! this word choose," Marie de' Medici exclaimed on one occasion.
+"I may neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike. So is the
+will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father."
+
+On the evening of the final presentation of the play she startled
+Brandilancia by laying her hand in his as she interpolated the
+declaration: "My spirit commits itself to yours to be directed, as by
+her lord, her governor, and king."
+
+The play ended, she led him to a portico overlooking the lake.
+
+"I have only a moment," she said, "while I am supposed to be dressing
+for the dance which follows. You doubtless recognised in the small dark
+man seated at my uncle's side the Duke of Nevers, and you have probably
+informed him of your presence here; but my uncle little suspects that we
+have anticipated their negotiation. Now surely is the proper time to
+announce yourself. Wait in the ante-room of the Marquis, it adjoins the
+library, and after the Grand Duke has set his signature to the
+settlement, and the Duke of Nevers is about to sign for the King of
+France, enter, take the pen from his hand, and sign for yourself. If you
+wish I will accompany you, and we will confess that we are already
+affianced. Why do you hesitate? Surely this is now the only thing to
+do."
+
+He gazed at her in uncomprehending astonishment. "Nay, dearest lady," he
+protested, "put this wild fancy from your mind. Your uncle would never
+accept me as your suitor; you would gain only dishonour by such a
+course. Bid me farewell, and forget me in the glory of your new life;
+and God help us both."
+
+"Nay, I can not, I can not give you up," she cried passionately her arms
+about his neck, "you have made me love you. I shall die if you leave
+me."
+
+"If this is true," he stammered, "if by some miracle you do indeed love
+me beyond all earthly considerations, and your heart is great enough to
+sacrifice all for the devotion of a heart that will at least be loyal,
+then fly with me from this world of shame and cruelty, to some paradise
+beyond the power of all who know us."
+
+"Fly," she repeated in bewilderment, "and leave your kingdom, your
+crown?"
+
+"Oh! what is fame, what is honour," he cried, "to love like yours?
+Listen, it is perfectly feasible. When I parted with my friends at Cadiz
+Essex told me he would return with the fleet as soon as he could refit,
+and cruise about the Azores, hoping to intercept the Spanish
+treasure-fleet. He should be there at this time, and Raleigh with him.
+But Raleigh purposed after aiding his friend in his enterprise to
+continue his voyage to the new world, where he has planted a colony. In
+Venice we can take passage with some merchant-man and join Raleigh at
+Flores. Come with me, my Queen to the new world, where we will found a
+new dynasty, for I can wait for my kingdom. I can write my plays and my
+poems there, in some lodge in the forest, and years hence, when cities
+have sprung up in that wilderness great actors will give them
+presentation before men who can appreciate them, who will honour our
+memory and glory that we were Americans."
+
+She regarded him with eyes widening with alarm. "Surely you are mad,"
+she said, "to throw away the Crown of France for which you have fought
+so bravely."
+
+"The crown of bay and laurel for which I am fighting has no root in
+France, sweetheart, but in English soil," he replied wonderingly.
+
+"Good God!" she cried, "then you are not--not Henry of Navarre?"
+
+"Nay, how could that be possible? I am, as I long since told you, only a
+simple English playwright who, much against his will, came hither on the
+business of his friend the Earl of Essex. If you love me not I would to
+God that I had never so come, since, by some strange delusion, I have
+troubled your pure heart and have brought upon myself grief, and
+dishonour.
+
+"But forgive me, sweet lady, this madness shall be as though it had not
+been, soon forgotten by you and safely hidden in the deepest chamber of
+my heart."
+
+For a moment she gazed at him astounded, for her mind refused to credit
+the truth. In despite of his words she believed that he was putting her
+disinterestedness to a supreme test which she must not fail. She clung
+to him convulsively. "I love you, you alone," she declared, "and I will
+go to El Dorado. I will meet you to-morrow at this hour at the
+water-gate of the palace. I will come in the Gonzaga barge, and we will
+flee together to Venice, and thence whither you will."
+
+As she spoke the door leading into the palace was flung open, and the
+Grand Duke followed by courtiers and ladies came toward them.
+
+"Ah! here are our actors," he exclaimed, "bring the laurel crowns. This
+for my niece and this for the gifted artist who has honoured our
+festival. Come forward Brandilancia and receive the token of our
+appreciation." But as the wreath was presented the Grand Duchess caught
+her husband's arm, exclaiming: "Ferdinando, this is the false Earl of
+Essex who deceived us all in Rome. Ask Radicofani, ask your niece, she
+cannot have failed to recognise him."
+
+"Nay, ask the French envoy," replied Marie de' Medici, "his Highness the
+Duke of Nevers will tell you whom we have the honour to entertain as our
+guest."
+
+"I, Mademoiselle," exclaimed the representative of the French King,
+"truly, I have never before looked upon his face."
+
+"Declare yourself Sire, I beseech of you," Marie de' Medici implored,
+and Brandilancia answered calmly:
+
+"I am the authorised representative of the Earl of Essex. Brandilancia
+is the Italian equivalent of my name, which in English is plain Will
+Shakespeare. That I am an actor and playwright you have graciously
+conceded, and that is the only distinction which I have ever claimed."
+
+His words carried overwhelming conviction to the brain of the deluded
+girl, and she sank fainting into the arms of the man whom she had so
+misunderstood and who was still far from comprehending the cause of her
+emotion.
+
+"Leave my niece to the care of her women," the Grand Duke commanded
+sternly. "Radicofani, is this indeed the rogue who slipped from your
+clutches?"
+
+"It is, my lord," replied that worthy, as he grasped the actor's arm.
+
+"Then consign him to the hospitalities of our sky-parlour. In the cage
+suspended from that tower, young man, you may await my investigation of
+your case."
+
+From his lofty outlook in the iron cage, dizzily suspended between earth
+and heaven, our adventurer obtained a new and wider view. The palace and
+its life dwindled to a speck. Far away to the north he could discern the
+white summits of the mountains that cradle the blue lake of Garda, while
+at his feet the Mincio flowed peacefully toward the Adriatic, where a
+good ship (on which, but for his folly in pausing at Mantua, he might on
+the morrow be voyaging homeward) was impatiently tugging at her
+moorings. Fool that he was, he had made his bed and must lie on it. It
+was a very uncomfortable bed at the present moment, for he could
+neither stretch himself at full length nor stand erect, but sat with his
+hands clasping his knees and his head bowed upon them. How long must he
+retain this cramped position? Malespini's words came to him with
+sinister emphasis. Would he be left here until starvation released him
+from agony and his bones bleached in the sun? The Angelus chimed from
+the belfries, the only structures which reached his plane, and gave him
+a sense of human companionship, but the tones of the bells sounded thin
+in the empty air, and his loneliness increased with their cessation. The
+sun climbed the heavens and beat unmercifully upon his unprotected head,
+but just as his thirst became intolerable and he groaned in agony, a
+low, chuckling laugh replied from a window in the tower near his cage,
+and turning his head he saw the malicious face of the dwarf Leonora
+Dosi. Repugnant as she was to him he greeted her appearance now, for it
+flashed through his mind that she might have brought him some message
+from Marie de' Medici.
+
+"It is good of you, Signorina," he said, "to think of me in my trouble;
+or is it perchance your mistress who has sent you?"
+
+He could not have asked a question which would have angered her more.
+"My mistress may not have clean forgotten her singing-bird," she
+replied, "but she has forgotten to order that his cage should be
+supplied with water and seed cups, and I cajoled Radicofani till he let
+me supply this neglect."
+
+As she spoke she held aloft a flask of water whose crystal clearness
+seemed to Brandilancia's blood-shot eyes the most desirable thing in all
+the world.
+
+"Ah! Signorina how can I ever thank you? and how can you get it to me?"
+
+"Oh! I have thought of that. See I have brought a pole long enough to
+reach your cage, and the bottle is so slender that it will pass between
+the bars."
+
+She attached the flask to one end of the pole with tantalising
+deliberation, pausing after it was fastened to pour and drink a glass of
+the water with expressive gusto. The gurgle of the liquid was more than
+the tortured man could bear. "Dear Signorina for the love of Heaven be
+quick. I die of thirst."
+
+"Oh! no, Signor, one does not die so soon, or with so little suffering.
+Men in your predicament have been known to live three days before they
+went mad, and four more before they died."
+
+"You hell cat!" he cried, "have you come to gloat over and increase my
+agony?"
+
+"That is not a pretty name," she said slowly, "I like better the 'dear
+Signorina' with which you honoured me just now. You are too hasty,
+Signor Brandilancia, too hasty in your conclusions, and in speaking them
+forth. It might strike a wiser man in your situation that it would be
+worth while not to antagonise a friend who has come to serve you. In
+proof that you have misunderstood my motives I now pass you the water.
+It was good? You would like more? Presently. It is not well to drink too
+much when one is as thirsty as you are, besides I want to talk with you.
+Do you realise that you are in a very serious position?"
+
+"Have I been condemned to death?"
+
+"Not so. There will be no trial, no execution. You will simply be
+forgotten, left here to die. The Grand Duke believes you to be the lover
+of his niece. That fact would not in the least distress him, were it not
+for her approaching marriage, which he fears may be interrupted by some
+rash act on your part."
+
+"Tell the Grand Duke, if you come from him, and the Signorina also to
+have no fear, that madness is past. If I am released I will repair to
+England and never trouble her again."
+
+Scorn curled the dwarf's lips. "Think you, the Duke would trust your
+promise? And as for the Signorina she desires nothing of the sort, for
+she loves you passionately."
+
+"Poor lady," he groaned. "But for me she might have reconciled herself
+to her destiny, wretch that I am to break the heart of one who loves me.
+Tell her from me, that if she desires me to do so, and God in His mercy
+delivers me from this bed of death I will keep my promise to snatch her
+from the fate she dreads, and we will begin the new life in the new
+world of which we dreamed."
+
+The face of the dwarf was contorted with merriment which made it the
+more hideous.
+
+"Is the life of a savage in the wilderness a fit one for a daughter of
+the Medici?" she demanded. "You need neither of you die or forego a
+single luxury which your hearts desire, if you will gather your wits
+together and listen to me.
+
+"Possibly you think that I have no influence with the Grand Duke, but if
+so you greatly mistake. I know the secret of my parentage, and have so
+disposed matters that my death would bring it to light. Ferdinando de'
+Medici will grant any request of mine. I am to go to Paris, not as the
+servant but as the Lady in Waiting of the Queen of France. Will it
+please you to join her train as Manager of her Royal Theatre and
+Purveyor of Sports to the French Court? You could then enjoy the society
+of the Queen without scandal."
+
+His heart was hot with indignation but he restrained his anger. "If
+indeed," he said, "there is no escape from this loathed marriage for
+that sweet lady, I shall pray that no memory of me may ever intrude upon
+her happiness. Surely what you suggest is as impossible as it is
+infamous. The Grand Duke would never allow me to follow his niece to
+Paris."
+
+"The Grand Duke cares not one whit what his niece may choose to do after
+she is once securely married. What I suggest is perfectly possible. I
+have taken a fancy to you, Brandilancia. If I ask the Grand Duke to give
+you to me as my husband he will not refuse me; on the contrary it will
+be a welcome solution of the problem before him. If perchance any
+inconvenient inquiries should in future be made by England concerning
+your welfare he will be spared all responsibility. His niece will have
+the plaything she desired, and will no longer mope. He will have secured
+my gratitude and can trust me to preserve the conventionalities; and as
+for you, my popinjay, your fortune is made. Do not fancy that you will
+remain a mere montebank. You shall exchange your cap and bells for a
+ducal coronet, châteaux jewels, honours, wealth in what form you will
+shall be yours. You will be King in everything but name. Henry of
+Navarre shall in reality be nothing but your condottiere, and I will not
+be _exigeante_. I know that I am misshapen, hideous. I ask only a little
+gratitude."
+
+That word stopped his mouth, for he was about to curse her as a minister
+of Satan, but a touch of pity softened his anger and contempt.
+
+"You know not what you ask," he said. "She would despise me, and I would
+abhor myself. Let me die without forfeiting her respect."
+
+"_She!_" the dwarf sneered, and was suddenly silent. Her keen insight
+told her that if she betrayed to this strangely constituted man that the
+scheme had originated with her mistress he would loathe where he now
+pitied and every chance of success be lost.
+
+"What were you about to say?" he asked.
+
+"Only that you little know the love you slight. She would forgive you
+anything but desertion. Yours is a strange code of honour, that can win
+the affection of a noble lady and then throw it lightly away. I am going
+now. Once for all I ask, will you accept my offer?"
+
+"And tempt that innocent soul to a life of perfidy and shame?--God send
+me death quickly and spare me such villainy as that."
+
+"Your prayer will not be answered," she sneered. "Death will come, but
+not quickly,--unless you beat your brains out against the bars of your
+cage, and before that you will shriek and call for me, but I will not
+come. You have known how the women of the Medici love. Learn now how
+they hate."
+
+Her footsteps died away and despair settled upon his heart. How long,
+how long, he asked himself, must he endure this agony before death would
+come to his release.
+
+The dwarf had left food and water on the window-sill in plain sight but
+beyond his reach. He closed his eyes but the odour of the viands reached
+him and increased his faintness. The hours lagged on, and toward evening
+a light breeze sprang up and he fell into a troubled sleep which
+somewhat dulled his suffering. From this he was rudely awakened by the
+swaying and jolting of his cage, and he realised that it was being
+hauled hastily and not too gently into the tower.
+
+Men dragged him from it, a physician gave him a reviving draught and
+assisted him down the staircase at whose foot he fell into the arms of
+the faithful Malespini.
+
+"Is it she, who has rescued me?" he asked as the secretary seated him in
+a row-boat which shot toward the palace.
+
+"Nay, you are released by the Grand Duke's orders," Malespini replied.
+"I bring you great news, Signor. A gentleman has arrived from England
+who demands your safe return in the Queen's name. Even the Medici could
+not gainsay a summons signed 'Elizabeth' and emphasised by one of her
+Majesty's ships of war. Say naught of the hospitality just accorded you,
+I beseech you, until well out of Italy, else you may excite the English
+admiral who is the bearer of the Queen's message to some rash act, for
+he seems to me a man of short temper, and it were well that the Grand
+Duke in his chagrin were not tried too far."
+
+"The English Admiral!" repeated the astonished Brandilancia,--"sent for
+me by Queen Elizabeth. It is not possible!" But, as the torchlight fell
+upon the gallant figure impatiently pacing the landing which they were
+approaching, he cried "Miracle of God! it is indeed Essex!"
+
+"It is I, Will, of a surety," replied the other. "Did you think I would
+suffer you to die in the trap into which you had ventured for love of
+me? I have been consumed with anxiety, especially after the Grand Duke
+in answer to my importunity assured me that you left the Villa Medici
+months since and that he was ignorant of your whereabouts. I had
+quarrelled with the Queen when that news arrived, and she had ordered me
+to the Azores. I asked for an audience, but she would not receive me,
+and I left England determined to push on to Italy without her knowledge
+and rescue you _vi et armis_."
+
+"You should not have done that, my good friend. Elizabeth has beheaded
+men for slighter disregard of her authority."
+
+"I outran not my orders, Will, for I had scarcely left England when a
+swift sailing packet overtook me with letters from the Queen, one for
+the Grand Duke desiring your immediate return, the other my instructions
+to use all despatch in securing your person."
+
+"But if you received no letter from me and had no speech with the Queen,
+I do not understand how her Majesty learned of my predicament."
+
+"Through your wife, Will. When I returned to England from my expedition
+to Cadiz she sought me out, and demanded why I had not brought you.
+Then, as the time passed by at which I had told her she might expect
+you, it seems she grew wild with anxiety, and, journeying to London,
+laid the matter before the Queen, who admires your talent as a
+playwright and has herself some ambition in that direction. Anne, the
+artful wench, very tactfully persuaded her Majesty that, with you for a
+collaborator, she might write a comedy which would redound to her
+eternal fame. Therefore, our royal mistress bids you think of some plot
+which shall bring again upon the boards that arch-rogue, John Falstaff.
+I am to bring you to Windsor Castle, where you are to prepare this
+masterpiece, at the Queen's dictation (Heaven save the mark!), in time
+for its presentation before the Court during the Twelfth Night
+festivities."
+
+"And Anne, whom I thought so indifferent to my career, to my very
+existence, did this for me?"
+
+"Yes, Will, 't is a good girl and a handsome, and one you have not
+treated overly well, as it seems to me; but you will make it all up over
+your Christmas pudding."
+
+As he spoke the great clock of the palace slowly clanged midnight, and
+Brandilancia turned white and caught Essex's arm for support. "Would to
+God that I might go with you," he groaned; "would that I had never come
+to Italy upon your cursed business. I stand here a doubly perjured man.
+How, I scarcely know (for I swear I set not about it cold-bloodedly), I
+have won the love of the peerless Marie de' Medici. For me she has
+discarded the King of France, and has promised to meet me at this spot
+and at this very hour and fly with me to El Dorado. I left her stricken
+to the heart by my misfortunes. If I desert her now her death will be
+upon my head. See you not the Gonzaga barge is approaching in which she
+promised to forsake the world with me."
+
+"Make yourself easy on the score of my mistress," exclaimed Malespini.
+"You have kept your appointment, but when she made hers she had no
+intention of keeping it with a man of your quality. Under a strange
+hallucination she has fancied all along that you were the King of
+France, and her fainting fit was occasioned by her dismay and
+humiliation on discovering that you were only the king of poets. I will
+not say that she did not find you agreeable. She was pleased when she
+learned that your friend had arrived in time to rescue you, and ere she
+left for Florence this afternoon bade me wish you _bon voyage_, and to
+thank you for much merry entertainment."
+
+The Earl of Essex whistled softly, and an expression of infinite relief
+relaxed the contorted features of Brandilancia. "I have learned how the
+women of the Medici love," he murmured. "Thank God, our English women
+love in a different fashion."
+
+[Illustration: COLONNA]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE LADIES OF PALLIANO
+
+(BEING A RELATION BY THE CONDOTTIERE LUIGI RODOMONTE GONZAGA OF CERTAIN
+OF HIS ADVENTURES DURING THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1525 TO 1528)
+
+
+I
+
+THE NEST OF THE PHOENIX
+
+'Tis an incredible fable that of the phoenix, the crimson wonder-bird,
+which springs in immortal youth from the flames which destroy its eyrie.
+But it is not more strange than one which I could tell of how I found
+Fenice, and snatched the joy and glory of my life from the conflagration
+of her ancestral town and castle, in which, but for my efforts, her pure
+soul would have vanished from the earth.
+
+Fenice, flame-bird, radiant and peerless, I had named her at our first
+meeting, long before the tragic burning of Palliano, for it seemed to me
+that in her vivacity and brilliancy she resembled a little dancing
+flame. I well remember also how at that time the longing came to me to
+warm my numbed heart forever in her presence.
+
+I am no poet, but a plain man of war, and this phantasy of the phoenix
+came into my head in a very natural and simple way, for Fenice when
+first I saw her was sending up little fire-balloons from the garden of
+the Colonna palace. It was an unusual and a dangerous pastime for a
+young girl, but the sudden flashing from the gloom of those flickering
+lights, that illumined for an instant the beautiful face which the
+darkness as quickly obliterated, gave an additional zest to my enjoyment
+of the vision.
+
+I strode to her side and affected great interest in her occupation. The
+balloons were ingeniously constructed to represent birds with spread
+wings, and it was the alchemist of the family who dwelt at Palliano who
+had invented them. "It is his conceit," she explained, "that rising from
+the flames they resemble the phoenix, a bird peerless in beauty and
+song, which appears upon earth but twice in a thousand years."
+
+"Then that shall be my name for you," I said, for we were alone for the
+instant; "but will you as tranquilly soar away from me, leaving the
+world the darker for your passing?"
+
+Though she gave me not at that time the answer I coveted, I liked none
+the less the modesty which made her winning difficult. There were also
+other matters of importance to the world at large, which I must now
+digress to explain, that at first hindered, but in the end abetted that
+winning.
+
+It was in the spring of the eventful year of 1525 that my cousin,
+Federigo Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, requested me to escort his mother,
+the worshipful Marchesa Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, upon her journey to
+Rome. This demand was the more reasonable in that the Marchesa was a
+most loving and munificent patroness of my sister Giulia, for whose
+orphaned condition the great lady had shown the most tender sympathy,
+removing her from our lonely ancestral castle, and bringing the girl up
+in her own brilliant court. Giulia was now at the height of the
+attractiveness which was soon to be so extravagantly sung, many still
+maintaining her the most beautiful woman of our time.
+
+From that estimate her brother must be allowed to differ. A superbly
+regal creature she certainly was, but too grandly made for my ideals.
+Let the question rest, for her heart was ever as great as her body, and
+I deny her supremacy to but one other. At this time I loved her better
+than any woman in the world, and as she was to accompany the Marchesa, I
+was the more willing to lend my protection to the cortège.
+
+It was an inauspicious season for ladies to choose for a pleasure jaunt,
+for their Majesties the Emperor Charles V. and Francis I. had entered
+upon their struggle for the possession of Italy. The French had already
+entered Lombardy, and the Imperial forces under the Viceroy of Naples,
+Pescara and Bourbon were marching to meet them, but the Marchesa was of
+an adventurous and fearless disposition, and was moreover bent in her
+present expedition upon something more than pleasure. Never have I known
+man or woman of such marvellous finesse as well as courage, and she
+desired above all things to obtain the cardinal's hat for Ercole, her
+second son. Therefore it seemed good to her, while the actual fighting
+was still confined to the north of Italy, to hasten to Rome, and obtain
+this coveted prize, before the Emperor should succeed in deposing Pope
+Clement and possibly set up another pontiff less friendly to the House
+of Gonzaga.
+
+[Illustration: Colonna Palace, Rome--The Grand Salon]
+
+At the same time, that Charles V. might have no cause to complain of her
+lack of loyalty, she sent her third son, Ferrante, to Spain to assure
+the Emperor of her entire sympathy with his cause and to ask for a
+command in the Imperial army. Rome at this time was a place where there
+were wheels within wheels. While on the surface all was gay and
+peaceful, and old enemies hobnobbed with one another, daggers lurked
+under the olive branches, old feuds were not forgotten, plots were
+hatched, and secrets were wormed from comrades over the wine-cup. While
+I could not emulate the consummate ruse with which the Marchesa trimmed
+her sails to every possible wind I had my own little surprise to spring
+at the auspicious moment.
+
+I believed that the firm hand of the Emperor alone could give peace to
+Italy. I had lost faith in the Medicean popes, and especially in this
+weak and crafty cousin of Leo X. As a condottiere by profession I could
+have sold my services to the French but I preferred to offer them to
+Charles V., and I had a secret commission in my pocket from his
+representative, the Marquis of Pescara, then near Pavia, authorising me
+to raise and command the Italian contingent to the Imperial army. The
+Marquis desired me to take counsel with his wife's kindred, the
+Colonnas, who were always inimical to the Pope, as to the best means of
+effecting a junction with their troops in case an attack upon Rome
+should be decided upon the coming year. When I add that the head of the
+house, Vespasian Colonna, had offered the hospitalities of his palace to
+the Marchesa Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, it will be understood how
+marvellously this lady's visit to Rome fell in with my schemes.
+
+As we made our entry into that most beautiful room of all the world, the
+_sala de gala_ of the Colonna palace, my sister clutched my arm tightly.
+A glimpse of the glories of heaven could not in sooth have been more
+transporting to the rapt gaze of an anchorite, for Giulia was
+essentially of this world and a superb mundane life was her highest
+ambition.
+
+She had profited by her tutelage at the court of the Marchesa, the most
+cultured in the north of Italy, but this dazzling room surpassed any in
+the Mantuan palace as far as her own beauty outshone that of her
+protectress. So as her foolish little heart cried out "Oh! that I might
+reign here as Queen," she looked up into the admiring eyes of
+Vespasian Colonna and heard the echo of her unuttered cry--"Reign here
+as Queen."
+
+[Illustration: Garden of the Colonna Palace, Rome
+
+With permission of Mr. Charles A. Platt]
+
+For Vespasian was a widower, and the snows of age had not cooled the
+volcanic fires of his heart. He offered his arm to the Marchesa, and
+together they made the rounds of the regal apartments. But ever as we
+paused before a portrait and he explained that this was some fair
+ancestress his backward glance at Giulia told that in his estimation she
+surpassed them all.
+
+The interior of the palace inspected we passed over a bridge, which
+spanned a side street, to the terraced garden crowned by the ruins of
+the old Roman Temple of the Sun. Here were also statues and fountains,
+square-cut hedges, and sun-warmed, marble seats, and the air was heavy
+with the perfume of roses and jasmine. But the glory of the garden, as
+Colonna told us, was its outlook over Rome. This we could not now fully
+appreciate for dusk was falling and the city was in a purple haze, which
+deepened as we looked. Soon coloured lights glimmered forth in the dark
+_allées_, and suddenly from the summit of the ruin there rose slowly a
+fire balloon and twinkling far away into the blue seemed to seek its
+companion stars.
+
+"It is the conceit of my daughter Isabella," Vespasian explained, "a
+fête of fire-works in honour of your coming."
+
+I delayed to hear no more, but drawn by some mysterious attraction
+sought and found the Signorina Colonna. The flame signals flashed in her
+cheeks as her eyes met mine, for my glance seemed to her doubtless
+overbold, though it held naught of disrespect God wot.
+
+And then she explained the mechanism of her fire balloon which was
+simple enough though it had been invented by a Moorish alchemist, who
+still practised the black art in a tower of the family castle in the
+Campagna. "If you ever come to Palliano we will greet you with a still
+more brilliant illumination," she promised, little realising how well
+she would keep that pledge.
+
+It was then as I have already said that I bestowed upon her the name of
+Fenice, making what improvement I could of my scant opportunities. These
+were suddenly cut short, for Ippolito de' Medici, the Pope's handsome
+and dissipated nephew, presently joined us and bore Fenice away with the
+air of a proprietor. Such indeed he had a right to regard himself, as I
+ascertained on the next day during a conference with Vespasian Colonna
+and his nephew the Cardinal Pompeo.
+
+[Illustration: Castle of Vittoria Colonna at Ischia.]
+
+I had arrived at the understanding desired by their kinsman the Marquis
+of Pescara, for they very willingly agreed that whenever desired all the
+clansmen of the Colonna would be ready to combine with the Imperial
+forces in the siege of Rome. Pompeo, the most truculent of the race in
+spite of the fact that he was a churchman, would take command, but
+Ascanio Colonna who was now in Naples with his sister Vittoria, the
+Marchesa di Pescara, might be counted upon with his sturdy vassals from
+the Abruzzi. We were jubilant, for news had just arrived that the
+Emperor's troops had won the battle of Pavia and that Francis I. was a
+prisoner. The Pope was reported nearly crazed with fear, and our plot of
+taking Rome for Charles V. seemed perfectly feasible.
+
+"In any event," said Vespasian, "our compact of friendship stands, and I
+hold you and your family in such high esteem that I desire to make our
+alliance not merely that of comrades-in-arms but a much closer
+relationship. I wish to propose a marriage, which Pompeo here shall
+celebrate, in our ancestral home before you leave us."
+
+My hopes rose high for I thought he had perceived my love for Fenice and
+I sank upon one knee in a transport of gratitude.
+
+"Nay, rise my brother," he continued, "I count myself honoured in your
+acceptance of that relation. Your sister's beauty will confer undying
+lustre upon our house. Believe me she runs no danger as my wife, for
+even should the chances of war reverse the present position of King and
+Emperor, I have assured myself with the Pope, since my daughter is
+betrothed to his nephew Ippolito. He will not break with me for she will
+be one of the richest heiresses in Italy, well able to aid her husband
+in his ambition to become the Grand Duke of Tuscany."
+
+My heart, which had been so hot, was like ice. So wretched was I that I
+got no comfort from the thought of the brilliant future opening before
+my sister. I terminated my interview with Vespasian in all haste, and
+strode into the garden, pacing its walks like a madman.
+
+Here, as my good fortune willed, I came upon Ippolito de' Medici, seated
+with all the familiarity of an accepted lover by the side of Fenice. It
+was true that the young couple were chaperoned by my sister, and that
+Ippolito, who was holding a skein which she was winding, was leaning
+forward in rapt attention listening to some merry story which Giulia was
+relating; but, instead of congratulating myself that Fenice had now a
+protectress who was devoted to my interest, I was filled with rage to
+see Ippolito thus received into the intimacy of the family.
+
+My sister by a light gesture indicated that there was room for me on the
+marble bench near Fenice, and the girl, to give me room, moved a trifle
+nearer to her betrothed. This angered me, and, instead of seating
+myself, I glowered at a little distance until Giulia, having finished
+her winding and her story, came toward me, leaving Ippolito free to
+address himself to Fenice. To my surprise he did not avail himself of
+the opportunity, but, springing up, begged my sister to walk with him to
+another part of the garden. Delighted by this unexpected turn of
+affairs, I seated myself by the side of Fenice and rallied her upon her
+lover's neglect.
+
+"He could not have pleased me more," she replied. "The Signorina Gonzaga
+would be my good angel if she could rid me of him forever."
+
+This admission was like the striking of a spark in the darkness. It was
+not only illuminating as to Fenice's feeling toward her fiancé, but it
+fired the mine of passion stored in my heart. How I told her I know
+not; the words exploded from me with such violence that I fear I
+frightened her, and yet--and yet she was not displeased, for when Giulia
+returned to us she found Fenice striving to cool my hot cheeks with her
+small hands, but succeeding only in inflaming them the more by her
+gentle caresses. My sister paused before us with her arms akimbo.
+
+"Here is a coil," she said, "and I beg you to tell me how I am to
+explain it to the Signor Ippolito de' Medici."
+
+"Ah! dearest lady, can you think of no way of persuading the Signor
+Ippolito to renounce his suit?" cried Fenice.
+
+"Very easily," Giulia replied, "since he has just besought me to pray
+you to release him from his engagement that he may be free to marry me;
+but upon reflection I am not sure that this expedient would please your
+honoured father."
+
+With that we all fell a-laughing, though the situation was serious
+enough. It grew rapidly more so, for my sister, apparently forgetting
+her new vows, manifested the utmost pleasure in Ippolito's society, and
+drove me wild with her coquetry. I remonstrated with her, telling her
+plainly that I could not understand her behaviour.
+
+"Have you no sense of decency," I cried, "to contract yourself to a
+noble gentleman, who, though he is no longer young, is still
+distinguished in appearance and possessed of many attractions--one whose
+fortune and rank immeasurably surpass your own, and who, moreover, loves
+you beyond your desert? Are you not ashamed, I insist, to accept all
+this and then to treat your affianced husband with such indignity? If
+you must take a lover, wait at least till your honeymoon is over, and
+then choose one who will contrast less unfavourably with the man whom
+you so dishonour."
+
+She laughed at me when I began, but as I waxed more imprudent in my
+chiding her cheek flamed and she retorted "Truly, since you
+misunderstand me thus, I scorn to explain my conduct." Nor did she deign
+to amend it, and so anxious was I, that (a temporary peace delaying any
+warlike demonstration), I lingered on in Rome to protect her against
+herself, and to see her safely married. The wedding took place in
+midsummer, but the aged bridegroom was in no happy frame of mind, for
+Giulia had led him a lively dance during their short engagement, and had
+so practised upon Ippolito de' Medici by her wiles that the infatuated
+young man had broken his compact with the Colonnas. Suspecting that my
+sister had caused this defection Vespasian hastened his marriage and
+retired with his bride and his daughter to Palliano the strongest of his
+castles.
+
+Nor was I invited to accompany the party for, having dared to ask her
+father for the hand of Fenice, I met with an angry refusal and was
+accused of having by my attentions given Ippolito an excuse for breaking
+his word.
+
+But Fenice promised with many tears to be true to me, and with her
+pledge to await my coming I was forced to be content.
+
+Rome having now no further attraction for me I returned to Lombardy,
+leaving the Marchesa, who still awaited her son's cardinalate, in the
+security of a peace which at that time promised to be lasting.
+
+No sooner, however, was Francis I. released from his Spanish captivity
+than the Pope began again to intrigue with him, and the Emperor,
+learning that Clement had broken faith, ordered the attack upon Rome.
+
+Then, at last, the Pope, realising how much he needed the friendship of
+the Gonzagas, sent the Marchesa Ercole's red hat.
+
+That triumph achieved she would gladly have returned to Mantua but it
+was now too late, for Bourbon had arrived before the city. The siege
+had begun, and neither man nor woman might leave Rome.
+
+At the Pope's own villa upon Mount Mario (the Villa Madama), without the
+walls, I met Cardinal Pompeo Colonna and heard the news that his uncle
+Vespasian had died, and that Giulia and Fenice were still at Palliano,
+where I vowed soon to join them.
+
+Of the sack of Rome which intervened I shall say nothing. Would God that
+I could as easily dismiss its memory from my mind. I entered the city
+with the youngest son of the Marchesa Isabella d'Este, Ferrante Gonzaga,
+who commanded a division of Spaniards, and we made our way at once to
+the Colonna palace which refuge the Marchesa had packed with her
+friends. Their lives we saved and the palace from burning and
+plundering. Cardinal Pompeo himself paid the ransoms of many of its
+guests, and rescued from the Spanish soldiery upwards of five hundred
+nuns. Far be it from me to extenuate the life of that profligate
+prelate, but his brave and generous acts at this fearful time must be
+counted to his credit.
+
+After that horror of cruelty and wanton destruction abated I counted on
+being free to seek Fenice and my sister, but greatly to my disgust, I
+was constituted the warden of the Pope, who was confined a close
+prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo.
+
+Though this seemed to me at the time a great hardship it proved in the
+end the best that could have happened, for so I came to know Clement
+most intimately and even to feel a pity for one so beset. I well
+remember his dismay when Ippolito de' Medici came to him with the
+alarming news that the Orsini, who, under cover of their devotion to the
+Pope embraced every opportunity to fight the Colonnas, had refused to
+recognise that the war was ended and were now burning and pillaging the
+castles of their rivals throughout the Campagna.
+
+Ippolito reported that Fenice and my sister were for the present safe,
+having fortified themselves in Palliano, but he desired the Pope to send
+him with orders to Napoleone Orsini to restrain his wild clansmen, and
+also to grant him a far greater favour. This was no less than absolution
+from clerical vows, which he had taken at the time of my sister's
+marriage, and permission, since she was now a widow, to ask for her
+hand.
+
+But Clement knew that Ippolito's next move would be to use my sister's
+wealth to secure the government of Florence, which his Holiness desired
+for his more favoured nephew Alessandro. He therefore refused to release
+Ippolito from his vows as a churchman, salving the wound by creating him
+a cardinal and promising that he should one day succeed to the tiara.
+Then, imagining that he had thus disposed forever of so slight a thing
+as a young man's passion, he bade him make all speed to the pacifying of
+the truculent Orsini, for he well knew that unless this were instantly
+done the Emperor would call him in question for their unruliness.
+
+I had been present during this interview, as was my duty, and the Pope
+now turned to me and bade me assist Ippolito by all means in my power,
+and we went forth together to prepare for the expedition.
+
+But Ippolito's face was all aflame, and he could at first speak of
+nothing but his disappointment.
+
+"By the Blood!" he cried, "his Holiness shall rue his interference in my
+love affairs, for I will balk him yet."
+
+"Have you forgotten," I asked, "that you have just been made a
+cardinal?"
+
+"And what of that? Is not Pompeo Colonna a cardinal? He can find no
+fault with me if I follow his example. I tell you that I love your
+sister and that she loves me. Is there any power that can divide us?"
+
+"Yea," I answered "that of God, and there is also my power with which it
+seems you have forgotten to reckon."
+
+He looked at me and laughed. "That for _your_ power," he scoffed,
+snapping his fingers.
+
+We had planned to ride to Nemi to find Napoleone Orsini but at Frascati
+we were met by a messenger who gave Ippolito a letter. On reading it he
+told me excitedly that Pompeo Colonna was besieged in his monastery of
+Subiaco by a rabble of the Orsini.
+
+"Go, and hold them in play," he commanded, "and I will hasten on to Nemi
+and fetch Napoleone with me, to command his clansmen to raise the
+siege."
+
+The plan commended itself to my reason and, suspecting no treachery, I
+galloped off with my troop for the relief of Pompeo. Ippolito shouted to
+me to await his coming at Subiaco, and I might have remained there until
+this day had I obeyed him. But at the monastery to my surprise I found
+all quiet nor had there been any fighting since the previous year, when
+the papal troops had been beaten by the monks and left their banner
+behind them. Both Cardinal Pompeo and I were puzzled by the false news
+which had brought me in such haste, but, being where we were, we
+accepted the hospitality of the monastery and rested and refreshed
+ourselves for three hours and no more. For, at the expiration of that
+time, came an aged man clad in Oriental garments, who had escaped from
+Palliano that morning while Napoleone Orsini was sacking the town. The
+castle on the summit of the cliff was unstormed when he left, but its
+fall was inevitable unless help should speedily arrive. Then I knew how
+Ippolito de' Medici had tricked me, for he desired not my company at
+Palliano, where he wished to pose as the sole rescuer of its ladies.
+
+The messenger whom my sister had sent to Subiaco was the Moorish
+alchemist who had taught Fenice to make the fire balloons, and I was at
+first encouraged by his assurance that the fortress was well munitioned,
+and that he had manufactured great quantities of gunpowder which was
+stored in its donjon. But I reflected that this circumstance was but an
+added danger as the assailants were endeavouring to fire the castle.
+
+With this news the Cardinal ordered his bravi to horse, and the monks
+girded up their gowns for the march. As fighting men the latter
+suffered no disparagement when matched with my soldiery save in their
+weapons, for, as their vows forbade them to take the sword, they were
+forced to content themselves with battle-axes.
+
+Wearied as were our horses my troop took the lead, and all night by
+toilsome ways over the mountains we rode toward Palliano, in the vain
+hope of arriving there before Ippolito in spite of the long detour which
+he had foisted upon us; and I felt no fatigue, for I rode for my
+sister's honour and the life of her I loved.
+
+But, in the grey dawn, at the little town of Genazzano, some six miles
+from the Colonna stronghold, I met Ippolito and his escort returning
+from Palliano, for he, too, had ridden hard. His face was drawn and
+white, but he faced me unflinchingly.
+
+"You need not have come," he said, "for I have given Napoleone Orsini
+the mandate of his Holiness. He will draw off his men. They will leave
+the castle of Palliano unattacked. I was too late to save the town."
+
+"And my sister?" for Fenice's name stuck in my throat.
+
+"Your sister is capable of taking care of herself," he answered
+bitterly; "at least that was the reply she gave me when I offered to
+remain for her defence. Nay, look not so black for I am not the villain
+that my mad words of yesterday stamped me. Let me right myself in your
+estimation. I offered her no insult, but honourable marriage, for I have
+not yet been consecrated, and I would have repudiated the cardinalcy and
+every other bribe of the devil, if she could have loved me. But she told
+me plainly that she had never done so, that she had but coquetted with
+me in the old days to prove me fickle and false to my betrothed, and
+thus leave Fenice free to wed with you; and that this Vespasian Colonna
+understood and left you his blessing ere he died."
+
+"Say you so! Ippolito," I cried. "Then I have not made this journey in
+vain, and you are a better man than I thought. I will plead your cause
+with my sister. You shall win her yet."
+
+But he shook his head though he wrung my hand for he knew her mind
+better than I. So I rode on with my men, and it was well that I did so,
+for Orsini after the departure of Ippolito had returned to the attack of
+Palliano, and as we came in sight of the promontory on which it stands,
+the sky was crimson, not with sunrise, but with the reflection of
+burning houses.
+
+The citadel towered gaunt and black above the ruined town like the
+phoenix in its flaming nest, and I acknowledged that my darling had
+kept her promise to greet my coming with a festival of fire.
+
+I wondered if from one of those dark windows she were looking forth
+anxiously for succour, and I called the alchemist to my side and bade
+him send up a fire balloon as a signal that help was at hand.
+
+"It will notify the enemy of our approach," he protested, but I replied
+that I cared not, and from the silken guidon of my troop he fashioned
+the balloon so that as it soared aloft the device of the Gonzagas was
+displayed to all onlookers.
+
+Then, with hardly an interval, there shot from the platform of the great
+tower of the castle in quick succession a flight of answering flame
+signals--one, two, three, a half-dozen; I counted them as they rose and
+drifted away on the light morning breeze. There flashed forth lights
+also below in the camp of the Orsini which ringed the town, for the
+sentries had sounded the alarm, and when we came up with their outposts
+the army had formed in battle array.
+
+I was glad of this, for it has never been my practice to fall upon and
+massacre sleeping men. My trumpeter sounded a parley and with a white
+handkerchief on the staff from which I had stripped my ensign I rode out
+to meet Napoleone.
+
+I told him that I came as messenger from the Pope to bid him keep the
+peace, for the war was over.
+
+He replied that he had already received that news from Ippolito de'
+Medici, who on the previous evening had come and gone; but that it was
+not easy to pacify such men as the Orsini when their blood was up.
+
+"Then I will pacify them," I cried, "for peace I will have, though I
+fight for it."
+
+"That is the peace for me," he replied, and at it we went.
+
+I banged them well, and the monks of Subiaco coming up in good time when
+we were nearly spent, joined in the fray with their war-cry of "The Holy
+Column!" and "Christ for Colonna!" My sister's vassals also made a sally
+from the castle but were driven back, certain of Orsini's men following
+them closely and throwing firebrands upon them as they dashed through
+the postern gate. That was the great disaster and tragedy of the day,
+for the tower in which the fugitives had sought shelter was the
+powder-magazine and a spark from the fiery missile thrown, guided by the
+evil one, found its way to a little trail of the devil's dust, which had
+been scattered on the stairs, and so fired the mine in that pent-up
+hell.
+
+With a noise as of the rending of mountains the tower belched a volcano
+of flame and the battle-field was as Sodom and Gomorrah when the heavens
+rained brimstone.
+
+By good fortune the occupants of the castle were chiefly in a tower upon
+the other side of the court, at whose foot the main battle was now
+raging, so that the loss of life was not so great as it might otherwise
+have been. As it was we were all so terrified that we ceased from our
+fighting, Orsini's men fleeing in hot haste, nor did our troops pursue,
+but busied themselves in giving help to the wounded. At the same time
+those within the castle, seeing that the battle was over, opened its
+gates, and to my unutterable joy I beheld Fenice and my sister standing
+unharmed within its portal.
+
+So it was that we pacified the wild Orsini, and later a new castle was
+born phoenix-like from the ashes of the old. But for a while it was
+deserted, for Cardinal Pompeo would no longer risk the lives of his
+relatives at Palliano, but leaving the wounded in the care of the
+monks we escorted the ladies to the Colonna palace at Rome which was
+thereafter my sister's residence.
+
+[Illustration: Villa Madama--Interior]
+
+By all the canons of romance-writing my story should end here at its
+climax, but this is not the way of real life, which goes on spinning new
+threads, and intertwining them so with the old that there is no coming
+to the end until the shears of death cut the skein.
+
+My duty as the Pope's body-guard kept me at his side, and my cousin
+Ferrante Gonzaga having less to do, was constantly at the Colonna
+palace, where he incontinently fell in love with Fenice. This had indeed
+been planned out long before by his mother, for the Marchesa had lived
+long enough in the Colonna palace to fall under its spell and she had
+marked the Colonna heiress as a suitable parti for Ferrante.
+
+Therefore at the great reconciliation between the Emperor and the Pope
+which took place at Bologna, where Clement crowned Charles, and they
+parcelled out to their favourites the dignities of Italy, Ferrante
+Gonzaga besought the hand of Fenice in recognition of the services of
+his house. To this request both the Emperor and the Pope agreed, but
+when the parties to be contracted were called into their presence,
+Cardinal Pompeo Colonna and I came with them and forbade the banns.
+Being asked why we thus defied the will of the greatest powers of
+Christendom, I confessed how in the crimson dawn of the peace of
+Palliano, being determined that no power in heaven or earth or hell
+should henceforth jeopardise our happiness, Fenice and I had been
+secretly but soundly married by the Cardinal, deferring only the public
+festivities of the wedding to a merrier morn.
+
+With that the Emperor declared the jest a good one, and that one Gonzaga
+was as good as another. "And better," whispered his Holiness in my ear,
+as I knelt before him for his blessing.
+
+
+II
+
+OTHER BIRDS OF THE FLAMING NEST
+
+  Centuries ago--here the Colonna came,
+  Vittoria with them, Angelo himself
+  Gazing upon her as she gravely moved,
+  And sighing for her, while Fabrizio's sword
+  Clanged on the gravel--here the d'Este came
+  From Tivoli, where o'er dark cypresses
+  Their villa looks above the billowy land
+  Of the Campagna.
+
+  WILLIAM WETMORE STORY.
+
+It was with the Villa Conti-Torlonia at Frascati that Story rightly
+associated the men and women of the Colonna in the lines which I have
+quoted.
+
+[Illustration: The Haunted Pool
+
+Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati]
+
+Hither certainly came the ladies of Palliano[8] from their castle in the
+neighbouring hills, for the Conti were cousins of the Colonna, and fond
+of entertaining their kindred on the terraces of their ancestral villa.
+
+Here Giulia Gonzaga must have met another renowned woman of the family,
+Giovanna of Aragon, the wife of Ascanio Colonna, with their little son
+Marcantonio, from the Castle of Marino, hardly three miles away. This
+boy was to become the most renowned man of his race, and was to form a
+link between the lives of two women of Palliano, to whom brief reference
+must be made, for the pity and horror of their fate are not surpassed in
+all the annals of tragedy.
+
+At first glance it may seem strange that the Colonnas possessed no
+suburban villa which could rival that of the Conti. Castles in plenty
+were theirs, Marino, Palliano, Palestrina, and a score of others, but
+though these sheltered comfortless, so-called palaces within their
+strong walls, there was never an attempt made here to indulge in such a
+feat of landscape-gardening as the Conti's
+
+                "fountain stairs,
+    Down which the sheeted water leaps alive."
+
+The reason of this lack of the amenities of life is not far to seek. The
+magnificent Colonna palace at Rome, with its beautiful garden, answered
+every purpose of an elaborate villa. Here they flaunted in seasons of
+prosperity, retiring to their mountain fastnesses in times of trouble.
+
+For five hundred years succeeding generations have added to the
+sumptuousness and charm of the Roman palace, and the portraits of the
+fair ladies who once gave those regal rooms their chief attraction still
+look down upon us from their walls. They hold us still with an
+all-compelling fascination: the noble Vittoria Colonna, whom Michael
+Angelo worshipped; that Duchessa Lucrezia, whom Van Dyck painted in her
+velvet robe and jewelled ruff; Felice Orsini and her children; and the
+bewitching Marie Mancini, as Mignard makes her known in her arch and
+innocent girlhood, and again with world-weary disillusion betraying
+itself through Netscher's pomp and opulence.
+
+[Illustration: Vittoria Colonna
+
+From a portrait in the Colonna Gallery]
+
+[Illustration: Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna
+
+From a portrait in later life by Netscher]
+
+It is the women who interest us most, for the men of the race, masterful
+and brave, heroic even in certain great crisis, have often shown
+themselves brutally cruel.
+
+The ceilings of the Colonna palace blaze with the victory of Lepanto
+whose hero Marcantonio Colonna is the glory of his family; but you will
+find no portrait of his murdered mistress Eufrosina, or of the most
+famous of all the duchesses of Palliano, whose ghost might well haunt
+that gloomy castle.
+
+Violante de Cardona was, in the latter part of the sixteenth century,
+the most charming woman in Naples. Her wonderful eyes alone rendered her
+irresistible to most men, and she added to remarkable beauty the
+fascinations of wit and culture. All of the young bloods of Naples were
+captives at her chariot wheels, all but young Marcantonio Colonna, who
+must have known her for he dwelt at this time at the Castle of Ischia
+inherited from his aunt Vittoria Colonna.
+
+Violante made choice among her adorers of Giovanni Caraffa, nephew of
+Pope Paul IV. whom Marcantonio had cause to hate, for Paul had despoiled
+him of Palliano, under pretext of his mother's heretical opinions, and
+had given the fief to this very Giovanni.
+
+Thus Violante to her great misfortune became the usurping Duchess of
+Palliano, for her husband made her life a martyrdom and was ultimately
+responsible for her death. He was not so utterly depraved as his brother
+Cardinal Carlo Caraffa but his maniacal jealousy was more dangerous than
+the Cardinal's vices, and he made himself rich by the maladministration
+of the papal revenues.
+
+The Pope though bigoted and fanatical was sternly upright, and
+discovering the crimes of his nephews visited unsparing retribution upon
+them. Cardinal Carlo's offences were most flagrant. He had quarrelled
+openly with a young gallant, Marcello Capecce, for the favours of
+Martuccia one of the most notorious courtesans of Rome, drawing his
+sword upon Capecce at a banquet where he had denied the Cardinal's right
+to appear as Martuccia's escort. Though the Pope had banished the
+brothers from Rome they might have lived in peace and obscurity but for
+Carlo's attempt to revenge himself upon Capecce.
+
+It happened most opportunely for the Cardinal's purpose that Capecce had
+long cherished a hopeless passion for the Duchess of Palliano.
+
+The Cardinal fanned this flame and Marcello, believing himself
+encouraged followed Violante to her villa. Here the Cardinal managed to
+bring the Duke at the very moment of the compromising visit.
+
+Why Carlo Caraffa should thus have endangered the life and reputation of
+his sister-in-law as well as that of his enemy is not definitely stated.
+Perhaps he counted on the Duke's love for his wife and intended simply
+to enrage his brother against a presuming but unfavoured lover. Whatever
+the accusation the jealous husband was not at first absolutely
+convinced, and he placed the matter for investigation in the hands of
+his wife's brother the Count Aliffe, who spied upon Capecce and reported
+that he was undoubtedly in love with the Duchess of Palliano for his
+desk was filled with poems in her honour.
+
+De Stendhal tells us vividly how Capecce was arrested on the charge of
+having attempted to poison the Duke, who, "to avoid public scandal
+stabbed him to death in prison." He also murdered the Duchess's
+lady-in-waiting, but seems not to have had the heart to kill his wife
+with his own hands. Nevertheless he believed it incumbent upon him as a
+wronged husband to exercise justice upon her, and he deputed the deed to
+her brother, who was nothing loth to wipe out the stain upon his family
+honour.
+
+On the night of the twenty-fifth of August, 1559, the Count Aliffe, with
+his friend Leonardo del Cardine, a friar, and some soldiers, appeared at
+the villa and told his sister his errand. She received her sentence with
+the haughtiest disdain. Never had she been so thoroughly a duchess.
+
+When urged to confess she protested her innocence, and assisted her
+brother in bandaging her own eyes. He hesitated for a moment; perhaps if
+she had appealed to his affection his heart might have given way; but
+she raised the handkerchief and coolly asked: "Well, what are we about,
+then?"
+
+Thus taunted he turned the wand in the noose about her neck, and so
+strangled her.
+
+The Pope seems to have approved the act or to have been indifferent to
+it; but it created a thrill of horror even at that time, for the
+beautiful Duchess had been greatly loved and was believed to be
+innocent.
+
+Strange to say, the man who was to avenge her fate was he whose heritage
+she had usurped. Marcantonio Colonna had used all his influence at the
+Court of Spain until Philip declared war upon Pope Paul IV., and
+deputed the Duke of Alva and the Spanish Army to wage the famous war of
+the Campagna. Thus Marcantonio came to his own again, and the Pope, who
+was near his end, in bitterness of soul signed the capitulation which
+saved Rome from a second sack by the Spaniards.
+
+News that the Pope was dying ran through Rome, and the populace
+liberated the prisoners of the Inquisition and burned the building. They
+howled for the Dominican monks, the guardians of the tribunal, that they
+might burn them also, but at the entrance to the monastery they were
+stopped by five mounted knights keeping guard over the doomed monks.
+They were all of them nobles, and all had suffered from the Pope, and
+they were led by Marcantonio Colonna, whose father and mother had been
+persecuted by the Inquisition. They had ridden in haste to Rome when
+they heard that Paul was dying to preserve order in the city.
+
+"And at the sight of those calm knights," says Marion Crawford, "sitting
+their horses without armour and with sheathed swords, the people drew
+back while Colonna spoke; and because he also had suffered much at
+Paul's hands they listened to him, and the great monastery was saved
+from fire and the monks from death."
+
+But though Revenge was restrained, Justice claimed the murderers of the
+Duchess of Palliano. Their trial was deliberate, but in the end Cardinal
+Carlo Caraffa met the same death which she had suffered, while her
+husband, her brother, and their accomplice were beheaded in the Torre di
+Nona.
+
+The first use made by Colonna of his revenues was to equip the
+battleship which he commanded at Lepanto, where he won the title of
+Champion of Christendom.
+
+The pitiful story of Eufrosina, who for a brief period was mistress of
+Palliano, is a sad blot upon the Champion's otherwise honourable career.
+Some authorities maintain that she was of good family, and that
+Marcantonio had killed her husband for love of her; others that she was
+a slave girl whom he had brought back from the Orient. All agree that
+she was beautiful, but Colonna had not made her his duchess. Strangely
+enough he offered the tiara of the murdered Violante to Felice Orsini,
+daughter of the very man who had striven in vain to win Palliano by
+force of arms. It was a tempting marriage, for it united the two great
+rival houses of Rome, and Eufrosina was heartlessly cast aside. Her
+after-history is a tragedy beside which the story just related pales to
+an idyl.
+
+[Illustration: Court of the Massimi Palace]
+
+That she was a woman of extraordinary powers of fascination is proved by
+the fact that, though it was notorious that she had been abandoned by
+Marcantonio, Lelio Massimi, then the representative of one of the
+proudest patrician families of Rome, did not hesitate to make her his
+wife. Massimi was an old man and a widower, whose first wife, Gerolema
+Savelli, had given him six sons, notable for their herculean strength
+and arrogance and their father's remarriage to such a woman was an
+insult to their mother's memory which they could not condone.
+
+They entered Massimi's apartment upon his wedding night and shot his
+bride to death in his arms. The old man cursed his sons excepting only
+the youngest, Pompeo, who had taken no part in the assassination, and
+shortly afterward died broken-hearted, foretelling that Pompeo alone
+would continue the line as all of his brothers would die violent
+deaths.[9]
+
+The record of the hearts of flame which have burned themselves out in
+the old nest of the phoenix might be indefinitely prolonged, for
+though battered by many sieges Palliano was never totally destroyed, and
+formed the background of many a sinister drama. Marie Mancini Colonna,
+Principessa di Palliano, writes that fear of imprisonment in the dungeon
+of her titular castle was the principal motive of her flight from her
+husband in 1672. She had been threatened with such a fate and the threat
+was not without precedent.
+
+As a prison the Castle of Palliano exists at the present day. Has its
+symbol of the phoenix attained a new meaning, and is it possible that
+erring souls issue from its gates, their stains burned clean by
+purgatorial flame?
+
+[Illustration: Marie Mancini Colonna, Principessa di Palliano, by
+Mignard
+
+Photographische Gesellschaft, Berlin]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE LURE OF OLD ROME
+
+ANTINOUS
+
+
+        Brother, 't is vain to hide
+    That thou dost know of things mysterious,
+    Immortal, starry; such alone could thus
+    Weigh down thy nature. Hast thou sinned in aught
+    Offensive to the heavenly powers? Caught
+    A Paphian dove upon a message sent?
+    Thy doubtful bow against some deer herd bent
+    Sacred to Dian? Haply thou hast seen
+    Her naked limbs among the alders green
+    And that, alas is death.
+
+    KEATS.
+
+It is impossible to saunter even so aimlessly as we have done through
+the villas of the cardinals of the Renaissance and not feel the potency
+of the charm by which their builders were enthralled, "the glamour of
+the world antique."
+
+We may struggle against the spell, telling ourselves that the scope and
+limits of the present volume will not permit of a glance at the villas
+of ancient Rome, but they insidiously steal upon us through those of the
+Renaissance. Particularly is this true of the Villa d'Este and the Villa
+Albani, magic gateways both leading directly into that earlier, and only
+real, Rome.
+
+For, though separated by the gulf of many centuries from the villa of
+the Emperor Hadrian at Tivoli, they are virtually ante-chambers to that
+once magnificent palace.
+
+We might turn from the attractive vista which they reveal but for an
+alluring phantom which can never be disassociated from those imperial
+ruins, a face whose beauty and pathos draws us on irresistibly to solve
+the mystery of its gentle sadness.
+
+Who, that has stood before the matchless relief of Antinous in the villa
+Albani, does not agree with the assertion, that "it is no shadow of sin
+which gives the pure brow its gravity, and that whatever may be the
+burden which bows the beautiful head, he bears it with a noble
+resignation which proves him superior to his suffering and unsullied by
+his doom."
+
+[Illustration: Antinous
+
+Bas-relief found at Hadrian's Villa, now in the Villa Albani]
+
+In the general resurrection of ancient masterpieces which took place
+during the Renaissance only one, the Apollo Belvedere, commanded wider
+admiration as a type of manly beauty. But the Apollo is a theatrical
+manifestation of the popular conception of god-like perfection, while
+Antinous makes appeals directly to the heart through his very humanity.
+
+One hundred and thirty-six of his portrait statues, busts, and reliefs
+have come down to us, and as many engraved gems and coins bearing
+varying interpretations of his familiar and unmistakable personality; so
+that it is common to speak of the Antinous type as the last ideal
+creation of ancient art. And yet we are assured on the highest authority
+that Antinous really lived, and that there is historical foundation for
+the authenticity of these portraits.
+
+"He has a distinct individuality always recognisable," says Gregorovius.
+"In every case we see a face bowed down, full of melancholy beauty, with
+deep-set eyes, slightly arched eyebrows, and abundant curls falling over
+the forehead. It is the beautiful expression of a nature which combined
+the Greek and the Asiatic characteristics only slightly idealised. We
+read the fate of Antinous in this sorrowful figure, for the artists knew
+of the death of sacrifice to which he dedicated himself, and this
+mysterious sadness would attract the observer even if he could not give
+the name to the statue."
+
+But history only whets our curiosity, for ancient writers are neglectful
+or tantalisingly bald in their allusions to Antinous. We are told only
+that he was the favourite of Hadrian, the most magnificent and
+enlightened of all the Roman emperors, who loved the gentle Bithynian
+youth so extravagantly that he made him his inseparable companion and
+even contemplated him as his successor; that during the fateful Egyptian
+journey an oracle announced that the Emperor must shortly die unless a
+voluntary victim could be found to take upon himself the doom with which
+he was threatened; and that Antinous unhesitatingly laid down his life
+for his patron. "Greater love hath no man than this," and Hadrian's
+ostentatious lamentation, and even his deification of his friend, seems
+puerile in comparison with the devotion of Antinous.
+
+No modern author has developed this alluring theme in a satisfactory
+manner. Ebers in his novel _The Emperor_, is inadequate. He laboriously
+loads its pages with his carefully verified material, but his
+imagination is wingless, the result far from convincing.
+
+[Illustration: Ruins of a Gallery of Statues in Hadrian's Villa
+
+From an etching by Piranesi]
+
+One poet there was, he whose lines head this chapter, endowed with the
+inspiration to divine, and the power to worthily reveal the secret of
+the sadness in that haunting face, to which sculptors alone have done
+full justice. There are hints scattered through his poems that
+startlingly supplement the vague clues which now tantalise and baffle as
+we trace the story of Antinous in Hadrian's villa.
+
+For where history and literature fail us archæology supplies its
+circumstantial evidence, and if we scan, through the crystal lenses of
+uncoloured truth, the stage where the drama which we seek was enacted we
+shall see the sculptured semblances of the vanished actors, and be able
+to surmise in part the lost book of the play.
+
+The ruins of the great pleasure-palace, where the Emperor and his
+favourite resided during the opening scenes of their history, now lie
+bleak and bare, exposed to the burning sun and the wandering winds,
+despoiled even of the vines and flowers with which nature has striven to
+hide the ravages of man. We must go back to their excavation in the
+early part of the sixteenth century if we would study the tell-tale
+_mise-en-scène_.
+
+It was Pirro Ligorio who in 1538 made for Cardinal Ippolito d'Este II.
+the first systematic exploration and authoritative map of Hadrian's
+villa. A Neapolitan by birth, but called to Rome by his friend Pope Paul
+IV. (Caraffa), Ligorio, upon his arrival was associated with the aged
+Michael Angelo in the building of St. Peter's.
+
+With the arrogance of youth he quarrelled with the great master and did
+not hesitate to speak of him openly as a dotard who had outlived his
+usefulness and should yield his place to a younger genius. Paul IV. had
+the wisdom to retain Michael Angelo in his important post, and the tact
+to take the sting from Ligorio's removal by giving him the commission
+for the casino in the Vatican Gardens which (as it was not finished
+until the pontificate of Pius IV.) was destined to bear the name of the
+Villa Pia.
+
+Learned authorities have endeavoured to find the original of Ligorio's
+masterpiece in some ancient building, whereas the perfect adaptability
+of its plan to new requirements proves that it could never have been
+produced earlier than the Renaissance. It has been well epitomised as
+the "day-dream of an artist who has saturated his mind with the past."
+
+[Illustration: Antinous as Bacchus, in the Museum of the Vatican
+Permission of Alinari.]
+
+In the profusion of joyous mythological deities which give the façade of
+the Casino the richness of decoration of a jewel-casket, nymphs and
+graces dance, Pan flutes, and marine monsters frolic with all the
+abandon of classical feeling, and it is in the ornamental details, not
+in the conception of the ensemble, that we detect the influence of the
+Villa of Hadrian. When the papal villa was approaching completion,
+Ligorio attracted the attention of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este II. (the
+patron of Tasso) a connoisseur and dilettante in all the arts, who
+wisely entrusted to the young architect the construction of his famous
+villa at Tivoli.
+
+The Cardinal had the right to quarry materials from the neighbouring
+ruins, and among the first of the great discoveries which Ligorio
+records is that of a statue of Antinous. It depicted the youth under the
+attributes of Bacchus, and was possibly a replica of the beautiful
+statue found later at Præneste and now in the Sala Rotonda of the
+Vatican.
+
+From the hour that it was carried in triumph to the terraces of Villa
+d'Este, Ligorio and his patron as well, were taken captive by a new
+enthusiasm, for a lucky chance had guided the excavators to the most
+richly ornamented of all the apartments in the Emperor's wonderful
+palace--the heavy-folded curtain of Time had rolled upward disclosing
+the scene of the happiest hours in the short life of Antinous.
+
+An exquisite circular palazzita lay before them, islanded by a
+marble-lined canal five metres broad from an encircling portico, whose
+roof was supported by forty Corinthian columns of precious _giallo
+antico_. Noting the important part played by water in this construction,
+the canal fed by fountains, whose pipes and mechanism plainly showed
+within the statues which ornamented the rotunda, Ligorio hastily
+concluded that this was the Emperor's natatorium or swimming pool. But
+the feminine elegance of the fairy-like suite of apartments, to which
+the canal served as a moat; the presence of drawbridges worked from the
+centre, thus cutting off or affording communication with the colonnade
+at the will of the occupant, and evidences that the canal itself was a
+_nympheum_ or aquatic garden, among whose rose-coloured lotus blossoms
+white swans glided, flamingoes darted, and tall clusters of papyrus
+screened the porticoes from the gaze of passers, favoured the conclusion
+that this pavilion of all delight was designed for some beautiful woman
+royally beloved. The frieze of loves, mounted upon hippocampi
+imitating the games of the circus, which Ligorio copied in the vestibule
+of the Villa Pia formed a part of the decoration lavished here.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Villa Pia in the Garden of the Vatican
+
+Pirro Ligorio, architect]
+
+The conspicuous situation of the palazzita between the basilica and the
+imperial apartments, to which its encircling colonnade served as a
+corridor of communication, indicated that the lady was not a favourite
+of low degree, to be hidden away in some Rosalind's bower of the immense
+labyrinthine palace, while the most valuable statues in the entire
+villa, such as the replica of the Cnidian Venus by Praxiteles, the Eros
+bending the bow, by the same master, made this temple of love and Venus
+a fitting pavilion for an empress. Such it may well have been, for here
+was found the sculptured portrait of Faustina, the wife of Antoninus
+Pius, Hadrian's successor, who resided in the villa both before and
+after the death of Antinous.
+
+She was the beautiful mother of a more beautiful daughter of the same
+name, an empress in her turn, and both branded by a historian of the
+time as infamous.
+
+Swinburne's apostrophe in _Ave Faustina Imperatrix_ applies equally to
+the portrait bust of mother or daughter:
+
+                    "Your throat,
+    Strong, heavy, throwing out the face,
+      And hard, bright chin
+    And shameful, scornful lips that grace
+      Their shame, Faustine."
+
+But it is possible that Swinburne was too hasty in accepting ancient
+gossip, and that both the Faustinas were maligned. "Modern scholarship,"
+says Monsieur Victor Duruy, "argues for their rehabilitation, and
+chiefly because the husbands of each, good and wise men both, have left
+such unequivocal testimony of their respect."
+
+"To the gods," wrote Marcus Aurelius of the younger Faustina, "I am
+indebted that I have such a wife, so obedient, so affectionate, and so
+simple."
+
+And after the death of his wife (Faustina the elder) Antoninus Pius
+cried in his grief: "O God, I would rather live with her in a desert
+than without her in this palace."
+
+In this enchanting palazzita the younger Faustina may have passed her
+childhood, while the scholarly boy, Marcus Aurelius, her cousin,
+listened to the disquisitions of the philosophers as they discussed
+great problems with the Emperor.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Villa Pia, Vatican
+
+The Rotondo--Pirro Ligorio, architect]
+
+Hadrian loved the lad, and for his absolute truthfulness nicknamed him
+Verissimus, making him a knight at the age of six. He was the comrade of
+Antinous, and as they passed to and fro together through colonnaded
+rotonda they must have often noted the young mother (she was sixteen
+when married) and her bewitching child, waving white hands from across
+the lily-padded moat.
+
+Here, then, are certain of the actors, as well as our _mise-en-scène_,
+and Marcus Aurelius, in his _Meditations_, has himself given us a hint
+as to the drama. "Forget not," he writes, "that in times gone by
+everything has already happened just as it is happening. Place before
+thine eyes whole dramas with the same endings, the same scenes, just as
+thou knowest them by thine own experience, or from earlier
+history--such, for example, as the whole Court of Hadrian."
+
+If with these instructions we remember Marcus Aurelius's still more
+significant words, "Even in a palace life may be well led," each of us
+can according to his own fancy divine the secret which Antinous kept so
+well.
+
+Had Ligorio given to literature the sympathetic imagination which he
+displayed in his art it might have been worthily revealed. For ten years
+he explored with the most intense enthusiasm the interminable
+apartments which were to prove an inexhaustible mine of art for modern
+museums, and whose bibliography would fill a library. Then in 1572 his
+munificent patron died, and the work suddenly came to an end.
+
+For two centuries the Villa of Hadrian lay neglected until new
+discoveries revived popular interest, and a young German scholar was
+called to superintend the building and installation of the last of the
+great villas erected in Rome by a member of its hierarchical
+aristocracy.
+
+There exists such striking parallelism in the history of the Villa
+d'Este and the Villa Albani, and on such identical lines was the work
+carried on that it would almost seem that, the duration of human life
+not being sufficient to complete it, Cardinal Ippolito and Pirro Ligorio
+were granted reincarnation for another fifty years in Cardinal Albani
+and his friend Winckelmann.
+
+[Illustration: Eros Bending the Bow
+
+Capitoline Museum]
+
+[Illustration: Faun of Praxiteles
+
+Capitoline Museum]
+
+Notwithstanding the many masterpieces secured by Cardinal d'Este it was
+known from ancient records that the greatest treasures of the Villa
+Hadriana had escaped his eager search, having been so securely hidden on
+the invasion of the Goths, that they evaded as well all other
+plunderers. But early in the eighteenth century Gavin Hamilton,
+commissioned to secure antiques for the British Museum, drained an
+extensive marsh called the Pantello and found it to be the depository in
+which Belisarius had secreted the missing statues on the approach of
+Totila.[10] From this hiding-place there emerged between 1730 and 1780,
+the _Antinous_ of the museum of the Capitol and the relief of the Villa
+Albani together with the _Resting Faun_ of Praxiteles which so
+captivated the imagination of Hawthorne, and many another famous work of
+art now the glory of some far distant museum.
+
+Fortunately for Italy, England found a contesting bidder in Cardinal
+Albani, and the majority of the statues found in the Pantello were
+purchased by him. At the same time the magnificent collection of
+Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, was offered at public sale by the degenerate
+spendthrift who inherited it, and sixty of the finest statues were
+secured for Villa Albani and rejoined their old companions.
+
+Winckelmann gloated over their beauty, for he united the artist's
+appreciation to the connoisseurship of the archæologist. What solicitude
+for its appropriate setting, only surpassed by that of Hadrian himself,
+did he bestow on the placing of each individual statue, and with what
+exultation he records its arrival.
+
+"The Cardinal has brought from Tivoli on a _carro_ drawn by sixteen
+bullocks a female river deity of colossal size well preserved" (and
+still to be seen reclining on the margin of a reservoir). To the relief
+of _Antinous_ Winckelmann gave the place of honour which it now
+occupies. Let us read his own record of the esteem in which he held it.
+
+"The glory and the crown of sculpture in this age _as well as in all
+ages_" he does not hesitate to assert, "are two likenesses of Antinous."
+One of them, in the Albani villa, is in relief, the other is a colossal
+head in the Mondragone villa.
+
+"The former disinterred from Hadrian's villa is," says Winckelmann,
+"only a fragment of an entire figure which probably stood on a chariot.
+For the right hand, which is empty, is in a position that leads me to
+conclude that it must have held the reins. In this work therefore would
+have been represented the deification of Antinous as we know that
+figures so honoured were placed upon cars to signify their translation
+to the gods.
+
+[Illustration: Villa Albani]
+
+[Illustration: Casino, Villa Albani
+
+_Alinari_]
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Candelabrum from Hadrian's Villa
+
+Museum of the Vatican]
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Candelabrum from Hadrian's Villa
+
+Museum of the Vatican]
+
+"The colossal head in the Mondragone villa (now in the Louvre) I
+hold it no heresy to say is, next to the Vatican Apollo and the Laocoon,
+the most beautiful work which has come down to us."
+
+The two friends lived a charmed life more in the past than in the Rome
+of their own day until the spree was rudely broken by Winckelmann's
+tragic death at the hands of a vulgar robber, and the grey-haired
+cardinal wandered alone among his cherished marbles. Many of these he
+donated to the Capitoline Museum and to the Vatican, but the relief of
+Antinous he held among his most cherished possessions. It would have
+broken the good man's heart to have known that these statues were doomed
+to wander far from the home which he had provided for them. The French
+took possession of Italy, and the masterpieces of the Villa Albani
+formed only a fraction of the wholesale robberies which for a time
+enriched the museum of the Louvre.
+
+On the fall of Napoleon the Pope chose the sculptor Canova as his envoy
+to negotiate with the allies for the return of the art treasures of
+Italy. Canova was successful, for he pleaded from a full heart; but
+although he secured the restitution of the two hundred and ninety-four
+statues which Napoleon had taken from the Villa Albani, Cardinal
+Giuseppe Albani, an unworthy successor of the great collector, sold all
+but one in order to avoid the cost of their return transportation. The
+poor peripatetic philosophers, emperors, empresses, gods, and goddesses
+trooped on like uneasy ghosts, not a few of them finding shelter in the
+Glyptothek at Munich.
+
+The one piece of sculpture reserved from this fate of expatriation, and
+reinstated in triumph in its old position in the salon at the left of
+the main gallery of the villa, it is hardly necessary to state, was the
+relief of _Antinous_. Here it remains and lures us, according to our
+bent, to study or to dream of the life which its original so
+passionately lived, and instinctively we search for some statue of a
+woman of equal charm to link with it in our dreams.
+
+Ebers thought he had found it in the loveliest of the nine muses which
+Ligorio discovered in the theatre of Hadrian's villa. In 1689 Velasquez
+was sent to Rome to acquire them for Philip V. Eight of them may still
+be seen in the Museum of Madrid, but the ninth muse, Urania, from which
+the d'Estes could not then be induced to part, is now in the Sala delle
+Muse of the Vatican. This is the Urania which Ebers imagines to have
+been carved by the young Alexandrine sculptor, Pollux, from the Selene
+whom we are told Antinous vainly loved.
+
+The face is very winsome and the romance might satisfy us, but for a
+portrait-statue of a genuine Selene, found by Ligorio near the palazzita
+and now in the casino of the Villa Albani.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Urania
+
+Museum of the Vatican]
+
+It is catalogued as _Iris Descending_, but mistakenly, says Monsieur
+Guzman, for Iris was invariably represented with wings, and this
+graceful figure is wingless, a torch in hand, and floating downward so
+gently that her motion scarcely agitates her soft drapery. Authorities
+are now agreed that the lovely figure represents Selene, the
+moon-goddess, who, enamoured with Endymion, kept tryst with him in his
+dreams, and a beautiful "Sleeping Youth" was actually discovered beneath
+the descending Selene, thus completing the composition and verifying the
+assumption as to its subject. That the recumbent youth was not at once
+recognised as intended to represent Endymion is due to the inability of
+the scientific mind to grasp more than one idea at a time, for the
+features bore so marked a resemblance to those of Antoninus Pius that
+it was rightly considered a portrait of that Emperor in his youth. Only
+recently have archæologists accepted the title, _Antoninus Pius as
+Endymion_ and it seems probable that the Selene of Villa Albani
+portrayed the Empress Faustina, and that this group was a tribute of the
+Emperor's to his beautiful wife, his "Diva Faustina," who stooped to him
+like the moon-goddess from the sky. Is it not equally possible that he
+caused the symbols of Selene to be cut upon her signet that she might
+use it in her intimate correspondence, that the charm of this wonderful
+woman was associated in his mind with the magic of moonlight, gentle,
+love-compelling, and pure? Such a testimonial does in fact exist in a
+medal struck by the command of Antoninus Pius after the death of the
+Empress, representing Faustina bearing two torches, but returning to
+heaven, and depriving him of the light which had illumined their wedded
+life; and lest there should be any doubt that the deity typified in this
+apotheosis is Selene the Emperor caused the words _Luna lucifera_ to be
+engraved beneath the name of Faustina.
+
+The myth of the love of the lady-moon has nowhere been so exquisitely
+rendered as in the _Endymion_ of Keats, and his description of the
+descent of Selene applies well to the moon-maiden of the Villa Albani:
+
+                            "I raised
+    My sight right upward, but it was quite daz'd
+    By a bright something sailing down apace,
+    Making me quickly veil my eyes and face.
+    . . . . . . .
+    Her locks were simply gordianed up and braided
+    Leaving in naked comeliness unshaded
+    Her pearl round ears, white neck, and orbed brow.
+                . . . I see her hovering feet
+    More bluely veined, more whitely sweet
+    Than those of sea-born Venus when she rose
+    From out her cradle shell. The wind out-blows
+    Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion,
+    'Tis blue and over-spangled with a million
+    Of little eyes, as though thou wert to shed
+    Over the darkest lushest blue-bell bed
+    Handfuls of daisies."[11]
+
+Faustina may have known Antinous before her marriage, while Hadrian
+still hoped to make him his successor, ere the clamours of the people
+forced him to make the wiser choice. Had Antinous been so favoured, is
+there any doubt whether Faustina would not have inclined to him instead
+of to the good man with the serious, anxious face, who was more than
+twice her age when he became her husband?
+
+The statues of Antinous fully realise Keats's ideal of Endymion.
+
+                        "His youth was fully blown
+    Shining like Ganymede to manhood grown,
+    A smile was on his countenance; he seemed
+    To common lookers-on like one who dreamed
+    Of idleness in groves Elysian
+    But there were some who feelingly could scan
+    A lurking trouble in his nether lip.
+    Then would they sigh, 'Ah! well-a-day
+    Why should our young Endymion pine away?'"
+
+We know not on what authority Ebers links the name of Antinous,
+Endymion-like, with that of Selene. Was there some missive sealed by a
+moon-beam torch, or addressed to the lady moon which went astray and set
+the gossip of the Court crackling like a flame in dry grass? Or was it
+merely his aspiration for the throne of the Cæsars which was signified
+by the common expression, "he longed for the moon," and not a love
+hopeless, but beyond his power to conquer for the unattainable Selene,
+which saddened his young life so deeply, and determined him to throw it
+away when the occasion seemed to demand the sacrifice.
+
+Both research and fancy will lead you far, for it was in Egypt that the
+most dramatic part of the story was enacted, and that Antinous,
+believing that in so doing he saved Hadrian's life, launched forth upon
+the Nile during a terrific tempest, and standing erect in the unguided
+canoe sought a voluntary death in the storm-lashed waters.
+
+The Emperor's grief was wildly extravagant. He gave the beautiful body a
+king's burial in a tomb flanked by obelisks and guarded by a sphinx; and
+he built about it a magnificent city which he called Antinopolis, a city
+which exists to this day though no man lives within its desolate
+columned streets.
+
+But the deserted city has been identified in the ruins called by the
+Egyptians, Antinoe. Its hippodrome, and theatres, and temple tomb have
+all been mapped by archæologists, and its Arch of Triumph, of Roman
+bricks faced with white marble, its long colonnades of Corinthian
+columns, and its melancholy waving palms have been photographed by
+troops of unreflecting tourists.
+
+While erecting memorials to his friend, Hadrian was not unmindful of his
+own sepulchral monument, the present castle of St. Angelo. It served as
+a mausoleum for the imperial family. The ashes of Faustina (to whose
+memory her husband erected the beautiful temple bearing her name) were
+placed here, their urn guarded by two bronze peacocks, the emblems of an
+empress.
+
+These peacocks with the pineapple, which crowned the summit of the tomb,
+now ornament the Court of the Belvedere of the Vatican, in whose
+galleries may be found some of the statues with which Hadrian decorated
+the upper colonnade of the mausoleum, and which were wrenched from their
+pedestals and toppled upon the heads of the Goths when Totila besieged
+Rome.
+
+Gregorovius in his scholarly biography of Hadrian thus sums up his
+achievements and estimates his character:
+
+"He ruled the empire like a noble Roman, with prudence and strength. He
+enjoyed life with the joy of the ancients. He travelled throughout the
+world and found it worth the trouble. He restored it and embellished it
+with new beauty. He was lavish on a great scale."
+
+We certainly do not know what he thought of his whole life at the end of
+it. He might have agreed with the estimate of Marcus Aurelius: "All that
+belongs to the soul is a dream and a delusion; life is a struggle and a
+wandering among strangers, and fame after death is forgetfulness."
+
+That he had some vague belief in the immortality of the soul the
+well-known poem written shortly before his death certainly shows:
+
+    "Animula, vagula, blandula;
+    Hospes, comesque corporis,
+    Quæ nunc abibis in loca;
+    Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
+    Nec ut soles dabis jocos?"
+
+"Celestial spirit, evanescent fay,
+  Supernal guest and sharer of my might,
+Wherefore and whither dost thou fly away,
+  Exquisite phantom, nude and ghostly white,
+Never with me again to flit and play,
+Never with me to play?"
+
+Reluctantly, after all our search, we find that archæology, while it
+tells us much of Hadrian, leaves Antinous still a mystery.
+
+The forsaken pleasure palace is silent and empty save for ghosts of the
+imagination. We see the imperial barges glide up the Nile as in a
+pageant, but it is all a wordless pantomime, though the beautiful
+immortal figure stands.
+
+    "Still there where he a thousand years hath stood
+    And watched, with gaze intent, the ages' flood
+    His graceful limbs reflecting, then as now
+    His lotus crown the sadness on his brow,
+    And races new in line unending glide
+    Along in shells upon the flowing tide;
+    But aye as they approach and look on him
+    Athwart their joy there falls a sorrow dim,
+    The citherns cease that rang as they drew nigh,
+    On glowing lips the jests and kisses die.
+    And, lo! the heart is seized by infinite woe,
+    With arms outstretched they gaze as on they go--
+    'O waken, boy! O waken from thy dream!
+    Say what thou seest below the ages stream,
+    Tell us, is life's enigma known to thee?
+    Give us thy own fair immortality!'
+    But ere he from his revery wakens they
+    Have with the river drifted far away."
+
+[Illustration: View through the Key-hole of the Gate of the Villa of the
+Knights of Malta]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+L'ENVOI
+
+    A keyhole glimpse at Rome they show
+    'Twixt cypresses, a stately row,
+    Where all who pass are free to see
+    The villa of the Priory.
+    Here belted knights, with cross on breast,
+    In days of old were wont to rest,
+    And 'neath the ilex hedges tall
+    Oft paced the subtle Cardinal,
+    His robe upon the pavement cool
+    Mantling like some ensanguined pool.
+
+    St. Peter's keys, traditions tell,
+    Open the gates of Heaven and Hell.
+    O'er many a villa gate they 're shown,
+    With triple crown carved deep in stone.
+    If, then, you crave a fuller view
+    Than keyhole glimpses give to you,
+    Unlock and enter. You shall know
+    A Heaven of art, a Hell of woe.
+
+THE END
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] His magnificent villa of Caprarola and the still more entrancing
+villa of Lante are linked with legends of Giulio Farnese and Vittoria
+Accoramboni in the author's _Romance of Italian Villas_, which with the
+_Romance of the Renaissance Châteaux_ will be found supplementary to the
+present volume.
+
+[2] From _The Italian Rhapsody_, by permission of Mr. Robert Underwood
+Johnson.
+
+[3] Translated by E. Frère Champney.
+
+[4] A song composed by Lorenzo de' Medici. "How lovely is our youth, and
+yet how fast it flies! Those who wish for joy must snatch it now. Trust
+not to to-morrow; seize it now, seize it now!"
+
+[5] The earliest cards were not inscribed with hearts, diamonds, clubs,
+and spades, but with swords, money, clubs, and cups. The same emblems
+are still used on the Spanish playing-cards.
+
+[6] The French historians call him Richart de Cornouailles, the Italians
+Ricciardo.
+
+[7] A _stornello a fiore_ consists generally of a couplet beginning with
+an invocation to a flower, as:
+
+    Fior di limone!
+    Limone è agro e non si puoi mangiare
+    Ma son più agre le pene d'amore.
+
+    Fior di granato!
+    Se li sospiri mie fossere fuocco,
+    Tutto il mondo sarebbe buciato.
+
+See also the _stornelli_ in Browning's _Fra Lippo Lippi_ of two of which
+Richard's are variants.
+
+[8] Palliano or Pagliano, for the name is variously spelled.
+
+[9] John Addington Symonds further relates in what strange ways fate
+fulfilled this prediction. "Disaster fell on each of the five brothers.
+The first of them, Ottavio, was killed by a cannon-ball at sea in
+honorable combat with the Turk. Another, Girolamo, who sought refuge in
+France, was shot down in an ambuscade while pursuing his amours with a
+gentle lady. A third, Alessandro, died under arms before Paris in the
+troops of General Farnese. A fourth, Luca, was imprisoned at Rome for
+his share of the step-mother's murder, but was released on the plea that
+he had avenged the wounded honour of his race. He died, however,
+poisoned by his own brother Marcantoni in 1599. Marcantoni was arrested
+on suspicion and imprisoned in Torre di Nona, where he confessed his
+guilt. He was shortly afterward beheaded on the little square before the
+bridge of St. Angelo."
+
+[10] Hamilton was aided in his work by Piranesi whose engravings record
+the state of the ruins at this time.
+
+[11] The same figure is depicted in the frescoes of Pompeii, and here
+the deep blue of an Italian night glittering with stars gives the added
+touch of colour.
+
+
+
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Romance of Roman Villas, by Elizabeth W.
+(Elizbeth Williams) Champney</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Romance of Roman Villas</p>
+<p>       (The Renaissance)</p>
+<p>Author: Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney</p>
+<p>Release Date: January 10, 2009  [eBook #27766]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE OF ROMAN VILLAS***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Chuck Greif<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 390px;">
+<img src="images/ill_cover_th.png" width="390" height="600" alt="book-cover" />
+<a href="images/ill_cover.png">
+<span class="caption">Click to view enlarged.</span></a>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_frontis" id="ill_romv_frontis"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_frontis.png" width="600" height="447" alt="Pope Julius II. Viewing the Newly-found Statue of the
+Apollo Belvedere
+From the painting by Carl Becker. Permission of the Berlin Photographic
+Co." />
+<span class="caption">Pope Julius II. Viewing the Newly-found Statue of the
+Apollo Belvedere<br />From the painting by Carl Becker. Permission of the Berlin<br />Photographic
+Co.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<h1>ROMANCE OF ROMAN<br />
+VILLAS</h1>
+
+
+<h3 class="top5">(THE RENAISSANCE)</h3>
+
+<p class="c">BY</p>
+
+<p class="c">ELIZABETH W. CHAMPNEY</p>
+
+<p class="c sml">AUTHOR OF "ROMANCE OF THE ITALIAN VILLAS," "ROMANCE OF THE
+FEUDAL CHÂTEAUX," "ROMANCE OF THE FRENCH ABBEYS," etc.</p>
+
+<p class="c">ILLUSTRATED</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br />
+NEW YORK AND LONDON<br />
+The Knickerbocker Press<br />
+1908</p>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+
+<ul class="toc">
+<li><a href="#INTRODUCTION"><b>Introduction</b></a></li>
+<li><a href="#CONTENTS"><b>Contents</b></a></li>
+<li><a href="#ILLUSTRATIONS"><b>Illustrations</b></a></li>
+<li><a href="#ROMANCE_OF_ROMAN_VILLAS"><b>Romance of Roman Villas</b></a></li>
+<li><a href="#FOOTNOTES"><b>Footnotes</b></a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 390px;">
+<img class="top15"
+src="images/chap_intro.png" width="390" height="142" alt="image
+not available" />
+</div>
+
+<h3><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION</h3>
+
+<p class="poem">
+In came the cardinal, grave and coldly wise,<br />
+His scarlet gown and robes of cobweb lace<br />
+Trailed on the marble floor; with convex glass<br />
+He bent o'er Guido's shoulder.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Walter Thornbury</span>.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="non"><span class="let">S</span>TILL unrivalled, after the lapse of four centuries the villas of the
+great cardinals of the Renaissance retain their supremacy over their
+Italian sisters, not, as once, by reason of their prodigal magnificence
+but in the appealing charm of their picturesque decay.</p>
+
+<p>The centuries have bestowed a certain pathetic beauty, they have also
+taken away much, and the sympathy which these ruined pleasure palaces
+evoke whets our curiosity to know what they were like in their heyday of
+joyous revelling.</p>
+
+<p>If we run down the list of the nobler villas of Rome we will find that,
+with few exceptions, they were built by princes of the purple, and that
+the names they bear are not Roman but those of the ruling families of
+other Italian cities.</p>
+
+<p>That the sixteenth century should have produced the most palatial
+residences ever inhabited by prelates was but a natural outcome of the
+conditions then existing. The society of Rome was a hierarchical
+aristocracy made up of the younger sons of every powerful and ambitious
+family of Italy, and the red hat was so greatly desired not for the
+honour or emoluments of the cardinalcy <i>per se</i> but because it was a
+step to the papacy.</p>
+
+<p>"To an Italian," says Alfred Austin, "it must seem a reproach never to
+have had a pope in the family, and you will with difficulty find a villa
+of any pretension, certainly not in Frascati, where memorial tassels and
+tiara carven in stone over porch and doorway do not attest pontifical
+kinship."</p>
+
+<p>The young cardinal's first move in the game which he was to play was at
+all expense to create an impression, and if, as in the case of Ippolito
+d'Este, he had no benevolent uncle in St. Peter's chair to guide his
+career, the parental coffers were drawn upon recklessly and the cadet of
+the great house led a more extravagant life in his Roman villa than the
+duke his elder brother in his provincial court. The object of his
+ambition once attained the new Pope unscrupulously enriched his family,
+and endeavoured to make his office hereditary by elevating his favourite
+nephew to the cardinalcy, and endowing this future candidate for the
+papacy with means from the revenues of the Church to purchase the votes
+of his rivals. This is the constantly reiterated history of the builders
+of the palaces and villas of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Sixtus IV. made the fortunes of his numerous de la Rovere and Riario
+nephews,&mdash;one of whom, Pietro, Cardinal of San Sisto, for whom Bramante
+built the Cancellaria Palace, set the pace for his comrades of the
+Sacred College by squandering in two years the enormous sum of
+$2,800,000. Cardinal Raphael Riario of the next generation began the
+most beautiful of all villas, Lante, which three other cardinals
+subsequently perfected.</p>
+
+<p>Leo X. after his election as pope, proved to be a greater spendthrift
+than Sixtus IV., for he not only repaired the broken fortunes of the
+Medici but eclipsed his father as a patron of art, making the erection
+of monumental buildings and the collection of objects of art a mania
+among all men of wealth and culture. Cardinal Giulio (afterwards
+Clement VII.) in the Villa Madama, and Cardinal Ferdinando in the Villa
+Medici sustained the family tradition, but Cardinal Alexander Farnese
+(Pope Paul III.) outrivalled them both, by filling the Farnese palace
+with the most valuable collections ever amassed by a private
+individual.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>Immediately succeeding Alexander Farnese Julius III. built the noble
+Villa di Papa Giulio, and Pius IV. the charming Villa Pia; but nepotism
+did not scandalously reassert itself until the last quarter of the
+century, when the immense Villa Aldobrandini was erected by a nephew of
+Clement VIII.</p>
+
+<p>Pope Paul V. in his turn bestowed more than a million dollars upon his
+Borghese nephews, to one of whom, Cardinal Scipione, we owe the
+delightful Villa Borghese, just outside the Porta del Popolo.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the next century the evil attained greater proportions. Olimpia
+Pamphili, whose name and memory are perpetuated in the villa built by
+her son, received from Pope Innocent X. more than two millions. But
+Innocent seems to have a fair claim to his name when compared with his
+immediate predecessor Urban VIII. who conferred upon his nephews, the
+brothers Barberini, sums amounting to one hundred and five millions!</p>
+
+<p>An architecture of pompous ostentation and riotous overloading of
+ornament, the Baroque, now took the place of the classical beauty of the
+Renaissance and art degraded became the slave of wealth, until the great
+Cardinal Albani erected his villa to serve as her temple.</p>
+
+<p>We are ready to expect great results in the villas and palaces of the
+millionaires of the earlier half of the sixteenth century when we
+reflect that they were executed by Bramante, Peruzzi, San Gallo, Michael
+Angelo, and Raphael with a host of lesser men who would have been great
+in any other age, and that the ruins of imperial Rome furnished them
+with models for their designs and an inexhaustible quarry of statues,
+columns, mosaics, and other materials.</p>
+
+<p>The point of view of the present volume is the life rather than the art
+of these villas, but it is not possible to ignore the stimulus which the
+daily discovery of the masterpieces of ancient art afforded to the
+artists of the day, and the connoisseurship imposed upon the rivalling
+patrons and collectors.</p>
+
+<p>In the chapters entitled: "The Finding of Apollo" and "The Lure of Old
+Rome" I have striven to depict the influence of these discoveries upon
+such sensitive souls as those of Raphael and Ligorio, and the gradual
+education of the financier Chigi and Cardinal Ippolito d'Este in the
+refinements of dilettantism.</p>
+
+<p>But the Fornarina left a more potent impression on Raphael's art than
+the Apollo Belvedere, and her memory and that of Imperia still haunt the
+villa of the Farnesina indissolubly united with that of the master of
+art and the master of revels.</p>
+
+<p>In the noble Colonna palace the personality most vividly present to-day
+is that of Vittoria Colonna, making good the boast of Michael Angelo's
+sonnet,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"So I can give long life to both of us</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In either way by colour or by stone,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Making the semblance of thy face and mine,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Centuries hence when both are buried thus</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy beauty and my sadness shall be shown</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And men shall say, 'For her 't was right to pine.'"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>But if Michael Angelo carved or painted Vittoria the portrait is lost;
+and it is to his love, not to his art that she owes her immortality. So
+from the history of these beautiful dwellings I have chosen as the focal
+point of each of the following chapters, the half-forgotten face of some
+woman, and were it not that the story of Vittoria Colonna is so well
+known that noble woman might well have led the procession. For the same
+reason, and because her castle of Spoleto could not be classed under my
+topic, I have laid aside a study of Lucrezia Borgia and of another
+Lucrezia who may have resided within its walls.</p>
+
+<p>But from the succession of beauties who kissed their lovers beneath the
+rose-trellises of Rome, I have stolen secrets enough to overfill these
+pages, secrets which few of the gentle shades would forbid my telling,
+since for the most part they are sweet and innocent and true. For the
+others, daughters of disorder, may their sufferings bespeak your pity.</p>
+
+<p>The difficulty in arriving at just estimates has only made the attempt
+the more engrossing, as those will attest who have tracked through the
+mass of conflicting histories the story of the elusive lady who gave the
+name of Madama to the exquisite villa which Raphael designed for Clement
+VII.</p>
+
+<p>The Villa Aldobrandini recalls an ancient legend preserved in more than
+one of the Italian novelli; and reading between the lines of the
+Amyntas we may trace Tasso's love for Leonora which blossomed in the
+terraced garden of the Villa d'Este.</p>
+
+<p>The villas Borghese and Mondragone are still instinct with the
+personality of a romantic little lady of a later period, the bewildering
+Pauline Bonaparte. It is impossible while enthralled by her portrait
+statue to remember any other princess of that noble house; but as we
+wander through the portrait gallery of the Colonna palace it is equally
+difficult to choose a favourite from its brilliant gallery. My apologies
+are due to many another in fixing upon Giulia Gonzaga, wife of Vespasian
+Colonna as my heroine, though such was the fame of her beauty that the
+Sultan of Turkey despatched a fleet for her capture.</p>
+
+<p>In the last decade of the century, Marie de' Medici looked down upon
+Rome from the villa of her uncle, Cardinal Ferdinando, and wandered
+among that wonderful array of statues which now form the glory of the
+Pitti Palace.</p>
+
+<p>This was the time, if ever, that Shakespeare visited Italy, and I have
+attempted to give a true picture of the life and scenes which he may
+have viewed.</p>
+
+<p>To my last chapter is left the confession that the supreme charm of
+Rome of the Renaissance lies not in itself, but in the fact that it is
+the bridge which unites modernity to the Rome of antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>Each statue unearthed in the cardinal's garden, as it reassumed its
+place upon the familiar terrace, must have whispered to its marble
+companions: "They call this the Villa d'Este! We know better, it is
+Hadrian's. Their learned men have labelled you, 'By an Unknown
+Sculptor,' little suspecting that your lips were arched by Praxiteles.
+They have christened our friend in the garden of Lucullus, the 'Venus
+de' Medici,' ignorant of the prouder name she bore, and they call the
+relief in that new villa, 'The Antinous of Cardinal Albani,' not knowing
+that the portrait and its original were alike, Faustina's."</p>
+
+<p>Shall we, indulgent reader, on some fair, future day, led by the lure of
+<i>old</i> Rome, together revisit our loved villas and win the confidences of
+these marble men and women who smile on us so inscrutably, and yet with
+such all-compelling fascination?</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dear Italy, the sound of thy soft name</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Soothes me with balm of Memory and of Hope.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Mine for the moment height and steep and slope</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That once were mine. Supreme is still the aim</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To flee the cold and grey</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of our December day,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And rest where thy clear spirit burns with unconsuming flame.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fount of <i>Romance</i> whereat our Shakespeare drank!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Through him the loves of all are linked to thee,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">By Romeo's ardour, Juliet's constancy</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He sets the peasant in the royal rank,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Shows, under mask and paint,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Kinship of knave and saint</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And plays on stolid man with Prospero's wand and Ariel's prank.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then take these lines and add to them the lay</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">All inarticulate, I to thee indite;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The sudden longing on the sunniest day,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The happy sighing in the stormiest night,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The tears of love that creep</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">From eyes unwont to weep,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Full with remembrance, blind with joy and with devotion deep.
+<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a>
+<a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></span>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 381px;">
+<img src="images/ill_cont.png" width="381" height="146" alt="image not available" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<h3 class="top15"><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+
+<table summary="toc" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0">
+
+<tr>
+<td class="sml">CHAPTER</td>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td><span class="smcap"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction</a></span><br />&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td>
+<td>&mdash;</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Eyes of a Basilisk</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="sml">(Vatican, Villa of the Belvedere)</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td>
+<td>&mdash;</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Finding of Apollo</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="sml">(Villa Farnesina)</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td>
+<td>&mdash;</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">A Cellini Casket</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="sml">(Villa Madama)</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td>
+<td>&mdash;</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">Flower o' the Peach</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="sml">(Villa Aldobrandini)</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td>
+<td>&mdash;</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">With Tasso at Villa d'Este</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="sml">(Villa d'Este)</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td>
+<td>&mdash;</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">Mondragone</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="sml">(Villas Borghese and Mondragone)</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td>
+<td>&mdash;</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Adventure of the Knight of the</span>
+<span class="smcap">Brandished Lance</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="sml">(Villa Medici)</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td>
+<td>&mdash;</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Ladies of Palliano</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="sml">(Colonna Palace and Castle of Palliano)</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td>
+<td>&mdash;</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Lure of Old Rome</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="sml">(Hadrian's Villa. Villas d'Este and Albani)</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 235px;">
+<img src="images/ill_shield.png" width="235" height="132" alt="image not available" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 376px;">
+<img src="images/ill_ills.png"
+class="top15" width="376" height="150" alt="image not available" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+
+<p class="c">IN PHOTOGRAVURE</p>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_frontis">Pope Julius II. Viewing the Newly-found
+Statue of the Apollo Belvedere         Frontispiece</a><br />
+From the painting by Carl Becker. Permission of
+the Berlin Photographic Co.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg012">The Borgias</a><br />
+From a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (Pope
+Alexander VI. regards the dancing children, Lucrezia
+plays the viol, Cesar beats time with his stiletto
+on the stem of a wine glass.) Permission of George
+Bell &amp; Sons.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg102">Pope Leo X. at Raphael's Bier</a><br />
+From the painting by Pietro Michis. Permission of
+Franz Hanfstaengl.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg158">Face of Young Girl in the Coronation of the
+Virgin</a><br />
+By Fra Filippo Lippi. Permission of Alinari.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg182">The Floral Games</a><br />
+From the painting by Jacques Wagrez. Permission
+of Braun, Clement &amp; Co.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg188">In the Garden of Villa d'Este</a><br />
+From a photograph by Mr. Charles A. Platt.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg314">Choosing the Casket</a><br />
+From the painting by F. Barth. Permission of the
+Berlin Photographic Co.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg374">Antinous as Bacchus, in the Museum of the
+Vatican</a><br />
+Permission of Alinari.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 232px;">
+<img src="images/ill_key.png" width="232" height="162" alt="image not available" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+
+<p class="c">OTHER THAN PHOTOGRAVURE</p>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg002">*C&aelig;sar Borgia</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg006">*Caterina Sforza. Castle of Forlì in Background</a><br />
+By Palmezzani.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg040">*Unknown Lady (probably Imperia)</a><br />
+By Sebastian del Piombo. Uffizi.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg042">*Virgin and Child</a><br />
+By Sodoma. Pinacoteca, Milan.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg064">*Raphael and Sodoma</a><br />
+Fragment of School of Athens, in the Vatican&mdash;Raphael.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg066">*Villa Farnesina, Rome</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg074">*Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma</a><br />
+From the portrait by himself in the Abbey of Monte
+Oliveto Maggiore.<br />
+*By permission of Messrs. Alinari.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg076">*Margherita (La Fornarina)</a><br />
+Attributed to Raphael. Pitti Gallery, Florence.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg084">*Pope Leo X., Giulio de Medici (afterward Pope
+Clement VII.), and Luigi de Rossi</a><br />
+By Raphael.   Pitti Gallery.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg100">Villa Madama</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg104">Detail of Vault in Villa Madama</a><br />
+Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg106">Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma, 1586</a><br />
+From an old engraving.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg108">Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine</a><br />
+Villa Madama.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg110">Villa Madama&mdash;Interior</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg142">*Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati.</a>The Grand
+Cascade and Fountain of Atlas</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg144">*Upper Cascade, Villa Aldobrandini</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg186">*Villa d'Este, at Tivoli&mdash;Present State</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg190">Hydraulic Organ, Villa d'Este</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg192">Villa d'Este in 1740</a><br />
+From an etching by Piranesi.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg212">*Villa d'Este&mdash;Terrace Staircase</a><br />
+*By permission of Messrs. Alinari.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg220">*Fountain in Gardens of the Villa Borghese</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg224">*Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese</a><br />
+Portrait statue by Canova at Villa Borghese.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg268">Henri IV. Receiving the Portrait of Marie de Medici</a><br />
+Painted at her order by Rubens.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg292">View from the Garden of the Villa Medici</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg336">Colonna Palace, Rome&mdash;The Grand Salon</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg338">Garden of the Colonna Palace, Rome</a><br />
+With permission of Charles A. Platt.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg340">Castle of Vittoria Colonna at Ischia</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg356">The Cascade</a><br />
+Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg358">The Haunted Pool</a><br />
+Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg360a">Vittoria Colonna</a><br />
+From a portrait in the Colonna Gallery.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg360b">Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna</a><br />
+From a portrait in later life by Netscher.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg366">Court of the Massimi Palace</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg368">Marie Mancini Colonna, Principessa di Palliano</a><br />
+By Mignard.    Photographische Gesellschaft, Berlin.<br />
+*By permission of Messrs. Alinari.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg370">Antinous</a><br />
+Bas-relief found at Hadrian's Villa, now in the Villa
+Albani.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg372">Ruins of a Gallery of Statues in Hadrian's Villa</a><br />
+From an etching by Piranesi.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg376">*Villa Pia in Garden of the Vatican</a><br />
+Pirro Ligorio, architect.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg378">*Villa Pia, Vatican</a><br />
+The rotondo&mdash;Pirro Ligorio, architect.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg380a">Eros Bending the Bow</a><br />
+Capitoline Museum.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg380b">Faun of Praxiteles</a><br />
+Capitoline Museum.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg382">Villa Albani</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg383">*Casino, Villa Albani</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_cand_a">*Candelabra from Hadrian's Villa</a><br />
+Museum of the Vatican.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg384">*Urania</a><br />
+Museum of the Vatican.</li>
+
+<li><a href="#ill_romv_pg392">View through the Key-hole of the Gate of the Villa
+of the Knights of Malta</a><br />
+*By permission of Messrs. Alinari.</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 372px;">
+<img src="images/ill_romance.png"
+class="top15" width="372" height="145" alt="image not available" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="ROMANCE_OF_ROMAN_VILLAS" id="ROMANCE_OF_ROMAN_VILLAS"></a>ROMANCE OF ROMAN VILLAS</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<p class="c">THE EYES OF A BASILISK</p>
+
+<p class="c">(AN EPISODE OF THE FRENCH WARS IN ITALY, FROM THE MEMOIRS OF THE GOOD
+KNIGHT YVES D'ALLEGRE)</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">I</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>There is not one that looketh upon her eyes but he dieth presently.
+The like property has the basilisk. A white spot or star she
+carrieth on her head and setteth it out like a diadem. If she but
+hiss no other serpent dare come near.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Pliny.</span></p></div>
+
+<p class="non"><span class="let">A</span> STRANGE story is mine, not of love but of hatred, the slow coiling of
+a human serpent about its prey, with something more than human in the
+sudden deliverance which came from so unexpected a quarter when all hope
+had gone and struggle ceased.</p>
+
+<p>Certes, I am not one of your practised romancers thus to reveal my plot
+at the beginning, and yet, with all I have told, you will never guess in
+what mysterious guise, yet so subtly that it seemed a breath of wind had
+but fluttered a leaf of paper, the enemy we feared was struck with such
+opportune paralysis.</p>
+
+<p>Let those who doubt the truth of this tale or the existence of the
+basilisk question Cesare Borgia, for we saw the creature at the same
+time as we rode together near Imola in northern Italy. It was the
+beginning of that campaign in which I, much against my will, was in
+command of the French troops, which his Majesty Louis XII. had sent to
+aid his ally in the conquest of Romagna. I would far liefer have gone
+with my brother knights deputed to sustain Louis's right to the
+Milanese, for it is one thing to fight honourably for France and
+another, as I soon discovered, to aid a villain in the massacre of his
+own countrymen, and all for aims in which I had no interest. But it was
+only by degrees that I was enlightened concerning the character of
+Borgia. He was brave beyond doubt, and courage had for me great
+fascination. I never saw him flinch but once, and that before a thing
+which seemed so trivial that I counted it but a matter of physical
+repulsion.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 437px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg002" id="ill_romv_pg002"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg002.png" width="437" height="550"
+alt="Alinari C&aelig;sar Borgia" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>C&aelig;sar Borgia</td><td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 20em;">
+<span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>We were riding thus side by side in advance of our men, when a small
+snake darted from the thicket and hissed its puny defiance. I stooped
+from my saddle, impaled it on my sword, and waved it writhing in the
+air. But Cesare, to my astonishment, turned deadly pale and galloped
+incontinently in the opposite direction.</p>
+
+<p>When I rejoined him after throwing the reptile into the underbrush he
+explained the seizure. The astrologer, Ormes, had predicted that he
+would meet his death neither from natural sickness nor from poison, nor
+yet by the sword or cord, but from the eye of a basilisk.</p>
+
+<p>"And what manner of creature may that be?" I asked, wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a serpent," he replied, "but one so rare in Italy that not once
+in a century is it met with. The monster is gifted with the evil eye,
+killing whomsoever it looks upon. It bears a star-shaped spot upon its
+head, and when you whirled yon reptile in the air methought I discerned
+its baleful flash."</p>
+
+<p>"And so you did," I replied, "but you need have no apprehension, the
+creature is blind."</p>
+
+<p>"Blind!" he repeated incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"Of a verity. Its eyes have long since been removed, for the flesh has
+grown over the empty sockets."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Cesare, "some wizard must have extracted them to serve him
+in his black art, and has let the serpent go free knowing that it is
+only by the eye of a living basilisk that this prodigy can be wrought.
+Fortunately you have killed it and there is no longer any danger."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," I replied, "I but wounded the creature. It crawled away when it
+fell."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he who holds its eyes holdeth my life and by his hand I shall
+die," he stammered with white lips. Little thought I then that Cesare's
+inhuman cruelty and perfidy would cause me to thank God for his belief
+in the creature's malignancy and that the basilisk was to aid in the one
+episode which was in some measure to take the evil taste of this
+campaign from my mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Only a few weeks later, on the first of January, 1500, our combined
+forces began in earnest the assault of the citadel of Forlì, which we
+had held in siege throughout the previous month. Little stomach had I
+for the business, since to my shame I was making war upon a woman.
+Imola which had already surrendered to us, was also her fief, but had
+she commanded its forces in person we would not have taken it so easily.
+For fighting blood ran in the veins of the Lady of Forlì, she being the
+grand-daughter of the great condottiere Francesco Sforza. And this was
+not the first time that she had fought for her castle.</p>
+
+<p>She had come to it first as the bride of Girolamo Riario, but the
+townspeople had refused to recognise his authority and had stabbed him
+to death, throwing his naked, mutilated body into the moat before her
+windows.</p>
+
+<p>The young widow instantly trained the guns of the citadel upon the town,
+and when it surrendered caused the murderers and their families to be
+hacked in pieces; and this was but one of many instances reported of her
+dauntless and vindictive character. She had remarried, but her second
+husband, Giovanni de' Medici, had recently died, and Caterina Sforza
+Riario de' Medici, in spite of her noble birth and connexions, had none
+to help her.</p>
+
+<p>If Cesare Borgia had not already married perchance the opportunity would
+have been offered her to add another great name to those she already
+bore, for he recognised in this tigerish woman a fitting mate. He hated
+her indeed, but one does not hate one's inferiors, one despises or pets
+them, and Cesare hated the Lady of Forlì because he knew that he could
+never master her.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore on New Year's Day, we having, as I have said, drawn our forces
+so closely about the citadel that for weeks past not a mouse could
+escape, Cesare before ordering the assault sent me to its lady with
+sealed conditions of capitulation.</p>
+
+<p>I thought, as I rode across the draw-bridge with the white truce pennon
+fluttering from my lance, how at that other siege when summoned to
+surrender on pain of having her children put to death before her walls,
+this unnatural mother had replied coldly: "Children are more easily
+replaced than castles," and I was unprepared for the vision which
+greeted me in the gloomy hall.</p>
+
+<p>For Caterina was no repulsive termagant, but a woman of marvellous
+charm. This fascination was something quite different from ordinary
+beauty. Its seat was in her eyes, which many thought not at all
+beautiful, for they were like those gems called aquamarine, of a
+puzzling tint varying from blue to green, lustrous and lapping the
+beholder with their gentle lambency, except when passion moved her,
+when I have seen them glow with a menacing light as though they might
+shoot forth green flames. But now she was all loveliness. The
+vicissitudes of her tragic life had left no trace except the slight
+scowl, which might be due to defective vision, for from the curiously
+linked chatelaine there depended a lorgnon with which she had a nervous
+trick of trifling.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 402px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg006" id="ill_romv_pg006"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg006.png" width="402" height="550" alt="Alinari
+
+Catenna Sforza
+
+Castle of Forlì in Background
+
+By Palmezzani" />
+<span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 20em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br />Catenna Sforza<br />
+Castle of Forlì in Background<br />
+By Palmezzani</span>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>She leaned forward as I entered, her lips a little apart and her cheeks
+glowing with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"You have brought me a message from your commander?" she asked, and I
+presented the letter.</p>
+
+<p>But as she read her colour flamed to deeper crimson and her small hands
+tore the missive in fragments. "And these are the terms proposed by a
+belted knight, companion of Bayard <i>sans reproche</i>; this your fufilment
+of your sworn devoir to women in distress? Then here is my answer," and
+she dashed the bits of paper in my face, "for my garrison will prefer
+annihilation rather than permit me to submit to such indignity."</p>
+
+<p>"Believe me," I protested, "that, far from assisting in the framing of
+those terms, I am in utter ignorance of their purport. Believe also that
+though what I have hitherto heard has not prepossessed me in your
+favour, I now count those charges as lying slanders, knowing that no
+evil soul could inhabit so lovely a person."</p>
+
+<p>Her lip curled scornfully. "I have listened to lovers' flatteries ere
+this," she answered, "and know how little they are worth."</p>
+
+<p>"By your pardon," I retorted, "I am a lover indeed, but none of yours.
+It is because I love my good wife in Auvergne that I honour all women."</p>
+
+<p>She had lifted her eyeglass as though to scan my face the more keenly to
+know if I spoke the truth; but apparently my words alone convinced her,
+and, feeling the discourtesy of such an act, she looked about the room
+irresolutely and let the lorgnon fall without meeting my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Good," she said at length, "I like you better for that word. 'Tis a
+pity we must be enemies. Tell your master that I shall defend my
+fortress to the last extremity. If I am so unfortunate as to be
+conquered, demand that he appoint you my jailer, for to no one else will
+I submit myself alive."</p>
+
+<p>I have taken part in many sieges but never saw I a more gallant defence
+than the one made by that doomed citadel. Its besiegers were quartered
+within the town, fattening on the supplies which flowed in from the
+country and sleeping warm at night, while the garrison of the castle
+burned its carved wainscotings for fuel and daily buried some
+famine-stricken sentry. Twice with blazing missiles Caterina's archers
+set fire to the houses within range of her guns, striving by destroying
+the homes of her own people to drive us from our shelter, and once in
+the dead of night she made sortie and strove to cut her way through only
+to be beaten back. She seemed more a deluding spirit of evil leading us
+on to our own destruction than an ordinary mortal, and when Cesare gave
+orders to bombard the castle it made our flesh creep to see her seated
+nonchalantly upon the ramparts scanning the artillerymen through her
+lorgnon, laughing when their shots went wild, and clapping her hands
+when they tore off fragments of the parapet on which she leaned as
+though she were but applauding a play. That very night an epidemic so
+deadly broke out among the cannoneers that some foolishly superstitious
+declared she had bewitched them with the evil eye, and others as falsely
+that the springs in the hills above the castle which supplied the
+fountains of the town were poisoned at her command.</p>
+
+<p>But the inevitable day came when the Lady of Forlì announced that she
+was ready to surrender. Even then she demanded lenient and honourable
+terms as though mistress of the situation.</p>
+
+<p>There must be neither bloodshed nor pillage. The allegiance of her
+subjects should be transferred indeed to Cesare as Duke of Romagna, and
+she offered herself and her children as hostages for their loyalty, but
+not to Cesare. They would trust themselves only to the watch-care of the
+Pope, and she stipulated that the French troops should be their
+body-guard to Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Cesare laughed maliciously. "She is as safe in my care as in that of his
+Holiness," he said, "and it is to my interest that the boy alone should
+die. It was the great statesman Machiavelli who counselled that when a
+city was captured every male heir to its former lord should be slain, to
+guard against uprisings in the future. I will take her son into my own
+safe-conduct, but you may escort his sisters and mother in welcome, for
+I have no wish to come within the range of her quizzing glasses."</p>
+
+<p>When I reported this to Caterina she shuddered slightly and answered
+questioningly, "From Cesare's so great personal solicitude I gather
+that the health of the young duke might suffer at the Borgia's table?"</p>
+
+<p>To these alarms I could not reply reassuringly, but the lady presently
+laughed gleefully. "This is not a recent thought of mine," she said.
+"The idea occurred to me when Cesare first laid claim to our estates.
+Tell him that I cannot take advantage of his kind offer for I sent my
+son before the siege to join his cousin and godfather, Cardinal de'
+Medici, in his exile. The Cardinal's family feeling extends even to his
+most distant relatives and the boy could have no better guardian."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely it is fortunate that you were so wise," I replied, and even
+Cesare had no doubt that she spoke truly.</p>
+
+<p>It was the twelfth of January, the very day of the surrender, that I set
+out with my captives for the Eternal City. Caterina was conveyed in her
+litter with her elder daughter, but the younger insisted on riding on
+horseback at my side. She was an ugly little hoyden of five years, this
+Giovanna, who, squat of stature and swarthy as a gypsy, bestrode her
+little pony like a man; but, though by nature stubborn and subject to
+fits of anger in which she bit and scratched like a wildcat, to me she
+had taken a fancy as intense as it was inexplicable.</p>
+
+<p>When I upbraided her manners as ill befitting a little maid, and
+marvelled at her unlikeness to her mother, she made answer: "Nay, but
+mamma can scratch also. You should have seen the face of the messenger
+who told us that the town of Forlì had opened its gates to the
+besiegers. I am like my father in looks, but I have my mother's spirit.
+Cardinal de' Medici said that if my father had worn the petticoat and my
+mother had been the man, the Medici would be ruling now in Florence."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to rule, little princess?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I would rather fight. When I am grown I will be a great
+condottiere like you, Sir Knight."</p>
+
+<p>"Tush!" I reproved her. "A girl a condottiere&mdash;who ever heard of such a
+prodigy?"</p>
+
+<p>The child smiled mysteriously. "I have a mind to tell you a secret," she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Giovanna, Giovanna!" her mother called, beckoning from her litter, but
+the little maid had fast hold of my stirrup leather, and pulled me close
+while she confided: "I am not Giovanna, I am not a girl at all. I am
+Giovanni de' Medici, Duke of Forlì, and one of these days I will cut
+off that Borgia man's head. But fear not; I will be good to you if only
+you do not tell."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg012" id="ill_romv_pg012"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg012.png" width="600"
+height="569" alt="The Borgias" />
+<span class="caption">The Borgias
+<br />From a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.<br />(Pope Alexander VI. regards
+the dancing children, Lucrezia plays the viol, Cesar beats time with his
+stiletto on the stem of a wine glass.)<br />Permission of George Bell &amp; Sons</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>I had no mind to tell, and though I let the Duchess know that her little
+son had betrayed his disguise, and reproached her for bringing him into
+the wolf's jaws, I swore to her that the secret should be safe in my
+keeping.</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">II</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 9em;">The bob of gold</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which a pomander ball doth hold,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">This to her side she doth attach</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With gold crochet or French pennache.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then raises to her eyes of blue</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her lorgnon, as she looks at you.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at Rome, the Pope assigned the captives to the Villa of the
+Belvedere, so named from a graceful tower which shot high above the
+encircling walls, and commanded a delightful prospect. A charming garden
+connected the villa with the Vatican, but it was none the less a prison
+whose only approach or egress was through the corridors of the papal
+palace. The Lady of Forlì had been received with hypocritical cordiality
+by the family of the Pope at one of those intimate gatherings in the
+Borgia apartments which, devoted to song, dance, and feasting were
+greatly enjoyed by Alexander and his children, and so shamelessly
+disgraced the residence consecrated to the head of the Church.</p>
+
+<p>Cesare upon his return would find in them an opportunity for meeting his
+prisoner, and, if she denied him further familiarity, he held the power
+of executing swift vengeance. It behooved us therefore to act quickly
+and before the arrival of my superior. The only hope which seemed to me
+at all reasonable was of French interference.</p>
+
+<p>Cardinal d'Amboise was in Milan, having recently arrived from the French
+Court, and acting upon my advice the Lady of Forlì appealed through him
+to the King of France, I urging her petition with every conceivable
+argument.</p>
+
+<p>While anxiously awaiting his reply I took advantage of my authority as
+her body-guard to station a French sentinel at her door, relinquishing
+my own cook to protect her from poisoning, and my faithful valet as
+groom and guardian of the children.</p>
+
+<p>But all these precautions were swept away by Cesare on his arrival in
+the middle of February. For he sent me at that time a curt note stating
+that after we had taken part in the triumph granted him by the Pope in
+recognition of his victories in Romagna, he would have no further need
+either of my troops or myself; and we would be at liberty to report
+ourselves at Milan to the commander of the French army.</p>
+
+<p>The "triumph" to which he referred consisted of a procession with
+allegorical floats and every description of gala costume. The houses
+along its course were hung with brilliant draperies; flags and pennons
+should wave, martial music bray, and salvos of artillery were to be
+fired at frequent intervals.</p>
+
+<p>But the principal feature of the demonstration and the one on which the
+Pope counted to raise popular enthusiasm to the point of delirium was to
+be the parade of the captives.</p>
+
+<p>Cesare, in emulation of the celebration of the conquest of Palmyra by
+the Emperor Aurelian, had conceived the brilliant idea of compelling
+Caterina to walk in the procession bound like Zenobia with golden
+chains.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto Caterina and I had discussed with each other every plan of
+action, but now unfortunately we had no opportunity of taking counsel
+with one another. Still she had been accustomed too long to
+self-reliance to hesitate for that reason, and divining by a flash of
+woman's intuition how this spectacle might be converted into an
+opportunity of escape, she consented gracefully to Cesare's plans,
+requesting only that the French troops should march as her guard.</p>
+
+<p>To this arrangement Cesare gave his ready acquiescence, promising also
+of his own accord that I should ride directly behind her and beside her
+children. It was well thought out, for she had counted not alone upon my
+assistance, but had determined to use every detail of the programme
+which Cesare had devised to rouse the populace of Rome to aid in her
+rescue.</p>
+
+<p>She robed herself therefore in most becoming though sable garments,
+allowing her veil of thinnest gauze to flutter artfully and display her
+beautiful face while the long velvet sleeves open to the shoulder showed
+the double manacles at the wrist and above the elbow, made purposely too
+tight and cutting into the lovely rounded arm.</p>
+
+<p>Growls of indignation from the men and cries of sympathy from the women
+rose as they marked her fatigue, and how ruthlessly the men-at-arms who
+led her dragged her on, and the demonstration was a triumph to Caterina
+rather than to Cesare. As the float representing the dismantled citadel
+of Forlì tottered by with her little girls upon the battlements,
+waving, the one the bull-blazoned ensign of the Borgias and the other
+the reversed and degraded arms of the Medici, shouts of "Shame, shame!"
+were heard, and the riotous crowd surged so close to the float that it
+was impossible for it to proceed. We had reached at this critical
+juncture the Porta del Popolo and through its open gates the via
+Flaminia stretching straight to the north across the free Campagna was
+discernible. With that sight I comprehended Caterina's intention and at
+the same instant the boy-girl Giovanni let fall the Borgia emblem, which
+was instantly trampled in the mire by the mob, and snatching the banner
+bearing the Medici balls from his sister's hand he waved it triumphantly
+in its proper position, crying "Palle, palle! Rescue, rescue!"</p>
+
+<p>Then it was that Caterina had counted on my trusty Frenchmen to sweep
+her and her children on to liberty while the mob hindered pursuit. But
+alas! Cesare had suspected some such plot, and had interposed between
+the prisoners and my brave troopers his own corps of veteran pikemen.
+For an instant they wavered, for Caterina had sprung upon the float and
+was gazing at them through her lorgnon. They remembered what had
+happened to the gunners at Forlì, and shuddered, but the mob attacking
+them with paving stones interposed a screen between them and the danger
+they dreaded and roused their mettle. With their old war cry their first
+battalion charged the rioters while their second division, halting, kept
+back my men.</p>
+
+<p>As the full signification of this lost opportunity overwhelmed me, I
+could not in my mortification meet Caterina's reproachful eyes. Her last
+gallant stroke for liberty had failed through my lack of co-operation.
+Cesare's pikemen enclosed her with a wall of bristling spears; the
+populace slunk into side alleys, the gates of the Porta del Popolo had
+been closed during the tumult, and the procession resumed its line of
+march in the direction of the castle of St. Angelo. As I cursed my
+stupidity, Cesare, purple with rage, rode back to me with Giovanni
+struggling wildly in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Take this brat of a girl to the Belvedere," he commanded, "and beat her
+soundly."</p>
+
+<p>But as I lifted the child before me he ceased not to shriek to Cesare:
+"Beat me if you dare. I am no girl-brat. I am Giovanni de' Medici, Duke
+of Forlì!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a chance that Cesare had not rightly understood him, for I
+had held my hand over the boy's mouth. I would not save him and desert
+his mother, so I rode with him to the Belvedere; but I paused on the way
+to obtain a rope-ladder, and to conceal it in a basket of fruit which I
+bade Giovanni give to his mother. I dared not write a letter had there
+been time to I do so, but the child was intelligent and I made him
+repeat my message again and again.</p>
+
+<p>With the help of the ladder they must descend at midnight into the
+garden of the Belvedere, and climb by the rose espalier to the top of
+the garden wall. I would be on horseback on the other side and would
+receive them in my arms. Then with forged passports I would take them to
+Milan.</p>
+
+<p>A light in the window of the tower at eleven would signify her
+acquiescence in this plan.</p>
+
+<p>But at the time appointed I saw no light, and though my men waited in
+the lofts of the stable where their horses stood ready saddled, and I
+paced the lane on the hither side of the garden wall until dawn, no
+fugitives joined me.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned to my lodgings at daybreak I found a summons from the
+Pope awaiting me which bade me attend him at the Vatican at his morning
+levee. Presently, too, a man in Cesare's livery brought me the basket
+of fruit and the rope-ladder which I had sent to Caterina.</p>
+
+<p>"My master bade me return this to you," said the lackey, "as you may
+find it useful for your own needs in future."</p>
+
+<p>I understood the cold sarcasm of the message. I was to be imprisoned,
+and I did not flatter myself that any opportunity for use of a
+rope-ladder would be left me. But in that supreme moment it was not my
+own doom that I thought upon but that of the unfortunate Lady of Forlì.</p>
+
+<p>As I prepared to obey the papal summons my landlady brought me a letter
+which had arrived during my absence, the long-expected instructions from
+Cardinal d'Amboise. They called me and my troop to Milan&mdash;the Pope would
+not dare controvert that command; and as my eye sought eagerly for an
+answer to my appeal for Caterina it caught at the bottom of the page
+this line:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"As for Caterina Sforza Riario de' Medici and her children&mdash;&mdash;"</p></div>
+
+<p>Trembling with excitement I turned the leaf but my hopes died within me
+as I read on:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"&mdash;&mdash;that belligerent and unwomanly woman hath but received her
+just deserts. We are to be congratulated that her fortresses and
+her army fell into the power of our ally before it was possible for
+her to aid her uncle Lodovico Sforza, usurper of Milan, at present
+our prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"Our fortunes are now so assured either by conquest or alliance
+that all the leading families of northern Italy are on our side.
+Even the Medici are with us. Sooner or later"&mdash;&mdash;</p></div>
+
+<p>Here I turned a page again.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"They must be returned to Florence, as the King desires the good
+will of the Medici."</p></div>
+
+<p>There was more to the effect that the Cardinal desired me to kiss for
+him the hands of his Holiness, and to assure both him and Cesare
+that&mdash;if their promise to the King of France were carried out&mdash;they
+would ever find in the French army a sure defence. But all this seemed
+of little moment to me since the letter contained no hope for Caterina.
+I thrust it in my pouch and pursued my way to the Vatican, cudgelling my
+brains for some other means by which to save her.</p>
+
+<p>Was there, I questioned, no motive within the complicated mechanism of
+Cesare's mind upon which I could play? Was there nothing which he held
+sacred, no terror in earth or hell which could daunt his inexorable
+will?</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly I remembered the flaw in his armour, and that he who
+could neither be persuaded by friendship nor coerced by authority
+trembled before a baseless superstition&mdash;the dread of the evil eye.</p>
+
+<p>I had still a card to play, and would continue the game resolutely to
+the end. It might be that I could arm his captive with the one weapon
+which he feared.</p>
+
+<p>With this thought in my mind I came upon Cesare suddenly, in the
+ante-room of the Pope's audience chamber.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," he exclaimed maliciously, "you thought to anticipate me in gaining
+my father's ear. I confess I had the same intention. Well, since chance
+will have it so, we will go in together."</p>
+
+<p>"One moment," I replied; "I am glad to have met you thus opportunely,
+for I have a word of warning for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Of warning?" he questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I replied, "in return for that you so kindly sent me with the
+rope-ladder this morning. You may need mine first. Let me beg you to
+pursue the Lady of Forlì no further. If you do not instantly let her go
+free she may work you a terrible mischief&mdash;the only one you dread."</p>
+
+<p>The scornful smile which had curled his lip died out, and though he
+asked my meaning I knew he already had an inkling of it.</p>
+
+<p>"You remember the eyeless basilisk which we found near Imola?" He nodded
+and caught my hand. "She has the eyes?" he asked. "Nay, you need not
+answer, I know where she keeps them,&mdash;in the pomander that hangs always
+at her chatelaine." "That is no pomander," I replied, "but a lorgnon.
+She is near-sighted; have you not noted, as she looks from her window of
+the Belvedere how she scans the objects in the garden through its
+lenses?"</p>
+
+<p>"She was looking for me," he chattered insanely, "she was looking for me
+through the eyes of the basilisk; but I am not so dull as you think. I
+have long suspected this, and when she glared at my men as they charged
+the rioters I struck the diabolical things from her hand with the flat
+of my sword. I know not where they fell but she has them no longer."</p>
+
+<p>"Be not so sure of that," I ventured with a grimace, which I strove to
+make a smile. "I found the lorgnon in the street and carried it back to
+the Belvedere. Be warned and anger her no more."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a thoughtful and friendly act," he sneered exultantly, "but
+useless, dear fellow, quite useless. <i>Mal vedere</i> should that falsely
+named villa be called; but neither for good nor for evil will she
+evermore gaze forth from any casement. She and the son whom she thought
+to palm off as a girl lie at this moment in a windowless dungeon in the
+vaults of the castle of St. Angelo. I had thought for a moment to give
+you guest-room beside her, but you have warned me of her designs, and my
+father argues that we must not anger the French King in any fashion. Had
+he demanded my prisoners I might even have lost this dear revenge, but
+now I shall give orders to their gaoler that he waste no good money on
+their nourishment. In less than a week's time their career and my danger
+will be over."</p>
+
+<p>I would have strangled him as he stood there but at that instant the
+doors of the audience-chamber flew open and the Pope, attended by his
+guards, stood between us.</p>
+
+<p>He extended his left hand, which Cesare kissed, and he gave me his
+benediction with the other.</p>
+
+<p>"I have sent for you, my friend," he said, "to bid you farewell, for I
+have just received word from Cardinal d'Amboise that you and your good
+fellows are needed in the Milanese. The Cardinal informs me that he has
+written you by the same post. May I read the letter? Perchance I may
+gain from it a clearer understanding concerning his desires and how we
+may forward them."</p>
+
+<p>"I will go and fetch it," I stammered, for the request was a demand, and
+the thought came to me that I might cut out all reference to the Lady of
+Forlì from the letter.</p>
+
+<p>"I think we shall not need to trouble you to do so," cried the lynx-eyed
+Cesare. "Your pouch is open, and if I mistake not that is the
+handwriting of the Cardinal."</p>
+
+<p>He had snatched the letter, and it was in his father's hand before he
+had said half these words. I am not a man given to prayer, but from the
+bitterness of my despair my soul cried silently in that instant, "O God,
+save her, for vain is the help of man!"</p>
+
+<p>The Pope ran his eye quickly along the lines without speaking until he
+came to the name of the Lady of Forlì.</p>
+
+<p>"As to Caterina Sforza Riario de' Medici and her children"&mdash;he read
+aloud with illy suppressed excitement, and then in his eagerness to know
+more he turned two pages at once, without perceiving that the one which
+should have followed next adhered to that which he had just read&mdash;"As to
+Caterina Sforza Riario de' Medici and her children," he repeated, "they
+must be returned to Florence, as the King desires the good will of the
+Medici."</p>
+
+<p>In utter stupefaction, I could not at first understand how this
+misreading had chanced.</p>
+
+<p>"Hem, hem!" grunted the Pope&mdash;"but she is only the widow of a member of
+the cadet branch, a person of no importance. I see not why the King of
+France should concern himself with her fate. Nevertheless, since our
+prisoners have his patronage, they shall be detained no longer. I will
+write to the Florentine signory commending the lady and her children to
+their loving watch-care, and as you, Sir Yves, have been their conductor
+hither, so shall you escort them to their destination."</p>
+
+<p>Cesare could not gainsay his father's command. An hour later the gates
+of St. Angelo opened for the departure of the Lady of Forlì and her
+children. I waited not for any chance of fate to turn backward the wheel
+of fortune, and as my faithful troop galloped into line about her
+litter, I gave the triumphant order&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To Florence."</p>
+
+<p>She dwells there even as I write these chronicles, in the Medicean
+villa of Castello, and as at first she dared not keep her little son
+with her (the men of the Medici being banished from Florence), she
+confided him, still habited in girlish disguise, to the care of a
+community of nuns, who kept a seminary for the daughters of noble
+families. But at length, on the restoration of the Medici, he issued
+from that retreat, and is now being bred to the profession of arms, in
+the which he bids fair to realise the ambitions confided to me as we
+rode from Forlì, what time I deemed him the most unmannerly little
+princess which it had been my lot to meet.</p>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 376px;">
+<img src="images/ill_ii.png"
+class="top15" width="376" height="144" alt="image not available" />
+</div>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<p class="c">THE FINDING OF APOLLO</p>
+
+<p class="c">(AN ESCAPADE OF BAZZI'S)</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">I</p>
+
+<p><i>Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (called Sodoma) to Giulio Romano, painter
+and architect at Mantua.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Good Friend and sometime Pot-Comrade:</i></p>
+
+<p>By the which epithet I would signify that comradeship at Chigi's villa
+at Rome in orgies of paint pots and brushes, flesh pots and flagons,
+feasts of reason and of unreason, wherein we were alike insatiable until
+the light of our revels went out in the death of our adored Raphael.</p>
+
+<p>You write me that in the intervals of your labour you are piecing
+together memoirs of those glorious Roman days in order to leave to the
+world some record of the more intimate private life of our friend, and
+you ask me for any anecdotes or remembered conversations which may fill
+out this sheaf of tribute.</p>
+
+<p>Faith, you, who have a whole garden of such souvenirs from which to
+cull, in that you shared his labours, his home, his confidence and his
+largess, have come to a wild and barren pasture for such sweet flowers;
+and yet there was love between us, love which ever radiated from him as
+it were sunshine and caused many a briar-rose to blossom in the thorny
+tangle of my life. I knew him also before you, in the summer of 1503, at
+Siena; and it is of certain pranks in that early comradeship that I will
+now write. Raphael was then a youth of scarce twenty years. He had come
+fresh from his apprenticeship to that old pietist Perugino, to assist in
+the decoration of the cathedral library. I was twenty-four, but older
+far in world-knowledge, and exulting in my first success as a painter,
+for though the spoiled favourite of the town I stood <i>facile princeps</i>
+among the Sienese of my craft.</p>
+
+<p>We met first at Cetinale, the villa of our patron, Agostino Chigi. From
+the first Raphael's honest admiration of my work warmed me to
+friendship and I strove to enlighten his ignorance. Chigi had placed at
+our joint disposition a loft in his stables which we fitted up as a
+studio and bed-chamber, and hither we resorted for work or play as
+opportunity and inclination moved us.</p>
+
+<p>It was oftener play for me, for I was more interested in my host's
+horses in those days than in my art. Chigi and I were both amateurs of
+the race-track and though he spent enormous sums on his stud I had once
+beaten him at the <i>palio</i>. In spite of this we were good friends. I had
+the run of his stables and many a reckless ride have we enjoyed
+together. I was fond of all sports which were spiced with danger, and
+particularly of hunting. But there was no sport I loved so well as a
+practical joke, no game that for me had so delicious a flavour as the
+teasing of my friends and especially the more serious and
+dignified&mdash;though such pranks have frequently cost me dear. From the
+multitude of which I have been guilty I recall one which had different
+consequences from those I had foreseen.</p>
+
+<p>I was hunting in the neighbourhood of Siena late one afternoon in the
+summer of which I speak. Chigi was detained at his villa in the
+expectation of guests, and I was alone save for the company of my ape,
+Ciacco, which I had purchased of some strolling Bohemians. I was
+training the creature to retrieve my game, in which service he was
+extremely zealous and clever.</p>
+
+<p>We had ridden far and were both parched with thirst, when I paused to
+rest in the shadow of a ruined tower which crowned a hill and commanded
+the road to Siena. Two sumpter mules, guarded by armed men, had just
+passed on in the direction of the city, and following at some distance
+in the rear two travellers, an elderly man and a young girl, were
+approaching the tower where at that moment I chanced to be stationed.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the fact that their horses were jaded they were pushing them
+to the utmost, anxious, doubtless, to rejoin their convoy and to gain
+Siena before the closing of the gates.</p>
+
+<p>I doubt not, that, armed as I was, and with wind-disordered hair, I
+presented in front of that grim barbican a sufficiently sinister
+appearance. Certain it is they took me for a bandit and their faces
+blanched. The man retained some vestiges of self-possession, however,
+and, doffing his hat, craved permission to pass.</p>
+
+<p>Apprehending the situation, the spirit of mischief with which I am at
+all times possessed moved me to personate the character for which he
+took me, and I gruffly bade him stand and deliver toll of the valuables
+he carried.</p>
+
+<p>"My property has preceded me," he replied unsteadily, "but I will blow
+this whistle and bid the knaves unload it for your worship's choice."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," I replied, "my merry men are dealing with your servants. I am a
+robber-knight, it is true, but one not altogether devoid of courtesy. I
+therefore ask but a kiss from your pretty daughter, and that small melon
+which dangles in the netted pouch at her saddle-bow, for which my
+thirsty ape is gibbering."</p>
+
+<p>If the traveller had been pale hitherto he was livid now.</p>
+
+<p>"Not that, not that," he cried; "hold me in ransom if you will, but let
+my niece pass on unmolested. She will send back whatever sum you demand,
+for we have wealthy friends in Siena."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it so?" I replied; "then I will forego the kiss, which is doubtless
+reserved for a wealthier suitor, but the fruit you will not deny, for I
+have ridden far to-day, and have the thirst of the evil one." The man's
+only reply was to cut the girl's horse so savagely across the flanks
+that the frightened creature dashed past while his own horse blocked my
+pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>But Ciacco, perceiving that the coveted fruit was about to be lost, in
+three flying leaps overtook the fugitive and clambering up the lady's
+draperies seized on the swaying pouch, which his sharp teeth managed to
+unravel, and presently came hopping back, man-like upon his hind feet,
+the melon clasped within his hairy arms.</p>
+
+<p>My prisoner uttered a wail of anguish. One would have thought the ape's
+trifling booty an inestimable treasure, for he rode so furiously toward
+Ciacco that the ape dropped the melon and scampered up a neighbouring
+tree. But my blood was up. I was not to be defrauded of my prey, and as
+the traveller was on the point of dismounting, I fired my arquebus in
+the air, and so terrified his horse that it galloped after the fleeing
+maiden. Its rider was also well frightened, for, though he drew rein
+uncertainly when he saw me possess myself of his luncheon, when I fired
+again (though purposely wide of the mark) both travellers resumed their
+flight, nor paused until they had gained Siena.</p>
+
+<p>I laughed to myself at the success of my prank, thinking of the added
+mirth I should enjoy in telling the tale that evening. Meantime I
+hastened to rescue the melon from my pet, but his strong hands had
+already rent it asunder, and to my astonishment there rolled from its
+interior and broke open upon the flinty road a little casket for which
+the rind had been but the concealing envelope.</p>
+
+<p>I was in very truth a highwayman, for unaware I had stolen the
+travellers' treasure. The melon had hidden a quantity of jewels, which
+now besprinkled the dust; rubies, emeralds, pearls, sapphires, beryls,
+as well as semi-precious stones such as jacinths, onyx, and sardonyx,
+rendered more costly than their brilliant fellows by the skill with
+which they had been cut into cameos and intaglios. It needed but a
+glance at an amethyst incised with a scene from the history of Cupid,
+and Psyche, and at another larger stone bearing a marvellous Apollo and
+Marsyas, to realise that they were antiques of inestimable value, the
+collection of some great prince. I gathered up the gems by handfuls and
+stuffed them into my wallet. I was sobered by the realisation of the
+enormity of my crime, for I had possessed myself, <i>vi et armis</i>, of
+jewels worth a king's ransom; and I had no clue by which I could safely
+return them.</p>
+
+<p>I sifted the dust with my fingers, explored Ciacco's mouth, and gathered
+up the fragments of the melon-rind that no stray gem should escape me;
+but it was with sincere repentance and the gravest apprehensions that I
+took my way to Villa Cetinale.</p>
+
+<p>Repairing to the stables, I put up my horse and climbed with my booty to
+my loft. Raphael was not there, and tying Ciacco to my bed-post I again
+examined the gems, gloating over their beauty and yet wishing with all
+my heart that they had never come into my possession. I compared them
+with a list in the box, found none missing, and returning them to the
+little casket carefully corded and sealed the same, and sat for a long
+time racking my brains for some issue from the dilemma. I was awakened
+from my dreams by a servant who announced that dinner was served, and
+that his master awaited my coming to present me to his guests. While
+hastily dressing, I resolved at the first opportunity to confide frankly
+in Chigi and to take his advice in the matter. Having thus lightly
+shifted the responsibility from my mind, and not being able to think of
+any better method of concealment, I once more placed the casket within
+the melon with the intention of returning for it in the course of the
+evening, and so hastened to my friend's table.</p>
+
+<p>Here what was my astonishment at being presented to the very persons who
+had figured in my adventure, and who proved to be Messer Bernardo
+Dovizio, Chancellor of his Eminence Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, and
+his niece Maria, whose beauty was somewhat lessened by weariness and the
+traces of recent tears. The Chancellor, also,&mdash;who to my relief did not
+recognise me,&mdash;was by no means in good form, nor did he regale us with
+any of those witty stories for which he is so justly famed, but sighed
+and groaned between every mouthful. His misfortune had so afflicted him
+that he could not keep silence, and disregarding my presence, which
+indeed he hardly noticed, he poured forth the cause of his woe. The gems
+which he had lost were a part of the famous collection of Lorenzo de'
+Medici, which his son, the Cardinal Giovanni, had carried with him in
+his flight from Florence, and was now secretly sending by his Chancellor
+in the expectation of pledging them to Chigi, in return for bills of
+exchange which would serve him in good stead during his exile in France.</p>
+
+<p>The faithful Dovizio, devoted to the Cardinal's service, as he had been
+to that of his father, was in an agony of despair. "I will bring this
+highwayman to the gallows," he continually repeated. "I will move heaven
+and earth to discover the villain."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any guess as to whom he may be?" I asked, for the humour of
+the matter grew apace upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not of his name," replied Chigi, "but the description given
+by my friend is so exact that he cannot fail to be discovered."</p>
+
+<p>"A man of gigantic stature," repeated the Chancellor, "with eyes of
+green fire gleaming from under his matted hair, a raucous voice which I
+could not fail to recognise; and on his croup an enormous baboon, as
+dangerous and malignant a beast as his master, trained also to like acts
+of brigandage, for it attacked my niece and robbed her while I held the
+bandit in play with my sword."</p>
+
+<p>"The baboon will bring him to justice," said Chigi, for it so happened
+that he had never seen Ciacco; "there is no such creature in Siena. This
+description shall be sent to every town in the vicinity and the
+miscreant will be easily identified."</p>
+
+<p>I could scarcely conceal my amusement, but turning to the Signorina I
+asked her if she could recognise their assailant.</p>
+
+<p>"Of a surety," she rejoined "though I cannot corroborate my uncle's
+description. The brigand's eyes were not green, for I marked them well,
+and they were black and merry as your own, nor was his voice harsh, but
+sweetly cadenced. Indeed now I bethink me you resemble him in other
+particulars."</p>
+
+<p>"You resemble that villain not at all, young man," interrupted her
+uncle. "He was twice your weight and bulk. I would know him anywhere and
+at our next meeting he shall not escape me."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly," I said, "a most lamentable mischance, and to think that you
+lost not only the jewels but your fruit as well. However, since you have
+a fondness for melons I may be able to furnish this repast with a desert
+of your liking, and if our host will excuse my absence I will fetch it."</p>
+
+<p>I ran to my loft bubbling over with appreciation of the exceeding
+wittiness of my own joke, but on opening my door a cry of dismay escaped
+me. My window was broken, the cord which had tied Ciacco gnawed through,
+and both the ape and the casket had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Nemesis had now loaded me with a despair identical with that of Bernardo
+Dovizio's. Like him, I foresaw myself suspected of having stolen the
+jewels. The amusing joke had assumed the proportions of a dangerous
+situation, and since I could not restore my ill-gotten gains I rashly
+determined to make no confession. I reflected that though the Signorina
+Dovizio might have shrewd suspicions she could bring forward no proofs.
+Ciacco, my compromising partner in crime, had fled. No one at the villa
+knew that I had ever owned such a pet. Even Raphael had not seen him,
+for he had been busy in Siena for a fortnight, and the Bohemians from
+whom I had bought Ciacco had passed by a week before. In an evil hour I
+determined to hold my peace for the present, hoping that some happy
+chance would lead to the discovery of the lost jewels, for which indeed
+I sought continually with every means at my command.</p>
+
+<p>Chigi too had instituted such search as was possible without putting the
+matter in the hands of the authorities, which would have brought about
+awkward complications with the signory of Florence. In the meantime he
+had invited the Dovizios to remain at the villa as his guests, an
+invitation which was accepted with much content. The Chancellor gave
+himself up to the delay with such resignation that I presently perceived
+that he had business of his own at Cetinale other than procuring funds
+for his patron, that in fact he had brought his niece in the hope of
+securing for her husband the banker Chigi, a good match even then in
+point of fortune. There was in Maria Dovizio such dewy freshness and
+sweetness, such absolute simplicity and purity as could not fail to
+appeal to any man with eyes to see; but Chigi was blind, being enamoured
+of another woman and she of a very different type, the improvisatrice
+Imperia, accounted the most talented singer in all Italy.</p>
+
+<p>While the Dovizios lingered in this unavailing quest, of which the
+gentle Maria was in utter ignorance, Raphael returned to the villa, and
+Love, who is always sharpening his arrows for the unwary, was not idle.
+It was the lady whom he first wounded, though we suspected it not at the
+time. Later, in Rome, the Signora Giovanna de Rovere gave me a letter
+written her by Maria Dovizio when at Cetinale, because forsooth I was
+mentioned therein, though in no complimentary a wise; and as this letter
+showeth forth the trend of affairs better than could any words of mine,
+I enclose it with this memorial.</p>
+
+<p><a name="ill_romv_pg040" id="ill_romv_pg040"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 445px;">
+
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg040.png" width="445" height="550" alt="Alinari Unknown Lady (probably Imperia), by Sebastian
+del Piombo Uffizi" />
+<span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 20em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br />Unknown Lady (probably Imperia), by Sebastian
+del Piombo Uffizi</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 489px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg042" id="ill_romv_pg042"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg042.png" width="489" height="550" alt="Alinari
+
+Virgin and Child, by Sodoma
+Pinacoteca, Milan" />
+<span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 20em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br />Virgin and Child, by Sodoma<br />Pinacoteca, Milan</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="hang top15"><i>Maria Dovizio to the Lady Giovanna Feltra de Rovere (Sister of the
+Duke of Urbino), Duchess of Sora and Prefectissa of Rome at
+Urbino.</i></p>
+
+<p class="r"><span class="smcap">"Siena</span>, October, 1504.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>Most magnificent, most beloved, and most sweet Lady</i>:</p>
+
+<p>"For whom my heart longs with true devotion. Truly Madam, since we
+parted in Urbino most strange adventures have befallen me which I
+will now relate. On our way to Siena we fell in with a bandit who
+robbed us, and though my uncle is tarrying here in the hope of the
+recovery of his property the matter is not altogether simple but
+presents more complications than I can explain or indeed
+understand.</p>
+
+<p>"While we are thus delayed we are the guests of the banker Agostino
+Chigi at his villa of Cetinale. With the exception of our host and
+of two young painters, also his guests, we see no one, so, for lack
+of other material, I will describe these young men. The elder is a
+conceited prankish fop, if no worse, called Giovanni Bazzi, and why
+his comrade, Raphael Santi, should hold him in affection I can by
+no means understand, unless the vulgar saying be indeed true that
+love goes by contraries. In presenting Raphael to us our host
+assured my uncle that though as a painter he is as yet unknown he
+is destined to make for himself a great career. But to these
+eulogies of Chigi's I scarcely listened, my attention being held by
+the charm of the artist's personality. Though he said but little,
+his eyes were eloquent, and a smile of heavenly sweetness lighted
+from time to time the gravity of his thoughtful face.</p>
+
+<p>"At our host's insistence Bazzi showed one of his paintings&mdash;a
+Madonna and Child&mdash;which I scarce regarded until Raphael praised
+its excellencies, boldly defending the painting from my uncle's
+strictures.</p>
+
+<p>"While he spoke so eloquently I made a feint of examining the
+picture and was indeed moved by the love which overflowed it, the
+Madonna caressing her babe and he in turn petting a little lamb;
+but my uncle pished and poohed, saying that this sentimentality was
+but a feeble reflection of his master Da Vinci; and our host cut
+the discussion short by demanding that Raphael should show his own
+work. This he could not be persuaded to do, modestly persisting
+that he had naught worthy of our consideration, though he promised
+later to show us a Sposalizio upon which he was engaged but which
+was not then finished.</p>
+
+<p>"With all this, I have not related the circumstance which at once
+put us upon the familiar footing of old acquaintanceship. It was
+Chigi's chance remark that Raphael was a native of Urbino, where he
+had been a favourite with all those choice spirits who make your
+brother's court the most brilliant in Italy.</p>
+
+<p>"And when I demanded of Raphael if he knew you and he told me of
+your goodness to him, and how you were held in love and admiration
+of all, then it was that our common affection for your ladyship
+made us to feel that we had known each other from the time that we
+first knew you.</p>
+
+<p>"It is true that he did not boast as he might well have done that
+you had kindly written a letter in his behalf to the Gonfalonier of
+Florence, whither he intends later to journey. But my uncle
+learning of this later was duly impressed thereby, and pronounced
+him a young man of engaging manners who doubtless deserved such
+distinguished favour.</p>
+
+<p>"Even with this warrant our acquaintance has made no such rapid
+strides. I meet him rarely except at our host's table where there
+are often other guests and always that pest Giovanni Bazzi, whom I
+can in no wise abide, and concerning whose honesty I have of late
+entertained very grave suspicions. So serious indeed are they that
+I will not at present divulge them but shall continue to watch the
+rogue, knowing that the guilty sooner or later accuse themselves. I
+think he dreads me for he leaves me always to converse with
+Raphael, with whom my topic is ever Florence, which I knew as a
+child before the banishment of the Medici.</p>
+
+<p>"He tells me that he longs to see the city on account of the
+artists there assembled and chiefly the painter Frate, formerly
+known as Baccio della Porta, who turned monk under the preaching of
+Savonarola.</p>
+
+<p>"'And truly,' said he, 'I think that art and a monastic life wed
+well together, and I would willingly retire to some cloistered
+garden afar from the world if I might carry my box of colours with
+me, and might sometimes see as in a vision a face like thine to
+paint from.' Then was I seized with a foolish timidity so that I
+could in no wise answer&mdash;nay, nor so much as lift up my head&mdash;but
+my heart said, 'And why afar from the world? Why not in it making
+all better and happier?'</p>
+
+<p>"And while I sat thus silent, abashed, he, continuing to gaze upon
+me, cried: 'Nay, but I <i>must</i> paint thee: for thou art the very
+embodiment of the ideal which I am striving to shadow forth in my
+picture. I wish to depict the Virgin at the time of her betrothal
+to St. Joseph, And to show a soul as pure as any of Fra Angelico's
+angels shining through a body that shall have all the perfection
+and charm of Da Vinci's women. It is what my master, Perugino,
+strove for but never attained. How could he when he had only his
+beautiful but soulless wife Chiara Fancelli to paint from?'</p>
+
+<p>"'And do I look thus to thee?' I asked in wonder. 'Then, indeed, I
+would that I might pose for thy painting; but, alas! I fear that to
+this my uncle would in no wise consent.'</p>
+
+<p>"And so, indeed, it proved. For later, when my uncle fancied that
+he perceived some likeness to myself in the Sposalizio, though I
+had given Raphael no sittings, he was vehement in his denunciation
+of the presumption of all artists.</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle might not have been so vexed but for the ill-timed
+jesting of this same Bazzi. We had been asked to inspect the
+picture before it should be sent to the monks for whom it was
+painted, and while I stood entranced with its exceeding loveliness
+and my uncle himself was astonished by the skill displayed, the
+Signor Chigi explained the details of the composition.</p>
+
+<p>"'It is a tradition,' he said, 'that the blessed Virgin was sought
+in marriage by so many young men that her parents besought the
+high-priest to aid them in their choice of her husband. He
+accordingly demanded that her suitors should give their staves into
+his keeping, to be placed over night before the altar, with the
+understanding, in which Mary herself meekly acquiesced, that he
+whose staff budded should become her husband. On the morrow
+Joseph's staff was found to have put forth blossoms. This legend,
+as you see, our artist has followed in his painting, for not only
+is Joseph's staff tipped by a cluster of small flowers, but the
+young men who accompany him, the disappointed suitors, bear
+flowerless staves, and one of the rejected is breaking his across
+his knee in token of his vexation.'</p>
+
+<p>"Of this incident I would make no account, had it not been the
+occasion for Bazzi's unmannerly trick. For that graceless fellow
+chancing to spy leaning against his easel, the rod upon which
+Raphael was wont to rest his hand while painting, he very slyly
+made fast to it a nosegay of orange blossoms which the Signor Chigi
+had presented to me on my entrance and which I had carelessly let
+fall.</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot imagine the coil which this trick occasioned, for its
+author speedily called our host's attention to the decorated rod,
+and the signification of its adornment was at once apprehended to
+be my own approval of the painter.</p>
+
+<p>"Raphael alone retained his senses, for he at once divined that the
+perpetrator of the jest was his scapegrace friend and extorted from
+him full confession of his prank, asserting that it was
+inconceivable that I could have had any part in it.</p>
+
+<p>"My confusion was such that I accepted the explanation with
+gratitude as an escape from the bantering of the Signor Chigi and
+the displeasure of my uncle. But as days passed by and Raphael held
+himself aloof, giving me no opportunity to thank him for his
+tactful defence, I perceived that it was not so much the meaning of
+the token which had been imputed to me at which my heart revolted,
+as the shameless and public way in which it had been thrust upon my
+friend. In this plight I still remain and turn to you for sympathy
+in my trouble, to you sweet lady who cannot fail to think me sadly
+love-sick and bold, but I pray you chide me not, seeing the matter
+can go no further, for I learn that Raphael has been recalled to
+Urbino by your ladyship's brother to execute certain commissions.
+So that your ladyship will soon see him and will have an
+opportunity of learning from him whether he at all regrets leaving
+Siena, though I beg that you will ascertain this without so much as
+suffering him to suspect that I have in any way signified that I
+have met him. For it is perchance best that he is going, for were I
+to see him often I do fear me that my heart might become so pitched
+and set upon him, that I should in time most rashly and
+inconsiderately fall in love, which were a bold and unmaidenly
+thing to do, and I mind that you once said that no virtuous woman
+would allow her affections to conduct themselves thus
+insubordinately until the Church had by the sacrament of marriage
+given her good and sufficient license thereto.</p>
+
+<p>"And so Madam, praying Maria Sanctissima and Maria, the sister of
+Lazarus, my patroness, to keep me constant in this mind, I rest
+your ladyship's loving friend and devoted servitor</p>
+
+<p class="r smcap">"Maria Dovizio."</p></div>
+
+<p>It must be understood that this letter came not to my knowledge until
+long after its writing. I knew not then either the deep affection of the
+writer for Raphael, or her aversion for myself. By an irony of fate we
+had begun our acquaintance by loving at cross purposes. The "prankish
+fop" and "graceless fellow"&mdash;whose affection had indeed been hitherto
+no great compliment to a woman, being lightly caught and as lightly
+lost&mdash;was to his own surprise falling very honestly in love. So
+accustomed was I to the attraction of false lights that I said to myself
+often in the earlier stages of the malady, "This will pass like the
+others," not realising that I was entering upon the one great passion of
+my life, which all my later experience would but deepen, and death
+itself, if the soul be immortal, will have no power to quench.</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">II</p>
+
+<p class="c">APOLLO PROMISES</p>
+
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Little we see of Nature that is ours.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;"
+class="dots">. . . . .
+. . .</span>
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It moves us not,&mdash;Great God! I'd rather be</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;"><span class="smcap">W. Wordsworth.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Raphael, at the period of which I write, had but one mistress,&mdash;his
+art,&mdash;and after finishing the Sposalizio he withdrew from the society of
+the Dovizios, painting most assiduously. I remember that his model was
+a pretty maid of seven years, named Margherita, the child of one of
+Chigi's servants, as playful and as ignorant as a little fawn. The
+startled look in her eyes, when spoken to by any one but Raphael,
+reminded me of some wild creature of the woods. But with him she was
+never shy,&mdash;singing and prattling the livelong day with the most
+charming and naïve affection. While Raphael painted, Bernardo Dovizio,
+who apparently regretted having wounded him, came from time to time to
+lend him books, much deploring that one so gifted by nature should be
+unread in the classics.</p>
+
+<p>His daughter watched them from a distance, and when Raphael left his
+easel would steal near and study the picture or chat with me and with
+the little Margherita. On such occasions the child, usually merry and
+loving, would sulk and scowl unhandsomely, and though Maria Dovizio was
+sweet and generous to her, she showed an unreasoning prejudice amounting
+to discourtesy, for which at first I was at a loss to account. I mind me
+that she was present when I tied the bunch of orange blossoms to
+Raphael's mahl stick, and after the visitors had left the studio the
+child, believing that the flowers were the gift of the Signorina
+Dovizio, tore them from the rod and trampled them beneath her feet.</p>
+
+<p>When I chid her for such savage behaviour Margherita burst into tears
+and cried out passionately that Raphael was her friend, and that the
+strange lady had no business to try to steal him from her. Seeing her so
+unreasoningly jealous at such a tender age I was mightily amused, having
+no premonition that these two would one day be rivals in good earnest
+for Raphael's love.</p>
+
+<p>But Margherita's jealousy woke in me a curiosity as to how far it was
+well-founded, and bantering Raphael thereon I came to the conclusion
+that he loved Maria Dovizio, but that he had so modest an estimate of
+his own talent and prospects that he would never tell her of his
+affection. The knowledge that I had a rival enlivened mightily my own
+passion, and determined me to lay the matter plainly before the lady and
+demand that she should choose between us.</p>
+
+<p>Finding my opportunity I argued my friend's cause, as it seemed to me
+with great magnanimity, but at the same time I neglected not to set
+forth how superior were my own advantages. To my immense surprise she
+refused me in such terms as to leave me with no ground for
+hope,&mdash;persisting at the same time that I was mistaken in regard to
+Raphael's feelings.</p>
+
+<p>In sheer contrariety and because her refusal had temporarily taken away
+my senses, I maintained that I knew whereof I spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Would that I had known this before," she said turning from me.</p>
+
+<p>"You would not then have disclaimed sending the message implied by the
+flowers which I attached to his mahl stick?" I persisted rudely.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay," she cried all of a tremble, "it is best as it is," and she
+made me swear that I would tell nothing of all this. The oath sat
+lightly on my conscience, and when my pride had somewhat recovered from
+the wound which it had received, my better nature asserted itself for I
+reflected that here were two young creatures whom nature intended for
+one another and I determined to give these bashful lovers another
+opportunity in which to understand each other.</p>
+
+<p>Though I prided myself not a little on the rare nobility of soul which I
+manifested by such unusual procedure, it was not so disinterested as
+might at first appear. For, I reasoned in my heart, when all comes to be
+known Maria Dovizio will give me credit for great self-sacrifice and
+delicacy of feeling, while Raphael cannot fail to be touched by my
+magnanimity. Back of all this self-laudation there was an ulterior
+motive hardly confessed to myself. By springing the mine prematurely I
+would either cement their union or drive them permanently apart, thus
+clearing my path of a dangerous rival while removing any imputation of
+underhand dealing upon my part. I dared the risk for I was nearing that
+point of desperation where uncertainty is worse than the knowledge of
+absolute defeat.</p>
+
+<p>While I sought for some promising way in which to execute my scheme,
+Raphael read the translations of the pagan writers which Dovizio had
+lent him, and this plunge into a bath of the old literature, so new to
+him, had a tremendous effect upon his susceptible mind. He regretted
+deeply that Pico della Mirandola, who strove to harmonise Greek
+mythology with the Christian religion, had been snatched away by death
+before he could have had the opportunity to converse with him. He read
+his writings with avidity and listened to what Dovizio remembered of his
+arguments that the religion of the Greeks was as truly a revelation from
+God as our own, and he could readily believe the assertion of certain of
+the humanist's friends that at Pico's death-bed the Virgin and Venus
+had met, and comforting his dying gaze with their presence, had together
+borne away his soul to the regions of the blest.</p>
+
+<p>Without being any less Christian, Raphael's soul expanded in the
+sunshine of these influences, absorbing all that was joyous and
+beautiful in pagan ideas. Chigi lent him his favourite manuscript, the
+Myth of Psyche, translated from Apuleius, which he declared Raphael must
+one day paint for him. But of all the gods of antiquity the one which
+roused our young enthusiast to deepest admiration was Apollo, whose
+avatar was the sun, but whose spiritual significance was infinitely
+more, the light of the soul, the god of music, art, and poetry and all
+that elevates the spirit of man.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen Giovanni," he said to me one day, "I could pray to such a deity.
+Think you that it would be sin to utter a prayer like this of Socrates:
+'Beloved Pan, and all ye gods who haunt this place, give me beauty of
+the inward soul, and may the outward and the inward man be at one'?"</p>
+
+<p>Seeing sport in the idea I assured him that such adoration was
+commendable and would doubtless meet with a response. I had my own idea
+of what form that response should take. Chigi held revel that night to
+celebrate a visit from the improvisatrice Imperia, who was on her way to
+Rome. Raphael could not be induced to join the company, preferring to
+spend the night devouring some books lately come from Venice. He had
+striven to tell me of a mysterious experience. A stone bearing the image
+of Apollo had fallen before him as he read, and he had accepted it as a
+propitious omen. I laughed rudely and he shrank from me offended.</p>
+
+<p>"I would have shown it to you," he said, "but now you shall not see it."</p>
+
+<p>I repeated this hallucination to Chigi and Imperia, and they also found
+it amusing.</p>
+
+<p>"He is as drunk with poesy," I insisted, "as ever I have been with wine.
+If the Signorina would graciously sing some old Greek chant yonder in
+the garden he would believe that he heard the voice of the gods."</p>
+
+<p>Imperia's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Let us humour this young
+enthusiast to his bent," she said. "I will hide in the laurel copse at
+the foot of the garden if Bazzi here will bring him out upon the
+terrace."</p>
+
+<p>"He could never be content to hear your divine voice," Chigi objected,
+"without seeking you out, and then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And then, my friend, you would imply that the disillusion would be too
+cruel. No, I am too evidently a part of this solid earth to pass as a
+nymph of Apollo."</p>
+
+<p>I remained silent but I looked meaningly at Maria Dovizio, who stood
+near the window, her slight figure outlined against its darkness.
+Imperia followed my glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! there is a girl, graceful and ethereal enough to satisfy an
+artist's ideal."</p>
+
+<p>"What a pity," Chigi said, "that she has not your voice."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, if the Signora will but deign to sing as she suggested," I
+persisted, "we will robe the Signorina Dovizio in Greek draperies and
+pose her in the little pillared temple in front of the laurel thicket
+and Raphael will not doubt that the voice is hers."</p>
+
+<p>Thus, at last, my scheme was carried out, though we had much difficulty
+in persuading Maria Dovizio to lend herself to it. Only when Chigi
+explained that it was an ovation to Raphael, in which she was to crown
+him with a wreath of laurel and foretell him a glorious future, did she
+consent. Even then she had no suspicion that I had any ulterior motive
+in suggesting the little tableau.</p>
+
+<p>It was late at night, or rather early in the morning, when all our
+arrangements were completed and, returning to the studio, I dragged
+Raphael from his books on pretence that we both had need to cool our
+brains.</p>
+
+<p>The view from the terrace was a favourite one with each of us. In the
+mysterious morning twilight there seemed something supernaturally
+sentient in the atmosphere, as though it quivered in expectation of the
+dawn. A soft trill, faint with rapture, filtered through the foliage of
+the neighbouring wood. It was a solitary nightingale calling his mate;
+and presently he was answered by flute-like notes which soared above the
+soft murmur of a viol still strumming in the villa as a skylark cuts the
+mists. It was not another nightingale as I at first thought, but
+Imperia's voice from the laurel thicket mocking the melody. As she sang
+there appeared within the circle of the tiny temple's columns a
+white-robed figure, outlined against the pale green and lemon yellow of
+the dawn. It might have been a statue save that as the song of the
+improvisatrice, a rhapsody to Apollo, thrilled the air with passionate
+sweetness, it raised its perfect arms in invocation. As though in
+response to the gesture the clouds flushed through delicate rose to
+crimson, while the radiance beneath their exquisite arch burned like
+molten gold, with ever-increasing intensity, until the sun itself
+blinded our eyes with its intolerable white fire.</p>
+
+<p>Though this was exactly the event which I had planned, I was not
+prepared for such phenomenal success, and I stole nearer the temple
+spellbound by my own artifice.</p>
+
+<p>The effect upon Raphael in his exalted mood may readily be imagined. To
+him my little comedy was a supernatural vision, and kneeling before
+Maria Dovizio he exclaimed: "Beautiful priestess, beseech Apollo to
+grant me the power to make the world more beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>Mechanically the Signorina repeated the lines which I had assigned her:
+"To you it is decreed to find Apollo and to bring back the Golden Age."</p>
+
+<p>Then, as she bent to crown him with the wreath of laurel, the perfume
+and warmth of her person intoxicating his senses, her bared arms
+encircling his neck, her soul in her eyes, Raphael awoke to the
+consciousness that this was no phantom but a woman pulsing with life and
+love, and that woman Maria Dovizio.</p>
+
+<p>He might have revolted at the trick and have thrust her from him; but
+look you&mdash;it is always the unforeseen which happens. His arms were
+around her and he drew her to him unresisting till for an instant her
+lips touched his forehead and his face was buried in her bosom. Then she
+withdrew herself, pushing him from her very gently and steadying herself
+tremblingly with her hands upon his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"And shall I not find you again, O my beloved?" he cried, springing to
+his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely," she answered, "surely, when you have found Apollo."</p>
+
+<p>She had turned from him and was hurrying toward the villa, but he
+followed her, calling her name.</p>
+
+<p>"Claim me not now, not now!" she cried, as he caught her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"When you will," he answered, closing her fingers over some small
+object, "this is my pledge that when you call me I will keep the tryst."</p>
+
+<p>He passed me a moment later, but so great was his preoccupation that he
+did not see me. I knew by the exalted look upon his face that I had
+played and lost. Raphael had awakened from his dreams to love. That
+instant of mutual enlightenment for two such natures was not alone an
+ineffaceable memory but a sacred though wordless betrothal.</p>
+
+<p>Through my pain I vaguely heard Chigi calling and returned to the villa.
+Neither he nor his friends had understood the full significance of what
+had just happened, and Bernardo Dovizio was demanding of his niece an
+explanation of the scene.</p>
+
+<p>"He thought me one of the muses," she said, "and begged me to beseech
+for him the favour of Apollo."</p>
+
+<p>"But he gave you something," said Dovizio. "Show it to me," and he
+wrenched open his niece's fingers.</p>
+
+<p>For one instant he gazed wonder-stricken at the token, and as I pressed
+close with the others I also recognised the famous Apollo intaglio, the
+gem of the collection of Lorenzo the Magnificent, of which for a few
+hours I had been the unlawful possessor.</p>
+
+<p>Exclamations of wonder and admiration arose on all sides. But Dovizio,
+recovering his power of speech, seized Chigi by the arm, exclaiming: "We
+have the thief! Look you Agostino, I have had my suspicions all along.
+It was Raphael who played the bandit, and robbed me of my jewels. I
+demand that you arrest the villain."</p>
+
+<p>Maria's look of anguish cut me to the heart. "Nay, listen to me," I
+cried; "it was not Raphael but I who stole your gems. You shall not
+burst in upon him and kill him with the shock of your accusations.
+Listen while I confess the truth." And then and there I did confess it,
+to the wonder but not to the satisfaction of Dovizio.</p>
+
+<p>"But where are the other gems?" he insisted. "You are a pair of rogues,
+the two of you. Come with me to your confederate and disgorge your
+booty."</p>
+
+<p>"Give o'er, my good Dovizio," said Chigi. "I will sift this matter; come
+with me but keep silence, for I believe in my soul that Bazzi speaks the
+truth. I will hear Raphael's version of how he came by this intaglio;
+since a portion of your lost property has been returned, perchance the
+remainder is on the way."</p>
+
+<p>And so indeed it proved. Raphael had not returned to the studio, but as
+we opened the door we heard a scampering and chattering, and caught a
+glimpse of Ciacco leaping to the top of a high cabinet and thence to a
+rafter where he perched whimpering in fear of punishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Come down, you rogue," I cried, "come down and retrieve your game."</p>
+
+<p>The creature understood and climbing into the hay loft, which joined
+the studio, returned, hugging to his breast the lost casket.</p>
+
+<p>Dovizio, nearly fainting with excitement, counted his treasures, and
+compared them with the list. All were there, excepting the Apollo
+intaglio, which Ciacco, driven by hunger, had that evening restored to
+Raphael.</p>
+
+<p>As it came so pat with the matter of his reading, it is no wonder that
+he imagined it had fallen from the skies, and this view of the case even
+the placated Dovizio took upon reflection.</p>
+
+<p>"It were a pity to rob him of his illusions if they are an inspiration
+to him," he mused. "Let him think himself favoured by Apollo; and as for
+my niece, since our business here is now accomplished and we shall leave
+Siena on the morrow, he will probably never see her again, and it is as
+well that he should not connect her with his visions."</p>
+
+<p>Thus ended our adventures at the villa of Cetinale for Raphael also
+presently left us for Urbino and Florence and all things seemed as they
+had been before our meeting together. But I knew that the day would
+surely come when he would claim his beloved, and that in the spinning of
+their fates so slight a thing as the pranking of a fool had twisted
+itself into the very fibre of their lives, never to be unravelled until
+the shears of Atropos should cut the cords asunder.</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">III</p>
+
+<p class="c">APOLLO FULFILS HIS PROMISE</p>
+
+<p class="c"><i>Federigo de Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, gives his views of Raphael</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then why too will he try so many things,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Instead of sticking to one single art;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He must be studying music, twanging strings,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And writing sonnets with their "heart and dart,"</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lately he's setting up for architect,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And planning palaces, and, as I learn,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Has made a statue&mdash;every art in turn.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="smcap">W. W. Story.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Raphael, as I have said, betook himself to Florence, that centre of the
+arts, and for a matter of four years I saw him not, nor can I, my
+Giulio, give you any record of his Florentine experiences, vital as they
+were to the flowering of his character and genius. I saw only the
+change; he left me a youth, naïve, ignorant, but filled with a divine
+enthusiasm, inspired as it were by the very spirit of God. In those
+four years he became instructed, absorbing all that was best from
+ancient and modern art, but still a mystic, a young archangel in
+knowledge and power.</p>
+
+<p>He studied first with Fra Bartolommeo in the cloister of San Marco, and
+the painter-monk yearned over him, as the child of his soul. But he
+divined also from the mere beholding of Da Vinci's pictures what I had
+been able to learn only by painful study, the secret of the master's
+charm.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time the strong undercurrent of the Greek spirit rife in
+Florence was bearing him irresistibly on to his mission as leader of all
+that is beautiful, joyous, and noble in classical art. Fra Bartolommeo
+could not fail to be distressed by these tendencies in his disciple.
+Raphael came to him one day saying, "Beloved Master, his holiness the
+Pope has called me to Rome; and I go with joy, for it has been revealed
+to me that there I shall find Apollo."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! my son," the pious painter replied in anguished warning, "beware,
+for whoso findeth Apollo loseth Christ."</p>
+
+<p>And now I come to our Roman life and especially to that familiar
+intercourse at the Villa Chigi where Raphael and I were nearer of one
+spirit, for all your opportunities, than were you and he, my Giulio. In
+Rome, as in Siena, I preceded him, and had the better chance for
+fortune's favours, which I wilfully threw away. For early in his
+pontificate, Pope Julius II. made Agostino Chigi his banker and farmer
+of the alum mines whose yearly revenue was estimated at $100,000. Nor
+did Chigi with this elevation forget old friends, for in the spring of
+1507 he came to Siena to fetch me as a personal favour to Rome, but on
+our arrival he introduced me to the Pope, and obtained from him my
+commission to decorate the Stanza della Segnatura. But, fool that I was,
+I fancied my luck could not desert me, and painted only when it pleased
+me, ran my horses at all the races in Italy, and played the dandy, the
+spendthrift, and the roistering spark, until his Holiness in disgust
+turned me from the Vatican, and called Raphael to take my place, bidding
+him erase the little work I had done upon the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>This, however, Raphael refused to do. On the contrary he did me the
+honour to paint my portrait beside his own, where you may see both of
+them to-day in that glorious fresco of the <i>School of Athens</i>, the
+serious inspired face of the young maestro cheek by cheek with the
+coarser features of his laughing, devil-may-care friend; and I prize
+more highly that testimony of his esteem than all the other honours of
+my life.</p>
+
+<p>I lingered on aimlessly at Rome, watching him at his work, fascinated by
+the superb conceptions with which he glorified the walls of the Vatican,
+and admiring the daring which enthroned Apollo and his attendant muses
+there in the very sanctuary of Christendom.</p>
+
+<p>It was his homage to the old worship, his endeavour to bring back
+Apollo, and that he thought then of Maria Dovizio's promise that he
+should find her when this was accomplished I had one day convincing
+proof; for, turning over his sketches, I found scribbled upon the back
+of a study for the <i>Disputa</i> this sonnet:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">"LOVE'S BONDAGE"</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Love, thou hast bound me with a cruel force,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The light of her two tender starry eyes,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">A face like snow flushed rose 'neath sunset skies,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">With gentle bearing and with chaste discourse.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">But I would make no plaint, so great my bliss.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The more I love, I long to love again.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">How light the yoke, how sweet the circling chain</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Of her arms round my neck! And 'neath her kiss</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Leaps forth the embodied soul in ecstacy.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Unloosed those bonds I suffer ceaseless pain,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">For great joy kills whom it doth wholly move.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Though throbbing still with tender thought of thee,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">My heart is heavy and I speak in vain,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">But be my silence eloquent of love."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 428px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg064" id="ill_romv_pg064"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg064.png" width="428" height="550" alt="Alinari
+
+Raphael and Sodoma
+
+Fragment of School of Athens, in the Vatican&mdash;Raphael" />
+
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top" align="left"><td>Raphael and Sodoma<br />
+Fragment of School of Athens,
+in the Vatican&mdash;Raphael</td>
+<td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>I knew that the poem was addressed to Maria, for it was at this time
+that Bernardo Dovizio, dazzled by the change in Raphael's fortunes and
+repenting of his hasty action at Cetinale, offered my friend the hand of
+his niece.</p>
+
+<p>Raphael had told me of this, begging my congratulations. "She is at
+Urbino," he said, "but has written me confirming our betrothal. She
+tells me, too, that she has loved me all these years. Such constancy is
+miraculous, and I am the happiest of men."</p>
+
+<p>It was with a sore heart that I wished my friend joy. He knew not of my
+trouble, or I think it would have poisoned his happiness, for he
+sympathised so deeply with all his friends that their sorrows were his
+own. I mind me that we met Agostino Chigi that day, and that he told us
+of his prosperity; how he was sole owner of five score banking houses
+outrivalling those of the Medici and, indeed, every other firm in the
+world; how he monopolised not alone the alum, but also the wheat and
+salt industries; how his lakes alone supplied Rome with fish and his
+stock farms its markets; that his fleet numbered upwards of an hundred
+merchant vessels, while thousands of men did him service; that, in
+short, his fortune was now past computation, and his income beyond his
+power of spending.</p>
+
+<p>He explained all this not in a spirit of boastfulness, but, with an arm
+about each of us, told how he desired that we should share in his glory.
+He had determined to build a villa in Lungara upon the Tiber which
+should excel all of the Roman palaces, and while Peruzzi was his chosen
+architect, Raphael and I should divide its decoration. "For if I have
+become a prince of finance," he ended, "you, dear friends, are princes
+of art, and we will all three join in making this villa a worthy
+dwelling-place for one whom you knew and admired at Cetinale."</p>
+
+<p>Thinking for the instant that he referred to Imperia, who was now in
+Rome, Raphael congratulated him warmly and confided his own betrothal to
+Maria Dovizio. But at that news a sudden transformation was wrought in
+the demeanour of our old friend. His face became purple and swollen
+and his arms fell to his sides. Not a word spake he for a full minute,
+but he drew his breath hard, flinging out at length a bitter sarcasm on
+the faithlessness of women, and bidding Raphael trust not too much to
+their promises, he abruptly left us.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg066" id="ill_romv_pg066"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg066.png" width="600" height="457" alt="Alinari
+
+Villa Farnesina, Rome" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Villa Farnesina, Rome</td><td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 20em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was only one construction to be put upon his conduct. Maria's
+loveliness had apparently made no impression upon him at Cetinale, but
+the memory of it had lingered in his heart, and when he met her after a
+lapse of years and saw how her beauty had matured, an affection, of
+which he himself may not have been conscious, flowered suddenly, just as
+a rose-tree set in ungrateful soil and long accounted dead may in the
+fulness of time come to unlooked-for efflorescence.</p>
+
+<p>Sharing his envy, I could only mark it with a laugh, but Raphael said,
+kindly, "Poor fellow, with all his wealth, I am many times richer than
+he."</p>
+
+<p>In my heart I knew that of her three lovers Maria had chosen wisely, and
+Chigi's disappointment would not have added to my own affliction, but
+for the reflection that in the present turn of affairs he would not be
+likely to hasten the building of his villa, and my last hope of
+employment in Rome was fading like a cruel mirage. But Raphael could
+well afford to waive Chigi's patronage, for him it was but another step
+in the golden staircase of success which now mounted invitingly before
+him. The Pope not only overwhelmed him with projects for the decoration
+of the Vatican but made him curator of all antiques which might be
+discovered near Rome, with full power to direct excavations.</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the Vatican from the walk during which we had encountered
+Chigi, Raphael found awaiting him a letter from the Pope, announcing
+that certain ancient statues had been discovered in the gardens of the
+villa of Nero at Antium, (now Porto d'Anzio), and desiring him to
+examine them and arrange for the transportation of the more remarkable
+to Rome.</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me," Raphael cried, "since you have nothing better to
+do&mdash;pardon me, my friend&mdash;since such an excursion is exactly what you
+would enjoy. We will ride to-morrow morning to Ostia and charter some
+fishing craft there for the sail to Porto d'Anzio."</p>
+
+<p>I accepted the invitation, glad to visit this favourite seaside resort
+of the Roman emperors. Even before we landed we could see the ruins of
+their villas deep in the clear waters of the bay, fish gliding through
+arches and the seaweed waving its pennons from the walls. The cliff at
+the back of the town presented a most impressive appearance, being
+pierced by great arched openings like the portals of a Roman bath. And
+such, indeed, they were, for on the promontory above had been the
+gardens of the imperial villa, and from them staircases carven in the
+rock descended to this subterranean chamber, which at full-tide the sea,
+rushing through a long canal, once converted into a swimming-pool. The
+great cavern had been dry for centuries, for the tides had piled their
+own sandy dykes before it, and the vaulting had fallen bringing with it
+a portion of the garden of the imperial villa and burying its statues
+beneath the debris. It was here that excavations had been begun, and as
+we entered the cave from the beach, our way was bordered by the
+fragments of many a column and capital, by broken vases and by headless
+statues.</p>
+
+<p>But none of these attracted us, for in the centre of the chamber,
+perfectly illumined by a shaft of light which fell upon it slantwise
+from the chasm in the roof, was the most superb statue which our eyes,
+nay, which any human vision had ever beheld.</p>
+
+<p>Apollo's very self stood there, god-like in superhuman majesty, as
+though he were an archangel who had alighted from his flaming chariot to
+lift a threatening hand against the workers of iniquity.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot describe the profound impression which this discovery made upon
+Raphael. He was raised to the seventh heaven, as on that memorable night
+at Siena, and while he gazed at the statue a mysterious voice, clear but
+freighted with intense emotion, chanted the <i>Hymn to Apollo</i> to which we
+had listened at Chigi's villa.</p>
+
+<p>At first we could not tell from whence it came but looked about in
+startled surprise. Presently, however, a branch of laurel fell through
+the opening in the roof, the song ended in a peal of laughter, and we
+knew that some one was looking down upon us from the old Roman garden.
+No one but Imperia could sing like that, and when Raphael exclaimed. "It
+is the same song, the same singer that we heard at Cetinale." I cried
+out. "The same, the same. She is celebrating the discovery of Apollo."</p>
+
+<p>"She promised to come to me when I had found Apollo," he said, and
+bounded up the rude stairway. Even then I did not realise that though
+Raphael had recognised the voice he still supposed that it was Maria
+Dovizio who had sung on that evening, and that it was she whom he now
+believed he was about to meet.</p>
+
+<p>There was no one in the ruined villa. A goatherd at a little distance,
+of whom I inquired, pointed to the shore, and we saw some
+pleasure-seekers embarking in a small sailboat.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Chigi's yacht," said Raphael, "that is his pennon which flaps
+from the mast, and Chigi himself is standing at the stern waving his cap
+to us. There is a lady with him. He is steadying her with his arm. Your
+eyes are better than mine, is it she?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is indeed," I replied, "I would know her anywhere. His arm is around
+her waist and she is clinging to him as of old. The unsteadiness of the
+vessel is but an excuse. Many times at Cetinale have I seen them
+standing thus. What else could you expect of such a woman? He is the
+richest man in Italy."</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">IV</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">AN ORGY AT CHIGI'S VILLA</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Chigi made a joyous feast; I never</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sat at a costlier; for all round his hall</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From column on to column, as in a wood,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Great garlands swung and blossomed, and beneath</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Heirlooms and ancient miracles of Art</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chalice and salver, wines that Heaven knows when</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Had sucked the fire of some forgotten sun</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And kept it through a hundred years of gloom,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet glowing in a heart of ruby, cups</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where nymph and god ran ever round in gold,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Others with glass as costly, some with gems</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Movable and resetable at will,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And trebling all the rest in value.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Ah! heavens!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Why need I tell you all? Suffice! to say</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That whatsoever boundless wealth like his,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And genius high, can compass, rare or fair,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Was brought before the guest.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="smcap">Tennyson</span>:&mdash;Altered.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>So I found Raphael and so I left him, successful and apparently happy.
+Had I comprehended what the incident which I have just related meant to
+him,&mdash;had I even suspected his misconception of the situation,&mdash;I might
+have made him understand that neither at Cetinale nor at Porto d'Anzio
+had Maria Dovizio sung the <i>Hymn to Apollo</i>, that in both places it was
+Imperia who had chanted, Imperia who had responded to Chigi's caresses,
+and so this woful misunderstanding might never have divided these young
+lovers. Maria, far from being Chigi's guest at the moment of the
+discovery of the <i>Apollo</i>, was in Urbino, awaiting in ever-increasing
+wonder and dismay some word of affection from her betrothed. Failing to
+receive it she came to Rome, but Raphael held himself aloof, pleading
+the Pope's demands upon his time. He thought that she would understand
+the cause of his neglect, and herself sunder the engagement, for he
+would not shame her by any accusation.</p>
+
+<p>One ineffaceable picture of my friend I carried with me into my exile,
+for going to the Vatican to bid Raphael farewell, I was told that he was
+in the Pope's villa of the Belvedere superintending the placing of the
+<i>Apollo</i>, which had just arrived. The guards barred my entrance to the
+loggia, and indeed I cared not to intrude, for I saw that the Pope was
+there, gazing at the statue with a grim delight, as though he believed
+that the god had descended to earth to expel as of old the barbarian
+Gauls.</p>
+
+<p>Raphael stood entranced, unmindful of the presence of Maria Dovizio, who
+sat a little apart, heart-sick and bewildered, unable to grope her way
+through the thick fog of misconception which had drifted between herself
+and her beloved.</p>
+
+<p>And over all the white form of <i>Apollo</i> gleamed in heartless gladness,
+untouched by any feeling for his votary's sins of ignorance for which he
+would cry in vain repentance, "Had I but known, had I but known!"</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible for me to tarry longer in Rome without employment, and
+I bethought me of the monks of Oliveto, and how they had asked for a
+series of paintings for their cloister. To this refuge, therefore, I
+repaired, completing, in two years, thirty-one great frescoes for little
+more than my sustenance. Yea; and for my belly's sake I might have
+accepted the life of a cowled monk, had not Chigi in the nick of time
+drawn me from that slough with the announcement that Peruzzi had
+completed the building of his villa, and that it was now ready for
+decoration.</p>
+
+<p>Here accordingly, while painting in the upper rooms, I enjoyed the
+comradeship of that brotherhood of choice spirits&mdash;Giovanni da Udine,
+Francesco Penni, and the rest&mdash;who with thee, my Giulio, wrought so
+lovingly under Raphael's direction, illuminating the lower loggia with
+the legend of <i>Cupid and Psyche</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that to my surprise and sorrow Raphael himself came not, but
+I knew that he was overwhelmed with commissions, and to their demands
+upon his time I attributed his avoidance of the villa. In the meantime I
+delayed not to seek him out, and to express my surprise that I found him
+still a bachelor. But at my first probing of that old wound he winced so
+perceptibly that I perceived that it was by no means cured, and I made
+no demand upon his confidence for an explanation of his delay in
+demanding the consummation of an engagement which had not been publicly
+dissolved.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 434px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg074" id="ill_romv_pg074"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg074.png" width="434" height="550" alt="Alinari
+
+Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma
+
+From the portrait of himself in the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma<br />From the portrait of himself in the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore</td><td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>The world gossiped as to the cause of Raphael's neglect of his
+affianced. The most part declared him cold, absorbed only in love of his
+art, and some whispered that the Pope who was insatiable in his demands
+for his work, feared that marriage would lessen his enthusiasm for art,
+and had put off indefinitely the wedding-day, promising Raphael the
+Cardinal's hat if he remained a celibate.</p>
+
+<p>While I could not believe that this was the true explanation of the
+estrangement between the lovers, I was far from suspecting the truth.
+Though I called upon Maria Dovizio I got no enlightenment in that
+quarter, nay, nor encouragement for my own passion, for when I put forth
+some timid essays, they were promptly crushed by a look of such
+reproach that I called myself brute as well as fool for my persistency.</p>
+
+<p>Longing to do her service, I determined to haunt my friend until he
+should voluntarily confide the secret of the trouble, and if it were
+possible bring them together.</p>
+
+<p>With this end in view, in all my leisure hours I frequented Raphael's
+studio, where he was painting the most glorious of his Madonnas for the
+monks of San Sisto. And here, posing for that divine work, I found again
+our child-model of Cetinale, the little Margherita.</p>
+
+<p>She was no longer a child, for the years which had elapsed had
+transformed her into a woman; but she had retained her old
+characteristics of shyness, simplicity, and a worshipful love of
+Raphael. She had followed him to Rome, so he told me, like some
+faithful, dumb animal which could not live away from its master, and
+moved by her great affection he had given her lodging and employment as
+his model. There lacked not malicious tongues who called her his
+mistress; but so modest yet unabashed was her demeanour that I can well
+believe that she deserved to the end the honour which he paid in
+choosing her face as his ideal of all that is noblest in woman.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 426px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg076" id="ill_romv_pg076"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg076.png" width="426" height="550" alt="Alinari
+
+Margherita (La Fornarina), Attributed to Raphael
+
+Pitti Gallery, Florence" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Margherita (La Fornarina),
+Attributed to Raphael<br />Pitti Gallery, Florence</td>
+<td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>While I worked at Chigi's villa my patron gave me much of his
+company; for though the decorations were unfinished he had established
+his residence here. Imperia was his guest at this time, and as we sat at
+table one evening Chigi complained in her presence that Raphael slighted
+his engagements and avoided his company.</p>
+
+<p>"Have I not heard," Imperia hazarded boldly, "that he is to marry the
+Maria Dovizio whom I met at Cetinale?"</p>
+
+<p>"If her uncle speaks true," Chigi replied, "Raphael is but a
+recalcitrant lover, continually putting off the date of the marriage.
+Bernardo Dovizio admitted to me that his niece's patience is at an end,
+and that she could be persuaded to accept a more ardent suitor."</p>
+
+<p>Imperia darted a keen look at Chigi, but replied calmly, "It is plain
+that Raphael has been entangled by some other woman," and she demanded
+of me suddenly if it were not so.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be," I admitted reluctantly, for this possibility had of late
+occurred to me, and I told them of Margherita.</p>
+
+<p>Chigi was delighted. "If Maria Dovizio but knew of that liaison," he
+cried, "she would send her betrothed about his business."</p>
+
+<p>"Have a care, Agostino," Imperia exclaimed. "Let the news reach her
+through any one but you. She would hardly regard with kindness the man
+who brought her proof of Raphael's faithlessness."</p>
+
+<p>Chigi looked at me significantly. "<i>You</i> knew her," he said. "It is in
+your power to serve us both."</p>
+
+<p>"God knows I would give my life to serve her," I cried unguardedly.</p>
+
+<p>Imperia laughed. "You have more than one rival, my Agostino," she said.
+"Bazzi is a good fellow, but not to be trusted with your love affairs."</p>
+
+<p>"I deny the accusation that I am your honour's rival," I cried hotly. "I
+had never any hope in that quarter."</p>
+
+<p>Chigi nodded thoughtfully and pressed my hand. "Do not torment yourself,
+Imperia," he said after a moment, as he left us. "We have neither of us
+any chance with Maria Dovizio; and you shall be mistress of this villa
+and of its master so long as you care for your kingdom."</p>
+
+<p>But Imperia was not deceived though she feigned to believe Agostino's
+protestations. Chigi's information that Maria's hand had been
+practically offered him by her uncle had wakened the most intense alarm
+for her own position, and she instantly determined to effect a
+reconciliation between Maria and Raphael.</p>
+
+<p>"Look you, Bazzi," she said when we were alone, "that hussy, Margherita,
+must leave our friend's house at once. I can see that you love Maria
+Dovizio so disinterestedly that you prefer her happiness to your own.
+Now it is certain that Raphael and Maria love each other; and we must
+not allow any foolishness to part them. Let us work in concert to bring
+them together."</p>
+
+<p>I remember that when I heard Imperia say this it struck me as an
+instance of an angel being served by the machinations of an evil spirit.
+But I hesitated not to make her my fellow-conspirator, nor did I revolt
+that Margherita must suffer, nay, that I myself must relinquish any
+lingering hope of winning my idol's heart if so be that her happiness
+could be secured.</p>
+
+<p>"I am with you in that business," I assured Imperia, "but how can we
+effect it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very easily," Imperia replied. "Margherita is the daughter of Chigi's
+pastry-cook at Cetinale. Send for him&mdash;I will give you money. He shall
+exercise a father's authority to compel his daughter to return to her
+home. His mistress once beyond his reach, Raphael will forget her, and
+imagine that he has never loved any one but his betrothed. I know you
+men&mdash;the nearest is ever the dearest."</p>
+
+<p>Imperia's plot was but partially successful. She brought Margherita's
+father indeed from Siena and established him as a baker near the villa;
+but no commands, threats, or bribe of his could induce his daughter to
+renounce Raphael's protection.</p>
+
+<p>Imperia again took counsel with me. "The fool loves him," she said; "we
+must act through her love, not against it."</p>
+
+<p>"And how shall we do that?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We must make her understand that her lover, intoxicated by his delight
+in her company, is disregarding his own advantage in neglecting Chigi's
+commissions, and that she must reside here in order to induce Raphael to
+follow her."</p>
+
+<p>The scheme seemed to me likely to succeed, and one morning, when I
+shrewdly suspected that Raphael would be busied at the Vatican, I took
+Imperia with me to his studio to try her powers of persuasion upon
+Margherita.</p>
+
+<p>Even then she could not have succeeded but for my help, for Margherita,
+trusting in my friendship for Raphael, appealed to me. "It is for his
+good," I assured her.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will not refuse," she replied, "but will go with you at once. So
+write for me to my master that if he wishes to paint from me, he will
+find me when he is prepared to fulfil his promises to his patron."</p>
+
+<p>Thus, without giving her time to reflect, we carried Margherita in
+Imperia's carriage to Chigi's villa. I guessed that she had no intention
+of sending the girl's message to her lover; that she planned to keep
+Margherita hidden until Raphael, believing her false or losing all hope
+of finding her, would return to his allegiance to Maria.</p>
+
+<p>But there were other forces at work on which I had not counted, and the
+first of these was Chigi.</p>
+
+<p>Something like the same chain of reasoning had been started in his mind
+by my mention of Margherita, but he had reached the conclusion that
+Raphael's infatuation for his pretty model must be encouraged. He
+therefore privately requested me to induce her, by exactly the same
+arguments which we had already employed, to do precisely what she had
+already done.</p>
+
+<p>The humour of the situation was so great that I burst into an
+uncontrollable fit of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>This so angered the unsuspecting man that I managed to ejaculate between
+my paroxysms: "Margherita in this villa! And what pray you would the
+Signora Imperia say to that?"</p>
+
+<p>At this question Chigi whistled. "I had forgotten Imperia," he admitted,
+and then to my utter confusion that lady entered the room with her arm
+about the waist of Margherita.</p>
+
+<p>Never before had I seen Imperia unable to give a plausible account of a
+situation, but while she hesitated, Margherita did her good service by
+telling the simple truth. She thanked Chigi warmly for his patronage of
+Raphael, and explained how Imperia and she had plotted to induce him to
+complete the frescoes.</p>
+
+<p>"And you did this to give me pleasure?" Chigi asked, regarding Imperia
+with wonder and admiration. She felt her advantage and found her tongue.
+"You little know your Imperia," she said, sweetly; and true though the
+words were he understood them falsely, as she meant he should, and the
+recording angel gave her credit for a lie.</p>
+
+<p>"I am more grateful than I can express," cried Chigi, "for I have great
+need of Raphael at this moment, and you, dearest Imperia, shall never
+regret this kindness."</p>
+
+<p>"We have played into the hands of the enemy," Imperia said to me in a
+low voice as Chigi darted away to write to Raphael; "nevertheless the
+game is not yet lost. I know my dear Agostino's cards, and though they
+are good ones I have some which he recks not of and he shall never wed
+the fair Maria."</p>
+
+<p>A wonderful woman was this Imperia, as I was beginning to realise,
+though I had not yet sounded the depths of that strange nature.</p>
+
+<p>Chigi's letter to Raphael was a masterpiece of duplicity. He confided to
+him as the most sacred secret the information that his engagement to a
+certain mutual acquaintance of Cetinale days would soon be announced,
+and he begged his friend, for the sake of the lady, to give his personal
+and inimitable touch to the frescoes of <i>Cupid and Psyche</i>, and to other
+decorations in the villa which he was preparing for his bride. Although
+he also confessed the stratagem by which he had secured the presence of
+Margherita, it was the news of Chigi's approaching marriage which
+determined Raphael to accede to his request. Though Agostino had worded
+his allusions to his betrothed so skilfully that they applied with equal
+fitness to either Imperia or Maria Dovizio, Raphael never doubted that
+he referred to the latter. The news simply confirmed the suspicions
+which he had long entertained, and with characteristic magnanimity, he
+determined to leave Maria the highest masterpiece of which his hand was
+capable.</p>
+
+<p>He came at once, and Imperia sat smiling at his side while he painted
+Margherita as the principal figure in the glorious <i>Triumph of Galatea</i>,
+Chigi, marking Margherita's look of rapt devotion, drew me aside in
+ecstacy. "It is plain that they love each other," he said. "When the
+picture is nearly finished I will invite Bernardo Dovizio and his niece
+to see it. They will understand the relations of this artist and model.
+He is cutting his own throat with every stroke of his facile brush, for
+Maria Dovizio will brook no divided affection."</p>
+
+<p>But when in alarm I reported this conversation to Imperia&mdash;"Children!"
+she cried scornfully; "what children you men are! Can you not see,
+Giovanni, that, though Margherita worships her painter as a god, he
+cares for her only as a piece of stuff, a marble column, or a jewel,
+beautiful truly and therefore serviceable to paint from, but nothing
+more. Let Agostino bring Maria Dovizio here. I desire nothing more
+warmly than to compass her meeting with Raphael. But give me a moment
+with her to prepare her for that meeting, and one in which to withdraw
+Margherita and all others from the scene, and think you that in the joy
+of their reconciliation either he or she will give a thought to his
+picture or to the models who posed for it?"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 425px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg084" id="ill_romv_pg084"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg084.png" width="425" height="550" alt="Alinari
+
+Pope Leo X,
+
+Giulio de Medici (afterward Pope Clement VII), and
+
+Luigi De Rossi, by Raphael
+
+Pitti Gallery" />
+
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr align="left" valign="top"><td>Pope Leo X,<br />Giulio de Medici (afterward Pope Clement VII), and
+Luigi De Rossi, by Raphael<br />Pitti Gallery</td><td>Alinari<br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Chigi did not at once carry out his intention of inviting the Dovizios
+to his villa, for another project for the moment eclipsed that design
+and demands a temporary digression from my story; for if he was to be
+reckoned with as a lover, in a review of the hidden causes which brought
+about the catastrophe, he is still less to be neglected in his proper
+rôle of financier.</p>
+
+<p>Pope Leo X. was to discover this as his predecessor Julius had done, and
+with more reason, for Leo was the greater borrower, all of his family
+and the adherents of the Medici descending upon him on his accession to
+the papacy like a flock of buzzards. Julius had left the papal coffers
+well filled, but Leo had not only emptied them, but he had anticipated
+his own revenues and those of his successor. Truly was it said after
+his death, that upon his family and the building of Saint Peter's he had
+spent the income of three pontificates. Chigi was not distressed that
+there was no likelihood that the Pope would ever repay what he owed, for
+he had not only received ample security through Dovizio at Cetinale, but
+there were richer spoils in view which made that transaction seem of
+trifling account. Agostino desired to become the sole manager of the
+papal finances; and he did indeed inaugurate that system of loans by
+which the Pope's entire revenue was not sufficient to meet the interest
+on his debts.</p>
+
+<p>As a means of impressing Leo not only with his friendship but with his
+boundless wealth, he determined to entertain his Holiness with
+hospitality so lavish that it would put to shame the very feasts of
+Lucullus. Leo was in a certain way to blame for this foolish display,
+for Cardinal Riario was building his palace at this time, and his
+Holiness piqued Chigi by insinuating that the residence of Riario would
+rival the one which he was erecting. To this slur Chigi retorted hotly
+that Riario's palace would not be able to compare with his own stables.</p>
+
+<p>It was no empty boast, but in order to realise it our patron
+immediately put a stop to the work upon the main villa and, as you, my
+Giulio, will well remember, set us all to the task of transforming the
+larger building upon the river bank (originally planned to house his
+stud of horses) into an immense banqueting-hall. The stalls of inlaid
+woods were concealed by the Medici tapestries; and by means of stucco,
+paint, lavish gilding, and innumerable sparkling lights, depending in
+crystal lustres and silver lamps, we achieved an effect of magnificence
+unsurpassed by the imaginary creations of oriental enchanters.</p>
+
+<p>In this gorgeous apartment, carpeted by rugs given Chigi by eastern
+princes and crowded with the costliest works of art, was served a feast
+for whose menu the scholars of the city ransacked the records of the
+orgies of the Roman emperors. The cardinals and foreign ambassadors
+invited were surprised by dainties and wines peculiar to their own
+countries, timed to arrive in Rome from many distant lands on the very
+eve of the banquet. Golden beakers richly ornamented in <i>repoussé</i> with
+bacchanalian subjects, and engraved with the coat of arms of the guest
+before whom they were placed, were provided with every different wine,
+and the convives were begged to accept the entire set as trifling
+mementos. To prove that the plates of solid gold on which the many
+courses were served were not used twice, they were when changed
+ostentatiously cast through the open windows into the Tiber.</p>
+
+<p>But here I had contrived to secure my friend the reputation of
+prodigality without its penalty, for we caused nets to be stretched in
+the river under the windows so that the service was presently hauled
+safely in by Chigi's servants, who patrolled the river in small boats.</p>
+
+<p>I was responsible also for another feature, which was in a manner too
+successful. When the fruit was served I placed before Bernardo Dovizio
+(now Cardinal Bibbiena) a melon, which upon cutting open he found filled
+with what he took to be the very gems lost and found at Cetinale in so
+remarkable a manner, and which he had left in pawn with Chigi. As with
+trembling fingers he was attempting to transfer them to his pocket, I
+set free my ape Ciacco, who, previously coached to this performance,
+descended a rope which depended over the table, seized the melon, and
+climbing again beyond Dovizio's reach pelted the company with the
+jewels.</p>
+
+<p>Great was the indignation of the Cardinal as he saw them scrambled for
+and pocketed as souvenirs by the guests, until our host presented Leo
+with the casket containing the original intaglios of which the ones
+placed before Dovizio were but imitations.</p>
+
+<p>The banquet being now concluded, the tapestries concealing the stalls
+were drawn aside, and a hundred pages, each habited like a prince, led
+in as many superb horses caparisoned in cloth of gold, and fastened them
+with silver chains to feeding-racks of the same metal.</p>
+
+<p>Chigi then apologised for having received his Holiness in a stable,
+saying that he would not have dared to do so had not the great Head of
+the Church accepted such humble hospitality for his birthplace. Leo
+graciously admitted that his host had fulfilled his boast, for Riario,
+with all his extravagance, had never attempted a scene like this.</p>
+
+<p>The tapestries were sent to the Vatican on the morrow, but, in
+displaying them and returning publicly the Medici jewels, we had
+over-shot the mark, for the Pope's self-love was wounded by the
+exposition of the straits to which he must have been reduced, to have
+accounted for their having been even temporarily in Chigi's possession,
+and another banker received the patronage which our friend had coveted.</p>
+
+<p>On Bernardo Dovizio, however, this feast made an immense impression, and
+when Chigi invited him to bring his niece to dine more intimately at his
+villa, he accepted the invitation with an alacrity which gave color to
+Agostino's hopes.</p>
+
+<p>Chigi had no intention that Imperia should either preside on this
+occasion or suspect what he was planning. He had asked a sister-in-law
+to do the honours of his villa for the day, and had requested me to
+escort Imperia to the Pope's villa of Magliana, where he had secured her
+an invitation to sing for a party of sport-loving cardinals whom Leo had
+asked to enjoy his favourite pastime of hunting.</p>
+
+<p>"And see to it, my dear Bazzi," Agostino had said to me, "that you on no
+account bring her back until late at night, for Maria Dovizio must not
+know that Imperia is an inmate of my house."</p>
+
+<p>As in duty bound I secretly took counsel with Imperia, discussing, as we
+fancied, every phase of the situation.</p>
+
+<p>Chigi, over-confident in the superiority of his own attractions, had not
+at first deemed it necessary to send Raphael away. It is possible that
+he even thought that Maria would be shocked at seeing her betrothed
+apparently domiciled under the same roof with Margherita, and
+glorifying her charms with such over-appreciation, while Raphael,
+surprised by Maria's sudden appearance as a willing and familiar guest,
+would accept the desired construction as to her relations with his
+patron, and that thus the estrangement between these unhappy lovers
+would become irremediable.</p>
+
+<p>Imperia admitted that if neither of them were previously warned, and, if
+no opportunity were afforded them to converse together alone,
+appearances would be much against Raphael, and Chigi's plot would have a
+fair chance of succeeding. "Especially," she added, "if Maria Dovizio
+has any conversation with Margherita will Raphael's chance of placating
+her be lost, for a woman who loves can not fail to recognise the same
+affection in another, and Margherita's infatuation is so evident that
+the blind might see it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said I, "our first concern must be to spirit Margherita away,
+else Maria in her injured pride may accept Agostino."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the first step," Imperia replied. "Leave it to me; think you I
+have not long since foreseen and provided for such an emergency?"</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke there was a look in her set face which frightened me. "I
+will ask Margherita's father to send for her for the day," I said,
+uneasy, I knew not why.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave her to me, I tell you," Imperia commanded hastily. "If Raphael
+and Maria Dovizio are to be reconciled Margherita must drop out of his
+life&mdash;not for one day but for ever."</p>
+
+<p>I liked this still less, though I laughed and reminded her how she
+herself had said that, when they once understood each other, Margherita
+would be no more to either of them than a lay-figure on which to hang
+draperies.</p>
+
+<p>Imperia smiled bitterly. "I may have thought so once, I know better
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"There is another way to foil Agostino," I suggested. "He will show the
+Dovizios my painting of the <i>Marriage of Alexander and Roxana</i>, in his
+own room. Leave such of your jewels on his dressing-case as will prove
+to Maria that you have recently occupied the apartment&mdash;that necklace
+which she admired so greatly at Cetinale. She would recognise it at
+once."</p>
+
+<p>Imperia shook her head contemptuously. "Agostino would gather up all
+such equivocal objects before he showed her the room," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, since we cannot hinder Maria Dovizio from accepting this
+invitation, would you dare to return earlier than you are expected, and
+converse with her before she leaves? We might explain to Chigi afterward
+that we had miscalculated the time, or that our appearance was in some
+other way unpremeditated."</p>
+
+<p>"He would never forgive me," she said slowly; "nevertheless, if I do not
+succeed in removing Margherita, I shall return in time to pull the
+strings of my puppets, for Agostino shall never marry another woman."</p>
+
+<p>I well remember the last evening which we spent together. The air was
+sultry, and through the arches of the loggia occasional flashes of
+lightning made fiery crevices in the black heavens. Imperia paced
+uneasily to and fro.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall have a storm," she said. "I have a mind not to go to
+Magliana."</p>
+
+<p>Chigi turned pale and rose and walked beside her. He even attempted to
+put his arm about her waist, but she repulsed him with a savage scowl.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not pretend that you care for me, Agostino," she said angrily; "I
+will believe it only on one condition, that you accompany me to
+Magliana."</p>
+
+<p>"I have told you it is impossible, Imperia. Bazzi is an amusing
+fellow, a hundred times more entertaining than I."</p>
+
+<p>"I am tired of Bazzi. He is an insufferable idiot. I will not go unless
+you escort me, Agostino."</p>
+
+<p>"Then Raphael shall take you. His Holiness will be delighted to welcome
+him, as he desires him to plan some decorations for the villa; and you
+cannot, my Imperia, call Raphael an idiot."</p>
+
+<p>It was Imperia's turn to blanch as Raphael came forward and courteously
+asked the honour of her company.</p>
+
+<p>But she quickly recovered herself, "Raphael is too charming," she said
+guilefully, "and were it not that his heart is given to the beautiful
+Margherita I might be tempted to angle for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" exclaimed Chigi, well pleased, "that is good news. Margherita is a
+rare prize, and I am glad to know that the unimpressionable Raphael at
+last really loves."</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of Imperia and Chigi were intently fixed on Raphael's face,
+striving to read his true feelings. He felt and resented the scrutiny.</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt if the man lives who has not loved," he said, flushing.
+"Perhaps it is because I love so deeply that I cannot speak of it."</p>
+
+<p>Imperia softened for an instant, and, taking a lute, sang, <i>Quant'e
+bella giovinezza</i>.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> But the pent-up passion that possessed her this
+evening woke again in the line, <i>Che si fugge tuttavia</i>, and she ended
+suddenly with a dry choking sob.</p>
+
+<p>An embarrassing silence fell upon us all, broken finally by Imperia. "A
+little honesty might clear the atmosphere," she said to Raphael;
+"besides what need is there of such secrecy when we have all guessed the
+truth. No, you shall not escort me to Magliana. I will be no man's
+second choice, not even yours, Agostino," and so saying she ungraciously
+departed from us.</p>
+
+<p>"She is in a devil of a humour," Chigi said to me, uneasily, when
+Raphael had bidden us good-night. "What can have angered her? Is it
+possible that she suspects that her reign is over?"</p>
+
+<p>"She suspects nothing," I assured him, truthfully; in my heart I added,
+"but she knows everything."</p>
+
+<p>"But will she go?" Chigi asked, anxiously; "that is the immediate
+question. I cannot put her out by force."</p>
+
+<p>"You will never have to do that," I replied. "She will go, never fear.
+Leave her to herself, her mood will have changed by morning. There is
+only one thing to be relied upon in women, and that is their
+inconstancy, not alone to men but to any fixed idea."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the flippancy with which I had striven to beguile Chigi, I
+was vaguely but none the less genuinely troubled. Unable to sleep, I
+strolled toward dawn in the garden. A lamp burned in the tiny room
+assigned to Margherita, and to my surprise there flitted across the
+window the shadow of Imperia. What business could she have there at such
+an hour? Certain expressions, to which I had given no weight at the time
+of their utterance, came back to me with sinister significance, and
+especially her declaration that Margherita must disappear, "not for one
+day, but for ever." I continued my watch until a gust of rain drove me
+into the house, and I fell asleep to dream that an oubliette lined with
+the blades of scythes (such as I knew existed in certain old Roman
+houses) had at Imperia's touch yawned beneath the couch of Margherita;
+and that the innocent barrier to Raphael's reconciliation with Maria had
+indeed "dropped from his life."</p>
+
+<p>But I awoke at Chigi's cheery halloo to find that the storms of the
+previous evening had cleared. Imperia had expressed her readiness to
+spend the day at Magliana, and my host desired me to select horses for
+the excursion.</p>
+
+<p>I never saw her gayer than on that day, and when I looked askance as she
+jested with his Holiness and flirted with Riario, daring him to give a
+supper in her honour in his new palace, she pressed my foot beneath the
+table and looked me smilingly in the face, as though striving to assure
+me that all was well.</p>
+
+<p>But she would not comply with Leo's request for his father's canzone,
+<i>Quant e bella</i>, which she had sung with such effect the previous
+evening. She left the gay company while they were all clamoring for
+more, and insisted that I should urge the horses to the utmost as we
+dashed back to Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Our common anxiety to know the outcome of Maria Dovizio's visit to
+Chigi's villa, together with her great longing for sympathy in this
+crisis of her life, so wrought with the favouring opportunity of that
+wild drive that Imperia granted me such a revelation of her inmost soul
+as I believe no other man can boast, and I knew her that night as God
+knew her.</p>
+
+<p>She had sought Margherita the night before a criminal at heart, for she
+had determined to sacrifice the girl. Imperia possessed a house in Rome.
+It was on her lips to tell Margherita that Raphael, who had met with an
+accident, was lying there at the point of death, and had sent for her to
+come to him. She had already instructed her servants, and had Margherita
+once entered that house its doors would never again have been opened for
+her.</p>
+
+<p>But Imperia's guardian angel was kind. Before the words could be uttered
+Margherita had poured out her heart in gratitude to the woman whom she
+believed to be her benefactress. While the girl spoke, Imperia strove to
+steel herself, repeating mentally the round of cruel reasoning which had
+been the Ixion's wheel on which her tortured brain had unceasingly
+revolved:</p>
+
+<p>"If Margherita speaks to Maria Dovizio, Maria will never be reconciled
+with Raphael. Unless Maria weds Raphael she will surely marry Chigi.
+Either Margherita or I must perish. Which shall it be?"</p>
+
+<p>But gradually this fiend's chatter grew less insistent and Imperia heard
+instead Margherita's impassioned protestations. She was happy,
+blissfully happy, and owed it all to the disinterested kindness of her
+patroness; for though Raphael had always loved her he had been bound by
+a hateful engagement to a cold, proud woman, who had cast him aside for
+a wealthier suitor. Her memory had rankled in the mind of both,
+poisoning their happiness, for Margherita well realised that she was
+herself but a peasant, not to be compared in birth and breeding to this
+high lady. Until lately she had not deemed herself worthy to mate with
+so exalted a personage as her lover. But since she had known Imperia she
+had comprehended how such a miracle might be. "For," said she, "you are
+just like me, and all of the Signor Chigi's wealth and glory does not
+crush or humiliate you, because when two people really love each other
+it makes them equal, and neither genius nor riches nor anything else in
+all the world is worthy of being compared to the love of a true woman."</p>
+
+<p>That shaft went home. The thought of being classed with this
+single-hearted girl who had sacrificed everything to a great love so
+humiliated and touched the heart of the venal courtesan that in spite of
+all she had at stake, she could not prevail upon herself to do
+Margherita this great wrong. So, finding that she knew not who the great
+lady was to whom Raphael was betrothed, Imperia told her of Maria
+Dovizio's expected visit, as of that of an old friend who had been
+interested in her as a child at Cetinale, and bade her if opportunity
+offered repeat to Maria the story exactly as she had just told it, for
+it would surely be to her advantage to do so.</p>
+
+<p>When Imperia told me this I cried out, "But it will kill Maria, and you
+forget that Raphael is there and will not permit her thus to speak."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, my friend," Imperia answered. "Raphael is not there, for Agostino,
+on reflection, wisely decided not to risk the meeting, and gave him a
+holiday this morning to work in his own house. Never fear that Chigi
+will not leave Maria Dovizio alone with Margherita, or that her
+revelations will have any such deadly effect. Agostino is an adept in
+consolation, and Maria must long since have divined the truth."</p>
+
+<p>My heart beat in a tumult of conflicting emotions. For an instant a
+wild, unreasoning hope overpowered all the rest. "Imperia," I
+exclaimed, "you shall not lose Agostino. I will surrender my chances
+with Maria to no man but Raphael. If in truth he has ceased to love
+her,&mdash;then, for all you think me mad in saying so, we may both, may all
+be happy yet."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg100" id="ill_romv_pg100"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg100.png" width="600" height="448" alt="Villa Madama" />
+<span class="caption">Villa Madama</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>But such joyous ending to lovers' woes is found only in the fictions of
+romancers. Certes I have often thought I could design a fairer web than
+that the fates weave for us.</p>
+
+<p>Even as I spoke Imperia caught my arm and I drew rein, for we were
+nearing the gateway of Chigi's villa. A carriage was leaving the
+grounds, and as it passed us we saw Maria Dovizio lying in a swoon in
+her uncle's arms. Chigi was not with them, for she had left his house
+apparently indifferent to all that she had seen or heard within it, and
+had succumbed only when beyond his view.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor child," said Imperia, "you are not wounded so deeply as you fancy.
+No, do not drive in, Giovanni, I have learned all I wished to know. In
+spite of her present despair Maria will enter those gates ere long a
+happy bride; but I shall never knock at them again. The end would have
+come soon in any event, for Agostino had ceased to love me, but he shall
+never boast that he cast me out."</p>
+
+<p>I took her to her own house, and when Chigi learned that she had not
+returned with me he but shrugged his shoulders, for she had rightly
+divined his heart. I never saw her again, but I heard much, for Rome
+still rings with wild tales of her notoriously evil life. A nature hers
+that had much of good in it I bear witness, though sadly she mistook her
+way. She mistook it even when she tried to do a kindness to Margherita.
+Shame and heart-break was the guerdon which that poor child received in
+return for her great devotion.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, the glimpse I had caught of Maria's death-struck face so
+rankled in my soul through the long watches of that sleepless night that
+on the morrow, in anguished contrition, I confessed all that miserable
+story to Raphael.</p>
+
+<p>When he knew how cruelly he had misjudged her he was smitten with such
+remorse that he could never forgive himself or take joy in life. For
+though he went to her at once and she forgave him freely, nay, strove to
+comfort him by protesting there was naught to forgive, she had suffered
+overmuch to endure the great joy of their reconciliation. Prattling of
+love and happiness and smiling still when she no longer had strength
+to utter his name, she peacefully died within his arms.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg102" id="ill_romv_pg102"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg102.png" width="600" height="387"
+alt="Pope Leo X. at Raphael&#39;s Bier
+
+From the painting by Pietro Michis. Permission of Franz Hanfstaengl" />
+<span class="caption">Pope Leo X. at Raphael&#39;s Bier<br />From the painting by Pietro Michis. Permission of Franz Hanfstaengl</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was Raphael's grief rather than, as reported, a fever taken in
+superintending arch&aelig;ological excavations which truly caused his death on
+his thirty-seventh birthday, upon that Good Friday which neither you nor
+I, my Giulio, can ever forget.</p>
+
+<p>Margherita told me that in his delirium he knew her not, but kissed her
+hands, calling her "Maria" and begging her forgiveness. To the poor girl
+he left by will ample support; but, by the same testament, he was buried
+by the side of Maria Dovizio, beneath whose name he caused to be
+chiselled the inscription, "The affianced wife of Raphael Santi, whom
+death deprived of a happy marriage."</p>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 375px;">
+<img src="images/ill_iii.png"
+class="top15" width="375" height="150" alt="image
+not available" />
+</div>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<p class="c">A CELLINI CASKET</p>
+
+<p class="c">INTERLUDE</p>
+
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The trellis that once shut the forest trees</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From the fair flowers, all torn and broken is,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though still the lily's scent is on the breeze,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the rose clasps the broken images.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="smcap">William Morris.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="non"><span class="let">N</span>EGLECTED but not ruinous, its marbles mossy, its once unrivalled garden
+invaded by sweet wild-flower banditti which run riot among the gentle
+roses, its fountains dry, their cracks and crannies the homes of basking
+lizards, its charming loggia trodden only by enthusiasts for whom every
+spot touched by the genius of Raphael is a shrine of pilgrimage&mdash;the
+Villa Madama, though appealing in its desertion, is not a melancholy
+solitude.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg104" id="ill_romv_pg104"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg104.png" width="600" height="457" alt="Detail of Vault in Villa Madama&mdash;Stucchi by Giovanni da
+Udine" />
+<span class="caption">Detail of Vault in Villa Madama&mdash;Stucchi by Giovanni da
+Udine</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The imagination is intoxicated as by some heady wine as one gazes
+outward upon the dazzling panorama which originally determined the site
+of the loggia; and when, fatigued by the flashing sunlight, our eyes
+turn to the interior they are soothed by the subtler beauties of the
+half-effaced frescoes, the floral arabesques which Giovanni da Udine
+lavished upon the spandrils, the pouting <i>putti</i> in Giulio Romano's
+frieze of cherub faces, carrying out a scheme of decoration which could
+have been designed by no other than Raphael. We are certain as we
+recognise in a more delicate line, or exquisite touch recalling the
+arabesques of the Vatican loggia, that just here the great impresario
+must have caught palette and brushes from the hand of his pupil with,
+"<i>Me perdone Giovanino mio</i>, let me frolic a while with these fairy
+creatures and show them to you as I saw them in my childhood dancing in
+the swaying vines that garlanded the pergolas of Urbino." And so they
+revel here, myths of the childhood of the race, monstrous creatures,
+half beast, half human; centaurs, fauns, tritons, mermaids, sphinxes,
+lamias, their grotesquerie no longer repulsive, for it is a foil to the
+utmost elegance and sumptuousness of Renaissance art, their multiplicity
+never wearying, because they are marshalled by the greatest master in
+decorative design that the world has known. They lurk in the
+convolutions of exquisite <i>rinceaux</i>, uncoiling themselves from the
+scrolls of acanthus foliage, where sport also more delicate hybrid
+flowers;&mdash;women, whose beautiful bodies rise like anthers from the
+calices of impossible blossoms, whose arms are coiling tendrils and
+whose limbs melt into the curves of exuberant leafage unknown to the
+botanist.</p>
+
+<p>But the charm which holds the visitor who penetrates this delicious
+solitude is due not alone to the sense of sight. A haunting
+suggestiveness breathes from these surroundings, like the perfume
+exhaled when one unlocks a long-closed sandal-wood casket, once the
+depository of dainty feminine trifles. It needs not the name of the
+villa to tell us that a lady, sitting in this loggia, once duplicated Da
+Udine's traceries in her embroidery, gathered roses in the garden, and
+looked longingly toward Rome while awaiting the coming of her princely
+lover, and many a visitor has been piqued by the ignorance of the
+custodian of the villa to search history for this mysterious Madama.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 428px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg106" id="ill_romv_pg106"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg106.png" width="438" height="550" alt="Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma, 1586
+
+From an old engraving" />
+<span class="caption">Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma, 1586<br />From an old engraving</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Margaret of Austria, daughter of an Emperor, wife of the reputed son of
+one Pope and of the grandson of another, Grand Duchess of Tuscany,
+and Duchess of Parma, quartered the imperial eagle upon the balls of the
+Medici and the lilies of the Farnese. That the bar sinister was
+conspicuous upon her escutcheon mattered little in the age in which she
+lived, for the Emperor Charles V. acknowledged and advanced the
+interests of his illegitimate daughter with the same lack of
+embarrassment shown by the popes in the favouritism of their "nephews."</p>
+
+<p>A doubtful advantage this, but one with far-reaching consequences, for
+when Margaret was twelve years of age, Charles conquered Rome and the
+child's connection with Italy and the Villa Madama had its beginning.</p>
+
+<p>The villa had been built by Raphael for Pope Clement VII., while he was
+yet only Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, as a pleasure casino to which he
+could retreat from the cares imposed upon him by his cousin, Pope Leo X.
+Later when as successor to the tiara he found that not the least burden
+in the heavy legacy bequeathed him was that of the guardianship of the
+Medici family, it became the resort of his Florentine relatives on their
+quieter visits to Rome and the home of a mysterious child, Alessandro,
+of whom the Pope announced himself the guardian.</p>
+
+<p>When Lorenzo II., (grandson of the Magnificent) died, leaving but one
+legitimate child, Catherine de' Medici, the future Queen of France,
+Clement imposed Alessandro upon Florence as the natural son of Duke
+Lorenzo.</p>
+
+<p>There lacked not shrugging of shoulders at this imputed parentage and
+Florence revolted against receiving a bastard and a mulatto as its
+sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>But trouble was brewing both for Florence and the Pope. Charles V. had
+determined to make himself master of Italy; his forces closed around
+Rome, and Clement, fleeing through the underground passage from the
+Vatican, shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo, and from it beheld
+the horrors of the sack of the city.</p>
+
+<p>From its parapets, too, he witnessed the occupation of his cherished
+villa by Bourbon's savage soldiery.</p>
+
+<p>Benvenuto Cellini relates (with his characteristic self-laudation) his
+prowess in killing the Constable de Bourbon and in defending the castle
+of St. Angelo, and although his perspective is slightly forced from his
+habit of placing his own colossal figure in the foreground, no
+chronicle gives a more vivid account of these stirring events.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 448px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg108" id="ill_romv_pg108"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg108.png" width="448" height="550" alt="Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine
+
+Villa Madama" />
+<span class="caption">Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine<br />Villa Madama</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>What a picture he might have painted for us of the meeting of the Pope
+and the Emperor after the pacification; when Clement crowned his late
+adversary and Charles, reinstating Duke Alessandro over Florence,
+betrothed his beautiful daughter Margaret to that base-born reprobate!</p>
+
+<p>Cellini might also have told us much of the after-life of the Duchess,
+for he knew her well, and mentions her with admiration in his
+autobiography. He served Alessandro too in Florence, and boasts of the
+intimacy which he enjoyed in the ducal household.</p>
+
+<p>There was no one living at that period so well qualified as he to relate
+the inner history of that tragical marriage and of the romance which
+effaced its memory and lingers still like an elusive perfume in her
+exquisite villa.</p>
+
+<p>Judge, lenient reader, if Cellini had told that last story, would not
+its main <i>facts</i> have corresponded with those embodied in the following
+pages, though the tamer phrasing and more conventional attitude of the
+writer compared with the audacity of his racier chronicle</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Are as moonlight unto sunlight,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And as water unto wine."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<h3 class="top15">THE ADVENTURE OF THE CASKET</h3>
+
+<p class="c smcap">being certain pages not included in the auto-biography of its maker</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">I</p>
+
+<p>It will be remembered by those who have read my published memoirs that
+in the year 1535, while I was in Florence in the service of Duke
+Alessandro de' Medici, I received orders from his excellency to execute
+a little <i>coffre</i> in gold to hold his own portrait, a medallion which I
+had previously modelled from life and cast in relievo.</p>
+
+<p>That I dismissed so lightly masterpieces of which I had such reason to
+be proud was due to the fact that certain personages of exalted station
+and of choleric temper, quick and able to revenge any imputation upon
+their honour were concerned in the adventures of the casket, so that I
+deemed it prudent during their lifetime to withhold a recital which I
+trust my present reader may find of a diverting nature.</p>
+
+<p>This casket was conceded by all connoisseurs in such matters to be the
+most admirable work of its kind hitherto produced. It was crowned by a
+statuette of Hercules, with other most exquisite figurines at the
+four corners, set upon feet of crouching sphinxes, half women and half
+panthers, and was further enriched by reliefs of laughing boys holding
+garlands, by grotesque masks and foliages of the most graceful and
+ingenious design that could possibly be conceived.</p>
+
+
+<p>I had been to infinite pains, as was but fitting since the Duke proposed
+to present it to his betrothed, Margaret Duchess of Parma, daughter of
+the Emperor Charles the Fifth, to whom he was to be married at Naples on
+the return of her father from his glorious expedition against the
+Turkish Corsairs. This marriage had been arranged for his "nephew" by
+Pope Clement VII. on his pacification with the Emperor after the taking
+of Rome, but its consummation had been hitherto delayed on account of
+the tender age of the bride. Now, however, she was upon her way to meet
+her father. Therefore the Duke requested me to serve as his messenger in
+presenting these gifts, whose excellencies I of any person in the world
+was most competent to explain and extol.</p>
+
+<p>Instructed that the Duchess Margaret would rest upon her journey at the
+villa which Raphael had built for the Pope upon the slopes of Monte
+Mario, and which Clement had bestowed upon her as a part of her dowry, I
+repaired thither before entering the gates of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>I had been told by the Duke to ask upon my arrival not for the Duchess
+but for Monna Afra, who had been installed as housekeeper of the villa
+by the Pope when he was as yet only young Cardinal Giulio de' Medici,
+and his personal affairs were not submitted to the glare which surrounds
+the tiara.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever these may have been, Monna Afra, though once a Moorish slave,
+and of dark complexion and uncertain temper, was not without a certain
+savage beauty, or would have been but for the marks of tattooing between
+her eyes, and, though well advanced in years, carried herself erect with
+a dignity worthy of royal descent.</p>
+
+<p>She was dressed in the Moorish fashion, with a profusion of necklaces of
+linked sequins of uncut precious stones and of large turquoises, some of
+them I could judge of great value, though clumsily set. These necklaces
+depended from beneath her gaily striped head-cloth upon her forehead and
+also covered her bosom. Her dark blue robe was girdled by a golden belt
+of curious workmanship, and she wore bangles upon her ankles with
+bracelets of cheap blue glass upon her arms. Her hair, braided in a
+multitude of fine plaits, was jet black and heavily perfumed. She wore
+but one ear-ring, a hoop of gold in which twinkled a great diamond.</p>
+
+<p>I had a letter for her from the Duke, and as it has never been my
+practice to deliver a missive of whose contents I am ignorant, lest I
+might be deputed to give orders for my own execution, I had taken the
+precaution to open it (having first made an impression of the seal so
+that I could reseal it beyond possibility of detection), but all to no
+avail for this letter was written in Arabic, of which language I have no
+knowledge. I was in twenty minds to destroy it, professing that I had
+lost it <i>en route</i>, but having calculated that honesty was the more
+gainful part to play, I put my trust in my patron saint and boldly
+presented it. By so doing I came into possession of an important secret,
+for on reading the letter Monna Afra exclaimed: "My son informs me that
+you are an unprincipled rogue whose life he holds in his hands, on
+account of certain murders which you have committed, and that therefore
+I need not fear to trust you with our private affairs."</p>
+
+<p>The opening words of this ungracious speech caused my spirit to leap
+within me, for Duke Alessandro far from confiding to me or to any one
+else the secret that he was the child of a mulattress, and in all
+probability the bastard of the Pope, had persistently maintained that he
+was the legitimatised son and rightful heir of the last Duke of
+Florence, and his mother a princess whose name would in time be
+divulged, and this notwithstanding that his dark complexion proclaimed
+him of Oriental race.</p>
+
+<p>I dissimulated my exultation, swore loyalty to my patron's honoured
+mother, and showed her the portrait of her son, with which she was
+greatly pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"You shall give this to the Duchess, later," she declared, taking the
+casket from me, "but first I desire you to copy the medallion for me,
+and to say nothing of this commission."</p>
+
+<p>The wish to possess the likeness of her son seemed so natural to a
+mother and so flattering to me that I readily consented to oblige her,
+being the more content to do so that I found myself extremely well
+lodged and nourished in one of the dependencies of the villa, with the
+suite of noble attendants appointed to wait upon the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>Among these I have cause to remember with the utmost vividness a
+beautiful page, the grandson of Cardinal Farnese, who waited upon
+Margaret as her train-bearer. This boy's name was Ottavio, and I was
+drawn to him from the first for his character matched the exceeding
+loveliness of his lineaments.</p>
+
+<p>Monna Afra from some strange whim had desired me to copy the Duke's
+portrait upon glass, and thinking possibly that I might break the slip,
+had given me two of precisely the same size. On one of these I was
+impelled to paint for myself the miniature of this adorable child in the
+court costume of white satin doublet and white silk hose which he was to
+wear at the wedding of the Duchess. To this circumstance was due a
+mischance, which while it seemed to work me ill at the time was in the
+end productive of good.</p>
+
+<p>Though but a child in years the soul of the page, Ottavio Farnese, was
+well-nigh ravished from his body with love for the Duchess, who but six
+years older than himself was still but a slip of a girl. Often as I saw
+these two children pelting each other with roses and playing many
+childish games I wished that by some enchantment I might keep them thus
+forever, for my heart revolted at the thought that this exquisite
+creature was soon to be sacrificed to a brutal profligate twice her own
+age.</p>
+
+<p>"Certes," I said one day to Ottavio, "it is a great pity that you are
+not some ten years older, then would I devote myself to your service and
+it should go hard ere the daughter of Charles V. should wed with that
+swine of an Alessandro de' Medici."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he indeed a hog?" cried the boy, "then will I slay him, for I would
+gladly give my life for her."</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that so precocious and so pure an affection was beyond the
+conception of our comrades (though not of the ancients since they
+figured the love of the boy Cupid for Psyche), I protected Ottavio from
+their ribaldry, declaring that I would punish with my sword any who made
+a jest of a devotion which might have drawn tears from the angels.</p>
+
+<p>While the Duchess Margaret was in her way equally charming, she was not
+of such a heavenly gravity as her little comrade. On the contrary, at
+this time her spirits overflowed in a bewitching and mischievous
+wilfulness, which made her the more irresistible. She was conscious that
+she was soon to be wedded, and this knowledge gave her a sense of
+importance together with mysterious heart throbbings and perturbations,
+a wild curiosity to know what manner of man her future husband might
+be&mdash;the coquettishness natural to woman which at times made her rebel at
+being thus fettered, all the more that it was without her consent, and
+at others built up an ideal in her imagination which she was ready to
+fall down and worship.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing her thus curious, Monna Afra had promised Margaret that a
+necromancer should show her the presentment of her future husband; and
+upon a certain morning this designing woman sent for me, saying that the
+slave who ordinarily assisted this magician had suddenly died, and that
+she desired me to aid him in his magic rites.</p>
+
+<p>She neglected not at the same time to remind me again that I was
+completely in her power and that if I did not perform all that was
+demanded of me she would denounce me to the authorities as a murderer.
+Thus admonished, and believing also that the necromancer was able to
+work me a mischief, I put my trust in St. Michael, confounder of Satan,
+and faithfully performed all that I was bidden to do.</p>
+
+<p>Hurrying me into a musician's gallery, which overlooked the chamber in
+which the incantations were about to take place, the sorcerer showed me
+a strange instrument, compounded of lenses set in a black box in which
+burned a small lamp. "Fear not, Benvenuto," he whispered, seeing that I
+hesitated, "but manipulate this machine as I will now show you, placing
+from time to time these slips of painted glass in front of the lamp, and
+when I shall call upon the name of the arch fiend Beelzebub, be careful
+to introduce the copy of the portrait of the Duke which you have just
+made for Monna Afra." He then made some cabalistic signs upon my
+forehead and bidding me be of stout heart descended to the main floor of
+the room, which was but dimly lighted by the flames of a brazier.</p>
+
+<p>I could see, however, that around the light were grouped the Duchess
+Margaret, Monna Afra and Ottavio, who suspecting some design against his
+mistress, had insisted on accompanying her. Around these three the
+necromancer now traced upon the floor a magic circle; entering it and
+directing Margaret to keep her eyes fixed on the wall opposite to the
+little gallery where I stood, he invoked with a loud voice the demons
+Soracil, Sathiel, and Ammon dwellers in the moon, bidding them appear
+with all their legions.</p>
+
+<p>As I had previously witnessed a similar conjuration by which another
+necromancer had filled the tiers of the Colosseum with innumerable
+legions of devils, the horrible fear which I had experienced on that
+occasion returned in so lively a manner that my hands trembled so that I
+could scarcely perform the rites assigned to me. I had hardly introduced
+the first slip of glass when Ottavio cried out that the house was on
+fire and endeavoured to drag the Duchess from the circle, but the
+necromancer held him firmly and commanded him on his life not to stir as
+the demons were gathering in force.</p>
+
+<p>Having placed the next slip of glass in its place I myself perceived
+them, horrid creatures of gigantic stature clutching at their victims.
+Thus the ceremony proceeded, the enchanter uttering strange sentences in
+the Hebrew language, while Monna Afra shrieked and howled in
+blood-curdling tones.</p>
+
+<p>Ottavio also was well-nigh bereft of his senses with fear, and flinging
+his arms about the Duchess cried to the fiends to take him to hell, but
+to spare his beloved lady.</p>
+
+<p>At this point, Margaret, who was strangely unafraid, repeated after the
+necromancer these words: "I conjure thee, Beelzebub, Prince of Darkness,
+to reveal to me the likeness of my lord and husband, and renouncing all
+others I promise to be true to him throughout all eternity."</p>
+
+<p>This was my cue, but fumbling in the casket for the portrait of Duke
+Alessandro I inadvertently introduced into the throat of the infernal
+machine not that bit of glass but the one on which I had painted the
+likeness of Ottavio.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing the beautiful face of the lad gleaming like that of an angel
+between the rifts of the smoke of hell, there was not one of us who for
+the instant doubted that the apparition was miraculous.</p>
+
+<p>Monna Afra ceased her diabolical bellowing, the necromancer was
+speechless with surprise, only Ottavio found his voice, and crying, "It
+is I, it is I!" fainted from stress of emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Comprehending immediately that I would be held responsible for the
+miscarriage of the prodigy I hastily made my escape from the villa, nor
+did I, until long thereafter, meet with any of the parties concerned in
+this adventure. The augury in which I had assisted seemed false for the
+marriage of Margaret to Duke Alessandro took place, as had been planned,
+on the arrival of the Emperor at Naples. Though Charles was greeted with
+acclamations as the champion of the Church against the infidel, he
+having put to flight Hayraddin, admiral of the Sultan, and taken the
+city of Tunis, thus liberating thousands of Christian captives,&mdash;yet in
+the midst of the festivities there lacked not those who saw a certain
+inconsistency in the wedding of his sweet daughter to a man notorious
+for his wickedness and of the very race which he professed to hold in
+such abhorrence.</p>
+
+<p>Duke Alessandro after his marriage refrained not one whit from his evil
+ways, but rather exceeded his former profligacy, so that all Florence
+was scandalised thereby and pitied his gentle Duchess. I mind me now,
+however, that to my astonishment there was one who took another view of
+the matter, for Lorenzino de' Medici affirmed that Margaret was
+possessed of that dauntless courage which one sees sometimes in the
+tamers of lions and other savage beasts; that Alessandro was a
+mean-spirited creature cowed by his child wife; and that one had but to
+note the haughty poise of her head and the hang-dog sullenness which he
+maintained in her presence to guess the truth. Though I abhorred the
+Duke, yet as he had made me master of the mint it was necessary that I
+should have commerce with him, and on the first occasion upon which I
+presented myself being made to wait in an ante-chamber, I overheard a
+remarkable conversation which caused me to credit the opinion of
+Lorenzino. The door was ajar between the room in which I sat and the
+next in which the Duke and Duchess had just risen from breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>What he had said to her I know not, but his face was one malignity as he
+leaned toward her across the small table. She faced his snake's eyes,
+her own dark with an intensity which should have warned him, and half
+beneath her breath, as though she told him of some danger with which she
+had nothing to do, as one might have said, "Provoke not that dog, or you
+will inevitably be bitten,"&mdash;she very quietly uttered these words:</p>
+
+<p>"Lay so much as your finger upon me and I will kill you."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is to hinder my killing you first, my little tigress?" he
+hissed.</p>
+
+<p>I had gripped my sword in answer to that question, but there was no
+need, for she blazed forth at him, the very daughter of her father.</p>
+
+<p>"The Emperor!" she cried triumphantly, and there she had him; for though
+Charles had sold her like a slave and lifted no finger to avenge the
+indignity which she suffered, yet Alessandro well knew that he would be
+answerable for her life. As she left the room the Duke turned upon his
+heel, and catching sight of me cried out angrily that I was well come,
+for he was on the point of arresting me for feloniously making away with
+the casket and portrait which he had bidden me take to his consort.</p>
+
+<p>I told him truly that I had left the casket in the possession of his
+mother. With that he flew into a rage, demanding who had dared to say
+that this vile hag was in anyway related to him.</p>
+
+<p>I made answer that Monna Afra had herself told me that this was the
+fact, whereupon he swore that he would kill her for spreading such a
+rumour, and offered me a large sum to undertake her execution for him.
+When I respectfully declined this office he replied: "As you please, but
+if you hold not your tongue concerning this matter I will find effectual
+means to silence you."</p>
+
+<p>Then reflecting doubtless that I was not a man to be governed by threats
+but more likely to be moved to generous deeds by appreciation of my
+talents, he admitted that his wife had indeed had the casket in her
+possession after I left Villa Madama, and had not missed it until her
+chests were unpacked at Naples, and that his true reason for choosing
+me to regain and restore it to her was that I was the best fitted of all
+his courtiers for so difficult an undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>I replied that the opportunity to serve the Duchess would be the
+greatest favour and honour which he could confer upon me,&mdash;and with that
+he showed me the key of the casket which until now had never quitted
+Margaret's chatelaine, desiring me to duplicate it for him, with this
+difference that the handle was to be ornamented by a crown of thorns.</p>
+
+<p>When I objected that the metal points would inevitably pierce the hand
+of the Duchess when she attempted to unlock the casket, he replied that
+he did not design the key for his wife, and bade me obey orders without
+foolish comment.</p>
+
+<p>As I am an expert in forging metals I soon made a little key with which
+the Duke was delighted. Taking it into his cabinet he returned presently
+with a little box on which were inscribed certain Arabic characters.</p>
+
+<p>"This box," said he, "contains the key which you have just fabricated
+with an order to Monna Afra to deliver the casket into your hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Since I am to bring away the casket," I replied, "for what purpose do
+you send this key? Is it, perchance, that Monna Afra may retain for
+herself any of the contents of the <i>coffre</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have already reproached you"&mdash;the Duke answered with a most malignant
+expression&mdash;"for giving vent to vain imaginings. If you cannot refrain
+from thinking, at least keep silence, and implicitly carry out my
+instructions.</p>
+
+<p>"After delivering this package wait a little, while Monna Afra goes to
+fetch the casket; should she tarry follow her and, no matter what you
+may see or surmise, make no outcry but hasten from the villa failing not
+to bring the casket with you. The Duchess tells me that while at the
+villa she kept it in a hiding-place constructed by the Pope for his
+jewels, which opens by pressing a certain ball upon one of the Medicean
+shields with which the villa is so profusely ornamented. But, on
+reflection, I see no reason for giving you access to our family
+treasure-chest. Monna Afra will not have placed the casket there, since
+she herself showed the Duchess the secret receptacle, and it would be
+the first place in which she would search for it; and if, indeed, it is
+hidden there it is perfectly safe."</p>
+
+<p>Thus commissioned I betook myself again to Rome; but being welcomed by
+old acquaintances, and finding an accumulation of important orders
+awaiting my attention, I naturally thought that the Duke's business
+might wait upon my own, and indeed might have clean forgotten it but for
+the following circumstance.</p>
+
+<p>I had gone fowling one day with a friend in the marshes near the villa
+of Magliana, in the neighbourhood of Ostia. Toward nightfall (as I have
+elsewhere related), happening from a little hill to look in the
+direction of Florence, I saw an extraordinary phenomenon, namely, a
+heavenly body in the shape of a Turkish scimitar, its blade directed
+toward the city. Whereat I exclaimed loudly, "We shall certainly hear
+that some great event has occurred at Florence."</p>
+
+<p>Even as I spoke a stranger wrapped in a long cloak who at a little
+distance from us was attentively observing this appearance, asked me
+what I supposed the portent might signify.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing less," I replied confidently, giving vent to the first thought
+which came into my mind, "than the assassination of Duke Alessandro."
+With that he uttered an exclamation in Arabic, and hurried in the
+direction of the Tiber. We had ridden but a short distance when some
+peasants rushed toward us with frantic gestures, crying out that a ship
+rigged after the manner of the Turkish corsairs was moored in the river.</p>
+
+<p>This gave us such a fright that we clapped spurs to our horses and rode
+with the utmost speed to Rome. But our fears having somewhat abated, we
+made no report of the alarm upon our arrival, realising that we had cut
+no great figure in the adventure.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, my thoughts being still upon the Duke, I resolved to
+execute his orders and so rode out to the Villa Madama. As I approached
+what was my surprise to see descending its terraces the same man who had
+accosted me near Magliana.</p>
+
+<p>Monna Afra stood in the loggia watching him, her hand, lifted to her
+eyes to protect them from the rays of the setting sun. I told her that I
+had come from the Duke and on what errand, and presented the packet
+which he had given me.</p>
+
+<p>She read it attentively, and without making any objection or inquiry,
+instantly brought the casket. But as she was about to unlock it
+something awoke her suspicions, and examining the key more attentively
+she thrust it before my eyes exclaiming, "Dog of a Christian, you have
+attempted to poison me!"</p>
+
+<p>It needed but a glance to show her fears well founded, for the handle of
+the key once of shining copper was corroded to a virulent green, so that
+it resembled a bit of antique bronze, and I comprehended that her
+villain of a son had dipped the sharp-pointed crown of thorns in some
+deadly acid, hoping that in exercising some force in turning the lock
+she would lacerate her hand, and that he would thus compass her death.</p>
+
+<p>As I remained speechless she took my condition as an evidence of guilt,
+and seizing a torch which hung in a metal <i>torchère</i>, rushed upon the
+terrace waving it to and fro like a fury. Though I lacked not the wit to
+perceive that this was a signal of some sort, yet remembering the Duke's
+orders by all means to secure the casket, I did not immediately address
+myself to flight, but strove to wrest it from her by force. She,
+however, opposed me in this design with all her strength, and throwing
+it aside fell upon me with a most ungentle embrace, throttling me and
+burying her nails in my neck.</p>
+
+<p>While we struggled thus I was aware of trampling feet and saw the loggia
+suddenly filled by a horde of barbarous pirates, refugee Moorish
+cut-throats, who had conceived the daring design of making a descent
+upon the outskirts of Rome to plunder its rich villas, and first that of
+Chigi, in revenge for the chastisement received at the hands of the
+Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>For the moment my only thought was one of thankfulness for my release
+from this hell-cat, but as I stood with my arms pinioned Monna Afra
+brought forward a large sack and, as I understood from her expressive
+gestures, demanded that I should be sewn up therein and cast into the
+Tiber.</p>
+
+<p>Though he had thrown aside the cloak in which he had previously
+disguised, I recognised the man whom I had already twice seen in the
+gaudily accoutred officer whom Afra now addressed as Hayraddin.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke to her very earnestly, and I could see that what he said caused
+her the greatest consternation, for she tore her hair, howled and
+scratched her own face as vehemently as she had formerly maltreated
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>Shaking her by the arm he continued to admonish her, until picking up
+the casket she retired into the interior of the villa. Then turning to
+me he addressed me in good Italian in these words:</p>
+
+<p>"Most noble Signor: You cannot fail to have understood that my sister
+desired me to kill you, and that I could readily have done so; but I
+have explained to her that you are a great astrologer, for from the
+appearance of the heavens you announced to me yesterday the
+assassination of her son which news has not yet reached Rome&mdash;and has
+but this moment been told to me by a party of my men who intercepted the
+messenger at the Ponte Molle.</p>
+
+<p>"In deference to your supernatural knowledge I spare your life, and
+shall leave you here bound and gagged, where in good time you will
+doubtless be discovered. This news of the death of my nephew has
+effected more than all my arguments and entreaties, for my sister has no
+further desire to remain in this accursed land, but will return with me
+to Africa."</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had he concluded when Monna Afra entered, heavily veiled and
+carrying an immense bundle. This one of the pirates took from her, and
+supported by two others she followed her brother and I saw her no more.</p>
+
+<p>It was two full days, during which I neither ate nor drank, before I was
+released from my miserable plight, but even so I counted myself
+fortunate to have escaped with my life.</p>
+
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">II</span><br />
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Ye mariners of Spain</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bend stoutly to your oars</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And bring my love again,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For he lies among the Moors."</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><i>Old Spanish Song.</i></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Foreseeing after the death of Duke Alessandro that Florence would long
+remain in a disordered condition, I deemed it a proper season to accept
+the overtures of his majesty, Francis I., King of the French, to enter
+into his service in France.</p>
+
+<p>This patronage I owed solely to my own fame and not, as has been
+asserted, to the favour of his daughter-in-law, Catherine de' Medici,
+for that princess had no love for her supposed half-brother Alessandro,
+or for his Florentine familiars.</p>
+
+<p>Though I could never have been accessory to such vile work as to stab an
+unarmed and unsuspecting man, yet often as I thought of Alessandro's
+satyr leer, and the loathing bravely coupled with defiance which I had
+seen leap in answer to it in the face of his child Duchess, I thanked
+God that Lorenzino had no such squeamish conscience.</p>
+
+<p>And yet,&mdash;as in the virgin purity of the orange-blossom, the voluptuous
+perfume yearningly foretells the luscious, perfect fruit, and the blush
+of the peach-bloom shows the flower coyly but triumphantly conscious
+that it will one day ripen into mouth-watering deliciousness,&mdash;so even
+then there were hints and prophecies in Margaret's budding womanliness
+that the time was approaching when she would not only awaken love but
+would herself know the joy of loving.</p>
+
+<p>The time and the man were nearer than I thought.</p>
+
+<p>It was a matter of but six years subsequent to our first meeting that,
+chancing to be again in Rome, I next encountered Ottavio Farnese.</p>
+
+<p>He was no longer the pretty page who had served the Duchess at the Villa
+Madama, but had grown into a tall, handsome youth, with the first down
+of manhood upon his lip. Though much lighter in weight than myself and
+his rapier as slender as a child's toy, he had been well taught in
+fencing, as I learned when meeting him by chance in front of St. Peter's
+church, he, to my utter surprise, fell upon me crying out that I was a
+scurvy knave unfit to live.</p>
+
+<p>As I am not the man to swallow insults of this sort we slashed at one
+another without further ceremony until the Papal guards, rushing from
+the Vatican, separated us. Recognising Ottavio as the grandson of the
+Pope (for Cardinal Farnese had on the death of Clement VI. succeeded to
+the tiara), they demanded why we fought. I replied that I had not the
+least idea, but Ottavio declared that it was to force me to confess what
+I had done with the casket which I had been commissioned to bring to the
+Duchess Margaret at Florence.</p>
+
+<p>Laughing a little at his own zeal, but with all due deference I told him
+how the casket had been carried away by the Moors, on the evening when I
+repaired to Villa Madama to fetch it, and I had the happiness to
+convince him of the truth of my statement.</p>
+
+<p>Dismissing the guards he strolled with me in the most amicable manner,
+informing me of many events which had happened during my absence in
+France.</p>
+
+<p>The first in importance to himself was the fact that he was more madly
+than ever in love with the Duchess, and that she having experienced the
+brutality of one husband had no mind to venture another, and had
+announced her firm intention to remain a widow for the rest of her
+life.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of this he had told her of his love, but she had treated him as
+a child and made sport of his passion.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall die of her disdain," he said to me, "for my love is beyond my
+power to conquer."</p>
+
+<p>Taking him by the hand and perceiving that he was in a fever, and that
+unless some hope was extended to him he must lose either his life or his
+reason, I counselled him to keep a stout heart. "For," said I, "though
+you are young it is a fault which will lessen as years go by, and the
+Emperor surely will not look upon his daughter's repugnance to marriage
+with approval. Rumour hath it that he is on his way to punish, for a
+second time, the Moorish pirates who are back in their old nest at
+Tunis. When he visits Rome you should persuade the Pope to intercede
+with him in your behalf."</p>
+
+<p>"As if I had not already thought of that!" Ottavio replied. "I have
+freely opened my heart to my grandfather, and he has negotiated with the
+Emperor, who is as favourable to an alliance with a Farnese Pope as he
+was to a similar compact with the Medici. Charles could force his
+daughter to accept me, as he compelled her to marry Alessandro; but I
+will not win her in that way, and she despises me, doubtless, for what
+she considers my pusillanimity.</p>
+
+<p>"When I pleaded with her but yesterday bidding her set me any task to
+accomplish as a proof of my love&mdash;she laughed scornfully, saying that
+she had no lack of pages to fetch and carry unless it were to demand of
+Benvenuto Cellini the casket which he had forgotten to return to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, though I knew that you, Benvenuto, were accounted a desperate
+man, I swore to her that I would not enter her presence again until I
+had fulfilled her behest. Yea, and I will fulfil it, for I will sail
+with the Emperor on this expedition to Tunis and will find the hag Afra
+and wrest it from her."</p>
+
+<p>"Your determination," I replied, "is a good one, and, as the adventure
+appeals to me, I will go with you. I have already met Hayraddin,
+commander of the Corsairs and brother of Monna Afra, who should know the
+whereabouts of the casket, and I may be able to aid you in obtaining
+it."</p>
+
+<p>As the affair turned out, though Ottavio did indeed sail for Africa with
+the Emperor, I was not allowed to accompany him, for his father,
+feigning to believe that the casket, together with certain valuable
+jewels stolen from Pope Clement, was in my possession, or at least
+hidden in some spot nearer to Rome than Tunis, caused me to be
+imprisoned in the castle of St. Angelo, until such time as I should make
+restitution.</p>
+
+<p>He did this, moreover, without informing his son of my arrest, so that
+Ottavio departed believing that I had wilfully failed of my promise to
+go with him. But I was not alone in misfortune, for the Emperor far from
+achieving victories similar to those which crowned his previous
+expedition, met with terrible storms which scattered the ships of his
+fleet and wrecked many of them upon the coast of Africa, where the
+savage barbarians, descending upon the drowning mariners, massacred them
+in cold blood.</p>
+
+<p>Word was brought back to Rome that this was the fate both of the Emperor
+and of Ottavio Farnese, and though this proved but an unfounded rumour,
+the heart of the gentle Margaret was filled with remorse as well as
+grief, for having driven so chivalrous a youth and one who loved her so
+devotedly to his death.</p>
+
+<p>She mourned him most sincerely, wearing widow's weeds in his honour as
+though she had in reality been his bride. Such is the strange
+contrariety of a woman's heart that he who living had been the object of
+her scorn, was now loved with the most vehement passion.</p>
+
+<p>When at last it was known that the Emperor and Ottavio had indeed been
+rescued and were returning to Italy, but that the latter was dangerously
+ill, her transports of alternate joy and foreboding were most piteous to
+behold.</p>
+
+<p>I was a witness to them, for at this time by twisting my sheets into a
+rope I had most marvellously escaped from the battlements of St. Angelo.</p>
+
+<p>As I deemed it prudent to remain for a time in hiding and knew that the
+Villa Madama was unoccupied, I had repaired thither under cover of the
+night, and without undressing had slept soundly upon the floor, the
+house being denuded of furniture.</p>
+
+<p>But in the morning I was awakened by a great clatter of trampling horses
+and sumpter mules, and springing to my feet and finding myself
+confronted by the Duchess I gave myself up for lost. This was, however,
+the most fortunate circumstance which could have happened to me, for on
+hearing my story she promised me her protection and her intercession
+with the Pope. She told me also that she had come with all this train of
+servants and household stuff to put the villa in order for the reception
+of her betrothed husband, Ottavio Farnese, as a more salubrious
+residence than her palace at Rome, and more conducive to his rapid
+recovery.</p>
+
+<p>And hither, shortly after, he was borne in a litter and I beheld their
+rapturous meeting, and certes the spectacle of so great joy went far
+toward repaying me for all the misfortunes which I had suffered.</p>
+
+<p>The young Duke, though very weak, extended his hand to me with a smile,
+saying that I was ever Benvenuto (welcome), and reminding me how in that
+very spot I had assisted at incantations which had foretold that he
+would one day be the husband of the Duchess, which prognostication was
+now so miraculously fulfilled. "I have," he added, "but one
+regret&mdash;that I come to her forsworn, for I promised ere claiming her
+as my wife to recover the casket."</p>
+
+<p>"That promise, my Lord," I made haste to reply, "you shall keep, for I
+have been more fortunate in my quest than your excellency."</p>
+
+<p>I then showed him the secret hiding-place constructed by Pope Clement
+in the wall; for, while prowling in the villa, I had remembered what
+Duke Alessandro had said of it, and had not failed to press each one of
+the Medici balls, so frequently employed in the decoration of the villa,
+until I lighted upon the ingenious spring which disclosed the recess,
+and within it a package marked with the name of the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>The wrapper had mouldered away with dampness and discovered the casket
+with the poisoned key still in the lock, having been so left by that
+wicked Afra with the express design of revenging herself upon the
+innocent Margaret for the death of her abominable son, and perhaps also
+upon Margaret's father for the misfortunes which he had occasioned her
+race.</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess being called, evinced the greatest joy and would have fallen
+into the trap and have unlocked the casket at once, had I not first
+discovered the key and sent for a pair of pincers with which I turned
+it. While waiting the arrival of the pincers she asked her consort if he
+had any idea why she set such store upon the casket.</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless," he replied with a frown, "because it contains the portrait
+of your husband, who, with all his faults, was at least a brave man."</p>
+
+<p>"You have rightly guessed," she answered, "the bravest of the brave and
+the only man whom I have ever loved."</p>
+
+<p>I marvelled to hear her thus speak, until the lid being opened, we
+discovered, not my medal of Alessandro de' Medici, for that Margaret had
+long ago given to his mother as an inconsiderate trifle; but the
+likeness of the pretty page, Ottavio, which I had painted at their first
+acquaintance; and which, in despite all contrariety of womanly
+coquetry, had remained as ineffaceably imprinted upon her heart.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 386px;">
+<img src="images/ill_iv.png"
+class="top15" width="386" height="153" alt="image not available" />
+</div>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<p class="c">FLOWER O' THE PEACH</p>
+
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Now for a tale illustrative</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That shall delight my passion for romance,</span><br />
+	<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Embodying hints authentic of some theme</span><br />
+	<span style="margin-left: 5em;"
+class="dots">. . . .
+. . .</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or incident that to my knowledge came</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When sojourning abroad, the background true;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like to some faded tapestry retouched</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With the seductive broidery-work of fancy.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Anon</span>&mdash;altered.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">I</p>
+
+<p class="non"><span class="let">L</span>ET the trovere ease her conscience at the outset&mdash;the tale about to be
+recorded is <i>over</i> true.</p>
+
+<p>Even as there was more truth than called for in the testimony of that
+ingenious witness who, being adjured by the judge to speak the truth,
+replied: "Of a surety, your honor, that will I, the truth, the whole
+truth, and&mdash;a little more."</p>
+
+<p>But the little more which I shall give you is peradventure the truest
+part of my tale; for, though you will find it not in the chronicles of
+such historiographers as give their quills solely to statecraft and
+wars, yet it lies like a pressed flower between the musty leaves of the
+<i>novellini</i> of Franco Sacchetti and of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, who
+relate with great particularity the artifice by which the head of the
+house of the Aldobrandini won his bride.</p>
+
+<p>Let who will carp that in combining matter from various sources I have
+followed the example of those unscrupulous antiquaries who, discovering
+an antique statue, straightway replace its missing parts by others lying
+near at hand, or, more criminal still, complete it according to the
+whims of their own fancy.</p>
+
+<p>To that accusation needs must that I plead at the outset <i>mea culpa</i>,
+advancing only that the original torso as well as the legs and arms
+which I have made free to assemble are still preserved, properly
+ticketed, in the museum of history, while for him who cavils with the
+authenticity of this "restoration" the buried palaces of the ancient
+world patiently await exhumation to yield to each body its own
+particular members, and to each excavator his own treasure trove.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg142" id="ill_romv_pg142"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg142.png" width="600" height="448" alt="Alinari
+
+Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. The Grand Cascade and Fountain of Atlas" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. The Grand Cascade and Fountain of Atlas</td><td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 7em;">
+<span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Let thus much suffice for apology&mdash;now to our legend.</p>
+
+<p>In the Court of the Cascade of that most magnificent of the Frascati
+villas, namely that of the Aldobrandini, whoso lists may see to-day two
+fountains; the greater, figuring the demigod Atlas, well-nigh crushed
+under the weight of our terrestrial globe, is niched conspicuously to
+the fore of the grand terrace; but the other is in a hidden pleasance,
+and is but a lop-sided vase, considered to have settled thus awry from
+the natural subsidence of the soil rather than to have been so placed by
+design. Nevertheless, our legend will have this to have been done a
+purpose; and there are no acts in all the annals of that illustrious
+house more chivalrous or magnanimous than those supposed to be
+commemorated by this fountain of Atlas and its fellow of the Spilling
+Cup.</p>
+
+<p>And first of Atlas Aldobrandino, lord of that fair estate and many
+others in that dim time centuries before the building of the villa.
+Atlas was he named not at his baptism, but half in admiration, half in
+derision by his mates, for his burliness of body and his inordinate
+greediness of all kinds, for he coveted, say they, the entire earth,
+clutched at a mighty part thereof, and what he seized upheld manfully.</p>
+
+<p>Beside his Italian possessions he was lord of the whole of Venisi in
+Southern France adjoining fair Provence, and though a bachelor of
+upwards of seventy-one winters found himself mightily distraught with
+love for the fair daughter of his neighbour, the figures of whose age
+exactly reversed his own.</p>
+
+<p>Many lords, counts, and barons were sighing suitors for her regard, and
+when Aldobrandino, prefacing his request with lavish gifts of steeds,
+falcons, and hounds, besought her hand of the great Count of Provence,
+her father, the latter, not wishing to offend him, replied:</p>
+
+<p>"I would willingly give her to you, were it not that it might seem
+strange to the multitude of young knights eighteen to twenty years of
+age now in pursuit of her, lords of Baux, of Toulouse, of Perpignan, and
+vavasours of the great Emperor beyond the Rhone, who might all join
+together and fall upon me. It is my one desire to live at peace with my
+neighbours and to this end I have had to fight many hard battles.
+Moreover, the girl herself may have her eye set upon some one of those
+fresher sparks who are continually fluttering about her."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg144" id="ill_romv_pg144"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg144.png" width="600" height="456" alt="Alinari
+
+Upper Cascade, Villa Aldobrandini" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Upper Cascade, Villa Aldobrandini</td>
+<td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>"Friend," returned Aldobrandino, "be not anxious as to the event, for I
+will devise a method of arranging the affair amicably with our young
+friends."</p>
+
+<p>We are informed that the enamoured Aldobrandino slept not a wink that
+night, but concocted a wileful scheme which he confided to his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you announce a tournament at which whoever desires the honour of
+your daughter's hand, and is of a rank and wealth sufficient to warrant
+such pretension, shall have cordial welcome to fight, and in God's name
+let her be the prize of the victor."</p>
+
+<p>This proposition appealed to the lord of Provence, for it seemed a fair
+one to which none of his warlike neighbours could object. Moreover, it
+was even generous, coming as it did from Aldobrandino, who, though he
+had been a doughty knight in his day, could now scarcely sit his saddle
+for corpulency or aim a straight lance-thrust with his shaking arm.</p>
+
+<p>The lists were made ready at Arles, heralds sent into all countries near
+and far, and the tournament given out for the first of May following.</p>
+
+<p>But Aldobrandino was more wily than appeared. He had no over-confidence
+in his own prowess, and he sent immediately to the King of France, with
+whom he was closely allied, begging him to lend him to act as his
+champion for this occasion his most doughty knight, the most invincible
+that could be met with in all feats of arms. In consideration of his
+esteem for Aldobrandino the King sent him his favourite cavalier
+Ricciardo (of whom much more hereafter), who, arriving at the castle of
+the aged lover thus reported himself:</p>
+
+<p>"I am sent," quoth he, "by my royal master to act in whatever capacity
+may be most agreeable to you. Give your orders, therefore; it is my
+devoir to execute them manfully."</p>
+
+<p>"Then hear me," explained Aldobrandino. "It is my wish that you should
+carry all before you at this tournament until I ride into the field,
+when I will engage you, and you must suffer yourself to be vanquished,
+so that I may remain the victor of the day."</p>
+
+<p>Thus far have we followed with exact circumstantiality the relation of
+the Italian writers before mentioned, to which also we shall later
+return; but let us, for the sake of novelty in the telling of an old
+story, for a little space change our view-point and give the play as it
+was acted before the eyes of the fair lady who was herself its heroine.</p>
+
+<p>Sancie was her name, or, if you will, Sanchia, third of the four fair
+daughters of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, who had the singular
+fortune to marry each of the four to a king.</p>
+
+<p>Perilous seemed this honour to this future father-in-law of monarchs, as
+he admitted to his friend, Romeo de Villeneuve, what time he ceded to
+St. Louis of France the strong castle of Tarascon as the dowry of his
+daughter Marguerite. But Villeneuve very shrewdly consoled him. "For,"
+quoth he, "let not this great expense trouble you. If you marry your
+eldest high the mere consideration of that alliance will get the others
+husbands at less cost."</p>
+
+<p>The event approved his sagacity and also the prediction of a soothsayer,
+to whom the four sisters had applied to know the rank of their future
+husbands, for, requested to draw at venture from a pack of cards,
+Marguerite straightway drew the king of swords, Eleanor the king of
+money, Sancie the king of goblets, and Beatrice the king of clubs.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>The witch expounded this to mean that Marguerite should wed the
+knightliest king in all the world and in all ages (which indeed came to
+pass in the person of St. Louis); that Eleanor should in her king of
+coins gain the monarch of the wealthiest of all realms, namely, England;
+that Beatrice should have the misfortune to mate with a hard-hitting
+savage, but still a king&mdash;a forecast fulfilled in Charles of Anjou,
+brother of St. Louis, who won his kingdom of the two Sicilies by as hard
+and as cruel fighting as ever dinted the armour or soiled the fame of a
+knight; and that, finally, Sancie, the third in order of birth, but last
+to find a lover, should of her own free will choose for her husband a
+king of good fellows, whose kingdom was but that of cups.</p>
+
+<p>This prophecy, I say, had been more than half fulfilled. The two elder
+daughters were queens; the youngest was besought and contracted, when
+their father, fearing perchance that the prediction would be carried out
+in the case of his third and best-loved, set himself against fate and
+called a halt in its proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>It was unfitting, he declared, that Beatrice should be married before
+her elder sister Sancie, and Charles of Anjou must perforce hold his
+amorous desires in leash until his prospective sister-in-law was
+disposed of.</p>
+
+<p>This at first sight seemed no such difficult matter, for while the
+others had each been meted one lover, on Sancie fortune had bestowed a
+full half dozen. But though their numbers flattered the vanity and
+pleased the coquetry of the lady, the quality of no one of them was
+satisfactory to the father.</p>
+
+<p>He had now an appetite for kings. Counts, barons, princes even would not
+suit his palate, and as no monarch or scion of royalty had as yet
+applied for Sancie's hand it struck his humour that a tournament such as
+Aldobrandino proposed, well advertised in every court of Europe, might
+draw some king, or at least an adventurous princeling, to the lists, as
+indeed was proved by the sequel.</p>
+
+<p>The queenly sisters of Sancie took up the project with great enthusiasm.
+Queen Eleanor, consort of Henry III. of England, was visiting her sister
+of France, and together they arranged every detail of the tournament, of
+which King Louis was to be the judge.</p>
+
+<p>The hopes of Beatrice jumped also with this plan as one which would
+remove Sancie from her own path to true love, and of all the four
+daughters of Raymond, Sancie was the only one who looked upon the
+scheme with any dubiety.</p>
+
+<p>But her older sisters, on their arrival at their father's capital city
+of Arles, reassured her, explaining that though there would be a great
+show of fair dealing yet they had plotted so cleverly that Sancie would
+take her own pick from this rich strawberry plot of lovers.</p>
+
+<p>"It is my husband's privilege," expounded Queen Marguerite, "before ever
+the fighting begins, to bar out any knight as the procession files
+before him in the grand entrée of the lists. You shall sit beside him
+and indicate any whom you wish disallowed. Moreover, you can at any
+moment whisper in Louis's ear and he will throw every advantage possible
+in the way of your champion."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless," continued Queen Eleanor, "since it is possible that the
+knight you favour may be notoriously inept in arms, you shall have
+resource to another trial of skill&mdash;namely that of minstrelsy. Here
+(like my predecessor of the same name, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine) I
+will be judge.</p>
+
+<p>"From the knights who have previously taken part in the tournament you
+yourself shall winnow out a half dozen, and shall tell me secretly to
+which of these I am to award the prize. Now confess, can anything be
+fairer? Is there a possibility of your true love failing, if so be he
+but enter the contest?"</p>
+
+<p>But Sancie hung her head. "I have no true love," she said, "I am
+absolutely heart-free."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better," cried the Queen of France, "and this shall be
+announced at the outset. The tournament also shall be delayed a week
+after the time set, to give you an opportunity to meet the contestants
+and to know your own mind."</p>
+
+<p>But the Queen of England caught Sancie's cheeks between her two hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen little sister," she said softly, "I have brought with me from
+England the very prince for you, my husband's brother, Richard, Earl of
+Cornwall<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>; well worthy he to bear the name of his great uncle, C&oelig;ur
+de Lion. 'King of Good Fellows' he is dubbed by his friends, for he is
+loved by all who know him."</p>
+
+<p>"King of Good Fellows," repeated Sancie softly; "tell me more of him,
+sweet sister. Is he as valiant in arms as he is lovable, as fortunate as
+he is deserving?"</p>
+
+<p>"Accomplished is he in all that becomes a knight," replied Eleanor, "but
+fortunate so far is he not. Always when he stands on the verge of
+success he yields his advantage to another, holding that love, even that
+of an adversary, is the dearest prize of all."</p>
+
+<p>"Would he so yield me, think you?" questioned Sancie.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, not if he knew you," replied Queen Eleanor; "therefore to your
+instant acquaintance, I have bidden him this afternoon to a game of ball
+in the pleasance of the castle."</p>
+
+<p>King Louis heard this conversation and it irked him, for though he had
+assured the sisters that Richard would take part in the tournament, he
+had not confided to them that he would do so in behalf of Prince
+Aldobrandino. The pretensions of this aged lover had greatly amused the
+ladies. They counted so surely on his discomfiture that even Sancie, who
+abhorred him, had not thought it worth while to ask King Louis to bar
+him from the contest.</p>
+
+<p>Richard also had given his word to play but the part of an understudy in
+this drama before he had seen Sancie, else never would he have consented
+to the compact. King Louis had indeed explained it to him before sending
+him to Aldobrandino, and Richard had demanded carelessly: "Of what sort
+is the maiden?" The King had answered: "All of the daughters of Raymond
+Berenger are fair, and Sancie is next to my Marguerite, who is fairest
+fair."</p>
+
+<p>Then Richard smiled, for he remembered that when he had questioned his
+brother Henry, of England, what time he went to claim his bride, of her
+beauty, he had answered: "All of the daughters of Raymond Berenger are
+fair, but my Eleanor is fairest, and the next in beauty is Sancie."</p>
+
+<p>"Where such difference of opinion exists," thought Richard, "it were
+well to leave the matter to an umpire," and he straightway submitted the
+question to Charles of Anjou.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, they are both wrong," confidently declared that prince; "my
+Beatrice is fairest, but Sancie is not far beneath her."</p>
+
+<p>Then Richard laughed to himself: "Truly if the girl ranks but second
+when compared with each of these her sisters, whose beauty I esteem not
+at all, she is not worth the winning on my own behalf; and I am safe in
+adventuring for the joy of the mere adventure."</p>
+
+<p>But when Aldobrandino spake to him of her it was in other wise.
+"Consider well," he said, "ere you undertake this business, for should
+the beauty of Sancie drive you to such madness as to play me false then
+of a surety I will kill you. Not in vain am I dubbed Atlas, for all
+things upon earth which I desire I bear away upon my shoulders, and I
+have sworn by the five wounds of God that she and she alone shall sit as
+princess in my palace."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a great oath," said Richard, "but you shall not be forsworn by me,
+and verily I marvel that you have set your heart upon her if the opinion
+of her brothers-in-law be credible." And with that he told the several
+answers given to his questions.</p>
+
+<p>Aldobrandino glowered upon him and grunted this reply: "You mind me of a
+<i>stornello</i> sung by our peasants:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Flower o' the peach,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Flowers for all fancies, his own love for each.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"And verily," he added, "it is well that it is so, else should I have
+had for rivals Louis and Henry and Charles, and perchance you also. The
+flower o' the peach suits her well; she is but a homely little bloom o'
+the kitchen garden beside her statelier rose and lily sisters. But, look
+you, what use have I for such useless ornaments as your waxy-pale
+lilies, your flaunting and fragile roses? What fruit bear they, I ask?
+Why, pips and briars. Whereas the peach is a stocky tree, prolific and
+profitable to its owner, for to its unadmired and modest blossom
+succeedeth a toothsome fruitage. Therefore say I the flower o' the peach
+for me. For, hist, Ricciardo, I am past the age when one goes maying for
+flowers only. Women have had no great power over me, and a bachelor I
+should die but that I have regard for what shall happen after me, and a
+natural desire for the continuance of my race upon their old estates. It
+is not so much a wife that I seek as a mother for my children. I would
+see many and goodly sons about me, strong of body, lusty in fight, such
+as only a wholesome and sturdy woman can bear and rear. If she have wit
+enough to rule them it is enough for me; and as for beauty, the less the
+better in the eyes of other men for her whom my descendants shall claim
+with pride as mother of the Aldobrandini."</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">II</p>
+
+<p class="c">THE ORDEAL</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One maiden trimly girt</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bore in her gleaming upheld skirt</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fair silken balls sewed round with gold;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which when the others did behold</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Men cast their mantles unto earth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And maids within their raiment's girth</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Drew up their gown skirts, loosening here</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some button on their bosoms dear</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or slender wrists, then making tight</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The laces round their ankles light;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For folk were wont within that land</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To cast the ball from hand to hand,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dancing meanwhile full orderly.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lovely to look on was the sway</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the slim maidens neath the ball</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As they swung back to note its fall</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With dainty balanced feet; and fair</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The bright out-flowing, golden hair,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As swiftly yet in measured wise</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One maid ran forth to gain the prize;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eyes glittered and young cheeks glowed bright</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And gold-shod feet, round limb and light,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gleamed from beneath the girded gown</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That, unrebuked, untouched was thrown</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hither and thither by the breeze;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shrill laughter smote the thick-leaved trees,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till they, for very breathlessness,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With rest the trodden daisies bless.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">William Morris.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Cold and calculating, nay coarse also seemed the motives of Aldobrandino
+to Richard as he pondered them. "Not so," thought he, "would I set about
+the choosing of my wife&mdash;as it were the purchase of a brood-mare." Still
+more his soul revolted at this low animalism when that afternoon he for
+the first time beheld sweet Sancie playing at ball with her sisters in
+the pleasance of the palace of Aries.</p>
+
+<p>The game was set to music, the measured beating of a tambour with the
+light chiming of silver bells. Some said that Marguerite was most regal;
+so stately she moved to the rhythm of the dance, that one might have
+fancied that the glorious statue of the Venus of Arles had descended
+from her ancient shrine to tread a measure with her maidens. But Eleanor
+danced with more vivacity and passion. You would have thought her of
+Spanish blood as she leapt and whirled, catching the ball with the lithe
+ferocity of a panther. For Beatrice, Richard had no eyes, for as he
+watched Sancie, he knew what her three kingly brothers-in-law had meant
+when each could name only his own heart's dearest as her superior. He
+saw, too, why Aldobrandino had likened her to a peach-blossom, for her
+complexion had that even delicate flush, not white and red in spots, but
+roseate everywhere, like the heart of a conch shell or the breast of a
+pink curlew.</p>
+
+<p>Abounding health spake in her buoyant step, but she was fine as well as
+strong. The rounded contours of her cheeks and shoulders were soft as
+those of a babe, and Richard had seen naught in all his life so
+exquisite as her dimpling smile. Would you know with more particularity
+how she appeared to him, look you straightway at the sweet maid in the
+foreground of that <i>Coronation of the Virgin</i> which Fra Lippo Lippi
+painted; and from the framing of wayward little curls that make their
+escape from a veil of silver tissue, a tangle withal to mesh a man's
+heart in, from that face, I say (though the painter-monk had ne'er the
+felicity to see her), Sancie's round eyes will search your soul and will
+remain in your memory for evermore.</p>
+
+<p>You will not wonder then that Richard blessed God in his heart for
+making a thing so fair, and stood as one in amaze until the ball with
+which she was playing fell at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>Needs must then that he return it to her and join in the game, for this
+was the custom when one of the players dropped out, as had Beatrice from
+weariness.</p>
+
+<p>So he played, but he saw not the ball, only her who sped it, and making
+many faults the game was adjudged to her.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 425px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg158" id="ill_romv_pg158"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg158.png" width="425" height="550"
+alt="Face of Young Girl in the Coronation of
+the Virgin
+By Fra Filippo Lippi Permission of Alinari" />
+<span class="caption">Face of Young Girl in the Coronation of
+the Virgin<br />By Fra Filippo Lippi Permission of Alinari</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then they walked together, others of the company following in twos and
+threes at a discreet distance, in that <i>allée</i> which still retains its
+ancient name, Les Alyscamps (Champs Elysées&mdash;Elysian Fields), where
+'neath the taller trees the oleanders shot in long curves bursting in
+pink fire, like rockets, above their heads. Here, seated upon one of
+those carven tombs which now make benches for lovers in that enchanting
+spot, she told him old legends of St. Trophime, how he and his fellows
+sculptured about the portal of his abbey descend from their niches and
+keep here the eve of Toussaint. "You will see them," she said, "when you
+go to hang your shield in the cloister, where it must be displayed, if
+so be you fight in this foolish joust. Truly sorry and shamed am I that
+so many gallant knights must run the risk of wounds and death for little
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a small venture for so great a prize," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, as you fight, let it be your best, for&mdash;" but here she paused and
+ended her sentence differently from her first intention&mdash;"for I would
+not have you hurt," and her face grew yet rosier.</p>
+
+<p>Richard cursed his fate that he might not fight his best, but his
+cursing was in his heart, what he said was: "The fortunes of such a
+joust are very fickle and it must needs happen that many a good knight
+will fight his doughtiest and yet not succeed. If I am among that
+number, sweet lady, I pray you set not my mischance down to lack of
+will, for in no tournament that I have ever entered had I so great
+desire to win."</p>
+
+<p>She looked no higher than the Plantagenet leopards gold-embroidered upon
+the breast of his doublet. "Since, to spare the knights the
+mortification of public discomfiture, my father hath decreed that they
+fight incognito (their true names being known only to the <i>roi d'armes</i>
+who passes upon their qualifications), will you not tell me the device
+which you have chosen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Choose my device for me," he said, "and I will cause it to be blazoned
+on my shield and embroidered on my pennant."</p>
+
+<p>"It has been foretold," she answered pensively, "that I shall wed the
+King of Cups. Therefore, if you honestly desire to win choose that
+emblem."</p>
+
+<p>"My cup runneth over," he murmured&mdash;and their lips met.</p>
+
+<p>Ere they parted there was heard a sound of laughter, as it were the
+crackling of light flame, for there was no mirth in the sound, and
+Aldobrandino stood before them regarding the pair with a derisive leer.
+"There is an old proverb which it were well you should both remember,"
+he said. "If I mistake not it runneth in this wise, 'There is many a
+slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.' It were meet that the cup you blazon
+should be a spilling one."</p>
+
+<p>"Better spilling than swilling," cried Richard, his eyes aflame, and
+Sancie affrighted ran away.</p>
+
+<p>"I forgive you those stolen sweets for this once," said Aldobrandino,
+"for you had great provocation. Said I not rightly a peach-blossom? Nay,
+a peach rather, ripe and luscious. Watered not your mouth in that game
+of ball when the strain of her deep breathing and the violent turning
+and twisting of her lithe body burst the lacing of her corsage and half
+her fair bosom broke covert? What a pillow was that for a bridegroom,
+eh, Ricciardo?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," retorted Richard, "while she repaired that accident I lifted not
+my eyes above the hem of her robe, that so her rare modesty might take
+no offence."</p>
+
+<p>"And had you kept them there throughout the game you would have seen
+much to admire," continued Aldobrandino. "Ah! the pretty little feet,
+the shapely ankles! But marked you those of her sisters? Cranes and
+ostriches! storks and sandpipers! And they call themselves not
+water-fowl but women!"</p>
+
+<p>"Swine!" said Richard to himself, "hog, not another word or I shall
+burst. And what unspeakable villainy is this that I should have taken
+service to deliver so pure and precious a maiden into the power of such
+a beast!"</p>
+
+<p>This feeling grew upon him in the short space of time before the
+tournament, for he met her daily, and as he marked her,&mdash;the flicker of
+her eyelashes upon her cheeks and the quick in-drawing of breath through
+her sensitive nostrils when the tales of the trouvères and jests of the
+jongleurs offended her exquisite modesty&mdash;his heart swelled with pain
+intolerable that so pure a flower should be set up as a prize for the
+hardest fighter to snuff at. Not so, he made bold to express his mind to
+Aldobrandino, should such a maid be won.</p>
+
+<p>"How then," snorted the other in astonishment. "What method were fairer,
+I ask you?"</p>
+
+<p>"What than to appeal to her own heart," Richard made answer, "and that
+by gentle observance, delicate attentions, and such refinements of
+self-sacrifice as in their practice might elevate a lover to some
+worthiness of the honour he courts?"</p>
+
+<p>Aldobrandino sniffed his scorn. "Appeal to her heart in the last resort
+I grant you, but only thus: Lady, will you have me? An she will <i>not</i>,
+what would your servility gain? An she <i>will</i>, it is needless. In either
+case it is ridiculous. Trust me, a woman sets more store by the man who
+compels her admiration than by him who sues for it. If he breaks the
+bones of other men to win her, that is compliment enough and mark you
+well, Ricciardo, it is all that I demand of you in my service."</p>
+
+<p>So the week sped before the tournament; and Richard loved Sancie more
+and more, and ever Aldobrandino was at his side taunting him until he
+burst forth into many a torrent of indignation, whereat the other but
+laughed and leered, so that Richard loathed and hated him to the death.</p>
+
+<p>At last came the great day, and among the pennons of the challenging
+knights, which made gay the ancient amphitheatre of Arles where the
+lists were staked, there fluttered one bearing the device of a golden
+cup from which ran a stream of silver water. Also when Richard, with
+visor drawn and all in mail of shining steel, caracoled in the field, he
+was hailed Knight of the Spilling Cup, and Sancie's hand at that sign
+trembled so that had it held a beaker her robe would have been well
+besprinkled.</p>
+
+<p>As the prize of this joust was a peculiar one, so was the manner of its
+contention. King René had not then formulated his rules for the conduct
+of a tourney, and the public tournaments at this time were of so savage
+a character that King Louis held them in reprehension and was determined
+that this trial of arms, which was but a friendly joust, should be a
+model of chivalric self-restraint and courtesy. There was much grumbling
+when the rules were published by the heralds that there was to be no
+fighting to the death with weapons of war, no sharp steel points to the
+lances, nor hacking with battle-axes, and though the mace was allowed
+this bludgeon was shorn of its iron knobs and points.</p>
+
+<p>But when it was known that the King had stricken out the mêlée, or
+pitched battle of the second day, when all comers gentle and simple were
+by ancient custom allowed to range themselves in two parties under the
+banners of the victorious knight and him who stood second, all were of
+one opinion, namely that Louis had so emasculated the sport of all its
+zest that now was neither opportunity for young and unknown knights to
+distinguish themselves or a spectacle sufficiently diverting to keep the
+ladies from yawning.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless the King would not budge from his ruling, and the
+descendants of the very barbarians for whom C&aelig;sar had built the
+amphitheatre in order that their savage instincts might be sated came
+sulkily to their seats ready to deride this gentle passage at arms. But
+certes they had more thrilling sensations than they had counted upon,
+more of tingling along the spine and lifting of the hair as knight after
+knight went down and esquires dragged their masters from the tawny dust
+clouds that hid the plunging chaos. Tender maids, noble ladies, yea, and
+strong men felt their hearts stop and their stomachs turn as these pale,
+blood-bedabbled contestants were carried away, their heads wagging from
+limp necks, to the pavilion where the leeches provided by Raymond
+Berenger awaited them. But I do anticipate the order of my relation.</p>
+
+<p>Eight noble knights, lords of neighbouring provinces and some as well of
+foreign countries, all sumptuously accoutred and mounted on gaily
+caparisoned steeds, entered the arena in procession, and, having saluted
+the King and the ladies, took their positions in two companies at either
+extremity of the lists. For in this wise had it been ordered&mdash;that they
+should tilt in single combat, their adversaries having been previously
+determined by lot, one couple succeeding another until each knight had
+fought once.</p>
+
+<p>And after these four trial courses had been run, the four knights
+adjudged to have won therein the greatest glory must be matched again in
+two other duels, whereof the two victors might contest in the final
+combat for the great prize of the tourney.</p>
+
+<p>Hautboys and trumpets sounded shrilly the onset, and the first pair of
+knights, laying their lances in rest, rushed to the encounter.</p>
+
+<p>It may well be understood that in this series of preliminary single
+combats, Sancie had eyes alone for that in which Richard figured. Easy
+was his victory, for charging against young Raymond of Toulouse (seventh
+of that name) so violent was the shock of his spear against his
+opponent's shield that both Raymond and his steed rolled upon the
+ground. Fortunate was that knight to have broken only his thigh, a
+mischance which Richard strove to mitigate by most assiduous tendance
+during Raymond's convalescence. But now for the glory of the feat he was
+apportioned a weightier warrior, Barral des Baux, who had won like
+renown in the trial contest, having thrust his antagonist out of his
+saddle in such wise that he dinted the field with the back of his head,
+and to such effect that thereafter he had no memory either for good or
+ill, no, not so much as of this astounding adventure or of his
+sweetheart's face. When Richard met the redoutable Des Baux their
+lance-heads were planted squarely each upon the shield of the other, but
+the polished curving surface offering no purchase both lances slipped,
+and Barral's splintering and glancing downward was thrust into the
+haunch of Richard's horse. The creature uttered a piteous, human-like
+cry which was echoed by Sancie, and Richard hearing that wail and
+feeling himself sinking so that his feet touched the ground, believed
+that he had lost the day. But even then a roar echoed around the concave
+of the amphitheatre: "The cup hath it, the cup! the cup!" and he saw the
+Lord of Les Baux lying at a little distance with blood trickling upon
+the sand from the bars of his helmet. For Richard's lance had slipped
+upward and penetrating between gorget and helmet had pierced and
+dislocated Barral's jaw. This alone was enough to give Richard his
+second victory, but there were three added points of humiliation for the
+Knight of Les Baux, namely: his lance had been broken, he had been
+unhorsed, and, with maladroitness worthy of the merest tyro, had injured
+a horse when he had aimed at its rider.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand Richard was untouched in person, his arms also in good
+condition, and he could not be said even to have quit his saddle since
+he remained astride his steed with his feet still in the stirrups.</p>
+
+<p>But Alphonso of Aragon, had also won laurels for the second time, for
+though his lance had slipped on the shield of his opponent precisely as
+Richard's had done, it had wrought far greater damage, for, tearing away
+the visor from the helmet of his antagonist it had blinded and
+disfigured him for life.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore honours remained equal between these two champions who must
+now run the final and deciding course.</p>
+
+<p>But Richard's good horse was cruelly maimed and could scarce be gotten
+from the arena, nor had he thought to have another ready outside the
+lists. Raymond Berenger sent a page to his own stables for his best
+horse, but ere he returned the loss was repaired by another, and Richard
+entered upon a powerful coal black stallion, tricked with scarlet
+housings. A noise of clapping greeted his entrance for the favourite
+horse of Aldobrandino had been recognised and it was supposed (though in
+this they much mistook their man), that by this courtesy he signified
+his renunciation of any intention to compete.</p>
+
+<p>The heralds also made proclamation that if the knights chose they might
+fight this last passage at arms with swords or maces, and swords being
+chosen each spurred toward the other, their good blades flashing in the
+sunshine and Richard with a sweep of his arm sheared the plume from his
+adversary's crest. But Alphonso, who missed his proper stroke, dealt him
+a dirty thrust in the side as he was passing. It pricked through
+Richard's armour but scratched him only and roused him to such energy
+that he swung around, clasped Alphonso in his arms, and all on horseback
+as they were, wrestled with him till he threw him over his charger's
+crupper to the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Then the King asked Sancie loudly: "Are you content to give your hand to
+the winner of this contest?" and the herald shouted her answer so that
+all heard it: "The high and puissant Lady, Sancie, willingly grants her
+hand as prize to the victor."</p>
+
+<p>But even as he cried, all were aware that the end was not yet, for the
+<i>roi d'armes</i> pricked to the King's balcony and again the herald blew
+his trumpet and announced that another challenger, delayed from
+appearing at the first, contested this decision. Having been bidden
+enter, a burly knight mounted upon a giant percheron rode into the
+lists, all cased in sable armour and carrying a shield which displayed
+Atlas supporting the globe.</p>
+
+<p>Then Charles of Anjou, who fought not, but sat by the side of his
+betrothed, scoffed, "Ho, mountain of flesh, globe of blubber, and
+colossus of conceit, here is a whale indeed among fishes, a
+world-bearing monster, who fancieth that all the affairs of this earth
+rest upon his shoulders. 'Tis a cup which our gallant knight will soon
+spill for him. Hold fast, fair ladies, for the globe is about to topple
+from its foundations!"</p>
+
+<p>But, to the astonishment of the speaker and of all present, the knight
+of Atlas riding full tilt against him of the Spilling Cup, drove him
+backward, as it seemed, by his sheer weight, so that the barrier crashed
+behind his horse's haunches, and the rider, letting fall his lance
+acknowledged himself vanquished.</p>
+
+<p>Only Richard himself knew what that submission cost him. For while their
+spears were crossed, the head of Aldobrandino's tapping his opponent's
+shield, it was with a weak and wavering touch; while Richard's had found
+a joint in the armour of the knight of Atlas, and had he not generously
+and dexterously withdrawn his lance, Aldobrandino by the very force of
+his onset, would have transpierced himself upon it.</p>
+
+<p>For the moment he had his adversary in his power, and even as he
+withheld the spear he cried to Aldobrandino, "What hinders me from
+rolling you in the dust and myself winning that prize inestimable?"</p>
+
+<p>Aldobrandino, knowing well in what emergency he stood, replied calmly,
+"But one thing hinders&mdash;your word as a belted knight," and at that
+answer Richard's head drooped and he sank to earth as one sore wounded.</p>
+
+<p>But the spectators knew naught of this byplay. Hearing not the words,
+they put their own construction on the pantomime. Judge then what was
+their surprise, what the vexation of the two Queens and the despair of
+the fair Sancie, when the knight of Atlas, raising his visor, displayed
+the features of Aldobrandino.</p>
+
+<p>King Louis announced him victor, though it was noted that he had never
+done anything with so ill a grace, and indeed the good King's
+conscience smote him so sorely, knowing himself a partner in the trick,
+that he could never have made the ruling but that he hoped it would be
+reversed in the poetical contest yet to come.</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">III</p>
+
+<p class="c">THE "FLORAL GAMES"</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O for a draught of vintage that hath been</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cool'd a long age in the deep delved earth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tasting of Flora and the country green,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dance and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Keats.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The tournament of wits seemed to give, Richard one more chance to win
+the prize he coveted; for this purpose it was originally instituted, and
+it seemed to the luckless knight himself that here at last he had fair
+play, since he was under no obligation to Aldobrandino to defer to him
+in this contention, nor did he believe that Aldobrandino's talents were
+superior to his own. The only other knight who had registered for this
+contest was Barral des Baux, and this in despite of his bandaged visage,
+for though his hurt permitted him not either to sing or to speak, yet by
+good fortune he could write, having been instructed by the monks of
+Mont Majour, and being violently in love with the fair Sancie, he would
+bate no effort to win her. So though all the nine who had taken part in
+the passage-at-arms were eligible, there were but three competitors, for
+five had been so desperately wounded that they could not stand, and
+Alphonso of Aragon so shamed and furious that he refused to take part.</p>
+
+<p>But when his friends congratulated Richard that this was so, and
+especially that Raymond of Toulouse was out of the reckoning (for he of
+all the nine was the only troubadour of repute and the one likely to be
+a formidable antagonist) though Richard's heart at first leapt at their
+news, he liked it the less as he gave it more consideration. For he had
+it on his conscience that he was responsible for Raymond's
+incapacitation, and he wished not to win a victory on such terms.
+Therefore he went to his wounded rival, tended and encouraged him, and
+in the end brought him to the contest in a litter, thereby gravely
+jeopardising his own chance of success. Richard, never at any time a
+glib jingler of rhymes, was in sorry case, for now that he had most need
+of his wits, his passion instead of sharpening them seemed to have
+removed them utterly. If he had but known it, he had a good friend in
+Queen Eleanor, who was determined that he should win, and she fancied
+that she had hit upon a scheme which would aid him.</p>
+
+<p>Angry was she that such an accomplished poet as Raymond of Toulouse must
+be admitted to the contest. "But, at all events," she told her sisters,
+"that renowned minstrel shall bring no polished work of long study to
+match against the untutored outpourings of my favourite's heart. Already
+have I ordained, with my assistant judges, that since some one of the
+contestants may be tempted to present a poem not his own, plagiarism
+shall be counted the one unpardonable crime, and, to guard against it,
+we demand that no verses of any sort be brought to the games, but that
+the competitors improvise on the instant upon one and the same theme to
+be given out after their assembling."</p>
+
+<p>This proposal pleased her three sisters. "They shall recite or sing to
+us, 'poesies on the flowers we wear,'" said Queen Marguerite, "and shall
+thus rank and compare our own qualifications for esteem. Clever will he
+be who can do this without offending any of us. But let us each beware
+of imparting to any one this information."</p>
+
+<p>Even while she thus spoke Marguerite's right eyelid, the one nearest to
+Queen Eleanor, quivered ever so slightly, and her foot pressed Sancie's.
+The kindly plotter counted that the girl would straightway convey this
+news to Richard, and she, poor child, was sorely tempted to do so. But
+she knew instinctively that he would refuse to profit by such advantage,
+therefore she told him not so much as the flower which she would herself
+wear, though she had chosen a spray of blossoming peach because he had
+once said it was his favourite, and because in her heart of hearts she
+hoped that rhymes concerning these sweet blooms might be already in his
+mind. But Richard, suspecting nothing of this, came to the Floral Games
+empty headed and as ignorant as the others as to the programme; and when
+he saw the brilliant and distinguished company waiting to pass verdict
+upon his poor verse he was filled with confusion. At the right of Queen
+Eleanor, sat the troubadour Sordello, the friend of Charles of Anjou who
+might easily have vanquished all present in the framing of <i>coblas</i>,
+<i>sirenas</i>, <i>sirventes</i> and all kinds of poems, as well as in the ruder
+feats which may become a knight; but he for love of his fair Cunizza
+had disdained the prize of the present contest, and had come solely to
+assist the Queen in her decision. Also in the raised arbour by the side
+of Eleanor sat her uncle Boniface of Savoy, whom the King of England had
+made Archbishop of Canterbury. His grace was said to have no little
+skill in the framing of love sonnets, though chants and canticles would
+have better beseemed a churchman.</p>
+
+<p>The pleasance was all abloom with flowers, for the month was May, but
+the ladies in their gauzy robes of delicate rainbow hues were lovelier
+far than the favourites of Flora.</p>
+
+<p>Eleanor having announced the terms of the contest, she and her three
+sisters displayed the flowers which they had chosen as themes for the
+controversy, and the challengers drew lots for order of precedence, with
+the result that Barral des Baux came first, Aldobrandino second, Raymond
+of Toulouse third, and Richard last.</p>
+
+<p>Barral had composed and committed to memory a <i>sirvente</i> or song of
+battle which he proposed to write out, paper and quill being permitted
+him in deference to his broken jaw. Great was his discomfiture to find
+that it fitted not to the theme prescribed, but he cut his cloth to the
+new pattern to the best of his ability. He retained the most effective
+portions of his poem, its high-sounding phrases, and picturesque
+descriptions of marshalling knights, the very category of whose arms,
+plumed helms, hauberks, blazoned shields, flaunting pennons, inlaid
+gauntlets, cross-hiked swords, golden spurs, and caparisoned steeds was
+in itself a pageant. True he gave these champions as a motive for their
+deeds of high emprise the demonstration of the supremacy of the
+differing and rival charms of the four sisters as typified by the
+flowers they affected; but he implied too plainly that those of the
+peach-bloom were alone worthy of such contention. Himself he figured as
+her accepted knight, hacking, slaying, scaling fortresses, pillaging,
+burning, putting to torture or ransoming prisoners, and scorning with
+brutal insults her sisters' flowers. This <i>sirvente</i> which was
+apparently composed during a brief interval during which the jongleurs
+amused the company, was read in a sonorous voice by Archbishop Boniface.
+But had Barral's desire been to antagonise all the daughters of Raymond
+Berenger he could not better have succeeded, and when the Archbishop
+took his seat a glance at the face of Queen Eleanor told des Baux that
+he had lost the prize.</p>
+
+<p>Aldobrandino was no more fortunate. He cast his poem in the form of a
+<i>serena</i> or night song, and spoke sadly and sentimentally of the evening
+of old age, dusky and drear, and of that night of death which he saw
+approaching. Strangely enough, he made no plea for present happiness,
+but begged the flowers, or their ladies, to drop tears upon his grave
+when he declared that he would sleep content.</p>
+
+<p>Though chanted in all earnestness this grave-yard ditty chimed not in
+with the joyous temper of the company. There was sly nudging and
+smiling, a snicker from an ill-mannered page, and the only sighs were
+those of relief when he ended.</p>
+
+<p>It was now the opportunity of Raymond of Toulouse. Besides being an
+accomplished technician in all forms of writing he was a man of shrewd
+and lively apprehension, and his wound had by no means injured his wits.
+As he lay upon the litter engaging the sympathy of the ladies and the
+leniency of the judges he had divined rightly the reason of the
+discomforture of each of his rivals. He saw that Aldobrandino had made
+shipwreck by reason of his indifference to the charms of all, and des
+Baux on account of his zeal for one at the expense of the others, for
+not a single protestation of esteem, not a compliment even had any one
+of Sancie's sisters received, and this in face of the well known fact
+that all were beautiful and eager for appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>In avoiding the conspicuous lapses of his predecessors Raymond with all
+his guile fell into another pitfall. He lauded the Rose, the Daisy, the
+Garland of Vine Leaves worn by Eleanor, Marguerite, and Beatrice in
+three canzonets so perfect in form, so exquisite in diction that they
+rivalled the ditties of Thibault of Champagne, who was hitherto
+accounted as having written "the most delightful and most melodious
+canzonets that at any time were heard."</p>
+
+<p>But in doing this he exhausted all terms of endearment and admiration
+which he could command, and when he attempted to celebrate the Peach
+Blossom he could only repeat utterances already made, so that his
+conclusion was an anticlimax, bad in art and unfortunately giving the
+impression that he was more enamoured of Sancie's sisters than of
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>The insincerity of his graceful verse was apparent to all. Sordello and
+Boniface who had nodded their appreciation at the conclusion of the
+first, second, and third canzonets, scowled and coughed at the fourth,
+and though there was applause sufficient to gratify this poet's vanity
+it misled him as to the impression which he had made upon his judges.</p>
+
+<p>Richard knew not that Raymond had over-shot his mark; it seemed to him
+that he had surely won, and that it was useless for him to offer his
+halting verses, save as a tribute of genuine feeling. Such they were,
+and honesty even in literature and courtship is some whiles best policy.
+But one thought had sunk itself in his distracted brain since noting
+what flower his beloved carried, how that Sancie was Flower o' the Peach
+and be the others what they might she was the flower of all flowers to
+him. He had no knowledge of the complicated metres with which Provençal
+troubadours played so deftly, but he had been in Italy and had marked
+how the peasants bandied back and forth their bright <i>stornelli</i> as
+though the quick play were that of ball, the thought striking the fancy
+and deftly handled as it leapt from one to the other of the players.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore he modestly announced that he would strive to imitate in the
+<i>langue d'oc</i> certain of these <i>stornelli a fiore</i> trusting that their
+rudeness and brevity might be forgiven.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>Queen Eleanor was crowned with roses and was throned beneath a canopy of
+those royal flowers. To her Richard, accompanying himself upon the lute,
+addressed his first <i>stornello</i>:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">"Flower o' the Briar&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Though high on her trellis the Rose o' the Briar,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sits supreme o'er the garden my heart clambers higher."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"How may that be," laughed Eleanor, "if I am 'supreme o'er the garden?'
+'Tis enough for me; but I see not how you can o'ertop that compliment.
+Let me hear what you have to say to my sister of France."</p>
+
+<p>Marguerite, as befitting her name, wore daisies, and squaring his
+shoulders Richard sang lustily,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Flower o' the Marguerite;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Queen of the garden, fair Reine Marguerite,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If my heart were not captive 't would lie at your feet."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis Beatrice then who holds your heart in thrall?" bantered the
+queen, for she was malicious enough to plunge him in further difficulty.
+Here also was a coil for Beatrice was jealous of Sancie's beauty, and
+her lover, Charles of Anjou, sat beside her quick to resent any
+aspersion upon his mistress.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice, like a bacchante, had bound her brows with vine leaves one of
+which Charles now broke off and handed to the competing minstrel. With a
+gallant bow and a smile which atoned for the quizzical reservation,
+Richard sang,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Flower o' the Vine;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For you, merry Charles, the chaplet of vine</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'T is a guerdon all envy, so pray grant me mine."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Laughter resounded from every side of the pleasance mingled with cries,
+"Your flower! Name your favourite flower."</p>
+
+<p>Then Richard knelt before Sancie, who hid her face behind the blossoms
+which so well matched her blushes, and sang from his heart:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Flower o' the Peach,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Flower o' the Peach, dearest Flower o' the Peach,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A flower for each fancy&mdash;his own love for each."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Brief was the consultation between the judges. Queen Eleanor descended
+from her throne and amid clappings and bravoes gave Richard the stalk
+of lilies which had served her for sceptre and was now his palm of
+victory.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 305px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg182" id="ill_romv_pg182"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg182.png" width="305" height="550" alt="The Floral Games
+
+From the painting by Jacques Wagrez. Permission of Braun,
+
+Clement &amp; Co." />
+<span class="caption">The Floral Games<br />From the painting by Jacques Wagrez. Permission of Braun,<br />Clement &amp; Co.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Ere he could take it from her hand, however, with a snort and bellow
+like that of a bull, my lord Aldobrandino faced the Queen.</p>
+
+<p>"Gramercy," he cried, "shall so fair a prize be won foully by false
+plagiarism?"</p>
+
+<p>"What charge is this you make," demanded Queen Eleanor.</p>
+
+<p>"That yon traitor stole from me that songlet of the peach, and though he
+has trussed it out of countenance with gawds of his own invention still
+the root of the matter is mine."</p>
+
+<p>"What answer you to this accusation, Richard?" asked the Queen.</p>
+
+<p>"That he speaks truly," Richard replied, "mine is indeed a spilling
+cup."</p>
+
+<p>The queen was loth to give judgment against her favourite and there was
+wrangling between her advisors as to what amount of theft were
+admissible in literature, but their opinion was stricter than I pray
+yours may be, most gentle reader, and they gave their verdict, "The
+prize is to Prince Aldobrandino."</p>
+
+<p>At that verdict Sancie fainted in the arms of Queen Marguerite, and
+Richard hid his face in his hands, crying, "I cannot bear it."</p>
+
+<p>Then Prince Aldobrandino spoke and they saw how they had misjudged the
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot bear this disappointment, say you, Ricciardo? Look you at
+the device upon my shield, Atlas, and the motto, <i>Sustino omnes</i>. I can
+bear all things, even such loss as this, and, since I see well that the
+lady loves me not, of my own motive yield I the prize to you, Ricciardo,
+who well deserve what you have truly won."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," cried Richard, for admiration of so great magnanimity fired his
+emulation, and he would not be outdone. "Nay, my lord, the judgment of
+this court cannot be thus lightly set aside. 'The prize' it has decreed,
+'must be to Prince Aldobrandino.' Thy oath also that the Lady Sancie
+shall be mother of the Aldobrandini is registered in heaven."</p>
+
+<p>"I would forfeit neither prize nor oath," replied Aldobrandino, "but
+there is a scripture on which I have pondered much of late&mdash;'Who
+knoweth,' quoth the wise man, 'who shall reign after thee, and whether
+thy son shall be a fool?' So might he well be if he resembled me, and
+against such ill-chancing will I now be assured. A son after my own
+heart do I find in thee, Ricciardo, for I have probed and proved thee,
+taking the measure of thy mind until I know thee clean of soul as thou
+art strong of body. I go in fulfilment of a secret vow, neither recently
+nor lightly made, to end my days with the brotherhood of St. Benedict,
+but first I do adopt thee son, and heir to all my estates. Let the
+judgment of this court stand and the prize be to Prince Aldobrandino for
+henceforth that is thy name and title."</p>
+
+<p>The good man could not be swerved from this resolution. The lawyers drew
+up the act of relinquishment, Archbishop Boniface blessed the happy
+pair, who spent their honeymoon in their villa at Frascati, and from
+thence was Richard called by election to be King of the Romans. It was
+an honour which he held not long, nor did children of his continue the
+line of the Aldobrandini. Too careless was he of his own advantage when
+it ran counter to the desires of another; but in the magnificent
+Frascati villa, where he made such short tarrying, you may still find
+Richard's fountain not far from that of Atlas.</p>
+
+<p>To his estates in Cornwall he shortly returned; and testimony to his
+character corroborative of this story, and as credible as that of the
+Italian authorities we have quoted (Sacchetti and Ser Giovanni), you
+may read in the ballad of</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">ERL RICHARD, KING OF GOOD FELLOWS.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"His wine was for others' sipping,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For lightly he gave it up,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There's slipping 'twixt pouring and lipping</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And his was a spilling cup.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"But ne'er for the lost good liquor</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Was Richard heard to sigh.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'I shall not bicker so friends grow thicker,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And the cup of love hold I.'</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"So in praise of that loser willing</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">They carved his cup awry,&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Spilling&mdash;&mdash;but aye re-filling</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To witness if I lie!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 436px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg186" id="ill_romv_pg186"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg186.png" width="436" height="550" alt="Alinari
+
+Villa d&#39;Este, at Tivoli&mdash;Present State" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Villa d&#39;Este, at Tivoli&mdash;Present
+Statei</td><td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 392px;">
+<img src="images/ill_v.png"
+class="top15" width="392" height="145" alt="image not available" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<p class="c">WITH TASSO AT VILLA D'ESTE</p>
+
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His weary heart awhile to soothe</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He wove all into verses smooth.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"
+class="dots">. . .
+. . . .</span><br />
+
+<span style="margin-left: 10.5em;">for soothly he</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Was deemed a craft-master to be</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In those most noble days of old,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whose lays were e'en as kingly gold</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To our thin brass or drossy lead;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Well, e'en so all the tale is said</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How twain grew one and came to bliss?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Woe's me, an idle dream it is!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">William Morris.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="non"><span class="let">S</span>UPREME above all the enchanted gardens of Italy, both in the
+bewildering beauty of its sensuous charm and in the potency of its
+appeal to the imagination, stands the Villa d'Este at Tivoli.</p>
+
+<p>It is a hillside villa, a succession of terraces forming a stairway of
+flowers between the palace and the lower garden, where</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Cypress and fig tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rose-garden on garden upheaved in balconies step to the sky."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>But it is also a superb water-staircase, for the river Anio, turned from
+its course by a gigantic feat of engineering, leaps in a magnificent
+cascade, laughs in the spray of a thousand fountain jets, and makes the
+bosquets which shadow the regal staircase a haunt of the water nymphs as
+well as of the Dryads. You fancy, as your unwary foot presses the
+concealed springs that it is the white hands of mischievous Naiads which
+dash the water in your face, a pensive melancholy settles upon you with
+the mysterious dusk, and you are startled by Undine's "short, quick
+sobs," and are loth to believe that the plaintive sounds with which the
+air pulses are but the dropping of rills in and out of the shadowy
+pools.</p>
+
+<p>The pompous hydraulic organ no longer thunders its "full-mouthed
+diapason," but the nightingales fill the long summer nights with their
+surges of wild rhapsodies. Both the eye and the ear of the artist
+receive refreshment and stimulus here. The garden is a bath of
+verdancy and coolness even upon the most torrid day. The very light
+which filters through the dense foliage is tinged with green. The
+marbles are velvety and moist with moss, and the maidenhair fern drips
+lush and dank. Here Liszt drew inspiration from the harmonies of water
+notes blended with the chiming of distant bells, and Watteau showed in
+the many studies which he made in the garden how potent was its
+influence in investing his <i>fêtes champêtres</i> with the grace of the
+idyl.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg188" id="ill_romv_pg188"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg188.png" width="600" height="427" alt="In the Garden of Villa d&#39;Este
+
+From a photograph by Mr. Charles S. Platt" />
+<span class="caption">In the Garden of Villa d&#39;Este<br />From a photograph by Mr. Charles S. Platt</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>That its appeal was no less powerful to a poet, the "craft-master" of
+his day, it is our purpose later to show.</p>
+
+<p>Many minor poets also have felt and, with more or less success, have
+interpreted its wondrous charm&mdash;Story perhaps best of all.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"What peace and quiet in this villa sleep!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Here let us pause nor chase for pleasure on,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nothing can be more exquisite than this.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">See how the old house lifts its face of light</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Against the pallid olives that between</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Throng up the hill. Look down this vista's shade</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of dark square-shaven ilexes where sports</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The fountain's, thin white thread and blows away.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And mark! along the terraced balustrade</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Two contadini stopping in the shade</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With copper vases poised upon their heads,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How their red jackets tell against the green!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Old, all is old,&mdash;what charm there is in age!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Do you believe this villa when 'twas new</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Was half so beautiful as now it seems?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Look at these balustrades of travertine&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Had they the charm when fresh and shapely carved</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As now that they are stained and graved with time</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And mossed with lichens, every grim old mask</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That grins upon their pillars bearded o'er</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With waving sprays of slender maidenhair?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ah, no! I cannot think it; things of art</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Snatch nature's graces from the hand of Time."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>But it is the view afforded by the double arcade of loggias and by every
+window of the palace façade which was the crowning glory of the villa.
+The amethystine Sabine Hills and the immense Campagna encircle the
+Eternal City, from whose mists the dome of Saint Peter's seems to rise a
+buoyant, iridescent bubble.</p>
+
+<p>It was Pirro Ligorio (architect also of the exquisite Villa Pia) who in
+1545 accomplished the miracle of converting the savage cliff into a
+staircase of enchantment. Nature had given the villa its marvellous site
+and genius availed itself of all the resources of art and wealth to
+effect the wonder.</p>
+
+<p>Cardinal Ippolito's orders to Ligorio were: "Surpass the work of Vignola
+in the villas of Caprarola and Lante. Restore the glory of Tivoli in the
+Augustan age."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg190" id="ill_romv_pg190"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg190.png" width="600" height="466" alt="image not available" />
+<span class="caption">Hydraulic Organ, Villa d'Este</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Excavations in the neighbourhood were daily bringing to light
+masterpieces of classical sculpture, and for the "statues which whiten
+the shadow" of Villa d'Este, Ligorio was given carte blanche to despoil
+the gardens of Hadrian's palace. To-day only a long procession of broken
+pedestals bears witness to statues of emperors, gods, and goddesses long
+since removed to different museums.</p>
+
+<p>The exodus began immediately upon the succession of Ippolito's nephew,
+Cardinal Luigi d'Este, who came to his inheritance deeply in debt; but
+that spendthrift prelate retained sixty statues, some of which are seen
+in the etching made by Piranesi, and it was not until 1745 that these
+were purchased by Cardinal Albani.</p>
+
+<p>The creator of this paradise, Cardinal Ippolito d'Este II., son of
+Lucrezia Borgia, was, like his villa, a refined product of the later
+Renaissance and must not be confounded with his uncle, Cardinal Ippolito
+d'Este I.</p>
+
+<p>This first Cardinal Ippolito was a man of very different fibre, as may
+be seen from a single incident. Sent to Rome as his brother's envoy, on
+the occasion of Duke Alphonso's marriage, he fell in love with a pretty
+cousin of Lucrezia Borgia who accompanied the bride on her wedding
+journey to Ferrara.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately the coquettish girl praised the beautiful eyes of Giulio
+d'Este, the Cardinal's younger brother, whereupon this prince of the
+Church hired assassins who waylaid his brother and tore out his
+offending eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke banished Ippolito temporarily, but Giulio brooded over the
+injury and conspired to depose Alphonso and place another brother, Don
+Ferrante, on the throne. For this act both Ferrante and Giulio were
+condemned to be imprisoned for life. Ferrante died in confinement but
+Giulio, after fifty-three years spent in a dungeon of the castle, was
+finally released.</p>
+
+<p>It might have been expected that the blending of d'Este brutality with
+the unscrupulous Borgia craft would have given as a result only a more
+refined cruelty; but if this was the case Cardinal Ippolito II.
+completely deceived his contemporaries and has left the reputation
+(through the pen of his panegyrist Mureto) of the utmost affable
+condescension and magnificent patronage of men of genius. He was himself
+a dilettante; and it was his ambition to pose as the most cultured and
+brilliant of the great cardinals of his day. Ippolito I. had been a boon
+companion of Leo X. in his hunting parties at the Villa La
+Magliana, but it was not as a "<i>cacciator signorile</i>" or "sporting
+gentleman" that Ippolito II. wished to eclipse the then illustrious
+representative of the house of Medici, Cardinal Ferdinando, who was
+attempting to rival him in his magnificent villa on the Pincian hill.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg192" id="ill_romv_pg192"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg192.png" width="600" height="393" alt="Villa d&#39;Este in 1740
+
+From an etching by Piranesi" />
+<span class="caption">Villa d&#39;Este in 1740<br />From an etching by Piranesi</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>It does not seem to have occurred to Mureto that both of these men were
+looking forward to the papacy, and desired to emulate in their own
+pontificates that of Leo X. Each piece of sculpture acquired for their
+villas, every literary man attached to their service was a step toward
+that end. Ippolito II. was as keen a hunter of genius as his uncle had
+been of deer or boar; and having once bagged his game, as capable of
+availing himself without scruple of his trophies as Ippolito I. of
+tearing the antlers from a dying stag.</p>
+
+<p>The princely Cardinal entertained on one occasion a house party of two
+hundred and fifty guests in his palatial villa, and established here a
+veritable court. The grandiose frescoes of Zuccari, Tempesta, Muziano,
+and Vasari still celebrate the glories of his family under the guise of
+the heroes of mythology garlanded by troops and bevies of cupids, "<i>una
+copiosa quantita di Amorini</i>." But the gods and demigods banquet all
+alone on the ceiling of the great hall where they once looked down upon
+the revels of the Cardinal's convives&mdash;noble or distinguished men all of
+them in their day, although the one name that comes to us of all who
+shared Ippolito's lavish hospitality and that sheds most glory upon his
+proud house is that of a poet, by turns patronised as a dependent,
+ungratefully neglected, and cruelly wronged.</p>
+
+<p>The visitor is shown with pride the room so whimsically decorated with
+singing birds, where Tasso wrote his <i>Amyntas</i>, and the Fountain of
+Nature in the lower garden where the pastoral was presented with musical
+accompaniment before a distinguished audience.</p>
+
+<p>That Leonora d'Este was among those who listened, and indeed had been
+her uncle's guest and Tasso's good and evil fate during the months which
+he spent at Villa d'Este, is the only conclusion possible for the
+thoughtful reader of the poem; and the idyl composed under such
+circumstances leads inevitably to the tragedy (enacted at that other
+villa) of Belriguardo, of which Goethe has given us so truthful and so
+masterly a transcription.</p>
+
+<p>Cardinal Ippolito, as his portraits make him known to us, has none of
+the sensuality which stamped the face of his grandfather Pope
+Alexander Borgia, or the heaviness of jaw expressing the stubborness and
+brutality of the earlier D'Estes; on the contrary, every line of the
+slight figure is expressive of refinement, the delicate red-stockinged
+feet are as shapely as a woman's, the expressive, almost transparent
+hands might be those of an artist as they finger caressingly his
+collection of intaglios and luxuriate in the smoothness of jades and
+ivory carvings. His excessive pallor and thinness would give an
+expression of asceticism, almost of spirituality to the intellectual
+face were it not in a measure contradicted by the craft in the
+close-set, slanting eyes, which with the pointed, fulvous beard suggest
+a possibility of foxy cunning, and inspire in the beholder an
+uncomfortable, haunting feeling of distrust even when the Cardinal's
+manner is most condescending and cajoling.</p>
+
+<p>So, robed in filmy lace over rosy velvet, we may see him in imagination
+tripping daintily down his monumental staircase, his train islanding his
+figure as in some ensanguined pool and slipping after him adown the
+steps like the drip of some trail of blood which strangely leaves no
+stain upon the white marble.</p>
+
+<p>But his face is wreathed with smiles, for he genuinely loves his two
+beautiful nieces, Lucrezia, Duchess of Urbino, and the gentle Leonora,
+who are his guests, and he loves his villa, whose beauties he is
+pointing out to them.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not see the garden at its best," he cavils. "Wait till the roses
+garland the balustrades. It is too early yet to enjoy Tivoli; the frost
+may have left the ground but it lingers still in the pavements of this
+great palace. The halls are damp as vaults; we would have done well, my
+nieces, to have remained another month in Rome. Not till the middle of
+May will society desert the city for its <i>villeggiatura</i>. What do you
+say, Leonora, shall we confess that we have made a mistake and return?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear uncle, as you say, it is only the palace which, in spite of its
+braziers, retains the winter chill. Here in the garden the air is balmy,
+and the Judas trees are all a crimson mist. See how the green is
+creeping, like an inundation through the russets of last year's grasses.
+In another fortnight all this magical change will have been wrought, and
+those who come later will have missed the fairy spectacle."</p>
+
+<p>"Spectacle! ah! that reminds me," replied the Cardinal; "while Nature is
+shifting the scenes we must prepare the <i>scenario</i>. Confess that I have
+provided a worthy theatre, one which should suggest to a poet a worthy
+theme. There, alas! is my great lack&mdash;I have no poet. How wastefully on
+those who need them not are the most precious gifts bestowed! My uncle
+and godfather, Cardinal Ippolito&mdash;the saints rest his soul!&mdash;was a
+dull-brained barbarian and yet he had attached to his service that pearl
+of poets Ariosto, whom he had neither the intelligence to appreciate nor
+the justice to reward. What think you was Ariosto's meed for dedicating
+to his patron the <i>Orlando Furioso</i>? He was made governor of that nest
+of bandits, the mountain district of Garfagnana, and it in open
+insurrection against the Duke of Ferrara. A pretty post for a scholar
+and a poet! But to it he went, and conquered the brigands, proving
+himself as expert in the use of the sword as in that of the pen.</p>
+
+<p>"We produce no such men now. Bernardo Tasso, to whom I gave employment
+when he was exiled from Naples, and who wandered freely in this garden,
+felt not its charm, for he was but a third-rate poet, and even he is
+dead. Who in our day can interpret the poetry which I feel here but
+cannot express? And with but so little more of endowment I might have
+done it, for after all is not the inner ear, the second sight, the major
+part of genius?</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, and tell me what you hear. Only the musical plash of the
+fountains and the sonorous undertone of the organ, like the distant roar
+of surf upon the beach? Ah, me! ah, me! how materialistic you are, my
+children. Your old uncle hears in these myriad-voiced fountains the
+musical instruments which Boccaccio gave to the Satyrs; 'cymbals, pipes,
+and whistling reeds,' and the song of the nymphs. Did you note that
+startled cry? It is the Oread Arethusa flying from the river-god
+Alpheus. He is imprisoned in the organ, where he is mightily bellowing,
+and whence he will presently burst forth. But Arethusa will slip away
+(coquette that she is), under ground and under sea to her Sicilian home;
+for fable and stream sing eternally the same story, <i>Mulier hominis
+confusio est</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, my niece, have we in all Italy a poet who can voice such a
+theme?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, uncle," the Duchess of Urbino interposed, "Bernardo Tasso's little
+son heard and understood the song of the fountains when he played here
+in his childhood. He told me that he believed a <i>folletto</i> or tricksy
+spirit talked with him here and promised him that if he came again he
+would find here both love and fame. He can interpret your songs for you,
+for he has grown a man, and is a greater poet than his father."</p>
+
+<p>"And meantime," added Leonora, "he has absorbed all that the
+universities of Bologna and Padua can give him, and has written a
+romantic poem, the <i>Rinaldo</i>, on the exploits of one of our ancestors,
+that mythical old peer of Charlemagne, which he has dedicated to our
+house. It is in recognition of this tribute that our brother Luigi has
+made him his secretary."</p>
+
+<p>"And Luigi is at the French Court intriguing with the Queen Mother,
+Catherine de' Medici. Torquato is doubtless with him," replied the
+Cardinal. "I ask you of what good to tantalise me with impossible
+suggestions? He had the eyes of a poet, that lad, and he might have
+served my turn."</p>
+
+<p>"He may still serve you, Uncle Ippolito, for he has quarrelled with
+Luigi, and is in Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"And wherefore in Rome? To curry favour with Cardinal de' Medici?"</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly, for Tasso is writing a great epic on the taking of
+Jerusalem by Godfrey of Bouillon and his crusaders."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis no epic that I wish, but a pastoral&mdash;a mere trifle. Yet not so
+fast. A poem such as you describe, if it were indeed a work of genius,
+might rouse Christendom to another crusade, a life-work worthy of the
+next Pope. Lucrezia, the boy must not submit his poem to Cardinal de'
+Medici. Can you summon him to me, and will he come instantly?"</p>
+
+<p>"If Leonora calls him," the Duchess replied, "he will come."</p>
+
+<p>Cardinal Ippolito lifted his eyebrows almost imperceptibly and darted a
+keen, sidelong glance at Leonora. She had not heard her sister's last
+remark, the name of Torquato Tasso had obliterated the present and she
+was gazing dreamily at the rainbow-tinted dome of St. Peter's.</p>
+
+<p>"Leonora," the Cardinal said softly, "have you heard what Lucrezia was
+saying, that this young poet has written an epic? If I could see it I
+might be able to help him in his career, perhaps give him fame."</p>
+
+<p>"O Uncle, will you? How good you are! I will write him at once."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I am not good, or disinterested. I am a selfish, an ambitious
+old man. This festival, given ostensibly for the entertainment of my
+friends and to introduce my charming nieces, is a part of my deep,
+ulterior motives. Come, I will confess the machinations of my wicked old
+heart. Why not, since my ambitions are for you as well as for myself?
+Nay, Leonora, never flush and tremble, I have no wish to buy my own
+advancement by selling you to some degenerate prince. Matchmaking is not
+my kind of diplomacy. I have seen enough in our own family of
+magnificence won through the martyrdom of women. Your mother, Renée of
+France, though a king's daughter, brought with her a dowry of
+unhappiness. My own mother, innocent though she was, bequeathed to us
+the shameful legacy of the Borgias' deeds and instincts. You may be
+happy, Lucrezia, with your Duke of Urbino. I ask no confidences, but I
+am glad that I am not responsible for your marriage.</p>
+
+<p>"You, at least, Leonora, shall live your own life wedded or unwedded as
+you like. I shall be so great that I can ennoble whom I will, and you,
+beloved child, shall be the power behind the throne to advise me on whom
+to shower my benefits."</p>
+
+<p>Lucrezia clapped her hands softly. "Bravo, dear Uncle, I have guessed
+this ambition, have I not? Cardinal de' Medici is already spoken of as
+the Pope's successor. But the Medici balls have been carved too often
+over St. Peter's chair, and you are minded to blazon in their place the
+d'Este eagle. You need not answer for I know that I am right."</p>
+
+<p>The Cardinal smiled mysteriously. "Too shrewd, my niece, too shrewd by
+half. How your woman's intuition leaps over intervening obstacles. Never
+a whisper of this guess at my aims. Remember, it is but your own surmise
+and that I have never breathed such an aspiration. The immediate object
+of my solicitude is to secure a charming play worthy of the setting of
+Villa d'Este breathing the spirit of Ovid and Anacreon, one which will
+make the old Greek gods live again in these delicious haunts and will
+redound to the reputation of your uncle's taste in literature."</p>
+
+<p>"How magnanimous you are," cried Leonora, "to disclaim your principal
+motive, that of helping Tasso! He shall come, and he will give you the
+most beautiful idyl that was ever written."</p>
+
+
+<p class="top3">And who shall say that Tasso did not make good the promise of his
+patroness? In the <i>Amyntas</i> we have the development of a theme which is
+the inevitable product of such a temperament in such a situation, and to
+the poem itself we will now look for a record of what transpired at
+Villa d'Este during the writing and the presentation of the pastoral.</p>
+
+<p>To us it is true that the archaic quality, the pseudo-classicism of this
+pastoral seems at first artificial. "It has only so much of rustic
+nature as suits a graceful urban fancy." Arcadia is a no man's land, so
+far from our desires that we cannot picture it even in imagination; but
+to one who knows how sincere was the enthusiasm of the Renaissance for
+Greek ideals as well as for modes of expression, how classicism had come
+to be understood as a synonym for perfection in form whether in
+literature or the plastic arts,&mdash;all the pretty imagery of the Golden
+Age and its demigods becomes as natural a poetic rendering of sincere
+feeling as the equally formal restrictions of the measure of the sonnet
+or the rules which govern the composition of a concerto. Having once
+learned its technique genius and passion were unconscious of their
+limitations, but flowed with as true and spontaneous an impulse within
+these formal bounds as waters in their marble fountains and conduits.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"All the melodies that had been growing through two centuries in
+Italy [says Symonds] are concentrated in the songs of the <i>Amyntas</i>
+and the <i>Pastor Fido</i>. The idyllic voluptuousness which permeated
+literature and art steeps their pictures in a golden glow. While we
+recognise in both these poems&mdash;the one perfumed and delicate like
+flowers of spring, the other sculptured in pure forms of classic
+grace&mdash;evident signs of a civilisation sinking to decay, we are
+bound to confess that to this goal the Italian genius had been
+steadily advancing. They complete and close the Renaissance."</p></div>
+
+<p>But the living quality in the <i>Amyntas</i> which makes it a thousand-fold
+more real to us than the Elizabethan masques is not its perfectness of
+form but the stamp which it bears of being the expression of personal
+experience and longing but thinly veiled in poetic imagery. Reading the
+poem at Villa d'Este we read between the lines and recognise the <i>scena</i>
+of the pastoral and the love which inspired its plot.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the changes wrought by time we discover the origin of each
+descriptive passage. This rocky reservoir whose shadowy surface seems to
+mirror reflections of mysterious faces is surely&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"Dian's pool</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where the great plane's cool shade to cooler waves</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Invites the huntress nymphs."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Its encircling laurel thickets might mask to-day strange woodland
+deities like the Satyr of the play who while Sylvia bathed</p>
+
+<p class="c">"Crouched lynx-eyed among the thick-set shrubs."</p>
+
+<p>The description of the tumultuous pursuit of this Satyr calls up so
+vividly the Polyphemus in the <i>Triumph of Galatea</i> that we are convinced
+that Tasso must have been influenced by Raphael's great painting in the
+Farnesina.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">"Not all am I</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A despicable thing,..."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>He makes the Satyr say;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"This ruddy russet front, these shoulders huge,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">These nervy bull-thewed arms, this silky breast,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And these my velvet thighs are manhood's mould robust.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ill favoured I? <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not so!</span>"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>As one listens to the delirious nightingales in the dim, green-arched
+<i>allées</i>, one forgets the trysting trees in other Italian gardens and is
+sure that only here could Daphne have drawn her argument for love from
+their caresses.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"<i>Daphne:</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The gentle, jocund spring,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Smiling and wantoning,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Makes all things amorous.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Thou only thus,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Untamed wild creature, wilder than the rest,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Deniest love the harbourage of thy breast.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">List to yon nightingale</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Singing within the vale</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">'I love, love, love.'</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With what renewed embracement vine clasps vine,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fir blends its boughs with fir, and pine with pine.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Beneath the rugged bark</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">May'st thou mute inward sighings mark,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And wilt thou graceless be</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Less than a vine or tree&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To keep thyself unloving, loverless?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bend, bend thy stubborn heart</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fool that thou art."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>But the physical peculiarity which actually identifies Villa d'Este as
+the locale of the poem is its cliff, the "sheer crag" from whence
+Amyntas leaps in his despair.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Now did he lead me where the cloven steep</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Among the rocks and solitary crags</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Looms pathless and breaks sheer above a vale.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There paused we, and I, peering far below,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shuddered, drew from the brink.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="dots">. . .
+. . . . . .</span></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Sylvia, I come, I follow!' So he cried:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then headlong leaped,&mdash;and left me turned to stone."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>There are other poems of Tasso's which refer to his residence at Villa
+d'Este, and infer Leonora's presence at that time. We may cite in
+particular the canzone to Leonora at her uncle's villa, beginning "<i>Al
+nobil colle ove in antichi marmi</i>":</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"To the romantic hills where free</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To thine enchanted eyes</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Works of Greek art in statuary</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Of antique marbles rise,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My thought, fair Leonora, roves,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And with it to their gloomy groves</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fast bears me as it flies.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For far from thee, in crowds unblest,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My fluttering heart but ill can rest.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"There to the rock, cascade, and grove,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On mosses dropt with dew,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Like one who thinks and sighs of love</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The livelong summer through,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Oft would I dictate glorious things</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of heroes to the Tuscan strings</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On my sweet lyre anew,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And to the brooks and trees around</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ippolito's high name resound."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>This poem would seem to imply that a part of the <i>Jerusalem</i> was written
+here, possibly the episode of Sophronia and Olindo, so dear to Tasso
+himself that though it was not an integral part of the epic he dared the
+Inquisition rather than comply with the demands of the censor that it
+should be stricken out. The description of Sophronia is admitted to have
+been intended to denote Leonora:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Amongst them in the city lived a maid</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The flower of virgins in her perfect prime,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Supremely beautiful! but that she made</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Never her care, or beauty only weighed</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In worth with virtue; and her worth acquired</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A deeper charm from blooming in the shade,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lovers she shunned, nor loved to be admired,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But from their praises turned to live a life retired."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Equally applicable to Tasso is that of Olindo, the lover who&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Feared much, hoped little, and in nought presumed.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He could not or he durst not speak, but doomed</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To voiceless thought his passion."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>But during those "livelong summer days" the poet's passion was not
+utterly voiceless. The <i>Amyntas</i> is throughout a continual and
+unequivocal expression, and he daringly in the very prelude makes the
+god of love, who explains the scheme of the play, declare&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"For wheresoe'er I am, there I am Love,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No less in shepherds' than in heroes' hearts,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The <i>unequal lot grows equal</i> at my will,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My chiefest vaunt, my miracle is this."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Openly and repeatedly Tasso asserts that while he is not indifferent to
+literary distinction it is not the chief end which he has in view in
+writing the <i>Amyntas.</i></p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Deem not" (he says) "that all Love's bliss</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">At last is but a breath</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of fame that followeth.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Love's meed is love, it wooeth, <i>winneth</i> this.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nathless the lover steadfast to his end</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hath laud ofttimes and maketh Fame his friend."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Goethe makes Tasso confide this double aim to Leonora and her reply
+shows that he did indeed win the meed he sought. "For what" the poet
+asks her "is more deserving to survive and silently to last for
+centuries than the confession of a noble love, confided modestly to
+gentle song?"</p>
+
+<p>We follow step by step that wooing, finding it in the exquisite
+apostrophe to the golden age&mdash;which concludes:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Then let us live as erst kind Nature's thralls</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And let us love&mdash;since hearts</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No truce of time may know, and youth departs:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ay! let us love: suns sink but sink to soar&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On us, our brief day o'er,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Night falls and sleep descends for evermore."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Here again Goethe discovers the personal note, transcribing the poem
+unscrupulously from its setting in the <i>Amyntas</i> and making Leonora
+reply with didactic coldness to Tasso's appeal&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"<i>Tasso:</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The golden age, ah! whither is it flown,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For which in secret every heart repines?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When every bird winging the limpid air</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And every living thing o'er hill and dale</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Proclaimed to man, What pleases is allowed.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"<i>Princess</i>:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My friend, the golden age hath passed away.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shall I confess to thee my secret thoughts?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The golden age, wherewith the bard is wont</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Our spirits to beguile, that lovely prime,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Existed in the past no more than now;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Still meet congenial spirits and enhance</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Each other's pleasures in this beauteous world;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But in the motto change one single word</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And say my friend,&mdash;What's fitting is allowed."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps Leonora did speak thus in the open discussion which followed the
+reading of the poem as in that at the Court of Urbino when Cardinal
+Bembo, distraught by his own rhapsody on love, stood silent as one
+transported, and the lady Emilia to recall him to himself shook him
+playfully, crying, "Have a care, Pietro, lest in this mood your soul
+should be separated from your body."</p>
+
+<p>And the gay Cardinal replied: "Madam, this would not be the first
+miracle which Love hath wrought in me."</p>
+
+<p>Certainly, Tasso's wooing, even at Villa d'Este, was not always a happy
+one. In the following stanzas he tells of temporary despairs, but he
+hints also of a great hope at his darkest moment:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"By what dim ways at last Love leadeth man</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unto his joy and sets him 'mid the bliss</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of his heart's heaven of love&mdash;then when he most</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thinketh him sunk in an abyss of bale;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O blest Amyntas&mdash;from thy fate</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I augur for mine own, that so may she,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That fair untender maid, who in a smile</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of pity sheaths the steel of heartlessness,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So may she with true pity heal the hurt</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wherewith feigned pity pierced me to the heart."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>In another beautiful passage it is not hope which he sings but rapture:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Let him who serveth Love</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Divine it in his heart, though scarce may he</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Divine or give it voice."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>What was the boon which gave Tasso so much bliss? Perchance no greater
+than the one he celebrates in the exquisite lines:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Stava Madonna ad un balcon soletta.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"My lady at a balcony alone</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">One day was standing, when I chanced to stretch</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My arm on hers; pardon I begged, if so</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I had offended her; she sweetly answered,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Not by the placing of thy arm hast thou</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Displeased me aught, but by withdrawing it</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Do I remain offended!' O fond words!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dear little love words, short but sweet, and courteous!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Courteous as sweet, affectionate as courteous!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If it were true and certain what I heard,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I shall be always seeking not to offend thee,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Repeating the great bliss: but my sweet life,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By all my eagerness therein remember&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where there is no offence, there must be</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No visiting of vengeance!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It must have been early in their acquaintance that such gratitude was
+poured forth for so slight a favour. There are balconies at Villa
+d'Este, balustraded terraces where now the contorted stems of giant
+vines wrestle with the carved pillarets and rend them relentlessly from
+their copings where at intervals the bayonet-leaved aloes keep sentinel
+like the bravi of Cardinal Ippolito I., their long green knives
+unsheathed and ready for any deed of horror. Here, unconscious of spying
+eyes, Leonora may have leant apparently absorbed in that glorious view,
+and Tasso's hand have stolen furtively to her own.</p>
+
+<p>But was there no other guerdon for his long service than this shy
+avowal&mdash;no other bliss before that long horror of imprisonment and real
+or imputed madness which ended only after Leonora's death? Only the Duke
+Alphonso and those who so basely read the poet's private papers can
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>Cardinal Ippolito must have guessed to what end the pastoral of Villa
+d'Este was tending; but whether his sympathy was real or feigned for his
+own uses we cannot know.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg212" id="ill_romv_pg212"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg212.png" width="600" height="451" alt="Alinari
+
+Villa d&#39;Este&mdash;Terrace Staircase" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Villa d&#39;Este&mdash;Terrace
+Staircase</td><td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>He never attained his ambition, for death suddenly claimed him before
+the aged Pope whom he had hoped to succeed. Tasso's tragedy culminated,
+as Goethe tells us, at another villa, that of Belriguardo. The pastoral
+of Villa d'Este ends in a chorus or envoy expressive of that tremulous
+hope which flutters so deliciously in every line of the exquisite poem:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"I know not if the bitterness</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That, serving long, long yearning, one hath borne</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In tears and all forlorn,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">May wholly turn to sweet, and Love requite</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">All sorrows with delight.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But if this be and pain</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That bringeth joy enricheth often gain;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I ask thee not, O Love,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To give me gain thy common gains above.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;"
+class="dots">. . . . .
+. . .</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">If gentle dear disdains</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And dulcet coy defeats</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And strifes fond lovers use</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To fire their hearts&mdash;but close with love's long truce."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Note.</span>&mdash;The selections from the <i>Amyntas</i> quoted in this article
+have been selected from the admirable metrical translation of Mr.
+R. Whitmore.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 378px;">
+<img src="images/ill_vi.png"
+class="top15" width="378" height="142" alt="image
+not available" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<p class="c">MONDRAGONE</p>
+
+
+<p class="non"><span class="let">&#8220;'T</span>IS a grave responsibility to play the dragon to a pretty woman."</p>
+
+<p>This was the assertion with which Celio Benvoglio, private secretary of
+her Highness, Princess Pauline Bonaparte Borghese, invariably prefaced
+the following story, and had I a like knack in telling it, you would
+admit the demonstration of that proposition. By dragon you will
+understand that his Excellency, Prince Camillo Borghese, signified a
+guardian and protector. To constitute Celio Malespini a spy and reporter
+was no more in the thought of the Prince than it could have been in
+Celio's performance. He was young, and as chivalric an admirer of the
+Princess as he was loyal in his devotion to her husband. Had he
+discovered anything equivocal in her conduct, wild horses could not have
+torn her secret from him, and it is possible that the Prince counted
+upon this when he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Celio, the Princess is very young and impulsive; that she is a
+foreigner and therefore inexperienced in our strict etiquette will not
+excuse her slightest mistake in the eyes of our severe Roman dames, who
+would be prejudiced against the sister of Napoleon were she as
+circumspect as the Madonna. Her beauty has already made them envious,
+her wit and light-heartedness is considered levity. They will delight in
+wagging their tongues maliciously on the least shadow of suspicion. In
+appointing you secretary to the Princess I place you in a position where
+you will be able to guard her from the appearance of evil. Understand
+well that I have no fear of its reality, but where there are windows
+overlooking one's garden the neighbours may see more than the owner,
+more even than actually occurs."</p>
+
+<p>"Have no fear, my lord," the young secretary rashly promised. "You know
+the Tuscan proverb in regard to avoiding the suspicion of fruit
+stealing. Ah, well, no visitor shall be allowed to tie his shoestrings
+among your strawberries or to use his handkerchief under your plum
+tree."</p>
+
+<p>So the Prince went away to Florence and Celio found that he had more
+than he had bargained for. Not that Pauline Bonaparte committed actual
+indiscretions; but she was wild for admiration, loved dress, and knew
+how to dress well, setting off her marvellous beauty with that
+combination of style and taste that the French call <i>chic</i>, which the
+heavier intellects of the Roman modistes with all their pretence to
+fashion can never attain, and which the imperious Roman matrons could
+never forgive.</p>
+
+<p>One of these, hoping to rob this audacious rival of the advantage of
+Parisian modishness, gave a fête in which the guests were requested to
+appear in classical costume, whose severe simplicity she fancied would
+be more becoming to the plenitude of her own Juno-like charms than to
+the slight figure of the French girl. But the Princess vanquished her
+hostess for she came as a Bacchante in a robe of her own designing,
+bordered with vine leaves embroidered in gold and belted beneath the
+breasts with a golden girdle. A mantle of panther's fur swept from her
+shoulders, her arms and her bust were laden with heavy necklaces and
+bracelets taken from some Etruscan tomb, and she waved a golden thyrsus.
+Her entrance illuminated the ball-room and the character which she
+represented gave her authority for giving free vent to her natural
+vivacity and dancing with the utmost grace and abandon. Her victory over
+the male part of the assembly was complete for they saw no one else that
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>They were wrong who supposed that her beauty was enhanced by dress; on
+the contrary it was limited by the clothing which it adorned. The
+sculptor Canova proved this in his portrait statue of her as Venus
+Victorious, and then her detractors, affecting to be greatly
+scandalised, changed their tune and declared that it was false that the
+Princess was too fond of dress, that on the contrary a greater regard
+for it would have been more decent.</p>
+
+<p>The young secretary was not a little troubled by the caprice of his
+patroness to thus display her beauty to the world. "But why not, my
+Celio?" she had argued. "The Prince, my husband, has bestowed upon me a
+great title for which I feel my obligation to his noble family, and I
+shall pay it with interest, for I shall leave the Borgheses this
+incomparable statue, and the glory of having possessed one Princess
+whose beauty cannot be denied or equalled."</p>
+
+<p>Why Prince Borghese should have deputed this dragon service to another
+instead of undertaking it himself, is a question which I cannot answer.
+Some misunderstanding doubtless there was, or two people who loved each
+other would never have agreed that it was better to live apart, but the
+Prince carried a sore and longing heart with him to Florence, and it may
+be that the Princess was no happier, though she had more bravado.</p>
+
+<p>"I will come when you send for me and not before," her husband said to
+her, "and I trust you understand the motives which underlie my
+self-banishment."</p>
+
+<p>"I am grateful to them at least," was her equivocal retort. "Has your
+Highness any preference as to my residence during your absence?"</p>
+
+<p>"None," he replied sadly, "but I shall be happier if you do not make
+choice of your Neapolitan villa."</p>
+
+<p>She flashed at him indignantly, "You wish to estrange me from my family,
+from my sister Caroline."</p>
+
+<p>"I have only the highest respect for her Majesty, the Queen of Naples,"
+he replied; "her devotion to her husband is undoubted. I could wish&mdash;"
+and here the Prince paused.</p>
+
+<p>"That I were more like her," the Princess finished his sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"I never said so, Pauline," he said impulsively, "or wished that you
+were like any other than yourself."</p>
+
+<p>His last words should have softened her, but, pained and indignant at
+his desertion, she hardly heeded them; how was she to know that Camillo
+Borghese was, under his cold exterior, very honestly in love with his
+wife and just now cruelly tortured with jealousy of her brother-in-law,
+the dare-devil Murat? For the latter was as unscrupulous as he was
+handsome, as Napoleon was to find to his cost, though in recognition of
+his services as a dashing leader of cavalry he had rewarded him with the
+hand of his sister Caroline and the crown of Naples.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto the Princess had not even remarked the bold admiration of her
+brother-in-law, and after the departure of her husband she wept and
+sulked for days, when suddenly an event of great political importance,
+which was also of deep personal interest to herself, threw into the
+background every other consideration.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon's abdication and the treaty of Fontainebleau came upon his
+friends with the shock of an earthquake. Especially to his sister
+Pauline it was as though the foundations of the earth were tottering.
+He had been the Providence of all his family, dividing the nations
+between them; but Pauline had been his favourite, he had loved her
+sincerely, and she had responded with the utmost devotion.</p>
+
+<p>"I will go to him in his trouble," she declared, and though her
+secretary could not see how her presence could aid the deposed Emperor,
+he could not but approve her generous impulse.</p>
+
+<p>She met her brother at Hyères near the frontier of France, from which
+point he embarked for the Island of Elba. The allies had granted him the
+lordship of the island, with an income to support a pseudo court; but
+the framers of that treaty, and Napoleon himself, knew well that its
+terms were a farce and his kingdom in reality a prison.</p>
+
+<p>What transpired between the Princess and her brother in that brief
+interview Celio did not know. Each passed from it calmed and cheerful.
+There was a kindlier look in the Emperor's face, a more assured
+elasticity in his step as the English sailors who transported him to his
+exile shouted their, "Better luck next time"; and sparks were lighted in
+the eyes of the Princess which every one who saw her noted, though
+none guessed what hidden fires of resolve fed their flashes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 433px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg220" id="ill_romv_pg220"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg220.png" width="433" height="550" alt="Alinari
+
+Fountain in Gardens of the Villa Borghese" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Fountain in Gardens of the Villa Borghese</td><td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>They called her that season the Firefly, and many misinterpreted her
+illy suppressed excitement and the scrutiny of those lambent eyes
+sending out their flame signals in search of answering lights. Even her
+secretary did not know that the dark shadows which ringed them were not
+due to the balls and other frivolities in which she was so conspicuous;
+but to complicated and dangerous schemes which robbed her of sleep at
+night, and were never forgotten as she danced and chatted and coquetted
+while the most astute diplomats laid their hearts and their secrets at
+her feet.</p>
+
+<p>She received strange visitors too at the magnificent Villa Borghese,
+just outside the Porta del Popolo, wild-eyed agitators and suspects who
+had never before been permitted to enter those aristocratic gates. The
+first had come disguised in a marble-cutter's blouse as an assistant of
+Canova; but he had dropped a word which the noble model understood, and
+the fire signals had flashed between them. After the sculptor had left
+the casino his assistant tarried, and Celio, dismissed by his mistress
+but lingering at the threshold, heard fragments of the man's talk:
+"Liberty, united Italy, and death to the Austrians."</p>
+
+<p>Later, when he attempted to warn the Princess that if the man were not a
+maniac he was more dangerous, she asked him bluntly if her husband had
+constituted him her dragon, and thereafter in half contemptuous banter
+she gave him the nickname of "Mondragone."</p>
+
+<p>It was the name also of another villa belonging to the Borghese, the
+most sightly of all the boldly seated summer resorts of the nobility at
+beautiful Frascati. Not one of these commands a view comparable to the
+one from its terrace of the Pope's Chimneys, so named from the strange
+monumental constructions which are so conspicuous that, with a glass,
+they are plainly visible from Rome.</p>
+
+<p>So when the Princess announced, "I love Mondragone," her secretary did
+not flatter himself that the equivocal utterance bore any reference to
+himself. Had he also had the wit to perceive that if she indeed cared
+for the villa or for any other object at this time, it was only for some
+service which it might render her brother, his duties as dragon would
+have occasioned him far less of mental anguish.</p>
+
+<p>Celio was writing one day in a room adjoining the apartment which
+Canova had used as his studio in the casino of Villa Borghese, when he
+was startled by a heavy step in the room which he had supposed
+unoccupied. Throwing aside the portière he instantly recognised from
+report the imposing figure which confronted him. On a lesser man so
+gorgeous a costume as the one which now dazzled the astonished eyes of
+the secretary would have suggested the mountebank; but there was
+something regal as well as Oriental in Joachim Murat's appearance, and
+the barbarous colour extravagances of his dress became him like those of
+a sultan.</p>
+
+<p>His curling hair, black and long, fell upon a green velvet cloak heavily
+embroidered with gold which hung from his shoulders displaying a
+sky-blue frogged tunic, whose breast was covered with jewelled crosses
+and beribboned decorations. The crimson breeches which met the high
+boots of yellow morocco were braided with gold in the Polish fashion and
+fitted closely his shapely thighs, but the tarnished and battered
+cavalry sabre clanking at his side occasioned him no inconvenience, and
+it needed but a glance at the broken plumes of the ruby-clasped aigrette
+which decorated a shabby wide-brimmed hat to convince the beholder that
+this was no gala costume but the habitual garb of a soldier. He was
+spurred and played nonchalantly with his riding-whip as he returned
+Celio's questioning glance with a smile, half arrogant, half familiar.
+Wheeling upon his heel without deigning any explanation of his presence,
+he returned to his contemplation of the portrait statue of the Princess,
+and the young secretary's blood boiled as he saw that the expression of
+contemptuous familiarity on the sensual face had been elicited not by
+his insignificant self but by the masterpiece of Canova.</p>
+
+<p>"A fair portrait doubtless," he said indifferently, "for I recognise
+certain points of resemblance to her sister, whose perfections, however,
+the Princess Borghese cannot hope to emulate."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, sir," stammered the secretary in tones which he vainly
+strove to render icy,&mdash;"but this is the Villa Borghese and not a public
+museum."</p>
+
+<p>The intruder looked down with amused bonhommie. "I am an acquaintance of
+the Prince," he vouchsafed, "and have been invited by him to view his
+art collections."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg224" id="ill_romv_pg224"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg224.png" width="600" height="409" alt="Alinari
+
+Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese
+
+Portrait statue by Canova at Villa Borghese" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Pauline Bonaparte, Princess
+Borghese<br />Portrait statue by Canova at Villa Borghese</td>
+<td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 10em;">
+<span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Celio bridled with increased importance. "Prince Borghese's specimens of
+antique sculpture are in the palazzo where, if the Signor will
+announce himself, he will doubtless be accorded the privilege of seeing
+them. This palazzita is the private boudoir of the Princess."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better," the other laughed. "But when she commanded that
+statue she doubtless contemplated the possibility of its being admired
+by other eyes than her own. No insult is intended, my young popinjay. It
+is all in the family. Restrain your indignation and inform the Princess
+that the King of Naples is waiting here in obedience to her
+appointment."</p>
+
+<p>The secretary was not pleased with this message, and he liked still less
+the manner in which it was received, for the Princess hurried to meet
+her brother-in-law and allowed him to salute her gallantly upon both
+cheeks, and to address her as "Paulette."</p>
+
+<p>Celio, excused from attendance, had no opportunity, though he stood
+sentinel in the loggia, to overhear their conversation. Finally the
+Princess summoned him. "Order my carriage," she commanded, "and the
+caleche, and ask the attendance of my first lady-in-waiting. Tell
+Maurice to arrange a lunch-hamper quickly. His Majesty insists he must
+set out this afternoon for Naples. We will accompany him as far as
+Mondragone and picnic there."</p>
+
+<p>So they dashed away on the road to Frascati, the Princess lolling alone
+in her open carriage, for Murat had declined the seat beside her, though
+he kept his horse recklessly near her wheels, Celio following with the
+maid of honour and the lunch basket in the caleche, and one of Murat's
+orderlies (the other had been dispatched to order his suite to meet him
+at Mondragone) bringing up the rear.</p>
+
+<p>At the wildest and steepest part of the road the party halted, and the
+Princess alighting announced her intention of taking a short cut across
+the hills while the carriages followed the more circuitous driveway.
+Murat threw his reins to his orderly, and Celio, true to his
+self-constituted duties as dragon, left the maid of honour dozing in the
+caleche and followed his mistress. She had brought a tall staff, knotted
+with a tri-colour ribbon, which she used as an alpenstock, springing
+lightly over the steep boulders, while the athletic Murat kept pace with
+the easy swinging stride of a mountaineer. Suddenly Celio saw him catch
+the Princess by the arm and both stood as though instantaneously frozen.
+Then, as the secretary came panting up, Murat handed the Princess to
+him, and taking a few steps forward and apparently addressing the
+landscape, for Celio saw no one said in a voice of calm but inflexible
+authority: "Lay down your gun, and come from behind that rock."</p>
+
+<p>To Celio's astonishment a villainous appearing brigand advanced and
+knelt at Murat's feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you not shoot me when I was at the lower turn of the road, my
+friend?" Murat demanded; "you had the better opportunity then, for I had
+not discovered you, and I was for several minutes within your range."</p>
+
+<p>"True, your Majesty," replied the bandit, "but I said to myself, 'that
+is too magnificent a figure of a man to kill, even though he is a
+king.'"</p>
+
+<p>Murat laughed. "I will return the compliment," he said, writing rapidly
+on a card. "You have too much discrimination and obey orders too well to
+be a brigand. I wonder now if you have heard of a secret organisation
+called the Carbonari? I thought so" (replying by an almost imperceptible
+gesture to a signal made by the bandit); "you see you have made a
+mistake, for I also am a member of the order. All in time, my good
+fellow, and you shall use your rifle against the Austrians. Take this to
+the recruiting office of the Neapolitan army at Castel di Rocca. Never
+fear, it is no trap. This young man will read it for you." And the
+secretary read: "Give this brave fellow a place in the Corps of
+Calabrian Sharpshooters, and assure Captain Castiglione that he can be
+relied upon for expert guerilla service. Giacomo Rè."</p>
+
+<p>The man went away trembling with emotion but Murat called to him: "Come
+back, you have forgotten your gun," and stood carelessly regarding the
+view with his back turned while the would-be assassin regained
+possession of his weapon.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess clapped her hands. "I understand now," she said, "why you
+bore a charmed life when you came dashing out of the smoke of the
+battle-field, sweeping within a few feet of the muzzles of the enemy's
+guns. It needed not the command of the Czar that you were not to be
+fired upon,&mdash;the gunners could no more have done so than this poor
+outlaw. I comprehend also how you have managed to augment the roll of
+your army, which on your accession included but fifty thousand names, to
+its present list of seventy-five thousand, and at the same time have so
+marvellously reduced the number of brigands in your kingdom."</p>
+
+<p>"Partly in this way," he acknowledged, lightly, "but the Austrian
+officers would be surprised to know how many of my best disciplined
+soldiers have had the advantage of their drilling."</p>
+
+<p>"Deserters?" the Princess asked.</p>
+
+<p>"And whole companies in Northern Italy waiting for the first symptoms of
+a war with Italy to desert en masse."</p>
+
+<p>When the party reached Mondragone the custodian, surprised at their
+coming (for the villa had been long unoccupied), unbarred the shutters
+and let the light into the dusty salons.</p>
+
+<p>"It is roomy enough for a barracks," Murat remarked as he wandered
+through suite after suite of the great tenantless rooms.</p>
+
+<p>"I forbid you so to use it," the Princess jested, "though you may occupy
+Mondragone yourself when you lay siege to Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"It would not be a bad headquarters," he said as they came out upon the
+terrace. "Imagine a semaphore in the place of those monstrous and absurd
+columns&mdash;what are they, by the way? One could waft signals from Rome to
+Calabria and from the Adriatic to the Tirrenian."</p>
+
+<p>That was an exaggeration, of course, but Mondragone would have been a
+good station in such a signal service.</p>
+
+<p>"Those absurd columns," the Princess replied, "might themselves serve
+as semaphores. They are chimneys, colossal enough to serve a foundry,
+though they do duty to simple kitchens, those which prepared the
+excellent dinners with which Pope Paul V. entertained his guests. When
+the smoke rises from that one I can see the cloudy column from my
+windows at Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"And I could see it far on the road from Naples," he mused, and then the
+two wandered away from their watching dragon and leaning on the
+balustrade with their faces toward the magnificent view earnestly
+discussed projects which had nothing to do with that unrivalled
+panorama.</p>
+
+<p>Celio was in torment. What was Murat saying in that low, guarded voice,
+while his hand clenched and crushed the roses that swarmed over the
+balustrade and scattered their petals to the wind? Why did the
+Princess's colour come and go as she listened, her cheek much too near
+his passionate lips?</p>
+
+<p>Since there was no way of overhearing this equivocal conversation, it
+must at all hazards be interrupted, and Celio prematurely announced the
+<i>al fresco</i> supper. Here, while he fluttered behind them in a pretence
+of service, he heard both too much for his peace of mind and too little
+for his complete enlightenment.</p>
+
+<p>At first the talk was of family matters, chiefly of Napoleon at Elba,
+with whom Pauline begged her brother-in-law to be reconciled, for this
+was in the summer of 1814, when Murat, foreseeing that Napoleon's star
+had set, had signed a treaty with the allies.</p>
+
+<p>"One would think I had done enough for your brother," he said, moodily.
+"I left my kingdom to lead the cavalry of the <i>grande armée</i> in the
+Russian campaign. I gained his victories and I commanded the <i>escadron
+sacrée</i> which protected his person in the retreat, and what is my
+reward?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is your present position?" the Princess asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am your brother-in-law," Murat replied, "but, as I wrote Napoleon, I
+conferred as much honour as I received when I married your sister, and,
+as for my kingship, the Emperor wished only a devoted servant whom he
+could command, and he has discovered his mistake."</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of Pauline Bonaparte shot fire while the other spoke. "You are
+very stupid to talk in this way to me, Joachim," she said, commanding
+herself in time. "You needed Napoleon&mdash;you need him now, for your
+scheme will never succeed unless he supports you. It is your good
+fortune that he needs you enough to forgive your defection. The family
+stands or falls together, <i>mon ami</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently your mother does not think so," Murat replied, with pique. "I
+have just brought Madame Mère a present of eight fine carriage-horses.
+She declined them with thanks, and would not see me when I called on her
+in Rome. As for my loving brother-in-law, your noble husband&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should you mind Camillo's sulks since I do not? He and Madame Mère
+have such amusing ideas. It was not so much Caroline's correspondence
+with your 'dear Metternich' which offended them and my brother, too.
+They have never forgotten that little affair of the silver lemon
+squeezer. Ah, <i>mon ami</i>! you had had too much champagne when you brewed
+that bowl of punch at the officers' dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"I never said that it was the Empress who taught me the recipe and gave
+me the lemon squeezer," he retorted, flushing.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! no; nor told you that oranges and not lemons were used with Jamaica
+rum in the islands; nor why pretty creoles were like lemons."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to provoke me?" Murat exclaimed, rising quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, <i>mon ami</i>, though I shared in that suspicion, too, for they called
+me a creole on my return from San Domingo."</p>
+
+<p>Murat's jaw fell. "Do you mean that your husband thought I meant <i>you</i>?"
+he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Prince Borghese is too polite a man to voice such a suspicion, and I am
+too clever a woman to show that I have guessed it, but that is reason
+enough why I cannot accept my sister's invitation to take possession of
+the entrancing Neapolitan villa which you so kindly offer me."</p>
+
+<p>"You are like your mother. You refuse my peace-offerings; you will not
+visit us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Peace-offerings, yes; but make me some offerings of war, that fine
+army, for instance; and, by the way, if you will give me a yacht instead
+of the villa I may consent to be your guest. Meantime we understand each
+other. I will give immediate orders to my people that no fire is on any
+account to be lighted in the Pope's kitchens, as the chimneys are
+unsafe. Should I perceive a column of smoke rising from them I shall
+know that you are here, and I will come to you. If, on the other hand, I
+hear that you are in this vicinity on the business of which we spoke, I
+shall make Mondragone my residence; and should you perceive my smoke
+signal&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then," he interrupted, speaking very low, but so distinctly that
+Celio's heart froze as he listened&mdash;"then, Paulette, be the danger what
+it may, heaven nor hell shall keep me from you."</p>
+
+<p>They parted in the most commonplace manner, the Princess returning to
+Rome after the conclusion of the repast, but, though she appeared to
+sleep all the way, Celio marked when she alighted that her face,
+illuminated by the strong glare that blazed from the open door of the
+villa, was haggard as from long vigils.</p>
+
+<p>Deeply distressed, the poor dragon spent a sleepless night, but towards
+morning an inspiration came to him. He saw his way to saving his lady
+without arousing the suspicions of her husband. She had forbidden the
+use of the Pope's chimneys to the guardian of the villa, plainly that
+they should serve solely as signals between herself and Murat. But the
+reason which she had given for their disuse, that they were unsafe,
+furnished the secretary with his pretext, and he wrote his master urging
+that they should be taken down.</p>
+
+<p>Before the Prince had time to reply the event which he had dreaded took
+place. The Princess, in direct opposition to her husband's parting
+request, announced her determination to visit her sister at Naples. It
+was not in her secretary's province to remonstrate, and he was soon to
+gain a point of view from which the inexplicable behaviour of his
+mistress presented a very different aspect.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at Naples the Princess and her suite were met by Queen Caroline
+and installed in a charming villa near the city, and on the succeeding
+day the entire household were taken by the King and Queen for a short
+cruise in the royal yacht.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the island of Ischia the party landed, and climbing to a ruined
+tower which commanded an extensive prospect, they plainly discerned in a
+hidden cove a little craft flying a flag unfamiliar at that time to
+Celio Benvoglio, a striped red and white pennon studded with golden
+bees. It was the ensign chosen by Napoleon while lord of Elba, and
+displayed by the six swift sailing pinnaces which made up the Emperor's
+little navy.</p>
+
+<p>Pauline now informed her suite that she was about to pay a visit to her
+brother, which for important reasons must not for the present be
+suspected. Her maids of honour must therefore return to her Neapolitan
+villa, and, to keep up the fiction of her presence, announce on the
+morrow that the Princess had succumbed to an attack of fever. The Court
+physician would pay daily visits as would the King and Queen, but no
+others would be admitted to the secret.</p>
+
+<p>With feminine fondness for intrigue the three maids of honour entered
+into the plan, while Celio, relieved from his tormenting suspicions
+accompanied his mistress to Elba.</p>
+
+<p>Here, admitted to her conferences with her brother as he fulfilled new
+and arduous duties in the transcription of dispatches, he comprehended
+that the secret alliance between the Princess and Murat had been purely
+political, and with what tact she had won him to reconciliation and
+co-operation with Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor's plans were more audacious and far-reaching than ever. In
+their scope the movement for the independence and unification of Italy
+was but a subordinate detail. Pauline knew that her brother was
+developing a great <i>coup d'état</i>, that he would presently escape from
+Elba and seize again the reins of power, and it was she who had first
+perceived and who now explained to him how the undercurrent of events
+in Italy might become a factor in his scheme.</p>
+
+<p>Agitators had been busy in every part of the peninsula firing patriot
+hearts to throw off the domination of the three foreign powers which
+held them enslaved. The King of Naples by naturalising himself as an
+Italian, and compelling his French soldiers to do so, had been permitted
+to take part in the plot. It is possible that the revolutionists, who
+saw the immense advantage of the services of so able a general as Murat,
+intended to repudiate him after they had gained their ends. But at that
+time they flattered him with the hope of becoming the king as well as
+the deliverer of all Italy.</p>
+
+<p>As Celio Benvoglio toiled over his papers he was amazed at the
+imagination of his mistress which had first discerned the possibility of
+making the cause of Italian liberty serve her brother's ambitious
+imperialism, and the marvellous finesse with which she had vanquished
+Murat's gascon envy and resentment and made him once more a tool in the
+hand of the Emperor. Still more he admired Napoleon's acumen and
+resource as he saw order coming out of chaos and all things working
+together for the success of his stupendous undertaking. The Emperor had
+planned to first secure Paris, and then, proclaiming the independence of
+Italy, to make common cause with her against Austria and at the head of
+the united French and Italian armies, one hundred thousand strong, march
+by way of the Julian Alps upon Vienna.</p>
+
+<p>As the impressionable secretary traced the burning proclamation which
+Napoleon dictated to his old soldiers, he doubted not that it would fire
+the heart of every veteran and the great enterprise seemed infallible.</p>
+
+<p>"Take again the eagles you followed at Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and
+Montmirail," pleaded their adored commander. "Range yourselves under the
+banners of your old chief. Victory shall march with every step. In your
+old age you shall say with pride, I also was one of that great army
+which twice entered the walls of Vienna, took Rome, Berlin, Madrid, and
+Moscow, and which delivered Paris from domestic treason and the
+occupation of strangers."</p>
+
+<p>What wonder that, carried away by the immensity and daring of the
+conquest of the continent, the happiness of one longing heart should
+have seemed a very insignificant thing, and that Celio should have quite
+forgotten that his master, Camillo Borghese, was waiting for some
+reassuring word from him, that he had heard of the Princess's reckless
+removal to Naples, and was distracted between anger at her flagrant
+disregard of his wishes, suspicion of what such heartlessness might
+mean, and acute distress on learning of her illness? The Prince could
+not, on account of personal reasons, present himself at the Court of the
+King of Naples, but he had written repeatedly to Celio Benvoglio and
+these letters the first maid of honour, finding no opportunity to
+forward to Elba, had judged best to retain at Naples unopened until the
+return of the secretary.</p>
+
+<p>So the days flew for the Princess and dragged for her husband, until at
+midnight on the twenty-seventh of February, 1815, Napoleon with his
+handful of devoted soldiers embarked for France, and his sister returned
+to Naples with instructions for Murat. Then the Neapolitan villa was
+suddenly vacated and the seven carriages of the Princess took up their
+line of march for Rome.</p>
+
+<p>She had found awaiting her at Naples letters in which her husband
+passionately besought her to return; and, while her face flushed as she
+realised the motives which he attributed to Murat, her heart swelled
+with triumph that he believed in her in spite of all.</p>
+
+<p>"He loves me!" she murmured to herself unguardedly, in the presence of
+her secretary.</p>
+
+<p>"Then give me leave to write him," the young man cried, impulsively,
+"that I may relieve his anxiety. Let me bid him join you at Rome. Think,
+dearest madam, what he must suffer."</p>
+
+<p>But at that word the Princess frowned. "And do you think I have not
+suffered?" she cried. "I am glad that he is jealous, since it proves
+that he can love. Nevertheless I would gladly summon him if I could. But
+do you not see, Celio, that he must not be implicated in our plots? If
+we fail, he must be known to have had no letters from me. I forbid you
+to communicate with him until I give you permission. Camillo is too
+honest to make a good conspirator. If I can wait, cannot you? The game
+may not be worth the candle, but I will play it to the end."</p>
+
+<p>The little cavalcade paused at Mondragone, for the Princess had decided
+to spend a few weeks at her Frascati villa. Here, to her indignation,
+she found engineers preparing to take down the Pope's chimneys.</p>
+
+<p>"On whose authority do you presume to do a thing so outrageous?" she
+demanded, and they showed her the order of Prince Borghese.</p>
+
+<p>"Delay the execution of these instructions until such time as they are
+repeated," she commanded. "I have decided to take up my residence here
+for the present, and cannot be disturbed by repairs and alterations."</p>
+
+<p>When the men were gone she faced her secretary in consternation. "Who
+can have incited Camillo to such a resolution?" she demanded, and the
+consciousness of guilt in his face was a sufficient answer.</p>
+
+<p>"It was you, dear lady, who put the idea into my head," he stammered;
+"you said the chimneys were cracked and might set fire to the villa."</p>
+
+<p>"Spy and traitor," she hissed, "you tried to make it impossible for me
+to communicate with Murat. It is your idiotic suspicions that have
+roused Camillo's jealousy."</p>
+
+<p>"You have said that you were glad of that jealousy," Celio ventured; and
+the Princess laughed bitterly, then softening, said: "I do believe you
+thought yourself acting for my good, oh, foolish little dragon. Confess,
+my poor boy, that Pauline Borghese has the wit to take care of herself."</p>
+
+<p>Very humbly Celio confessed that this was evident, but his troubles were
+by no means over. A fortnight later Italy was electrified by the
+startling rumour that the King of Naples had declared war with Austria
+and was marching toward Lombardy.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess was struck with consternation, for she knew that Napoleon
+could not so soon have perfected his arrangements for making a junction
+with Murat. Though she entertained no one it was noticed by her
+neighbours that the Pope's chimneys smoked continually, as though the
+most elaborate banquets were in preparation and one night the expected
+guest arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Murat had intended to give Rome a wide berth, stealing around it by the
+Abruzzi. But his left wing had scouts on the western slopes of the
+Sabine Mountains and were instructed to keep a lookout for the smoke
+signal from Mondragone, and he had ridden across the mountains for a day
+and half a night to answer her summons.</p>
+
+<p>She gave him food and a fresh horse, but she sent him back to the
+Castello Borghese at Monte Compatri for his lodging, with many
+reproaches and gloomy prophecies for his mad precipitation in
+anticipating the <i>mot d'ordre</i> of Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>Theirs was no loving tryst, but a stormy altercation, for Murat defended
+his act and refused her entreaties, which were rather in the nature of
+commands, to go back to Naples and wait for advice from his general.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I put myself under his orders?" he demanded. "Austria has
+taken alarm and is pouring its forces into Lombardy. If I do not secure
+Milan at once it will be too late and the opportunity will be lost. Who
+knows when Napoleon will think of us? They say he is at Paris preparing
+to meet the allies in Belgium. Our little rendezvous for the excursion
+to Vienna is apparently forgotten. He has other matters to attend to.
+Well, so have I. I am weary of governing for him. When I am King of
+Italy I will rule according to the ideas of Joachim Murat."</p>
+
+<p>"You would never have been a King in name but for him," she replied
+hotly, "you are not fit to rule. You are a good soldier, Joachim, but
+you need your master."</p>
+
+<p>So they parted in bitterness, and Celio, who was present at their
+interview, rejoiced that such was the manner of their parting, and
+prayed that they might never meet again, but that prayer was not to be
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess returned to Rome and soon received information of the
+fulfilment of her prophecy. For a few days Murat held Bologna, then the
+Austrians swooped down upon him and he met them gallantly, but
+disastrously, near Modena. Reverse followed reverse and at Tolentino his
+mad campaign of six weeks ended in total defeat. His army fled in all
+directions, and a refugee brought word that Murat, scorning surrender,
+had fallen sabring desperately to the last.</p>
+
+<p>Pauline received the news, pale but unshaken. "My poor sister," she
+said, and then quickly, "but she knows her refuge; by this time
+doubtless she is on her way to Napoleon." Then a great light illumined
+her face. "The revolution has failed, my work is done. I can now write
+to Camillo."</p>
+
+<p>She was writing when a messenger entered with a letter from her husband.
+"He is coming, Celio," she cried joyfully. "He will be here in an hour.
+He writes that in disaster and grief his place is at my side, and he
+could not wait my summons. Oh, Celio, was there ever such magnanimity?"</p>
+
+<p>As she rang to give orders for her husband's reception, her third maid
+of honour, Pippa Serbonella, a waspish, deceitful creature whom Celio
+had never liked, flung wide the curtain of the window and cried:
+"Eccellentissima, look,&mdash;the chimneys of Mondragone!"</p>
+
+<p>It was true, from one of them rose a thin waving scarf of smoke,
+fluttering and beckoning in the light wind. The Princess caught the arm
+of her secretary. "Joachim is not dead!" she cried; "he is there and I
+must go to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Not now, not now, dearest lady," pleaded the young man. "Your husband
+is coming. Think what that means."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know," she gasped, wringing her hands, "but I cannot desert
+my brother-in-law in his extremity. I led him into this, Celio. I
+promised to come when he called. I must keep my promise. Stay you, and
+say what you will to Camillo. I will be back this evening."</p>
+
+<p>With many a misgiving the wretched dragon saw her drive away, and a
+little later confronted the eager face of Prince Borghese.</p>
+
+<p>"My wife?" he questioned, and Celio could only stammer, "She has gone
+out for a drive; she will be back presently."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she not receive my letter?" and the Prince had his answer, for it
+lay with broken seal upon her escritoire.</p>
+
+<p>"Did she go to meet me? Have we missed each other?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not so, your Highness," Pippa Serbonella interpolated, "the Princess
+had another appointment," and again with significant finger and hateful
+smile she pointed to the smoke signal. The Prince stood transfixed, and
+Celio understood from their two faces that the girl had given
+unsolicited full reports of that correspondence written in the air. "Oh!
+you women, you women!" he groaned, and "I will strangle you, traitress,"
+he whispered as she passed him.</p>
+
+<p>But the Prince had other occupation for him at that moment. "Now tell
+the whole truth," he commanded sternly, and the secretary told it,
+exulting that against her will the malicious maid-of-honour must confirm
+his statement that while the Princess had been supposed to be at Naples
+she was really with Napoleon at Elba.</p>
+
+<p>A look of relief smoothed Borghese's forehead for an instant. "I never
+doubted my wife," he declared proudly, "nevertheless the King of Naples
+has certain explanations to make to me. Celio there was in that cabinet
+a case of pistols which the Emperor gave me."</p>
+
+<p>"The Princess took them with her this morning," Pippa vouchsafed
+officiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" the Prince drew in his breath. "It is of no consequence," he
+added. "General Murat will require but one and will doubtless lend me
+the other. Quick, Celio, our horses. The Princess has only an hour the
+start of us. We will overtake them at Mondragone."</p>
+
+<p>They passed her in fact at Frascati where they saw her carriage standing
+unharnessed before the inn. "She is resting," said the Prince, "we will
+not disturb her until after our business at Mondragone is finished."</p>
+
+<p>At the gate an astonished servant took their horses, and as the Prince
+walked through the shady cypress avenue his brain cooled and he formed a
+resolution differing from the one that had brought him to the villa.
+Upon the fountain terrace they saw the man they had come to seek. Not
+the galliard of his last visit, but a hunted refugee, his gaudy hussar
+uniform soiled and torn, the ballas ruby which had buckled his aigrette
+shot from his hat, and a tiny rill of blood trickling from his matted
+hair upon the golden bees that ornamented the sky-blue velvet tunic.
+Stretched prone upon a marble bench, sleeping the sleep of utter
+exhaustion, his sword-arm beneath his head, the other trailing relaxed
+upon the ground, he was entirely at the mercy of the man who looked down
+upon his haggard face.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince studied it for a moment in silence, then, with finger on lip,
+drew Celio into the loggia. "Let him rest," he whispered, "time enough
+when he awakes."</p>
+
+<p>Ere that happened footsteps were heard and the voice of the Princess
+calling, "Joachim, where are you?"</p>
+
+<p>Murat sprang up instantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Paulette, is it you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is I. O mon Dieu; how you have changed! but we heard you were
+killed. Thank God, that is not true."</p>
+
+<p>"I am beaten, which is worse," he said bitterly. "You were right, you
+see, quite right, all is lost&mdash;why do you not say 'I told you so'?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she exclaimed, "all is not lost. Go at once to Napoleon, confess
+your error, and atone for it."</p>
+
+<p>"He will never forgive me," Murat replied; "and why should he, with his
+army of three hundred thousand men and an Imperial Guard of forty
+thousand chosen veterans? What have I to offer him? My troops have
+deserted me. I have nothing to fight with and nothing for which to
+fight."</p>
+
+<p>"My brother needs you," the Princess insisted. "He may have soldiers
+enough, but he knows there is no such leader of cavalry in all the world
+as you, and he is about to engage in a crucial struggle with Wellington.
+You have your marvellous leadership to offer. You say you have nothing
+to fight for. Think of your honour, and of Caroline."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I had forgotten her, poor child. I will do as you say, Paulette.
+You have the brains of your family in your little head. Perhaps that is
+the reason the good God made Caroline more attractive. Well, one more
+fight for her sake, and she shall thank you for it. I shall get to
+Naples in some way, then by sea to Marseilles, and then to Napoleon."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" cried the Princess. "Did you find your horse in the stables? I
+gave orders to have him well cared for until you claimed him. I have
+brought a disguise and arms and money. Now, off with you, for I can
+waste no more time. Ah! how much we have already wasted, Joachim, in
+this mad pursuit of ambition, when only love was worth the while. My
+sister will rejoice to retire with you to private life and to know of
+my happiness, for Camillo is waiting for me at Rome, and all the cruel
+misunderstanding is over!"</p>
+
+<p>Thus ended Celio Benvoglio's dragon-service, for the Prince, forced
+either to overhear or interrupt the foregoing conversation, had
+fortunately chosen the former alternative. And here, perchance, should
+the story end, for the after-history of Joachim Murat is a tragical
+addendum to that happy dénouement.</p>
+
+<p>Pauline overestimated her brother's magnanimity, Napoleon coldly refused
+the profferred services of his brother-in-law, confessing afterwards
+that this implacability lost him the battle of Waterloo, for Ney could
+not equal Murat in his skilful man&oelig;uvring of horse.</p>
+
+<p>Murat, desperate, took refuge in Corsica, where he raised a little band
+of two hundred and fifty men, and landed near Naples, believing that his
+old troops would rally to his standard. Indifferent, or perhaps unable
+to help him, they abandoned him to his fate.</p>
+
+<p>He faced his executioners with unbandaged eyes and himself gave the
+order to fire.</p>
+
+<p>According to the account of an eye-witness, he first kissed the
+miniature of his wife, which he carried within the case of his watch,
+and with the request, "Spare my face," directed the aim of the soldiers
+to his breast.</p>
+
+<p>Their firmness did not equal his own, and he was obliged to twice give
+the command before it was obeyed.</p>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 375px;">
+<img src="images/ill_vii.png"
+class="top15" width="375" height="149" alt="image not available" />
+</div>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<p class="c">THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE BRANDISHED LANCE</p>
+
+<p class="c">I</p>
+
+<p class="c">THE QUEST</p>
+
+
+<p class="non"><span class="let">R</span>OBERT DEVREUX, Earl of Essex, was in one of his worst moods as he
+strode the deck of his flag-ship in Cadiz Bay on a certain June morning
+in 1596.</p>
+
+<p>And yet this favourite of Fortune stood then at the summit of his
+career, having by a brilliant assault taken the city for England, while
+a letter whose seal he had just broken assured him of the doting
+infatuation of England's Queen.</p>
+
+<p>It was precisely this letter, as he now explained to his friend, which
+occasioned his dissatisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not refuse me, Will," he pleaded, "since I can not undertake
+the quest, you must go in my stead. These papers contain negotiations
+of such delicacy that Henry of Navarre dared not send them overland
+through France, and my word is pledged to him to deliver them personally
+into the hands of the Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici, at his villa in
+Rome.</p>
+
+<p>"When I met the King at Boulogne, on our first night out, this seemed an
+easy thing to do, for I had reason to believe that our cruise would
+extend to Italy. But now in the hour of my victory, when I have sacked
+Cadiz, I open the Queen's letter (which was not to be read until the
+accomplishment of that task), and find that, instead of being permitted
+to proceed, I must first sail at once for England; and all forsooth
+because of her love and impatience to reward the valour of her
+favourite! Can such a summons be disregarded? Assuredly not; but my
+honour and the fate of the Protestant cause in France hang upon your
+decision.</p>
+
+<p>"Since it means so much," replied the other, "assuredly I will not fail
+you. But why may I not do this under my own name, as your authorised
+messenger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because the Grand Duke expects the Earl of Essex, the accredited deputy
+of the King of France. The deputy of a deputy would have no prestige
+with him, and would not even be admitted as guest at the villa. And it
+is with its lady, mark you, that your true errand lies.</p>
+
+<p>"These negotiations have to do with the marriage of Henry of Navarre to
+the Grand Duke's niece Marie de' Medici. Ferdinando will make and break
+treaties as suits his advantage. The lady's heart must be gained, she
+must be made so ardently to desire this marriage that she will refuse
+all other suitors. In short you must woo and win her for the King of
+France. For such a task you have every qualification. You possess a
+knowledge of the Italian language and the understanding of its
+temperament and character which comes from sympathy. The Italians will
+not need to know that you bear the name of Brandilancia to recognise
+that you are the embodiment of the type of chivalry dreamed of by their
+poets. Beware, however, of receiving or giving too much love, for report
+hath it that the heiress of the Medici is surpassingly beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>Brandilancia smiled somewhat bitterly. "You should know," he said, "that
+my heart is in England and though my love should remain forever
+unrequited, it can never be given to another."</p>
+
+<p>"An excellent safeguard, in the present business," the Earl replied
+cheerily, "so here are all objections overcome, and may you have many a
+merry experience to recount when next we meet in England."</p>
+
+<p>Hand met hand upon that compact, and while one Earl of Essex pursued his
+homeward course another in a swift sailing pinnace flew eastward bound
+upon adventures of which the archives of the English Admiralty preserve
+no record.</p>
+
+<p>As the young adventurer Brandilancia, who was to play the part of the
+true Essex, rode up the hill crowned by the Villa Medici he was struck
+by the resemblance of the massive retaining walls to those of some
+medieval fortress. As such they had served in ancient days, holding the
+villa safe in their protecting embrace from any uprising of the populace
+of Rome, while on the side toward the Campagna they had withstood more
+than one siege of the Goths. But high aloft, near the summit of this
+cliff of natural rock and hewn stone the inhospitable windowless expanse
+was broken by a row of arched openings, and silhouetted against the dark
+void of one of these he caught a glimpse of a face framed in golden
+hair.</p>
+
+<p>Though so far above him the lady, who had been gazing down the road from
+sheer ennui, had noticed the graceful figure of the cavalier, and had
+watched his approach until he halted with upturned face beneath her
+window. At that instant a little fan opening as it fell, dropped from
+her hand and fluttered in the light breeze, like a bird with a broken
+wing, beyond the road and into the ravine at its side.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly Brandilancia sprang from his horse and, vaulting over the low
+embankment, clambered down the incline. A smiling contadina, who was
+beating out her linen on the margin of a basin of water, assisted him in
+his search, but having found the fan she was so curious in regard to its
+donor that Brandilancia endeavoured to divert her attention by plying
+her with questions concerning the locality. From her replies he learned
+that the washing pool was fed from an old aqueduct which passed under
+the Villa Medici on its way to supply the fountains of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>"See, Signor," she said, pointing out a nail-studded oaken door
+concealed in the angle of a huge abutment, "they say that if that door
+were not bolted on the inside one might enter the tunnel which brings
+the water through the hill from its source miles away. There is a
+legend, too, that a Roman princess who lived up yonder, centuries ago,
+betrayed the secret to the barbarians, who came through the tunnel and
+sacked Rome."</p>
+
+<p>Brandilancia paid little heed to this information, not dreaming that he
+would one day be indebted to it for escape from the villa which he was
+now so blithely entering. Climbing back to the roadway he waved the fan
+above his head and was greeted by a light clapping of hands from the
+lofty window. Who could the lady be? He would ascertain in time, and
+until he did so it was pleasant to reflect that some one within the
+villa was interested in his coming and had wafted him this welcome.</p>
+
+<p>He had need of hospitality for he was faint from the ride from Ostia in
+the heat of an Italian June. The beautiful gardens glowed in dazzling
+sunshine which the scintillating jets of the fountains reflected and
+intensified. The statues seemed to shrink from the blinding light into
+their niches in the great square-cut hedges, and the tessellated
+pavement was hot beneath his tread.</p>
+
+<p>Every detail of the antique relievi which the façade of the palace had
+been designed to display was brought out by the intense illumination. In
+its lavish ornamentation and elegant proportions the building suggested
+a carved ivory cabinet, but one rifled of its jewels, for except for the
+keeper of the gate-lodge, to whom he had tossed his bridle, he had met
+no guards. The great doorway stood invitingly open, but Brandilancia
+hesitated to enter and looked about for some means of announcing his
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the villa under some enchantment?" he asked himself. "If so some imp
+or sprite should lurk hereabouts and now make its appearance."</p>
+
+<p>As if in answer to this mental question a peal of elfish laughter
+greeted his ear,&mdash;a mirthless, falsetto cackle, like that of a parrot,
+and half hidden behind one of the great marble lions in the shade of the
+loggia he discerned a grotesque little creature, with the figure of a
+child and a woman's face, old in its expression of slyness and
+malignity.</p>
+
+<p>Brandilancia started, although he knew that it was the custom of Italian
+princes to maintain dwarfs in their households. This woman, probably a
+dependent, was dressed like a princess. Her dress though soiled was of
+stiff brocade embroidered with gold thread, and the high lace ruff,
+which made her swarthy complexion darker by contrast with its whiteness,
+was edged with seed pearls.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, my lord," she croaked. "The Grand Duke regretted that, obliged
+to be temporarily in Florence, he could not receive you, but awaiting
+his return the villa is at your service, and the Grand Duchess and the
+Signorina will endeavour to make the time pass pleasantly."</p>
+
+<p>He followed her, wondering as to her position. "How did you know me?" he
+asked. "You are expected," she replied, "and no one but an Englishman
+would have called at the hour of the siesta. Shall I show your worship
+to your own room, or will you await the ladies in the library?" His hand
+was on the little fan, and he was striving to frame some question whose
+answer would enlighten him as to the giver, but the dwarf's last word
+caught his ear, and acted like the scent of spirits upon a man thirsting
+for drink.</p>
+
+<p>"To the library, by all means," he replied eagerly, and, as the heavy
+portières were drawn aside, the tiny creature at his side and even the
+golden-haired woman who had greeted his coming so graciously were for
+the moment clean forgotten, for he comprehended that one of his dearest
+hopes, long thwarted but never entirely relinquished, the hidden
+personal motive which had been the determining factor in his acceptance
+of this mission, was now about to be realised. The immense room from
+floor to cornice was walled with books: the writings of the fathers of
+the church&mdash;huge folios hasped in brass and ornamented with priceless
+illuminations&mdash;side by side with pagan literature, Greek manuscripts,
+and volumes of the Roman classics, while all the new harvest of the
+Italian Renaissance, in every department then known, had been carefully
+garnered. But high above the marshalled works of the poets, which his
+fingers lingeringly caressed as he passed them by, Brandilancia had
+detected a row of small volumes, and a thrill of triumphant delight shot
+through his frame as he climbed the step-ladder and with eager fingers
+plucked them from their niches.</p>
+
+<p>For here were the novelli of Boccaccio, Masaccio, and Bandello, of
+Giraldi Cinthio and Ser Giovanni Fiorentino and of many another writer
+of romantic tales of whimsical gaiety, of intrigue, or of tragedy, and
+Brandilancia was a playwright gifted with a most exceptional genius for
+adaptation. He had read a few of these tales and had realised that they
+contained admirable material for dramatisation, but now by a turn of the
+wheel of Fortune the entire inexhaustible mine of absorbing plot of
+piquant situation and contrasting characters, slightly sketched but
+waiting only the touch of genius to spring into life, lay open before
+him.</p>
+
+<p>With a sigh of supreme satisfaction he sank into the nearest chair and
+read like one under the influence of some hypnotic spell.</p>
+
+<p>The secretary of the Grand Duke entered the library, shuffled about
+noisily, coughed, and even addressed him, but the reader was unconscious
+of his presence.</p>
+
+<p>Curious as to what so enthralled the stranger the man of the ink-horn
+tiptoed behind him, read the title over his shoulder, and laughed aloud.
+Brandilancia surprised, laid down the volume and demanded the cause of
+this demonstration.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, Signor," replied the secretary, "but I could not refrain,
+your absorption pays me a great compliment for I am the author of that
+book."</p>
+
+<p>"You, sir?" exclaimed the half incredulous reader.</p>
+
+<p>"I, Celio Malespini, Secretary to his Excellency, the Grand Duke, a man
+of letters who has tried his quill in sundry other fields, as well."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Signor Malespini, accept my congratulations, for this story of
+the company of the Calza of Venice is one of the merriest I have ever
+read, and makes me eager to see their festival. Have you written other
+books as entertaining?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have as yet written no others," replied Celio, flattered and wholly
+won by the stranger's praise, "but since you care for my poor efforts I
+can lay before your worship those of other authors more worthy of your
+attention."</p>
+
+<p>From inconspicuous nooks and corners he dragged them forth and piled
+them before the appreciative Brandilancia, who forgot all else until a
+servant announced that his hostesses would receive him in the grand
+salon a half hour before the hour of dining.</p>
+
+<p>Even then he would have turned again to the fascinating volumes had not
+the valet's added information that the luggage of the Signor was in his
+room reminded him that dinner in such a house was a function and not
+simply an opportunity for absorbing the provender necessary to sustain
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, Brandilancia was an accomplished actor as well as writer,
+and his theatrical experience had taught him to make quick changes not
+only of costume, but of mental points of view and characteristics, and
+Essex's wardrobe became him no more than the grace and manner of the
+gallant young nobleman which he assumed with equal ease.</p>
+
+<p>The transformation effected within the next hour was even deeper than
+this, for as his eyes met those of Marie de' Medici he knew that here,
+either for good or evil, was a woman destined to exert a compelling
+influence upon his life.</p>
+
+<p>It was not love, he told himself, for he was on his guard against that
+passion. She did not impress him as beautiful. Her eyes were overbold
+and searching but cold; but her bearing arrogant at first, softened as
+the days went by into a frank comradeship, and he discovered that she
+possessed a cultured and an appreciative mind.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto Brandilancia had hidden a sensitive heart craving the sympathy
+that no woman had ever given him, under a gay and sportive exterior
+which made him a prince of good fellows, a man's man, and a loyal lover
+of his comrades, though they were far from appreciating his genius and
+his aims. But every serious conversation held with his young hostess
+confirmed him in his delusion that he had found a friend capable of
+understanding him. That she did not as yet wholly do so was the fault of
+his cursed disguise, which confused her perceptions of his real
+character with preconceived ideas of Essex. He longed to reveal himself
+to her, and did so to a greater degree than he realised.</p>
+
+<p>Especially was this the case upon one memorable morning when, piqued
+that he should spend so much time in the library, she had followed him
+to that retreat.</p>
+
+<p>She had found him absorbed in Luigi da Porto's novel <i>La Giulietta</i>, "a
+pitiable history that occurred at Verona in the time of Bartolommeo
+Scala," and she watched him slyly for some minutes amused by his
+preoccupation before interrupting his feast.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" she exclaimed at length in pleased surprise, "you have chanced
+upon my favourite of all the books in my uncle's library. How many tears
+have I shed for these poor lovers but chiefly because I knew no Romeo so
+brave and noble and handsome to tempt me to die for him, or so devoted
+as to die for me. That was when I was a child of ten, my lord. I have
+learned since that such love exists only in novels, and have ceased to
+cry for it."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very cynical, sweet lady," he replied, "and unkind to the
+novelists, whom I hold in worshipful esteem."</p>
+
+<p>"And I also esteem them. It is precisely because the life they tell of
+is so different from my own, in which nothing ever happens, that a
+book-cover is for me a magic door by whose opening I escape out of the
+unendurable present. Even more than the novels do I love the plays, and
+to see them acted is better than to read them, best of all it must be to
+act in one. Ah! that would indeed be like living another life."</p>
+
+<p>"True, dear lady," he answered eagerly, "but there is a form of
+diversion which to my mind is the most fascinating of all, and that is
+the writing of a drama, for in so doing we create a little world of our
+own, and control the destinies of the men and women whom we bring into
+being."</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders. "But I care only to be the author of my own
+rôle."</p>
+
+<p>"And what," he asked, "would you choose that rôle to be?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would be a Princess beloved by the King of the greatest nation in the
+world. Beloved, mark you, not bargained for, but sought out personally
+by the King who should love me for myself alone, a manifestly impossible
+plot even for a play."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, 't is a good one. Let us collaborate now in the
+planning of such a scheme. Let us suppose that for political reasons the
+King could not come in his proper person, but having learned to love you
+from report, were to seek you out incognito. Let us also imagine him so
+happy as to win your love. Would you be capable of the devotion which
+you demand of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would I wed such a King whom I had learned to love, though in disguise?
+Most certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! dear lady, you wilfully disregard the point I make. Would you wed
+this true lover, not knowing that he was a King? Let me put it still
+more strongly. Would you give yourself to the <i>man</i> you loved knowing
+that he was not of royal birth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! that is a different question; but I answer yes, for I am certain
+that my intuitions are so true that I could never love a man who was not
+in every sense a King."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled indulgently. "So be it, we will write such a drama and show
+the world how true love pierces all disguise, and knowing its own,
+challenges all dangers."</p>
+
+<p>She listened eagerly, but she attributed an interpretation which he had
+not intended to his perfectly simple suggestion. Placing her own
+personality out of the question was impossible for one so absorbed in
+self as this egoistic young creature. If Henry of Navarre were but like
+his Ambassador how easy it would be to love him! and suddenly it flashed
+through her mind that they were indeed one and the same. What other
+signification could be placed upon this supposititious drama which they
+were to evolve together?</p>
+
+<p>Intrigue ran in her blood and distorted her perceptions. Transparent
+frankness was incomprehensible to her, and it appealed to her romantic
+imagination that the King of France should come like the hero of some
+wonder-tale disguised as his own envoy extraordinary to see and woo his
+princess.</p>
+
+<p>Had she confided this wild idea to the experienced Malespini or to her
+companion, the dwarf Leonora, whose shrewd intellect was out of all
+proportion to her stunted body, she might easily have been disabused of
+her error; but with an overweening confidence in the accuracy of her own
+judgment she determined to weigh every sentence uttered by the man who
+purported to be the Earl of Essex and draw her own conclusions as to his
+identity.</p>
+
+<p>To a mind preconvinced, proofs were not wanting. Brandilancia, fancying
+that the little fan had fallen from the hand of Marie de' Medici by
+accident, naively offered to return it. Her face clouded. "Then you do
+not care to keep my first gift?" she pouted.</p>
+
+<p>"Your gift? <i>May</i> I then keep it?" he asked delighted.</p>
+
+<p>"In exchange for the ring you wear," she replied, and he laid it in her
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>She examined with curiosity the device engraved upon the seal, a
+gauntleted hand holding a lance in rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Essex gave me that ring," he said thoughtlessly, for he was too excited
+to measure his own words. "I value it, not because I have a right to the
+arms it bears, but because he thought me a true knight errant eager for
+any enterprise of honour and gallantry."</p>
+
+<p>"Essex gave it. Then you are not Essex?" she asked smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"'T was but a slip of the tongue," he replied confusedly. "It was the
+King of France who presented it to me when I joined him with the English
+auxiliaries at the siege of Rouen. We were much in each other's company,
+not only in the main business of fighting, but in hawking and hunting in
+the neighbourhood. It was the enemy's country, and this gave zest to our
+escapades." He spoke rapidly but he could not distract her attention
+from his inadvertent admission.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she commented thoughtfully, "I have heard that you were friends
+and comrades in many a wild adventure. Tell me more of the King, since
+you of all others should know him best."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg268" id="ill_romv_pg268"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg268.png" width="600" height="386" alt="Neurdein
+
+Henri IV. receiving the portrait of Marie de Medici
+
+P. P. Rubens
+
+From the series of paintings ordered by her for the Palace of the
+Luxembourg" />
+<span class="caption">Neurdein<br />Henri IV. receiving the portrait of Marie de Medici<br />P. P. Rubens<br />From the series of paintings ordered by her for the Palace of the
+Luxembourg</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"I know, dear lady, that he loves you."</p>
+
+<p>"How can that be since he has never seen me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Love enters the heart through many strange portals, and Henry of
+Navarre knows you better than you suspect. Your portrait sent him by
+your uncle is engraved upon his heart. Love gives a mysterious power of
+second sight, and I doubt not that the King of France sees you at this
+moment even as I do, and that Marie de' Medici is for him as for me the
+embodiment of all womanly perfection."</p>
+
+<p>"The Grand Duchess is approaching," she said in a low voice, "and Henry
+of Navarre is a forbidden topic&mdash;talk of anything else&mdash;talk of art."</p>
+
+<p>The subject was apropos, for they were in the garden and Ferdinando's
+collection of masterpieces was all about them, but the Grand Duchess had
+caught his closing phrase.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it," she asked drily, "who has the honour of being the
+embodiment of the Earl of Essex's ideal of womanly perfection?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Medicean Venus," Brandilancia replied unhesitatingly, with a wave
+of the hand which took in that famous statue and also the lady at his
+side.</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duchess sniffed, she was silenced but not deceived, and she
+remained at her niece's side through the remainder of the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>As several guests joined them and discussed with great connoisseurship
+the merits of the sculpture Brandilancia's thoughts wandered to his
+host. "What manner of man was this Ferdinando de' Medici who had
+converted his garden pleasance into a museum?"</p>
+
+<p>Mentally reviewing what he had heard of the Grand Duke it seemed that
+all that was most admirable in the race must focus in its present
+representative. But Marie de' Medici had let fall a disquieting remark
+which pointed to another side to his character. "See, your grace," she
+had said to Brandilancia, "here is a favourite play of mine, <i>Il Moro di
+Venezia</i>, a sad tragedy but it stirs one's blood to read it. Perhaps it
+stirs mine because it is not long since tragedies like that have been
+enacted in my own family. Love and jealousy and revenge are a part of
+our heritage, and at times I long to come into my birthright, for such
+existence as I now lead is not life."</p>
+
+<p>This half-revelation so impressed Brandilancia that he could not expel
+it from his mind, and when next alone with the secretary, Malespini, he
+begged for an explanation.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me something," he begged, "of the character of the Grand Duke. I
+do not ask you to divulge private matters, but only such as are public
+property and with which I would be acquainted were I not so newly
+arrived in Italy."</p>
+
+<p>Malespini gave him a compassionate glance. "I thought that all the world
+knew that my master was a child of Satan," he replied coolly. "The
+Signorina told you truly. He caused the death of his two sisters-in-law,
+and was responsible for the murder of his own sister, goading her
+husband the Duke of Bracciano to the act. It is commonly reported also
+that the Signorina's father, the former Grand Duke of Tuscany, together
+with his wife, Bianca Capello, were poisoned by Ferdinando, though he
+made the act appear to be that of the murdered Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"And what," asked the horrified Brandilancia, "was the motive of this
+crime?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not apparent? Ferdinando de Medici, then a cardinal, had just
+failed in his candidacy for the pontificate (outwitted by that fox
+Montalto). If he could not be pope it suited him as well to be Grand
+Duke of Tuscany."</p>
+
+<p>"If this is true is the Signorina safe in his power?"</p>
+
+<p>"So long as their interests are the same, Signor. And you who are the
+friend of Henry of Navarre should know that the Grand Duke is anxious to
+place his niece upon the throne of France. Should she set her will
+against her uncle's ambition he would scruple at no perfidity or crime.
+You wonder why I, who am in his service, should tell you this. It is
+because I am strangely drawn to you. From the moment I saw that you
+appreciated what I had written, that we spoke the same language, strove
+after the same ideals, I was yours heart and soul. They talk of love at
+first sight, a foolish matter between man and woman, but when two men
+recognise that they are congenial spirits it is the most natural and
+inevitable thing in all the world. And so I tell you again, be on your
+guard for your personal safety. If, however unjustly, any distrust of
+you should be awakened in the mind of the Grand Duke, if he imagined
+that the Signorina had learned to care for you, then your life, and hers
+as well, would not be worth one soldo."</p>
+
+<p>This conversation occasioned the guest of the villa serious thought. It
+obtruded itself in the very tales of intrigue, passion, and murder which
+he read to drive it from his mind, those fascinating novelli with their
+records of bloody hereditary vendettas, of innocent or guilty lovers
+alike done to death by indiscriminating cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>"Truly," he thought, "in Italy a woman's kiss and that of a poniard go
+often in such close company that the sweet woman's mouth which lets love
+in almost touches the red mouth of the wound which lets life out."</p>
+
+<p>Though not so definitely explained, he had felt the presence of danger
+before; but so long as it threatened himself alone it added a spice of
+excitement to the adventure; now, however, that he realised what grave
+consequences the least indiscretion on his part might bring upon Marie
+de' Medici herself, he determined to be doubly circumspect.</p>
+
+<p>With this intention he held himself aloof from the superb mundane life
+of the villa, and, retiring to the library, occupied himself in
+translating and rearranging old plays. But all day as he wrote, though
+half unconsciously, his thoughts were with his fair hostess, and always
+at the hour of the siesta of the Grand Duchess Marie de' Medici was with
+him in person. It was on the second morning of his seclusion that she
+had tapped at the door and offered her aid in his work; thus converting
+the very means by which he sought to avoid her into a stratagem for the
+uninterrupted enjoyment of her society.</p>
+
+<p>Had Brandilancia been more sophisticated, it might have struck him as
+exceptional that a princess who been brought up in the strictest
+conventionality should have granted the privilege of such intimate
+association even to so exalted a personage as the Earl of Essex. He
+believed her confidence due to girlish innocence, and was more than ever
+determined to protect her from himself. Leonora was always on guard in
+the ante-room, and joined them whenever she heard the sound of
+approaching footsteps. It surprised this world-wise little sentinel that
+on none of these occasions had the young man appeared to have taken any
+advantage of his opportunity, and she was irritated by the amused
+condescension with which he treated her. He could never realise that
+this grotesque and tiny creature was not an uncanny child, and he had
+nicknamed her good-humouredly The Owlet, on account of her large round
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I had not thought the Earl of Essex so blind," she said to him one day
+when they chanced to be alone.</p>
+
+<p>"My eyes are not fashioned to see in the dark like yours, Owlet," he
+replied. "Tell me what it is you see."</p>
+
+<p>"Many things, but the plainest of all to me is that whoever you may be
+you are not the Earl of Essex."</p>
+
+<p>He was off his guard, and his expression confirmed her suspicions. She
+laughed maliciously, and her face, always sly and old beyond her years,
+was absolutely repulsive now as it reflected her gloating sense of her
+advantage.</p>
+
+<p>"Put your mind at rest, my lord," she said, mockingly. "Your secret is
+safe in my keeping. I do not know your aims, but if you will take me
+into your confidence you are sure of success. I am only dangerous when I
+am angered. Why should you not succeed? The Signorina is completely
+infatuated with you. If we make her believe that you have assumed the
+character of the Earl of Essex from love of her she will readily forgive
+you that deceit. Together we can accomplish anything and everything, for
+you have a winning way with women, and I have brains&mdash;yes, more than you
+give me credit for&mdash;and this doll-faced girl shall make our fortunes.
+When we have sucked the coffers of the Medici dry, take me with you to
+your own country, and I will be your faithful accomplice there also,
+for, misshapen and hideous as I am, I love you, my beautiful adventurer;
+yes, with a devotion of which my mistress is not capable, for she is
+vain and shallow and selfish. Oh, why did God give her the form of an
+angel and put my soul in the body of a demon?"</p>
+
+<p>Brandilancia, up to this point speechless with astonishment, had not
+been able to interrupt her, and the dwarf had climbed to the table,
+where, perched at his elbow, she had poured her confidences into his
+ear; but as she drew his face to hers with her small claw-like hands he
+forgot all considerations of policy in an unconquerable repulsion, and
+wrenched himself rudely from her.</p>
+
+<p>"Imp!" he exclaimed, "your soul matches your body. You are hideous
+through and through."</p>
+
+<p>The look which she gave him was full of malignity. "You shall live to
+learn that the good-will of a devil is better than her ill-will," she
+said, as she slipped from the table and left the room.</p>
+
+<p>Brandilancia's uneasy compunction which immediately followed his hasty
+exclamation was soon effaced by the dwarf's apparent forgiveness. "We
+were both indiscreet," she said to him the following day; "let us forget
+and be friends."</p>
+
+<p>But Leonora would not forget, and the young man had lost his
+opportunity of making her his friend.</p>
+
+<p>She immediately carried her doubts to her mistress. "The man is not the
+Earl of Essex," she asserted. "He is some base impostor, I know not
+whom, but I will make him declare himself ere long."</p>
+
+<p>Marie de' Medici was silent, but her thoughts were voluble. Since it had
+pleased her royal lover to come incognito she would betray him to no one
+nor even allow him to suspect that she had penetrated his disguise, but
+would flatter the King by feigning that she loved him for himself alone,
+and would exert every endeavour to make him sincerely her lover.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the injunction of the Grand Duchess, they often spoke of
+Henry of Navarre, and Brandilancia in the desire to forward the mission
+upon which he had been sent, told of Henry's unhappy wedded life,
+expressing with great frankness his own detestation of the craft and
+cruelty of Catherine de' Medici and the levity of her daughter
+Marguerite of Valois.</p>
+
+<p>"You forget," Marie de' Medici had replied, "that they are my
+kinswomen."</p>
+
+<p>"I forget many things in your presence which I should remember," he had
+replied. "Sometimes even that I, too, am a married man and, knowing you
+as I do, I can not blame the King of France that he is seeking, through
+divorce, freedom from a marriage into which he was half tricked, half
+forced, and that he is willing to risk salvation for the hope of your
+love."</p>
+
+<p>That answer pleased her well. She had no doubt now that he loved her,
+and did not hesitate to assure him in many covert ways that the feeling
+was reciprocated. Brandilancia would have been blind indeed not to have
+recognised her admiration, but he believed it merely appreciation of his
+genius, whereas her mind was too limited to comprehend it. She was in
+love with the possibility of being a queen upon such easy terms,
+delighted to find that the necessary husband was no uncouth tyrant but a
+man of winsome personality whose delicate assiduities were ever present
+and yet never over passed the restraints of deference.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been difficult for two persons to have more utterly
+misunderstood each other. Brandilancia had reached the full maturity of
+his mental powers. His genius had created many charming women, but the
+ideal for which his lonely heart yearned had only gradually taken shape
+in his mind, and the heroine which he now gave to literature marked an
+epoch in his career.</p>
+
+<p>He had found the plot of his drama sketched in part in one of the
+novelli of Ser Giovanni; but the conception of an aristocratic yet
+gracious lady gifted with all perfection, with which he replaced the
+siren of Belmont, was not, as he supposed, a portrait from life of Marie
+de' Medici. The character sprang directly from his own intense longing,
+and by some unreasoning reflex action, his mind endowed the woman who
+happened to be near him with qualities which he created and which she
+unhappily did not possess.</p>
+
+<p>The idol which he worshipped was absolutely the work of his own hands,
+for it was not until his imagination had cheated his eyes, and he had
+begun to look at Marie de' Medici through its flattering lenses that he
+thought her beautiful. And yet at the age of twenty she possessed very
+real attractions: a southern blond, not milky-veined, like the pale
+maidens of the north, but with all the gold of the hot sunshine in her
+hair, and the rich blood glowing through her fair skin like flame in an
+alabaster lamp. Superbly modelled, but lithe and tall, she carried
+regally the sumptuous opulence with which nature had endowed her, and
+the soft curve of her shoulders, throat, and bosom had not as yet
+blossomed into the plethora which Rubens depicted with so gloating a
+brush. Nor was she precisely the same as when Brandilancia had looked
+upon these charms unmoved. All arrogance and self-confidence were gone
+or lay buried under the most appealing of coquetry, a shy tenderness
+apparently born of irresistible impulse showing itself in little wilful
+sallies, a glance or touch, seemingly instantly regretted, and followed
+by alternations of reticence. He admitted her bewitching but had no idea
+that he was himself bewitched. His was a literary passion. He was a
+student of life as well as of books, and he had never before had the
+opportunity of studying such glorious examples of both at close range.</p>
+
+<p>He completed his portrait of his ideal heroine Portia, the noblest that
+he ever depicted, and found to his surprise that quite another type of
+woman was forming itself in his mind. Powerful outside influences
+mingled their impressions with the long-stifled hunger in his heart. He
+was not in love with his hostess, but he was starving for love, and each
+book that he read, every object of art that he looked upon, and nature
+itself was steeped with the charm and passion of Italy. If he tossed
+aside Boccaccio and his too suggestive <i>confrères</i> to seek refreshment
+in the garden it was only to find himself face to face with the famous
+statue of the most seductive of all women, she who made C&aelig;sar her slave
+and Antony her "floor-cloth."</p>
+
+<p>She obtruded herself upon him everywhere, for his very bed</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 10.5em;">was hanged</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With tapestry of silk and silver,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10.5em;">the story</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Proud Cleopatra when she met her Roman.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>He had read with Marie de' Medici the history of the Egyptian Queen, and
+had brooded over it until against his will something of the fascination
+of the "Serpent of Old Nile" invested his comrade, and the name of
+Antony ever after called up in her memory also the inspired face of her
+fellow-student in the dangerous science of love.</p>
+
+<p>Realising vaguely the influence which like some mephitic perfume, an
+opiate of the soul, emanated from the purely literary reconstruction of
+such a character, he laid it aside for the heart-breaking story of
+Giulietta, whose very innocence moved him still more profoundly.</p>
+
+<p>It was midsummer, the quivering July heat brought out the pungent scent
+of the freshly clipped box-hedges, and set the mad flood stirring as in
+the brief action of the play. During the day the white glare drove the
+guests of the garden festivals into the shadiest recesses of the cypress
+labyrinths. The flowers themselves seemed to have vanished from the
+parterres, or, like the Cereus, bloomed only at night, plainly visible
+under the luminous sky, when the nightingales vied with the viols of the
+serenaders.</p>
+
+<p>On such a night as this Brandilancia, who had been reading late, closed
+his book and, after the departure of the last reveller, stepped upon the
+terrace to cool his brain heated by inspiration. A kindred restlessness
+brought Marie de' Medici to her balcony and he recklessly sprang upon a
+marble bench which almost enabled him to touch her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, dearest lady," he said, "it is your favourite story, which I
+have re-written with my own heart's blood."</p>
+
+<p>Enthralled, though only half comprehending, Marie de' Medici listened as
+he poured forth in impassioned improvisation lines which from that day
+to this no one who has ever loved has heard untouched. The actor's
+training gave to the burning words of the poet artistic expression
+worthy of the most finished theatrical production, and as such they
+lacked not their due appreciation and applause though from a most
+undesired audience. A low chuckling and a clapping of hands greeted the
+close of the recital, and the two successful impersonators of Romeo and
+Juliet saw to their confusion that the scene had been witnessed by a
+burly man-at-arms, who now stalked from the shadow of a group of
+cypresses.</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo!" he cried, "da Groto himself did not act that play so well, when
+I saw him years since in the Farnese theatre at Parma. But you have
+taken liberties with the lines and, per Bacco! have improved them.
+Whoever you may be you are too good an actor for such paltry
+assistance."</p>
+
+<p>"And I know no one better qualified to pronounce upon a play than
+Captain Radicofani," replied Marie de' Medici, reappearing from the
+interior of her chamber whither she had retreated on the appearance of
+the intruder. "It is odd that you should have chanced so opportunely
+upon us as we were rehearsing our little comedy. My lord of Essex,
+permit me to present Captain Tuzio Radicofani, as brave a soldier as
+ever wielded sword, and one loyally attached to my uncle's service. What
+news do you bring from the Grand Duke, Captain? Will he soon return to
+us?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Earl of Essex?" the other repeated in surprise disregarding for
+the moment Marie de' Medici's questions. "It is rare indeed to find one
+of Fortune's favourites so variously talented. His Excellency the Grand
+Duke, though he enumerated both your physical and mental accomplishments
+with great particularity spoke not of play-acting."</p>
+
+<p>Brandilancia did not relish the shrewd look in the half-closed eyes, nor
+did he fancy the bullet-shaped close-cropped head with its overweight of
+occiput and bull-dog jaw, but he replied courteously, "such trifling
+diversion on the part of an idle man is surely less remarkable than its
+appreciation by one of action like yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"The Grand Duke would also have been surprised," the soldier continued,
+"could he have assisted at this little scene. Your highness does himself
+discredit in referring to the performance as trifling, for, by the
+Blood, I never saw so accomplished an actor. The Signorina's talent
+likewise astonished me, though it was confined to mere pantomime, one
+might have thought it the languishing of a love-sick girl. By your
+favour, Signorina, there are indeed certain letters in my saddle-bags
+which my groom has in charge, but the varlet has gone to his supper in
+the servants' hall. I, too, am hungry and will seek the steward. The
+letters, with your Highness's permission, shall be presented on the
+morrow, which indeed is almost here."</p>
+
+<p>They entered the villa together in apparent friendliness, but it was
+with a sense of impending evil that Brandilancia retired to his room.</p>
+
+<p>Was it simply that the man had interrupted them at a moment when in
+spite of Marie de' Medici's tactful greeting no audience was desired, or
+was there something sinister in his coming? The more Brandilancia
+reflected the less he liked the familiarity which amounted to an
+assumption of authority. Radicofani's voice had not rung true. "The
+fellow suspects me. Nay, he knows that I am not the Earl of Essex,"
+groaned the young man, as he tossed upon his bed; "and if his creature
+knows, then the Grand Duke knows also, and who can guess on what errand
+this villain comes? He pretended to believe that we were rehearsing a
+comedy, but he doubtless places the worst possible construction upon the
+scene which he has just witnessed. Was it a comedy, or am I in earnest?
+Ah! I have deliberately fallen into the trap against which Malespini
+warned me. I have lingered too long in this fool's paradise. Love and
+its penalty have stricken me in the same instant. Thank Heaven! no
+thought of this madness of mine can have entered the pure mind of my
+lady. Until this night I have breathed no word that could have betrayed
+it, and even now she doubtless thinks my ravings those of a poet. I will
+leave the villa to-morrow, lest my further presence here should bring
+trouble upon her."</p>
+
+<p>Even as he formed the resolution a slight sound caught his ear, the
+cautious opening and closing of the door which led from the ante-chamber
+of his bedroom into the outer hall, the only means of communication
+between his own room and other parts of the villa. A light shone between
+the folds of the portière, and there were sounds of some one moving
+about softly in the ante-room. Springing from his bed, Brandilancia
+seized his sword.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is there?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"'T is I, Radicofani," and the tapestries parted, disclosing the form of
+the Captain, towering beyond a camp-bed which had been spread across the
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"I should have informed your worship," he apologised smugly, "that I
+sleep here to-night. Put up your sword, and rest assured that no one
+shall pass this room without my license."</p>
+
+<p>"And could they give you no better lodging than that?" asked
+Brandilancia.</p>
+
+<p>"Room in plenty," the Captain replied, "but it is on the Grand Duke's
+orders that I act as your body-guard, and I enter upon my duties at
+once, for I am responsible for your safety."</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner inquired no further, but letting fall the portière, threw
+himself upon his bed confounded. His resolution to leave the villa had
+been made too late.</p>
+
+<p>But the morning brought a fresh access of hope, as Brandilancia noticed
+between the widely-drawn curtains that the obstructing truckle-bed had
+been set against the wall and that his guard had left his post.</p>
+
+<p>The dwarf Leonora, who was the only occupant of the dining hall when he
+descended, stole to his side and bade him await the Signorina in the
+belvedere in the upper garden.</p>
+
+<p>Here Marie de' Medici presently joined him.</p>
+
+<p>"My lord," she said, between her quick panting, for she was out of
+breath with running, "I shame to tell you, but you must leave us at
+once, indeed you should have done so long since."</p>
+
+<p>"It is what I had upon my mind to say to you, sweet lady," he replied.
+"I have an appointment to meet at Venice ten days hence, and must leave
+my papers for the Grand Duke and proceed upon my journey, much as it
+irks me to tear myself from your company."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you know not that my uncle has sent Radicofani to take you to
+Florence?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Grand Duke does me honour, and under other circumstances I would
+gladly accept his further hospitality; but his Highness will understand
+that Robert Devreux is not free to follow his own inclinations."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you are not free," she answered hastily. "Read this letter which
+Radicofani gave to my aunt this morning and which I purloined from her
+writing-cabinet. Nay, hesitate not but read, for it concerns you
+vitally." At her command he read:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>
+<i>To the Grand Duchess Christina de' Medici.</i></p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Most honoured and dear Spouse</span>:</p>
+
+<p>"Your letter informing me of the arrival at the villa of a person
+purporting to be the Earl of Essex has occasioned me great concern
+inasmuch as the fellow is undoubtedly an impostor.</p>
+
+<p>"His Eminence, Don Jerome Osorio, Bishop of Algarve, who arrived in
+this city some five days since, asserts positively that on the date
+upon which this rascal presented himself at the Villa Medici the
+Earl of Essex personally conducted the sack of the town of Faro in
+southern Portugal, and, having feloniously carried the bishop's
+library on board the English flag-ship, he forth-with set sail for
+the open ocean, evidently upon his return voyage for England.</p>
+
+<p>"Imagine, therefore, my anxiety on learning that you have given
+harbourage to some rascal, who having by base practises learned
+that the Earl had an errand with me, now usurps his name and
+credit. I send this letter by my trusty servitor, Radicofani, whom
+I have charged to bring the villain with all speed to me that I may
+examine him by the question and learn his motives in assuming this
+disguise. If he has brought with him any papers (some of which he
+may easily have stolen from the Earl of Essex) see to it that
+Radicofani obtains possession of them before the rascal's
+suspicions are aroused. I tremble when I think how he may have
+practised upon your unsuspicious nature, and what villainies he may
+already have accomplished, or rather I would thus tremble did I not
+know that you inherit the resolution of the race of Lorraine,
+which, even when a mistake has been committed, knows how to wring
+success from disaster. Confiding thus in your courage and your
+woman's wit, I remain,</p>
+
+<p class="r1">"Your loving husband,</p>
+<p class="r smcap">Ferdinando.</p>
+
+<p>"P.S. For the better furtherance of my desires confide my
+suspicions to no one not even to my niece, but take leave of this
+caitiff with all ceremony as though he were indeed him whom he
+represents."</p></div>
+
+<p>Brandilancia paled slightly, but not at the danger in which he stood.
+"The Grand Duke is correct in his suspicions," he said, "I have lied to
+you, I am not the Earl of Essex."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled enigmatically. "You have known it all along?" he exclaimed.
+"Then I am a poorer actor than I thought."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, you acted your part well, but early in our acquaintance I knew you
+for a nobler man than the Earl of Essex. I have no guess as to the
+station to which you may have been born, but you are fitted to play a
+knightly part, on a far different stage from this, my King among men."</p>
+
+<p>"And when I have won my crown," he replied, "the world shall know that
+it was your faith in me which nerved me to the effort, for I shall lay
+it at your feet, my Queen, the only woman who has ever really understood
+or cared for me." His arms were about her and she was sobbing in the
+excitement of her triumph. "Yes, yes," she cried, "you will come again,
+but now you must fly. What am I that I should hold you thus when you
+stand in danger of your life?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have no fear for me dear lady," he replied. "The Grand Duke is
+fair-minded, and will not fail to credit my assertions when I explain
+why I undertook this adventure."</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle believes nothing without absolute proof. Such chivalrous
+motives as yours would seem to him incredible. If you fail to convince
+him of your identity he will execute you as a common rogue. If you prove
+it he will use every inch of his advantage ere you escape his clutches.
+You must fly, but how? On learning an hour since, that Radicofani had
+descended to the city, I ordered our horses for a ride only to learn
+that he had left strict orders at the stables and at the gates of the
+villa that you were not to be allowed to leave the grounds. My friend,
+you are a close prisoner. Think fast. What can you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, dear lady, but trust that since I have committed no crime I
+shall not receive the treatment of a criminal."</p>
+
+<p>"What loss of time is this?" exclaimed Leonora as she suddenly made her
+appearance from behind the hedge. "Here I have stood on guard for half
+an hour by the sun-dial and you have wasted it in idle chatter. I tell
+you, Signor, my mistress is right, you are as good as a dead man if you
+trust to the Grand Duke; but take the advice of the Owlet and we will
+foil him nicely."</p>
+
+<p>For an instant a suspicion flashed across his mind that her apparent
+friendliness was untrustworthy. It was she, he suspected, who had
+ushered Radicofani into the garden on the previous evening, or at least
+had failed to give warning of his approach. But he dismissed these
+thoughts as unworthy.</p>
+
+<p>"What expedient do you suggest Leonora?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not recognise that contadina," the dwarf replied, "the one
+standing between the fountain and the parapet yonder? She is a friend of
+yours and will help me save you."</p>
+
+<p>"A friend of mine!" Brandilancia repeated wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>Leonora laughed maliciously. "Have you forgotten possessing yourself of
+a little fan which my mistress dropped, quite by accident, from a window
+on the day of your arrival, and that you were assisted in finding it by
+the laundress of the villa? The artful jade has a better memory. She
+does not fail to remind me of the incident and to inquire for you
+whenever she calls for the linen. I have been obliged to stop her mouth
+with more than one coin to keep her from blabbing to the Grand Duchess.
+However that incident proves to have been all for the best. Her cart is
+at the kitchen door, she is waiting there at my orders. Summon her to
+your room, purchase and don the costume which she now wears. With her
+kerchief shading your face no one will recognise you, and you will drive
+away in triumph throned upon her hampers, until well beyond the city
+when you can turn the donkey loose and catch the Venetian post."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg292" id="ill_romv_pg292"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg292.png" width="600" height="445" alt="View from the Garden of the Villa Medici" />
+<span class="caption">View from the Garden of the Villa Medici</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>His laugh rang out boyishly. "The adventure of Bucciolo, which I read to
+the Signorina, from the tales of Ser Giovanni suggested that expedient,"
+he said. "It were a good motive for a roaring farce, but I must consider
+the dignity of the name I bear."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay speak it not," entreated Marie de' Medici in a whisper, throwing
+her arms about his neck. "I heard a step upon the gravel."</p>
+
+<p>He regarded her wonderingly, "Let who will hear," he persisted. "It
+shall never be said that the Earl of Essex slunk from danger in a
+wench's petticoats."</p>
+
+<p>"Well spoken, I like you the better for that," laughed a loud voice, and
+Captain Radicofani parting the shrubbery suddenly appeared,
+interrupting, for the second time, their confidences. "How
+unsuspectingly you children fell into my trap," he sneered. "I knew that
+the Signorina would warn you. You were acting a tableau I presume just
+now as you held her in your embrace. A pretty scene, i' faith, but one
+of which the Grand Duke will not be amused to hear. I had hoped to learn
+still more of the libretto of this little play, but you know more of
+mine. We will make no further pretence, and lest I lose you by further
+shilly-shallying, we will start upon our journey at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Until we are well upon our way, Signorina, may I beg you, and Leonora
+also, to remain in your own suite of apartments and to attempt to hold
+no communication with this gentleman?"</p>
+
+<p>Marie de' Medici bowed haughtily. "I shall employ the time in writing my
+uncle how unwarrantably Captain Radicofani exceeds his orders," she
+replied as she swept angrily from the belvedere.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that the indignation of her mistress merely amused the
+condottiere the dwarf took a cajoling tone. "At least your highness will
+remain to luncheon," she said insinuatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"That invitation I am powerless to refuse," replied the Captain, "but
+you may order it served in this gentleman's chamber, whither I will now
+conduct him."</p>
+
+<p>With a disconcerting chuckle Radicofani suited his action to the word,
+and busied himself with preparations for the journey, taking care,
+however, as he strode from ante-room to bed-chamber to keep his prisoner
+constantly in sight. The latter's hope of escape had reached a low ebb
+when Malespini knocked timidly. He had brought certain papers which the
+Signor had left in the library. Captain Radicofani received the
+secretary distrustfully and bestowed the papers among his own effects.
+"I will look them over," he commented, "and if innocent pass them on to
+our friend before we arrive in Florence."</p>
+
+<p>Malespini retreated deferentially, but, once outside the door he
+executed a silent war-dance as an outlet for his rage. In its eccentric
+evolutions he hurtled against a servant bringing the luncheon, and fully
+half of the viands poured like an avalanche down the stairs. While the
+man strove to gather up the broken crockery the secretary snatched the
+tray and with ill-concealed triumph re-entered the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this all you have brought?" grumbled the disappointed Captain.</p>
+
+<p>"Truly," replied the wily Malespini, "this light collation was intended
+solely for his highness the Earl of Essex, who I hear must keep his
+room. For your lordship dinner awaits in the banquet-room, where the
+Grand Duchess has ordered a boar's-head, stuffed with sage and onions,
+together with a pasty of pheasants, and where she will serve you with
+her own hands a stirrup-cup of the Grand Duke's oldest vintage."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Radicofani sprang up with alacrity, but noticing that Malespini
+was edging nearer to his friend, ordered the secretary gruffly to pass
+out before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Behind the bed," said Malespini in a low voice to the prisoner, as he
+lighted one of the tapers in the mantel candelabra, "and take all of
+these candles, <i>all</i> or you are lost."</p>
+
+<p>"Idiot," shouted the Captain; "it is not yet noon. What need of lights?
+Play me no tricks, but leave the room."</p>
+
+<p>Springing from his chair as soon as the door had closed behind
+Radicofani, Brandilancia examined the huge state-bedstead, and with a
+little exertion trundled it forward. Behind its tapestry hangings a
+secret door, suspected only by a crack in the wainscotting, opened
+beneath his prying fingers, and revealed a spiral staircase leading
+downward into pitchy darkness. Comprehending Malespini's admonition, he
+hastily appropriated the candles, and, drawing the bedstead into its
+place behind him, descended the dizzily circling steps. Eighty-seven he
+counted, twisting round and round within the turret, and then he paused,
+for he distinctly heard the sound of rushing water. The air had become
+moist as well as cool, and the steps were green and slippery with moss.
+Advancing with more caution, he presently found himself in a vaulted
+passage a little higher than his head, where a narrow pathway followed a
+conduit of dark water, which reflected the flame of his candle in a
+thousand glancing sparkles.</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">II</p>
+
+<p class="c smcap">in which it is demonstrated that it is sometimes<br />easier to set out upon
+a quest than to<br />return therefrom</p>
+
+<p>It was the Aqua Virgo, the old subterranean aqueduct built by the
+Emperor Claudius, that pierced the hill beneath the Villa Medici, in
+which Brandilancia now found himself. If he turned to the left he knew
+he would soon find egress through the doorway to which the chance
+fluttering of Marie de' Medici's fan had led him. But this would be to
+appear upon the streets of Rome in open day, and to run the risk of
+seizure by Radicofani's guards. Moreover, Malespini's advice to provide
+himself with so many candles was significant, and Brandilancia
+unhesitatingly chose the longer way, not doubting that it would finally
+lead him into the open country.</p>
+
+<p>The stream at his side was of considerable volume and flowed with great
+swiftness, while the shelf upon which he was advancing was hardly more
+than ten inches broad. Both it and the wall were slimy with dampness,
+giving no secure hold to hand or foot. The pathway mounted steadily, and
+apparently pursued a straight course, but no opening showed itself in
+the distance, and the light of his taper penetrated but a little way
+into the blackness. As he glanced backward his shadow loomed in a
+gigantic and almost unrecognisable form, following him waveringly like a
+malevolent spirit. His footsteps woke hollow reverberations; the water
+gurgled and sobbed, and an odor suggestive of the tomb added to the
+impression that he was wandering in some unexplored catacomb. He could
+proceed but slowly, and the low temperature chilled him to the bone, but
+he pushed on resolutely as it seemed to him for interminable hours. "I
+shall go mad," he thought, "if there is no change in this deadly
+monotony," and at that instant the vault echoed with the beat of
+hurrying footsteps.</p>
+
+<p>Brandilancia could see the distant flare of torches, and he knew that
+his candle was as plainly visible to his pursuers. He dared not
+extinguish it, but quickened his pace to a run, slipping, almost falling
+into the water as he dashed recklessly forward. Suddenly, but not an
+instant too soon, he halted before a void. The pathway had disappeared;
+another step and he would have plunged into a reservoir of unknown depth
+which yawned without a barrier before him.</p>
+
+<p>As he lifted his candle and peered across the wide expanse he saw that
+the tunnel was closed directly opposite him by a wall of solid masonry,
+and in his dismay almost a minute elapsed before he discovered to the
+left an open archway which indicated that the tunnel here turned at an
+angle. But how should he cross to this doorway? The coping which
+separated the cistern from the canal in the centre of the tunnel was too
+narrow and the water poured over it noisily. He was about to attempt
+swimming when he noticed that he was standing upon a plank, evidently
+placed here to be used as a bridge. He retreated a few steps and pushed
+it cautiously forward. It reached across the cistern and rested upon the
+sill of the arched doorway.</p>
+
+<p>In the brief interval thus consumed the footsteps had gained upon him
+and in the light of the approaching torches he plainly recognised
+Radicofani, who shouted to him to surrender. Thus beset he ventured the
+crossing, but the plank was rotten and broke under his weight, falling
+with him into the reservoir. He struck out in the direction in which he
+imagined the archway to be, by good fortune found it by feeling along
+the wall, and clambered upon the ledge which ran along the side of the
+conduit as in the first tunnel.</p>
+
+<p>He had suffered no other harm than the thorough wetting and the loss of
+his candles, and the torches of his pursuers, who had now reached the
+opposite side of the cistern, showed that the tunnel was slightly wider
+than its opening, and that by hugging the wall he was not visible to
+Radicofani. The latter had heard the splash and regarded the water
+dubiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you gone to the bottom?" he shouted, but Brandilancia was wisely
+silent. "If not," cried the Captain, "and you are hiding yonder within
+hearing, let me tell you that you will die like a rat in a sewer unless
+you give yourself up at the entrance to that tunnel, where you will find
+me waiting for you."</p>
+
+<p>Drenched to the skin Brandilancia's teeth chattered with the physical
+cold, and fear numbed his heart. "What if Radicofani spoke the truth?"</p>
+
+<p>But to carry out his threat the Captain must retrace his steps and ride
+to the spot where the aqueduct entered the hill. How far he had
+proceeded Brandilancia could not guess, possibly half or three-fourths
+of the way. If so there was hope of reaching the opening before
+Radicofani, and he hurried on with what speed he could consistent with
+groping his way with hands and feet in the total darkness. The exertion
+stirred his blood but the tunnel seemed to have no end. His hands were
+worn and bleeding with clinging to the rough wall, and a great lassitude
+was stealing over him when he caught a faint glimmer of light like that
+of a star, not the lurid glow of a candle or torch but the blessed white
+light of day. It was the longed-for opening, though still far away. He
+thought that he had out-distanced Radicofani and stumbled on, exultation
+giving him new strength when a sudden eclipse of this star of hope made
+him crouch motionless, grovelling close to the earth. A man's head and
+shoulders were silhouetted blackly against the brightness. The man
+peered cautiously into the tunnel, and listened; but neither hearing nor
+seeing anything, presently withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>Was it Radicofani? Were workmen preparing to wall up the exit? Ought he
+to make a sudden rush for life and liberty?</p>
+
+<p>Every instinct prompted him to this resolution, and he crawled
+cautiously forward to within a few feet of the opening. Again the man
+appeared, with a sudden bound Brandilancia was upon him and both rolled
+in a life-and-death struggle upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p>So dazed was he by the glare of the full light of day, so nearly crazed
+with desperation that he did not recognise the voice that implored him
+to cease his blows, or realise that his supposed antagonist was the
+friendly Malespini, who, on the instant that Radicofani had discovered
+and descended the secret staircase, had slipped his guards and ridden to
+Brandilancia's succour on the swiftest horse obtainable in Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Hastily exchanging his own mire-besmirched garments for the secretary's
+unobtrusive suit, Brandilancia, with many apologies for his onslaught,
+listened to Malespini's explanations of a circuitous route by which he
+could avoid Radicofani, ride to Orte, and, leaving the horse at the inn
+stables, take the diligence on the following day for Venice. Malespini's
+suggestions, acceptable in themselves, were gratifyingly supplemented by
+a tender letter from Marie de' Medici and a purse well filled with gold.</p>
+
+<p>"Of the money I have fortunately no need," Brandilancia replied, "but
+the care of your mistress for my safety and your own pains in my behalf
+command my eternal gratitude. You shall both hear from me from Venice,
+and so farewell."</p>
+
+<p>Malespini's scheme seemed at first likely to be crowned with success,
+and having secured his seat in the Venetian post, Brandilancia naturally
+imagined his troubles at an end; but shortly after leaving Orte, where
+the road turns to the eastward for its climb over the Apennines, the
+lumbering vehicle came to a sudden halt. Shouts and oaths without, the
+shrieks of a woman at his side, and the opening of the door by a masked
+man, formidably armed, sufficiently explained the situation.</p>
+
+<p>The passengers on dismounting were relieved of their purses by the
+bandits, but, with the exception of Brandilancia, were allowed to
+proceed upon their journey. No explanation was offered for this
+discrimination, but there was something familiar in the figure of the
+leader, who, after pointing out Brandilancia, had ridden rapidly on in
+advance of his men, and the captive wondered at the excellent
+accoutrements of the band and the good quality of the horse which he was
+compelled to mount.</p>
+
+<p>They struck at once into a wild mountain gorge, avoiding villages and
+farms, and when at noon the brigands halted for refreshments in a
+little wood, and removed their masks, Brandilancia recognised no
+familiar faces.</p>
+
+<p>Remounting, the brigands pursued their way up a steep bridle path, their
+destination a strong castle, perched high on a spur of the mountain. The
+prisoner's heart sank as he noted its isolation and strength, for here a
+captive might remain for years and finally die undiscovered.</p>
+
+<p>But Brandilancia had not reckoned on the cupidity of his host. His
+capture had been planned not by hatred, but in the hope of ransom, as
+was explained to him by the brigand chief, into whose presence he was
+led upon his arrival at the stronghold.</p>
+
+<p>The man still wore his mask, but at the first word which he uttered
+Brandilancia to his astonishment recognised the condottiere Radicofani.
+Accosted by name, the Captain removed his mask, and coolly confronted
+his prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"It is as well," he said, "that you should understand the situation.
+Your flight and apparent escape remove my accountability to the Grand
+Duke for your person. I should not have troubled myself further about
+you, were it not that upon my empty-handed return to the villa the
+Signorina Marie de' Medici very indiscreetly taunted me with having
+allowed a far more important personage than the Earl of Essex to slip
+unrecognised through my fingers. Just who you are she did not see fit to
+divulge; but I gathered that you are of sufficient consequence for your
+friends to be willing to pay handsomely for your release. You may
+therefore write to them, and I will see that your letters reach their
+destination on condition that you advise the fulfilment of my demands."</p>
+
+<p>"The Signorina has unwittingly misled you," Brandilancia replied. "The
+Grand Duke was right in his belief that the Earl of Essex had sailed for
+England, but though I am his accredited representative, as I hope to
+prove to your master if you will convey me to him, I am a man of no
+wealth and one whom the world will not miss."</p>
+
+<p>"Tush! my fine fellow; it is useless to attempt to deceive me, and it is
+against your own interest; for you can make better terms with me than
+with the Grand Duke, who is by far a greater brigand than your present
+host."</p>
+
+<p>Thus admonished Brandilancia resigned himself to the inevitable, and
+wrote two letters; the first to the Earl of Essex, expressing his regret
+that he had not been able to personally present to Ferdinando de'
+Medici the papers entrusted to him instead of sending them by the hand
+of Radicofani. While reporting his captive condition, he begged his
+friend to be at no expense or trouble for his redemption, beyond an
+explanation to the Grand Duke that he had undertaken the mission upon
+proper authority and should be allowed to return.</p>
+
+<p>Having dashed off this missive at fever heat Brandilancia paused, pen in
+hand, moodily regarding the blank sheet before him until gruffly
+reminded by Radicofani that he must either write or give over the
+attempt.</p>
+
+<p>He started at the command, for in imagination he had been far away in a
+thatch-roofed cottage behind hawthorne hedges, where Anne, faithful
+Anne, had so often welcomed her wild lover. Their wills had clashed
+after their marriage. She had objected unreasonably when his career led
+him to London, had been sceptical as to his success, and even, so it
+seemed to him, as to his genius. There had been angry reproaches and
+bitter recriminations, but at heart he had never doubted her affection
+and had always intended to convince her of his own when he could also
+prove that in following the call of his talent he had acted for her best
+interest. His stay at the Villa Medici and its very hostess seemed to
+him now a hallucination whose passing left no trace upon his sober
+senses, but could Anne understand this? If she believed him erring was
+the high-spirited wife capable of forgiveness? He saw himself condemned
+and shame-stricken before the tribunal of her unswerving rectitude but
+none the less he ventured his plea in lines that had been forming
+themselves, as always when he was under the stress of emotion, with the
+clarity and perfection of a crystal born from the drip and ooze of some
+dark cavern.</p>
+
+<p>It is of all his sonnets the one which rings most true, ending with its
+appeal for reconciliation after long estrangement.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 13em;">"Your heart</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My home of love; if I have ranged,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Like him that travels, I return again!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>He was not certain that he would be permitted to rejoin her, but he
+would not sadden Anne by his foreboding. His heart had returned to its
+allegiance; this was the important thing, and this she should know.</p>
+
+<p>"I leave you now," said Radicofani as Brandilancia handed him the
+letters, "for I must make speed to wait upon the Grand Duke at Florence.
+Regard yourself as my guest rather than as a prisoner. I leave only a
+few old servants charged to make you as comfortable as the ruinous
+condition of this old castle of my ancestors will permit. The length of
+your stay is conditioned only upon the promptitude of your friends in
+complying with my conditions. I see that your letters are written in
+English. No matter, I have no desire to pry into your private affairs
+and shall send them by the earliest opportunity."</p>
+
+<p>Brandilancia bowed ceremoniously, but sank exhausted into his chair. He
+was shivering in a violent chill, the first stages of Roman fever,
+brought on by his experiences in the subterranean aqueduct. For weeks he
+tossed upon his pallet alternately freezing and burning, much of the
+time delirious&mdash;now wandering with Anne through English meadows with
+"daisies pied" and "babbling of green fields"&mdash;and anon scorching the
+wings of his soul in the flame of Italian beauty and passion.</p>
+
+<p>With the passing of the fever he eagerly demanded an interview with
+Radicofani but was informed that the Captain was still at Florence. He
+had written that no response of any kind had been received from either
+of the letters sent to England, though ample time had elapsed for their
+arrival. Brandilancia was not, however, to be set at liberty on this
+account, and days lengthened to weeks and weeks to months and he was
+still a prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>The lofty situation of the castle far above the malaria of the valleys,
+swept by every wind of heaven, had completed his cure, and as he paced
+the sightly platform he found himself hungering for liberty and action.
+In this reflux of returning health and energy, on one exhilarating
+morning in early spring, when all nature seemed calling to him to
+escape, Brandilancia hailed with gratitude the arrival of the secretary
+Malespini bringing the almost despaired of tidings that his prison doors
+were open and he was at last free to depart.</p>
+
+<p>"The Grand Duke has commanded this," Brandilancia asked, "through the
+intervention of my faithful friend the Earl of Essex?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so," Malespini responded drily. "You may thank friends nearer at
+hand, for the Grand Duke knows as little of your existence as your
+English friends apparently care for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is the Signorina who has effected my deliverance?"</p>
+
+<p>Malespini shook his head. "The Signorina believes, as we all did until
+recently, that you made your escape to your own country. She is entirely
+absorbed at present with her approaching marriage, for your embassy was
+successful. Your papers, which Radicofani carried to the Grand Duke,
+initiated negotiations that have been carried to a successful
+termination. The Duke of Nevers, who is a Gonzaga, and a cousin of the
+Marquis of Mantua has come to Italy, as proxy of the French king, to
+betroth the Signorina."</p>
+
+<p>"May she have all happiness," Brandilancia exclaimed fervently, "but to
+whom then do I owe my release?"</p>
+
+<p>"Partly to the friend now before you, but in great measure also to one
+whom you will hardly guess, that little package of ruse and malice
+Leonora Dosi."</p>
+
+<p>"Not the Owlet!"</p>
+
+<p>"My friend you might have rotted in this mountain dungeon but for her
+cleverness, and Radicofani's stupidity. The Grand Duke sent him a
+fortnight since to escort us all from the Villa Medici to Mantua, where
+the Marchioness Eleonora de' Medici Gonzaga is preparing a brilliant
+fête in honour of her sister's approaching marriage. On the way
+Radicofani, who is loquacious in his cups, bragged to Leonora of how
+neatly he had captured you. The Owlet took counsel with me, and together
+we so intimidated the Captain with threats to report him to the Grand
+Duke, convincing him at the same time of your utter insignificance (for
+Leonora declares that you confessed to her mistress in her presence that
+you were not the Earl of Essex), that he consented to your release.</p>
+
+<p>"By good luck I am commissioned to present a comedy in the palace and am
+now supposed to be travelling in search of artists to assist in the
+performance. You shall return with me in that capacity. Though the
+Signorina knows not as yet of your presence in Italy she will be
+rejoiced to see you again and will speed you on your homeward
+journey,&mdash;for Mantua is on your way to Venice whence you told me you
+would take ship."</p>
+
+<p>"I would be overjoyed to carry out your plan, my good friend," replied
+Brandilancia, "but shall I be safe? I have found such difficulty in
+tearing myself away from the hospitalities of Italy that I am wary of
+accepting further entertainment."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder not at your reluctance, but with the Gonzagas at Mantua you
+will be beyond the power of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who though he is
+indeed expected to attend the festivities, will never suspect that you
+played another rôle at his Roman villa. The play is to be acted in part
+by noble amateurs, and the Signorina herself will take the principal
+part. It is the comedy which you dramatised from Ser Giovanni's story of
+the heiress of Belmont, for nothing else would suit the Signorina. You
+shall impersonate the successful lover. There have been many aspirants
+for that rôle but I have held it for you. Can you resist my lord?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Malespini, I cannot resist, for I am indeed what you would have me
+seem, a simple player. I will go with you since you need my service, and
+will bid your mistress and the Owlet also a grateful farewell."</p>
+
+<p>Thus, though he had thought never again to see the woman who had so
+powerfully influenced his imagination and because he honestly believed
+her influence at an end, Brandilancia ventured himself again within its
+domain.</p>
+
+<p>Tranquil, lily-starred lakes, blue as the heavens they mirror, lapped
+with caressing ripples the foundations of the immense Gonzaga palace and
+gave it the same enchanting environment on the morning of his arrival as
+to-day. Its rosy walls glowed in the morning light like a cluster of
+pink lotus-blossoms, while, a little apart from the main group of
+buildings, a slender tower shot into the air, and suspended from its
+summit, like some bell-shaped flower which droops its head, an iron
+cage was sharply etched against the glowing sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a beacon?" asked Brandilancia. "If so, though unlighted, I
+accept it as a good omen, as it were a signal hung out for my welcome."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven forfend that it should have aught to do with you, my lord, or
+you with it," replied Malespini. "The flame of many a poor fellow's life
+has gone out in that sinister cresset; but think not of it, for my lady
+awaits you within the palace. You are to learn how the Medici love, not
+how they hate."</p>
+
+<p>Through interminable apartments regal with paintings and statues,
+collected earlier in the century by Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, the
+secretary led Brandilancia to the small writing-room of the Marchesa.</p>
+
+<p>Marie de' Medici was standing alone at the window gazing at the
+darkening lake. She turned as he entered, and her cry, "At last you have
+returned, at last, O my beloved!" broken by sobs and wild caresses, made
+good Malespini's promise.</p>
+
+<p>She believed that the King of France, instead of sending the promised
+proxy, had himself returned to betroth her at the approaching festival,
+when he would doubtless declare himself publicly. Since it pleased him,
+to make further proof of her affection, she accepted his confession that
+he was only a poor comedian with apparent faith and with protestations
+of unshaken love. She told him of the despair with which she faced her
+brilliant future, of the loathing which overcame her at the thought of
+any husband but himself; and she begged him to rescue her from so
+hideous a fate.</p>
+
+<p>How could he brutally tell so adorable a creature that the burning
+words, which he had spoken on the night before his flight from the Villa
+Medici, were but a poetic rhapsody, inspired by a frenzy which had
+passed with the glamour that evoked it? He strove instead to recall her
+to a sense of her own position, and he urged every consideration of
+honour and of interest, apparently with some success; for she became
+calmer, and promised to do whatever he desired, if he would but remain
+and sustain her through the ordeal of her betrothal.</p>
+
+<p>He believed himself abandoned by the woman whom he had loved, but his
+heart was cold. He told himself that he would live henceforth without
+love, but would endeavour in purest friendship to save this woman who
+leaned on him for strength from making shipwreck of her life. They met
+constantly in the intimacy of rehearsals, and as these proceeded
+personal sentiments were occasionally introduced into the lines.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg314" id="ill_romv_pg314"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg314.png" width="600" height="413"
+alt="image not available" />
+<span class="caption">Choosing the Casket<br />
+From the painting by F. Barth. Permission of the
+Berlin Photographic Co.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Ah, me! this word choose," Marie de' Medici exclaimed on one occasion.
+"I may neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike. So is the
+will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father."</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of the final presentation of the play she startled
+Brandilancia by laying her hand in his as she interpolated the
+declaration: "My spirit commits itself to yours to be directed, as by
+her lord, her governor, and king."</p>
+
+<p>The play ended, she led him to a portico overlooking the lake.</p>
+
+<p>"I have only a moment," she said, "while I am supposed to be dressing
+for the dance which follows. You doubtless recognised in the small dark
+man seated at my uncle's side the Duke of Nevers, and you have probably
+informed him of your presence here; but my uncle little suspects that we
+have anticipated their negotiation. Now surely is the proper time to
+announce yourself. Wait in the ante-room of the Marquis, it adjoins the
+library, and after the Grand Duke has set his signature to the
+settlement, and the Duke of Nevers is about to sign for the King of
+France, enter, take the pen from his hand, and sign for yourself. If you
+wish I will accompany you, and we will confess that we are already
+affianced. Why do you hesitate? Surely this is now the only thing to
+do."</p>
+
+<p>He gazed at her in uncomprehending astonishment. "Nay, dearest lady," he
+protested, "put this wild fancy from your mind. Your uncle would never
+accept me as your suitor; you would gain only dishonour by such a
+course. Bid me farewell, and forget me in the glory of your new life;
+and God help us both."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I can not, I can not give you up," she cried passionately her arms
+about his neck, "you have made me love you. I shall die if you leave
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"If this is true," he stammered, "if by some miracle you do indeed love
+me beyond all earthly considerations, and your heart is great enough to
+sacrifice all for the devotion of a heart that will at least be loyal,
+then fly with me from this world of shame and cruelty, to some paradise
+beyond the power of all who know us."</p>
+
+<p>"Fly," she repeated in bewilderment, "and leave your kingdom, your
+crown?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! what is fame, what is honour," he cried, "to love like yours?
+Listen, it is perfectly feasible. When I parted with my friends at Cadiz
+Essex told me he would return with the fleet as soon as he could refit,
+and cruise about the Azores, hoping to intercept the Spanish
+treasure-fleet. He should be there at this time, and Raleigh with him.
+But Raleigh purposed after aiding his friend in his enterprise to
+continue his voyage to the new world, where he has planted a colony. In
+Venice we can take passage with some merchant-man and join Raleigh at
+Flores. Come with me, my Queen to the new world, where we will found a
+new dynasty, for I can wait for my kingdom. I can write my plays and my
+poems there, in some lodge in the forest, and years hence, when cities
+have sprung up in that wilderness great actors will give them
+presentation before men who can appreciate them, who will honour our
+memory and glory that we were Americans."</p>
+
+<p>She regarded him with eyes widening with alarm. "Surely you are mad,"
+she said, "to throw away the Crown of France for which you have fought
+so bravely."</p>
+
+<p>"The crown of bay and laurel for which I am fighting has no root in
+France, sweetheart, but in English soil," he replied wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" she cried, "then you are not&mdash;not Henry of Navarre?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, how could that be possible? I am, as I long since told you, only a
+simple English playwright who, much against his will, came hither on the
+business of his friend the Earl of Essex. If you love me not I would to
+God that I had never so come, since, by some strange delusion, I have
+troubled your pure heart and have brought upon myself grief, and
+dishonour.</p>
+
+<p>"But forgive me, sweet lady, this madness shall be as though it had not
+been, soon forgotten by you and safely hidden in the deepest chamber of
+my heart."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment she gazed at him astounded, for her mind refused to credit
+the truth. In despite of his words she believed that he was putting her
+disinterestedness to a supreme test which she must not fail. She clung
+to him convulsively. "I love you, you alone," she declared, "and I will
+go to El Dorado. I will meet you to-morrow at this hour at the
+water-gate of the palace. I will come in the Gonzaga barge, and we will
+flee together to Venice, and thence whither you will."</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke the door leading into the palace was flung open, and the
+Grand Duke followed by courtiers and ladies came toward them.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! here are our actors," he exclaimed, "bring the laurel crowns. This
+for my niece and this for the gifted artist who has honoured our
+festival. Come forward Brandilancia and receive the token of our
+appreciation." But as the wreath was presented the Grand Duchess caught
+her husband's arm, exclaiming: "Ferdinando, this is the false Earl of
+Essex who deceived us all in Rome. Ask Radicofani, ask your niece, she
+cannot have failed to recognise him."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, ask the French envoy," replied Marie de' Medici, "his Highness the
+Duke of Nevers will tell you whom we have the honour to entertain as our
+guest."</p>
+
+<p>"I, Mademoiselle," exclaimed the representative of the French King,
+"truly, I have never before looked upon his face."</p>
+
+<p>"Declare yourself Sire, I beseech of you," Marie de' Medici implored,
+and Brandilancia answered calmly:</p>
+
+<p>"I am the authorised representative of the Earl of Essex. Brandilancia
+is the Italian equivalent of my name, which in English is plain Will
+Shakespeare. That I am an actor and playwright you have graciously
+conceded, and that is the only distinction which I have ever claimed."</p>
+
+<p>His words carried overwhelming conviction to the brain of the deluded
+girl, and she sank fainting into the arms of the man whom she had so
+misunderstood and who was still far from comprehending the cause of her
+emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave my niece to the care of her women," the Grand Duke commanded
+sternly. "Radicofani, is this indeed the rogue who slipped from your
+clutches?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is, my lord," replied that worthy, as he grasped the actor's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Then consign him to the hospitalities of our sky-parlour. In the cage
+suspended from that tower, young man, you may await my investigation of
+your case."</p>
+
+<p>From his lofty outlook in the iron cage, dizzily suspended between earth
+and heaven, our adventurer obtained a new and wider view. The palace and
+its life dwindled to a speck. Far away to the north he could discern the
+white summits of the mountains that cradle the blue lake of Garda, while
+at his feet the Mincio flowed peacefully toward the Adriatic, where a
+good ship (on which, but for his folly in pausing at Mantua, he might on
+the morrow be voyaging homeward) was impatiently tugging at her
+moorings. Fool that he was, he had made his bed and must lie on it. It
+was a very uncomfortable bed at the present moment, for he could
+neither stretch himself at full length nor stand erect, but sat with his
+hands clasping his knees and his head bowed upon them. How long must he
+retain this cramped position? Malespini's words came to him with
+sinister emphasis. Would he be left here until starvation released him
+from agony and his bones bleached in the sun? The Angelus chimed from
+the belfries, the only structures which reached his plane, and gave him
+a sense of human companionship, but the tones of the bells sounded thin
+in the empty air, and his loneliness increased with their cessation. The
+sun climbed the heavens and beat unmercifully upon his unprotected head,
+but just as his thirst became intolerable and he groaned in agony, a
+low, chuckling laugh replied from a window in the tower near his cage,
+and turning his head he saw the malicious face of the dwarf Leonora
+Dosi. Repugnant as she was to him he greeted her appearance now, for it
+flashed through his mind that she might have brought him some message
+from Marie de' Medici.</p>
+
+<p>"It is good of you, Signorina," he said, "to think of me in my trouble;
+or is it perchance your mistress who has sent you?"</p>
+
+<p>He could not have asked a question which would have angered her more.
+"My mistress may not have clean forgotten her singing-bird," she
+replied, "but she has forgotten to order that his cage should be
+supplied with water and seed cups, and I cajoled Radicofani till he let
+me supply this neglect."</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke she held aloft a flask of water whose crystal clearness
+seemed to Brandilancia's blood-shot eyes the most desirable thing in all
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Signorina how can I ever thank you? and how can you get it to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I have thought of that. See I have brought a pole long enough to
+reach your cage, and the bottle is so slender that it will pass between
+the bars."</p>
+
+<p>She attached the flask to one end of the pole with tantalising
+deliberation, pausing after it was fastened to pour and drink a glass of
+the water with expressive gusto. The gurgle of the liquid was more than
+the tortured man could bear. "Dear Signorina for the love of Heaven be
+quick. I die of thirst."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! no, Signor, one does not die so soon, or with so little suffering.
+Men in your predicament have been known to live three days before they
+went mad, and four more before they died."</p>
+
+<p>"You hell cat!" he cried, "have you come to gloat over and increase my
+agony?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is not a pretty name," she said slowly, "I like better the 'dear
+Signorina' with which you honoured me just now. You are too hasty,
+Signor Brandilancia, too hasty in your conclusions, and in speaking them
+forth. It might strike a wiser man in your situation that it would be
+worth while not to antagonise a friend who has come to serve you. In
+proof that you have misunderstood my motives I now pass you the water.
+It was good? You would like more? Presently. It is not well to drink too
+much when one is as thirsty as you are, besides I want to talk with you.
+Do you realise that you are in a very serious position?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have I been condemned to death?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so. There will be no trial, no execution. You will simply be
+forgotten, left here to die. The Grand Duke believes you to be the lover
+of his niece. That fact would not in the least distress him, were it not
+for her approaching marriage, which he fears may be interrupted by some
+rash act on your part."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell the Grand Duke, if you come from him, and the Signorina also to
+have no fear, that madness is past. If I am released I will repair to
+England and never trouble her again."</p>
+
+<p>Scorn curled the dwarf's lips. "Think you, the Duke would trust your
+promise? And as for the Signorina she desires nothing of the sort, for
+she loves you passionately."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor lady," he groaned. "But for me she might have reconciled herself
+to her destiny, wretch that I am to break the heart of one who loves me.
+Tell her from me, that if she desires me to do so, and God in His mercy
+delivers me from this bed of death I will keep my promise to snatch her
+from the fate she dreads, and we will begin the new life in the new
+world of which we dreamed."</p>
+
+<p>The face of the dwarf was contorted with merriment which made it the
+more hideous.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the life of a savage in the wilderness a fit one for a daughter of
+the Medici?" she demanded. "You need neither of you die or forego a
+single luxury which your hearts desire, if you will gather your wits
+together and listen to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly you think that I have no influence with the Grand Duke, but if
+so you greatly mistake. I know the secret of my parentage, and have so
+disposed matters that my death would bring it to light. Ferdinando de'
+Medici will grant any request of mine. I am to go to Paris, not as the
+servant but as the Lady in Waiting of the Queen of France. Will it
+please you to join her train as Manager of her Royal Theatre and
+Purveyor of Sports to the French Court? You could then enjoy the society
+of the Queen without scandal."</p>
+
+<p>His heart was hot with indignation but he restrained his anger. "If
+indeed," he said, "there is no escape from this loathed marriage for
+that sweet lady, I shall pray that no memory of me may ever intrude upon
+her happiness. Surely what you suggest is as impossible as it is
+infamous. The Grand Duke would never allow me to follow his niece to
+Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"The Grand Duke cares not one whit what his niece may choose to do after
+she is once securely married. What I suggest is perfectly possible. I
+have taken a fancy to you, Brandilancia. If I ask the Grand Duke to give
+you to me as my husband he will not refuse me; on the contrary it will
+be a welcome solution of the problem before him. If perchance any
+inconvenient inquiries should in future be made by England concerning
+your welfare he will be spared all responsibility. His niece will have
+the plaything she desired, and will no longer mope. He will have secured
+my gratitude and can trust me to preserve the conventionalities; and as
+for you, my popinjay, your fortune is made. Do not fancy that you will
+remain a mere montebank. You shall exchange your cap and bells for a
+ducal coronet, châteaux jewels, honours, wealth in what form you will
+shall be yours. You will be King in everything but name. Henry of
+Navarre shall in reality be nothing but your condottiere, and I will not
+be <i>exigeante</i>. I know that I am misshapen, hideous. I ask only a little
+gratitude."</p>
+
+<p>That word stopped his mouth, for he was about to curse her as a minister
+of Satan, but a touch of pity softened his anger and contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"You know not what you ask," he said. "She would despise me, and I would
+abhor myself. Let me die without forfeiting her respect."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>She!</i>" the dwarf sneered, and was suddenly silent. Her keen insight
+told her that if she betrayed to this strangely constituted man that the
+scheme had originated with her mistress he would loathe where he now
+pitied and every chance of success be lost.</p>
+
+<p>"What were you about to say?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Only that you little know the love you slight. She would forgive you
+anything but desertion. Yours is a strange code of honour, that can win
+the affection of a noble lady and then throw it lightly away. I am going
+now. Once for all I ask, will you accept my offer?"</p>
+
+<p>"And tempt that innocent soul to a life of perfidy and shame?&mdash;God send
+me death quickly and spare me such villainy as that."</p>
+
+<p>"Your prayer will not be answered," she sneered. "Death will come, but
+not quickly,&mdash;unless you beat your brains out against the bars of your
+cage, and before that you will shriek and call for me, but I will not
+come. You have known how the women of the Medici love. Learn now how
+they hate."</p>
+
+<p>Her footsteps died away and despair settled upon his heart. How long,
+how long, he asked himself, must he endure this agony before death would
+come to his release.</p>
+
+<p>The dwarf had left food and water on the window-sill in plain sight but
+beyond his reach. He closed his eyes but the odour of the viands reached
+him and increased his faintness. The hours lagged on, and toward evening
+a light breeze sprang up and he fell into a troubled sleep which
+somewhat dulled his suffering. From this he was rudely awakened by the
+swaying and jolting of his cage, and he realised that it was being
+hauled hastily and not too gently into the tower.</p>
+
+<p>Men dragged him from it, a physician gave him a reviving draught and
+assisted him down the staircase at whose foot he fell into the arms of
+the faithful Malespini.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it she, who has rescued me?" he asked as the secretary seated him in
+a row-boat which shot toward the palace.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, you are released by the Grand Duke's orders," Malespini replied.
+"I bring you great news, Signor. A gentleman has arrived from England
+who demands your safe return in the Queen's name. Even the Medici could
+not gainsay a summons signed 'Elizabeth' and emphasised by one of her
+Majesty's ships of war. Say naught of the hospitality just accorded you,
+I beseech you, until well out of Italy, else you may excite the English
+admiral who is the bearer of the Queen's message to some rash act, for
+he seems to me a man of short temper, and it were well that the Grand
+Duke in his chagrin were not tried too far."</p>
+
+<p>"The English Admiral!" repeated the astonished Brandilancia,&mdash;"sent for
+me by Queen Elizabeth. It is not possible!" But, as the torchlight fell
+upon the gallant figure impatiently pacing the landing which they were
+approaching, he cried "Miracle of God! it is indeed Essex!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is I, Will, of a surety," replied the other. "Did you think I would
+suffer you to die in the trap into which you had ventured for love of
+me? I have been consumed with anxiety, especially after the Grand Duke
+in answer to my importunity assured me that you left the Villa Medici
+months since and that he was ignorant of your whereabouts. I had
+quarrelled with the Queen when that news arrived, and she had ordered me
+to the Azores. I asked for an audience, but she would not receive me,
+and I left England determined to push on to Italy without her knowledge
+and rescue you <i>vi et armis</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"You should not have done that, my good friend. Elizabeth has beheaded
+men for slighter disregard of her authority."</p>
+
+<p>"I outran not my orders, Will, for I had scarcely left England when a
+swift sailing packet overtook me with letters from the Queen, one for
+the Grand Duke desiring your immediate return, the other my instructions
+to use all despatch in securing your person."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you received no letter from me and had no speech with the Queen,
+I do not understand how her Majesty learned of my predicament."</p>
+
+<p>"Through your wife, Will. When I returned to England from my expedition
+to Cadiz she sought me out, and demanded why I had not brought you.
+Then, as the time passed by at which I had told her she might expect
+you, it seems she grew wild with anxiety, and, journeying to London,
+laid the matter before the Queen, who admires your talent as a
+playwright and has herself some ambition in that direction. Anne, the
+artful wench, very tactfully persuaded her Majesty that, with you for a
+collaborator, she might write a comedy which would redound to her
+eternal fame. Therefore, our royal mistress bids you think of some plot
+which shall bring again upon the boards that arch-rogue, John Falstaff.
+I am to bring you to Windsor Castle, where you are to prepare this
+masterpiece, at the Queen's dictation (Heaven save the mark!), in time
+for its presentation before the Court during the Twelfth Night
+festivities."</p>
+
+<p>"And Anne, whom I thought so indifferent to my career, to my very
+existence, did this for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Will, 't is a good girl and a handsome, and one you have not
+treated overly well, as it seems to me; but you will make it all up over
+your Christmas pudding."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke the great clock of the palace slowly clanged midnight, and
+Brandilancia turned white and caught Essex's arm for support. "Would to
+God that I might go with you," he groaned; "would that I had never come
+to Italy upon your cursed business. I stand here a doubly perjured man.
+How, I scarcely know (for I swear I set not about it cold-bloodedly), I
+have won the love of the peerless Marie de' Medici. For me she has
+discarded the King of France, and has promised to meet me at this spot
+and at this very hour and fly with me to El Dorado. I left her stricken
+to the heart by my misfortunes. If I desert her now her death will be
+upon my head. See you not the Gonzaga barge is approaching in which she
+promised to forsake the world with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Make yourself easy on the score of my mistress," exclaimed Malespini.
+"You have kept your appointment, but when she made hers she had no
+intention of keeping it with a man of your quality. Under a strange
+hallucination she has fancied all along that you were the King of
+France, and her fainting fit was occasioned by her dismay and
+humiliation on discovering that you were only the king of poets. I will
+not say that she did not find you agreeable. She was pleased when she
+learned that your friend had arrived in time to rescue you, and ere she
+left for Florence this afternoon bade me wish you <i>bon voyage</i>, and to
+thank you for much merry entertainment."</p>
+
+<p>The Earl of Essex whistled softly, and an expression of infinite relief
+relaxed the contorted features of Brandilancia. "I have learned how the
+women of the Medici love," he murmured. "Thank God, our English women
+love in a different fashion."</p>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 406px;">
+<img src="images/ill_viii.png"
+class="top15" width="406" height="163" alt="image
+not available" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<p class="c">THE LADIES OF PALLIANO</p>
+
+<p class="c">(BEING A RELATION BY THE CONDOTTIERE LUIGI RODOMONTE<br />GONZAGA OF CERTAIN
+OF HIS ADVENTURES DURING<br />THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1525 TO 1528)</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">I</p>
+
+<p class="c">THE NEST OF THE PH&OElig;NIX</p>
+
+<p class="non"><span class="let">'T</span>IS an incredible fable that of the phoenix, the crimson wonder-bird,
+which springs in immortal youth from the flames which destroy its eyrie.
+But it is not more strange than one which I could tell of how I found
+Fenice, and snatched the joy and glory of my life from the conflagration
+of her ancestral town and castle, in which, but for my efforts, her pure
+soul would have vanished from the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Fenice, flame-bird, radiant and peerless, I had named her at our first
+meeting, long before the tragic burning of Palliano, for it seemed to me
+that in her vivacity and brilliancy she resembled a little dancing
+flame. I well remember also how at that time the longing came to me to
+warm my numbed heart forever in her presence.</p>
+
+<p>I am no poet, but a plain man of war, and this phantasy of the ph&oelig;nix
+came into my head in a very natural and simple way, for Fenice when
+first I saw her was sending up little fire-balloons from the garden of
+the Colonna palace. It was an unusual and a dangerous pastime for a
+young girl, but the sudden flashing from the gloom of those flickering
+lights, that illumined for an instant the beautiful face which the
+darkness as quickly obliterated, gave an additional zest to my enjoyment
+of the vision.</p>
+
+<p>I strode to her side and affected great interest in her occupation. The
+balloons were ingeniously constructed to represent birds with spread
+wings, and it was the alchemist of the family who dwelt at Palliano who
+had invented them. "It is his conceit," she explained, "that rising from
+the flames they resemble the ph&oelig;nix, a bird peerless in beauty and
+song, which appears upon earth but twice in a thousand years."</p>
+
+<p>"Then that shall be my name for you," I said, for we were alone for the
+instant; "but will you as tranquilly soar away from me, leaving the
+world the darker for your passing?"</p>
+
+<p>Though she gave me not at that time the answer I coveted, I liked none
+the less the modesty which made her winning difficult. There were also
+other matters of importance to the world at large, which I must now
+digress to explain, that at first hindered, but in the end abetted that
+winning.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the spring of the eventful year of 1525 that my cousin,
+Federigo Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, requested me to escort his mother,
+the worshipful Marchesa Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, upon her journey to
+Rome. This demand was the more reasonable in that the Marchesa was a
+most loving and munificent patroness of my sister Giulia, for whose
+orphaned condition the great lady had shown the most tender sympathy,
+removing her from our lonely ancestral castle, and bringing the girl up
+in her own brilliant court. Giulia was now at the height of the
+attractiveness which was soon to be so extravagantly sung, many still
+maintaining her the most beautiful woman of our time.</p>
+
+<p>From that estimate her brother must be allowed to differ. A superbly
+regal creature she certainly was, but too grandly made for my ideals.
+Let the question rest, for her heart was ever as great as her body, and
+I deny her supremacy to but one other. At this time I loved her better
+than any woman in the world, and as she was to accompany the Marchesa, I
+was the more willing to lend my protection to the cortège.</p>
+
+<p>It was an inauspicious season for ladies to choose for a pleasure jaunt,
+for their Majesties the Emperor Charles V. and Francis I. had entered
+upon their struggle for the possession of Italy. The French had already
+entered Lombardy, and the Imperial forces under the Viceroy of Naples,
+Pescara and Bourbon were marching to meet them, but the Marchesa was of
+an adventurous and fearless disposition, and was moreover bent in her
+present expedition upon something more than pleasure. Never have I known
+man or woman of such marvellous finesse as well as courage, and she
+desired above all things to obtain the cardinal's hat for Ercole, her
+second son. Therefore it seemed good to her, while the actual fighting
+was still confined to the north of Italy, to hasten to Rome, and obtain
+this coveted prize, before the Emperor should succeed in deposing Pope
+Clement and possibly set up another pontiff less friendly to the House
+of Gonzaga.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg336" id="ill_romv_pg336"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg336.png" width="600" height="450" alt="Colonna Palace, Rome&mdash;The Grand Salon" />
+<span class="caption">Colonna Palace, Rome&mdash;The Grand Salon</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>At the same time, that Charles V. might have no cause to complain of her
+lack of loyalty, she sent her third son, Ferrante, to Spain to assure
+the Emperor of her entire sympathy with his cause and to ask for a
+command in the Imperial army. Rome at this time was a place where there
+were wheels within wheels. While on the surface all was gay and
+peaceful, and old enemies hobnobbed with one another, daggers lurked
+under the olive branches, old feuds were not forgotten, plots were
+hatched, and secrets were wormed from comrades over the wine-cup. While
+I could not emulate the consummate ruse with which the Marchesa trimmed
+her sails to every possible wind I had my own little surprise to spring
+at the auspicious moment.</p>
+
+<p>I believed that the firm hand of the Emperor alone could give peace to
+Italy. I had lost faith in the Medicean popes, and especially in this
+weak and crafty cousin of Leo X. As a condottiere by profession I could
+have sold my services to the French but I preferred to offer them to
+Charles V., and I had a secret commission in my pocket from his
+representative, the Marquis of Pescara, then near Pavia, authorising me
+to raise and command the Italian contingent to the Imperial army. The
+Marquis desired me to take counsel with his wife's kindred, the
+Colonnas, who were always inimical to the Pope, as to the best means of
+effecting a junction with their troops in case an attack upon Rome
+should be decided upon the coming year. When I add that the head of the
+house, Vespasian Colonna, had offered the hospitalities of his palace to
+the Marchesa Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, it will be understood how
+marvellously this lady's visit to Rome fell in with my schemes.</p>
+
+<p>As we made our entry into that most beautiful room of all the world, the
+<i>sala de gala</i> of the Colonna palace, my sister clutched my arm tightly.
+A glimpse of the glories of heaven could not in sooth have been more
+transporting to the rapt gaze of an anchorite, for Giulia was
+essentially of this world and a superb mundane life was her highest
+ambition.</p>
+
+<p>She had profited by her tutelage at the court of the Marchesa, the most
+cultured in the north of Italy, but this dazzling room surpassed any in
+the Mantuan palace as far as her own beauty outshone that of her
+protectress. So as her foolish little heart cried out "Oh! that I might
+reign here as Queen," she looked up into the admiring eyes of
+Vespasian Colonna and heard the echo of her unuttered cry&mdash;"Reign here
+as Queen."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 441px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg338" id="ill_romv_pg338"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg338.png" width="441" height="550" alt="Garden of the Colonna Palace, Rome
+
+With permission of Mr. Charles A. Platt" />
+<span class="caption">Garden of the Colonna Palace, Rome<br />With permission of Mr. Charles A. Platt</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>For Vespasian was a widower, and the snows of age had not cooled the
+volcanic fires of his heart. He offered his arm to the Marchesa, and
+together they made the rounds of the regal apartments. But ever as we
+paused before a portrait and he explained that this was some fair
+ancestress his backward glance at Giulia told that in his estimation she
+surpassed them all.</p>
+
+<p>The interior of the palace inspected we passed over a bridge, which
+spanned a side street, to the terraced garden crowned by the ruins of
+the old Roman Temple of the Sun. Here were also statues and fountains,
+square-cut hedges, and sun-warmed, marble seats, and the air was heavy
+with the perfume of roses and jasmine. But the glory of the garden, as
+Colonna told us, was its outlook over Rome. This we could not now fully
+appreciate for dusk was falling and the city was in a purple haze, which
+deepened as we looked. Soon coloured lights glimmered forth in the dark
+<i>allées</i>, and suddenly from the summit of the ruin there rose slowly a
+fire balloon and twinkling far away into the blue seemed to seek its
+companion stars.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the conceit of my daughter Isabella," Vespasian explained, "a
+fête of fire-works in honour of your coming."</p>
+
+<p>I delayed to hear no more, but drawn by some mysterious attraction
+sought and found the Signorina Colonna. The flame signals flashed in her
+cheeks as her eyes met mine, for my glance seemed to her doubtless
+overbold, though it held naught of disrespect God wot.</p>
+
+<p>And then she explained the mechanism of her fire balloon which was
+simple enough though it had been invented by a Moorish alchemist, who
+still practised the black art in a tower of the family castle in the
+Campagna. "If you ever come to Palliano we will greet you with a still
+more brilliant illumination," she promised, little realising how well
+she would keep that pledge.</p>
+
+<p>It was then as I have already said that I bestowed upon her the name of
+Fenice, making what improvement I could of my scant opportunities. These
+were suddenly cut short, for Ippolito de' Medici, the Pope's handsome
+and dissipated nephew, presently joined us and bore Fenice away with the
+air of a proprietor. Such indeed he had a right to regard himself, as I
+ascertained on the next day during a conference with Vespasian Colonna
+and his nephew the Cardinal Pompeo.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg340" id="ill_romv_pg340"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg340.png" width="600" height="461" alt="Castle of Vittoria Colonna at Ischia." />
+<span class="caption">Castle of Vittoria Colonna at Ischia.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>I had arrived at the understanding desired by their kinsman the Marquis
+of Pescara, for they very willingly agreed that whenever desired all the
+clansmen of the Colonna would be ready to combine with the Imperial
+forces in the siege of Rome. Pompeo, the most truculent of the race in
+spite of the fact that he was a churchman, would take command, but
+Ascanio Colonna who was now in Naples with his sister Vittoria, the
+Marchesa di Pescara, might be counted upon with his sturdy vassals from
+the Abruzzi. We were jubilant, for news had just arrived that the
+Emperor's troops had won the battle of Pavia and that Francis I. was a
+prisoner. The Pope was reported nearly crazed with fear, and our plot of
+taking Rome for Charles V. seemed perfectly feasible.</p>
+
+<p>"In any event," said Vespasian, "our compact of friendship stands, and I
+hold you and your family in such high esteem that I desire to make our
+alliance not merely that of comrades-in-arms but a much closer
+relationship. I wish to propose a marriage, which Pompeo here shall
+celebrate, in our ancestral home before you leave us."</p>
+
+<p>My hopes rose high for I thought he had perceived my love for Fenice and
+I sank upon one knee in a transport of gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, rise my brother," he continued, "I count myself honoured in your
+acceptance of that relation. Your sister's beauty will confer undying
+lustre upon our house. Believe me she runs no danger as my wife, for
+even should the chances of war reverse the present position of King and
+Emperor, I have assured myself with the Pope, since my daughter is
+betrothed to his nephew Ippolito. He will not break with me for she will
+be one of the richest heiresses in Italy, well able to aid her husband
+in his ambition to become the Grand Duke of Tuscany."</p>
+
+<p>My heart, which had been so hot, was like ice. So wretched was I that I
+got no comfort from the thought of the brilliant future opening before
+my sister. I terminated my interview with Vespasian in all haste, and
+strode into the garden, pacing its walks like a madman.</p>
+
+<p>Here, as my good fortune willed, I came upon Ippolito de' Medici, seated
+with all the familiarity of an accepted lover by the side of Fenice. It
+was true that the young couple were chaperoned by my sister, and that
+Ippolito, who was holding a skein which she was winding, was leaning
+forward in rapt attention listening to some merry story which Giulia was
+relating; but, instead of congratulating myself that Fenice had now a
+protectress who was devoted to my interest, I was filled with rage to
+see Ippolito thus received into the intimacy of the family.</p>
+
+<p>My sister by a light gesture indicated that there was room for me on the
+marble bench near Fenice, and the girl, to give me room, moved a trifle
+nearer to her betrothed. This angered me, and, instead of seating
+myself, I glowered at a little distance until Giulia, having finished
+her winding and her story, came toward me, leaving Ippolito free to
+address himself to Fenice. To my surprise he did not avail himself of
+the opportunity, but, springing up, begged my sister to walk with him to
+another part of the garden. Delighted by this unexpected turn of
+affairs, I seated myself by the side of Fenice and rallied her upon her
+lover's neglect.</p>
+
+<p>"He could not have pleased me more," she replied. "The Signorina Gonzaga
+would be my good angel if she could rid me of him forever."</p>
+
+<p>This admission was like the striking of a spark in the darkness. It was
+not only illuminating as to Fenice's feeling toward her fiancé, but it
+fired the mine of passion stored in my heart. How I told her I know
+not; the words exploded from me with such violence that I fear I
+frightened her, and yet&mdash;and yet she was not displeased, for when Giulia
+returned to us she found Fenice striving to cool my hot cheeks with her
+small hands, but succeeding only in inflaming them the more by her
+gentle caresses. My sister paused before us with her arms akimbo.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is a coil," she said, "and I beg you to tell me how I am to
+explain it to the Signor Ippolito de' Medici."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! dearest lady, can you think of no way of persuading the Signor
+Ippolito to renounce his suit?" cried Fenice.</p>
+
+<p>"Very easily," Giulia replied, "since he has just besought me to pray
+you to release him from his engagement that he may be free to marry me;
+but upon reflection I am not sure that this expedient would please your
+honoured father."</p>
+
+<p>With that we all fell a-laughing, though the situation was serious
+enough. It grew rapidly more so, for my sister, apparently forgetting
+her new vows, manifested the utmost pleasure in Ippolito's society, and
+drove me wild with her coquetry. I remonstrated with her, telling her
+plainly that I could not understand her behaviour.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no sense of decency," I cried, "to contract yourself to a
+noble gentleman, who, though he is no longer young, is still
+distinguished in appearance and possessed of many attractions&mdash;one whose
+fortune and rank immeasurably surpass your own, and who, moreover, loves
+you beyond your desert? Are you not ashamed, I insist, to accept all
+this and then to treat your affianced husband with such indignity? If
+you must take a lover, wait at least till your honeymoon is over, and
+then choose one who will contrast less unfavourably with the man whom
+you so dishonour."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed at me when I began, but as I waxed more imprudent in my
+chiding her cheek flamed and she retorted "Truly, since you
+misunderstand me thus, I scorn to explain my conduct." Nor did she deign
+to amend it, and so anxious was I, that (a temporary peace delaying any
+warlike demonstration), I lingered on in Rome to protect her against
+herself, and to see her safely married. The wedding took place in
+midsummer, but the aged bridegroom was in no happy frame of mind, for
+Giulia had led him a lively dance during their short engagement, and had
+so practised upon Ippolito de' Medici by her wiles that the infatuated
+young man had broken his compact with the Colonnas. Suspecting that my
+sister had caused this defection Vespasian hastened his marriage and
+retired with his bride and his daughter to Palliano the strongest of his
+castles.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was I invited to accompany the party for, having dared to ask her
+father for the hand of Fenice, I met with an angry refusal and was
+accused of having by my attentions given Ippolito an excuse for breaking
+his word.</p>
+
+<p>But Fenice promised with many tears to be true to me, and with her
+pledge to await my coming I was forced to be content.</p>
+
+<p>Rome having now no further attraction for me I returned to Lombardy,
+leaving the Marchesa, who still awaited her son's cardinalate, in the
+security of a peace which at that time promised to be lasting.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner, however, was Francis I. released from his Spanish captivity
+than the Pope began again to intrigue with him, and the Emperor,
+learning that Clement had broken faith, ordered the attack upon Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Then, at last, the Pope, realising how much he needed the friendship of
+the Gonzagas, sent the Marchesa Ercole's red hat.</p>
+
+<p>That triumph achieved she would gladly have returned to Mantua but it
+was now too late, for Bourbon had arrived before the city. The siege
+had begun, and neither man nor woman might leave Rome.</p>
+
+<p>At the Pope's own villa upon Mount Mario (the Villa Madama), without the
+walls, I met Cardinal Pompeo Colonna and heard the news that his uncle
+Vespasian had died, and that Giulia and Fenice were still at Palliano,
+where I vowed soon to join them.</p>
+
+<p>Of the sack of Rome which intervened I shall say nothing. Would God that
+I could as easily dismiss its memory from my mind. I entered the city
+with the youngest son of the Marchesa Isabella d'Este, Ferrante Gonzaga,
+who commanded a division of Spaniards, and we made our way at once to
+the Colonna palace which refuge the Marchesa had packed with her
+friends. Their lives we saved and the palace from burning and
+plundering. Cardinal Pompeo himself paid the ransoms of many of its
+guests, and rescued from the Spanish soldiery upwards of five hundred
+nuns. Far be it from me to extenuate the life of that profligate
+prelate, but his brave and generous acts at this fearful time must be
+counted to his credit.</p>
+
+<p>After that horror of cruelty and wanton destruction abated I counted on
+being free to seek Fenice and my sister, but greatly to my disgust, I
+was constituted the warden of the Pope, who was confined a close
+prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo.</p>
+
+<p>Though this seemed to me at the time a great hardship it proved in the
+end the best that could have happened, for so I came to know Clement
+most intimately and even to feel a pity for one so beset. I well
+remember his dismay when Ippolito de' Medici came to him with the
+alarming news that the Orsini, who, under cover of their devotion to the
+Pope embraced every opportunity to fight the Colonnas, had refused to
+recognise that the war was ended and were now burning and pillaging the
+castles of their rivals throughout the Campagna.</p>
+
+<p>Ippolito reported that Fenice and my sister were for the present safe,
+having fortified themselves in Palliano, but he desired the Pope to send
+him with orders to Napoleone Orsini to restrain his wild clansmen, and
+also to grant him a far greater favour. This was no less than absolution
+from clerical vows, which he had taken at the time of my sister's
+marriage, and permission, since she was now a widow, to ask for her
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>But Clement knew that Ippolito's next move would be to use my sister's
+wealth to secure the government of Florence, which his Holiness desired
+for his more favoured nephew Alessandro. He therefore refused to release
+Ippolito from his vows as a churchman, salving the wound by creating him
+a cardinal and promising that he should one day succeed to the tiara.
+Then, imagining that he had thus disposed forever of so slight a thing
+as a young man's passion, he bade him make all speed to the pacifying of
+the truculent Orsini, for he well knew that unless this were instantly
+done the Emperor would call him in question for their unruliness.</p>
+
+<p>I had been present during this interview, as was my duty, and the Pope
+now turned to me and bade me assist Ippolito by all means in my power,
+and we went forth together to prepare for the expedition.</p>
+
+<p>But Ippolito's face was all aflame, and he could at first speak of
+nothing but his disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>"By the Blood!" he cried, "his Holiness shall rue his interference in my
+love affairs, for I will balk him yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you forgotten," I asked, "that you have just been made a
+cardinal?"</p>
+
+<p>"And what of that? Is not Pompeo Colonna a cardinal? He can find no
+fault with me if I follow his example. I tell you that I love your
+sister and that she loves me. Is there any power that can divide us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yea," I answered "that of God, and there is also my power with which it
+seems you have forgotten to reckon."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me and laughed. "That for <i>your</i> power," he scoffed,
+snapping his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>We had planned to ride to Nemi to find Napoleone Orsini but at Frascati
+we were met by a messenger who gave Ippolito a letter. On reading it he
+told me excitedly that Pompeo Colonna was besieged in his monastery of
+Subiaco by a rabble of the Orsini.</p>
+
+<p>"Go, and hold them in play," he commanded, "and I will hasten on to Nemi
+and fetch Napoleone with me, to command his clansmen to raise the
+siege."</p>
+
+<p>The plan commended itself to my reason and, suspecting no treachery, I
+galloped off with my troop for the relief of Pompeo. Ippolito shouted to
+me to await his coming at Subiaco, and I might have remained there until
+this day had I obeyed him. But at the monastery to my surprise I found
+all quiet nor had there been any fighting since the previous year, when
+the papal troops had been beaten by the monks and left their banner
+behind them. Both Cardinal Pompeo and I were puzzled by the false news
+which had brought me in such haste, but, being where we were, we
+accepted the hospitality of the monastery and rested and refreshed
+ourselves for three hours and no more. For, at the expiration of that
+time, came an aged man clad in Oriental garments, who had escaped from
+Palliano that morning while Napoleone Orsini was sacking the town. The
+castle on the summit of the cliff was unstormed when he left, but its
+fall was inevitable unless help should speedily arrive. Then I knew how
+Ippolito de' Medici had tricked me, for he desired not my company at
+Palliano, where he wished to pose as the sole rescuer of its ladies.</p>
+
+<p>The messenger whom my sister had sent to Subiaco was the Moorish
+alchemist who had taught Fenice to make the fire balloons, and I was at
+first encouraged by his assurance that the fortress was well munitioned,
+and that he had manufactured great quantities of gunpowder which was
+stored in its donjon. But I reflected that this circumstance was but an
+added danger as the assailants were endeavouring to fire the castle.</p>
+
+<p>With this news the Cardinal ordered his bravi to horse, and the monks
+girded up their gowns for the march. As fighting men the latter
+suffered no disparagement when matched with my soldiery save in their
+weapons, for, as their vows forbade them to take the sword, they were
+forced to content themselves with battle-axes.</p>
+
+<p>Wearied as were our horses my troop took the lead, and all night by
+toilsome ways over the mountains we rode toward Palliano, in the vain
+hope of arriving there before Ippolito in spite of the long detour which
+he had foisted upon us; and I felt no fatigue, for I rode for my
+sister's honour and the life of her I loved.</p>
+
+<p>But, in the grey dawn, at the little town of Genazzano, some six miles
+from the Colonna stronghold, I met Ippolito and his escort returning
+from Palliano, for he, too, had ridden hard. His face was drawn and
+white, but he faced me unflinchingly.</p>
+
+<p>"You need not have come," he said, "for I have given Napoleone Orsini
+the mandate of his Holiness. He will draw off his men. They will leave
+the castle of Palliano unattacked. I was too late to save the town."</p>
+
+<p>"And my sister?" for Fenice's name stuck in my throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Your sister is capable of taking care of herself," he answered
+bitterly; "at least that was the reply she gave me when I offered to
+remain for her defence. Nay, look not so black for I am not the villain
+that my mad words of yesterday stamped me. Let me right myself in your
+estimation. I offered her no insult, but honourable marriage, for I have
+not yet been consecrated, and I would have repudiated the cardinalcy and
+every other bribe of the devil, if she could have loved me. But she told
+me plainly that she had never done so, that she had but coquetted with
+me in the old days to prove me fickle and false to my betrothed, and
+thus leave Fenice free to wed with you; and that this Vespasian Colonna
+understood and left you his blessing ere he died."</p>
+
+<p>"Say you so! Ippolito," I cried. "Then I have not made this journey in
+vain, and you are a better man than I thought. I will plead your cause
+with my sister. You shall win her yet."</p>
+
+<p>But he shook his head though he wrung my hand for he knew her mind
+better than I. So I rode on with my men, and it was well that I did so,
+for Orsini after the departure of Ippolito had returned to the attack of
+Palliano, and as we came in sight of the promontory on which it stands,
+the sky was crimson, not with sunrise, but with the reflection of
+burning houses.</p>
+
+<p>The citadel towered gaunt and black above the ruined town like the
+ph&oelig;nix in its flaming nest, and I acknowledged that my darling had
+kept her promise to greet my coming with a festival of fire.</p>
+
+<p>I wondered if from one of those dark windows she were looking forth
+anxiously for succour, and I called the alchemist to my side and bade
+him send up a fire balloon as a signal that help was at hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It will notify the enemy of our approach," he protested, but I replied
+that I cared not, and from the silken guidon of my troop he fashioned
+the balloon so that as it soared aloft the device of the Gonzagas was
+displayed to all onlookers.</p>
+
+<p>Then, with hardly an interval, there shot from the platform of the great
+tower of the castle in quick succession a flight of answering flame
+signals&mdash;one, two, three, a half-dozen; I counted them as they rose and
+drifted away on the light morning breeze. There flashed forth lights
+also below in the camp of the Orsini which ringed the town, for the
+sentries had sounded the alarm, and when we came up with their outposts
+the army had formed in battle array.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad of this, for it has never been my practice to fall upon and
+massacre sleeping men. My trumpeter sounded a parley and with a white
+handkerchief on the staff from which I had stripped my ensign I rode out
+to meet Napoleone.</p>
+
+<p>I told him that I came as messenger from the Pope to bid him keep the
+peace, for the war was over.</p>
+
+<p>He replied that he had already received that news from Ippolito de'
+Medici, who on the previous evening had come and gone; but that it was
+not easy to pacify such men as the Orsini when their blood was up.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will pacify them," I cried, "for peace I will have, though I
+fight for it."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the peace for me," he replied, and at it we went.</p>
+
+<p>I banged them well, and the monks of Subiaco coming up in good time when
+we were nearly spent, joined in the fray with their war-cry of "The Holy
+Column!" and "Christ for Colonna!" My sister's vassals also made a sally
+from the castle but were driven back, certain of Orsini's men following
+them closely and throwing firebrands upon them as they dashed through
+the postern gate. That was the great disaster and tragedy of the day,
+for the tower in which the fugitives had sought shelter was the
+powder-magazine and a spark from the fiery missile thrown, guided by the
+evil one, found its way to a little trail of the devil's dust, which had
+been scattered on the stairs, and so fired the mine in that pent-up
+hell.</p>
+
+<p>With a noise as of the rending of mountains the tower belched a volcano
+of flame and the battle-field was as Sodom and Gomorrah when the heavens
+rained brimstone.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 432px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg356" id="ill_romv_pg356"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg356.png" width="432" height="550" alt="The Cascade" />
+<span class="caption">The Cascade Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>By good fortune the occupants of the castle were chiefly in a tower upon
+the other side of the court, at whose foot the main battle was now
+raging, so that the loss of life was not so great as it might otherwise
+have been. As it was we were all so terrified that we ceased from our
+fighting, Orsini's men fleeing in hot haste, nor did our troops pursue,
+but busied themselves in giving help to the wounded. At the same time
+those within the castle, seeing that the battle was over, opened its
+gates, and to my unutterable joy I beheld Fenice and my sister standing
+unharmed within its portal.</p>
+
+<p>So it was that we pacified the wild Orsini, and later a new castle was
+born ph&oelig;nix-like from the ashes of the old. But for a while it was
+deserted, for Cardinal Pompeo would no longer risk the lives of his
+relatives at Palliano, but leaving the wounded in the care of the
+monks we escorted the ladies to the Colonna palace at Rome which was
+thereafter my sister's residence.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 447px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg110" id="ill_romv_pg110"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg110.png" width="447" height="550" alt="Villa Madama&mdash;Interior" />
+<span class="caption">Villa Madama&mdash;Interior</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>By all the canons of romance-writing my story should end here at its
+climax, but this is not the way of real life, which goes on spinning new
+threads, and intertwining them so with the old that there is no coming
+to the end until the shears of death cut the skein.</p>
+
+<p>My duty as the Pope's body-guard kept me at his side, and my cousin
+Ferrante Gonzaga having less to do, was constantly at the Colonna
+palace, where he incontinently fell in love with Fenice. This had indeed
+been planned out long before by his mother, for the Marchesa had lived
+long enough in the Colonna palace to fall under its spell and she had
+marked the Colonna heiress as a suitable parti for Ferrante.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore at the great reconciliation between the Emperor and the Pope
+which took place at Bologna, where Clement crowned Charles, and they
+parcelled out to their favourites the dignities of Italy, Ferrante
+Gonzaga besought the hand of Fenice in recognition of the services of
+his house. To this request both the Emperor and the Pope agreed, but
+when the parties to be contracted were called into their presence,
+Cardinal Pompeo Colonna and I came with them and forbade the banns.
+Being asked why we thus defied the will of the greatest powers of
+Christendom, I confessed how in the crimson dawn of the peace of
+Palliano, being determined that no power in heaven or earth or hell
+should henceforth jeopardise our happiness, Fenice and I had been
+secretly but soundly married by the Cardinal, deferring only the public
+festivities of the wedding to a merrier morn.</p>
+
+<p>With that the Emperor declared the jest a good one, and that one Gonzaga
+was as good as another. "And better," whispered his Holiness in my ear,
+as I knelt before him for his blessing.</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">II</p>
+
+<p class="c">OTHER BIRDS OF THE FLAMING NEST</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Centuries ago&mdash;here the Colonna came,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vittoria with them, Angelo himself</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gazing upon her as she gravely moved,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And sighing for her, while Fabrizio's sword</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clanged on the gravel&mdash;here the d'Este came</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From Tivoli, where o'er dark cypresses</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their villa looks above the billowy land</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the Campagna.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">William Wetmore Story.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It was with the Villa Conti-Torlonia at Frascati that Story rightly
+associated the men and women of the Colonna in the lines which I have
+quoted.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg358" id="ill_romv_pg358"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg358.png" width="600" height="455" alt="The Haunted Pool
+
+Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati" />
+<span class="caption">The Haunted Pool<br />Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Hither certainly came the ladies of Palliano<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> from their castle in the
+neighbouring hills, for the Conti were cousins of the Colonna, and fond
+of entertaining their kindred on the terraces of their ancestral villa.</p>
+
+<p>Here Giulia Gonzaga must have met another renowned woman of the family,
+Giovanna of Aragon, the wife of Ascanio Colonna, with their little son
+Marcantonio, from the Castle of Marino, hardly three miles away. This
+boy was to become the most renowned man of his race, and was to form a
+link between the lives of two women of Palliano, to whom brief reference
+must be made, for the pity and horror of their fate are not surpassed in
+all the annals of tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>At first glance it may seem strange that the Colonnas possessed no
+suburban villa which could rival that of the Conti. Castles in plenty
+were theirs, Marino, Palliano, Palestrina, and a score of others, but
+though these sheltered comfortless, so-called palaces within their
+strong walls, there was never an attempt made here to indulge in such a
+feat of landscape-gardening as the Conti's</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">"fountain stairs,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Down which the sheeted water leaps alive."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The reason of this lack of the amenities of life is not far to seek. The
+magnificent Colonna palace at Rome, with its beautiful garden, answered
+every purpose of an elaborate villa. Here they flaunted in seasons of
+prosperity, retiring to their mountain fastnesses in times of trouble.</p>
+
+<p>For five hundred years succeeding generations have added to the
+sumptuousness and charm of the Roman palace, and the portraits of the
+fair ladies who once gave those regal rooms their chief attraction still
+look down upon us from their walls. They hold us still with an
+all-compelling fascination: the noble Vittoria Colonna, whom Michael
+Angelo worshipped; that Duchessa Lucrezia, whom Van Dyck painted in her
+velvet robe and jewelled ruff; Felice Orsini and her children; and the
+bewitching Marie Mancini, as Mignard makes her known in her arch and
+innocent girlhood, and again with world-weary disillusion betraying
+itself through Netscher's pomp and opulence.</p>
+
+<p><a name="ill_romv_pg360a" id="ill_romv_pg360a"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 431px;">
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg360a.png" width="431" height="560" alt="Vittoria Colonna
+
+From a portrait in the Colonna Gallery" />
+<span class="caption">Vittoria Colonna<br />From a portrait in the Colonna Gallery</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="ill_romv_pg360b" id="ill_romv_pg360b"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 462px;">
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg360b.png" width="462" height="557"
+alt="Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna" />
+
+<span class="caption">Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna<br />From a portrait in later life by Netscher</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is the women who interest us most, for the men of the race, masterful
+and brave, heroic even in certain great crisis, have often shown
+themselves brutally cruel.</p>
+
+<p>The ceilings of the Colonna palace blaze with the victory of Lepanto
+whose hero Marcantonio Colonna is the glory of his family; but you will
+find no portrait of his murdered mistress Eufrosina, or of the most
+famous of all the duchesses of Palliano, whose ghost might well haunt
+that gloomy castle.</p>
+
+<p>Violante de Cardona was, in the latter part of the sixteenth century,
+the most charming woman in Naples. Her wonderful eyes alone rendered her
+irresistible to most men, and she added to remarkable beauty the
+fascinations of wit and culture. All of the young bloods of Naples were
+captives at her chariot wheels, all but young Marcantonio Colonna, who
+must have known her for he dwelt at this time at the Castle of Ischia
+inherited from his aunt Vittoria Colonna.</p>
+
+<p>Violante made choice among her adorers of Giovanni Caraffa, nephew of
+Pope Paul IV. whom Marcantonio had cause to hate, for Paul had despoiled
+him of Palliano, under pretext of his mother's heretical opinions, and
+had given the fief to this very Giovanni.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Violante to her great misfortune became the usurping Duchess of
+Palliano, for her husband made her life a martyrdom and was ultimately
+responsible for her death. He was not so utterly depraved as his brother
+Cardinal Carlo Caraffa but his maniacal jealousy was more dangerous than
+the Cardinal's vices, and he made himself rich by the maladministration
+of the papal revenues.</p>
+
+<p>The Pope though bigoted and fanatical was sternly upright, and
+discovering the crimes of his nephews visited unsparing retribution upon
+them. Cardinal Carlo's offences were most flagrant. He had quarrelled
+openly with a young gallant, Marcello Capecce, for the favours of
+Martuccia one of the most notorious courtesans of Rome, drawing his
+sword upon Capecce at a banquet where he had denied the Cardinal's right
+to appear as Martuccia's escort. Though the Pope had banished the
+brothers from Rome they might have lived in peace and obscurity but for
+Carlo's attempt to revenge himself upon Capecce.</p>
+
+<p>It happened most opportunely for the Cardinal's purpose that Capecce had
+long cherished a hopeless passion for the Duchess of Palliano.</p>
+
+<p>The Cardinal fanned this flame and Marcello, believing himself
+encouraged followed Violante to her villa. Here the Cardinal managed to
+bring the Duke at the very moment of the compromising visit.</p>
+
+<p>Why Carlo Caraffa should thus have endangered the life and reputation of
+his sister-in-law as well as that of his enemy is not definitely stated.
+Perhaps he counted on the Duke's love for his wife and intended simply
+to enrage his brother against a presuming but unfavoured lover. Whatever
+the accusation the jealous husband was not at first absolutely
+convinced, and he placed the matter for investigation in the hands of
+his wife's brother the Count Aliffe, who spied upon Capecce and reported
+that he was undoubtedly in love with the Duchess of Palliano for his
+desk was filled with poems in her honour.</p>
+
+<p>De Stendhal tells us vividly how Capecce was arrested on the charge of
+having attempted to poison the Duke, who, "to avoid public scandal
+stabbed him to death in prison." He also murdered the Duchess's
+lady-in-waiting, but seems not to have had the heart to kill his wife
+with his own hands. Nevertheless he believed it incumbent upon him as a
+wronged husband to exercise justice upon her, and he deputed the deed to
+her brother, who was nothing loth to wipe out the stain upon his family
+honour.</p>
+
+<p>On the night of the twenty-fifth of August, 1559, the Count Aliffe, with
+his friend Leonardo del Cardine, a friar, and some soldiers, appeared at
+the villa and told his sister his errand. She received her sentence with
+the haughtiest disdain. Never had she been so thoroughly a duchess.</p>
+
+<p>When urged to confess she protested her innocence, and assisted her
+brother in bandaging her own eyes. He hesitated for a moment; perhaps if
+she had appealed to his affection his heart might have given way; but
+she raised the handkerchief and coolly asked: "Well, what are we about,
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>Thus taunted he turned the wand in the noose about her neck, and so
+strangled her.</p>
+
+<p>The Pope seems to have approved the act or to have been indifferent to
+it; but it created a thrill of horror even at that time, for the
+beautiful Duchess had been greatly loved and was believed to be
+innocent.</p>
+
+<p>Strange to say, the man who was to avenge her fate was he whose heritage
+she had usurped. Marcantonio Colonna had used all his influence at the
+Court of Spain until Philip declared war upon Pope Paul IV., and
+deputed the Duke of Alva and the Spanish Army to wage the famous war of
+the Campagna. Thus Marcantonio came to his own again, and the Pope, who
+was near his end, in bitterness of soul signed the capitulation which
+saved Rome from a second sack by the Spaniards.</p>
+
+<p>News that the Pope was dying ran through Rome, and the populace
+liberated the prisoners of the Inquisition and burned the building. They
+howled for the Dominican monks, the guardians of the tribunal, that they
+might burn them also, but at the entrance to the monastery they were
+stopped by five mounted knights keeping guard over the doomed monks.
+They were all of them nobles, and all had suffered from the Pope, and
+they were led by Marcantonio Colonna, whose father and mother had been
+persecuted by the Inquisition. They had ridden in haste to Rome when
+they heard that Paul was dying to preserve order in the city.</p>
+
+<p>"And at the sight of those calm knights," says Marion Crawford, "sitting
+their horses without armour and with sheathed swords, the people drew
+back while Colonna spoke; and because he also had suffered much at
+Paul's hands they listened to him, and the great monastery was saved
+from fire and the monks from death."</p>
+
+<p>But though Revenge was restrained, Justice claimed the murderers of the
+Duchess of Palliano. Their trial was deliberate, but in the end Cardinal
+Carlo Caraffa met the same death which she had suffered, while her
+husband, her brother, and their accomplice were beheaded in the Torre di
+Nona.</p>
+
+<p>The first use made by Colonna of his revenues was to equip the
+battleship which he commanded at Lepanto, where he won the title of
+Champion of Christendom.</p>
+
+<p>The pitiful story of Eufrosina, who for a brief period was mistress of
+Palliano, is a sad blot upon the Champion's otherwise honourable career.
+Some authorities maintain that she was of good family, and that
+Marcantonio had killed her husband for love of her; others that she was
+a slave girl whom he had brought back from the Orient. All agree that
+she was beautiful, but Colonna had not made her his duchess. Strangely
+enough he offered the tiara of the murdered Violante to Felice Orsini,
+daughter of the very man who had striven in vain to win Palliano by
+force of arms. It was a tempting marriage, for it united the two great
+rival houses of Rome, and Eufrosina was heartlessly cast aside. Her
+after-history is a tragedy beside which the story just related pales to
+an idyl.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 434px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg366" id="ill_romv_pg366"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg366.png" width="434" height="550" alt="Court of the Massimi Palace" />
+<span class="caption">Court of the Massimi Palace</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>That she was a woman of extraordinary powers of fascination is proved by
+the fact that, though it was notorious that she had been abandoned by
+Marcantonio, Lelio Massimi, then the representative of one of the
+proudest patrician families of Rome, did not hesitate to make her his
+wife. Massimi was an old man and a widower, whose first wife, Gerolema
+Savelli, had given him six sons, notable for their herculean strength
+and arrogance and their father's remarriage to such a woman was an
+insult to their mother's memory which they could not condone.</p>
+
+<p>They entered Massimi's apartment upon his wedding night and shot his
+bride to death in his arms. The old man cursed his sons excepting only
+the youngest, Pompeo, who had taken no part in the assassination, and
+shortly afterward died broken-hearted, foretelling that Pompeo alone
+would continue the line as all of his brothers would die violent
+deaths.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>The record of the hearts of flame which have burned themselves out in
+the old nest of the ph&oelig;nix might be indefinitely prolonged, for
+though battered by many sieges Palliano was never totally destroyed, and
+formed the background of many a sinister drama. Marie Mancini Colonna,
+Principessa di Palliano, writes that fear of imprisonment in the dungeon
+of her titular castle was the principal motive of her flight from her
+husband in 1672. She had been threatened with such a fate and the threat
+was not without precedent.</p>
+
+<p>As a prison the Castle of Palliano exists at the present day. Has its
+symbol of the ph&oelig;nix attained a new meaning, and is it possible that
+erring souls issue from its gates, their stains burned clean by
+purgatorial flame?</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 456px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg368" id="ill_romv_pg368"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg368.png" width="456" height="550" alt="Marie Mancini Colonna, Principessa di Palliano, by
+Mignard
+
+Photographische Gesellschaft, Berlin" />
+<span class="caption">Marie Mancini Colonna, Principessa di Palliano, by
+Mignard<br />Photographische Gesellschaft, Berlin</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 394px;">
+<img src="images/ill_vix.png" width="394" height="156" alt="image not available" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<p class="c">THE LURE OF OLD ROME</p>
+
+<p class="c">ANTINOUS</p>
+
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Brother, 't is vain to hide</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That thou dost know of things mysterious,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Immortal, starry; such alone could thus</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Weigh down thy nature. Hast thou sinned in aught</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Offensive to the heavenly powers? Caught</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Paphian dove upon a message sent?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy doubtful bow against some deer herd bent</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sacred to Dian? Haply thou hast seen</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her naked limbs among the alders green</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And that, alas is death.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 14em;"><span class="smcap">Keats.</span></span><br />
+
+</p>
+
+<p class="non"><span class="let">I</span>T is impossible to saunter even so aimlessly as we have done through
+the villas of the cardinals of the Renaissance and not feel the potency
+of the charm by which their builders were enthralled, "the glamour of
+the world antique."</p>
+
+<p>We may struggle against the spell, telling ourselves that the scope and
+limits of the present volume will not permit of a glance at the villas
+of ancient Rome, but they insidiously steal upon us through those of the
+Renaissance. Particularly is this true of the Villa d'Este and the Villa
+Albani, magic gateways both leading directly into that earlier, and only
+real, Rome.</p>
+
+<p>For, though separated by the gulf of many centuries from the villa of
+the Emperor Hadrian at Tivoli, they are virtually ante-chambers to that
+once magnificent palace.</p>
+
+<p>We might turn from the attractive vista which they reveal but for an
+alluring phantom which can never be disassociated from those imperial
+ruins, a face whose beauty and pathos draws us on irresistibly to solve
+the mystery of its gentle sadness.</p>
+
+<p>Who, that has stood before the matchless relief of Antinous in the villa
+Albani, does not agree with the assertion, that "it is no shadow of sin
+which gives the pure brow its gravity, and that whatever may be the
+burden which bows the beautiful head, he bears it with a noble
+resignation which proves him superior to his suffering and unsullied by
+his doom."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 473px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg370" id="ill_romv_pg370"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg370.png" width="473" height="550" alt="Antinous
+
+Bas-relief found at Hadrian&#39;s Villa, now in the Villa Albani" />
+<span class="caption">Antinous<br />Bas-relief found at Hadrian&#39;s Villa, now in the Villa Albani</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the general resurrection of ancient masterpieces which took place
+during the Renaissance only one, the Apollo Belvedere, commanded wider
+admiration as a type of manly beauty. But the Apollo is a theatrical
+manifestation of the popular conception of god-like perfection, while
+Antinous makes appeals directly to the heart through his very humanity.</p>
+
+<p>One hundred and thirty-six of his portrait statues, busts, and reliefs
+have come down to us, and as many engraved gems and coins bearing
+varying interpretations of his familiar and unmistakable personality; so
+that it is common to speak of the Antinous type as the last ideal
+creation of ancient art. And yet we are assured on the highest authority
+that Antinous really lived, and that there is historical foundation for
+the authenticity of these portraits.</p>
+
+<p>"He has a distinct individuality always recognisable," says Gregorovius.
+"In every case we see a face bowed down, full of melancholy beauty, with
+deep-set eyes, slightly arched eyebrows, and abundant curls falling over
+the forehead. It is the beautiful expression of a nature which combined
+the Greek and the Asiatic characteristics only slightly idealised. We
+read the fate of Antinous in this sorrowful figure, for the artists knew
+of the death of sacrifice to which he dedicated himself, and this
+mysterious sadness would attract the observer even if he could not give
+the name to the statue."</p>
+
+<p>But history only whets our curiosity, for ancient writers are neglectful
+or tantalisingly bald in their allusions to Antinous. We are told only
+that he was the favourite of Hadrian, the most magnificent and
+enlightened of all the Roman emperors, who loved the gentle Bithynian
+youth so extravagantly that he made him his inseparable companion and
+even contemplated him as his successor; that during the fateful Egyptian
+journey an oracle announced that the Emperor must shortly die unless a
+voluntary victim could be found to take upon himself the doom with which
+he was threatened; and that Antinous unhesitatingly laid down his life
+for his patron. "Greater love hath no man than this," and Hadrian's
+ostentatious lamentation, and even his deification of his friend, seems
+puerile in comparison with the devotion of Antinous.</p>
+
+<p>No modern author has developed this alluring theme in a satisfactory
+manner. Ebers in his novel <i>The Emperor</i>, is inadequate. He laboriously
+loads its pages with his carefully verified material, but his
+imagination is wingless, the result far from convincing.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg372" id="ill_romv_pg372"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg372.png" width="600" height="482" alt="Ruins of a Gallery of Statues in Hadrian&#39;s Villa
+
+From an etching by Piranesi" />
+<span class="caption">Ruins of a Gallery of Statues in Hadrian&#39;s Villa<br />From an etching by Piranesi</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>One poet there was, he whose lines head this chapter, endowed with the
+inspiration to divine, and the power to worthily reveal the secret of
+the sadness in that haunting face, to which sculptors alone have done
+full justice. There are hints scattered through his poems that
+startlingly supplement the vague clues which now tantalise and baffle as
+we trace the story of Antinous in Hadrian's villa.</p>
+
+<p>For where history and literature fail us archæology supplies its
+circumstantial evidence, and if we scan, through the crystal lenses of
+uncoloured truth, the stage where the drama which we seek was enacted we
+shall see the sculptured semblances of the vanished actors, and be able
+to surmise in part the lost book of the play.</p>
+
+<p>The ruins of the great pleasure-palace, where the Emperor and his
+favourite resided during the opening scenes of their history, now lie
+bleak and bare, exposed to the burning sun and the wandering winds,
+despoiled even of the vines and flowers with which nature has striven to
+hide the ravages of man. We must go back to their excavation in the
+early part of the sixteenth century if we would study the tell-tale
+<i>mise-en-scène</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It was Pirro Ligorio who in 1538 made for Cardinal Ippolito d'Este II.
+the first systematic exploration and authoritative map of Hadrian's
+villa. A Neapolitan by birth, but called to Rome by his friend Pope Paul
+IV. (Caraffa), Ligorio, upon his arrival was associated with the aged
+Michael Angelo in the building of St. Peter's.</p>
+
+<p>With the arrogance of youth he quarrelled with the great master and did
+not hesitate to speak of him openly as a dotard who had outlived his
+usefulness and should yield his place to a younger genius. Paul IV. had
+the wisdom to retain Michael Angelo in his important post, and the tact
+to take the sting from Ligorio's removal by giving him the commission
+for the casino in the Vatican Gardens which (as it was not finished
+until the pontificate of Pius IV.) was destined to bear the name of the
+Villa Pia.</p>
+
+<p>Learned authorities have endeavoured to find the original of Ligorio's
+masterpiece in some ancient building, whereas the perfect adaptability
+of its plan to new requirements proves that it could never have been
+produced earlier than the Renaissance. It has been well epitomised as
+the "day-dream of an artist who has saturated his mind with the past."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 409px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg374" id="ill_romv_pg374"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg374.png" width="409" height="550" alt="Antinous as Bacchus" />
+<span class="caption">Antinous as Bacchus, in the Museum of the
+Vatican<br />
+Permission of Alinari.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the profusion of joyous mythological deities which give the façade of
+the Casino the richness of decoration of a jewel-casket, nymphs and
+graces dance, Pan flutes, and marine monsters frolic with all the
+abandon of classical feeling, and it is in the ornamental details, not
+in the conception of the ensemble, that we detect the influence of the
+Villa of Hadrian. When the papal villa was approaching completion,
+Ligorio attracted the attention of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este II. (the
+patron of Tasso) a connoisseur and dilettante in all the arts, who
+wisely entrusted to the young architect the construction of his famous
+villa at Tivoli.</p>
+
+<p>The Cardinal had the right to quarry materials from the neighbouring
+ruins, and among the first of the great discoveries which Ligorio
+records is that of a statue of Antinous. It depicted the youth under the
+attributes of Bacchus, and was possibly a replica of the beautiful
+statue found later at Præneste and now in the Sala Rotonda of the
+Vatican.</p>
+
+<p>From the hour that it was carried in triumph to the terraces of Villa
+d'Este, Ligorio and his patron as well, were taken captive by a new
+enthusiasm, for a lucky chance had guided the excavators to the most
+richly ornamented of all the apartments in the Emperor's wonderful
+palace&mdash;the heavy-folded curtain of Time had rolled upward disclosing
+the scene of the happiest hours in the short life of Antinous.</p>
+
+<p>An exquisite circular palazzita lay before them, islanded by a
+marble-lined canal five metres broad from an encircling portico, whose
+roof was supported by forty Corinthian columns of precious <i>giallo
+antico</i>. Noting the important part played by water in this construction,
+the canal fed by fountains, whose pipes and mechanism plainly showed
+within the statues which ornamented the rotunda, Ligorio hastily
+concluded that this was the Emperor's natatorium or swimming pool. But
+the feminine elegance of the fairy-like suite of apartments, to which
+the canal served as a moat; the presence of drawbridges worked from the
+centre, thus cutting off or affording communication with the colonnade
+at the will of the occupant, and evidences that the canal itself was a
+<i>nympheum</i> or aquatic garden, among whose rose-coloured lotus blossoms
+white swans glided, flamingoes darted, and tall clusters of papyrus
+screened the porticoes from the gaze of passers, favoured the conclusion
+that this pavilion of all delight was designed for some beautiful woman
+royally beloved. The frieze of loves, mounted upon hippocampi
+imitating the games of the circus, which Ligorio copied in the vestibule
+of the Villa Pia formed a part of the decoration lavished here.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg376" id="ill_romv_pg376"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg376.png" width="600" height="439" alt="Alinari
+
+Villa Pia in the Garden of the Vatican
+
+Pirro Ligorio, architect" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Villa Pia in the Garden of the Vatican<br />Pirro Ligorio, architect</td><td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>The conspicuous situation of the palazzita between the basilica and the
+imperial apartments, to which its encircling colonnade served as a
+corridor of communication, indicated that the lady was not a favourite
+of low degree, to be hidden away in some Rosalind's bower of the immense
+labyrinthine palace, while the most valuable statues in the entire
+villa, such as the replica of the Cnidian Venus by Praxiteles, the Eros
+bending the bow, by the same master, made this temple of love and Venus
+a fitting pavilion for an empress. Such it may well have been, for here
+was found the sculptured portrait of Faustina, the wife of Antoninus
+Pius, Hadrian's successor, who resided in the villa both before and
+after the death of Antinous.</p>
+
+<p>She was the beautiful mother of a more beautiful daughter of the same
+name, an empress in her turn, and both branded by a historian of the
+time as infamous.</p>
+
+<p>Swinburne's apostrophe in <i>Ave Faustina Imperatrix</i> applies equally to
+the portrait bust of mother or daughter:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">"Your throat,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Strong, heavy, throwing out the face,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And hard, bright chin</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And shameful, scornful lips that grace</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Their shame, Faustine."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>But it is possible that Swinburne was too hasty in accepting ancient
+gossip, and that both the Faustinas were maligned. "Modern scholarship,"
+says Monsieur Victor Duruy, "argues for their rehabilitation, and
+chiefly because the husbands of each, good and wise men both, have left
+such unequivocal testimony of their respect."</p>
+
+<p>"To the gods," wrote Marcus Aurelius of the younger Faustina, "I am
+indebted that I have such a wife, so obedient, so affectionate, and so
+simple."</p>
+
+<p>And after the death of his wife (Faustina the elder) Antoninus Pius
+cried in his grief: "O God, I would rather live with her in a desert
+than without her in this palace."</p>
+
+<p>In this enchanting palazzita the younger Faustina may have passed her
+childhood, while the scholarly boy, Marcus Aurelius, her cousin,
+listened to the disquisitions of the philosophers as they discussed
+great problems with the Emperor.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg378" id="ill_romv_pg378"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg378.png" width="600" height="440" alt="Alinari
+
+Villa Pia, Vatican
+
+The Rotondo&mdash;Pirro Ligorio, architect" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Villa Pia, Vatican<br />The Rotondo&mdash;Pirro Ligorio, architect</td><td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Hadrian loved the lad, and for his absolute truthfulness nicknamed him
+Verissimus, making him a knight at the age of six. He was the comrade of
+Antinous, and as they passed to and fro together through colonnaded
+rotonda they must have often noted the young mother (she was sixteen
+when married) and her bewitching child, waving white hands from across
+the lily-padded moat.</p>
+
+<p>Here, then, are certain of the actors, as well as our <i>mise-en-scène</i>,
+and Marcus Aurelius, in his <i>Meditations</i>, has himself given us a hint
+as to the drama. "Forget not," he writes, "that in times gone by
+everything has already happened just as it is happening. Place before
+thine eyes whole dramas with the same endings, the same scenes, just as
+thou knowest them by thine own experience, or from earlier
+history&mdash;such, for example, as the whole Court of Hadrian."</p>
+
+<p>If with these instructions we remember Marcus Aurelius's still more
+significant words, "Even in a palace life may be well led," each of us
+can according to his own fancy divine the secret which Antinous kept so
+well.</p>
+
+<p>Had Ligorio given to literature the sympathetic imagination which he
+displayed in his art it might have been worthily revealed. For ten years
+he explored with the most intense enthusiasm the interminable
+apartments which were to prove an inexhaustible mine of art for modern
+museums, and whose bibliography would fill a library. Then in 1572 his
+munificent patron died, and the work suddenly came to an end.</p>
+
+<p>For two centuries the Villa of Hadrian lay neglected until new
+discoveries revived popular interest, and a young German scholar was
+called to superintend the building and installation of the last of the
+great villas erected in Rome by a member of its hierarchical
+aristocracy.</p>
+
+<p>There exists such striking parallelism in the history of the Villa
+d'Este and the Villa Albani, and on such identical lines was the work
+carried on that it would almost seem that, the duration of human life
+not being sufficient to complete it, Cardinal Ippolito and Pirro Ligorio
+were granted reincarnation for another fifty years in Cardinal Albani
+and his friend Winckelmann.</p>
+
+<p><a name="ill_romv_pg380a" id="ill_romv_pg380a"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 289px;">
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg380a.png" width="289" height="378" alt="Eros Bending the Bow
+
+Capitoline Museum" />
+<span class="caption">Eros Bending the Bow<br />Capitoline Museum</span>
+</div>
+<p><a name="ill_romv_pg380b" id="ill_romv_pg380b"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 217px;">
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg380b.png" width="217" height="375"
+alt="Faun of Praxiteles
+
+Capitoline Museum" />
+<span class="caption">Faun of Praxiteles<br />Capitoline Museum</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the many masterpieces secured by Cardinal d'Este it was
+known from ancient records that the greatest treasures of the Villa
+Hadriana had escaped his eager search, having been so securely hidden on
+the invasion of the Goths, that they evaded as well all other
+plunderers. But early in the eighteenth century Gavin Hamilton,
+commissioned to secure antiques for the British Museum, drained an
+extensive marsh called the Pantello and found it to be the depository in
+which Belisarius had secreted the missing statues on the approach of
+Totila.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> From this hiding-place there emerged between 1730 and 1780,
+the <i>Antinous</i> of the museum of the Capitol and the relief of the Villa
+Albani together with the <i>Resting Faun</i> of Praxiteles which so
+captivated the imagination of Hawthorne, and many another famous work of
+art now the glory of some far distant museum.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for Italy, England found a contesting bidder in Cardinal
+Albani, and the majority of the statues found in the Pantello were
+purchased by him. At the same time the magnificent collection of
+Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, was offered at public sale by the degenerate
+spendthrift who inherited it, and sixty of the finest statues were
+secured for Villa Albani and rejoined their old companions.</p>
+
+<p>Winckelmann gloated over their beauty, for he united the artist's
+appreciation to the connoisseurship of the archæologist. What solicitude
+for its appropriate setting, only surpassed by that of Hadrian himself,
+did he bestow on the placing of each individual statue, and with what
+exultation he records its arrival.</p>
+
+<p>"The Cardinal has brought from Tivoli on a <i>carro</i> drawn by sixteen
+bullocks a female river deity of colossal size well preserved" (and
+still to be seen reclining on the margin of a reservoir). To the relief
+of <i>Antinous</i> Winckelmann gave the place of honour which it now
+occupies. Let us read his own record of the esteem in which he held it.</p>
+
+<p>"The glory and the crown of sculpture in this age <i>as well as in all
+ages</i>" he does not hesitate to assert, "are two likenesses of Antinous."
+One of them, in the Albani villa, is in relief, the other is a colossal
+head in the Mondragone villa.</p>
+
+<p>"The former disinterred from Hadrian's villa is," says Winckelmann,
+"only a fragment of an entire figure which probably stood on a chariot.
+For the right hand, which is empty, is in a position that leads me to
+conclude that it must have held the reins. In this work therefore would
+have been represented the deification of Antinous as we know that
+figures so honoured were placed upon cars to signify their translation
+to the gods.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg382" id="ill_romv_pg382"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg382.png" width="600" height="444" alt="Villa Albani" />
+<span class="caption">Villa Albani</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg383" id="ill_romv_pg383"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg383.png" width="500" height="329" alt="Casino, Villa Albani
+
+Alinari" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Casino, Villa Albani</td><td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p><a name="ill_cand_a" id="ill_cand_a"></a></p>
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 336px;">
+
+<img src="images/ill_cand_a.png"
+class="top15" width="336" height="442" alt="Alinari
+Candelabrum from Hadrian&#39;s Villa Museum of the Vatican" />
+
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Candelabrum from<br />Hadrian&#39;s Villa<br />Museum of the Vatican</td><td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 349px;">
+<img src="images/ill_cand_b.png"
+class="top15" width="349" height="447" alt="Alinari
+
+Candelabrum from Hadrian&#39;s Villa
+
+Museum of the Vatican" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Candelabrum from<br />Hadrian&#39;s Villa<br />Museum of the Vatican</td><td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p style="clear:both;">"The colossal head in the Mondragone villa (now in the Louvre) I
+hold it no heresy to say is, next to the Vatican Apollo and the Laocoon,
+the most beautiful work which has come down to us."</p>
+
+<p>The two friends lived a charmed life more in the past than in the Rome
+of their own day until the spree was rudely broken by Winckelmann's
+tragic death at the hands of a vulgar robber, and the grey-haired
+cardinal wandered alone among his cherished marbles. Many of these he
+donated to the Capitoline Museum and to the Vatican, but the relief of
+Antinous he held among his most cherished possessions. It would have
+broken the good man's heart to have known that these statues were doomed
+to wander far from the home which he had provided for them. The French
+took possession of Italy, and the masterpieces of the Villa Albani
+formed only a fraction of the wholesale robberies which for a time
+enriched the museum of the Louvre.</p>
+
+<p>On the fall of Napoleon the Pope chose the sculptor Canova as his envoy
+to negotiate with the allies for the return of the art treasures of
+Italy. Canova was successful, for he pleaded from a full heart; but
+although he secured the restitution of the two hundred and ninety-four
+statues which Napoleon had taken from the Villa Albani, Cardinal
+Giuseppe Albani, an unworthy successor of the great collector, sold all
+but one in order to avoid the cost of their return transportation. The
+poor peripatetic philosophers, emperors, empresses, gods, and goddesses
+trooped on like uneasy ghosts, not a few of them finding shelter in the
+Glyptothek at Munich.</p>
+
+<p>The one piece of sculpture reserved from this fate of expatriation, and
+reinstated in triumph in its old position in the salon at the left of
+the main gallery of the villa, it is hardly necessary to state, was the
+relief of <i>Antinous</i>. Here it remains and lures us, according to our
+bent, to study or to dream of the life which its original so
+passionately lived, and instinctively we search for some statue of a
+woman of equal charm to link with it in our dreams.</p>
+
+<p>Ebers thought he had found it in the loveliest of the nine muses which
+Ligorio discovered in the theatre of Hadrian's villa. In 1689 Velasquez
+was sent to Rome to acquire them for Philip V. Eight of them may still
+be seen in the Museum of Madrid, but the ninth muse, Urania, from which
+the d'Estes could not then be induced to part, is now in the Sala delle
+Muse of the Vatican. This is the Urania which Ebers imagines to have
+been carved by the young Alexandrine sculptor, Pollux, from the Selene
+whom we are told Antinous vainly loved.</p>
+
+<p>The face is very winsome and the romance might satisfy us, but for a
+portrait-statue of a genuine Selene, found by Ligorio near the palazzita
+and now in the casino of the Villa Albani.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 417px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg384" id="ill_romv_pg384"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg384.png" width="417" height="550" alt="Alinari
+Urania Museum of the Vatican" />
+<table summary="alinari" class="caption">
+<tr valign="top"><td>Urania<br />Museum of the Vatican</td><td align="right" ><span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="let2"><i>Alinari</i></span></span><br /></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is catalogued as <i>Iris Descending</i>, but mistakenly, says Monsieur
+Guzman, for Iris was invariably represented with wings, and this
+graceful figure is wingless, a torch in hand, and floating downward so
+gently that her motion scarcely agitates her soft drapery. Authorities
+are now agreed that the lovely figure represents Selene, the
+moon-goddess, who, enamoured with Endymion, kept tryst with him in his
+dreams, and a beautiful "Sleeping Youth" was actually discovered beneath
+the descending Selene, thus completing the composition and verifying the
+assumption as to its subject. That the recumbent youth was not at once
+recognised as intended to represent Endymion is due to the inability of
+the scientific mind to grasp more than one idea at a time, for the
+features bore so marked a resemblance to those of Antoninus Pius that
+it was rightly considered a portrait of that Emperor in his youth. Only
+recently have archæologists accepted the title, <i>Antoninus Pius as
+Endymion</i> and it seems probable that the Selene of Villa Albani
+portrayed the Empress Faustina, and that this group was a tribute of the
+Emperor's to his beautiful wife, his "Diva Faustina," who stooped to him
+like the moon-goddess from the sky. Is it not equally possible that he
+caused the symbols of Selene to be cut upon her signet that she might
+use it in her intimate correspondence, that the charm of this wonderful
+woman was associated in his mind with the magic of moonlight, gentle,
+love-compelling, and pure? Such a testimonial does in fact exist in a
+medal struck by the command of Antoninus Pius after the death of the
+Empress, representing Faustina bearing two torches, but returning to
+heaven, and depriving him of the light which had illumined their wedded
+life; and lest there should be any doubt that the deity typified in this
+apotheosis is Selene the Emperor caused the words <i>Luna lucifera</i> to be
+engraved beneath the name of Faustina.</p>
+
+<p>The myth of the love of the lady-moon has nowhere been so exquisitely
+rendered as in the <i>Endymion</i> of Keats, and his description of the
+descent of Selene applies well to the moon-maiden of the Villa Albani:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 14em;">"I raised</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My sight right upward, but it was quite daz'd</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By a bright something sailing down apace,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Making me quickly veil my eyes and face.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;"
+class="dots">. . . . .
+. . . .
+</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her locks were simply gordianed up and braided</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Leaving in naked comeliness unshaded</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her pearl round ears, white neck, and orbed brow.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">. . . I see her hovering feet</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">More bluely veined, more whitely sweet</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Than those of sea-born Venus when she rose</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From out her cradle shell. The wind out-blows</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Tis blue and over-spangled with a million</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of little eyes, as though thou wert to shed</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Over the darkest lushest blue-bell bed</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Handfuls of daisies."<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Faustina may have known Antinous before her marriage, while Hadrian
+still hoped to make him his successor, ere the clamours of the people
+forced him to make the wiser choice. Had Antinous been so favoured, is
+there any doubt whether Faustina would not have inclined to him instead
+of to the good man with the serious, anxious face, who was more than
+twice her age when he became her husband?</p>
+
+<p>The statues of Antinous fully realise Keats's ideal of Endymion.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;">"His youth was fully blown</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shining like Ganymede to manhood grown,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A smile was on his countenance; he seemed</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To common lookers-on like one who dreamed</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of idleness in groves Elysian</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But there were some who feelingly could scan</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A lurking trouble in his nether lip.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then would they sigh, 'Ah! well-a-day</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Why should our young Endymion pine away?'"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>We know not on what authority Ebers links the name of Antinous,
+Endymion-like, with that of Selene. Was there some missive sealed by a
+moon-beam torch, or addressed to the lady moon which went astray and set
+the gossip of the Court crackling like a flame in dry grass? Or was it
+merely his aspiration for the throne of the Cæsars which was signified
+by the common expression, "he longed for the moon," and not a love
+hopeless, but beyond his power to conquer for the unattainable Selene,
+which saddened his young life so deeply, and determined him to throw it
+away when the occasion seemed to demand the sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>Both research and fancy will lead you far, for it was in Egypt that the
+most dramatic part of the story was enacted, and that Antinous,
+believing that in so doing he saved Hadrian's life, launched forth upon
+the Nile during a terrific tempest, and standing erect in the unguided
+canoe sought a voluntary death in the storm-lashed waters.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor's grief was wildly extravagant. He gave the beautiful body a
+king's burial in a tomb flanked by obelisks and guarded by a sphinx; and
+he built about it a magnificent city which he called Antinopolis, a city
+which exists to this day though no man lives within its desolate
+columned streets.</p>
+
+<p>But the deserted city has been identified in the ruins called by the
+Egyptians, Antin&oelig;. Its hippodrome, and theatres, and temple tomb have
+all been mapped by archæologists, and its Arch of Triumph, of Roman
+bricks faced with white marble, its long colonnades of Corinthian
+columns, and its melancholy waving palms have been photographed by
+troops of unreflecting tourists.</p>
+
+<p>While erecting memorials to his friend, Hadrian was not unmindful of his
+own sepulchral monument, the present castle of St. Angelo. It served as
+a mausoleum for the imperial family. The ashes of Faustina (to whose
+memory her husband erected the beautiful temple bearing her name) were
+placed here, their urn guarded by two bronze peacocks, the emblems of an
+empress.</p>
+
+<p>These peacocks with the pineapple, which crowned the summit of the tomb,
+now ornament the Court of the Belvedere of the Vatican, in whose
+galleries may be found some of the statues with which Hadrian decorated
+the upper colonnade of the mausoleum, and which were wrenched from their
+pedestals and toppled upon the heads of the Goths when Totila besieged
+Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Gregorovius in his scholarly biography of Hadrian thus sums up his
+achievements and estimates his character:</p>
+
+<p>"He ruled the empire like a noble Roman, with prudence and strength. He
+enjoyed life with the joy of the ancients. He travelled throughout the
+world and found it worth the trouble. He restored it and embellished it
+with new beauty. He was lavish on a great scale."</p>
+
+<p>We certainly do not know what he thought of his whole life at the end of
+it. He might have agreed with the estimate of Marcus Aurelius: "All that
+belongs to the soul is a dream and a delusion; life is a struggle and a
+wandering among strangers, and fame after death is forgetfulness."</p>
+
+<p>That he had some vague belief in the immortality of the soul the
+well-known poem written shortly before his death certainly shows:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Animula, vagula, blandula;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hospes, comesque corporis,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Quæ nunc abibis in loca;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pallidula, rigida, nudula,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nec ut soles dabis jocos?"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+"Celestial spirit, evanescent fay,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Supernal guest and sharer of my might,</span><br />
+Wherefore and whither dost thou fly away,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Exquisite phantom, nude and ghostly white,</span><br />
+Never with me again to flit and play,<br />
+Never with me to play?"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Reluctantly, after all our search, we find that archæology, while it
+tells us much of Hadrian, leaves Antinous still a mystery.</p>
+
+<p>The forsaken pleasure palace is silent and empty save for ghosts of the
+imagination. We see the imperial barges glide up the Nile as in a
+pageant, but it is all a wordless pantomime, though the beautiful
+immortal figure stands.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Still there where he a thousand years hath stood</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And watched, with gaze intent, the ages' flood</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His graceful limbs reflecting, then as now</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His lotus crown the sadness on his brow,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And races new in line unending glide</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Along in shells upon the flowing tide;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But aye as they approach and look on him</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Athwart their joy there falls a sorrow dim,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The citherns cease that rang as they drew nigh,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On glowing lips the jests and kisses die.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And, lo! the heart is seized by infinite woe,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With arms outstretched they gaze as on they go&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'O waken, boy! O waken from thy dream!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Say what thou seest below the ages stream,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tell us, is life's enigma known to thee?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Give us thy own fair immortality!'</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But ere he from his revery wakens they</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Have with the river drifted far away."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 423px;">
+<a name="ill_romv_pg392" id="ill_romv_pg392"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_romv_pg392.png" width="423" height="550" alt="View through the Key-hole of the Gate of the Villa of the
+Knights of Malta" />
+<span class="caption">View through the Key-hole of the Gate of the Villa of the
+Knights of Malta</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 391px;">
+<img src="images/ill_envoi.png"
+class="top15" width="391" height="151" alt="image not available" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="c">L'ENVOI</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A keyhole glimpse at Rome they show</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Twixt cypresses, a stately row,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where all who pass are free to see</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The villa of the Priory.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Here belted knights, with cross on breast,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In days of old were wont to rest,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And 'neath the ilex hedges tall</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Oft paced the subtle Cardinal,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His robe upon the pavement cool</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mantling like some ensanguined pool.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">St. Peter's keys, traditions tell,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Open the gates of Heaven and Hell.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O'er many a villa gate they 're shown,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With triple crown carved deep in stone.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If, then, you crave a fuller view</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Than keyhole glimpses give to you,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unlock and enter. You shall know</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Heaven of art, a Hell of woe.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="c smcap">the end</p>
+
+<hr class="bar" />
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="FOOTNOTES"
+id="FOOTNOTES"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> His magnificent villa of Caprarola and the still more
+entrancing villa of Lante are linked with legends of Giulio Farnese and
+Vittoria Accoramboni in the author's <i>Romance of Italian Villas</i>, which
+with the <i>Romance of the Renaissance Châteaux</i> will be found
+supplementary to the present volume.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> From <i>The Italian Rhapsody</i>, by permission of Mr. Robert
+Underwood Johnson.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Translated by E. Frère Champney.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> A song composed by Lorenzo de' Medici. "How lovely is our
+youth, and yet how fast it flies! Those who wish for joy must snatch it
+now. Trust not to to-morrow; seize it now, seize it now!"</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The earliest cards were not inscribed with hearts,
+diamonds, clubs, and spades, but with swords, money, clubs, and cups.
+The same emblems are still used on the Spanish playing-cards.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The French historians call him Richart de Cornouailles, the
+Italians Ricciardo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> A <i>stornello a fiore</i> consists generally of a couplet
+beginning with an invocation to a flower, as:
+</p>
+
+<p><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fior di limone!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Limone è agro e non si puoi mangiare</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ma son più agre le pene d'amore.</span><br />
+</p><p><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fior di granato!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Se li sospiri mie fossere fuocco,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tutto il mondo sarebbe buciato.</span><br />
+
+</p><p>
+See also the <i>stornelli</i> in Browning's <i>Fra Lippo Lippi</i> of two of which
+Richard's are variants.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Palliano or Pagliano, for the name is variously spelled.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> John Addington Symonds further relates in what strange ways
+fate fulfilled this prediction. "Disaster fell on each of the five
+brothers. The first of them, Ottavio, was killed by a cannon-ball at sea
+in honorable combat with the Turk. Another, Girolamo, who sought refuge
+in France, was shot down in an ambuscade while pursuing his amours with
+a gentle lady. A third, Alessandro, died under arms before Paris in the
+troops of General Farnese. A fourth, Luca, was imprisoned at Rome for
+his share of the step-mother's murder, but was released on the plea that
+he had avenged the wounded honour of his race. He died, however,
+poisoned by his own brother Marcantoni in 1599. Marcantoni was arrested
+on suspicion and imprisoned in Torre di Nona, where he confessed his
+guilt. He was shortly afterward beheaded on the little square before the
+bridge of St. Angelo."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Hamilton was aided in his work by Piranesi whose
+engravings record the state of the ruins at this time.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> The same figure is depicted in the frescoes of Pompeii,
+and here the deep blue of an Italian night glittering with stars gives
+the added touch of colour.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE OF ROMAN VILLAS***</p>
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+*** END: FULL LICENSE ***
+</pre>
+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Romance of Roman Villas, by Elizabeth W.
+(Elizbeth Williams) Champney
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Romance of Roman Villas
+       (The Renaissance)
+
+
+Author: Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 10, 2009  [eBook #27766]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE OF ROMAN VILLAS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Chuck Greif and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 27766-h.htm or 27766-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/7/6/27766/27766-h/27766-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/7/6/27766/27766-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+ROMANCE OF ROMAN VILLAS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: Pope Julius II. Viewing the Newly-found Statue of the
+Apollo Belvedere
+
+From the painting by Carl Becker. Permission of the Berlin Photographic
+Co.]
+
+(The Renaissance)
+
+by
+
+ELIZABETH W. CHAMPNEY
+
+Author of "Romance of the Italian Villas," "Romance of the
+Feudal Chateaux," "Romance of the French Abbeys," Etc.
+
+Illustrated
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+G. P. Putnam's Sons
+New York and London
+The Knickerbocker Press
+1908
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+    In came the cardinal, grave and coldly wise,
+    His scarlet gown and robes of cobweb lace
+    Trailed on the marble floor; with convex glass
+    He bent o'er Guido's shoulder.
+
+            WALTER THORNBURY.
+
+
+Still unrivalled, after the lapse of four centuries the villas of the
+great cardinals of the Renaissance retain their supremacy over their
+Italian sisters, not, as once, by reason of their prodigal magnificence
+but in the appealing charm of their picturesque decay.
+
+The centuries have bestowed a certain pathetic beauty, they have also
+taken away much, and the sympathy which these ruined pleasure palaces
+evoke whets our curiosity to know what they were like in their heyday of
+joyous revelling.
+
+If we run down the list of the nobler villas of Rome we will find that,
+with few exceptions, they were built by princes of the purple, and that
+the names they bear are not Roman but those of the ruling families of
+other Italian cities.
+
+That the sixteenth century should have produced the most palatial
+residences ever inhabited by prelates was but a natural outcome of the
+conditions then existing. The society of Rome was a hierarchical
+aristocracy made up of the younger sons of every powerful and ambitious
+family of Italy, and the red hat was so greatly desired not for the
+honour or emoluments of the cardinalcy _per se_ but because it was a
+step to the papacy.
+
+"To an Italian," says Alfred Austin, "it must seem a reproach never to
+have had a pope in the family, and you will with difficulty find a villa
+of any pretension, certainly not in Frascati, where memorial tassels and
+tiara carven in stone over porch and doorway do not attest pontifical
+kinship."
+
+The young cardinal's first move in the game which he was to play was at
+all expense to create an impression, and if, as in the case of Ippolito
+d'Este, he had no benevolent uncle in St. Peter's chair to guide his
+career, the parental coffers were drawn upon recklessly and the cadet of
+the great house led a more extravagant life in his Roman villa than the
+duke his elder brother in his provincial court. The object of his
+ambition once attained the new Pope unscrupulously enriched his family,
+and endeavoured to make his office hereditary by elevating his favourite
+nephew to the cardinalcy, and endowing this future candidate for the
+papacy with means from the revenues of the Church to purchase the votes
+of his rivals. This is the constantly reiterated history of the builders
+of the palaces and villas of Rome.
+
+Sixtus IV. made the fortunes of his numerous de la Rovere and Riario
+nephews,--one of whom, Pietro, Cardinal of San Sisto, for whom Bramante
+built the Cancellaria Palace, set the pace for his comrades of the
+Sacred College by squandering in two years the enormous sum of
+$2,800,000. Cardinal Raphael Riario of the next generation began the
+most beautiful of all villas, Lante, which three other cardinals
+subsequently perfected.
+
+Leo X. after his election as pope, proved to be a greater spendthrift
+than Sixtus IV., for he not only repaired the broken fortunes of the
+Medici but eclipsed his father as a patron of art, making the erection
+of monumental buildings and the collection of objects of art a mania
+among all men of wealth and culture. Cardinal Giulio (afterwards
+Clement VII.) in the Villa Madama, and Cardinal Ferdinando in the Villa
+Medici sustained the family tradition, but Cardinal Alexander Farnese
+(Pope Paul III.) outrivalled them both, by filling the Farnese palace
+with the most valuable collections ever amassed by a private
+individual.[1]
+
+Immediately succeeding Alexander Farnese Julius III. built the noble
+Villa di Papa Giulio, and Pius IV. the charming Villa Pia; but nepotism
+did not scandalously reassert itself until the last quarter of the
+century, when the immense Villa Aldobrandini was erected by a nephew of
+Clement VIII.
+
+Pope Paul V. in his turn bestowed more than a million dollars upon his
+Borghese nephews, to one of whom, Cardinal Scipione, we owe the
+delightful Villa Borghese, just outside the Porta del Popolo.
+
+Early in the next century the evil attained greater proportions. Olimpia
+Pamphili, whose name and memory are perpetuated in the villa built by
+her son, received from Pope Innocent X. more than two millions. But
+Innocent seems to have a fair claim to his name when compared with his
+immediate predecessor Urban VIII. who conferred upon his nephews, the
+brothers Barberini, sums amounting to one hundred and five millions!
+
+An architecture of pompous ostentation and riotous overloading of
+ornament, the Baroque, now took the place of the classical beauty of the
+Renaissance and art degraded became the slave of wealth, until the great
+Cardinal Albani erected his villa to serve as her temple.
+
+We are ready to expect great results in the villas and palaces of the
+millionaires of the earlier half of the sixteenth century when we
+reflect that they were executed by Bramante, Peruzzi, San Gallo, Michael
+Angelo, and Raphael with a host of lesser men who would have been great
+in any other age, and that the ruins of imperial Rome furnished them
+with models for their designs and an inexhaustible quarry of statues,
+columns, mosaics, and other materials.
+
+The point of view of the present volume is the life rather than the art
+of these villas, but it is not possible to ignore the stimulus which the
+daily discovery of the masterpieces of ancient art afforded to the
+artists of the day, and the connoisseurship imposed upon the rivalling
+patrons and collectors.
+
+In the chapters entitled: "The Finding of Apollo" and "The Lure of Old
+Rome" I have striven to depict the influence of these discoveries upon
+such sensitive souls as those of Raphael and Ligorio, and the gradual
+education of the financier Chigi and Cardinal Ippolito d'Este in the
+refinements of dilettantism.
+
+But the Fornarina left a more potent impression on Raphael's art than
+the Apollo Belvedere, and her memory and that of Imperia still haunt the
+villa of the Farnesina indissolubly united with that of the master of
+art and the master of revels.
+
+In the noble Colonna palace the personality most vividly present to-day
+is that of Vittoria Colonna, making good the boast of Michael Angelo's
+sonnet,--
+
+    "So I can give long life to both of us
+    In either way by colour or by stone,
+    Making the semblance of thy face and mine,
+    Centuries hence when both are buried thus
+    Thy beauty and my sadness shall be shown
+    And men shall say, 'For her 't was right to pine.'"
+
+But if Michael Angelo carved or painted Vittoria the portrait is lost;
+and it is to his love, not to his art that she owes her immortality. So
+from the history of these beautiful dwellings I have chosen as the focal
+point of each of the following chapters, the half-forgotten face of some
+woman, and were it not that the story of Vittoria Colonna is so well
+known that noble woman might well have led the procession. For the same
+reason, and because her castle of Spoleto could not be classed under my
+topic, I have laid aside a study of Lucrezia Borgia and of another
+Lucrezia who may have resided within its walls.
+
+But from the succession of beauties who kissed their lovers beneath the
+rose-trellises of Rome, I have stolen secrets enough to overfill these
+pages, secrets which few of the gentle shades would forbid my telling,
+since for the most part they are sweet and innocent and true. For the
+others, daughters of disorder, may their sufferings bespeak your pity.
+
+The difficulty in arriving at just estimates has only made the attempt
+the more engrossing, as those will attest who have tracked through the
+mass of conflicting histories the story of the elusive lady who gave the
+name of Madama to the exquisite villa which Raphael designed for Clement
+VII.
+
+The Villa Aldobrandini recalls an ancient legend preserved in more than
+one of the Italian novelli; and reading between the lines of the
+Amyntas we may trace Tasso's love for Leonora which blossomed in the
+terraced garden of the Villa d'Este.
+
+The villas Borghese and Mondragone are still instinct with the
+personality of a romantic little lady of a later period, the bewildering
+Pauline Bonaparte. It is impossible while enthralled by her portrait
+statue to remember any other princess of that noble house; but as we
+wander through the portrait gallery of the Colonna palace it is equally
+difficult to choose a favourite from its brilliant gallery. My apologies
+are due to many another in fixing upon Giulia Gonzaga, wife of Vespasian
+Colonna as my heroine, though such was the fame of her beauty that the
+Sultan of Turkey despatched a fleet for her capture.
+
+In the last decade of the century, Marie de' Medici looked down upon
+Rome from the villa of her uncle, Cardinal Ferdinando, and wandered
+among that wonderful array of statues which now form the glory of the
+Pitti Palace.
+
+This was the time, if ever, that Shakespeare visited Italy, and I have
+attempted to give a true picture of the life and scenes which he may
+have viewed.
+
+To my last chapter is left the confession that the supreme charm of
+Rome of the Renaissance lies not in itself, but in the fact that it is
+the bridge which unites modernity to the Rome of antiquity.
+
+Each statue unearthed in the cardinal's garden, as it reassumed its
+place upon the familiar terrace, must have whispered to its marble
+companions: "They call this the Villa d'Este! We know better, it is
+Hadrian's. Their learned men have labelled you, 'By an Unknown
+Sculptor,' little suspecting that your lips were arched by Praxiteles.
+They have christened our friend in the garden of Lucullus, the 'Venus
+de' Medici,' ignorant of the prouder name she bore, and they call the
+relief in that new villa, 'The Antinous of Cardinal Albani,' not knowing
+that the portrait and its original were alike, Faustina's."
+
+Shall we, indulgent reader, on some fair, future day, led by the lure of
+_old_ Rome, together revisit our loved villas and win the confidences of
+these marble men and women who smile on us so inscrutably, and yet with
+such all-compelling fascination?
+
+    Dear Italy, the sound of thy soft name
+      Soothes me with balm of Memory and of Hope.
+      Mine for the moment height and steep and slope
+    That once were mine. Supreme is still the aim
+      To flee the cold and grey
+      Of our December day,
+    And rest where thy clear spirit burns with unconsuming flame.
+
+    Fount of _Romance_ whereat our Shakespeare drank!
+      Through him the loves of all are linked to thee,
+      By Romeo's ardour, Juliet's constancy
+    He sets the peasant in the royal rank,
+      Shows, under mask and paint,
+      Kinship of knave and saint
+    And plays on stolid man with Prospero's wand and Ariel's prank.
+
+    Then take these lines and add to them the lay
+      All inarticulate, I to thee indite;
+      The sudden longing on the sunniest day,
+    The happy sighing in the stormiest night,
+      The tears of love that creep
+      From eyes unwont to weep,
+    Full with remembrance, blind with joy and with devotion deep.[2]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+I.--THE EYES OF A BASILISK
+(Vatican, Villa of the Belvedere)
+
+II.--THE FINDING OF APOLLO
+(Villa Farnesina)
+
+III.--A CELLINI CASKET
+(Villa Madama)
+
+IV.--FLOWER O' THE PEACH
+(Villa Aldobrandini)
+
+V.--WITH TASSO AT VILLA D'ESTE
+(Villa d'Este)
+
+VI.--MONDRAGONE
+(Villas Borghese and Mondragone)
+
+VII.--THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE
+BRANDISHED LANCE
+(Villa Medici)
+
+VIII.--THE LADIES OF PALLIANO
+(Colonna Palace and Castle of Palliano)
+
+IX.--THE LURE OF OLD ROME
+(Hadrian's Villa. Villas d'Este and Albani)
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+IN PHOTOGRAVURE
+
+
+_Pope Julius II. Viewing the Newly-found
+Statue of the Apollo Belvedere_         _Frontispiece_
+
+_From the painting by Carl Becker. Permission of
+the Berlin Photographic Co._
+
+_The Borgias_
+
+_From a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (Pope
+Alexander VI. regards the dancing children, Lucrezia
+plays the viol, Cesar beats time with his stiletto
+on the stem of a wine glass.) Permission of George
+Bell & Sons._
+
+_Pope Leo X. at Raphael's Bier_
+
+_From the painting by Pietro Michis. Permission of
+Franz Hanfstaengl._
+
+_Face of Young Girl in the Coronation of the
+Virgin_
+
+_By Fra Filippo Lippi. Permission of Alinari._
+
+_The Floral Games_
+
+_From the painting by Jacques Wagrez. Permission
+of Braun, Clement & Co._
+
+_In the Garden of Villa d'Este_
+
+_From a photograph by Mr. Charles A. Platt._
+
+_Choosing the Casket_
+
+_From the painting by F. Barth. Permission of the
+Berlin Photographic Co._
+
+_Antinous as Bacchus, in the Museum of the
+Vatican_
+
+_Permission of Alinari._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+OTHER THAN PHOTOGRAVURE
+
+
+*_Caesar Borgia_
+
+*_Caterina Sforza. Castle of Forli in Background_
+_By Palmezzani._
+
+*_Unknown Lady_ (_probably Imperia_)
+_By Sebastian del Piombo. Uffizi._
+
+*_Virgin and Child_
+_By Sodoma. Pinacoteca, Milan._
+
+*_Raphael and Sodoma_
+_Fragment of School of Athens, in the Vatican--Raphael._
+
+*_Villa Farnesina, Rome_
+
+*_Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma_
+_From the portrait by himself in the Abbey of Monte
+Oliveto Maggiore._
+
+*_By permission of Messrs. Alinari._
+
+*_Margherita_ (_La Fornarina_)
+_Attributed to Raphael. Pitti Gallery, Florence._
+
+*_Pope Leo X., Giulio de Medici_ (_afterward Pope
+Clement VII._), _and Luigi de Rossi_
+_By Raphael.   Pitti Gallery._
+
+_Villa Madama_
+
+_Detail of Vault in Villa Madama_
+_Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine._
+
+_Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma, 1586_
+_From an old engraving._
+
+_Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine_
+_Villa Madama._
+
+_Villa Madama--Interior_
+
+*_Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. The Grand
+Cascade and Fountain of Atlas_
+
+*_Upper Cascade, Villa Aldobrandini_
+
+*_Villa d'Este, at Tivoli--Present State_
+
+_Hydraulic Organ, Villa d'Este_
+
+_Villa d'Este in 1740_
+_From an etching by Piranesi._
+
+*_Villa d'Este--Terrace Staircase_
+*_By permission of Messrs. Alinari._
+
+_*Fountain in Gardens of the Villa Borghese_
+
+_*Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese_
+_Portrait statue by Canova at Villa Borghese._
+
+_Henri IV. Receiving the Portrait of Marie de Medici_
+_Painted at her order by Rubens._
+
+_View from the Garden of the Villa Medici_
+
+_Colonna Palace, Rome_--_The Grand Salon_
+
+_Garden of the Colonna Palace, Rome_
+_With permission of Charles A. Platt._
+
+_Castle of Vittoria Colonna at Ischia_
+
+_The Cascade_
+_Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati._
+
+_The Haunted Pool_
+_Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati._
+
+_Vittoria Colonna_
+_From a portrait in the Colonna Gallery._
+
+___Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna_
+_From a portrait in later life by Netscher._
+
+_Court of the Massimi Palace_
+
+_Marie Mancini Colonna, Principessa di Palliano_
+_By Mignard.    Photographische Gesellschaft, Berlin._
+
+_*By permission of Messrs. Alinari._
+
+_Antinous_
+_Bas-relief found at Hadrian's Villa, now in the Villa
+Albani._
+
+_Ruins of a Gallery of Statues in Hadrian's Villa_
+_From an etching by Piranesi._
+
+*_Villa Pia in Garden of the Vatican_
+_Pirro Ligorio, architect._
+
+*_Villa Pia, Vatican_
+_The rotondo--Pirro Ligorio, architect._
+
+_Eros Bending the Bow_
+_Capitoline Museum._
+
+_Faun of Praxiteles_
+_Capitoline Museum._
+
+_Villa Albani_
+
+*_Casino, Villa Albani_
+
+*_Candelabra from Hadrian's Villa_
+_Museum of the Vatican._
+
+*_Urania_
+
+_Museum of the Vatican._
+
+_View through the Key-hole of the Gate of the Villa
+of the Knights of Malta_
+
+*_By permission of Messrs. Alinari._
+
+
+
+
+ROMANCE OF ROMAN VILLAS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE EYES OF A BASILISK
+
+(AN EPISODE OF THE FRENCH WARS IN ITALY, FROM THE MEMOIRS OF THE GOOD
+KNIGHT YVES D'ALLEGRE)
+
+
+I
+
+     There is not one that looketh upon her eyes but he dieth presently.
+     The like property has the basilisk. A white spot or star she
+     carrieth on her head and setteth it out like a diadem. If she but
+     hiss no other serpent dare come near.--PLINY.
+
+A strange story is mine, not of love but of hatred, the slow coiling of
+a human serpent about its prey, with something more than human in the
+sudden deliverance which came from so unexpected a quarter when all hope
+had gone and struggle ceased.
+
+Certes, I am not one of your practised romancers thus to reveal my plot
+at the beginning, and yet, with all I have told, you will never guess in
+what mysterious guise, yet so subtly that it seemed a breath of wind had
+but fluttered a leaf of paper, the enemy we feared was struck with such
+opportune paralysis.
+
+Let those who doubt the truth of this tale or the existence of the
+basilisk question Cesare Borgia, for we saw the creature at the same
+time as we rode together near Imola in northern Italy. It was the
+beginning of that campaign in which I, much against my will, was in
+command of the French troops, which his Majesty Louis XII. had sent to
+aid his ally in the conquest of Romagna. I would far liefer have gone
+with my brother knights deputed to sustain Louis's right to the
+Milanese, for it is one thing to fight honourably for France and
+another, as I soon discovered, to aid a villain in the massacre of his
+own countrymen, and all for aims in which I had no interest. But it was
+only by degrees that I was enlightened concerning the character of
+Borgia. He was brave beyond doubt, and courage had for me great
+fascination. I never saw him flinch but once, and that before a thing
+which seemed so trivial that I counted it but a matter of physical
+repulsion.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Caesar Borgia]
+
+We were riding thus side by side in advance of our men, when a small
+snake darted from the thicket and hissed its puny defiance. I stooped
+from my saddle, impaled it on my sword, and waved it writhing in the
+air. But Cesare, to my astonishment, turned deadly pale and galloped
+incontinently in the opposite direction.
+
+When I rejoined him after throwing the reptile into the underbrush he
+explained the seizure. The astrologer, Ormes, had predicted that he
+would meet his death neither from natural sickness nor from poison, nor
+yet by the sword or cord, but from the eye of a basilisk.
+
+"And what manner of creature may that be?" I asked, wonderingly.
+
+"It is a serpent," he replied, "but one so rare in Italy that not once
+in a century is it met with. The monster is gifted with the evil eye,
+killing whomsoever it looks upon. It bears a star-shaped spot upon its
+head, and when you whirled yon reptile in the air methought I discerned
+its baleful flash."
+
+"And so you did," I replied, "but you need have no apprehension, the
+creature is blind."
+
+"Blind!" he repeated incredulously.
+
+"Of a verity. Its eyes have long since been removed, for the flesh has
+grown over the empty sockets."
+
+"Then," said Cesare, "some wizard must have extracted them to serve him
+in his black art, and has let the serpent go free knowing that it is
+only by the eye of a living basilisk that this prodigy can be wrought.
+Fortunately you have killed it and there is no longer any danger."
+
+"Nay," I replied, "I but wounded the creature. It crawled away when it
+fell."
+
+"Then he who holds its eyes holdeth my life and by his hand I shall
+die," he stammered with white lips. Little thought I then that Cesare's
+inhuman cruelty and perfidy would cause me to thank God for his belief
+in the creature's malignancy and that the basilisk was to aid in the one
+episode which was in some measure to take the evil taste of this
+campaign from my mouth.
+
+Only a few weeks later, on the first of January, 1500, our combined
+forces began in earnest the assault of the citadel of Forli, which we
+had held in siege throughout the previous month. Little stomach had I
+for the business, since to my shame I was making war upon a woman.
+Imola which had already surrendered to us, was also her fief, but had
+she commanded its forces in person we would not have taken it so easily.
+For fighting blood ran in the veins of the Lady of Forli, she being the
+grand-daughter of the great condottiere Francesco Sforza. And this was
+not the first time that she had fought for her castle.
+
+She had come to it first as the bride of Girolamo Riario, but the
+townspeople had refused to recognise his authority and had stabbed him
+to death, throwing his naked, mutilated body into the moat before her
+windows.
+
+The young widow instantly trained the guns of the citadel upon the town,
+and when it surrendered caused the murderers and their families to be
+hacked in pieces; and this was but one of many instances reported of her
+dauntless and vindictive character. She had remarried, but her second
+husband, Giovanni de' Medici, had recently died, and Caterina Sforza
+Riario de' Medici, in spite of her noble birth and connexions, had none
+to help her.
+
+If Cesare Borgia had not already married perchance the opportunity would
+have been offered her to add another great name to those she already
+bore, for he recognised in this tigerish woman a fitting mate. He hated
+her indeed, but one does not hate one's inferiors, one despises or pets
+them, and Cesare hated the Lady of Forli because he knew that he could
+never master her.
+
+Therefore on New Year's Day, we having, as I have said, drawn our forces
+so closely about the citadel that for weeks past not a mouse could
+escape, Cesare before ordering the assault sent me to its lady with
+sealed conditions of capitulation.
+
+I thought, as I rode across the draw-bridge with the white truce pennon
+fluttering from my lance, how at that other siege when summoned to
+surrender on pain of having her children put to death before her walls,
+this unnatural mother had replied coldly: "Children are more easily
+replaced than castles," and I was unprepared for the vision which
+greeted me in the gloomy hall.
+
+For Caterina was no repulsive termagant, but a woman of marvellous
+charm. This fascination was something quite different from ordinary
+beauty. Its seat was in her eyes, which many thought not at all
+beautiful, for they were like those gems called aquamarine, of a
+puzzling tint varying from blue to green, lustrous and lapping the
+beholder with their gentle lambency, except when passion moved her,
+when I have seen them glow with a menacing light as though they might
+shoot forth green flames. But now she was all loveliness. The
+vicissitudes of her tragic life had left no trace except the slight
+scowl, which might be due to defective vision, for from the curiously
+linked chatelaine there depended a lorgnon with which she had a nervous
+trick of trifling.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Catenna Sforza
+
+Castle of Forli in Background
+
+By Palmezzani]
+
+She leaned forward as I entered, her lips a little apart and her cheeks
+glowing with excitement.
+
+"You have brought me a message from your commander?" she asked, and I
+presented the letter.
+
+But as she read her colour flamed to deeper crimson and her small hands
+tore the missive in fragments. "And these are the terms proposed by a
+belted knight, companion of Bayard _sans reproche_; this your fufilment
+of your sworn devoir to women in distress? Then here is my answer," and
+she dashed the bits of paper in my face, "for my garrison will prefer
+annihilation rather than permit me to submit to such indignity."
+
+"Believe me," I protested, "that, far from assisting in the framing of
+those terms, I am in utter ignorance of their purport. Believe also that
+though what I have hitherto heard has not prepossessed me in your
+favour, I now count those charges as lying slanders, knowing that no
+evil soul could inhabit so lovely a person."
+
+Her lip curled scornfully. "I have listened to lovers' flatteries ere
+this," she answered, "and know how little they are worth."
+
+"By your pardon," I retorted, "I am a lover indeed, but none of yours.
+It is because I love my good wife in Auvergne that I honour all women."
+
+She had lifted her eyeglass as though to scan my face the more keenly to
+know if I spoke the truth; but apparently my words alone convinced her,
+and, feeling the discourtesy of such an act, she looked about the room
+irresolutely and let the lorgnon fall without meeting my eyes.
+
+"Good," she said at length, "I like you better for that word. 'Tis a
+pity we must be enemies. Tell your master that I shall defend my
+fortress to the last extremity. If I am so unfortunate as to be
+conquered, demand that he appoint you my jailer, for to no one else will
+I submit myself alive."
+
+I have taken part in many sieges but never saw I a more gallant defence
+than the one made by that doomed citadel. Its besiegers were quartered
+within the town, fattening on the supplies which flowed in from the
+country and sleeping warm at night, while the garrison of the castle
+burned its carved wainscotings for fuel and daily buried some
+famine-stricken sentry. Twice with blazing missiles Caterina's archers
+set fire to the houses within range of her guns, striving by destroying
+the homes of her own people to drive us from our shelter, and once in
+the dead of night she made sortie and strove to cut her way through only
+to be beaten back. She seemed more a deluding spirit of evil leading us
+on to our own destruction than an ordinary mortal, and when Cesare gave
+orders to bombard the castle it made our flesh creep to see her seated
+nonchalantly upon the ramparts scanning the artillerymen through her
+lorgnon, laughing when their shots went wild, and clapping her hands
+when they tore off fragments of the parapet on which she leaned as
+though she were but applauding a play. That very night an epidemic so
+deadly broke out among the cannoneers that some foolishly superstitious
+declared she had bewitched them with the evil eye, and others as falsely
+that the springs in the hills above the castle which supplied the
+fountains of the town were poisoned at her command.
+
+But the inevitable day came when the Lady of Forli announced that she
+was ready to surrender. Even then she demanded lenient and honourable
+terms as though mistress of the situation.
+
+There must be neither bloodshed nor pillage. The allegiance of her
+subjects should be transferred indeed to Cesare as Duke of Romagna, and
+she offered herself and her children as hostages for their loyalty, but
+not to Cesare. They would trust themselves only to the watch-care of the
+Pope, and she stipulated that the French troops should be their
+body-guard to Rome.
+
+Cesare laughed maliciously. "She is as safe in my care as in that of his
+Holiness," he said, "and it is to my interest that the boy alone should
+die. It was the great statesman Machiavelli who counselled that when a
+city was captured every male heir to its former lord should be slain, to
+guard against uprisings in the future. I will take her son into my own
+safe-conduct, but you may escort his sisters and mother in welcome, for
+I have no wish to come within the range of her quizzing glasses."
+
+When I reported this to Caterina she shuddered slightly and answered
+questioningly, "From Cesare's so great personal solicitude I gather
+that the health of the young duke might suffer at the Borgia's table?"
+
+To these alarms I could not reply reassuringly, but the lady presently
+laughed gleefully. "This is not a recent thought of mine," she said.
+"The idea occurred to me when Cesare first laid claim to our estates.
+Tell him that I cannot take advantage of his kind offer for I sent my
+son before the siege to join his cousin and godfather, Cardinal de'
+Medici, in his exile. The Cardinal's family feeling extends even to his
+most distant relatives and the boy could have no better guardian."
+
+"Surely it is fortunate that you were so wise," I replied, and even
+Cesare had no doubt that she spoke truly.
+
+It was the twelfth of January, the very day of the surrender, that I set
+out with my captives for the Eternal City. Caterina was conveyed in her
+litter with her elder daughter, but the younger insisted on riding on
+horseback at my side. She was an ugly little hoyden of five years, this
+Giovanna, who, squat of stature and swarthy as a gypsy, bestrode her
+little pony like a man; but, though by nature stubborn and subject to
+fits of anger in which she bit and scratched like a wildcat, to me she
+had taken a fancy as intense as it was inexplicable.
+
+When I upbraided her manners as ill befitting a little maid, and
+marvelled at her unlikeness to her mother, she made answer: "Nay, but
+mamma can scratch also. You should have seen the face of the messenger
+who told us that the town of Forli had opened its gates to the
+besiegers. I am like my father in looks, but I have my mother's spirit.
+Cardinal de' Medici said that if my father had worn the petticoat and my
+mother had been the man, the Medici would be ruling now in Florence."
+
+"Would you like to rule, little princess?" I asked.
+
+"Nay, I would rather fight. When I am grown I will be a great
+condottiere like you, Sir Knight."
+
+"Tush!" I reproved her. "A girl a condottiere--who ever heard of such a
+prodigy?"
+
+The child smiled mysteriously. "I have a mind to tell you a secret," she
+said.
+
+"Giovanna, Giovanna!" her mother called, beckoning from her litter, but
+the little maid had fast hold of my stirrup leather, and pulled me close
+while she confided: "I am not Giovanna, I am not a girl at all. I am
+Giovanni de' Medici, Duke of Forli, and one of these days I will cut
+off that Borgia man's head. But fear not; I will be good to you if only
+you do not tell."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: The Borgias
+
+From a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (Pope Alexander VI. regards
+the dancing children, Lucrezia plays the viol, Cesar beats time with his
+stiletto on the stem of a wine glass.) Permission of George Bell & Sons]
+
+I had no mind to tell, and though I let the Duchess know that her little
+son had betrayed his disguise, and reproached her for bringing him into
+the wolf's jaws, I swore to her that the secret should be safe in my
+keeping.
+
+
+II
+
+                  The bob of gold
+    Which a pomander ball doth hold,
+    This to her side she doth attach
+    With gold crochet or French pennache.
+
+    Then raises to her eyes of blue
+    Her lorgnon, as she looks at you.
+
+Arrived at Rome, the Pope assigned the captives to the Villa of the
+Belvedere, so named from a graceful tower which shot high above the
+encircling walls, and commanded a delightful prospect. A charming garden
+connected the villa with the Vatican, but it was none the less a prison
+whose only approach or egress was through the corridors of the papal
+palace. The Lady of Forli had been received with hypocritical cordiality
+by the family of the Pope at one of those intimate gatherings in the
+Borgia apartments which, devoted to song, dance, and feasting were
+greatly enjoyed by Alexander and his children, and so shamelessly
+disgraced the residence consecrated to the head of the Church.
+
+Cesare upon his return would find in them an opportunity for meeting his
+prisoner, and, if she denied him further familiarity, he held the power
+of executing swift vengeance. It behooved us therefore to act quickly
+and before the arrival of my superior. The only hope which seemed to me
+at all reasonable was of French interference.
+
+Cardinal d'Amboise was in Milan, having recently arrived from the French
+Court, and acting upon my advice the Lady of Forli appealed through him
+to the King of France, I urging her petition with every conceivable
+argument.
+
+While anxiously awaiting his reply I took advantage of my authority as
+her body-guard to station a French sentinel at her door, relinquishing
+my own cook to protect her from poisoning, and my faithful valet as
+groom and guardian of the children.
+
+But all these precautions were swept away by Cesare on his arrival in
+the middle of February. For he sent me at that time a curt note stating
+that after we had taken part in the triumph granted him by the Pope in
+recognition of his victories in Romagna, he would have no further need
+either of my troops or myself; and we would be at liberty to report
+ourselves at Milan to the commander of the French army.
+
+The "triumph" to which he referred consisted of a procession with
+allegorical floats and every description of gala costume. The houses
+along its course were hung with brilliant draperies; flags and pennons
+should wave, martial music bray, and salvos of artillery were to be
+fired at frequent intervals.
+
+But the principal feature of the demonstration and the one on which the
+Pope counted to raise popular enthusiasm to the point of delirium was to
+be the parade of the captives.
+
+Cesare, in emulation of the celebration of the conquest of Palmyra by
+the Emperor Aurelian, had conceived the brilliant idea of compelling
+Caterina to walk in the procession bound like Zenobia with golden
+chains.
+
+Hitherto Caterina and I had discussed with each other every plan of
+action, but now unfortunately we had no opportunity of taking counsel
+with one another. Still she had been accustomed too long to
+self-reliance to hesitate for that reason, and divining by a flash of
+woman's intuition how this spectacle might be converted into an
+opportunity of escape, she consented gracefully to Cesare's plans,
+requesting only that the French troops should march as her guard.
+
+To this arrangement Cesare gave his ready acquiescence, promising also
+of his own accord that I should ride directly behind her and beside her
+children. It was well thought out, for she had counted not alone upon my
+assistance, but had determined to use every detail of the programme
+which Cesare had devised to rouse the populace of Rome to aid in her
+rescue.
+
+She robed herself therefore in most becoming though sable garments,
+allowing her veil of thinnest gauze to flutter artfully and display her
+beautiful face while the long velvet sleeves open to the shoulder showed
+the double manacles at the wrist and above the elbow, made purposely too
+tight and cutting into the lovely rounded arm.
+
+Growls of indignation from the men and cries of sympathy from the women
+rose as they marked her fatigue, and how ruthlessly the men-at-arms who
+led her dragged her on, and the demonstration was a triumph to Caterina
+rather than to Cesare. As the float representing the dismantled citadel
+of Forli tottered by with her little girls upon the battlements,
+waving, the one the bull-blazoned ensign of the Borgias and the other
+the reversed and degraded arms of the Medici, shouts of "Shame, shame!"
+were heard, and the riotous crowd surged so close to the float that it
+was impossible for it to proceed. We had reached at this critical
+juncture the Porta del Popolo and through its open gates the via
+Flaminia stretching straight to the north across the free Campagna was
+discernible. With that sight I comprehended Caterina's intention and at
+the same instant the boy-girl Giovanni let fall the Borgia emblem, which
+was instantly trampled in the mire by the mob, and snatching the banner
+bearing the Medici balls from his sister's hand he waved it triumphantly
+in its proper position, crying "Palle, palle! Rescue, rescue!"
+
+Then it was that Caterina had counted on my trusty Frenchmen to sweep
+her and her children on to liberty while the mob hindered pursuit. But
+alas! Cesare had suspected some such plot, and had interposed between
+the prisoners and my brave troopers his own corps of veteran pikemen.
+For an instant they wavered, for Caterina had sprung upon the float and
+was gazing at them through her lorgnon. They remembered what had
+happened to the gunners at Forli, and shuddered, but the mob attacking
+them with paving stones interposed a screen between them and the danger
+they dreaded and roused their mettle. With their old war cry their first
+battalion charged the rioters while their second division, halting, kept
+back my men.
+
+As the full signification of this lost opportunity overwhelmed me, I
+could not in my mortification meet Caterina's reproachful eyes. Her last
+gallant stroke for liberty had failed through my lack of co-operation.
+Cesare's pikemen enclosed her with a wall of bristling spears; the
+populace slunk into side alleys, the gates of the Porta del Popolo had
+been closed during the tumult, and the procession resumed its line of
+march in the direction of the castle of St. Angelo. As I cursed my
+stupidity, Cesare, purple with rage, rode back to me with Giovanni
+struggling wildly in his arms.
+
+"Take this brat of a girl to the Belvedere," he commanded, "and beat her
+soundly."
+
+But as I lifted the child before me he ceased not to shriek to Cesare:
+"Beat me if you dare. I am no girl-brat. I am Giovanni de' Medici, Duke
+of Forli!"
+
+There was a chance that Cesare had not rightly understood him, for I
+had held my hand over the boy's mouth. I would not save him and desert
+his mother, so I rode with him to the Belvedere; but I paused on the way
+to obtain a rope-ladder, and to conceal it in a basket of fruit which I
+bade Giovanni give to his mother. I dared not write a letter had there
+been time to I do so, but the child was intelligent and I made him
+repeat my message again and again.
+
+With the help of the ladder they must descend at midnight into the
+garden of the Belvedere, and climb by the rose espalier to the top of
+the garden wall. I would be on horseback on the other side and would
+receive them in my arms. Then with forged passports I would take them to
+Milan.
+
+A light in the window of the tower at eleven would signify her
+acquiescence in this plan.
+
+But at the time appointed I saw no light, and though my men waited in
+the lofts of the stable where their horses stood ready saddled, and I
+paced the lane on the hither side of the garden wall until dawn, no
+fugitives joined me.
+
+When I returned to my lodgings at daybreak I found a summons from the
+Pope awaiting me which bade me attend him at the Vatican at his morning
+levee. Presently, too, a man in Cesare's livery brought me the basket
+of fruit and the rope-ladder which I had sent to Caterina.
+
+"My master bade me return this to you," said the lackey, "as you may
+find it useful for your own needs in future."
+
+I understood the cold sarcasm of the message. I was to be imprisoned,
+and I did not flatter myself that any opportunity for use of a
+rope-ladder would be left me. But in that supreme moment it was not my
+own doom that I thought upon but that of the unfortunate Lady of Forli.
+
+As I prepared to obey the papal summons my landlady brought me a letter
+which had arrived during my absence, the long-expected instructions from
+Cardinal d'Amboise. They called me and my troop to Milan--the Pope would
+not dare controvert that command; and as my eye sought eagerly for an
+answer to my appeal for Caterina it caught at the bottom of the page
+this line:
+
+     "As for Caterina Sforza Riario de' Medici and her children----"
+
+Trembling with excitement I turned the leaf but my hopes died within me
+as I read on:
+
+     "----that belligerent and unwomanly woman hath but received her
+     just deserts. We are to be congratulated that her fortresses and
+     her army fell into the power of our ally before it was possible for
+     her to aid her uncle Lodovico Sforza, usurper of Milan, at present
+     our prisoner.
+
+     "Our fortunes are now so assured either by conquest or alliance
+     that all the leading families of northern Italy are on our side.
+     Even the Medici are with us. Sooner or later"----
+
+Here I turned a page again.
+
+     "They must be returned to Florence, as the King desires the good
+     will of the Medici."
+
+There was more to the effect that the Cardinal desired me to kiss for
+him the hands of his Holiness, and to assure both him and Cesare
+that--if their promise to the King of France were carried out--they
+would ever find in the French army a sure defence. But all this seemed
+of little moment to me since the letter contained no hope for Caterina.
+I thrust it in my pouch and pursued my way to the Vatican, cudgelling my
+brains for some other means by which to save her.
+
+Was there, I questioned, no motive within the complicated mechanism of
+Cesare's mind upon which I could play? Was there nothing which he held
+sacred, no terror in earth or hell which could daunt his inexorable
+will?
+
+Then suddenly I remembered the flaw in his armour, and that he who
+could neither be persuaded by friendship nor coerced by authority
+trembled before a baseless superstition--the dread of the evil eye.
+
+I had still a card to play, and would continue the game resolutely to
+the end. It might be that I could arm his captive with the one weapon
+which he feared.
+
+With this thought in my mind I came upon Cesare suddenly, in the
+ante-room of the Pope's audience chamber.
+
+"Ah," he exclaimed maliciously, "you thought to anticipate me in gaining
+my father's ear. I confess I had the same intention. Well, since chance
+will have it so, we will go in together."
+
+"One moment," I replied; "I am glad to have met you thus opportunely,
+for I have a word of warning for you."
+
+"Of warning?" he questioned.
+
+"Yes," I replied, "in return for that you so kindly sent me with the
+rope-ladder this morning. You may need mine first. Let me beg you to
+pursue the Lady of Forli no further. If you do not instantly let her go
+free she may work you a terrible mischief--the only one you dread."
+
+The scornful smile which had curled his lip died out, and though he
+asked my meaning I knew he already had an inkling of it.
+
+"You remember the eyeless basilisk which we found near Imola?" He nodded
+and caught my hand. "She has the eyes?" he asked. "Nay, you need not
+answer, I know where she keeps them,--in the pomander that hangs always
+at her chatelaine." "That is no pomander," I replied, "but a lorgnon.
+She is near-sighted; have you not noted, as she looks from her window of
+the Belvedere how she scans the objects in the garden through its
+lenses?"
+
+"She was looking for me," he chattered insanely, "she was looking for me
+through the eyes of the basilisk; but I am not so dull as you think. I
+have long suspected this, and when she glared at my men as they charged
+the rioters I struck the diabolical things from her hand with the flat
+of my sword. I know not where they fell but she has them no longer."
+
+"Be not so sure of that," I ventured with a grimace, which I strove to
+make a smile. "I found the lorgnon in the street and carried it back to
+the Belvedere. Be warned and anger her no more."
+
+"It was a thoughtful and friendly act," he sneered exultantly, "but
+useless, dear fellow, quite useless. _Mal vedere_ should that falsely
+named villa be called; but neither for good nor for evil will she
+evermore gaze forth from any casement. She and the son whom she thought
+to palm off as a girl lie at this moment in a windowless dungeon in the
+vaults of the castle of St. Angelo. I had thought for a moment to give
+you guest-room beside her, but you have warned me of her designs, and my
+father argues that we must not anger the French King in any fashion. Had
+he demanded my prisoners I might even have lost this dear revenge, but
+now I shall give orders to their gaoler that he waste no good money on
+their nourishment. In less than a week's time their career and my danger
+will be over."
+
+I would have strangled him as he stood there but at that instant the
+doors of the audience-chamber flew open and the Pope, attended by his
+guards, stood between us.
+
+He extended his left hand, which Cesare kissed, and he gave me his
+benediction with the other.
+
+"I have sent for you, my friend," he said, "to bid you farewell, for I
+have just received word from Cardinal d'Amboise that you and your good
+fellows are needed in the Milanese. The Cardinal informs me that he has
+written you by the same post. May I read the letter? Perchance I may
+gain from it a clearer understanding concerning his desires and how we
+may forward them."
+
+"I will go and fetch it," I stammered, for the request was a demand, and
+the thought came to me that I might cut out all reference to the Lady of
+Forli from the letter.
+
+"I think we shall not need to trouble you to do so," cried the lynx-eyed
+Cesare. "Your pouch is open, and if I mistake not that is the
+handwriting of the Cardinal."
+
+He had snatched the letter, and it was in his father's hand before he
+had said half these words. I am not a man given to prayer, but from the
+bitterness of my despair my soul cried silently in that instant, "O God,
+save her, for vain is the help of man!"
+
+The Pope ran his eye quickly along the lines without speaking until he
+came to the name of the Lady of Forli.
+
+"As to Caterina Sforza Riario de' Medici and her children"--he read
+aloud with illy suppressed excitement, and then in his eagerness to know
+more he turned two pages at once, without perceiving that the one which
+should have followed next adhered to that which he had just read--"As to
+Caterina Sforza Riario de' Medici and her children," he repeated, "they
+must be returned to Florence, as the King desires the good will of the
+Medici."
+
+In utter stupefaction, I could not at first understand how this
+misreading had chanced.
+
+"Hem, hem!" grunted the Pope--"but she is only the widow of a member of
+the cadet branch, a person of no importance. I see not why the King of
+France should concern himself with her fate. Nevertheless, since our
+prisoners have his patronage, they shall be detained no longer. I will
+write to the Florentine signory commending the lady and her children to
+their loving watch-care, and as you, Sir Yves, have been their conductor
+hither, so shall you escort them to their destination."
+
+Cesare could not gainsay his father's command. An hour later the gates
+of St. Angelo opened for the departure of the Lady of Forli and her
+children. I waited not for any chance of fate to turn backward the wheel
+of fortune, and as my faithful troop galloped into line about her
+litter, I gave the triumphant order--
+
+"To Florence."
+
+She dwells there even as I write these chronicles, in the Medicean
+villa of Castello, and as at first she dared not keep her little son
+with her (the men of the Medici being banished from Florence), she
+confided him, still habited in girlish disguise, to the care of a
+community of nuns, who kept a seminary for the daughters of noble
+families. But at length, on the restoration of the Medici, he issued
+from that retreat, and is now being bred to the profession of arms, in
+the which he bids fair to realise the ambitions confided to me as we
+rode from Forli, what time I deemed him the most unmannerly little
+princess which it had been my lot to meet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE FINDING OF APOLLO
+
+(AN ESCAPADE OF BAZZI'S)
+
+
+I
+
+_Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (called Sodoma) to Giulio Romano, painter
+and architect at Mantua._
+
+_Good Friend and sometime Pot-Comrade:_
+
+By the which epithet I would signify that comradeship at Chigi's villa
+at Rome in orgies of paint pots and brushes, flesh pots and flagons,
+feasts of reason and of unreason, wherein we were alike insatiable until
+the light of our revels went out in the death of our adored Raphael.
+
+You write me that in the intervals of your labour you are piecing
+together memoirs of those glorious Roman days in order to leave to the
+world some record of the more intimate private life of our friend, and
+you ask me for any anecdotes or remembered conversations which may fill
+out this sheaf of tribute.
+
+Faith, you, who have a whole garden of such souvenirs from which to
+cull, in that you shared his labours, his home, his confidence and his
+largess, have come to a wild and barren pasture for such sweet flowers;
+and yet there was love between us, love which ever radiated from him as
+it were sunshine and caused many a briar-rose to blossom in the thorny
+tangle of my life. I knew him also before you, in the summer of 1503, at
+Siena; and it is of certain pranks in that early comradeship that I will
+now write. Raphael was then a youth of scarce twenty years. He had come
+fresh from his apprenticeship to that old pietist Perugino, to assist in
+the decoration of the cathedral library. I was twenty-four, but older
+far in world-knowledge, and exulting in my first success as a painter,
+for though the spoiled favourite of the town I stood _facile princeps_
+among the Sienese of my craft.
+
+We met first at Cetinale, the villa of our patron, Agostino Chigi. From
+the first Raphael's honest admiration of my work warmed me to
+friendship and I strove to enlighten his ignorance. Chigi had placed at
+our joint disposition a loft in his stables which we fitted up as a
+studio and bed-chamber, and hither we resorted for work or play as
+opportunity and inclination moved us.
+
+It was oftener play for me, for I was more interested in my host's
+horses in those days than in my art. Chigi and I were both amateurs of
+the race-track and though he spent enormous sums on his stud I had once
+beaten him at the _palio_. In spite of this we were good friends. I had
+the run of his stables and many a reckless ride have we enjoyed
+together. I was fond of all sports which were spiced with danger, and
+particularly of hunting. But there was no sport I loved so well as a
+practical joke, no game that for me had so delicious a flavour as the
+teasing of my friends and especially the more serious and
+dignified--though such pranks have frequently cost me dear. From the
+multitude of which I have been guilty I recall one which had different
+consequences from those I had foreseen.
+
+I was hunting in the neighbourhood of Siena late one afternoon in the
+summer of which I speak. Chigi was detained at his villa in the
+expectation of guests, and I was alone save for the company of my ape,
+Ciacco, which I had purchased of some strolling Bohemians. I was
+training the creature to retrieve my game, in which service he was
+extremely zealous and clever.
+
+We had ridden far and were both parched with thirst, when I paused to
+rest in the shadow of a ruined tower which crowned a hill and commanded
+the road to Siena. Two sumpter mules, guarded by armed men, had just
+passed on in the direction of the city, and following at some distance
+in the rear two travellers, an elderly man and a young girl, were
+approaching the tower where at that moment I chanced to be stationed.
+
+In spite of the fact that their horses were jaded they were pushing them
+to the utmost, anxious, doubtless, to rejoin their convoy and to gain
+Siena before the closing of the gates.
+
+I doubt not, that, armed as I was, and with wind-disordered hair, I
+presented in front of that grim barbican a sufficiently sinister
+appearance. Certain it is they took me for a bandit and their faces
+blanched. The man retained some vestiges of self-possession, however,
+and, doffing his hat, craved permission to pass.
+
+Apprehending the situation, the spirit of mischief with which I am at
+all times possessed moved me to personate the character for which he
+took me, and I gruffly bade him stand and deliver toll of the valuables
+he carried.
+
+"My property has preceded me," he replied unsteadily, "but I will blow
+this whistle and bid the knaves unload it for your worship's choice."
+
+"Nay," I replied, "my merry men are dealing with your servants. I am a
+robber-knight, it is true, but one not altogether devoid of courtesy. I
+therefore ask but a kiss from your pretty daughter, and that small melon
+which dangles in the netted pouch at her saddle-bow, for which my
+thirsty ape is gibbering."
+
+If the traveller had been pale hitherto he was livid now.
+
+"Not that, not that," he cried; "hold me in ransom if you will, but let
+my niece pass on unmolested. She will send back whatever sum you demand,
+for we have wealthy friends in Siena."
+
+"Is it so?" I replied; "then I will forego the kiss, which is doubtless
+reserved for a wealthier suitor, but the fruit you will not deny, for I
+have ridden far to-day, and have the thirst of the evil one." The man's
+only reply was to cut the girl's horse so savagely across the flanks
+that the frightened creature dashed past while his own horse blocked my
+pursuit.
+
+But Ciacco, perceiving that the coveted fruit was about to be lost, in
+three flying leaps overtook the fugitive and clambering up the lady's
+draperies seized on the swaying pouch, which his sharp teeth managed to
+unravel, and presently came hopping back, man-like upon his hind feet,
+the melon clasped within his hairy arms.
+
+My prisoner uttered a wail of anguish. One would have thought the ape's
+trifling booty an inestimable treasure, for he rode so furiously toward
+Ciacco that the ape dropped the melon and scampered up a neighbouring
+tree. But my blood was up. I was not to be defrauded of my prey, and as
+the traveller was on the point of dismounting, I fired my arquebus in
+the air, and so terrified his horse that it galloped after the fleeing
+maiden. Its rider was also well frightened, for, though he drew rein
+uncertainly when he saw me possess myself of his luncheon, when I fired
+again (though purposely wide of the mark) both travellers resumed their
+flight, nor paused until they had gained Siena.
+
+I laughed to myself at the success of my prank, thinking of the added
+mirth I should enjoy in telling the tale that evening. Meantime I
+hastened to rescue the melon from my pet, but his strong hands had
+already rent it asunder, and to my astonishment there rolled from its
+interior and broke open upon the flinty road a little casket for which
+the rind had been but the concealing envelope.
+
+I was in very truth a highwayman, for unaware I had stolen the
+travellers' treasure. The melon had hidden a quantity of jewels, which
+now besprinkled the dust; rubies, emeralds, pearls, sapphires, beryls,
+as well as semi-precious stones such as jacinths, onyx, and sardonyx,
+rendered more costly than their brilliant fellows by the skill with
+which they had been cut into cameos and intaglios. It needed but a
+glance at an amethyst incised with a scene from the history of Cupid,
+and Psyche, and at another larger stone bearing a marvellous Apollo and
+Marsyas, to realise that they were antiques of inestimable value, the
+collection of some great prince. I gathered up the gems by handfuls and
+stuffed them into my wallet. I was sobered by the realisation of the
+enormity of my crime, for I had possessed myself, _vi et armis_, of
+jewels worth a king's ransom; and I had no clue by which I could safely
+return them.
+
+I sifted the dust with my fingers, explored Ciacco's mouth, and gathered
+up the fragments of the melon-rind that no stray gem should escape me;
+but it was with sincere repentance and the gravest apprehensions that I
+took my way to Villa Cetinale.
+
+Repairing to the stables, I put up my horse and climbed with my booty to
+my loft. Raphael was not there, and tying Ciacco to my bed-post I again
+examined the gems, gloating over their beauty and yet wishing with all
+my heart that they had never come into my possession. I compared them
+with a list in the box, found none missing, and returning them to the
+little casket carefully corded and sealed the same, and sat for a long
+time racking my brains for some issue from the dilemma. I was awakened
+from my dreams by a servant who announced that dinner was served, and
+that his master awaited my coming to present me to his guests. While
+hastily dressing, I resolved at the first opportunity to confide frankly
+in Chigi and to take his advice in the matter. Having thus lightly
+shifted the responsibility from my mind, and not being able to think of
+any better method of concealment, I once more placed the casket within
+the melon with the intention of returning for it in the course of the
+evening, and so hastened to my friend's table.
+
+Here what was my astonishment at being presented to the very persons who
+had figured in my adventure, and who proved to be Messer Bernardo
+Dovizio, Chancellor of his Eminence Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, and
+his niece Maria, whose beauty was somewhat lessened by weariness and the
+traces of recent tears. The Chancellor, also,--who to my relief did not
+recognise me,--was by no means in good form, nor did he regale us with
+any of those witty stories for which he is so justly famed, but sighed
+and groaned between every mouthful. His misfortune had so afflicted him
+that he could not keep silence, and disregarding my presence, which
+indeed he hardly noticed, he poured forth the cause of his woe. The gems
+which he had lost were a part of the famous collection of Lorenzo de'
+Medici, which his son, the Cardinal Giovanni, had carried with him in
+his flight from Florence, and was now secretly sending by his Chancellor
+in the expectation of pledging them to Chigi, in return for bills of
+exchange which would serve him in good stead during his exile in France.
+
+The faithful Dovizio, devoted to the Cardinal's service, as he had been
+to that of his father, was in an agony of despair. "I will bring this
+highwayman to the gallows," he continually repeated. "I will move heaven
+and earth to discover the villain."
+
+"Have you any guess as to whom he may be?" I asked, for the humour of
+the matter grew apace upon me.
+
+"Certainly not of his name," replied Chigi, "but the description given
+by my friend is so exact that he cannot fail to be discovered."
+
+"A man of gigantic stature," repeated the Chancellor, "with eyes of
+green fire gleaming from under his matted hair, a raucous voice which I
+could not fail to recognise; and on his croup an enormous baboon, as
+dangerous and malignant a beast as his master, trained also to like acts
+of brigandage, for it attacked my niece and robbed her while I held the
+bandit in play with my sword."
+
+"The baboon will bring him to justice," said Chigi, for it so happened
+that he had never seen Ciacco; "there is no such creature in Siena. This
+description shall be sent to every town in the vicinity and the
+miscreant will be easily identified."
+
+I could scarcely conceal my amusement, but turning to the Signorina I
+asked her if she could recognise their assailant.
+
+"Of a surety," she rejoined "though I cannot corroborate my uncle's
+description. The brigand's eyes were not green, for I marked them well,
+and they were black and merry as your own, nor was his voice harsh, but
+sweetly cadenced. Indeed now I bethink me you resemble him in other
+particulars."
+
+"You resemble that villain not at all, young man," interrupted her
+uncle. "He was twice your weight and bulk. I would know him anywhere and
+at our next meeting he shall not escape me."
+
+"Truly," I said, "a most lamentable mischance, and to think that you
+lost not only the jewels but your fruit as well. However, since you have
+a fondness for melons I may be able to furnish this repast with a desert
+of your liking, and if our host will excuse my absence I will fetch it."
+
+I ran to my loft bubbling over with appreciation of the exceeding
+wittiness of my own joke, but on opening my door a cry of dismay escaped
+me. My window was broken, the cord which had tied Ciacco gnawed through,
+and both the ape and the casket had disappeared.
+
+Nemesis had now loaded me with a despair identical with that of Bernardo
+Dovizio's. Like him, I foresaw myself suspected of having stolen the
+jewels. The amusing joke had assumed the proportions of a dangerous
+situation, and since I could not restore my ill-gotten gains I rashly
+determined to make no confession. I reflected that though the Signorina
+Dovizio might have shrewd suspicions she could bring forward no proofs.
+Ciacco, my compromising partner in crime, had fled. No one at the villa
+knew that I had ever owned such a pet. Even Raphael had not seen him,
+for he had been busy in Siena for a fortnight, and the Bohemians from
+whom I had bought Ciacco had passed by a week before. In an evil hour I
+determined to hold my peace for the present, hoping that some happy
+chance would lead to the discovery of the lost jewels, for which indeed
+I sought continually with every means at my command.
+
+Chigi too had instituted such search as was possible without putting the
+matter in the hands of the authorities, which would have brought about
+awkward complications with the signory of Florence. In the meantime he
+had invited the Dovizios to remain at the villa as his guests, an
+invitation which was accepted with much content. The Chancellor gave
+himself up to the delay with such resignation that I presently perceived
+that he had business of his own at Cetinale other than procuring funds
+for his patron, that in fact he had brought his niece in the hope of
+securing for her husband the banker Chigi, a good match even then in
+point of fortune. There was in Maria Dovizio such dewy freshness and
+sweetness, such absolute simplicity and purity as could not fail to
+appeal to any man with eyes to see; but Chigi was blind, being enamoured
+of another woman and she of a very different type, the improvisatrice
+Imperia, accounted the most talented singer in all Italy.
+
+While the Dovizios lingered in this unavailing quest, of which the
+gentle Maria was in utter ignorance, Raphael returned to the villa, and
+Love, who is always sharpening his arrows for the unwary, was not idle.
+It was the lady whom he first wounded, though we suspected it not at the
+time. Later, in Rome, the Signora Giovanna de Rovere gave me a letter
+written her by Maria Dovizio when at Cetinale, because forsooth I was
+mentioned therein, though in no complimentary a wise; and as this letter
+showeth forth the trend of affairs better than could any words of mine,
+I enclose it with this memorial.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_ Unknown Lady (probably Imperia), by Sebastian
+del Piombo Uffizi]
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Virgin and Child, by Sodoma
+
+Pinacoteca, Milan]
+
+     _Maria Dovizio to the Lady Giovanna Feltra de Rovere (Sister of the
+     Duke of Urbino), Duchess of Sora and Prefectissa of Rome at
+     Urbino._
+
+     "SIENA, October, 1504.
+
+     "_Most magnificent, most beloved, and most sweet Lady_:
+
+     "For whom my heart longs with true devotion. Truly Madam, since we
+     parted in Urbino most strange adventures have befallen me which I
+     will now relate. On our way to Siena we fell in with a bandit who
+     robbed us, and though my uncle is tarrying here in the hope of the
+     recovery of his property the matter is not altogether simple but
+     presents more complications than I can explain or indeed
+     understand.
+
+     "While we are thus delayed we are the guests of the banker Agostino
+     Chigi at his villa of Cetinale. With the exception of our host and
+     of two young painters, also his guests, we see no one, so, for lack
+     of other material, I will describe these young men. The elder is a
+     conceited prankish fop, if no worse, called Giovanni Bazzi, and why
+     his comrade, Raphael Santi, should hold him in affection I can by
+     no means understand, unless the vulgar saying be indeed true that
+     love goes by contraries. In presenting Raphael to us our host
+     assured my uncle that though as a painter he is as yet unknown he
+     is destined to make for himself a great career. But to these
+     eulogies of Chigi's I scarcely listened, my attention being held by
+     the charm of the artist's personality. Though he said but little,
+     his eyes were eloquent, and a smile of heavenly sweetness lighted
+     from time to time the gravity of his thoughtful face.
+
+     "At our host's insistence Bazzi showed one of his paintings--a
+     Madonna and Child--which I scarce regarded until Raphael praised
+     its excellencies, boldly defending the painting from my uncle's
+     strictures.
+
+     "While he spoke so eloquently I made a feint of examining the
+     picture and was indeed moved by the love which overflowed it, the
+     Madonna caressing her babe and he in turn petting a little lamb;
+     but my uncle pished and poohed, saying that this sentimentality was
+     but a feeble reflection of his master Da Vinci; and our host cut
+     the discussion short by demanding that Raphael should show his own
+     work. This he could not be persuaded to do, modestly persisting
+     that he had naught worthy of our consideration, though he promised
+     later to show us a Sposalizio upon which he was engaged but which
+     was not then finished.
+
+     "With all this, I have not related the circumstance which at once
+     put us upon the familiar footing of old acquaintanceship. It was
+     Chigi's chance remark that Raphael was a native of Urbino, where he
+     had been a favourite with all those choice spirits who make your
+     brother's court the most brilliant in Italy.
+
+     "And when I demanded of Raphael if he knew you and he told me of
+     your goodness to him, and how you were held in love and admiration
+     of all, then it was that our common affection for your ladyship
+     made us to feel that we had known each other from the time that we
+     first knew you.
+
+     "It is true that he did not boast as he might well have done that
+     you had kindly written a letter in his behalf to the Gonfalonier of
+     Florence, whither he intends later to journey. But my uncle
+     learning of this later was duly impressed thereby, and pronounced
+     him a young man of engaging manners who doubtless deserved such
+     distinguished favour.
+
+     "Even with this warrant our acquaintance has made no such rapid
+     strides. I meet him rarely except at our host's table where there
+     are often other guests and always that pest Giovanni Bazzi, whom I
+     can in no wise abide, and concerning whose honesty I have of late
+     entertained very grave suspicions. So serious indeed are they that
+     I will not at present divulge them but shall continue to watch the
+     rogue, knowing that the guilty sooner or later accuse themselves. I
+     think he dreads me for he leaves me always to converse with
+     Raphael, with whom my topic is ever Florence, which I knew as a
+     child before the banishment of the Medici.
+
+     "He tells me that he longs to see the city on account of the
+     artists there assembled and chiefly the painter Frate, formerly
+     known as Baccio della Porta, who turned monk under the preaching of
+     Savonarola.
+
+     "'And truly,' said he, 'I think that art and a monastic life wed
+     well together, and I would willingly retire to some cloistered
+     garden afar from the world if I might carry my box of colours with
+     me, and might sometimes see as in a vision a face like thine to
+     paint from.' Then was I seized with a foolish timidity so that I
+     could in no wise answer--nay, nor so much as lift up my head--but
+     my heart said, 'And why afar from the world? Why not in it making
+     all better and happier?'
+
+     "And while I sat thus silent, abashed, he, continuing to gaze upon
+     me, cried: 'Nay, but I _must_ paint thee: for thou art the very
+     embodiment of the ideal which I am striving to shadow forth in my
+     picture. I wish to depict the Virgin at the time of her betrothal
+     to St. Joseph, And to show a soul as pure as any of Fra Angelico's
+     angels shining through a body that shall have all the perfection
+     and charm of Da Vinci's women. It is what my master, Perugino,
+     strove for but never attained. How could he when he had only his
+     beautiful but soulless wife Chiara Fancelli to paint from?'
+
+     "'And do I look thus to thee?' I asked in wonder. 'Then, indeed, I
+     would that I might pose for thy painting; but, alas! I fear that to
+     this my uncle would in no wise consent.'
+
+     "And so, indeed, it proved. For later, when my uncle fancied that
+     he perceived some likeness to myself in the Sposalizio, though I
+     had given Raphael no sittings, he was vehement in his denunciation
+     of the presumption of all artists.
+
+     "My uncle might not have been so vexed but for the ill-timed
+     jesting of this same Bazzi. We had been asked to inspect the
+     picture before it should be sent to the monks for whom it was
+     painted, and while I stood entranced with its exceeding loveliness
+     and my uncle himself was astonished by the skill displayed, the
+     Signor Chigi explained the details of the composition.
+
+     "'It is a tradition,' he said, 'that the blessed Virgin was sought
+     in marriage by so many young men that her parents besought the
+     high-priest to aid them in their choice of her husband. He
+     accordingly demanded that her suitors should give their staves into
+     his keeping, to be placed over night before the altar, with the
+     understanding, in which Mary herself meekly acquiesced, that he
+     whose staff budded should become her husband. On the morrow
+     Joseph's staff was found to have put forth blossoms. This legend,
+     as you see, our artist has followed in his painting, for not only
+     is Joseph's staff tipped by a cluster of small flowers, but the
+     young men who accompany him, the disappointed suitors, bear
+     flowerless staves, and one of the rejected is breaking his across
+     his knee in token of his vexation.'
+
+     "Of this incident I would make no account, had it not been the
+     occasion for Bazzi's unmannerly trick. For that graceless fellow
+     chancing to spy leaning against his easel, the rod upon which
+     Raphael was wont to rest his hand while painting, he very slyly
+     made fast to it a nosegay of orange blossoms which the Signor Chigi
+     had presented to me on my entrance and which I had carelessly let
+     fall.
+
+     "You cannot imagine the coil which this trick occasioned, for its
+     author speedily called our host's attention to the decorated rod,
+     and the signification of its adornment was at once apprehended to
+     be my own approval of the painter.
+
+     "Raphael alone retained his senses, for he at once divined that the
+     perpetrator of the jest was his scapegrace friend and extorted from
+     him full confession of his prank, asserting that it was
+     inconceivable that I could have had any part in it.
+
+     "My confusion was such that I accepted the explanation with
+     gratitude as an escape from the bantering of the Signor Chigi and
+     the displeasure of my uncle. But as days passed by and Raphael held
+     himself aloof, giving me no opportunity to thank him for his
+     tactful defence, I perceived that it was not so much the meaning of
+     the token which had been imputed to me at which my heart revolted,
+     as the shameless and public way in which it had been thrust upon my
+     friend. In this plight I still remain and turn to you for sympathy
+     in my trouble, to you sweet lady who cannot fail to think me sadly
+     love-sick and bold, but I pray you chide me not, seeing the matter
+     can go no further, for I learn that Raphael has been recalled to
+     Urbino by your ladyship's brother to execute certain commissions.
+     So that your ladyship will soon see him and will have an
+     opportunity of learning from him whether he at all regrets leaving
+     Siena, though I beg that you will ascertain this without so much as
+     suffering him to suspect that I have in any way signified that I
+     have met him. For it is perchance best that he is going, for were I
+     to see him often I do fear me that my heart might become so pitched
+     and set upon him, that I should in time most rashly and
+     inconsiderately fall in love, which were a bold and unmaidenly
+     thing to do, and I mind that you once said that no virtuous woman
+     would allow her affections to conduct themselves thus
+     insubordinately until the Church had by the sacrament of marriage
+     given her good and sufficient license thereto.
+
+     "And so Madam, praying Maria Sanctissima and Maria, the sister of
+     Lazarus, my patroness, to keep me constant in this mind, I rest
+     your ladyship's loving friend and devoted servitor
+
+"MARIA DOVIZIO."
+
+It must be understood that this letter came not to my knowledge until
+long after its writing. I knew not then either the deep affection of the
+writer for Raphael, or her aversion for myself. By an irony of fate we
+had begun our acquaintance by loving at cross purposes. The "prankish
+fop" and "graceless fellow"--whose affection had indeed been hitherto
+no great compliment to a woman, being lightly caught and as lightly
+lost--was to his own surprise falling very honestly in love. So
+accustomed was I to the attraction of false lights that I said to myself
+often in the earlier stages of the malady, "This will pass like the
+others," not realising that I was entering upon the one great passion of
+my life, which all my later experience would but deepen, and death
+itself, if the soul be immortal, will have no power to quench.
+
+
+II
+
+APOLLO PROMISES
+
+
+  Little we see of Nature that is ours.
+
+  * * *
+
+  It moves us not,--Great God! I'd rather be
+  A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
+  So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
+  Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
+  Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
+  Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
+
+  W. WORDSWORTH.
+
+Raphael, at the period of which I write, had but one mistress,--his
+art,--and after finishing the Sposalizio he withdrew from the society of
+the Dovizios, painting most assiduously. I remember that his model was
+a pretty maid of seven years, named Margherita, the child of one of
+Chigi's servants, as playful and as ignorant as a little fawn. The
+startled look in her eyes, when spoken to by any one but Raphael,
+reminded me of some wild creature of the woods. But with him she was
+never shy,--singing and prattling the livelong day with the most
+charming and naive affection. While Raphael painted, Bernardo Dovizio,
+who apparently regretted having wounded him, came from time to time to
+lend him books, much deploring that one so gifted by nature should be
+unread in the classics.
+
+His daughter watched them from a distance, and when Raphael left his
+easel would steal near and study the picture or chat with me and with
+the little Margherita. On such occasions the child, usually merry and
+loving, would sulk and scowl unhandsomely, and though Maria Dovizio was
+sweet and generous to her, she showed an unreasoning prejudice amounting
+to discourtesy, for which at first I was at a loss to account. I mind me
+that she was present when I tied the bunch of orange blossoms to
+Raphael's mahl stick, and after the visitors had left the studio the
+child, believing that the flowers were the gift of the Signorina
+Dovizio, tore them from the rod and trampled them beneath her feet.
+
+When I chid her for such savage behaviour Margherita burst into tears
+and cried out passionately that Raphael was her friend, and that the
+strange lady had no business to try to steal him from her. Seeing her so
+unreasoningly jealous at such a tender age I was mightily amused, having
+no premonition that these two would one day be rivals in good earnest
+for Raphael's love.
+
+But Margherita's jealousy woke in me a curiosity as to how far it was
+well-founded, and bantering Raphael thereon I came to the conclusion
+that he loved Maria Dovizio, but that he had so modest an estimate of
+his own talent and prospects that he would never tell her of his
+affection. The knowledge that I had a rival enlivened mightily my own
+passion, and determined me to lay the matter plainly before the lady and
+demand that she should choose between us.
+
+Finding my opportunity I argued my friend's cause, as it seemed to me
+with great magnanimity, but at the same time I neglected not to set
+forth how superior were my own advantages. To my immense surprise she
+refused me in such terms as to leave me with no ground for
+hope,--persisting at the same time that I was mistaken in regard to
+Raphael's feelings.
+
+In sheer contrariety and because her refusal had temporarily taken away
+my senses, I maintained that I knew whereof I spoke.
+
+"Would that I had known this before," she said turning from me.
+
+"You would not then have disclaimed sending the message implied by the
+flowers which I attached to his mahl stick?" I persisted rudely.
+
+"Nay, nay," she cried all of a tremble, "it is best as it is," and she
+made me swear that I would tell nothing of all this. The oath sat
+lightly on my conscience, and when my pride had somewhat recovered from
+the wound which it had received, my better nature asserted itself for I
+reflected that here were two young creatures whom nature intended for
+one another and I determined to give these bashful lovers another
+opportunity in which to understand each other.
+
+Though I prided myself not a little on the rare nobility of soul which I
+manifested by such unusual procedure, it was not so disinterested as
+might at first appear. For, I reasoned in my heart, when all comes to be
+known Maria Dovizio will give me credit for great self-sacrifice and
+delicacy of feeling, while Raphael cannot fail to be touched by my
+magnanimity. Back of all this self-laudation there was an ulterior
+motive hardly confessed to myself. By springing the mine prematurely I
+would either cement their union or drive them permanently apart, thus
+clearing my path of a dangerous rival while removing any imputation of
+underhand dealing upon my part. I dared the risk for I was nearing that
+point of desperation where uncertainty is worse than the knowledge of
+absolute defeat.
+
+While I sought for some promising way in which to execute my scheme,
+Raphael read the translations of the pagan writers which Dovizio had
+lent him, and this plunge into a bath of the old literature, so new to
+him, had a tremendous effect upon his susceptible mind. He regretted
+deeply that Pico della Mirandola, who strove to harmonise Greek
+mythology with the Christian religion, had been snatched away by death
+before he could have had the opportunity to converse with him. He read
+his writings with avidity and listened to what Dovizio remembered of his
+arguments that the religion of the Greeks was as truly a revelation from
+God as our own, and he could readily believe the assertion of certain of
+the humanist's friends that at Pico's death-bed the Virgin and Venus
+had met, and comforting his dying gaze with their presence, had together
+borne away his soul to the regions of the blest.
+
+Without being any less Christian, Raphael's soul expanded in the
+sunshine of these influences, absorbing all that was joyous and
+beautiful in pagan ideas. Chigi lent him his favourite manuscript, the
+Myth of Psyche, translated from Apuleius, which he declared Raphael must
+one day paint for him. But of all the gods of antiquity the one which
+roused our young enthusiast to deepest admiration was Apollo, whose
+avatar was the sun, but whose spiritual significance was infinitely
+more, the light of the soul, the god of music, art, and poetry and all
+that elevates the spirit of man.
+
+"Listen Giovanni," he said to me one day, "I could pray to such a deity.
+Think you that it would be sin to utter a prayer like this of Socrates:
+'Beloved Pan, and all ye gods who haunt this place, give me beauty of
+the inward soul, and may the outward and the inward man be at one'?"
+
+Seeing sport in the idea I assured him that such adoration was
+commendable and would doubtless meet with a response. I had my own idea
+of what form that response should take. Chigi held revel that night to
+celebrate a visit from the improvisatrice Imperia, who was on her way to
+Rome. Raphael could not be induced to join the company, preferring to
+spend the night devouring some books lately come from Venice. He had
+striven to tell me of a mysterious experience. A stone bearing the image
+of Apollo had fallen before him as he read, and he had accepted it as a
+propitious omen. I laughed rudely and he shrank from me offended.
+
+"I would have shown it to you," he said, "but now you shall not see it."
+
+I repeated this hallucination to Chigi and Imperia, and they also found
+it amusing.
+
+"He is as drunk with poesy," I insisted, "as ever I have been with wine.
+If the Signorina would graciously sing some old Greek chant yonder in
+the garden he would believe that he heard the voice of the gods."
+
+Imperia's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Let us humour this young
+enthusiast to his bent," she said. "I will hide in the laurel copse at
+the foot of the garden if Bazzi here will bring him out upon the
+terrace."
+
+"He could never be content to hear your divine voice," Chigi objected,
+"without seeking you out, and then--"
+
+"And then, my friend, you would imply that the disillusion would be too
+cruel. No, I am too evidently a part of this solid earth to pass as a
+nymph of Apollo."
+
+I remained silent but I looked meaningly at Maria Dovizio, who stood
+near the window, her slight figure outlined against its darkness.
+Imperia followed my glance.
+
+"Ah! there is a girl, graceful and ethereal enough to satisfy an
+artist's ideal."
+
+"What a pity," Chigi said, "that she has not your voice."
+
+"Nay, if the Signora will but deign to sing as she suggested," I
+persisted, "we will robe the Signorina Dovizio in Greek draperies and
+pose her in the little pillared temple in front of the laurel thicket
+and Raphael will not doubt that the voice is hers."
+
+Thus, at last, my scheme was carried out, though we had much difficulty
+in persuading Maria Dovizio to lend herself to it. Only when Chigi
+explained that it was an ovation to Raphael, in which she was to crown
+him with a wreath of laurel and foretell him a glorious future, did she
+consent. Even then she had no suspicion that I had any ulterior motive
+in suggesting the little tableau.
+
+It was late at night, or rather early in the morning, when all our
+arrangements were completed and, returning to the studio, I dragged
+Raphael from his books on pretence that we both had need to cool our
+brains.
+
+The view from the terrace was a favourite one with each of us. In the
+mysterious morning twilight there seemed something supernaturally
+sentient in the atmosphere, as though it quivered in expectation of the
+dawn. A soft trill, faint with rapture, filtered through the foliage of
+the neighbouring wood. It was a solitary nightingale calling his mate;
+and presently he was answered by flute-like notes which soared above the
+soft murmur of a viol still strumming in the villa as a skylark cuts the
+mists. It was not another nightingale as I at first thought, but
+Imperia's voice from the laurel thicket mocking the melody. As she sang
+there appeared within the circle of the tiny temple's columns a
+white-robed figure, outlined against the pale green and lemon yellow of
+the dawn. It might have been a statue save that as the song of the
+improvisatrice, a rhapsody to Apollo, thrilled the air with passionate
+sweetness, it raised its perfect arms in invocation. As though in
+response to the gesture the clouds flushed through delicate rose to
+crimson, while the radiance beneath their exquisite arch burned like
+molten gold, with ever-increasing intensity, until the sun itself
+blinded our eyes with its intolerable white fire.
+
+Though this was exactly the event which I had planned, I was not
+prepared for such phenomenal success, and I stole nearer the temple
+spellbound by my own artifice.
+
+The effect upon Raphael in his exalted mood may readily be imagined. To
+him my little comedy was a supernatural vision, and kneeling before
+Maria Dovizio he exclaimed: "Beautiful priestess, beseech Apollo to
+grant me the power to make the world more beautiful."
+
+Mechanically the Signorina repeated the lines which I had assigned her:
+"To you it is decreed to find Apollo and to bring back the Golden Age."
+
+Then, as she bent to crown him with the wreath of laurel, the perfume
+and warmth of her person intoxicating his senses, her bared arms
+encircling his neck, her soul in her eyes, Raphael awoke to the
+consciousness that this was no phantom but a woman pulsing with life and
+love, and that woman Maria Dovizio.
+
+He might have revolted at the trick and have thrust her from him; but
+look you--it is always the unforeseen which happens. His arms were
+around her and he drew her to him unresisting till for an instant her
+lips touched his forehead and his face was buried in her bosom. Then she
+withdrew herself, pushing him from her very gently and steadying herself
+tremblingly with her hands upon his shoulders.
+
+"And shall I not find you again, O my beloved?" he cried, springing to
+his feet.
+
+"Surely," she answered, "surely, when you have found Apollo."
+
+She had turned from him and was hurrying toward the villa, but he
+followed her, calling her name.
+
+"Claim me not now, not now!" she cried, as he caught her hand.
+
+"When you will," he answered, closing her fingers over some small
+object, "this is my pledge that when you call me I will keep the tryst."
+
+He passed me a moment later, but so great was his preoccupation that he
+did not see me. I knew by the exalted look upon his face that I had
+played and lost. Raphael had awakened from his dreams to love. That
+instant of mutual enlightenment for two such natures was not alone an
+ineffaceable memory but a sacred though wordless betrothal.
+
+Through my pain I vaguely heard Chigi calling and returned to the villa.
+Neither he nor his friends had understood the full significance of what
+had just happened, and Bernardo Dovizio was demanding of his niece an
+explanation of the scene.
+
+"He thought me one of the muses," she said, "and begged me to beseech
+for him the favour of Apollo."
+
+"But he gave you something," said Dovizio. "Show it to me," and he
+wrenched open his niece's fingers.
+
+For one instant he gazed wonder-stricken at the token, and as I pressed
+close with the others I also recognised the famous Apollo intaglio, the
+gem of the collection of Lorenzo the Magnificent, of which for a few
+hours I had been the unlawful possessor.
+
+Exclamations of wonder and admiration arose on all sides. But Dovizio,
+recovering his power of speech, seized Chigi by the arm, exclaiming: "We
+have the thief! Look you Agostino, I have had my suspicions all along.
+It was Raphael who played the bandit, and robbed me of my jewels. I
+demand that you arrest the villain."
+
+Maria's look of anguish cut me to the heart. "Nay, listen to me," I
+cried; "it was not Raphael but I who stole your gems. You shall not
+burst in upon him and kill him with the shock of your accusations.
+Listen while I confess the truth." And then and there I did confess it,
+to the wonder but not to the satisfaction of Dovizio.
+
+"But where are the other gems?" he insisted. "You are a pair of rogues,
+the two of you. Come with me to your confederate and disgorge your
+booty."
+
+"Give o'er, my good Dovizio," said Chigi. "I will sift this matter; come
+with me but keep silence, for I believe in my soul that Bazzi speaks the
+truth. I will hear Raphael's version of how he came by this intaglio;
+since a portion of your lost property has been returned, perchance the
+remainder is on the way."
+
+And so indeed it proved. Raphael had not returned to the studio, but as
+we opened the door we heard a scampering and chattering, and caught a
+glimpse of Ciacco leaping to the top of a high cabinet and thence to a
+rafter where he perched whimpering in fear of punishment.
+
+"Come down, you rogue," I cried, "come down and retrieve your game."
+
+The creature understood and climbing into the hay loft, which joined
+the studio, returned, hugging to his breast the lost casket.
+
+Dovizio, nearly fainting with excitement, counted his treasures, and
+compared them with the list. All were there, excepting the Apollo
+intaglio, which Ciacco, driven by hunger, had that evening restored to
+Raphael.
+
+As it came so pat with the matter of his reading, it is no wonder that
+he imagined it had fallen from the skies, and this view of the case even
+the placated Dovizio took upon reflection.
+
+"It were a pity to rob him of his illusions if they are an inspiration
+to him," he mused. "Let him think himself favoured by Apollo; and as for
+my niece, since our business here is now accomplished and we shall leave
+Siena on the morrow, he will probably never see her again, and it is as
+well that he should not connect her with his visions."
+
+Thus ended our adventures at the villa of Cetinale for Raphael also
+presently left us for Urbino and Florence and all things seemed as they
+had been before our meeting together. But I knew that the day would
+surely come when he would claim his beloved, and that in the spinning of
+their fates so slight a thing as the pranking of a fool had twisted
+itself into the very fibre of their lives, never to be unravelled until
+the shears of Atropos should cut the cords asunder.
+
+
+III
+
+APOLLO FULFILS HIS PROMISE
+
+_Federigo de Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, gives his views of Raphael_
+
+
+  Then why too will he try so many things,
+    Instead of sticking to one single art;
+  He must be studying music, twanging strings,
+    And writing sonnets with their "heart and dart,"
+  Lately he's setting up for architect,
+    And planning palaces, and, as I learn,
+    Has made a statue--every art in turn.
+
+  W. W. STORY.
+
+Raphael, as I have said, betook himself to Florence, that centre of the
+arts, and for a matter of four years I saw him not, nor can I, my
+Giulio, give you any record of his Florentine experiences, vital as they
+were to the flowering of his character and genius. I saw only the
+change; he left me a youth, naive, ignorant, but filled with a divine
+enthusiasm, inspired as it were by the very spirit of God. In those
+four years he became instructed, absorbing all that was best from
+ancient and modern art, but still a mystic, a young archangel in
+knowledge and power.
+
+He studied first with Fra Bartolommeo in the cloister of San Marco, and
+the painter-monk yearned over him, as the child of his soul. But he
+divined also from the mere beholding of Da Vinci's pictures what I had
+been able to learn only by painful study, the secret of the master's
+charm.
+
+At the same time the strong undercurrent of the Greek spirit rife in
+Florence was bearing him irresistibly on to his mission as leader of all
+that is beautiful, joyous, and noble in classical art. Fra Bartolommeo
+could not fail to be distressed by these tendencies in his disciple.
+Raphael came to him one day saying, "Beloved Master, his holiness the
+Pope has called me to Rome; and I go with joy, for it has been revealed
+to me that there I shall find Apollo."
+
+"Ah! my son," the pious painter replied in anguished warning, "beware,
+for whoso findeth Apollo loseth Christ."
+
+And now I come to our Roman life and especially to that familiar
+intercourse at the Villa Chigi where Raphael and I were nearer of one
+spirit, for all your opportunities, than were you and he, my Giulio. In
+Rome, as in Siena, I preceded him, and had the better chance for
+fortune's favours, which I wilfully threw away. For early in his
+pontificate, Pope Julius II. made Agostino Chigi his banker and farmer
+of the alum mines whose yearly revenue was estimated at $100,000. Nor
+did Chigi with this elevation forget old friends, for in the spring of
+1507 he came to Siena to fetch me as a personal favour to Rome, but on
+our arrival he introduced me to the Pope, and obtained from him my
+commission to decorate the Stanza della Segnatura. But, fool that I was,
+I fancied my luck could not desert me, and painted only when it pleased
+me, ran my horses at all the races in Italy, and played the dandy, the
+spendthrift, and the roistering spark, until his Holiness in disgust
+turned me from the Vatican, and called Raphael to take my place, bidding
+him erase the little work I had done upon the ceiling.
+
+This, however, Raphael refused to do. On the contrary he did me the
+honour to paint my portrait beside his own, where you may see both of
+them to-day in that glorious fresco of the _School of Athens_, the
+serious inspired face of the young maestro cheek by cheek with the
+coarser features of his laughing, devil-may-care friend; and I prize
+more highly that testimony of his esteem than all the other honours of
+my life.
+
+I lingered on aimlessly at Rome, watching him at his work, fascinated by
+the superb conceptions with which he glorified the walls of the Vatican,
+and admiring the daring which enthroned Apollo and his attendant muses
+there in the very sanctuary of Christendom.
+
+It was his homage to the old worship, his endeavour to bring back
+Apollo, and that he thought then of Maria Dovizio's promise that he
+should find her when this was accomplished I had one day convincing
+proof; for, turning over his sketches, I found scribbled upon the back
+of a study for the _Disputa_ this sonnet:
+
+             "LOVE'S BONDAGE"
+
+    "Love, thou hast bound me with a cruel force,
+     The light of her two tender starry eyes,
+     A face like snow flushed rose 'neath sunset skies,
+     With gentle bearing and with chaste discourse.
+     But I would make no plaint, so great my bliss.
+     The more I love, I long to love again.
+     How light the yoke, how sweet the circling chain
+     Of her arms round my neck! And 'neath her kiss
+     Leaps forth the embodied soul in ecstacy.
+     Unloosed those bonds I suffer ceaseless pain,
+     For great joy kills whom it doth wholly move.
+     Though throbbing still with tender thought of thee,
+     My heart is heavy and I speak in vain,
+     But be my silence eloquent of love."[3]
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Raphael and Sodoma
+
+Fragment of School of Athens, in the Vatican--Raphael]
+
+I knew that the poem was addressed to Maria, for it was at this time
+that Bernardo Dovizio, dazzled by the change in Raphael's fortunes and
+repenting of his hasty action at Cetinale, offered my friend the hand of
+his niece.
+
+Raphael had told me of this, begging my congratulations. "She is at
+Urbino," he said, "but has written me confirming our betrothal. She
+tells me, too, that she has loved me all these years. Such constancy is
+miraculous, and I am the happiest of men."
+
+It was with a sore heart that I wished my friend joy. He knew not of my
+trouble, or I think it would have poisoned his happiness, for he
+sympathised so deeply with all his friends that their sorrows were his
+own. I mind me that we met Agostino Chigi that day, and that he told us
+of his prosperity; how he was sole owner of five score banking houses
+outrivalling those of the Medici and, indeed, every other firm in the
+world; how he monopolised not alone the alum, but also the wheat and
+salt industries; how his lakes alone supplied Rome with fish and his
+stock farms its markets; that his fleet numbered upwards of an hundred
+merchant vessels, while thousands of men did him service; that, in
+short, his fortune was now past computation, and his income beyond his
+power of spending.
+
+He explained all this not in a spirit of boastfulness, but, with an arm
+about each of us, told how he desired that we should share in his glory.
+He had determined to build a villa in Lungara upon the Tiber which
+should excel all of the Roman palaces, and while Peruzzi was his chosen
+architect, Raphael and I should divide its decoration. "For if I have
+become a prince of finance," he ended, "you, dear friends, are princes
+of art, and we will all three join in making this villa a worthy
+dwelling-place for one whom you knew and admired at Cetinale."
+
+Thinking for the instant that he referred to Imperia, who was now in
+Rome, Raphael congratulated him warmly and confided his own betrothal to
+Maria Dovizio. But at that news a sudden transformation was wrought in
+the demeanour of our old friend. His face became purple and swollen
+and his arms fell to his sides. Not a word spake he for a full minute,
+but he drew his breath hard, flinging out at length a bitter sarcasm on
+the faithlessness of women, and bidding Raphael trust not too much to
+their promises, he abruptly left us.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Villa Farnesina, Rome]
+
+There was only one construction to be put upon his conduct. Maria's
+loveliness had apparently made no impression upon him at Cetinale, but
+the memory of it had lingered in his heart, and when he met her after a
+lapse of years and saw how her beauty had matured, an affection, of
+which he himself may not have been conscious, flowered suddenly, just as
+a rose-tree set in ungrateful soil and long accounted dead may in the
+fulness of time come to unlooked-for efflorescence.
+
+Sharing his envy, I could only mark it with a laugh, but Raphael said,
+kindly, "Poor fellow, with all his wealth, I am many times richer than
+he."
+
+In my heart I knew that of her three lovers Maria had chosen wisely, and
+Chigi's disappointment would not have added to my own affliction, but
+for the reflection that in the present turn of affairs he would not be
+likely to hasten the building of his villa, and my last hope of
+employment in Rome was fading like a cruel mirage. But Raphael could
+well afford to waive Chigi's patronage, for him it was but another step
+in the golden staircase of success which now mounted invitingly before
+him. The Pope not only overwhelmed him with projects for the decoration
+of the Vatican but made him curator of all antiques which might be
+discovered near Rome, with full power to direct excavations.
+
+Returning to the Vatican from the walk during which we had encountered
+Chigi, Raphael found awaiting him a letter from the Pope, announcing
+that certain ancient statues had been discovered in the gardens of the
+villa of Nero at Antium, (now Porto d'Anzio), and desiring him to
+examine them and arrange for the transportation of the more remarkable
+to Rome.
+
+"Come with me," Raphael cried, "since you have nothing better to
+do--pardon me, my friend--since such an excursion is exactly what you
+would enjoy. We will ride to-morrow morning to Ostia and charter some
+fishing craft there for the sail to Porto d'Anzio."
+
+I accepted the invitation, glad to visit this favourite seaside resort
+of the Roman emperors. Even before we landed we could see the ruins of
+their villas deep in the clear waters of the bay, fish gliding through
+arches and the seaweed waving its pennons from the walls. The cliff at
+the back of the town presented a most impressive appearance, being
+pierced by great arched openings like the portals of a Roman bath. And
+such, indeed, they were, for on the promontory above had been the
+gardens of the imperial villa, and from them staircases carven in the
+rock descended to this subterranean chamber, which at full-tide the sea,
+rushing through a long canal, once converted into a swimming-pool. The
+great cavern had been dry for centuries, for the tides had piled their
+own sandy dykes before it, and the vaulting had fallen bringing with it
+a portion of the garden of the imperial villa and burying its statues
+beneath the debris. It was here that excavations had been begun, and as
+we entered the cave from the beach, our way was bordered by the
+fragments of many a column and capital, by broken vases and by headless
+statues.
+
+But none of these attracted us, for in the centre of the chamber,
+perfectly illumined by a shaft of light which fell upon it slantwise
+from the chasm in the roof, was the most superb statue which our eyes,
+nay, which any human vision had ever beheld.
+
+Apollo's very self stood there, god-like in superhuman majesty, as
+though he were an archangel who had alighted from his flaming chariot to
+lift a threatening hand against the workers of iniquity.
+
+I cannot describe the profound impression which this discovery made upon
+Raphael. He was raised to the seventh heaven, as on that memorable night
+at Siena, and while he gazed at the statue a mysterious voice, clear but
+freighted with intense emotion, chanted the _Hymn to Apollo_ to which we
+had listened at Chigi's villa.
+
+At first we could not tell from whence it came but looked about in
+startled surprise. Presently, however, a branch of laurel fell through
+the opening in the roof, the song ended in a peal of laughter, and we
+knew that some one was looking down upon us from the old Roman garden.
+No one but Imperia could sing like that, and when Raphael exclaimed. "It
+is the same song, the same singer that we heard at Cetinale." I cried
+out. "The same, the same. She is celebrating the discovery of Apollo."
+
+"She promised to come to me when I had found Apollo," he said, and
+bounded up the rude stairway. Even then I did not realise that though
+Raphael had recognised the voice he still supposed that it was Maria
+Dovizio who had sung on that evening, and that it was she whom he now
+believed he was about to meet.
+
+There was no one in the ruined villa. A goatherd at a little distance,
+of whom I inquired, pointed to the shore, and we saw some
+pleasure-seekers embarking in a small sailboat.
+
+"It is Chigi's yacht," said Raphael, "that is his pennon which flaps
+from the mast, and Chigi himself is standing at the stern waving his cap
+to us. There is a lady with him. He is steadying her with his arm. Your
+eyes are better than mine, is it she?"
+
+"It is indeed," I replied, "I would know her anywhere. His arm is around
+her waist and she is clinging to him as of old. The unsteadiness of the
+vessel is but an excuse. Many times at Cetinale have I seen them
+standing thus. What else could you expect of such a woman? He is the
+richest man in Italy."
+
+
+IV
+
+       AN ORGY AT CHIGI'S VILLA
+
+  And Chigi made a joyous feast; I never
+  Sat at a costlier; for all round his hall
+  From column on to column, as in a wood,
+  Great garlands swung and blossomed, and beneath
+  Heirlooms and ancient miracles of Art
+  Chalice and salver, wines that Heaven knows when
+  Had sucked the fire of some forgotten sun
+  And kept it through a hundred years of gloom,
+  Yet glowing in a heart of ruby, cups
+  Where nymph and god ran ever round in gold,
+  Others with glass as costly, some with gems
+  Movable and resetable at will,
+  And trebling all the rest in value.
+         Ah! heavens!
+  Why need I tell you all? Suffice! to say
+  That whatsoever boundless wealth like his,
+  And genius high, can compass, rare or fair,
+  Was brought before the guest.
+
+              TENNYSON:--Altered.
+
+So I found Raphael and so I left him, successful and apparently happy.
+Had I comprehended what the incident which I have just related meant to
+him,--had I even suspected his misconception of the situation,--I might
+have made him understand that neither at Cetinale nor at Porto d'Anzio
+had Maria Dovizio sung the _Hymn to Apollo_, that in both places it was
+Imperia who had chanted, Imperia who had responded to Chigi's caresses,
+and so this woful misunderstanding might never have divided these young
+lovers. Maria, far from being Chigi's guest at the moment of the
+discovery of the _Apollo_, was in Urbino, awaiting in ever-increasing
+wonder and dismay some word of affection from her betrothed. Failing to
+receive it she came to Rome, but Raphael held himself aloof, pleading
+the Pope's demands upon his time. He thought that she would understand
+the cause of his neglect, and herself sunder the engagement, for he
+would not shame her by any accusation.
+
+One ineffaceable picture of my friend I carried with me into my exile,
+for going to the Vatican to bid Raphael farewell, I was told that he was
+in the Pope's villa of the Belvedere superintending the placing of the
+_Apollo_, which had just arrived. The guards barred my entrance to the
+loggia, and indeed I cared not to intrude, for I saw that the Pope was
+there, gazing at the statue with a grim delight, as though he believed
+that the god had descended to earth to expel as of old the barbarian
+Gauls.
+
+Raphael stood entranced, unmindful of the presence of Maria Dovizio, who
+sat a little apart, heart-sick and bewildered, unable to grope her way
+through the thick fog of misconception which had drifted between herself
+and her beloved.
+
+And over all the white form of _Apollo_ gleamed in heartless gladness,
+untouched by any feeling for his votary's sins of ignorance for which he
+would cry in vain repentance, "Had I but known, had I but known!"
+
+It was impossible for me to tarry longer in Rome without employment, and
+I bethought me of the monks of Oliveto, and how they had asked for a
+series of paintings for their cloister. To this refuge, therefore, I
+repaired, completing, in two years, thirty-one great frescoes for little
+more than my sustenance. Yea; and for my belly's sake I might have
+accepted the life of a cowled monk, had not Chigi in the nick of time
+drawn me from that slough with the announcement that Peruzzi had
+completed the building of his villa, and that it was now ready for
+decoration.
+
+Here accordingly, while painting in the upper rooms, I enjoyed the
+comradeship of that brotherhood of choice spirits--Giovanni da Udine,
+Francesco Penni, and the rest--who with thee, my Giulio, wrought so
+lovingly under Raphael's direction, illuminating the lower loggia with
+the legend of _Cupid and Psyche_.
+
+It is true that to my surprise and sorrow Raphael himself came not, but
+I knew that he was overwhelmed with commissions, and to their demands
+upon his time I attributed his avoidance of the villa. In the meantime I
+delayed not to seek him out, and to express my surprise that I found him
+still a bachelor. But at my first probing of that old wound he winced so
+perceptibly that I perceived that it was by no means cured, and I made
+no demand upon his confidence for an explanation of his delay in
+demanding the consummation of an engagement which had not been publicly
+dissolved.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma
+
+From the portrait of himself in the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore]
+
+The world gossiped as to the cause of Raphael's neglect of his
+affianced. The most part declared him cold, absorbed only in love of his
+art, and some whispered that the Pope who was insatiable in his demands
+for his work, feared that marriage would lessen his enthusiasm for art,
+and had put off indefinitely the wedding-day, promising Raphael the
+Cardinal's hat if he remained a celibate.
+
+While I could not believe that this was the true explanation of the
+estrangement between the lovers, I was far from suspecting the truth.
+Though I called upon Maria Dovizio I got no enlightenment in that
+quarter, nay, nor encouragement for my own passion, for when I put forth
+some timid essays, they were promptly crushed by a look of such
+reproach that I called myself brute as well as fool for my persistency.
+
+Longing to do her service, I determined to haunt my friend until he
+should voluntarily confide the secret of the trouble, and if it were
+possible bring them together.
+
+With this end in view, in all my leisure hours I frequented Raphael's
+studio, where he was painting the most glorious of his Madonnas for the
+monks of San Sisto. And here, posing for that divine work, I found again
+our child-model of Cetinale, the little Margherita.
+
+She was no longer a child, for the years which had elapsed had
+transformed her into a woman; but she had retained her old
+characteristics of shyness, simplicity, and a worshipful love of
+Raphael. She had followed him to Rome, so he told me, like some
+faithful, dumb animal which could not live away from its master, and
+moved by her great affection he had given her lodging and employment as
+his model. There lacked not malicious tongues who called her his
+mistress; but so modest yet unabashed was her demeanour that I can well
+believe that she deserved to the end the honour which he paid in
+choosing her face as his ideal of all that is noblest in woman.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Margherita (La Fornarina), Attributed to Raphael
+
+Pitti Gallery, Florence]
+
+While I worked at Chigi's villa my patron gave me much of his
+company; for though the decorations were unfinished he had established
+his residence here. Imperia was his guest at this time, and as we sat at
+table one evening Chigi complained in her presence that Raphael slighted
+his engagements and avoided his company.
+
+"Have I not heard," Imperia hazarded boldly, "that he is to marry the
+Maria Dovizio whom I met at Cetinale?"
+
+"If her uncle speaks true," Chigi replied, "Raphael is but a
+recalcitrant lover, continually putting off the date of the marriage.
+Bernardo Dovizio admitted to me that his niece's patience is at an end,
+and that she could be persuaded to accept a more ardent suitor."
+
+Imperia darted a keen look at Chigi, but replied calmly, "It is plain
+that Raphael has been entangled by some other woman," and she demanded
+of me suddenly if it were not so.
+
+"It may be," I admitted reluctantly, for this possibility had of late
+occurred to me, and I told them of Margherita.
+
+Chigi was delighted. "If Maria Dovizio but knew of that liaison," he
+cried, "she would send her betrothed about his business."
+
+"Have a care, Agostino," Imperia exclaimed. "Let the news reach her
+through any one but you. She would hardly regard with kindness the man
+who brought her proof of Raphael's faithlessness."
+
+Chigi looked at me significantly. "_You_ knew her," he said. "It is in
+your power to serve us both."
+
+"God knows I would give my life to serve her," I cried unguardedly.
+
+Imperia laughed. "You have more than one rival, my Agostino," she said.
+"Bazzi is a good fellow, but not to be trusted with your love affairs."
+
+"I deny the accusation that I am your honour's rival," I cried hotly. "I
+had never any hope in that quarter."
+
+Chigi nodded thoughtfully and pressed my hand. "Do not torment yourself,
+Imperia," he said after a moment, as he left us. "We have neither of us
+any chance with Maria Dovizio; and you shall be mistress of this villa
+and of its master so long as you care for your kingdom."
+
+But Imperia was not deceived though she feigned to believe Agostino's
+protestations. Chigi's information that Maria's hand had been
+practically offered him by her uncle had wakened the most intense alarm
+for her own position, and she instantly determined to effect a
+reconciliation between Maria and Raphael.
+
+"Look you, Bazzi," she said when we were alone, "that hussy, Margherita,
+must leave our friend's house at once. I can see that you love Maria
+Dovizio so disinterestedly that you prefer her happiness to your own.
+Now it is certain that Raphael and Maria love each other; and we must
+not allow any foolishness to part them. Let us work in concert to bring
+them together."
+
+I remember that when I heard Imperia say this it struck me as an
+instance of an angel being served by the machinations of an evil spirit.
+But I hesitated not to make her my fellow-conspirator, nor did I revolt
+that Margherita must suffer, nay, that I myself must relinquish any
+lingering hope of winning my idol's heart if so be that her happiness
+could be secured.
+
+"I am with you in that business," I assured Imperia, "but how can we
+effect it?"
+
+"Very easily," Imperia replied. "Margherita is the daughter of Chigi's
+pastry-cook at Cetinale. Send for him--I will give you money. He shall
+exercise a father's authority to compel his daughter to return to her
+home. His mistress once beyond his reach, Raphael will forget her, and
+imagine that he has never loved any one but his betrothed. I know you
+men--the nearest is ever the dearest."
+
+Imperia's plot was but partially successful. She brought Margherita's
+father indeed from Siena and established him as a baker near the villa;
+but no commands, threats, or bribe of his could induce his daughter to
+renounce Raphael's protection.
+
+Imperia again took counsel with me. "The fool loves him," she said; "we
+must act through her love, not against it."
+
+"And how shall we do that?" I asked.
+
+"We must make her understand that her lover, intoxicated by his delight
+in her company, is disregarding his own advantage in neglecting Chigi's
+commissions, and that she must reside here in order to induce Raphael to
+follow her."
+
+The scheme seemed to me likely to succeed, and one morning, when I
+shrewdly suspected that Raphael would be busied at the Vatican, I took
+Imperia with me to his studio to try her powers of persuasion upon
+Margherita.
+
+Even then she could not have succeeded but for my help, for Margherita,
+trusting in my friendship for Raphael, appealed to me. "It is for his
+good," I assured her.
+
+"Then I will not refuse," she replied, "but will go with you at once. So
+write for me to my master that if he wishes to paint from me, he will
+find me when he is prepared to fulfil his promises to his patron."
+
+Thus, without giving her time to reflect, we carried Margherita in
+Imperia's carriage to Chigi's villa. I guessed that she had no intention
+of sending the girl's message to her lover; that she planned to keep
+Margherita hidden until Raphael, believing her false or losing all hope
+of finding her, would return to his allegiance to Maria.
+
+But there were other forces at work on which I had not counted, and the
+first of these was Chigi.
+
+Something like the same chain of reasoning had been started in his mind
+by my mention of Margherita, but he had reached the conclusion that
+Raphael's infatuation for his pretty model must be encouraged. He
+therefore privately requested me to induce her, by exactly the same
+arguments which we had already employed, to do precisely what she had
+already done.
+
+The humour of the situation was so great that I burst into an
+uncontrollable fit of laughter.
+
+This so angered the unsuspecting man that I managed to ejaculate between
+my paroxysms: "Margherita in this villa! And what pray you would the
+Signora Imperia say to that?"
+
+At this question Chigi whistled. "I had forgotten Imperia," he admitted,
+and then to my utter confusion that lady entered the room with her arm
+about the waist of Margherita.
+
+Never before had I seen Imperia unable to give a plausible account of a
+situation, but while she hesitated, Margherita did her good service by
+telling the simple truth. She thanked Chigi warmly for his patronage of
+Raphael, and explained how Imperia and she had plotted to induce him to
+complete the frescoes.
+
+"And you did this to give me pleasure?" Chigi asked, regarding Imperia
+with wonder and admiration. She felt her advantage and found her tongue.
+"You little know your Imperia," she said, sweetly; and true though the
+words were he understood them falsely, as she meant he should, and the
+recording angel gave her credit for a lie.
+
+"I am more grateful than I can express," cried Chigi, "for I have great
+need of Raphael at this moment, and you, dearest Imperia, shall never
+regret this kindness."
+
+"We have played into the hands of the enemy," Imperia said to me in a
+low voice as Chigi darted away to write to Raphael; "nevertheless the
+game is not yet lost. I know my dear Agostino's cards, and though they
+are good ones I have some which he recks not of and he shall never wed
+the fair Maria."
+
+A wonderful woman was this Imperia, as I was beginning to realise,
+though I had not yet sounded the depths of that strange nature.
+
+Chigi's letter to Raphael was a masterpiece of duplicity. He confided to
+him as the most sacred secret the information that his engagement to a
+certain mutual acquaintance of Cetinale days would soon be announced,
+and he begged his friend, for the sake of the lady, to give his personal
+and inimitable touch to the frescoes of _Cupid and Psyche_, and to other
+decorations in the villa which he was preparing for his bride. Although
+he also confessed the stratagem by which he had secured the presence of
+Margherita, it was the news of Chigi's approaching marriage which
+determined Raphael to accede to his request. Though Agostino had worded
+his allusions to his betrothed so skilfully that they applied with equal
+fitness to either Imperia or Maria Dovizio, Raphael never doubted that
+he referred to the latter. The news simply confirmed the suspicions
+which he had long entertained, and with characteristic magnanimity, he
+determined to leave Maria the highest masterpiece of which his hand was
+capable.
+
+He came at once, and Imperia sat smiling at his side while he painted
+Margherita as the principal figure in the glorious _Triumph of Galatea_,
+Chigi, marking Margherita's look of rapt devotion, drew me aside in
+ecstacy. "It is plain that they love each other," he said. "When the
+picture is nearly finished I will invite Bernardo Dovizio and his niece
+to see it. They will understand the relations of this artist and model.
+He is cutting his own throat with every stroke of his facile brush, for
+Maria Dovizio will brook no divided affection."
+
+But when in alarm I reported this conversation to Imperia--"Children!"
+she cried scornfully; "what children you men are! Can you not see,
+Giovanni, that, though Margherita worships her painter as a god, he
+cares for her only as a piece of stuff, a marble column, or a jewel,
+beautiful truly and therefore serviceable to paint from, but nothing
+more. Let Agostino bring Maria Dovizio here. I desire nothing more
+warmly than to compass her meeting with Raphael. But give me a moment
+with her to prepare her for that meeting, and one in which to withdraw
+Margherita and all others from the scene, and think you that in the joy
+of their reconciliation either he or she will give a thought to his
+picture or to the models who posed for it?"
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Pope Leo X,
+
+Giulio de Medici (afterward Pope Clement VII), and
+
+Luigi De Rossi, by Raphael
+
+Pitti Gallery]
+
+Chigi did not at once carry out his intention of inviting the Dovizios
+to his villa, for another project for the moment eclipsed that design
+and demands a temporary digression from my story; for if he was to be
+reckoned with as a lover, in a review of the hidden causes which brought
+about the catastrophe, he is still less to be neglected in his proper
+role of financier.
+
+Pope Leo X. was to discover this as his predecessor Julius had done, and
+with more reason, for Leo was the greater borrower, all of his family
+and the adherents of the Medici descending upon him on his accession to
+the papacy like a flock of buzzards. Julius had left the papal coffers
+well filled, but Leo had not only emptied them, but he had anticipated
+his own revenues and those of his successor. Truly was it said after
+his death, that upon his family and the building of Saint Peter's he had
+spent the income of three pontificates. Chigi was not distressed that
+there was no likelihood that the Pope would ever repay what he owed, for
+he had not only received ample security through Dovizio at Cetinale, but
+there were richer spoils in view which made that transaction seem of
+trifling account. Agostino desired to become the sole manager of the
+papal finances; and he did indeed inaugurate that system of loans by
+which the Pope's entire revenue was not sufficient to meet the interest
+on his debts.
+
+As a means of impressing Leo not only with his friendship but with his
+boundless wealth, he determined to entertain his Holiness with
+hospitality so lavish that it would put to shame the very feasts of
+Lucullus. Leo was in a certain way to blame for this foolish display,
+for Cardinal Riario was building his palace at this time, and his
+Holiness piqued Chigi by insinuating that the residence of Riario would
+rival the one which he was erecting. To this slur Chigi retorted hotly
+that Riario's palace would not be able to compare with his own stables.
+
+It was no empty boast, but in order to realise it our patron
+immediately put a stop to the work upon the main villa and, as you, my
+Giulio, will well remember, set us all to the task of transforming the
+larger building upon the river bank (originally planned to house his
+stud of horses) into an immense banqueting-hall. The stalls of inlaid
+woods were concealed by the Medici tapestries; and by means of stucco,
+paint, lavish gilding, and innumerable sparkling lights, depending in
+crystal lustres and silver lamps, we achieved an effect of magnificence
+unsurpassed by the imaginary creations of oriental enchanters.
+
+In this gorgeous apartment, carpeted by rugs given Chigi by eastern
+princes and crowded with the costliest works of art, was served a feast
+for whose menu the scholars of the city ransacked the records of the
+orgies of the Roman emperors. The cardinals and foreign ambassadors
+invited were surprised by dainties and wines peculiar to their own
+countries, timed to arrive in Rome from many distant lands on the very
+eve of the banquet. Golden beakers richly ornamented in _repousse_ with
+bacchanalian subjects, and engraved with the coat of arms of the guest
+before whom they were placed, were provided with every different wine,
+and the convives were begged to accept the entire set as trifling
+mementos. To prove that the plates of solid gold on which the many
+courses were served were not used twice, they were when changed
+ostentatiously cast through the open windows into the Tiber.
+
+But here I had contrived to secure my friend the reputation of
+prodigality without its penalty, for we caused nets to be stretched in
+the river under the windows so that the service was presently hauled
+safely in by Chigi's servants, who patrolled the river in small boats.
+
+I was responsible also for another feature, which was in a manner too
+successful. When the fruit was served I placed before Bernardo Dovizio
+(now Cardinal Bibbiena) a melon, which upon cutting open he found filled
+with what he took to be the very gems lost and found at Cetinale in so
+remarkable a manner, and which he had left in pawn with Chigi. As with
+trembling fingers he was attempting to transfer them to his pocket, I
+set free my ape Ciacco, who, previously coached to this performance,
+descended a rope which depended over the table, seized the melon, and
+climbing again beyond Dovizio's reach pelted the company with the
+jewels.
+
+Great was the indignation of the Cardinal as he saw them scrambled for
+and pocketed as souvenirs by the guests, until our host presented Leo
+with the casket containing the original intaglios of which the ones
+placed before Dovizio were but imitations.
+
+The banquet being now concluded, the tapestries concealing the stalls
+were drawn aside, and a hundred pages, each habited like a prince, led
+in as many superb horses caparisoned in cloth of gold, and fastened them
+with silver chains to feeding-racks of the same metal.
+
+Chigi then apologised for having received his Holiness in a stable,
+saying that he would not have dared to do so had not the great Head of
+the Church accepted such humble hospitality for his birthplace. Leo
+graciously admitted that his host had fulfilled his boast, for Riario,
+with all his extravagance, had never attempted a scene like this.
+
+The tapestries were sent to the Vatican on the morrow, but, in
+displaying them and returning publicly the Medici jewels, we had
+over-shot the mark, for the Pope's self-love was wounded by the
+exposition of the straits to which he must have been reduced, to have
+accounted for their having been even temporarily in Chigi's possession,
+and another banker received the patronage which our friend had coveted.
+
+On Bernardo Dovizio, however, this feast made an immense impression, and
+when Chigi invited him to bring his niece to dine more intimately at his
+villa, he accepted the invitation with an alacrity which gave color to
+Agostino's hopes.
+
+Chigi had no intention that Imperia should either preside on this
+occasion or suspect what he was planning. He had asked a sister-in-law
+to do the honours of his villa for the day, and had requested me to
+escort Imperia to the Pope's villa of Magliana, where he had secured her
+an invitation to sing for a party of sport-loving cardinals whom Leo had
+asked to enjoy his favourite pastime of hunting.
+
+"And see to it, my dear Bazzi," Agostino had said to me, "that you on no
+account bring her back until late at night, for Maria Dovizio must not
+know that Imperia is an inmate of my house."
+
+As in duty bound I secretly took counsel with Imperia, discussing, as we
+fancied, every phase of the situation.
+
+Chigi, over-confident in the superiority of his own attractions, had not
+at first deemed it necessary to send Raphael away. It is possible that
+he even thought that Maria would be shocked at seeing her betrothed
+apparently domiciled under the same roof with Margherita, and
+glorifying her charms with such over-appreciation, while Raphael,
+surprised by Maria's sudden appearance as a willing and familiar guest,
+would accept the desired construction as to her relations with his
+patron, and that thus the estrangement between these unhappy lovers
+would become irremediable.
+
+Imperia admitted that if neither of them were previously warned, and, if
+no opportunity were afforded them to converse together alone,
+appearances would be much against Raphael, and Chigi's plot would have a
+fair chance of succeeding. "Especially," she added, "if Maria Dovizio
+has any conversation with Margherita will Raphael's chance of placating
+her be lost, for a woman who loves can not fail to recognise the same
+affection in another, and Margherita's infatuation is so evident that
+the blind might see it."
+
+"Then," said I, "our first concern must be to spirit Margherita away,
+else Maria in her injured pride may accept Agostino."
+
+"'Tis the first step," Imperia replied. "Leave it to me; think you I
+have not long since foreseen and provided for such an emergency?"
+
+As she spoke there was a look in her set face which frightened me. "I
+will ask Margherita's father to send for her for the day," I said,
+uneasy, I knew not why.
+
+"Leave her to me, I tell you," Imperia commanded hastily. "If Raphael
+and Maria Dovizio are to be reconciled Margherita must drop out of his
+life--not for one day but for ever."
+
+I liked this still less, though I laughed and reminded her how she
+herself had said that, when they once understood each other, Margherita
+would be no more to either of them than a lay-figure on which to hang
+draperies.
+
+Imperia smiled bitterly. "I may have thought so once, I know better
+now."
+
+"There is another way to foil Agostino," I suggested. "He will show the
+Dovizios my painting of the _Marriage of Alexander and Roxana_, in his
+own room. Leave such of your jewels on his dressing-case as will prove
+to Maria that you have recently occupied the apartment--that necklace
+which she admired so greatly at Cetinale. She would recognise it at
+once."
+
+Imperia shook her head contemptuously. "Agostino would gather up all
+such equivocal objects before he showed her the room," she said.
+
+"Then, since we cannot hinder Maria Dovizio from accepting this
+invitation, would you dare to return earlier than you are expected, and
+converse with her before she leaves? We might explain to Chigi afterward
+that we had miscalculated the time, or that our appearance was in some
+other way unpremeditated."
+
+"He would never forgive me," she said slowly; "nevertheless, if I do not
+succeed in removing Margherita, I shall return in time to pull the
+strings of my puppets, for Agostino shall never marry another woman."
+
+I well remember the last evening which we spent together. The air was
+sultry, and through the arches of the loggia occasional flashes of
+lightning made fiery crevices in the black heavens. Imperia paced
+uneasily to and fro.
+
+"We shall have a storm," she said. "I have a mind not to go to
+Magliana."
+
+Chigi turned pale and rose and walked beside her. He even attempted to
+put his arm about her waist, but she repulsed him with a savage scowl.
+
+"Do not pretend that you care for me, Agostino," she said angrily; "I
+will believe it only on one condition, that you accompany me to
+Magliana."
+
+"I have told you it is impossible, Imperia. Bazzi is an amusing
+fellow, a hundred times more entertaining than I."
+
+"I am tired of Bazzi. He is an insufferable idiot. I will not go unless
+you escort me, Agostino."
+
+"Then Raphael shall take you. His Holiness will be delighted to welcome
+him, as he desires him to plan some decorations for the villa; and you
+cannot, my Imperia, call Raphael an idiot."
+
+It was Imperia's turn to blanch as Raphael came forward and courteously
+asked the honour of her company.
+
+But she quickly recovered herself, "Raphael is too charming," she said
+guilefully, "and were it not that his heart is given to the beautiful
+Margherita I might be tempted to angle for it."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Chigi, well pleased, "that is good news. Margherita is a
+rare prize, and I am glad to know that the unimpressionable Raphael at
+last really loves."
+
+The eyes of Imperia and Chigi were intently fixed on Raphael's face,
+striving to read his true feelings. He felt and resented the scrutiny.
+
+"I doubt if the man lives who has not loved," he said, flushing.
+"Perhaps it is because I love so deeply that I cannot speak of it."
+
+Imperia softened for an instant, and, taking a lute, sang, _Quant'e
+bella giovinezza_.[4] But the pent-up passion that possessed her this
+evening woke again in the line, _Che si fugge tuttavia_, and she ended
+suddenly with a dry choking sob.
+
+An embarrassing silence fell upon us all, broken finally by Imperia. "A
+little honesty might clear the atmosphere," she said to Raphael;
+"besides what need is there of such secrecy when we have all guessed the
+truth. No, you shall not escort me to Magliana. I will be no man's
+second choice, not even yours, Agostino," and so saying she ungraciously
+departed from us.
+
+"She is in a devil of a humour," Chigi said to me, uneasily, when
+Raphael had bidden us good-night. "What can have angered her? Is it
+possible that she suspects that her reign is over?"
+
+"She suspects nothing," I assured him, truthfully; in my heart I added,
+"but she knows everything."
+
+"But will she go?" Chigi asked, anxiously; "that is the immediate
+question. I cannot put her out by force."
+
+"You will never have to do that," I replied. "She will go, never fear.
+Leave her to herself, her mood will have changed by morning. There is
+only one thing to be relied upon in women, and that is their
+inconstancy, not alone to men but to any fixed idea."
+
+In spite of the flippancy with which I had striven to beguile Chigi, I
+was vaguely but none the less genuinely troubled. Unable to sleep, I
+strolled toward dawn in the garden. A lamp burned in the tiny room
+assigned to Margherita, and to my surprise there flitted across the
+window the shadow of Imperia. What business could she have there at such
+an hour? Certain expressions, to which I had given no weight at the time
+of their utterance, came back to me with sinister significance, and
+especially her declaration that Margherita must disappear, "not for one
+day, but for ever." I continued my watch until a gust of rain drove me
+into the house, and I fell asleep to dream that an oubliette lined with
+the blades of scythes (such as I knew existed in certain old Roman
+houses) had at Imperia's touch yawned beneath the couch of Margherita;
+and that the innocent barrier to Raphael's reconciliation with Maria had
+indeed "dropped from his life."
+
+But I awoke at Chigi's cheery halloo to find that the storms of the
+previous evening had cleared. Imperia had expressed her readiness to
+spend the day at Magliana, and my host desired me to select horses for
+the excursion.
+
+I never saw her gayer than on that day, and when I looked askance as she
+jested with his Holiness and flirted with Riario, daring him to give a
+supper in her honour in his new palace, she pressed my foot beneath the
+table and looked me smilingly in the face, as though striving to assure
+me that all was well.
+
+But she would not comply with Leo's request for his father's canzone,
+_Quant e bella_, which she had sung with such effect the previous
+evening. She left the gay company while they were all clamoring for
+more, and insisted that I should urge the horses to the utmost as we
+dashed back to Rome.
+
+Our common anxiety to know the outcome of Maria Dovizio's visit to
+Chigi's villa, together with her great longing for sympathy in this
+crisis of her life, so wrought with the favouring opportunity of that
+wild drive that Imperia granted me such a revelation of her inmost soul
+as I believe no other man can boast, and I knew her that night as God
+knew her.
+
+She had sought Margherita the night before a criminal at heart, for she
+had determined to sacrifice the girl. Imperia possessed a house in Rome.
+It was on her lips to tell Margherita that Raphael, who had met with an
+accident, was lying there at the point of death, and had sent for her to
+come to him. She had already instructed her servants, and had Margherita
+once entered that house its doors would never again have been opened for
+her.
+
+But Imperia's guardian angel was kind. Before the words could be uttered
+Margherita had poured out her heart in gratitude to the woman whom she
+believed to be her benefactress. While the girl spoke, Imperia strove to
+steel herself, repeating mentally the round of cruel reasoning which had
+been the Ixion's wheel on which her tortured brain had unceasingly
+revolved:
+
+"If Margherita speaks to Maria Dovizio, Maria will never be reconciled
+with Raphael. Unless Maria weds Raphael she will surely marry Chigi.
+Either Margherita or I must perish. Which shall it be?"
+
+But gradually this fiend's chatter grew less insistent and Imperia heard
+instead Margherita's impassioned protestations. She was happy,
+blissfully happy, and owed it all to the disinterested kindness of her
+patroness; for though Raphael had always loved her he had been bound by
+a hateful engagement to a cold, proud woman, who had cast him aside for
+a wealthier suitor. Her memory had rankled in the mind of both,
+poisoning their happiness, for Margherita well realised that she was
+herself but a peasant, not to be compared in birth and breeding to this
+high lady. Until lately she had not deemed herself worthy to mate with
+so exalted a personage as her lover. But since she had known Imperia she
+had comprehended how such a miracle might be. "For," said she, "you are
+just like me, and all of the Signor Chigi's wealth and glory does not
+crush or humiliate you, because when two people really love each other
+it makes them equal, and neither genius nor riches nor anything else in
+all the world is worthy of being compared to the love of a true woman."
+
+That shaft went home. The thought of being classed with this
+single-hearted girl who had sacrificed everything to a great love so
+humiliated and touched the heart of the venal courtesan that in spite of
+all she had at stake, she could not prevail upon herself to do
+Margherita this great wrong. So, finding that she knew not who the great
+lady was to whom Raphael was betrothed, Imperia told her of Maria
+Dovizio's expected visit, as of that of an old friend who had been
+interested in her as a child at Cetinale, and bade her if opportunity
+offered repeat to Maria the story exactly as she had just told it, for
+it would surely be to her advantage to do so.
+
+When Imperia told me this I cried out, "But it will kill Maria, and you
+forget that Raphael is there and will not permit her thus to speak."
+
+"Nay, my friend," Imperia answered. "Raphael is not there, for Agostino,
+on reflection, wisely decided not to risk the meeting, and gave him a
+holiday this morning to work in his own house. Never fear that Chigi
+will not leave Maria Dovizio alone with Margherita, or that her
+revelations will have any such deadly effect. Agostino is an adept in
+consolation, and Maria must long since have divined the truth."
+
+My heart beat in a tumult of conflicting emotions. For an instant a
+wild, unreasoning hope overpowered all the rest. "Imperia," I
+exclaimed, "you shall not lose Agostino. I will surrender my chances
+with Maria to no man but Raphael. If in truth he has ceased to love
+her,--then, for all you think me mad in saying so, we may both, may all
+be happy yet."
+
+[Illustration: Villa Madama]
+
+But such joyous ending to lovers' woes is found only in the fictions of
+romancers. Certes I have often thought I could design a fairer web than
+that the fates weave for us.
+
+Even as I spoke Imperia caught my arm and I drew rein, for we were
+nearing the gateway of Chigi's villa. A carriage was leaving the
+grounds, and as it passed us we saw Maria Dovizio lying in a swoon in
+her uncle's arms. Chigi was not with them, for she had left his house
+apparently indifferent to all that she had seen or heard within it, and
+had succumbed only when beyond his view.
+
+"Poor child," said Imperia, "you are not wounded so deeply as you fancy.
+No, do not drive in, Giovanni, I have learned all I wished to know. In
+spite of her present despair Maria will enter those gates ere long a
+happy bride; but I shall never knock at them again. The end would have
+come soon in any event, for Agostino had ceased to love me, but he shall
+never boast that he cast me out."
+
+I took her to her own house, and when Chigi learned that she had not
+returned with me he but shrugged his shoulders, for she had rightly
+divined his heart. I never saw her again, but I heard much, for Rome
+still rings with wild tales of her notoriously evil life. A nature hers
+that had much of good in it I bear witness, though sadly she mistook her
+way. She mistook it even when she tried to do a kindness to Margherita.
+Shame and heart-break was the guerdon which that poor child received in
+return for her great devotion.
+
+As for me, the glimpse I had caught of Maria's death-struck face so
+rankled in my soul through the long watches of that sleepless night that
+on the morrow, in anguished contrition, I confessed all that miserable
+story to Raphael.
+
+When he knew how cruelly he had misjudged her he was smitten with such
+remorse that he could never forgive himself or take joy in life. For
+though he went to her at once and she forgave him freely, nay, strove to
+comfort him by protesting there was naught to forgive, she had suffered
+overmuch to endure the great joy of their reconciliation. Prattling of
+love and happiness and smiling still when she no longer had strength
+to utter his name, she peacefully died within his arms.
+
+[Illustration: Pope Leo X. at Raphael's Bier
+
+From the painting by Pietro Michis. Permission of Franz Hanfstaengl]
+
+It was Raphael's grief rather than, as reported, a fever taken in
+superintending archaeological excavations which truly caused his death on
+his thirty-seventh birthday, upon that Good Friday which neither you nor
+I, my Giulio, can ever forget.
+
+Margherita told me that in his delirium he knew her not, but kissed her
+hands, calling her "Maria" and begging her forgiveness. To the poor girl
+he left by will ample support; but, by the same testament, he was buried
+by the side of Maria Dovizio, beneath whose name he caused to be
+chiselled the inscription, "The affianced wife of Raphael Santi, whom
+death deprived of a happy marriage."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A CELLINI CASKET
+
+INTERLUDE
+
+
+  The trellis that once shut the forest trees
+  From the fair flowers, all torn and broken is,
+  Though still the lily's scent is on the breeze,
+  And the rose clasps the broken images.
+
+             WILLIAM MORRIS.
+
+Neglected but not ruinous, its marbles mossy, its once unrivalled garden
+invaded by sweet wild-flower banditti which run riot among the gentle
+roses, its fountains dry, their cracks and crannies the homes of basking
+lizards, its charming loggia trodden only by enthusiasts for whom every
+spot touched by the genius of Raphael is a shrine of pilgrimage--the
+Villa Madama, though appealing in its desertion, is not a melancholy
+solitude.
+
+[Illustration: Detail of Vault in Villa Madama--Stucchi by Giovanni da
+Udine]
+
+The imagination is intoxicated as by some heady wine as one gazes
+outward upon the dazzling panorama which originally determined the site
+of the loggia; and when, fatigued by the flashing sunlight, our eyes
+turn to the interior they are soothed by the subtler beauties of the
+half-effaced frescoes, the floral arabesques which Giovanni da Udine
+lavished upon the spandrils, the pouting _putti_ in Giulio Romano's
+frieze of cherub faces, carrying out a scheme of decoration which could
+have been designed by no other than Raphael. We are certain as we
+recognise in a more delicate line, or exquisite touch recalling the
+arabesques of the Vatican loggia, that just here the great impresario
+must have caught palette and brushes from the hand of his pupil with,
+"_Me perdone Giovanino mio_, let me frolic a while with these fairy
+creatures and show them to you as I saw them in my childhood dancing in
+the swaying vines that garlanded the pergolas of Urbino." And so they
+revel here, myths of the childhood of the race, monstrous creatures,
+half beast, half human; centaurs, fauns, tritons, mermaids, sphinxes,
+lamias, their grotesquerie no longer repulsive, for it is a foil to the
+utmost elegance and sumptuousness of Renaissance art, their multiplicity
+never wearying, because they are marshalled by the greatest master in
+decorative design that the world has known. They lurk in the
+convolutions of exquisite _rinceaux_, uncoiling themselves from the
+scrolls of acanthus foliage, where sport also more delicate hybrid
+flowers;--women, whose beautiful bodies rise like anthers from the
+calices of impossible blossoms, whose arms are coiling tendrils and
+whose limbs melt into the curves of exuberant leafage unknown to the
+botanist.
+
+But the charm which holds the visitor who penetrates this delicious
+solitude is due not alone to the sense of sight. A haunting
+suggestiveness breathes from these surroundings, like the perfume
+exhaled when one unlocks a long-closed sandal-wood casket, once the
+depository of dainty feminine trifles. It needs not the name of the
+villa to tell us that a lady, sitting in this loggia, once duplicated Da
+Udine's traceries in her embroidery, gathered roses in the garden, and
+looked longingly toward Rome while awaiting the coming of her princely
+lover, and many a visitor has been piqued by the ignorance of the
+custodian of the villa to search history for this mysterious Madama.
+
+[Illustration: Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma, 1586
+
+From an old engraving]
+
+Margaret of Austria, daughter of an Emperor, wife of the reputed son of
+one Pope and of the grandson of another, Grand Duchess of Tuscany,
+and Duchess of Parma, quartered the imperial eagle upon the balls of the
+Medici and the lilies of the Farnese. That the bar sinister was
+conspicuous upon her escutcheon mattered little in the age in which she
+lived, for the Emperor Charles V. acknowledged and advanced the
+interests of his illegitimate daughter with the same lack of
+embarrassment shown by the popes in the favouritism of their "nephews."
+
+A doubtful advantage this, but one with far-reaching consequences, for
+when Margaret was twelve years of age, Charles conquered Rome and the
+child's connection with Italy and the Villa Madama had its beginning.
+
+The villa had been built by Raphael for Pope Clement VII., while he was
+yet only Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, as a pleasure casino to which he
+could retreat from the cares imposed upon him by his cousin, Pope Leo X.
+Later when as successor to the tiara he found that not the least burden
+in the heavy legacy bequeathed him was that of the guardianship of the
+Medici family, it became the resort of his Florentine relatives on their
+quieter visits to Rome and the home of a mysterious child, Alessandro,
+of whom the Pope announced himself the guardian.
+
+When Lorenzo II., (grandson of the Magnificent) died, leaving but one
+legitimate child, Catherine de' Medici, the future Queen of France,
+Clement imposed Alessandro upon Florence as the natural son of Duke
+Lorenzo.
+
+There lacked not shrugging of shoulders at this imputed parentage and
+Florence revolted against receiving a bastard and a mulatto as its
+sovereign.
+
+But trouble was brewing both for Florence and the Pope. Charles V. had
+determined to make himself master of Italy; his forces closed around
+Rome, and Clement, fleeing through the underground passage from the
+Vatican, shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo, and from it beheld
+the horrors of the sack of the city.
+
+From its parapets, too, he witnessed the occupation of his cherished
+villa by Bourbon's savage soldiery.
+
+Benvenuto Cellini relates (with his characteristic self-laudation) his
+prowess in killing the Constable de Bourbon and in defending the castle
+of St. Angelo, and although his perspective is slightly forced from his
+habit of placing his own colossal figure in the foreground, no
+chronicle gives a more vivid account of these stirring events.
+
+[Illustration: Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine
+
+Villa Madama]
+
+What a picture he might have painted for us of the meeting of the Pope
+and the Emperor after the pacification; when Clement crowned his late
+adversary and Charles, reinstating Duke Alessandro over Florence,
+betrothed his beautiful daughter Margaret to that base-born reprobate!
+
+Cellini might also have told us much of the after-life of the Duchess,
+for he knew her well, and mentions her with admiration in his
+autobiography. He served Alessandro too in Florence, and boasts of the
+intimacy which he enjoyed in the ducal household.
+
+There was no one living at that period so well qualified as he to relate
+the inner history of that tragical marriage and of the romance which
+effaced its memory and lingers still like an elusive perfume in her
+exquisite villa.
+
+Judge, lenient reader, if Cellini had told that last story, would not
+its main _facts_ have corresponded with those embodied in the following
+pages, though the tamer phrasing and more conventional attitude of the
+writer compared with the audacity of his racier chronicle
+
+    "Are as moonlight unto sunlight,
+    And as water unto wine."
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CASKET
+
+BEING CERTAIN PAGES NOT INCLUDED IN THE AUTO-BIOGRAPHY OF ITS MAKER
+
+
+I
+
+It will be remembered by those who have read my published memoirs that
+in the year 1535, while I was in Florence in the service of Duke
+Alessandro de' Medici, I received orders from his excellency to execute
+a little _coffre_ in gold to hold his own portrait, a medallion which I
+had previously modelled from life and cast in relievo.
+
+That I dismissed so lightly masterpieces of which I had such reason to
+be proud was due to the fact that certain personages of exalted station
+and of choleric temper, quick and able to revenge any imputation upon
+their honour were concerned in the adventures of the casket, so that I
+deemed it prudent during their lifetime to withhold a recital which I
+trust my present reader may find of a diverting nature.
+
+This casket was conceded by all connoisseurs in such matters to be the
+most admirable work of its kind hitherto produced. It was crowned by a
+statuette of Hercules, with other most exquisite figurines at the
+four corners, set upon feet of crouching sphinxes, half women and half
+panthers, and was further enriched by reliefs of laughing boys holding
+garlands, by grotesque masks and foliages of the most graceful and
+ingenious design that could possibly be conceived.
+
+[Illustration: Villa Madama--Interior]
+
+I had been to infinite pains, as was but fitting since the Duke proposed
+to present it to his betrothed, Margaret Duchess of Parma, daughter of
+the Emperor Charles the Fifth, to whom he was to be married at Naples on
+the return of her father from his glorious expedition against the
+Turkish Corsairs. This marriage had been arranged for his "nephew" by
+Pope Clement VII. on his pacification with the Emperor after the taking
+of Rome, but its consummation had been hitherto delayed on account of
+the tender age of the bride. Now, however, she was upon her way to meet
+her father. Therefore the Duke requested me to serve as his messenger in
+presenting these gifts, whose excellencies I of any person in the world
+was most competent to explain and extol.
+
+Instructed that the Duchess Margaret would rest upon her journey at the
+villa which Raphael had built for the Pope upon the slopes of Monte
+Mario, and which Clement had bestowed upon her as a part of her dowry, I
+repaired thither before entering the gates of Rome.
+
+I had been told by the Duke to ask upon my arrival not for the Duchess
+but for Monna Afra, who had been installed as housekeeper of the villa
+by the Pope when he was as yet only young Cardinal Giulio de' Medici,
+and his personal affairs were not submitted to the glare which surrounds
+the tiara.
+
+Whatever these may have been, Monna Afra, though once a Moorish slave,
+and of dark complexion and uncertain temper, was not without a certain
+savage beauty, or would have been but for the marks of tattooing between
+her eyes, and, though well advanced in years, carried herself erect with
+a dignity worthy of royal descent.
+
+She was dressed in the Moorish fashion, with a profusion of necklaces of
+linked sequins of uncut precious stones and of large turquoises, some of
+them I could judge of great value, though clumsily set. These necklaces
+depended from beneath her gaily striped head-cloth upon her forehead and
+also covered her bosom. Her dark blue robe was girdled by a golden belt
+of curious workmanship, and she wore bangles upon her ankles with
+bracelets of cheap blue glass upon her arms. Her hair, braided in a
+multitude of fine plaits, was jet black and heavily perfumed. She wore
+but one ear-ring, a hoop of gold in which twinkled a great diamond.
+
+I had a letter for her from the Duke, and as it has never been my
+practice to deliver a missive of whose contents I am ignorant, lest I
+might be deputed to give orders for my own execution, I had taken the
+precaution to open it (having first made an impression of the seal so
+that I could reseal it beyond possibility of detection), but all to no
+avail for this letter was written in Arabic, of which language I have no
+knowledge. I was in twenty minds to destroy it, professing that I had
+lost it _en route_, but having calculated that honesty was the more
+gainful part to play, I put my trust in my patron saint and boldly
+presented it. By so doing I came into possession of an important secret,
+for on reading the letter Monna Afra exclaimed: "My son informs me that
+you are an unprincipled rogue whose life he holds in his hands, on
+account of certain murders which you have committed, and that therefore
+I need not fear to trust you with our private affairs."
+
+The opening words of this ungracious speech caused my spirit to leap
+within me, for Duke Alessandro far from confiding to me or to any one
+else the secret that he was the child of a mulattress, and in all
+probability the bastard of the Pope, had persistently maintained that he
+was the legitimatised son and rightful heir of the last Duke of
+Florence, and his mother a princess whose name would in time be
+divulged, and this notwithstanding that his dark complexion proclaimed
+him of Oriental race.
+
+I dissimulated my exultation, swore loyalty to my patron's honoured
+mother, and showed her the portrait of her son, with which she was
+greatly pleased.
+
+"You shall give this to the Duchess, later," she declared, taking the
+casket from me, "but first I desire you to copy the medallion for me,
+and to say nothing of this commission."
+
+The wish to possess the likeness of her son seemed so natural to a
+mother and so flattering to me that I readily consented to oblige her,
+being the more content to do so that I found myself extremely well
+lodged and nourished in one of the dependencies of the villa, with the
+suite of noble attendants appointed to wait upon the Duchess.
+
+Among these I have cause to remember with the utmost vividness a
+beautiful page, the grandson of Cardinal Farnese, who waited upon
+Margaret as her train-bearer. This boy's name was Ottavio, and I was
+drawn to him from the first for his character matched the exceeding
+loveliness of his lineaments.
+
+Monna Afra from some strange whim had desired me to copy the Duke's
+portrait upon glass, and thinking possibly that I might break the slip,
+had given me two of precisely the same size. On one of these I was
+impelled to paint for myself the miniature of this adorable child in the
+court costume of white satin doublet and white silk hose which he was to
+wear at the wedding of the Duchess. To this circumstance was due a
+mischance, which while it seemed to work me ill at the time was in the
+end productive of good.
+
+Though but a child in years the soul of the page, Ottavio Farnese, was
+well-nigh ravished from his body with love for the Duchess, who but six
+years older than himself was still but a slip of a girl. Often as I saw
+these two children pelting each other with roses and playing many
+childish games I wished that by some enchantment I might keep them thus
+forever, for my heart revolted at the thought that this exquisite
+creature was soon to be sacrificed to a brutal profligate twice her own
+age.
+
+"Certes," I said one day to Ottavio, "it is a great pity that you are
+not some ten years older, then would I devote myself to your service and
+it should go hard ere the daughter of Charles V. should wed with that
+swine of an Alessandro de' Medici."
+
+"Is he indeed a hog?" cried the boy, "then will I slay him, for I would
+gladly give my life for her."
+
+Seeing that so precocious and so pure an affection was beyond the
+conception of our comrades (though not of the ancients since they
+figured the love of the boy Cupid for Psyche), I protected Ottavio from
+their ribaldry, declaring that I would punish with my sword any who made
+a jest of a devotion which might have drawn tears from the angels.
+
+While the Duchess Margaret was in her way equally charming, she was not
+of such a heavenly gravity as her little comrade. On the contrary, at
+this time her spirits overflowed in a bewitching and mischievous
+wilfulness, which made her the more irresistible. She was conscious that
+she was soon to be wedded, and this knowledge gave her a sense of
+importance together with mysterious heart throbbings and perturbations,
+a wild curiosity to know what manner of man her future husband might
+be--the coquettishness natural to woman which at times made her rebel at
+being thus fettered, all the more that it was without her consent, and
+at others built up an ideal in her imagination which she was ready to
+fall down and worship.
+
+Seeing her thus curious, Monna Afra had promised Margaret that a
+necromancer should show her the presentment of her future husband; and
+upon a certain morning this designing woman sent for me, saying that the
+slave who ordinarily assisted this magician had suddenly died, and that
+she desired me to aid him in his magic rites.
+
+She neglected not at the same time to remind me again that I was
+completely in her power and that if I did not perform all that was
+demanded of me she would denounce me to the authorities as a murderer.
+Thus admonished, and believing also that the necromancer was able to
+work me a mischief, I put my trust in St. Michael, confounder of Satan,
+and faithfully performed all that I was bidden to do.
+
+Hurrying me into a musician's gallery, which overlooked the chamber in
+which the incantations were about to take place, the sorcerer showed me
+a strange instrument, compounded of lenses set in a black box in which
+burned a small lamp. "Fear not, Benvenuto," he whispered, seeing that I
+hesitated, "but manipulate this machine as I will now show you, placing
+from time to time these slips of painted glass in front of the lamp, and
+when I shall call upon the name of the arch fiend Beelzebub, be careful
+to introduce the copy of the portrait of the Duke which you have just
+made for Monna Afra." He then made some cabalistic signs upon my
+forehead and bidding me be of stout heart descended to the main floor of
+the room, which was but dimly lighted by the flames of a brazier.
+
+I could see, however, that around the light were grouped the Duchess
+Margaret, Monna Afra and Ottavio, who suspecting some design against his
+mistress, had insisted on accompanying her. Around these three the
+necromancer now traced upon the floor a magic circle; entering it and
+directing Margaret to keep her eyes fixed on the wall opposite to the
+little gallery where I stood, he invoked with a loud voice the demons
+Soracil, Sathiel, and Ammon dwellers in the moon, bidding them appear
+with all their legions.
+
+As I had previously witnessed a similar conjuration by which another
+necromancer had filled the tiers of the Colosseum with innumerable
+legions of devils, the horrible fear which I had experienced on that
+occasion returned in so lively a manner that my hands trembled so that I
+could scarcely perform the rites assigned to me. I had hardly introduced
+the first slip of glass when Ottavio cried out that the house was on
+fire and endeavoured to drag the Duchess from the circle, but the
+necromancer held him firmly and commanded him on his life not to stir as
+the demons were gathering in force.
+
+Having placed the next slip of glass in its place I myself perceived
+them, horrid creatures of gigantic stature clutching at their victims.
+Thus the ceremony proceeded, the enchanter uttering strange sentences in
+the Hebrew language, while Monna Afra shrieked and howled in
+blood-curdling tones.
+
+Ottavio also was well-nigh bereft of his senses with fear, and flinging
+his arms about the Duchess cried to the fiends to take him to hell, but
+to spare his beloved lady.
+
+At this point, Margaret, who was strangely unafraid, repeated after the
+necromancer these words: "I conjure thee, Beelzebub, Prince of Darkness,
+to reveal to me the likeness of my lord and husband, and renouncing all
+others I promise to be true to him throughout all eternity."
+
+This was my cue, but fumbling in the casket for the portrait of Duke
+Alessandro I inadvertently introduced into the throat of the infernal
+machine not that bit of glass but the one on which I had painted the
+likeness of Ottavio.
+
+Seeing the beautiful face of the lad gleaming like that of an angel
+between the rifts of the smoke of hell, there was not one of us who for
+the instant doubted that the apparition was miraculous.
+
+Monna Afra ceased her diabolical bellowing, the necromancer was
+speechless with surprise, only Ottavio found his voice, and crying, "It
+is I, it is I!" fainted from stress of emotion.
+
+Comprehending immediately that I would be held responsible for the
+miscarriage of the prodigy I hastily made my escape from the villa, nor
+did I, until long thereafter, meet with any of the parties concerned in
+this adventure. The augury in which I had assisted seemed false for the
+marriage of Margaret to Duke Alessandro took place, as had been planned,
+on the arrival of the Emperor at Naples. Though Charles was greeted with
+acclamations as the champion of the Church against the infidel, he
+having put to flight Hayraddin, admiral of the Sultan, and taken the
+city of Tunis, thus liberating thousands of Christian captives,--yet in
+the midst of the festivities there lacked not those who saw a certain
+inconsistency in the wedding of his sweet daughter to a man notorious
+for his wickedness and of the very race which he professed to hold in
+such abhorrence.
+
+Duke Alessandro after his marriage refrained not one whit from his evil
+ways, but rather exceeded his former profligacy, so that all Florence
+was scandalised thereby and pitied his gentle Duchess. I mind me now,
+however, that to my astonishment there was one who took another view of
+the matter, for Lorenzino de' Medici affirmed that Margaret was
+possessed of that dauntless courage which one sees sometimes in the
+tamers of lions and other savage beasts; that Alessandro was a
+mean-spirited creature cowed by his child wife; and that one had but to
+note the haughty poise of her head and the hang-dog sullenness which he
+maintained in her presence to guess the truth. Though I abhorred the
+Duke, yet as he had made me master of the mint it was necessary that I
+should have commerce with him, and on the first occasion upon which I
+presented myself being made to wait in an ante-chamber, I overheard a
+remarkable conversation which caused me to credit the opinion of
+Lorenzino. The door was ajar between the room in which I sat and the
+next in which the Duke and Duchess had just risen from breakfast.
+
+What he had said to her I know not, but his face was one malignity as he
+leaned toward her across the small table. She faced his snake's eyes,
+her own dark with an intensity which should have warned him, and half
+beneath her breath, as though she told him of some danger with which she
+had nothing to do, as one might have said, "Provoke not that dog, or you
+will inevitably be bitten,"--she very quietly uttered these words:
+
+"Lay so much as your finger upon me and I will kill you."
+
+"And what is to hinder my killing you first, my little tigress?" he
+hissed.
+
+I had gripped my sword in answer to that question, but there was no
+need, for she blazed forth at him, the very daughter of her father.
+
+"The Emperor!" she cried triumphantly, and there she had him; for though
+Charles had sold her like a slave and lifted no finger to avenge the
+indignity which she suffered, yet Alessandro well knew that he would be
+answerable for her life. As she left the room the Duke turned upon his
+heel, and catching sight of me cried out angrily that I was well come,
+for he was on the point of arresting me for feloniously making away with
+the casket and portrait which he had bidden me take to his consort.
+
+I told him truly that I had left the casket in the possession of his
+mother. With that he flew into a rage, demanding who had dared to say
+that this vile hag was in anyway related to him.
+
+I made answer that Monna Afra had herself told me that this was the
+fact, whereupon he swore that he would kill her for spreading such a
+rumour, and offered me a large sum to undertake her execution for him.
+When I respectfully declined this office he replied: "As you please, but
+if you hold not your tongue concerning this matter I will find effectual
+means to silence you."
+
+Then reflecting doubtless that I was not a man to be governed by threats
+but more likely to be moved to generous deeds by appreciation of my
+talents, he admitted that his wife had indeed had the casket in her
+possession after I left Villa Madama, and had not missed it until her
+chests were unpacked at Naples, and that his true reason for choosing
+me to regain and restore it to her was that I was the best fitted of all
+his courtiers for so difficult an undertaking.
+
+I replied that the opportunity to serve the Duchess would be the
+greatest favour and honour which he could confer upon me,--and with that
+he showed me the key of the casket which until now had never quitted
+Margaret's chatelaine, desiring me to duplicate it for him, with this
+difference that the handle was to be ornamented by a crown of thorns.
+
+When I objected that the metal points would inevitably pierce the hand
+of the Duchess when she attempted to unlock the casket, he replied that
+he did not design the key for his wife, and bade me obey orders without
+foolish comment.
+
+As I am an expert in forging metals I soon made a little key with which
+the Duke was delighted. Taking it into his cabinet he returned presently
+with a little box on which were inscribed certain Arabic characters.
+
+"This box," said he, "contains the key which you have just fabricated
+with an order to Monna Afra to deliver the casket into your hands."
+
+"Since I am to bring away the casket," I replied, "for what purpose do
+you send this key? Is it, perchance, that Monna Afra may retain for
+herself any of the contents of the _coffre_?"
+
+"I have already reproached you"--the Duke answered with a most malignant
+expression--"for giving vent to vain imaginings. If you cannot refrain
+from thinking, at least keep silence, and implicitly carry out my
+instructions.
+
+"After delivering this package wait a little, while Monna Afra goes to
+fetch the casket; should she tarry follow her and, no matter what you
+may see or surmise, make no outcry but hasten from the villa failing not
+to bring the casket with you. The Duchess tells me that while at the
+villa she kept it in a hiding-place constructed by the Pope for his
+jewels, which opens by pressing a certain ball upon one of the Medicean
+shields with which the villa is so profusely ornamented. But, on
+reflection, I see no reason for giving you access to our family
+treasure-chest. Monna Afra will not have placed the casket there, since
+she herself showed the Duchess the secret receptacle, and it would be
+the first place in which she would search for it; and if, indeed, it is
+hidden there it is perfectly safe."
+
+Thus commissioned I betook myself again to Rome; but being welcomed by
+old acquaintances, and finding an accumulation of important orders
+awaiting my attention, I naturally thought that the Duke's business
+might wait upon my own, and indeed might have clean forgotten it but for
+the following circumstance.
+
+I had gone fowling one day with a friend in the marshes near the villa
+of Magliana, in the neighbourhood of Ostia. Toward nightfall (as I have
+elsewhere related), happening from a little hill to look in the
+direction of Florence, I saw an extraordinary phenomenon, namely, a
+heavenly body in the shape of a Turkish scimitar, its blade directed
+toward the city. Whereat I exclaimed loudly, "We shall certainly hear
+that some great event has occurred at Florence."
+
+Even as I spoke a stranger wrapped in a long cloak who at a little
+distance from us was attentively observing this appearance, asked me
+what I supposed the portent might signify.
+
+"Nothing less," I replied confidently, giving vent to the first thought
+which came into my mind, "than the assassination of Duke Alessandro."
+With that he uttered an exclamation in Arabic, and hurried in the
+direction of the Tiber. We had ridden but a short distance when some
+peasants rushed toward us with frantic gestures, crying out that a ship
+rigged after the manner of the Turkish corsairs was moored in the river.
+
+This gave us such a fright that we clapped spurs to our horses and rode
+with the utmost speed to Rome. But our fears having somewhat abated, we
+made no report of the alarm upon our arrival, realising that we had cut
+no great figure in the adventure.
+
+The next day, my thoughts being still upon the Duke, I resolved to
+execute his orders and so rode out to the Villa Madama. As I approached
+what was my surprise to see descending its terraces the same man who had
+accosted me near Magliana.
+
+Monna Afra stood in the loggia watching him, her hand, lifted to her
+eyes to protect them from the rays of the setting sun. I told her that I
+had come from the Duke and on what errand, and presented the packet
+which he had given me.
+
+She read it attentively, and without making any objection or inquiry,
+instantly brought the casket. But as she was about to unlock it
+something awoke her suspicions, and examining the key more attentively
+she thrust it before my eyes exclaiming, "Dog of a Christian, you have
+attempted to poison me!"
+
+It needed but a glance to show her fears well founded, for the handle of
+the key once of shining copper was corroded to a virulent green, so that
+it resembled a bit of antique bronze, and I comprehended that her
+villain of a son had dipped the sharp-pointed crown of thorns in some
+deadly acid, hoping that in exercising some force in turning the lock
+she would lacerate her hand, and that he would thus compass her death.
+
+As I remained speechless she took my condition as an evidence of guilt,
+and seizing a torch which hung in a metal _torchere_, rushed upon the
+terrace waving it to and fro like a fury. Though I lacked not the wit to
+perceive that this was a signal of some sort, yet remembering the Duke's
+orders by all means to secure the casket, I did not immediately address
+myself to flight, but strove to wrest it from her by force. She,
+however, opposed me in this design with all her strength, and throwing
+it aside fell upon me with a most ungentle embrace, throttling me and
+burying her nails in my neck.
+
+While we struggled thus I was aware of trampling feet and saw the loggia
+suddenly filled by a horde of barbarous pirates, refugee Moorish
+cut-throats, who had conceived the daring design of making a descent
+upon the outskirts of Rome to plunder its rich villas, and first that of
+Chigi, in revenge for the chastisement received at the hands of the
+Emperor.
+
+For the moment my only thought was one of thankfulness for my release
+from this hell-cat, but as I stood with my arms pinioned Monna Afra
+brought forward a large sack and, as I understood from her expressive
+gestures, demanded that I should be sewn up therein and cast into the
+Tiber.
+
+Though he had thrown aside the cloak in which he had previously
+disguised, I recognised the man whom I had already twice seen in the
+gaudily accoutred officer whom Afra now addressed as Hayraddin.
+
+He spoke to her very earnestly, and I could see that what he said caused
+her the greatest consternation, for she tore her hair, howled and
+scratched her own face as vehemently as she had formerly maltreated
+mine.
+
+Shaking her by the arm he continued to admonish her, until picking up
+the casket she retired into the interior of the villa. Then turning to
+me he addressed me in good Italian in these words:
+
+"Most noble Signor: You cannot fail to have understood that my sister
+desired me to kill you, and that I could readily have done so; but I
+have explained to her that you are a great astrologer, for from the
+appearance of the heavens you announced to me yesterday the
+assassination of her son which news has not yet reached Rome--and has
+but this moment been told to me by a party of my men who intercepted the
+messenger at the Ponte Molle.
+
+"In deference to your supernatural knowledge I spare your life, and
+shall leave you here bound and gagged, where in good time you will
+doubtless be discovered. This news of the death of my nephew has
+effected more than all my arguments and entreaties, for my sister has no
+further desire to remain in this accursed land, but will return with me
+to Africa."
+
+Scarcely had he concluded when Monna Afra entered, heavily veiled and
+carrying an immense bundle. This one of the pirates took from her, and
+supported by two others she followed her brother and I saw her no more.
+
+It was two full days, during which I neither ate nor drank, before I was
+released from my miserable plight, but even so I counted myself
+fortunate to have escaped with my life.
+
+
+II
+
+  "Ye mariners of Spain
+    Bend stoutly to your oars
+  And bring my love again,
+    For he lies among the Moors."
+
+  _Old Spanish Song._
+
+Foreseeing after the death of Duke Alessandro that Florence would long
+remain in a disordered condition, I deemed it a proper season to accept
+the overtures of his majesty, Francis I., King of the French, to enter
+into his service in France.
+
+This patronage I owed solely to my own fame and not, as has been
+asserted, to the favour of his daughter-in-law, Catherine de' Medici,
+for that princess had no love for her supposed half-brother Alessandro,
+or for his Florentine familiars.
+
+Though I could never have been accessory to such vile work as to stab an
+unarmed and unsuspecting man, yet often as I thought of Alessandro's
+satyr leer, and the loathing bravely coupled with defiance which I had
+seen leap in answer to it in the face of his child Duchess, I thanked
+God that Lorenzino had no such squeamish conscience.
+
+And yet,--as in the virgin purity of the orange-blossom, the voluptuous
+perfume yearningly foretells the luscious, perfect fruit, and the blush
+of the peach-bloom shows the flower coyly but triumphantly conscious
+that it will one day ripen into mouth-watering deliciousness,--so even
+then there were hints and prophecies in Margaret's budding womanliness
+that the time was approaching when she would not only awaken love but
+would herself know the joy of loving.
+
+The time and the man were nearer than I thought.
+
+It was a matter of but six years subsequent to our first meeting that,
+chancing to be again in Rome, I next encountered Ottavio Farnese.
+
+He was no longer the pretty page who had served the Duchess at the Villa
+Madama, but had grown into a tall, handsome youth, with the first down
+of manhood upon his lip. Though much lighter in weight than myself and
+his rapier as slender as a child's toy, he had been well taught in
+fencing, as I learned when meeting him by chance in front of St. Peter's
+church, he, to my utter surprise, fell upon me crying out that I was a
+scurvy knave unfit to live.
+
+As I am not the man to swallow insults of this sort we slashed at one
+another without further ceremony until the Papal guards, rushing from
+the Vatican, separated us. Recognising Ottavio as the grandson of the
+Pope (for Cardinal Farnese had on the death of Clement VI. succeeded to
+the tiara), they demanded why we fought. I replied that I had not the
+least idea, but Ottavio declared that it was to force me to confess what
+I had done with the casket which I had been commissioned to bring to the
+Duchess Margaret at Florence.
+
+Laughing a little at his own zeal, but with all due deference I told him
+how the casket had been carried away by the Moors, on the evening when I
+repaired to Villa Madama to fetch it, and I had the happiness to
+convince him of the truth of my statement.
+
+Dismissing the guards he strolled with me in the most amicable manner,
+informing me of many events which had happened during my absence in
+France.
+
+The first in importance to himself was the fact that he was more madly
+than ever in love with the Duchess, and that she having experienced the
+brutality of one husband had no mind to venture another, and had
+announced her firm intention to remain a widow for the rest of her
+life.
+
+In spite of this he had told her of his love, but she had treated him as
+a child and made sport of his passion.
+
+"I shall die of her disdain," he said to me, "for my love is beyond my
+power to conquer."
+
+Taking him by the hand and perceiving that he was in a fever, and that
+unless some hope was extended to him he must lose either his life or his
+reason, I counselled him to keep a stout heart. "For," said I, "though
+you are young it is a fault which will lessen as years go by, and the
+Emperor surely will not look upon his daughter's repugnance to marriage
+with approval. Rumour hath it that he is on his way to punish, for a
+second time, the Moorish pirates who are back in their old nest at
+Tunis. When he visits Rome you should persuade the Pope to intercede
+with him in your behalf."
+
+"As if I had not already thought of that!" Ottavio replied. "I have
+freely opened my heart to my grandfather, and he has negotiated with the
+Emperor, who is as favourable to an alliance with a Farnese Pope as he
+was to a similar compact with the Medici. Charles could force his
+daughter to accept me, as he compelled her to marry Alessandro; but I
+will not win her in that way, and she despises me, doubtless, for what
+she considers my pusillanimity.
+
+"When I pleaded with her but yesterday bidding her set me any task to
+accomplish as a proof of my love--she laughed scornfully, saying that
+she had no lack of pages to fetch and carry unless it were to demand of
+Benvenuto Cellini the casket which he had forgotten to return to her.
+
+"Then, though I knew that you, Benvenuto, were accounted a desperate
+man, I swore to her that I would not enter her presence again until I
+had fulfilled her behest. Yea, and I will fulfil it, for I will sail
+with the Emperor on this expedition to Tunis and will find the hag Afra
+and wrest it from her."
+
+"Your determination," I replied, "is a good one, and, as the adventure
+appeals to me, I will go with you. I have already met Hayraddin,
+commander of the Corsairs and brother of Monna Afra, who should know the
+whereabouts of the casket, and I may be able to aid you in obtaining
+it."
+
+As the affair turned out, though Ottavio did indeed sail for Africa with
+the Emperor, I was not allowed to accompany him, for his father,
+feigning to believe that the casket, together with certain valuable
+jewels stolen from Pope Clement, was in my possession, or at least
+hidden in some spot nearer to Rome than Tunis, caused me to be
+imprisoned in the castle of St. Angelo, until such time as I should make
+restitution.
+
+He did this, moreover, without informing his son of my arrest, so that
+Ottavio departed believing that I had wilfully failed of my promise to
+go with him. But I was not alone in misfortune, for the Emperor far from
+achieving victories similar to those which crowned his previous
+expedition, met with terrible storms which scattered the ships of his
+fleet and wrecked many of them upon the coast of Africa, where the
+savage barbarians, descending upon the drowning mariners, massacred them
+in cold blood.
+
+Word was brought back to Rome that this was the fate both of the Emperor
+and of Ottavio Farnese, and though this proved but an unfounded rumour,
+the heart of the gentle Margaret was filled with remorse as well as
+grief, for having driven so chivalrous a youth and one who loved her so
+devotedly to his death.
+
+She mourned him most sincerely, wearing widow's weeds in his honour as
+though she had in reality been his bride. Such is the strange
+contrariety of a woman's heart that he who living had been the object of
+her scorn, was now loved with the most vehement passion.
+
+When at last it was known that the Emperor and Ottavio had indeed been
+rescued and were returning to Italy, but that the latter was dangerously
+ill, her transports of alternate joy and foreboding were most piteous to
+behold.
+
+I was a witness to them, for at this time by twisting my sheets into a
+rope I had most marvellously escaped from the battlements of St. Angelo.
+
+As I deemed it prudent to remain for a time in hiding and knew that the
+Villa Madama was unoccupied, I had repaired thither under cover of the
+night, and without undressing had slept soundly upon the floor, the
+house being denuded of furniture.
+
+But in the morning I was awakened by a great clatter of trampling horses
+and sumpter mules, and springing to my feet and finding myself
+confronted by the Duchess I gave myself up for lost. This was, however,
+the most fortunate circumstance which could have happened to me, for on
+hearing my story she promised me her protection and her intercession
+with the Pope. She told me also that she had come with all this train of
+servants and household stuff to put the villa in order for the reception
+of her betrothed husband, Ottavio Farnese, as a more salubrious
+residence than her palace at Rome, and more conducive to his rapid
+recovery.
+
+And hither, shortly after, he was borne in a litter and I beheld their
+rapturous meeting, and certes the spectacle of so great joy went far
+toward repaying me for all the misfortunes which I had suffered.
+
+The young Duke, though very weak, extended his hand to me with a smile,
+saying that I was ever Benvenuto (welcome), and reminding me how in that
+very spot I had assisted at incantations which had foretold that he
+would one day be the husband of the Duchess, which prognostication was
+now so miraculously fulfilled. "I have," he added, "but one
+regret--that I come to her forsworn, for I promised ere claiming her
+as my wife to recover the casket."
+
+"That promise, my Lord," I made haste to reply, "you shall keep, for I
+have been more fortunate in my quest than your excellency."
+
+I then showed him the secret hiding-place constructed by Pope Clement
+in the wall; for, while prowling in the villa, I had remembered what
+Duke Alessandro had said of it, and had not failed to press each one of
+the Medici balls, so frequently employed in the decoration of the villa,
+until I lighted upon the ingenious spring which disclosed the recess,
+and within it a package marked with the name of the Duchess.
+
+The wrapper had mouldered away with dampness and discovered the casket
+with the poisoned key still in the lock, having been so left by that
+wicked Afra with the express design of revenging herself upon the
+innocent Margaret for the death of her abominable son, and perhaps also
+upon Margaret's father for the misfortunes which he had occasioned her
+race.
+
+The Duchess being called, evinced the greatest joy and would have fallen
+into the trap and have unlocked the casket at once, had I not first
+discovered the key and sent for a pair of pincers with which I turned
+it. While waiting the arrival of the pincers she asked her consort if he
+had any idea why she set such store upon the casket.
+
+"Doubtless," he replied with a frown, "because it contains the portrait
+of your husband, who, with all his faults, was at least a brave man."
+
+"You have rightly guessed," she answered, "the bravest of the brave and
+the only man whom I have ever loved."
+
+I marvelled to hear her thus speak, until the lid being opened, we
+discovered, not my medal of Alessandro de' Medici, for that Margaret had
+long ago given to his mother as an inconsiderate trifle; but the
+likeness of the pretty page, Ottavio, which I had painted at their first
+acquaintance; and which, in despite all contrariety of womanly
+coquetry, had remained as ineffaceably imprinted upon her heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FLOWER O' THE PEACH
+
+
+        Now for a tale illustrative
+  That shall delight my passion for romance,
+  Embodying hints authentic of some theme
+
+  * * *
+
+  Or incident that to my knowledge came
+  When sojourning abroad, the background true;
+  Like to some faded tapestry retouched
+  With the seductive broidery-work of fancy.
+
+  ANON--altered.
+
+
+I
+
+Let the trovere ease her conscience at the outset--the tale about to be
+recorded is _over_ true.
+
+Even as there was more truth than called for in the testimony of that
+ingenious witness who, being adjured by the judge to speak the truth,
+replied: "Of a surety, your honor, that will I, the truth, the whole
+truth, and--a little more."
+
+But the little more which I shall give you is peradventure the truest
+part of my tale; for, though you will find it not in the chronicles of
+such historiographers as give their quills solely to statecraft and
+wars, yet it lies like a pressed flower between the musty leaves of the
+_novellini_ of Franco Sacchetti and of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, who
+relate with great particularity the artifice by which the head of the
+house of the Aldobrandini won his bride.
+
+Let who will carp that in combining matter from various sources I have
+followed the example of those unscrupulous antiquaries who, discovering
+an antique statue, straightway replace its missing parts by others lying
+near at hand, or, more criminal still, complete it according to the
+whims of their own fancy.
+
+To that accusation needs must that I plead at the outset _mea culpa_,
+advancing only that the original torso as well as the legs and arms
+which I have made free to assemble are still preserved, properly
+ticketed, in the museum of history, while for him who cavils with the
+authenticity of this "restoration" the buried palaces of the ancient
+world patiently await exhumation to yield to each body its own
+particular members, and to each excavator his own treasure trove.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. The Grand Cascade and Fountain of Atlas]
+
+Let thus much suffice for apology--now to our legend.
+
+In the Court of the Cascade of that most magnificent of the Frascati
+villas, namely that of the Aldobrandini, whoso lists may see to-day two
+fountains; the greater, figuring the demigod Atlas, well-nigh crushed
+under the weight of our terrestrial globe, is niched conspicuously to
+the fore of the grand terrace; but the other is in a hidden pleasance,
+and is but a lop-sided vase, considered to have settled thus awry from
+the natural subsidence of the soil rather than to have been so placed by
+design. Nevertheless, our legend will have this to have been done a
+purpose; and there are no acts in all the annals of that illustrious
+house more chivalrous or magnanimous than those supposed to be
+commemorated by this fountain of Atlas and its fellow of the Spilling
+Cup.
+
+And first of Atlas Aldobrandino, lord of that fair estate and many
+others in that dim time centuries before the building of the villa.
+Atlas was he named not at his baptism, but half in admiration, half in
+derision by his mates, for his burliness of body and his inordinate
+greediness of all kinds, for he coveted, say they, the entire earth,
+clutched at a mighty part thereof, and what he seized upheld manfully.
+
+Beside his Italian possessions he was lord of the whole of Venisi in
+Southern France adjoining fair Provence, and though a bachelor of
+upwards of seventy-one winters found himself mightily distraught with
+love for the fair daughter of his neighbour, the figures of whose age
+exactly reversed his own.
+
+Many lords, counts, and barons were sighing suitors for her regard, and
+when Aldobrandino, prefacing his request with lavish gifts of steeds,
+falcons, and hounds, besought her hand of the great Count of Provence,
+her father, the latter, not wishing to offend him, replied:
+
+"I would willingly give her to you, were it not that it might seem
+strange to the multitude of young knights eighteen to twenty years of
+age now in pursuit of her, lords of Baux, of Toulouse, of Perpignan, and
+vavasours of the great Emperor beyond the Rhone, who might all join
+together and fall upon me. It is my one desire to live at peace with my
+neighbours and to this end I have had to fight many hard battles.
+Moreover, the girl herself may have her eye set upon some one of those
+fresher sparks who are continually fluttering about her."
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Upper Cascade, Villa Aldobrandini]
+
+"Friend," returned Aldobrandino, "be not anxious as to the event, for I
+will devise a method of arranging the affair amicably with our young
+friends."
+
+We are informed that the enamoured Aldobrandino slept not a wink that
+night, but concocted a wileful scheme which he confided to his friend.
+
+"Do you announce a tournament at which whoever desires the honour of
+your daughter's hand, and is of a rank and wealth sufficient to warrant
+such pretension, shall have cordial welcome to fight, and in God's name
+let her be the prize of the victor."
+
+This proposition appealed to the lord of Provence, for it seemed a fair
+one to which none of his warlike neighbours could object. Moreover, it
+was even generous, coming as it did from Aldobrandino, who, though he
+had been a doughty knight in his day, could now scarcely sit his saddle
+for corpulency or aim a straight lance-thrust with his shaking arm.
+
+The lists were made ready at Arles, heralds sent into all countries near
+and far, and the tournament given out for the first of May following.
+
+But Aldobrandino was more wily than appeared. He had no over-confidence
+in his own prowess, and he sent immediately to the King of France, with
+whom he was closely allied, begging him to lend him to act as his
+champion for this occasion his most doughty knight, the most invincible
+that could be met with in all feats of arms. In consideration of his
+esteem for Aldobrandino the King sent him his favourite cavalier
+Ricciardo (of whom much more hereafter), who, arriving at the castle of
+the aged lover thus reported himself:
+
+"I am sent," quoth he, "by my royal master to act in whatever capacity
+may be most agreeable to you. Give your orders, therefore; it is my
+devoir to execute them manfully."
+
+"Then hear me," explained Aldobrandino. "It is my wish that you should
+carry all before you at this tournament until I ride into the field,
+when I will engage you, and you must suffer yourself to be vanquished,
+so that I may remain the victor of the day."
+
+Thus far have we followed with exact circumstantiality the relation of
+the Italian writers before mentioned, to which also we shall later
+return; but let us, for the sake of novelty in the telling of an old
+story, for a little space change our view-point and give the play as it
+was acted before the eyes of the fair lady who was herself its heroine.
+
+Sancie was her name, or, if you will, Sanchia, third of the four fair
+daughters of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, who had the singular
+fortune to marry each of the four to a king.
+
+Perilous seemed this honour to this future father-in-law of monarchs, as
+he admitted to his friend, Romeo de Villeneuve, what time he ceded to
+St. Louis of France the strong castle of Tarascon as the dowry of his
+daughter Marguerite. But Villeneuve very shrewdly consoled him. "For,"
+quoth he, "let not this great expense trouble you. If you marry your
+eldest high the mere consideration of that alliance will get the others
+husbands at less cost."
+
+The event approved his sagacity and also the prediction of a soothsayer,
+to whom the four sisters had applied to know the rank of their future
+husbands, for, requested to draw at venture from a pack of cards,
+Marguerite straightway drew the king of swords, Eleanor the king of
+money, Sancie the king of goblets, and Beatrice the king of clubs.[5]
+
+The witch expounded this to mean that Marguerite should wed the
+knightliest king in all the world and in all ages (which indeed came to
+pass in the person of St. Louis); that Eleanor should in her king of
+coins gain the monarch of the wealthiest of all realms, namely, England;
+that Beatrice should have the misfortune to mate with a hard-hitting
+savage, but still a king--a forecast fulfilled in Charles of Anjou,
+brother of St. Louis, who won his kingdom of the two Sicilies by as hard
+and as cruel fighting as ever dinted the armour or soiled the fame of a
+knight; and that, finally, Sancie, the third in order of birth, but last
+to find a lover, should of her own free will choose for her husband a
+king of good fellows, whose kingdom was but that of cups.
+
+This prophecy, I say, had been more than half fulfilled. The two elder
+daughters were queens; the youngest was besought and contracted, when
+their father, fearing perchance that the prediction would be carried out
+in the case of his third and best-loved, set himself against fate and
+called a halt in its proceedings.
+
+It was unfitting, he declared, that Beatrice should be married before
+her elder sister Sancie, and Charles of Anjou must perforce hold his
+amorous desires in leash until his prospective sister-in-law was
+disposed of.
+
+This at first sight seemed no such difficult matter, for while the
+others had each been meted one lover, on Sancie fortune had bestowed a
+full half dozen. But though their numbers flattered the vanity and
+pleased the coquetry of the lady, the quality of no one of them was
+satisfactory to the father.
+
+He had now an appetite for kings. Counts, barons, princes even would not
+suit his palate, and as no monarch or scion of royalty had as yet
+applied for Sancie's hand it struck his humour that a tournament such as
+Aldobrandino proposed, well advertised in every court of Europe, might
+draw some king, or at least an adventurous princeling, to the lists, as
+indeed was proved by the sequel.
+
+The queenly sisters of Sancie took up the project with great enthusiasm.
+Queen Eleanor, consort of Henry III. of England, was visiting her sister
+of France, and together they arranged every detail of the tournament, of
+which King Louis was to be the judge.
+
+The hopes of Beatrice jumped also with this plan as one which would
+remove Sancie from her own path to true love, and of all the four
+daughters of Raymond, Sancie was the only one who looked upon the
+scheme with any dubiety.
+
+But her older sisters, on their arrival at their father's capital city
+of Arles, reassured her, explaining that though there would be a great
+show of fair dealing yet they had plotted so cleverly that Sancie would
+take her own pick from this rich strawberry plot of lovers.
+
+"It is my husband's privilege," expounded Queen Marguerite, "before ever
+the fighting begins, to bar out any knight as the procession files
+before him in the grand entree of the lists. You shall sit beside him
+and indicate any whom you wish disallowed. Moreover, you can at any
+moment whisper in Louis's ear and he will throw every advantage possible
+in the way of your champion."
+
+"Nevertheless," continued Queen Eleanor, "since it is possible that the
+knight you favour may be notoriously inept in arms, you shall have
+resource to another trial of skill--namely that of minstrelsy. Here
+(like my predecessor of the same name, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine) I
+will be judge.
+
+"From the knights who have previously taken part in the tournament you
+yourself shall winnow out a half dozen, and shall tell me secretly to
+which of these I am to award the prize. Now confess, can anything be
+fairer? Is there a possibility of your true love failing, if so be he
+but enter the contest?"
+
+But Sancie hung her head. "I have no true love," she said, "I am
+absolutely heart-free."
+
+"So much the better," cried the Queen of France, "and this shall be
+announced at the outset. The tournament also shall be delayed a week
+after the time set, to give you an opportunity to meet the contestants
+and to know your own mind."
+
+But the Queen of England caught Sancie's cheeks between her two hands.
+
+"Listen little sister," she said softly, "I have brought with me from
+England the very prince for you, my husband's brother, Richard, Earl of
+Cornwall[6]; well worthy he to bear the name of his great uncle, Coeur
+de Lion. 'King of Good Fellows' he is dubbed by his friends, for he is
+loved by all who know him."
+
+"King of Good Fellows," repeated Sancie softly; "tell me more of him,
+sweet sister. Is he as valiant in arms as he is lovable, as fortunate as
+he is deserving?"
+
+"Accomplished is he in all that becomes a knight," replied Eleanor, "but
+fortunate so far is he not. Always when he stands on the verge of
+success he yields his advantage to another, holding that love, even that
+of an adversary, is the dearest prize of all."
+
+"Would he so yield me, think you?" questioned Sancie.
+
+"Nay, not if he knew you," replied Queen Eleanor; "therefore to your
+instant acquaintance, I have bidden him this afternoon to a game of ball
+in the pleasance of the castle."
+
+King Louis heard this conversation and it irked him, for though he had
+assured the sisters that Richard would take part in the tournament, he
+had not confided to them that he would do so in behalf of Prince
+Aldobrandino. The pretensions of this aged lover had greatly amused the
+ladies. They counted so surely on his discomfiture that even Sancie, who
+abhorred him, had not thought it worth while to ask King Louis to bar
+him from the contest.
+
+Richard also had given his word to play but the part of an understudy in
+this drama before he had seen Sancie, else never would he have consented
+to the compact. King Louis had indeed explained it to him before sending
+him to Aldobrandino, and Richard had demanded carelessly: "Of what sort
+is the maiden?" The King had answered: "All of the daughters of Raymond
+Berenger are fair, and Sancie is next to my Marguerite, who is fairest
+fair."
+
+Then Richard smiled, for he remembered that when he had questioned his
+brother Henry, of England, what time he went to claim his bride, of her
+beauty, he had answered: "All of the daughters of Raymond Berenger are
+fair, but my Eleanor is fairest, and the next in beauty is Sancie."
+
+"Where such difference of opinion exists," thought Richard, "it were
+well to leave the matter to an umpire," and he straightway submitted the
+question to Charles of Anjou.
+
+"Nay, they are both wrong," confidently declared that prince; "my
+Beatrice is fairest, but Sancie is not far beneath her."
+
+Then Richard laughed to himself: "Truly if the girl ranks but second
+when compared with each of these her sisters, whose beauty I esteem not
+at all, she is not worth the winning on my own behalf; and I am safe in
+adventuring for the joy of the mere adventure."
+
+But when Aldobrandino spake to him of her it was in other wise.
+"Consider well," he said, "ere you undertake this business, for should
+the beauty of Sancie drive you to such madness as to play me false then
+of a surety I will kill you. Not in vain am I dubbed Atlas, for all
+things upon earth which I desire I bear away upon my shoulders, and I
+have sworn by the five wounds of God that she and she alone shall sit as
+princess in my palace."
+
+"'Tis a great oath," said Richard, "but you shall not be forsworn by me,
+and verily I marvel that you have set your heart upon her if the opinion
+of her brothers-in-law be credible." And with that he told the several
+answers given to his questions.
+
+Aldobrandino glowered upon him and grunted this reply: "You mind me of a
+_stornello_ sung by our peasants:
+
+    "'Flower o' the peach,
+    Flowers for all fancies, his own love for each.'
+
+"And verily," he added, "it is well that it is so, else should I have
+had for rivals Louis and Henry and Charles, and perchance you also. The
+flower o' the peach suits her well; she is but a homely little bloom o'
+the kitchen garden beside her statelier rose and lily sisters. But, look
+you, what use have I for such useless ornaments as your waxy-pale
+lilies, your flaunting and fragile roses? What fruit bear they, I ask?
+Why, pips and briars. Whereas the peach is a stocky tree, prolific and
+profitable to its owner, for to its unadmired and modest blossom
+succeedeth a toothsome fruitage. Therefore say I the flower o' the peach
+for me. For, hist, Ricciardo, I am past the age when one goes maying for
+flowers only. Women have had no great power over me, and a bachelor I
+should die but that I have regard for what shall happen after me, and a
+natural desire for the continuance of my race upon their old estates. It
+is not so much a wife that I seek as a mother for my children. I would
+see many and goodly sons about me, strong of body, lusty in fight, such
+as only a wholesome and sturdy woman can bear and rear. If she have wit
+enough to rule them it is enough for me; and as for beauty, the less the
+better in the eyes of other men for her whom my descendants shall claim
+with pride as mother of the Aldobrandini."
+
+
+II
+
+THE ORDEAL
+
+  One maiden trimly girt
+  Bore in her gleaming upheld skirt
+  Fair silken balls sewed round with gold;
+  Which when the others did behold
+  Men cast their mantles unto earth,
+  And maids within their raiment's girth
+  Drew up their gown skirts, loosening here
+  Some button on their bosoms dear
+  Or slender wrists, then making tight
+  The laces round their ankles light;
+  For folk were wont within that land
+  To cast the ball from hand to hand,
+  Dancing meanwhile full orderly.
+  Lovely to look on was the sway
+  Of the slim maidens neath the ball
+  As they swung back to note its fall
+  With dainty balanced feet; and fair
+  The bright out-flowing, golden hair,
+  As swiftly yet in measured wise
+  One maid ran forth to gain the prize;
+  Eyes glittered and young cheeks glowed bright
+  And gold-shod feet, round limb and light,
+  Gleamed from beneath the girded gown
+  That, unrebuked, untouched was thrown
+  Hither and thither by the breeze;
+  Shrill laughter smote the thick-leaved trees,
+  Till they, for very breathlessness,
+  With rest the trodden daisies bless.
+
+  WILLIAM MORRIS.
+
+Cold and calculating, nay coarse also seemed the motives of Aldobrandino
+to Richard as he pondered them. "Not so," thought he, "would I set about
+the choosing of my wife--as it were the purchase of a brood-mare." Still
+more his soul revolted at this low animalism when that afternoon he for
+the first time beheld sweet Sancie playing at ball with her sisters in
+the pleasance of the palace of Aries.
+
+The game was set to music, the measured beating of a tambour with the
+light chiming of silver bells. Some said that Marguerite was most regal;
+so stately she moved to the rhythm of the dance, that one might have
+fancied that the glorious statue of the Venus of Arles had descended
+from her ancient shrine to tread a measure with her maidens. But Eleanor
+danced with more vivacity and passion. You would have thought her of
+Spanish blood as she leapt and whirled, catching the ball with the lithe
+ferocity of a panther. For Beatrice, Richard had no eyes, for as he
+watched Sancie, he knew what her three kingly brothers-in-law had meant
+when each could name only his own heart's dearest as her superior. He
+saw, too, why Aldobrandino had likened her to a peach-blossom, for her
+complexion had that even delicate flush, not white and red in spots, but
+roseate everywhere, like the heart of a conch shell or the breast of a
+pink curlew.
+
+Abounding health spake in her buoyant step, but she was fine as well as
+strong. The rounded contours of her cheeks and shoulders were soft as
+those of a babe, and Richard had seen naught in all his life so
+exquisite as her dimpling smile. Would you know with more particularity
+how she appeared to him, look you straightway at the sweet maid in the
+foreground of that _Coronation of the Virgin_ which Fra Lippo Lippi
+painted; and from the framing of wayward little curls that make their
+escape from a veil of silver tissue, a tangle withal to mesh a man's
+heart in, from that face, I say (though the painter-monk had ne'er the
+felicity to see her), Sancie's round eyes will search your soul and will
+remain in your memory for evermore.
+
+You will not wonder then that Richard blessed God in his heart for
+making a thing so fair, and stood as one in amaze until the ball with
+which she was playing fell at his feet.
+
+Needs must then that he return it to her and join in the game, for this
+was the custom when one of the players dropped out, as had Beatrice from
+weariness.
+
+So he played, but he saw not the ball, only her who sped it, and making
+many faults the game was adjudged to her.
+
+[Illustration: Face of Young Girl in the Coronation of
+
+the Virgin
+
+By Fra Filippo Lippi Permission of Alinari]
+
+Then they walked together, others of the company following in twos and
+threes at a discreet distance, in that _allee_ which still retains its
+ancient name, Les Alyscamps (Champs Elysees--Elysian Fields), where
+'neath the taller trees the oleanders shot in long curves bursting in
+pink fire, like rockets, above their heads. Here, seated upon one of
+those carven tombs which now make benches for lovers in that enchanting
+spot, she told him old legends of St. Trophime, how he and his fellows
+sculptured about the portal of his abbey descend from their niches and
+keep here the eve of Toussaint. "You will see them," she said, "when you
+go to hang your shield in the cloister, where it must be displayed, if
+so be you fight in this foolish joust. Truly sorry and shamed am I that
+so many gallant knights must run the risk of wounds and death for little
+me."
+
+"'Tis a small venture for so great a prize," said Richard.
+
+"Then, as you fight, let it be your best, for--" but here she paused and
+ended her sentence differently from her first intention--"for I would
+not have you hurt," and her face grew yet rosier.
+
+Richard cursed his fate that he might not fight his best, but his
+cursing was in his heart, what he said was: "The fortunes of such a
+joust are very fickle and it must needs happen that many a good knight
+will fight his doughtiest and yet not succeed. If I am among that
+number, sweet lady, I pray you set not my mischance down to lack of
+will, for in no tournament that I have ever entered had I so great
+desire to win."
+
+She looked no higher than the Plantagenet leopards gold-embroidered upon
+the breast of his doublet. "Since, to spare the knights the
+mortification of public discomfiture, my father hath decreed that they
+fight incognito (their true names being known only to the _roi d'armes_
+who passes upon their qualifications), will you not tell me the device
+which you have chosen?"
+
+"Choose my device for me," he said, "and I will cause it to be blazoned
+on my shield and embroidered on my pennant."
+
+"It has been foretold," she answered pensively, "that I shall wed the
+King of Cups. Therefore, if you honestly desire to win choose that
+emblem."
+
+"My cup runneth over," he murmured--and their lips met.
+
+Ere they parted there was heard a sound of laughter, as it were the
+crackling of light flame, for there was no mirth in the sound, and
+Aldobrandino stood before them regarding the pair with a derisive leer.
+"There is an old proverb which it were well you should both remember,"
+he said. "If I mistake not it runneth in this wise, 'There is many a
+slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.' It were meet that the cup you blazon
+should be a spilling one."
+
+"Better spilling than swilling," cried Richard, his eyes aflame, and
+Sancie affrighted ran away.
+
+"I forgive you those stolen sweets for this once," said Aldobrandino,
+"for you had great provocation. Said I not rightly a peach-blossom? Nay,
+a peach rather, ripe and luscious. Watered not your mouth in that game
+of ball when the strain of her deep breathing and the violent turning
+and twisting of her lithe body burst the lacing of her corsage and half
+her fair bosom broke covert? What a pillow was that for a bridegroom,
+eh, Ricciardo?"
+
+"Nay," retorted Richard, "while she repaired that accident I lifted not
+my eyes above the hem of her robe, that so her rare modesty might take
+no offence."
+
+"And had you kept them there throughout the game you would have seen
+much to admire," continued Aldobrandino. "Ah! the pretty little feet,
+the shapely ankles! But marked you those of her sisters? Cranes and
+ostriches! storks and sandpipers! And they call themselves not
+water-fowl but women!"
+
+"Swine!" said Richard to himself, "hog, not another word or I shall
+burst. And what unspeakable villainy is this that I should have taken
+service to deliver so pure and precious a maiden into the power of such
+a beast!"
+
+This feeling grew upon him in the short space of time before the
+tournament, for he met her daily, and as he marked her,--the flicker of
+her eyelashes upon her cheeks and the quick in-drawing of breath through
+her sensitive nostrils when the tales of the trouveres and jests of the
+jongleurs offended her exquisite modesty--his heart swelled with pain
+intolerable that so pure a flower should be set up as a prize for the
+hardest fighter to snuff at. Not so, he made bold to express his mind to
+Aldobrandino, should such a maid be won.
+
+"How then," snorted the other in astonishment. "What method were fairer,
+I ask you?"
+
+"What than to appeal to her own heart," Richard made answer, "and that
+by gentle observance, delicate attentions, and such refinements of
+self-sacrifice as in their practice might elevate a lover to some
+worthiness of the honour he courts?"
+
+Aldobrandino sniffed his scorn. "Appeal to her heart in the last resort
+I grant you, but only thus: Lady, will you have me? An she will _not_,
+what would your servility gain? An she _will_, it is needless. In either
+case it is ridiculous. Trust me, a woman sets more store by the man who
+compels her admiration than by him who sues for it. If he breaks the
+bones of other men to win her, that is compliment enough and mark you
+well, Ricciardo, it is all that I demand of you in my service."
+
+So the week sped before the tournament; and Richard loved Sancie more
+and more, and ever Aldobrandino was at his side taunting him until he
+burst forth into many a torrent of indignation, whereat the other but
+laughed and leered, so that Richard loathed and hated him to the death.
+
+At last came the great day, and among the pennons of the challenging
+knights, which made gay the ancient amphitheatre of Arles where the
+lists were staked, there fluttered one bearing the device of a golden
+cup from which ran a stream of silver water. Also when Richard, with
+visor drawn and all in mail of shining steel, caracoled in the field, he
+was hailed Knight of the Spilling Cup, and Sancie's hand at that sign
+trembled so that had it held a beaker her robe would have been well
+besprinkled.
+
+As the prize of this joust was a peculiar one, so was the manner of its
+contention. King Rene had not then formulated his rules for the conduct
+of a tourney, and the public tournaments at this time were of so savage
+a character that King Louis held them in reprehension and was determined
+that this trial of arms, which was but a friendly joust, should be a
+model of chivalric self-restraint and courtesy. There was much grumbling
+when the rules were published by the heralds that there was to be no
+fighting to the death with weapons of war, no sharp steel points to the
+lances, nor hacking with battle-axes, and though the mace was allowed
+this bludgeon was shorn of its iron knobs and points.
+
+But when it was known that the King had stricken out the melee, or
+pitched battle of the second day, when all comers gentle and simple were
+by ancient custom allowed to range themselves in two parties under the
+banners of the victorious knight and him who stood second, all were of
+one opinion, namely that Louis had so emasculated the sport of all its
+zest that now was neither opportunity for young and unknown knights to
+distinguish themselves or a spectacle sufficiently diverting to keep the
+ladies from yawning.
+
+Nevertheless the King would not budge from his ruling, and the
+descendants of the very barbarians for whom Caesar had built the
+amphitheatre in order that their savage instincts might be sated came
+sulkily to their seats ready to deride this gentle passage at arms. But
+certes they had more thrilling sensations than they had counted upon,
+more of tingling along the spine and lifting of the hair as knight after
+knight went down and esquires dragged their masters from the tawny dust
+clouds that hid the plunging chaos. Tender maids, noble ladies, yea, and
+strong men felt their hearts stop and their stomachs turn as these pale,
+blood-bedabbled contestants were carried away, their heads wagging from
+limp necks, to the pavilion where the leeches provided by Raymond
+Berenger awaited them. But I do anticipate the order of my relation.
+
+Eight noble knights, lords of neighbouring provinces and some as well of
+foreign countries, all sumptuously accoutred and mounted on gaily
+caparisoned steeds, entered the arena in procession, and, having saluted
+the King and the ladies, took their positions in two companies at either
+extremity of the lists. For in this wise had it been ordered--that they
+should tilt in single combat, their adversaries having been previously
+determined by lot, one couple succeeding another until each knight had
+fought once.
+
+And after these four trial courses had been run, the four knights
+adjudged to have won therein the greatest glory must be matched again in
+two other duels, whereof the two victors might contest in the final
+combat for the great prize of the tourney.
+
+Hautboys and trumpets sounded shrilly the onset, and the first pair of
+knights, laying their lances in rest, rushed to the encounter.
+
+It may well be understood that in this series of preliminary single
+combats, Sancie had eyes alone for that in which Richard figured. Easy
+was his victory, for charging against young Raymond of Toulouse (seventh
+of that name) so violent was the shock of his spear against his
+opponent's shield that both Raymond and his steed rolled upon the
+ground. Fortunate was that knight to have broken only his thigh, a
+mischance which Richard strove to mitigate by most assiduous tendance
+during Raymond's convalescence. But now for the glory of the feat he was
+apportioned a weightier warrior, Barral des Baux, who had won like
+renown in the trial contest, having thrust his antagonist out of his
+saddle in such wise that he dinted the field with the back of his head,
+and to such effect that thereafter he had no memory either for good or
+ill, no, not so much as of this astounding adventure or of his
+sweetheart's face. When Richard met the redoutable Des Baux their
+lance-heads were planted squarely each upon the shield of the other, but
+the polished curving surface offering no purchase both lances slipped,
+and Barral's splintering and glancing downward was thrust into the
+haunch of Richard's horse. The creature uttered a piteous, human-like
+cry which was echoed by Sancie, and Richard hearing that wail and
+feeling himself sinking so that his feet touched the ground, believed
+that he had lost the day. But even then a roar echoed around the concave
+of the amphitheatre: "The cup hath it, the cup! the cup!" and he saw the
+Lord of Les Baux lying at a little distance with blood trickling upon
+the sand from the bars of his helmet. For Richard's lance had slipped
+upward and penetrating between gorget and helmet had pierced and
+dislocated Barral's jaw. This alone was enough to give Richard his
+second victory, but there were three added points of humiliation for the
+Knight of Les Baux, namely: his lance had been broken, he had been
+unhorsed, and, with maladroitness worthy of the merest tyro, had injured
+a horse when he had aimed at its rider.
+
+On the other hand Richard was untouched in person, his arms also in good
+condition, and he could not be said even to have quit his saddle since
+he remained astride his steed with his feet still in the stirrups.
+
+But Alphonso of Aragon, had also won laurels for the second time, for
+though his lance had slipped on the shield of his opponent precisely as
+Richard's had done, it had wrought far greater damage, for, tearing away
+the visor from the helmet of his antagonist it had blinded and
+disfigured him for life.
+
+Therefore honours remained equal between these two champions who must
+now run the final and deciding course.
+
+But Richard's good horse was cruelly maimed and could scarce be gotten
+from the arena, nor had he thought to have another ready outside the
+lists. Raymond Berenger sent a page to his own stables for his best
+horse, but ere he returned the loss was repaired by another, and Richard
+entered upon a powerful coal black stallion, tricked with scarlet
+housings. A noise of clapping greeted his entrance for the favourite
+horse of Aldobrandino had been recognised and it was supposed (though in
+this they much mistook their man), that by this courtesy he signified
+his renunciation of any intention to compete.
+
+The heralds also made proclamation that if the knights chose they might
+fight this last passage at arms with swords or maces, and swords being
+chosen each spurred toward the other, their good blades flashing in the
+sunshine and Richard with a sweep of his arm sheared the plume from his
+adversary's crest. But Alphonso, who missed his proper stroke, dealt him
+a dirty thrust in the side as he was passing. It pricked through
+Richard's armour but scratched him only and roused him to such energy
+that he swung around, clasped Alphonso in his arms, and all on horseback
+as they were, wrestled with him till he threw him over his charger's
+crupper to the earth.
+
+Then the King asked Sancie loudly: "Are you content to give your hand to
+the winner of this contest?" and the herald shouted her answer so that
+all heard it: "The high and puissant Lady, Sancie, willingly grants her
+hand as prize to the victor."
+
+But even as he cried, all were aware that the end was not yet, for the
+_roi d'armes_ pricked to the King's balcony and again the herald blew
+his trumpet and announced that another challenger, delayed from
+appearing at the first, contested this decision. Having been bidden
+enter, a burly knight mounted upon a giant percheron rode into the
+lists, all cased in sable armour and carrying a shield which displayed
+Atlas supporting the globe.
+
+Then Charles of Anjou, who fought not, but sat by the side of his
+betrothed, scoffed, "Ho, mountain of flesh, globe of blubber, and
+colossus of conceit, here is a whale indeed among fishes, a
+world-bearing monster, who fancieth that all the affairs of this earth
+rest upon his shoulders. 'Tis a cup which our gallant knight will soon
+spill for him. Hold fast, fair ladies, for the globe is about to topple
+from its foundations!"
+
+But, to the astonishment of the speaker and of all present, the knight
+of Atlas riding full tilt against him of the Spilling Cup, drove him
+backward, as it seemed, by his sheer weight, so that the barrier crashed
+behind his horse's haunches, and the rider, letting fall his lance
+acknowledged himself vanquished.
+
+Only Richard himself knew what that submission cost him. For while their
+spears were crossed, the head of Aldobrandino's tapping his opponent's
+shield, it was with a weak and wavering touch; while Richard's had found
+a joint in the armour of the knight of Atlas, and had he not generously
+and dexterously withdrawn his lance, Aldobrandino by the very force of
+his onset, would have transpierced himself upon it.
+
+For the moment he had his adversary in his power, and even as he
+withheld the spear he cried to Aldobrandino, "What hinders me from
+rolling you in the dust and myself winning that prize inestimable?"
+
+Aldobrandino, knowing well in what emergency he stood, replied calmly,
+"But one thing hinders--your word as a belted knight," and at that
+answer Richard's head drooped and he sank to earth as one sore wounded.
+
+But the spectators knew naught of this byplay. Hearing not the words,
+they put their own construction on the pantomime. Judge then what was
+their surprise, what the vexation of the two Queens and the despair of
+the fair Sancie, when the knight of Atlas, raising his visor, displayed
+the features of Aldobrandino.
+
+King Louis announced him victor, though it was noted that he had never
+done anything with so ill a grace, and indeed the good King's
+conscience smote him so sorely, knowing himself a partner in the trick,
+that he could never have made the ruling but that he hoped it would be
+reversed in the poetical contest yet to come.
+
+
+III
+
+THE "FLORAL GAMES"
+
+  O for a draught of vintage that hath been
+  Cool'd a long age in the deep delved earth,
+  Tasting of Flora and the country green,
+  Dance and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth.
+
+  KEATS.
+
+The tournament of wits seemed to give, Richard one more chance to win
+the prize he coveted; for this purpose it was originally instituted, and
+it seemed to the luckless knight himself that here at last he had fair
+play, since he was under no obligation to Aldobrandino to defer to him
+in this contention, nor did he believe that Aldobrandino's talents were
+superior to his own. The only other knight who had registered for this
+contest was Barral des Baux, and this in despite of his bandaged visage,
+for though his hurt permitted him not either to sing or to speak, yet by
+good fortune he could write, having been instructed by the monks of
+Mont Majour, and being violently in love with the fair Sancie, he would
+bate no effort to win her. So though all the nine who had taken part in
+the passage-at-arms were eligible, there were but three competitors, for
+five had been so desperately wounded that they could not stand, and
+Alphonso of Aragon so shamed and furious that he refused to take part.
+
+But when his friends congratulated Richard that this was so, and
+especially that Raymond of Toulouse was out of the reckoning (for he of
+all the nine was the only troubadour of repute and the one likely to be
+a formidable antagonist) though Richard's heart at first leapt at their
+news, he liked it the less as he gave it more consideration. For he had
+it on his conscience that he was responsible for Raymond's
+incapacitation, and he wished not to win a victory on such terms.
+Therefore he went to his wounded rival, tended and encouraged him, and
+in the end brought him to the contest in a litter, thereby gravely
+jeopardising his own chance of success. Richard, never at any time a
+glib jingler of rhymes, was in sorry case, for now that he had most need
+of his wits, his passion instead of sharpening them seemed to have
+removed them utterly. If he had but known it, he had a good friend in
+Queen Eleanor, who was determined that he should win, and she fancied
+that she had hit upon a scheme which would aid him.
+
+Angry was she that such an accomplished poet as Raymond of Toulouse must
+be admitted to the contest. "But, at all events," she told her sisters,
+"that renowned minstrel shall bring no polished work of long study to
+match against the untutored outpourings of my favourite's heart. Already
+have I ordained, with my assistant judges, that since some one of the
+contestants may be tempted to present a poem not his own, plagiarism
+shall be counted the one unpardonable crime, and, to guard against it,
+we demand that no verses of any sort be brought to the games, but that
+the competitors improvise on the instant upon one and the same theme to
+be given out after their assembling."
+
+This proposal pleased her three sisters. "They shall recite or sing to
+us, 'poesies on the flowers we wear,'" said Queen Marguerite, "and shall
+thus rank and compare our own qualifications for esteem. Clever will he
+be who can do this without offending any of us. But let us each beware
+of imparting to any one this information."
+
+Even while she thus spoke Marguerite's right eyelid, the one nearest to
+Queen Eleanor, quivered ever so slightly, and her foot pressed Sancie's.
+The kindly plotter counted that the girl would straightway convey this
+news to Richard, and she, poor child, was sorely tempted to do so. But
+she knew instinctively that he would refuse to profit by such advantage,
+therefore she told him not so much as the flower which she would herself
+wear, though she had chosen a spray of blossoming peach because he had
+once said it was his favourite, and because in her heart of hearts she
+hoped that rhymes concerning these sweet blooms might be already in his
+mind. But Richard, suspecting nothing of this, came to the Floral Games
+empty headed and as ignorant as the others as to the programme; and when
+he saw the brilliant and distinguished company waiting to pass verdict
+upon his poor verse he was filled with confusion. At the right of Queen
+Eleanor, sat the troubadour Sordello, the friend of Charles of Anjou who
+might easily have vanquished all present in the framing of _coblas_,
+_sirenas_, _sirventes_ and all kinds of poems, as well as in the ruder
+feats which may become a knight; but he for love of his fair Cunizza
+had disdained the prize of the present contest, and had come solely to
+assist the Queen in her decision. Also in the raised arbour by the side
+of Eleanor sat her uncle Boniface of Savoy, whom the King of England had
+made Archbishop of Canterbury. His grace was said to have no little
+skill in the framing of love sonnets, though chants and canticles would
+have better beseemed a churchman.
+
+The pleasance was all abloom with flowers, for the month was May, but
+the ladies in their gauzy robes of delicate rainbow hues were lovelier
+far than the favourites of Flora.
+
+Eleanor having announced the terms of the contest, she and her three
+sisters displayed the flowers which they had chosen as themes for the
+controversy, and the challengers drew lots for order of precedence, with
+the result that Barral des Baux came first, Aldobrandino second, Raymond
+of Toulouse third, and Richard last.
+
+Barral had composed and committed to memory a _sirvente_ or song of
+battle which he proposed to write out, paper and quill being permitted
+him in deference to his broken jaw. Great was his discomfiture to find
+that it fitted not to the theme prescribed, but he cut his cloth to the
+new pattern to the best of his ability. He retained the most effective
+portions of his poem, its high-sounding phrases, and picturesque
+descriptions of marshalling knights, the very category of whose arms,
+plumed helms, hauberks, blazoned shields, flaunting pennons, inlaid
+gauntlets, cross-hiked swords, golden spurs, and caparisoned steeds was
+in itself a pageant. True he gave these champions as a motive for their
+deeds of high emprise the demonstration of the supremacy of the
+differing and rival charms of the four sisters as typified by the
+flowers they affected; but he implied too plainly that those of the
+peach-bloom were alone worthy of such contention. Himself he figured as
+her accepted knight, hacking, slaying, scaling fortresses, pillaging,
+burning, putting to torture or ransoming prisoners, and scorning with
+brutal insults her sisters' flowers. This _sirvente_ which was
+apparently composed during a brief interval during which the jongleurs
+amused the company, was read in a sonorous voice by Archbishop Boniface.
+But had Barral's desire been to antagonise all the daughters of Raymond
+Berenger he could not better have succeeded, and when the Archbishop
+took his seat a glance at the face of Queen Eleanor told des Baux that
+he had lost the prize.
+
+Aldobrandino was no more fortunate. He cast his poem in the form of a
+_serena_ or night song, and spoke sadly and sentimentally of the evening
+of old age, dusky and drear, and of that night of death which he saw
+approaching. Strangely enough, he made no plea for present happiness,
+but begged the flowers, or their ladies, to drop tears upon his grave
+when he declared that he would sleep content.
+
+Though chanted in all earnestness this grave-yard ditty chimed not in
+with the joyous temper of the company. There was sly nudging and
+smiling, a snicker from an ill-mannered page, and the only sighs were
+those of relief when he ended.
+
+It was now the opportunity of Raymond of Toulouse. Besides being an
+accomplished technician in all forms of writing he was a man of shrewd
+and lively apprehension, and his wound had by no means injured his wits.
+As he lay upon the litter engaging the sympathy of the ladies and the
+leniency of the judges he had divined rightly the reason of the
+discomforture of each of his rivals. He saw that Aldobrandino had made
+shipwreck by reason of his indifference to the charms of all, and des
+Baux on account of his zeal for one at the expense of the others, for
+not a single protestation of esteem, not a compliment even had any one
+of Sancie's sisters received, and this in face of the well known fact
+that all were beautiful and eager for appreciation.
+
+In avoiding the conspicuous lapses of his predecessors Raymond with all
+his guile fell into another pitfall. He lauded the Rose, the Daisy, the
+Garland of Vine Leaves worn by Eleanor, Marguerite, and Beatrice in
+three canzonets so perfect in form, so exquisite in diction that they
+rivalled the ditties of Thibault of Champagne, who was hitherto
+accounted as having written "the most delightful and most melodious
+canzonets that at any time were heard."
+
+But in doing this he exhausted all terms of endearment and admiration
+which he could command, and when he attempted to celebrate the Peach
+Blossom he could only repeat utterances already made, so that his
+conclusion was an anticlimax, bad in art and unfortunately giving the
+impression that he was more enamoured of Sancie's sisters than of
+herself.
+
+The insincerity of his graceful verse was apparent to all. Sordello and
+Boniface who had nodded their appreciation at the conclusion of the
+first, second, and third canzonets, scowled and coughed at the fourth,
+and though there was applause sufficient to gratify this poet's vanity
+it misled him as to the impression which he had made upon his judges.
+
+Richard knew not that Raymond had over-shot his mark; it seemed to him
+that he had surely won, and that it was useless for him to offer his
+halting verses, save as a tribute of genuine feeling. Such they were,
+and honesty even in literature and courtship is some whiles best policy.
+But one thought had sunk itself in his distracted brain since noting
+what flower his beloved carried, how that Sancie was Flower o' the Peach
+and be the others what they might she was the flower of all flowers to
+him. He had no knowledge of the complicated metres with which Provencal
+troubadours played so deftly, but he had been in Italy and had marked
+how the peasants bandied back and forth their bright _stornelli_ as
+though the quick play were that of ball, the thought striking the fancy
+and deftly handled as it leapt from one to the other of the players.
+
+Therefore he modestly announced that he would strive to imitate in the
+_langue d'oc_ certain of these _stornelli a fiore_ trusting that their
+rudeness and brevity might be forgiven.[7]
+
+Queen Eleanor was crowned with roses and was throned beneath a canopy of
+those royal flowers. To her Richard, accompanying himself upon the lute,
+addressed his first _stornello_:
+
+      "Flower o' the Briar--
+    Though high on her trellis the Rose o' the Briar,
+    Sits supreme o'er the garden my heart clambers higher."
+
+"How may that be," laughed Eleanor, "if I am 'supreme o'er the garden?'
+'Tis enough for me; but I see not how you can o'ertop that compliment.
+Let me hear what you have to say to my sister of France."
+
+Marguerite, as befitting her name, wore daisies, and squaring his
+shoulders Richard sang lustily,
+
+    "Flower o' the Marguerite;
+    Queen of the garden, fair Reine Marguerite,
+    If my heart were not captive 't would lie at your feet."
+
+"'Tis Beatrice then who holds your heart in thrall?" bantered the
+queen, for she was malicious enough to plunge him in further difficulty.
+Here also was a coil for Beatrice was jealous of Sancie's beauty, and
+her lover, Charles of Anjou, sat beside her quick to resent any
+aspersion upon his mistress.
+
+Beatrice, like a bacchante, had bound her brows with vine leaves one of
+which Charles now broke off and handed to the competing minstrel. With a
+gallant bow and a smile which atoned for the quizzical reservation,
+Richard sang,
+
+    "Flower o' the Vine;
+    For you, merry Charles, the chaplet of vine
+    'T is a guerdon all envy, so pray grant me mine."
+
+Laughter resounded from every side of the pleasance mingled with cries,
+"Your flower! Name your favourite flower."
+
+Then Richard knelt before Sancie, who hid her face behind the blossoms
+which so well matched her blushes, and sang from his heart:
+
+    "Flower o' the Peach,
+    Flower o' the Peach, dearest Flower o' the Peach,
+    A flower for each fancy--his own love for each."
+
+Brief was the consultation between the judges. Queen Eleanor descended
+from her throne and amid clappings and bravoes gave Richard the stalk
+of lilies which had served her for sceptre and was now his palm of
+victory.
+
+[Illustration: The Floral Games
+
+From the painting by Jacques Wagrez. Permission of Braun,
+
+Clement & Co.]
+
+Ere he could take it from her hand, however, with a snort and bellow
+like that of a bull, my lord Aldobrandino faced the Queen.
+
+"Gramercy," he cried, "shall so fair a prize be won foully by false
+plagiarism?"
+
+"What charge is this you make," demanded Queen Eleanor.
+
+"That yon traitor stole from me that songlet of the peach, and though he
+has trussed it out of countenance with gawds of his own invention still
+the root of the matter is mine."
+
+"What answer you to this accusation, Richard?" asked the Queen.
+
+"That he speaks truly," Richard replied, "mine is indeed a spilling
+cup."
+
+The queen was loth to give judgment against her favourite and there was
+wrangling between her advisors as to what amount of theft were
+admissible in literature, but their opinion was stricter than I pray
+yours may be, most gentle reader, and they gave their verdict, "The
+prize is to Prince Aldobrandino."
+
+At that verdict Sancie fainted in the arms of Queen Marguerite, and
+Richard hid his face in his hands, crying, "I cannot bear it."
+
+Then Prince Aldobrandino spoke and they saw how they had misjudged the
+man.
+
+"You cannot bear this disappointment, say you, Ricciardo? Look you at
+the device upon my shield, Atlas, and the motto, _Sustino omnes_. I can
+bear all things, even such loss as this, and, since I see well that the
+lady loves me not, of my own motive yield I the prize to you, Ricciardo,
+who well deserve what you have truly won."
+
+"Nay," cried Richard, for admiration of so great magnanimity fired his
+emulation, and he would not be outdone. "Nay, my lord, the judgment of
+this court cannot be thus lightly set aside. 'The prize' it has decreed,
+'must be to Prince Aldobrandino.' Thy oath also that the Lady Sancie
+shall be mother of the Aldobrandini is registered in heaven."
+
+"I would forfeit neither prize nor oath," replied Aldobrandino, "but
+there is a scripture on which I have pondered much of late--'Who
+knoweth,' quoth the wise man, 'who shall reign after thee, and whether
+thy son shall be a fool?' So might he well be if he resembled me, and
+against such ill-chancing will I now be assured. A son after my own
+heart do I find in thee, Ricciardo, for I have probed and proved thee,
+taking the measure of thy mind until I know thee clean of soul as thou
+art strong of body. I go in fulfilment of a secret vow, neither recently
+nor lightly made, to end my days with the brotherhood of St. Benedict,
+but first I do adopt thee son, and heir to all my estates. Let the
+judgment of this court stand and the prize be to Prince Aldobrandino for
+henceforth that is thy name and title."
+
+The good man could not be swerved from this resolution. The lawyers drew
+up the act of relinquishment, Archbishop Boniface blessed the happy
+pair, who spent their honeymoon in their villa at Frascati, and from
+thence was Richard called by election to be King of the Romans. It was
+an honour which he held not long, nor did children of his continue the
+line of the Aldobrandini. Too careless was he of his own advantage when
+it ran counter to the desires of another; but in the magnificent
+Frascati villa, where he made such short tarrying, you may still find
+Richard's fountain not far from that of Atlas.
+
+To his estates in Cornwall he shortly returned; and testimony to his
+character corroborative of this story, and as credible as that of the
+Italian authorities we have quoted (Sacchetti and Ser Giovanni), you
+may read in the ballad of
+
+      ERL RICHARD, KING OF GOOD FELLOWS.
+
+    "His wine was for others' sipping,
+      For lightly he gave it up,
+    There's slipping 'twixt pouring and lipping
+      And his was a spilling cup.
+
+    "But ne'er for the lost good liquor
+      Was Richard heard to sigh.
+    'I shall not bicker so friends grow thicker,
+      And the cup of love hold I.'
+
+    "So in praise of that loser willing
+      They carved his cup awry,--
+    Spilling----but aye re-filling
+      To witness if I lie!"
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Villa d'Este, at Tivoli--Present State]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WITH TASSO AT VILLA D'ESTE
+
+
+  His weary heart awhile to soothe
+  He wove all into verses smooth.
+
+  * * *
+
+                     for soothly he
+  Was deemed a craft-master to be
+  In those most noble days of old,
+  Whose lays were e'en as kingly gold
+  To our thin brass or drossy lead;
+  Well, e'en so all the tale is said
+  How twain grew one and came to bliss?
+  Woe's me, an idle dream it is!
+
+  WILLIAM MORRIS.
+
+Supreme above all the enchanted gardens of Italy, both in the
+bewildering beauty of its sensuous charm and in the potency of its
+appeal to the imagination, stands the Villa d'Este at Tivoli.
+
+It is a hillside villa, a succession of terraces forming a stairway of
+flowers between the palace and the lower garden, where
+
+  "Cypress and fig tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated,
+  Rose-garden on garden upheaved in balconies step to the sky."
+
+But it is also a superb water-staircase, for the river Anio, turned from
+its course by a gigantic feat of engineering, leaps in a magnificent
+cascade, laughs in the spray of a thousand fountain jets, and makes the
+bosquets which shadow the regal staircase a haunt of the water nymphs as
+well as of the Dryads. You fancy, as your unwary foot presses the
+concealed springs that it is the white hands of mischievous Naiads which
+dash the water in your face, a pensive melancholy settles upon you with
+the mysterious dusk, and you are startled by Undine's "short, quick
+sobs," and are loth to believe that the plaintive sounds with which the
+air pulses are but the dropping of rills in and out of the shadowy
+pools.
+
+The pompous hydraulic organ no longer thunders its "full-mouthed
+diapason," but the nightingales fill the long summer nights with their
+surges of wild rhapsodies. Both the eye and the ear of the artist
+receive refreshment and stimulus here. The garden is a bath of
+verdancy and coolness even upon the most torrid day. The very light
+which filters through the dense foliage is tinged with green. The
+marbles are velvety and moist with moss, and the maidenhair fern drips
+lush and dank. Here Liszt drew inspiration from the harmonies of water
+notes blended with the chiming of distant bells, and Watteau showed in
+the many studies which he made in the garden how potent was its
+influence in investing his _fetes champetres_ with the grace of the
+idyl.
+
+[Illustration: In the Garden of Villa d'Este
+
+From a photograph by Mr. Charles S. Platt]
+
+That its appeal was no less powerful to a poet, the "craft-master" of
+his day, it is our purpose later to show.
+
+Many minor poets also have felt and, with more or less success, have
+interpreted its wondrous charm--Story perhaps best of all.
+
+    "What peace and quiet in this villa sleep!
+    Here let us pause nor chase for pleasure on,
+    Nothing can be more exquisite than this.
+    See how the old house lifts its face of light
+    Against the pallid olives that between
+    Throng up the hill. Look down this vista's shade
+    Of dark square-shaven ilexes where sports
+    The fountain's, thin white thread and blows away.
+    And mark! along the terraced balustrade
+    Two contadini stopping in the shade
+    With copper vases poised upon their heads,
+    How their red jackets tell against the green!
+    Old, all is old,--what charm there is in age!
+    Do you believe this villa when 'twas new
+    Was half so beautiful as now it seems?
+    Look at these balustrades of travertine--
+    Had they the charm when fresh and shapely carved
+    As now that they are stained and graved with time
+    And mossed with lichens, every grim old mask
+    That grins upon their pillars bearded o'er
+    With waving sprays of slender maidenhair?
+    Ah, no! I cannot think it; things of art
+    Snatch nature's graces from the hand of Time."
+
+But it is the view afforded by the double arcade of loggias and by every
+window of the palace facade which was the crowning glory of the villa.
+The amethystine Sabine Hills and the immense Campagna encircle the
+Eternal City, from whose mists the dome of Saint Peter's seems to rise a
+buoyant, iridescent bubble.
+
+It was Pirro Ligorio (architect also of the exquisite Villa Pia) who in
+1545 accomplished the miracle of converting the savage cliff into a
+staircase of enchantment. Nature had given the villa its marvellous site
+and genius availed itself of all the resources of art and wealth to
+effect the wonder.
+
+Cardinal Ippolito's orders to Ligorio were: "Surpass the work of Vignola
+in the villas of Caprarola and Lante. Restore the glory of Tivoli in the
+Augustan age."
+
+[Illustration: Hydraulic Organ, Villa d'Este.]
+
+Excavations in the neighbourhood were daily bringing to light
+masterpieces of classical sculpture, and for the "statues which whiten
+the shadow" of Villa d'Este, Ligorio was given carte blanche to despoil
+the gardens of Hadrian's palace. To-day only a long procession of broken
+pedestals bears witness to statues of emperors, gods, and goddesses long
+since removed to different museums.
+
+The exodus began immediately upon the succession of Ippolito's nephew,
+Cardinal Luigi d'Este, who came to his inheritance deeply in debt; but
+that spendthrift prelate retained sixty statues, some of which are seen
+in the etching made by Piranesi, and it was not until 1745 that these
+were purchased by Cardinal Albani.
+
+The creator of this paradise, Cardinal Ippolito d'Este II., son of
+Lucrezia Borgia, was, like his villa, a refined product of the later
+Renaissance and must not be confounded with his uncle, Cardinal Ippolito
+d'Este I.
+
+This first Cardinal Ippolito was a man of very different fibre, as may
+be seen from a single incident. Sent to Rome as his brother's envoy, on
+the occasion of Duke Alphonso's marriage, he fell in love with a pretty
+cousin of Lucrezia Borgia who accompanied the bride on her wedding
+journey to Ferrara.
+
+Unfortunately the coquettish girl praised the beautiful eyes of Giulio
+d'Este, the Cardinal's younger brother, whereupon this prince of the
+Church hired assassins who waylaid his brother and tore out his
+offending eyes.
+
+The Duke banished Ippolito temporarily, but Giulio brooded over the
+injury and conspired to depose Alphonso and place another brother, Don
+Ferrante, on the throne. For this act both Ferrante and Giulio were
+condemned to be imprisoned for life. Ferrante died in confinement but
+Giulio, after fifty-three years spent in a dungeon of the castle, was
+finally released.
+
+It might have been expected that the blending of d'Este brutality with
+the unscrupulous Borgia craft would have given as a result only a more
+refined cruelty; but if this was the case Cardinal Ippolito II.
+completely deceived his contemporaries and has left the reputation
+(through the pen of his panegyrist Mureto) of the utmost affable
+condescension and magnificent patronage of men of genius. He was himself
+a dilettante; and it was his ambition to pose as the most cultured and
+brilliant of the great cardinals of his day. Ippolito I. had been a boon
+companion of Leo X. in his hunting parties at the Villa La
+Magliana, but it was not as a "_cacciator signorile_" or "sporting
+gentleman" that Ippolito II. wished to eclipse the then illustrious
+representative of the house of Medici, Cardinal Ferdinando, who was
+attempting to rival him in his magnificent villa on the Pincian hill.
+
+[Illustration: Villa d'Este in 1740
+
+From an etching by Piranesi]
+
+It does not seem to have occurred to Mureto that both of these men were
+looking forward to the papacy, and desired to emulate in their own
+pontificates that of Leo X. Each piece of sculpture acquired for their
+villas, every literary man attached to their service was a step toward
+that end. Ippolito II. was as keen a hunter of genius as his uncle had
+been of deer or boar; and having once bagged his game, as capable of
+availing himself without scruple of his trophies as Ippolito I. of
+tearing the antlers from a dying stag.
+
+The princely Cardinal entertained on one occasion a house party of two
+hundred and fifty guests in his palatial villa, and established here a
+veritable court. The grandiose frescoes of Zuccari, Tempesta, Muziano,
+and Vasari still celebrate the glories of his family under the guise of
+the heroes of mythology garlanded by troops and bevies of cupids, "_una
+copiosa quantita di Amorini_." But the gods and demigods banquet all
+alone on the ceiling of the great hall where they once looked down upon
+the revels of the Cardinal's convives--noble or distinguished men all of
+them in their day, although the one name that comes to us of all who
+shared Ippolito's lavish hospitality and that sheds most glory upon his
+proud house is that of a poet, by turns patronised as a dependent,
+ungratefully neglected, and cruelly wronged.
+
+The visitor is shown with pride the room so whimsically decorated with
+singing birds, where Tasso wrote his _Amyntas_, and the Fountain of
+Nature in the lower garden where the pastoral was presented with musical
+accompaniment before a distinguished audience.
+
+That Leonora d'Este was among those who listened, and indeed had been
+her uncle's guest and Tasso's good and evil fate during the months which
+he spent at Villa d'Este, is the only conclusion possible for the
+thoughtful reader of the poem; and the idyl composed under such
+circumstances leads inevitably to the tragedy (enacted at that other
+villa) of Belriguardo, of which Goethe has given us so truthful and so
+masterly a transcription.
+
+Cardinal Ippolito, as his portraits make him known to us, has none of
+the sensuality which stamped the face of his grandfather Pope
+Alexander Borgia, or the heaviness of jaw expressing the stubborness and
+brutality of the earlier D'Estes; on the contrary, every line of the
+slight figure is expressive of refinement, the delicate red-stockinged
+feet are as shapely as a woman's, the expressive, almost transparent
+hands might be those of an artist as they finger caressingly his
+collection of intaglios and luxuriate in the smoothness of jades and
+ivory carvings. His excessive pallor and thinness would give an
+expression of asceticism, almost of spirituality to the intellectual
+face were it not in a measure contradicted by the craft in the
+close-set, slanting eyes, which with the pointed, fulvous beard suggest
+a possibility of foxy cunning, and inspire in the beholder an
+uncomfortable, haunting feeling of distrust even when the Cardinal's
+manner is most condescending and cajoling.
+
+So, robed in filmy lace over rosy velvet, we may see him in imagination
+tripping daintily down his monumental staircase, his train islanding his
+figure as in some ensanguined pool and slipping after him adown the
+steps like the drip of some trail of blood which strangely leaves no
+stain upon the white marble.
+
+But his face is wreathed with smiles, for he genuinely loves his two
+beautiful nieces, Lucrezia, Duchess of Urbino, and the gentle Leonora,
+who are his guests, and he loves his villa, whose beauties he is
+pointing out to them.
+
+"You do not see the garden at its best," he cavils. "Wait till the roses
+garland the balustrades. It is too early yet to enjoy Tivoli; the frost
+may have left the ground but it lingers still in the pavements of this
+great palace. The halls are damp as vaults; we would have done well, my
+nieces, to have remained another month in Rome. Not till the middle of
+May will society desert the city for its _villeggiatura_. What do you
+say, Leonora, shall we confess that we have made a mistake and return?"
+
+"Dear uncle, as you say, it is only the palace which, in spite of its
+braziers, retains the winter chill. Here in the garden the air is balmy,
+and the Judas trees are all a crimson mist. See how the green is
+creeping, like an inundation through the russets of last year's grasses.
+In another fortnight all this magical change will have been wrought, and
+those who come later will have missed the fairy spectacle."
+
+"Spectacle! ah! that reminds me," replied the Cardinal; "while Nature is
+shifting the scenes we must prepare the _scenario_. Confess that I have
+provided a worthy theatre, one which should suggest to a poet a worthy
+theme. There, alas! is my great lack--I have no poet. How wastefully on
+those who need them not are the most precious gifts bestowed! My uncle
+and godfather, Cardinal Ippolito--the saints rest his soul!--was a
+dull-brained barbarian and yet he had attached to his service that pearl
+of poets Ariosto, whom he had neither the intelligence to appreciate nor
+the justice to reward. What think you was Ariosto's meed for dedicating
+to his patron the _Orlando Furioso_? He was made governor of that nest
+of bandits, the mountain district of Garfagnana, and it in open
+insurrection against the Duke of Ferrara. A pretty post for a scholar
+and a poet! But to it he went, and conquered the brigands, proving
+himself as expert in the use of the sword as in that of the pen.
+
+"We produce no such men now. Bernardo Tasso, to whom I gave employment
+when he was exiled from Naples, and who wandered freely in this garden,
+felt not its charm, for he was but a third-rate poet, and even he is
+dead. Who in our day can interpret the poetry which I feel here but
+cannot express? And with but so little more of endowment I might have
+done it, for after all is not the inner ear, the second sight, the major
+part of genius?
+
+"Listen, and tell me what you hear. Only the musical plash of the
+fountains and the sonorous undertone of the organ, like the distant roar
+of surf upon the beach? Ah, me! ah, me! how materialistic you are, my
+children. Your old uncle hears in these myriad-voiced fountains the
+musical instruments which Boccaccio gave to the Satyrs; 'cymbals, pipes,
+and whistling reeds,' and the song of the nymphs. Did you note that
+startled cry? It is the Oread Arethusa flying from the river-god
+Alpheus. He is imprisoned in the organ, where he is mightily bellowing,
+and whence he will presently burst forth. But Arethusa will slip away
+(coquette that she is), under ground and under sea to her Sicilian home;
+for fable and stream sing eternally the same story, _Mulier hominis
+confusio est_.
+
+"Tell me, my niece, have we in all Italy a poet who can voice such a
+theme?"
+
+"Yes, uncle," the Duchess of Urbino interposed, "Bernardo Tasso's little
+son heard and understood the song of the fountains when he played here
+in his childhood. He told me that he believed a _folletto_ or tricksy
+spirit talked with him here and promised him that if he came again he
+would find here both love and fame. He can interpret your songs for you,
+for he has grown a man, and is a greater poet than his father."
+
+"And meantime," added Leonora, "he has absorbed all that the
+universities of Bologna and Padua can give him, and has written a
+romantic poem, the _Rinaldo_, on the exploits of one of our ancestors,
+that mythical old peer of Charlemagne, which he has dedicated to our
+house. It is in recognition of this tribute that our brother Luigi has
+made him his secretary."
+
+"And Luigi is at the French Court intriguing with the Queen Mother,
+Catherine de' Medici. Torquato is doubtless with him," replied the
+Cardinal. "I ask you of what good to tantalise me with impossible
+suggestions? He had the eyes of a poet, that lad, and he might have
+served my turn."
+
+"He may still serve you, Uncle Ippolito, for he has quarrelled with
+Luigi, and is in Rome."
+
+"And wherefore in Rome? To curry favour with Cardinal de' Medici?"
+
+"Possibly, for Tasso is writing a great epic on the taking of
+Jerusalem by Godfrey of Bouillon and his crusaders."
+
+"'Tis no epic that I wish, but a pastoral--a mere trifle. Yet not so
+fast. A poem such as you describe, if it were indeed a work of genius,
+might rouse Christendom to another crusade, a life-work worthy of the
+next Pope. Lucrezia, the boy must not submit his poem to Cardinal de'
+Medici. Can you summon him to me, and will he come instantly?"
+
+"If Leonora calls him," the Duchess replied, "he will come."
+
+Cardinal Ippolito lifted his eyebrows almost imperceptibly and darted a
+keen, sidelong glance at Leonora. She had not heard her sister's last
+remark, the name of Torquato Tasso had obliterated the present and she
+was gazing dreamily at the rainbow-tinted dome of St. Peter's.
+
+"Leonora," the Cardinal said softly, "have you heard what Lucrezia was
+saying, that this young poet has written an epic? If I could see it I
+might be able to help him in his career, perhaps give him fame."
+
+"O Uncle, will you? How good you are! I will write him at once."
+
+"My dear, I am not good, or disinterested. I am a selfish, an ambitious
+old man. This festival, given ostensibly for the entertainment of my
+friends and to introduce my charming nieces, is a part of my deep,
+ulterior motives. Come, I will confess the machinations of my wicked old
+heart. Why not, since my ambitions are for you as well as for myself?
+Nay, Leonora, never flush and tremble, I have no wish to buy my own
+advancement by selling you to some degenerate prince. Matchmaking is not
+my kind of diplomacy. I have seen enough in our own family of
+magnificence won through the martyrdom of women. Your mother, Renee of
+France, though a king's daughter, brought with her a dowry of
+unhappiness. My own mother, innocent though she was, bequeathed to us
+the shameful legacy of the Borgias' deeds and instincts. You may be
+happy, Lucrezia, with your Duke of Urbino. I ask no confidences, but I
+am glad that I am not responsible for your marriage.
+
+"You, at least, Leonora, shall live your own life wedded or unwedded as
+you like. I shall be so great that I can ennoble whom I will, and you,
+beloved child, shall be the power behind the throne to advise me on whom
+to shower my benefits."
+
+Lucrezia clapped her hands softly. "Bravo, dear Uncle, I have guessed
+this ambition, have I not? Cardinal de' Medici is already spoken of as
+the Pope's successor. But the Medici balls have been carved too often
+over St. Peter's chair, and you are minded to blazon in their place the
+d'Este eagle. You need not answer for I know that I am right."
+
+The Cardinal smiled mysteriously. "Too shrewd, my niece, too shrewd by
+half. How your woman's intuition leaps over intervening obstacles. Never
+a whisper of this guess at my aims. Remember, it is but your own surmise
+and that I have never breathed such an aspiration. The immediate object
+of my solicitude is to secure a charming play worthy of the setting of
+Villa d'Este breathing the spirit of Ovid and Anacreon, one which will
+make the old Greek gods live again in these delicious haunts and will
+redound to the reputation of your uncle's taste in literature."
+
+"How magnanimous you are," cried Leonora, "to disclaim your principal
+motive, that of helping Tasso! He shall come, and he will give you the
+most beautiful idyl that was ever written."
+
+* * *
+
+And who shall say that Tasso did not make good the promise of his
+patroness? In the _Amyntas_ we have the development of a theme which is
+the inevitable product of such a temperament in such a situation, and to
+the poem itself we will now look for a record of what transpired at
+Villa d'Este during the writing and the presentation of the pastoral.
+
+To us it is true that the archaic quality, the pseudo-classicism of this
+pastoral seems at first artificial. "It has only so much of rustic
+nature as suits a graceful urban fancy." Arcadia is a no man's land, so
+far from our desires that we cannot picture it even in imagination; but
+to one who knows how sincere was the enthusiasm of the Renaissance for
+Greek ideals as well as for modes of expression, how classicism had come
+to be understood as a synonym for perfection in form whether in
+literature or the plastic arts,--all the pretty imagery of the Golden
+Age and its demigods becomes as natural a poetic rendering of sincere
+feeling as the equally formal restrictions of the measure of the sonnet
+or the rules which govern the composition of a concerto. Having once
+learned its technique genius and passion were unconscious of their
+limitations, but flowed with as true and spontaneous an impulse within
+these formal bounds as waters in their marble fountains and conduits.
+
+     "All the melodies that had been growing through two centuries in
+     Italy [says Symonds] are concentrated in the songs of the _Amyntas_
+     and the _Pastor Fido_. The idyllic voluptuousness which permeated
+     literature and art steeps their pictures in a golden glow. While we
+     recognise in both these poems--the one perfumed and delicate like
+     flowers of spring, the other sculptured in pure forms of classic
+     grace--evident signs of a civilisation sinking to decay, we are
+     bound to confess that to this goal the Italian genius had been
+     steadily advancing. They complete and close the Renaissance."
+
+But the living quality in the _Amyntas_ which makes it a thousand-fold
+more real to us than the Elizabethan masques is not its perfectness of
+form but the stamp which it bears of being the expression of personal
+experience and longing but thinly veiled in poetic imagery. Reading the
+poem at Villa d'Este we read between the lines and recognise the _scena_
+of the pastoral and the love which inspired its plot.
+
+In spite of the changes wrought by time we discover the origin of each
+descriptive passage. This rocky reservoir whose shadowy surface seems to
+mirror reflections of mysterious faces is surely--
+
+                      "Dian's pool
+  Where the great plane's cool shade to cooler waves
+  Invites the huntress nymphs."
+
+Its encircling laurel thickets might mask to-day strange woodland
+deities like the Satyr of the play who while Sylvia bathed
+
+    "Crouched lynx-eyed among the thick-set shrubs."
+
+The description of the tumultuous pursuit of this Satyr calls up so
+vividly the Polyphemus in the _Triumph of Galatea_ that we are convinced
+that Tasso must have been influenced by Raphael's great painting in the
+Farnesina.
+
+          "Not all am I
+    A despicable thing,..."
+
+He makes the Satyr say;
+
+    "This ruddy russet front, these shoulders huge,
+    These nervy bull-thewed arms, this silky breast,
+    And these my velvet thighs are manhood's mould robust.
+    Ill favoured I? Not so!"
+
+As one listens to the delirious nightingales in the dim, green-arched
+_allees_, one forgets the trysting trees in other Italian gardens and is
+sure that only here could Daphne have drawn her argument for love from
+their caresses.
+
+    "_Daphne:_
+
+    The gentle, jocund spring,
+    Smiling and wantoning,
+    Makes all things amorous.
+          Thou only thus,
+    Untamed wild creature, wilder than the rest,
+    Deniest love the harbourage of thy breast.
+    List to yon nightingale
+    Singing within the vale
+       'I love, love, love.'
+    With what renewed embracement vine clasps vine,
+    Fir blends its boughs with fir, and pine with pine.
+    Beneath the rugged bark
+    May'st thou mute inward sighings mark,
+    And wilt thou graceless be
+    Less than a vine or tree--
+    To keep thyself unloving, loverless?
+    Bend, bend thy stubborn heart
+    Fool that thou art."
+
+But the physical peculiarity which actually identifies Villa d'Este as
+the locale of the poem is its cliff, the "sheer crag" from whence
+Amyntas leaps in his despair.
+
+    "Now did he lead me where the cloven steep
+    Among the rocks and solitary crags
+    Looms pathless and breaks sheer above a vale.
+    There paused we, and I, peering far below,
+    Shuddered, drew from the brink.
+
+  * * *
+
+  'Sylvia, I come, I follow!' So he cried:
+  Then headlong leaped,--and left me turned to stone."
+
+There are other poems of Tasso's which refer to his residence at Villa
+d'Este, and infer Leonora's presence at that time. We may cite in
+particular the canzone to Leonora at her uncle's villa, beginning "_Al
+nobil colle ove in antichi marmi_":
+
+    "To the romantic hills where free
+    To thine enchanted eyes
+    Works of Greek art in statuary
+       Of antique marbles rise,
+    My thought, fair Leonora, roves,
+    And with it to their gloomy groves
+    Fast bears me as it flies.
+    For far from thee, in crowds unblest,
+    My fluttering heart but ill can rest.
+
+    "There to the rock, cascade, and grove,
+    On mosses dropt with dew,
+    Like one who thinks and sighs of love
+    The livelong summer through,
+    Oft would I dictate glorious things
+    Of heroes to the Tuscan strings
+    On my sweet lyre anew,
+    And to the brooks and trees around
+    Ippolito's high name resound."
+
+This poem would seem to imply that a part of the _Jerusalem_ was written
+here, possibly the episode of Sophronia and Olindo, so dear to Tasso
+himself that though it was not an integral part of the epic he dared the
+Inquisition rather than comply with the demands of the censor that it
+should be stricken out. The description of Sophronia is admitted to have
+been intended to denote Leonora:
+
+    "Amongst them in the city lived a maid
+    The flower of virgins in her perfect prime,
+    Supremely beautiful! but that she made
+    Never her care, or beauty only weighed
+    In worth with virtue; and her worth acquired
+    A deeper charm from blooming in the shade,
+    Lovers she shunned, nor loved to be admired,
+    But from their praises turned to live a life retired."
+
+Equally applicable to Tasso is that of Olindo, the lover who--
+
+    "Feared much, hoped little, and in nought presumed.
+    He could not or he durst not speak, but doomed
+    To voiceless thought his passion."
+
+But during those "livelong summer days" the poet's passion was not
+utterly voiceless. The _Amyntas_ is throughout a continual and
+unequivocal expression, and he daringly in the very prelude makes the
+god of love, who explains the scheme of the play, declare--
+
+    "For wheresoe'er I am, there I am Love,
+    No less in shepherds' than in heroes' hearts,
+    The _unequal lot grows equal_ at my will,
+    My chiefest vaunt, my miracle is this."
+
+Openly and repeatedly Tasso asserts that while he is not indifferent to
+literary distinction it is not the chief end which he has in view in
+writing the _Amyntas._
+
+    "Deem not" (he says) "that all Love's bliss
+      At last is but a breath
+      Of fame that followeth.
+
+    Love's meed is love, it wooeth, _winneth_ this.
+    Nathless the lover steadfast to his end
+    Hath laud ofttimes and maketh Fame his friend."
+
+Goethe makes Tasso confide this double aim to Leonora and her reply
+shows that he did indeed win the meed he sought. "For what" the poet
+asks her "is more deserving to survive and silently to last for
+centuries than the confession of a noble love, confided modestly to
+gentle song?"
+
+We follow step by step that wooing, finding it in the exquisite
+apostrophe to the golden age--which concludes:
+
+    "Then let us live as erst kind Nature's thralls
+    And let us love--since hearts
+    No truce of time may know, and youth departs:
+    Ay! let us love: suns sink but sink to soar--
+    On us, our brief day o'er,
+    Night falls and sleep descends for evermore."
+
+Here again Goethe discovers the personal note, transcribing the poem
+unscrupulously from its setting in the _Amyntas_ and making Leonora
+reply with didactic coldness to Tasso's appeal--
+
+    "_Tasso:_
+
+    The golden age, ah! whither is it flown,
+    For which in secret every heart repines?
+    When every bird winging the limpid air
+    And every living thing o'er hill and dale
+    Proclaimed to man, What pleases is allowed.
+
+    "_Princess_:
+
+    My friend, the golden age hath passed away.
+    Shall I confess to thee my secret thoughts?
+    The golden age, wherewith the bard is wont
+    Our spirits to beguile, that lovely prime,
+    Existed in the past no more than now;
+    Still meet congenial spirits and enhance
+    Each other's pleasures in this beauteous world;
+    But in the motto change one single word
+    And say my friend,--What's fitting is allowed."
+
+Perhaps Leonora did speak thus in the open discussion which followed the
+reading of the poem as in that at the Court of Urbino when Cardinal
+Bembo, distraught by his own rhapsody on love, stood silent as one
+transported, and the lady Emilia to recall him to himself shook him
+playfully, crying, "Have a care, Pietro, lest in this mood your soul
+should be separated from your body."
+
+And the gay Cardinal replied: "Madam, this would not be the first
+miracle which Love hath wrought in me."
+
+Certainly, Tasso's wooing, even at Villa d'Este, was not always a happy
+one. In the following stanzas he tells of temporary despairs, but he
+hints also of a great hope at his darkest moment:
+
+    "By what dim ways at last Love leadeth man
+    Unto his joy and sets him 'mid the bliss
+    Of his heart's heaven of love--then when he most
+    Thinketh him sunk in an abyss of bale;
+    O blest Amyntas--from thy fate
+    I augur for mine own, that so may she,
+    That fair untender maid, who in a smile
+    Of pity sheaths the steel of heartlessness,
+    So may she with true pity heal the hurt
+    Wherewith feigned pity pierced me to the heart."
+
+In another beautiful passage it is not hope which he sings but rapture:
+
+    "Let him who serveth Love
+    Divine it in his heart, though scarce may he
+    Divine or give it voice."
+
+What was the boon which gave Tasso so much bliss? Perchance no greater
+than the one he celebrates in the exquisite lines:
+
+    _Stava Madonna ad un balcon soletta._
+
+    "My lady at a balcony alone
+    One day was standing, when I chanced to stretch
+    My arm on hers; pardon I begged, if so
+    I had offended her; she sweetly answered,
+    'Not by the placing of thy arm hast thou
+    Displeased me aught, but by withdrawing it
+    Do I remain offended!' O fond words!
+    Dear little love words, short but sweet, and courteous!
+    Courteous as sweet, affectionate as courteous!
+    If it were true and certain what I heard,
+    I shall be always seeking not to offend thee,
+    Repeating the great bliss: but my sweet life,
+    By all my eagerness therein remember--
+    Where there is no offence, there must be
+    No visiting of vengeance!"
+
+It must have been early in their acquaintance that such gratitude was
+poured forth for so slight a favour. There are balconies at Villa
+d'Este, balustraded terraces where now the contorted stems of giant
+vines wrestle with the carved pillarets and rend them relentlessly from
+their copings where at intervals the bayonet-leaved aloes keep sentinel
+like the bravi of Cardinal Ippolito I., their long green knives
+unsheathed and ready for any deed of horror. Here, unconscious of spying
+eyes, Leonora may have leant apparently absorbed in that glorious view,
+and Tasso's hand have stolen furtively to her own.
+
+But was there no other guerdon for his long service than this shy
+avowal--no other bliss before that long horror of imprisonment and real
+or imputed madness which ended only after Leonora's death? Only the Duke
+Alphonso and those who so basely read the poet's private papers can
+reply.
+
+Cardinal Ippolito must have guessed to what end the pastoral of Villa
+d'Este was tending; but whether his sympathy was real or feigned for his
+own uses we cannot know.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Villa d'Este--Terrace Staircase]
+
+He never attained his ambition, for death suddenly claimed him before
+the aged Pope whom he had hoped to succeed. Tasso's tragedy culminated,
+as Goethe tells us, at another villa, that of Belriguardo. The pastoral
+of Villa d'Este ends in a chorus or envoy expressive of that tremulous
+hope which flutters so deliciously in every line of the exquisite poem:
+
+    "I know not if the bitterness
+      That, serving long, long yearning, one hath borne
+      In tears and all forlorn,
+      May wholly turn to sweet, and Love requite
+      All sorrows with delight.
+      But if this be and pain
+      That bringeth joy enricheth often gain;
+      I ask thee not, O Love,
+      To give me gain thy common gains above.
+
+    * * *
+
+      If gentle dear disdains
+      And dulcet coy defeats
+      And strifes fond lovers use
+      To fire their hearts--but close with love's long truce."
+
+     NOTE.--The selections from the _Amyntas_ quoted in this article
+     have been selected from the admirable metrical translation of Mr.
+     R. Whitmore.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+MONDRAGONE
+
+
+"'Tis a grave responsibility to play the dragon to a pretty woman."
+
+This was the assertion with which Celio Benvoglio, private secretary of
+her Highness, Princess Pauline Bonaparte Borghese, invariably prefaced
+the following story, and had I a like knack in telling it, you would
+admit the demonstration of that proposition. By dragon you will
+understand that his Excellency, Prince Camillo Borghese, signified a
+guardian and protector. To constitute Celio Malespini a spy and reporter
+was no more in the thought of the Prince than it could have been in
+Celio's performance. He was young, and as chivalric an admirer of the
+Princess as he was loyal in his devotion to her husband. Had he
+discovered anything equivocal in her conduct, wild horses could not have
+torn her secret from him, and it is possible that the Prince counted
+upon this when he said:
+
+"Celio, the Princess is very young and impulsive; that she is a
+foreigner and therefore inexperienced in our strict etiquette will not
+excuse her slightest mistake in the eyes of our severe Roman dames, who
+would be prejudiced against the sister of Napoleon were she as
+circumspect as the Madonna. Her beauty has already made them envious,
+her wit and light-heartedness is considered levity. They will delight in
+wagging their tongues maliciously on the least shadow of suspicion. In
+appointing you secretary to the Princess I place you in a position where
+you will be able to guard her from the appearance of evil. Understand
+well that I have no fear of its reality, but where there are windows
+overlooking one's garden the neighbours may see more than the owner,
+more even than actually occurs."
+
+"Have no fear, my lord," the young secretary rashly promised. "You know
+the Tuscan proverb in regard to avoiding the suspicion of fruit
+stealing. Ah, well, no visitor shall be allowed to tie his shoestrings
+among your strawberries or to use his handkerchief under your plum
+tree."
+
+So the Prince went away to Florence and Celio found that he had more
+than he had bargained for. Not that Pauline Bonaparte committed actual
+indiscretions; but she was wild for admiration, loved dress, and knew
+how to dress well, setting off her marvellous beauty with that
+combination of style and taste that the French call _chic_, which the
+heavier intellects of the Roman modistes with all their pretence to
+fashion can never attain, and which the imperious Roman matrons could
+never forgive.
+
+One of these, hoping to rob this audacious rival of the advantage of
+Parisian modishness, gave a fete in which the guests were requested to
+appear in classical costume, whose severe simplicity she fancied would
+be more becoming to the plenitude of her own Juno-like charms than to
+the slight figure of the French girl. But the Princess vanquished her
+hostess for she came as a Bacchante in a robe of her own designing,
+bordered with vine leaves embroidered in gold and belted beneath the
+breasts with a golden girdle. A mantle of panther's fur swept from her
+shoulders, her arms and her bust were laden with heavy necklaces and
+bracelets taken from some Etruscan tomb, and she waved a golden thyrsus.
+Her entrance illuminated the ball-room and the character which she
+represented gave her authority for giving free vent to her natural
+vivacity and dancing with the utmost grace and abandon. Her victory over
+the male part of the assembly was complete for they saw no one else that
+evening.
+
+They were wrong who supposed that her beauty was enhanced by dress; on
+the contrary it was limited by the clothing which it adorned. The
+sculptor Canova proved this in his portrait statue of her as Venus
+Victorious, and then her detractors, affecting to be greatly
+scandalised, changed their tune and declared that it was false that the
+Princess was too fond of dress, that on the contrary a greater regard
+for it would have been more decent.
+
+The young secretary was not a little troubled by the caprice of his
+patroness to thus display her beauty to the world. "But why not, my
+Celio?" she had argued. "The Prince, my husband, has bestowed upon me a
+great title for which I feel my obligation to his noble family, and I
+shall pay it with interest, for I shall leave the Borgheses this
+incomparable statue, and the glory of having possessed one Princess
+whose beauty cannot be denied or equalled."
+
+Why Prince Borghese should have deputed this dragon service to another
+instead of undertaking it himself, is a question which I cannot answer.
+Some misunderstanding doubtless there was, or two people who loved each
+other would never have agreed that it was better to live apart, but the
+Prince carried a sore and longing heart with him to Florence, and it may
+be that the Princess was no happier, though she had more bravado.
+
+"I will come when you send for me and not before," her husband said to
+her, "and I trust you understand the motives which underlie my
+self-banishment."
+
+"I am grateful to them at least," was her equivocal retort. "Has your
+Highness any preference as to my residence during your absence?"
+
+"None," he replied sadly, "but I shall be happier if you do not make
+choice of your Neapolitan villa."
+
+She flashed at him indignantly, "You wish to estrange me from my family,
+from my sister Caroline."
+
+"I have only the highest respect for her Majesty, the Queen of Naples,"
+he replied; "her devotion to her husband is undoubted. I could wish--"
+and here the Prince paused.
+
+"That I were more like her," the Princess finished his sentence.
+
+"I never said so, Pauline," he said impulsively, "or wished that you
+were like any other than yourself."
+
+His last words should have softened her, but, pained and indignant at
+his desertion, she hardly heeded them; how was she to know that Camillo
+Borghese was, under his cold exterior, very honestly in love with his
+wife and just now cruelly tortured with jealousy of her brother-in-law,
+the dare-devil Murat? For the latter was as unscrupulous as he was
+handsome, as Napoleon was to find to his cost, though in recognition of
+his services as a dashing leader of cavalry he had rewarded him with the
+hand of his sister Caroline and the crown of Naples.
+
+Hitherto the Princess had not even remarked the bold admiration of her
+brother-in-law, and after the departure of her husband she wept and
+sulked for days, when suddenly an event of great political importance,
+which was also of deep personal interest to herself, threw into the
+background every other consideration.
+
+Napoleon's abdication and the treaty of Fontainebleau came upon his
+friends with the shock of an earthquake. Especially to his sister
+Pauline it was as though the foundations of the earth were tottering.
+He had been the Providence of all his family, dividing the nations
+between them; but Pauline had been his favourite, he had loved her
+sincerely, and she had responded with the utmost devotion.
+
+"I will go to him in his trouble," she declared, and though her
+secretary could not see how her presence could aid the deposed Emperor,
+he could not but approve her generous impulse.
+
+She met her brother at Hyeres near the frontier of France, from which
+point he embarked for the Island of Elba. The allies had granted him the
+lordship of the island, with an income to support a pseudo court; but
+the framers of that treaty, and Napoleon himself, knew well that its
+terms were a farce and his kingdom in reality a prison.
+
+What transpired between the Princess and her brother in that brief
+interview Celio did not know. Each passed from it calmed and cheerful.
+There was a kindlier look in the Emperor's face, a more assured
+elasticity in his step as the English sailors who transported him to his
+exile shouted their, "Better luck next time"; and sparks were lighted in
+the eyes of the Princess which every one who saw her noted, though
+none guessed what hidden fires of resolve fed their flashes.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Fountain in Gardens of the Villa Borghese]
+
+They called her that season the Firefly, and many misinterpreted her
+illy suppressed excitement and the scrutiny of those lambent eyes
+sending out their flame signals in search of answering lights. Even her
+secretary did not know that the dark shadows which ringed them were not
+due to the balls and other frivolities in which she was so conspicuous;
+but to complicated and dangerous schemes which robbed her of sleep at
+night, and were never forgotten as she danced and chatted and coquetted
+while the most astute diplomats laid their hearts and their secrets at
+her feet.
+
+She received strange visitors too at the magnificent Villa Borghese,
+just outside the Porta del Popolo, wild-eyed agitators and suspects who
+had never before been permitted to enter those aristocratic gates. The
+first had come disguised in a marble-cutter's blouse as an assistant of
+Canova; but he had dropped a word which the noble model understood, and
+the fire signals had flashed between them. After the sculptor had left
+the casino his assistant tarried, and Celio, dismissed by his mistress
+but lingering at the threshold, heard fragments of the man's talk:
+"Liberty, united Italy, and death to the Austrians."
+
+Later, when he attempted to warn the Princess that if the man were not a
+maniac he was more dangerous, she asked him bluntly if her husband had
+constituted him her dragon, and thereafter in half contemptuous banter
+she gave him the nickname of "Mondragone."
+
+It was the name also of another villa belonging to the Borghese, the
+most sightly of all the boldly seated summer resorts of the nobility at
+beautiful Frascati. Not one of these commands a view comparable to the
+one from its terrace of the Pope's Chimneys, so named from the strange
+monumental constructions which are so conspicuous that, with a glass,
+they are plainly visible from Rome.
+
+So when the Princess announced, "I love Mondragone," her secretary did
+not flatter himself that the equivocal utterance bore any reference to
+himself. Had he also had the wit to perceive that if she indeed cared
+for the villa or for any other object at this time, it was only for some
+service which it might render her brother, his duties as dragon would
+have occasioned him far less of mental anguish.
+
+Celio was writing one day in a room adjoining the apartment which
+Canova had used as his studio in the casino of Villa Borghese, when he
+was startled by a heavy step in the room which he had supposed
+unoccupied. Throwing aside the portiere he instantly recognised from
+report the imposing figure which confronted him. On a lesser man so
+gorgeous a costume as the one which now dazzled the astonished eyes of
+the secretary would have suggested the mountebank; but there was
+something regal as well as Oriental in Joachim Murat's appearance, and
+the barbarous colour extravagances of his dress became him like those of
+a sultan.
+
+His curling hair, black and long, fell upon a green velvet cloak heavily
+embroidered with gold which hung from his shoulders displaying a
+sky-blue frogged tunic, whose breast was covered with jewelled crosses
+and beribboned decorations. The crimson breeches which met the high
+boots of yellow morocco were braided with gold in the Polish fashion and
+fitted closely his shapely thighs, but the tarnished and battered
+cavalry sabre clanking at his side occasioned him no inconvenience, and
+it needed but a glance at the broken plumes of the ruby-clasped aigrette
+which decorated a shabby wide-brimmed hat to convince the beholder that
+this was no gala costume but the habitual garb of a soldier. He was
+spurred and played nonchalantly with his riding-whip as he returned
+Celio's questioning glance with a smile, half arrogant, half familiar.
+Wheeling upon his heel without deigning any explanation of his presence,
+he returned to his contemplation of the portrait statue of the Princess,
+and the young secretary's blood boiled as he saw that the expression of
+contemptuous familiarity on the sensual face had been elicited not by
+his insignificant self but by the masterpiece of Canova.
+
+"A fair portrait doubtless," he said indifferently, "for I recognise
+certain points of resemblance to her sister, whose perfections, however,
+the Princess Borghese cannot hope to emulate."
+
+"Pardon me, sir," stammered the secretary in tones which he vainly
+strove to render icy,--"but this is the Villa Borghese and not a public
+museum."
+
+The intruder looked down with amused bonhommie. "I am an acquaintance of
+the Prince," he vouchsafed, "and have been invited by him to view his
+art collections."
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese
+
+Portrait statue by Canova at Villa Borghese]
+
+Celio bridled with increased importance. "Prince Borghese's specimens of
+antique sculpture are in the palazzo where, if the Signor will
+announce himself, he will doubtless be accorded the privilege of seeing
+them. This palazzita is the private boudoir of the Princess."
+
+"So much the better," the other laughed. "But when she commanded that
+statue she doubtless contemplated the possibility of its being admired
+by other eyes than her own. No insult is intended, my young popinjay. It
+is all in the family. Restrain your indignation and inform the Princess
+that the King of Naples is waiting here in obedience to her
+appointment."
+
+The secretary was not pleased with this message, and he liked still less
+the manner in which it was received, for the Princess hurried to meet
+her brother-in-law and allowed him to salute her gallantly upon both
+cheeks, and to address her as "Paulette."
+
+Celio, excused from attendance, had no opportunity, though he stood
+sentinel in the loggia, to overhear their conversation. Finally the
+Princess summoned him. "Order my carriage," she commanded, "and the
+caleche, and ask the attendance of my first lady-in-waiting. Tell
+Maurice to arrange a lunch-hamper quickly. His Majesty insists he must
+set out this afternoon for Naples. We will accompany him as far as
+Mondragone and picnic there."
+
+So they dashed away on the road to Frascati, the Princess lolling alone
+in her open carriage, for Murat had declined the seat beside her, though
+he kept his horse recklessly near her wheels, Celio following with the
+maid of honour and the lunch basket in the caleche, and one of Murat's
+orderlies (the other had been dispatched to order his suite to meet him
+at Mondragone) bringing up the rear.
+
+At the wildest and steepest part of the road the party halted, and the
+Princess alighting announced her intention of taking a short cut across
+the hills while the carriages followed the more circuitous driveway.
+Murat threw his reins to his orderly, and Celio, true to his
+self-constituted duties as dragon, left the maid of honour dozing in the
+caleche and followed his mistress. She had brought a tall staff, knotted
+with a tri-colour ribbon, which she used as an alpenstock, springing
+lightly over the steep boulders, while the athletic Murat kept pace with
+the easy swinging stride of a mountaineer. Suddenly Celio saw him catch
+the Princess by the arm and both stood as though instantaneously frozen.
+Then, as the secretary came panting up, Murat handed the Princess to
+him, and taking a few steps forward and apparently addressing the
+landscape, for Celio saw no one said in a voice of calm but inflexible
+authority: "Lay down your gun, and come from behind that rock."
+
+To Celio's astonishment a villainous appearing brigand advanced and
+knelt at Murat's feet.
+
+"Why did you not shoot me when I was at the lower turn of the road, my
+friend?" Murat demanded; "you had the better opportunity then, for I had
+not discovered you, and I was for several minutes within your range."
+
+"True, your Majesty," replied the bandit, "but I said to myself, 'that
+is too magnificent a figure of a man to kill, even though he is a
+king.'"
+
+Murat laughed. "I will return the compliment," he said, writing rapidly
+on a card. "You have too much discrimination and obey orders too well to
+be a brigand. I wonder now if you have heard of a secret organisation
+called the Carbonari? I thought so" (replying by an almost imperceptible
+gesture to a signal made by the bandit); "you see you have made a
+mistake, for I also am a member of the order. All in time, my good
+fellow, and you shall use your rifle against the Austrians. Take this to
+the recruiting office of the Neapolitan army at Castel di Rocca. Never
+fear, it is no trap. This young man will read it for you." And the
+secretary read: "Give this brave fellow a place in the Corps of
+Calabrian Sharpshooters, and assure Captain Castiglione that he can be
+relied upon for expert guerilla service. Giacomo Re."
+
+The man went away trembling with emotion but Murat called to him: "Come
+back, you have forgotten your gun," and stood carelessly regarding the
+view with his back turned while the would-be assassin regained
+possession of his weapon.
+
+The Princess clapped her hands. "I understand now," she said, "why you
+bore a charmed life when you came dashing out of the smoke of the
+battle-field, sweeping within a few feet of the muzzles of the enemy's
+guns. It needed not the command of the Czar that you were not to be
+fired upon,--the gunners could no more have done so than this poor
+outlaw. I comprehend also how you have managed to augment the roll of
+your army, which on your accession included but fifty thousand names, to
+its present list of seventy-five thousand, and at the same time have so
+marvellously reduced the number of brigands in your kingdom."
+
+"Partly in this way," he acknowledged, lightly, "but the Austrian
+officers would be surprised to know how many of my best disciplined
+soldiers have had the advantage of their drilling."
+
+"Deserters?" the Princess asked.
+
+"And whole companies in Northern Italy waiting for the first symptoms of
+a war with Italy to desert en masse."
+
+When the party reached Mondragone the custodian, surprised at their
+coming (for the villa had been long unoccupied), unbarred the shutters
+and let the light into the dusty salons.
+
+"It is roomy enough for a barracks," Murat remarked as he wandered
+through suite after suite of the great tenantless rooms.
+
+"I forbid you so to use it," the Princess jested, "though you may occupy
+Mondragone yourself when you lay siege to Rome."
+
+"It would not be a bad headquarters," he said as they came out upon the
+terrace. "Imagine a semaphore in the place of those monstrous and absurd
+columns--what are they, by the way? One could waft signals from Rome to
+Calabria and from the Adriatic to the Tirrenian."
+
+That was an exaggeration, of course, but Mondragone would have been a
+good station in such a signal service.
+
+"Those absurd columns," the Princess replied, "might themselves serve
+as semaphores. They are chimneys, colossal enough to serve a foundry,
+though they do duty to simple kitchens, those which prepared the
+excellent dinners with which Pope Paul V. entertained his guests. When
+the smoke rises from that one I can see the cloudy column from my
+windows at Rome."
+
+"And I could see it far on the road from Naples," he mused, and then the
+two wandered away from their watching dragon and leaning on the
+balustrade with their faces toward the magnificent view earnestly
+discussed projects which had nothing to do with that unrivalled
+panorama.
+
+Celio was in torment. What was Murat saying in that low, guarded voice,
+while his hand clenched and crushed the roses that swarmed over the
+balustrade and scattered their petals to the wind? Why did the
+Princess's colour come and go as she listened, her cheek much too near
+his passionate lips?
+
+Since there was no way of overhearing this equivocal conversation, it
+must at all hazards be interrupted, and Celio prematurely announced the
+_al fresco_ supper. Here, while he fluttered behind them in a pretence
+of service, he heard both too much for his peace of mind and too little
+for his complete enlightenment.
+
+At first the talk was of family matters, chiefly of Napoleon at Elba,
+with whom Pauline begged her brother-in-law to be reconciled, for this
+was in the summer of 1814, when Murat, foreseeing that Napoleon's star
+had set, had signed a treaty with the allies.
+
+"One would think I had done enough for your brother," he said, moodily.
+"I left my kingdom to lead the cavalry of the _grande armee_ in the
+Russian campaign. I gained his victories and I commanded the _escadron
+sacree_ which protected his person in the retreat, and what is my
+reward?"
+
+"What is your present position?" the Princess asked.
+
+"I am your brother-in-law," Murat replied, "but, as I wrote Napoleon, I
+conferred as much honour as I received when I married your sister, and,
+as for my kingship, the Emperor wished only a devoted servant whom he
+could command, and he has discovered his mistake."
+
+The eyes of Pauline Bonaparte shot fire while the other spoke. "You are
+very stupid to talk in this way to me, Joachim," she said, commanding
+herself in time. "You needed Napoleon--you need him now, for your
+scheme will never succeed unless he supports you. It is your good
+fortune that he needs you enough to forgive your defection. The family
+stands or falls together, _mon ami_."
+
+"Evidently your mother does not think so," Murat replied, with pique. "I
+have just brought Madame Mere a present of eight fine carriage-horses.
+She declined them with thanks, and would not see me when I called on her
+in Rome. As for my loving brother-in-law, your noble husband----"
+
+"Why should you mind Camillo's sulks since I do not? He and Madame Mere
+have such amusing ideas. It was not so much Caroline's correspondence
+with your 'dear Metternich' which offended them and my brother, too.
+They have never forgotten that little affair of the silver lemon
+squeezer. Ah, _mon ami_! you had had too much champagne when you brewed
+that bowl of punch at the officers' dinner."
+
+"I never said that it was the Empress who taught me the recipe and gave
+me the lemon squeezer," he retorted, flushing.
+
+"Oh! no; nor told you that oranges and not lemons were used with Jamaica
+rum in the islands; nor why pretty creoles were like lemons."
+
+"Do you mean to provoke me?" Murat exclaimed, rising quickly.
+
+"No, _mon ami_, though I shared in that suspicion, too, for they called
+me a creole on my return from San Domingo."
+
+Murat's jaw fell. "Do you mean that your husband thought I meant _you_?"
+he asked.
+
+"Prince Borghese is too polite a man to voice such a suspicion, and I am
+too clever a woman to show that I have guessed it, but that is reason
+enough why I cannot accept my sister's invitation to take possession of
+the entrancing Neapolitan villa which you so kindly offer me."
+
+"You are like your mother. You refuse my peace-offerings; you will not
+visit us?"
+
+"Peace-offerings, yes; but make me some offerings of war, that fine
+army, for instance; and, by the way, if you will give me a yacht instead
+of the villa I may consent to be your guest. Meantime we understand each
+other. I will give immediate orders to my people that no fire is on any
+account to be lighted in the Pope's kitchens, as the chimneys are
+unsafe. Should I perceive a column of smoke rising from them I shall
+know that you are here, and I will come to you. If, on the other hand, I
+hear that you are in this vicinity on the business of which we spoke, I
+shall make Mondragone my residence; and should you perceive my smoke
+signal----"
+
+"Then," he interrupted, speaking very low, but so distinctly that
+Celio's heart froze as he listened--"then, Paulette, be the danger what
+it may, heaven nor hell shall keep me from you."
+
+They parted in the most commonplace manner, the Princess returning to
+Rome after the conclusion of the repast, but, though she appeared to
+sleep all the way, Celio marked when she alighted that her face,
+illuminated by the strong glare that blazed from the open door of the
+villa, was haggard as from long vigils.
+
+Deeply distressed, the poor dragon spent a sleepless night, but towards
+morning an inspiration came to him. He saw his way to saving his lady
+without arousing the suspicions of her husband. She had forbidden the
+use of the Pope's chimneys to the guardian of the villa, plainly that
+they should serve solely as signals between herself and Murat. But the
+reason which she had given for their disuse, that they were unsafe,
+furnished the secretary with his pretext, and he wrote his master urging
+that they should be taken down.
+
+Before the Prince had time to reply the event which he had dreaded took
+place. The Princess, in direct opposition to her husband's parting
+request, announced her determination to visit her sister at Naples. It
+was not in her secretary's province to remonstrate, and he was soon to
+gain a point of view from which the inexplicable behaviour of his
+mistress presented a very different aspect.
+
+Arrived at Naples the Princess and her suite were met by Queen Caroline
+and installed in a charming villa near the city, and on the succeeding
+day the entire household were taken by the King and Queen for a short
+cruise in the royal yacht.
+
+Outside the island of Ischia the party landed, and climbing to a ruined
+tower which commanded an extensive prospect, they plainly discerned in a
+hidden cove a little craft flying a flag unfamiliar at that time to
+Celio Benvoglio, a striped red and white pennon studded with golden
+bees. It was the ensign chosen by Napoleon while lord of Elba, and
+displayed by the six swift sailing pinnaces which made up the Emperor's
+little navy.
+
+Pauline now informed her suite that she was about to pay a visit to her
+brother, which for important reasons must not for the present be
+suspected. Her maids of honour must therefore return to her Neapolitan
+villa, and, to keep up the fiction of her presence, announce on the
+morrow that the Princess had succumbed to an attack of fever. The Court
+physician would pay daily visits as would the King and Queen, but no
+others would be admitted to the secret.
+
+With feminine fondness for intrigue the three maids of honour entered
+into the plan, while Celio, relieved from his tormenting suspicions
+accompanied his mistress to Elba.
+
+Here, admitted to her conferences with her brother as he fulfilled new
+and arduous duties in the transcription of dispatches, he comprehended
+that the secret alliance between the Princess and Murat had been purely
+political, and with what tact she had won him to reconciliation and
+co-operation with Napoleon.
+
+The Emperor's plans were more audacious and far-reaching than ever. In
+their scope the movement for the independence and unification of Italy
+was but a subordinate detail. Pauline knew that her brother was
+developing a great _coup d'etat_, that he would presently escape from
+Elba and seize again the reins of power, and it was she who had first
+perceived and who now explained to him how the undercurrent of events
+in Italy might become a factor in his scheme.
+
+Agitators had been busy in every part of the peninsula firing patriot
+hearts to throw off the domination of the three foreign powers which
+held them enslaved. The King of Naples by naturalising himself as an
+Italian, and compelling his French soldiers to do so, had been permitted
+to take part in the plot. It is possible that the revolutionists, who
+saw the immense advantage of the services of so able a general as Murat,
+intended to repudiate him after they had gained their ends. But at that
+time they flattered him with the hope of becoming the king as well as
+the deliverer of all Italy.
+
+As Celio Benvoglio toiled over his papers he was amazed at the
+imagination of his mistress which had first discerned the possibility of
+making the cause of Italian liberty serve her brother's ambitious
+imperialism, and the marvellous finesse with which she had vanquished
+Murat's gascon envy and resentment and made him once more a tool in the
+hand of the Emperor. Still more he admired Napoleon's acumen and
+resource as he saw order coming out of chaos and all things working
+together for the success of his stupendous undertaking. The Emperor had
+planned to first secure Paris, and then, proclaiming the independence of
+Italy, to make common cause with her against Austria and at the head of
+the united French and Italian armies, one hundred thousand strong, march
+by way of the Julian Alps upon Vienna.
+
+As the impressionable secretary traced the burning proclamation which
+Napoleon dictated to his old soldiers, he doubted not that it would fire
+the heart of every veteran and the great enterprise seemed infallible.
+
+"Take again the eagles you followed at Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and
+Montmirail," pleaded their adored commander. "Range yourselves under the
+banners of your old chief. Victory shall march with every step. In your
+old age you shall say with pride, I also was one of that great army
+which twice entered the walls of Vienna, took Rome, Berlin, Madrid, and
+Moscow, and which delivered Paris from domestic treason and the
+occupation of strangers."
+
+What wonder that, carried away by the immensity and daring of the
+conquest of the continent, the happiness of one longing heart should
+have seemed a very insignificant thing, and that Celio should have quite
+forgotten that his master, Camillo Borghese, was waiting for some
+reassuring word from him, that he had heard of the Princess's reckless
+removal to Naples, and was distracted between anger at her flagrant
+disregard of his wishes, suspicion of what such heartlessness might
+mean, and acute distress on learning of her illness? The Prince could
+not, on account of personal reasons, present himself at the Court of the
+King of Naples, but he had written repeatedly to Celio Benvoglio and
+these letters the first maid of honour, finding no opportunity to
+forward to Elba, had judged best to retain at Naples unopened until the
+return of the secretary.
+
+So the days flew for the Princess and dragged for her husband, until at
+midnight on the twenty-seventh of February, 1815, Napoleon with his
+handful of devoted soldiers embarked for France, and his sister returned
+to Naples with instructions for Murat. Then the Neapolitan villa was
+suddenly vacated and the seven carriages of the Princess took up their
+line of march for Rome.
+
+She had found awaiting her at Naples letters in which her husband
+passionately besought her to return; and, while her face flushed as she
+realised the motives which he attributed to Murat, her heart swelled
+with triumph that he believed in her in spite of all.
+
+"He loves me!" she murmured to herself unguardedly, in the presence of
+her secretary.
+
+"Then give me leave to write him," the young man cried, impulsively,
+"that I may relieve his anxiety. Let me bid him join you at Rome. Think,
+dearest madam, what he must suffer."
+
+But at that word the Princess frowned. "And do you think I have not
+suffered?" she cried. "I am glad that he is jealous, since it proves
+that he can love. Nevertheless I would gladly summon him if I could. But
+do you not see, Celio, that he must not be implicated in our plots? If
+we fail, he must be known to have had no letters from me. I forbid you
+to communicate with him until I give you permission. Camillo is too
+honest to make a good conspirator. If I can wait, cannot you? The game
+may not be worth the candle, but I will play it to the end."
+
+The little cavalcade paused at Mondragone, for the Princess had decided
+to spend a few weeks at her Frascati villa. Here, to her indignation,
+she found engineers preparing to take down the Pope's chimneys.
+
+"On whose authority do you presume to do a thing so outrageous?" she
+demanded, and they showed her the order of Prince Borghese.
+
+"Delay the execution of these instructions until such time as they are
+repeated," she commanded. "I have decided to take up my residence here
+for the present, and cannot be disturbed by repairs and alterations."
+
+When the men were gone she faced her secretary in consternation. "Who
+can have incited Camillo to such a resolution?" she demanded, and the
+consciousness of guilt in his face was a sufficient answer.
+
+"It was you, dear lady, who put the idea into my head," he stammered;
+"you said the chimneys were cracked and might set fire to the villa."
+
+"Spy and traitor," she hissed, "you tried to make it impossible for me
+to communicate with Murat. It is your idiotic suspicions that have
+roused Camillo's jealousy."
+
+"You have said that you were glad of that jealousy," Celio ventured; and
+the Princess laughed bitterly, then softening, said: "I do believe you
+thought yourself acting for my good, oh, foolish little dragon. Confess,
+my poor boy, that Pauline Borghese has the wit to take care of herself."
+
+Very humbly Celio confessed that this was evident, but his troubles were
+by no means over. A fortnight later Italy was electrified by the
+startling rumour that the King of Naples had declared war with Austria
+and was marching toward Lombardy.
+
+The Princess was struck with consternation, for she knew that Napoleon
+could not so soon have perfected his arrangements for making a junction
+with Murat. Though she entertained no one it was noticed by her
+neighbours that the Pope's chimneys smoked continually, as though the
+most elaborate banquets were in preparation and one night the expected
+guest arrived.
+
+Murat had intended to give Rome a wide berth, stealing around it by the
+Abruzzi. But his left wing had scouts on the western slopes of the
+Sabine Mountains and were instructed to keep a lookout for the smoke
+signal from Mondragone, and he had ridden across the mountains for a day
+and half a night to answer her summons.
+
+She gave him food and a fresh horse, but she sent him back to the
+Castello Borghese at Monte Compatri for his lodging, with many
+reproaches and gloomy prophecies for his mad precipitation in
+anticipating the _mot d'ordre_ of Napoleon.
+
+Theirs was no loving tryst, but a stormy altercation, for Murat defended
+his act and refused her entreaties, which were rather in the nature of
+commands, to go back to Naples and wait for advice from his general.
+
+"Why should I put myself under his orders?" he demanded. "Austria has
+taken alarm and is pouring its forces into Lombardy. If I do not secure
+Milan at once it will be too late and the opportunity will be lost. Who
+knows when Napoleon will think of us? They say he is at Paris preparing
+to meet the allies in Belgium. Our little rendezvous for the excursion
+to Vienna is apparently forgotten. He has other matters to attend to.
+Well, so have I. I am weary of governing for him. When I am King of
+Italy I will rule according to the ideas of Joachim Murat."
+
+"You would never have been a King in name but for him," she replied
+hotly, "you are not fit to rule. You are a good soldier, Joachim, but
+you need your master."
+
+So they parted in bitterness, and Celio, who was present at their
+interview, rejoiced that such was the manner of their parting, and
+prayed that they might never meet again, but that prayer was not to be
+answered.
+
+The Princess returned to Rome and soon received information of the
+fulfilment of her prophecy. For a few days Murat held Bologna, then the
+Austrians swooped down upon him and he met them gallantly, but
+disastrously, near Modena. Reverse followed reverse and at Tolentino his
+mad campaign of six weeks ended in total defeat. His army fled in all
+directions, and a refugee brought word that Murat, scorning surrender,
+had fallen sabring desperately to the last.
+
+Pauline received the news, pale but unshaken. "My poor sister," she
+said, and then quickly, "but she knows her refuge; by this time
+doubtless she is on her way to Napoleon." Then a great light illumined
+her face. "The revolution has failed, my work is done. I can now write
+to Camillo."
+
+She was writing when a messenger entered with a letter from her husband.
+"He is coming, Celio," she cried joyfully. "He will be here in an hour.
+He writes that in disaster and grief his place is at my side, and he
+could not wait my summons. Oh, Celio, was there ever such magnanimity?"
+
+As she rang to give orders for her husband's reception, her third maid
+of honour, Pippa Serbonella, a waspish, deceitful creature whom Celio
+had never liked, flung wide the curtain of the window and cried:
+"Eccellentissima, look,--the chimneys of Mondragone!"
+
+It was true, from one of them rose a thin waving scarf of smoke,
+fluttering and beckoning in the light wind. The Princess caught the arm
+of her secretary. "Joachim is not dead!" she cried; "he is there and I
+must go to him."
+
+"Not now, not now, dearest lady," pleaded the young man. "Your husband
+is coming. Think what that means."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," she gasped, wringing her hands, "but I cannot desert
+my brother-in-law in his extremity. I led him into this, Celio. I
+promised to come when he called. I must keep my promise. Stay you, and
+say what you will to Camillo. I will be back this evening."
+
+With many a misgiving the wretched dragon saw her drive away, and a
+little later confronted the eager face of Prince Borghese.
+
+"My wife?" he questioned, and Celio could only stammer, "She has gone
+out for a drive; she will be back presently."
+
+"Did she not receive my letter?" and the Prince had his answer, for it
+lay with broken seal upon her escritoire.
+
+"Did she go to meet me? Have we missed each other?" he asked.
+
+"Not so, your Highness," Pippa Serbonella interpolated, "the Princess
+had another appointment," and again with significant finger and hateful
+smile she pointed to the smoke signal. The Prince stood transfixed, and
+Celio understood from their two faces that the girl had given
+unsolicited full reports of that correspondence written in the air. "Oh!
+you women, you women!" he groaned, and "I will strangle you, traitress,"
+he whispered as she passed him.
+
+But the Prince had other occupation for him at that moment. "Now tell
+the whole truth," he commanded sternly, and the secretary told it,
+exulting that against her will the malicious maid-of-honour must confirm
+his statement that while the Princess had been supposed to be at Naples
+she was really with Napoleon at Elba.
+
+A look of relief smoothed Borghese's forehead for an instant. "I never
+doubted my wife," he declared proudly, "nevertheless the King of Naples
+has certain explanations to make to me. Celio there was in that cabinet
+a case of pistols which the Emperor gave me."
+
+"The Princess took them with her this morning," Pippa vouchsafed
+officiously.
+
+"Ah!" the Prince drew in his breath. "It is of no consequence," he
+added. "General Murat will require but one and will doubtless lend me
+the other. Quick, Celio, our horses. The Princess has only an hour the
+start of us. We will overtake them at Mondragone."
+
+They passed her in fact at Frascati where they saw her carriage standing
+unharnessed before the inn. "She is resting," said the Prince, "we will
+not disturb her until after our business at Mondragone is finished."
+
+At the gate an astonished servant took their horses, and as the Prince
+walked through the shady cypress avenue his brain cooled and he formed a
+resolution differing from the one that had brought him to the villa.
+Upon the fountain terrace they saw the man they had come to seek. Not
+the galliard of his last visit, but a hunted refugee, his gaudy hussar
+uniform soiled and torn, the ballas ruby which had buckled his aigrette
+shot from his hat, and a tiny rill of blood trickling from his matted
+hair upon the golden bees that ornamented the sky-blue velvet tunic.
+Stretched prone upon a marble bench, sleeping the sleep of utter
+exhaustion, his sword-arm beneath his head, the other trailing relaxed
+upon the ground, he was entirely at the mercy of the man who looked down
+upon his haggard face.
+
+The Prince studied it for a moment in silence, then, with finger on lip,
+drew Celio into the loggia. "Let him rest," he whispered, "time enough
+when he awakes."
+
+Ere that happened footsteps were heard and the voice of the Princess
+calling, "Joachim, where are you?"
+
+Murat sprang up instantly.
+
+"Paulette, is it you?"
+
+"It is I. O mon Dieu; how you have changed! but we heard you were
+killed. Thank God, that is not true."
+
+"I am beaten, which is worse," he said bitterly. "You were right, you
+see, quite right, all is lost--why do you not say 'I told you so'?"
+
+"No," she exclaimed, "all is not lost. Go at once to Napoleon, confess
+your error, and atone for it."
+
+"He will never forgive me," Murat replied; "and why should he, with his
+army of three hundred thousand men and an Imperial Guard of forty
+thousand chosen veterans? What have I to offer him? My troops have
+deserted me. I have nothing to fight with and nothing for which to
+fight."
+
+"My brother needs you," the Princess insisted. "He may have soldiers
+enough, but he knows there is no such leader of cavalry in all the world
+as you, and he is about to engage in a crucial struggle with Wellington.
+You have your marvellous leadership to offer. You say you have nothing
+to fight for. Think of your honour, and of Caroline."
+
+"Ah! I had forgotten her, poor child. I will do as you say, Paulette.
+You have the brains of your family in your little head. Perhaps that is
+the reason the good God made Caroline more attractive. Well, one more
+fight for her sake, and she shall thank you for it. I shall get to
+Naples in some way, then by sea to Marseilles, and then to Napoleon."
+
+"Good!" cried the Princess. "Did you find your horse in the stables? I
+gave orders to have him well cared for until you claimed him. I have
+brought a disguise and arms and money. Now, off with you, for I can
+waste no more time. Ah! how much we have already wasted, Joachim, in
+this mad pursuit of ambition, when only love was worth the while. My
+sister will rejoice to retire with you to private life and to know of
+my happiness, for Camillo is waiting for me at Rome, and all the cruel
+misunderstanding is over!"
+
+Thus ended Celio Benvoglio's dragon-service, for the Prince, forced
+either to overhear or interrupt the foregoing conversation, had
+fortunately chosen the former alternative. And here, perchance, should
+the story end, for the after-history of Joachim Murat is a tragical
+addendum to that happy denouement.
+
+Pauline overestimated her brother's magnanimity, Napoleon coldly refused
+the profferred services of his brother-in-law, confessing afterwards
+that this implacability lost him the battle of Waterloo, for Ney could
+not equal Murat in his skilful manoeuvring of horse.
+
+Murat, desperate, took refuge in Corsica, where he raised a little band
+of two hundred and fifty men, and landed near Naples, believing that his
+old troops would rally to his standard. Indifferent, or perhaps unable
+to help him, they abandoned him to his fate.
+
+He faced his executioners with unbandaged eyes and himself gave the
+order to fire.
+
+According to the account of an eye-witness, he first kissed the
+miniature of his wife, which he carried within the case of his watch,
+and with the request, "Spare my face," directed the aim of the soldiers
+to his breast.
+
+Their firmness did not equal his own, and he was obliged to twice give
+the command before it was obeyed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE BRANDISHED LANCE
+
+I
+
+THE QUEST
+
+
+Robert Devreux, Earl of Essex, was in one of his worst moods as he
+strode the deck of his flag-ship in Cadiz Bay on a certain June morning
+in 1596.
+
+And yet this favourite of Fortune stood then at the summit of his
+career, having by a brilliant assault taken the city for England, while
+a letter whose seal he had just broken assured him of the doting
+infatuation of England's Queen.
+
+It was precisely this letter, as he now explained to his friend, which
+occasioned his dissatisfaction.
+
+"You will not refuse me, Will," he pleaded, "since I can not undertake
+the quest, you must go in my stead. These papers contain negotiations
+of such delicacy that Henry of Navarre dared not send them overland
+through France, and my word is pledged to him to deliver them personally
+into the hands of the Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici, at his villa in
+Rome.
+
+"When I met the King at Boulogne, on our first night out, this seemed an
+easy thing to do, for I had reason to believe that our cruise would
+extend to Italy. But now in the hour of my victory, when I have sacked
+Cadiz, I open the Queen's letter (which was not to be read until the
+accomplishment of that task), and find that, instead of being permitted
+to proceed, I must first sail at once for England; and all forsooth
+because of her love and impatience to reward the valour of her
+favourite! Can such a summons be disregarded? Assuredly not; but my
+honour and the fate of the Protestant cause in France hang upon your
+decision.
+
+"Since it means so much," replied the other, "assuredly I will not fail
+you. But why may I not do this under my own name, as your authorised
+messenger?"
+
+"Because the Grand Duke expects the Earl of Essex, the accredited deputy
+of the King of France. The deputy of a deputy would have no prestige
+with him, and would not even be admitted as guest at the villa. And it
+is with its lady, mark you, that your true errand lies.
+
+"These negotiations have to do with the marriage of Henry of Navarre to
+the Grand Duke's niece Marie de' Medici. Ferdinando will make and break
+treaties as suits his advantage. The lady's heart must be gained, she
+must be made so ardently to desire this marriage that she will refuse
+all other suitors. In short you must woo and win her for the King of
+France. For such a task you have every qualification. You possess a
+knowledge of the Italian language and the understanding of its
+temperament and character which comes from sympathy. The Italians will
+not need to know that you bear the name of Brandilancia to recognise
+that you are the embodiment of the type of chivalry dreamed of by their
+poets. Beware, however, of receiving or giving too much love, for report
+hath it that the heiress of the Medici is surpassingly beautiful."
+
+Brandilancia smiled somewhat bitterly. "You should know," he said, "that
+my heart is in England and though my love should remain forever
+unrequited, it can never be given to another."
+
+"An excellent safeguard, in the present business," the Earl replied
+cheerily, "so here are all objections overcome, and may you have many a
+merry experience to recount when next we meet in England."
+
+Hand met hand upon that compact, and while one Earl of Essex pursued his
+homeward course another in a swift sailing pinnace flew eastward bound
+upon adventures of which the archives of the English Admiralty preserve
+no record.
+
+As the young adventurer Brandilancia, who was to play the part of the
+true Essex, rode up the hill crowned by the Villa Medici he was struck
+by the resemblance of the massive retaining walls to those of some
+medieval fortress. As such they had served in ancient days, holding the
+villa safe in their protecting embrace from any uprising of the populace
+of Rome, while on the side toward the Campagna they had withstood more
+than one siege of the Goths. But high aloft, near the summit of this
+cliff of natural rock and hewn stone the inhospitable windowless expanse
+was broken by a row of arched openings, and silhouetted against the dark
+void of one of these he caught a glimpse of a face framed in golden
+hair.
+
+Though so far above him the lady, who had been gazing down the road from
+sheer ennui, had noticed the graceful figure of the cavalier, and had
+watched his approach until he halted with upturned face beneath her
+window. At that instant a little fan opening as it fell, dropped from
+her hand and fluttered in the light breeze, like a bird with a broken
+wing, beyond the road and into the ravine at its side.
+
+Instantly Brandilancia sprang from his horse and, vaulting over the low
+embankment, clambered down the incline. A smiling contadina, who was
+beating out her linen on the margin of a basin of water, assisted him in
+his search, but having found the fan she was so curious in regard to its
+donor that Brandilancia endeavoured to divert her attention by plying
+her with questions concerning the locality. From her replies he learned
+that the washing pool was fed from an old aqueduct which passed under
+the Villa Medici on its way to supply the fountains of Rome.
+
+"See, Signor," she said, pointing out a nail-studded oaken door
+concealed in the angle of a huge abutment, "they say that if that door
+were not bolted on the inside one might enter the tunnel which brings
+the water through the hill from its source miles away. There is a
+legend, too, that a Roman princess who lived up yonder, centuries ago,
+betrayed the secret to the barbarians, who came through the tunnel and
+sacked Rome."
+
+Brandilancia paid little heed to this information, not dreaming that he
+would one day be indebted to it for escape from the villa which he was
+now so blithely entering. Climbing back to the roadway he waved the fan
+above his head and was greeted by a light clapping of hands from the
+lofty window. Who could the lady be? He would ascertain in time, and
+until he did so it was pleasant to reflect that some one within the
+villa was interested in his coming and had wafted him this welcome.
+
+He had need of hospitality for he was faint from the ride from Ostia in
+the heat of an Italian June. The beautiful gardens glowed in dazzling
+sunshine which the scintillating jets of the fountains reflected and
+intensified. The statues seemed to shrink from the blinding light into
+their niches in the great square-cut hedges, and the tessellated
+pavement was hot beneath his tread.
+
+Every detail of the antique relievi which the facade of the palace had
+been designed to display was brought out by the intense illumination. In
+its lavish ornamentation and elegant proportions the building suggested
+a carved ivory cabinet, but one rifled of its jewels, for except for the
+keeper of the gate-lodge, to whom he had tossed his bridle, he had met
+no guards. The great doorway stood invitingly open, but Brandilancia
+hesitated to enter and looked about for some means of announcing his
+presence.
+
+"Is the villa under some enchantment?" he asked himself. "If so some imp
+or sprite should lurk hereabouts and now make its appearance."
+
+As if in answer to this mental question a peal of elfish laughter
+greeted his ear,--a mirthless, falsetto cackle, like that of a parrot,
+and half hidden behind one of the great marble lions in the shade of the
+loggia he discerned a grotesque little creature, with the figure of a
+child and a woman's face, old in its expression of slyness and
+malignity.
+
+Brandilancia started, although he knew that it was the custom of Italian
+princes to maintain dwarfs in their households. This woman, probably a
+dependent, was dressed like a princess. Her dress though soiled was of
+stiff brocade embroidered with gold thread, and the high lace ruff,
+which made her swarthy complexion darker by contrast with its whiteness,
+was edged with seed pearls.
+
+"Come in, my lord," she croaked. "The Grand Duke regretted that, obliged
+to be temporarily in Florence, he could not receive you, but awaiting
+his return the villa is at your service, and the Grand Duchess and the
+Signorina will endeavour to make the time pass pleasantly."
+
+He followed her, wondering as to her position. "How did you know me?" he
+asked. "You are expected," she replied, "and no one but an Englishman
+would have called at the hour of the siesta. Shall I show your worship
+to your own room, or will you await the ladies in the library?" His hand
+was on the little fan, and he was striving to frame some question whose
+answer would enlighten him as to the giver, but the dwarf's last word
+caught his ear, and acted like the scent of spirits upon a man thirsting
+for drink.
+
+"To the library, by all means," he replied eagerly, and, as the heavy
+portieres were drawn aside, the tiny creature at his side and even the
+golden-haired woman who had greeted his coming so graciously were for
+the moment clean forgotten, for he comprehended that one of his dearest
+hopes, long thwarted but never entirely relinquished, the hidden
+personal motive which had been the determining factor in his acceptance
+of this mission, was now about to be realised. The immense room from
+floor to cornice was walled with books: the writings of the fathers of
+the church--huge folios hasped in brass and ornamented with priceless
+illuminations--side by side with pagan literature, Greek manuscripts,
+and volumes of the Roman classics, while all the new harvest of the
+Italian Renaissance, in every department then known, had been carefully
+garnered. But high above the marshalled works of the poets, which his
+fingers lingeringly caressed as he passed them by, Brandilancia had
+detected a row of small volumes, and a thrill of triumphant delight shot
+through his frame as he climbed the step-ladder and with eager fingers
+plucked them from their niches.
+
+For here were the novelli of Boccaccio, Masaccio, and Bandello, of
+Giraldi Cinthio and Ser Giovanni Fiorentino and of many another writer
+of romantic tales of whimsical gaiety, of intrigue, or of tragedy, and
+Brandilancia was a playwright gifted with a most exceptional genius for
+adaptation. He had read a few of these tales and had realised that they
+contained admirable material for dramatisation, but now by a turn of the
+wheel of Fortune the entire inexhaustible mine of absorbing plot of
+piquant situation and contrasting characters, slightly sketched but
+waiting only the touch of genius to spring into life, lay open before
+him.
+
+With a sigh of supreme satisfaction he sank into the nearest chair and
+read like one under the influence of some hypnotic spell.
+
+The secretary of the Grand Duke entered the library, shuffled about
+noisily, coughed, and even addressed him, but the reader was unconscious
+of his presence.
+
+Curious as to what so enthralled the stranger the man of the ink-horn
+tiptoed behind him, read the title over his shoulder, and laughed aloud.
+Brandilancia surprised, laid down the volume and demanded the cause of
+this demonstration.
+
+"Pardon me, Signor," replied the secretary, "but I could not refrain,
+your absorption pays me a great compliment for I am the author of that
+book."
+
+"You, sir?" exclaimed the half incredulous reader.
+
+"I, Celio Malespini, Secretary to his Excellency, the Grand Duke, a man
+of letters who has tried his quill in sundry other fields, as well."
+
+"Then, Signor Malespini, accept my congratulations, for this story of
+the company of the Calza of Venice is one of the merriest I have ever
+read, and makes me eager to see their festival. Have you written other
+books as entertaining?"
+
+"I have as yet written no others," replied Celio, flattered and wholly
+won by the stranger's praise, "but since you care for my poor efforts I
+can lay before your worship those of other authors more worthy of your
+attention."
+
+From inconspicuous nooks and corners he dragged them forth and piled
+them before the appreciative Brandilancia, who forgot all else until a
+servant announced that his hostesses would receive him in the grand
+salon a half hour before the hour of dining.
+
+Even then he would have turned again to the fascinating volumes had not
+the valet's added information that the luggage of the Signor was in his
+room reminded him that dinner in such a house was a function and not
+simply an opportunity for absorbing the provender necessary to sustain
+life.
+
+Fortunately, Brandilancia was an accomplished actor as well as writer,
+and his theatrical experience had taught him to make quick changes not
+only of costume, but of mental points of view and characteristics, and
+Essex's wardrobe became him no more than the grace and manner of the
+gallant young nobleman which he assumed with equal ease.
+
+The transformation effected within the next hour was even deeper than
+this, for as his eyes met those of Marie de' Medici he knew that here,
+either for good or evil, was a woman destined to exert a compelling
+influence upon his life.
+
+It was not love, he told himself, for he was on his guard against that
+passion. She did not impress him as beautiful. Her eyes were overbold
+and searching but cold; but her bearing arrogant at first, softened as
+the days went by into a frank comradeship, and he discovered that she
+possessed a cultured and an appreciative mind.
+
+Hitherto Brandilancia had hidden a sensitive heart craving the sympathy
+that no woman had ever given him, under a gay and sportive exterior
+which made him a prince of good fellows, a man's man, and a loyal lover
+of his comrades, though they were far from appreciating his genius and
+his aims. But every serious conversation held with his young hostess
+confirmed him in his delusion that he had found a friend capable of
+understanding him. That she did not as yet wholly do so was the fault of
+his cursed disguise, which confused her perceptions of his real
+character with preconceived ideas of Essex. He longed to reveal himself
+to her, and did so to a greater degree than he realised.
+
+Especially was this the case upon one memorable morning when, piqued
+that he should spend so much time in the library, she had followed him
+to that retreat.
+
+She had found him absorbed in Luigi da Porto's novel _La Giulietta_, "a
+pitiable history that occurred at Verona in the time of Bartolommeo
+Scala," and she watched him slyly for some minutes amused by his
+preoccupation before interrupting his feast.
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed at length in pleased surprise, "you have chanced
+upon my favourite of all the books in my uncle's library. How many tears
+have I shed for these poor lovers but chiefly because I knew no Romeo so
+brave and noble and handsome to tempt me to die for him, or so devoted
+as to die for me. That was when I was a child of ten, my lord. I have
+learned since that such love exists only in novels, and have ceased to
+cry for it."
+
+"You are very cynical, sweet lady," he replied, "and unkind to the
+novelists, whom I hold in worshipful esteem."
+
+"And I also esteem them. It is precisely because the life they tell of
+is so different from my own, in which nothing ever happens, that a
+book-cover is for me a magic door by whose opening I escape out of the
+unendurable present. Even more than the novels do I love the plays, and
+to see them acted is better than to read them, best of all it must be to
+act in one. Ah! that would indeed be like living another life."
+
+"True, dear lady," he answered eagerly, "but there is a form of
+diversion which to my mind is the most fascinating of all, and that is
+the writing of a drama, for in so doing we create a little world of our
+own, and control the destinies of the men and women whom we bring into
+being."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. "But I care only to be the author of my own
+role."
+
+"And what," he asked, "would you choose that role to be?"
+
+"I would be a Princess beloved by the King of the greatest nation in the
+world. Beloved, mark you, not bargained for, but sought out personally
+by the King who should love me for myself alone, a manifestly impossible
+plot even for a play."
+
+"On the contrary, 't is a good one. Let us collaborate now in the
+planning of such a scheme. Let us suppose that for political reasons the
+King could not come in his proper person, but having learned to love you
+from report, were to seek you out incognito. Let us also imagine him so
+happy as to win your love. Would you be capable of the devotion which
+you demand of him?"
+
+"Would I wed such a King whom I had learned to love, though in disguise?
+Most certainly."
+
+"Ah! dear lady, you wilfully disregard the point I make. Would you wed
+this true lover, not knowing that he was a King? Let me put it still
+more strongly. Would you give yourself to the _man_ you loved knowing
+that he was not of royal birth?"
+
+"Ah! that is a different question; but I answer yes, for I am certain
+that my intuitions are so true that I could never love a man who was not
+in every sense a King."
+
+He smiled indulgently. "So be it, we will write such a drama and show
+the world how true love pierces all disguise, and knowing its own,
+challenges all dangers."
+
+She listened eagerly, but she attributed an interpretation which he had
+not intended to his perfectly simple suggestion. Placing her own
+personality out of the question was impossible for one so absorbed in
+self as this egoistic young creature. If Henry of Navarre were but like
+his Ambassador how easy it would be to love him! and suddenly it flashed
+through her mind that they were indeed one and the same. What other
+signification could be placed upon this supposititious drama which they
+were to evolve together?
+
+Intrigue ran in her blood and distorted her perceptions. Transparent
+frankness was incomprehensible to her, and it appealed to her romantic
+imagination that the King of France should come like the hero of some
+wonder-tale disguised as his own envoy extraordinary to see and woo his
+princess.
+
+Had she confided this wild idea to the experienced Malespini or to her
+companion, the dwarf Leonora, whose shrewd intellect was out of all
+proportion to her stunted body, she might easily have been disabused of
+her error; but with an overweening confidence in the accuracy of her own
+judgment she determined to weigh every sentence uttered by the man who
+purported to be the Earl of Essex and draw her own conclusions as to his
+identity.
+
+To a mind preconvinced, proofs were not wanting. Brandilancia, fancying
+that the little fan had fallen from the hand of Marie de' Medici by
+accident, naively offered to return it. Her face clouded. "Then you do
+not care to keep my first gift?" she pouted.
+
+"Your gift? _May_ I then keep it?" he asked delighted.
+
+"In exchange for the ring you wear," she replied, and he laid it in her
+hand.
+
+She examined with curiosity the device engraved upon the seal, a
+gauntleted hand holding a lance in rest.
+
+"Essex gave me that ring," he said thoughtlessly, for he was too excited
+to measure his own words. "I value it, not because I have a right to the
+arms it bears, but because he thought me a true knight errant eager for
+any enterprise of honour and gallantry."
+
+"Essex gave it. Then you are not Essex?" she asked smiling.
+
+"'T was but a slip of the tongue," he replied confusedly. "It was the
+King of France who presented it to me when I joined him with the English
+auxiliaries at the siege of Rouen. We were much in each other's company,
+not only in the main business of fighting, but in hawking and hunting in
+the neighbourhood. It was the enemy's country, and this gave zest to our
+escapades." He spoke rapidly but he could not distract her attention
+from his inadvertent admission.
+
+"Yes," she commented thoughtfully, "I have heard that you were friends
+and comrades in many a wild adventure. Tell me more of the King, since
+you of all others should know him best."
+
+[Illustration: _Neurdein_
+
+Henri IV. receiving the portrait of Marie de Medici
+
+P. P. Rubens
+
+From the series of paintings ordered by her for the Palace of the
+Luxembourg]
+
+"I know, dear lady, that he loves you."
+
+"How can that be since he has never seen me?"
+
+"Love enters the heart through many strange portals, and Henry of
+Navarre knows you better than you suspect. Your portrait sent him by
+your uncle is engraved upon his heart. Love gives a mysterious power of
+second sight, and I doubt not that the King of France sees you at this
+moment even as I do, and that Marie de' Medici is for him as for me the
+embodiment of all womanly perfection."
+
+"The Grand Duchess is approaching," she said in a low voice, "and Henry
+of Navarre is a forbidden topic--talk of anything else--talk of art."
+
+The subject was apropos, for they were in the garden and Ferdinando's
+collection of masterpieces was all about them, but the Grand Duchess had
+caught his closing phrase.
+
+"Who is it," she asked drily, "who has the honour of being the
+embodiment of the Earl of Essex's ideal of womanly perfection?"
+
+"The Medicean Venus," Brandilancia replied unhesitatingly, with a wave
+of the hand which took in that famous statue and also the lady at his
+side.
+
+The Grand Duchess sniffed, she was silenced but not deceived, and she
+remained at her niece's side through the remainder of the afternoon.
+
+As several guests joined them and discussed with great connoisseurship
+the merits of the sculpture Brandilancia's thoughts wandered to his
+host. "What manner of man was this Ferdinando de' Medici who had
+converted his garden pleasance into a museum?"
+
+Mentally reviewing what he had heard of the Grand Duke it seemed that
+all that was most admirable in the race must focus in its present
+representative. But Marie de' Medici had let fall a disquieting remark
+which pointed to another side to his character. "See, your grace," she
+had said to Brandilancia, "here is a favourite play of mine, _Il Moro di
+Venezia_, a sad tragedy but it stirs one's blood to read it. Perhaps it
+stirs mine because it is not long since tragedies like that have been
+enacted in my own family. Love and jealousy and revenge are a part of
+our heritage, and at times I long to come into my birthright, for such
+existence as I now lead is not life."
+
+This half-revelation so impressed Brandilancia that he could not expel
+it from his mind, and when next alone with the secretary, Malespini, he
+begged for an explanation.
+
+"Tell me something," he begged, "of the character of the Grand Duke. I
+do not ask you to divulge private matters, but only such as are public
+property and with which I would be acquainted were I not so newly
+arrived in Italy."
+
+Malespini gave him a compassionate glance. "I thought that all the world
+knew that my master was a child of Satan," he replied coolly. "The
+Signorina told you truly. He caused the death of his two sisters-in-law,
+and was responsible for the murder of his own sister, goading her
+husband the Duke of Bracciano to the act. It is commonly reported also
+that the Signorina's father, the former Grand Duke of Tuscany, together
+with his wife, Bianca Capello, were poisoned by Ferdinando, though he
+made the act appear to be that of the murdered Duchess."
+
+"And what," asked the horrified Brandilancia, "was the motive of this
+crime?"
+
+"Is it not apparent? Ferdinando de Medici, then a cardinal, had just
+failed in his candidacy for the pontificate (outwitted by that fox
+Montalto). If he could not be pope it suited him as well to be Grand
+Duke of Tuscany."
+
+"If this is true is the Signorina safe in his power?"
+
+"So long as their interests are the same, Signor. And you who are the
+friend of Henry of Navarre should know that the Grand Duke is anxious to
+place his niece upon the throne of France. Should she set her will
+against her uncle's ambition he would scruple at no perfidity or crime.
+You wonder why I, who am in his service, should tell you this. It is
+because I am strangely drawn to you. From the moment I saw that you
+appreciated what I had written, that we spoke the same language, strove
+after the same ideals, I was yours heart and soul. They talk of love at
+first sight, a foolish matter between man and woman, but when two men
+recognise that they are congenial spirits it is the most natural and
+inevitable thing in all the world. And so I tell you again, be on your
+guard for your personal safety. If, however unjustly, any distrust of
+you should be awakened in the mind of the Grand Duke, if he imagined
+that the Signorina had learned to care for you, then your life, and hers
+as well, would not be worth one soldo."
+
+This conversation occasioned the guest of the villa serious thought. It
+obtruded itself in the very tales of intrigue, passion, and murder which
+he read to drive it from his mind, those fascinating novelli with their
+records of bloody hereditary vendettas, of innocent or guilty lovers
+alike done to death by indiscriminating cruelty.
+
+"Truly," he thought, "in Italy a woman's kiss and that of a poniard go
+often in such close company that the sweet woman's mouth which lets love
+in almost touches the red mouth of the wound which lets life out."
+
+Though not so definitely explained, he had felt the presence of danger
+before; but so long as it threatened himself alone it added a spice of
+excitement to the adventure; now, however, that he realised what grave
+consequences the least indiscretion on his part might bring upon Marie
+de' Medici herself, he determined to be doubly circumspect.
+
+With this intention he held himself aloof from the superb mundane life
+of the villa, and, retiring to the library, occupied himself in
+translating and rearranging old plays. But all day as he wrote, though
+half unconsciously, his thoughts were with his fair hostess, and always
+at the hour of the siesta of the Grand Duchess Marie de' Medici was with
+him in person. It was on the second morning of his seclusion that she
+had tapped at the door and offered her aid in his work; thus converting
+the very means by which he sought to avoid her into a stratagem for the
+uninterrupted enjoyment of her society.
+
+Had Brandilancia been more sophisticated, it might have struck him as
+exceptional that a princess who been brought up in the strictest
+conventionality should have granted the privilege of such intimate
+association even to so exalted a personage as the Earl of Essex. He
+believed her confidence due to girlish innocence, and was more than ever
+determined to protect her from himself. Leonora was always on guard in
+the ante-room, and joined them whenever she heard the sound of
+approaching footsteps. It surprised this world-wise little sentinel that
+on none of these occasions had the young man appeared to have taken any
+advantage of his opportunity, and she was irritated by the amused
+condescension with which he treated her. He could never realise that
+this grotesque and tiny creature was not an uncanny child, and he had
+nicknamed her good-humouredly The Owlet, on account of her large round
+eyes.
+
+"I had not thought the Earl of Essex so blind," she said to him one day
+when they chanced to be alone.
+
+"My eyes are not fashioned to see in the dark like yours, Owlet," he
+replied. "Tell me what it is you see."
+
+"Many things, but the plainest of all to me is that whoever you may be
+you are not the Earl of Essex."
+
+He was off his guard, and his expression confirmed her suspicions. She
+laughed maliciously, and her face, always sly and old beyond her years,
+was absolutely repulsive now as it reflected her gloating sense of her
+advantage.
+
+"Put your mind at rest, my lord," she said, mockingly. "Your secret is
+safe in my keeping. I do not know your aims, but if you will take me
+into your confidence you are sure of success. I am only dangerous when I
+am angered. Why should you not succeed? The Signorina is completely
+infatuated with you. If we make her believe that you have assumed the
+character of the Earl of Essex from love of her she will readily forgive
+you that deceit. Together we can accomplish anything and everything, for
+you have a winning way with women, and I have brains--yes, more than you
+give me credit for--and this doll-faced girl shall make our fortunes.
+When we have sucked the coffers of the Medici dry, take me with you to
+your own country, and I will be your faithful accomplice there also,
+for, misshapen and hideous as I am, I love you, my beautiful adventurer;
+yes, with a devotion of which my mistress is not capable, for she is
+vain and shallow and selfish. Oh, why did God give her the form of an
+angel and put my soul in the body of a demon?"
+
+Brandilancia, up to this point speechless with astonishment, had not
+been able to interrupt her, and the dwarf had climbed to the table,
+where, perched at his elbow, she had poured her confidences into his
+ear; but as she drew his face to hers with her small claw-like hands he
+forgot all considerations of policy in an unconquerable repulsion, and
+wrenched himself rudely from her.
+
+"Imp!" he exclaimed, "your soul matches your body. You are hideous
+through and through."
+
+The look which she gave him was full of malignity. "You shall live to
+learn that the good-will of a devil is better than her ill-will," she
+said, as she slipped from the table and left the room.
+
+Brandilancia's uneasy compunction which immediately followed his hasty
+exclamation was soon effaced by the dwarf's apparent forgiveness. "We
+were both indiscreet," she said to him the following day; "let us forget
+and be friends."
+
+But Leonora would not forget, and the young man had lost his
+opportunity of making her his friend.
+
+She immediately carried her doubts to her mistress. "The man is not the
+Earl of Essex," she asserted. "He is some base impostor, I know not
+whom, but I will make him declare himself ere long."
+
+Marie de' Medici was silent, but her thoughts were voluble. Since it had
+pleased her royal lover to come incognito she would betray him to no one
+nor even allow him to suspect that she had penetrated his disguise, but
+would flatter the King by feigning that she loved him for himself alone,
+and would exert every endeavour to make him sincerely her lover.
+
+In spite of the injunction of the Grand Duchess, they often spoke of
+Henry of Navarre, and Brandilancia in the desire to forward the mission
+upon which he had been sent, told of Henry's unhappy wedded life,
+expressing with great frankness his own detestation of the craft and
+cruelty of Catherine de' Medici and the levity of her daughter
+Marguerite of Valois.
+
+"You forget," Marie de' Medici had replied, "that they are my
+kinswomen."
+
+"I forget many things in your presence which I should remember," he had
+replied. "Sometimes even that I, too, am a married man and, knowing you
+as I do, I can not blame the King of France that he is seeking, through
+divorce, freedom from a marriage into which he was half tricked, half
+forced, and that he is willing to risk salvation for the hope of your
+love."
+
+That answer pleased her well. She had no doubt now that he loved her,
+and did not hesitate to assure him in many covert ways that the feeling
+was reciprocated. Brandilancia would have been blind indeed not to have
+recognised her admiration, but he believed it merely appreciation of his
+genius, whereas her mind was too limited to comprehend it. She was in
+love with the possibility of being a queen upon such easy terms,
+delighted to find that the necessary husband was no uncouth tyrant but a
+man of winsome personality whose delicate assiduities were ever present
+and yet never over passed the restraints of deference.
+
+It would have been difficult for two persons to have more utterly
+misunderstood each other. Brandilancia had reached the full maturity of
+his mental powers. His genius had created many charming women, but the
+ideal for which his lonely heart yearned had only gradually taken shape
+in his mind, and the heroine which he now gave to literature marked an
+epoch in his career.
+
+He had found the plot of his drama sketched in part in one of the
+novelli of Ser Giovanni; but the conception of an aristocratic yet
+gracious lady gifted with all perfection, with which he replaced the
+siren of Belmont, was not, as he supposed, a portrait from life of Marie
+de' Medici. The character sprang directly from his own intense longing,
+and by some unreasoning reflex action, his mind endowed the woman who
+happened to be near him with qualities which he created and which she
+unhappily did not possess.
+
+The idol which he worshipped was absolutely the work of his own hands,
+for it was not until his imagination had cheated his eyes, and he had
+begun to look at Marie de' Medici through its flattering lenses that he
+thought her beautiful. And yet at the age of twenty she possessed very
+real attractions: a southern blond, not milky-veined, like the pale
+maidens of the north, but with all the gold of the hot sunshine in her
+hair, and the rich blood glowing through her fair skin like flame in an
+alabaster lamp. Superbly modelled, but lithe and tall, she carried
+regally the sumptuous opulence with which nature had endowed her, and
+the soft curve of her shoulders, throat, and bosom had not as yet
+blossomed into the plethora which Rubens depicted with so gloating a
+brush. Nor was she precisely the same as when Brandilancia had looked
+upon these charms unmoved. All arrogance and self-confidence were gone
+or lay buried under the most appealing of coquetry, a shy tenderness
+apparently born of irresistible impulse showing itself in little wilful
+sallies, a glance or touch, seemingly instantly regretted, and followed
+by alternations of reticence. He admitted her bewitching but had no idea
+that he was himself bewitched. His was a literary passion. He was a
+student of life as well as of books, and he had never before had the
+opportunity of studying such glorious examples of both at close range.
+
+He completed his portrait of his ideal heroine Portia, the noblest that
+he ever depicted, and found to his surprise that quite another type of
+woman was forming itself in his mind. Powerful outside influences
+mingled their impressions with the long-stifled hunger in his heart. He
+was not in love with his hostess, but he was starving for love, and each
+book that he read, every object of art that he looked upon, and nature
+itself was steeped with the charm and passion of Italy. If he tossed
+aside Boccaccio and his too suggestive _confreres_ to seek refreshment
+in the garden it was only to find himself face to face with the famous
+statue of the most seductive of all women, she who made Caesar her slave
+and Antony her "floor-cloth."
+
+She obtruded herself upon him everywhere, for his very bed
+
+                     was hanged
+    With tapestry of silk and silver,
+                     the story
+    Proud Cleopatra when she met her Roman.
+
+He had read with Marie de' Medici the history of the Egyptian Queen, and
+had brooded over it until against his will something of the fascination
+of the "Serpent of Old Nile" invested his comrade, and the name of
+Antony ever after called up in her memory also the inspired face of her
+fellow-student in the dangerous science of love.
+
+Realising vaguely the influence which like some mephitic perfume, an
+opiate of the soul, emanated from the purely literary reconstruction of
+such a character, he laid it aside for the heart-breaking story of
+Giulietta, whose very innocence moved him still more profoundly.
+
+It was midsummer, the quivering July heat brought out the pungent scent
+of the freshly clipped box-hedges, and set the mad flood stirring as in
+the brief action of the play. During the day the white glare drove the
+guests of the garden festivals into the shadiest recesses of the cypress
+labyrinths. The flowers themselves seemed to have vanished from the
+parterres, or, like the Cereus, bloomed only at night, plainly visible
+under the luminous sky, when the nightingales vied with the viols of the
+serenaders.
+
+On such a night as this Brandilancia, who had been reading late, closed
+his book and, after the departure of the last reveller, stepped upon the
+terrace to cool his brain heated by inspiration. A kindred restlessness
+brought Marie de' Medici to her balcony and he recklessly sprang upon a
+marble bench which almost enabled him to touch her hand.
+
+"Listen, dearest lady," he said, "it is your favourite story, which I
+have re-written with my own heart's blood."
+
+Enthralled, though only half comprehending, Marie de' Medici listened as
+he poured forth in impassioned improvisation lines which from that day
+to this no one who has ever loved has heard untouched. The actor's
+training gave to the burning words of the poet artistic expression
+worthy of the most finished theatrical production, and as such they
+lacked not their due appreciation and applause though from a most
+undesired audience. A low chuckling and a clapping of hands greeted the
+close of the recital, and the two successful impersonators of Romeo and
+Juliet saw to their confusion that the scene had been witnessed by a
+burly man-at-arms, who now stalked from the shadow of a group of
+cypresses.
+
+"Bravo!" he cried, "da Groto himself did not act that play so well, when
+I saw him years since in the Farnese theatre at Parma. But you have
+taken liberties with the lines and, per Bacco! have improved them.
+Whoever you may be you are too good an actor for such paltry
+assistance."
+
+"And I know no one better qualified to pronounce upon a play than
+Captain Radicofani," replied Marie de' Medici, reappearing from the
+interior of her chamber whither she had retreated on the appearance of
+the intruder. "It is odd that you should have chanced so opportunely
+upon us as we were rehearsing our little comedy. My lord of Essex,
+permit me to present Captain Tuzio Radicofani, as brave a soldier as
+ever wielded sword, and one loyally attached to my uncle's service. What
+news do you bring from the Grand Duke, Captain? Will he soon return to
+us?"
+
+"The Earl of Essex?" the other repeated in surprise disregarding for
+the moment Marie de' Medici's questions. "It is rare indeed to find one
+of Fortune's favourites so variously talented. His Excellency the Grand
+Duke, though he enumerated both your physical and mental accomplishments
+with great particularity spoke not of play-acting."
+
+Brandilancia did not relish the shrewd look in the half-closed eyes, nor
+did he fancy the bullet-shaped close-cropped head with its overweight of
+occiput and bull-dog jaw, but he replied courteously, "such trifling
+diversion on the part of an idle man is surely less remarkable than its
+appreciation by one of action like yourself."
+
+"The Grand Duke would also have been surprised," the soldier continued,
+"could he have assisted at this little scene. Your highness does himself
+discredit in referring to the performance as trifling, for, by the
+Blood, I never saw so accomplished an actor. The Signorina's talent
+likewise astonished me, though it was confined to mere pantomime, one
+might have thought it the languishing of a love-sick girl. By your
+favour, Signorina, there are indeed certain letters in my saddle-bags
+which my groom has in charge, but the varlet has gone to his supper in
+the servants' hall. I, too, am hungry and will seek the steward. The
+letters, with your Highness's permission, shall be presented on the
+morrow, which indeed is almost here."
+
+They entered the villa together in apparent friendliness, but it was
+with a sense of impending evil that Brandilancia retired to his room.
+
+Was it simply that the man had interrupted them at a moment when in
+spite of Marie de' Medici's tactful greeting no audience was desired, or
+was there something sinister in his coming? The more Brandilancia
+reflected the less he liked the familiarity which amounted to an
+assumption of authority. Radicofani's voice had not rung true. "The
+fellow suspects me. Nay, he knows that I am not the Earl of Essex,"
+groaned the young man, as he tossed upon his bed; "and if his creature
+knows, then the Grand Duke knows also, and who can guess on what errand
+this villain comes? He pretended to believe that we were rehearsing a
+comedy, but he doubtless places the worst possible construction upon the
+scene which he has just witnessed. Was it a comedy, or am I in earnest?
+Ah! I have deliberately fallen into the trap against which Malespini
+warned me. I have lingered too long in this fool's paradise. Love and
+its penalty have stricken me in the same instant. Thank Heaven! no
+thought of this madness of mine can have entered the pure mind of my
+lady. Until this night I have breathed no word that could have betrayed
+it, and even now she doubtless thinks my ravings those of a poet. I will
+leave the villa to-morrow, lest my further presence here should bring
+trouble upon her."
+
+Even as he formed the resolution a slight sound caught his ear, the
+cautious opening and closing of the door which led from the ante-chamber
+of his bedroom into the outer hall, the only means of communication
+between his own room and other parts of the villa. A light shone between
+the folds of the portiere, and there were sounds of some one moving
+about softly in the ante-room. Springing from his bed, Brandilancia
+seized his sword.
+
+"Who is there?" he demanded.
+
+"'T is I, Radicofani," and the tapestries parted, disclosing the form of
+the Captain, towering beyond a camp-bed which had been spread across the
+doorway.
+
+"I should have informed your worship," he apologised smugly, "that I
+sleep here to-night. Put up your sword, and rest assured that no one
+shall pass this room without my license."
+
+"And could they give you no better lodging than that?" asked
+Brandilancia.
+
+"Room in plenty," the Captain replied, "but it is on the Grand Duke's
+orders that I act as your body-guard, and I enter upon my duties at
+once, for I am responsible for your safety."
+
+The prisoner inquired no further, but letting fall the portiere, threw
+himself upon his bed confounded. His resolution to leave the villa had
+been made too late.
+
+But the morning brought a fresh access of hope, as Brandilancia noticed
+between the widely-drawn curtains that the obstructing truckle-bed had
+been set against the wall and that his guard had left his post.
+
+The dwarf Leonora, who was the only occupant of the dining hall when he
+descended, stole to his side and bade him await the Signorina in the
+belvedere in the upper garden.
+
+Here Marie de' Medici presently joined him.
+
+"My lord," she said, between her quick panting, for she was out of
+breath with running, "I shame to tell you, but you must leave us at
+once, indeed you should have done so long since."
+
+"It is what I had upon my mind to say to you, sweet lady," he replied.
+"I have an appointment to meet at Venice ten days hence, and must leave
+my papers for the Grand Duke and proceed upon my journey, much as it
+irks me to tear myself from your company."
+
+"Then you know not that my uncle has sent Radicofani to take you to
+Florence?"
+
+"The Grand Duke does me honour, and under other circumstances I would
+gladly accept his further hospitality; but his Highness will understand
+that Robert Devreux is not free to follow his own inclinations."
+
+"No, you are not free," she answered hastily. "Read this letter which
+Radicofani gave to my aunt this morning and which I purloined from her
+writing-cabinet. Nay, hesitate not but read, for it concerns you
+vitally." At her command he read:
+
+     "_To the Grand Duchess Christina de' Medici._
+
+     "MOST HONOURED AND DEAR SPOUSE:
+
+     "Your letter informing me of the arrival at the villa of a person
+     purporting to be the Earl of Essex has occasioned me great concern
+     inasmuch as the fellow is undoubtedly an impostor.
+
+     "His Eminence, Don Jerome Osorio, Bishop of Algarve, who arrived in
+     this city some five days since, asserts positively that on the date
+     upon which this rascal presented himself at the Villa Medici the
+     Earl of Essex personally conducted the sack of the town of Faro in
+     southern Portugal, and, having feloniously carried the bishop's
+     library on board the English flag-ship, he forth-with set sail for
+     the open ocean, evidently upon his return voyage for England.
+
+     "Imagine, therefore, my anxiety on learning that you have given
+     harbourage to some rascal, who having by base practises learned
+     that the Earl had an errand with me, now usurps his name and
+     credit. I send this letter by my trusty servitor, Radicofani, whom
+     I have charged to bring the villain with all speed to me that I may
+     examine him by the question and learn his motives in assuming this
+     disguise. If he has brought with him any papers (some of which he
+     may easily have stolen from the Earl of Essex) see to it that
+     Radicofani obtains possession of them before the rascal's
+     suspicions are aroused. I tremble when I think how he may have
+     practised upon your unsuspicious nature, and what villainies he may
+     already have accomplished, or rather I would thus tremble did I not
+     know that you inherit the resolution of the race of Lorraine,
+     which, even when a mistake has been committed, knows how to wring
+     success from disaster. Confiding thus in your courage and your
+     woman's wit, I remain,
+
+"Your loving husband,
+
+"FERDINANDO.
+
+     "P.S. For the better furtherance of my desires confide my
+     suspicions to no one not even to my niece, but take leave of this
+     caitiff with all ceremony as though he were indeed him whom he
+     represents."
+
+Brandilancia paled slightly, but not at the danger in which he stood.
+"The Grand Duke is correct in his suspicions," he said, "I have lied to
+you, I am not the Earl of Essex."
+
+She smiled enigmatically. "You have known it all along?" he exclaimed.
+"Then I am a poorer actor than I thought."
+
+"Nay, you acted your part well, but early in our acquaintance I knew you
+for a nobler man than the Earl of Essex. I have no guess as to the
+station to which you may have been born, but you are fitted to play a
+knightly part, on a far different stage from this, my King among men."
+
+"And when I have won my crown," he replied, "the world shall know that
+it was your faith in me which nerved me to the effort, for I shall lay
+it at your feet, my Queen, the only woman who has ever really understood
+or cared for me." His arms were about her and she was sobbing in the
+excitement of her triumph. "Yes, yes," she cried, "you will come again,
+but now you must fly. What am I that I should hold you thus when you
+stand in danger of your life?"
+
+"Have no fear for me dear lady," he replied. "The Grand Duke is
+fair-minded, and will not fail to credit my assertions when I explain
+why I undertook this adventure."
+
+"My uncle believes nothing without absolute proof. Such chivalrous
+motives as yours would seem to him incredible. If you fail to convince
+him of your identity he will execute you as a common rogue. If you prove
+it he will use every inch of his advantage ere you escape his clutches.
+You must fly, but how? On learning an hour since, that Radicofani had
+descended to the city, I ordered our horses for a ride only to learn
+that he had left strict orders at the stables and at the gates of the
+villa that you were not to be allowed to leave the grounds. My friend,
+you are a close prisoner. Think fast. What can you do?"
+
+"Nothing, dear lady, but trust that since I have committed no crime I
+shall not receive the treatment of a criminal."
+
+"What loss of time is this?" exclaimed Leonora as she suddenly made her
+appearance from behind the hedge. "Here I have stood on guard for half
+an hour by the sun-dial and you have wasted it in idle chatter. I tell
+you, Signor, my mistress is right, you are as good as a dead man if you
+trust to the Grand Duke; but take the advice of the Owlet and we will
+foil him nicely."
+
+For an instant a suspicion flashed across his mind that her apparent
+friendliness was untrustworthy. It was she, he suspected, who had
+ushered Radicofani into the garden on the previous evening, or at least
+had failed to give warning of his approach. But he dismissed these
+thoughts as unworthy.
+
+"What expedient do you suggest Leonora?" he asked.
+
+"Do you not recognise that contadina," the dwarf replied, "the one
+standing between the fountain and the parapet yonder? She is a friend of
+yours and will help me save you."
+
+"A friend of mine!" Brandilancia repeated wonderingly.
+
+Leonora laughed maliciously. "Have you forgotten possessing yourself of
+a little fan which my mistress dropped, quite by accident, from a window
+on the day of your arrival, and that you were assisted in finding it by
+the laundress of the villa? The artful jade has a better memory. She
+does not fail to remind me of the incident and to inquire for you
+whenever she calls for the linen. I have been obliged to stop her mouth
+with more than one coin to keep her from blabbing to the Grand Duchess.
+However that incident proves to have been all for the best. Her cart is
+at the kitchen door, she is waiting there at my orders. Summon her to
+your room, purchase and don the costume which she now wears. With her
+kerchief shading your face no one will recognise you, and you will drive
+away in triumph throned upon her hampers, until well beyond the city
+when you can turn the donkey loose and catch the Venetian post."
+
+[Illustration: View from the Garden of the Villa Medici]
+
+His laugh rang out boyishly. "The adventure of Bucciolo, which I read to
+the Signorina, from the tales of Ser Giovanni suggested that expedient,"
+he said. "It were a good motive for a roaring farce, but I must consider
+the dignity of the name I bear."
+
+"Nay speak it not," entreated Marie de' Medici in a whisper, throwing
+her arms about his neck. "I heard a step upon the gravel."
+
+He regarded her wonderingly, "Let who will hear," he persisted. "It
+shall never be said that the Earl of Essex slunk from danger in a
+wench's petticoats."
+
+"Well spoken, I like you the better for that," laughed a loud voice, and
+Captain Radicofani parting the shrubbery suddenly appeared,
+interrupting, for the second time, their confidences. "How
+unsuspectingly you children fell into my trap," he sneered. "I knew that
+the Signorina would warn you. You were acting a tableau I presume just
+now as you held her in your embrace. A pretty scene, i' faith, but one
+of which the Grand Duke will not be amused to hear. I had hoped to learn
+still more of the libretto of this little play, but you know more of
+mine. We will make no further pretence, and lest I lose you by further
+shilly-shallying, we will start upon our journey at once.
+
+"Until we are well upon our way, Signorina, may I beg you, and Leonora
+also, to remain in your own suite of apartments and to attempt to hold
+no communication with this gentleman?"
+
+Marie de' Medici bowed haughtily. "I shall employ the time in writing my
+uncle how unwarrantably Captain Radicofani exceeds his orders," she
+replied as she swept angrily from the belvedere.
+
+Seeing that the indignation of her mistress merely amused the
+condottiere the dwarf took a cajoling tone. "At least your highness will
+remain to luncheon," she said insinuatingly.
+
+"That invitation I am powerless to refuse," replied the Captain, "but
+you may order it served in this gentleman's chamber, whither I will now
+conduct him."
+
+With a disconcerting chuckle Radicofani suited his action to the word,
+and busied himself with preparations for the journey, taking care,
+however, as he strode from ante-room to bed-chamber to keep his prisoner
+constantly in sight. The latter's hope of escape had reached a low ebb
+when Malespini knocked timidly. He had brought certain papers which the
+Signor had left in the library. Captain Radicofani received the
+secretary distrustfully and bestowed the papers among his own effects.
+"I will look them over," he commented, "and if innocent pass them on to
+our friend before we arrive in Florence."
+
+Malespini retreated deferentially, but, once outside the door he
+executed a silent war-dance as an outlet for his rage. In its eccentric
+evolutions he hurtled against a servant bringing the luncheon, and fully
+half of the viands poured like an avalanche down the stairs. While the
+man strove to gather up the broken crockery the secretary snatched the
+tray and with ill-concealed triumph re-entered the apartment.
+
+"Is this all you have brought?" grumbled the disappointed Captain.
+
+"Truly," replied the wily Malespini, "this light collation was intended
+solely for his highness the Earl of Essex, who I hear must keep his
+room. For your lordship dinner awaits in the banquet-room, where the
+Grand Duchess has ordered a boar's-head, stuffed with sage and onions,
+together with a pasty of pheasants, and where she will serve you with
+her own hands a stirrup-cup of the Grand Duke's oldest vintage."
+
+Captain Radicofani sprang up with alacrity, but noticing that Malespini
+was edging nearer to his friend, ordered the secretary gruffly to pass
+out before him.
+
+"Behind the bed," said Malespini in a low voice to the prisoner, as he
+lighted one of the tapers in the mantel candelabra, "and take all of
+these candles, _all_ or you are lost."
+
+"Idiot," shouted the Captain; "it is not yet noon. What need of lights?
+Play me no tricks, but leave the room."
+
+Springing from his chair as soon as the door had closed behind
+Radicofani, Brandilancia examined the huge state-bedstead, and with a
+little exertion trundled it forward. Behind its tapestry hangings a
+secret door, suspected only by a crack in the wainscotting, opened
+beneath his prying fingers, and revealed a spiral staircase leading
+downward into pitchy darkness. Comprehending Malespini's admonition, he
+hastily appropriated the candles, and, drawing the bedstead into its
+place behind him, descended the dizzily circling steps. Eighty-seven he
+counted, twisting round and round within the turret, and then he paused,
+for he distinctly heard the sound of rushing water. The air had become
+moist as well as cool, and the steps were green and slippery with moss.
+Advancing with more caution, he presently found himself in a vaulted
+passage a little higher than his head, where a narrow pathway followed a
+conduit of dark water, which reflected the flame of his candle in a
+thousand glancing sparkles.
+
+
+II
+
+IN WHICH IT IS DEMONSTRATED THAT IT IS SOMETIMES EASIER TO SET OUT UPON
+A QUEST THAN TO RETURN THEREFROM
+
+It was the Aqua Virgo, the old subterranean aqueduct built by the
+Emperor Claudius, that pierced the hill beneath the Villa Medici, in
+which Brandilancia now found himself. If he turned to the left he knew
+he would soon find egress through the doorway to which the chance
+fluttering of Marie de' Medici's fan had led him. But this would be to
+appear upon the streets of Rome in open day, and to run the risk of
+seizure by Radicofani's guards. Moreover, Malespini's advice to provide
+himself with so many candles was significant, and Brandilancia
+unhesitatingly chose the longer way, not doubting that it would finally
+lead him into the open country.
+
+The stream at his side was of considerable volume and flowed with great
+swiftness, while the shelf upon which he was advancing was hardly more
+than ten inches broad. Both it and the wall were slimy with dampness,
+giving no secure hold to hand or foot. The pathway mounted steadily, and
+apparently pursued a straight course, but no opening showed itself in
+the distance, and the light of his taper penetrated but a little way
+into the blackness. As he glanced backward his shadow loomed in a
+gigantic and almost unrecognisable form, following him waveringly like a
+malevolent spirit. His footsteps woke hollow reverberations; the water
+gurgled and sobbed, and an odor suggestive of the tomb added to the
+impression that he was wandering in some unexplored catacomb. He could
+proceed but slowly, and the low temperature chilled him to the bone, but
+he pushed on resolutely as it seemed to him for interminable hours. "I
+shall go mad," he thought, "if there is no change in this deadly
+monotony," and at that instant the vault echoed with the beat of
+hurrying footsteps.
+
+Brandilancia could see the distant flare of torches, and he knew that
+his candle was as plainly visible to his pursuers. He dared not
+extinguish it, but quickened his pace to a run, slipping, almost falling
+into the water as he dashed recklessly forward. Suddenly, but not an
+instant too soon, he halted before a void. The pathway had disappeared;
+another step and he would have plunged into a reservoir of unknown depth
+which yawned without a barrier before him.
+
+As he lifted his candle and peered across the wide expanse he saw that
+the tunnel was closed directly opposite him by a wall of solid masonry,
+and in his dismay almost a minute elapsed before he discovered to the
+left an open archway which indicated that the tunnel here turned at an
+angle. But how should he cross to this doorway? The coping which
+separated the cistern from the canal in the centre of the tunnel was too
+narrow and the water poured over it noisily. He was about to attempt
+swimming when he noticed that he was standing upon a plank, evidently
+placed here to be used as a bridge. He retreated a few steps and pushed
+it cautiously forward. It reached across the cistern and rested upon the
+sill of the arched doorway.
+
+In the brief interval thus consumed the footsteps had gained upon him
+and in the light of the approaching torches he plainly recognised
+Radicofani, who shouted to him to surrender. Thus beset he ventured the
+crossing, but the plank was rotten and broke under his weight, falling
+with him into the reservoir. He struck out in the direction in which he
+imagined the archway to be, by good fortune found it by feeling along
+the wall, and clambered upon the ledge which ran along the side of the
+conduit as in the first tunnel.
+
+He had suffered no other harm than the thorough wetting and the loss of
+his candles, and the torches of his pursuers, who had now reached the
+opposite side of the cistern, showed that the tunnel was slightly wider
+than its opening, and that by hugging the wall he was not visible to
+Radicofani. The latter had heard the splash and regarded the water
+dubiously.
+
+"Have you gone to the bottom?" he shouted, but Brandilancia was wisely
+silent. "If not," cried the Captain, "and you are hiding yonder within
+hearing, let me tell you that you will die like a rat in a sewer unless
+you give yourself up at the entrance to that tunnel, where you will find
+me waiting for you."
+
+Drenched to the skin Brandilancia's teeth chattered with the physical
+cold, and fear numbed his heart. "What if Radicofani spoke the truth?"
+
+But to carry out his threat the Captain must retrace his steps and ride
+to the spot where the aqueduct entered the hill. How far he had
+proceeded Brandilancia could not guess, possibly half or three-fourths
+of the way. If so there was hope of reaching the opening before
+Radicofani, and he hurried on with what speed he could consistent with
+groping his way with hands and feet in the total darkness. The exertion
+stirred his blood but the tunnel seemed to have no end. His hands were
+worn and bleeding with clinging to the rough wall, and a great lassitude
+was stealing over him when he caught a faint glimmer of light like that
+of a star, not the lurid glow of a candle or torch but the blessed white
+light of day. It was the longed-for opening, though still far away. He
+thought that he had out-distanced Radicofani and stumbled on, exultation
+giving him new strength when a sudden eclipse of this star of hope made
+him crouch motionless, grovelling close to the earth. A man's head and
+shoulders were silhouetted blackly against the brightness. The man
+peered cautiously into the tunnel, and listened; but neither hearing nor
+seeing anything, presently withdrew.
+
+Was it Radicofani? Were workmen preparing to wall up the exit? Ought he
+to make a sudden rush for life and liberty?
+
+Every instinct prompted him to this resolution, and he crawled
+cautiously forward to within a few feet of the opening. Again the man
+appeared, with a sudden bound Brandilancia was upon him and both rolled
+in a life-and-death struggle upon the ground.
+
+So dazed was he by the glare of the full light of day, so nearly crazed
+with desperation that he did not recognise the voice that implored him
+to cease his blows, or realise that his supposed antagonist was the
+friendly Malespini, who, on the instant that Radicofani had discovered
+and descended the secret staircase, had slipped his guards and ridden to
+Brandilancia's succour on the swiftest horse obtainable in Rome.
+
+Hastily exchanging his own mire-besmirched garments for the secretary's
+unobtrusive suit, Brandilancia, with many apologies for his onslaught,
+listened to Malespini's explanations of a circuitous route by which he
+could avoid Radicofani, ride to Orte, and, leaving the horse at the inn
+stables, take the diligence on the following day for Venice. Malespini's
+suggestions, acceptable in themselves, were gratifyingly supplemented by
+a tender letter from Marie de' Medici and a purse well filled with gold.
+
+"Of the money I have fortunately no need," Brandilancia replied, "but
+the care of your mistress for my safety and your own pains in my behalf
+command my eternal gratitude. You shall both hear from me from Venice,
+and so farewell."
+
+Malespini's scheme seemed at first likely to be crowned with success,
+and having secured his seat in the Venetian post, Brandilancia naturally
+imagined his troubles at an end; but shortly after leaving Orte, where
+the road turns to the eastward for its climb over the Apennines, the
+lumbering vehicle came to a sudden halt. Shouts and oaths without, the
+shrieks of a woman at his side, and the opening of the door by a masked
+man, formidably armed, sufficiently explained the situation.
+
+The passengers on dismounting were relieved of their purses by the
+bandits, but, with the exception of Brandilancia, were allowed to
+proceed upon their journey. No explanation was offered for this
+discrimination, but there was something familiar in the figure of the
+leader, who, after pointing out Brandilancia, had ridden rapidly on in
+advance of his men, and the captive wondered at the excellent
+accoutrements of the band and the good quality of the horse which he was
+compelled to mount.
+
+They struck at once into a wild mountain gorge, avoiding villages and
+farms, and when at noon the brigands halted for refreshments in a
+little wood, and removed their masks, Brandilancia recognised no
+familiar faces.
+
+Remounting, the brigands pursued their way up a steep bridle path, their
+destination a strong castle, perched high on a spur of the mountain. The
+prisoner's heart sank as he noted its isolation and strength, for here a
+captive might remain for years and finally die undiscovered.
+
+But Brandilancia had not reckoned on the cupidity of his host. His
+capture had been planned not by hatred, but in the hope of ransom, as
+was explained to him by the brigand chief, into whose presence he was
+led upon his arrival at the stronghold.
+
+The man still wore his mask, but at the first word which he uttered
+Brandilancia to his astonishment recognised the condottiere Radicofani.
+Accosted by name, the Captain removed his mask, and coolly confronted
+his prisoner.
+
+"It is as well," he said, "that you should understand the situation.
+Your flight and apparent escape remove my accountability to the Grand
+Duke for your person. I should not have troubled myself further about
+you, were it not that upon my empty-handed return to the villa the
+Signorina Marie de' Medici very indiscreetly taunted me with having
+allowed a far more important personage than the Earl of Essex to slip
+unrecognised through my fingers. Just who you are she did not see fit to
+divulge; but I gathered that you are of sufficient consequence for your
+friends to be willing to pay handsomely for your release. You may
+therefore write to them, and I will see that your letters reach their
+destination on condition that you advise the fulfilment of my demands."
+
+"The Signorina has unwittingly misled you," Brandilancia replied. "The
+Grand Duke was right in his belief that the Earl of Essex had sailed for
+England, but though I am his accredited representative, as I hope to
+prove to your master if you will convey me to him, I am a man of no
+wealth and one whom the world will not miss."
+
+"Tush! my fine fellow; it is useless to attempt to deceive me, and it is
+against your own interest; for you can make better terms with me than
+with the Grand Duke, who is by far a greater brigand than your present
+host."
+
+Thus admonished Brandilancia resigned himself to the inevitable, and
+wrote two letters; the first to the Earl of Essex, expressing his regret
+that he had not been able to personally present to Ferdinando de'
+Medici the papers entrusted to him instead of sending them by the hand
+of Radicofani. While reporting his captive condition, he begged his
+friend to be at no expense or trouble for his redemption, beyond an
+explanation to the Grand Duke that he had undertaken the mission upon
+proper authority and should be allowed to return.
+
+Having dashed off this missive at fever heat Brandilancia paused, pen in
+hand, moodily regarding the blank sheet before him until gruffly
+reminded by Radicofani that he must either write or give over the
+attempt.
+
+He started at the command, for in imagination he had been far away in a
+thatch-roofed cottage behind hawthorne hedges, where Anne, faithful
+Anne, had so often welcomed her wild lover. Their wills had clashed
+after their marriage. She had objected unreasonably when his career led
+him to London, had been sceptical as to his success, and even, so it
+seemed to him, as to his genius. There had been angry reproaches and
+bitter recriminations, but at heart he had never doubted her affection
+and had always intended to convince her of his own when he could also
+prove that in following the call of his talent he had acted for her best
+interest. His stay at the Villa Medici and its very hostess seemed to
+him now a hallucination whose passing left no trace upon his sober
+senses, but could Anne understand this? If she believed him erring was
+the high-spirited wife capable of forgiveness? He saw himself condemned
+and shame-stricken before the tribunal of her unswerving rectitude but
+none the less he ventured his plea in lines that had been forming
+themselves, as always when he was under the stress of emotion, with the
+clarity and perfection of a crystal born from the drip and ooze of some
+dark cavern.
+
+It is of all his sonnets the one which rings most true, ending with its
+appeal for reconciliation after long estrangement.
+
+                          "Your heart
+    My home of love; if I have ranged,
+    Like him that travels, I return again!"
+
+He was not certain that he would be permitted to rejoin her, but he
+would not sadden Anne by his foreboding. His heart had returned to its
+allegiance; this was the important thing, and this she should know.
+
+"I leave you now," said Radicofani as Brandilancia handed him the
+letters, "for I must make speed to wait upon the Grand Duke at Florence.
+Regard yourself as my guest rather than as a prisoner. I leave only a
+few old servants charged to make you as comfortable as the ruinous
+condition of this old castle of my ancestors will permit. The length of
+your stay is conditioned only upon the promptitude of your friends in
+complying with my conditions. I see that your letters are written in
+English. No matter, I have no desire to pry into your private affairs
+and shall send them by the earliest opportunity."
+
+Brandilancia bowed ceremoniously, but sank exhausted into his chair. He
+was shivering in a violent chill, the first stages of Roman fever,
+brought on by his experiences in the subterranean aqueduct. For weeks he
+tossed upon his pallet alternately freezing and burning, much of the
+time delirious--now wandering with Anne through English meadows with
+"daisies pied" and "babbling of green fields"--and anon scorching the
+wings of his soul in the flame of Italian beauty and passion.
+
+With the passing of the fever he eagerly demanded an interview with
+Radicofani but was informed that the Captain was still at Florence. He
+had written that no response of any kind had been received from either
+of the letters sent to England, though ample time had elapsed for their
+arrival. Brandilancia was not, however, to be set at liberty on this
+account, and days lengthened to weeks and weeks to months and he was
+still a prisoner.
+
+The lofty situation of the castle far above the malaria of the valleys,
+swept by every wind of heaven, had completed his cure, and as he paced
+the sightly platform he found himself hungering for liberty and action.
+In this reflux of returning health and energy, on one exhilarating
+morning in early spring, when all nature seemed calling to him to
+escape, Brandilancia hailed with gratitude the arrival of the secretary
+Malespini bringing the almost despaired of tidings that his prison doors
+were open and he was at last free to depart.
+
+"The Grand Duke has commanded this," Brandilancia asked, "through the
+intervention of my faithful friend the Earl of Essex?"
+
+"Not so," Malespini responded drily. "You may thank friends nearer at
+hand, for the Grand Duke knows as little of your existence as your
+English friends apparently care for it."
+
+"Then it is the Signorina who has effected my deliverance?"
+
+Malespini shook his head. "The Signorina believes, as we all did until
+recently, that you made your escape to your own country. She is entirely
+absorbed at present with her approaching marriage, for your embassy was
+successful. Your papers, which Radicofani carried to the Grand Duke,
+initiated negotiations that have been carried to a successful
+termination. The Duke of Nevers, who is a Gonzaga, and a cousin of the
+Marquis of Mantua has come to Italy, as proxy of the French king, to
+betroth the Signorina."
+
+"May she have all happiness," Brandilancia exclaimed fervently, "but to
+whom then do I owe my release?"
+
+"Partly to the friend now before you, but in great measure also to one
+whom you will hardly guess, that little package of ruse and malice
+Leonora Dosi."
+
+"Not the Owlet!"
+
+"My friend you might have rotted in this mountain dungeon but for her
+cleverness, and Radicofani's stupidity. The Grand Duke sent him a
+fortnight since to escort us all from the Villa Medici to Mantua, where
+the Marchioness Eleonora de' Medici Gonzaga is preparing a brilliant
+fete in honour of her sister's approaching marriage. On the way
+Radicofani, who is loquacious in his cups, bragged to Leonora of how
+neatly he had captured you. The Owlet took counsel with me, and together
+we so intimidated the Captain with threats to report him to the Grand
+Duke, convincing him at the same time of your utter insignificance (for
+Leonora declares that you confessed to her mistress in her presence that
+you were not the Earl of Essex), that he consented to your release.
+
+"By good luck I am commissioned to present a comedy in the palace and am
+now supposed to be travelling in search of artists to assist in the
+performance. You shall return with me in that capacity. Though the
+Signorina knows not as yet of your presence in Italy she will be
+rejoiced to see you again and will speed you on your homeward
+journey,--for Mantua is on your way to Venice whence you told me you
+would take ship."
+
+"I would be overjoyed to carry out your plan, my good friend," replied
+Brandilancia, "but shall I be safe? I have found such difficulty in
+tearing myself away from the hospitalities of Italy that I am wary of
+accepting further entertainment."
+
+"I wonder not at your reluctance, but with the Gonzagas at Mantua you
+will be beyond the power of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who though he is
+indeed expected to attend the festivities, will never suspect that you
+played another role at his Roman villa. The play is to be acted in part
+by noble amateurs, and the Signorina herself will take the principal
+part. It is the comedy which you dramatised from Ser Giovanni's story of
+the heiress of Belmont, for nothing else would suit the Signorina. You
+shall impersonate the successful lover. There have been many aspirants
+for that role but I have held it for you. Can you resist my lord?"
+
+"No, Malespini, I cannot resist, for I am indeed what you would have me
+seem, a simple player. I will go with you since you need my service, and
+will bid your mistress and the Owlet also a grateful farewell."
+
+Thus, though he had thought never again to see the woman who had so
+powerfully influenced his imagination and because he honestly believed
+her influence at an end, Brandilancia ventured himself again within its
+domain.
+
+Tranquil, lily-starred lakes, blue as the heavens they mirror, lapped
+with caressing ripples the foundations of the immense Gonzaga palace and
+gave it the same enchanting environment on the morning of his arrival as
+to-day. Its rosy walls glowed in the morning light like a cluster of
+pink lotus-blossoms, while, a little apart from the main group of
+buildings, a slender tower shot into the air, and suspended from its
+summit, like some bell-shaped flower which droops its head, an iron
+cage was sharply etched against the glowing sky.
+
+"Is that a beacon?" asked Brandilancia. "If so, though unlighted, I
+accept it as a good omen, as it were a signal hung out for my welcome."
+
+"Heaven forfend that it should have aught to do with you, my lord, or
+you with it," replied Malespini. "The flame of many a poor fellow's life
+has gone out in that sinister cresset; but think not of it, for my lady
+awaits you within the palace. You are to learn how the Medici love, not
+how they hate."
+
+Through interminable apartments regal with paintings and statues,
+collected earlier in the century by Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, the
+secretary led Brandilancia to the small writing-room of the Marchesa.
+
+Marie de' Medici was standing alone at the window gazing at the
+darkening lake. She turned as he entered, and her cry, "At last you have
+returned, at last, O my beloved!" broken by sobs and wild caresses, made
+good Malespini's promise.
+
+She believed that the King of France, instead of sending the promised
+proxy, had himself returned to betroth her at the approaching festival,
+when he would doubtless declare himself publicly. Since it pleased him,
+to make further proof of her affection, she accepted his confession that
+he was only a poor comedian with apparent faith and with protestations
+of unshaken love. She told him of the despair with which she faced her
+brilliant future, of the loathing which overcame her at the thought of
+any husband but himself; and she begged him to rescue her from so
+hideous a fate.
+
+How could he brutally tell so adorable a creature that the burning
+words, which he had spoken on the night before his flight from the Villa
+Medici, were but a poetic rhapsody, inspired by a frenzy which had
+passed with the glamour that evoked it? He strove instead to recall her
+to a sense of her own position, and he urged every consideration of
+honour and of interest, apparently with some success; for she became
+calmer, and promised to do whatever he desired, if he would but remain
+and sustain her through the ordeal of her betrothal.
+
+He believed himself abandoned by the woman whom he had loved, but his
+heart was cold. He told himself that he would live henceforth without
+love, but would endeavour in purest friendship to save this woman who
+leaned on him for strength from making shipwreck of her life. They met
+constantly in the intimacy of rehearsals, and as these proceeded
+personal sentiments were occasionally introduced into the lines.
+
+[Illustration: Choosing the Casket
+
+From the painting by F. Barth. Permission of the Berlin Photographic Co.]
+
+"Ah, me! this word choose," Marie de' Medici exclaimed on one occasion.
+"I may neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike. So is the
+will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father."
+
+On the evening of the final presentation of the play she startled
+Brandilancia by laying her hand in his as she interpolated the
+declaration: "My spirit commits itself to yours to be directed, as by
+her lord, her governor, and king."
+
+The play ended, she led him to a portico overlooking the lake.
+
+"I have only a moment," she said, "while I am supposed to be dressing
+for the dance which follows. You doubtless recognised in the small dark
+man seated at my uncle's side the Duke of Nevers, and you have probably
+informed him of your presence here; but my uncle little suspects that we
+have anticipated their negotiation. Now surely is the proper time to
+announce yourself. Wait in the ante-room of the Marquis, it adjoins the
+library, and after the Grand Duke has set his signature to the
+settlement, and the Duke of Nevers is about to sign for the King of
+France, enter, take the pen from his hand, and sign for yourself. If you
+wish I will accompany you, and we will confess that we are already
+affianced. Why do you hesitate? Surely this is now the only thing to
+do."
+
+He gazed at her in uncomprehending astonishment. "Nay, dearest lady," he
+protested, "put this wild fancy from your mind. Your uncle would never
+accept me as your suitor; you would gain only dishonour by such a
+course. Bid me farewell, and forget me in the glory of your new life;
+and God help us both."
+
+"Nay, I can not, I can not give you up," she cried passionately her arms
+about his neck, "you have made me love you. I shall die if you leave
+me."
+
+"If this is true," he stammered, "if by some miracle you do indeed love
+me beyond all earthly considerations, and your heart is great enough to
+sacrifice all for the devotion of a heart that will at least be loyal,
+then fly with me from this world of shame and cruelty, to some paradise
+beyond the power of all who know us."
+
+"Fly," she repeated in bewilderment, "and leave your kingdom, your
+crown?"
+
+"Oh! what is fame, what is honour," he cried, "to love like yours?
+Listen, it is perfectly feasible. When I parted with my friends at Cadiz
+Essex told me he would return with the fleet as soon as he could refit,
+and cruise about the Azores, hoping to intercept the Spanish
+treasure-fleet. He should be there at this time, and Raleigh with him.
+But Raleigh purposed after aiding his friend in his enterprise to
+continue his voyage to the new world, where he has planted a colony. In
+Venice we can take passage with some merchant-man and join Raleigh at
+Flores. Come with me, my Queen to the new world, where we will found a
+new dynasty, for I can wait for my kingdom. I can write my plays and my
+poems there, in some lodge in the forest, and years hence, when cities
+have sprung up in that wilderness great actors will give them
+presentation before men who can appreciate them, who will honour our
+memory and glory that we were Americans."
+
+She regarded him with eyes widening with alarm. "Surely you are mad,"
+she said, "to throw away the Crown of France for which you have fought
+so bravely."
+
+"The crown of bay and laurel for which I am fighting has no root in
+France, sweetheart, but in English soil," he replied wonderingly.
+
+"Good God!" she cried, "then you are not--not Henry of Navarre?"
+
+"Nay, how could that be possible? I am, as I long since told you, only a
+simple English playwright who, much against his will, came hither on the
+business of his friend the Earl of Essex. If you love me not I would to
+God that I had never so come, since, by some strange delusion, I have
+troubled your pure heart and have brought upon myself grief, and
+dishonour.
+
+"But forgive me, sweet lady, this madness shall be as though it had not
+been, soon forgotten by you and safely hidden in the deepest chamber of
+my heart."
+
+For a moment she gazed at him astounded, for her mind refused to credit
+the truth. In despite of his words she believed that he was putting her
+disinterestedness to a supreme test which she must not fail. She clung
+to him convulsively. "I love you, you alone," she declared, "and I will
+go to El Dorado. I will meet you to-morrow at this hour at the
+water-gate of the palace. I will come in the Gonzaga barge, and we will
+flee together to Venice, and thence whither you will."
+
+As she spoke the door leading into the palace was flung open, and the
+Grand Duke followed by courtiers and ladies came toward them.
+
+"Ah! here are our actors," he exclaimed, "bring the laurel crowns. This
+for my niece and this for the gifted artist who has honoured our
+festival. Come forward Brandilancia and receive the token of our
+appreciation." But as the wreath was presented the Grand Duchess caught
+her husband's arm, exclaiming: "Ferdinando, this is the false Earl of
+Essex who deceived us all in Rome. Ask Radicofani, ask your niece, she
+cannot have failed to recognise him."
+
+"Nay, ask the French envoy," replied Marie de' Medici, "his Highness the
+Duke of Nevers will tell you whom we have the honour to entertain as our
+guest."
+
+"I, Mademoiselle," exclaimed the representative of the French King,
+"truly, I have never before looked upon his face."
+
+"Declare yourself Sire, I beseech of you," Marie de' Medici implored,
+and Brandilancia answered calmly:
+
+"I am the authorised representative of the Earl of Essex. Brandilancia
+is the Italian equivalent of my name, which in English is plain Will
+Shakespeare. That I am an actor and playwright you have graciously
+conceded, and that is the only distinction which I have ever claimed."
+
+His words carried overwhelming conviction to the brain of the deluded
+girl, and she sank fainting into the arms of the man whom she had so
+misunderstood and who was still far from comprehending the cause of her
+emotion.
+
+"Leave my niece to the care of her women," the Grand Duke commanded
+sternly. "Radicofani, is this indeed the rogue who slipped from your
+clutches?"
+
+"It is, my lord," replied that worthy, as he grasped the actor's arm.
+
+"Then consign him to the hospitalities of our sky-parlour. In the cage
+suspended from that tower, young man, you may await my investigation of
+your case."
+
+From his lofty outlook in the iron cage, dizzily suspended between earth
+and heaven, our adventurer obtained a new and wider view. The palace and
+its life dwindled to a speck. Far away to the north he could discern the
+white summits of the mountains that cradle the blue lake of Garda, while
+at his feet the Mincio flowed peacefully toward the Adriatic, where a
+good ship (on which, but for his folly in pausing at Mantua, he might on
+the morrow be voyaging homeward) was impatiently tugging at her
+moorings. Fool that he was, he had made his bed and must lie on it. It
+was a very uncomfortable bed at the present moment, for he could
+neither stretch himself at full length nor stand erect, but sat with his
+hands clasping his knees and his head bowed upon them. How long must he
+retain this cramped position? Malespini's words came to him with
+sinister emphasis. Would he be left here until starvation released him
+from agony and his bones bleached in the sun? The Angelus chimed from
+the belfries, the only structures which reached his plane, and gave him
+a sense of human companionship, but the tones of the bells sounded thin
+in the empty air, and his loneliness increased with their cessation. The
+sun climbed the heavens and beat unmercifully upon his unprotected head,
+but just as his thirst became intolerable and he groaned in agony, a
+low, chuckling laugh replied from a window in the tower near his cage,
+and turning his head he saw the malicious face of the dwarf Leonora
+Dosi. Repugnant as she was to him he greeted her appearance now, for it
+flashed through his mind that she might have brought him some message
+from Marie de' Medici.
+
+"It is good of you, Signorina," he said, "to think of me in my trouble;
+or is it perchance your mistress who has sent you?"
+
+He could not have asked a question which would have angered her more.
+"My mistress may not have clean forgotten her singing-bird," she
+replied, "but she has forgotten to order that his cage should be
+supplied with water and seed cups, and I cajoled Radicofani till he let
+me supply this neglect."
+
+As she spoke she held aloft a flask of water whose crystal clearness
+seemed to Brandilancia's blood-shot eyes the most desirable thing in all
+the world.
+
+"Ah! Signorina how can I ever thank you? and how can you get it to me?"
+
+"Oh! I have thought of that. See I have brought a pole long enough to
+reach your cage, and the bottle is so slender that it will pass between
+the bars."
+
+She attached the flask to one end of the pole with tantalising
+deliberation, pausing after it was fastened to pour and drink a glass of
+the water with expressive gusto. The gurgle of the liquid was more than
+the tortured man could bear. "Dear Signorina for the love of Heaven be
+quick. I die of thirst."
+
+"Oh! no, Signor, one does not die so soon, or with so little suffering.
+Men in your predicament have been known to live three days before they
+went mad, and four more before they died."
+
+"You hell cat!" he cried, "have you come to gloat over and increase my
+agony?"
+
+"That is not a pretty name," she said slowly, "I like better the 'dear
+Signorina' with which you honoured me just now. You are too hasty,
+Signor Brandilancia, too hasty in your conclusions, and in speaking them
+forth. It might strike a wiser man in your situation that it would be
+worth while not to antagonise a friend who has come to serve you. In
+proof that you have misunderstood my motives I now pass you the water.
+It was good? You would like more? Presently. It is not well to drink too
+much when one is as thirsty as you are, besides I want to talk with you.
+Do you realise that you are in a very serious position?"
+
+"Have I been condemned to death?"
+
+"Not so. There will be no trial, no execution. You will simply be
+forgotten, left here to die. The Grand Duke believes you to be the lover
+of his niece. That fact would not in the least distress him, were it not
+for her approaching marriage, which he fears may be interrupted by some
+rash act on your part."
+
+"Tell the Grand Duke, if you come from him, and the Signorina also to
+have no fear, that madness is past. If I am released I will repair to
+England and never trouble her again."
+
+Scorn curled the dwarf's lips. "Think you, the Duke would trust your
+promise? And as for the Signorina she desires nothing of the sort, for
+she loves you passionately."
+
+"Poor lady," he groaned. "But for me she might have reconciled herself
+to her destiny, wretch that I am to break the heart of one who loves me.
+Tell her from me, that if she desires me to do so, and God in His mercy
+delivers me from this bed of death I will keep my promise to snatch her
+from the fate she dreads, and we will begin the new life in the new
+world of which we dreamed."
+
+The face of the dwarf was contorted with merriment which made it the
+more hideous.
+
+"Is the life of a savage in the wilderness a fit one for a daughter of
+the Medici?" she demanded. "You need neither of you die or forego a
+single luxury which your hearts desire, if you will gather your wits
+together and listen to me.
+
+"Possibly you think that I have no influence with the Grand Duke, but if
+so you greatly mistake. I know the secret of my parentage, and have so
+disposed matters that my death would bring it to light. Ferdinando de'
+Medici will grant any request of mine. I am to go to Paris, not as the
+servant but as the Lady in Waiting of the Queen of France. Will it
+please you to join her train as Manager of her Royal Theatre and
+Purveyor of Sports to the French Court? You could then enjoy the society
+of the Queen without scandal."
+
+His heart was hot with indignation but he restrained his anger. "If
+indeed," he said, "there is no escape from this loathed marriage for
+that sweet lady, I shall pray that no memory of me may ever intrude upon
+her happiness. Surely what you suggest is as impossible as it is
+infamous. The Grand Duke would never allow me to follow his niece to
+Paris."
+
+"The Grand Duke cares not one whit what his niece may choose to do after
+she is once securely married. What I suggest is perfectly possible. I
+have taken a fancy to you, Brandilancia. If I ask the Grand Duke to give
+you to me as my husband he will not refuse me; on the contrary it will
+be a welcome solution of the problem before him. If perchance any
+inconvenient inquiries should in future be made by England concerning
+your welfare he will be spared all responsibility. His niece will have
+the plaything she desired, and will no longer mope. He will have secured
+my gratitude and can trust me to preserve the conventionalities; and as
+for you, my popinjay, your fortune is made. Do not fancy that you will
+remain a mere montebank. You shall exchange your cap and bells for a
+ducal coronet, chateaux jewels, honours, wealth in what form you will
+shall be yours. You will be King in everything but name. Henry of
+Navarre shall in reality be nothing but your condottiere, and I will not
+be _exigeante_. I know that I am misshapen, hideous. I ask only a little
+gratitude."
+
+That word stopped his mouth, for he was about to curse her as a minister
+of Satan, but a touch of pity softened his anger and contempt.
+
+"You know not what you ask," he said. "She would despise me, and I would
+abhor myself. Let me die without forfeiting her respect."
+
+"_She!_" the dwarf sneered, and was suddenly silent. Her keen insight
+told her that if she betrayed to this strangely constituted man that the
+scheme had originated with her mistress he would loathe where he now
+pitied and every chance of success be lost.
+
+"What were you about to say?" he asked.
+
+"Only that you little know the love you slight. She would forgive you
+anything but desertion. Yours is a strange code of honour, that can win
+the affection of a noble lady and then throw it lightly away. I am going
+now. Once for all I ask, will you accept my offer?"
+
+"And tempt that innocent soul to a life of perfidy and shame?--God send
+me death quickly and spare me such villainy as that."
+
+"Your prayer will not be answered," she sneered. "Death will come, but
+not quickly,--unless you beat your brains out against the bars of your
+cage, and before that you will shriek and call for me, but I will not
+come. You have known how the women of the Medici love. Learn now how
+they hate."
+
+Her footsteps died away and despair settled upon his heart. How long,
+how long, he asked himself, must he endure this agony before death would
+come to his release.
+
+The dwarf had left food and water on the window-sill in plain sight but
+beyond his reach. He closed his eyes but the odour of the viands reached
+him and increased his faintness. The hours lagged on, and toward evening
+a light breeze sprang up and he fell into a troubled sleep which
+somewhat dulled his suffering. From this he was rudely awakened by the
+swaying and jolting of his cage, and he realised that it was being
+hauled hastily and not too gently into the tower.
+
+Men dragged him from it, a physician gave him a reviving draught and
+assisted him down the staircase at whose foot he fell into the arms of
+the faithful Malespini.
+
+"Is it she, who has rescued me?" he asked as the secretary seated him in
+a row-boat which shot toward the palace.
+
+"Nay, you are released by the Grand Duke's orders," Malespini replied.
+"I bring you great news, Signor. A gentleman has arrived from England
+who demands your safe return in the Queen's name. Even the Medici could
+not gainsay a summons signed 'Elizabeth' and emphasised by one of her
+Majesty's ships of war. Say naught of the hospitality just accorded you,
+I beseech you, until well out of Italy, else you may excite the English
+admiral who is the bearer of the Queen's message to some rash act, for
+he seems to me a man of short temper, and it were well that the Grand
+Duke in his chagrin were not tried too far."
+
+"The English Admiral!" repeated the astonished Brandilancia,--"sent for
+me by Queen Elizabeth. It is not possible!" But, as the torchlight fell
+upon the gallant figure impatiently pacing the landing which they were
+approaching, he cried "Miracle of God! it is indeed Essex!"
+
+"It is I, Will, of a surety," replied the other. "Did you think I would
+suffer you to die in the trap into which you had ventured for love of
+me? I have been consumed with anxiety, especially after the Grand Duke
+in answer to my importunity assured me that you left the Villa Medici
+months since and that he was ignorant of your whereabouts. I had
+quarrelled with the Queen when that news arrived, and she had ordered me
+to the Azores. I asked for an audience, but she would not receive me,
+and I left England determined to push on to Italy without her knowledge
+and rescue you _vi et armis_."
+
+"You should not have done that, my good friend. Elizabeth has beheaded
+men for slighter disregard of her authority."
+
+"I outran not my orders, Will, for I had scarcely left England when a
+swift sailing packet overtook me with letters from the Queen, one for
+the Grand Duke desiring your immediate return, the other my instructions
+to use all despatch in securing your person."
+
+"But if you received no letter from me and had no speech with the Queen,
+I do not understand how her Majesty learned of my predicament."
+
+"Through your wife, Will. When I returned to England from my expedition
+to Cadiz she sought me out, and demanded why I had not brought you.
+Then, as the time passed by at which I had told her she might expect
+you, it seems she grew wild with anxiety, and, journeying to London,
+laid the matter before the Queen, who admires your talent as a
+playwright and has herself some ambition in that direction. Anne, the
+artful wench, very tactfully persuaded her Majesty that, with you for a
+collaborator, she might write a comedy which would redound to her
+eternal fame. Therefore, our royal mistress bids you think of some plot
+which shall bring again upon the boards that arch-rogue, John Falstaff.
+I am to bring you to Windsor Castle, where you are to prepare this
+masterpiece, at the Queen's dictation (Heaven save the mark!), in time
+for its presentation before the Court during the Twelfth Night
+festivities."
+
+"And Anne, whom I thought so indifferent to my career, to my very
+existence, did this for me?"
+
+"Yes, Will, 't is a good girl and a handsome, and one you have not
+treated overly well, as it seems to me; but you will make it all up over
+your Christmas pudding."
+
+As he spoke the great clock of the palace slowly clanged midnight, and
+Brandilancia turned white and caught Essex's arm for support. "Would to
+God that I might go with you," he groaned; "would that I had never come
+to Italy upon your cursed business. I stand here a doubly perjured man.
+How, I scarcely know (for I swear I set not about it cold-bloodedly), I
+have won the love of the peerless Marie de' Medici. For me she has
+discarded the King of France, and has promised to meet me at this spot
+and at this very hour and fly with me to El Dorado. I left her stricken
+to the heart by my misfortunes. If I desert her now her death will be
+upon my head. See you not the Gonzaga barge is approaching in which she
+promised to forsake the world with me."
+
+"Make yourself easy on the score of my mistress," exclaimed Malespini.
+"You have kept your appointment, but when she made hers she had no
+intention of keeping it with a man of your quality. Under a strange
+hallucination she has fancied all along that you were the King of
+France, and her fainting fit was occasioned by her dismay and
+humiliation on discovering that you were only the king of poets. I will
+not say that she did not find you agreeable. She was pleased when she
+learned that your friend had arrived in time to rescue you, and ere she
+left for Florence this afternoon bade me wish you _bon voyage_, and to
+thank you for much merry entertainment."
+
+The Earl of Essex whistled softly, and an expression of infinite relief
+relaxed the contorted features of Brandilancia. "I have learned how the
+women of the Medici love," he murmured. "Thank God, our English women
+love in a different fashion."
+
+[Illustration: COLONNA]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE LADIES OF PALLIANO
+
+(BEING A RELATION BY THE CONDOTTIERE LUIGI RODOMONTE GONZAGA OF CERTAIN
+OF HIS ADVENTURES DURING THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1525 TO 1528)
+
+
+I
+
+THE NEST OF THE PHOENIX
+
+'Tis an incredible fable that of the phoenix, the crimson wonder-bird,
+which springs in immortal youth from the flames which destroy its eyrie.
+But it is not more strange than one which I could tell of how I found
+Fenice, and snatched the joy and glory of my life from the conflagration
+of her ancestral town and castle, in which, but for my efforts, her pure
+soul would have vanished from the earth.
+
+Fenice, flame-bird, radiant and peerless, I had named her at our first
+meeting, long before the tragic burning of Palliano, for it seemed to me
+that in her vivacity and brilliancy she resembled a little dancing
+flame. I well remember also how at that time the longing came to me to
+warm my numbed heart forever in her presence.
+
+I am no poet, but a plain man of war, and this phantasy of the phoenix
+came into my head in a very natural and simple way, for Fenice when
+first I saw her was sending up little fire-balloons from the garden of
+the Colonna palace. It was an unusual and a dangerous pastime for a
+young girl, but the sudden flashing from the gloom of those flickering
+lights, that illumined for an instant the beautiful face which the
+darkness as quickly obliterated, gave an additional zest to my enjoyment
+of the vision.
+
+I strode to her side and affected great interest in her occupation. The
+balloons were ingeniously constructed to represent birds with spread
+wings, and it was the alchemist of the family who dwelt at Palliano who
+had invented them. "It is his conceit," she explained, "that rising from
+the flames they resemble the phoenix, a bird peerless in beauty and
+song, which appears upon earth but twice in a thousand years."
+
+"Then that shall be my name for you," I said, for we were alone for the
+instant; "but will you as tranquilly soar away from me, leaving the
+world the darker for your passing?"
+
+Though she gave me not at that time the answer I coveted, I liked none
+the less the modesty which made her winning difficult. There were also
+other matters of importance to the world at large, which I must now
+digress to explain, that at first hindered, but in the end abetted that
+winning.
+
+It was in the spring of the eventful year of 1525 that my cousin,
+Federigo Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, requested me to escort his mother,
+the worshipful Marchesa Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, upon her journey to
+Rome. This demand was the more reasonable in that the Marchesa was a
+most loving and munificent patroness of my sister Giulia, for whose
+orphaned condition the great lady had shown the most tender sympathy,
+removing her from our lonely ancestral castle, and bringing the girl up
+in her own brilliant court. Giulia was now at the height of the
+attractiveness which was soon to be so extravagantly sung, many still
+maintaining her the most beautiful woman of our time.
+
+From that estimate her brother must be allowed to differ. A superbly
+regal creature she certainly was, but too grandly made for my ideals.
+Let the question rest, for her heart was ever as great as her body, and
+I deny her supremacy to but one other. At this time I loved her better
+than any woman in the world, and as she was to accompany the Marchesa, I
+was the more willing to lend my protection to the cortege.
+
+It was an inauspicious season for ladies to choose for a pleasure jaunt,
+for their Majesties the Emperor Charles V. and Francis I. had entered
+upon their struggle for the possession of Italy. The French had already
+entered Lombardy, and the Imperial forces under the Viceroy of Naples,
+Pescara and Bourbon were marching to meet them, but the Marchesa was of
+an adventurous and fearless disposition, and was moreover bent in her
+present expedition upon something more than pleasure. Never have I known
+man or woman of such marvellous finesse as well as courage, and she
+desired above all things to obtain the cardinal's hat for Ercole, her
+second son. Therefore it seemed good to her, while the actual fighting
+was still confined to the north of Italy, to hasten to Rome, and obtain
+this coveted prize, before the Emperor should succeed in deposing Pope
+Clement and possibly set up another pontiff less friendly to the House
+of Gonzaga.
+
+[Illustration: Colonna Palace, Rome--The Grand Salon]
+
+At the same time, that Charles V. might have no cause to complain of her
+lack of loyalty, she sent her third son, Ferrante, to Spain to assure
+the Emperor of her entire sympathy with his cause and to ask for a
+command in the Imperial army. Rome at this time was a place where there
+were wheels within wheels. While on the surface all was gay and
+peaceful, and old enemies hobnobbed with one another, daggers lurked
+under the olive branches, old feuds were not forgotten, plots were
+hatched, and secrets were wormed from comrades over the wine-cup. While
+I could not emulate the consummate ruse with which the Marchesa trimmed
+her sails to every possible wind I had my own little surprise to spring
+at the auspicious moment.
+
+I believed that the firm hand of the Emperor alone could give peace to
+Italy. I had lost faith in the Medicean popes, and especially in this
+weak and crafty cousin of Leo X. As a condottiere by profession I could
+have sold my services to the French but I preferred to offer them to
+Charles V., and I had a secret commission in my pocket from his
+representative, the Marquis of Pescara, then near Pavia, authorising me
+to raise and command the Italian contingent to the Imperial army. The
+Marquis desired me to take counsel with his wife's kindred, the
+Colonnas, who were always inimical to the Pope, as to the best means of
+effecting a junction with their troops in case an attack upon Rome
+should be decided upon the coming year. When I add that the head of the
+house, Vespasian Colonna, had offered the hospitalities of his palace to
+the Marchesa Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, it will be understood how
+marvellously this lady's visit to Rome fell in with my schemes.
+
+As we made our entry into that most beautiful room of all the world, the
+_sala de gala_ of the Colonna palace, my sister clutched my arm tightly.
+A glimpse of the glories of heaven could not in sooth have been more
+transporting to the rapt gaze of an anchorite, for Giulia was
+essentially of this world and a superb mundane life was her highest
+ambition.
+
+She had profited by her tutelage at the court of the Marchesa, the most
+cultured in the north of Italy, but this dazzling room surpassed any in
+the Mantuan palace as far as her own beauty outshone that of her
+protectress. So as her foolish little heart cried out "Oh! that I might
+reign here as Queen," she looked up into the admiring eyes of
+Vespasian Colonna and heard the echo of her unuttered cry--"Reign here
+as Queen."
+
+[Illustration: Garden of the Colonna Palace, Rome
+
+With permission of Mr. Charles A. Platt]
+
+For Vespasian was a widower, and the snows of age had not cooled the
+volcanic fires of his heart. He offered his arm to the Marchesa, and
+together they made the rounds of the regal apartments. But ever as we
+paused before a portrait and he explained that this was some fair
+ancestress his backward glance at Giulia told that in his estimation she
+surpassed them all.
+
+The interior of the palace inspected we passed over a bridge, which
+spanned a side street, to the terraced garden crowned by the ruins of
+the old Roman Temple of the Sun. Here were also statues and fountains,
+square-cut hedges, and sun-warmed, marble seats, and the air was heavy
+with the perfume of roses and jasmine. But the glory of the garden, as
+Colonna told us, was its outlook over Rome. This we could not now fully
+appreciate for dusk was falling and the city was in a purple haze, which
+deepened as we looked. Soon coloured lights glimmered forth in the dark
+_allees_, and suddenly from the summit of the ruin there rose slowly a
+fire balloon and twinkling far away into the blue seemed to seek its
+companion stars.
+
+"It is the conceit of my daughter Isabella," Vespasian explained, "a
+fete of fire-works in honour of your coming."
+
+I delayed to hear no more, but drawn by some mysterious attraction
+sought and found the Signorina Colonna. The flame signals flashed in her
+cheeks as her eyes met mine, for my glance seemed to her doubtless
+overbold, though it held naught of disrespect God wot.
+
+And then she explained the mechanism of her fire balloon which was
+simple enough though it had been invented by a Moorish alchemist, who
+still practised the black art in a tower of the family castle in the
+Campagna. "If you ever come to Palliano we will greet you with a still
+more brilliant illumination," she promised, little realising how well
+she would keep that pledge.
+
+It was then as I have already said that I bestowed upon her the name of
+Fenice, making what improvement I could of my scant opportunities. These
+were suddenly cut short, for Ippolito de' Medici, the Pope's handsome
+and dissipated nephew, presently joined us and bore Fenice away with the
+air of a proprietor. Such indeed he had a right to regard himself, as I
+ascertained on the next day during a conference with Vespasian Colonna
+and his nephew the Cardinal Pompeo.
+
+[Illustration: Castle of Vittoria Colonna at Ischia.]
+
+I had arrived at the understanding desired by their kinsman the Marquis
+of Pescara, for they very willingly agreed that whenever desired all the
+clansmen of the Colonna would be ready to combine with the Imperial
+forces in the siege of Rome. Pompeo, the most truculent of the race in
+spite of the fact that he was a churchman, would take command, but
+Ascanio Colonna who was now in Naples with his sister Vittoria, the
+Marchesa di Pescara, might be counted upon with his sturdy vassals from
+the Abruzzi. We were jubilant, for news had just arrived that the
+Emperor's troops had won the battle of Pavia and that Francis I. was a
+prisoner. The Pope was reported nearly crazed with fear, and our plot of
+taking Rome for Charles V. seemed perfectly feasible.
+
+"In any event," said Vespasian, "our compact of friendship stands, and I
+hold you and your family in such high esteem that I desire to make our
+alliance not merely that of comrades-in-arms but a much closer
+relationship. I wish to propose a marriage, which Pompeo here shall
+celebrate, in our ancestral home before you leave us."
+
+My hopes rose high for I thought he had perceived my love for Fenice and
+I sank upon one knee in a transport of gratitude.
+
+"Nay, rise my brother," he continued, "I count myself honoured in your
+acceptance of that relation. Your sister's beauty will confer undying
+lustre upon our house. Believe me she runs no danger as my wife, for
+even should the chances of war reverse the present position of King and
+Emperor, I have assured myself with the Pope, since my daughter is
+betrothed to his nephew Ippolito. He will not break with me for she will
+be one of the richest heiresses in Italy, well able to aid her husband
+in his ambition to become the Grand Duke of Tuscany."
+
+My heart, which had been so hot, was like ice. So wretched was I that I
+got no comfort from the thought of the brilliant future opening before
+my sister. I terminated my interview with Vespasian in all haste, and
+strode into the garden, pacing its walks like a madman.
+
+Here, as my good fortune willed, I came upon Ippolito de' Medici, seated
+with all the familiarity of an accepted lover by the side of Fenice. It
+was true that the young couple were chaperoned by my sister, and that
+Ippolito, who was holding a skein which she was winding, was leaning
+forward in rapt attention listening to some merry story which Giulia was
+relating; but, instead of congratulating myself that Fenice had now a
+protectress who was devoted to my interest, I was filled with rage to
+see Ippolito thus received into the intimacy of the family.
+
+My sister by a light gesture indicated that there was room for me on the
+marble bench near Fenice, and the girl, to give me room, moved a trifle
+nearer to her betrothed. This angered me, and, instead of seating
+myself, I glowered at a little distance until Giulia, having finished
+her winding and her story, came toward me, leaving Ippolito free to
+address himself to Fenice. To my surprise he did not avail himself of
+the opportunity, but, springing up, begged my sister to walk with him to
+another part of the garden. Delighted by this unexpected turn of
+affairs, I seated myself by the side of Fenice and rallied her upon her
+lover's neglect.
+
+"He could not have pleased me more," she replied. "The Signorina Gonzaga
+would be my good angel if she could rid me of him forever."
+
+This admission was like the striking of a spark in the darkness. It was
+not only illuminating as to Fenice's feeling toward her fiance, but it
+fired the mine of passion stored in my heart. How I told her I know
+not; the words exploded from me with such violence that I fear I
+frightened her, and yet--and yet she was not displeased, for when Giulia
+returned to us she found Fenice striving to cool my hot cheeks with her
+small hands, but succeeding only in inflaming them the more by her
+gentle caresses. My sister paused before us with her arms akimbo.
+
+"Here is a coil," she said, "and I beg you to tell me how I am to
+explain it to the Signor Ippolito de' Medici."
+
+"Ah! dearest lady, can you think of no way of persuading the Signor
+Ippolito to renounce his suit?" cried Fenice.
+
+"Very easily," Giulia replied, "since he has just besought me to pray
+you to release him from his engagement that he may be free to marry me;
+but upon reflection I am not sure that this expedient would please your
+honoured father."
+
+With that we all fell a-laughing, though the situation was serious
+enough. It grew rapidly more so, for my sister, apparently forgetting
+her new vows, manifested the utmost pleasure in Ippolito's society, and
+drove me wild with her coquetry. I remonstrated with her, telling her
+plainly that I could not understand her behaviour.
+
+"Have you no sense of decency," I cried, "to contract yourself to a
+noble gentleman, who, though he is no longer young, is still
+distinguished in appearance and possessed of many attractions--one whose
+fortune and rank immeasurably surpass your own, and who, moreover, loves
+you beyond your desert? Are you not ashamed, I insist, to accept all
+this and then to treat your affianced husband with such indignity? If
+you must take a lover, wait at least till your honeymoon is over, and
+then choose one who will contrast less unfavourably with the man whom
+you so dishonour."
+
+She laughed at me when I began, but as I waxed more imprudent in my
+chiding her cheek flamed and she retorted "Truly, since you
+misunderstand me thus, I scorn to explain my conduct." Nor did she deign
+to amend it, and so anxious was I, that (a temporary peace delaying any
+warlike demonstration), I lingered on in Rome to protect her against
+herself, and to see her safely married. The wedding took place in
+midsummer, but the aged bridegroom was in no happy frame of mind, for
+Giulia had led him a lively dance during their short engagement, and had
+so practised upon Ippolito de' Medici by her wiles that the infatuated
+young man had broken his compact with the Colonnas. Suspecting that my
+sister had caused this defection Vespasian hastened his marriage and
+retired with his bride and his daughter to Palliano the strongest of his
+castles.
+
+Nor was I invited to accompany the party for, having dared to ask her
+father for the hand of Fenice, I met with an angry refusal and was
+accused of having by my attentions given Ippolito an excuse for breaking
+his word.
+
+But Fenice promised with many tears to be true to me, and with her
+pledge to await my coming I was forced to be content.
+
+Rome having now no further attraction for me I returned to Lombardy,
+leaving the Marchesa, who still awaited her son's cardinalate, in the
+security of a peace which at that time promised to be lasting.
+
+No sooner, however, was Francis I. released from his Spanish captivity
+than the Pope began again to intrigue with him, and the Emperor,
+learning that Clement had broken faith, ordered the attack upon Rome.
+
+Then, at last, the Pope, realising how much he needed the friendship of
+the Gonzagas, sent the Marchesa Ercole's red hat.
+
+That triumph achieved she would gladly have returned to Mantua but it
+was now too late, for Bourbon had arrived before the city. The siege
+had begun, and neither man nor woman might leave Rome.
+
+At the Pope's own villa upon Mount Mario (the Villa Madama), without the
+walls, I met Cardinal Pompeo Colonna and heard the news that his uncle
+Vespasian had died, and that Giulia and Fenice were still at Palliano,
+where I vowed soon to join them.
+
+Of the sack of Rome which intervened I shall say nothing. Would God that
+I could as easily dismiss its memory from my mind. I entered the city
+with the youngest son of the Marchesa Isabella d'Este, Ferrante Gonzaga,
+who commanded a division of Spaniards, and we made our way at once to
+the Colonna palace which refuge the Marchesa had packed with her
+friends. Their lives we saved and the palace from burning and
+plundering. Cardinal Pompeo himself paid the ransoms of many of its
+guests, and rescued from the Spanish soldiery upwards of five hundred
+nuns. Far be it from me to extenuate the life of that profligate
+prelate, but his brave and generous acts at this fearful time must be
+counted to his credit.
+
+After that horror of cruelty and wanton destruction abated I counted on
+being free to seek Fenice and my sister, but greatly to my disgust, I
+was constituted the warden of the Pope, who was confined a close
+prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo.
+
+Though this seemed to me at the time a great hardship it proved in the
+end the best that could have happened, for so I came to know Clement
+most intimately and even to feel a pity for one so beset. I well
+remember his dismay when Ippolito de' Medici came to him with the
+alarming news that the Orsini, who, under cover of their devotion to the
+Pope embraced every opportunity to fight the Colonnas, had refused to
+recognise that the war was ended and were now burning and pillaging the
+castles of their rivals throughout the Campagna.
+
+Ippolito reported that Fenice and my sister were for the present safe,
+having fortified themselves in Palliano, but he desired the Pope to send
+him with orders to Napoleone Orsini to restrain his wild clansmen, and
+also to grant him a far greater favour. This was no less than absolution
+from clerical vows, which he had taken at the time of my sister's
+marriage, and permission, since she was now a widow, to ask for her
+hand.
+
+But Clement knew that Ippolito's next move would be to use my sister's
+wealth to secure the government of Florence, which his Holiness desired
+for his more favoured nephew Alessandro. He therefore refused to release
+Ippolito from his vows as a churchman, salving the wound by creating him
+a cardinal and promising that he should one day succeed to the tiara.
+Then, imagining that he had thus disposed forever of so slight a thing
+as a young man's passion, he bade him make all speed to the pacifying of
+the truculent Orsini, for he well knew that unless this were instantly
+done the Emperor would call him in question for their unruliness.
+
+I had been present during this interview, as was my duty, and the Pope
+now turned to me and bade me assist Ippolito by all means in my power,
+and we went forth together to prepare for the expedition.
+
+But Ippolito's face was all aflame, and he could at first speak of
+nothing but his disappointment.
+
+"By the Blood!" he cried, "his Holiness shall rue his interference in my
+love affairs, for I will balk him yet."
+
+"Have you forgotten," I asked, "that you have just been made a
+cardinal?"
+
+"And what of that? Is not Pompeo Colonna a cardinal? He can find no
+fault with me if I follow his example. I tell you that I love your
+sister and that she loves me. Is there any power that can divide us?"
+
+"Yea," I answered "that of God, and there is also my power with which it
+seems you have forgotten to reckon."
+
+He looked at me and laughed. "That for _your_ power," he scoffed,
+snapping his fingers.
+
+We had planned to ride to Nemi to find Napoleone Orsini but at Frascati
+we were met by a messenger who gave Ippolito a letter. On reading it he
+told me excitedly that Pompeo Colonna was besieged in his monastery of
+Subiaco by a rabble of the Orsini.
+
+"Go, and hold them in play," he commanded, "and I will hasten on to Nemi
+and fetch Napoleone with me, to command his clansmen to raise the
+siege."
+
+The plan commended itself to my reason and, suspecting no treachery, I
+galloped off with my troop for the relief of Pompeo. Ippolito shouted to
+me to await his coming at Subiaco, and I might have remained there until
+this day had I obeyed him. But at the monastery to my surprise I found
+all quiet nor had there been any fighting since the previous year, when
+the papal troops had been beaten by the monks and left their banner
+behind them. Both Cardinal Pompeo and I were puzzled by the false news
+which had brought me in such haste, but, being where we were, we
+accepted the hospitality of the monastery and rested and refreshed
+ourselves for three hours and no more. For, at the expiration of that
+time, came an aged man clad in Oriental garments, who had escaped from
+Palliano that morning while Napoleone Orsini was sacking the town. The
+castle on the summit of the cliff was unstormed when he left, but its
+fall was inevitable unless help should speedily arrive. Then I knew how
+Ippolito de' Medici had tricked me, for he desired not my company at
+Palliano, where he wished to pose as the sole rescuer of its ladies.
+
+The messenger whom my sister had sent to Subiaco was the Moorish
+alchemist who had taught Fenice to make the fire balloons, and I was at
+first encouraged by his assurance that the fortress was well munitioned,
+and that he had manufactured great quantities of gunpowder which was
+stored in its donjon. But I reflected that this circumstance was but an
+added danger as the assailants were endeavouring to fire the castle.
+
+With this news the Cardinal ordered his bravi to horse, and the monks
+girded up their gowns for the march. As fighting men the latter
+suffered no disparagement when matched with my soldiery save in their
+weapons, for, as their vows forbade them to take the sword, they were
+forced to content themselves with battle-axes.
+
+Wearied as were our horses my troop took the lead, and all night by
+toilsome ways over the mountains we rode toward Palliano, in the vain
+hope of arriving there before Ippolito in spite of the long detour which
+he had foisted upon us; and I felt no fatigue, for I rode for my
+sister's honour and the life of her I loved.
+
+But, in the grey dawn, at the little town of Genazzano, some six miles
+from the Colonna stronghold, I met Ippolito and his escort returning
+from Palliano, for he, too, had ridden hard. His face was drawn and
+white, but he faced me unflinchingly.
+
+"You need not have come," he said, "for I have given Napoleone Orsini
+the mandate of his Holiness. He will draw off his men. They will leave
+the castle of Palliano unattacked. I was too late to save the town."
+
+"And my sister?" for Fenice's name stuck in my throat.
+
+"Your sister is capable of taking care of herself," he answered
+bitterly; "at least that was the reply she gave me when I offered to
+remain for her defence. Nay, look not so black for I am not the villain
+that my mad words of yesterday stamped me. Let me right myself in your
+estimation. I offered her no insult, but honourable marriage, for I have
+not yet been consecrated, and I would have repudiated the cardinalcy and
+every other bribe of the devil, if she could have loved me. But she told
+me plainly that she had never done so, that she had but coquetted with
+me in the old days to prove me fickle and false to my betrothed, and
+thus leave Fenice free to wed with you; and that this Vespasian Colonna
+understood and left you his blessing ere he died."
+
+"Say you so! Ippolito," I cried. "Then I have not made this journey in
+vain, and you are a better man than I thought. I will plead your cause
+with my sister. You shall win her yet."
+
+But he shook his head though he wrung my hand for he knew her mind
+better than I. So I rode on with my men, and it was well that I did so,
+for Orsini after the departure of Ippolito had returned to the attack of
+Palliano, and as we came in sight of the promontory on which it stands,
+the sky was crimson, not with sunrise, but with the reflection of
+burning houses.
+
+The citadel towered gaunt and black above the ruined town like the
+phoenix in its flaming nest, and I acknowledged that my darling had
+kept her promise to greet my coming with a festival of fire.
+
+I wondered if from one of those dark windows she were looking forth
+anxiously for succour, and I called the alchemist to my side and bade
+him send up a fire balloon as a signal that help was at hand.
+
+"It will notify the enemy of our approach," he protested, but I replied
+that I cared not, and from the silken guidon of my troop he fashioned
+the balloon so that as it soared aloft the device of the Gonzagas was
+displayed to all onlookers.
+
+Then, with hardly an interval, there shot from the platform of the great
+tower of the castle in quick succession a flight of answering flame
+signals--one, two, three, a half-dozen; I counted them as they rose and
+drifted away on the light morning breeze. There flashed forth lights
+also below in the camp of the Orsini which ringed the town, for the
+sentries had sounded the alarm, and when we came up with their outposts
+the army had formed in battle array.
+
+I was glad of this, for it has never been my practice to fall upon and
+massacre sleeping men. My trumpeter sounded a parley and with a white
+handkerchief on the staff from which I had stripped my ensign I rode out
+to meet Napoleone.
+
+I told him that I came as messenger from the Pope to bid him keep the
+peace, for the war was over.
+
+He replied that he had already received that news from Ippolito de'
+Medici, who on the previous evening had come and gone; but that it was
+not easy to pacify such men as the Orsini when their blood was up.
+
+"Then I will pacify them," I cried, "for peace I will have, though I
+fight for it."
+
+"That is the peace for me," he replied, and at it we went.
+
+I banged them well, and the monks of Subiaco coming up in good time when
+we were nearly spent, joined in the fray with their war-cry of "The Holy
+Column!" and "Christ for Colonna!" My sister's vassals also made a sally
+from the castle but were driven back, certain of Orsini's men following
+them closely and throwing firebrands upon them as they dashed through
+the postern gate. That was the great disaster and tragedy of the day,
+for the tower in which the fugitives had sought shelter was the
+powder-magazine and a spark from the fiery missile thrown, guided by the
+evil one, found its way to a little trail of the devil's dust, which had
+been scattered on the stairs, and so fired the mine in that pent-up
+hell.
+
+With a noise as of the rending of mountains the tower belched a volcano
+of flame and the battle-field was as Sodom and Gomorrah when the heavens
+rained brimstone.
+
+By good fortune the occupants of the castle were chiefly in a tower upon
+the other side of the court, at whose foot the main battle was now
+raging, so that the loss of life was not so great as it might otherwise
+have been. As it was we were all so terrified that we ceased from our
+fighting, Orsini's men fleeing in hot haste, nor did our troops pursue,
+but busied themselves in giving help to the wounded. At the same time
+those within the castle, seeing that the battle was over, opened its
+gates, and to my unutterable joy I beheld Fenice and my sister standing
+unharmed within its portal.
+
+So it was that we pacified the wild Orsini, and later a new castle was
+born phoenix-like from the ashes of the old. But for a while it was
+deserted, for Cardinal Pompeo would no longer risk the lives of his
+relatives at Palliano, but leaving the wounded in the care of the
+monks we escorted the ladies to the Colonna palace at Rome which was
+thereafter my sister's residence.
+
+[Illustration: Villa Madama--Interior]
+
+By all the canons of romance-writing my story should end here at its
+climax, but this is not the way of real life, which goes on spinning new
+threads, and intertwining them so with the old that there is no coming
+to the end until the shears of death cut the skein.
+
+My duty as the Pope's body-guard kept me at his side, and my cousin
+Ferrante Gonzaga having less to do, was constantly at the Colonna
+palace, where he incontinently fell in love with Fenice. This had indeed
+been planned out long before by his mother, for the Marchesa had lived
+long enough in the Colonna palace to fall under its spell and she had
+marked the Colonna heiress as a suitable parti for Ferrante.
+
+Therefore at the great reconciliation between the Emperor and the Pope
+which took place at Bologna, where Clement crowned Charles, and they
+parcelled out to their favourites the dignities of Italy, Ferrante
+Gonzaga besought the hand of Fenice in recognition of the services of
+his house. To this request both the Emperor and the Pope agreed, but
+when the parties to be contracted were called into their presence,
+Cardinal Pompeo Colonna and I came with them and forbade the banns.
+Being asked why we thus defied the will of the greatest powers of
+Christendom, I confessed how in the crimson dawn of the peace of
+Palliano, being determined that no power in heaven or earth or hell
+should henceforth jeopardise our happiness, Fenice and I had been
+secretly but soundly married by the Cardinal, deferring only the public
+festivities of the wedding to a merrier morn.
+
+With that the Emperor declared the jest a good one, and that one Gonzaga
+was as good as another. "And better," whispered his Holiness in my ear,
+as I knelt before him for his blessing.
+
+
+II
+
+OTHER BIRDS OF THE FLAMING NEST
+
+  Centuries ago--here the Colonna came,
+  Vittoria with them, Angelo himself
+  Gazing upon her as she gravely moved,
+  And sighing for her, while Fabrizio's sword
+  Clanged on the gravel--here the d'Este came
+  From Tivoli, where o'er dark cypresses
+  Their villa looks above the billowy land
+  Of the Campagna.
+
+  WILLIAM WETMORE STORY.
+
+It was with the Villa Conti-Torlonia at Frascati that Story rightly
+associated the men and women of the Colonna in the lines which I have
+quoted.
+
+[Illustration: The Haunted Pool
+
+Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati]
+
+Hither certainly came the ladies of Palliano[8] from their castle in the
+neighbouring hills, for the Conti were cousins of the Colonna, and fond
+of entertaining their kindred on the terraces of their ancestral villa.
+
+Here Giulia Gonzaga must have met another renowned woman of the family,
+Giovanna of Aragon, the wife of Ascanio Colonna, with their little son
+Marcantonio, from the Castle of Marino, hardly three miles away. This
+boy was to become the most renowned man of his race, and was to form a
+link between the lives of two women of Palliano, to whom brief reference
+must be made, for the pity and horror of their fate are not surpassed in
+all the annals of tragedy.
+
+At first glance it may seem strange that the Colonnas possessed no
+suburban villa which could rival that of the Conti. Castles in plenty
+were theirs, Marino, Palliano, Palestrina, and a score of others, but
+though these sheltered comfortless, so-called palaces within their
+strong walls, there was never an attempt made here to indulge in such a
+feat of landscape-gardening as the Conti's
+
+                "fountain stairs,
+    Down which the sheeted water leaps alive."
+
+The reason of this lack of the amenities of life is not far to seek. The
+magnificent Colonna palace at Rome, with its beautiful garden, answered
+every purpose of an elaborate villa. Here they flaunted in seasons of
+prosperity, retiring to their mountain fastnesses in times of trouble.
+
+For five hundred years succeeding generations have added to the
+sumptuousness and charm of the Roman palace, and the portraits of the
+fair ladies who once gave those regal rooms their chief attraction still
+look down upon us from their walls. They hold us still with an
+all-compelling fascination: the noble Vittoria Colonna, whom Michael
+Angelo worshipped; that Duchessa Lucrezia, whom Van Dyck painted in her
+velvet robe and jewelled ruff; Felice Orsini and her children; and the
+bewitching Marie Mancini, as Mignard makes her known in her arch and
+innocent girlhood, and again with world-weary disillusion betraying
+itself through Netscher's pomp and opulence.
+
+[Illustration: Vittoria Colonna
+
+From a portrait in the Colonna Gallery]
+
+[Illustration: Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna
+
+From a portrait in later life by Netscher]
+
+It is the women who interest us most, for the men of the race, masterful
+and brave, heroic even in certain great crisis, have often shown
+themselves brutally cruel.
+
+The ceilings of the Colonna palace blaze with the victory of Lepanto
+whose hero Marcantonio Colonna is the glory of his family; but you will
+find no portrait of his murdered mistress Eufrosina, or of the most
+famous of all the duchesses of Palliano, whose ghost might well haunt
+that gloomy castle.
+
+Violante de Cardona was, in the latter part of the sixteenth century,
+the most charming woman in Naples. Her wonderful eyes alone rendered her
+irresistible to most men, and she added to remarkable beauty the
+fascinations of wit and culture. All of the young bloods of Naples were
+captives at her chariot wheels, all but young Marcantonio Colonna, who
+must have known her for he dwelt at this time at the Castle of Ischia
+inherited from his aunt Vittoria Colonna.
+
+Violante made choice among her adorers of Giovanni Caraffa, nephew of
+Pope Paul IV. whom Marcantonio had cause to hate, for Paul had despoiled
+him of Palliano, under pretext of his mother's heretical opinions, and
+had given the fief to this very Giovanni.
+
+Thus Violante to her great misfortune became the usurping Duchess of
+Palliano, for her husband made her life a martyrdom and was ultimately
+responsible for her death. He was not so utterly depraved as his brother
+Cardinal Carlo Caraffa but his maniacal jealousy was more dangerous than
+the Cardinal's vices, and he made himself rich by the maladministration
+of the papal revenues.
+
+The Pope though bigoted and fanatical was sternly upright, and
+discovering the crimes of his nephews visited unsparing retribution upon
+them. Cardinal Carlo's offences were most flagrant. He had quarrelled
+openly with a young gallant, Marcello Capecce, for the favours of
+Martuccia one of the most notorious courtesans of Rome, drawing his
+sword upon Capecce at a banquet where he had denied the Cardinal's right
+to appear as Martuccia's escort. Though the Pope had banished the
+brothers from Rome they might have lived in peace and obscurity but for
+Carlo's attempt to revenge himself upon Capecce.
+
+It happened most opportunely for the Cardinal's purpose that Capecce had
+long cherished a hopeless passion for the Duchess of Palliano.
+
+The Cardinal fanned this flame and Marcello, believing himself
+encouraged followed Violante to her villa. Here the Cardinal managed to
+bring the Duke at the very moment of the compromising visit.
+
+Why Carlo Caraffa should thus have endangered the life and reputation of
+his sister-in-law as well as that of his enemy is not definitely stated.
+Perhaps he counted on the Duke's love for his wife and intended simply
+to enrage his brother against a presuming but unfavoured lover. Whatever
+the accusation the jealous husband was not at first absolutely
+convinced, and he placed the matter for investigation in the hands of
+his wife's brother the Count Aliffe, who spied upon Capecce and reported
+that he was undoubtedly in love with the Duchess of Palliano for his
+desk was filled with poems in her honour.
+
+De Stendhal tells us vividly how Capecce was arrested on the charge of
+having attempted to poison the Duke, who, "to avoid public scandal
+stabbed him to death in prison." He also murdered the Duchess's
+lady-in-waiting, but seems not to have had the heart to kill his wife
+with his own hands. Nevertheless he believed it incumbent upon him as a
+wronged husband to exercise justice upon her, and he deputed the deed to
+her brother, who was nothing loth to wipe out the stain upon his family
+honour.
+
+On the night of the twenty-fifth of August, 1559, the Count Aliffe, with
+his friend Leonardo del Cardine, a friar, and some soldiers, appeared at
+the villa and told his sister his errand. She received her sentence with
+the haughtiest disdain. Never had she been so thoroughly a duchess.
+
+When urged to confess she protested her innocence, and assisted her
+brother in bandaging her own eyes. He hesitated for a moment; perhaps if
+she had appealed to his affection his heart might have given way; but
+she raised the handkerchief and coolly asked: "Well, what are we about,
+then?"
+
+Thus taunted he turned the wand in the noose about her neck, and so
+strangled her.
+
+The Pope seems to have approved the act or to have been indifferent to
+it; but it created a thrill of horror even at that time, for the
+beautiful Duchess had been greatly loved and was believed to be
+innocent.
+
+Strange to say, the man who was to avenge her fate was he whose heritage
+she had usurped. Marcantonio Colonna had used all his influence at the
+Court of Spain until Philip declared war upon Pope Paul IV., and
+deputed the Duke of Alva and the Spanish Army to wage the famous war of
+the Campagna. Thus Marcantonio came to his own again, and the Pope, who
+was near his end, in bitterness of soul signed the capitulation which
+saved Rome from a second sack by the Spaniards.
+
+News that the Pope was dying ran through Rome, and the populace
+liberated the prisoners of the Inquisition and burned the building. They
+howled for the Dominican monks, the guardians of the tribunal, that they
+might burn them also, but at the entrance to the monastery they were
+stopped by five mounted knights keeping guard over the doomed monks.
+They were all of them nobles, and all had suffered from the Pope, and
+they were led by Marcantonio Colonna, whose father and mother had been
+persecuted by the Inquisition. They had ridden in haste to Rome when
+they heard that Paul was dying to preserve order in the city.
+
+"And at the sight of those calm knights," says Marion Crawford, "sitting
+their horses without armour and with sheathed swords, the people drew
+back while Colonna spoke; and because he also had suffered much at
+Paul's hands they listened to him, and the great monastery was saved
+from fire and the monks from death."
+
+But though Revenge was restrained, Justice claimed the murderers of the
+Duchess of Palliano. Their trial was deliberate, but in the end Cardinal
+Carlo Caraffa met the same death which she had suffered, while her
+husband, her brother, and their accomplice were beheaded in the Torre di
+Nona.
+
+The first use made by Colonna of his revenues was to equip the
+battleship which he commanded at Lepanto, where he won the title of
+Champion of Christendom.
+
+The pitiful story of Eufrosina, who for a brief period was mistress of
+Palliano, is a sad blot upon the Champion's otherwise honourable career.
+Some authorities maintain that she was of good family, and that
+Marcantonio had killed her husband for love of her; others that she was
+a slave girl whom he had brought back from the Orient. All agree that
+she was beautiful, but Colonna had not made her his duchess. Strangely
+enough he offered the tiara of the murdered Violante to Felice Orsini,
+daughter of the very man who had striven in vain to win Palliano by
+force of arms. It was a tempting marriage, for it united the two great
+rival houses of Rome, and Eufrosina was heartlessly cast aside. Her
+after-history is a tragedy beside which the story just related pales to
+an idyl.
+
+[Illustration: Court of the Massimi Palace]
+
+That she was a woman of extraordinary powers of fascination is proved by
+the fact that, though it was notorious that she had been abandoned by
+Marcantonio, Lelio Massimi, then the representative of one of the
+proudest patrician families of Rome, did not hesitate to make her his
+wife. Massimi was an old man and a widower, whose first wife, Gerolema
+Savelli, had given him six sons, notable for their herculean strength
+and arrogance and their father's remarriage to such a woman was an
+insult to their mother's memory which they could not condone.
+
+They entered Massimi's apartment upon his wedding night and shot his
+bride to death in his arms. The old man cursed his sons excepting only
+the youngest, Pompeo, who had taken no part in the assassination, and
+shortly afterward died broken-hearted, foretelling that Pompeo alone
+would continue the line as all of his brothers would die violent
+deaths.[9]
+
+The record of the hearts of flame which have burned themselves out in
+the old nest of the phoenix might be indefinitely prolonged, for
+though battered by many sieges Palliano was never totally destroyed, and
+formed the background of many a sinister drama. Marie Mancini Colonna,
+Principessa di Palliano, writes that fear of imprisonment in the dungeon
+of her titular castle was the principal motive of her flight from her
+husband in 1672. She had been threatened with such a fate and the threat
+was not without precedent.
+
+As a prison the Castle of Palliano exists at the present day. Has its
+symbol of the phoenix attained a new meaning, and is it possible that
+erring souls issue from its gates, their stains burned clean by
+purgatorial flame?
+
+[Illustration: Marie Mancini Colonna, Principessa di Palliano, by
+Mignard
+
+Photographische Gesellschaft, Berlin]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE LURE OF OLD ROME
+
+ANTINOUS
+
+
+        Brother, 't is vain to hide
+    That thou dost know of things mysterious,
+    Immortal, starry; such alone could thus
+    Weigh down thy nature. Hast thou sinned in aught
+    Offensive to the heavenly powers? Caught
+    A Paphian dove upon a message sent?
+    Thy doubtful bow against some deer herd bent
+    Sacred to Dian? Haply thou hast seen
+    Her naked limbs among the alders green
+    And that, alas is death.
+
+    KEATS.
+
+It is impossible to saunter even so aimlessly as we have done through
+the villas of the cardinals of the Renaissance and not feel the potency
+of the charm by which their builders were enthralled, "the glamour of
+the world antique."
+
+We may struggle against the spell, telling ourselves that the scope and
+limits of the present volume will not permit of a glance at the villas
+of ancient Rome, but they insidiously steal upon us through those of the
+Renaissance. Particularly is this true of the Villa d'Este and the Villa
+Albani, magic gateways both leading directly into that earlier, and only
+real, Rome.
+
+For, though separated by the gulf of many centuries from the villa of
+the Emperor Hadrian at Tivoli, they are virtually ante-chambers to that
+once magnificent palace.
+
+We might turn from the attractive vista which they reveal but for an
+alluring phantom which can never be disassociated from those imperial
+ruins, a face whose beauty and pathos draws us on irresistibly to solve
+the mystery of its gentle sadness.
+
+Who, that has stood before the matchless relief of Antinous in the villa
+Albani, does not agree with the assertion, that "it is no shadow of sin
+which gives the pure brow its gravity, and that whatever may be the
+burden which bows the beautiful head, he bears it with a noble
+resignation which proves him superior to his suffering and unsullied by
+his doom."
+
+[Illustration: Antinous
+
+Bas-relief found at Hadrian's Villa, now in the Villa Albani]
+
+In the general resurrection of ancient masterpieces which took place
+during the Renaissance only one, the Apollo Belvedere, commanded wider
+admiration as a type of manly beauty. But the Apollo is a theatrical
+manifestation of the popular conception of god-like perfection, while
+Antinous makes appeals directly to the heart through his very humanity.
+
+One hundred and thirty-six of his portrait statues, busts, and reliefs
+have come down to us, and as many engraved gems and coins bearing
+varying interpretations of his familiar and unmistakable personality; so
+that it is common to speak of the Antinous type as the last ideal
+creation of ancient art. And yet we are assured on the highest authority
+that Antinous really lived, and that there is historical foundation for
+the authenticity of these portraits.
+
+"He has a distinct individuality always recognisable," says Gregorovius.
+"In every case we see a face bowed down, full of melancholy beauty, with
+deep-set eyes, slightly arched eyebrows, and abundant curls falling over
+the forehead. It is the beautiful expression of a nature which combined
+the Greek and the Asiatic characteristics only slightly idealised. We
+read the fate of Antinous in this sorrowful figure, for the artists knew
+of the death of sacrifice to which he dedicated himself, and this
+mysterious sadness would attract the observer even if he could not give
+the name to the statue."
+
+But history only whets our curiosity, for ancient writers are neglectful
+or tantalisingly bald in their allusions to Antinous. We are told only
+that he was the favourite of Hadrian, the most magnificent and
+enlightened of all the Roman emperors, who loved the gentle Bithynian
+youth so extravagantly that he made him his inseparable companion and
+even contemplated him as his successor; that during the fateful Egyptian
+journey an oracle announced that the Emperor must shortly die unless a
+voluntary victim could be found to take upon himself the doom with which
+he was threatened; and that Antinous unhesitatingly laid down his life
+for his patron. "Greater love hath no man than this," and Hadrian's
+ostentatious lamentation, and even his deification of his friend, seems
+puerile in comparison with the devotion of Antinous.
+
+No modern author has developed this alluring theme in a satisfactory
+manner. Ebers in his novel _The Emperor_, is inadequate. He laboriously
+loads its pages with his carefully verified material, but his
+imagination is wingless, the result far from convincing.
+
+[Illustration: Ruins of a Gallery of Statues in Hadrian's Villa
+
+From an etching by Piranesi]
+
+One poet there was, he whose lines head this chapter, endowed with the
+inspiration to divine, and the power to worthily reveal the secret of
+the sadness in that haunting face, to which sculptors alone have done
+full justice. There are hints scattered through his poems that
+startlingly supplement the vague clues which now tantalise and baffle as
+we trace the story of Antinous in Hadrian's villa.
+
+For where history and literature fail us archaeology supplies its
+circumstantial evidence, and if we scan, through the crystal lenses of
+uncoloured truth, the stage where the drama which we seek was enacted we
+shall see the sculptured semblances of the vanished actors, and be able
+to surmise in part the lost book of the play.
+
+The ruins of the great pleasure-palace, where the Emperor and his
+favourite resided during the opening scenes of their history, now lie
+bleak and bare, exposed to the burning sun and the wandering winds,
+despoiled even of the vines and flowers with which nature has striven to
+hide the ravages of man. We must go back to their excavation in the
+early part of the sixteenth century if we would study the tell-tale
+_mise-en-scene_.
+
+It was Pirro Ligorio who in 1538 made for Cardinal Ippolito d'Este II.
+the first systematic exploration and authoritative map of Hadrian's
+villa. A Neapolitan by birth, but called to Rome by his friend Pope Paul
+IV. (Caraffa), Ligorio, upon his arrival was associated with the aged
+Michael Angelo in the building of St. Peter's.
+
+With the arrogance of youth he quarrelled with the great master and did
+not hesitate to speak of him openly as a dotard who had outlived his
+usefulness and should yield his place to a younger genius. Paul IV. had
+the wisdom to retain Michael Angelo in his important post, and the tact
+to take the sting from Ligorio's removal by giving him the commission
+for the casino in the Vatican Gardens which (as it was not finished
+until the pontificate of Pius IV.) was destined to bear the name of the
+Villa Pia.
+
+Learned authorities have endeavoured to find the original of Ligorio's
+masterpiece in some ancient building, whereas the perfect adaptability
+of its plan to new requirements proves that it could never have been
+produced earlier than the Renaissance. It has been well epitomised as
+the "day-dream of an artist who has saturated his mind with the past."
+
+[Illustration: Antinous as Bacchus, in the Museum of the Vatican
+Permission of Alinari.]
+
+In the profusion of joyous mythological deities which give the facade of
+the Casino the richness of decoration of a jewel-casket, nymphs and
+graces dance, Pan flutes, and marine monsters frolic with all the
+abandon of classical feeling, and it is in the ornamental details, not
+in the conception of the ensemble, that we detect the influence of the
+Villa of Hadrian. When the papal villa was approaching completion,
+Ligorio attracted the attention of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este II. (the
+patron of Tasso) a connoisseur and dilettante in all the arts, who
+wisely entrusted to the young architect the construction of his famous
+villa at Tivoli.
+
+The Cardinal had the right to quarry materials from the neighbouring
+ruins, and among the first of the great discoveries which Ligorio
+records is that of a statue of Antinous. It depicted the youth under the
+attributes of Bacchus, and was possibly a replica of the beautiful
+statue found later at Praeneste and now in the Sala Rotonda of the
+Vatican.
+
+From the hour that it was carried in triumph to the terraces of Villa
+d'Este, Ligorio and his patron as well, were taken captive by a new
+enthusiasm, for a lucky chance had guided the excavators to the most
+richly ornamented of all the apartments in the Emperor's wonderful
+palace--the heavy-folded curtain of Time had rolled upward disclosing
+the scene of the happiest hours in the short life of Antinous.
+
+An exquisite circular palazzita lay before them, islanded by a
+marble-lined canal five metres broad from an encircling portico, whose
+roof was supported by forty Corinthian columns of precious _giallo
+antico_. Noting the important part played by water in this construction,
+the canal fed by fountains, whose pipes and mechanism plainly showed
+within the statues which ornamented the rotunda, Ligorio hastily
+concluded that this was the Emperor's natatorium or swimming pool. But
+the feminine elegance of the fairy-like suite of apartments, to which
+the canal served as a moat; the presence of drawbridges worked from the
+centre, thus cutting off or affording communication with the colonnade
+at the will of the occupant, and evidences that the canal itself was a
+_nympheum_ or aquatic garden, among whose rose-coloured lotus blossoms
+white swans glided, flamingoes darted, and tall clusters of papyrus
+screened the porticoes from the gaze of passers, favoured the conclusion
+that this pavilion of all delight was designed for some beautiful woman
+royally beloved. The frieze of loves, mounted upon hippocampi
+imitating the games of the circus, which Ligorio copied in the vestibule
+of the Villa Pia formed a part of the decoration lavished here.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Villa Pia in the Garden of the Vatican
+
+Pirro Ligorio, architect]
+
+The conspicuous situation of the palazzita between the basilica and the
+imperial apartments, to which its encircling colonnade served as a
+corridor of communication, indicated that the lady was not a favourite
+of low degree, to be hidden away in some Rosalind's bower of the immense
+labyrinthine palace, while the most valuable statues in the entire
+villa, such as the replica of the Cnidian Venus by Praxiteles, the Eros
+bending the bow, by the same master, made this temple of love and Venus
+a fitting pavilion for an empress. Such it may well have been, for here
+was found the sculptured portrait of Faustina, the wife of Antoninus
+Pius, Hadrian's successor, who resided in the villa both before and
+after the death of Antinous.
+
+She was the beautiful mother of a more beautiful daughter of the same
+name, an empress in her turn, and both branded by a historian of the
+time as infamous.
+
+Swinburne's apostrophe in _Ave Faustina Imperatrix_ applies equally to
+the portrait bust of mother or daughter:
+
+                    "Your throat,
+    Strong, heavy, throwing out the face,
+      And hard, bright chin
+    And shameful, scornful lips that grace
+      Their shame, Faustine."
+
+But it is possible that Swinburne was too hasty in accepting ancient
+gossip, and that both the Faustinas were maligned. "Modern scholarship,"
+says Monsieur Victor Duruy, "argues for their rehabilitation, and
+chiefly because the husbands of each, good and wise men both, have left
+such unequivocal testimony of their respect."
+
+"To the gods," wrote Marcus Aurelius of the younger Faustina, "I am
+indebted that I have such a wife, so obedient, so affectionate, and so
+simple."
+
+And after the death of his wife (Faustina the elder) Antoninus Pius
+cried in his grief: "O God, I would rather live with her in a desert
+than without her in this palace."
+
+In this enchanting palazzita the younger Faustina may have passed her
+childhood, while the scholarly boy, Marcus Aurelius, her cousin,
+listened to the disquisitions of the philosophers as they discussed
+great problems with the Emperor.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Villa Pia, Vatican
+
+The Rotondo--Pirro Ligorio, architect]
+
+Hadrian loved the lad, and for his absolute truthfulness nicknamed him
+Verissimus, making him a knight at the age of six. He was the comrade of
+Antinous, and as they passed to and fro together through colonnaded
+rotonda they must have often noted the young mother (she was sixteen
+when married) and her bewitching child, waving white hands from across
+the lily-padded moat.
+
+Here, then, are certain of the actors, as well as our _mise-en-scene_,
+and Marcus Aurelius, in his _Meditations_, has himself given us a hint
+as to the drama. "Forget not," he writes, "that in times gone by
+everything has already happened just as it is happening. Place before
+thine eyes whole dramas with the same endings, the same scenes, just as
+thou knowest them by thine own experience, or from earlier
+history--such, for example, as the whole Court of Hadrian."
+
+If with these instructions we remember Marcus Aurelius's still more
+significant words, "Even in a palace life may be well led," each of us
+can according to his own fancy divine the secret which Antinous kept so
+well.
+
+Had Ligorio given to literature the sympathetic imagination which he
+displayed in his art it might have been worthily revealed. For ten years
+he explored with the most intense enthusiasm the interminable
+apartments which were to prove an inexhaustible mine of art for modern
+museums, and whose bibliography would fill a library. Then in 1572 his
+munificent patron died, and the work suddenly came to an end.
+
+For two centuries the Villa of Hadrian lay neglected until new
+discoveries revived popular interest, and a young German scholar was
+called to superintend the building and installation of the last of the
+great villas erected in Rome by a member of its hierarchical
+aristocracy.
+
+There exists such striking parallelism in the history of the Villa
+d'Este and the Villa Albani, and on such identical lines was the work
+carried on that it would almost seem that, the duration of human life
+not being sufficient to complete it, Cardinal Ippolito and Pirro Ligorio
+were granted reincarnation for another fifty years in Cardinal Albani
+and his friend Winckelmann.
+
+[Illustration: Eros Bending the Bow
+
+Capitoline Museum]
+
+[Illustration: Faun of Praxiteles
+
+Capitoline Museum]
+
+Notwithstanding the many masterpieces secured by Cardinal d'Este it was
+known from ancient records that the greatest treasures of the Villa
+Hadriana had escaped his eager search, having been so securely hidden on
+the invasion of the Goths, that they evaded as well all other
+plunderers. But early in the eighteenth century Gavin Hamilton,
+commissioned to secure antiques for the British Museum, drained an
+extensive marsh called the Pantello and found it to be the depository in
+which Belisarius had secreted the missing statues on the approach of
+Totila.[10] From this hiding-place there emerged between 1730 and 1780,
+the _Antinous_ of the museum of the Capitol and the relief of the Villa
+Albani together with the _Resting Faun_ of Praxiteles which so
+captivated the imagination of Hawthorne, and many another famous work of
+art now the glory of some far distant museum.
+
+Fortunately for Italy, England found a contesting bidder in Cardinal
+Albani, and the majority of the statues found in the Pantello were
+purchased by him. At the same time the magnificent collection of
+Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, was offered at public sale by the degenerate
+spendthrift who inherited it, and sixty of the finest statues were
+secured for Villa Albani and rejoined their old companions.
+
+Winckelmann gloated over their beauty, for he united the artist's
+appreciation to the connoisseurship of the archaeologist. What solicitude
+for its appropriate setting, only surpassed by that of Hadrian himself,
+did he bestow on the placing of each individual statue, and with what
+exultation he records its arrival.
+
+"The Cardinal has brought from Tivoli on a _carro_ drawn by sixteen
+bullocks a female river deity of colossal size well preserved" (and
+still to be seen reclining on the margin of a reservoir). To the relief
+of _Antinous_ Winckelmann gave the place of honour which it now
+occupies. Let us read his own record of the esteem in which he held it.
+
+"The glory and the crown of sculpture in this age _as well as in all
+ages_" he does not hesitate to assert, "are two likenesses of Antinous."
+One of them, in the Albani villa, is in relief, the other is a colossal
+head in the Mondragone villa.
+
+"The former disinterred from Hadrian's villa is," says Winckelmann,
+"only a fragment of an entire figure which probably stood on a chariot.
+For the right hand, which is empty, is in a position that leads me to
+conclude that it must have held the reins. In this work therefore would
+have been represented the deification of Antinous as we know that
+figures so honoured were placed upon cars to signify their translation
+to the gods.
+
+[Illustration: Villa Albani]
+
+[Illustration: Casino, Villa Albani
+
+_Alinari_]
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Candelabrum from Hadrian's Villa
+
+Museum of the Vatican]
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Candelabrum from Hadrian's Villa
+
+Museum of the Vatican]
+
+"The colossal head in the Mondragone villa (now in the Louvre) I
+hold it no heresy to say is, next to the Vatican Apollo and the Laocoon,
+the most beautiful work which has come down to us."
+
+The two friends lived a charmed life more in the past than in the Rome
+of their own day until the spree was rudely broken by Winckelmann's
+tragic death at the hands of a vulgar robber, and the grey-haired
+cardinal wandered alone among his cherished marbles. Many of these he
+donated to the Capitoline Museum and to the Vatican, but the relief of
+Antinous he held among his most cherished possessions. It would have
+broken the good man's heart to have known that these statues were doomed
+to wander far from the home which he had provided for them. The French
+took possession of Italy, and the masterpieces of the Villa Albani
+formed only a fraction of the wholesale robberies which for a time
+enriched the museum of the Louvre.
+
+On the fall of Napoleon the Pope chose the sculptor Canova as his envoy
+to negotiate with the allies for the return of the art treasures of
+Italy. Canova was successful, for he pleaded from a full heart; but
+although he secured the restitution of the two hundred and ninety-four
+statues which Napoleon had taken from the Villa Albani, Cardinal
+Giuseppe Albani, an unworthy successor of the great collector, sold all
+but one in order to avoid the cost of their return transportation. The
+poor peripatetic philosophers, emperors, empresses, gods, and goddesses
+trooped on like uneasy ghosts, not a few of them finding shelter in the
+Glyptothek at Munich.
+
+The one piece of sculpture reserved from this fate of expatriation, and
+reinstated in triumph in its old position in the salon at the left of
+the main gallery of the villa, it is hardly necessary to state, was the
+relief of _Antinous_. Here it remains and lures us, according to our
+bent, to study or to dream of the life which its original so
+passionately lived, and instinctively we search for some statue of a
+woman of equal charm to link with it in our dreams.
+
+Ebers thought he had found it in the loveliest of the nine muses which
+Ligorio discovered in the theatre of Hadrian's villa. In 1689 Velasquez
+was sent to Rome to acquire them for Philip V. Eight of them may still
+be seen in the Museum of Madrid, but the ninth muse, Urania, from which
+the d'Estes could not then be induced to part, is now in the Sala delle
+Muse of the Vatican. This is the Urania which Ebers imagines to have
+been carved by the young Alexandrine sculptor, Pollux, from the Selene
+whom we are told Antinous vainly loved.
+
+The face is very winsome and the romance might satisfy us, but for a
+portrait-statue of a genuine Selene, found by Ligorio near the palazzita
+and now in the casino of the Villa Albani.
+
+[Illustration: _Alinari_
+
+Urania
+
+Museum of the Vatican]
+
+It is catalogued as _Iris Descending_, but mistakenly, says Monsieur
+Guzman, for Iris was invariably represented with wings, and this
+graceful figure is wingless, a torch in hand, and floating downward so
+gently that her motion scarcely agitates her soft drapery. Authorities
+are now agreed that the lovely figure represents Selene, the
+moon-goddess, who, enamoured with Endymion, kept tryst with him in his
+dreams, and a beautiful "Sleeping Youth" was actually discovered beneath
+the descending Selene, thus completing the composition and verifying the
+assumption as to its subject. That the recumbent youth was not at once
+recognised as intended to represent Endymion is due to the inability of
+the scientific mind to grasp more than one idea at a time, for the
+features bore so marked a resemblance to those of Antoninus Pius that
+it was rightly considered a portrait of that Emperor in his youth. Only
+recently have archaeologists accepted the title, _Antoninus Pius as
+Endymion_ and it seems probable that the Selene of Villa Albani
+portrayed the Empress Faustina, and that this group was a tribute of the
+Emperor's to his beautiful wife, his "Diva Faustina," who stooped to him
+like the moon-goddess from the sky. Is it not equally possible that he
+caused the symbols of Selene to be cut upon her signet that she might
+use it in her intimate correspondence, that the charm of this wonderful
+woman was associated in his mind with the magic of moonlight, gentle,
+love-compelling, and pure? Such a testimonial does in fact exist in a
+medal struck by the command of Antoninus Pius after the death of the
+Empress, representing Faustina bearing two torches, but returning to
+heaven, and depriving him of the light which had illumined their wedded
+life; and lest there should be any doubt that the deity typified in this
+apotheosis is Selene the Emperor caused the words _Luna lucifera_ to be
+engraved beneath the name of Faustina.
+
+The myth of the love of the lady-moon has nowhere been so exquisitely
+rendered as in the _Endymion_ of Keats, and his description of the
+descent of Selene applies well to the moon-maiden of the Villa Albani:
+
+                            "I raised
+    My sight right upward, but it was quite daz'd
+    By a bright something sailing down apace,
+    Making me quickly veil my eyes and face.
+    . . . . . . .
+    Her locks were simply gordianed up and braided
+    Leaving in naked comeliness unshaded
+    Her pearl round ears, white neck, and orbed brow.
+                . . . I see her hovering feet
+    More bluely veined, more whitely sweet
+    Than those of sea-born Venus when she rose
+    From out her cradle shell. The wind out-blows
+    Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion,
+    'Tis blue and over-spangled with a million
+    Of little eyes, as though thou wert to shed
+    Over the darkest lushest blue-bell bed
+    Handfuls of daisies."[11]
+
+Faustina may have known Antinous before her marriage, while Hadrian
+still hoped to make him his successor, ere the clamours of the people
+forced him to make the wiser choice. Had Antinous been so favoured, is
+there any doubt whether Faustina would not have inclined to him instead
+of to the good man with the serious, anxious face, who was more than
+twice her age when he became her husband?
+
+The statues of Antinous fully realise Keats's ideal of Endymion.
+
+                        "His youth was fully blown
+    Shining like Ganymede to manhood grown,
+    A smile was on his countenance; he seemed
+    To common lookers-on like one who dreamed
+    Of idleness in groves Elysian
+    But there were some who feelingly could scan
+    A lurking trouble in his nether lip.
+    Then would they sigh, 'Ah! well-a-day
+    Why should our young Endymion pine away?'"
+
+We know not on what authority Ebers links the name of Antinous,
+Endymion-like, with that of Selene. Was there some missive sealed by a
+moon-beam torch, or addressed to the lady moon which went astray and set
+the gossip of the Court crackling like a flame in dry grass? Or was it
+merely his aspiration for the throne of the Caesars which was signified
+by the common expression, "he longed for the moon," and not a love
+hopeless, but beyond his power to conquer for the unattainable Selene,
+which saddened his young life so deeply, and determined him to throw it
+away when the occasion seemed to demand the sacrifice.
+
+Both research and fancy will lead you far, for it was in Egypt that the
+most dramatic part of the story was enacted, and that Antinous,
+believing that in so doing he saved Hadrian's life, launched forth upon
+the Nile during a terrific tempest, and standing erect in the unguided
+canoe sought a voluntary death in the storm-lashed waters.
+
+The Emperor's grief was wildly extravagant. He gave the beautiful body a
+king's burial in a tomb flanked by obelisks and guarded by a sphinx; and
+he built about it a magnificent city which he called Antinopolis, a city
+which exists to this day though no man lives within its desolate
+columned streets.
+
+But the deserted city has been identified in the ruins called by the
+Egyptians, Antinoe. Its hippodrome, and theatres, and temple tomb have
+all been mapped by archaeologists, and its Arch of Triumph, of Roman
+bricks faced with white marble, its long colonnades of Corinthian
+columns, and its melancholy waving palms have been photographed by
+troops of unreflecting tourists.
+
+While erecting memorials to his friend, Hadrian was not unmindful of his
+own sepulchral monument, the present castle of St. Angelo. It served as
+a mausoleum for the imperial family. The ashes of Faustina (to whose
+memory her husband erected the beautiful temple bearing her name) were
+placed here, their urn guarded by two bronze peacocks, the emblems of an
+empress.
+
+These peacocks with the pineapple, which crowned the summit of the tomb,
+now ornament the Court of the Belvedere of the Vatican, in whose
+galleries may be found some of the statues with which Hadrian decorated
+the upper colonnade of the mausoleum, and which were wrenched from their
+pedestals and toppled upon the heads of the Goths when Totila besieged
+Rome.
+
+Gregorovius in his scholarly biography of Hadrian thus sums up his
+achievements and estimates his character:
+
+"He ruled the empire like a noble Roman, with prudence and strength. He
+enjoyed life with the joy of the ancients. He travelled throughout the
+world and found it worth the trouble. He restored it and embellished it
+with new beauty. He was lavish on a great scale."
+
+We certainly do not know what he thought of his whole life at the end of
+it. He might have agreed with the estimate of Marcus Aurelius: "All that
+belongs to the soul is a dream and a delusion; life is a struggle and a
+wandering among strangers, and fame after death is forgetfulness."
+
+That he had some vague belief in the immortality of the soul the
+well-known poem written shortly before his death certainly shows:
+
+    "Animula, vagula, blandula;
+    Hospes, comesque corporis,
+    Quae nunc abibis in loca;
+    Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
+    Nec ut soles dabis jocos?"
+
+"Celestial spirit, evanescent fay,
+  Supernal guest and sharer of my might,
+Wherefore and whither dost thou fly away,
+  Exquisite phantom, nude and ghostly white,
+Never with me again to flit and play,
+Never with me to play?"
+
+Reluctantly, after all our search, we find that archaeology, while it
+tells us much of Hadrian, leaves Antinous still a mystery.
+
+The forsaken pleasure palace is silent and empty save for ghosts of the
+imagination. We see the imperial barges glide up the Nile as in a
+pageant, but it is all a wordless pantomime, though the beautiful
+immortal figure stands.
+
+    "Still there where he a thousand years hath stood
+    And watched, with gaze intent, the ages' flood
+    His graceful limbs reflecting, then as now
+    His lotus crown the sadness on his brow,
+    And races new in line unending glide
+    Along in shells upon the flowing tide;
+    But aye as they approach and look on him
+    Athwart their joy there falls a sorrow dim,
+    The citherns cease that rang as they drew nigh,
+    On glowing lips the jests and kisses die.
+    And, lo! the heart is seized by infinite woe,
+    With arms outstretched they gaze as on they go--
+    'O waken, boy! O waken from thy dream!
+    Say what thou seest below the ages stream,
+    Tell us, is life's enigma known to thee?
+    Give us thy own fair immortality!'
+    But ere he from his revery wakens they
+    Have with the river drifted far away."
+
+[Illustration: View through the Key-hole of the Gate of the Villa of the
+Knights of Malta]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+L'ENVOI
+
+    A keyhole glimpse at Rome they show
+    'Twixt cypresses, a stately row,
+    Where all who pass are free to see
+    The villa of the Priory.
+    Here belted knights, with cross on breast,
+    In days of old were wont to rest,
+    And 'neath the ilex hedges tall
+    Oft paced the subtle Cardinal,
+    His robe upon the pavement cool
+    Mantling like some ensanguined pool.
+
+    St. Peter's keys, traditions tell,
+    Open the gates of Heaven and Hell.
+    O'er many a villa gate they 're shown,
+    With triple crown carved deep in stone.
+    If, then, you crave a fuller view
+    Than keyhole glimpses give to you,
+    Unlock and enter. You shall know
+    A Heaven of art, a Hell of woe.
+
+THE END
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] His magnificent villa of Caprarola and the still more entrancing
+villa of Lante are linked with legends of Giulio Farnese and Vittoria
+Accoramboni in the author's _Romance of Italian Villas_, which with the
+_Romance of the Renaissance Chateaux_ will be found supplementary to the
+present volume.
+
+[2] From _The Italian Rhapsody_, by permission of Mr. Robert Underwood
+Johnson.
+
+[3] Translated by E. Frere Champney.
+
+[4] A song composed by Lorenzo de' Medici. "How lovely is our youth, and
+yet how fast it flies! Those who wish for joy must snatch it now. Trust
+not to to-morrow; seize it now, seize it now!"
+
+[5] The earliest cards were not inscribed with hearts, diamonds, clubs,
+and spades, but with swords, money, clubs, and cups. The same emblems
+are still used on the Spanish playing-cards.
+
+[6] The French historians call him Richart de Cornouailles, the Italians
+Ricciardo.
+
+[7] A _stornello a fiore_ consists generally of a couplet beginning with
+an invocation to a flower, as:
+
+    Fior di limone!
+    Limone e agro e non si puoi mangiare
+    Ma son piu agre le pene d'amore.
+
+    Fior di granato!
+    Se li sospiri mie fossere fuocco,
+    Tutto il mondo sarebbe buciato.
+
+See also the _stornelli_ in Browning's _Fra Lippo Lippi_ of two of which
+Richard's are variants.
+
+[8] Palliano or Pagliano, for the name is variously spelled.
+
+[9] John Addington Symonds further relates in what strange ways fate
+fulfilled this prediction. "Disaster fell on each of the five brothers.
+The first of them, Ottavio, was killed by a cannon-ball at sea in
+honorable combat with the Turk. Another, Girolamo, who sought refuge in
+France, was shot down in an ambuscade while pursuing his amours with a
+gentle lady. A third, Alessandro, died under arms before Paris in the
+troops of General Farnese. A fourth, Luca, was imprisoned at Rome for
+his share of the step-mother's murder, but was released on the plea that
+he had avenged the wounded honour of his race. He died, however,
+poisoned by his own brother Marcantoni in 1599. Marcantoni was arrested
+on suspicion and imprisoned in Torre di Nona, where he confessed his
+guilt. He was shortly afterward beheaded on the little square before the
+bridge of St. Angelo."
+
+[10] Hamilton was aided in his work by Piranesi whose engravings record
+the state of the ruins at this time.
+
+[11] The same figure is depicted in the frescoes of Pompeii, and here
+the deep blue of an Italian night glittering with stars gives the added
+touch of colour.
+
+
+
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