Chapter XIV: Book X: Calm Waters--1499-1500 (1)

'_Le onde sonore e luminose sono governate dalle stesse leggi che
governano le onde delle acque: l'angolo incidente deve eguagliare
l'angolo riflettente._'
LEONARDO DA VINCI.

(The waves of light and sound are governed by the same mechanical
law as that governing waves of water: the angle of incidence equals
the angle of reflection.)

'_Il duca ha perso lo Stato e la roba e la libertà; e nessuna sua
opera si fini per lui._'
LEONARDO DA VINCI.

(The duke has lost state, wealth, and liberty; not one of his works
will be finished by himself.)

I

The Duke's treasury, a subterranean chamber very long and narrow and piled with huge oak chests, was entered from the north-west tower of the Rocchetta by a small iron door set in the thickness of the wall and adorned with an unfinished painting by Leonardo. On the first night of September 1499, Messer Ambrogio Ferrari the court treasurer, and Messer Borgonzio Botta the comptroller of the ducal revenue, with their assistants, shovelled coins, pearls, and other treasures hastily from the oak chests, threw them into leathern bags, which they sealed with the ducal seal, and consigned to servants to be packed upon mules. Already two hundred and forty bags had been sealed and thirty mules had been loaded, yet the guttering candles still showed that the chests contained great heaps of silver. Il Moro, meanwhile, sat at a portable writing-desk heaped with registers and account-books, but gazed blankly at the flame of the candle, and paid no attention to the work of the treasurers. Since the terrible news had reached him of the defeat of Galeazzo Sanseverino, the commander of his forces, and of the inevitable nearing of the French, he seemed to have fallen into some strange torpor which resembled insensibility.

Presently Ambrogio Ferrari inquired whether the Duke wished to take the gold and silver plate also; but Ludovico, after frowning and apparently making an effort to attend, turned away, waved his hand, and once more fixed his eyes upon the candle. The question was repeated, but this time he did not even feign attention; and presently the treasurers, unable to obtain an answer, went away. Il Moro remained alone.

A few minutes later, the old chamberlain announced Messer Bernardino da Corte, the newly appointed commandant of the fortress. The Duke roused himself, passed his hand over his brow, and bade his approach.

Ludovico, distrustful of the scions of great families, liked raising men from nothing, making the first last, and the last first. This Bernardino was the son of a footman, and had himself in his boyhood worn the court livery. The Duke had, however, exalted him to the highest offices of state, and now, as a proof of final confidence in his ability and good faith, had charged him with the defence of the castle of Milan, his last stronghold.

The Duke received the new governor graciously, bade him sit, spread before him the plan of the castle, explained the signals concerted between the fortress and the town. For example, in the daytime a curved gardening knife (or at night a flaming torch) displayed from the main tower of the castle was to show the need for instant help; a white sheet, hung on the tower of Bona, signified treachery within the walls; a chair suspended by a rope meant lack of powder; a petticoat, lack of wine; a pair of breeches, scarcity of bread; an earthenware pot, the need of a doctor.

Il Moro had himself invented this code, and was childishly pleased with it, as if in it lay somehow his chief hope of safety.

'Remember, Bernardino,' thus he concluded his exordium, 'everything has been foreseen. You have sufficiency of money, powder, provisions, fire-arms; the three thousand mercenaries are already paid; the fortress is in your hands, and should be able to stand a three years' siege. I, however, only ask you to hold it for three months; if at the end of that time I have not returned to your relief, you must do what you think best. Now you know all. Farewell, my son; may the Lord protect you!' And he favoured him with an embrace.

The governor of the castle dismissed, Il Moro bade the page prepare his camp bed. He prayed, and laid himself down, but sleep proved impossible. He lighted a candle, took a packet of papers from his wallet, and found a poem by one Antonio Cammelli da Pistoia, Bellincioni's rival, who on the first appearance of the French had deserted his patron. The poem represented the war between Ludovico and Louis XII. as a conflict between a winged serpent and a cock:--

'Italia's lord, we lay to heart thy fate,
For good it is to learn by other men's undoing.
O bitter word to speak, the loss of all things rueing--
When fickle fortune smiled, I was a potentate!
The world to Ludovico seemed a fief but late;
Itself and all its glory appeared but of his doing;
Yet Heav'n, his stomach high and proud presumption viewing,
His every hope and scheme did suddenly frustrate.'

The Duke's soul was pervaded by melancholy, which was not, however, entirely disagreeable. It was partly the pride of a martyr. He remembered the servility of the sonnets the same poet had dedicated to him not long ago:--

'Speak, potent lord, and say, The world to me is given!'

It was midnight, and the flame of the dying candle flickered and grew dim, but still the Duke continued to pace the gloomy room, thinking of his griefs, of the injustice of blind fortune, of the ingratitude of men.

'What wrong have I done them? Why do they hate me? They call me a villain and an assassin; but what have I done more than Romulus who killed his brother, and Cæsar, and Alexander, and all the heroes of antiquity? Were _they_ villains and assassins? My desire was to give them a new age of gold, such as had not been seen since the days of Augustus and the Antonines. A little longer, and under my rule Italy would have been united; the laurels of Apollo would have bloomed, and the olives of Pallas; the reign of peace would have begun, and the worship of the muses. First among princes, I sought greatness not in deeds of war, but in the fruits of golden peace, in the protection of talent, Bramante, Pacioli, Caradosso, Leonardo, and how many others! In days to come, when the noise of arms shall be forgotten, their names will be remembered, together with the name of Sforza. To what a height should not I, the new Pericles, have raised my new Athens, but for this horde of northern barbarians who have cut short my work? Why, O my God _why_ is this permitted?'

And, his head drooping on his breast, he thought again of the lines:--

'O bitter word to speak, the loss of all things rueing--
When fickle fortune smiled, I was a potentate!'

The candle flared for the last time, illuminating the vaulting of the roof, and the fresco of Mercury above the treasure-house door. Then it sank down and went out. The Duke shuddered, for he thought it a bad omen. Fearful of awakening Ricciardetto, he groped his way to the bed, lay down again, and this time fell asleep at once.

He dreamed that he knelt to Madonna Beatrice, who having discovered his intrigue with Lucrezia was taxing him with it, and striking him full in the face. He was pained, yet rejoiced that she had returned to life. He submitted to her chastisement, caught her hands that he might kiss them, and wept for love. But suddenly there stood before him, not Beatrice, but the Mercury of Leonardo's fresco over the door. The god seized him by the hair, crying:--

'O fool, and blind! In what dost thou yet hope? Will all your deceits save you from the just punishment of God? Murderer and villain!'

When he awoke, the morning light was shining on the windows. The lords, the knights, the captains, the German mercenaries, who were to escort him to the court of Maximilian, in all, some three thousand horsemen, were awaiting his presence by the main road which led north--towards the Alps.

Ludovico mounted, and rode to the Monastery delle Grazie, that he might pray for the last time beside the grave of his lost Beatrice. Later, when the sun was high in the heavens, the cortège began its march through Como, Bellaggio, Bormio, Bolzano, and Brisina, to the Tyrol, and the city of Innsbrück.

II

The journey took over a fortnight, for a rainy autumn had spoiled the roads. On the 18th of September, the Duke, being fatigued and indisposed, determined to pass the night in a mountain cave, which afforded shelter to a few herdsmen. It would not have been difficult to find a more commodious resting-place, but Il Moro deliberately chose this wild spot for his reception of the ambassador from Maximilian. The watch-fires illumined the stalactites and the natural vaulting of the cavern; pheasants were roasting for supper; and the Duke, seated on a camp-chair, his feet on a brazier, and his head muffled--for he was suffering from toothache--reflected, not without a certain satisfaction, on the greatness of his misfortunes. Lucrezia Crivelli, bright and gentle as ever, was preparing an anodyne of wine, pepper, cloves, and other potent spices for the illustrious sufferer.

'So, then, Messer Odoardo,' said Il Moro to the Emperor's envoy,' you can tell his Majesty where, and in what condition you found the legitimate ruler of Lombardy.'

Ludovico was in one of the fits of loquacity which sometimes succeeded to long periods of silence and dejection. 'Foxes have holes,' he went on, 'and birds of the air have nests, but I have not where to lay my head. Corio,' he turned to the chronicler, 'in compiling your annals omit not description of this lodging, the refuge of the last heir of the great Sforzas, of the descendant of Anglus, the Trojan, the comrade of Æneas.'

'My lord,' said Odoardo, 'your misfortunes deserve the pen of a new Tacitus.'

Lucrezia brought the anodyne, and the Duke paused to look at her admiringly. Her pale clear face was bright in the rosy glow of the firelight, her black hair coiled smoothly above her pure forehead, upon which glowed the single diamond of the _ferroniera_. She looked at her lover with her grave, innocent, and observant eyes; on her lips was a smile of almost maternal tenderness.

'Sweet heart!' thought Ludovico, 'here is one who will never betray me!' and receiving the medicament from her hand, he again turned to the chronicler and said, with swelling sententiousness: 'Corio, set down likewise this; "true friendship is proved in the furnace of affliction, as gold is proved in the fire."'

'Eh, old fellow, why so gloomy?' cried Janachi, seating himself at the Duke's feet, and slapping his knee, 'a truce to this black bile! There's remedy for every ill save death, and trust me, old man, it's better to be a living ass than a dead prince! Kiki riki! Look! look! what a throng of ass-saddles we have here!'

'Well, what of it?' asked the Duke, wearily.

_'Moro mio, moro mio_, there's an old Story which says--'

'Well--go on; relate the story!'

The fool jumped to his feet, ringing his bells and shaking his rattle.

'Once upon a time there was a king in Naples, and he bade Giotto the painter make him a wall-picture of his kingdom. And the saucy painter drew a stout Ass carrying on his back a Saddle with the royal arms, the sceptre, and the crown; and the Ass was sniffing at another Saddle, also emblazoned with arms, sceptre and crown. Wherefore, dear Sir, I say to thee, to-day the people of Milan are sniffing at the French Saddle. Let them alone! Soon enough will it gall their backs, and they'll wish to be quit of it!'

'_Stulti aliquando sapientes_,' said the Duke, with a melancholy smile at this piece of imbecility. 'Corio, write in the chronicle----'

But he did not finish the phrase, for the snorting of horses, the tramp of hoofs, and the buzz of voices were heard outside the cavern. Mariolo Pusterla the chamberlain, his face pale and agitated, entered hastily, and whispered with Calco the chief secretary.

'What has happened?' asked the Duke.

No one was willing to reply, and all eyes fell.

'Your Excellency----' began the secretary, in trembling tones, and broke off.

'May the Lord support your Excellency!' said Luigi Marliani. 'Be prepared; bad news has arrived from Milan.'

'Speak, then; speak! For God's sake, speak!' cried Ludovico, turning pale. Then looking towards the entrance, he caught sight of a man splashed with mud, and travel-worn. The Duke brushed Marliani aside, hurried to the messenger, and snatching a letter from his hand, broke the seal, read with lightning glance, uttered a cry, and sank senseless to the ground. Marliani and Pusterla were barely in time to break his fall.

On the 17th of September, the feast of San Satiro, the traitor Bernardino da Corte had opened the gates of the Castle of Milan to the French marshal, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio.

Ludovico was practised in the simulation of diplomatic faintness. This time, however, the physicians had trouble in restoring him to consciousness. When at last he regained his senses, he sighed, made the sign of the cross, and murmured:--

'Since Judas there never was a traitor like Bernardino da Corte.'

And for the rest of the evening he did not utter a single word.

A few days later the Duke arrived at Innsbrück, where he was graciously received by the Emperor and lodged in the imperial palace. One evening he was walking up and down his chamber, and dictating to Bartolomeo Calco credentials for the envoys whom he was secretly despatching to the Sultan. The face of the old secretary expressed nothing but attention, and his pen travelled rapidly over the paper, as the words fell from his master's lips.

'"Firm and invariable in our good disposition towards your Highness"'--so ran the document--'"and trusting that in the task of recovering our lost dominions, we may look for aid to the magnanimity of the powerful ruler of the Ottoman Empire, we have resolved to send three different messengers by three different roads, so that at least one of them may arrive and present our letter. The Pope, who by nature is perfidious and wicked----"'

Here the pen of the dispassionate secretary stopped; he looked up, wrinkling his brows. He could not believe his ears.

'The Pope?'

'Yes, the Pope. Go on,'

The secretary looked at his work again, and the pen scratched faster than before.

'"The Pope, being by nature wicked and perfidious, has instigated the French king to carry war into Lombardy."'

Then came the list of French victories.

'"Dismayed by these misfortunes,"' continued Il Moro frankly, '"we have judged it prudent to seek refuge at the court of the Emperor Maximilian, while awaiting the assistance of your Highness. All have betrayed us; but more than the rest, Bernardino"'--here his voice shook--'"Bernardino da Corte, a serpent warmed in our bosom, a slave whom we had heaped with favours and benefactions; a traitor like unto Judas"--Nay, 'tis vain to speak of Judas to an infidel; scratch out "Judas."'

He prayed the Sultan to assail Venice by sea and by land, assuring him of easy victory and the complete destruction of that secular enemy of the Ottomans, the arrogant Republic of St. Mark.

'"And we pray your Highness to remember,"' he concluded, '"that in this war, as in every other undertaking, all we have is at the disposal of your Highness, who in all Europe will find no more faithful ally than Ourselves."'

He had approached the table and seemed desirous of adding yet another few words; but in a sudden access of discouragement he waved his hand, and threw himself on a seat. Calco carefully strewed the wet writing with sand; then he looked up and saw that the Duke had covered his face with his hands, and was weeping, his shoulders shaking with sobs.

'Lord, why hast thou permitted this? Where, where is Thine eternal justice?' he mourned. Then uncovering his distorted face, which at that moment seemed to belong to some feeble old woman, he said:--

'Bartolomeo, you know that I repose confidence in you. Tell me, on your conscience, am I acting wisely?'

'Does your Excellency refer to the embassy to the Grand Turk?'

Il Moro nodded.

The old man wrinkled his forehead and puffed his lips meditatively.

'Certes, those who hunt with wolves must howl with them; yet if we look at the matter from another point of view--in fine, if I am permitted to counsel your Excellency, I would say, wait!'

'I have waited. Now I will demonstrate that the Duke of Milan is not to be tossed aside like a mere pawn. My friend, I have been ever on the side of right, and I have been most iniquitously abused. Who shall blame me if I appeal, not only to the Grand Turk, but to the very devil himself?'

'Yet an invasion by the infidel,' suggested the secretary, 'might perchance be cause of grave peril to the Christian Church.'

'God forbid, Bartolomeo! I have considered that. I would suffer a thousand deaths rather than bring damage to our holy Mother Church. But hark you! You do not fully understand my design.'

At these words his lips took on their old rapacious smile. 'We will brew these villains such a broth,' he continued; 'we will entangle them in such nets, that none of them shall look again on God's world! But the Grand Turk!--why, the Grand Turk is no more than a tool in my hands! When the time is ripe we will cast him aside, and then we will root out all that vile sect of Mahometans, and free the sacred sepulchre of the Lord from the unclean domination of infidel dogs!'

Calco discreetly lowered his eyes and made no answer.

'This is bad,' he said to himself; 'these are dreams; in all this there is no policy. He lets himself be carried too far, and he perceives not consequences.'

But that night Ludovico, animated by hope in God and in the Grand Turk, prayed long before his favourite picture, by Leonardo, in which the Virgin was pourtrayed with the features and smile of Cecilia, Countess Bergamini.

III

Ten days before the surrender of the castle, the French marshal, Trivulzio, had made entry into Milan amid the pealing of bells and the acclamation of the populace. The king's entry was fixed for the 6th of October, and the citizens were preparing for his reception. The two great angels which, fifty years earlier in the days of the 'Repubblica Ambrosiana,' had represented the genii of popular liberty, were taken from the cathedral treasury for use in the royal procession. Long disuse had stiffened the springs by which their gilded wings were moved, and they were accordingly sent for repair to the court mechanician, Leonardo da Vinci.

Early one autumnal morning, while it was still dark, Leonardo sat at his desk, busy with his calculations and his geometrical designs. Of late he had resumed his study of aerostatics, and was constructing another flying-machine. Its skeleton was spread across the room, not, like its predecessor, resembling a bat, but rather a gigantic swallow. One of the wings was completed; slender, sharply outlined, beautiful in form and texture, it rose from floor to ceiling, and under its shadow Astro was working at the two wooden angels of the former Milanese Republic. In this latest apparatus Leonardo had determined to follow, as closely as he might, the structure of those winged creatures which nature had provided as models for a flying-machine. He still hoped to solve the problem by close observance of mechanical laws; but though apparently he knew all that could be known, there was still something which eluded his comprehension, and which perhaps lay outside these laws with which he was so familiar. As in his earlier experiments, he found himself brought up against that subtle dividing line which separates the creations of nature from the work of human hands; the structure of the living body from the structure of the lifeless machine; and he began to think he was aiming at the impossible--the irrational.

'Thank God, that is finished!' exclaimed Astro, winding up the springs of the wooden angels.

Their heavy wings moved, and in the resultant waft of air, the delicate wing of the great swallow stirred and rustled. The smith looked at it with inexpressible tenderness.

'The time I have squandered on these stupid monsters!' he exclaimed, pushing the angels away. 'From this out, Master, you may say what you please, but I will not go from this room till I have finished my swallow! Give me, pr'ythee, the design for the tail.'

'It is not ready, Astro. It demands further calculation.'

'But, Master, you promised it to me three days ago!'

'It cannot be helped. The tail of our bird is the rudder. The smallest mistake will ruin the whole.'

'You know best, I suppose! I will get on with the second wing.'

'We had better wait. It may be necessary to introduce some modification.'

The smith very carefully lifted the cane skeleton, overlaid with a network of bullocks' tendons; he turned it round, and contemplated it under every aspect. Then, his voice thick and trembling with excitement, he cried:--

'Master, be not wroth, but hear! If your calculations lead you to the conclusion that this machine also is useless, I swear to you that none the less _I_ intend to fly. Yes, I will fly in spite of all your damnable mechanics. I have no longer patience for waiting, because----'

He stopped short. Leonardo gazed at the wide, irregular, obstinate face, impressed with a single, senseless, all-absorbing idea.

'Messere,' he added, more quietly, 'be so kind as to say plainly, are we going to fly, or are we not?'

Leonardo had not the heart to tell him the naked truth.

'We cannot be quite certain till we have made the experiment,' he replied; 'but I think we shall fly.'

'That is enough; I ask no more,' said the mechanic, clapping his hands. 'If _you_ say we shall fly, then the thing is done.'

He presently burst into a great laugh.

'What the devil amuses you?' asked Leonardo.

'Ah, forgive me, Master! I am always disturbing you. But when I fall a-thinking of the poor folk of Milan, and of the French soldiers, and Il Moro, and the king, I have to laugh because I feel so sorry for them. Poor little creeping worms, poor little jumping grasshoppers! Always on the same plot of earth to which they are chained by their feet, they fight and they bite each other, and they think they are doing some very great thing! How they will stare and gape when they see men alive and flying. I misdoubt that they will believe their eyes. "These be two gods," they will say. Astro, a god! I doubt the whole world will be changed. I doubt wars and laws will be done with, and masters and slaves. We cannot conceive how it will be! Soaring up to heaven like the choirs of angels, all the people will shout Hosanna! O Messer Leonardo, Messer Leonardo! is it true that verily thus it will be?'

He spoke wildly, like one in delirium.

'Poor fool!' thought Leonardo; 'what blind faith! What is to be done? How can I tell him the truth? He will go crazed!'

At this moment there was a great knock at the street door, then a noise of voices and steps, and then a rap at the door of the studio.

'What devil comes at this hour?' growled Astro. 'A pox on him! Who is there? You won't see the Master. He has gone away from Milan.'

'Tis I, Astro--Luca Pacioli, the mathematician! Open, open, for God's sake!'

The smith opened and let the friar enter. His face was blanched with terror. Leonardo asked him hurriedly what had happened.

'To me, Messer Leonardo, nought--or leastways of that I will speak later. I come from the castle. Oh, Messer Leonardo! The Gascon bowmen--in fact the French--I saw it with my own eyes! _They are destroying your Cavallo._ Let us run! Let us run!'

'Soft!' said the painter, though he also had paled. 'What shall we do by running?'

'But you cannot sit here with folded hands while your masterpiece is perishing? I have a recommendation to Monsieur de la Trémouille. We must implore him----'

'We are too late.'

'No, no! there is still time! We can run by the garden, through the hedge. If we but make haste!'

Dragged along by the monk, Leonardo set forth for the castle. On the way Fra Luca told him of his own misadventure. The _lanzknechts_ had plundered the cellar of the _Canonica_ of San Simpliciano, where he dwelt; and being drunken, had wrought havoc through the house; and in Fra Luca's cell, having chanced on certain geometrical models made in crystal, had taken them for instruments of magic, and smashed them to atoms.

'My poor innocent crystals, which had done them no manner of wrong,' mourned the friar! Reached the piazza before the castle, they saw a young French dandy attended by a numerous suite on the drawbridge.

'Maître Gilles!' cried Fra Luca overjoyed; and he explained to Leonardo that this was a considerable and authoritative personage; his title, 'Whistler to the woodhens,' his office, to teach the finches, magpies, parrots, and thrushes of the most Christian king their feats of singing, talking, dancing, and other performances. Rumour asserted that the 'woodhens' were not the only bipeds who danced to the piping of Maître Gilles; and altogether Fra Luca had long felt that he must be presented with his books (richly bound) _De Divina Proportione_ and _Summa Aritmetica_.

'Fra Luca,' said Leonardo, 'do not lose your opportunity--attend Maître Gilles. I can manage my own case.'

'No, no,' said the other, somewhat ashamed, 'I can wait; or I will just fly to him for an instant and learn whither he is going, and in a trice I will be back with you--go you on towards Monsieur de la Trémouille.'

And gathering up the skirts of his brown habit, his bare feet shod with clattering wooden pattens, the nimble monk ran after the 'Whistler to the Woodhens'; while Leonardo crossed the drawbridge and entered the inner court of the castle.

IV

The morning mists were rising, and the watch-fires already dying down. The courtyard was crowded with cannon, ammunition, camp equipage, stable provender and refuse. All around were movable booths and cooking-spits, empty barrels serving as card-tables, hogsheads of wine, barrows of provisions; great noises of laughter, curses, quarrelings in many tongues, blasphemies, drunken shoutings and songs. At times an interval of sudden stillness when officers of rank passed. At times drums beat and brazen trumpets gave signal to the Rhenish and Suabian _lanzknechts_, or Alpine horns were blown from the walls by mercenaries from the Free Cantons of Uri and Unterwalden.

Making his way through the crowd of men and things, Leonardo reached the centre of the square and found that the Colossus, the happy labour for years of his maturest art, was still intact. The great duke, conqueror of Lombardy, Francesco Attendolo Sforza, with his bald head, in form like that of some Roman emperor, and his expression of leonine cruelty and vulpine cunning, erect as ever, still sat his huge plunging charger and trampled on his foe.

A great crowd of archers of various nationalities surrounded the statue, disputing each in his own language, and gesticulating. Leonardo gathered that a contest was imminent between a French and a German marksman, who, after drinking four tankards of wine were to shoot at a distance of fifty paces at the birthmark on the cheek of the great Sforza. The paces were measured; lots were drawn as to who should shoot first; the wine was poured out. The German drank the fill of a tankard without drawing breath, another, and another, and another. Then he took his aim, bent the bow, launched his arrow, and missed the mark. The arrow grazed the cheek, and took off the tip of the left ear, but did no further damage. It was now the turn of the Frenchman. He had brought his arbalist to his shoulder, when a commotion arose among the onlookers. The crowd divided, making space for the procession of a knight and his escort of resplendent followers. He rode past, not heeding the marksmen.

'Who is that?' inquired Leonardo.

'Monseigneur de la Trémouille.'

'Then I am in time,' thought the artist; 'I must pursue him and make supplication.'

Nevertheless he actually stood motionless where he was; oppressed by an inability, a paralysis of the will, that would have hindered the stirring of a finger had his very life been in danger. Repugnance, shame, seized him at the thought of pushing his way through the crowd that he might, like Fra Luca Pacioli, run after and pull at the skirts of a person of quality. The Gascon shot his arrow; it whizzed through the air, hit the mark, and penetrated deeply into the mole on Francesco's cheek.

'_Bigorre! Bigorre! Montjoie! Saint Denis!_' shouted the soldiers, throwing their caps into the air, '_Vive la France_!' The noisy crowd again encircled the Colossus, the jargon of many tongues broke forth anew; a fresh match was arranged, and again arrows whistled on the air and wounded the great Duke. Leonardo could not move. Inconceivable as it may seem, rooted to the spot as in some hideous dream, he watched the slow destruction of the work of the six best years of his life; of perhaps the greatest monument of the sculptor's art since the days of Phidias and Praxiteles. Under a hail of bullets, arrows, and even stones, the brittle clay was broken off in lumps or resolved into dust; the supports were laid bare. The Colossus had become an immense iron skeleton.

The sun streamed out from behind a bank of clouds. Nothing remained but the headless body of a man, the trunk of a horse, the fragment of a sceptre, and the inscription on the pedestal. 'Behold a god!' Just then the commandant of the French troops, the old Marshal Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, rode up. He looked at the place of the Colossus, stopped in sheer astonishment, looked again, shading his eyes from the sun; then turned to his attendants and asked--

'In the name of God, what has taken place?'

'_Monseigneur_,' replied a lieutenant. 'Captain Cockburn gave permission to his cross-bowmen----'

'The Sforza monument! the work of Leonardo da Vinci--I made a target for the archers of Gascony!' cried the marshal, and he rushed at the men, who, intent on their work of destruction, had not observed his displeasure; seized a Frenchman by the collar and flung him to the ground, rating him soundly. In his fury the old general had become quite purple.

'_Monseigneur_,' stammered the soldier, struggling to his knees, shaking with fright, '_Monseigneur_, we did not know! Captain Cockburn had said----'

'To hell with your Captain Cockburn! I'll hang every man jack of you!'

He flourished his sword and would have wounded some one had not Leonardo caught his wrist with such force that the brazen sword-hilt was bent.

Trivulzio stared at the stranger in dire amazement while struggling to free himself.

'Who is this man?' he exclaimed indignantly, and the artist himself replied:--

'Leonardo da Vinci.'

'And how do you dare----' began the old marshal, still beside himself, but meeting the clear unfaltering gaze of the eyes fixed upon him, he broke off. 'Eh? you are Leonardo?' he said. 'I pray you loose my arm--you have crushed the hilt.'

'_Monseigneur_,' said Leonardo, 'I beseech you.--Pardon these poor fools!'

The marshal again stared in amazement; then smiled, and shook his head.

'A strange fellow! What? You entreat for them?'

'If your Excellence hangs every mother's son among them, what will it profit me? They knew not what they did.'

The old man became thoughtful, then his face cleared, and his small intelligent eyes shone with good nature.

'Hark ye, Messer Leonardo! There is one thing passes me. How could you stand there stock-still, looking on? Why did you not complain to me? or to Monseigneur de la Trémouille? He must have passed by within an hour!'

Leonardo looked down and reddened. 'I was not in time,' he stammered, 'I----I don't know Monsieur de la Trémouille.'

''Tis a misfortune,' said the old man; and surveying the ruin, he exclaimed with great vehemence, 'I would have given a hundred of my best troopers for your Colossus!'

On his way home, Leonardo crossed the bridge just under Bramante's loggia, the scene of his last interview with the Duke. Pages and grooms were chasing the swans which were so dear to Il Moro; and the poor creatures unable to escape from the moat, fluttered and screamed in agonies. The water was flecked with down and snowy feathers; here and there on its blackness floated a white blood-stained body. One newly-wounded bird stretched its graceful neck in the convulsions of death, uttering piercing cries and flapping its weakening wings, as if in a last vain effort for flight. Leonardo averted his eyes and hurried away.

V

Louis XII. made his entry into the Lombard capital punctually on the 6th of October. Great crowds assembled to see the procession; and the newly-mended angels of the Milanese Commune waved their gilded wings to the admiration of all.

Leonardo had not touched his flying-machine since the day of the destruction of the _Cavallo_; but Astro still laboured at it indefatigably, now and then looking reproachfully at the Master with his one eye, in which blazed fires of zeal and hope.

One morning Pacioli came running with a message from the king, summoning Messer Leonardo to the castle. The artist was unwilling to leave Astro, for he had not confessed that the new apparatus was a failure, and he feared lest the enthusiast should endanger his neck in some rash experiment. However, he set forth, and presently arrived at the _Sala della Rocchetta_ where Louis XII. was receiving the magistrates and chief citizens of the city.

Leonardo looked at his new sovereign with attention, but discovered nothing regal in his aspect. He was lean and feeble, with narrow shoulders, a hollow chest, and a face curiously wrinkled. Evidently used to suffering, it had conferred on him neither nobility nor grace; his virtues were at best of the _bourgeois_ type.

A young man, twenty years of age, dressed simply in black, stood on the first step of the throne. He wore no ornaments except a few pearls in the looping of his hat, and the gold chain of the Order of St. Michael: his face was pale, his flaxen hair was worn long, and he had dark blue eyes, soft, but singularly penetrating and observant.

'Tell me, Fra Luca,' whispered Leonardo, 'who is that young noble?'

'Cæsar Borgia, the son of the pope, the Duke of Valentinois,' replied the monk.

Leonardo was not ignorant of the crimes imputed to this young man. There was little doubt that he had murdered his brother in order that, exchanging the cardinal's purple for the title of _Gran Gonfaloniere_ of the Roman Church, he might himself have the chief place in the family honours. Further, the whisper ran, that the motive of the fratricide was not ambition only, but a monstrous rivalry between the brothers for the favour of their sister Lucrezia.

'That, at least, is impossible,' thought Leonardo, looking at the calm face and clear soft eyes.

Cæsar probably felt Leonardo's scrutinising gaze, for he turned and asked his secretary some question, pointing at the artist as he spoke. The secretary, a man of venerable aspect, replied in a whisper, and Cæsar in his turn looked intently at Leonardo, while a subtle smile played upon his lips.

'Nay, it is not impossible,' thought the artist, answering his own hasty judgment; 'anything is possible to that face; perhaps even worse than we have heard.'

The spokesman of the town syndics, having finished the reading of a long and tedious document, approached the throne and presented the parchment to the king. Louis accidentally dropped it, and before the citizen could pick it up, Cæsar had stooped dexterously and quickly, had lifted the roll, and placed it in the king's hand.

'He never loses an opportunity,' grumbled some one standing near Leonardo.

'You are right,' responded another; 'the pope's son understands the arts of service. You should see him of a morning at the king's dressing! He warms his shirt for him! I daresay he'd be ready even to wash out the stable.'

Leonardo also had observed Cæsar's too obsequious action, which seemed to him terrible rather than servile, like the caress of a wild beast; but he was no longer permitted to play the part of a spectator, for Pacioli dragged him forward and presented him to the king with a short speech made up of superlatives--'_stupendissimo! prestantissimo! invincibilissimo!_' and the like. Louis spoke at once of the _Cenacolo_, praising the figures of the Apostles, and waxing enthusiastic over the perspective of the roof. Fra Luca was quite sure his Majesty had a post ready to offer to the great artist; but unluckily at this moment a page brought in letters from France, and the king's attention was engrossed by the news that his loved wife, Anne of Brittany, had been delivered of a princess. The courtiers crowded round with their congratulations, and Leonardo and Pacioli were pushed into the background. Pacioli would again have dragged his friend forward, but Leonardo objected, and presently left the palace.

On the drawbridge he was overtaken by Messer Agapito, Borgia's secretary, who by command of his master offered him the post of '_Ingegner ducale_' (chief engineer), which he had already filled under Il Moro.

Leonardo said he would reply after a few days' reflection, and went on towards his house.

Presently he saw a crowd of people, and hurried his steps with a presentiment of disaster. The fear was well grounded; his pupils Giovanni, Marco, Salaino, and Cesare, unable to procure a litter, were carrying the unfortunate Astro on the broken wing of the new and ill-fated flying-machine, his garments blood-stained and torn, his face white as death. Leonardo guessed at once what had occurred. The smith, great in resolution and in faith, had adventured on the machine. He had fitted the apparatus to his shoulders, and leaped into the air. Then he had fallen, and would probably have been killed had not one of the wings caught in the boughs of a tree. Leonardo helped to carry the poor wretch home; with his own hands he laid him on a bed and bent over him to examine his hurts. Astro recovered from his swoon, and looking up with supplicating eyes, murmured--

'O Master! Forgive!'

VI

Louis XII. celebrated the birth of his daughter with great feasts, and a solemn thanksgiving mass was performed in the cathedral. The city was quiet, and all seemed peaceful and prosperous. Having exacted an oath of fealty from his new subjects, he appointed Marshal Trivulzio his viceroy, and returned to France early in November.

The calm was, however, deceitful; Trivulzio soon made himself detested by his cruelty and greed; the adherents of the banished Ludovico took heart, and inflamed the people by liberal distribution of seditious letters. Soon those who had sent Il Moro forth with objurgations and jeers, proclaimed him the best and wisest of sovereigns.

Towards the end of January a crowd wrecked the offices of the tax-collector beside the Porta Ticinese; next day there was rioting near Pavia. The cause of the latter disturbance was an attempt made by a French soldier on the chastity of a peasant girl, who struck her assailant with a broom handle and was then threatened by him with an axe. She screamed; her father ran up with a cudgel and was killed by the soldier. Then the crowd fell upon the soldier and he was killed; after which the French drew on the populace and sacked the village.

When the news of this outrage reached Milan it acted like a spark upon gunpowder. The people poured into the squares, the streets, the market-places, shouting 'Down with the king! Down with Trivulzio! Death to the foreigners! _Viva Il Moro!_'

The French troops were too few to withstand attack from the three hundred thousand inhabitants of Milan. Trivulzio placed guns upon the tower which for the present was in use as the cathedral belfry, but before giving the order to fire on the crowd he tried one more effort at pacification. He was hustled, hunted into the Palazzo del Comune, and would have perished there but for the timely intervention of the Swiss mercenaries. Then ensued burning and pillaging; torture and murder of all foreigners and their sympathisers who fell into the hands of the citizens. On the 1st of February Trivulzio fled, leaving the fortress in charge of the Captains d'Espe and Codecara. That very night Il Moro returned from Germany, and was received with great joy by the town of Como; all Milan anxiously awaited him as its saviour.

In these last days of the revolt, when the streets were being wrecked on all sides by the cannonade, Leonardo transferred his household to the ample cellars of his house, contriving living-rooms of tolerable comfort, and storing everything of value: pictures, drawings, manuscripts, scientific instruments.

He had definitely resolved to enter Cæsar Borgia's service, and was to present himself in Romagna not later than the summer of 1500; meanwhile he proposed to visit his friend, Girolamo Melzi, at his villa of Vaprio in the vicinity of Milan, living there in retirement till the disturbances were at an end. On the morning of February the 2nd, the Feast of the Purification, Fra Luca brought him the tidings that the castle had been flooded. A Milanese, Luigi da Porto, who had been in Trivulzio's service, had deserted to the rebels, first opening all the sluices which fed the moats of the fortress. The water spread over the circumjacent lands, reaching to the walls of the Rocchetta; and, making its way into the magazine and provision stores, almost forced the French to surrender, which was precisely what Messer Luigi had hoped. The flood had also overflowed the canal, had inundated the low lying suburb of Porta Vercellina, where was situated the Monastery delle Grazie. Fra Luca expressed grave fears for Leonardo's _Cenacolo_ and offered to go with him and see how it fared.

The painter, feigning indifference, replied that he was too busy, and that he believed the height of the fresco would preserve it from injury. No sooner, however, was he rid of Pacioli than he hastened to the convent refectory, on the brick floor of which pools were still left, and where there was a pervading odour of miasma and stagnant water. A monk told him that the flood had risen to the fourth of a cubit.

The _Cenacolo_ had not been painted in water-colours, according to the usage for fresco; such process requiring a rapidity of execution alien to Leonardo's genius.

'A painter who has no doubts will have small success,' he used to say; and for his doubts, his vacillations, his experiments, corrections, and extreme slowness, only the medium of oil was suitable. It was in vain that experienced masters told him that oil paints were impossible for a damp wall standing on the verge of a marsh. His love of experiment, and of new paths and devices induced him to disregard all warnings; he mixed his paints in a special way, and prepared the wall by coating it first with clay, varnished and oiled, then with a mixture of mastic, pitch and plaster.

Having dismissed the monk, Leonardo crossed the still soaking refectory floor, and stepped close to examine his picture. The transparent and delicate colours seemed uninjured, and not even blurred; however he took a magnifying-glass and explored the surface in every part. To his dismay, there in the left-hand corner, just where the tablecloth was represented hanging in ample folds by the feet of St Bartholomew, he discovered a small crack; beside it the colours were already fading, and on the surface was a white velvety patch, scarce observable, but the beginning of mould. Sudden paleness overspread Leonardo's features; he composed himself, however, and continued his examination with minuter care. Very soon he realised what had happened. The first coating of varnished clay had bulged in consequence of the damp and had come away from the wall, raising the upper coating of plaster which carried the paint; and in the plaster tiny almost invisible cracks had formed, through which a salt sweat exuded from the porous brickwork. The _Cenacolo_ was doomed. The colours might last forty or fifty years and Leonardo himself never see their decay, but it was impossible to doubt that this his greatest work must irretrievably perish. He stood looking at the face of his Christ; realising for the first time how dear to him was this, his supreme creation.

The ruin of the _Cenacolo_, the destruction of the _Cavallo_, snapped the last threads which bound him to men, which united him to friends perhaps still unborn. His soul had long been solitary; now his solitude was deeper than before. The clay of the Colossus, resolved into dust, was the sport of the winds of heaven; mould was gathering on the very countenance of the Lord, dimming its outline, blurring and fading its colours. All that had been his very life was vanishing as a shadow.

He came away, leaving the monastery without speaking to any one; made his way to his deserted house, and descended to the place of refuge underground. He passed through the room where lay the unfortunate Astro, and stopped for a moment to speak to Giovanni who was preparing a compress for the sick man's brow.

'Fever again?' asked the Master.

'Yes; he is delirious.'

Leonardo watched the bandaging, and listened for a few minutes to the rapid disconnected babble which came from the lips of the poor broken enthusiast.

'Higher! Higher! Straight to the sun--so long as the wings don't catch fire! Ha! little one! who are you? What is your name? Mechanics? That is a scurvy name! I never heard of a devil named Mechanics! What are you jeering at? Is it a joke? That's enough now; you have had your joke, and I've done with you. Ah!--Lift me! Lift me! I can bear no more! Let me just get my breath. Oh--death and damnation!' His face was anguished; cries of terror burst from his lips; he fancied himself falling into the abyss. But this passed and the rapid babbling recommenced.

'No, no! mock not! The fault was mine own. He told me they were not ready. Ay, he said so. I have betrayed the Master! I have betrayed the Master! Hush! Hush! O yes, I know him! the smallest and the heaviest of all the devils--the little one named Mechanics.'

Leonardo, leaning over the bed, could not avert his gaze. He was thinking--

'Here is another man whom I have destroyed.'

He laid his hand on Astro's burning forehead. It appeared to calm him, little by little he became quieter, and presently he sank into heavy sleep. Leonardo retired to his underground cell, and buried himself in his calculations. He was now studying the laws of the wind, and the aerial currents, and comparing them with the laws of the waves and currents of the sea--all still with reference to this question of flight.

'If you throw two stones of equal size into a pool, at a little distance from each other,'--he said slowly to himself--'two widening circles will be formed on the surface of the water. Then will come a moment in which the first circle will meet the second; will it enter and bisect it? or will the waves be refracted at their point of contact? I answer, taking my stand on experience: the two circles will intersect each other, remaining, however, distinct and keeping their respective centres at the points where the stones fell.'

The simplicity with which nature had solved this mechanical problem filled him with enthusiasm: 'How subtle is this! How beautiful!'

He made a calculation, and the result added to his conviction that the mathematical sciences, with their laws founded on the essential necessities of reason, justified the natural necessities of mechanics.

Hour after hour flew by unnoticed, and evening came on. After supper, and relaxation in talk with his pupils, he again set to work. The acumen and lucidity of his thoughts convinced him that he was on the verge of some great discovery.

'Behold how the wind, blowing across the fields, drives waves over the rye, one succeeding the other, while the stalks, though they bend, remain fixed in the ground! In like manner do the waves run over the immovable water. The ripple caused by the throwing of a stone, or by the force of the wind, should rather be called a shiver than a movement of the water. And of this you may persuade yourself by throwing a straw into the widening rings of wavelets, and watching how it rises and falls, but does not leave its place.'

This experiment with the straw reminded him of a similar test which he had applied when studying the waves of sound. He mused--

'The striking of a bell will induce a slight quiver and a low resonance in a neighbouring bell; a note sounded on a lute will awake the same note in a lute by its side; and a straw laid upon the string which produces that note will show its vibration.'

The soul of the student was greatly stirred; he divined some connection, a whole world of undiscovered knowledge, between the two oscillating straws; the one trembling on the surface of the waves, the other quivering on the vibrating string. And an idea, swift as lightning, flashed across his mind.

'The mechanical law is the same in the two cases! Like the waves on the water when a stone drops into it, so the waves of sound widen in the air, intersecting others, but not mingling with them, keeping their own centre in the place of their origin. What, then, of light? As an echo is the reproduction of a sound, the reflection in a mirror is an echo of light. There is but one mechanical law in all the phenomena of physical force; there is but one will; and this will is thy justice, O Prime Mover! the angle of incidence must be equal to the angle of reflection.'

His face pale, his eyes burning with enthusiasm, Leonardo felt that once again, and this time more certainly than before, he was about to sound an abyss into which no man had looked before. He knew that this discovery, if confirmed by experiment, was the greatest mechanical discovery since the days of Archimedes. Two months ago, when he had heard that Vasco di Gama had doubled the Cape of Good Hope and discovered a new route to India, Leonardo had envied him, but now he had made a greater discovery than di Gama or Columbus; he had sighted more mysterious expanses, and no less than they had found a new heaven and a new earth.

But through the wall there reached his ears the groans and the ravings of the sufferer. He listened, and remembered his mechanics, the senseless destruction of the Colossus, the inevitable ruin of the _Cenacolo_, Astro's foolish and horrible fall; and asked himself:--

'Will this discovery be lost as completely, as ignominiously as all else which I have done? Will no man heed my voice? shall I ever be solitary as now? here alone in the darkness, underground, as if buried alive? I who have dreamed of wings!' After a short pause, he added: 'Be it so! Darkness, and silence, and oblivion, and none to know what I have done! _I_ know it!'

And indomitable pride, a sense of inalienable victory and strength filled his soul, as if the wings to which he had aspired were already lifting him above the earth.

The subterranean chamber suddenly became too strait for him; he felt stifled, and the longing was irresistible to behold the sky, and the open country. He left the house, and walked swiftly towards the cathedral.

VIII

The night was moonlit, serene, and warm; from the conflagration sullen flames still glowed, and smoky spirals still rose into the sky.

The crowd increased as he drew nearer to the centre of the town. The blue rays of the moon, the scarlet glare of the torches, illuminated faces haggard with excitement, seamed with anxiety, and played on the white banner with the scarlet cross which had been used by the ancient Milanese Commune, on lantern-poles, arquebuses, pistols, clubs, halberts, scythes, pitchforks, stakes, all pressed into service against the foreigner. The people swarmed like ants, the tocsin pealed, the guns roared. From the fortress the French were firing down the street, and their boast was that they would not leave one stone upon another within the city walls. Louder than the bells, more piercing than the booming of the cannon, rose the incessant yell of the citizens: 'Death to the French! Death to the foreigners! Down with the king! _Viva Il Moro!_'