beg our readers not for that reason to form an unfavorable opinion of
our worthy goldsmith, who after killing a man, after killing two men
perhaps,--indeed, if we search his past very carefully, after killing
three men,--although he had a wholesome dread of the watch, did not for
one instant fear to meet his God.
For this man, in the year of grace 1540, was an ordinary man, an
every day man, as the Germans say. Men thought so little of dying in
those days, that they naturally came to think very little of killing; we
are brave to-day, but the men of those days were foolhardy; we are men
grown, they were hot-headed youths. Life was so abundant in those days
that men lost it, gave it, sold it, nay, even took it, with absolute
indifference and recklessness.
There was once an author who was calumniated and abused for many years,
whose name was made a synonym for treachery, cruelty, and all the words
which mean infamy, and it needed this nineteenth century, the most
impartial since the birth of humanity, to rehabilitate that author as
the grand patriot and noble-hearted man he was. And yet Nicolo
Machiavelli's only crime was that he lived at an epoch when brute
strength and success were all in all; when folk judged by deeds, not
words, and when such men as Cesar Borgia the sovereign, Machiavelli the
thinker, and Benvenuto Cellini the artisan, marched straight to their
goal, without thought of methods or reasons.
One day a body was found in the public square of Cesena, cut in four
pieces; it was the body of Ramiro d'Orco. Now, as Ramiro d'Orco was a
considerable personage in Italy, the Florentine Republic sought to
ascertain the causes of his death. The Eight of the Signoria therefore
wrote to Machiavelli, their ambassador at Cesena, to satisfy their
curiosity.
But Machiavelli made no other reply than this:--
"MAGNIFICENT SIGNORIA:--I have naught to say anent the death of Ramiro
d'Orco, save this: that no prince in the world is so skilful as Cesar
Borgia in the art of making and unmaking men according to their deserts.
"MACHIAVELLI."
Benvenuto was an exponent of the theory enunciated by the illustrious
secretary of the Florentine Republic. Benvenuto the genius, Cesar Borgia
the prince, both considered themselves above the laws by virtue of their
power. In their eyes the distinction between what was just and what was
unjust was identical with the distinction between what they could and
what they could not do; of right and duty they had not the slightest
conception. A man stood in their path, they suppressed the man. To-day
civilization does him the honor of purchasing him.
But in those old days the blood was boiling so abundantly in the veins
of the young nations that they shed it for their health's sake.
They fought by instinct, not for their country to any great extent, not
for women to any great extent, but largely for the sake of fighting,
nation against nation, man against man. Benvenuto made war upon Pompeo
as François I. did upon Charles V. France and Spain fought an
intermittent duel, now at Marignano, and again at Pavia; all as if it
were the most natural thing in the world, without preamble, without long
harangues, without lamentation.
In the same way genius was exercised by those who possessed it as an
innate faculty, as an absolute royal power, based upon divine right: art
in the sixteenth century was looked upon as the natural birthright of
man.
We must not therefore wonder at these men who wondered at nothing; we
have, to explain their homicides, their whims, and their faults, an
expression which explains and justifies everything in our country,
especially in these days of ours:--
_That was the fashion._
Benvenuto therefore did simply what it was the fashion to do; Pompeo
annoyed Benvenuto Cellini, and Benvenuto suppressed Pompeo.
But the police occasionally investigated these acts of suppression; they
were very careful not to protect a man when he was alive, but perhaps
once in ten times they showed a feeble desire to avenge him when he was
dead.
They experienced such a desire in the matter of Pompeo and Benvenuto
Cellini. As the goldsmith, having returned to his shop, was putting
certain papers in the fire, and some money in his pocket, he was
arrested by the pontifical sbirri, and taken to the castle of San
Angelo,--an occurrence for which he was almost consoled by the
reflection that the castle of San Angelo was where noblemen were
imprisoned.
But another thought that was no less efficacious in bringing consolation
to Cellini as he entered the castle was this,--that a man endowed with
so inventive a mind as his need not long delay about leaving it, in one
way or another. And so, when he was taken before the governor, who was
sitting at a table covered with a green cloth, and looking through a
great pile of papers, he said:--
"Sir Governor, multiply your locks and bolts and sentinels threefold;
confine me in your highest cell or in your deepest dungeon; keep close
watch upon me all day, and lie awake all night; and yet I warn you that,
despite all that, I will escape."
The governor looked up at the prisoner who addressed him with such
unheard of assurance, and recognized Benvenuto Cellini, whom he had had
the honor of entertaining three months before.
Notwithstanding his acquaintance with the man, perhaps because of it,
Benvenuto's allocution caused the worthy governor the most profound
dismay. He was a Florentine, one Master Georgio, a knight of the
Ugolini, and an excellent man, but somewhat weak in the head. However,
he soon recovered from his first surprise, and ordered Benvenuto to be
taken to the highest cell in the castle. The platform was immediately
above it; a sentinel was stationed on the platform, and another sentinel
at the foot of the wall.
The governor called the prisoner's attention to these details, and when
he thought that he had had time to digest them, he said:--
"My dear Benvenuto, one may open locks, force doors, dig out from an
underground dungeon, make a hole through a wall, bribe sentinels and put
jailers to sleep; but without wings one cannot descend to earth from
this height."
"I will do it, nevertheless," said Cellini.
The governor looked him in the eye, and began to think that his prisoner
was mad.
"Why, in that case, you propose to fly?"
"Why not? I have always believed that man can fly, but I have lacked
time to make the experiment. Here I shall have time enough, and,
pardieu! I mean to solve the problem. The adventure of Dædalus is
history, not fable."
"Beware the sun, dear Benvenuto," sneeringly replied the governor;
"beware the sun."
"I will fly away by night," said Benvenuto.
The governor was not expecting that reply, so that he had no suitable
repartee at hand, and withdrew in a rage.
In good sooth it was most important that Benvenuto should make his
escape, at any price. At another time he would not have been at all
perturbed because he had killed a man, and would have been quit of all
responsibility by following the procession of the Virgin in August, clad
in a doublet and cloak of blue armoisin. But the new Pope, Paul III.,
was vindictive to the last degree, and when he was still Monsignore
Farnese, Benvenuto had had a crow to pluck with him, apropos of a vase
which the goldsmith refused to deliver until paid for, and which his
Eminence sought to procure by force, the result being to subject
Benvenuto to the dire necessity of using his Eminence's retainers
somewhat roughly. Moreover, the Holy Father was jealous because King
François I. had commanded Monseigneur de Montluc, his ambassador to the
Holy See, to request that Benvenuto be sent to France. When he was
informed of Benvenuto's imprisonment, Monseigneur de Montluc urged the
request more strenuously than before, thinking thereby to render the
unfortunate prisoner a service; but he was entirely unfamiliar with the
character of the new Pope, who was even more obstinate than his
predecessor, Clement VII. Now Paul III. had sworn that Benvenuto should
pay dearly for his escapade, and if he was not precisely in danger of
death,--a pope would have thought twice in those days before ordering
such an artist to the gallows,--he was in great danger of being
forgotten in his prison. It was therefore of the utmost importance that
Benvenuto should not forget himself, and that was why he was determined
to take flight without awaiting the interrogatories and judgment, which
might never have arrived; for the Pope, angered by the intervention of
François I., refused even to hear Benvenuto Cellini's name mentioned.
The prisoner knew all this from Ascanio, who was managing his
establishment, and who, by dint of persistent entreaties, had obtained
permission to visit his master. Their interviews, of course, were held
through two iron gratings, and in presence of witnesses watching to see
that the pupil passed neither file, nor rope, nor knife to his master.
As soon as the door of his cell was locked behind the governor,
Benvenuto set about inspecting his surroundings.
The following articles were contained within the four walls of his new
abiding place: a bed, a fireplace, a table, and two chairs. Two days
after his installation there, he obtained a supply of clay and a
modelling tool. The governor at first declined to allow him to have
these means of distraction, but he changed his mind upon reflecting
that, if the artist's mind were thus employed, he might perhaps abandon
the idea of escape, to which he clung so tenaciously. The same day,
Benvenuto sketched a colossal Venus.
All this of itself was no great matter; but in conjunction with
imagination, patience, and energy, it was much.
On a certain very cold day in December, when the fire was lighted on the
hearth, the servant changed the sheets on his bed and left the soiled
ones upon a chair. As soon as the door was closed, Benvenuto made one
bound from the chair on which he was sitting to the bed, took out of the
mattress two enormous handfuls of the maize leaves which are used to
stuff mattresses in Italy, stowed the sheets away in their place,
returned to his statue, took up his tool and resumed his work. At that
moment the servant returned for the forgotten sheets, and after looking
everywhere for them, asked Benvenuto if he had not seen them. But he
replied carelessly, as if absorbed by his work, that some of his fellows
doubtless had taken them, or that he carried them away himself without
knowing it. The servant had no suspicion of the truth, so little time
had elapsed since he left the room, and Benvenuto played his part so
naturally; and as the sheets were never found, he was very careful to
say nothing, for fear of being obliged to pay for them or of losing his
employment.
One who has never lived through some supreme crisis can form no idea of
the possibilities of such a time in the way of terrible catastrophes and
poignant anguish. The most trivial accidents of life arouse in us joy or
despair. As soon as the servant left the room, Benvenuto fell upon his
knees, and thanked God for the help He had sent him.
As his bed was never touched until the next morning after it was once
made, he quietly left the sheets in the mattress.
When the night came he began to cut the sheets, which luckily were new
and strong, in strips three or four inches wide, then tied them together
as securely as he could; lastly, he cut open his statue, which was of
clay, hollowed it out, placed his treasure in the cavity, then spread
clay over the wound, and smoothed it off with his finger and his
modelling tool, until the most skilful artist could not have discovered
that poor Venus had been made to undergo the Cæsarean operation.
The next morning the governor entered the prisoner's cell unexpectedly,
as he was accustomed to do, but found him as usual calm and hard at
work. Every morning the poor man, who had been specially threatened for
the night, trembled lest he should find the cell empty; and it should be
said, in justice to his frankness, that he did not conceal his joy every
morning when he found it occupied.
"I confess that you make me terribly anxious, Benvenuto," said the poor
man; "however, I begin to think that your threats of escape amount to
nothing."
"I don't threaten you, Master Georgio," rejoined Benvenuto, "I warn
you."
"Do you still hope to fly away?"
"Luckily it isn't a mere hope, but downright certainty, pardieu!"
"Demonio! how will you do it?" cried the poor governor, dismayed beyond
measure by Benvenuto's real or pretended confidence in his means of
escape.
"That's my secret, master. But I give you fair warning that my wings are
growing."
The governor instinctively turned his eye upon the prisoner's shoulders.
"'T is thus," continued Benvenuto, working away at his statue, and
rounding the hips in such fashion that one would have thought he
proposed to rival the Venus Callipyge. "Betwixt us there is a duel
impending. You have on your side enormous towers, thick doors, strong
bolts, innumerable keepers always on the alert; I have on my side my
brain, and these poor hands, and I warn you very frankly that you will
be beaten. But as you are a very clever man, as you have taken every
possible precaution, you will at least, when I am gone, have the
consolation of knowing that it is through no fault of yours, Master
Georgio, that you have no occasion to reproach yourself at all, Master
Georgio, and that you neglected nothing that could help you to detain
me, Master Georgio. And now what say you to this hip, for you are a
lover of art, I know."
Such unblushing assurance enraged the unhappy official. His prisoner had
become his fixed idea, upon which all his faculties were centred. He
grew melancholy, lost his appetite, and started constantly, like one
suddenly aroused from sleep. One night Benvenuto heard a great noise
upon the platform; then it was transferred to his corridor, and finally
stopped at his door. The door opened, and he saw Master Georgio, in
dressing-gown and nightcap, attended by four jailers and eight guards.
The governor rushed to his bedside with distorted features. Benvenuto
sat up in bed and laughed in his face. The governor, without taking
offence at his hilarity, breathed like a diver returning to the surface.
"Ah! God be praised!" he cried; "he is still here! There's much good
sense in the saying, _Songe_--_mensonge_" (Dream--lie).
"In God's name, what's the matter?" demanded Benvenuto, "and what happy
circumstance affords me the pleasure of a visit from you at such an
hour, Master Georgio?"
"Jésus Dieu! it's nothing at all, and I am quit of it this time for the
fright. Did I not dream that your accursed wings had grown,--huge wings,
whereon you tranquilly hovered above the castle of San Angelo, saying,
'Adieu, my dear governor, adieu! I did not wish to go away without
taking leave of you. I go; I pray that I may be so blessed as never to
see you more.'"
"What! did I say that to you, Master Georgio?"
"Those were your very words. Ah, Benvenuto, you are a sorry guest for
me!"
"Oh! I trust that you do not deem me so ill-bred as that. Happily it was
but a dream; for otherwise I would not forgive you."
"Happily it is not true. I hold you fast, my dear friend, and although
truth compels me to say that your society is not of the most agreeable
to me, I hope to hold you for a long time yet to come."
"I do not think it," retorted Benvenuto, with the confident smile which
caused his host to use strong language.
The governor went out, cursing Benvenuto roundly, and the next morning
he issued orders that his cell should be inspected every two hours,
night and day. This rigid inspection was continued for a month; but at
the end of that time, as there was no apparent reason to believe that
Benvenuto was even thinking of escape, the vigilance of his keepers was
somewhat relaxed.
Benvenuto, however, had employed the month in accomplishing a terrible
task.
As we have said, he minutely examined his cell immediately after he was
first consigned to it, and from that moment his mind was made up as to
the manner of his escape. His window was barred, and the bars were too
strong to be removed with the hand or with his modelling tool, the only
iron instrument he possessed. The chimney narrowed so toward the top
that the prisoner must needs have had the fairy Melusine's power of
transforming herself into a serpent to pass through it.
The door remained. Ah, the door! Let us see how the door was made.
It was a heavy oaken door two fingers thick, secured by two locks and
four bolts, and sheathed on the inside with iron plates kept in place by
nails at the top and bottom. It was through that door that the escape
must be effected.
Benvenuto had noticed in the corridor, a few steps from the door, the
stairway leading to the platform. At intervals of two hours he heard the
footsteps of the relieving sentinel going up, then the steps of the
other coming down; after which he would hear nothing more for another
two hours.
The question for him to solve, then, was simply this: how to reach the
other side of that door, which was secured by two locks and four bolts,
and furthermore sheathed on the inside with iron plates kept in place by
nails at the top and bottom. The solution of this problem was the task
to which Benvenuto had devoted the month in question.
With his modelling tool, which was of iron, he removed, one by one, the
heads of all the nails, save four above and four below, which he left
until the last day: then, in order that his work might not be detected,
he replaced the missing heads with exactly similar ones, modelled in
clay and covered with iron filings, so that it was impossible for the
keenest eye to distinguish the false from the true. As there were, at
top and bottom together, some sixty nails, and as it took at least one
hour, and sometimes two, to decapitate each nail, the magnitude of the
task may be understood.
Every evening, when everybody had retired, and nothing could be heard
save the footsteps of the sentinel walking back and forth over his head,
he built a great fire on the hearth, and piled glowing embers against
the iron plates on his door; the iron became red hot, and gradually
transformed to charcoal the wood upon which it was applied; but no
indication of the carbonizing process appeared on the other side of the
door.
For a whole month Benvenuto devoted himself to this task, as we have
said; but at the end of the month it was finished, and he only awaited a
favorable opportunity to make his escape. He was compelled, however, to
wait a few days, for the moon was near the full when the work was done.
There was nothing more to be done to the nails, so Benvenuto continued
to char the door, and drive the governor to desperation. That very day
the functionary entered his cell more preoccupied than ever.
"My dear prisoner," said the worthy man, whose mind constantly recurred
to his fixed idea, "do you still propose to fly away? Come, tell me
frankly."
"More than ever, my dear host," replied Benvenuto.
"Look you," said the governor, "you may say what you choose, but upon my
word, I believe it's impossible."
"Impossible, Master Georgio, impossible!" rejoined the artist; "why, you
know full well that word does not exist for me, who have always
exerted myself to do those things which are the most impossible for
other men, and that with success. Impossible, my dear host! Why, have I
not sometimes amused myself by making nature jealous, by fashioning with
gold and emeralds and diamonds a flower fairer far than all the flowers
that the dew empearls? Think you that he who can make flowers can not
make wings?"
"May God help me!" said the governor; "with your insolent assurance
you'll make me lose my wits! But tell me, in order that these wings may
sustain your weight in the air,--a thing which seems impossible to me, I
confess,--what form shall you give them?"
"I have thought deeply thereupon, as you may well imagine, since my
safety depends entirely upon the shape of my wings."
"With what result?"
"After examining all flying things, I have concluded that, if I wish to
reproduce by art what they have received from God, I can copy the bat
most successfully."
"But when all is said, Benvenuto," continued the governor, "even if you
had the materials with which to make a pair of wings, would not your
courage fail you when the time came to use them?"
"Give me what I need for their construction, my dear governor, and I'll
reply by flying away."
"What do you need, in God's name?"
"Oh! mon Dieu! almost nothing; a little forge, an anvil, files, tongs
and pincers to make the springs, and twenty yards of oiled silk for the
membranes.
"Good! very good!" said Master Georgio; "that reassures me somewhat,
for, clever as you may be, you never will succeed in obtaining all those
things here."
"'T is done," rejoined Benvenuto.
The governor leaped from his chair; but he instantly reflected that it
was a material impossibility. And yet, for all that, his poor brain had
not a moment's respite. Every bird that flew by his window he imagined
to be Benvenuto Cellini, so great is the influence of a master mind over
one of moderate capacity.
The same day Master Georgio sent for the most skilful machinist in all
Rome, and ordered him to measure him for a pair of bat's wings.
The machinist stared at the governor in blank amazement, without
replying, thinking, with some reason, that Master Georgio had gone mad.
But as Master Georgio insisted, as Master Georgio was wealthy, and as
Master Georgio had the wherewithal to pay for insane freaks, if he chose
to indulge in them, the machinist set about the task, and a week later
brought him a pair of magnificent wings, fitted to an iron waist to be
worn upon the body, and worked by means of an extremely ingenious
arrangement of springs, with most encouraging regularity.
Master Georgio paid his man the stipulated price, measured the space
required to accommodate the apparatus, went up to Benvenuto's cell, and
without a word overturned everything therein, looking under the bed,
peering up the chimney, fumbling in the mattress, and leaving not the
smallest corner unvisited.
Then he went out, still without speaking, convinced that, unless
Benvenuto was a sorcerer, no pair of wings similar to his own could be
hidden in his cell.
It was clear that the unhappy governor's brain was becoming more and
more disordered.
Upon descending to his own quarters, Master Georgio found the machinist
waiting for him; he had returned to call his attention to the fact that
there was an iron ring at the end of each wing, intended to support the
legs of a man flying in a horizontal position.
The machinist had no sooner left him than Master Georgio locked himself
in, donned the iron waist, unfolded his wings, hung up his legs, and,
lying flat upon his stomach, made his first attempt at flying.
But, try as he would, he could not succeed in rising above the floor.
After two or three trials, always with the same result, he sent for the
mechanic once more.
"Master," said he, "I have tried your wings, but they won't work."
"How did you try them?"
Master Georgio described his repeated experiments in detail. The
mechanic listened with a sober face, and said, when he had concluded:--
"I am not surprised; as you lay on the floor, you hadn't a sufficient
quantity of air under your wings. You must go to the top of the castle
of San Angelo, and boldly launch yourself into space."
"And you think that in that way I can fly?"
"I am sure of it."
"If you are so sure of it, would it not be as well to make the
experiment yourself?"
"The wings are proportioned to the weight of your body and not of mine,"
replied the machinist. "Wings to carry my weight would need to measure a
foot and a half more from tip to tip."
And with that he bowed and took his leave.
"The devil!" exclaimed Master Georgio.
Throughout that day Master Georgio indulged in various vagaries, which
tended to prove that his reason, like Roland's, was penetrating farther
and farther into imaginary realms.
In the evening, just at bedtime, he summoned all the servants, all the
jailers, all the guards.
"If," said he, "you learn that Benvenuto Cellini is intending to fly
away, let him go, and notify me, nothing more; for I shall know where to
go to capture him, even in the dark, since I am myself a veritable bat,
while he, whatever he may say, is only a false bat."
The poor governor was quite mad; but as they hoped that a night's rest
would have a soothing effect upon him, they decided to wait until
morning before advising the Pope.