The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini追书网更新最快,(请牢记追书网网址:https://www.zhuishu5.com)

    XXXVIII

    I SHALL skip over se intervening circumstances, and tell how Pope Clement, wishing to save the tiaras and the whole collection of the great jewels of the 'tolic Camera, had me called, and shut himself up together with me and the Cavalierino in a ro alone. This cavalierino had been a gro in the stable of Filippo Strozzi; he was French, and a person of the lowest birth; but being a most faithful servant, the Pope had made him very rich, and confided in him like himself. So the Pope, the Cavaliere, and I, being shut up together, they laid before me the tiaras and jewels of the regalia; and his Holiness ordered me to take all the gems out of their gold settings. This I accordingly did; afterwards I wrapt them separately up in bits of paper and we sewed them into the linings of the Pope's and the Cavaliere's clothes. Then they gave me all the gold, which weighed about two hundred pounds, and bade me melt it down as secretly as I was able. I went up to the Angel, where I had my lodging, and could lock the door so as to be free fr interruption. There I built a little draught-furnace of bricks, with a largish pot, shaped like an open dish, at the bott of it; and throwing the gold upon the coals, it gradually sank through and dropped into the pan. While the furnace was working I never left off watching how to annoy our enemies; and as their trenches were less than a stone's-throw right below us, I was able to inflict considerable damage on them with se useless missiles, of which there were several piles, forming the old munition of the castle. I chose a swivel and a falco, which were both a little damaged in the muzzle, and filled them with the projectiles I have mentioned. When I fired my guns, they hurtled down like mad, occasioning all sorts of unexpected mischief in the trenches. Accordingly I kept these pieces always going at the same time that the gold was being melted down; and a little before vespers I noticed se one cing along the margin of the trench on muleback. The mule was trotting very quickly, and the man was talking to the soldiers in the trenches. I took the precaution of discharging my artillery just before he came immediately opposite; and so, making a good calculation, I hit my mark. One of the fragments struck him in the face; the rest were scattered on the mule, which fell dead. A tremendous uproar rose up fr the trench; I opened fire with my other piece, doing them great hurt. The man tu

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