"How lovely she is! how graceful every movement! how modest her bearing! how classic the outline of her features! There is in the whole world no other than Leonardo da Vinci or the divine Raphael, worthy to reproduce the image of that chaste and spotless being; nor would they prove equal to the task, save at the very zenith of their talent. O mon Dieu! why am not I a painter, rather than a sculptor, worker in enamel, or goldsmith? First of all, were I a painter, there'd be no need that I should have her before my eyes to make her portrait. I should never cease to see her great blue eyes, her beautiful blonde tresses, her pearly skin and slender form. Were I a painter, I should paint her face in every picture, as Sanzio did with Fornarina, and Andrea del Sarto with Lucrezia. And what a contrast betwixt her and Fornarina! in sooth, neither the one nor the other is worthy to unloose her shoe laces. In the first place, Fornarina--" The youth was not at the end of his comparisons, which were, as the reader will imagine, uniformly to the advantage of his inamorata, when the hour struck. The second sentinel was relieved. "Six o'clock! 'T is strange how the time flies!" muttered the youth, "and if it flies thus quickly while I wait for her, how should it be if I were by her side! Ah! by her side I should lose count of time; I should be in paradise. If I were by her side, I should but look at her, and so the hours and days and months would pass. What a blissful life that would be, mon Dieu!" and the young man lost himself in an ecstatic reverie; for his mistress, though absent, seemed to pass in person before his eyes,--the eyes of a true artist. The third sentinel was relieved. Eight o'clock struck on all the parish churches, and the shades of night began to fall, for all authorities are in accord that the twilight hour in July three hundred years ago was in the neighborhood of eight o'clock, as now; but what is perhaps more astonishing than that is the fabulous perseverance of a sixteenth century lover. All passions were ardent in those days, and vigorous young hearts no more stopped short in love than in art or war. However, the patience of the young artist--for he has let us into the secret of his profession--was rewarded at last, when he saw the ponderous door of the Châtelet open for the twentieth time, but this time to give passage to her for whom he was waiting. The same chaperon was still at her side, and furthermore, two archers of the provost's guard followed ten paces behind her, as escort.