For two months past, in truth, this cold colossal cell had been instinct with bustling, laughing, good-humored life; for two months past, ten work-benches, two anvils, and an improvised forge had seemed to lessen the size of the vast room; sketches, models, benches laden with pincers, hammers, and files, sheaves of swords with chased hilts of marvellous workmanship, and carved open-work blades, helmets, cuirasses, and bucklers, gold-embossed, whereon the loves of the gods and goddesses were portrayed in relief, as if to turn the mind away from the purpose for which they were destined to be used, had covered the grayish walls. The sun had freely found its way in through the wide open windows, and the air had been filled with the songs of joyous, active workers. A cardinal's refectory had become a goldsmith's workshop. However, during this evening of July 10, 1540, the sanctity of the Sabbath had temporarily restored to the newly enlivened apartment the tranquillity in which it had lain dormant for a century. But a table, upon which the remains of an excellent supper lay about in confusion, lighted by a lamp which one would take to have been stolen from the ruins of Pompeii, of so chaste and delicate a form was it, proved that, if the temporary occupants of the cardinal's mansion did sometimes enjoy repose, they were in no wise addicted to fasting. When Ascanio entered there were four persons in the workshop. These four persons were an old maid-servant, who was removing the dishes from the table, Catherine, who was relighting the lamp, a young man sketching in a corner, and waiting for the lamp which Catherine had taken from before him in order to continue his work, and the master, standing with folded arms, and leaning against the forge. The last would inevitably have been the first to be observed by any one entering the workshop.