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.