"Very well! When I was about five years old, I was sitting one day with my father in a small room where they had been scalding the lye, and where a rousing fire of young oak was still burning. It was very cold. Happening to glance at the fire, I espied a tiny creature like a lizard diverting itself in the spot where the heat was most intense. I pointed it out to my father, and my father--pray pardon me this detail of a somewhat brutal custom of my country--struck me a violent blow, and said to me, with great gentleness, 'I do not strike thee because thou hast done wrong, dear child, but so that thou mayst remember that the little lizard thou hast seen in the fire is a salamander. No human being has ever seen that animal save thou.' Was not that a premonition of fate, Sire? Indeed, I think I was predestined to do as I have done, for at the age of twenty I was about to set out for England, when the sculptor Pietro Torregiano, who was to take me thither, told me that in his youth he one day struck our Michel-Angelo in the face, on the occasion of some studio quarrel. Ah! I abandoned all thought of the journey then; not for a prince's title would I have travelled with one who had raised his hand against my great sculptor. I remained in Italy, and from Italy, instead of going to England, I came to France." "France, proud of your choice, Benvenuto, will see to it that you do not sigh for your fatherland." "Oh! my fatherland is art, and my prince he who commands the richest cup at my hands." "Have you any beautiful work now in contemplation, Cellini?" "O yes, Sire,--a Christ. Not a Christ upon the Cross, but Christ in His radiance and glory; and I shall copy as closely as possible the infinite beauty of the guise in which he revealed himself to me." "What!" laughed Marguerite, the sceptic; "in addition to all the kings of earth, have you seen the King of Heaven, too?" "Yes, madame," replied Benvenuto, with childlike simplicity. "Oh! pray tell us of that," said the Queen of Navarre. "Willingly, madame," said Benvenuto, with a confident air, which implied that it did not occur to him that any one could doubt any part of his story. "Some time before," he continued, "I had seen Satan and all his legions, whom a necromancing friend of mine, a priest, evoked for me at the Coliseum. Indeed, we had much ado to rid ourselves of them. But the dread souvenir of those infernal apparitions was forever banished from my mind when, in answer to my fervent prayer, the blessed Saviour of mankind appeared to me, in a flood of sunlight, crowned with glory, and brought sweet consolation to me in the misery of my captivity." "And are you sure beyond a peradventure," demanded the Queen of Navarre, "so sure that you have no shadow of doubt, that Christ really appeared to you?" "I have no doubt of it, madame." "In that case, Benvenuto, go on and fashion a Christ for our chapel," said François I., with his usual good humor.