In this manner, attempting to read, and trying to think, without very much success in either undertaking, I passed my time until my lackey came to assist me to dress, in order to be ready to accompany the cardinal to the Vatican. After dressing, I descended the stairs, and mounting Castor, placed myself at the head of my men, and joined De Briconnet at the grand entrance of the palace. The captain of the cardinal's guard had his full force of thirty swords out, it being a reception night of some importance, and with great courtesy allowed me to place Jacopo and my six men in front of his troop, drawing his own horse alongside of mine, and discussing, with much cunning, of falconry, in which he was more than an adept. We had to wait some little time for the cardinal, but at length he came, accompanied as usual by Bayard, and with him all the gentlemen of his suite including St. Armande. On reaching the foot of the stairs, D'Amboise enquired somewhat sharply for me; but changed his tone to one of pleasant greeting when he saw I was in waiting. "St. Dennis!" he exclaimed, "I thought you were not coming after all." We had but a few yards to ride, and our passage along the Via Alessandrina to the Portone Bronse, took but a few minutes. As we rode up there, we kept the obelisk in the centre of the Piazza di S. Pietro to our left, and saw before us the walls of the new cathedral of St. Peter, then about four or five feet high, the ruins of the old church still standing around it. At the time I speak of, nothing had been done for about fifty years towards advancing the work, begun by Nicholas V., and the great design, afterwards altered and put into execution by Giuliano della Rovere, when he became Pope as Julius II., was then in a skeleton form, looking more like the remains of some sacked shrine than the beginning of a new work. The fifty years of neglect having the effect of making the new work almost as ruinous as the old church founded by Constantine.