IX
Early next day a chamberlain came to inquire whether the ducal engineer were satisfied with his quarters, and to bring him a present from Cæsar. According to the hospitable custom of the time it consisted of provisions, a sack of flour, a cask of wine, a sheep, a dozen fat capons; and also two large torches, three packets of wax candles, and two boxes of confetti. Impressed by these compliments, Machiavelli begged Leonardo to say a word for him to the duke, and obtain him the favour of an interview. At eleven in the evening, Cæsar's customary reception-hour, they went together to the palace.
The duke's manner of life was strange enough. Summer and winter he went to bed at four or five in the morning, so that for him it was dawn at three in the afternoon, sunrise at four; at five he began to dress and to dine and to conduct his business affairs all simultaneously. He surrounded his doings with mystery, not only out of natural secretiveness, but by studied calculation; he seldom left his palace, and always masked. Only on great festivals did he show himself to the people, and to the troops only in moments of extreme danger. He liked to astonish; his appearances were always dramatic, like those of a demi-god.
Scarce credible reports were current as to his profuseness. All the gold continually flowing into the treasury of St. Peter's did not suffice for the expenditure of the Gonfaloniere of the Church. Envoys reported that he spent not less than eighteen hundred ducats daily; and that when he rode through the streets crowds followed him to pick up the easily dropped silver shoes, with which his horses were shod, solely as largesse to the people. Wonders were told also as to his physical strength. He could bend horse-shoes in his fingers (thin and delicate as a woman's), twist iron rods, break the cables of ships. At a bull-fight in Rome some years ago, when he had been Cardinal of Valenza, the youthful Cæsar had cut a bull in half with a single stroke of his sword. Inaccessible to his courtiers and to the ambassadors of great potentates, he was often to be seen on the hills round Cesena watching the boxing matches of the wild Romagna herdsmen, and sometimes taking part in the sport.
At the same time he was the ideal of a cavalier and the paragon of fashion. On the day of his sister Lucrezia's marriage with Alfonso d'Este, he left the siege of a fortress and rode from the camp to the wedding, unrecognised, and clad in black velvet with a black mask. He passed through the crowd of guests, bowed, and when all drew back in surprise, danced to the strains of the music with such grace that at once the cry was raised, 'Cesare! Cesare! L'unico Cesare!'
Heeding neither guests nor bridegroom, he drew Lucrezia aside and whispered in her ear. Her eyes fell, she flushed, then grew white, to the enhancement of her dainty pearl-like beauty. It might be she was innocent; there was no question that she was frail; report added submissive, perhaps even criminally submissive, to the terrible will of this her brother.
He, it seemed, cared for one point only, that there should be no proofs. Fame probably exaggerated his sins; but possibly the reality was more terrible than fame. At any rate he knew how to conceal his actions, and to wipe out every trace of them.