the papists has been able to prove any error in its
contents." Again the catholic artist crossed himself. "In the third
niche he might be holding a tumbler as a remembrance of the most noble
production of this land." "Dio mio!" shrieked the Italian in dire
indignation. "It is all the same to me should Your Highness wish to set
fire to the Otto Heinrich Castle, but I will rather hack off my own
hand than thus disgrace the creations of Michel Angelo and Colins."

"Respect, young man," said the Kurfuerst knitting his brows, "you speak
to a Prince."

"Oh! most gracious Prince," said the Italian, "respect for a Prince,
when speaking of the realm of the Beautiful. Do you know why I left
Rome? The Pope had been told that the naked figures carved on the great
Altar in his private chapel shocked all pious women, and the Pope
believing this caused all the beautiful bodies in Michel Angelo's great
picture to be fitted out with aprons and breeches. The man who gave
himself up to this is known to the present day in Italy as _il
bracatore_, the breeches painter. I turned my back at the time in a
rage with the Holy city, therefore all the less do I thirst for the
fame to be known as the cat-painter of the Palatinate."

"The young man is right," said Erastus. "I warn Your Highness most
earnestly not to give way to these theological gentlemen. They begin
with the outside wall of the house, as they cannot permit what they
term 'a public scandal,' then come the private scandals within the
house, and finally they will stick their noses in every pot or kettle
as did the gentlemen of the Consistorium at Geneva, so as to prescribe
what people should eat or drink. This pretended scandal has no other
object. These images are no idols, no one worships them, no one has
ever taken offence at them. They stand within the enclosed court of my
most gracious Lord, and only Olevianus' parson's love of meddling
dictated the unseemly representation on the part of the Church Council,
so that he might essay the Church regimen on the sovereign's own
household."

"So you will chisel no lions?" asked the Kurfuerst turning towards the
young man.

"_No_! _mai_," was the reply, and the artist seized his hat as if to
depart, but a sign from his companion reminded him before whom he
stood. With a courtly bow he added: "Master Colins was my teacher, my
Lord, were I not a scoundrel to destroy the work of part of his
life-time, when even a man like Raphael suff