underfoot by foreign soldiery, and her beautiful churches and
palaces destroyed by shells and cannon-balls. French and German ruffians
tore the clothes off the backs of the poor, and snatched the bread from
the lips of starving children. People were everywhere seen dying of
hunger and the grass growing in the squares. There were no voices in the
streets, often no services in the churches. Silence and desolation
reigned throughout the unhappy city. "Blessed indeed," sighs the writer,
"were those who were able to seek shelter in flight." Beyond the borders
of Lombardy, there were others who grieved over the Moro's fall. In
Mantua and Ferrara his friends shed secret tears over his fate. "Duke
Ercole is very sad," writes our friend the annalist, "for his
son-in-law's sake, and so are all the people." And Caterina Sforza, in
her lonely captivity within the walls of the Castel' Sant' Angelo, wept
over her uncle's ruin and the downfall of her race. Far away in
Florence, one artist, who had lived in close intimacy with the Moro for
many a long year, who had discussed a hundred problems and planned all
manner of mighty works with him, heard the news with a pang of regret.
Leonardo had been in Venice with Lorenzo da Pavia, the great
organ-master, when the wonderful tidings of the duke's return had come.
He and Lorenzo must have smiled when they saw the long faces and
sinister air of the grave Venetian senators at this unexpected turn of
affairs. Eagerly they watched and waited and wondered if these things
could be really true, and if the Moro were to reign once more on his
fathers' throne, and carry out all the great dreams of his soul. And now
it was all over, and the French were supreme in Milan, and the great
horse on which the master had spent the best years of his life was used
as a target for the arrows of Gascon archers. The duke and Messer Galeaz
were captives, Sforzas and Viscontis were in prison or exile, and Jacopo
Andrea had died a cruel death. On Leonardo the blow fell with crushing
force; but he held his peace, and only the few broken sentences in his
notebook remain to tell of his shattered hopes and of his inconsolable
regrets.

"The Saletta above ... (left unfinished).

"Bramante's buildings ... (left undone).

"The Castellano a prisoner ...

"Visconti in prison--his son dead.

"Gian della Rosa's revenues seized.

"Bergonzio"--the duke's treasurer--"deprived of his fortune.

"The duke has lost state, for