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Napoleon was on his throne, surrounded by his court, and all the splendour of sovereign power, in the display of which he delighted. M. Melzi offered him the crown, in the name of his fellow- citizens. "Sire," said he, in conclusion, "deign to gratify the wishes of the assembly over which I have the honour to preside.
Immediately after Bonaparte's return to France, Melzi left Milan, and retired to an estate in Tuscany; from that place he wrote to Talleyrand a letter full of reproach, and concluded by asking leave to pass the remainder of his days in Spain among his relatives.
As Melzi was a sincere and disinterested republican fanatic, he did not much approve of the strides Bonaparte made towards a sovereignty that annihilated the sovereignty of his sovereign people.
Not far from Milan there lived a friend of Leonardo's, whom the master loved to visit. This Girolamo Melzi had a son called Francesco, a little motherless boy, who adored the great painter with all his heart.
It illustrates Leonardo's usual choice of pupils, men of some natural charm of person or intercourse like Salaino, or men of birth and princely habits of life like Francesco Melzi men with just enough genius to be capable of initiation into his secret, for the sake of which they were ready to efface their own individuality.
He brought thirteen volumes, well-known in the history of literature, as far as Florence at first, and then to Aldus at Pisa. 'I cried shame on him, said Mazenta, 'and as I was going to Milan I undertook to return them to the Melzi family.
To soften his disappointment, Bonaparte offered to make him a Prince, and with that rank indemnify him for breaking the promises given at Lyons, where it is known that the influence of Melzi, more than the intrigues of Talleyrand, determined the Italian Consulta in the choice of a president.
He was in one of those humours, frequent at this time of dawning splendour, when confidence in his own genius betrayed him into quite piquant indiscretions. After referring to the Directory, he turned abruptly to Melzi, a Lombard nobleman: "As for your country, Monsieur de Melzi, it possesses still fewer elements of republicanism than France, and can be managed more easily than any other.
All we have from his pen at this period are two short letters. In one, written from Milan and dated April 19, 1476, he asks the Cardinal of Novara to stand godfather to the illegitimate son whom his mistress, Lucia Marliani, Countess of Melzi, had borne him, and who was to be baptized at Pavia.
He carolled a gay chanson. His retinue followed at a distance. Francesco Melzi saluted and drew rein. He spoke a word in the monarch's ear. The two men stood with uncovered heads. They looked toward the western windows. The gay cavalcade halted in the glow of light. A hush fell on their chatter. The windows flamed in the crimson flood.
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