"Where is this contract? I will tear it up."

"Ah!" exclaimed in his turn the Cardinal of Mantua, who was one of the
suite, "your Holiness should see the _Moses_ which Maestro Michael
Angelo has just finished: that statue alone would more than suffice to
honour the memory of Julius."

"Cursed flatterer!" muttered Michael Angelo in a low voice.

"Come, come, I will take charge of this matter myself," said the Pope.
"You shall only make three statues with your own hand: the rest shall be
given to other sculptors, and I will answer for the Duke of Urbino's
consent. And now, Maestro, to the Sistine Chapel. A great empty wall is
waiting for you there."

What could Michael Angelo reply to such an emphatic wish expressed so
distinctly? He finished in his best style his two statues of _Active
Life_ and _Contemplative Life_--Dante's symbolical Rachel and Leah--and
not wishing to profit by this new arrangement to which he was forced to
submit, he added fifteen hundred and twenty-four ducats to the four
thousand he had received, to pay with his own gains for the works
confided to the other artists.

Having thus terminated this unfortunate affair, which had caused him so
much worry and fatigue, Michael Angelo was at last enabled to occupy
himself exclusively with the execution of his _Last Judgment_, to which
he devoted no less than eight to nine years.

This immense and unique picture, in which the human figure is