hardly find time to take nourishment. Not an ounce more can I bear
than already rests upon my shoulders." Even when the work was done he
felt no happiness because of it, but complained about everything and
everybody.

If Angelo thought this an unhappy day, worse was in store for
him. Julius II. died and in his place there came to reign upon the
papal throne, Leo X. If Michael Angelo had been restricted in his work
before, he was almost jailed under Leo X. Julius had been a virile,
forceful man, and Michael Angelo was the same. Since he must be
restrained and dictated to, it was possible for the artist to listen
to a man who was in certain respects strong like himself, but to be
under the thumb of a weak, effeminate person like Leo, was the tragedy
of tragedies to Angelo. That was a marvellous time in Rome. All its
citizens had become so pleasure-loving that the world, stood still to
wonder. When the pope banqueted, he had the golden plates from which
fair women had eaten hurled into the Tiber, that they might never be
profaned by a less noble use than they had known. From all this riot
and madness of pleasure, Michael Angelo stood aside with frowning brow
and scornful mien. He approved of nothing and of nobody--despising
even Raphael, the gentle and loving man whom the pleasure-crazed
people of Rome paused to smile upon and love. The pope said that
Angelo was "terrible," and that he filled everybody with fear.

Finally, Rome so resented his frowning looks and his surly ways that
work was provided for him at a distance. He was sent to Florence again
to build a facade. While there, the city was conquered, and Angelo was
one who fought for its freedom, but even so, he fled just at the
crisis. Thus he ever did the wrong thing--excepting when he worked. In
Florence he had planned to do mighty things, but he never accomplished