then open wide its huge jaws and display inside a
bed of sweet-scented lilies, the emblem of France,
to do honour to her King. But while working at
other things Leonardo never forgot his longing
to learn the secret art of flying. Every now and
then a new idea would come into his head, and he
would lay aside all other work until he had made
the new machine which might perhaps act as the
wings of a bird. Each fresh disappointment only
made him more keen to try again.

`I know we shall some day have wings,' he said
to his pupils, who sometimes wondered at the
strange work of the master's hands. `It is only a
question of knowing how to make them. I
remember once when I was a baby lying in my
cradle, I fancied a bird flew to me, opened my lips
and rubbed its feathers over them. So it seems to
be my fate all my life to talk of wings.'

Very slowly the great fresco of the Last Supper
grew under the master's hand until it was nearly
finished. The statue, too, was almost completed,
and then evil days fell upon Milan. The Duke was
obliged to flee before the French soldiers, who
forced their way into the town and took possession
of it. Before any one could prevent it, the soldiers
began to shoot their arrows at the great statue,
which they used as a target, and in a few hours the
work of sixteen years was utterly destroyed. It is