IV.—­At the French Court

About this time the Cardinal of Ferrara came to Rome from the court of France, and in the name of King Francis urged my release, to which he got the Pope’s consent during a convivial meeting without the knowledge of Luigi.  The Pope’s order was brought to the prison at night, and I was conducted to the palace of the Cardinal.  The Cardinal was summoned by Francis I. to Paris, and to bring me with him.

The French king received me graciously, and I presented him with a cup and basin which I had executed for his majesty, who declared that neither the ancients nor the greatest masters of Italy had ever worked in so exquisite a taste.  His majesty ordered me to make him twelve silver statues.  They were to be figures of six gods and six goddesses, made exactly to his own height, which was very little less than three cubits.  I began zealously to make a model of Jupiter.  Next day I showed him in his palace the model of my great salt-cellar, which he called a noble production, and commissioned me to make it in gold, commanding that I should be given directly a thousand old gold crowns, good weight.

As a mark of distinction, the king granted me letters of naturalisation and a patent of lordship of the Castle of Nesle.  Later, I submitted to the king models of the new palace gates and the great fountain for Fontainebleau, which appeared to him to be exceedingly beautiful.  Unluckily for me, his favourite, Madame d’Estampes, conceived a deep resentment at my neglect for not taking notice of her in any of my designs.  When the silver statue of Jupiter was finished and set up in the corridor of Fontainebleau alongside reproductions in bronze of all the first-rate antiques recently discovered in Rome, the king cried out:  “This is one of the finest productions of art that was ever beheld; I could never have conceived a piece of work the hundredth part so beautiful.  From a comparison with these admirable antique figures, it is evident that this statue of Jupiter is vastly superior to them.”

Madame d’Estampes was more highly incensed than ever, but the king said I was one of the ablest men the world had ever produced.  The king ordered me a thousand crowns, partly as a recompense for my labours, and partly in payment of some disbursed by myself.  I afterwards set about finishing my colossal statue of Mars, which was to occupy the centre of the fountain at Fontainebleau, and represented the king.  Madame d’Estampes continuing her spiteful artifices, I requested the Cardinal of Ferrara to procure leave for me to make a tour to Italy, promising to return whenever the king should think proper to signify his pleasure.  I departed in an unlucky hour, leaving under the care of my journeymen my castle and all my effects; but all the way I could not refrain from sighing and weeping.