WHEN I returned to Paris, the great favour shown me by the King made me
a mark for all men’s admiration. I received the silver and began my
statue of Jupiter. Many journeymen were now in my employ; and the work
went onward briskly day and night; so that, by the time I had finished
the clay models of Jupiter, Vulcan, and Mars, and had begun to get the
silver statue forward, my workshop made already a grand show.
The King now came to Paris, and I went to pay him my respects. No sooner
had his Majesty set eyes upon me than he called me cheerfully, and asked
if I had something fine to exhibit at my lodging, for he would come to
inspect it. I related all I had been doing; upon which he was seized
with a strong desire to come. Accordingly, after this dinner, he set off
with Madame de Tampes, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and some other of his
greatest nobles, among whom were the King of Navarre, his cousin, and
the Queen, his sister; the Dauphin and Dauphinéss also attended him; so
that upon that day the very flower of the French court came to visit me.
[1] I had been some time at home, and was hard at work. When the King
arrived at the door of the castle, and heard our hammers going, he bade
his company keep silence. Everybody in my house was busily employed, so
that the unexpected entrance of his Majesty took me by surprise. The
first thing he saw on coming into the great hall was myself with a huge
plate of silver in my hand, which I was beating for the body of my
Jupiter; one of my men was finishing the head, another the legs; and it
is easy to imagine what a din we made between us. It happened that a
little French lad was working at my side, who had just been guilty of
some trifling blunder. I gave the lad a kick, and, as my good luck would
have it, caught him with my foot exactly in the fork between his legs,
and sent him spinning several yards, so that he came stumbling up
against the King precisely at the moment when his Majesty arrived. The
King was vastly amused, but I felt covered with confusion. He began to
ask me what I was engaged upon, and told me to go on working; then he
said that he would much rather have me not employ my strength on manual
labour, but take as many men as I wanted, and make them do the rough
work; he should like me to keep myself in health, in order that he might
enjoy my services through many years to come. I replied to his Majesty
that the moment I left off working I should fall ill; also that my art
itself would suffer, and not attain the mark I aimed at for his Majesty.
Thinking that I spoke thus only to brag, and not because it was the
truth, he made the Cardinal of Lorraine repeat what he had said; but I
explained my reasons so fully and clearly, that the Cardinal perceived
my drift; he then advised the King to let me labour as much or little as
I liked.
Note 1. These personages were Madame d’Etampes, the King’s mistress;
John of Lorraine, son of Duke Renée II., who was made Cardinal in 1518;
Henri d’Albret II. and Marguerite de Valois, his wife; the Duaphin,
afterwards Henri II., and his wife, the celebrated Caterina de’ Medici,
daughter of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino.