I HAD a tennis-court in my castle, from which I drew considerable
profit. The building also contained some little dwellings inhabited by
different sorts of men, among whom was a printer of books of much
excellence in his own trade. Nearly the whole of his premises lay inside
the castle, and he was the man who printed Messer Guido’s first fine
book on medicine. [1] Wanting to make use of his lodging, I turned him
out, but not without some trouble. There was also a manufacturer of
saltpetre; and when I wished to assign his apartments to some of my
German workmen, the fellow refused to leave the place. I asked him over
and over again in gentle terms to give me up my rooms, because I wanted
to employ them for my work-people in the service of the King. The more
moderately I spoke, the more arrogantly did the brute reply; till at
last I gave him three days’ notice to quit. He laughed me in the face,
and said that he would begin to think of it at the end of three years. I
had not then learned that he was under the protection of Madame
d’Etampes; but had it not been that the terms on which I stood toward
that lady made me a little more circumspect than I was wont to be, I
should have ousted him at once; now, however, I thought it best to keep
my temper for three days. When the term was over, I said nothing, but
took Germans, Italians, and Frenchmen, bearing arms, and many
hand-labourers whom I had in my employ, and in a short while gutted all
his house and flung his property outside my castle. I resorted to these
somewhat rigorous measures because he had told me that no Italian whom
he knew of had the power of spirit to remove one ring of iron from its
place in his house. Well, after the deed was done, he came to find me,
and I said to him: “I am the least of all Italians in Italy, and yet I
have done nothing to you in comparison with what I have the heart to do,
and will do if you utter a single further word,” adding other terms of
menace and abuse. The man, dumbfounded and affrighted, got his furniture
together as well as he was able; then he ran off to Madame d’Etampes,
and painted a picture of me like the very fiend. She being my great
enemy, painted my portrait still blacker to the King, with all her
greater eloquence and all her greater weight of influence. As I was
afterwards informed, his Majesty twice showed signs of irritation and
was minded to use me roughly: but Henry the Dauphin, his son, now King
of France, who had received some affronts from that imperious woman,
together with the Queen of Navarre, sister to King Francis, espoused my
cause so cleverly that he passed the matter over with a laugh. So with
God’s assistance I escaped from a great danger.
Note 1. 'Chirurgia e Græco in Latinum Conversa, Vido Vidio Florentino
interprete, &c. Excudebat Petrus Galterius Luteciæ Parisiorum, prid.
Cal. Mai.' 1544. So this printer was Pierre Sauthier.