After the death of Da Vinci Francis never succeeded in retaining a first-rate painter in his service. Andrea del Sarto and Paris Bordone did little more than pay passing visits, and the famous school of Fontainebleau was founded by Rosso and Primaticcio, two decadent followers of Michel Angelo. The adventures of that second-rate artist and first-rate bully, Benvenuto Cellini, at Paris, form one of the most piquant episodes in artistic autobiography. After a gracious welcome from the king he was offered an annual retaining fee of three hundred crowns. He at once dismissed his two apprentices and left in a towering rage, only returning on being offered the same appointments that had been enjoyed by Leonardo da Vinci—seven hundred crowns a year, and payment for every finished work. The Petit Tour de Nesle was assigned to Cellini and his pupils as a workshop, the king assuring him that force would be needed to evict the possessor, adding, “Take great care you are not assassinated.” On complaining to the king of the difficulties he met with and the insults offered to him on attempting to gain possession, he was answered: “If you are the Benvenuto I have heard of, live up to your reputation; I give you full leave.” Cellini took the hint, armed himself, his servants and two apprentices, and frightened the occupants and rival claimants out of their wits. It was at this Tour de Nesle that the king paid Cellini a surprise visit with his mistress Madame d’Estampes, his sister Margaret of Valois, the Dauphin and his wife, Catherine de’ Medici, the Cardinal of Lorraine, Henry II. of Navarre, and a numerous train of courtiers. The artist and his merry men were at work on the famous silver statue of Jupiter for Fontainebleau, and amid the noise of the hammering the king entered unperceived. Cellini had the torso of the statue in his hand, and at that moment a French lad who had caused him some little displeasure had felt the weight of the master’s foot, which sent him flying against the king. But Cellini had done a bad day’s work by violently evicting a servant of Madame d’Estampes from the Tower, and the injured lady and Primaticcio, her protégé, decided to work his ruin. When Cellini arrived at Fontainebleau with the statue, the king ordered it to be placed in the grand gallery decorated by Rosso. Primaticcio had just arranged there the casts which he had been commissioned to bring from Rome, and Cellini saw what was meant—his own work was to be eclipsed by the splendour of the masterpieces of ancient art. “Heaven help me!” cried he, “this is indeed to fall against the pikes!” Now the god held the globe of the earth in the left hand, the thunderbolt in the right. Cellini contrived to thrust a portion of a large wax candle as a torch between the flames of the bolt, and set the statue up on its gilded pedestal. Madame entertained the king late at table, hoping that he would either forget or see the work in a bad light; but when the king entered the gallery late at night, followed by his courtiers, “which by God’s grace was my salvation,” says Cellini, the statue was illuminated by a flood of light from the torch which so enhanced its beauty that the king was ravished with delight, and expressed himself in ecstatic praise, declaring the statue to be more beautiful and more marvellous than any of the antique casts around. His enemies were thus discomfited, and on Madame d’Estampes endeavouring to depreciate the work, she was grossly mocked by the artist in a very characteristic and quite untranscribable way. Benvenuto was more than ever patronised by the king, who did him the great honour of accosting him as mon ami, and approving his scheme for the fortification of Paris. The artist often remembered with pleasure the four years he spent with the gran re Francesco at Paris.
“The French are remembered in Italy only by the graves they left there,” said De Comines, and once again the Italian campaigns ended in disaster. At the defeat of Pavia, in 1525—the Armageddon of the French in Italy—the efforts and sacrifices of three reigns were lost and the gran re went captive to the king of Spain in Madrid, whence he issued, stained by perjury and three years later, signed “the moral annihilation of France in Europe,” at Cambray.
