Part 10

At last, however, François I. came. By his time, the character of the French monarchy--the character of the French nation--had undergone a complete and lasting change. Louis Onze had done his cruel work both wisely and well. The feudal spirit was half broken; the task of Richelieu was more than half begun. Unification and absolutism were the order of the day all over Europe. Artillery had destroyed the power of the great nobles in their massive castles. The introduction of gunpowder, it has been well said, ruined feudalism. Fortresses which had been impregnable against the attacks of the Middle Ages, crumbled to pieces before one volley of the royal cannon. Throughout Europe, the crown became everywhere irresistible. As a natural result of this great social revolution, a Renaissance in architecture became inevitable in the west, the kings and rulers of France and England exchanged the gloomy darkness of the mediæval stronghold for the light and air and spaciousness of the Italian mansion. The merchant republics of Italy were already familiar with great princely palaces like the Pitti, and the Strozzi, or the magnificent mansions which line the long curve of the Grand Canal. Peace under the strong hand of the royal despot, were he Valois or Tudor, made the imitation of these great houses possible in the north and west. Threatening walls and serried battlements gave way as if by magic to the pomp and grace of the Italianate mansion. Knowle and Longleat, Burleigh and Hatfield, Hardwick and Audley End, are familiar instances in England of the newer style. The high roofed gables, the long lines of wide windows, the jutting oriels that look down on the terraced Italian gardens, the vases and fountains, the formal walks and parterres, all mark the arrival of a new epoch. The mediæval castle was in essence a fortress adapted mainly for defence; the Italian mansion is in essence a residence, adapted mainly for the display of magnificence and wealth.

In France, this great revolution goes directly back to the influence of the Medici. François Premier began the Louvre and began Fontainebleau. With Louis XIII., the son of a Medici mother, both were practically complete. The long succession of high Mansard roofs and connecting galleries marks the very spirit and ideal of the French Renaissance--its splendour, its grandeur, its vastness of aim, its want of picturesque feeling, its love of the magnificent, its contempt of the simple, the natural, the merely beautiful. Imposing Fontainebleau extorts one’s admiration, it never attracts one’s love.

The nucleus of the existing building thus dates back practically to the gay days of François Premier. It was he who rebuilt the chapel of Saint Saturnin, and erected that magnificent pile of the Porte Dorée, whose lavish display of glass in its broad-bayed windows looks like a modern protest against the loopholes and embrasures of the Middle Ages. It was he, too, who began the great Galerie des Fêtes, afterwards completed by Henri II., whose name it now bears, as well as the Galerie d’Ulysse, pulled down at a later date by Louis XV., to make room for the too numerous ladies of his Sybaritic court. It is to François equally that we owe the Cour Ovale, and the splendid Porte Dauphine or Baptistery, which serves as its gateway. The initial _F_, so familiar to all of us on the exquisite façade of the oldest portion of the Louvre, reappears in many places on the gallery of the Cour de la Fontaine. The only part of the gardens, recalling the Boboli or the villas of Florence, which can with certainty be ascribed to this earliest date, is that known as the Orangerie and the Parterre du Tibre. But the grotto of what is now the Jardin Anglais was built by François as a Salle de Bain for his favourite, the Duchesse d’Étampes. Nothing now remains of that voluptuous retreat except the satyrs of the doorway and some torsos of rough sandstone worn out of all semblance of human limbs and muscles, and relegated to a place in the existing stables.

As yet, however, the artistic impulse came entirely from Italy. Serlio, the architect, superintended the design; painters and sculptors from beyond the Alps contributed the decorations. French art in those days was still feeble and nascent. Florence sent Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Sarto to the new palace at Fontainebleau; the rising school of Primaticcio and Niccolo dell’ Abbate, whose artistic existence almost sums itself up in the work they performed here. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the pupils of Giulio Romano produced the profoundest effects upon the French Renaissance, and influenced every work of art of the entire period from the gallery of François Premier to the Rubens’s in the Louvre.

The F. and the Salamander of the founder of the palace are to be found abundantly on many portions of his magnificent erection. But the finest hall of all, the Salle des Fêtes, bears now the name of Galerie de Henri II., though built by François, because Henri decorated it in the garish taste of the time to meet the wishes of his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. This hall still remains the glory of Fontainebleau. Ninety feet long by thirty broad, and profusely decorated, it speaks in every part the taste of that gay and fantastic epoch. Ten colossal round arches form the bays of the windows; five give upon the parterre, and five on the Cour Ovale. The ornate ceiling is divided into octagonal panels, richly wrought in architrave, frieze, and cornice, and bearing in relief the intertwined initials of Henri himself and of the frail Diane. Primaticcio and Niccolo supplied the frescoes; nameless Italian artists moulded the stucco fretwork. The parquetry of the floor vies with the roof in magnificence. This gorgeous apartment may well recall the rooms of the gods in the Pitti Palace, and is only surpassed in elaborate over-ornamentation and profuseness of handicraft by the gaudy Galerie d’Apollon in the Louvre.

When Henri II. died, mortally wounded in a tournament in the Palace Courts, many things fell with him--tournaments themselves amongst others, and mediævalism in France, and Diane de Poitiers. Catherine de’ Medici sent the favourite packing to her Château d’Anet, and bore rule herself in her stead in the half completed palace. The new king, François II., was a true son of Fontainebleau. Here he was born in 1543, and here, a boy of seventeen, he married Mary Stuart, whom he left a girl-widow so shortly after, to exchange the luxurious joys of Fontainebleau for the cramped closets of Holyrood and the austerities of John Knox and his brother Calvinists. Under Charles IX., the work still went forward as before, and Primaticcio in his old age painted the frescoes of the Galerie d’Ulysse, afterwards ruthlessly destroyed under Louis XV.

Beyond being born in the palace, Henri III. contributed as little to the history of Fontainebleau as to that of his dominions generally. But Henri IV. left no small mark of his masterful hand on the great growing pile whose overgrown area he well-nigh doubled. The Cour des Offices, the Cour des Princes, the Galerie de Diane, the balustrades in the Fountain Court, the decorations in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity, the park with its grand canal and its ornamental waters, all date from the days of the greatest of the Bourbons. But the French Renaissance was not at its zenith. Married though he was to an Italian princess, Henri entrusted his work for the most part to native workmen. Paul Bril and Ambroise Dubois painted and decorated the greater part of the new halls; the heads of Mercury, in the courtyard which still bears the name of Henri Quatre are from the chisel of a later French sculptor, Gilles Guérin; while the simple but noble doorway which opens upon the Place d’Armes is the work of a local architect, François Jamin of Avon.

It was at Fontainebleau that Marie de’ Medici gave birth to Louis XIII., who was baptized with his sisters under the quaint and ornate cupola of the Porte Dauphine, known ever since from that cause by the name of the Baptistery. To this one of its sons the palace owes its latest main additions. He it was who built the handsome horseshoe staircase in the Cour des Adieux, the masterpiece of Lemercier. With that addition, the history of Fontainebleau practically ends. Events of importance in the annals of France took place there later; but they are not events in the annals of Fontainebleau. The great pile as we know it was then really complete; it remains to us a vast museum of Renaissance art and Renaissance feeling. Subsequent ages have destroyed, or restored, or renovated, or tampered with it, but they have not added to it, and the reason is clear. Louis Quatorze created Versailles; and the rise of Versailles was the downfall of Fontainebleau.

Some few landmarks of its subsequent vicissitudes, however, are well known to most of us. Louis Quatorze gilded it up, of course--what did not Louis gild? Le Notre laid out the gardens--where did not Le Notre spread his devastating gravel? Henrietta Maria of England took refuge here among her own people when Charles had lost his head; Christina of Sweden had made use of its hospitality as a capital opportunity to murder Monaldeschi. Few buildings, indeed, have seen so many historic events; for here Louis Quatorze signed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes which deprived France at one blow of a million of citizens; here Condé died; here James II. consoled himself with the consolations of a heavenly crown for the loss of an earthly one; and here Peter of Muscovy got royally drunk after his wont with all his suite, and indulged in Russian horse-play in the ponds and gardens. Under Louis Quinze, of funest memory, the decadence began; but still, as of old, princes feasted and drank, married and were given in marriage, under the high roofs of the palace. The king himself was united here to Maria Leczinska. But the earthquake was at hand, for Voltaire came to stay, and Jean Jacques Rousseau heard the court applaud his _Devin du Village_. Louis Seize, good honest man, came often to hunt, but the Revolution came too and gutted the Palace. During Napoleon’s wars, it served as a barrack for prisoners. When Monarchy revived, Napoleon spent ten millions of francs in restoring and refurnishing it. Later on he used it as a prison for his spiritual father, Pius the Seventh; here he divorced Josephine, and here he lived with Marie Louise of Austria. Here too he signed his famous abdication, and reviewed a year later, in the self-same court, the grenadiers of the Hundred Days who bore him back to the Tuileries. There its memories end. What need to speak of lesser things that have happened since, and obscure the recollection of those great days in its history?

THE RICCARDI PALACE

ALEXANDRE DUMAS

The Riccardi Palace was built by Cosmo the Elder, whom his country turned out twice as a beginning and ended by calling him its father.

Cosmo arrived at one of those happy epochs at which everything in a nation tends to expand at once, and a man of genius has every facility for being great. In fact, the brilliant era of the republic had arrived with him: the arts were making their appearance on every side. Brunelleschi was building his churches, Donatello was carving his statues and Orcagna his porticos, Masaccio was covering the walls with his frescoes, and finally public prosperity, keeping pace with the progress of the arts, rendered Tuscany, situated between Lombardy, the States of the Church and the Venetian Republic, not only the most powerful but also the happiest in Italy.

Cosmo was born to immense wealth which he had almost doubled, and without being anything more than a citizen he had acquired a strange influence. Being outside the government, he made no attacks upon it, but neither did he flatter it. If the government followed the right path it was sure of his praise; if it departed from the right way it did not escape his blame; and the praise or blame of Cosmo the Elder was of supreme importance, for his weight, his wealth and his clients gave to Cosmo the rank of a public man. He was not yet the head of the government, but he was already more than that;--he was its censor.

Thus we can understand what a tempest must be secretly brewing for such a man. Cosmo heard it muttering and saw it coming; but, entirely occupied with the vast works that concealed his great projects, he did not even turn his head towards the rising storm, but finished the chapel of St. Lorenzo, built the church of the Dominican convent of St. Mark, erected the monastery of S. Frediano, and, finally, laid the foundations of the beautiful Palace of the Via Larga, now called the Riccardi Palace. Only, when his enemies threatened him too openly, since the time for struggle had not yet arrived for him, he left Florence and went to Bugallo, the cradle of his race, to build the convents of Bosco and St. Francis; returned under the pretext of having a look at his novitiate chapel of the Fathers of the Holy Cross and of the Camandule Convent of the Angels; then again departed to press forward the work on his villas of Careggi, Caffaggio, Fiesole and Tribbio; and founded a hospital for poor pilgrims at Jerusalem. This being done, he returned to see in what condition the affairs of the republic were, and to look after his palace of the Via Larga.

And all these immense buildings arose from the ground at once, occupying a whole world of labourers, workmen and architects; and five million crowns were spent upon them without the luxurious citizen’s appearing in the slightest degree impoverished by this constant and royal expenditure.

[Illustration: THE RICCARDI PALACE, ITALY.]

This was because Cosmo was, in fact, wealthier than many of the kings of the day, his father Giovanni had possessed nearly four millions in cash and eight or ten in paper, and by banking operations he had more than quintupled that sum. In various parts of Europe, he had sixteen active banking-houses either in his own name or in those of his agents. In Florence, everybody was in his debt, for his purse was open to all, and this generosity was in some people’s eyes so clearly the result of calculation that it was asserted that it was his custom to advise war so as to force the ruined citizens to have recourse to him.

But it was a protracted struggle: Cosmo, driven from Florence, left as a prescribed man and returned a triumpher. Thenceforward Cosmo adopted that policy that his grandson Lorenzo followed afterwards: he devoted himself to his commerce, his exchanges and his monuments, leaving his vengeance to the care of his partisans who were then in power. The proscriptions were so long and the executions so numerous that one of his most intimate and faithful friends thought he ought to go and tell him that he was depopulating the city. Cosmo raised his eyes from an exchange calculation on which he was engaged, laid his hand on the shoulder of the messenger of mercy, gazed at him fixedly and said with an imperceptible smile: “I would rather depopulate than lose it.” And then the inflexible arithmetician returned to his work.

Thus he grew old; rich and honoured, but struck by the hand of God within his own family. By his wife he had had several children, only one of whom survived him. Therefore, broken down and impotent, when he had himself carried through the vast halls of his immense palace to inspect the sculptures, gilding, and frescoes, he sadly shook his head and said: “Alas! alas! this is a very large house for such a small family!”

In fact, he left, as sole heir to his name, his possessions, and his power, Pietro de’Medici, who, coming between Cosmo the Father of his Country and Lorenzo the Magnificent, obtained as his only surname that of Pietro the Gouty.

The refuge of the Greek savants driven from Constantinople, the cradle of the renaissance of the arts during the Fourteenth and the Fifteenth Century, and now the seat of the meetings of the Della Crusca Academy, the Riccardi Palace was successively occupied by Pietro the Gouty and by Lorenzo the Magnificent who retired thither after the Pazzi conspiracy as his grandfather had done after his exile. Lorenzo bequeathed the palace with his immense collection of precious stones, antique cameos, splendid armour and original manuscripts to his son Pietro who deserved the title not of Pietro the Gouty, but Pietro the Mad.

It was the latter who opened the gates of Florence to Charles VIII. and delivered to him the keys of Sarzane, Pietra-Santa, Pisa, Libra-Fatta, and Livorno, and who undertook to make the Republic pay him as a subsidy the sum of two hundred thousand florins.

Besides this, in his palace of Via Larga he offered a hospitality that the King of France was quite disposed to take even if it had not been offered. In fact, as everybody knows, Charles VIII. entered Florence as a conqueror and not as an ally, mounted on his battle-horse, with lance in rest and visor lowered: thus he traversed the whole city from the San Friano gate to Pietro’s palace, the latter and his followers having been driven from the city by the Florentine lords the day before.

The Riccardi Palace was the scene of the discussion of the treaty concluded by Charles VIII. and Pietro in the name of the republic,--a treaty that the republic was unwilling to recognize. Matters went to extremes and the parties were on the verge of taking up arms, for the deputies having been introduced into this great hall in the presence of Charles VIII. who received them seated and without removing his hat, the royal secretary, standing beside the throne, began to read the conditions of this treaty article by article, and as each new article created fresh discussion, Charles VIII. impatiently exclaimed: “It shall be so, however, or I will have my trumpets sounded!” “Very well,” replied Pietro Capponi, the Secretary of the Republic, snatching the parchment from the hands of the reader and tearing it to pieces, “very well, Sire, have your trumpets sounded and we will have our bells rung!”

That rejoinder saved Florence. The King of France believed that the Republic was as powerful as she was proud. Pietro Capponi had already dashed out of the room: Charles had him called back and then presented other conditions that were accepted.

Eleven days later, the King left Florence for Naples, letting his soldiers devastate treasures, galleries, collections and libraries.

The Riccardi Palace remained empty for eighteen years, while the exile of the Medicis lasted; at length, at the end of that period, they returned, brought back by the Spaniards, and notwithstanding this powerful aid, they reentered, said the capitulation, not as princes, but as simple citizens.

But at length the gigantic trunk had put forth such mighty branches that its sap began to dry up and the tree gradually to wither. In fact, when Lorenzo II. was dead and laid in his tomb that was sculptured by Michelangelo, only three bastards remained of all the race of Cosmo the Elder: Hippolyte, bastard of Julian II., a cardinal; Julio, bastard of Julio the Elder who had been assassinated by the Pazzi, who became Pope under the name of Clement VII.; and finally Alexander, Duke of Tuscany, bastard of Julian II., or Clement VII., it is not clear which. As they stayed all once for an instant in Florence, lodging on the same square, it received the mocking name of the Square of the Three Mules.

To the same degree that the Medicis of the elder branch had at first been held in honour, so it had become execrated and fallen into contempt at this period. Therefore the Florentines only awaited an opportunity to drive Alexander and Hippolyte out of Florence; but their uncle Clement VII. on the pontifical throne afforded them too potent a support for the last remnants of the republican party to dare to undertake anything against them.

The sack of Rome by the soldiers of the Constable of Bourbon, and the imprisonment of the Pope in the Castle of St. Angelo afforded the Florentines the opportunity they awaited. They immediately seized it, and the Medicis went into exile for the third time. Clement VII. who was a man of much resource, extricated himself from the affair by selling seven cardinals’ hats, with the proceeds of which he paid part of his ransom, and by pledging five more as guarantee for the remainder. Then, as on account of this guarantee he was allowed a little more liberty, he took advantage of it to escape from Rome disguised as a valet, and gained Orvieto. The Florentines were therefore quite tranquil as to the future on seeing Charles the Fifth a conqueror and the Pope a fugitive.

Unfortunately, Charles the Fifth had been elected Emperor in 1519, and he needed to be crowned. Interest thus brought together those whom it had separated. Clement VII. undertook to crown Charles the Fifth; and the latter promised to capture Florence and to make it the dowry of his natural daughter, Margaret of Austria, who was affianced to Alexander.

The two promises were religiously kept. Charles the Fifth was crowned at Bologna, for in his new tenderness for the Pope he did not want to see the ravage done by his troops in the holy city; and after a terrible siege in which Florence was defended by Michelangelo and capitulated by Malatesta, July 30, 1531, Alexander made his solemn entry into the future capital of his duchy.

Alexander had almost all the vices of his epoch and very few of the virtues of his race. The son of a Moorish woman, he had inherited ardent passions. Constant in hatred and inconstant in love, he tried to have Pietro Strozzi assassinated and caused his cousin, Cardinal Hippolyte to be poisoned.

Therefore, there were numerous conspiracies against him during his reign of six years.

Pietro Strozzi placed an immense sum in the hands of a Dominican friar of Naples, who was said to have great influence with Charles the Fifth, to induce him to get Charles the Fifth to restore liberty to Florence. Jean Baptiste Cibo, Archbishop of Marseilles, tried to profit from Alexander’s amour with his brother’s wife, who was separated from her husband and lived in the Pazzi palace, by having him slain one day when he should come to see her in that palace; and since he knew that Alexander usually wore beneath his clothes a coat of mail so marvellously made that it was proof against sword and dagger, he had a chest, upon which the duke was accustomed to sit when he came to visit the marquise, filled with powder, and this was to be exploded. But this conspiracy was discovered, as well as all others that followed with one exception. In the latter case, success was due to the fact that there was only one conspirator who accomplished everything for himself. That conspirator was Lorenzo de’Medici, the eldest scion of that younger branch that sprang from the paternal trunk with Lorenzo, the next brother of Cosmo the Father of his country.

Lorenzo was born in Florence, March 25, 1514, of Pietro Francisco de’Medici, a double nephew of Lorenzo, Cosmo’s brother, and Maria Soderini, a woman of exemplary goodness and recognized prudence.