Next morning, being Whitsunday, make ready to go to the installation
of nine Knights du Saint Esprit. Cambis is one: high mass celebrated with
music, great crowd, much incense, King, Queen, Dauphin, Mesdames,
Cardinals, and Court: Knights arrayed by his Majesty; reverences before
the altar, not bows, but curtsies; stiff hams; much tittering among the
ladies; trumpets, kettledrums, and fifes.
Fontainebleau
By Augustus J. C. Hare
[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]
The golden age of Fontainebleau came with the Renaissance and Francis I.,
who wished to make Fontainebleau the most glorious palace in the world.
"The Escurial!" says Brantome, "what of that? See how long it was of
building? Good workmen like to be quick finished. With our king it was
otherwise. Take Fontainebleau and Chambord. When they were projected, when
once the plumb-line, and the compass, and the square, and the hammer were
on the spot, then in a few years we saw the Court in residence there."
Il Rosso was first (1531) employed to carry out the ideas of Francois I.
as to painting, and then Sebastian Serlio was summoned from Bologna in
1541 to fill the place of "surintendant des bastiments et architecte de
Fontainebleau.
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