Voices from the Past Part 82

Francis, so young, so arrogant, showers me with praise at every opportunity. He introduces me to his friends: "My Leonard!" He introduces me as "Mon Pere." He calls me "Maestro...architect...engineer...he's designing the main staircase at Chambord...this is Count de Senlis, a connoisseur of art." The Count, an old man, is one of Francis' "oldest friends." Monsignor Marais admires my paintings. Lingers. Cardinal Chambiges compliments my work with sincerity, makes an offer on behalf of his church in Rheims. There are artisans from Suresnes. There is an Italian group, enroute to Paris. However, it is not so much the visitors, the guests, as the King himself-his fondness for me.

Surely Cloux is everything I need.

Old paths, old benches, newly pollarded trees, beds of flowers, autumn leaves, moonlight...at night I hear the owls talking.

Cloux

Studio

Winter evenings, cold evenings, before a roaring fire in my walk-in fireplace, my lamps lit, I sometimes read aloud two or three of my fables. Guests applaud. We enjoy hors d'oeuvres, sip claret. What lavish trays arrive from the King's kitchens!

The King has a poet in residence who likes to recite female poetry-for the pomades and perfumes! He is a hunchback, with a sharp tongue and tragic grey eyes in his young blond face. Courtiers tell me he has completed an epic poem about my Battle of the Anghieri...

A couple of weeks ago, Galeazzo, a local hunter, dragged a bear cub into my studio. He was quite docile for a while and then became too frisky, and had to be led away. Galeazzo promises to bring him again, and I will sketch him.

Francesco found this fable of mine in an old notebook, one of those I used to keep in Italy:

A stone lay on a mound where an attractive woodland shaded it. Herbs and flowers of many colors grew around.

As the stone looked about, at the stones in the road winding below, it wanted to drop down onto the road.

The stone said to itself: "What am I doing, sitting here, among these plants all day long? I want to be with the other stones, my sisters and brothers."

So, during a heavy rain, it managed to roll down and stop among the rocks of the road. In a short while it began to feel the weight of the cart wheels, the crack of horse and mule hooves, the tramp of cattle, the kick of travelers' shoes. A man knocked the stone to one side, another spilled trash on it. A cart wheel chipped it. The dung of a cow splattered it. The roadway became very hot.

The stone gazed back at the place it had left-its place of solitude.

This is what happens to those who think they can live tranquilly in cities.

Francesco feels this is my best fable, although he does not think much of any of them:

"Remember, Maestro, you are not Aesop."

A nut, carried by a raven to the top of a tall campanile, fell into a c.h.i.n.k. As it lay there, it asked the wall, by the grace of G.o.d and the fine bells in the tower, to help it survive since it had fallen into a c.h.i.n.k without any soil. The wall was sympathetic and was glad to help the nut roll into a place where there was soil. After a time, the nut began to split and send out roots. Soon the roots worked their way between the stones of the tower. As it grew stronger it began to destroy the campanile.

The old tower bewailed its destruction, but it was too late!

Tonight, Francesco and I have been working for hours: he sits at his big desk with two water-lamps close to his bearded face, his silhouette on the wall. He is only twenty-two, but appears to be older in the lamplight.

He will be a great painter, when he is free of my influence. He should set up an atelier of his own in Florence or Milan. He comes alive in Milan. He endures this exile out of respect for me: for him I am both maestro and father (in his own father's eyes the world of art is unimportant). In his patient, almost ecclesi- astical voice, Francesco repeated the outline we have prepared; here are items we have sorted out for further evaluation:

1 - The inequality in the concavity of a ship.

2 - Inequalities in the curves of the sides of ships.

3 - Investigations as to the best positions of the tiller.

4 - The meetings and unions of water coming from different directions.

5 - A study of shoals formed under river sluices.

6 - The configuration of the sh.o.r.es of rivers and their permanency.

These studies should be of value to mariners.

Francesco finds that much of the information I had recorded is spotty.

Tomorrow we will begin with item 1.

October 28, '18

A lavish autumn!

Gold leaves float on the river, and, as I walk along, admiring them, a handsome riderless horse crosses, shakes his mane vigorously, plunges wherever the water is deep, then stands on the sh.o.r.e for a few moments, regarding me.

Again and again the fog becomes total master here: blanketed by this Loire curtain, we are obliterated almost nightly: a visitor would have a hard time locating the chateau. King Francis, and his retinue and parasites, have fled to Paris for the winter.

I have hours to contemplate his Italian plunder: in his salons, his superb collection of Mazzoni marbles-twenty- one major pieces.

I study and admire the King's Bataille tapestries. My private gallery. My autumn sun, as well. Sometimes Francesco makes the gallery a gallery for two. With autumn rain or wind. He sketches a Mazzoni bust; I sketch a Mazzoni figure. I am learning to appreciate the man's skill: it helps my exile.

Yesterday, as I left the chateau, the handsome horse re-appeared, trotting along a path that leads into the forest. Bobbing his head as if in recognition, he walked toward the manor house with me. He's a grey, with mixed mane. It was growing dark and his color blurred into the dusk.

I came to Amboise three, or was it four years ago?