6 This is Florimond Robertet, the first of that family of statesmen who served the French crown from Charles VIII. to Henri III.  It was Charles VIII. who appointed Florimond Treasurer of France and Secretary of Finances, offices in which he displayed great skill and honesty.  Louis XII., who confirmed him in his functions, habitually consulted him on important political affairs.  He acquired considerable wealth, and was often called “the great baron,” after the barony of Alluye, which he possessed in Le Perche.  One of the curiosities of Blois is the Hotel d’Alluye, a house of semi-Moorish style, erected by Robertet at the close of the fifteenth century.  Another of his residences was the chateau of Bury, near Blois, where he set up Michael Angelo’s famous bronze statue of David, presented to him by the city of Florence, and the fate of which has furnished material for so much speculation.  Under Francis I. Robertet enjoyed the same credit as during the two previous reigns.  Fleuranges declares that no one else was so intimate with the King, and commends him as being the most experienced and competent statesman of the times.  According to the Journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris, Robertet died “at the Palais (de Justice) in Paris, of which he was concierge,” on November 29, 1527.  Francis repeatedly visited him during his illness, and, on his death, ordered that his remains should lie in state, and be interred with great pomp and ceremony.  Clement Marot’s works contain a poem, four hundred lines in length, celebrating Robertet’s virtues and talents.—­L., B. J., and Ed.

As soon, therefore, as the King was awake he failed not to lay the matter before him in the presence of the Lord de la Tremoille and the Admiral de Bonnivet, who were ignorant of the trick that the King had played the Count the day before.

Then the King laughed, and said to them—­“You desired to banish Count William, and you see he is banishing himself.  Wherefore, tell him that if he be not content with the establishment which he accepted on entering my service, and which many men of good families have deemed themselves fortunate to have, he must e’en seek a better fortune elsewhere.  For my part, I will in no wise hinder him, but shall be well pleased if he can find some condition wherein to live according to his deserts.”

Robertet was as prompt to bear this answer to the Count as he had been to prefer his request to the King.  The Count replied that with the King’s permission he was resolved to depart, and, like one whom fear urges to flight, he did not tarry even four and twenty hours; but, just as the King was sitting down to table, came to take leave of him, feigning much sorrow that his need should force him from the Royal presence.

He also went to take leave of the King’s mother, who parted from him no less joyfully than she had formerly received him as a kinsman and friend.  And thus he returned to his own country; and the King, seeing his mother and courtiers in amazement at his sudden departure, told them of the fright he had given him, saying that, even if the Count were innocent of that which was laid against him, his fear had been sufficiently great to constrain him to leave a master whose temper he had not yet come to know.