Excerpt from Old Paris: Its Court and Literary Salons Long years of Italian warfare, though most disas trous to France, enriched the royal library with valu able mss., and the palaces with many treasures of art, the spoil of the wars and Francis I. And some few of his nobles imbibed in Italy a taste for the ehefs-d'a'avre of sculpture, painting, and architecture. Several of its most renowned artists were prevailed on to visit the French court, but none Could be tempted to stay there though so great, we are told, was the veneration of Francis for learning and the arts, that when any distinguished savants, sculptors, or painters were presented to him, he graciously made a point of advancing three steps to greet them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.