During the twenty months of waiting, Richelieu indulged the natural tastes for building and collecting which had been, no doubt, trained and encouraged by Marie de Médicis, herself so great a lover of art in its more splendid forms. At this time and a little later he bought several châteaux at no great distance from Paris--Fleury, near Fontainebleau; Bois-le-Vicomte, which he afterwards exchanged with Gaston d’Orléans for Champigny, the hereditary property of his eldest daughter, the heiress of Montpensier; Limours, which he sold, after spending large sums on beautifying it; and Rueil, near Saint-Germain. This last, when bought by the Cardinal, was merely a small country-house. He made a magnificent place of it, with moats and terraces, a beautiful park, and gardens in the Italian style which were among the most famous of the century; cascades, fountains, arches, grottos, and a population of statues. He was a great buyer of statuary, with which all his houses and gardens were largely adorned. He posed as a very considerable patron of art, but his purchases were not made without economy; the sale of various ecclesiastical charges did not bring in an unlimited fortune. Nor was his taste always faultless, even by the pseudo-classical standard of the time. In August 1623 he wrote a long letter to his private secretary, Michel Le Masle, Prior of Les Roches--formerly his servant at the Collège de Navarre--who had been sent to Italy on confidential business connected partly with the Queen-mother’s Florentine affairs, partly with the election of a new Pope, Urban VIII. Having treated of these subjects, the Cardinal goes on to private matters of his own. “The Sieur Franchine advises me to ask if you can send me some marble statues and a marble basin; for he says that, not being real antiques, one can have them very cheap. I particularly want a statue about three feet high, and a handsome basin a foot and a half in diameter, to put on his head. If you have this made to order the statue must hold it with both hands above his head. You will remember that, being for a fountain, the statue and the basin must be pierced.... M. d’Alincourt five or six months ago had five very cheap statues brought from Rome. You will inquire into the price of marble, the charges of sculptors, in order that we may judge, on your return, whether the work may better be done there or in France.” M. des Roches is then directed to find out the cost of “the following statues, in bronze”: “A Jupiter six feet high, with the face of the late King, a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand, dressed as Jupiter _à l’antique_. “A Juno of the same size, with the face of the Queen, the eyes slightly turned towards heaven, to which she will point with one hand. “A god Terminus, nine feet high, made after the sculptor’s fancy, to be set on a column in the midst of the garden.