Lescot is said to have designed the Fountain of the Nymphs, now known as the Fountain of the Innocents,[124] in Paris, in collaboration with Goujon, the sculptor. In this work there is nothing whatever of mediæval character. In its present condition it is, indeed, very different from what it was originally. It first (1550) stood on the corner of two streets with a façade of two bays on one street and a return of one bay on the other. In 1788 it was taken down and reërected in the square of the Innocents on a square plan, a fourth façade being then added. Figure 116, from an engraving by Du Cerceau,[125] illustrates the original design, each bay of which is nothing more than a reproduction of the scheme of a Roman triumphal arch, with a short pediment over the attic. The whole structure is raised on a high basement of plain character with lions’ heads for water-spouts. Such pure imitation of the antique does the architect little credit as a designer, and it is hard to understand how such works could have been regarded as monuments of a regenerating art. The sculptures by Goujon which adorn this structure have, in my judgment, no monumental qualities, nor any notable merits of design. Their movements are awkward, and their lines ill composed. The influence of the decadent Italian art is marked in them, without any new qualities that should entitle them to distinction. Little is known of the early training of Lescot beyond what is told in a poem by Ronsard,[126] from which we learn that in his youth he had occupied himself with painting and geometry, and that at the age of twenty he began the study of architecture. He does not appear to have visited Italy, and his knowledge of ancient art must, therefore, have been acquired at second hand; very likely in great part through Serlio’s book which had been published in 1537. A woodcut (Fig. 117) on page 127 of this book,[127] giving the design of an ancient Roman arch in Verona, might have served as a model for the Fountain of the Nymphs. He must also have come in contact with Serlio himself, who in 1541 had been called into the service of the French king.