“In this picture is represented, life-size, Messire Jean de DIntevile chevalier Sieur de Polizy, near Bar-sur-Seyne, Bailly of Troyes, who was Ambassador in England for King Francis I in the years 1532 [O.S.] and 1533 and since Gouverneur of Monsieur Charles de France, second son (_sic_) of the said King; the said Charles died at Forest Monstier in the year 1545, and the said Sr. de DIntvile in the year 1555. Interred in the Church of the said Polizy. There is also represented in the said picture Messire George de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur, a personage of great learning and virtue, who was Ambassador with the Emperor Charles V; the said Bishop was the son of Messire Jean de Selve, Premier President of the Parliament of Paris; the said Bishop died in 1541, having in the above-mentioned year 1532, or 1533, gone to England by permission of the King, to visit the said Sieur de DIntevile, his intimate friend, and also of all his family; and they two having met in England an excellent Dutch painter, employed him to make this picture, which has been carefully preserved at the same place, Polizy, up to the year 1653.” The manuscript consists of an oblong piece of parchment which may have been cut from an inventory, but it is more probable that it was written as a descriptive label to be attached to the picture-frame, after the picture’s removal from Polisy in 1653. The latter supposition would account for the fact that no mention is made of the place where the picture then was, which would, of course, be unnecessary. The authenticity of this document has been pronounced by the British Museum authorities to be indisputable. The body of it was written just after the middle of the seventeenth century, while the heading was added at a slightly later date, at a time, no doubt, when the label had become separated from the picture. [Sidenote: THE PICTURE AT POLISY] In her book Miss Hervey gives a long and interesting account of the lives of the two men. It is sufficient to state here that Jean de Dinteville was born in September 1504, and was therefore in his twenty-ninth year when he came to England as resident French ambassador in February 1533; and that the name “Polisy” is given a prominent place on the terrestrial globe placed near him in the picture. The second sitter, George de Selve, was appointed to the see of Lavaur in 1526, when he was in his eighteenth year, but was only consecrated in 1534, when he was in his twenty-sixth year, which exactly agrees with the inscription on the picture, which states that he was then in his twenty-fifth year.[80] Further evidence exists in the shape of a grant from the Pope to De Selve, dated May 1526, permitting him to hold several benefices “although only seventeen years old.” The fact that he was not consecrated until the year after the picture was painted, although appointed to the see of Lavaur in 1526, explains why Holbein has not represented him in episcopal robes. Footnote 80: