It is true that France was coming to the fore about the middle of the sixteenth century with indisputable superiority in art, while Italy turns to inevitable decadence. France had had a “school of Fontainebleau” disposed to exercise the tyranny of genius, but Rosso was not Raphael, and the Italian influence, though of great benefit to the French school, was, after all, a mere passing incident in the course of art in that country. Yet it is surprising that even in France, at a moment when the mania for collecting art was on the increase, the collector does not seem to have been either victimized or annoyed by faking. It must be said though, with Edmond Bonnaffé, that “the French buyers were regarded somewhat as novices, and everyone did his best to exploit them.” The French art lover, with all his progress and enlightenment, was at this time naive, and easily exploited by trickery. It is easy to imagine that if faking did not become as rampant as before, it must have been because it did not pay as formerly. Yet H. Estienne remarks on this subject: “To-day the world is full of buyers of old lumber (_antiquailles_), at whose expense many rogues are prospering. For so little do they know how to distinguish the antique from the modern, that no sooner do they hear the word which so often makes them dip their fingers into their purse, etc.” By this remark, even without other documents, one is entitled to conclude that even at this period, which seems to have been less given than the others to imitation and faking, victims existed and were ready, like the novice or the unwise to-day, to pay fancy prices supported by a name. Although ranking second in the movement of art--France, England and Germany have risen up and improved their taste, indulging in the true patronage of art--Italy is still the inexhaustible source of antiques, in spite of the fact that the decadence afflicting the country had destroyed the real love of art in the collector. Italian villas and palaces are replete with paintings, the best often in garrets, the bad art of the time in full honour in the important rooms. The Barocco, with its gorgeous errors and few merits, is about to prepare the funeral of Italian art. The seventeenth century is approaching. CHAPTER XI MAZARIN AS A COLLECTOR Collectors of the seventeenth century in France--Louis XIII --Richelieu--Mazarin and his advisers--Louis XIV as an art lover--Vaillant’s strange case--Sanson, the hangman, collecting pictures--The second collection of Cardinal Mazarin --Its partial destruction through the Cardinal’s nephew--The _medailles insolentes_ under Louis XIV--Epigrams on collectors --Duke of Orleans’ ill-fated collection.