The Castle had now to serve the grim purposes of war, not of art and pleasure. For these it was well fitted, in the hands of determined defenders. The French chronicler, Jean d’Auton, who was in the train of Louis XII., describes with admiration its immense strength, its broad moats, its towers, ramparts, walls and outworks, its fortified gates, its sally ports and posterns, with the impregnable Rocchetta in its midst. _If their effeminate stomachs had been swelled by manly hearts_, says he, speaking of Lodovico’s garrison, _well might they have held it long against every human power, for they had in their hands one of the most advantageous places in the world.... In such keeping is it now_, he adds, _that, in spite of all the winds, in every corner of its garden, the noble fleur-de-lys shall flower for ever_. The fleur-de-lys was not, however, so fadeless as he boasted. But it bloomed undisturbed for twelve years, during which period the palace once or twice knew splendour and gaiety once more, as in 1507, when Louis XII. held his court there for a short time, and was waited on by cardinals, princes, and distinguished men from all parts of Italy. Then it was that Isabella d’Este danced with the king in the great ball-room in the Rocchetta, where her dead sister had presided. There, too, was Galeazzo di San Severino, once the most intimate friend of the now captive Moro and his wife, and now Grand Ecuyer to the usurper. The court poets, the musicians sang their venal praises as gaily for the new as for the old master, Leonardo, too, was there, in the service of the French king. For him one tyrant passed and another came; art alone endured.