they called this farm, aroused the admiration
of the French chroniclers who followed Louis XII. in his invasion of
Lombardy, more than any other of the beautiful and marvellous houses and
enchanted gardens which they saw in this wonderful land of Milan. Robert
Gaguin cannot find words in which to express his amazement at the
marvellous number of beasts that he saw there--horses, mares, oxen,
cows, bulls, rams, ewes, goats, and other beasts with their young, such
as fawns, calves, foals, lambs, and kids--or the massive pillars and
lofty vaulting of the stables, which are described as being larger than
the whole of the Carthusian convent in Paris.

"The farm itself," he writes, "is finely situated in a wide meadow about
four leagues in circumference, with no less than thirty-three streams of
fair running water flowing through the pastures, and well adapted for
the practical uses of agriculture, since they serve for the bathing and
cleansing of the animals as well as for the watering of the grass. The
plan of the farm-buildings is a large square, like some noble cloister,
and in the park outside are barns and ricks of hay and other produce. In
the central courtyard are the houses of the governors and captains who
direct all the work on the farm. In the outhouses, which are built in
the shape of a great cross, the labourers have their homes, together
with their wives and families. Some of these clean and tend the cattle
or groom the horses. Others milk the herds of cows at the proper time.
Others, again, receive the milk and bear it into the dairies, where it
is made into the great cheeses which they call here Milan cheeses, under
the superintendence of the master cheese-maker. The exact weight of
everything, that is to say, of the hay, milk, butter, and cheese, is
carefully recorded, and there is an extraordinary wealth and abundance
of all these things."

These Milan cheeses were so highly esteemed by the French invaders in
1499, that Louis XII. took back a large quantity with him to Blois, and
kept them for several years in a room especially devoted to that
purpose. They were preserved in oil, and are mentioned in one of his
wife Anne of Brittany's inventories of the year 1504.

Such were the manifold industries which this far-seeing prince
established on his royal domain, less, as he said, for actual profit
than for the encouragement of better methods in agriculture and the
promotion of his poorer subjects' prosperity