Note 749 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
The wealth and power of the Montmorency family were proverbial; their palaces were among the most magnificent in France. Of one of them the English ambassadors wrote, four years earlier, a long description for the benefit of Queen Mary, beginning: "We saw another house which the said constable had but lately built, called Écouen, which was praised for the fairest house in France." The Journey of the Queen's Ambassadors to Rome, Anno 1555 (Hardwick, State Papers, i. 63).