At last in 1516, three years before his death, Leonardo left his native land for France, where he received from Francis I. a princely income. His powers, however, had already begun to fail, and he produced very little in the country of his adoption. It is, nevertheless, only in the Louvre that his achievements as a painter can to-day be adequately studied.

[PLATE VIII.-MADONNA, INFANT CHRIST, AND ST. ANNE In the Louvre. No. 1508. 5 ft. 7 in. h. by 4 ft. 3 in. w. (1.70 x 1.29) Painted between 1509 and 1516 with the help of assistants.]

On October 10, 1516, when he was resident at the Manor House of Cloux near Amboise in Touraine with Francesco Melzi, his friend and assistant, he showed three of his pictures to the Cardinal of Aragon, but his right hand was now paralysed, and he could "no longer colour with that sweetness with which he was wont, although still able to make drawings and to teach others."

It was no doubt in these closing years of his life that he drew the "Portrait of Himself" in red chalk, now at Turin, which is probably the only authentic portrait of him in existence.