Louis-Nicolas arrived sometime during 1751, but before September, when he made a drawing of the fire in the Grandes Écuries, in Paris, where he found a house, 'la Reine de France' in the rue St. Honoré. Although her worked without the protection of a guild or a patron, he attracted important clients, like tsar Peter III (snuffbox, 1761), the Duc de Choiseul (painting of the erection of a statue of the king in Paris) and a snuffbox for Mme. de Pompadour in 1763 (Maillet-Chassagne 2001).