While in Rome, Mazarin sent regular gifts of flowers, perfumes and delicacies to the women of the French court, and more valuable gifts, including statues and Renaissance paintings, to Richelieu. In 1634 he was named nuncio extraordinary to Paris by Urban VIII, with the mission of persuading Louis XIII to undertake a grand naval crusade against the Turks. The goal was to create a combined fleet of the ships of Christian nations to seize the Turkish ports around the Mediterranean. Mazarin, a realist, knew that, given the rivalries between European powers, this project would never take place.