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But gradually all these hopes failed her. Not only did the odious rival return, as we have seen, and recover all her previous ascendancy, but the arrival of her brother Vittorio, and the marked favour immediately shown to him by the Grand Duke, who received him as he might have done a visitor of princely rank, seemed to prove, that there was no hope of her being able to struggle against Francesco's infatuated affection for his mistress. The unhappy princess was expecting to be again confined in the spring of 1578, when these sorrows threw her back into the melancholy from which she had been for a brief space roused by the short-lived reconciliation with her husband. And there is little doubt that they contributed to produce the fatal result which put an end to her joyless life on the 11th of May, 1578.†

Giovanna was not endowed with the qualities calculated to make her popular with the people of her adopted country. The cold Austrian nature, the absence of all personal charm, the pride of a scion of the house of Austria, so different in its kind from the lighter boastful vaingloriousness of their own princes, the haughty reserve and stiff ceremonial manners of the daughter of the line of Hapsburg, were uncongenial and disagreeable to the Florentines. A breaking heart, moreover, whose sorrows had to be hidden under a veil of courtly etiquette, was not calculated to improve these deficiencies. Notwithstanding all this, however, the too manifest unhappiness of her life, her dignified bearing under her misfortunes, the propriety of her conduct under strong temptation to act otherwise, all

*Litta. Fam. Med. Art. Giovanni.-Galluzzi. Lib. 4, ch. iii. + See Appendix. Letter VIII. and Note.

GIOVANNA'S DEATH.

283

conciliated to her the sympathy and respect, if not the love, of all classes of the people.

It was known that on her death-bed she had repeatedly* implored the Grand Duke, for his honour and conscience' sake, to separate himself from the woman who had rendered her life so miserable, declaring at the same time that she freely pardoned her for all the ill she had suffered at her hands. And these circumstances, combined with the intense hatred which all Florence nourished for her unworthy rival, "the witch" Bianca, caused her death to be sincerely mourned by the entire city. And almost every writer of the period has a word of sympathy and pity for this one among the many victims of Medicean cruelty and crime.

* Galluzzi. Ibidem.

CHAPTER V.

What is Francesco to do now?-The Cardinal and Bianca try another fall.-Cardinal down again.-Francesco's vengeance.-What does the Church say ?—Bianca at Bologna.—The marriage privately performed -The Cardinal learns the secret.-The daughtership of St. Mark.— Venetian doings versus Venetian sayings.-Embassy to Florence.— Suppose we could have her crowned.-The marriage publicly solemnised.

WHAT were Francesco's feelings on the death of his unloved wife? His conduct towards her had more than once got him into serious trouble with the Imperial Court. Little as he had heeded outraging her feelings, and parading his neglect of her before the world of Florence, still his intercourse with Bianca had been hampered by the necessity of making some little show of decency in the eyes of foreign courts. He had been obliged to have "riguardi," as the Italian phrase goes. Then Giovanna had been an expensive wife; far more so than Francesco liked. And now the cost of the magnificent obsequies, which were to lay her dust under the gorgeous dome of San Lorenzo, would be the closing article in that account.

Francesco was now free. Yet despite all these considerations, it may be very much doubted whether the death of his wife was matter of such unmixed contentment to him as it might at first sight seem to be. Now became due that bill drawn on futurity, that fatal promise to Bianca,-uttered "before an image,"

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too, to make the matter worse,-that, should the time ever come, when they were both free, she should become his wife. It seems likely enough, that a feeling, which he may have mistaken for repentance, came over him in these days, when he thought on the slaughter of Bonaventuri.

It was not that the Grand Duke felt any repugnance in his own heart to perform his promise. His liking for his mistress seems to have been as strong or stronger than ever, and he wished sincerely to be married to her. But he hesitated to face the storm of disapprobation, which would follow the perpetration of such a mesalliance throughout Europe-the dismay of friends, the exultation of enemies, the discontent of his subjects, the ridicule of all. As for his promise, image and all, Francesco was not the man to be much troubled with any such bonds, if it suited his convenience to break them. He would have been bold enough to brave the resentment of any dead Saint in the calendar. But there was a living sinner, of whom he stood in considerably greater awe. How could he refuse to Bianca to keep the promise she had extorted, and the performance of which she would assuredly not now be weaker in exacting.

When the personal wishes of such a man as Francesco, strong only in wilfulness, and the determined will of such a woman as Bianca were on one side, and on the other only the fear of consequences, which could so far be kept at a distance, as never to be allowed to meet him face to face, it was little doubtful

The contumely of Europe,

what the upshot would be. and the reproaches of his family, might be effectually prevented from reaching his ears. nearer annoyances inseparable

But how avoid the equally from living

without Bianca, and from living with her, yet not acceding to her just demands.

Still, for some time the disturbance of Francesco's mind seems to have been extreme. Still, he let “I dare not wait upon I would ;" and lived the while in a condition of miserable uncertainty and agitation.* His first step after the death of Giovanna was to leave Florence, where the universal lamentation for his ill-fated wife disgusted him. Perhaps, also, during this time of doubt and conflicting resolutions he was glad to escape from the presence of Bianca. It seems probable, indeed, from his conduct, that this was really his wish for the moment. For instead of going to any one of the numerous residences belonging to him in different parts of Tuscany, he kept continually moving from place to place, wandering through the least frequented parts of his dominions.

The Cardinal, to whom the death of the Grand Duchess had been a cause of serious grief and disquietude, was much reassured by this apparent desire on the part of Francesco to avoid the seductress at this conjuncture. He went to Porto Ferraio in the island of Elba in the hope of finding the Grand Duke there, and thus getting the opportunity of conferring with him at a distance from the influences with which Bianca in general contrived to surround him. Francesco, however, avoided any such interview with his brother; and the Cardinal had to content himself with sending a secretary, in whom he could confide, to urge those considerations on the Grand Duke, which he would fain have set before him in person. The messenger caught the Duke in Serravezza, a little hill

* Galluzzi. Lib. 4, ch. 3.

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