"'Twas he who, risking life and fame to crush
The idol-worship that enslaved mankind,
Restored its native freedom to the mind."

In October, 1597, the direct line of the dukes of Ferrara closed on the death of Alfonso II., whose object had been to secure to his cousin Cesare, Marquis of Montecchio, the succession of his states, as well as his private heritage. He had been able to obtain from the Emperor a new investiture in his favour of Modena, Reggio, and Carpi, but failed in procuring the like boon from Gregory XIV. as to the Ferrarese holding. Immediately upon the vacancy, Cesare assumed the dukedom, with full consent of his people, who dreaded the descent to provincial rank which must have followed upon their annexation to the papal state. Clement VIII., who then filled the chair of St. Peter, answered a conciliatory embassy sent him by the claimant, with a summons to appear at Rome, and, on his non-compliance, thundered excommunication against him and his abettors. These decided steps were followed up by a levy of nearly thirty thousand men, but ere they could be brought into the field, Cesare d'Este gained some partial successes near Bologna. Finding, however, that his position was hopeless, he availed himself of the mediation of Lucrezia Duchess of Urbino, who succeeded in reconciling him with the Legate. The devolution of Ferrara to the Holy See was harmoniously completed in February; but the lady has been accused of sacrificing the interests of her cousin to an old grudge against his father, and to a promise of the fief of Bertinoro. She did not, however, live to receive the bribe, and her death is thus dryly noted in her husband's Diary:—

"February 14th, I sent the Abbé Brunetti to Ferrara, to visit the Duchess, my wife, who was sick.

"—— 15th, Heard that Madame Lucrezia d'Este, Duchess of Urbino, my wife, died at Ferrara during the night of the 11th.

"—— 19, The Abbé Brunetti returned from Ferrara."

In his Memoirs she is the subject of still more brief remark:—"Her death occurred after some years, leaving him [the Duke] executor by her will of many pious bequests." Considering that the largest bequest was in his own favour, a less chilling notice might have been bestowed! The sum she left him was 30,000 scudi: to her various attendants and servants she gave 12,000 in small legacies, and 20,000 among several convents, in masses for her soul. There was also a fund to be mortified for the endowment of poor girls, half at Ferrara and half at Urbino, and Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, the Pope's nephew, was named residuary legatee, a selection which has been ingeniously ascribed to the countenance bestowed by his family on Tasso, in the closing scenes of that minstrel's troubled life.

The anxiety which had long been generally felt on the prospect of a failure of the ducal family began to show itself after the death of Lucrezia. The impediment of a childless marriage having thus been providentially removed, men's hopes were again awakened, and their wishes were not long in finding a unanimous expression. When Francesco Maria appeared in public, his ears were greeted with murmurs from the populace, which at length broke out in enthusiastic demands for his marriage, and Serenissimo, moglie, "A wife, your Highness," became the universal cry.[*86] The ferment thus created was greatly increased by a circumstance which at first sight does not appear much connected with the welfare of the duchy. In the spring of 1598, Clement VIII., on his passage to take possession of Ferrara, paid a visit to the court of Pesaro, where the magnificent reception accorded him, and the long confidential interviews he had with the Duke, were construed by popular jealousy into preparatives for political changes. The extinction of the reigning line would infer a lapse of their sovereignty to the Pope, similar to that which had just degraded Ferrara: Francesco Maria's disinclination for state-toils had already begun to show itself: the readiness of his Holiness to secure so valuable a reversion, or even to anticipate it by providing for the Duke an honourable retreat from duties which he considered onerous, scarcely admitted of a doubt, an appetite for annexation being naturally whetted by the recent acquisition of territory. These ideas became a theme of discussion among the multitudes who crowded from all quarters of the state to witness the courtly shows at Pesaro; and when the Duke returned to the city from escorting the Pope towards Ferrara, he was met at the gate by a host of his subjects, whose loyalty and patriotism burst forth afresh in tumultuous shouts of "Serenissimo! moglie."

That the object of Clement's visit had been faithfully construed by the general voice seems more than probable from the document we are about to quote; but upon this point the Memoirs throw no light. They merely notice his reception of the Pontiff with all distinction, and the remarkably friendly bearing of his Holiness towards himself and the Duchess mother during a day spent at their court: mutual presents passed between them, and Clement dwelt on the good service which his father had afforded to Duke Guidobaldo. From the Duke's Diary we learn that after meeting his Holiness on his southern frontier, and again escorting him out of Sinigaglia, where he had slept with a suite of sixteen cardinals, he took boat and hastened to Pesaro. Next morning he proceeded to meet his visitor, who had spent the night at Fano, and welcomed him to his capital. Passing back to Rome in the end of the year, the Pope halted at Pesaro only to say mass in the cathedral; and on both occasions he was preceded one day by the Holy Sacrament. In the following year the Pontiff, in acknowledgment, perhaps, of these hospitalities, accorded to his host a dispensation, whereby the indulgences, to which the use of certain rosary prayers and ave maria's entitled him, were united and concentrated in a single cavaliere.[87]

The predominant feeling of Francesco Maria, even at this period of his life, appears to have been a selfish attachment to solitary habits and pursuits, tempered by sincere anxiety to discharge his public duties for the benefit of his people. An argument addressing itself to both motives readily occurred to the wily Pontiff. An immediate abdication would secure to the Duke personal ease, and the consequent devolution of his government to the Camera Apostolica might be guarded by stipulations for the public weal, which such voluntary demission alone could entitle him to dictate. The art with which these considerations had been urged, and the impression they made upon the Duke, may be best gathered from a circular he addressed to the magistrates of each city in his state, curiously exemplifying him in that character of royal philosopher which it seems to have been his ambition to attain.[*88]

"Most magnificent and well-beloved,