A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 2 (of 2)

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

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," 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.

THE PROMISE.

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 what the upshot would be. The contumely of Europe, and the reproaches of his family, might be effectually prevented from reaching his ears. But how avoid the nearer annoyances inseparable 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.[180] 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 village high up among the Apennines, and then one of the most remote spots in the Duchy, though now well–known as giving its name to the neighbouring marble quarries, which rival those of Carrara in the quality of their produce.

FRANCESCO AT SERRAVEZZA.

The instructions of Ferdinand's envoy were to move Francesco by every possible consideration to marry again, choosing his wife from among the princesses of those sovereign houses whose friendship might be useful for the sustaining of the family greatness.[181] It is clear, therefore, that whatever may have been the case at a later period, Ferdinand had not yet conceived the desire that his brother's inheritance might fall on him. Up to this time he was evidently labouring sincerely in the cause of Francesco's credit and honour, and all his schemes for the aggrandisement of the family were centred in the Grand Duke, and in the hope of his leaving legitimately born heirs male of sovereign lineage to succeed him.

But his messenger brought him back an account of his interview with the Grand Duke, which seems to have very much changed the course of his policy and conduct for the future. Francesco would not hear of contracting any such new marriage as was proposed to him. He professed indeed his determination not to marry again at all. But the secretary was able to detail to his master, certain little indications gleaned from the phrases or the actions of the Duke, which led the acute Cardinal to the conviction that Francesco had already made up his mind to marry Bianca. And from thenceforth the Cardinal very manifestly changed his conduct. He no longer made any attempt to preserve even that outward appearance of family union, which he had hitherto, despite all difficulties and provocations, succeeding in maintaining. He quarrelled with his brother openly and publicly; and in all the political manœuvrings for the petty objects arising out of the jealousies of the Italian princely houses, which made up the life occupation of the cardinals living in the Roman court, he thenceforth took a line of his own, wholly distinct from, and in some respects opposed to that of his brother, and the general Medicean family interest. He, for instance, began to cultivate a friendship with the court of France, between which and Francis, who had always inclined to that of Spain, there had ever been enmity.

Just about this time especially, he was on ill terms with France, which had been guilty of injuring him in one of the tenderest points in which the feelings of a despotic prince such as Francesco can be touched. She had accorded protection to fugitives from his vengeance. Several of those who had been implicated in the Pucci conspiracy, such as Antonio and Piero Capponi, and Bernardo Girolami, as well as Troilo Orsini, with whose guilt we have had occasion to become acquainted, had escaped thither, and lived unmolested under the protection of France. This was intolerable to Francesco. It was not so much the feeling of pique and jealousy which might exist between two governments on the subject of harbouring each other's outlaws, and which may well be a ground of legitimate remonstrance and discontent between neighbouring nations; for such a grievance can be remedied only by inducing the offending government to give up the refugees to the legal tribunals of their own country. What rankled in Francesco's heart was simply the frustration of his personal vengeance. And the measures which he adopted were accordingly directed wholly to the gratification of that feeling.