FRANCESCO AND PIETRO.
"I am perfectly well aware of the circumstance."
"What! you know it! and have not avenged your shame!"
"We Medici have never been lucky in our wives."
Francesco, in fury, asks what he means to insinuate against either the Grand Duchess or Bianca. And here the writer commits an error in chronology. For he writes as if this conversation occurred after the death of the Grand Duchess, which was not the fact. The circumstances of this narrative took place in 1576, and the Grand Duchess lived till 1578. As to Bianca, in reply to the Grand Duke's assertion that she must be considered as washed from all that had preceded his connection with her, Pietro retorts:
"Such washing will not remove all stains. Sometimes a piece of the stuff may sooner be destroyed than the spot on it. And on your hand there must be a certain red mark that all Arno cannot wash away. It is the stain of Bonaventuri's blood."
"Who says that I slew Bonaventuri? If my father asserted it, I would tell him that he lied. I neither did nor ordered anything. I can swear it."
"Between ordering, insinuating, foreseeing, suspecting, conniving, not seeing, and so forth, no doubt if the cause had to be tried before this world's judges, the pettifoggers of the courts could find you so many limitations and distinctions that you would be acquitted nem. con. But before God one does not appear by means of one's attorney...."
"Ungrateful! How much have my enemies given you to make me die of anger? Is this a way to speak to your liege lord, who if he would, could break you like a reed. And that, too, when I am intent on preserving your reputation!... I have discovered the infamous destroyer of your honour, and have put him to death."
"Poor fellow! he deserved it, but he was a very worthy cavalier."