er to inform his father that the Princess "seemed to
like" him. Duke Ercole replied as follows: "I am much pleased that your
bride is satisfied with you. I would rather have heard your own state
of mind in regard to the matter...."

Letters to the Duke from the chief members of the Prince's suite assured
him that the Prince really fell in love with the Princess at first
sight, but there is no word of Alfonso's extant which shows that he
cared in the least for the bride State policy had assigned for him.

Duchess Eleanora was exceedingly provoked by the young Prince's
demeanour and his insistence upon the observance of the unnatural
condition. Moreover, she protested to the Duke her wish that the
marriage might at least be postponed, pointing out, with a woman's
intuition of trouble, that no good could come out of such an uncanny
arrangement.

She, of course, was Spanish, and she seems to have forgotten that French
blood flowed in Alfonso's veins--his mother, Duchess Renata, or Renea,
being a daughter of Louis XII. Duke Ercole added to the trouble by
deeply wounding the Duchess' susceptibilities with a suggestion that the
young bride should be sent to Ferrara, immediately after the nuptial
ceremony, under the care of chosen proxies for his son.

Haughtily she answered the Duke's representative: "A married daughter of
the Medici, and of Spain, remains at her parents' palace until her
husband, and no one else, takes her away."

The day fixed for the marriage was 3rd July--a Sunday--and the wedding
Mass was celebrated in the private chapel of the Palazzo Pitti, by the
Bishop of Cortona. One hundred and one comely Florentine gentlewomen
formed a beauteous guard of honour for the bride, each arrayed
splendidly in silk brocade and covered with costly jewels. As many young
nobles, with the accompaniment of music and dancing, performed a
gorgeous pageant of Greeks, Indians and Florentines. In the Piazzo di
Santa Maria Novella a State exhibition of the popular Florentine game of
_Il Calcio_ (football), was given by sixty of the best-looking and most
noble youths, attired in cloths of gold and silver.

The bride and bridegroom retired late at night to the Palazzo Medici in
the Via Larga, set in order for them, but, on the third day, Prince
Alfonso, as good as his word, set off for France! Don Francesco,
Lucrezia's eldest brother, accompanied him as far as Scarperia, on the
Bologna road, and there bade him a not too friendly