rinita. She besought her
coachman to try and upset her rival, hoping that she might fall into the
river below and be drowned! Conte Eliodoro del Castello, her
Chamberlain, saw the manoeuvre and prevented a deplorable fatality."

Be this as it may, the Grand Duke not only sympathised with Bianca's
fears, but appointed certain of his own bodyguard to take up similar
duties near the person of Madonna Buonaventuri, and her progresses
henceforward were watched with as much circumstance as his own. At the
same time his devotion to the woman he loved increased from day to day.
The perils she was called upon to meet were incurred through her
unquestioning love of him. This he knew well enough.

Writing on 29th March 1576, Carlo Zorzi, the Ambassador of the Serene
Republic, and a warm adherent of his fascinating fellow-countrywoman,
says: "I visited the Grand Duke's Villa Pratolino, and also Madonna
Bianca Buonaventuri's charming retreat, the Orte Oricellari, and her
pretty Villa della Tana, which he had lately given her, looking upon the
Arno, and I observed Don Francesco's intimacy with the Madonna. I noted
also her extraordinary influence for good upon him.... They appear to be
made for one another, and to be absorbed in the same occupations and
interests.... She had but to name an object for charity or patronage,
and at once she had his hearty approval."

Francesco never concealed his concern at having no son. With his own
physicians and the physicians of the Grand Duchess he held many
consultations: not a few quacks and empirics also were sought to for
nostrums and charms which should obtain by science what nature had so
far withheld. He and Bianca held anxious counsel, for he knew that she
would lay down her life for him, and would grant him every facility
which it was in her loving power to supply.

Reflecting deeply, Bianca saw only one situation: Giovanna was barren
of male issue, why should not she herself become once more a mother--the
mother of a son, a son of Francesco!

This idea haunted her, but all the same she had no conception; and then
a design presented itself to her weary brain--as natural as it was
indefensible. For some time she had been getting stout--her age, her
constitution, and her rich living were all conducive to that condition.
If she was not to be the mother of his child by natural means, she could
be so by a subterfuge, which her _embonpoint_ would uphold!

In the spring of 1576 Bianca Buon