The Tragedies of the Medici Part 12

Whilst regarding his brilliant son Giovanni, perhaps, with the keenest affection, Cosimo saw in his younger boy traits not unlike his own, and an instinctive love of arms. Garzia then was from the first years of boyhood destined for a military career, having placed before him the splendid example of his redoubtable grandfather, "Giovanni _L'Invincible_."

Upon his thirteenth birthday, the Duke appointed his gay young son Admiral of the Florentine fleet at Pisa, naming as his Vice Admiral, Baccio Martelli, the most valiant and best experienced naval commander in his forces, and the head of one of the most ancient Florentine families.

In spite of Cardinal Giovanni's expression of affection for his younger brother, there is no doubt that he was not a little jealous of his mother's partiality for Garzia. One would have thought that d.u.c.h.ess Eleanora would have regarded with special delight and love the son who most resembled herself in appearance and disposition; but perhaps the reason for her preference may be gathered by looking into the happy, radiant, laughing face of her bonnie little son, as painted by Angelo Bronzino at the Uffizi in Florence!

It would seem that when the Court reached Rosignano the d.u.c.h.ess, Giovanni, and Garzia complained of fever, and they were for a few days confined to the house. The good air and the charm of country life were specific, and the invalids regained their vigour and their good spirits, and all were eager for the sport. Each day had its particular rendezvous, and what form the pastime should take was agreed overnight by the chief huntsmen and falconers.

The d.u.c.h.ess Eleanora did not always accompany her husband, and Ernando--who was not quite thirteen--generally remained with his tutors at the Castle until afternoon, when they both sallied forth, with little Piero, to meet the returning-hunting party. Upon the ever-memorable twenty-sixth of November the d.u.c.h.ess had been persuaded by Don Giovanni to go with them, for there was to be a deer-drive in the forest between the castle and Livorno, and he expected to have a chance of exhibiting his skill as a marksman at a notable full-grown roebuck.

Giovanni and Garzia were equally fearless riders, and very soon after the game had been rounded up, the special quarry they were after went off at a tremendous rate, out-distancing his pursuers until he was lost in the forest. The brothers separated and met again in an open glade, where both descried the buck, quietly browsing upon the fresh green gra.s.s. Garzia seems to have sighted the animal first, but whilst he was somewhat slow in bringing his weapon to his shoulder, the Cardinal aimed, fired, and dropped the game. He at once dismounted and ran to claim the prize. High words followed, and, when Giovanni made some insulting remark about his less mature station as a marksman, Garzia, over-heated by the chase, and aggravated by his brother's raillery, hastily drew his heavy hunting-knife and brandished it before Giovanni's face, threatening to do for him if he did not desist, and withdraw his claim to first shot.

Giovanni pushed the boy from him, perhaps somewhat roughly, and then Garzia, having entirely lost command of himself, struck a blow at his brother which wounded him severely in the groin. Giovanni fell to the ground, exclaiming, "And this from you, Garzia. May G.o.d in Heaven forgive you. Call help at once."

The blast of the horn soon gathered round the unhappy brothers courtiers and huntsmen. Giovanni was bleeding freely, his hose and buskins were saturated, and Garzia was weeping piteously, and crying out despondently, "Oh G.o.d, I have killed Giovanni! Oh G.o.d, I have killed Giovanni!" A huntsman s.n.a.t.c.hed up the gory lethal weapon, lest the boy, in his despair, should turn it upon himself.

All that they could do to staunch Giovanni's wound they did, and having made a temporary stretcher with guns and hunting-cloaks, the little cavalcade was preparing to move on to seek further a.s.sistance. They had not proceeded very far when the Duke and his attendants rode upon the scene. Halting the bearers of his son he enquired who it was they carried. Before any one could make a reply, Don Garzia ran shrieking up to his father.

"It is me, your Garzia, I have killed Giovanni," he cried out in abject terror.

Cosimo motioned the sorrowful bearers to proceed, and they and their burden were no sooner out of sight than d.u.c.h.ess Eleanora came up in her sedan-chair, terribly agitated by the cries she had heard in the forest.

She approached her husband and found him standing lost in thought, with that terrible expression upon his face which he exhibited once before when she had enquired for her first-born, Maria!

There, too, on the sward, was her favourite son, her Garzia, apparently in a swoon, and she advanced to aid him. Garzia heard his mother coming towards him and, rousing himself, he ran and threw himself into her arms, weeping bitterly.

Then once more he turned to his father pleadingly, and kneeling to him, grasped his legs, imploring pardon for his crime--for neither father nor son doubted but that Giovanni was dead. Baring his head, and holding his arms wide apart to Heaven, the Duke appealed to G.o.d to direct his actions. Then, turning to his son, grovelling at his feet. "Behold, thy brother's blood," he cried with bitterness, "asks vengeance of G.o.d and of me, thy miserable father; and now I shall deal with thee alone.

Certainly it is a heinous crime for a father to kill his son, but it would be a still more grievous sin to spare the life of a parricide, lest he went on to exterminate his family, and lay their name in the dirt, to be execrated of all men. I have now resolved what to do, for I would far rather live in history as a pitiless father than as an unjust Sovereign."

The d.u.c.h.ess, judging that Cosimo actually intended to slay his son, and knowing how fruitless any efforts of hers would be to avert such a terrible calamity, fell upon her knees and prayed aloud to Heaven to save the poor, young boy, and spare her own broken heart. Shutting her eyes, and covering her ears, she awaited, more dead than alive, the fall of that hand, within which was convulsively grasped a flas.h.i.+ng poignard!

Cosimo once more prayed most earnestly to G.o.d to approve the justice of his deed, to pardon him for so executing the Divine wrath, and for peace for the souls of his young sons. Then, bending towards the unconscious Garzia, he exclaimed, "I will have no Cain in my family," and, at the same moment, he plunged his weapon into the heart of his boy.

With a last despairing shriek Garzia fell away, crying, as he expired, the one word "Mother!"

The d.u.c.h.ess also lay upon the gra.s.s, still as death; indeed, her heart had stopped its beat when Cosimo raised her, and bid her sternly to act the woman. She was speechless and demented, and at the sight of her dear son's crimson blood colouring the fresh verdure where he had fallen, she lost her reason, and her cries and shrieks resounded through the forest.

From all sides courtiers and huntsmen appeared upon the scene. The Duke silently waved them away, and, beckoning four of the most trusty of his retainers, he bade them pick up the dead body of the young prince and bear it after him, whilst he commanded the lacqueys to carry back the d.u.c.h.ess in her sedan-chair to the Castle.

Asking which way the bearers of the murdered Giovanni had taken, he ordered his own cortege to follow on to Livorno. Arrived at the palace, the corpses of the two unfortunate young princes were arranged for burial. Upon baring Don Garzia's body, a fresh wound was discovered _in his back_, but whether by the hand of Don Giovanni no one ever knew.

This fact, however, was reported to the Duke and furnished him with a satisfactory reason for the double tragedy--for he deemed it wiser just then that the truth should not be published!

Solemn obsequies were celebrated in the Duomo of Pisa. Don Giovanni was honoured with all the gorgeous ceremonies due to a Cardinal Archbishop, and some say his body was left there, whilst the burial of poor Don Garzia was completed by a simple service in San Lorenzo in Florence. The cause of the twofold lamentable occurrence was officially ascribed to malarial fever--the two young victims having contracted, as it was said, the fatal malady during the progress of the Court through Tuscany.

The d.u.c.h.ess Eleanora did not long survive her sons. She never left her bed in the Castle of Rosignano until she was carried for expert advice and treatment into Pisa. Prince Francesco returned in haste, from his tour of the Courts, and did much, by his loving sympathy, to revive his stricken mother. Still of no real avail were all the remedies, for she breathed her last one month after that terrible day in the forest, and her body was borne sorrowfully into Florence, and, within the octave of Christmas laid beside her dearly-loved Garzia.

As for Duke Cosimo, Don Francesco found him a changed man, aged by a good ten years, silent, morose, and indifferent to all that transpired around him.

News of the tragedy was current in the city of Trent, where the Aec.u.menical Council was in session, and it made a great impression upon the a.s.sembled prelates and a.s.sistants. Ma.s.ses were offered for ten days for the repose of the souls of Giovanni and Garzia, and devotions were addressed to Heaven on behalf of the father who had--no one there for a moment doubted--been the avenger of one son's blood and the spiller of the other's.

Within two years Cosimo de' Medici--ever pursued by an accusing conscience and diverted only from suicide by indulging in every sensuality within his power, executed an instrument of abdication of his sovereignty, naming Don Francesco Regent of the Duchy, and retaining for himself no more than the t.i.tle of Duke of Florence.

CHAPTER IV

LUCREZIA--ELEANORA--ISABELLA

_Three Murdered Princesses_

"Shall I go in, or shall I not?" asked Isabella de' Medici, d.u.c.h.ess of Bracciano, with a catch in her voice.

Donna Lucrezia de' Frescobaldi, her first Lady of Honour, made no reply, but grasped her mistress' arm convulsively. The two women stood pale and trembling at the door of the Duke's bedchamber, in their charming villa of Cerreto Guidi, a few miles out of Florence.

There was something uncanny in the air, which caused the d.u.c.h.ess and her lady instinctively to draw back. It was not the Duke's voice, for that was pitched in an unusually tender key, and yet, its very unusuality might have caused their trepidation. There was something indefinable in the situation, which produced apprehension and alarm.

Doubtless their nerves were overstrained by the terrible event at Caf.a.ggiuolo. Eleanora, the d.u.c.h.ess's sister-in-law, had seen and felt the cold steel dagger, struck out from behind the arras, by her husband's hand--she was dead! Every t.i.tled woman, and many another too, felt instinctively that she was walking on dangerous ground: murder seemed to lurk everywhere, and marriage appeared to spell a.s.sa.s.sination!

The remorse of Cosimo de' Medici for the murder of his dearly-loved child Maria, his first-born, did not hinder his policy of aggrandis.e.m.e.nt. He was determined to keep the whip-hand over Ferrara, and to maintain the precedence of his house over that of the Estensi. He had already sacrificed one daughter, not only to his parental pa.s.sion but to his sovereign will, and one daughter still remained unbargained; he would use her to hold what he had got.

Lucrezia was no more than twelve years old when Maria pa.s.sed to Paradise. Prince Alfonso was twenty-two, and his father, Duke Ercole II., had apparently no fiancee in view for him, and the lad seemed not to be in a marrying mood. At the moment Ferrara was isolated, but Cosimo, seizing a favourable opportunity, through his relations.h.i.+p with the King of Spain, contrived to arrange a treaty between that kingdom, Tuscany and Parma, which he adroitly extended to include Ferrara.

It was a powerful combination, and Cosimo had his price, and that price was the betrothal of Alfonso and Lucrezia. The Duke of Ferrara yielded, and in the same month, March 1558, the treaty of alliance was signed at Pisa, and the two young people were affianced there by proxy.

To be sure, there was trouble with Rome. Julius III., in 1552, had bespoken Lucrezia for his b.a.s.t.a.r.d nephew, Fabiano Conte Del Monte--a man without resources and of no recognised position nor of good character--it was just a selfish whim of the Pope--the children never saw each other. Cosimo, with his usual daring, brushed the whole project aside, and made a liberal contribution to Peter's Pence that year!

If Lucrezia was somewhat less fair and less clever than Maria, she was, all the same, an attractive girl. Thin in figure--as all growing girls--tall, well-formed, with the promise of a well-proportioned maturity, she had an oval face and a high forehead, well-cl.u.s.tered with curly auburn hair. There was a peculiarity about her eyes--black they were or a very dark brown--they had something of that cast of optic vision which was remarkable in Cosimo, "_Il Padre della Patria_" and in Lorenzo, "_Il Magnifico_," as well as in other members of the family.

"She had a pretty mouth and a dimpled chin, and always wore a pleasing expression indicative of good-nature and resolute affection. Very unlike her elder sisters, Maria and Isabella, she was somewhat reserved in manner; she spoke little, but expressed her opinion with flashes of her eyes." Her father admired her firmness of resolution greatly, and generally spoke of her as "_La Mia Sodana_," "my little strong-willed daughter."

"She is quite a chip of the old block," he was wont to say of her, "quite one of us--a Medico in frocks!" Lucrezia shared the lessons of her brother, and had been brought up specially with the idea of a brilliant foreign marriage, and her maid was a girl from Modena who knew Ferrara well.

One condition of the marriage-contract was most unusual--namely, that the bridegroom should be free to leave Florence upon the third day after the nuptials had been celebrated! This was necessary, the Prince averred, in order that he might keep an appointment he had made, with his father's consent, with the King of France--the enemy of the quadruple alliance!

Prince Alfonso troubled himself very little about his fiancee. He was devoted to selfish pleasures, and, when his energies were called into play, they were devoted to the service of arms. His betrothal to Maria de' Medici, without his consent, her untimely and suspicious death, and the character Duke Cosimo bore for tyranny, ambition, and greed, were undoubtedly deterrent to the young man's wish to cultivate another Medici alliance.

His own father, Duke Ercole, resembled his prospective father-in-law in many respects. The Estensi, with the Malatesti of Rimini and Pesaro, the Sforzai of Milan, and the Medici of Florence, were cla.s.sed as "families of tyrants." Duke Ercole was a man of strong will and forceful action--a tyrant in his own family and cruel to his unhappy consort--he could not brook any disobedience to his behests. He commanded his son to set forth at once from Ferrara and claim his bride in Florence.

Accompanied by a glittering retinue, which included a dozen Lords of the Supreme Council, Prince Alfonso took his way over the Apennines, along the Bologna road. On 18th June the cavalcade was discerned from the heights of Olivets, wending its way through Boccaccio's country to the city walls.

He was received with great distinction by the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess, attended by the whole Court; and his welcome by the citizens was very cordial.

Florentines always loved a spectacle. Everyone, however, remarked the Prince's haughty bearing, and the coldness with which he returned Cosimo's greeting. He bore himself as a man in presence of a foe whose every action must be watched intently. The d.u.c.h.ess, with all her Spanish sensibility, perceived at once the disfavour of their guest, and sought to interest him in the scene around him and in the happiness in prospect.

Alfonso was quite unmoved. He met Lucrezia's greeting with a cold handshake, and begged that the marriage ceremonies might be hurried forward, as "he had not much time to spare." Cosimo joined in the d.u.c.h.ess' entreaties that the uncanny condition, in the marriage-contract, might be observed in the breach.