pon the base-born scions of her family. "My Lord," she cried, "my
Lord, to what a pass has my family sunk. Do you think that any of my
great ancestors would have borne you so long. Alas! that my race has
none but female legitimate offspring." Then turning to the astonished
lads she continued: "You had better both look out for yourselves and go
away before the Cardinal here destroys you and Florence!"

Some of the suite tried to interfere and to pacify the enraged woman,
but to no avail, she went on vehemently to denounce the intrusion of the
two bastards.

"Begone, you who are not of the blood of the Medici, both of you, from a
house and from a city to which neither of you, nor your patron,
Clement--wrongfully Pope and now justly a prisoner in Sant Angelo--have
any legitimate claim, by reason of birth or of merit. Go at once, ye
base-born bastards, or I will be the first to thrust you out!"

Her hearers quailed under her invective, and Passerini humbly promised
to quit the palace, but when Clarice had gone, he sent for Filippo
negli Strozzi and expostulated with him. Filippo's apology was as quaint
as it was effective. "Had she not been," said he, "a woman and a Medici,
he would have administered to her such a public chastisement as would
have gone bad with her!" He, nevertheless, strongly advised the Cardinal
to depart, and he conveyed the intelligence that the lives of the two
lads were by no means secure, and that should anything happen to them,
the Pope would demand them at his hands.

On 29th May 1527, Cardinal Passerini, with Ippolito and Alessandro and
their suite, accompanied by Filippo, rode out to Poggio a Caiano, amid
the execrations of the populace. Thence they departed for Rome, where
the young men lived more or less quietly for two years in Clement's
private apartments at the Vatican.

* * * * *

In spite of Ippolito's superiority of appearance, manners and
attainments, the Pope made no concealment of his preference for
Alessandro. He created him Duke of Citta di Penna--a fief within the
Papal States--and decided that the riches and greatness of the House of
Medici should be continued in Alessandro and not in Ippolito.

"Ippolito," wrote Varillas, "was seized with incredible grief and
indignation, and it seemed to him, that being older, a nearer relation
to the Pope, and better endowed by nature, so rich an inheritance
should rather be his ... either not knowing or not