y, always considered, in Florence, an
unlucky day for a wedding,--a few months after that of Prince Alfonso
d'Este's to Isabella's younger sister--Lucrezia. After a brief honeymoon
spent at their villa the youthful bride and bridegroom separated--an
ominous repetition of a fateful error. Truth to tell, Duke Paolo took an
intense dislike to his father-in-law: he distrusted him both in relation
to his affection for Isabella, and also with respect to his tyrannical
character generally. Florence also and the Florentines were distasteful
in their excesses of ill-living, cruelty, and chicanery--not that the
Court of Rome was a Paradise, or the young man a St Anthony!

The Duke went back to Rome and resumed his ordinary life there, without
bearing with him any of the wholesome leaven of matrimony--a husband in
name, and little more. Duchess Isabella, a mere child, wanton and wilful
more than most, was thus left the uncontrolled mistress of a princely
establishment, with no marital check to regulate her conduct. Surely as
unstable a condition, and as conducive to infidelity, as can well be
imagined.

Before leaving his wife at Poggio Baroncelli, Duke Paolo appointed her
household, and made every provision for her comfort. A cousin of his,
Cavaliere Troilo d'Orsini, was placed in charge of the Duchess as
Chamberlain, or quasi-guardian--another false step, and embarrassing for
all parties. He was a handsome and accomplished man, avowedly unmarried,
young and of a sympathetic disposition, and manifestly not at all the
sort of person to place upon terms of such close relationship with the
attractive young Duchess.

Under its fascinating _Castellana_ the Baroncelli villa became a busy
little Court, the scene of constant festivities, gossip, and intrigue.
Her mother's Court at the Pitti was quite second in attractiveness.
Duchess Eleanora if virtuous and conscientious, was rather dull and
uninteresting. She cared much more for her Spanish connections than for
her Florentine courtiers: much of her time she spent in the Cappella
degli Spagnioli at Santa Maria Novella. What time she spared from her
devotions she occupied in the establishment and patronage of the
_Accademia degli Elevati_--"Souls," for the encouragement of poetry.

Duchess Isabella d'Orsini was hailed as "_La Nuova Saffo_" by those who
gathered round her. She was by nature an arrant flirt--as most pretty
women are--for she inherited her father's amorous disposition; a