to Bishop Abbioso's care, and begged him send the
news of her death and Francesco's to Cavaliere Bartolommeo Cappello at
Venice. After absolution and last communion, Bianca Cappello, "Daughter
of Venice," Grand Duchess of Tuscany, breathed her last in peace--the
delirium having abated--on the evening of 30th October, just two days
after her husband.

A _post-mortem_ examination, or at least the form of one, upon the Grand
Duke revealed, it was said, advanced disease of the liver, the
consequences of his unwisdom in the use of cordials and elixirs! With
the connivance of the Court physicians, Ferdinando put out a
proclamation that the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess--he was compelled to
use the title then in speaking of Bianca--had died from "attacks of
malarial fever, induced by the unhealthy atmosphere of Poggio a Caiano."

* * * * *

Francesco's obsequies were attended by all the stately ceremonies usual
in the Medici family. Conveyed into Florence by the _Misericordia_ on
the evening of his death, his body was exposed for three days in state
in the Palazzo Pitti, and then carried in solemn procession to the
church of San Lorenzo for burial.

If merely to save appearances, or to conceal his real intention, the new
Grand Duke ordered the body of the Grand Duchess to be placed beside
that of her husband in the Cappella Medici of the church. For six brief
hours it was suffered to remain, and then, at midnight, agents of
Ferdinando, well paid for their profanity, deported all that was mortal
of the brilliant "woman whom he hated" to an unknown grave in the
paupers' burial plot beyond the city boundary! "For," said he, "we will
have none of her among our dead!"

Such was the end of the beautiful and accomplished Bianca
Cappello--"Bianca, so richly endowed," as wrote one of her panegyrists,
"by nature, and so refined by discipline, able to sympathise with and
help all who approached her--her fame for good will last for ever!" The
wiles of the serpent and his cruel coils had crushed the "Daughter of
Venice": it was the triumph of an unworthy man over a lovable woman. She
was not the only victim Ferdinando's poison overpowered--Giovanni de'
Pucci, whom the Pope was about to advance to the Cardinalate, an
inoffensive ecclesiastic, incurred Cardinal Ferdinando's displeasure by
his sympathy with the Grand Duchess. He died mysteriously after drinking
a glass of wine which Ferdinando had poured out