Royal Favourites (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 Excerpt: ...Italy was definitively lost to France by virtue of two solemn treaties, and it seemed as if all hope was reft from King Francis of ever recovering that country of his predilection; nevertheless that right which he could no longer reclaim directly, he sought to obtain by powerful alliances and politic marriages. Francis I. had seconded by his utmost efforts Pope Clement VII. (of the Medici family), and the Sovereign Pontiff had warmly cherished the project of a marriage between his own niece Catherine de' Medici and one of the sons of the French king--the youthful Duke of Orleans, the chivalrous and devoted servant of Diana of Poitiers. The Medici were a powerful race--owing their illustrious name to their own personal merits--grandsons of simple merchants of wool and silk, as they were. It being so, to form an alliance with the King of France was a great honour for them. Francis I., in his turn, discovered in such marriage a principle of personal influence in Italy. Beside her dowry of golden ducats, Catherine de' Medici brought the duchy of Urbiuo as a heritage, and perhaps eventually even the grand-duchy of Tuscany; and that which was still more important to the French monarch, her pretensions to Reggio, Modena, Pisa, Leghorn, Parma, and Placentia. The chronicler Martin du Bellay, in thus recapitulating the very considerable advantages the Italian princess brought with her, relates that, when the treasurers of France complained to the Marshal Strozzi of the slenderness of the dowry, the marshal replied: "True, the dowry is small, the money-weight is not great; but you forget that Madame Catherine brings also three rings of inestimable value--the lordship of Genoa, the duchy of Milan, and the kingdom of Naples." Words which could only be taken in ...