From the Dublin University Magazine.

WICKED WOMEN-CATHERINE DE MEDICIS.

THAT admirable specimen of a worthy | more real political power than was ever matron, Chaucer's Wife of Bath," declares in the prologue to her Canterbury

crimes, during the three centuries of its existence as a sovereign power, than could be found in the annals of any other European family, hardly excepting the Borgias. One of its characteristics was to take no account of legitimacy. In no other house did the natural children act so conspicuous and prominent a part. It seemed to be a principle, that the mere acquisition of power was sufficient to legitimate its possessor.

poor laborer, whom that celebrated Venetian lady had purchased and adopted. What is still more strange, Ferdinand de Medicis, when he succeeded Francis, maintained this adopted boy in all his pretensions and privileges. The lucky youth, known in history as Don Antony de Medicis, was recognized during four reigns as the great ornament of the family, to which he certainly rendered essential services, and he died universally regretted.

Medicis, afterwards pope, under the title of Clement VII., was the illegitimate son of Julian I.; and Cardinal Hippolito de Medicis, who nearly attained the papacy, had a similar bar of bastardy on his escutcheon.

Mirabeau used to say, "My family never made but one degrading alliance, and that Almost all the early Medicis had natural was with the Medicis ;" for they were simple children, who invariably rose to brilliant but rich merchants until 1314, when Ave-rank and fortune. Thus Cardinal Julius de rard de Medicis became gonfalonier of Florence. The first, however, who occupied an important place in the history of the Tuscan republic was Silvestro de Medicis, who became gonfalonier in 1378. He was the father of Cosmo and Lorenzo de Medicis, each of whom stand at the head of princely lines, which must be carefully distinguished. From Cosmo descended Lorenzo the Magnificent, the Duc de Nemours, the Duc d'Urbino, (father of Catherine,) Pope Leo X., Pope Clement VII., and Alexander, Duc della Citta di Penna, sometimes called Duke of Florence, but improperly; for though he usurped supreme authority in that city, he never assumed the title.

From Lorenzo descended Lorenzino, the Florentine Brutus, who slew the usurper, Duke Alexander; Cosmo, the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, and his successors in that sovereignty, down to the year 1737, when the family became extinct.

Neither of these two branches reigned in the line of direct succession until Francis de Medicis, (father of Mary de Medicis, and queen of Henry IV.,) having completely subjugated Tuscany, established his family firmly as a dynasty. Alexander de Medicis, Duc della Citta di Penna, who acquired supreme power in Florence, was the son of the Duc d'Urbino (father of Catherine) and a Moorish concubine. Some have ascribed his paternity to Pope Clement VII., who certainly showed him unusual favor. But Clement patronized Alexander merely to gratify the Emperor Charles V., to whose favorite natural daughter the Duc della Citta di Penna was married. It is doubtful whether Lorenzino was led to assassinate Alexander by patriotic hatred of his usurp ation, or by the more natural indignation, excited by seeing an illegitimate son assume the headship of the Medicean house.

Francis de Medicis, the husband of Bianca Capella, recognized as his son the child of a

As Catherine cannot be held responsible for scandalous antecedents in her family, so neither is she to blame for the unfortunate circumstances that gathered round her infancy. Her mother, Madeline de la Tour d'Auvergne, died in giving her birth, leaving to Catherine, her only child, the nominal inheritance of the old Counts of Boulogne and Auvergne, with some plausible pretensions to the crown of Portugal. Her father, the Duc d'Urbino, followed his beloved wife to the grave, and the infant Catherine, deprived of both her parents, was left at the mercy of the factions then struggling for supremacy in Florence. Pope Leo X., the grand-uncle of Catherine, claimed the sovereignty of Florence, and delegated the government of the city to Cardinal Julius de Medicis, who, notwithstanding his illegitimacy, assumed the guardianship of Catherine, as her father's brother. In continental parlance, he was uncle of the princess "by the left hand;" some doer of memoirs into English rendered this phrase "the lefthanded uncle of Catherine," and such currency did this error receive, that in the various old lives of the popes we find Clement VII. described as left-handed. If the same person had ventured to translate Brantome's jest, Le Pape etoit son oncle en Notre Dame, it is hard to guess the perplexity that might have been introduced into genealogies.

Catherine was about nine years of age when the democracy of Florence expelled the Medicis, and established what would now be called Red Republicanism as their government. Clement VII., who had recently succeeded to the papacy, sent an army to besiege Florence, and demanded that his

niece should be sent to Rome in all honor | and safety. But the Red Republicans were pretty much in that day what they are in ours, a pack of cruel cowards; they had seized the orphan's property, and shut up Catherine herself in a convent, and when the pope demanded her liberation they held a council to deliberate on her fate. Baptiste Cei proposed that she should be brought to the ramparts and exposed to the fire of the besiegers' artillery; Bernard Castigleone recommended that she should be exposed to the brutality of the mercenary soldiers, and then sent dishonored to her uncle. The horror excited by this detestable proposition produced a reaction in favor of Catherine; the council resolved that she should be still detained as a hostage, but that at the same time she should be treated with all possible respect and kindness.

İtalian historians, with some justice, call this the "Golden Age of Bastardy," and name countless instances in which the illegitimate branches of noble houses became the hope and pride of their families, quite eclipsing the legitimate branches. This was remarkably the case with the Medicis. The Duc della Citta di Penna was placed at the head of the family by Clement VII.; and after having established his supremacy in Florence, he undertook the guardianship of Catherine, then about eleven years of

age.

Nothing like an impartial history of the sixteenth century exists, nor is it likely to exist until the task is undertaken by some enlightened Hindoo or Mohammedan. The passions which the Reformation awakened have never since been allowed to sleep; persons, events, and circumstances have been so distorted and misrepresented by hostile parties, that their identity can hardly be recognized in the opposing statements; and when we look for evidence of facts, we are presented with the arguments and deductions of theological controversy. Each man supposes that the honor of his religion is concerned in maintaining the purity and honesty of those by whom that religion was professed during the great struggle of the Reformation, which is about as reasonable as to imagine that the cause of Christianity was identified with the character of Constantine. Religion was a pretext and excuse, not a cause of most of the events which historians have ascribed to its influence. It was not because he was Head of the Church that Henry VIII. divorced and got rid of his wives, but it was because he wanted to get

rid of a wife that he proclaimed himself Head of the Church. Whoever writes the history of this period with the set purpose of maintaining the probity of either party will produce a mere improbable romance. Hornenghaus on one side, and D'Aubigné on the other, have produced not histories but tolerable imitations of the Waverley Novels.

Charles V., the great champion of Catholicity, who regarded Lutheranism not merely as heresy against the Church but treason against the empire, allowed Rome to be besieged by his armies, and the pope to be kept a close prisoner. He did more. After having fixed an enormous ransom on his captive's redemption, Charles ordered public prayers to be offered throughout the empire for the deliverance of the Holy Father, whom he could have set at liberty by a turn of his finger! Clement succumbed, and obsequiously courted Charles V., until he obtained the hand of the emperor's natural daughter for the Duc della Citta di Penna, an alliance which placed Alexander in possession of Florence. Scarcely had they achieved this end, when Alexander and Clement turned against Charles V., sought an alliance with his great rival Francis I., offering him the hand of Catherine for his eldest son, and promised to aid him in reconquering Italy. Lorenzino de Medicis, the Florentine Brutus as he is called, shared all the debaucheries and excesses of Alexander before he murdered him; and then pleaded that he did so seeking a favorable opportunity for his assassination. Philip Strozzi, in many respects one of the most noble-minded men of the day, not merely accepted this excuse, but vowed that each of his sons should marry a daughter of the murderer; and this vow the two sons religiously fulfilled, though they had attained fortunes and dignities in France which would have entitled them to far more brilliant alliances. Cosmo de Medicis, the successor of Alexander, to whom he was very remotely related, proclaimed himself the avenger of that duke, and at the same time deprived his son of his inheritance! Charles V. acquiesced in this robbery of his grandson, for whom, in the very instrument that confirmed the youth's inheritance, he professed the most unbounded affection. Cardinal Cibo, to whom Cosmo was indebted for his throne, was the very first person whom he sent into exile; whereupon Cibo accused the prince of having attempted to poison the son of Alexander. Don Garcias, the son of Cosmo, assassinated Cardinal John de Medicis, and was put to death by

of the Constable de Bourbon. He mounted | the scaffold, January 16th, 1523, and was informed that his life would be spared at the moment that he was about to yield his head to the executioner. Diana, at this time, was not fourteen but more than twenty-three years of age, (she was born September 3rd, 1499,) and she had been eight years married to Louis de Brézé, Count de Maulévrier, for whom the authors of the calumny themselves declare that she had always cherished the most enthusiastic affection. Furthermore, Francis himself, in a letter which has been preserved, declares that it was by the prayers of the Count de Maulévrier that he was induced to spare St. Vallier's life; and finally, St. Vallier was reserved for a fate worse than death itself. The letter of remission commands that "he shall be shut up in a cell of strong masonry, having no issue, and only one small aperture through which food may be conveyed." This is not the kind of pardon likely to be purchased by dishonor.

When Diana of Poitiers became the mistress of Henry of Orleans, she had attained the mature age of five-and-thirty, while he was barely sixteen. She was rivalled, and many thought surpassed in beauty, by the Duchess d'Etampes, who was then her junior; this contrast between the ages of the mistresses of the father and son gave rise to a multitude of epigrams and lampoons, none of which will bear translation. The rivalry of these ladies in charms was changed into fierce and important political hostility by an event, which, like almost every other event of the period, has been singularly disfigured by rancorous controversy.

France; the king hastened to meet him with all the forces he could collect; the Duke and Duchess of Orleans accompanied him, and witnessed the horrors of war in the locality which had been the theatre of their nuptial festivities three years before. When Charles V. retreated from Provence, the dauphin returned to Lyons by the Rhone. He made a halt at Tournon, and though it was the month of August he played several games of ball, an amusement to which he was fondly attached. Heated by this violent exercise he demanded a drink; Montécuculli brought him a glass of iced water; the dauphin imprudently drank it off; he fell in a fit, and died in less than an hour. A cry was raised that he was poisoned by Montécuculli, and Francis summoned all the great nobles of his kingdom, and all the foreign ambassadors, to accompany him to Lyons for the purpose of investigating this charge.

Montécuculli was subjected to the torture; he endured the most horrid agonies before he would make any confession, for the great probability is that he had nothing to confess; at length his protracted agonies induced him to declare that he had poisoned the prince, and that he had been instigated to the crime by Charles V., and by his generals, Antony de Lèvis and Ferdinand de Gonzague. Francis I. condemned Montécuculli to be torn to death by four wild horses, and denounced Charles V. in the face of Europe as a suborner of assassination.

Everybody in that age believed that poison was freely used to destroy kings and princes. The kings and princes of the blood in France had their food brought to table in padlocked boxes, of which they alone kept the duplicate key, and this extraordinary privilege, called "the right of the padlock" continued down to the time of Louis XIV. We must not be surprised then that the partisans of the emperor instead of showing that a deep draught of iced water taken in a state of profuse perspiration was quite sufficient to explain the prince's sudden death; they accepted the fact of the poison, and proclaimed that Montécuculli had been engaged to murder the dauphin by Catherine and the Medicis. Many grave Protestant historians have taken up this calumny; but it will not bear examination. Pope Clement was dead; Duke Alexander, immersed in debauchery, had broken off all intercourse with the Duke and Duchess of Orleans; and Catherine never had any intimacy with Montécuculli from the In 1536, Charles V. invaded the south of time he had been deeply offended by her re

When the Duke Alexander brought Catherine to meet Pope Clement at Leghorn, he took with him a Spanish gentleman named Montécuculli, who had recently quitted the Imperial service. Montécuculli had made some proficiency in the study of medicine and alchemy, as understood in that age, and as they were favorite pursuits of the Medicis it is probable that his proficiency recommended him to their patronage. He accompanied the bridal party to France, but not being received into the household of the young Duchess of Orleans, he entered into the service of Queen Eleanor, and subsequently became esquire to the dauphin. Reports were obscurely circulated that he was an adept at poisoning, and strangely enough the only proof alleged was that he had cured some diseases which had baffled the skill of regular practitioners.