And in accordance with the characteristic scene thus painted for us by Signor Guerrazzi, we find on returning from verisimilitude to recorded fact, that on the ninth of July in the year 1576, just a week previous to the murder of Isabella Orsini, the wretched Eleonora,—she too another victim of Cosmo's atrocious profligacy—was put to death by Don Pietro's own hand at the Villa of Cafaggiuolo. That ill–omened place is a castle among the Apennines, some fifteen or twenty miles from Florence, which the traveller thence to Bologna will hardly fail to notice. Solitary and desolate as it stands now among the mountains by the side of the high–road, it was yet more so, when no such road existed. The dark naked stone tower standing there on the hill–side turf, without tree or cultivation near it of any kind, strikes the imagination as the very spot adapted for such a crime. Of course, as usual, there were medical declarations of the cause of her death, and the courts were duly informed that God had pleased to take to himself our dearly beloved sister–in–law, &c. But it is remarkable that to his agent at the court of Philip II., Francesco wrote a private letter, which is still extant,[168] ordering him to communicate the whole truth of the murder to that monarch. And Philip, while expressing regret for the cause of the crime, manifested no disapproval of it, and promised all secrecy concerning it. It is recorded, that Don Pietro immediately after the perpetration of the deed, with hands yet bloody from the task, took the precaution of imploring pardon for it, from a figure of the Virgin Mary in an adjoining chapel, promising at the same time, that as an expiation he would thenceforth remain single;—a vow which he did not keep. Thus were decency and respectability restored, it was hoped, to the court life at Florence. Bianca's sins, as has been intimated, were of a different kind, from those of the two murdered princesses. But Francesco's gloomy temper and fits of violence, joined to such an example of his mode of action when irritated, could not have been re–assuring to the survivor of the trio court beauties. CHAPTER III. Bianca balances her accounts.—Dangers in her path.—A bold step—and its consequences.—Facilis descensus.—A proud father.—Bianca's witchcraft.—The Cardinal is checkmated, for this game.