But his messenger brought him back an account of his interview with the Grand Duke, which seems to have very much changed the course of his policy and conduct for the future. Francesco would not hear of contracting any such new marriage as was proposed to him. He professed indeed his determination not to marry again at all. But the secretary was able to detail to his master, certain little indications gleaned from the phrases or the actions of the Duke, which led the acute Cardinal to the conviction that Francesco had already made up his mind to marry Bianca. And from thenceforth the Cardinal very manifestly changed his conduct. He no longer made any attempt to preserve even that outward appearance of family union, which he had hitherto, despite all difficulties and provocations, succeeding in maintaining. He quarrelled with his brother openly and publicly; and in all the political manœuvrings for the petty objects arising out of the jealousies of the Italian princely houses, which made up the life occupation of the cardinals living in the Roman court, he thenceforth took a line of his own, wholly distinct from, and in some respects opposed to that of his brother, and the general Medicean family interest. He, for instance, began to cultivate a friendship with the court of France, between which and Francis, who had always inclined to that of Spain, there had ever been enmity. Just about this time especially, he was on ill terms with France, which had been guilty of injuring him in one of the tenderest points in which the feelings of a despotic prince such as Francesco can be touched. She had accorded protection to fugitives from his vengeance. Several of those who had been implicated in the Pucci conspiracy, such as Antonio and Piero Capponi, and Bernardo Girolami, as well as Troilo Orsini, with whose guilt we have had occasion to become acquainted, had escaped thither, and lived unmolested under the protection of France. This was intolerable to Francesco. It was not so much the feeling of pique and jealousy which might exist between two governments on the subject of harbouring each other's outlaws, and which may well be a ground of legitimate remonstrance and discontent between neighbouring nations; for such a grievance can be remedied only by inducing the offending government to give up the refugees to the legal tribunals of their own country. What rankled in Francesco's heart was simply the frustration of his personal vengeance. And the measures which he adopted were accordingly directed wholly to the gratification of that feeling. [Sidenote: THE DUKE'S VENGEANCE.]