On the 29th of March, in this same year, 1582, poor Giovanna's son Filippo died in his fifth year. It was a severe blow to the Grand Duke. But as, according to the etiquette of the Spanish court, Philip II. had neither manifested nor permitted to be manifested any sign of grief when _his_ first–born son died, Francesco thought that he would show his royal breeding by imitating so bright an example. Bitter as the loss was to him, therefore, he would not suffer a sigh to escape him, and forbade all mourning whatsoever.[206] But the Tuscans, who had too recently been made acquainted with a sovereign to have learnt the ways and habits of the race, misunderstood their Duke's high–breeding; and thinking simply that Francesco was not sorry for the infant's death, proceeded to conclude, according to a course of things which _was_ familiar and intelligible to them, that Bianca had poisoned the child. [Sidenote: A MOODY MATE.] There is, however, not the slightest reason to suspect that anything of the kind was the case. And it may even be doubted whether the death was welcome to Bianca. It is true, that any hope she may have conceived of being able to secure the succession for Don Antonio,—and she seems at times to have formed schemes of the kind,—was rendered possible only by this event. Barring any offspring which might afterwards be born either to Ferdinando or Pietro, Antonio was now the only (reputed) descendant of the house. But, on the other hand, the death of his son threw the Grand Duke into a deeper gloom of melancholy and discontent than ever. And Francesco was not an easy man to live with under such circumstances. His repining often took the form of reproaches to Bianca for her childlessness. And, assuredly, never were reproaches less deserved, if an earnest desire for offspring, that would continue hoping against hope, were any title to escape from them. Not a nostrum–monger was to be heard of on either side of the Alps, that the unhappy woman did not summon to her aid. With untiring perseverance and ever renascent credulity, she essayed their prescriptions, whether mystical or physical, with the result, it would seem, of very seriously impairing her constitution. More than once she deceived her husband, and very possibly was deceived herself, by false announcements of her pregnancy. If, as it is stated,[207] she made Francesco believe that she had suffered once or more from miscarriage during these years, she was of course guilty of deceit, however much she may have been imposed upon by the impostors who surrounded her. And the only intelligible motive of such falsehood would seem to have been the notion, that by thus keeping alive her husband's hope of having an heir by her, the danger that he might perhaps seek to break his marriage with her, in order to unite himself with some more fortunately circumstanced wife, might be avoided.