From the 25th to the end of the month, all Ferrara was hard at work adorning the streets, levelling places that were uneven, putting up scaffolding for seats where the bride would pass on her entry, preparing accommodation for the five thousand three hundred horses which were expected, contriving as far as possible means of lodging the "incredible number" of strangers, who were continually arriving to witness the festival; putting new marble steps to the altar in the cathedral; and, lastly, in erecting over the door of the palace a blazonry of the Pope's arms, together with those of the King of France, and those of the most illustrious House of Este, "with angels and hydras, and other exquisitely beautiful ornaments." But a most provoking thing was, that in the midst of all this bustle we had to send out a party on horseback to meet a certain French cardinal, who was coming to Ferrara on his way from the King of France to the Pope. And they had their ride for nothing, "for his most reverend lordship determined to stay the night where he was, because his most reverend lordship had not got his clothes with him." [Sidenote: A STOLEN VISIT.] At last on the 2nd of February the bride and her immense cortège, increased by the Duke and the bridegroom, together with all that was either noble or learned in Ferrara, who had gone out to meet them, made their triumphal entry into the city. Alphonso, whose aversion to the match has been mentioned, was more than reconciled to his lot by the sight of the bride,[30] whose rare beauty at once captivated him. She passed the night of the first of February at a villa outside of the city, in order to make her ceremonial entry on the following day, when according to courtly etiquette she was to be duly presented to her bridegroom with infinite laborious co–operation of bishops and benedictions, trumpeters, heralds, court–ushers, and bell–ringers. And doubtless when the appointed moment came, both the lady and gentleman performed their part of the show, and made their first acquaintance with each other in the presence of assembled Italy with all propriety. But it did so happen that a certain lynx–eyed "gentleman of the press," (who was early afoot in the exercise of his profession on the morning of the great day of the 2nd, picking up stray facts to present them,—if not all hot to "our readers" at their breakfast tables in a second edition of the Ferrara Times, yet embedded fossil–like in the vast strata of Muratori's colossal folios, to us and all future generations) did see a figure, whom he perfectly well recognised as the Prince Alphonso, quietly slipping out from a side entrance of the villa, which held the bride, and hastening back to the city to prepare himself for his part in the coming pageant.