In the teeth of all these incidents, known or voluntarily ignored, the negotiations for the annulment of the marriage of Henry IV. and Marguerite de Valois were proceeded with at Rome by consent of the two parties. Clement VIII. had pronounced on the 17th of December, 1599, and transmitted to Paris by Cardinal de Joyeuse the decree of annulment. On the 6th of January, 1600, Henry IV. gave his ambassador, Brulart de Sillery, powers to conclude at Florence his marriage with Mary de’ Medici, daughter of Francis I. de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Joan, Archduchess of Austria and niece of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I. de’ Medici, who had often rendered Henry IV. pecuniary services dearly paid for. As early as the year 1592 there had been something said about this project of alliance; it was resumed and carried out on the 5th of October, 1600, at Florence with lavish magnificence. Mary embarked at Leghorn on the 17th with a fleet of seventeen galleys; that of which she was aboard, the _General,_ was all covered over with jewels, inside and out; she arrived at Marseilles on the 3d of November, and at Lyons on the 2d of December, where she waited till the 9th for the king, who was detained by the war with Savoy. He entered her chamber in the middle of the night, booted and armed, and next day, in the cathedral-church of St. John, re-celebrated his marriage, more rich in wealth than it was destined to be in happiness. Mary de’ Medici was beautiful in 1592, when she had first been talked about, and her portrait at that time had charmed the king; but in 1600 she was twenty-seven, tall, fat, with round, staring eyes and a forbidding air, and ill dressed. She knew hardly a word of French; and Henriette d’Entraigues, whom the king had made Marquise do Verneuil, could not help exclaiming when she saw her, “So that is the fat bankeress from Florence!”