But where was the minion for whom all this crime and misery had been perpetrated? From Ancona he paid a brief visit to the Vatican, on his way to Florence, where he slowly recovered from his severe wound, only to plunge deeper in debaucheries more congenial to his degraded character than the privations of military life. He was never named during the rest of the contest, but as soon as it was over he met his uncle at Viterbo, where, and in the neighbouring country, the papal court passed most of October in field sports. His hard-won sovereignty seems to have afforded him little satisfaction or interest; but in the following year he became an instrument for the further promotion of his uncle's ambition. His marriage having been negotiated through Cardinal Bibbiena to Madelaine de la Tour, daughter of Jean Count of Boulogne and Auvergne, a relation of the French monarch, the titular Duke of Urbino proceeded to Paris in the spring of 1518, for the double ceremonial of his own nuptials, and the Dauphin's baptism, at which he stood sponsor on the 25th of April, as proxy for the Pontiff. Both these events were celebrated with much festive merriment in the gay capital of France, and the young couple were overwhelmed by splendid dowries and wedding-gifts by the Pope and the Monarch. But their bridal joy was of brief duration. The Duchess died in childbed on the 23rd of April following, and was followed to the grave five days after by her husband, who expiated with his life the dissolute vices in which he had continuously indulged. Their child survived to be a scourge of the Huguenots, in the person of Catherine de' Medici, wife of Henry II. of France, mother of Francis II., Charles IX., and Henry III.,--in the last of whom the line of Valois and the descendants of Duke Lorenzo became extinct. Hearing of Lorenzo's desperate state, the Pope despatched Cardinal Giulio de' Medici to maintain at Florence the supremacy of his house. The titular dukedom of Urbino passed, in terms of the new investiture, to the infant Catherine; but the territory was unceremoniously seized by his Holiness, notwithstanding the wish of its inhabitants for restoration of their legitimate sovereign. Montefeltro, with S. Leo and Maiuolo, was assigned to Florence, in security or compensation for 150,000 scudi said to have been advanced in the late war, and the remainder of the duchy was annexed to the Church. The walls of its capital, whose loyalty to its native princes amid all their reverses is finely commemorated in the current appellation of _Urbino fidelissimo_, were thrown down, and its metropolitan privileges transferred to Gubbio, which had shown itself less devoted to the della Rovere interests. * * * * *