"It only remains to beseech that you will deign command my willing services, in whatever respect you consider me useful, as this is my ardent wish; and so I sincerely kiss your hands, praying God to grant you all happiness. From Paris, the last of September, 1573. Your Excellency's most devoted, and most obliged cousin, "LUDOVICO GONZAGA." The account of these disturbances, given by the Prince in his Autobiography, is as follows: "His father having by great liberality and magnificence deranged his finances, found it necessary to augment his revenue, and his subjects, unused to such burdens, began to offer resistance. The Duke, not to let himself be thwarted in that way, prepared to use force; but at last matters were restored to quiet, by their humbling themselves, and receiving his pardon, not without the punishment of some, as an example to the rest. At this juncture Francesco Maria contrived so to conduct himself, that his father had reason to be well satisfied with his services; and the people had no cause to be discontented with him, his uniform endeavour having been, to the utmost of his power, to mollify the one and moderate the other, which was in the end effected." Of this dull reign little remains to be told. In the words of the same Memoir,--"Guidobaldo went to Ferrara in the autumn of 1574, to visit Henry III. of France, who was on his way from Poland, on the death of his brother Charles IX. Returning to Pesaro during great heats, he fell ill, and passed to a better life on the 28th of September, aged sixty. On hearing of his illness, Francesco Maria hastened to Pesaro from Castel Durante, where he generally stayed for the hunting season, and finding his father in great suffering, he attended him assiduously through the fatal malady. The funeral ceremonies were performed with much pomp, in presence of many deputies and ambassadors; and Giacomo Mazzoni pronounced a long and elaborate oration, commending his clemency, liberality, bravery, prudence, and other princely virtues." We are told by a contemporary chronicler that his illness was a quartan, which became a putrid fever, but that he bore it with patient and pious resignation, supported by the aids of religion. His funeral took place in the church of Corpus Domini, at Pesaro, in conformity with his own wish, mindful perhaps, in his last moments, of his recent quarrel with Urbino, where the ashes of his ancestors were laid.