With infatuation unequalled perhaps in the long catalogue of parental errors, Francesco Maria now gave the finishing stroke to a system which had trained up his only child to become the scourge of his people and the ruin of his house. We have seen him deprecate a minority as a national misfortune; we have now to witness him anticipating all its evils, by voluntarily entrusting the reins to one whom youth, education, inexperience, and follies combined to render utterly inefficient for their management. That this plan had long been cherished as a favourite speculation, may be gathered from those instructions to his son which have been already quoted; that its most attractive feature was the escape it secured to him from the business and duties of his station, admits not of a doubt. Flattering himself that, in providing the Prince with an honourable and eligible match, he had done his utmost to retrieve past errors and secure a prosperous future, he hurried the execution of his scheme, apprehensive perhaps that delay would render its absurdity more glaring, or bring to light some new disqualification in Federigo. In absence of any rational explanation of such a step, it has been supposed a secret stipulation with the Grand Duke at the time of the marriage, but of this there is not a shadow of evidence. The motive imputed by Gozzi, that it was a device of the Duke to prevent his son from longing for his death and for the delights of sovereignty, seems quite reconcileable with the false philosophy by which he so perversely regulated his general conduct. We turn with interest to the Diary at a moment thus important to his history and that of his state, but find it here more than usually meagre, alluding neither to the fact of his abdication, its manner, nor its motives.[106] Like King Lear, the old man already felt-- "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child," and his Memoirs abruptly conclude with the negotiation for the Prince's marriage. From Passeri's investigations, we only learn that he one day called round him his son and principal officers, and, after addressing to both a long exhortation on the new duties about to be devolved upon them, made over to the former the reins of government.[107] Reserving for his own use one-third of the private revenues of his family, which from various documents seem to have amounted to about 300,000 crowns, he shut himself up more closely than ever in his-- "Boasted seat Of studious peace and mild philosophy." Among the Oliveriana MSS. I found a list of his court taken to Castel Durante, which, though undated, probably refers to the arrangements made at this period.