"Your Lordship sees to what a condition God has reduced me. My house he has left unto me desolate: he has taken from me my dominion, my health, and my honour. I have sold myself to one skilful in profiting by my misfortunes: I am reduced to the shadow of sovereignty, and continually exposed to new inroads. To await death in so miserable a plight is impossible, to anticipate it were a crime: unable to recover what is gone from me, all now left me is to die without disgrace, after living for seventy-six years with nothing to regret. To you I would impart my ideas, that we may consider whether, by surrendering what remains, I might mitigate my vexations. I think of entreating the Pope to send me any one he pleases, who may govern this country, dependent upon me and by virtue of my authority, which I shall delegate to him as fully as it is vested in my person. Thus may his Holiness more effectually secure the return of these states after my death under the sway of the Church, and thus will he be enabled to liberate me from the restraint of obligations and oaths, no longer necessary when his own deputy is invested with the government, leaving me, in these my last hours, time to think of death, and to prepare myself suitably to meet it, as I well know it cannot be distant.... And perhaps this plan, which I own is hard to digest, may be less irksome in practice than it now seems in discussion; for in truth, I am no longer what I once was, nor ought I at this juncture to think but of my people's peace and my own. After all that has occurred, this ecclesiastical governor may prove the least annoying expedient; at all events it will free me from the irritation and slavery which past events have brought upon me." After having at first argued against the measure thus suggested, Donato was at length induced to carry the proposal formally to the Pope, without previous consultation with any one else. Suspicious perhaps of so sudden a change in the sentiments of Francesco Maria, the Sacred College raised difficulties in order to gain time for deliberation; but when, with his wonted impatience, he proposed to recall Donato and reconsider the matter, with a view to some other measure, the proffered devolution was accepted without further delay. The papal brief to that effect was dated the 10th December, 1624, and on the 20th, the Duke executed a blank warrant, making over his whole sovereign authority to the governor who might be named, and reserving only the empty name of his subject's allegiance.