did not consider himself exempted from all concern in the welfare of his subjects. We accordingly find, in a collection of his letters made by his secretary Babucci,[116] a very long remonstrance addressed to Cardinal Gessi regarding certain malversations in the management of public affairs. His complaints were directed against abuses of patronage, by conferring places of trust upon young and inexperienced persons, especially in the army, where many officers were rather children than soldiers; against a laxity of manners and conversation among the women, extending even to the nunneries; against the indiscriminate bearing of arms, which had already led to numerous homicides, and to the extirpation of game in the preserves. To Campeggi, the next governor, he complains, in 1628, of an increasing expenditure with impaired revenues. [Footnote 116: Dr. Antonio Babucci transcribed for the press a number of letters written by the Duke after the Devolution, and dedicated them to the Grand Duchess Vittoria. The MS. is preserved in the Magliabechiana Library, class xxv. No. 77, and fully bears out the commendation we have given to his epistolary style at p. 213.] CHAPTER XLVIII The Duke's monkish seclusion--His Death and Character--His Portraits and Letters--Notices of Princess Vittoria and her Inheritance--Fate of the Ducal Libraries--The Duchy Incorporated with the Papal States--Results of the Devolution. After his release from the cares of state, and from all anxiety as to the fate of his subjects and of his granddaughter, Francesco Maria was left to employ his unimpaired powers of mind on more congenial topics. His few remaining years were passed in the society of those monks of the order of Minims,[*117] whom he had brought to the new convent, and who had been selected for their literary acquirements. He made them the companions and aids of his studies, and discussed with them such subjects as his reading suggested. Though ever respectful of the doctrines and observances of religion, fanaticism had no part in his character; and it is clear from his last will, and other evidence, that, in circumstances peculiarly favourable to an undue exercise of priestly influence, he kept himself free from its thraldom. Yet was he exemplary in pious preparation for the change which his sinking frame, as well as his philosophy, taught him to regard as at hand. To blighted hopes, parental anguish, and a desolate old age, were added great bodily sufferings. Gout, to which he had been subject from his thirty-fourth year, had by degrees so twisted his limbs that he was fed like a child, and a fresh paralytic seizure at length completed his decrepitude. Still, amid "The waste and injury of time and tide,"