Reflecting deeply, Bianca saw only one situation: Giovanna was barren of male issue, why should not she herself become once more a mother--the mother of a son, a son of Francesco! This idea haunted her, but all the same she had no conception; and then a design presented itself to her weary brain--as natural as it was indefensible. For some time she had been getting stout--her age, her constitution, and her rich living were all conducive to that condition. If she was not to be the mother of his child by natural means, she could be so by a subterfuge, which her _embonpoint_ would uphold! In the spring of 1576 Bianca Buonaventuri gave out that she was _enceinte_ and began forthwith her preparations for _accouchement_. She left her palace in the Via Maggio, under the shadow of the Pitti Palace, and took up her abode in the Casino of the Orte Oricellari, which she had lately purchased from the family of Rucellai, and surrounded herself with confidential friends and attendants. The _dénouement_ came on 29th August, when the Grand Duke was informed by Bianca's surgeon-accoucheur, that she had been delivered of a child--a boy! Francesco was almost frantic with delight, and he hastened to his beloved Bianca's bedside. Picking up _his_ child, he fondled him tenderly and almost smothered him with kisses, and at once gave orders for a ceremonial baptism. Antonio, he called him--after the kindly patron saint of that auspicious day--when he personally handed the child to the Archbishop at the font. The Grand Duchess was inexpressibly shocked, she refused to see her husband, shut herself up in her own apartments, and demanded an escort to Vienna! The news was not long in reaching Rome, and it made Cardinal Ferdinando furious. In a moment all the blandishments of "the Venetian" were dissipated; the better terms lately established in Florence were renounced, and the angry Prince, in unmeasured language, asserted that the child was not Francesco's. He knew well enough that what had come to pass, unless unchallenged, would imperil his presumptive title. First it was sought to throw doubt upon Bianca's actual maternity, and next to secure the person of the little boy.