Bianca and Antonio, under a strong guard, were sent off to Pratolino, hers and Francesco's best-loved retreat--they had together planned its beauties. There, during her make-believe convalescence, she came to consider the very serious nature of her love's stratagem, and she determined to make a full confession to her lover. The Grand Duke was thunderstruck, but at once he recognised the emphatic importance of secrecy; for, as Vincenzio Borghini quaintly said: "Florence was the greatest market in the world for tissues and materials of _all_ kinds, and full of evil eyes, and ears, and tongues!" Meanwhile Ferdinando had not let the water run under the Arno bridges for nothing. He discovered the surgeon-accoucheur who had attended Madonna Bianca--one Giovanni Gazzi. He maintained the fact of the confinement, but incidentally named the wet nurse, Giovanna Santi. This woman admitted that she had been instrumental in the introduction into Madonna Bianca's chamber of the newly-born son of a reputable woman, who lived with her husband behind the _Stinche_. No trace could be found of these humble parents of Francesco's supposititious child, and all Ferdinando's enquiries were fruitless. Many were the tales rife, in and out of the palaces and markets, but neither the Grand Duke nor Bianca took any steps to refute them, and after being, as usual, a nine days' wonder, the subject dropped, apparently. The Grand Duchess Giovanna gave birth, on 19th May, the following year, to a son--a sickly child to be sure, but the undoubted heir of his father. Ferdinando's hopes were shattered, but he had not done with Bianca Buonaventuri. Within nine months, on 9th February, Giovanna died, somewhat suddenly, and the Cardinal failed not to intimate that Bianca was the cause thereof, and to name poison as her means! The truth is, that the Grand Duchess one day getting out of her sedan-chair, slipped upon the polished marble floor, and, being again near her confinement, a miscarriage resulted, from which she never recovered. Within two months of the burial of sour-tempered, unlovable Giovanna, the Grand Duke married Bianca, Pietro Buonaventuri's widow, privately in the chapel of the Palazzo Vecchio. One immediate result of this marriage was the quasi-legitimisation of the child Antonio--a vigorous youngster and certain to outlive frail little Filippo. Reconciliation with Venice, public marriage, and Coronation were in due order celebrated, and Bianca Cappello, "the true and undoubted daughter of Venice," was enthroned in the Duomo, as the true and lawful Grand Duchess of Tuscany! Cardinal Ferdinando watched all these ceremonials from afar--the only one of his family who declined to honour the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess with his presence during the festivities.