STATE OF THE POPE'S AFFAIRS. 7 



But to whom? Surely not to your French rival. I see 

 nothing better than that you should give it to my grand- 

 son, your son-in-law; give it to him, with his wife, Mar- 

 garet. This idea the Pope carried so far, that he pre- 

 vailed upon his friend the Marquis d'Avalos 1 , who was 

 rather credulous, to perfume himself and go to court aa 

 governor of Milan, with a prettily turned speech, there to 

 do homage to Margaret, and to propose that he should 

 bring her home to Milan as his future mistress. It may 

 be that this visible participation in the projects of the 

 Pope made it not difficult for the enemies of the Marquis 

 to perplex his last days with imperial disfavour. 



Covered or open there was almost always a breach be- 

 tween the Pope and Emperor. The disaffected throughout 

 Italy looked upon his Holiness as their most powerful pro- 

 tector. The imperialists men like Gonzaga hated, or 

 at least distrusted the whole family of the Farnese, of 

 which the younger members were assuredly concerned in 

 a great deal of plotting. Chief mover among them was 

 the Pope's son, Pier Luigi. He was the working spider 

 that had charge of the whole cobweb of Farnese diplomacy. 

 It is not necessary here to tell how, by the removal of the 

 council of Trent to Bologna, and the withdrawal of his 



i In Ranke's History of the Popes, to which I owe some of these 

 particulars, I find stated in a note, that the MS. life of D'Avalos, re- 

 ferred to in a previous page (156), is in the Chigi library at Rome. 

 It is said to contain amusing matter, and must merit publication. 



