So determined, indeed, had been the minister that no time should be afforded to the King to redeem the pledge which he had given to the favourite that Joannini, the agent of the Grand Duke, had not been many days in Paris before the articles were drawn up and signed on both sides, and Sully was commissioned by the other contracting parties to communicate the termination of their labours to his royal master.

The Duc de Bellegarde, Grand Equerry of France, had reached Livorno on the 20th of September, accompanied by forty French nobles, all alike eager, by the magnificence of their appearance and the chivalry of their deportment, to uphold the honour of their royal master.

Seven days subsequently, he entered Florence, where he delivered his credentials to the Grand Duke, having been previously joined by Antonio de Medicis with a great train of Florentine cavaliers who had been sent to meet him; and the same evening he had an interview with his new sovereign, to whom he presented the letters with which he had been entrusted by the King.

His Eminence was received at the gate of the city by the Grand Duke in person, and made his entry on horseback under a canopy supported by eight young Florentine nobles, preceded by all the ecclesiastical and secular bodies; while immediately behind him followed sixteen prelates, and fifty gentlemen of the first families in the duchy bearing halberds.

At the close of the Court festivals, the Cardinal Aldobrandini took his leave of the distinguished party, and proceeded to Chambéry; but the Queen lingered with her family until the 13th of the month, upon which day, accompanied by the Grand-Duchess her aunt, the Duchess of Mantua her sister, her brother Don Antonio, the Duke of Bracciano, and the French Ambassador, she set forth upon her journey to her new kingdom.

On the 17th of October the royal bride reached Livorno, where she made her entry in great pomp, and was received with the most enthusiastic acclamations; and on the following day she embarked in the state-galley of the Grand-Duke, one of the most magnificent vessels which had ever floated upon the blue waters of the Mediterranean.

A gallery had been constructed from the port to the grand entrance of the palace in which apartments had been prepared for her; and on stepping from her galley, she was welcomed by the Chancellor,[104] who announced to her the orders that he had received from the King relative to her reception, and presented to her Majesty the ConnétableDuc de Montmorency,[105] and the Ducs de Nemours[106] and de Ventadour.[107]

Two days after their arrival at the Louvre, Henry conducted his Queen to the royal palaces of Fontainebleau and St. Germain; and on the 18th of the month, their Majesties, attended by the whole of their respective households, and accompanied by all the princes and great nobles then resident in the capital, partook of a superb banquet at the Arsenal, given by Sully in honour of his appointment as Grand-Master of the Artillery.

Sully had recently been appointed grand-master of artillery.

Antoine de Roquelaure, Seigneur de Roquelaure in Armagnac, de Guadoux, etc., marshal of France, grand-master of the King's wardrobe, knight of the Orders of St. Michael and the Holy Ghost, perpetual mayor of Bordeaux, etc., was the younger son of Geraud Roquelaure, and the representative of an illustrious house.

Suzanne de la Porte, wife of François du Plessis, Seigneur de Richelieu, Knight of the Royal Orders, and Grand Provost of France.

Conti, Amours du Grand Alcandre, Cologne edition, 1652, p. 41.

This threat was sufficiently appalling; and the rather as Sully, by his authority as grand-master of artillery, had taken the precaution, on pretext of recasting the cannon and improving the quality of the powder in the principal cities of Burgundy, to cripple Biron's resources, and to render it impossible for him to attempt any rational resistance to the royal will.

x. p. 201); while Péréfixe gives a third version, asserting that the King took leave of him by saying: "Well then, the truth must be learnt elsewhere; adieu, Baron de Biron" (Hist, de Henri le Grand, vol.

The organ pealed out its deepest and most impressive harmony; and not a sound was heard throughout the vast building as the Grand Prior, with his train of knights and nobles, led the youthful neophyte to the place assigned to him.

He was grand master of the Orders of St. Lazarus and Notre-Dame du Mont Carmel, the latter of which was instituted by the sovereign at his intercession.

[302] Amours du Grand Alcandre, p. 47.

" "Come now, M. le Grand Maître," persisted the King, "tell me the truth; which do you consider to be the handsomest, and consequently the most welcome among them?"

At the coronation of Louis XIII he officiated as Grand Master, was subsequently ambassador-extraordinary in England, and died at Paris in 1614.

He was Superintendent of Fortifications, Governor of Mantes and Gergeau, and was destined to succeed his father as Grand Master had he survived him.

Amours du Grand Alcandre, p. 48.

Stand with me a moment on the height, and let us gaze on this grand panorama, around which the Apennines stretch with a majestic sweep, wrapped in a robe of purple air, through which shimmer the villas and villages on their sides!

The figure of Dante himself, seated above, is grand and majestic; his head is inclined as if in meditation, and his features bear the expression of sublime thought.

In that part of the city, which lies on the south bank of the Arno, is the palace of the Grand Duke, known by the name of the Palazzo Pitti, from a Florentine noble of that name, by whom it was first built.

In the afternoon we walked through a grand pine forest to the western brow of the mountain, where a view opened which it would require a wonderful power of the imagination for you to see in fancy, as I did in reality.