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I am a woman by a love which survives the man I loved. Speak; tell me! It is now time." "It is too late, on the contrary," replied Marie, with a forced smile. "Monsieur de Cinq-Mars and I are united forever." "Forever!" exclaimed the Queen. "Can you mean it? And your rank, your name, your future is all lost? Do you reserve this despair for your brother, the Duc de Bethel, and all the Gonzagas?"
Every classic idea being scared by such sounds and such objects, I dined in dudgeon, and refused stirring out till late in the evening. A few paces from the town stand the remains of the palace where the Gonzagas formerly resided. This I could not resist looking at, and was amply rewarded.
It only needed, to crush these poor strangers, that final touch which the Custode gave, as they passed from the palace through the hall in which are painted the Gonzagas, and in which he pointed out the last Duke of Mantua, saying he was deposed by the Emperor for felony, and somehow conveying the idea of horse-stealing and counterfeiting on the part of his Grace.
Guastalla is a neat little town very proud of its statue of Duke Ferrante Gonzaga, and the Croce Rossa is a neat little inn, which may be proud of a smart young waiter, who actually discovered that, as I wanted to proceed to Luzzara, a few miles on, I had better stop till next morning, I did not take his advice, and was soon under the gate of Luzzara, a very neat little place, once one of the many possessions where the Gonzagas had a court, a palace, and a castle.
According to the old Mantuan chronicles the Gonzagas were of a royal German line, and had fixed themselves in the Mantuan territory in 770 where they built a castle beyond Po, and began at once to take part in public affairs.
In the midst you may see the Three Kings at the feet of Jesus Parvulus in his Mother's arms, while on one side Mantegna has painted the Presentation in the Temple, and on the other the Resurrection. Long ago this marvellous miniature, that even to-day seems to shine like a precious stone, was in the possession of the Gonzagas of Mantua, from whom it is supposed the Medici bought it.
Entangled in the ceaseless turmoil of wars between Milan and the forces allied against her, Mantua under the rule of the Gonzagas maintained her intellectual energy and played bravely her part in the revival of classic learning. Her court became a center of scholarship from which radiated a beneficent influence through much of northern Italy.
I am a woman by a love which survives the man I loved. Speak; tell me! It is now time." "It is too late, on the contrary," replied Marie, with a forced smile. "Monsieur de Cinq-Mars and I are united forever." "Forever!" exclaimed the Queen. "Can you mean it? And your rank, your name, your future is all lost? Do you reserve this despair for your brother, the Duc de Bethel, and all the Gonzagas?"
They served under the flags of Sforzas, Borgias, Baglionis, and Vitellis, by the side of the bravos of Naples and Umbria; they saw their princes wed the daughters of evil-famed Italian sovereigns, and their princes' children, their own Valois and Guises, develope into puny, ambiguous, and ominous Medicis and Gonzagas, surrounded by Italian minions and poison distillers, and buffoons and money-lenders.
His brief reign lasted but one year, and was ignoble as it was brief, and fitly ended the direct line of the Gonzagas. Vincenzo, though an ecclesiastic, never studied anything, and was disgracefully ignorant. Lacking the hereditary love of letters, he had not the warlike boldness of his race; and resembled his ancestors only in the love he bore to horses, hunting, and women.
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