Note 247 — Chapter XXXIII

We obtain a curious glimpse of his home-circle at this critical moment from the correspondence of Bembo, who, having just quitted Urbino on his way to Venice, wrote thus to Fregoso from Cesena, where he was waiting a passage by sea. "But what, I say, are you and your ladies, and the Duke, and the rest of you grandees about? What is my Ippolita doing? Is she entangled in the toils of Secundio or Trivulzio? Oh dull and drivelling me, who, abandoning my loves to the rapine and plunder of men of war, am here sitting on a sandy shore more pluckless and besotted than the very shells! Many salutations in my name to both their Highnesses, and to Emilia, and the lively Margherita, and to Ippolita of many admirers, and to my rival Alessandro Trivulzio." This badinage was surely ill-timed, within a month of the defeat of Francesco Maria and the Cardinal's assassination.