substituted child in all his rights. That child, called Antonio de'
Medici, was considered during four reigns as belonging to the family;
he won the affection of everybody, rendered important services to the
family, and died universally regretted.

Nearly all the first Medici had natural children, whose careers were
invariably brilliant. For instance, the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici,
afterwards Pope under the name of Clement VII., was the illegitimate
son of Giuliano I. Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici was also a bastard,
and came very near being Pope and the head of the family.

Lorenzo II., the father of Catherine, married in 1518, for his second
wife, Madeleine de la Tour de Boulogne, in Auvergne, and died April
25, 1519, a few days after his wife, who died in giving birth to
Catherine. Catherine was therefore orphaned of father and mother as
soon as she drew breath. Hence the strange adventures of her
childhood, mixed up as they were with the bloody efforts of the
Florentines, then seeking to recover their liberty from the Medici.
The latter, desirous of continuing to reign in Florence, behaved with
such circumspection that Lorenzo, Catherine's father, had taken the
name of Duke d'Urbino.

At Lorenzo's death, the head of the house of the Medici was Pope Leo
X., who sent the illegitimate son of Giuliano, Giulio de' Medici, then
cardinal, to govern Florence. Leo X. was great-uncle to Catherine, and
this Cardinal Giulio, afterward Clement VII., was her uncle by the
left hand.

It was during the siege of Florence, undertaken by the Medici to force
their return there, that the Republican party, not content with having