Alessandro, delighted to rid himself of a man so unaccommodating in
the affairs of Florence, furthered a plan which relieved him of one
murder at least, and advised Strozzi to put himself at the head of
Catherine's household. In order to dazzle the eyes of France the
Medici had selected a brilliant suite for her whom they styled, very
unwarrantably, the Princess of Florence, and who also went by the name
of the little Duchess d'Urbino. The cortege, at the head of which rode
Alessandro, Catherine, and Strozzi, was composed of more than a
thousand persons, not including the escort and servants. When the last
of it issued from the gates of Florence the head had passed that first
village beyond the city where they now braid the Tuscan straw hats. It
was beginning to be rumored among the people that Catherine was to
marry a son of Francois I.; but the rumor did not obtain much belief
until the Tuscans beheld with their own eyes this triumphal procession
from Florence to Livorno.

Catherine herself, judging by all the preparations she beheld, began
to suspect that her marriage was in question, and her uncle then
revealed to her the fact that the first ambitious project of his house
had aborted, and that the hand of the dauphin had been refused to her.
Alessandro still hoped that the Duke of Albany would succeed in
changing this decision of the king of France who, willing as he was to
buy the support of the Medici in Italy, would only grant them his
second son, the Duc d'Orleans. This petty blunder lost Italy to
France, and did not prevent Catherine from becoming queen.

The Duke of Albany, son of Alexander Stuart, brother of James III.,
king of Scotland, had married Anne de la Tour de Boulogne, sister of
Madeleine de la Tour de Boulogne, Catherine's mother; he was therefore
her maternal uncle. It was through her mother that Catherine was so