The Pope left Sebastiano Montecuculi to present himself to the court
of France, to which the count offered his services, complaining of his
treatment by Antonio di Leyva and Ferdinando di Gonzago, for which
reason his services were accepted. Montecuculi was not made a part of
Catherine's household, which was wholly composed of French men and
women, for, by a law of the monarchy, the execution of which the
Pope saw with great satisfaction, Catherine was naturalized by
letters-patent as a Frenchwoman before the marriage. Montecuculi was
appointed in the first instance to the household of the queen, the
sister of Charles V. After a while he passed into the service of the
dauphin as cup-bearer.

The new Duchesse d'Orleans soon found herself a nullity at the court
of Francois I. Her young husband was in love with Diane de Poitiers,
who certainly, in the matter of birth, could rival Catherine, and was
far more of a great lady than the little Florentine. The daughter of
the Medici was also outdone by Queen Eleonore, sister of Charles V.,
and by Madame d'Etampes, whose marriage with the head of the house of
Brosse made her one of the most powerful and best titled women in
France. Catherine's aunt the Duchess of Albany, the Queen of Navarre,
the Duchesse de Guise, the Duchesse de Vendome, Madame la Connetable
de Montmorency, and other women of like importance, eclipsed by birth
and by their rights, as well as by their power at the most sumptuous
court of France (not excepting that of Louis XIV.), the daughter of
the Florentine grocers, who was richer and more illustrious through
the house of the Tour de Boulogne than by her own family of Medici.

The position of his niece was so bad and difficult that the republican
Filippo Strozzi, wholly incapable of guiding her in the midst of such