| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: fraternity. Francois I. himself has always considered his son's
marriage with a Medici as a mesalliance, and only consented to it
under the expectation that his second son would never be dauphin.
Hence his fury when his eldest son was poisoned by the Florentine
Montecuculi. The d'Estes refused to recognize the Medici as Italian
princes. Those former merchants were in fact trying to solve the
impossible problem of maintaining a throne in the midst of republican
institutions. The title of grand-duke was only granted very tardily by
Philip the Second, king of Spain, to reward those Medici who bought it
by betraying France their benefactress, and servilely attaching
themselves to the court of Spain, which was at the very time covertly
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: also made an inroad into purgatory among the dead, first, by
founding masses and vigils, afterwards, by indulgences and the
Golden Year, and finally souls became so cheap that he
released one for a farthing.
But all this, too, was of no avail. For although the Pope
taught men to depend upon, and trust in, these indulgences
[for salvation], yet he rendered the [whole] matter again
uncertain. For in his bulls he declares: Whoever would share
in the indulgences or a Golden Year must be contrite, and have
confessed, and pay money. Now, we have heard above that this
contrition and confession are with them uncertain and
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