Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/415

180 began to traffic with the Order for pecuniary purposes, granting it to any one who was able to pay for it without regard to birth, rank, or station, until 1699, when the last scion of the race, who lived at Parma, and was childless, sold the dignity of Grand Master to Duke Francis I. of Parma, of the house of Farnese.

The purchased title was confirmed by Popes Innocent XV. and Clement XI., and the new Grand Master again brought the Order into respect by the scruples he observed in its distribution, as also by the large domains he conferred on it, among others, the richly endowed church of the Madonna della Steccata, at Parma.

After the extinction of the Farnese family, in 1731, the Infante Don Carlos, heir of the Duchy of Parma, declared himself Grand Master of the Constantine Order, and transferred, three years afterwards, its seat to his new residence, at Naples which he obtained by force of arms. Having taken with him the Archives, he introduced, renewed and established the Order in his new kingdom, despite the declamations of the Infante Don Philip, who had succeeded his brother upon the throne of Parma. The Order thus remained in full force until 1806, when Joseph Bonaparte abolished it, together with all the Orders of the kingdom.

The Order then followed the expelled King to Sicily, where it remained until after the Peace of Paris in 1814, when the Empress Marie Louise became heiress to the dominions of the Farnese. On the 13th February, 1816, she declared herself, solemnly and formally, its Grand Mistress, resting her claim on the circumstance, that her mother, Maria Theresa of Sicily, had descended from the Farnese family, in whose possession the Order had existed for upwards of one hundred years.