MONTECUCULI, Sebastiano di, the alleged poisoner of the eldest son of Francis I., was a gentleman of Ferrara, and was originally in the service of the Emperor Charles V. He came to France in the suite of Catherine de Medici, and was appointed cup-bearer to the Dauphin. It was in this capacity that he accompanied the crown prince on a journey up the Rhone in the midsummer of 1536. While halting at Tournus, the Dauphin, in the midst of a game at tennis, became over-heated, and commanded his cup-bearer to give him a draught of cold water. He drank it off with great avidity, dropped down sick, and expired in a quarter of an hour. Montecuculi was immediately suspected of having poisoned him. His knowledge of medicine, and the fact that a treatise on poisons was found in his possession, confirmed the suspicion. He was therefore examined at Lyons in the usual manner of the day, and a wavering confession was wrung from him by torture. At one time he affirmed that he had been employed to perpetrate the crime by two of the generals of Charles V.; at another time he shifted the accusation on Catherine de Medici. But as he could adduce no facts in proof of either of these charges, he was dragged on a hurdle to the scaffold and executed. The infuriated populace tore his still quivering limbs into a thousand pieces, and threw them into the Rhone. Yet since that time historians have generally agreed in thinking that the Dauphin died of pleurisy, and that Montecuculi was innocent.