a widow who had two
daughters. The widow dying, Roderigo took the girls under his protection,
put one into a convent, and as the other was one of the loveliest women
imaginable, made her his mistress. This was the notorious Rosa Vanozza,
by whom he had five children--Francesco, Caesar, Lucrezia, and Goffredo;
the name of the fifth is unknown.

Roderigo, retired from public affairs, was given up entirely to the
affections of a lover and a father, when he heard that his uncle, who
loved him like a son, had been elected pope under the name of Calixtus
III. But the young man was at this time so much a lover that love
imposed silence on ambition; and indeed he was almost terrified at the
exaltation of his uncle, which was no doubt destined to force him once
more into public life. Consequently, instead of hurrying to Rome, as
anyone else in his place would have done, he was content to indite to His
Holiness a letter in which he begged for the continuation of his favours,
and wished him a long and happy reign.

This reserve on the part of one of his relatives, contrasted with the
ambitious schemes which beset the new pope at every step, struck Calixtus
III in a singular way: he knew the stuff that was in young Roderigo, and
at a time when he was besieged on all sides by mediocrities, this
powerful nature holding modestly aside gained new grandeur in his eyes so
he replied instantly to Roderigo that on the receipt of his letter he
must quit Spain for Italy, Valencia for Rome.

This letter uprooted Roderigo from the centre of happiness he had created
for himself, and where he might perhaps have slumbered on like an
ordinary man, if fortune had not thus interposed to drag him forcibly
away. Roderigo was happy, Roderigo was rich; the evil passions which
were natural to him had been, if not extinguished,--at least lulled; he
was frightened himself at the idea of changing the quiet life he was
leading for the ambitious, agitated career that was promised him; and
instead of obeying his uncle, he delayed the preparations for departure,
hoping that Calixtus would forget him. It was not so: two months after he
received the letter from the pope, there arrived at Valencia a prelate
from Rome, the bearer of Roderigo's nomination to a benefice worth 20,000
ducats a year, and also a positive order to the holder of the post to
come and take possession of his charge as soon as possible.

Holding back was no longer feasible: so Roderigo