ls 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 obeyed; but as he did
not wish to be separated from the source whence had