and, though the measures of the Santa Hermandad in no way relaxed, Don Luis was still at large, and effectually concealed.  We may here state at once—­though it carries us much in advance of our present scene—­that Father Francis resolved at all costs to purge the church of Spain from this most unholy member; and, authorized by the sovereigns, made a voluntary pilgrimage to the court of St. Peter’s, obtained an audience with the Pope, laid the case before him, and besought the penalty of excommunication to be fulminated against the hypocrite who had dared to use, as cover for most atrocious villany, the pure and sacred ordinances of the church.  Alexander the Sixth, himself a worker of such awful crimes that he was little capable of entering into the pure and elevated character of the Sub-Prior, heard him calmly, smiled sneeringly, and then informed him, he was too late.  The worthy and zealous servant of Rome, known to men as Don Luis Garcia, had been before him, made confession of certain passions as exciting erring deeds, to which all men were liable, had done penance, received absolution, and was in a fair way of rising to the highest eminence in the church.

Father Francis remonstrated, urged, dared to speak bolder truths than had ever before reached the papal ear but all without effect:  and this truly good and spiritual man returned to Spain stricken to the dust.  He reported the failure of his mission; heard, with bowed head and aching soul, the natural indignation of Ferdinand, and the quieter, but to him, still more expressive sorrow, at this fearful abuse of her holy religion from Isabella; and then, with an earnestness impossible to be resisted, conjured the royal permission to retire entirely from all interference in public life.  He could not, he said, support the weight of shame, which, falling on his church, had affected him individually.  Vain were the royal solicitations, vain the love of the people, vain the entreaties of the abbot and brethren of his convent; he resigned the office of Sub-Prior, relinquished every religious and secular honor, and buried himself in the most impenetrable solitude, fraught with austerity and mortification, personal penance, and yet devoted to such extraordinary acquirements, that, though for long years his very existence was well nigh forgotten, when next he burst upon the astonished eyes of the world, it was no longer as Father Francis, the Sub-Prior of a Franciscan monastery, a good and benevolent monk, but as the learned priest, the sagacious statesman, the skilful general, ay, and gallant warrior—­the great and good CARDINAL XIMENES!