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Wealth and honors attended at his birth, bidding for eulogies on such illustrious infancy. "Educated", to borrow the words of his biographer, Fuligatto, "in the bosom of most excellent parents, from being a diminutive infant, he had scarcely reached years of an enlightened discretion when he gave indications of his future greatness and incomparable probity. Indeed, some judged that he had found, in the hands of God, Creator of "human minds, a good soul,-a soul in which Adam himself would not have sinned, as it had formerly been said of St. Bonaventure".
This marvel of unstained purity, according to Fuligatto, loved religion in preference to play, and acted over again in the nursery the ceremonies of the Church. A stool served him instead of altar, whereat he mimicked mass. On the seat of a high-backed bench, just peeping over the top, and wearing something white, he preached, in his way, about the sufferings of Christ, much to the delight of his mother, who, like many others, taught her little Robert to play at religion when he was six or seven years old, and left him to play out the game with greater art at sixty or seventy.
She spared no pains, however, to bring him up according to the straitest sect of her religion, suffering him only to associate with elder boys, and they of his own rank; and, after he had risen to eminence, his elder sister Camilla stated that when only nine or ten years old he gave up childish sports, and was especially careful never to walk too quick. Public fame in Montepulciano retained the memory of that edifying gravity; and, in due time, many of the old people deponed as much on oath. As he grew bigger, the same propensity to imitate Priests continued. It is related that when rambling in the country, he was wont to amuse himself with catching birds, playing on the fiddle, and preaching from the trunk of a tree. Being even then an ardent orator, he gathered audiences.
But, amidst all this childishness, young Robert had higher thoughts: perhaps observing that the path to eminence could only be trodden by the diligent, and certainly impelled by a strong desire after knowledge, he became a diligent student, and not only rose early for prayers, as required to do, but often stole from his bed at night, and by help of a flint and steel struck light, lit his fire, and outran the morning in pursuit of learning. But that pursuit must have been retarded by the observance of a round of ceremonial festivities, fastings, hours, litanies, rosaries, and processions. As nephew of a Pope, godson of a Cardinal, related to some of the highest families in Tuscany, possessing a vigorous mind, and having every advantage of education at command, nothing less than a veto of Divine Providence could have driven him back into obscurity. But it pleased God to permit the contrary. We shall attend this child in his advance to almost the highest station that the Church of Rome could give, and find him foremost in battle with the Reformation.
Partaking of that admiration of classic models which yet survived the days of Medicean glory in Florence, he found much delight in their study. From Virgil, especially, in due time, he drew a poetic inspiration, while Horace and the Satirists lent him their charms of number. He could early write Italian odes with equal facility and success, and after a few years some of his Latin verses obtained celebrity. The hymn in the Roman Breviary, in honor of Mary Magdalene, beginning with "Pater superni luminis", inserted there by command of Clement VIII, was from his pen. That the spur of ambition urged him, even in the gay morning of childhood, is undoubted. He used to tell a little anecdote of himself, which says as much. At church one day, with his mother, during sermon, and rather amused than edified, he diverted her attention by repeating, again and again, and loud enough to be heard by many, "Signora, do you not see that I am going to be made a Bishop and a Cardinal?". "Hush", said Cynthia, "hush, hush!". "Nay, lady", he shouted, pointing at the pictures of illustrious Doctors that adorned the building, "I shall be like one of them, some day". Jesuits have imagined that the boy prophesied.
In order to give him an education correspondent to the station of his family, his father determined to send him to Padua, whither also a cousin, Ricciardo Bellarmino, was about to proceed; and as no Tuscan subject might go out of the state for education, without license of the Duke, such a license was obtained from Cosimo I. How to find a suitable companion and protector, who might first accompany him into the Venetian territory, and then take some oversight of him when at college, was a question that cost some anxiety; and, at length, it was resolved to confide that service to a member of the Society of Jesus.
The favorable disposition towards the Society that led to this choice was not accompanied with sufficient foresight in the father. The mother was fascinated with admiration of the new fraternity. The son, too, over whom Cynthia swayed the influence of a fond parent, imperceptibly drank in the spirit of asceticism and of romance that the Jesuits were diffusing throughout Italy; and even while the family were looking around them for a Jesuit companion, and the house was full of preparation for his departure to Padua, and the Ducal passport was to invest the journey with an air of official privilege, little Robert, shut up in his chamber, meditated on futurity, and his imagination already pictured an ideal of perfection.
Cynthia had instructed him in the very religion of Jesuitism, and her own example gave a vast emphasis to her instructions. Often had the household heard the sound of a whip; and Camilla, an elder sister, had told him how she had been in their mother's chamber, unperceived, and seen her lay her shoulders bare, and lash them fearfully, until reverence for the mother alone restrained the child from rushing out of her hiding-place, and ending the penance by snatching away the knotted scourge. Already he had written acrostics on Virginity, and composed stanzas in dispraise of the world. And now he fancied that, in Padua, he might find some outlet from the world. The words of a Prophet, which he had often heard in chant, resounded again within him in the silence of his chamber : "0 that I had wings like a dove! then would I fly away, and be at rest". On this his mind lingered. In this his heart became entangled -"and be at rest". Then, holding colloquy with himself, it seemed as if voices answered again from the depth of his bosom. Nay, it seemed as if an angel spoke, advising renunciation of the world, provoking courage to abandon its endearments, and impelling him to fling away its honors.
In this frame of mind he left Montepulciano, and came to Padua; not roused from the dream by the conversation of his travelling-companion and master, the Jesuit Sgariglia. One object henceforth absorbed his thoughts, he sought some religious order, within whose inclosure he might delight himself in the fragrance of discipline, contemplate models of perfection, plunge into the depths of science, lay hold on what is most excellent, and learn to reject all that is mean and vile. And he was led to believe that such a home for his weary soul would be found in the Society of Jesus. Sgariglia directed his literary pursuits, and guided his aspirations towards the summit of repose. His cousin Ricciardo caught the flame, which now enwrapped them both; and, consumed with desire after this heaven upon earth, they communicated intelligence of the passion-to their fathers? No. That would have been consulting with flesh and blood. Being now too spiritual to condescend so low, they sent up their prayer for acceptance to Diego Laynez, General of the Jesuits at Rome, beseeching him to admit them into the army of Jesus Christ.
An answer to their letter came without delay. Laynez offered them welcome; but, that Robert might gain his object by the gentlest way, directed them to ask leave of their fathers.
By this time Robert was about seventeen years of age; and when the report of his attachment to Jesuitism reached his father, the good man was astounded at intelligence which he might reasonably have expected, and began to bemoan the frustration of those hopes that he had set on the most promising of his children, having counted on him, chiefly, for a repair of the fortunes of the family, now considerably reduced. Both the young cousins were in secret correspondence with the General of the Jesuits, their fathers being kept in utter ignorance. Vincenzo first, observing that his son Robert was frequently in private conversation with his cousin Richard, suspected what was going on; but when the request came to permit him to take the Jesuit habit, it was bitter indeed. Robert talked high about a vocation of the Holy Spirit. The father, for fear of the Inquisition, durst not demur to the idea that the Holy Spirit of God called people into the bosom of Jesuitism; but he wished to see some proof of constancy in the lad, some evidence of the Divine will. Robert persisted in pleading a heavenly summons to the Company, but his father sternly forbade him to enter a Jesuit church, or to speak with a Jesuit, for twelve months, and required him only to attend mass in a church of the Dominicans. The General had allowed them to remain at home for that period; and the two mothers danced with joy when they...
