Francesco Cenci, inheriting vicious instincts and master of an immense
fortune which enabled him to purchase immunity, abandoned himself to all
the evil passions of his fiery and passionate temperament. Five times
during his profligate career imprisoned for abominable crimes, he only
succeeded in procuring his liberation by the payment of two hundred
thousand piastres, or about one million francs. It should be explained
that popes at this time were in great need of money.

The lawless profligacy of Francesco Cenci first began seriously to
attract public attention under the pontificate of Gregory XIII. This
reign offered marvellous facilities for the development of a reputation
such as that which this reckless Italian Don Juan seemed bent on
acquiring. Under the Bolognese Buoncampagno, a free hand was given to
those able to pay both assassins and judges. Rape and murder were so
common that public justice scarcely troubled itself with these trifling
things, if nobody appeared to prosecute the guilty parties. The good
Gregory had his reward for his easygoing indulgence; he was spared to
rejoice over the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.

Francesco Cenci was at the time of which we are speaking a man of
forty-four or forty-five years of age, about five feet four inches in
height, symmetrically proportioned, and very strong, although rather
thin; his hair was streaked with grey, his eyes were large and
expressive, although the upper eyelids drooped somewhat; his nose was
long, his lips were thin, and wore habitually a pleasant smile, except
when his eye perceived an enemy; at this moment his features assumed
a terrible expression; on such occasions, and whenever moved or even
slightly irritated, he was seized with a fit of nervous trembling, which
lasted long after the cause which provoked it had passed. An adept in
all manly exercises and especially in horsemanship, he sometimes used