And even as the influence of her name had been my mother's guide, so was
the influence of my name to exert its sway upon me. It was made to do so.
Ere I could read for myself, the life of that great saint--with such
castrations as my tender years demanded--was told me and repeated until I
knew by heart its every incident and act. Anon his writings were my
school-books. His De Civitate Dei and De Vita Beata were the paps at which
I suckled my earliest mental nourishment.

And even to-day, after all the tragedy and sin and turbulence of my life,
that was intended to have been so different, it is from his Confessions
that I have gathered inspiration to set down my own--although betwixt the
two you may discern little indeed that is comparable.

I was prenatally made a votive offering for the preservation of my father's
life, for his restoration to my mother safe and sound. That restoration
she had, as you have seen; and yet, had she been other than she was, she
must have accounted herself cheated of her bargain in the end. For betwixt
my father and my mother I became from my earliest years a subject of
contentions that drove them far asunder and set them almost in enmity the
one against the other.

I was his only son, heir to the noble lordships of Mondolfo and Carmina.
Was it likely, then, that he should sacrifice me willingly to the seclusion
of the cloister, whilst our lordship passed into the hands of our renegade,
guelphic cousin, Cosimo d'Anguissola of Codogno?

I can picture his outbursts at the very thought of it; I can hear him
reasoning, upbraiding, storming. But he was as an ocean of energy hurling
himself against the impassive rock of my mother's pietistic obstinacy.
She had vowed me to the service of Holy Church, and she would suffer