his happened in the early part of the reign of Clement VIII, famed for
his justice. The three youths resolved to apply to him, to grant them
an allowance out of their father's immense income. They consequently
repaired to Frascati, where the pope was building the beautiful
Aldobrandini Villa, and stated their case. The pope admitted the justice
of their claims, and ordered Francesco, to allow each of them two
thousand crowns a year. He endeavoured by every possible means to evade
this decree, but the pope's orders were too stringent to be disobeyed.

About this period he was for the third time imprisoned for infamous
crimes. His three sons then again petitioned the pope, alleging that
their father dishonoured the family name, and praying that the extreme
rigour of the law, a capital sentence, should be enforced in his case.
The pope pronounced this conduct unnatural and odious, and drove them
with ignominy from his presence. As for Francesco, he escaped, as on the
two previous occasions, by the payment of a large sum of money.

It will be readily understood that his sons' conduct on this occasion
did not improve their father's disposition towards them, but as their
independent pensions enabled them to keep out of his way, his rage
fell with all the greater intensity on his two unhappy daughters. Their
situation soon became so intolerable, that the elder, contriving to
elude the close supervision under which she was kept, forwarded to
the pope a petition, relating the cruel treatment to which she was
subjected, and praying His Holiness either to give her in marriage
or place her in a convent. Clement VIII took pity on her; compelled
Francesco Cenci to give her a dowry of sixty thousand crowns, and
married her to Carlo Gabrielli, of a noble family of Gubbio. Francesco
was driven nearly frantic with rage when he saw this victim released
from his clutches.

About the same time death relieved him from two other encumbrances: his
sons Rocco and Cristoforo were killed within a year of each other; the
latter by a bungling medical practitioner whose name is unknown; the
former by Paolo Corso di Massa, in the streets of Rome. This came as
a relief to Francesco, whose avarice pursued his sons even after their
death, for he intimated to the priest that he would not spend a farthing
on funeral services. They were accordingly borne to the paupers' graves
which he had caused to be prepared for them, and when he saw them both
interre