astles, whereas my
ancestors remained in the service of the Cathedral, like the good
Christians they were."

With the satisfaction of a duke who enumerates his ancestors, the
Senor Esteban carried back the line of the Lunas till it became misty
and was lost in the fifteenth century. His father had known Don
Francisco III. Lorenzana, a magnificent and prodigal prince of the
church, who spent the abundant revenues of the archbishopric in
building palaces and editing books, like a great lord of the
Renaissance. He had known also the first Cardinal Bourbon, Don Luis
II., and used to narrate the romantic life of this Infante. Brother of
the King Carlos III., the custom that dedicated some of the younger
branches to the church had made him a cardinal at nine years old. But
that good lord, whose portrait hung in the Chapter House, with white
hair, red lips and blue eyes, felt more inclination to the joys of
this world than to the grandeurs of the church, and he abandoned the
archbishopric to marry a lady of modest birth, quarrelling for ever
with the king, who sent him into exile. And the old Luna, leaping
from ancestor to ancestor through the long centuries, remembered the
Archduke Alberto, who resigned the Toledan mitre to become Governor of
the Low Countries, and the magnificent Cardinal Tavera, protector
of the arts, all excellent princes, who had treated his family
affectionately, recognising their secular adhesion to the Holy
Metropolitan Church.

The days of his youth were bad ones for the Senor Esteban; it was the
time of the war of Independence. The French occupied Toledo, entering
into the Cathedral like pagans, rattling their swords and prying into
every corner at full High Mass. The jewels were concealed, the canons
and beneficiaries, who were now called _prebendaries_, were living
dispersed over the Peninsula. Some had taken refuge in places that
were still Spanish, others were hidden in the towns, making vows for
the speedy return of "the desired." It was pitiful to hear the choir
with its few voices; only the very timid, who were bound to their
seats and could not live away from them, had remained, and had
recognised the usurping king. The second Cardinal de Bourbon, the
gentle and insignificant Don Luis Maria, was in Cadiz, the only one of
the family remaining in Spain, and the Cortes had laid their hands
on him to give a certain dynastic appearance to their revolutionary
authority.

When the war was over