and kinsmen of the young women and
girls were not invited to be present. You and a few servants were
the leaders and inspirers of this orgy. It is said that nothing is
now talked of in Siena but your vanity, which is the subject of
universal ridicule. Certain it is that here at the baths, where
Churchmen and the laity are very numerous, your name is on every
one's tongue. Our displeasure is beyond words, for your conduct has
brought the holy state and office into disgrace; the people will
say that they make us rich and great, not that we may live a
blameless life, but that we may have means to gratify our passions.
This is the reason the princes and the powers despise us and the
laity mock us; this is why our own mode of living is thrown in our
face when we reprove others. Contempt is the lot of Christ's vicar
because he seems to tolerate these actions. You, dear son, have
charge of the bishopric of Valencia, the most important in Spain;
you are a chancellor of the Church, and what renders your conduct
all the more reprehensible is the fact that you have a seat among
the cardinals, with the Pope, as advisors of the Holy See. We leave
it to you whether it is becoming to your dignity to court young
women, and to send those whom you love fruits and wine, and during
the whole day to give no thought to anything but sensual pleasures.
People blame us on your account, and the memory of your blessed
uncle, Calixtus, likewise suffers, and many say he did wrong in
heaping honors upon you. If you try to excuse yourself on the
ground of your youth, I say to you: you are no longer so young as
not to see what duties your offices impose upon you. A cardinal
should be above reproach and an example of right living before the
eyes of all men, and then we should have just grounds for anger
when temporal princes bestow uncomplimentary epithets upon us; when
they dispute with us the possession of our property and force us to
submit ourselves to their will. Of a truth we inflict these wounds
upon ourselves, and we ourselves are the cause of these troubles,
since we by our conduct are daily diminishing the authority of the
Church. Our punishment for it in this world is dishonor, and in the
world to come well deserved torment. May, therefore, your good
sense place a restra