He completed it when his only child
Violante was about nine years old. But he had also completed, much
about the same time, the entire dissipation of the never very large
Marliani property. And it so happened that, very shortly afterwards,
his own career was brought to a conclusion, which his relatives felt
to have overtaken him a few years too late! He was travelling from
Rome down to Pesaro to complete the sale of the last portion of the
estates, the proceeds of which had been anticipated, when he was
very opportunely drowned in attempting to cross the Tiber swollen by
flood.
The little Violante, thus left an almost destitute orphan, was
nevertheless a personage of some importance. She was the only
remaining scion of the family; and the position of her great-uncle
seemed to promise a renewed period of prosperity and fortune to the
old name. Violante was the Cardinal Legate's natural and sole heir.
The Cardinal was a very rich man; and in amassing wealth and
attaining honours, he had, like a true Italian, never thought the
less of the additions to, and provisions for, the fortunes and
splendour of the family name, which he was winning, because he was
himself a priest, and would leave no heirs of his name. The
peculiarities in the position of a sacerdotal aristocracy have
engrafted the passion of nepotism in the hearts, as well as the
practice of it in the manners, of the members of Rome's hierarchy.
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