Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/452

424 424 REGENCY OF XIMENES. PART Over his coarse woollen frock, he wore the costly ! apparel suited to his rank. An impertinent Fran- ciscan preacher took occasion one day before him to launch out against the luxuries of the time, especially in dress, obviously alluding to the cardi- nal, who was attired in a superb suit of ermine, which had been presented to him. He heard the sermon patiently to the end, and after the services were concluded, took the preacher into the sacristy, and, having commended the general tenor of his discourse, showed under his furs and fine linen the coarse frock of his order, next his skin. Some accounts add, that the friar, on the other hand, wore fine linen under his monkish frock. After the cardinal's death, a little box was found in his apart- ment, containing the implements with which he used to mend the rents of his threadbare garment, with his own hands." His econo- With SO much to do, it may well be believed, that my of time. ^ ... Ximenes was avaricious of time. He seldom slept more than four, or at most four hours and a half. He was shaved in the night, hearing at the same time some edifying reading. He followed the same practice at his meals, or varied it with listening to the arguments of some of his theological brethren, generally on some subtile question of school divin- ity. This was his only recreation. He had as 37 Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. sor, the grand cardinal Mendoza, 219. — Quintanilla, Archetypo,lib. in Part II. Chapter 5, of this His- 2, cap. 4. tory. The conduct of the two The reader may find a pendant primates on the occasion, was suf- to this anecdote in a similar one ficiently characteristic, recorded of Ximenes's predeces-