GENERAL FRANCIS BORGIA The election which followed the death of Lainez was not marred by any of the painful incidents which we frequently find on such occasions in the Jesuit chronicles. When the leading fathers of the Society reached Rome in the early summer, to compare their stories of warfare in every clime of Europe and consult about the future of their great organisation, there was one amongst them who had so natural a pre-eminence that his election was assured. This was Francis Borgia, ex-Duke of Gandia and Viceroy of Catalonia. There were in the distinguished gathering many of far greater ability and service--indeed, there was probably none of less ability than Borgia--but his high birth, his friendship with half the kings of Europe, his venerable person and austere life marked him clearly for the supreme command. Philip of Spain had outgrown his hostility, and, at the death of Lainez, Borgia was appointed Vicar-General. So plain was the intention of the electors that he sincerely begged them not to impose on him so heavy a responsibility. They disregarded his protest, and on 2nd July he became General of the Society. He was then a feeble and venerable man of sixty-five, worn with austerity, profoundly sincere and religious. In his person he singularly illustrated the change that had come over Catholicism. The name of Borgia at once suggests the groves of pleasure or the chambers of crime out of which the Papacy had been startled by the voice of Luther: his father had been a son of Pope Alexander VI., his mother an illegitimate daughter of the Archbishop of Saragossa, who in turn had been a natural son of Ferdinand V. But with his hair-shirts, his bloody scourges, and his long fasts, Francis belonged to the new age, and seemed to have taken on himself the expiation of the scarlet sins of the Borgias. He had been Viceroy of Catalonia from 1539 to 1543, and had then suffered for some years a mild and obscure disgrace. During this enforced retirement to his duchy he had met, and fallen under the charm of, Peter Favre, and he was, as we saw, secretly admitted to the Society. Although he had been driven from Spain only a few years before, the Pope had restored his prestige, and his election was acclaimed throughout the Society and the Church.