The Cardinal Ferdinando succeeded to his brother's throne without disturbance or difficulty; slipped off his priesthood by dispensation, seeing that it was for the benefit of mankind that he should do so; manifested, as Sismondi says,[224] "as much talent for government as is compatible with the absence of all virtue, and as much pride, as can exist without nobility of mind;" merited the affection of his subjects by taking off, among sundry mint and cumin dues, the tax upon cat's meat;[225] married Cristina, daughter of Charles Duke of Lorraine, and succeeded in accomplishing the great and beneficent task of preserving the Medicean stock to Italy and mankind. OLYMPIA PAMFILI. (1594—1656.) Pope Joan rediviva—Olympia's outlook on life—Her mode of "opening the oyster"—She succeeds in opening it—Olympia's son—Olympia at home in the Vatican—Her trade—A Cardinal's escape from the purple—Olympia under a cloud—Is once more at the head of the field—And in at the death—A conclave—Olympia's star wanes—Pœna pede claudo. In the ninth century, the outlying Catholic world to the north of the Alps was horrified by reports, that a woman was occupying the chair of Peter, and the office of Heaven's vicegerent. A fact so scandalous and so extraordinary found ready credence among the monks and prelates of Germany. The reports of pious pilgrims who had returned from Rome, and testified that Christ's church was governed by a woman, were cited with every appearance of good faith and authenticity. And the story of Pope Joan, thus generated, rapidly acquired a worldwide acceptation, and was for ages believed, both within and without the pale of the Church, as a veritable historical fact. And a vast mass of learned, satirical, controversial, scandalous, and antiquarian letter–press has resulted from it. [Sidenote: THE POPE JOAN STORY.]