Her husband had died some time previously, leaving her one son, the Prince Camillo, who was forthwith made a Cardinal. The step was a strange one, and quite in discord with the ordinary traditions of Roman family policy. For Camillo was the sole scion of the Pamfili race, at least of the descendants of the Pope's father; and, though the purple might lead to more immediate personal distinction, the continuation of the family name was cut off by this means, and the usual master passion of an ambitious Italian noble frustrated. The making Camillo a Cardinal, moreover, seemed still more unaccountable, when the personal qualities of the young man were considered. For he was so wholly uneducated, and incapable, that not even a Papal uncle could succeed in thrusting greatness upon him. His nomination thus took from him the capability of serving the family interests in the only way in which he was available, by continuing the race and the name; while it exposed him and his uncle and mother to a host of mortifications arising from his gross and even rustic incapacity. The total incompetence and stupidity manifested by him, when it was attempted to entrust to his hands any of the business that usually fell to the lot of a Cardinal nephew, was such as to cause constant trouble and humiliation to Innocent, who, we read, rarely met him without irritable chidings. The motive of this ill–judged promotion is to be found probably in the peculiar nature of Olympia's ambition. Unlike other Italian ambitions, which almost always concentrated themselves on the building up or aggrandising a family name, that of Donna Olympia seems to have been wholly personal; the love of power, and still more strongly the love of wealth, for the sake of her own individual enjoyment of them. [Sidenote: AT THE VATICAN.]