VOWED TO A SAINT. 19 



faithful to his promise, caused him to receive the name of 

 Girolamo, or Jerome 1 . This took place in the eighth 

 year of the boy's life. Up to my eighth year, says 

 Cardan, I had often beaten at the gates of death, but 

 those within refused to open to me 2 . He was newly risen 

 from his bed in May of the year 1509. In the same 

 year, on the 14th of the same month, the French gained 

 a victory over the Venetians near the Adda. Jerome 

 Cardan remembered afterwards that he was recovering 

 from that most serious attack when the French celebrated 

 their triumph at Milan for the battle of the Adda, and 

 that he was then permitted to go to the window and look 

 out upon the spectacle. 



Thin, pale, and very thoughtful, little Jerome leaned 

 against the open window, and from the gloom of his own 

 chamber looked down on the helmets, swords, and banners 

 of the military pageant, glittering along the street under 

 the light of the May sun. While the noise of military 

 music and the tramping of the horses shook the whole 

 house in which they lived, how little did it come into 

 the thoughts of Fazio Cardan, Aunt Margaret, or Clara, 

 that the glitter and the bustle of the triumph out of 



1 DePropr. Vit. p. 14. 



2 De TJtiL ex Adversis Capiend. pp. 427, 428. The summary there 

 given is touching: " Inde lac prsegnantis hausi, per varies matrices lac- 

 tatus ac jactatus, hydrope, febribus, aliisque morbis conflictatus sum, 

 donee sub fine octavi anni ex dysenteria ac febre usque ad mortis 

 limina perveni; pulsavi ostium, sed non aperuerequi intro erant." 



C2 



