He was gradually dozing off into his last long sleep, and Franceschetto was planning how to carry off his ducats.

While the Holy Father still hovered between life and death, a Jewish doctor proposed to reinvigorate him by the transfusion of young blood into his torpid veins.

Three boys throbbing with the elixir of early youth were sacrificed in vain.

Each boy, says Infessura, received one ducat.

He adds, not without grim humor: 'Et paulo post mortui sunt; Judaeus quidem aufugit, et Papa non sanatus est.' The epitaph of this poor old Pope reads like a rather clever but blasphemous witticism: 'Ego autem in Innocentia mea ingressus sum.' [1] 'Primus pontificum filios filiasque palam ostentavit, primus eorum apertas fecit nuptias, primus domesticos hymenaeos celebravit.' Egidius of Viterbo, quoted by Greg.