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Title: The Borgias

Author: Alexandre Dumas, Pere

Release Date: August, 2001  [EBook #2741]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was last updated on November 14, 2002

Edition: 12

Language: English

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This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
Extensive proofing of this file was done by Trevor Carlson




CELEBRATED CRIMES

BY ALEXANDER DUMAS, PERE





NOTE:

Dumas's 'Celebrated Crimes' was not written for children.  The
novelist has spared no language--has minced no words--to describe the
violent scenes of a violent time.

In some instances facts appear distorted out of their true
perspective, and in others the author makes unwarranted charges.  It
is not within our province to edit the historical side of Dumas, any
more than it would be to correct the obvious errors in Dickens's
Child's History of England.  The careful, mature reader, for whom the
books are intended, will recognize, and allow for, this fact.





INTRODUCTION

The contents of these volumes of 'Celebrated Crimes', as well as the
motives which led to their inception, are unique.  They are a series
of stories based upon historical records, from the pen of Alexandre
Dumas, pere, when he was not "the elder," nor yet the author of
D'Artagnan or Monte Cristo, but was a rising young dramatist and a
lion in the literary set and world of fashion.

Dumas, in fact, wrote his 'Crimes Celebres' just prior to launching
upon his wonderful series of historical novels, and they may
therefore be considered as source books, whence he was to draw so
much of that far-reaching and intimate knowledge of inner history
which has perennially astonished his readers.  The Crimes were
published in Paris, in 1839-40, in eight volumes, comprising eighteen
titles--all of which now appear in the present carefully translated
text.  The success of the original work was instantaneous.  Dumas
laughingly said that he thought he had exhausted the subject of
famous crimes, until the work was off the press, when he immediately
became deluged with letters from every province in France, supplying
him with material upon other deeds of violence!  The subjects which
he has chosen, however, are of both historic and dramatic importance,
and they have the added value of giving the modern reader a clear
picture of the state of semi-lawlessness which existed in Europe,
during the middle ages.  "The Borgias, the Cenci, Urbain Grandier,
the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, the Marchioness of Ganges, and the
rest--what subjects for the pen of Dumas!" exclaims Garnett.

Space does not permit us to consider in detail the material here
collected, although each title will be found to present points of
special interest.  The first volume comprises the annals of the
Borgias and the Cenci.  The name of the noted and notorious
Florentine family has become a synonym for intrigue and violence, and
yet the Borgias have not been without stanch defenders in history.

Another famous Italian story is that of the Cenci.  The beautiful
Beatrice Cenci--celebrated in the painting of Guido, the sixteenth
century romance of Guerrazi, and the poetic tragedy of Shelley, not
to mention numerous succeeding works inspired by her hapless fate--
will always remain a shadowy figure and one of infinite pathos.

The second volume chronicles the sanguinary deeds in the south of
France, carried on in the name of religion, but drenching in blood
the fair country round about Avignon, for a long period of years.

The third volume is devoted to the story of Mary Queen of Scots,
another woman who suffered a violent death, and around whose name an
endless controversy has waged.  Dumas goes carefully into the dubious
episodes of her stormy career, but does not allow these to blind his
sympathy for her fate.  Mary, it should be remembered, was closely
allied to France by education and marriage, and the French never
forgave Elizabeth the part she played in the tragedy.

The fourth volume comprises three widely dissimilar tales.  One of
the strangest stories is that of Urbain Grandier, the innocent victim
of a cunning and relentless religious plot.  His story was dramatised
by Dumas, in 1850.  A famous German crime is that of Karl-Ludwig
Sand, whose murder of Kotzebue, Councillor of the Russian Legation,
caused an international upheaval which was not to subside for many
years.

An especially interesting volume is number six, containing, among
other material, the famous "Man in the Iron Mask."  This unsolved
puzzle of history was later incorporated by Dumas in one of the
D'Artagnan Romances a section of the Vicomte de Bragelonne, to which
it gave its name.  But in this later form, the true story of this
singular man doomed to wear an iron vizor over his features during
his entire lifetime could only be treated episodically.  While as a
special subject in the Crimes, Dumas indulges his curiosity, and that
of his reader, to the full.  Hugo's unfinished tragedy,'Les Jumeaux',
is on the same subject; as also are others by Fournier, in French,
and Zschokke, in German.

Other stories can be given only passing mention.  The beautiful
poisoner, Marquise de Brinvilliers, must have suggested to Dumas his
later portrait of Miladi, in the Three Musketeers, the mast
celebrated of his woman characters.  The incredible cruelties of Ali
Pacha, the Turkish despot, should not be charged entirely to Dumas,
as he is said to have been largely aided in this by one of his
"ghosts," Mallefille.

"Not a mere artist"--writes M. de Villemessant, founder of the
Figaro,--"he has nevertheless been able to seize on those dramatic
effects which have so much distinguished his theatrical career, and
to give those sharp and distinct reproductions of character which
alone can present to the reader the mind and spirit of an age.  Not a
mere historian, he has nevertheless carefully consulted the original
sources of information, has weighed testimonies, elicited theories,
and .  .  .  has interpolated the poetry of history with its most
thorough prose."






THE BORGIAS

PROLOGUE

On the 8th of April, 1492, in a bedroom of the Carneggi Palace, about
three miles from Florence, were three men grouped about a bed whereon
a fourth lay dying.

The first of these three men, sitting at the foot of the bed, and
half hidden, that he might conceal his tears, in the gold-brocaded
curtains, was Ermolao Barbaro, author of the treatise 'On Celibacy',
and of 'Studies in Pliny': the year before, when he was at Rome in
the capacity of ambassador of the Florentine Republic, he had been
appointed Patriarch of Aquileia by Innocent VIII.

The second, who was kneeling and holding one hand of the dying man
between his own, was Angelo Poliziano, the Catullus of the fifteenth
century, a classic of the lighter sort, who in his Latin verses might
have been mistaken for a poet of the Augustan age.

The third, who was standing up and leaning against one of the twisted
columns of the bed-head, following with profound sadness the progress
of the malady which he read in the face of his departing friend, was
the famous Pico della Mirandola, who at the age of twenty could speak
twenty-two languages, and who had offered to reply in each of these
languages to any seven hundred questions that might be put to him by
the twenty most learned men in the whole world, if they could be
assembled at Florence.

The man on the bed was Lorenzo the Magnificent, who at the beginning
of the year had been attacked by a severe and deep-seated fever, to
which was added the gout, a hereditary ailment in his family.  He had
found at last that the draughts containing dissolved pearls which the
quack doctor, Leoni di Spoleto, prescribed for him (as if he desired
to adapt his remedies rather to the riches of his patient than to his
necessities) were useless and unavailing, and so he had come to
understand that he must part from those gentle-tongued women of his,
those sweet-voiced poets, his palaces and their rich hangings;
therefore he had summoned to give him absolution for his sins--in a
man of less high place they might perhaps have been called crimes--
the Dominican, Giralamo Francesco Savonarola.

It was not, however, without an inward fear, against which the
praises of his friends availed nothing, that the pleasure-seeker and
usurper awaited that severe and gloomy preacher by whose word's all
Florence was stirred, and on whose pardon henceforth depended all his
hope far another world.

Indeed, Savonarola was one of those men of stone, coming, like the
statue of the Commandante, to knock at the door of a Don Giovanni,
and in the midst of feast and orgy to announce that it is even now
the moment to begin to think of Heaven.  He had been born at Ferrara,
whither his family, one of the most illustrious of Padua, had been
called by Niccolo, Marchese d'Este, and at the age of twenty-three,
summoned by an irresistible vocation, had fled from his father's
house, and had taken the vows in the cloister of Dominican monks at
Florence.  There, where he was appointed by his superiors to give
lessons in philosophy, the young novice had from the first to battle
against the defects of a voice that was both harsh and weak, a
defective pronunciation, and above all, the depression of his
physical powers, exhausted as they were by too severe abstinence.

Savonarala from that time condemned himself to the most absolute
seclusion, and disappeared in the depths of his convent, as if the
slab of his tomb had already fallen over him.  There, kneeling on the
flags, praying unceasingly before a wooden crucifix, fevered by
vigils and penances, he soon passed out of contemplation into
ecstasy, and began to feel in himself that inward prophetic impulse
which summoned him to preach the reformation of the Church.

Nevertheless, the reformation of Savonarola, more reverential than
Luther's, which followed about five-and-twenty years later, respected
the thing while attacking the man, and had as its aim the altering of
teaching that was human, not faith that was of God.  He did not work,
like the German monk, by reasoning, but by enthusiasm.  With him
logic always gave way before inspiration: he was not a theologian,
but a prophet.  Yet, although hitherto he had bowed his head before
the authority of the Church, he had already raised it against the
temporal power.  To him religion and liberty appeared as two virgins
equally sacred; so that, in his view, Lorenzo in subjugating the one
was as culpable as Pope Innocent VIII in dishonouring the other.  The
result of this was that, so long as Lorenzo lived in riches,
happiness, and magnificence, Savonarola had never been willing,
whatever entreaties were made, to sanction by his presence a power
which he considered illegitimate.  But Lorenzo on his deathbed sent
for him, and that was another matter.  The austere preacher set forth
at once, bareheaded and barefoot, hoping to save not only the soul of
the dying man but also the liberty of the republic.

Lorenzo, as we have said, was awaiting the arrival of Savonarola with
an impatience mixed with uneasiness; so that, when he heard the sound
of his steps, his pale face took a yet more deathlike tinge, while at
the same time he raised himself on his elbow and ordered his three
friends to go away.  They obeyed at once, and scarcely had they left
by one door than the curtain of the other was raised, and the monk,
pale, immovable, solemn, appeared on the threshold.  When he
perceived him, Lorenzo dei Medici, reading in his marble brow the
inflexibility of a statue, fell back on his bed, breathing a sigh so
profound that one might have supposed it was his last.

The monk glanced round the room as though to assure himself that he
was really alone with the dying man; then he advanced with a slow and
solemn step towards the bed.  Lorenzo watched his approach with
terror; then, when he was close beside him, he cried:

"O my father, I have been a very great sinner!"

"The mercy of God is infinite," replied the monk; "and I come into
your presence laden with the divine mercy."

"You believe, then, that God will forgive my sins?" cried the dying
man, renewing his hope as he heard from the lips of the monk such
unexpected words.

"Your sins and also your crimes, God will forgive them all," replied
Savonarola.  "God will forgive your vanities, your adulterous
pleasures, your obscene festivals; so much for your sins.  God will
forgive you for promising two thousand florins reward to the man who
should bring you the head of Dietisalvi, Nerone Nigi, Angelo
Antinori, Niccalo Soderini, and twice the money if they were handed
over alive; God will forgive you for dooming to the scaffold or the
gibbet the son of Papi Orlandi, Francesco di Brisighella, Bernardo
Nardi, Jacopo Frescobaldi, Amoretto Baldovinetti, Pietro Balducci,
Bernardo di Banding, Francesco Frescobaldi, and more than three
hundred others whose names were none the less dear to Florence
because they were less renowned; so much far your crimes."  And at
each of these names which Savonarala pronounced slowly, his eyes
fixed on the dying man, he replied with a groan which proved the
monk's memory to be only too true.  Then at last, when he had
finished, Lorenzo asked in a doubtful tone:

"Then do you believe, my father, that God will forgive me everything,
both my sins and my crimes?"

"Everything," said Savonarola, "but on three conditions."

"What are they?" asked the dying man.

"The first," said Savonarola, "is that you feel a complete faith in
the power and the mercy of God."

"My father," replied Lorenzo eagerly, "I feel this faith in the very
depths of my heart."

"The second," said Savonarola, "is that you give back the property of
others which you have unjustly confiscated and kept."

"My father, shall I have time?" asked the dying man.

"God will give it to you," replied the monk.

Lorenzo shut his eyes, as though to reflect more at his ease; then,
after a moment's silence, he replied:

"Yes, my father, I will do it."

"The third," resumed Savonarola, "is that you restore to the republic
her ancient independence and her former liberty."

Lorenzo sat up on his bed, shaken by a convulsive movement, and
questioned with his eyes the eyes of the Dominican, as though he
would find out if he had deceived himself and not heard aright.
Savonarola repeated the same words.

"Never! never!" exclaimed Lorenzo, falling back on his bed and
shaking his head,--"never!"

The monk, without replying a single word, made a step to withdraw.

"My father, my father," said the dying man, "do not leave me thus:
have pity on me!"

"Have pity on Florence," said the monk.

"But, my father," cried Lorenzo, "Florence is free, Florence is
happy."

"Florence is a slave, Florence is poor," cried Savonarola, "poor in
genius, poor in money, and poor in courage; poor in genius, because
after you, Lorenzo, will come your son Piero; poor in money, because
from the funds of the republic you have kept up the magnificence of
your family and the credit of your business houses; poor in courage,
because you have robbed the rightful magistrates of the authority
which was constitutionally theirs, and diverted the citizens from the
double path of military and civil life, wherein, before they were
enervated by your luxuries, they had displayed the virtues of the
ancients; and therefore, when the day shall dawn which is not far
distant," continued the mark, his eyes fixed and glowing as if he
were reading in the future, "whereon the barbarians shall descend
from the mountains, the walls of our towns, like those of Jericho,
shall fall at the blast of their trumpets."

"And do you desire that I should yield up on my deathbed the power
that has made the glory of my whole life?" cried Lorenzo dei Medici.

"It is not I who desire it; it is the Lord," replied Savonarola
coldly.

"Impossible, impossible!" murmured Lorenzo.

"Very well; then die as you have lived!" cried the monk, "in the
midst of your courtiers and flatterers; let them ruin your soul as
they have ruined your body!"  And at these words, the austere
Dominican, without listening to the cries of the dying man, left the
room as he had entered it, with face and step unaltered; far above
human things he seemed to soar, a spirit already detached from the
earth.

At the cry which broke from Lorenzo dei Medici when he saw him
disappear, Ermolao, Poliziano, and Pico delta Mirandola, who had
heard all, returned into the room, and found their friend
convulsively clutching in his arms a magnificent crucifix which he
had just taken dawn from the bed-head.  In vain did they try to
reassure him with friendly words.  Lorenzo the Magnificent only
replied with sobs; and one hour after the scene which we have just
related, his lips clinging to the feet of the Christ, he breathed his
last in the arms of these three men, of whom the most fortunate--
though all three were young--was not destined to survive him more
than two years.  "Since his death was to bring about many
calamities," says Niccolo Macchiavelli, "it was the will of Heaven to
show this by omens only too certain: the dome of the church of Santa
Regarata was struck by lightning, and Roderigo Borgia was elected
pope."




CHAPTER I

Towards the end of the fifteenth century--that is to say, at the
epoch when our history opens the Piazza of St. Peter's at Rome was
far from presenting so noble an aspect as that which is offered in
our own day to anyone who approaches it by the Piazza dei Rusticucci.

In fact, the Basilica of Constantine existed no longer, while that of
Michael Angelo, the masterpiece of thirty popes, which cost the
labour of three centuries and the expense of two hundred and sixty
millions, existed not yet.  The ancient edifice, which had lasted for
eleven hundred and forty-five years, had been threatening to fall in
about 1440, and Nicholas V, artistic forerunner of Julius II and Leo
X, had had it pulled down, together with the temple of Probus Anicius
which adjoined it.  In their place he had had the foundations of a
new temple laid by the architects Rossellini and Battista Alberti;
but some years later, after the death of Nicholas V, Paul II, the
Venetian, had not been able to give more than five thousand crowns to
continue the project of his predecessor, and thus the building was
arrested when it had scarcely risen above the ground, and presented
the appearance of a still-born edifice, even sadder than that of a
ruin.

As to the piazza itself, it had not yet, as the reader will
understand from the foregoing explanation, either the fine colonnade
of Bernini, or the dancing fountains, or that Egyptian obelisk which,
according to Pliny, was set up by the Pharaoh at Heliopolis, and
transferred to Rome by Caligula, who set it up in Nero's Circus,
where it remained till 1586.  Now, as Nero's Circus was situated on
the very ground where St. Peter's now stands, and the base of this
obelisk covered the actual site where the vestry now is, it looked
like a gigantic needle shooting up from the middle of truncated
columns, walls of unequal height, and half-carved stones.

On the right of this building, a ruin from its cradle, arose the
Vatican, a splendid Tower of Babel, to which all the celebrated
architects of the Roman school contributed their work for a thousand
years: at this epoch the two magnificent chapels did not exist, nor
the twelve great halls, the two-and-twenty courts, the thirty
staircases, and the two thousand bedchambers; for Pope Sixtus V, the
sublime swineherd, who did so many things in a five years' reign, had
not yet been able to add the immense building which on the eastern
side towers above the court of St. Damasius; still, it was truly the
old sacred edifice, with its venerable associations, in which
Charlemagne received hospitality when he was crowned emperor by Pope
Leo III.

All the same, on the 9th of August, 1492, the whole of Rome, from the
People's Gate to the Coliseum and from the Baths of Diocletian to the
castle of Sant' Angelo, seemed to have made an appointment on this
piazza: the multitude thronging it was so great as to overflow into
all the neighbouring streets, which started from this centre like the
rays of a star.  The crowds of people, looking like a motley moving
carpet, were climbing up into the basilica, grouping themselves upon
the stones, hanging on the columns, standing up against the walls;
they entered by the doors of houses and reappeared at the windows, so
numerous and so densely packed that one might have said each window
was walled up with heads.  Now all this multitude had its eyes fixed
on one single point in the Vatican; for in the Vatican was the
Conclave, and as Innocent VIII had been dead for sixteen days, the
Conclave was in the act of electing a pope.

Rome is the town of elections: since her foundation down to our own
day--that is to say, in the course of nearly twenty-six centuries--
she has constantly elected her kings, consuls, tribunes, emperors,
and popes: thus Rome during the days of Conclave appears to be
attacked by a strange fever which drives everyone to the Vatican or
to Monte Cavallo, according as the scarlet-robed assembly is held in
one or the other of these two palaces: it is, in fact, because the
raising up of a new pontiff is a great event far everybody; for,
according to the average established in the period between St. Peter
and Gregory XVI, every pope lasts about eight years, and these eight
years, according to the character of the man who is elected, are a
period either of tranquillity or of disorder, of justice or of
venality, of peace or of war.

Never perhaps since the day when the first successor of St. Peter
took his seat on the pontifical throne until the interregnum which
now occurred, had so great an agitation been shown as there was at
this moment, when, as we have shown, all these people were thronging
on the Piazza of St. Peter and in the streets which led to it.  It is
true that this was not without reason; for Innocent VIII--who was
called the father of his people because he had added to his subjects
eight sons and the same number of daughters--had, as we have said,
after living a life of self-indulgence, just died, after a death-
struggle during which, if the journal of Stefano Infessura may be
believed, two hundred and twenty murders were committed in the
streets of Rome.  The authority had then devolved in the customary
way upon the Cardinal Camerlengo, who during the interregnum had
sovereign powers; but as he had been obliged to fulfil all the duties
of his office--that is, to get money coined in his name and bearing
his arms, to take the fisherman's ring from the finger of the dead
pope, to dress, shave and paint him, to have the corpse embalmed, to
lower the coffin after nine days' obsequies into the provisional
niche where the last deceased pope has to remain until his successor
comes to take his place and consign him to his final tomb; lastly, as
he had been obliged to wall up the door of the Conclave and the
window of the balcony from which the pontifical election is
proclaimed, he had not had a single moment for busying himself with
the police; so that the assassinations had continued in goodly
fashion, and there were loud cries for an energetic hand which should
make all these swords and all these daggers retire into their
sheaths.

Now the eyes of this multitude were fixed, as we have said, upon the
Vatican, and particularly upon one chimney, from which would come the
first signal, when suddenly, at the moment of the 'Ave Maria'--that
is to say, at the hour when the day begins to decline--great cries
went up from all the crowd mixed with bursts of laughter, a
discordant murmur of threats and raillery, the cause being that they
had just perceived at the top of the chimney a thin smoke, which
seemed like a light cloud to go up perpendicularly into the sky.
This smoke announced that Rome was still without a master, and that
the world still had no pope; for this was the smoke of the voting
tickets which were being burned, a proof that the cardinals had not
yet come to an agreement.

Scarcely had this smoke appeared, to vanish almost immediately, when
all the innumerable crowd, knowing well that there was nothing else
to wait for, and that all was said and done until ten o'clock the
next morning, the time when the cardinals had their first voting,
went off in a tumult of noisy joking, just as they would after the
last rocket of a firework display; so that at the end of one minute
nobody was there where a quarter of an hour before there had been an
excited crowd, except a few curious laggards, who, living in the
neighbourhood or on the very piazza itself; were less in a hurry than
the rest to get back to their homes; again, little by little, these
last groups insensibly diminished; for half-past nine had just
struck, and at this hour the streets of Rome began already to be far
from safe; then after these groups followed some solitary passer-by,
hurrying his steps; one after another the doors were closed, one
after another the windows were darkened; at last, when ten o'clock
struck, with the single exception of one window in the Vatican where
a lamp might be seen keeping obstinate vigil, all the houses,
piazzas, and streets were plunged in the deepest obscurity.

At this moment a man wrapped in a cloak stood up like a ghost against
one of the columns of the uncompleted basilica, and gliding slowly
and carefully among the stones which were lying about round the
foundations of the new church, advanced as far as the fountain which,
formed the centre of the piazza, erected in the very place where the
obelisk is now set up of which we have spoken already; when he
reached this spot he stopped, doubly concealed by the darkness of the
night and by the shade of the monument, and after looking around him
to see if he were really alone, drew his sword, and with its point
rapping three times on the pavement of the piazza, each time made the
sparks fly.  This signal, for signal it was, was not lost: the last
lamp which still kept vigil in the Vatican went out, and at the same
instant an object thrown out of the window fell a few paces off from
the young man in the cloak: he, guided by the silvery sound it had
made in touching the flags, lost no time in laying his hands upon it
in spite of the darkness, and when he had it in his possession
hurried quickly away.

Thus the unknown walked without turning round half-way along the
Borgo Vecchio; but there he turned to the right and took a street at
the other end of which was set up a Madonna with a lamp: he
approached the light, and drew from his pocket the object he had
picked up, which was nothing else than a Roman crown piece; but this
crown unscrewed, and in a cavity hollowed in its thickness enclosed a
letter, which the man to whom it was addressed began to read at the
risk of being recognised, so great was his haste to know what it
contained.

We say at the risk of being recognised, for in his eagerness the
recipient of this nocturnal missive had thrown back the hood of his
cloak; and as his head was wholly within the luminous circle cast by
the lamp, it was easy to distinguish in the light the head of a
handsome young man of about five or six and twenty, dressed in a
purple doublet slashed at the shoulder and elbow to let the shirt
come through, and wearing on his head a cap of the same colour with a
long black feather falling to his shoulder.  It is true that he did
not stand there long; for scarcely had he finished the letter, or
rather the note, which he had just received in so strange and
mysterious a manner, when he replaced it in its silver receptacle,
and readjusting his cloak so as to hide all the lower part of his
face, resumed his walk with a rapid step, crossed Borgo San Spirito,
and took the street of the Longara, which he followed as far as the
church of Regina Coeli.  When he arrived at this place, he gave three
rapid knocks on the door of a house of good appearance, which
immediately opened; then slowly mounting the stairs he entered a room
where two women were awaiting him with an impatience so unconcealed
that both as they saw him exclaimed together:

"Well, Francesco, what news?"

"Good news, my mother; good, my sister," replied the young man,
kissing the one and giving his hand to the other.  "Our father has
gained three votes to-day, but he still needs six to have the
majority."

"Then is there no means of buying them?" cried the elder of the two
women, while the younger, instead of speaking, asked him with a look.

"Certainly, my mother, certainly," replied the young man; "and it is
just about that that my father has been thinking.  He is giving
Cardinal Orsini his palace at Rome and his two castles of Monticello
and Soriano; to Cardinal Colanna his abbey of Subiaca; he gives
Cardinal Sant' Angelo the bishopric of Porto, with the furniture and
cellar; to the Cardinal of Parma the town of Nepi; to the Cardinal of
Genoa the church of Santa Maria-in-Via-Lata; and lastly, to Cardinal
Savelli the church of Santa Maria Maggiore and the town of Civita
Castellana; as to Cardinal Ascanio-Sforza, he knows already that the
day before yesterday we sent to his house four mules laden with
silver and plate, and out of this treasure he has engaged to give
five thousand ducats to the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice."

"But how shall we get the others to know the intentions of Roderigo?"
asked the elder of the two women.

"My father has provided for everything, and proposes an easy method;
you know, my mother, with what sort of ceremonial the cardinals'
dinner is carried in."

"Yes, on a litter, in a large basket with the arms of the cardinal
far whom the meal is prepared."

"My father has bribed the bishop who examines it: to-morrow is a
feast-day; to the Cardinals Orsini, Colonna, Savelli, Sant' Angelo,
and the Cardinals of Parma and of Genoa, chickens will be sent for
hot meat, and each chicken will contain a deed of gift duly drawn up,
made by me in my father's name, of the houses, palaces, or churches
which are destined for each."

"Capital!" said the elder of the two women; "now, I am certain, all
will go well."

"And by the grace of God," added the younger, with a strangely
mocking smile, "our father will be pope."

"Oh, it will be a fine day for us!" cried Francesco.

"And for Christendom," replied his sister, with a still more ironical
expression.

"Lucrezia, Lucrezia," said the mother, "you do not deserve the
happiness which is coming to us."

"What does that matter, if it comes all the same?  Besides, you know
the proverb; mother: 'Large families are blessed of the Lord'; and
still more so our family, which is so patriarchal."

At the same time she cast on her brother a look so wanton that the
young man blushed under it: but as at the moment he had to think of
other things than his illicit loves, he ordered that four servants
should be awakened; and while they were getting armed to accompany
him, he drew up and signed the six deeds of gift which were to be
carried the next day to the cardinals; for, not wishing to be seen at
their houses, he thought he would profit by the night-time to carry
them himself to certain persons in his confidence who would have them
passed in, as had been arranged, at the dinner-hour.  Then, when the
deeds were quite ready and the servants also, Francesco went out with
them, leaving the two women to dream golden dreams of their future
greatness.

From the first dawn of day the people hurried anew, as ardent and
interested as on the evening before, to the Piazza of the Vatican,
where, at the ordinary time, that is, at ten o'clock in the morning,
--the smoke rose again as usual, evoking laughter and murmuring, as
it announced that none of the cardinals had secured the majority.  A
report, however, began to be spread about that the chances were
divided between three candidates, who were Roderigo Borgia, Giuliano
delta Rovera, and Ascanio Sforza; for the people as yet knew nothing
of the four mules laden with plate and silver which had been led to
Sforza's house, by reason of which he had given up his own votes to
his rival.  In the midst of the agitation excited in the crowd by
this new report a solemn chanting was heard; it proceeded from a
procession, led by the Cardinal Camerlengo, with the object of
obtaining from Heaven the speedy election of a pope: this procession,
starting from the church of Ara Coeli at the Capitol, was to make
stations before the principal Madannas and the most frequented
churches.  As soon as the silver crucifix was perceived which went in
front, the most profound silence prevailed, and everyone fell on his
knees; thus a supreme calm followed the tumult and uproar which had
been heard a few minutes before, and which at each appearance of the
smoke had assumed a more threatening character: there was a shrewd
suspicion that the procession, as well as having a religious end in
view, had a political object also, and that its influence was
intended to be as great on earth as in heaven.  In any case, if such
had been the design of the Cardinal Camerlengo, he had not deceived
himself, and the effect was what he desired: when the procession had
gone past, the laughing and joking continued, but the cries and
threats had completely ceased.

The whole day passed thus; for in Rome nobody works.  You are either
a cardinal or a lacquey, and you live, nobody knows how.  The crowd
was still extremely numerous, when, towards two o'clock in the
afternoon, another procession, which had quite as much power of
provoking noise as the first of imposing silence, traversed in its
turn the Piazza of St. Peter's: this was the dinner procession.  The
people received it with the usual bursts of laughter, without
suspecting, for all their irreverence, that this procession, more
efficacious than the former, had just settled the election of the new
pope.

The hour of the Ave Maria came as on the evening before; but, as on
the evening before, the waiting of the whole day was lost; for, as
half-past eight struck, the daily smoke reappeared at the top of the
chimney.  But when at the same moment rumours which came from the
inside of the Vatican were spread abroad, announcing that, in all
probability, the election would take place the next day, the good
people preserved their patience.  Besides, it had been very hot that
day, and they were so broken with fatigue and roasted by the sun,
these dwellers in shade and idleness, that they had no strength left
to complain.

The morning of the next day, which was the 11th of August, 1492,
arose stormy and dark; this did not hinder the multitude from
thronging the piazzas, streets, doors, houses, churches.  Moreover,
this disposition of the weather was a real blessing from Heaven; for
if there were heat, at least there would be no sun.  Towards nine
o'clock threatening storm-clouds were heaped up over all the
Trastevere; but to this crowd what mattered rain, lightning, or
thunder?  They were preoccupied with a concern of a very different
nature; they were waiting for their pope: a promise had been made
them for to-day, and it could be seen by the manner of all, that if
the day should pass without any election taking place, the end of it
might very well be a riot; therefore, in proportion as the time
advanced, the agitation grew greater.  Nine o'clock, half-past nine,
a quarter to ten struck, without anything happening to confirm or
destroy their hopes.  At last the first stroke of ten was heard; all
eyes turned towards the chimney: ten o'clock struck slowly, each
stroke vibrating in the heart of the multitude.  At last the tenth
stroke trembled, then vanished shuddering into space, and, a great
cry breaking simultaneously frog a hundred thousand breasts followed
the silence "Non v'e fumo!  There is no smoke!" In other words, "We
have a pope."

At this moment the rain began to fall; but no one paid any attention
to it, so great were the transports of joy and impatience among all
the people.  At last a little stone was detached from the walled
window which gave on the balcony and upon which all eyes were fixed:
a general shout saluted its fall; little by little the aperture grew
larger, and in a few minutes it was large enough to allow a man to
come out on the balcony.

The Cardinal Ascanio Sforza appeared; but at the moment when he was
on the point of coming out, frightened by the rain and the lightning,
he hesitated an instant, and finally drew back: immediately the
multitude in their turn broke out like a tempest into cries, curses,
howls, threatening to tear down the Vatican and to go and seek their
pope themselves.  At this noise Cardinal Sforza, more terrified by
the popular storm than by the storm in the heavens, advanced on the
balcony, and between two thunderclaps, in a moment of silence
astonishing to anyone who had just heard the clamour that went
before, made the following proclamation:

"I announce to you a great joy: the most Eminent and most Reverend
Signor Roderigo Lenzuolo Borgia, Archbishop of Valencia, Cardinal-
Deacon of San Nicolao-in-Carcere, Vice-Chancellor of the Church, has
now been elected Page, and has assumed the name of Alexander VI."

The news of this nomination was received with strange joy.  Roderigo
Borgia had the reputation of a dissolute man, it is true, but
libertinism had mounted the throne with Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII,
so that for the Romans there was nothing new in the singular
situation of a pope with a mistress and five children.  The great
thing for the moment was that the power fell into strong hands; and
it was more important for the tranquillity of Rome that the new pope
inherited the sword of St. Paul than that he inherited the keys of
St. Peter.

And so, in the feasts that were given on this occasion, the dominant
character was much more warlike than religious, and would have
appeared rather to suit with the election of some young conqueror
than the exaltation of an old pontiff: there was no limit to the
pleasantries and prophetic epigrams on the name of Alexander, which
for the second time seemed to promise the Romans the empire of the
world; and the same evening, in the midst of brilliant illuminations
and bonfires, which seemed to turn the town into a lake of flame, the
following epigram was read, amid the acclamation of the people:

    "Rome under Caesar's rule in ancient story
     At home and o'er the world victorious trod;
     But Alexander still extends his glory:
     Caesar was man, but Alexander God."

As to the new pope, scarcely had he completed the formalities of
etiquette which his exaltation imposed upon him, and paid to each man
the price of his simony, when from the height of the Vatican he cast
his eyes upon Europe, a vast political game of chess, which he
cherished the hope of directing at the will of his own genius.




CHAPTER II

The world had now arrived at one of those supreme moments of history
when every thing is transformed between the end of one period and the
beginning of another: in the East Turkey, in the South Spain, in the
West France, and in the North German, all were going to assume,
together with the title of great Powers, that influence which they
were destined to exert in the future over the secondary States.
Accordingly we too, with Alexander VI, will cast a rapid glance over
them, and see what were their respective situations in regard to
Italy, which they all coveted as a prize.

Constantine, Palaeologos Dragozes, besieged by three hundred thousand
Turks, after having appealed in vain for aid to the whole of
Christendom, had not been willing to survive the loss of his empire,
and had been found in the midst of the dead, close to the Tophana
Gate; and on the 30th of May, 1453, Mahomet II had made his entry
into Constantinople, where, after a reign which had earned for him
the surname of 'Fatile', or the Conqueror, he had died leaving two
sons, the elder of whom had ascended the throne under the name of
Bajazet II.

The accession of the new sultan, however, had not taken place with
the tranquillity which his right as elder brother and his father's
choice of him should have promised.  His younger brother, D'jem,
better known under the name of Zizimeh, had argued that whereas he
was born in the purple--that is, born during the reign of Mahomet--
Bajazet was born prior to his epoch, and was therefore the son of a
private individual.  This was rather a poor trick; but where force is
all and right is naught, it was good enough to stir up a war.  The
two brothers, each at the head of an army, met accordingly in Asia in
1482.  D'jem was defeated after a seven hours' fight, and pursued by
his brother, who gave him no time to rally his army: he was obliged
to embark from Cilicia, and took refuge in Rhodes, where he implored
the protection of the Knights of St. John.  They, not daring to give
him an asylum in their island so near to Asia, sent him to France,
where they had him carefully guarded in one of their commanderies, in
spite of the urgency of Cait Bey, Sultan of Egypt, who, having
revolted against Bajazet, desired to have the young prince in his
army to give his rebellion the appearance of legitimate warfare.  The
same demand, moreover, with the same political object, had been made
successively by Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary, by Ferdinand, King
of Aragon and Sicily, and by Ferdinand, King of Naples.

On his side Bajazet, who knew all the importance of such a rival, if
he once allied himself with any one of the princes with whom he was
at war, had sent ambassadors to Charles VIII, offering, if he would
consent to keep D'jem with him, to give him a considerable pension,
and to give to France the sovereignty of the Holy Land, so soon as
Jerusalem should be conquered by the Sultan of Egypt.  The King of
France had accepted these terms.

But then Innocent VIII had intervened, and in his turn had claimed
D'jem, ostensibly to give support by the claims of the refugee to a
crusade which he was preaching against the Turks, but in reality to
appropriate the pension of 40,000 ducats to be given by Bajazet to
any one of the Christian princes who would undertake to be his
brother's gaoler.  Charles VIII had not dared to refuse to the
spiritual head of Christendom a request supported by such holy
reasons; and therefore D'jem had quitted France, accompanied by the
Grand Master d'Aubusson, under whose direct charge he was; but his
guardian had consented, for the sake of a cardinal's hat, to yield up
his prisoner.  Thus, on the 13th of March, 1489, the unhappy young
man, cynosure of so many interested eyes, made his solemn entry into
Rome, mounted on a superb horse, clothed in a magnificent oriental
costume, between the Prior of Auvergne, nephew of the Grand Master
d'Aubusson, and Francesco Cibo, the son of the pope.

After this he had remained there, and Bajazet, faithful to promises
which it was so much his interest to fulfil, had punctually paid to
the sovereign pontiff a pension of 40,000 ducats.

So much for Turkey.

Ferdinand and Isabella were reigning in Spain, and were laying the
foundations of that vast power which was destined, five-and-twenty
years later, to make Charles V declare that the sun never set on his
dominions.  In fact, these two sovereigns, on whom history has
bestowed the name of Catholic, had reconquered in succession nearly
all Spain, and driven the Moors out of Granada, their last
entrenchment; while two men of genius, Bartolome Diaz and Christopher
Columbus, had succeeded, much to the profit of Spain, the one in
recovering a lost world, the other in conquering a world yet unknown.
They had accordingly, thanks to their victories in the ancient world
and their discoveries in the new, acquired an influence at the court
of Rome which had never been enjoyed by any of their predecessors.

So much for Spain.

In France, Charles VIII had succeeded his father, Louis XI, on the
30th of August, 1483.  Louis by dint of executions, had tranquillised
his kingdom and smoothed the way for a child who ascended the throne
under the regency of a woman.  And the regency had been a glorious
one, and had put down the pretensions of princes of the blood, put an
end to civil wars, and united to the crown all that yet remained of
the great independent fiefs.  The result was that at the epoch where
we now are, here was Charles VIII, about twenty-two years of age, a
prince (if we are to believe La Tremouille) little of body but great
of heart; a child (if we are to believe Commines) only now making his
first flight from the nest, destitute of both sense and money, feeble
in person, full of self-will, and consorting rather with fools than
with the wise; lastly, if we are to believe Guicciardini, who was an
Italian, might well have brought a somewhat partial judgment to bear
upon the subject, a young man of little wit concerning the actions of
men, but carried away by an ardent desire for rule and the
acquisition of glory, a desire based far more on his shallow
character and impetuosity than on any consciousness of genius: he was
an enemy to all fatigue and all business, and when he tried to give
his attention to it he showed himself always totally wanting in
prudence and judgment.  If anything in him appeared at first sight to
be worthy of praise, on a closer inspection it was found to be
something nearer akin to vice than to virtue.  He was liberal, it is
true, but without thought, with no measure and no discrimination.  He
was sometimes inflexible in will; but this was through obstinacy
rather than a constant mind; and what his flatterers called goodness
deserved far more the name of insensibility to injuries or poverty of
spirit.

As to his physical appearance, if we are to believe the same author,
it was still less admirable, and answered marvellously to his
weakness of mind and character.  He was small, with a large head, a
short thick neck, broad chest, and high shoulders; his thighs and
legs were long and thin; and as his face also was ugly--and was only
redeemed by the dignity and force of his glance--and all his limbs
were disproportionate with one another, he had rather the appearance
of a monster than a man.  Such was he whom Fortune was destined to
make a conqueror, for whom Heaven was reserving more glory than he
had power to carry.

So much for France.

The Imperial throne was occupied by Frederic III, who had been
rightly named the Peaceful, not for the reason that he had always
maintained peace, but because, having constantly been beaten, he had
always been forced to make it.  The first proof he had given of this
very philosophical forbearance was during his journey to Rome,
whither he betook himself to be consecrated.  In crossing the
Apennines he was attacked by brigands.  They robbed him, but he made
no pursuit.  And so, encouraged by example and by the impunity of
lesser thieves, the greater ones soon took part in the robberies.
Amurath seized part of Hungary.  Mathias Corvinus took Lower Austria,
and Frederic consoled himself for these usurpations by repeating the
maxim, Forgetfulness is the best cure for the losses we suffer.  At
the time we have now reached, he had just, after a reign of fifty-
three years, affianced his son Maximilian to Marie of Burgundy and
had put under the ban of the Empire his son-in-law, Albert of
Bavaria, who laid claim to the ownership of the Tyrol.  He was
therefore too full of his family affairs to be troubled about Italy.
Besides, he was busy looking for a motto for the house of Austria, an
occupation of the highest importance for a man of the character of
Frederic III.  This motto, which Charles V was destined almost to
render true, was at last discovered, to the great joy of the old
emperor, who, judging that he had nothing more to do on earth after
he had given this last proof of sagacity, died on the 19th of August,
1493; leaving the empire to his son Maximilian.

This motto was simply founded on the five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, the
initial letters of these five words

          "AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO."

This means

"It is the destiny of Austria to rule over the whole world."

So much for Germany.

Now that we have cast a glance over the four nations which were on
the way, as we said before, to become European Powers, let us turn
our attention to those secondary States which formed a circle more
contiguous to Rome, and whose business it was to serve as armour, so
to speak, to the spiritual queen of the world, should it please any
of these political giants whom we have described to make
encroachments with a view to an attack, on the seas or the mountains,
the Adriatic Gulf or the Alps, the Mediterranean or the Apennines.

These were the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, the magnificent
republic of Florence, and the most serene republic of Venice.

The kingdom of Naples was in the hands of the old Ferdinand, whose
birth was not only illegitimate, but probably also well within the
prohibited degrees.  His father, Alfonso of Aragon, received his
crown from Giovanna of Naples, who had adopted him as her successor.
But since, in the fear of having no heir, the queen on her deathbed
had named two instead of one, Alfonso had to sustain his rights
against Rene.  The two aspirants for some time disputed the crown.
At last the house of Aragon carried the day over the house of Anjou,
and in the course of the year 1442, Alfonso definitely secured his
seat on the throne.  Of this sort were the claims of the defeated
rival which we shall see Charles VIII maintaining later on.
Ferdinand had neither the courage nor the genius of his father, and
yet he triumphed over his enemies, one after another he had two
rivals, both far superior in merit to him self.  The one was his
nephew, the Count of Viana, who, basing his claim on his uncle's
shameful birth, commanded the whole Aragonese party; the other was
Duke John of Calabria, who commanded the whole Angevin party.  Still
he managed to hold the two apart, and to keep himself on the throne
by dint of his prudence, which often verged upon duplicity.  He had a
cultivated mind, and had studied the sciences--above all, law.  He
was of middle height, with a large handsome head, his brow open and
admirably framed in beautiful white hair, which fell nearly down to
his shoulders.  Moreover, though he had rarely exercised his physical
strength in arms, this strength was so great that one day, when he
happened to be on the square of the Mercato Nuovo at Naples, he
seized by the horns a bull that had escaped and stopped him short, in
spite of all the efforts the animal made to escape from his hands.
Now the election of Alexander had caused him great uneasiness, and in
spite of his usual prudence he had not been able to restrain himself
from saying before the bearer of the news that not only did he fail
to rejoice in this election, but also that he did not think that any
Christian could rejoice in it, seeing that Borgia, having always been
a bad man, would certainly make a bad pope.  To this he added that,
even were the choice an excellent one and such as would please
everybody else, it would be none the less fatal to the house of
Aragon, although Roderigo was born her subject and owed to her the
origin and progress of his fortunes; for wherever reasons of state
come in, the ties of blood and parentage are soon forgotten, and,
'a fortiori', relations arising from the obligations of nationality.

Thus, one may see that Ferdinand judged Alexander VI with his usual
perspicacity; this, however, did not hinder him, as we shall soon
perceive, from being the first to contract an alliance with him.

The duchy of Milan belonged nominally to John Galeazzo, grandson of
Francesco Sforza, who had seized it by violence on the 26th of
February, 1450, and bequeathed it to his son, Galeazzo Maria, father
of the young prince now reigning; we say nominally, because the real
master of the Milanese was at this period not the legitimate heir who
was supposed to possess it, but his uncle Ludovico, surnamed
'il Moro', because of the mulberry tree which he bore in his arms.
After being exiled with his two brothers, Philip who died of poison
in 1479, and Ascanio who became the cardinal, he returned to Milan
some days after the assassination of Galeazzo Maria, which took place
on the 26th of December 1476, in St.  Stephen's Church, and assumed
the regency for the young duke, who at that time was only eight years
old.  From now onward, even after his nephew had reached the age of
two-and-twenty, Ludovico continued to rule, and according to all
probabilities was destined to rule a long time yet; for, some days
after the poor young man had shown a desire to take the reins
himself, he had fallen sick, and it was said, and not in a whisper,
that he had taken one of those slow but mortal poisons of which
princes made so frequent a use at this period, that, even when a
malady was natural, a cause was always sought connected with some
great man's interests.  However it may have been, Ludovico had
relegated his nephew, now too weak to busy himself henceforward with
the affairs of his duchy, to the castle of Pavia, where he lay and
languished under the eyes of his wife Isabella, daughter of King
Ferdinand of Naples.

As to Ludovico, he was an ambitious man, full of courage and
astuteness, familiar with the sword and with poison, which he used
alternately, according to the occasion, without feeling any
repugnance or any predilection for either of them; but quite decided
to be his nephew's heir whether he died or lived.

Florence, although she had preserved the name of a republic, had
little by little lost all her liberties, and belonged in fact, if not
by right, to Piero dei Medici, to whom she had been bequeathed as a
paternal legacy by Lorenzo, as we have seen, at the risk of his
soul's salvation.

The son, unfortunately, was far from having the genius of his father:
he was handsome, it is true, whereas Lorenzo, on the contrary, was
remarkably ugly; he had an agreeable, musical voice, whereas Lorenzo
had always spoken through his nose; he was instructed in Latin and
Greek, his conversation was pleasant and easy, and he improvised
verses almost as well as the so-called Magnificent; but he was both
ignorant of political affairs and haughtily insolent in his behaviour
to those who had made them their study.  Added to this, he was an
ardent lover of pleasure, passionately addicted to women, incessantly
occupied with bodily exercises that should make him shine in their
eyes, above all with tennis, a game at which he very highly excelled:
he promised himself that, when the period of mourning was fast, he
would occupy the attention not only of Florence but of the whole of
Italy, by the splendour of his courts and the renown of his fetes.
Piero dei Medici had at any rate formed this plan; but Heaven decreed
otherwise.

As to the most serene republic of Venice, whose doge was Agostino
Barbarigo, she had attained, at the time we have reached, to her
highest degree of power and splendour.  From Cadiz to the Palus
Maeotis, there was no port that was not open to her thousand ships;
she possessed in Italy, beyond the coastline of the canals and the
ancient duchy of Venice, the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Crema,
Verona, Vicenza, and Padua; she owned the marches of Treviso, which
comprehend the districts of Feltre, Belluno, Cadore, Polesella of
Rovigo, and the principality of Ravenna; she also owned the Friuli,
except Aquileia; Istria, except Trieste; she owned, on the east side
of the Gulf, Zara, Spalatra, and the shore of Albania; in the Ionian
Sea, the islands of Zante and Corfu; in Greece, Lepanto and Patras;
in the Morea, Morone, Corone, Neapolis, and Argos; lastly, in the
Archipelago, besides several little towns and stations on the coast,
she owned Candia and the kingdom of Cyprus.

Thus from the mouth of the Po to the eastern extremity of the
Mediterranean, the most serene republic was mistress of the whole
coastline, and Italy and Greece seemed to be mere suburbs of Venice.

In the intervals of space left free between Naples, Milan, Florence,
and Venice, petty tyrants had arisen who exercised an absolute
sovereignty over their territories: thus the Colonnas were at Ostia
and at Nettuna, the Montefeltri at Urbino, the Manfredi at Faenza,
the Bentivogli at Bologna, the Malatesta family at Rimini, the
Vitelli at Citta di Castello, the Baglioni at Perugia, the Orsini at
Vicovaro, and the princes of Este at Ferrara.

Finally, in the centre of this immense circle, composed of great
Powers, of secondary States, and of little tyrannies, Rome was set on
high, the most exalted, yet the weakest of all, without influence,
without lands, without an army, without gold.  It was the concern of
the new pope to secure all this: let us see, therefore, what manner
of man was this Alexander VI, for undertaking and accomplishing such
a project.




CHAPTER III

RODERIGO LENZUOLO was barn at Valencia, in Spain, in 1430 or 1431,
and on his mother's side was descended, as some writers declare, of a
family of royal blood, which had cast its eyes on the tiara only
after cherishing hopes of the crowns of Aragon and Valencia.
Roderigo from his infancy had shown signs of a marvellous quickness
of mind, and as he grew older he exhibited an intelligence extremely
apt far the study of sciences, especially law and jurisprudence: the
result was that his first distinctions were gained in the law, a
profession wherein he soon made a great reputation by his ability in
the discussion of the most thorny cases.  All the same, he was not
slow to leave this career, and abandoned it quite suddenly for the
military profession, which his father had followed; but after various
actions which served to display his presence of mind and courage, he
was as much disgusted with this profession as with the other; and
since it happened that at the very time he began to feel this disgust
his father died, leaving a considerable fortune, he resolved to do no
more work, but to live according to his own fancies and caprices.
About this time he became the lover of a widow who had two daughters.
The widow dying, Roderigo took the girls under his protection, put
one into a convent, and as the other was one of the loveliest women
imaginable, made her his mistress.  This was the notorious Rosa
Vanozza, by whom he had five children--Francesco, Caesar, Lucrezia,
and Goffredo; the name of the fifth is unknown.

Roderigo, retired from public affairs, was given up entirely to the
affections of a lover and a father, when he heard that his uncle, who
loved him like a son, had been elected pope under the name of
Calixtus III.  But the young man was at this time so much a lover
that love imposed silence on ambition; and indeed he was almost
terrified at the exaltation of his uncle, which was no doubt destined
to force him once more into public life.  Consequently, instead of
hurrying to Rome, as anyone else in his place would have done, he was
content to indite to His Holiness a letter in which he begged for the
continuation of his favours, and wished him a long and happy reign.

This reserve on the part of one of his relatives, contrasted with the
ambitious schemes which beset the new pope at every step, struck
Calixtus III in a singular way: he knew the stuff that was in young
Roderigo, and at a time when he was besieged on all sides by
mediocrities, this powerful nature holding modestly aside gained new
grandeur in his eyes so he replied instantly to Roderigo that on the
receipt of his letter he must quit Spain for Italy, Valencia for
Rome.

This letter uprooted Roderigo from the centre of happiness he had
created for himself, and where he might perhaps have slumbered on
like an ordinary man, if fortune had not thus interposed to drag him
forcibly away.  Roderigo was happy, Roderigo was rich; the evil
passions which were natural to him had been, if not extinguished,--at
least lulled; he was frightened himself at the idea of changing the
quiet life he was leading for the ambitious, agitated career that was
promised him; and instead of obeying his uncle, he delayed the
preparations for departure, hoping that Calixtus would forget him.
It was not so: two months after he received the letter from the pope,
there arrived at Valencia a prelate from Rome, the bearer of
Roderigo's nomination to a benefice worth 20,000 ducats a year, and
also a positive order to the holder of the post to come and take
possession of his charge as soon as possible.

Holding back was no longer feasible: so Roderigo obeyed; but as he
did not wish to be separated from the source whence had sprung eight
years of happiness, Rosa Vanozza also left Spain, and while he was
going to Rome, she betook herself to Venice, accompanied by two
confidential servants, and under the protection of a Spanish
gentleman named Manuel Melchior.

Fortune kept the promises she had made to Roderigo: the pope received
him as a son, and made him successively Archbishop of Valencia,
Cardinal-Deacon, and Vice-Chancellor.  To all these favours Calixtus
added a revenue of 20,000 ducats, so that at the age of scarcely
thirty-five Roderigo found himself the equal of a prince in riches
and power.

Roderigo had had some reluctance about accepting the cardinalship,
which kept him fast at Rome, and would have preferred to be General
of the Church, a position which would have allowed him more liberty
for seeing his mistress and his family; but his uncle Calixtus made
him reckon with the possibility of being his successor some day, and
from that moment the idea of being the supreme head of kings and
nations took such hold of Roderigo, that he no longer had any end in
view but that which his uncle had made him entertain.

From that day forward, there began to grow up in the young cardinal
that talent for hypocrisy which made of him the most perfect
incarnation of the devil that has perhaps ever existed; and Roderigo
was no longer the same man: with words of repentance and humility on
his lips, his head bowed as though he were bearing the weight of his
past sins, disparaging the riches which he had acquired and which,
according to him, were the wealth of the poor and ought to return to
the poor, he passed his life in churches, monasteries, and hospitals,
acquiring, his historian tells us, even in the eyes of his enemies,
the reputation of a Solomon for wisdom, of a Job for patience, and of
a very Moses for his promulgation of the word of God: Rosa Vanozza
was the only person in the world who could appreciate the value of
this pious cardinal's conversion.

It proved a lucky thing for Roderiga that he had assumed this pious
attitude, for his protector died after a reign of three years three
months and nineteen days, and he was now sustained by his own merit
alone against the numerous enemies he had made by his rapid rise to
fortune: so during the whole of the reign of Pius II he lived always
apart from public affairs, and only reappeared in the days of Sixtus
IV, who made him the gift of the abbacy of Subiaco, and sent him in
the capacity of ambassador to the kings of Aragon and Portugal.  On
his return, which took place during the pontificate of Innocent VIII,
he decided to fetch his family at last to Rome: thither they came,
escorted by Don Manuel Melchior, who from that moment passed as the
husband of Rosa Vanozza, and took the name of Count Ferdinand of
Castile.  The Cardinal Roderigo received the noble Spaniard as a
countryman and a friend; and he, who expected to lead a most retired
life, engaged a house in the street of the Lungara, near the church
of Regina Coeli, on the banks of the Tiber.  There it was that, after
passing the day in prayers and pious works, Cardinal Roderigo used to
repair each evening and lay aside his mask.  And it was said, though
nobody could prove it, that in this house infamous scenes passed:
Report said the dissipations were of so dissolute a character that
their equals had never been seen in Rome.  With a view to checking
the rumours that began to spread abroad, Roderigo sent Caesar to
study at Pisa, and married Lucrezia to a young gentleman of Aragon;
thus there only remained at home Rosa Vanozza and her two sons: such
was the state of things when Innocent VIII died and Roderigo Borgia
was proclaimed pope.

We have seen by what means the nomination was effected; and so the
five cardinals who had taken no part in this simony--namely, the
Cardinals of Naples, Sierra, Portugal, Santa Maria-in-Porticu, and
St. Peter-in-Vinculis--protested loudly against this election, which
they treated as a piece of jobbery; but Roderigo had none the less,
however it was done, secured his majority; Roderigo was none the less
the two hundred and sixtieth successor of St. Peter.

Alexander VI, however, though he had arrived at his object, did not
dare throw off at first the mask which the Cardinal Bargia had worn
so long, although when he was apprised of his election he could not
dissimulate his joy; indeed, on hearing the favourable result of the
scrutiny, he lifted his hands to heaven and cried, in the accents of
satisfied ambition, "Am I then pope?  Am I then Christ's vicar?  Am I
then the keystone of the Christian world?"

"Yes, holy father," replied Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the same who had
sold to Roderigo the nine votes that were at his disposal at the
Conclave for four mules laden with silver; "and we hope by your
election to give glory to God, repose to the Church, and joy to
Christendom, seeing that you have been chosen by the Almighty Himself
as the most worthy among all your brethren."

But in the short interval occupied by this reply, the new pope had
already assumed the papal authority, and in a humble voice and with
hands crossed upon his breast, he spoke:

"We hope that God will grant us His powerful aid, in spite of our
weakness, and that He will do for us that which He did for the
apostle when aforetime He put into his hands the keys of heaven and
entrusted to him the government of the Church, a government which
without the aid of God would prove too heavy a burden for mortal man;
but God promised that His Spirit should direct him; God will do the
same, I trust, for us; and for your part we fear not lest any of you
fail in that holy obedience which is due unto the head of the Church,
even as the flock of Christ was bidden to follow the prince of the
apostles."

Having spoken these words, Alexander donned the pontifical robes, and
through the windows of the Vatican had strips of paper thrown out on
which his name was written in Latin.  These, blown by the wind,
seemed to convey to the whole world the news of the great event which
was about to change the face of Italy.  The same day couriers started
for all the courts of Europe.

Caesar Borgia learned the news of his father's election at the
University of Pisa, where he was a student.  His ambition had
sometimes dreamed of such good fortune, yet his joy was little short
of madness.  He was then a young man, about twenty-two or twenty-four
years of age, skilful in all bodily exercises, and especially in
fencing; he could ride barebacked the most fiery steeds, could cut
off the head of a bull at a single sword-stroke; moreover, he was
arrogant, jealous, and insincere.  According to Tammasi, he was great
among the godless, as his brother Francesco was good among the great.
As to his face, even contemporary authors have left utterly different
descriptions; for same have painted him as a monster of ugliness,
while others, on the contrary, extol his beauty.  This contradiction
is due to the fact that at certain times of the year, and especially
in the spring, his face was covered with an eruption which, so long
as it lasted, made him an object of horror and disgust, while all the
rest of the year he was the sombre, black-haired cavalier with pale
skin and tawny beard whom Raphael shows us in the fine portrait he
made of him.  And historians, both chroniclers and painters, agree as
to his fixed and powerful gaze, behind which burned a ceaseless
flame, giving to his face something infernal and superhuman.  Such
was the man whose fortune was to fulfil all his desires.  He had
taken for his motto, 'Aut Caesar, aut nihil': Caesar or nothing.

Caesar posted to Rome with certain of his friends, and scarcely was
he recognised at the gates of the city when the deference shown to
him gave instant proof of the change in his fortunes: at the Vatican
the respect was twice as great; mighty men bowed down before him as
before one mightier than themselves.  And so, in his impatience, he
stayed not to visit his mother or any other member of his family, but
went straight to the pope to kiss his feet; and as the pope had been
forewarned of his coming, he awaited him in the midst of a brilliant
and numerous assemblage of cardinals, with the three other brothers
standing behind him.  His Holiness received Caesar with a gracious
countenance; still, he did not allow himself any demonstration of his
paternal love, but, bending towards him, kissed him on the forehead,
and inquired how he was and how he had fared on his journey.  Caesar
replied that he was wonderfully well, and altogether at the service
of His Holiness: that, as to the journey, the trifling inconveniences
and short fatigue had been compensated, and far mare than
compensated, by the joy which he felt in being able to adore upon the
papal throne a pope who was so worthy.  At these words, leaving
Caesar still on his knees, and reseating himself--for he had risen
from his seat to embrace him--the pope assumed a grave and composed
expression of face, and spoke as follows, loud enough to be heard by
all, and slowly enough far everyone present to be able to ponder and
retain in his memory even the least of his words:

"We are convinced, Caesar, that you are peculiarly rejoiced in
beholding us on this sublime height, so far above our deserts,
whereto it has pleased the Divine goodness to exalt us.  This joy of
yours is first of all our due because of the love we have always
borne you and which we bear you still, and in the second place is
prompted by your own personal interest, since henceforth you may feel
sure of receiving from our pontifical hand those benefits which your
own good works shall deserve.  But if your joy--and this we say to
you as we have even now said to your brothers--if your joy is founded
on ought else than this, you are very greatly mistaken, Caesar, and
you will find yourself sadly deceived. Perhaps we have been
ambitious--we confess this humbly before the face of all men--
passionately and immoderately ambitious to attain to the dignity of
sovereign pontiff, and to reach this end we have followed every path
that is open to human industry; but we have acted thus, vowing an
inward vow that when once we had reached our goal, we would follow no
other path but that which conduces best to the service of God and to
the advancement of the Holy See, so that the glorious memory of the
deeds that we shall do may efface the shameful recollection of the
deeds we have already done.  Thus shall we, let us hope, leave to
those who follow us a track where upon if they find not the footsteps
of a saint, they may at least tread in the path of a true pontiff.
God, who has furthered the means, claims at our hands the fruits, and
we desire to discharge to the full this mighty debt that we have
incurred to Him; and accordingly we refuse to arouse by any deceit
the stern rigour of His judgments.  One sole hindrance could have
power to shake our good intentions, and that might happen should we
feel too keen an interest in your fortunes.  Therefore are we armed
beforehand against our love, and therefore have we prayed to God
beforehand that we stumble not because of you; for in the path of
favouritism a pope cannot slip without a fall, and cannot fall
without injury and dishonour to the Holy See.  Even to the end of our
life we shall deplore the faults which have brought this experience
home to us; and may it please Gad that our uncle Calixtus of blessed
memory bear not this day in purgatory the burden of our sins, more
heavy, alas, than his own!  Ah, he was rich in every virtue, he was
full of good intentions; but he loved too much his own people, and
among them he loved me chief.  And so he suffered this love to lead
him blindly astray, all this love that he bore to his kindred, who to
him were too truly flesh of his flesh, so that he heaped upon the
heads of a few persons only, and those perhaps the least worthy,
benefits which would more fittingly have rewarded the deserts of
many.  In truth, he bestowed upon our house treasures that should
never have been amassed at the expense of the poor, or else should
have been turned to a better purpose.  He severed from the
ecclesiastical State, already weak and poor, the duchy of Spoleto and
other wealthy properties, that he might make them fiefs to us; he
confided to our weak hands the vice-chancellorship, the vice-
prefecture of Rome, the generalship of the Church, and all the other
most important offices, which, instead of being monopolised by us,
should have been conferred on those who were most meritorious.
Moreover, there were persons who were raised on our recommendation to
posts of great dignity, although they had no claims but such as our
undue partiality accorded them; others were left out with no reason
for their failure except the jealousy excited in us by their virtues.
To rob Ferdinand of Aragon of the kingdom of Naples, Calixtus kindled
a terrible war, which by a happy issue only served to increase our
fortune, and by an unfortunate issue must have brought shame and
disaster upon the Holy See.  Lastly, by allowing himself to be
governed by men who sacrificed public good to their private
interests, he inflicted an injury, not only upon the pontifical
throne and his own reputation, but what is far worse, far more
deadly, upon his own conscience.  And yet, O wise judgments of God!
hard and incessantly though he toiled to establish our fortunes,
scarcely had he left empty that supreme seat which we occupy to-day,
when we were cast down from the pinnacle whereon we had climbed,
abandoned to the fury of the rabble and the vindictive hatred of the
Roman barons, who chose to feel offended by our goodness to their
enemies.  Thus, not only, we tell you, Caesar, not only did we plunge
headlong from the summit of our grandeur, losing the worldly goods
and dignities which our uncle had heaped at our feet, but for very
peril of our life we were condemned to a voluntary exile, we and our
friends, and in this way only did we contrive to escape the storm
which our too good fortune had stirred up against us.  Now this is a
plain proof that God mocks at men's designs when they are bad ones.
How great an error is it for any pope to devote more care to the
welfare of a house, which cannot last more than a few years, than to
the glory of the Church, which will last for ever!  What utter folly
for any public man whose position is not inherited and cannot be
bequeathed to his posterity, to support the edifice of his grandeur
on any other basis than the noblest virtue practised for the general
good, and to suppose that he can ensure the continuance of his own
fortune otherwise than by taking all precautions against sudden
whirlwinds which are want to arise in the midst of a calm, and to
blow up the storm-clouds I mean the host of enemies.  Now any one of
these enemies who does his worst can cause injuries far more powerful
than any help that is at all likely to come from a hundred friends
and their lying promises.  If you and your brothers walk in the path
of virtue which we shall now open for you, every wish of your heart
shall be instantly accomplished; but if you take the other path, if
you have ever hoped that our affection will wink at disorderly life,
then you will very soon find out that we are truly pope, Father of
the Church, not father of the family; that, vicar of Christ as we
are, we shall act as we deem best for Christendom, and not as you
deem best for your own private good.  And now that we have come to a
thorough understanding, Caesar, receive our pontifical blessing."
And with these words, Alexander VI rose up, laid his hands upon his
son's head, for Caesar was still kneeling, and then retired into his
apartments, without inviting him to follow.

The young man remained awhile stupefied at this discourse, so utterly
unexpected, so utterly destructive at one fell blow to his most
cherished hopes.  He rose giddy and staggering like a drunken man,
and at once leaving the Vatican, hurried to his mother, whom he had
forgotten before, but sought now in his despair.  Rosa Vanozza
possessed all the vices and all the virtues of a Spanish courtesan;
her devotion to the Virgin amounted to superstition, her fondness for
her children to weakness, and her love for Roderigo to sensuality.
In the depth of her heart she relied on the influence she had been
able to exercise over him for nearly thirty years; and like a snake,
she knew haw to envelop him in her coils when the fascination of her
glance had lost its power.  Rosa knew of old the profound hypocrisy
of her lover, and thus she was in no difficulty about reassuring
Caesar.

Lucrezia was with her mother when Caesar arrived; the two young
people exchanged a lover-like kiss beneath her very eyes: and before
he left Caesar had made an appointment for the same evening with
Lucrezia, who was now living apart from her husband, to whom Roderigo
paid a pension in her palace of the Via del Pelegrino, opposite the
Campo dei Fiori, and there enjoying perfect liberty.

In the evening, at the hour fixed, Caesar appeared at Lucrezia's; but
he found there his brother Francesco.  The two young men had never
been friends.  Still, as their tastes were very different, hatred
with Francesco was only the fear of the deer for the hunter; but with
Caesar it was the desire for vengeance and that lust for blood which
lurks perpetually in the heart of a tiger.  The two brothers none the
less embraced, one from general kindly feeling, the other from
hypocrisy; but at first sight of one another the sentiment of a
double rivalry, first in their father's and then in their sister's
good graces, had sent the blood mantling to the cheek of Francesco,
and called a deadly pallor into Caesar's.  So the two young men sat
on, each resolved not to be the first to leave, when all at once
there was a knock at the door, and a rival was announced before whom
both of them were bound to give way: it was their father.

Rosa Vanazza was quite right in comforting Caesar.  Indeed, although
Alexander VI had repudiated the abuses of nepotism, he understood
very well the part that was to be played for his benefit by his sons
and his daughter; for he knew he could always count on Lucrezia and
Caesar, if not on Francesco and Goffredo.  In these matters the
sister was quite worthy of her brother.  Lucrezia was wanton in
imagination, godless by nature, ambitious and designing: she had a
craving for pleasure, admiration, honours, money, jewels, gorgeous
stuffs, and magnificent mansions.  A true Spaniard beneath her golden
tresses, a courtesan beneath her frank looks, she carried the head of
a Raphael Madonna, and concealed the heart of a Messalina.  She was
dear to Roderigo both as daughter and as mistress, and he saw himself
reflected in her as in a magic mirror, every passion and every vice.
Lucrezia and Caesar were accordingly the best beloved of his heart,
and the three composed that diabolical trio which for eleven years
occupied the pontifical throne, like a mocking parody of the heavenly
Trinity.

Nothing occurred at first to give the lie to Alexander's professions
of principle in the discourse he addressed to Caesar, and the first
year of his pontificate exceeded all the hopes of Rome at the time of
his election.  He arranged for the provision of stores in the public
granaries with such liberality, that within the memory of man there
had never been such astonishing abundance; and with a view to
extending the general prosperity to the lowest class, he organised
numerous doles to be paid out of his private fortune, which made it
possible for the very poor to participate in the general banquet from
which they had been excluded for long enough.  The safety of the city
was secured, from the very first days of his accession, by the
establishment of a strong and vigilant police force, and a tribunal
consisting of four magistrates of irreproachable character, empowered
to prosecute all nocturnal crimes, which during the last pontificate
had been so common that their very numbers made impunity certain:
these judges from the first showed a severity which neither the rank
nor the purse of the culprit could modify.  This presented such a
great contrast to the corruption of the last reign,--in the course of
which the vice-chamberlain one day remarked in public, when certain
people were complaining of the venality of justice, "God wills not
that a sinner die, but that he live and pay,"--that the capital of
the Christian world felt for one brief moment restored to the happy
days of the papacy.  So, at the end of a year, Alexander VI had
reconquered that spiritual credit, so to speak, which his
predecessors lost.  His political credit was still to be established,
if he was to carry out the first part of his gigantic scheme.  To
arrive at this, he must employ two agencies--alliances and conquests.
His plan was to begin with alliances.  The gentleman of Aragon who
had married Lucrezia when she was only the daughter of Cardinal
Roderigo Borgia was not a man powerful enough, either by birth and
fortune or by intellect, to enter with any sort of effect into the
plots and plans of Alexander VI; the separation was therefore changed
into a divorce, and Lucrezia Borgia was now free to remarry.
Alexander opened up two negotiations at the same time: he needed an
ally to keep a watch on the policy of the neighbouring States.  John
Sforza, grandson of Alexander Sforza, brother of the great Francis I,
Duke of Milan, was lord of Pesaro; the geographical situation of this
place, an the coast, on the way between Florence and Venice, was
wonderfully convenient for his purpose; so Alexander first cast an
eye upon him, and as the interest of both parties was evidently the
same, it came about that John Sforza was very soon Lucrezia's second
husband.

At the same time overtures had been made to Alfonso of Aragon, heir
presumptive to the crown of Naples, to arrange a marriage between
Dana Sancia, his illegitimate daughter, and Goffreda, the pope's
third son; but as the old Ferdinand wanted to make the best bargain
he could out of it; he dragged on the negotiations as long as
possible, urging that the two children were not of marriageable age,
and so, highly honoured as he felt in such a prospective alliance,
there was no hurry about the engagement.  Matters stopped at this
point, to the great annoyance of Alexander VI, who saw through this
excuse, and understood that the postponement was nothing more or less
than a refusal.  Accordingly Alexander and Ferdinand remained in
statu quo, equals in the political game, both on the watch till
events should declare for one or other.  The turn of fortune was for
Alexander.

Italy, though tranquil, was instinctively conscious that her calm was
nothing but the lull which goes before a storm.  She was too rich and
too happy to escape the envy of other nations.  As yet the plains of
Pisa had not been reduced to marsh-lands by the combined negligence
and jealousy of the Florentine Republic, neither had the rich country
that lay around Rome been converted into a barren desert by the wars
of the Colonna and Orsini families; not yet had the Marquis of
Marignan razed to the ground a hundred and twenty villages in the
republic of Siena alone; and though the Maremma was unhealthy, it was
not yet a poisonous marsh: it is a fact that Flavio Blando, writing
in 1450, describes Ostia as being merely less flourishing than in the
days of the Romans, when she had numbered 50,000 inhabitants, whereas
now in our own day there are barely 30 in all.

The Italian peasants were perhaps the most blest on the face of the
earth: instead of living scattered about the country in solitary
fashion, they lived in villages that were enclosed by walls as a
protection for their harvests, animals, and farm implements; their
houses--at any rate those that yet stand--prove that they lived in
much more comfortable and beautiful surroundings than the ordinary
townsman of our day.  Further, there was a community of interests,
and many people collected together in the fortified villages, with
the result that little by little they attained to an importance never
acquired by the boorish French peasants or the German serfs; they
bore arms, they had a common treasury, they elected their own
magistrates, and whenever they went out to fight, it was to save
their common country.

Also commerce was no less flourishing than agriculture; Italy at this
period was rich in industries--silk, wool, hemp, fur, alum, sulphur,
bitumen; those products which the Italian soil could not bring forth
were imported, from the Black Sea, from Egypt, from Spain, from
France, and often returned whence they came, their worth doubled by
labour and fine workmanship.  The rich man brought his merchandise,
the poor his industry: the one was sure of finding workmen, the other
was sure of finding work.

Art also was by no means behindhand: Dante, Giotto, Brunelleschi,
and Donatello were dead, but Ariosto, Raphael, Bramante, and Michael
Angelo were now living.  Rome, Florence, and Naples had inherited the
masterpieces of antiquity; and the manuscripts of AEschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides had come (thanks to the conquest of Mahomet
II) to rejoin the statue of Xanthippus and the works of Phidias and
Praxiteles.  The principal sovereigns of Italy had come to
understand, when they let their eyes dwell upon the fat harvests, the
wealthy villages, the flourishing manufactories, and the marvellous
churches, and then compared with them the poor and rude nations of
fighting men who surrounded them on all sides, that some day or other
they were destined to become for other countries what America was for
Spain, a vast gold-mine for them to work.  In consequence of this, a
league offensive and defensive had been signed, about 1480, by
Naples, Milan, Florence, and Ferrara, prepared to take a stand
against enemies within or without, in Italy or outside.  Ludovico
Sforza, who was more than anyone else interested in maintaining this
league, because he was nearest to France, whence the storm seemed to
threaten, saw in the new pope's election means not only of
strengthening the league, but of making its power and unity
conspicuous in the sight of Europe.




CHAPTER IV

On the occasion of each new election to the papacy, it is the custom
for all the Christian States to send a solemn embassy to Rome, to
renew their oath of allegiance to the Holy Father.  Ludovico Sforza
conceived the idea that the ambassadors of the four Powers should
unite and make their entry into Rome on the same day, appointing one
of their envoy, viz. the representative of the King of Naples, to be
spokesman for all four.  Unluckily, this plan did not agree with the
magnificent projects of Piero dei Medici.  That proud youth, who had
been appointed ambassador of the Florentine Republic, had seen in the
mission entrusted to him by his fellow-citizens the means of making a
brilliant display of his own wealth.  From the day of his nomination
onwards, his palace was constantly filled with tailors, jewellers,
and merchants of priceless stuffs; magnificent clothes had been made
for him, embroidered with precious stones which he had selected from
the family treasures.  All his jewels, perhaps the richest in Italy,
were distributed about the liveries of his pages, and one of them,
his favourite, was to wear a collar of pearls valued by itself at
100,000 ducats, or almost, a million of our francs.  In his party the
Bishop of Arezzo, Gentile, who had once been Lorenzo dei Medici's
tutor, was elected as second ambassador, and it was his duty to
speak.  Now Gentile, who had prepared his speech, counted on his
eloquence to charm the ear quite as much as Piero counted on his
riches to dazzle the eye.  But the eloquence of Gentile would be lost
completely if nobody was to speak but the ambassador of the King of
Naples; and the magnificence of Piero dei Medici would never be
noticed at all if he went to Rome mixed up with all the other
ambassadors.  These two important interests, compromised by the Duke
of Milan's proposition, changed the whole face of Italy.

Ludovico Sforza had already made sure of Ferdinand's promise to
conform to the plan he had invented, when the old king, at the
solicitation of Piero, suddenly drew back.  Sforza found out how this
change had come about, and learned that it was Piero's influence that
had overmastered his own.  He could not disentangle the real motives
that had promised the change, and imagined there was some secret
league against himself: he attributed the changed political programme
to the death of Lorenzo dei Medici.  But whatever its cause might be,
it was evidently prejudicial to his own interests: Florence, Milan's
old ally, was abandoning her for Naples.  He resolved to throw a
counter weight into the scales; so, betraying to Alexander the policy
of Piero and Ferdinand, he proposed to form a defensive and offensive
alliance with him and admit the republic of Venice; Duke Hercules III
of Ferrara was also to be summoned to pronounce for one or other of
the two leagues.  Alexander VI, wounded by Ferdinand's treatment of
himself, accepted Ludovico Sforza's proposition, and an Act of
Confederation was signed on the 22nd of April, 1493, by which the new
allies pledged themselves to set on foot for the maintenance of the
public peace an army of 20,000 horse and 6,000 infantry.

Ferdinand was frightened when he beheld the formation of this league;
but he thought he could neutralise its effects by depriving Ludovico
Sforza of his regency, which he had already kept beyond the proper
time, though as yet he was not strictly an usurper.  Although the
young Galeazzo, his nephew, had reached the age of two-and-twenty,
Ludovico Sforza none the less continued regent.  Now Ferdinand
definitely proposed to the Duke of Milan that he should resign the
sovereign power into the hands of his nephew, on pain of being
declared an usurper.

This was a bold stroke; but there was a risk of inciting Ludovico
Sforza to start one of those political plots that he was so familiar
with, never recoiling from any situation, however dangerous it might
be.  This was exactly what happened: Sforza, uneasy about his duchy,
resolved to threaten Ferdinand's kingdom.

Nothing could be easier: he knew the warlike nations of Charles VIII,
and the pretensions of the house of France to the kingdom of Naples.
He sent two ambassadors to invite the young king to claim the rights
of Anjou usurped by Aragon; and with a view to reconciling Charles to
so distant and hazardous an expedition, offered him a free and
friendly passage through his own States.

Such a proposition was welcome to Charles VIII, as we might suppose
from our knowledge of his character; a magnificent prospect was
opened to him as by an enchanter: what Ludovica Sforza was offering
him was virtually the command of the Mediterranean, the protectorship
of the whole of Italy; it was an open road, through Naples and
Venice, that well might lead to the conquest of Turkey or the Holy
Land, if he ever had the fancy to avenge the disasters of Nicapolis
and Mansourah.  So the proposition was accepted, and a secret
alliance was signed, with Count Charles di Belgiojasa and the Count
of Cajazza acting for Ludovica Sforza, and the Bishop of St. Malo and
Seneschal de Beaucaire far Charles VIII.  By this treaty it was
agreed:--

That the King of France should attempt the conquest of the kingdom of
Naples;

That the Duke of Milan should grant a passage to the King of France
through his territories, and accompany him with five hundred lances;

That the Duke of Milan should permit the King of France to send out
as many ships of war as he pleased from Genoa;

Lastly, that the Duke of Milan should lend the King of France 200,000
ducats, payable when he started.

On his side, Charles VIII agreed:--

To defend the personal authority of Ludowico Sforza over the duchy of
Milan against anyone who might attempt to turn him out;

To keep two hundred French lances always in readiness to help the
house of Sforza, at Asti, a town belonging to the Duke of Orleans by
the inheritance of his mother, Valentina Visconti;

Lastly, to hand over to his ally the principality of Tarentum
immediately after the conquest of Naples was effected.

This treaty was scarcely concluded when Charles VIII, who exaggerated
its advantages, began to dream of freeing himself from every let or
hindrance to the expedition.  Precautions were necessary; for his
relations with the great Powers were far from being what he could
have wished.

Indeed, Henry VII had disembarked at Calais with a formidable army,
and was threatening France with another invasion.

Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, if they had not assisted at the fall
of the house of Anjou, had at any rate helped the Aragon party with
men and money.

Lastly, the war with the emperor acquired a fresh impetus when
Charles VIII sent back Margaret of Burgundy to her father Maximilian,
and contracted a marriage with Anne of Brittany.

By the treaty of Etaples, on the 3rd of November, 1492, Henry VII
cancelled the alliance with the King of the Romans, and pledged
himself not to follow his conquests.

This cost Charles VIII 745,000 gold crowns and the expenses of the
war with England.

By the treaty of Barcelona, dated the 19th of January, 1493,
Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella agreed never to grant aid to
their cousin, Ferdinand of Naples, and never to put obstacles in the
way of the French king in Italy.

This cost Charles VIII Perpignan, Roussillon, and the Cerdagne, which
had all been given to Louis XI as a hostage for the sum of 300,000
ducats by John of Aragon; but at the time agreed upon, Louis XI would
not give them up for the money, for the old fox knew very well how
important were these doors to the Pyrenees, and proposed in case of
war to keep them shut.

Lastly, by the treaty of Senlis, dated the 23rd of May, 1493,
Maximilian granted a gracious pardon to France for the insult her
king had offered him.

It cost Charles VIII the counties of Burgundy, Artois, Charalais, and
the seigniory of Noyers, which had come to him as Margaret's dowry,
and also the towns of Aire, Hesdin, and Bethune, which he promised to
deliver up to Philip of Austria on the day he came of age.

By dint of all these sacrifices the young king made peace with his
neighbours, and could set on foot the enterprise that Ludavico Sforza
had proposed.  We have already explained that the project came into
Sforza's mind when his plan about the deputation was refused, and
that the refusal was due to Piero dei Medici's desire to make an
exhibition of his magnificent jewels, and Gentile's desire to make
his speech.

Thus the vanity of a tutor and the pride of his scholar together
combined to agitate the civilized world from the Gulf of Tarentum to
the Pyrenees.

Alexander VI was in the very centre of the impending earthquake, and
before Italy had any idea that the earliest shocks were at hand he
had profited by the perturbed preoccupation of other people to give
the lie to that famous speech we have reported.  He created cardinal
John Borgia, a nephew, who during the last pontificate had been
elected Archbishop of Montreal and Governor of Rome.  This promotion
caused no discontent, because of John's antecedents; and Alexander,
encouraged by the success of this, promised to Caesar Borgia the
archbishopric of Valencia, a benefice he had himself enjoyed before
his elevation to the papacy.  But here the difficulty arose an the
side of the recipient.  The young man, full-blooded, with all the
vices and natural instincts of a captain of condottieri, had very
great trouble in assuming even the appearance of a Churchman's
virtue; but as he knew from his own father's mouth that the highest
secular dignities were reserved far his elder brother, he decided to
take what he could get, for fear of getting nothing; but his hatred
for Francesco grew stronger, for from henceforth he was doubly his
rival, both in love and ambition.

Suddenly Alexander beheld the old King Ferdinand returning to his
side, and at the very moment when he least expected it.  The pope was
too clever a politician to accept a reconciliation without finding
out the cause of it; he soon learned what plots were hatching at the
French court against the kingdom of Naples, and the whole situation
was explained.

Now it was his turn to impose conditions.

He demanded the completion of a marriage between Goffreda, his third
son, and Dada Sancia, Alfonso's illegitimate daughter.

He demanded that she should bring her husband as dowry the
principality of Squillace and the county of Cariati, with an income
of 10,000 ducats and the office of protonotary, one of the seven
great crown offices which are independent of royal control.

He demanded for his eldest son, whom Ferdinand the Catholic had just
made Duke of Gandia, the principality of Tricarico, the counties of
Chiaramonte, Lauria, and Carinola, an income of 12,000 ducats, and
the first of the seven great offices which should fall vacant.

He demanded that Virginio Orsini, his ambassador at the Neapolitan
court, should be given a third great office, viz.  that of Constable,
the most important of them all.

Lastly, he demanded that Giuliano delta Rovere, one of the five
cardinals who had opposed his election and was now taking refuge at
Ostia, where the oak whence he took his name and bearings is still to
be seen carved on all the walls, should be driven out of that town,
and the town itself given over to him.

In exchange, he merely pledged himself never to withdraw from the
house of Aragon the investiture of the kingdom of Naples accorded by
his predecessors.  Ferdinand was paying somewhat dearly for a simple
promise; but on the keeping of this promise the legitimacy of his
power wholly depended.  For the kingdom of Naples was a fief of the
Holy See; and to the pope alone belonged the right of pronouncing on
the justice of each competitor's pretensions; the continuance of this
investiture was therefore of the highest conceivable importance to
Aragon just at the time when Anjou was rising up with an army at her
back to dispossess her.

For a year after he mounted the papal throne, Alexander VI had made
great strides, as we see, in the extension of his temporal power.  In
his own hands he held, to be sure, only the least in size of the
Italian territories; but by the marriage of his daughter Lucrezia
with the lord of Pesaro he was stretching out one hand as far as
Venice, while by the marriage of the Prince of Squillace with Dona
Sancia, and the territories conceded to the Duke of Sandia, he was
touching with the other hand the boundary of Calabria.

When this treaty, so advantageous for himself, was duly signed, he
made Caesar Cardinal of Santa Maria Novella, for Caesar was always
complaining of being left out in the distribution of his father's
favours.

Only, as there was as yet no precedent in Church history for a
bastard's donning the scarlet, the pope hunted up four false
witnesses who declared that Caesar was the son of Count Ferdinand of
Castile; who was, as we know, that valuable person Don Manuel
Melchior, and who played the father's part with just as much
solemnity as he had played the husband's.

The wedding of the two bastards was most splendid, rich with the
double pomp of Church and King.  As the pope had settled that the
young bridal pair should live near him, Caesar Borgia, the new
cardinal, undertook to manage the ceremony of their entry into Rome
and the reception, and Lucrezia, who enjoyed at her father's side an
amount of favour hitherto unheard of at the papal court, desired on
her part to contribute all the splendour she had it in her power to
add.  He therefore went to receive the young people with a stately
and magnificent escort of lords and cardinals, while she awaited them
attended by the loveliest and noblest ladies of Rome, in one of the
halls of the Vatican.  A throne was there prepared for the pope, and
at his feet were cushions far Lucrezia and Dona Sancia.  "Thus,"
writes Tommaso Tommasi, "by the look of the assembly and the sort of
conversation that went on for hours, you would suppose you were
present at some magnificent and voluptuous royal audience of ancient
Assyria, rather than at the severe consistory of a Roman pontiff,
whose solemn duty it is to exhibit in every act the sanctity of the
name he bears.  But," continues the same historian, "if the Eve of
Pentecost was spent in such worthy functions, the celebrations of the
coming of the Holy Ghost on the following day were no less decorous
and becoming to the spirit of the Church; for thus writes the master
of the ceremonies in his journal:

"'The pope made his entry into the Church of the Holy Apostles, and
beside him on the marble steps of the pulpit where the canons of St.
Peter are wont to chant the Epistle and Gospel, sat Lucrezia his
daughter and Sancia his son's wife: round about them, a disgrace to
the Church and a public scandal, were grouped a number of other Roman
ladies far more fit to dwell in Messalina's city than in St.
Peter's.'"

So at Rome and Naples did men slumber while ruin was at hand; so did
they waste their time and squander their money in a vain display of
pride; and this was going on while the French, thoroughly alive, were
busy laying hands upon the torches with which they would presently
set Italy on fire.

Indeed, the designs of Charles VIII for conquest were no longer for
anybody a matter of doubt.  The young king had sent an embassy to the
various Italian States, composed of Perrone dei Baschi, Brigonnet,
d'Aubigny, and the president of the Provencal Parliament.  The
mission of this embassy was to demand from the Italian princes their
co-operation in recovering the rights of the crown of Naples for the
house of Anjou.

The embassy first approached the Venetians, demanding aid and counsel
for the king their master.  But the Venetians, faithful to their
political tradition, which had gained for them the sobriquet of "the
Jews of Christendom," replied that they were not in a position to
give any aid to the young king, so long as they had to keep
ceaselessly on guard against the Turks; that, as to advice, it would
be too great a presumption in them to give advice to a prince who was
surrounded by such experienced generals and such able ministers.

Perrone dei Baschi, when he found he could get no other answer, next
made for Florence.  Piero dei Medici received him at a grand council,
for he summoned on this occasion not only the seventy, but also the
gonfalonieri who had sat for the last thirty-four years in the
Signoria.  The French ambassador put forward his proposal, that the
republic should permit their army to pass through her States, and
pledge herself in that case to supply for ready money all the
necessary victual and fodder.  The magnificent republic replied that
if Charles VIII had been marching against the Turks instead of
against Ferdinand, she would be only too ready to grant everything he
wished; but being bound to the house of Aragon by a treaty, she could
not betray her ally by yielding to the demands of the King of France.

The ambassadors next turned their steps to Siena.  The poor little
republic, terrified by the honour of being considered at all, replied
that it was her desire to preserve a strict neutrality, that she was
too weak to declare beforehand either for or against such mighty
rivals, for she would naturally be obliged to join the stronger
party.  Furnished with this reply, which had at least the merit of
frankness, the French envoys proceeded to Rome, and were conducted
into the pope's presence, where they demanded the investiture of the
kingdom of Naples for their king.

Alexander VI replied that, as his predecessors had granted this
investiture to the house of Aragon, he could not take it away, unless
it were first established that the house of Anjou had a better claim
than the house that was to be dispossessed.  Then he represented to
Perrone dei Baschi that, as Naples was a fief of the Holy See, to the
pope alone the choice of her sovereign properly belonged, and that in
consequence to attack the reigning sovereign was to attack the Church
itself.

The result of the embassy, we see, was not very promising for Charles
VIII; so he resolved to rely on his ally Ludovico Sforza alone, and
to relegate all other questions to the fortunes of war.

A piece of news that reached him about this time strengthened him in
this resolution: this was the death of Ferdinand.  The old king had
caught a severe cold and cough on his return from the hunting field,
and in two days he was at his last gasp.  On the 25th of January,
1494, he passed away, at the age of seventy, after a thirty-six
years' reign, leaving the throne to his elder son, Alfonso, who was
immediately chosen as his successor.

Ferdinand never belied his title of "the happy ruler."  His death
occurred at the very moment when the fortune of his family was
changing.

The new king, Alfonso, was not a novice in arms: he had already
fought successfully against Florence and Venice, and had driven the
Turks out of Otranto; besides, he had the name of being as cunning as
his father in the tortuous game of politics so much in vogue at the
Italian courts.  He did not despair of counting among his allies the
very enemy he was at war with when Charles VIII first put forward his
pretensions, we mean Bajazet II.  So he despatched to Bajazet one of
his confidential ministers, Camillo Pandone, to give the Turkish
emperor to understand that the expedition to Italy was to the King of
France nothing but a blind for approaching the scene of Mahomedan
conquests, and that if Charles VIII were once at the Adriatic it
would only take him a day or two to get across and attack Macedonia;
from there he could easily go by land to Constantinople.
Consequently he suggested that Bajazet for the maintenance of their
common interests should supply six thousand horse and six thousand
infantry; he himself would furnish their pay so long as they were in
Italy.  It was settled that Pandone should be joined at Tarentum by
Giorgia Bucciarda, Alexander VI's envoy, who was commissioned by the
pope to engage the Turks to help him against the Christians.  But
while he was waiting for Bajazet's reply, which might involve a delay
of several months, Alfonso requested that a meeting might take place
between Piero dei Medici, the pope, and himself, to take counsel
together about important affairs.  This meeting was arranged at
Vicovaro, near Tivoli, and the three interested parties duly met on
the appointed day.

The intention of Alfonso, who before leaving Naples had settled the
disposition of his naval forces, and given his brother Frederic the
command of a fleet that consisted of thirty-six galleys, eighteen
large and twelve small vessels, with injunctions to wait at Livorno
and keep a watch on the fleet Charles VIII was getting ready at the
port of Genoa, was above all things to check with the aid of his
allies the progress of operations on land.  Without counting the
contingent he expected his allies to furnish, he had at his immediate
disposal a hundred squadrons of heavy cavalry, twenty men in each,
and three thousand bowmen and light horse.  He proposed, therefore,
to advance at once into Lombardy, to get up a revolution in favour of
his nephew Galeazzo, and to drive Ludovico Sforza out of Milan before
he could get help from France; so that Charles VIII, at the very time
of crossing the Alps, would find an enemy to fight instead of a
friend who had promised him a safe passage, men, and money.

This was the scheme of a great politician and a bold commander; but
as everybody had came in pursuit of his own interests, regardless of
the common this plan was very coldly received by Piero dei Medici,
who was afraid lest in the war he should play only the same poor part
he had been threatened with in the affair of the embassy; by
Alexander VI it was rejected, because he reckoned on employing the
troops of Alfonso an his own account.  He reminded the King of Naples
of one of the conditions of the investiture he had promised him, viz.
that he should drive out the Cardinal Giuliano delta Rovere from the
town of Ostia, and give up the town to him, according to the
stipulation already agreed upon.  Besides, the advantages that had
accrued to Virginio Orsini, Alexander's favourite, from his embassy
to Naples had brought upon him the ill-will of Prospero and Fabrizio
Colonna, who owned nearly all the villages round about Rome.  Now the
pope could not endure to live in the midst of such powerful enemies,
and the most important matter was to deliver him from all of them,
seeing that it was really of moment that he should be at peace who
was the head and soul of the league whereof the others were only the
body and limbs.

Although Alfonso had clearly seen through the motives of Piero's
coldness, and Alexander had not even given him the trouble of seeking
his, he was none the less obliged to bow to the will of his allies,
leaving the one to defend the Apennines against the French, and
helping the other to shake himself free of his neighbours in the
Romagna.  Consequently he, pressed on the siege of Ostia, and added
to Virginio's forces, which already amounted to two hundred men of
the papal army, a body of his own light horse; this little army was
to be stationed round about Rome, and was to enforce obedience from
the Colonnas.  The rest of his troops Alfonso divided into two
parties: one he left in the hands of his son Ferdinand, with orders
to scour the Romagna and worry, the petty princes into levying and
supporting the contingent they had promised, while with the other he
himself defended the defiles of the Abruzzi.

On the 23rd of April, at three o'clock in the morning, Alexander VI
was freed from the first and fiercest of his foes; Giuliano delta
Rovere, seeing the impossibility of holding out any longer against
Alfonso's troops, embarked on a brigantine which was to carry him to
Savona.

From that day forward Virginio Orsini began that famous partisan
warfare which reduced the country about Rome to the most pathetic
desolation the world has ever seen.  During all this time Charles
VIII was at Lyons, not only uncertain as to the route he ought to
take for getting into Italy, but even beginning to reflect a little
on the chances and risks of such an expedition.  He had found no
sympathy anywhere except with Ludovico Sforza; so it appeared not
unlikely that he would have to fight not the kingdom of Naples alone,
but the whole of Italy to boot.  In his preparations for war he had
spent almost all the money at his disposal; the Lady of Beaujeu and
the Duke of Bourbon both condemned his enterprise; Briconnet, who had
advised it, did not venture to support it now; at last Charles, more
irresolute than ever, had recalled several regiments that had
actually started, when Cardinal Giuliano delta Rovere, driven out of
Italy by the pope, arrived at Lyons, and presented himself before the
king.

The cardinal, full of hatred, full of hope, hastened to Charles, and
found him on the point of abandoning that enterprise on which, as
Alexander's enemy, delta Rovere rested his whole expectation of
vengeance.  He informed Charles of the quarrelling among his enemies;
he showed him that each of them was seeking his own ends--Piero dei
Medici the gratification of his pride, the pope the aggrandisement of
his house.  He pointed out that armed fleets were in the ports of
Villefranche, Marseilles, and Genoa, and that these armaments would
be lost; he reminded him that he had sent Pierre d'Urfe, his grand
equerry, on in advance, to have splendid accommodation prepared in
the Spinola and Doria palaces.  Lastly, he urged that ridicule and
disgrace would fall on him from every side if he renounced an
enterprise so loudly vaunted beforehand, for whose successful
execution, moreover, he had been obliged to sign three treaties of
peace that were all vexatious enough, viz. with Henry VII, with
Maximilian, and with Ferdinand the Catholic.  Giuliano della Rovere
had exercised true insight in probing the vanity of the young king,
and Charles did not hesitate for a single moment.  He ordered his
cousin, the Duke of Orleans (who later on became Louis XII) to take
command of the French fleet and bring it to Genoa; he despatched a
courier to Antoine de Bessay, Baron de Tricastel, bidding him take to
Asti the 2000 Swiss foot-soldiers he had levied in the cantons;
lastly, he started himself from Vienne, in Dauphine, on the 23rd of
August, 1494, crossed the Alps by Mont Genevre, without encountering
a single body of troops to dispute his passage, descended into
Piedmont and Monferrato, both just then governed by women regents,
the sovereigns of both principalities being children, Charles John
Aime and William John, aged respectively six and eight.

The two regents appeared before Charles VIII, one at Turin, one at
Casale, each at the head of a numerous and brilliant court, and both
glittering with jewels and precious stones.  Charles, although he
quite well knew that for all these friendly demonstrations they were
both bound by treaty to his enemy, Alfonso of Naples, treated them
all the same with the greatest politeness, and when they made
protestations of friendship, asked them to let him have a proof of
it, suggesting that they should lend him the diamonds they were
covered with.  The two regents could do no less than obey the
invitation which was really a command.  They took off necklaces,
rings, and earrings.  Charles VIII gave them a receipt accurately
drawn up, and pledged the jewels for 20,000 ducats.  Then, enriched
by this money, he resumed his journey and made his way towards Asti.
The Duke of Orleans held the sovereignty of Asti, as we said before,
and hither came to meet Charles both Ludovico Sforza and his father-
in-law, Hercules d'Este, Duke of Ferrara.  They brought with them not
only the promised troops and money, but also a court composed of the
loveliest women in Italy.

The balls, fetes, and tourneys began with a magnificence surpassing
anything that Italy had ever seen before.  But suddenly they were
interrupted by the king's illness.  This was the first example in
Italy of the disease brought by Christopher Columbus from the New
World, and was called by Italians the French, by Frenchmen the
Italian disease.  The probability is that some of Columbus's crew who
were at Genoa or thereabouts had already brought over this strange
and cruel complaint that counter balanced the gains of the American
gold-mines.

The king's indisposition, however, did not prove so grave as was at
first supposed.  He was cured by the end of a few weeks, and
proceeded on his way towards Pavia, where the young Duke John
Galeazzo lay dying.  He and the King of France were first cousins,
sons of two sisters of the house of Savoy.  So Charles VIII was
obliged to see him, and went to visit him in the castle where he
lived more like prisoner than lord.  He found him half reclining on a
couch, pale and emaciated, some said in consequence of luxurious
living, others from the effects of a slow but deadly poison.  But
whether or not the poor young man was desirous of pouring out a
complaint to Charles, he did not dare say a word; for his uncle,
Ludovico Sforza, never left the King of France for an instant.  But
at the very moment when Charles VIII was getting up to go, the door
opened, and a young woman appeared and threw herself at the king's
feet; she was the wife of the unlucky John Galeazzo, and came to
entreat his cousin to do nothing against her father Alfonso, nor
against her brother Ferdinand.  At sight of her, Sforza scowled with
an anxious and threatening aspect, for he knew not what impression
might be produced on his ally by this scene.  But he was soon
reassured; for Charles replied that he had advanced too far to draw
back now, and that the glory of his name was at stake as well as the
interests of his kingdom, and that these two motives were far too
important to be sacrificed to any sentiment of pity he might feel,
however real and deep it might be and was.  The poor young woman,
who had based her last hope an this appeal, then rose from her knees
and threw herself sobbing into her husband's arms.  Charles VIII and
Ludavico Sforza, took their leave: John Galeazzo was doomed.

Two days after, Charles VIII left for Florence, accompanied by his
ally; but scarcely had they reached Parma when a messenger caught
them up, and announced to Ludovico that his nephew was just dead:
Ludovico at once begged Charles to excuse his leaving him to finish
the journey alone; the interests which called him back to Milan were
so important, he said, that he could not under the circumstances stay
away a single day longer.  As a fact he had to make sure of
succeeding the man he had assassinated.

But Charles VIII continued his road not without some uneasiness.  The
sight of the young prince on his deathbed had moved him deeply, for
at the bottom of his heart he was convinced that Ludovico Sforza was
his murderer; and a murderer might very well be a traitor.  He was
going forward into an unfamiliar country, with a declared enemy in
front of him and a doubtful friend behind: he was now at the entrance
to the mountains, and as his army had no store of provisions and only
lived from hand to mouth, a forced delay, however short, would mean
famine.  In front of him was Fivizzano, nothing, it is true, but a
village surrounded by walls, but beyond Fivizzano lay Sarzano and
Pietra Santa, both of them considered impregnable fortresses; worse
than this, they were coming into a part of the country that was
especially unhealthy in October, had no natural product except oil,
and even procured its own corn from neighbouring provinces; it was
plain that a whole army might perish there in a few days either from
scarcity of food or from the unwholesome air, both of which were more
disastrous than the impediments offered at every step by the nature
of the ground.  The situation was grave; but the pride of Piero dei
Medici came once more to the rescue of the fortunes of Charles VIII.




CHAPTER V

PIERO DEI MEDICI had, as we may remember, undertaken to hold the
entrance to Tuscany against the French; when, however, he saw his
enemy coming down from the Alps, he felt less confident about his own
strength, and demanded help from the pope; but scarcely had the
rumour of foreign invasion began to spread in the Romagna, than the
Colonna family declared themselves the French king's men, and
collecting all their forces seized Ostia, and there awaited the
coming of the French fleet to offer a passage through Rome.  The
pope, therefore, instead of sending troops to Florence, was obliged
to recall all his soldiers to be near the capital; the only promise
he made to Piero was that if Bajazet should send him the troops that
he had been asking for, he would despatch that army for him to make
use of.  Piero dei Medici had not yet taken any resolution or formed
any plan, when he suddenly heard two startling pieces of news.  A
jealous neighbour of his, the Marquis of Torderiovo, had betrayed to
the French the weak side of Fivizzano, so that they had taken it by
storm, and had put its soldiers and inhabitants to the edge of the
sword; on another side, Gilbert of Montpensier, who had been lighting
up the sea-coast so as to keep open the communications between the
French army and their fleet, had met with a detachment sent by Paolo
Orsini to Sarzano, to reinforce the garrison there, and after an
hour's fighting had cut it to pieces.  No quarter had been granted to
any of the prisoners; every man the French could get hold of they had
massacred.

This was the first occasion on which the Italians, accustomed as they
were to the chivalrous contests of the fifteenth century, found
themselves in contact with savage foreigners who, less advanced in
civilisation, had not yet come to consider war as a clever game, but
looked upon it as simply a mortal conflict.  So the news of these two
butcheries produced a tremendous sensation at Florence, the richest
city in Italy, and the most prosperous in commerce and in art.  Every
Florentine imagined the French to be like an army of those ancient
barbarians who were wont to extinguish fire with blood.  The
prophecies of Savonarola, who had predicted the foreign invasion and
the destruction that should follow it, were recalled to the minds of
all; and so much perturbation was evinced that Piero dei Medici, bent
on getting peace at any price, forced a decree upon the republic
whereby she was to send an embassy to the conqueror; and obtained
leave, resolved as he was to deliver himself in person into the hands
of the French monarch, to act as one of the ambassadors.  He
accordingly quitted Florence, accompanied by four other messengers,
and an his arrival at Pietra Santa, sent to ask from Charles VIII a
safe-conduct for himself alone.  The day after he made this request,
Brigonnet and de Piennes came to fetch him, and led him into the
presence of Charles VIII.

Piero dei Medici, in spite of his name and influence, was in the eyes
of the French nobility, who considered it a dishonourable thing to
concern oneself with art or industry, nothing more than a rich
merchant, with whom it would be absurd to stand upon any very strict
ceremony.  So Charles VIII received him on horseback, and addressing
him with a haughty air, as a master might address a servant, demanded
whence came this pride of his that made him dispute his entrance into
Tuscany.  Piero dei Medici replied, that, with the actual consent of
Louis XI, his father Lorenzo had concluded a treaty of alliance with
Ferdinand of Naples; that accordingly he had acted in obedience to
prior obligations, but as he did not wish to push too far his
devotion to the house of Aragon or his opposition to France, he was
ready to do whatever Charles VIII might demand of him.  The king, who
had never looked for such humility in his enemy, demanded that
Sarzano should be given up to him: to this Piero dei Medici at once
consented.  Then the conqueror, wishing to see how far the ambassador
of the magnificent republic would extend his politeness, replied that
this concession was far from satisfying him, and that he still must
have the keys of Pietra Santa, Pisa, Librafatta, and Livorno.  Piero
saw no more difficulty about these than about Sarzano, and consented
on Charles's mere promise by word of mouth to restore the town when
he had achieved the conquest of Naples.  At last Charles VIII, seeing
that this man who had been sent out to negotiate with him was very
easy to manage, exacted as a final condition, a 'sine qua non',
however, of his royal protection, that the magnificent republic
should lend him the sum of 200,000 florins.  Piero found it no harder
to dispose of money than of fortresses, and replied that his fellow-
citizens would be happy to render this service to their new ally.
Then Charles VIII set him on horseback, and ordered him to go on in
front, so as to begin to carry out his promises by yielding up the
four fortresses he had insisted on having.  Piero obeyed, and the
French army, led by the grandson of Cosimo the Great and the son of
Lorenzo the Magnificent, continued its triumphal march through
Tuscany.

On his arrival at Lucca, Piero dei Medici learnt that his concessions
to the King of France were making a terrible commotion at Florence.
The magnificent republic had supposed that what Charles VIII wanted
was simply a passage through her territory, so when the news came
there was a general feeling of discontent, which was augmented by the
return of the other ambassadors, whom Piero had not even consulted
when he took action as he did.  Piero considered it necessary that he
should return, so he asked Charles's permission to precede him to the
capital.  As he had fulfilled all his promises, except the matter of
the loan, which could not be settled anywhere but at Florence, the
king saw no objection, and the very evening after he quitted the
French army Piero returned incognito to his palace in the Via Largo.

The next day he proposed to present himself before the Signoria, but
when he arrived at the Piazza del Palazzo Vecchio, he perceived the
gonfaloniere Jacopo de Nerli coming towards him, signalling to him
that it was useless to attempt to go farther, and pointing out to him
the figure of Luca Corsini standing at the gate, sword in hand:
behind him stood guards, ordered, if need-were, to dispute his
passage.  Piero dei Medici, amazed by an opposition that he was
experiencing for the first time in his life, did not attempt
resistance.  He went home, and wrote to his brother-in-law, Paolo
Orsini, to come and help him with his gendarmes.  Unluckily for him,
his letter was intercepted.  The Signoria considered that it was an
attempt at rebellion.  They summoned the citizens to their aid; they
armed hastily, sallied forth in crowds, and thronged about the piazza
of the palace.  Meanwhile Cardinal Gian dei Medici had mounted on
horseback, and under the impression that the Orsini were coming to
the rescue, was riding about the streets of Florence, accompanied by
his servants and uttering his battle cry, "Palle, Palle."  But times
had changed: there was no echo to the cry, and when the cardinal
reached the Via dei Calizaioli, a threatening murmur was the only
response, and he understood that instead of trying to arouse Florence
he had much better get away before the excitement ran too high.  He
promptly retired to his own palace, expecting to find there his two
brothers, Piero and Giuliano.  But they, under the protection of
Orsini and his gendarmes, had made their escape by the Porto San
Gallo.  The peril was imminent, and Gian dei Medici wished to follow
their example; but wherever he went he was met by a clamour that grew
more and more threatening.  At last, as he saw that the danger was
constantly increasing, he dismounted from his horse and ran into a
house that he found standing open.  This house by a lucky chance
communicated with a convent of Franciscans; one of the friars lent
the fugitive his dress, and the cardinal, under the protection of
this humble incognito, contrived at last to get outside Florence, and
joined his two brothers in the Apennines.

The same day the Medici were declared traitors and rebels, and
ambassadors were sent to the King of France.  They found him at Pisa,
where he was granting independence to the town which eighty-seven
years ago had fallen under the rule of the Florentines.  Charles VIII
made no reply to the envoys, but merely announced that he was going
to march on Florence.

Such a reply, one may easily understand, terrified the republic.
Florence had no time to prepare a defence, and no strength in her
present state to make one.  But all the powerful houses assembled and
armed their own servants and retainers, and awaited the issue,
intending not to begin hostilities, but to defend themselves should
the French make an attack.  It was agreed that if any necessity
should arise for taking up arms, the bells of the various churches in
the town should ring a peal and so serve as a general signal.  Such a
resolution was perhaps of more significant moment in Florence than it
could have been in any other town.  For the palaces that still remain
from that period are virtually fortresses and the eternal fights
between Guelphs and Ghibellines had familiarised the Tuscan people
with street warfare.

The king appeared, on the 17th of November in the evening, at the
gate of San Friano.  He found there the nobles of Florence clad in
their most magnificent apparel, accompanied by priests chanting
hymns, and by a mob who were full of joy at any prospect of change,
and hoped for a return of liberty after the fall of the Medici.
Charles VIII stopped for a moment under a sort of gilded canopy that
had been prepared for him, and replied in a few evasive words to the
welcoming speeches which were addressed to him by the Signoria; then
he asked for his lance, he set it in rest, and gave the order to
enter the town, the whole of which he paraded with his army following
him with arms erect, and then went down to the palace of the Medici,
which had been prepared for him.

The next day negotiations commenced; but everyone was out of his
reckoning.  The Florentines had received Charles VIII as a guest, but
he had entered the city as a conqueror.  So when the deputies of the
Signoria spoke of ratifying the treaty of Piero dei Medici, the king
replied that such a treaty no longer existed, as they had banished
the man who made it; that he had conquered Florence, as he proved the
night before, when he entered lance in hand; that he should retain
the sovereignty, and would make any further decision whenever it
pleased him to do so; further, he would let them know later on
whether he would reinstate the Medici or whether he would delegate
his authority to the Signoria: all they had to do was to come back
the next day, and he would give them his ultimatum in writing.

This reply threw Florence into a great state of consternation; but
the Florentines were confirmed in their resolution of making a stand.
Charles, for his part, had been astonished by the great number of the
inhabitants; not only was every street he had passed through thickly
lined with people, but every house from garret to basement seemed
overflowing with human beings.  Florence indeed, thanks to her rapid
increase in population, could muster nearly 150,000 souls.

The next day, at the appointed hour, the deputies made their
appearance to meet the king.  They were again introduced into his
presence, and the discussion was reopened.  At last, as they were
coming to no sort of understanding, the royal secretary, standing at
the foot of the throne upon which Charles VIII sat with covered head,
unfolded a paper and began to read, article by article, the
conditions imposed by the King of France.  But scarcely had he read a
third of the document when the discussion began more hotly than ever
before.  Then Charles VIII said that thus it should be, or he would
order his trumpets to be sounded.  Hereupon Piero Capponi, secretary
to the republic, commonly called the Scipio of Florence, snatched
from the royal secretary's hand the shameful proposal of
capitulation, and tearing it to pieces, exclaimed:--

"Very good, sire; blow your trumpets, and we will ring our bells."

He threw the pieces in the face of the amazed reader, and dashed out
of the room to give the terrible order that would convert the street
of Florence into a battlefield.

Still, against all probabilities, this bold answer saved the town.
The French supposed, from such audacious words, addressed as they
were to men who so far had encountered no single obstacle, that the
Florentines were possessed of sure resources, to them unknown: the
few prudent men who retained any influence over the king advised him
accordingly to abate his pretensions; the result was that Charles
VIII offered new and more reasonable conditions, which were accepted,
signed by both parties, and proclaimed on the 26th of November during
mass in the cathedral of Santa Maria Del Fiore.

These were the conditions:

The Signoria were to pay to Charles VIII, as subsidy, the sum of
120,000 florins, in three instalments;

The Signoria were to remove the sequestration imposed upon the
property of the Medici, and to recall the decree that set a price on
their heads;

The Signoria were to engage to pardon the Pisans, on condition of
their again submitting to the rule of Florence;

Lastly, the Signoria were to recognise the claims of the Duke of
Milan over Sarzano and Pietra Santa, and these claims thus
recognised, were to be settled by arbitration.

In exchange for this, the King of France pledged himself to restore
the fortresses that had been given up to him, either after he had
made himself master of the town of Naples, or when this war should be
ended by a peace or a two years' truce, or else when, for any reason
whatsoever, he should have quitted Italy.

Two days after this proclamation, Charles VIII, much to the joy of
the Signoria, left Florence, and advanced towards Rome by the route
of Poggibondi and Siena.

The pope began to be affected by the general terror: he had heard of
the massacres of Fivizzano, of Lunigiane, and of Imola; he knew that
Piero dei Medici had handed over the Tuscan fortresses, that Florence
had succumbed, and that Catherine Sforza had made terms with the
conqueror; he saw the broken remnants of the Neapolitan troops pass
disheartened through Rome, to rally their strength in the Abruzzi,
and thus he found himself exposed to an enemy who was advancing upon
him with the whole of the Romagna under his control from one sea to
the other, in a line of march extending from Piombina to Ancona.

It was at this juncture that Alexander VI received his answer from
Bajazet II: the reason of so long a delay was that the pope's envoy
and the Neapolitan ambassador had been stopped by Gian della Rovere,
the Cardinal Giuliano's brother, just as they were disembarking at
Sinigaglia.  They were charged with a verbal answer, which was that
the sultan at this moment was busied with a triple war, first with
the Sultan of Egypt, secondly with the King of Hungary, and thirdly
with the Greeks of Macedonia and Epirus; and therefore he could not,
with all the will in the world, help His Holiness with armed men.
But the envoys were accompanied by a favourite of the sultan's
bearing a private letter to Alexander VI, in which Bajazet offered on
certain conditions to help him with money.  Although, as we see, the
messengers had been stopped on the way, the Turkish envoy had all the
same found a means of getting his despatch sent to the pope: we give
it here in all its naivete.

"Bajazet the Sultan, son of the Sultan Mahomet II, by the grace of
God Emperor of Asia and Europe, to the Father and Lord of all the
Christians, Alexander VI, Roman pontiff and pope by the will of
heavenly Providence, first, greetings that we owe him and bestow with
all our heart.  We make known to your Highness, by the envoy of your
Mightiness, Giorgio Bucciarda, that we have been apprised of your
convalescence, and received the news thereof with great joy and
comfort.  Among other matters, the said Bucciarda has brought us word
that the King of France, now marching against your Highness, has
shown a desire to take under his protection our brother D'jem, who is
now under yours--a thing which is not only against our will, but
which would also be the cause of great injury to your Highness and to
all Christendom.  In turning the matter over with your envoy Giorgio
we have devised a scheme most conducive to peace and most
advantageous and honourable for your Highness; at the same time
satisfactory to ourselves personally; it would be well if our
aforesaid brother D'jem, who being a man is liable to death, and who
is now in the hands of your Highness, should quit this world as soon
as possible, seeing that his departure, a real good to him in his
position, would be of great use to your Highness, and very conducive
to your peace, while at the same time it would be very agreeable to
us, your friend.  If this proposition is favourably received, as we
hope, by your Highness, in your desire to be friendly towards us, it
would be advisable both in the interests of your Highness and for our
own satisfaction that it should occur rather sooner than later, and
by the surest means you might be pleased to employ; so that our said
brother D'jem might pass from the pains of this world into a better
and more peaceful life, where at last he may find repose.  If your
Highness should adapt this plan and send us the body of our brother,
we, the above-named Sultan Bajazet, pledge ourselves to send to your
Highness, wheresoever and by whatsoever hands you please, the sum of
300,000 ducats, with which sum you could purchase some fair domain
for your children.  In order to facilitate this purchase, we would be
willing, while awaiting the issue, to place the 300,000 ducats in the
hands of a third party, so that your Highness might be quite certain
of receiving the money on an appointed day, in return for the
despatch of our brother's body.  Moreover, we promise your Highness
herewith, for your greater satisfaction, that never, so long as you
shall remain on the pontifical throne, shall there be any hurt done
to the Christians, neither by us, nor by our servants, nor by any of
our compatriots, of whatsoever kind or condition they may be, neither
on sea nor on land.  And for the still further satisfaction of your
Highness, and in order that no doubt whatever may remain concerning
the fulfilment of our promises, we have sworn and affirmed in the
presence of Bucciarda, your envoy, by the true God whom we adore and
by our holy Gospels, that they shall be faithfully kept from the
first point unto the last.  And now for the final and complete
assurance of your Highness, in order that no doubt may still remain
in your heart, and that you may be once again and profoundly
convinced of our good faith, we the aforesaid Sultan Bajazet do swear
by the true God, who has created the heavens and the earth and all
that therein is, that we will religiously observe all that has been
above said and declared, and in the future will do nothing and
undertake nothing that may be contrary to the interests of your
Highness.

"Given at Constantinople, in our palace, on the 12th of September
A.D.  1494."


This letter was the cause of great joy to the Holy Father: the aid of
four or five thousand Turks would be insufficient under the present
circumstances, and would only serve to compromise the head of
Christendom, while the sum of 300,000 ducats--that is, nearly a
million francs--was good to get in any sort of circumstances.  It is
true that, so long as D'jem lived, Alexander was drawing an income of
180,000 livres, which as a life annuity represented a capital of
nearly two millions; but when one needs ready money, one ought to be
able to make a sacrifice in the way of discount.  All the same,
Alexander formed no definite plan, resolved on acting as
circumstances should indicate.

But it was a more pressing business to decide how he should behave to
the King of France: he had never anticipated the success of the
French in Italy, and we have seen that he laid all the foundations of
his family's future grandeur upon his alliance with the house of
Aragon.  But here was this house tettering, and a volcano more
terrible than her own Vesuvius was threatening to swallow up Naples.
He must therefore change his policy, and attach himself to the
victor,--no easy matter, for Charles VIII was bitterly annoyed with
the pope for having refused him the investiture and given it to
Aragon.

In consequence, he sent Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini as an envoy to
the king.  This choice looked like a mistake at first, seeing that
the ambassador was a nephew of Pius II, who had vigorously opposed
the house of Anjou; but Alexander in acting thus had a second design,
which could not be discerned by those around him.  In fact, he had
divined that Charles would not be quick to receive his envoy, and
that, in the parleyings to which his unwillingness must give rise,
Piccolomini would necessarily be brought into contact with the young
king's advisers.  Now, besides his ostensible mission to the king,
Piccalamini had also secret instructions for the more influential
among his counsellors.  These were Briconnet and Philippe de
Luxembourg; and Piccolomini was authorised to promise a cardinal's
hat to each of them.  The result was just what Alexander had
foreseen: his envoy could not gain admission to Charles, and was
obliged to confer with the people about him.  This was what the pope
wished.  Piccolomini returned to Rome with the king's refusal, but
with a promise from Briconnet and Philippe de Luxembourg that they
would use all their influence with Charles in favour of the Holy
Father, and prepare him to receive a fresh embassy.

But the French all this time were advancing, and never stopped more
than forty-eight hours in any town, so that it became more and more
urgent to get something settled with Charles.  The king had entered
Siena and Viterbo without striking a blow; Yves d' Alegre and Louis
de Ligny had taken over Ostia from the hands of the Colonnas; Civita
Vecchia and Corneto had opened their gates; the Orsini had submitted;
even Gian Sforza, the pope's son-in-law, had retired from the
alliance with Aragon.  Alexander accordingly judged that the moment
had came to abandon his ally, and sent to Charles the Bishops of
Concordia and Terni, and his confessor, Mansignore Graziano.  They
were charged to renew to Briconnet and Philippe de Luxembourg the
promise of the cardinalship, and had full powers of negotiation in
the name of their master, both in case Charles should wish to include
Alfonso II in the treaty, and in case he should refuse to sign an
agreement with any other but the pope alone.  They found the mind of
Charles influenced now by the insinuation of Giuliano della Ravere,
who, himself a witness of the pope's simony, pressed the king to
summon a council and depose the head of the Church, and now by the
secret support given him by the Bishops of Mans and St. Malo.  The
end of it was that the king decided to form his own opinion about the
matter and settle nothing beforehand, and continued this route,
sending the ambassadors back to the pope, with the addition of the
Marechal de Gie, the Seneschal de Beaucaire, and Jean de Gannay,
first president of the Paris Parliament.  They were ordered to say to
the pope--

(1) That the king wished above all things to be admitted into Rome
without resistance; that, an condition of a voluntary, frank, and
loyal admission, he would respect the authority of the Holy Father
and the privileges of the Church;

(2) That the king desired that D'jem should be given up to him, in
order that he might make use of him against the sultan when he should
carry the war into Macedonia or Turkey or the Holy Land;

(3) That the remaining conditions were so unimportant that they could
be brought forward at the first conference.

The ambassadors added that the French army was now only two days
distant from Rome, and that in the evening of the day after next
Charles would probably arrive in person to demand an answer from His
Holiness.

It was useless to think of parleying with a prince who acted in such
expeditious fashion as this.  Alexander accordingly warned Ferdinand
to quit Rome as soon as possible, in the interests of his own
personal safety.  But Ferdinand refused to listen to a word, and
declared that he would not go out at one gate while Charles VIII came
in at another.  His sojourn was not long.  Two days later, about
eleven o'clock in the morning, a sentinel placed on a watch-tower at
the top of the Castle S. Angelo, whither the pope had retired, cried
out that the vanguard of the enemy was visible on the horizon.  At
once Alexander and the Duke of Calabria went up an the terrace which
tops the fortress, and assured themselves with their own eyes that
what the soldier said was true.  Then, and not till then, did the
duke of Calabria mount on horseback, and, to use his own words, went
out at the gate of San Sebastiana, at the same moment that the French
vanguard halted five hundred feet from the Gate of the People.  This
was on the 31st of December 1494.

At three in the afternoon the whole army had arrived, and the
vanguard began their march, drums beating, ensigns unfurled.  It was
composed, says Paolo Giove, an eye-witness (book ii, p. 41 of his
History), of Swiss and German soldiers, with short tight coats of
various colours: they were armed with short swords, with steel edges
like those of the ancient Romans, and carried ashen lances ten feet
long, with straight and sharp iron spikes: only one-fourth of their
number bore halberts instead of lances, the spikes cut into the form
of an axe and surmounted by a four-cornered spike, to be used both
for cutting like an axe and piercing like a bayonet: the first row of
each battalion wore helmets and cuirasses which protected the head
and chest, and when the men were drawn up for battle they presented
to the enemy a triple array of iron spikes, which they could raise or
lower like the spines of a porcupine.  To each thousand of the
soldiery were attached a hundred fusiliers: their officers, to
distinguish them from the men, wore lofty plumes on their helmets.

After the Swiss infantry came the archers of Gascony: there were five
thousand of them, wearing a very simple dress, that contrasted with
the rich costume of the Swiss soldiers, the shortest of whom would
have been a head higher than the tallest of the Gascons.  But they
were excellent soldiers, full of courage, very light, and with a
special reputation for quickness in stringing and drawing their iron
bows.

Behind them rode the cavalry, the flower of the French nobility, with
their gilded helmets and neck bands, their velvet and silk surcoats,
their swords each of which had its own name, their shields each
telling of territorial estates, and their colours each telling of a
lady-love.  Besides defensive arms, each man bore a lance in his
hand, like an Italian gendarme, with a solid grooved end, and on his
saddle bow a quantity of weapons, some for cutting and same for
thrusting.  Their horses were large and strong, but they had their
tails and ears cropped according to the French custom.  These horses,
unlike those of the Italian gendarmes, wore no caparisons of dressed
leather, which made them more exposed to attack.  Every knight was
followed by three horses--the first ridden by a page in armour like
his own, the two others by equerries who were called lateral
auxiliaries, because in a fray they fought to right and left of their
chief.  This troop was not only the most magnificent, but the most
considerable in the whole army; for as there were 2500 knights, they
formed each with their three followers a total of 10,000 men.  Five
thousand light horse rode next, who carried huge wooden bows, and
shot long arrows from a distance like English archers.  They were a
great help in battle, for moving rapidly wherever aid was required,
they could fly in a moment from one wing to another, from the rear to
the van, then when their quivers were empty could go off at so swift
a gallop that neither infantry or heavy cavalry could pursue them.
Their defensive armour consisted of a helmet and half-cuirass; some
of them carried a short lance as well, with which to pin their
stricken foe to the ground; they all wore long cloaks adorned with
shoulder-knots, and plates of silver whereon the arms of their chief
were emblazoned.

At last came the young king's escort; there were four hundred
archers, among whom a hundred Scots formed a line on each side, while
two hundred of the most illustrious knights marched on foot beside
the prince, carrying heavy arms on their shoulders.  In the midst of
this magnificent escort advanced Charles VIII, both he and his horse
covered with splendid armour; on his right and left marched Cardinal
Ascanio Sforza, the Duke of Milan's brother, and Cardinal Giuliano
della Rovere, of whom we have spoken so often, who was afterwards
Pope Julius II.  The Cardinals Colonna and Savelli followed
immediately after, and behind them came Prospero and Fabrizia
Colonna, and all the Italian princes and generals who had thrown in
their lot with the conqueror, and were marching intermingled with the
great French lords.

For a long time the crowd that had collected to see all these foreign
soldiers go by, a sight so new and strange, listened uneasily to a
dull sound which got nearer and nearer.  The earth visibly trembled,
the glass shook in the windows, and behind the king's escort thirty-
six bronze cannons were seen to advance, bumping along as they lay on
their gun-carriages.  These cannons were eight feet in length; and as
their mouths were large enough to hold a man's head, it was supposed
that each of these terrible machines, scarcely known as yet to the
Italians, weighed nearly six thousand pounds.  After the cannons came
culverins sixteen feet long, and then falconets, the smallest of
which shot balls the size of a grenade.  This formidable artillery
brought up the rear of the procession, and formed the hindmost guard
of the French army.

It was six hours since the front guard entered the town; and as it
was now night and for every six artillery-men there was a torch-
bearer, this illumination gave to the objects around a more gloomy
character than they would have shown in the sunlight.  The young king
was to take up his quarters in the Palazzo di Venezia, and all the
artillery was directed towards the plaza and the neighbouring
streets.  The remainder of the army was dispersed about the town.
The same evening, they brought to the king, less to do honour to him
than to assure him of his safety, the keys of Rome and the keys of
the Belvedere Garden just the same thing had been done for the Duke
of Calabria.

The pope, as we said, had retired to the Castle S. Angelo with only
six cardinals, so from the day after his arrival the young king had
around him a court of very different brilliance from that of the head
of the Church.  Then arose anew the question of a convocation to
prove Alexander's simony and proceed to depose him; but the king's
chief counsellors, gained over, as we know, pointed out that this was
a bad moment to excite a new schism in the Church, just when
preparations were being made for war against the infidels.  As this
was also the king's private opinion, there was not much trouble in
persuading him, and he made up his mind to treat with His Holiness.

But the negotiations had scarcely begun when they had to be broken
off; for the first thing Charles VIII demanded was the surrender of
the Castle S. Angelo, and as the pope saw in this castle his only
refuge, it was the last thing he chose to give up.  Twice, in his
youthful impatience, Charles wanted to take by force what he could
not get by goodwill, and had his cannons directed towards the Holy
Father's dwelling-place; but the pope was unmoved by these
demonstrations; and obstinate as he was, this time it was the French
king who gave way.

This article, therefore, was set aside, and the following conditions
were agreed upon:

That there should be from this day forward between His Majesty the
King of France and the Holy Father a sincere friendship and a firm
alliance;

Before the completion of the conquest of the kingdom of Naples, the
King of France should occupy, for the advantage and accommodation of
his army, the fortresses of Civita Vecchia, Terracina, and Spoleto;

Lastly, the Cardinal Valentino (this was now the name of Caesar
Borgia, after his archbishopric of Valencia) should accompany the
king in the capacity of apostolic ambassador, really as a hostage.

These conditions fixed, the ceremonial of an interview was arranged.
The king left the Palazzo di Venezia and went to live in the Vatican.
At the appointed time he entered by the door of a garden that
adjoined the palace, while the pope, who had not had to quit the
Castle S. Angelo, thanks to a corridor communicating between the two
palaces, came down into the same garden by another gate.  The result
of this arrangement was that the king the next moment perceived the
pope, and knelt down, but the pope pretended not to see him, and the
king advancing a few paces, knelt a second time; as His Holiness was
at that moment screened by some masonry, this supplied him with
another excuse, and the king went on with the performance, got up
again, once mare advanced several steps, and was on the point of
kneeling down the third time face to face, when the Holy Father at
last perceived him, and, walking towards him as though he would
prevent him from kneeling, took off his own hat, and pressing him to
his heart, raised him up and tenderly kissed his forehead, refusing
to cover until the king had put his cap upon his head, with the aid
of the pope's own hands.  Then, after they had stood for a moment,
exchanging polite and friendly speeches, the king lost no time in
praying His Holiness to be so good as to receive into the Sacred
College William Bricannet, the Bishop of St. Malo.  As this matter
had been agreed upon beforehand by that prelate and His Holiness,
though the king was not aware of it, Alexander was pleased to get
credit by promptly granting the request; and he instantly ordered one
of his attendants to go to the house of his son, Cardinal Valentino,
and fetch a cape and hat.  Then taking the king by the hand, he
conducted him into the hall of Papagalli, where the ceremony was to
take place of the admission of the new cardinal.  The solemn oath of
obedience which was to be taken by Charles to His Holiness as supreme
head of the Christian Church was postponed till the following day.

When that solemn day arrived, every person important in Rome, noble,
cleric, or soldier, assembled around His Holiness.  Charles, on his
side, made his approach to the Vatican with a splendid following of
princes, prelates, and captains.  At the threshold of the palace he
found four cardinals who had arrived before him: two of them placed
themselves one on each side of him, the two others behind him, and
all his retinue following, they traversed a long line of apartments
full of guards and servants, and at last arrived in the reception-
room, where the pope was seated on his throne, with his son, Caesar
Borgia; behind him.  On his arrival at the door, the King of France
began the usual ceremonial, and when he had gone on from genuflexions
to kissing the feet, the hand, and the forehead, he stood up, while
the first president of the Parliament of Paris, in his turn stepping
forward, said in a loud voice:

"Very Holy Father, behold my king ready to offer to your Holiness
that oath of obedience that he owes to you; but in France it is
customary that he who offers himself as vassal to his lord shall
receive in exchange therefor such boons as he may demand.  His
Majesty, therefore, while he pledges himself for his own part to
behave unto your Holiness with a munificence even greater than that
wherewith your Holiness shall behave unto him, is here to beg
urgently that you accord him three favours.  These favours are:
first, the confirmation of privleges already granted to the king, to
the queen his wife, and to the dauphin his son; secondly, the
investiture, for himself and his successors, of the kingdom of
Naples; lastly, the surrender to him of the person of the sultan
D'jem, brother of the Turkish emperor."

At this address the pope was for a moment stupefied, for he did not
expect these three demands, which were moreover made so publicly by
Charles that no manner of refusal was possible.  But quickly
recovering his presence of mind, he replied to the king that he would
willingly confirm the privileges that had been accorded to the house
of France by his predecessors; that he might therefore consider his
first demand granted; that the investiture of the kingdom was an
affair that required deliberation in a council of cardinals, but he
would do all he possibly could to induce them to accede to the king's
desire; lastly, he must defer the affair of the sultan's brother till
a time more opportune for discussing it with the Sacred College, but
would venture to say that, as this surrender could not fail to be for
the good of Christendom, as it was demanded for the purpose of
assuring further the success of a crusade, it would not be his fault
if on this point also the king should not be satisfied.

At this reply, Charles bowed his head in sign of satisfaction, and
the first president stood up, uncovered, and resumed his discourse as
follows.

"Very Holy Father, it is an ancient custom among Christian kings,
especially the Most Christian kings of France, to signify, through
their ambassadors, the respect they feel for the Holy See and the
sovereign pontiffs whom Divine Providence places thereon; but the
Most Christian king, having felt a desire to visit the tombs of the
holy apostles, has been pleased to pay this religious debt, which he
regards as a sacred duty, not by ambassadors or by delegates, but in
his own person.  This is why, Very Holy Father, His Majesty the King
of France is here to acknowledge you as the true vicar of Christ, the
legitimate successor of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and with
promise and vow renders you that filial and respectful devotion which
the kings his predecessors have been accustomed to promise and vow,
devoting himself and all his strength to the service of your Holiness
and the interests of the Holy See."

The pope arose with a joyful heart; for this oath, so publicly made,
removed all his fears about a council; so inclined from this moment
to yield to the King of France anything he might choose to ask, he
took him by his left hand and made him a short and friendly reply,
dubbing him the Church's eldest son.  The ceremony over, they left
the hall, the pope always holding the king's hand in his, and in this
way they walked as far as the room where the sacred vestments are put
off; the pope feigned a wish to conduct the king to his own
apartments, but the king would not suffer this, and, embracing once
more, they separated, each to retire to his own domicile.

The king remained eight days longer at the Vatican, then returned to
the Palazzo San Marco.  During these eight days all his demands were
debated and settled to his satisfaction.  The Bishop of Mans was made
cardinal; the investiture of the kingdom of Naples was promised to
the conqueror; lastly, it was agreed that on his departure the King
of France should receive from the pope's hand the brother of the
Emperor of Constantinople, for a sum of 120,000 livres.  But--the
pope, desiring to extend to the utmost the hospitality he had been
bestowing, invited D'jem to dinner on the very day that he was to
leave Rome with his new protector.

When the moment of departure arrived, Charles mounted his horse in
full armour, and with a numerous and brilliant following made his way
to the Vatican; arrived at the door, he dismounted, and leaving his
escort at the Piazza of St. Peter, went up with a few gentlemen only.
He found His Holiness waiting for him, with Cardinal Valentino on his
right, and on his left D'jem, who, as we said before, was dining with
him, and round the table thirteen cardinals.  The king at once,
bending on his knee, demanded the pope's benediction, and stooped to
kiss his feet.  But this Alexander would not suffer; he took him in
his arms, and with the lips of a father and heart of an enemy, kissed
him tenderly on his forehead.  Then the pope introduced the son of
Mahomet II, who was a fine young man, with something noble and regal
in his air, presenting in his magnificent oriental costume a great
contrast in its fashion and amplitude to the narrow, severe cut of
the Christian apparel.  D'jem advanced to Charles without humility
and without pride, and, like an emperor's son treating with a king,
kissed his hand and then his shoulder; then, turning towards the Holy
Father, he said in Italian, which he spoke very well, that he
entreated he would recommend him to the young king, who was prepared
to take him under his protection, assuring the pontiff that he should
never have to repent giving him his liberty, and telling Charles that
he hoped he might some day be proud of him, if after taking Naples he
carried out his intention of going on to Greece.  These words were
spoken with so much dignity and at the same time with such
gentleness, that the King of France loyally and frankly grasped the
young sultan's hand, as though he were his companion-in-arms.  Then
Charles took a final farewell of the pope, and went down to the
piazza.  There he was awaited by Cardinal Valentino, who was about to
accompany him, as we know, as a hostage, and who had remained behind
to exchange a few words with his father.  In a moment Caesar Borgia
appeared, riding on a splendidly harnessed mule, and behind him were
led six magnificent horses, a present from the Holy Father to the
King of France.  Charles at once mounted one of these, to do honour
to the gift the pope had just conferred on him, and leaving Rome
with the rest of his troops, pursued his way towards Marino, where he
arrived the same evening.

He learned there that Alfonso, belying his reputation as a clever
politician and great general, had just embarked with all his
treasures in a flotilla of four galleys, leaving the care of the war
and the management of his kingdom to his son Ferdinand.  Thus
everything went well for the triumphant march of Charles: the gates
of towns opened of themselves at his approach, his enemies fled
without waiting for his coming, and before he had fought a single
battle he had won for himself the surname of Conqueror.

The day after at dawn the army started once more, and after marching
the whole day, stopped in the evening at Velletri.  There the king,
who had been on horseback since the morning, with Cardinal Valentine
and D'jem, left the former at his lodging, and taking D'jem with him,
went on to his own.  Then Caesar Borgia, who among the army baggage
had twenty very heavy waggons of his own, had one of these opened,
took out a splendid cabinet with the silver necessary for his table,
and gave orders for his supper to be prepared, as he had done the
night before.  Meanwhile, night had come on, and he shut himself up
in a private chamber, where, stripping off his cardinal's costume, he
put on a groom's dress.  Thanks to this disguise, he issued from the
house that had been assigned for his accommodation without being
recognised, traversed the streets, passed through the gates, and
gained the open country.  Nearly half a league outside the town, a
servant awaited him with two swift horses.  Caesar, who was an
excellent rider, sprang to the saddle, and he and his companion at
full gallop retraced the road to Rome, where they arrived at break of
day.  Caesar got down at the house of one Flores, auditor of the
rota, where he procured a fresh horse and suitable clothes; then he
flew at once to his mother, who gave a cry of joy when she saw him;
for so silent and mysterious was the cardinal for all the world
beside, and even for her, that he had not said a word of his early
return to Rome.  The cry of joy uttered by Rosa Vanozza when she
beheld her son was far mare a cry of vengeance than of love.  One
evening, while everybody was at the rejoicings in the Vatican, when
Charles VIII and Alexander VI were swearing a friendship which
neither of them felt, and exchanging oaths that were broken
beforehand, a messenger from Rosa Vanozza had arrived with a letter
to Caesar, in which she begged him to come at once to her house in
the Via delta Longara.  Caesar questioned the messenger, but he only
replied that he could tell him nothing, that he would learn all he
cared to know from his mother's own lips.  So, as soon as he was at
liberty, Caesar, in layman's dress and wrapped in a large cloak,
quitted the Vatican and made his way towards the church of Regina
Coeli, in the neighbourhood of which, it will be remembered, was the
house where the pope's mistress lived.

As he approached his mother's house, Caesar began to observe the
signs of strange devastation.  The street was scattered with the
wreck of furniture and strips of precious stuffs.  As he arrived at
the foot of the little flight of steps that led to the entrance gate,
he saw that the windows were broken and the remains of torn curtains
were fluttering in front of them.  Not understanding what this
disorder could mean, he rushed into the house and through several
deserted and wrecked apartments.  At last, seeing light in one of the
rooms, he went in, and there found his mother sitting on the remains
of a chest made of ebony all inlaid with ivory and silver.  When she
saw Caesar, she rose, pale and dishevelled, and pointing to the
desolation around her, exclaimed:

"Look, Caesar; behold the work of your new friends."

"But what does it mean, mother?" asked the cardinal.  "Whence comes
all this disorder?"

"From the serpent," replied Rosa Vanozza, gnashing her teeth,--"from
the serpent you have warmed in your bosom.  He has bitten me, fearing
no doubt that his teeth would be broken on you."

"Who has done this?" cried Caesar.  "Tell me, and, by Heaven, mother,
he shall pay, and pay indeed!"

"Who?" replied Rosa.  "King Charles VIII has done it, by the hands of
his faithful allies, the Swiss.  It was well known that Melchior was
away, and that I was living alone with a few wretched servants; so
they came and broke in the doors, as though they were taking Rome by
storm, and while Cardinal Valentino was making holiday with their
master, they pillaged his mother's house, loading her with insults
and outrages which no Turks or Saracens could possibly have improved
upon."

"Very good, very good, mother," said Caesar; "be calm; blood shall
wash out disgrace.  Consider a moment; what we have lost is nothing
compared with what we might lose; and my father and I, you may be
quite sure, will give you back more than they have stolen from you."

"I ask for no promises," cried Rosa; "I ask for revenge."

"My mother," said the cardinal, "you shall be avenged, or I will lose
the name of son."

Having by these words reassured his mother, he took her to Lucrezia's
palace, which in consequence of her marriage with Pesaro was
unoccupied, and himself returned to the Vatican, giving orders that
his mother's house should be refurnished more magnificently than
before the disaster.  These orders were punctually executed, and it
was among her new luxurious surroundings, but with the same hatred in
her heart, that Caesar on this occasion found his mother.  This
feeling prompted her cry of joy when she saw him once more.

The mother and son exchanged a very few words; then Caesar, mounting
on horseback, went to the Vatican, whence as a hostage he had
departed two days before.  Alexander, who knew of the flight
beforehand, and not only approved, but as sovereign pontiff had
previously absolved his son of the perjury he was about to commit,
received him joyfully, but all the same advised him to lie concealed,
as Charles in all probability would not be slow to reclaim his
hostage:

Indeed, the next day, when the king got up, the absence of Cardinal
Valentino was observed, and as Charles was uneasy at not seeing him,
he sent to inquire what had prevented his appearance.  When the
messenger arrived at the house that Caesar had left the evening
before, he learned that he had gone out at nine o'clock in the
evening and not returned since.  He went back with this news to the
king, who at once suspected that he had fled, and in the first flush
of his anger let the whole army know of his perjury.  The soldiers
then remembered the twenty waggons, so heavily laden, from one of
which the cardinal, in the sight of all, had produced such
magnificent gold and silver plate; and never doubting that the cargo
of the others was equally precious, they fetched them down and broke
them to pieces; but inside they found nothing but stones and sand,
which proved to the king that the flight had been planned a long time
back, and incensed him doubly against the pope.  So without loss of
time he despatched to Rome Philippe de Bresse, afterwards Duke of
Savoy, with orders to intimate to the Holy Father his displeasure at
this conduct.  But the pope replied that he knew nothing whatever
about his son's flight, and expressed the sincerest regret to His
Majesty, declaring that he knew nothing of his whereabouts, but was
certain that he was not in Rome.  As a fact, the pope was speaking
the truth this time, for Caesar had gone with Cardinal Orsino to one
of his estates, and was temporarily in hiding there.  This reply was
conveyed to Charles by two messengers from the pope, the Bishops of
Nepi and of Sutri, and the people also sent an ambassador in their
own behalf.  He was Monsignore Porcari, dean of the rota, who was
charged to communicate to the king the displeasure of the Romans when
they learned of the cardinal's breach of faith.  Little as Charles
was disposed to content himself with empty words, he had to turn his
attention to mare serious affairs; so he continued his march to
Naples without stopping, arriving there on Sunday, the 22nd of
February, 1495.

Four days later, the unlucky D'jem, who had fallen sick at Capua died
at Castel Nuovo.  When he was leaving, at the farewell banquet,
Alexander had tried on his guest the poison he intended to use so
often later on upon his cardinals, and whose effects he was destined
to feel himself,--such is poetical justice.  In this way the pope had
secured a double haul; for, in his twofold speculation in this
wretched young man, he had sold him alive to Charles for 120,000
livres and sold him dead to Bajazet for 300,00 ducats....

But there was a certain delay about the second payment; for the
Turkish emperor, as we remember, was not bound to pay the price of
fratricide till he received the corpse, and by Charles's order the
corpse had been buried at Gaeta.

When Caesar Borgia learned the news, he rightly supposed that the
king would be so busy settling himself in his new capital that he
would have too much to think of to be worrying about him; so he went
to Rome again, and, anxious to keep his promise to his mother, he
signalised his return by a terrible vengeance.

Cardinal Valentino had in his service a certain Spaniard whom he had
made the chief of his bravoes; he was a man of five-and-thirty or
forty, whose whole life had been one long rebellion against society's
laws; he recoiled from no action, provided only he could get his
price.  This Don Michele Correglia, who earned his celebrity for
bloody deeds under the name of Michelotto, was just the man Caesar
wanted; and whereas Michelotto felt an unbounded admiration for
Caesar, Caesar had unlimited confidence in Michelotto.  It was to him
the cardinal entrusted the execution of one part of his vengeance;
the other he kept for himself.

Don Michele received orders to scour the Campagna and cut every
French throat he could find.  He began his work at once; and very few
days elapsed before he had obtained most satisfactory results: more
than a hundred persons were robbed or assassinated, and among the
last the son of Cardinal de St. Malo, who was on his way back to
France, and on whom Michelotto found a sum of 3000 crowns.

For himself, Caesar reserved the Swiss; for it was the Swiss in
particular who had despoiled his mother's house.  The pope had in his
service about a hundred and fifty soldiers belonging to their nation,
who had settled their families in Rome, and had grown rich partly by
their pay and partly in the exercise of various industries.  The
cardinal had every one of them dismissed, with orders to quit Rome
within twenty-four hours and the Roman territories within three days.
The poor wretches had all collected together to obey the order, with
their wives and children and baggage, on the Piazza of St. Peter,
when suddenly, by Cardinal Valentino's orders, they were hemmed in on
all sides by two thousand Spaniards, who began to fire on them with
their guns and charge them with their sabres, while Caesar and his
mother looked down upon the carnage from a window.  In this way they
killed fifty or perhaps sixty; but the rest coming up, made a charge
at the assassins, and then, without suffering any loss, managed to
beat a retreat to a house, where they stood a siege, and made so
valiant a defense that they gave the pope time--he knew nothing of
the author of this butchery--to send the captain of his guard to the
rescue, who, with a strong detachment, succeeded in getting nearly
forty of them safely out of the town: the rest had been massacred on
the piazza or killed in the house.

But this was no real and adequate revenge; for it did not touch
Charles himself, the sole author of all the troubles that the pope
and his family had experienced during the last year.  So Caesar soon
abandoned vulgar schemes of this kind and busied himself with loftier
concerns, bending all the force of his genius to restore the league
of Italian princes that had been broken by the defection of Sforza,
the exile of Piero dei Medici, and the defeat of Alfonso.  The
enterprise was more easily accomplished than the pope could have
anticipated.  The Venetians were very uneasy when Charles passed so
near, and they trembled lest, when he was once master of Naples, he
might conceive the idea of conquering the rest of Italy.  Ludovico
Sforza, on his side, was beginning to tremble, seeing the rapidity
with which the King of France had dethroned the house of Aragon, lest
he might not make much difference between his allies and his enemies.
Maximilian, for his part, was only seeking an occasion to break the
temporary peace which he had granted for the sake of the concession
made to him.  Lastly, Ferdinand and Isabella were allies of the
dethroned house.  And so it came about that all of them, for
different reasons, felt a common fear, and were soon in agreement as
to the necessity of driving out Charles VIII, not only from Naples,
but from Italy, and pledged themselves to work together to this end,
by every means in their power, by negotiations, by trickery, or by
actual force.  The Florentines alone refused to take part in this
general levy of arms, and remained faithful to their promises.

According to the articles of the treaty agreed upon by the
confederates, the alliance was to last for five-and-twenty years, and
had for ostensible object the upholding of the majority of the pope,
and the interests of Christendom; and these preparations might well
have been taken for such as would precede a crusade against the
Turks, if Bajazet's ambassador had not always been present at the
deliberations, although the Christian princes could not have dared
for very shame to admit the sultan by name into their league.  Now
the confederates had to set on foot an army of 30,000 horse and
20,000 infantry, and each of them was taxed for a contingent; thus
the pope was to furnish 4000 horse, Maximilian 6000, the King of
Spain, the Duke of Milan, and the republic of Venice, 8000 each.
Every confederate was, in addition to this, to levy and equip 4000
infantry in the six weeks following the signature of the treaty.  The
fleets were to be equipped by the Maritime States; but any expenses
they should incur later on were to be defrayed by all in equal
shares.

The formation of this league was made public on the 12th of April,
1495, Palm Sunday, and in all the Italian States, especially at Rome,
was made the occasion of fetes and immense rejoicings.  Almost as
soon as the publicly known articles were announced the secret ones
were put into execution.  These obliged Ferdinand and Isabella to
send a fleet of sixty galleys to Ischia, where Alfonso's son had
retired, with six hundred horsemen on board and five thousand
infantry, to help him to ascend the throne once more.  Those troops
were to be put under the command of Gonzalvo of Cordova, who had
gained the reputation of the greatest general in Europe after the
taking of Granada.  The Venetians with a fleet of forty galleys under
the command of Antonio Grimani, were to attack all the French
stations on the coast of Calabria and Naples.  The Duke of Milan
promised for his part to check all reinforcements as they should
arrive from France, and to drive the Duke of Orleans out of Asti.

Lastly, there was Maximilian, who had promised to make invasions on
the frontiers, and Bajazet, who was to help with money, ships, and
soldiers either the Venetians or the Spaniards, according as he might
be appealed to by Barberigo or by Ferdinand the Catholic.

This league was all the more disconcerting for Charles, because of
the speedy abatement of the enthusiasm that had hailed his first
appearance.  What had happened to him was what generally happens to a
conqueror who has more good luck than talent; instead of making
himself a party among the great Neapolitan and Calabrian vassals,
whose roots would be embedded in the very soil, by confirming their
privileges and augmenting their power, he had wounded their feelings
by bestowing all the titles, offices, and fiefs on those alone who
had followed him from France, so that all the important positions in
the kingdom were filled by strangers.

The result was that just when the league was made known, Tropea and
Amantea, which had been presented by Charles to the Seigneur de
Precy, rose in revolt and hoisted the banner of Aragon; and the
Spanish fleet had only to present itself at Reggio, in Calabria, for
the town to throw open its gates, being more discontented with the
new rule than the old; and Don Federiga, Alfonso's brother and
Ferdinand's uncle, who had hitherto never quitted Brindisi, had only
to appear at Tarentum to be received there as a liberator.




CHAPTER VI

Charles learned all this news at Naples, and, tired of his late
conquests, which necessitated a labour in organisation for which he
was quite unfitted, turned his eyes towards France, where victorious
fetes and rejoicings were awaiting the victor's return.  So he
yielded at the first breath of his advisers, and retraced his road to
his kingdom, threatened, as was said, by the Germans on the north and
the Spaniards on the south.  Consequently, he appointed Gilbert de
Montpensier, of the house of Bourbon, viceroy; d'Aubigny, of the
Scotch Stuart family, lieutenant in Calabria; Etienne de Vese,
commander at Gaeta; and Don Juliano, Gabriel de Montfaucon, Guillaume
de Villeneuve, George de Lilly, the bailiff of Vitry, and Graziano
Guerra respectively governors of Sant' Angelo, Manfredonia, Trani,
Catanzaro, Aquila, and Sulmone; then leaving behind in evidence of
his claims the half of his Swiss, a party of his Gascons, eight
hundred French lances, and about five hundred Italian men-at-arms,
the last under the command of the prefect of Rome, Prospero and
Fabrizio Colonna, and Antonio Savelli, he left Naples on the 20th of
May at two o'clock in the afternoon, to traverse the whole of the
Italian peninsula with the rest of his army, consisting of eight
hundred French lances, two hundred gentlemen of his guard, one
hundred Italian men-at-arms, three thousand Swiss infantry, one
thousand French and one thousand Gascon.  He also expected to be
joined by Camillo Vitelli and his brothers in Tuscany, who were to
contribute two hundred and fifty men-at-arms.

A week before he left Naples, Charles had sent to Rome Monseigneur de
Saint-Paul, brother of Cardinal de Luxembourg; and just as he was
starting he despatched thither the new Archbishop of Lyons.  They
both were commissioned to assure Alexander that the King of France
had the most sincere desire and the very best intention of remaining
his friend.  In truth, Charles wished for nothing so much as to
separate the pope from the league, so as to secure him as a spiritual
and temporal support; but a young king, full of fire, ambition, and
courage, was not the neighbour to suit Alexander; so the latter would
listen to nothing, and as the troops he had demanded from the doge
and Ludavico Sforza had not been sent in sufficient number for the
defense of Rome, he was content with provisioning the castle of S.
Angelo, putting in a formidable garrison, and leaving Cardinal Sant'
Anastasio to receive Charles while he himself withdrew with Caesar to
Orvieto.  Charles only stayed in Rome three days, utterly depressed
because the pope had refused to receive him in spite of his
entreaties.  And in these three days, instead of listening to
Giuliano delta Rovere, who was advising him once more to call a
council and depose the pope, he rather hoped to bring the pope round
to his side by the virtuous act of restoring the citadels of
Terracina and Civita Vecchia to the authorities of the Romagna, only
keeping for himself Ostia, which he had promised Giuliano to give
back to him.  At last, when the three days had elapsed, he left Rome,
and resumed his march in three columns towards Tuscany, crossed the
States of the Church, and on the 13th reached Siena, where he was
joined by Philippe de Commines, who had gone as ambassador
extraordinary to the Venetian Republic, and now announced that the
enemy had forty thousand men under arms and were preparing for
battle.  This news produced no other effect an the king and the
gentlemen of his army than to excite their amusement beyond measure;
for they had conceived such a contempt for their enemy by their easy
conquest, that they could not believe that any army, however
numerous, would venture to oppose their passage.

Charles, however, was forced to give way in the face of facts, when
he heard at San Teranza that his vanguard, commanded by Marechal de
Gie, and composed of six hundred lances and fifteen hundred Swiss,
when it arrived at Fornova had come face to face with the
confederates, who had encamped at Guiarole.  The marechal had ordered
an instant halt, and he too had pitched his tents, utilising for his
defence the natural advantages of the hilly ground.  When these first
measures had been taken, he sent out, first, a herald to the enemy's
camp to ask from Francesco di Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua,
generalissimo of the confederate troops, a passage for his king's
army and provisions at a reasonable price; and secondly, he
despatched a courier to Charles VIII, pressing him to hurry on his
march with the artillery and rearguard.  The confederates had given
an evasive answer, for they were pondering whether they ought to
jeopardise the whole Italian force in a single combat, and, putting
all to the hazard, attempt to annihilate the King of France and his
army together, so overwhelming the conqueror in the ruins of his
ambition.  The messenger found Charles busy superintending the
passage of the last of his cannon over the mountain of Pontremoli.
This was no easy matter, seeing that there was no sort of track, and
the guns had to be lifted up and lowered by main farce, and each
piece needed the arms of as many as two hundred men.  At last, when
all the artillery had arrived without accident on the other side of
the Apennines, Charles started in hot haste for Fornovd, where he
arrived with all his following on the morning of the next day.

From the top of the mountain where the Marechai de Gie had pitched
his tents, the king beheld both his own camp and the enemy's.  Both
were on the right bank of the Taro, and were at either end of a
semicircular chain of hills resembling an amphitheatre; and the space
between the two camps, a vast basin filled during the winter floods
by the torrent which now only marked its boundary, was nothing but a
plain covered with gravel, where all manoeuvres must be equally
difficult for horse and infantry.  Besides, on the western slope of
the hills there was a little wood which extended from the enemy's
army to the French, and was in the possession of the Stradiotes, who,
by help of its cover, had already engaged in several skirmishes with
the French troops during the two days of halt while they were waiting
for the king.

The situation was not reassuring.  From the top of the mountain which
overlooked Fornovo, one could get a view, as we said before, of the
two camps, and could easily calculate the numerical difference
between them.  The French army, weakened by the establishment of
garrisons in the various towns and fortresses they had won in Italy,
were scarcely eight thousand strong, while the combined forces of
Milan and Venice exceeded a total of thirty-five thousand.  So
Charles decided to try once more the methods of conciliation, and
sent Commines, who, as we know, had joined him in Tuscany, to the
Venetian 'proveditori', whose acquaintance he had made when on his
embassy; he having made a great impression on these men, thanks to a
general high opinion of his merits.  He was commissioned to tell the
enemy's generals, in the name of the King of France, that his master
only desired to continue his road without doing or receiving any
harm; that therefore he asked to be allowed a free passage across the
fair plains of Lombardy, which he could see from the heights where he
now stood, stretching as far as the eye could reach, away to the foot
of the Alps.  Commines found the confederate army deep in discussion:
the wish of the Milanese and Venetian party being to let the king go
by, and not attack him; they said they were only too happy that he
should leave Italy in this way, without causing any further harm; but
the ambassadors of Spain and Germany took quite another view.  As
their masters had no troops in the army, and as all the money they
had promised was already paid, they must be the gainer in either case
from a battle, whichever way it went: if they won the day they would
gather the fruits of victory, and if they lost they would experience
nothing of the evils of defeat.  This want of unanimity was the
reason why the answer to Commines was deferred until the following
day, and why it was settled that on the next day he should hold
another conference with a plenipotentiary to be appointed in the
course of that night.  The place of this conference was to be between
the two armies.

The king passed the night in great uneasiness.  All day the weather
had threatened to turn to rain, and we have already said how rapidly
the Taro could swell; the river, fordable to-day, might from tomorrow
onwards prove an insurmountable obstacle; and possibly the delay had
only been asked for with a view to putting the French army in a worse
position.  As a fact the night had scarcely come when a terrible
storm arose, and so long as darkness lasted, great rumblings were
heard in the Apennines, and the sky was brilliant with lightning.  At
break of day, however, it seemed to be getting a little calmer,
though the Taro, only a streamlet the day before, had become a
torrent by this time, and was rapidly rising.  So at six in the
morning, the king, ready armed and on horseback, summoned Commines
and bade him make his way to the rendezvous that the Venetian
'proveditori' had assigned.  But scarcely had he contrived to give
the order when loud cries were heard coming from the extreme right of
the French army.  The Stradiotes, under cover of the wood stretching
between the two camps, had surprised an outpost, and first cutting
the soldiers' throats, were carrying off their heads in their usual
way at the saddle-bow.  A detachment of cavalry was sent in pursuit;
but, like wild animals, they had retreated to their lair in the
woods, and there disappeared.

This unexpected engagement, in all probability arranged beforehand by
the Spanish and German envoys, produced on the whole army the effect
of a spark applied to a train of gunpowder.  Commines and the
Venetian 'proveditori' each tried in vain to arrest the combat an
either side.  Light troops, eager for a skirmish, and, in the usual
fashion of those days, prompted only by that personal courage which
led them on to danger, had already come to blows, rushing down into
the plain as though it were an amphitheatre where they might make a
fine display of arms.  Far a moment the young king, drawn on by
example, was an the point of forgetting the responsibility of a
general in his zeal as a soldier; but this first impulse was checked
by Marechal de Gie, Messire Claude de la Chatre de Guise, and M. de
la Trimauille, who persuaded Charles to adopt the wiser plan, and to
cross the Taro without seeking a battle,--at the same time without
trying to avoid it, should the enemy cross the river from their camp
and attempt to block his passage.  The king accordingly, following
the advice of his wisest and bravest captains, thus arranged his
divisions.

The first comprised the van and a body of troops whose duty it was to
support them.  The van consisted of three hundred and fifty men-at-
arms, the best and bravest of the army, under the command of Marechal
de Gie and Jacques Trivulce; the corps following them consisted of
three thousand Swiss, under the command of Engelbert der Cleves and
de Larnay, the queen's grand equerry; next came three hundred archers
of the guard, whom the king had sent to help the cavalry by fighting
in the spaces between them.

The second division, commanded by the king in person and forming the
middle of the army, was composed of the artillery, under Jean de
Lagrange, a hundred gentlemen of the guard with Gilles Carrone far
standard-bearer, pensioners of the king's household under Aymar de
Prie, some Scots, and two hundred cross-bowmen an horseback, with
French archers besides, led by M. de Crussol.

Lastly, the third division, i.e. the rear, preceded by six thousand
beasts of burden bearing the baggage, was composed of only three
hundred men-at-arms, commanded by de Guise and by de la Trimouille:
this was the weakest part of the army.

When this arrangement was settled, Charles ordered the van to cross
the river, just at the little town of Fornovo.  This was done at
once, the riders getting wet up to their knees, and the footmen
holding to the horses' tails.  As soon as he saw the last soldiers of
his first division on the opposite bank, he started himself to follow
the same road and cross at the same ford, giving orders to de Guise
and de la Trimouille to regulate the march of the rear guard by that
of the centre, just as he had regulated their march by that of the
van.  His orders were punctually carried out; and about ten o'clock
in the morning the whole French army was on the left bank of the
Taro: at the same time, when it seemed certain from the enemy's
arrangements that battle was imminent, the baggage, led by the
captain, Odet de Reberac, was separated from the rear guard, and
retired to the extreme left.

Now, Francisco de Gonzaga, general-in-chief of the confederate
troops, had modelled his plans on those of the King of France; by his
orders, Count de Cajazzo, with four hundred men-at-arms and two
thousand infantry, had crossed the Taro where the Venetian camp lay,
and was to attack the French van; while Gonzaga himself, following
the right bank as far as Fornovo, would go over the river by the same
ford that Charles had used, with a view to attacking his rear.
Lastly, he had placed the Stradiotes between these two fords, with
orders to cross the river in their turn, so soon as they saw the
French army attacked both in van and in the rear, and to fall upon
its flank.  Not content with offensive measures, Gonzaga had also
made provision for retreat by leaving three reserve corps on the
right bank, one to guard the camp under the instruction of the
Venetian 'proveditori', and the other two arranged in echelon to
support each other, the first commanded by Antonio di Montefeltro,
the second by Annibale Bentivoglio.

Charles had observed all these arrangements, and had recognised the
cunning Italian strategy which made his opponents the finest generals
in the world; but as there was no means of avoiding the danger, he
had decided to take a sideway course, and had given orders to
continue the match; but in a minute the French army was caught
between Count di Cajazzo, barring the way with his four hundred men-
at-arms and his two thousand infantry, and Gonzaga in pursuit of the
rear, as we said before; leading six hundred men-at-arms, the flower
of his army, a squadron of Stradiotes, and more than five thousand
infantry: this division alone was stronger than the whole of the
French army.

When, however, M. de Guise and M.  de la Trimouille found themselves
pressed in this way, they ordered their two hundred men-at-arms to
turn right about face, while at the opposite end--that is, at the
head of the army--Marechal de Gie and Trivulce ordered a halt and
lances in rest.  Meanwhile, according to custom, the king, who, as we
said, was in the centre, was conferring knighthood on those gentlemen
who had earned the favour either by virtue of their personal powers
or the king's special friendship.

Suddenly there was heard a terrible clash behind it was the French
rearguard coming to blows with the Marquis of Mantua.  In this
encounter, where each man had singled out his own foe as though it
were a tournament, very many lances were broken, especially those of
the Italian knights; for their lances were hollowed so as to be less
heavy, and in consequence had less solidity.  Those who were thus
disarmed at once seized their swords.  As they were far more numerous
than the French, the king saw them suddenly outflanking his right
wing and apparently prepared to surround it; at the same moment loud
cries were heard from a direction facing the centre: this meant that
the Stradiotes were crossing the river to make their attack.

The king at once ordered his division into two detachments, and
giving one to Bourbon the bastard, to make head against the
Stradiotes, he hurried with the second to the rescue of the van,
flinging himself into the very midst of the melee, striking out like
a king, and doing as steady work as the lowest in rank of his
captains.  Aided by the reinforcement, the rearguard made a good
stand, though the enemy were five against one, and the combat in this
part continued to rage with wonderful fury.

Obeying his orders, Bourbon had thrown himself upon the Stradiotes;
but unfortunately, carried off by his horse, he had penetrated so far
into the enemy's ranks that he was lost to sight: the disappearance
of their chief, the strange dress of their new antagonists, and the
peculiar method of their fighting produced a considerable effect on
those who were to attack them; and for the moment disorder was the
consequence in the centre, and the horse men scattered instead of
serrying their ranks and fighting in a body.  This false move would
have done them serious harm, had not most of the Stradiotes, seeing
the baggage alone and undefended, rushed after that in hope of booty,
instead of following up their advantage.  A great part of the troop
nevertheless stayed behind to fight, pressing on the French cavalry
and smashing their lances with their fearful scimitars.  Happily the
king, who had just repulsed the Marquis of Mantua's attack, perceived
what was going on behind him, and riding back at all possible speed
to the succour of the centre, together with the gentlemen of his
household fell upon the Stradiotes, no longer armed with a lance, for
that he had just broken, but brandishing his long sword, which blazed
about him like lightning, and--either because he was whirled away
like Bourbon by his own horse, or because he had allowed his courage
to take him too far--he suddenly found himself in the thickest ranks
of the Stradiotes, accompanied only by eight of the knights he had
just now created, one equerry called Antoine des Ambus, and his
standard-bearer.  "France, France!" he cried aloud, to rally round
him all the others who had scattered; they, seeing at last that the
danger was less than they had supposed, began to take their revenge
and to pay back with interest the blows they had received from the
Stradiotes.  Things were going still better, for the van, which the
Marquis de Cajazzo was to attack; for although he had at first
appeared to be animated with a terrible purpose, he stopped short
about ten or twelve feet from the French line and turned right about
face without breaking a single lance.  The French wanted to pursue,
but the Marechal de Gie, fearing that this flight might be only a
trick to draw off the vanguard from the centre, ordered every man to
stay in his place.  But the Swiss, who were German, and did not
understand the order, or thought it was not meant for them, followed
upon their heels, and although on foot caught them up and killed a
hundred of them.  This was quite enough to throw them into disorder,
so that some were scattered about the plain, and others made a rush
for the water, so as to cross the river and rejoin their camp.


When the Marechal de Gie saw this, he detached a hundred of his own
men to go to the aid of the king, who was continuing to fight with
unheard-of courage and running the greatest risks, constantly
separated as he was from his gentlemen, who could not follow him; for
wherever there was danger, thither he rushed, with his cry of
"France," little troubling himself as to whether he was followed or
not.  And it was no longer with his sword that he fought; that he had
long ago broken, like his lance, but with a heavy battle-axe, whose
every blow was mortal whether cut or pierced.  Thus the Stradiotes,
already hard pressed by the king's household and his pensioners, soon
changed attack for defence and defence for flight.  It was at this
moment that the king was really in the greatest danger; for he had
let himself be carried away in pursuit of the fugitives, and
presently found himself all alone, surrounded by these men, who, had
they not been struck with a mighty terror, would have had nothing to
do but unite and crush him and his horse together; but, as Commines
remarks, "He whom God guards is well guarded, and God was guarding
the King of France."

All the same, at this moment the French were sorely pressed in the
rear; and although de Guise and de la Trimouille held out as firmly
as it was possible to hold, they would probably have been compelled
to yield to superior numbers had not a double aid arrived in time:
first the indefatigable Charles, who, having nothing more to do among
the fugitives, once again dashed into the midst of the fight, next
the servants of the army, who, now that they were set free from the
Stradiotes and saw their enemies put to flight, ran up armed with the
axes they habitually used to cut down wood for building their huts:
they burst into the middle of the fray, slashing at the horses' legs
and dealing heavy blows that smashed in the visors of the dismounted
horsemen.

The Italians could not hold out against this double attack; the
'furia francese' rendered all their strategy and all their
calculations useless, especially as for more than a century they had
abandoned their fights of blood and fury for a kind of tournament
they chose to regard as warfare; so, in spite of all Gonzaga's
efforts, they turned their backs upon the French rear and took to
flight; in the greatest haste and with much difficulty they recrossed
the torrent, which was swollen even more now by the rain that had
been falling during the whole time of the battle.

Some thought fit to pursue the vanquished, for there was now such
disorder in their ranks that they were fleeing in all directions from
the battlefield where the French had gained so glorious a victory,
blocking up the roads to Parma and Bercetto.  But Marechal de Gie and
de Guise and de la Trimouille, who had done quite enough to save them
from the suspicion of quailing before imaginary dangers, put a stop
to this enthusiasm, by pointing out that it would only be risking the
loss of their present advantage if they tried to push it farther with
men and horses so worn out.  This view was adopted in spite of the
opinion of Trivulce, Camillo Vitelli, and Francesco Secco, who were
all eager to follow up the victory.

The king retired to a little village an the left bank of the Taro,
and took shelter in a poor house.  There he disarmed, being perhaps
among all the captains and all the soldiers the man who had fought
best.

During the night the torrent swelled so high that the Italian army
could not have pursued, even if they had laid aside their fears.  The
king did not propose to give the appearance of flight after a
victory, and therefore kept his army drawn up all day, and at night
went on to sleep at Medesano, a little village only a mile lower down
than the hamlet where he rested after the fight.  But in the course
of the night he reflected that he had done enough for the honour of
his arms in fighting an army four times as great as his own and
killing three thousand men, and then waiting a day and a half to give
them time to take their revenge; so two hours before daybreak he had
the fires lighted, that the enemy might suppose he was remaining in
camp; and every man mounting noiselessly, the whole French army,
almost out of danger by this time, proceeded on their march to Borgo
San Donnino.

While this was going on, the pope returned to Rome, where news highly
favourable to his schemes was not slow to reach his ears.  He learned
that Ferdinand had crossed from Sicily into Calabria with six
thousand volunteers and a considerable number of Spanish horse and
foot, led, at the command of Ferdinand and Isabella, by the famous
Gonzalva de Cordova, who arrived in Italy with a great reputation,
destined to suffer somewhat from the defeat at Seminara.  At almost
the same time the French fleet had been beaten by the Aragonese;
moreover, the battle of the Taro, though a complete defeat for the
confederates, was another victory for the pope, because its result
was to open a return to France for that man whom he regarded as his
deadliest foe.  So, feeling that he had nothing more to fear from
Charles, he sent him a brief at Turin, where he had stopped for a
short time to give aid to Novara, therein commanding him, by virtue
of his pontifical authority, to depart out of Italy with his army,
and to recall within ten days those of his troops that still remained
in the kingdom of Naples, on pain of excommunication, and a summons
to appear before him in person.

Charles VIII replied:

(1) That he did not understand how the pope, the chief of the league,
ordered him to leave Italy, whereas the confederates had not only
refused him a passage, but had even attempted, though unsuccessfully,
as perhaps His Holiness knew, to cut off his return into France;

(2) That, as to recalling his troops from Naples, he was not so
irreligious as to do that, since they had not entered the kingdom
without the consent and blessing of His Holiness;

(3) That he was exceedingly surprised that the pope should require
his presence in person at the capital of the Christian world just at
the present time, when six weeks previously, at the time of his
return from Naples, although he ardently desired an interview with
His Holiness, that he might offer proofs of his respect and
obedience, His Holiness, instead of according this favour, had
quitted Rome so hastily on his approach that he had not been able to
come up with him by any efforts whatsoever.  On this point, however,
he promised to give His Holiness the satisfaction he desired, if he
would engage this time to wait for him: he would therefore return to
Rome so soon as the affairs that brought him back to his own kingdom
had been satisfactorily, settled.

Although in this reply there was a touch of mockery and defiance,
Charles was none the less compelled by the circumstances of the case
to obey the pope's strange brief.  His presence was so much needed in
France that, in spite of the arrival of a Swiss reinforcement, he was
compelled to conclude a peace with Ludovico Sforza, whereby he
yielded Novara to him; while Gilbert de Montpensier and d'Aubigny,
after defending, inch by inch, Calabria, the Basilicate, and Naples,
were obliged to sign the capitulation of Atella, after a siege of
thirty-two days, on the 20th of July, 1496.  This involved giving
back to Ferdinand II, King of Naples, all the palaces and fortresses
of his kingdom; which indeed he did but enjoy for three months, dying
of exhaustion on the 7th of September following, at the Castello
della Somma, at the foot of Vesuvius; all the attentions lavished
upon him by his young wife could not repair the evil that her beauty
had wrought.

His uncle Frederic succeeded; and so, in the three years of his
papacy, Alexander VI had seen five kings upon the throne of Naples,
while he was establishing himself more firmly upon his own pontifical
seat--Ferdinand I, Alfonso I, Charles VIII, Ferdinand II, and
Frederic.  All this agitation about his throne, this rapid succession
of sovereigns, was the best thing possible for Alexander; for each
new monarch became actually king only on condition of his receiving
the pontifical investiture.  The consequence was that Alexander was
the only gainer in power and credit by these changes; for the Duke of
Milan and the republics of Florence and Venice had successively
recognised him as supreme head of the Church, in spite of his simony;
moreover, the five kings of Naples had in turn paid him homage.  So
he thought the time had now come for founding a mighty family; and
for this he relied upon the Duke of Gandia, who was to hold all the
highest temporal dignities; and upon Caesar Borgia, who was to be
appointed to all the great ecclesiastical offices.  The pope made
sure of the success of these new projects by electing four Spanish
cardinals, who brought up the number of his compatriots in the Sacred
College to twenty-two, thus assuring him a constant and certain
majority.

The first requirement of the pope's policy was to clear away from the
neighbourhood of Rome all those petty lords whom most people call
vicars of the Church, but whom Alexander called the shackles of the
papacy.  We saw that he had already begun this work by rousing the
Orsini against the Colonna family, when Charles VIII's enterprise
compelled him to concentrate all his mental resources, and also the
forces of his States, so as to secure his own personal safety.

It had come about through their own imprudent action that the Orsini,
the pope's old friends, were now in the pay of the French, and had
entered the kingdom of Naples with them, where one of them, Virginio,
a very important member of their powerful house, had been taken
prisoner during the war, and was Ferdinand II's captive.  Alexander
could not let this opportunity escape him; so, first ordering the
King of Naples not to release a man who, ever since the 1st of June,
1496, had been a declared rebel, he pronounced a sentence of
confiscation against Virginio Orsini and his whole family in a secret
consistory, which sat on the 26th of October following--that is to
say, in the early days of the reign of Frederic, whom he knew to be
entirely at his command, owing to the King's great desire of getting
the investiture from him; then, as it was not enough to declare the
goods confiscated, without also dispossessing the owners, he made
overtures to the Colonna family, saying he would commission them, in
proof of their new bond of friendship, to execute the order given
against their old enemies under the direction of his son Francesco,
Duke of Gandia.  In this fashion he contrived to weaken his
neighbours each by means of the other, till such time as he could
safely attack and put an end to conquered and conqueror alike.

The Colonna family accepted this proposition, and the Duke of Gandia
was named General of the Church: his father in his pontifical robes
bestowed on him the insignia of this office in the church of St.
Peter's at Rome.




CHAPTER VII

Matters went forward as Alexander had wished, and before the end of
the year the pontifical army had seized a great number of castles
and fortresses that belonged to the Orsini, who thought themselves
already lost when Charles VIII came to the rescue.  They had
addressed themselves to him without much hope that he could be of
real use to there, with his want of armed troops and his
preoccupation with his own affairs.  He, however, sent Carlo Orsini,
son of Virginio, the prisoner, and Vitellozzo Vitelli, brother of
Camillo Vitelli, one of the three valiant Italian condottieri who had
joined him and fought for him at the crossing of the Taro: These two
captains, whose courage and skill were well known, brought with them
a considerable sum of money from the liberal coffers of Charles VIII.
Now, scarcely had they arrived at Citta di Castello, the centre of
their little sovereignty, and expressed their intention of raising a
band of soldiers, when men presented themselves from all sides to
fight under their banner; so they very soon assembled a small army,
and as they had been able during their stay among the French to study
those matters of military organisation in which France excelled, they
now applied the result of their learning to their own troops: the
improvements were mainly certain changes in the artillery which made
their manoeuvres easier, and the substitution for their ordinary
weapons of pikes similar in form to the Swiss pikes, but two feet
longer.  These changes effected, Vitellozzo Vitelli spent three or
four months in exercising his men in the management of their new
weapons; then, when he thought them fit to make good use of these,
and when he had collected more or less help from the towns of
Perugia, Todi, and Narni, where the inhabitants trembled lest their
turn should come after the Orsini's, as the Orsini's had followed on
the Colonnas', he marched towards Braccianno, which was being
besieged by the Duke of Urbino, who had been lent to the pope by the
Venetians, in virtue of the treaty quoted above.

The Venetian general, when he heard of Vitelli's approach, thought he
might as well spare him half his journey, and marched out to confront
him: the two armies met in the Soriano road, and the battle
straightway began.  The pontifical army had a body of eight hundred
Germans, on which the Dukes of Urbino and Gandia chiefly relied, as
well they might, for they were the best troops in the world; but
Vitelli attacked these picked men with his infantry, who, armed with
their formidable pikes, ran them through, while they with arms four
feet shorter had no chance even of returning the blows they received;
at the same time Vitelli's light troops wheeled upon the flank,
following their most rapid movements, and silencing the enemy's
artillery by the swiftness and accuracy of their attack.  The
pontifical troops were put to flight, though after a longer
resistance than might have been expected when they had to sustain the
attack of an army so much better equipped than their own; with them
they bore to Ronciglione the Duke of Gandia, wounded in the face by a
pike-thrust, Fabrizia Calonna, and the envoy; the Duke of Urbino, who
was fighting in the rear to aid the retreat, was taken prisoner with
all his artillery and the baggage of the conquered army.  But this
success, great as it was, did not so swell the pride of Vitellozza
Vitelli as to make him oblivious of his position.  He knew that he
and the Orsini together were too weak to sustain a war of such
magnitude; that the little store of money to which he owed the
existence of his army would very soon be expended and his army would
disappear with it.  So he hastened to get pardoned far the victory by
making propositions which he would very likely have refused had he
been the vanquished party; and the pope accepted his conditions
without demur; during the interval having heard that Trivulce had
just recrossed the Alps and re-entered Italy with three thousand
Swiss, and fearing lest the Italian general might only be the advance
guard of the King of France.  So it was settled that the Orsini
should pay 70,000 florins for the expenses of the war, and that all
the prisoners on both sides should be exchanged without ransom with
the single exception of the Duke of Urbino.  As a pledge for the
future payment of the 70,000 florins, the Orsini handed over to the
Cardinals Sforza and San Severino the fortresses of Anguillara and
Cervetri; then, when the day came and they had not the necessary
money, they gave up their prisoner, the Duke of Urbino, estimating
his worth at 40,000 ducats--nearly all the sum required--and handed
him over to Alexander on account; he, a rigid observer of
engagements, made his own general, taken prisoner in his service,
pay, to himself the ransom he owed to the enemy.

Then the pope had the corpse of Virginio sent to Carlo Orsini and
Vitellozzo Vitelli, as he could not send him alive.  By a strange
fatality the prisoner had died, eight days before the treaty was
signed, of the same malady--at least, if we may judge by analogy--
that had carried off Bajazet's brother.

As soon as the peace was signed, Prospero Calonna and Gonzalvo de
Cordova, whom the Pope had demanded from Frederic, arrived at Rome
with an army of Spanish and Neapolitan troops.  Alexander, as he
could not utilise these against the Orsini, set them the work of
recapturing Ostia, not desiring to incur the reproach of bringing
them to Rome far nothing.  Gonzalvo was rewarded for this feat by
receiving the Rose of Gold from the pope's hand--that being the
highest honour His Holiness can grant.  He shared this distinction
with the Emperor Maximilian, the King of France, the Doge of Venice,
and the Marquis of Mantua.

In the midst of all this occurred the solemn festival of the
Assumption; in which Ganzalvo was invited to take part.  He
accordingly left his palace, proceeded in great pomp in the front of
the pontifical cavalry, and took his place on the Duke of Gandia's
left hand.  The duke attracted all eyes by his personal beauty, set
off as it was by all the luxury he thought fit to display at this
festival.  He had a retinue of pages and servants, clad in sumptuous
liveries, incomparable for richness with anything heretofore seen in
Rome, that city of religious pomp.  All these pages and servants rode
magnificent horses, caparisoned in velvet trimmed with silver fringe,
and bells of silver hanging down every here and there.  He himself
was in a robe of gold brocade, and wore at his neck a string of
Eastern pearls, perhaps the finest and largest that ever belonged to
a Christian prince, while on his cap was a gold chain studded with
diamonds of which the smallest was worth more than 20,000 ducats.
This magnificence was all the more conspicuous by the contrast it
presented to Caesar's dress, whose scarlet robe admitted of no
ornaments.  The result was that Caesar, doubly jealous of his
brother, felt a new hatred rise up within him when he heard all along
the way the praises of his fine appearance and noble equipment.  From
this moment Cardinal Valentino decided in his own mind the fate of
this man, this constant obstacle in the path of his pride, his love,
and his ambition.  Very good reason, says Tommaso, the historian, had
the Duke of Gandia to leave behind him an impression on the public
mind of his beauty and his grandeur at this fete, for this last
display was soon to be followed by the obsequies of the unhappy young
man.

Lucrezia also had come to Rome, on the pretext of taking part in the
solemnity, but really, as we shall see later, with the view of
serving as a new instrument for her father's ambition.  As the pope
was not satisfied with an empty triumph of vanity and display for his
son, and as his war with the Orsini had failed to produce the
anticipated results, he decided to increase the fortune of his
firstborn by doing the very thing which he had accused Calixtus in
his speech of doing for him, viz., alienating from the States of the
Church the cities of Benevento, Terracino, and Pontecorvo to form a
duchy as an appanage to his son's house.  Accordingly this
proposition was put forward in a full consistory, and as the college
of cardinals was entirely Alexander's, there was no difficulty about
carrying his point.  This new favour to his elder brother exasperated
Caesar, although he was himself getting a share of the paternal
gifts; for he had just been named envoy 'a latere' at Frederic's
court, and was appointed to crown him with his own hands as the papal
representative.  But Lucrezia, when she had spent a few days of
pleasure with her father and brothers, had gone into retreat at the
convent of San Sisto.  No one knew the real motive of her seclusion,
and no entreaties of Caesar, whose love for her was strange and
unnatural, had induced her to defer this departure from the world
even until the day after he left for Naples.  His sister's obstinacy
wounded him deeply, for ever since the day when the Duke of Gandia
had appeared in the procession so magnificently attired, he fancied
he had observed a coldness in the mistress of his illicit affection,
and so far did this increase his hatred of his rival that he resolved
to be rid of him at all costs.  So he ordered the chief of his sbirri
to come and see him the same night.

Michelotto was accustomed to these mysterious messages, which almost
always meant his help was wanted in some love affair or some act of
revenge.  As in either case his reward was generally a large one, he
was careful to keep his engagement, and at the appointed hour was
brought into the presence of his patron.

Caesar received him leaning against a tall chimney-piece, no longer
wearing his cardinal's robe and hat, but a doublet of black velvet
slashed with satin of the same colour.  One hand toyed mechanically
with his gloves, while the other rested an the handle of a poisoned
dagger which never left his side.  This was the dress he kept for his
nocturnal expeditions, so Michelotto felt no surprise at that; but
his eyes burned with a flame more gloomy than their want, and his
cheeks, generally pale, were now livid.  Michelotto had but to cast
one look upon his master to see that Caesar and he were about to
share some terrible enterprise.

He signed to him to shut the door.  Michelotto obeyed.  Then, after a
moment's silence, during which the eyes of Borgia seemed to burn into
the soul of the bravo, who with a careless air stood bareheaded
before ham, he said, in a voice whose slightly mocking tone gave the
only sign of his emotion.

"Michelotto, how do you think this dress suits me?"

Accustomed as he was to his master's tricks of circumlocution, the
bravo was so far from expecting this question, that at first he stood
mute, and only after a few moments' pause was able to say

"Admirably, monsignore; thanks to the dress, your Excellency has the
appearance as well as the true spirit of a captain."

"I am glad you think so," replied Caesar.  "And now let me ask you,
do you know who is the cause that, instead of wearing this dress,
which I can only put an at night, I am forced to disguise myself in
the daytime in a cardinal's robe and hat, and pass my time trotting
about from church to church, from consistory to consistory, when I
ought properly to be leading a magnificent army in the battlefield,
where you would enjoy a captain's rank, instead of being the chief of
a few miserable sbirri?"

"Yes, monsignore," replied Michelotto, who had divined Caesar's
meaning at his first word; "the man who is the cause of this is
Francesco, Duke of Gandia, and Benevento, your elder brother."

"Do you know," Caesar resumed, giving no sign of assent but a nod and
a bitter smile,--"do you know who has all the money and none of the
genius, who has the helmet and none of the brains, who has the sword
and no hand to wield it?"

"That too is the Duke of Gandia," said Michelotto.

"Do you know; continued Caesar, "who is the man whom I find
continually blocking the path of my ambition, my fortune, and my
love?"

"It is the same, the Duke of Gandia," said Michelotto.

"And what do you think of it?" asked Caesar.

"I think he must die," replied the man coldly.

"That is my opinion also, Michelotto," said Caesar, stepping towards
him and grasping his hand; "and my only regret is that I did not
think of it sooner; for if I had carried a sword at my side in stead
of a crosier in my hand when the King of France was marching through
Italy, I should now have been master of a fine domain.  The pope is
obviously anxious to aggrandise his family, but he is mistaken in the
means he adopts: it is I who ought to have been made duke, and my
brother a cardinal.  There is no doubt at all that, had he made me
duke, I should have contributed a daring and courage to his service
that would have made his power far weightier than it is.  The man who
would make his way to vast dominions and a kingdom ought to trample
under foot all the obstacles in his path, and boldly grasp the very
sharpest thorns, whatever reluctance his weak flesh may feel; such a
man, if he would open out his path to fortune, should seize his
dagger or his sword and strike out with his eyes shut; he should not
shrink from bathing his hands in the blood of his kindred; he should
follow the example offered him by every founder of empire from
Romulus to Bajazet, both of whom climbed to the throne by the
ladder of fratracide.  Yes, Michelotto, as you say, such is my
condition, and I am resolved I will not shrink.  Now you know why I
sent for you: am I wrong in counting upon you?"

As might have been expected, Michelotto, seeing his own fortune in
this crime, replied that he was entirely at Caesar's service, and
that he had nothing to do but to give his orders as to time, place,
and manner of execution.  Caesar replied that the time must needs be
very soon, since he was on the point of leaving Rome for Naples; as
to the place and the mode of execution, they would depend on
circumstances, and each of them must look out for an opportunity, and
seize the first that seemed favourable.

Two days after this resolution had been taken, Caesar learned that
the day of his departure was fixed for Thursday the 15th of June: at
the same time he received an invitation from his mother to come to
supper with her on the 14th.  This was a farewell repast given in his
honour.  Michelotto received orders to be in readiness at eleven
o'clock at night.

The table was set in the open air in a magnificent vineyard, a
property of Rosa Vanozza's in the neighbourhood of San Piero-in-
Vinculis: the guests were Caesar Borgia, the hero of the occasion;
the Duke of Gandia; Prince of Squillace; Dona Sancha, his wife; the
Cardinal of Monte Reale, Francesco Borgia, son of Calixtus III; Don
Roderigo Borgia, captain of the apostolic palace; Don Goffredo,
brother of the cardinal; Gian Borgia, at that time ambassador at
Perugia; and lastly, Don Alfonso Borgia, the pope's nephew: the whole
family therefore was present, except Lucrezia, who was still in
retreat, and would not come.

The repast was magnificent: Caesar was quite as cheerful as usual,
and the Duke of Gandia seemed more joyous than he had ever been
before.

In the middle of supper a man in a mask brought him a letter.  The
duke unfastened it, colouring up with pleasure; and when he had read
it answered in these words, "I will come": then he quickly hid the
letter in the pocket of his doublet; but quick as he was to conceal
it from every eye, Caesar had had time to cast a glance that way, and
he fancied he recognised the handwriting of his sister Lucrezia.
Meanwhile the messenger had gone off with his answer, no one but
Caesar paying the slightest attention to him, for at that period it
was the custom for have messages to be conveyed by men in domino or
by women whose faces were concealed by a veil.

At ten o'clock they rose from the table, and as the air was sweet and
mild they walked about a while under the magnificent pine trees that
shaded the house of Rosa Vanozza, while Caesar never for an instant
let his brother out of his sight.  At eleven o'clock the Duke of
Gandia bade good-night to his mother.  Caesar at once followed suit,
alleging his desire to go to the Vatican to bid farewell to the pope,
as he would not be able to fulfil this duty an the morrow, his
departure being fixed at daybreak.  This pretext was all the more
plausible since the pope was in the habit of sitting up every night
till two or three o'clock in the morning.

The two brothers went out together, mounted their horses, which were
waiting for them at the door, and rode side by side as far as the
Palazzo Borgia, the present home of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, who had
taken it as a gift from Alexander the night before his election to
the papacy.  There the Duke of Gandia separated from his brother,
saying with a smile that he was not intending to go home, as he had
several hours to spend first with a fair lady who was expecting him.
Caesar replied that he was no doubt free to make any use he liked
best of his opportunities, and wished him a very good night.  The
duke turned to the right, and Caesar to the left; but Caesar observed
that the street the duke had taken led in the direction of the
convent of San Sisto, where, as we said, Lucrezia was in retreat; his
suspicions were confirmed by this observation, and he directed his
horse's steps to the Vatican, found the pope, took his leave of him,
and received his benediction.

From this moment all is wrapped in mystery and darkness, like that in
which the terrible deed was done that we are now to relate.

This, however, is what is believed.

The Duke of Gandia, when he quitted Caesar, sent away his servants,
and in the company of one confidential valet alone pursued his course
towards the Piazza della Giudecca.  There he found the same man in a
mask who had come to speak to him at supper, and forbidding his valet
to follow any farther, he bade him wait on the piazza where they then
stood, promising to be on his way back in two hours' time at latest,
and to take him up as he passed.  And at the appointed hour the duke
reappeared, took leave this time of the man in the mask, and retraced
his steps towards his palace.  But scarcely had he turned the corner
of the Jewish Ghetto, when four men on foot, led by a fifth who was
on horseback, flung themselves upon him.  Thinking they were thieves,
or else that he was the victim of some mistake, the Duke of Gandia
mentioned his name; but instead of the name checking the murderers'
daggers, their strokes were redoubled, and the duke very soon fell
dead, his valet dying beside him.

Then the man on horseback, who had watched the assassination with no
sign of emotion, backed his horse towards the dead body: the four
murderers lifted the corpse across the crupper, and walking by the
side to support it, then made their way down the lane that leads to
the Church of Santa Maria-in-Monticelli.  The wretched valet they
left for dead upon the pavement.  But he, after the lapse of a few
seconds, regained some small strength, and his groans were heard by
the inhabitants of a poor little house hard by; they came and picked
him up, and laid him upon a bed, where he died almost at once, unable
to give any evidence as to the assassins or any details of the
murder.

All night the duke was expected home, and all the next morning; then
expectation was turned into fear, and fear at last into deadly
terror.  The pope was approached, and told that the Duke of Gandia
had never come back to his palace since he left his mother's house.
But Alexander tried to deceive himself all through the rest of the
day, hoping that his son might have been surprised by the coming of
daylight in the midst of an amorous adventure, and was waiting till
the next night to get away in that darkness which had aided his
coming thither.  But the night, like the day, passed and brought no
news.  On the morrow, the pope, tormented by the gloomiest
presentiments and by the raven's croak of the 'vox populi', let
himself fall into the depths of despair: amid sighs and sobs of
grief, all he could say to any one who came to him was but these
words, repeated a thousand times: "Search, search; let us know how my
unhappy son has died."

Then everybody joined in the search; for, as we have said, the Duke
of Gandia was beloved by all; but nothing could be discovered from
scouring the town, except the body of the murdered man, who was
recognised as the duke's valet; of his master there was no trace
whatever: it was then thought, not without reason, that he had
probably been thrown into the Tiber, and they began to follow along
its banks, beginning from the Via della Ripetta, questioning every
boatman and fisherman who might possibly have seen, either from their
houses or from their boats, what had happened on the river banks
during the two preceding nights.  At first all inquiries were in
vain; but when they had gone up as high as the Via del Fantanone,
they found a man at last who said he had seen something happen on the
night of the 14th which might very possibly have some bearing on the
subject of inquiry.  He was a Slav named George, who was taking up
the river a boat laden with wood to Ripetta.  The following are his
own words:

"Gentlemen," he said, "last Wednesday evening, when I had set down my
load of wood on the bank, I remained in my boat, resting in the cool
night air, and watching lest other men should come and take away what
I had just unloaded, when, about two o'clock in the morning, I saw
coming out of the lane on the left of San Girolamo's Church two men
on foot, who came forward into the middle of the street, and looked
so carefully all around that they seemed to have come to find out if
anybody was going along the street.  When they felt sure that it was
deserted, they went back along the same lane, whence issued presently
two other men, who used similar precautions to make sure that there
was nothing fresh; they, when they found all as they wished, gave a
sign to their companions to come and join them; next appeared one man
on a dapple-grey horse, which was carrying on the crupper the body of
a dead man, his head and arms hanging over on one side and his feet
on the other.  The two fellows I had first seen exploring were
holding him up by the arms and legs.  The other three at once went up
to the river, while the first two kept a watch on the street, and
advancing to the part of the bank where the sewers of the town are
discharged into the Tiber, the horseman turned his horse, backing on
the river; then the two who were at either side taking the corpse,
one by the hands, the other by the feet, swung it three times, and
the third time threw it out into the river with all their strength;
then at the noise made when the body splashed into the water, the
horseman asked, 'Is it done?' and the others answered, 'Yes, sir,'
and he at once turned right about face; but seeing the dead man's
cloak floating, he asked what was that black thing swimming about.
'Sir,' said one of the men, 'it is his cloak'; and then another man
picked up some stones, and running to the place where it was still
floating, threw them so as to make it sink under; as soon as it had
quite disappeared, they went off, and after walking a little way
along the main road, they went into the lane that leads to San
Giacomo.  That was all I saw, gentlemen, and so it is all I can
answer to the questions you have asked me."

At these words, which robbed of all hope any who might yet entertain
it, one of the pope's servants asked the Slav why, when he was
witness of such a deed, he had not gone to denounce it to the
governor.  But the Slav replied that, since he had exercised his
present trade on the riverside, he had seen dead men thrown into the
Tiber in the same way a hundred times, and had never heard that
anybody had been troubled about them; so he supposed it would be the
same with this corpse as the others, and had never imagined it was
his duty to speak of it, not thinking it would be any more important
than it had been before.

Acting on this intelligence, the servants of His Holiness summoned at
once all the boatmen and fishermen who were accustomed to go up and
down the river, and as a large reward was promised to anyone who
should find the duke's body, there were soon mare than a hundred
ready for the job; so that before the evening of the same day, which
was Friday, two men were drawn out of the water, of whom one was
instantly recognised as the hapless duke.  At the very first glance
at the body there could be no doubt as to the cause of death.  It was
pierced with nine wounds, the chief one in the throat, whose artery
was cut.  The clothing had not been touched: his doublet and cloak
were there, his gloves in his waistband, gold in his purse; the duke
then must have been assassinated not for gain but for revenge.

The ship which carried the corpse went up the Tiber to the Castello
Sant' Angelo, where it was set down.  At once the magnificent dress
was fetched from the duke's palace which he had worn on the day of
the procession, and he was clothed in it once more: beside him were
placed the insignia of the generalship of the Church.  Thus he lay in
state all day, but his father in his despair had not the courage to
came and look at him.  At last, when night had fallen, his most
trusty and honoured servants carried the body to the church of the
Madonna del Papala, with all the pomp and ceremony that Church and
State combined could devise for the funeral of the son of the pope.

Meantime the bloodstained hands of Caesar Borgia were placing a royal
crown upon the head of Frederic of Aragon.

This blow had pierced Alexander's heart very deeply.  As at first he
did not know on whom his suspicions should fall, he gave the
strictest orders for the pursuit of the murderers; but little by
little the infamous truth was forced upon him.  He saw that the blow
which struck at his house came from that very house itself and then
his despair was changed to madness: he ran through the rooms of the
Vatican like a maniac, and entering the consistory with torn garments
and ashes on his head, he sobbingly avowed all the errors of his past
life, owning that the disaster that struck his offspring through his
offspring was a just chastisement from God; then he retired to a
secret dark chamber of the palace, and there shut himself up,
declaring his resolve to die of starvation.  And indeed for more than
sixty hours he took no nourishment by day nor rest by night, making
no answer to those who knocked at his door to bring him food except
with the wailings of a woman or a roar as of a wounded lion; even the
beautiful Giulia Farnese, his new mistress, could not move him at
all, and was obliged to go and seek Lucrezia, that daughter doubly
loved to conquer his deadly resolve.  Lucrezia came out from the
retreat were she was weeping for the Duke of Gandia, that she might
console her father.  At her voice the door did really open, and it
was only then that the Duke of Segovia, who had been kneeling almost
a whole day at the threshold, begging His Holiness to take heart,
could enter with servants bearing wine and food.

The pope remained alone with Lucrezia for three days and nights; then
he reappeared in public, outwardly calm, if not resigned; for
Guicciardini assures us that his daughter had made him understand how
dangerous it would be to himself to show too openly before the
assassin, who was coming home, the immoderate love he felt for his
victim.




CHAPTER VIII

Caesar remained at Naples, partly to give time to the paternal grief
to cool down, and partly to get on with another business he had
lately been charged with, nothing else than a proposition of marriage
between Lucrezia and Don Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Bicelli and
Prince of Salerno, natural son of Alfonso II and brother of Dona
Sancha.  It was true that Lucrezia was already married to the lord of
Pesaro, but she was the daughter  of an father who had received from
heaven the right of uniting and disuniting.  There was no need to
trouble about so trifling a matter: when the two were ready to marry,
the divorce would be effected.  Alexander was too good a tactician to
leave his daughter married to a son-in-law who was becoming useless
to him.

Towards the end of August it was announced that the ambassador was
coming back to Rome, having accomplished his mission to the new king
to his great satisfaction.  And thither he returned an the 5th of
September,--that is, nearly three months after the Duke of Gandia's
death,--and on the next day, the 6th, from the church of Santa Maria
Novella, where, according to custom, the cardinals and the Spanish
and Venetian ambassadors were awaiting him on horseback at the door,
he proceeded to the Vatican, where His Holiness was sitting; there he
entered the consistory, was admitted by the pope, and in accordance
with the usual ceremonial received his benediction and kiss; then,
accompanied once more in the same fashion by the ambassadors and
cardinals, he was escorted to his own apartments.  Thence he
proceeded to the pope's, as soon as he was left alone; for at the
consistory they had had no speech with one another, and the father
and son had a hundred things to talk about, but of these the Duke of
Gandia was not one, as might have been expected.  His name was not
once spoken, and neither on that day nor afterwards was there ever
again any mention of the unhappy young man: it was as though he had
never existed.

It was the fact that Caesar brought good news, King Frederic gave his
consent to the proposed union; so the marriage of Sforza and Lucrezia
was dissolved on a pretext of nullity.  Then Frederic authorised the
exhumation of D'jem's body, which, it will be remembered, was worth
300,000 ducats.

After this, all came about as Caesar had desired; he became the man
who was all-powerful after the pope; but when he was second in
command it was soon evident to the Roman people that their city was
making a new stride in the direction of ruin.  There was nothing but
balls, fetes, masquerades; there were magnificent hunting parties,
when Caesar--who had begun to cast off his cardinal's robe,--weary
perhaps of the colour, appeared in a French dress, followed, like a
king by cardinals, envoys and bodyguard.  The whole pontifical
town, given up like a courtesan to orgies and debauchery, had never
been more the home of sedition, luxury, and carnage, according to the
Cardinal of Viterba, not even in the days of Nero and Heliogabalus.
Never had she fallen upon days more evil; never had more traitors
done her dishonour or sbirri stained her streets with blood.  The
number of thieves was so great, and their audacity such, that no one
could with safety pass the gates of the town; soon it was not even
safe within them.  No house, no castle, availed for defence.  Right
and justice no longer existed.  Money, farce, pleasure, ruled
supreme.

Still, the gold was melting as in a furnace at these Fetes; and, by
Heaven's just punishment, Alexander and Caesar were beginning to
covet the fortunes of those very men who had risen through their
simony to their present elevation.  The first attempt at a new method
of coining money was tried upon the Cardinal Cosenza.  The occasion
was as follows.  A certain dispensation had been granted some time
before to a nun who had taken the vows: she was the only surviving
heir to the throne of Portugal, and by means of the dispensation she
had been wedded to the natural son of the last king.  This marriage
was more prejudicial than can easily be imagined to the interests of
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain; so they sent ambassadors to
Alexander to lodge a complaint against a proceeding of this nature,
especially as it happened at the very moment when an alliance was to
be formed between the house of Aragon and the Holy See.  Alexander
understood the complaint, and resolved that all should be set right.
So he denied all knowledge of the papal brief though he had as a fact
received 60,000 ducats for signing it--and accused the Archbishop of
Cosenza, secretary for apostolic briefs, of having granted a false
dispensation.  By reason of this accusation, the archbishop was taken
to the castle of Sant' Angelo, and a suit was begun.

But as it was no easy task to prove an accusation of this nature,
especially if the archbishop should persist in maintaining that the
dispensation was really granted by the pope, it was resolved to
employ a trick with him which could not fail to succeed.  One evening
the Archbishop of Cosenza saw Cardinal Valentino come into his
prison; with that frank air of affability which he knew well how to
assume when it could serve his purpose, he explained to the prisoner
the embarrassing situation in which the pope was placed, from which
the archbishop alone, whom His Holiness looked upon as his best
friend, could save him.

The archbishop replied that he was entirely at the service of His
Holiness.

Caesar, on his entrance, found the captive seated, leaning his elbows
on a table, and he took a seat opposite him and explained the pope's
position: it was an embarrassing one.  At the very time of
contracting so important an alliance with the house of Aragon as that
of Lucrezia and Alfonso, His Holiness could not avow to Ferdinand and
Isabella that, for the sake of a few miserable ducats, he had signed
a dispensation which would unite in the husband and wife together all
the legitimate claims to a throne to which Ferdinand and Isabella had
no right at all but that of conquest.  This avowal would necessarily
put an end to all negotiations, and the pontifical house would fall
by the overthrow of that very pedestal which was to have heightened
its grandeur.  Accordingly the archbishop would understand what the
pope expected of his devotion and friendship: it was a simple and
straight avowal that he had supposed he might take it upon himself to
accord the dispensation.  Then, as the sentence to be passed on such
an error would be the business of Alexander, the accused could easily
imagine beforehand how truly paternal such a sentence would be.
Besides, the reward was in the same hands, and if the sentence was
that of a father, the recompense would be that of a king.  In fact,
this recompense would be no less than the honour of assisting as
envoy, with the title of cardinal, at the marriage of Lucrezia and
Alfonso--a favour which would be very appropriate, since it would be
thanks to his devotion that the marriage could take place.

The Archbishop of Cosenza knew the men he was dealing with; he knew
that to save their own ends they would hesitate at nothing; he knew
they had a poison like sugar to the taste and to the smell,
impossible to discover in food--a poison that would kill slowly or
quickly as the poisoner willed and would leave no trace behind; he
knew the secret of the poisoned key that lay always on the pope's
mantelpiece, so that when His Holiness wished to destroy some one of
his intimates, he bade him open a certain cupboard: on the handle of
the key there was a little spike, and as the lock of the cupboard
turned stiffly the hand would naturally press, the lock would yield,
and nothing would have come of it but a trifling scratch: the scratch
was mortal.  He knew, too, that Caesar wore a ring made like two
lions' heads, and that he would turn the stone on the inside when he
was shaking hands with a friend.  Then the lions' teeth became the
teeth of a viper, and the friend died cursing Borgia.  So he yielded,
partly through fear, partly blinded by the thought of the reward; and
Caesar returned to the Vatican armed with a precious paper, in which
the Archbishop of Cosenza admitted that he was the only person
responsible for the dispensation granted to the royal nun.

Two days later, by means of the proofs kindly furnished by the
archbishop, the pope; in the presence of the governor of Rome, the
auditor of the apostolic chamber, the advocate, and the fiscal
attorney, pronounced sentence, condemning the archbishop to the loss
of all his benefices and ecclesiastical offices, degradation from his
orders, and confiscation of his goods; his person was to be handed
over to the civil arm.  Two days later the civil magistrate entered
the prison to fulfil his office as received from the pope, and
appeared before the archbishop, accompanied by a clerk, two servants,
and four guards.  The clerk unrolled the paper he carried and read
out the sentence; the two servants untied a packet, and, stripping
the prisoner of his ecclesiastical garments, they reclothed him in a
dress of coarse white cloth which only reached down to his knees,
breeches of the same, and a pair of clumsy shoes.  Lastly, the
guards took him, and led him into one of the deepest dungeons of the
castle of Sant' Angelo, where for furniture he found nothing but a
wooden crucifix, a table, a chair, and a bed; for occupation, a Bible
and a breviary, with a lamp to read by; for nourishment, two pounds
of bread and a little cask of water, which were to be renewed every
three days, together with a bottle of oil for burning in his lamp.

At the end of a year the poor archbishop died of despair, not before
he had gnawed his own arms in his agony.

The very same day that he was taken into the dungeon, Caesar Borgia,
who had managed the affair so ably, was presented by the pope with
all the belongings of the condemned prisoner.

But the hunting parties, balls, and masquerades were not the only
pleasures enjoyed by the pope and his family: from time to time
strange spectacles were exhibited.  We will only describe two--one of
them a case of punishment, the other no more nor less than a matter
of the stud farm.  But as both of these give details with which we
would not have our readers credit our imagination, we will first say
that they are literally translated from Burchard's Latin journal.

"About the same time--that is, about the beginning of 1499--a certain
courtesan named La Corsetta was in prison, and had a lover who came
to visit her in woman's clothes, a Spanish Moor, called from his
disguise 'the Spanish lady from Barbary!'  As a punishment, both of
them were led through the town, the woman without petticoat or skirt,
but wearing only the Moor's dress unbuttoned in front; the man wore
his woman's garb; his hands were tied behind his back, and the skirt
fastened up to his middle, with a view to complete exposure before
the eyes of all.  When in this attire they had made the circuit of
the town, the Corsetta was sent back to the prison with the Moor.
But on the 7th of April following, the Moor was again taken out and
escorted in the company of two thieves towards the Campo dei Fiori.
The three condemned men were preceded by a constable, who rode
backwards on an ass, and held in his hand a long pole, on the end of
which were hung, still bleeding, the amputated limbs of a poor Jew
who had suffered torture and death for some trifling crime.  When the
procession reached the place of execution, the thieves were hanged,
and the unfortunate Moor was tied to a stake piled round with wood,
where he was to have been burnt to death, had not rain fallen in such
torrents that the fire would not burn, in spite of all the efforts of
the executioner."

This unlooked for accident, taken as a miracle by the people, robbed
Lucrezia of the most exciting part of the execution; but her father
was holding in reserve another kind of spectacle to console her with
later.  We inform the reader once more that a few lines we are about
to set before him are a translation from the journal of the worthy
German Burchard, who saw nothing in the bloodiest or most wanton
performances but facts for his journal, which he duly registered with
the impassibility of a scribe, appending no remark or moral
reflection.

"On the 11th of November a certain peasant was entering Rome with two
stallions laden with wood, when the servants of His Holiness, just as
he passed the Piazza of St. Peter's, cut their girths, so that their
loads fell on the ground with the pack-saddles, and led off the
horses to a court between the palace and the gate; then the stable
doors were opened, and four stallions, quite free and unbridled,
rushed out and in an instant all six animals began kicking, biting
and fighting each other until several were killed.  Roderigo and
Madame Lucrezia, who sat at the window just over the palace gate,
took the greatest delight in the struggle and called their courtiers
to witness the gallant battle that was being fought below them."

Now Caesar's trick in the matter of the Archbishop of Cosenza had had
the desired result, and Isabella and Ferdinand could no longer impute
to Alexander the signature of the brief they had complained of: so
nothing was now in the way of the marriage of Lucrezia and Alfonso;
this certainty gave the pope great joy, for he attached all the more
importance to this marriage because he was already cogitating a
second, between Caesar and Dona Carlota, Frederic's daughter.

Caesar had shown in all his actions since his brother's death his
want of vocation for the ecclesiastical life; so no one was
astonished when, a consistory having been summoned one morning by
Alexander, Caesar entered, and addressing the pope, began by saying
that from his earliest years he had been drawn towards secular
pursuits both by natural inclination and ability, and it had only
been in obedience to the absolute commands of His Holiness that he
entered the Church, accepted the cardinal's scarlet, other dignities,
and finally the sacred order of the diaconate; but feeling that in
his situation it was improper to follow his passions, and at his age
impossible to resist them, he humbly entreated His Holiness
graciously to yield to the desire he had failed to overcome, and to
permit him to lay aside the dress and dignities of the Church, and
enter once more into the world, thereto contract a lawful marriage;
also he entreated the lord cardinals to intercede for him with His
Holiness, to whom he would freely resign all his churches, abbeys,
and benefices, as well as every other ecclesiastical dignity and
preferment that had been accorded him.  The cardinals, deferring to
Caesar's wishes, gave a unanimous vote, and the pope, as we may
suppose, like a good father, not wishing to force his son's
inclinations, accepted his resignation, and yielded to the petition;
thus Caesar put off the scarlet robe, which was suited to him, says
his historian Tommaso Tommasi, in one particular only--that it was
the colour of blood.

In truth, the resignation was a pressing necessity, and there was no
time to lose.  Charles VIII one day after he had came home late and
tired from the hunting-field, had bathed his head in cold water; and
going straight to table, had been struck dawn by an apoplectic
seizure directly after his supper; and was dead, leaving the throne
to the good Louis XII, a man of two conspicuous weaknesses, one as
deplorable as the other: the first was the wish to make conquests;
the second was the desire to have children.  Alexander, who was on
the watch far all political changes, had seen in a moment what he
could get from Louis XII's accession to the throne, and was prepared
to profit by the fact that the new king of France needed his help for
the accomplishment of his twofold desire.  Louis needed, first, his
temporal aid in an expedition against the duchy of Milan, on which,
as we explained before, he had inherited claims from Valentina
Visconti, his grandmother; and, secondly, his spiritual aid to
dissolve his marriage with Jeanne, the daughter of Louis XI; a
childless and hideously deformed woman, whom he had only married by
reason of the great fear he entertained for her father.  Now
Alexander was willing to do all this for Louis XII and to give in
addition a cardinal's hat to his friend George d'Amboise, provided
only that the King of France would use his influence in persuading
the young Dona Carlota, who was at his court, to marry his son
Caesar.

So, as this business was already far advanced on the day when Caesar
doffed his scarlet and donned a secular garb, thus fulfilling the
ambition so long cherished, when the lord of Villeneuve, sent by
Louis and commissioned to bring Caesar to France, presented himself
before the ex-cardinal on his arrival at Rome, the latter, with his
usual extravagance of luxury and the kindness he knew well how to
bestow on those he needed, entertained his guest for a month, and did
all the honours of Rome.  After that, they departed, preceded by one
of the pope's couriers, who gave orders that every town they passed
through was to receive them with marks of honour and respect.  The
same order had been sent throughout the whole of France, where the
illustrious visitors received so numerous a guard, and were welcomed
by a populace so eager to behold them, that after they passed through
Paris, Caesar's gentlemen-in-waiting wrote to Rome that they had not
seen any trees in France, or houses, or walls, but only men, women
and sunshine.

The king, on the pretext of going out hunting, went to meet his guest
two leagues outside the town.  As he knew Caesar was very fond of the
name of Valentine, which he had used as cardinal, and still continued
to employ with the title of Count, although he had resigned the
archbishopric which gave him the name, he there and then bestowed an
him the investiture of Valence, in Dauphine, with the title of Duke
and a pension of 20,000 francs; then, when he had made this
magnificent gift and talked with him for nearly a couple of hours, he
took his leave, to enable him to prepare the splendid entry he was
proposing to make.

It was Wednesday, the 18th of December 1498, when Caesar Borgia
entered the town of Chinon, with pomp worthy of the son of a pope who
is about to marry the daughter of a king.  The procession began with
four-and-twenty mules, caparisoned in red, adorned with escutcheons
bearing the duke's arms, laden with carved trunks and chests inlaid
with ivory and silver; after them came four-and-twenty mare, also
caparisoned, this time in the livery of the King of France, yellow
and red; next after these came ten other mules, covered in yellow
satin with red crossbars; and lastly another ten, covered with
striped cloth of gold, the stripes alternately raised and flat gold.

Behind the seventy mules which led the procession there pranced
sixteen handsome battle-horses, led by equerries who marched
alongside; these were followed by eighteen hunters ridden by eighteen
pages, who were about fourteen or fifteen years of age; sixteen of
them were dressed in crimson velvet, and two in raised gold cloth; so
elegantly dressed were these two children, who were also the best
looking of the little band, that the sight of them gave rise to
strange suspicions as to the reason for this preference, if one may
believe what Brantome says.  Finally, behind these eighteen horses
came six beautiful mules, all harnessed with red velvet, and led by
six valets, also in velvet to match.

The third group consisted of, first, two mules quite covered with
cloth of gold, each carrying two chests in which it was said that the
duke's treasure was stored, the precious stones he was bringing to
his fiancee, and the relics and papal bulls that his father had
charged him to convey for him to Louis XII.  These were followed by
twenty gentlemen dressed in cloth of gold and silver, among whom rode
Paul Giordano Orsino and several barons and knights among the chiefs
of the state ecclesiastic.

Next came two drums, one rebeck, and four soldiers blowing trumpets
and silver clarions; then, in the midst of a party of four-and-twenty
lacqueys, dressed half in crimson velvet and half in yellow silk,
rode Messire George d'Amboise and Monseigneur the Duke of
Valentinois.  Caesar was mounted on a handsome tall courser, very
richly harnessed, in a robe half red satin and half cloth of gold,
embroidered all over with pearls and precious stones; in his cap were
two rows of rubies, the size of beans, which reflected so brilliant a
light that one might have fancied they were the famous carbuncles of
the Arabian Nights; he also wore on his neck a collar worth at least
200,000 livres; indeed, there was no part of him, even down to his
boots, that was not laced with gold and edged with pearls.  His horse
was covered with a cuirass in a pattern of golden foliage of
wonderful workmanship, among which there appeared to grow, like
flowers, nosegays of pearls and clusters of rubies.

Lastly, bringing up the rear of the magnificent cortege, behind the
duke came twenty-four mules with red caparisons bearing his arms,
carrying his silver plate, tents, and baggage.

What gave to all the cavalcade an air of most wonderful luxury and
extravagance was that the horses and mules were shod with golden
shoes, and these were so badly nailed on that more than three-
quarters of their number, were lost on the road.  For this extravagance
Caesar was greatly blamed, for it was thought an audacious thing to
put on his horses' feet a metal of which king's crowns are made.

But all this pomp had no effect on the lady for whose sake it had
been displayed; for when Dona Carlota was told that Caesar Bargia had
come to France in the hope of becoming her husband, she replied
simply that she would never take a priest for her husband, and,
moreover, the son of a priest; a man who was not only an assassin,
but a fratricide; not only a man of infamous birth, but still more
infamous in his morals and his actions.

But, in default of the haughty lady of Aragon, Caesar soon found
another princess of noble blood who consented to be his wife: this
was Mademoiselle d'Albret, daughter of the King of Navarre.  The
marriage, arranged on condition that the pope should pay 200,000
ducats dowry to the bride, and should make her brother cardinal, was
celebrated on the 10th of May; and on the Whitsunday following the
Duke of Valentois received the order of St. Michael, an order founded
by Louis XI, and esteemed at this period as the highest in the gift
of the kings of France.  The news of this marriage, which made an
alliance with Louis XII certain, was received with great joy by the
pope, who at once gave orders for bonfires and illuminations all over
the town.

Louis XII was not only grateful to the pope for dissolving his
marriage with Jeanne of France and authorizing his union with Anne of
Brittany, but he considered it indispensable to his designs in Italy
to have the pope as his ally.  So he promised the Duke of Valentinois
to put three hundred lances at his disposal, as soon as he had made
an entry into Milan, to be used to further his own private interests,
and against whomsoever he pleased except only the allies of France.
The conquest of Milan should be undertaken so soon as Louis felt
assured of the support of the Venetians, or at least of their
neutrality, and he had sent them ambassadors authorised to promise in
his name the restoration of Cremona and Ghiera d'Adda when he had
completed the conquest of Lombardy.



CHAPTER IX

Everything from without was favouring Alexander's encroaching policy,
when he was compelled to turn his eyes from France towards the centre
of Italy: in Florence dwelt a man, neither duke, nor king, nor
soldier, a man whose power was in his genius, whose armour was his
purity, who owned no offensive weapon but his tongue, and who yet
began to grow more dangerous for him than all the kings, dukes,
princes, in the whole world could ever be; this man was the poor
Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola, the same who had refused
absolution to Lorenzo dei Medici because he would not restore the
liberty of Florence.

Girolamo Savonarola had prophesied the invasion of a force from
beyond the Alps, and Charles VIII had conquered Naples; Girolamo
Savonarola had prophesied to Charles VIII that because he had failed
to fulfil the mission of liberator entrusted to him by God, he was
threatened with a great misfortune as a punishment, and Charles was
dead; lastly, Savonarola had prophesied his own fall like the man who
paced around the holy city for eight days, crying, "Woe to
Jerusalem!" and on the ninth day, "Woe be on my own head!"  None the
less, the Florentine reformer, who could not recoil from any danger,
was determined to attack the colossal abomination that was seated on
St. Peter's holy throne; each debauch, each fresh crime that lifted
up its brazen face to the light of day or tried to hide its shameful
head beneath the veil of night, he had never failed to paint out to
the people, denouncing it as the off spring of the pope's luxurious
living and lust of power.  Thus had he stigmatised Alexander's new
amour with the beautiful Giulia Farnese, who in the preceding April a
added another son to the pope's family; thus had he cursed the Duke
of Gandia's murderer, the lustful, jealous fratricide; lastly, he had
pointed out to the Florentines, who were excluded from the league
then forming, what sort of future was in store far them when the
Borgias should have made themselves masters of the small
principalities and should come to attack the duchies and republics.
It was clear that in Savonarola, the pope had an enemy at once
temporal and spiritual, whose importunate and threatening voice must
be silenced at any cost.

But mighty as the pope's power was, to accomplish a design like this
was no easy matter.  Savonarola, preaching the stern principles of
liberty, had united to his cause, even in the midst of rich,
pleasure-loving Florence, a party of some size, known as the
'Piagnoni', or the Penitents: this band was composed of citizens who
were anxious for reform in Church and State, who accused the Medici
of enslaving the fatherland and the Borgias of upsetting the faith,
who demanded two things, that the republic should return to her
democratic principles, and religion to a primitive simplicity.
Towards the first of these projects considerable progress had been
made, since they had successively obtained, first, an amnesty for all
crimes and delinquencies committed under other governments; secondly,
the abolition of the 'balia', which was an aristocratic magistracy;
thirdly, the establishment of a sovereign council, composed of 1800
citizens; and lastly, the substitution of popular elections for
drawing by lot and for oligarchical nominations: these changes had
been effected in spite of two other factions, the 'Arrabiati', or
Madmen, who, consisting of the richest and noblest youths of the
Florentine patrician families, desired to have an oligarchical
government; and the 'Bigi', or Greys, so called because they always
held their meetings in the shade, who desired the return of the
Medici.

The first measure Alexander used against the growing power of
Savonarola was to declare him heretic, and as such banished from the
pulpit; but Savonarola had eluded this prohibition by making his
pupil and friend, Domenico Bonvicini di Pescia, preach in his stead.
The result was that the master's teachings were issued from other
lips, and that was all; the seed, though scattered by another hand,
fell none the less on fertile soil, where it would soon burst into
flower.  Moreover, Savonarola now set an example that was followed to
good purpose by Luther, when, twenty-two years later, he burned
Leo X's bull of excommunication at Wittenberg; he was weary of silence,
so he declared, on the authority of Pope Pelagius, that an unjust
excommunication had no efficacy, and that the person excommunicated
unjustly did not even need to get absolution.  So on Christmas Day,
1497, he declared that by the inspiration of God he renounced his
obedience to a corrupt master; and he began to preach once more in
the cathedral, with a success that was all the greater for the
interruption, and an influence far more formidable than before,
because it was strengthened by that sympathy of the masses which an
unjust persecution always inspires.

Then Alexander made overtures to Leonardo dei Medici, vicar of the
archbishopric of Florence, to obtain the punishment of the rebel
Leonardo, in obedience to the orders he received, from Rome, issued a
mandate forbidding the faithful to attend at Savonarola's sermons.
After this mandate, any who should hear the discourses of the
excommunicated monk would be refused communion and confession;
and as when they died they would be contaminated with heresy, in
consequence of their spiritual intercourse with a heretic, their dead
bodies would be dragged on a hurdle and deprived of the rights of
sepulture.  Savonarola appealed from the mandate of his superior both
to the people and to the Signoria, and the two together gave orders
to the episcopal vicar to leave Florence within two hours: this
happened at the beginning of the year 1498.

The expulsion of Leonard's dei Medici was a new triumph for
Savonarola, so, wishing to turn to good moral account his growing
influence, he resolved to convert the last day of the carnival,
hitherto given up to worldly pleasures, into a day of religious
sacrifice.  So actually on Shrove Tuesday a considerable number of
boys were collected in front of the cathedral, and there divided into
bands, which traversed the whole town, making a house-to-house
visitation, claiming all profane books, licentious paintings, lutes,
harps, cards and dice, cosmetics and perfumes--in a word, all the
hundreds of products of a corrupt society and civilisation, by the
aid of which Satan at times makes victorious war on God.  The
inhabitants of Florence obeyed, and came forth to the Piazza of the
Duoma, bringing these works of perdition, which were soon piled up in
a huge stack, which the youthful reformers set on fire, singing
religious psalms and hymns the while.  On this pile were burned many
copies of Boccaccio and of Margante Maggiore, and pictures by Fro
Bartalommeo, who from that day forward renounced the art of this
world to consecrate his brush utterly and entirely to the
reproduction of religious scenes.

A reform such as this was terrifying to Alexander; so he resolved on
fighting Savonarola with his own weapons--that is, by the force of
eloquence.  He chose as the Dominican's opponent a preacher of
recognised talent, called Fra Francesco di Paglia; and he sent him to
Florence, where he began to preach in Santa Croce, accusing
Savonarola of heresy and impiety.  At the same time the pope, in a
new brief, announced to the Signaria that unless they forbade the
arch-heretic to preach, all the goods of Florentine merchants who
lived on the papal territory would be confiscated, and the republic
laid under an interdict and declared the spiritual and temporal enemy
of the Church.  The Signoria, abandoned by France, and aware that the
material power of Rome was increasing in a frightful manner, was
forced this time to yield, and to issue to Savonarola an order to
leave off preaching.  He obeyed, and bade farewell to his
congregation in a sermon full of strength and eloquence.

But the withdrawal of Savonarola, so far from calming the ferment,
had increased it: there was talk about his prophecies being
fulfilled; and some zealots, more ardent than their master added
miracle to inspiration, and loudly proclaimed that Savonarola had
offered to go down into the vaults of the cathedral with his
antagonist, and there bring a dead man to life again, to prove that
his doctrine was true, promising to declare himself vanquished if the
miracle were performed by his adversary.  These rumours reached the
ears of Fra Francesco, and as he was a man of warm blood, who counted
his own life as nothing if it might be spent to help his cause, he
declared in all humility that he felt he was too great a sinner for
God to work a miracle in his behalf; but he proposed another
challenge: he would try with Savonarola the ordeal of fire.  He knew,
he said, that he must perish, but at least he should perish avenging
the cause of religion, since he was certain to involve in his
destruction the tempter who plunged so many souls beside his own into
eternal damnation.

The proposition made by Fra Francesco was taken to Savanarola; but
as he had never proposed the earlier challenge, he hesitated to
accept the second; hereupon his disciple, Fra Domenico Bonvicini,
more confident than his master in his own power, declared himself
ready to accept the trial by fire in his stead; so certain was he
that God would perform a miracle by the intercession of Savonarola,
His prophet.

Instantly the report spread through Florence that the mortal
challenge was accepted; Savonarola's partisans, all men of the
strongest convictions, felt no doubt as to the success of their
cause.  His enemies were enchanted at the thought of the heretic
giving himself to the flames; and the indifferent saw in the ordeal a
spectacle of real and terrible interest.

But the devotion of Fra Bonvicini of Pescia was not what Fra
Francesco was reckoning with.  He was willing, no doubt, to die a
terrible death, but on condition that Savanarola died with him.  What
mattered to him the death of an obscure disciple like Fra Bonvicini?
It was the master he would strike, the great teacher who must be
involved in his own ruin.  So he refused to enter the fire except
with Savonarola himself, and, playing this terrible game in his own
person, would not allow his adversary to play it by proxy.

Then a thing happened which certainly no one could have anticipated.
In the place of Fra Francesco, who would not tilt with any but the
master, two Franciscan monks appeared to tilt with the disciple.
These were Fra Nicholas de Pilly and Fra Andrea Rondinelli.
Immediately the partisans of Savonarala, seeing this arrival of
reinforcements for their antagonist, came forward in a crowd to try
the ordeal.  The Franciscans were unwilling to be behindhand, and
everybody took sides with equal ardour for one or other party.  All
Florence was like a den of madmen; everyone wanted the ordeal,
everyone wanted to go into the fire; not only did men challenge one
another, but women and even children were clamouring to be allowed to
try.  At last the Signoria, reserving this privilege for the first
applicants, ordered that the strange duel should take place only
between Fra Domenico Bonvicini and Fra Andrea Rondinelli; ten of the
citizens were to arrange all details; the day was fixed for the 7th
of April, 1498, and the place the Piazza del Palazzo.

The judges of the field made their arrangements conscientiously.  By
their orders scaffolding was erected at the appointed place, five
feet in height, ten in width, and eighty feet long.  This scaffolding
was covered with faggots and heath, supported by cross-bars of the
very driest wood that could be found.  Two narrow paths were made,
two feet wide at most, their entrance giving on the Loggia dei Lanzi,
their exit exactly opposite.  The loggia was itself divided into two
by a partition, so that each champion had a kind of room to make his
preparations in, just as in the theatre every actor has his dressing-
room; but in this instance the tragedy that was about to be played
was not a fictitious one.

The Franciscans arrived on the piazza and entered the compartment
reserved for them without making any religious demonstration; while
Savonarola, on the contrary, advanced to his own place in the
procession, wearing the sacerdotal robes in which he had just
celebrated the Holy Eucharist, and holding in his hand the sacred
host for all the world to see, as it was enclosed in a crystal
tabernacle.  Fra Domenico di Pescia, the hero of the occasion,
followed, bearing a crucifix, and all the Dominican monks, their red
crosses in their hands, marched behind singing a psalm; while behind
them again followed the most considerable of the citizens of their
party, bearing torches, for, sure as they were of the triumph of
their cause, they wished to fire the faggots themselves.  The piazza
was so crowded that the people overflowed into all the streets
around.  In every door and window there was nothing to be seen but
heads ranged one above the other; the terraces were covered with
people, and curious spectators were observed an the roof of the Duomo
and on the tap of the Campanile.

But, brought face to face with the ordeal, the Franciscans raised
such difficulties that it was very plain the heart of their champion
was failing him.  The first fear they expressed was that Fra
Bonvicini was an enchanter, and so carried about him some talisman or
charm which would save him from the fire.  So they insisted that he
should be stripped of all has clothes and put on others to be
inspected by witnesses.  Fra Bonvicini made no objection, though the
suspicion was humiliating; he changed shirt, dress, and cowl.  Then,
when the Franciscans observed that Savanarola was placing the
tabernacle in his hands, they protested that it was profanation to
expose the sacred host to the risk of burning, that this was not in
the bond, and if Bonvicini would not give up this supernatural aid,
they far their part would give up the trial altogether.  Savonarola
replied that it was not astonishing that the champion of religion who
put his faith in God should bear in his hands that very God to whom
he entrusted his salvation.  But this reply did not satisfy the
Franciscans, who were unwilling to let go their contention.
Savonarola remained inflexible, supporting his own right, and thus
nearly four hours passed in the discussion of points which neither
party would give up, and affairs remained in 'statu quo'.  Meanwhile
the people, jammed together in the streets, on the terraces, on the
roofs, since break of day, were suffering from hunger and thirst and
beginning to get impatient: their impatience soon developed into loud
murmurs, which reached even the champions' ears, so that the
partisans of Savonarala, who felt such faith in him that they were
confident of a miracle, entreated him to yield to all the conditions
suggested.  To this Savonarola replied that if it were himself making
the trial he would be less inexorable; but since another man was
incurring the danger; he could not take too many precautions.  Two
more hours passed, while his partisans tried in vain to combat his
refusals.  At last, as night was coming on and the people grew ever
more and more impatient and their murmurs began to assume a
threatening tone, Bonvicini declared that he was ready to walk
through the fire, holding nothing in his hand but a crucifix.  No one
could refuse him this; so Fra Rondinelli was compelled to accept his
proposition.  The announcement was made to the populace that the
champions had come to terms and the trial was about to take place.
At this news the people calmed down, in the hope of being compensated
at last for their long wait; but at that very moment a storm which
had long been threatening brake over Florence with such fury that the
faggots which had just been lighted were extinguished by the rain,
leaving no possibility of their rekindling.  From the moment when the
people suspected that they had been fooled, their enthusiasm was
changed into derision.  They were ignorant from which side the
difficulties had arisen that had hindered the trial, so they laid the
responsibility on both champions without distinction.  The Signoria,
foreseeing the disorder that was now imminent, ordered the assembly
to retire; but the assembly thought otherwise, and stayed on the
piazza, waiting for the departure of the two champions, in spite of
the fearful rain that still fell in torrents.  Rondinelli was taken
back amid shouts and hootings, and pursued with showers of stones.
Savonarola, thanks to his sacred garments and the host which he still
carried, passed calmly enough through the midst of the mob--a miracle
quite as remarkable as if he had passed through the fire unscathed.

But it was only the sacred majesty of the host that had protected
this man, who was indeed from this moment regarded as a false
prophet: the crowd allowed Savonarola to return to his convent, but
they regretted the necessity, so excited were they by the Arrabbiati
party, who had always denounced him as a liar and a hypocrite.  So
when the next morning, Palm Sunday, he stood up in the pulpit to
explain his conduct, he could not obtain a moment's silence for
insults, hooting, and loud laughter.  Then the outcry, at first
derisive, became menacing: Savonarola, whose voice was too weak to
subdue the tumult, descended from his pulpit, retired into the
sacristy, and thence to his convent, where he shut himself up in his
cell.  At that moment a cry was heard, and was repeated by everybody
present:

"To San Marco, to San Marco!"  The rioters, few at first, were
recruited by all the populace as they swept along the streets, and at
last reached the convent, dashing like an angry sea against the wall.

The doors, closed on Savonarala's entrance, soon crashed before the
vehement onset of the powerful multitude, which struck down on the
instant every obstacle it met: the whole convent was quickly flooded
with people, and Savonarola, with his two confederates, Domenico
Bonvicini and Silvestro Maruffi, was arrested in his cell, and
conducted to prison amid the insults of the crowd, who, always in
extremes, whether of enthusiasm or hatred, would have liked to tear
them to pieces, and would not be quieted till they had exacted a
promise that the prisoners should be forcibly compelled to make the
trial of fire which they had refused to make of their own free will.

Alexander VI, as we may suppose, had not been without influence in
bringing about this sudden and astonishing reaction, although he was
not present in person; and had scarcely learned the news of
Savonarola's fall and arrest when he claimed him as subject to
ecclesiastical jurisdiction.  But in spite of the grant of
indulgences wherewith this demand was accompanied, the Signoria
insisted that Savonarola's trial should take place at Florence,
adding a request so as not to appear to withdraw the accused
completely from the pontifical authority--that the pope would send
two ecclesiastical judges to sit in the Florentine tribunal.
Alexander, seeing that he would get nothing better from the
magnificent republic, sent as deputies Gioacchino Turriano of Venice,
General of the Dominicans, and Francesco Ramolini, doctor in law:
they practically brought the sentence with them, declaring Savonarola
and his accomplices heretics, schismatics, persecutors of the Church
and seducers of the people.

The firmness shown by the Florentines in claiming their rights of
jurisdiction were nothing but an empty show to save appearances; the
tribunal, as a fact, was composed of eight members, all known to be
fervent haters of Savonarola, whose trial began with the torture.
The result was that, feeble in body constitutionally nervous and
irritable, he had not been able to endure the rack, and, overcome by
agony just at the moment when the executioner had lifted him up by
the wrists and then dropped him a distance of two feet to the ground,
he had confessed, in order to get some respite, that his prophecies
were nothing more than conjectures.  It is true that, so soon as he
went back to prison, he protested against the confession, saying that
it was the weakness of his bodily organs and his want of firmness
that had wrested the lie from him, but that the truth really was that
the Lord had several times appeared to him in his ecstasies and
revealed the things that he had spoken.  This protestation led to a
new application of the torture, during which Savonarola succumbed
once more to the dreadful pain, and once more retracted.  But
scarcely was he unbound, and was still lying on the bed of torture,
when he declared that his confessions were the fault of his
torturers, and the vengeance would recoil upon their heads; and he
protested yet once more against all he had confessed and might
confess again.  A third time the torture produced the same avowals,
and the relief that followed it the same retractions.  The judges
therefore, when they condemned him and his two disciples to the
flames, decided that his confession should not be read aloud at the
stake, according to custom, feeling certain that an this occasion
also he would give it the lie, and that publicly, which, as anyone
must see who knew the versatile spirit of the public, would be a most
dangerous proceeding.

On the 23rd of May, the fire which had been promised to the people
before was a second time prepared on the Piazza del Palazzo, and this
time the crowd assembled quite certain that they would not be
disappointed of a spectacle so long anticipated.  And towards eleven
o'clock in the morning, Girolamo Savonarola, Domenico Bonvicini, and
Silvestro Maruffi were led to the place of execution, degraded of
their orders by the ecclesiastical judges, and bound all three to the
same stake in the centre of an immense pile of wood.  Then the bishop
Pagnanoli told the condemned men that he cut them off from the
Church.  "Ay, from the Church militant," said Savonarola, who from
that very hour, thanks to his martyrdom, was entering into the Church
triumphant.  No other words were spoken by the condemned men, for at
this moment one of the Arrabbiati, a personal enemy of Savonarola,
breaking through the hedge of guards around the scaffold, snatched
the torch from the executioner's hand and himself set fire to the
four corners of the pile.  Savonarola and his disciples, from the
moment when they saw the smoke arise, began to sing a psalm, and the
flames enwrapped them on all sides with a glowing veil, while their
religious song was yet heard mounting upward to the gates of heaven.

Pope Alexander VI was thus set free from perhaps the most formidable
enemy who had ever risen against him, and the pontifical vengeance
pursued the victims even after their death: the Signoria, yielding to
his wishes, gave orders that the ashes of the prophet and his
disciples should be thrown into the Arno.  But certain half-burned
fragments were picked up by the very soldiers whose business it was
to keep the people back from approaching the fire, and the holy
relics are even now shown, blackened by the flames, to the faithful,
who if they no longer regard Savonarola as a prophet, revere him none
the less as a martyr.




CHAPTER X

The French army was now preparing to cross the Alps a second time,
under the command of Trivulce.  Louis XII had come as far as Lyons in
the company of Caesar Borgia and Giuliano della Rovere, on whom he
had forced a reconciliation, and towards the beginning of the month
of May had sent his vanguard before him, soon to be followed by the
main body of the army.  The forces he was employing in this second
campaign of conquest were 1600 lances, 5000 Swiss, 9000 Gascons, and
3500 infantry, raised from all parts of France.  On the 13th of
August this whole body, amounting to nearly 19,000 men, who were to
combine their forces with the Venetians, arrived beneath the walls of
Arezzo, and immediately laid siege to the town.

Ludovico Sforza's position was a terrible one: he was now suffering
from his imprudence in calling the French into Italy; all the allies
he had thought he might count upon were abandoning him at the same
moment, either because they were busy about their own affairs, or
because they were afraid of the powerful enemy that the Duke of Milan
had made for himself.  Maximilian, who had promised him a
contribution of 400 lances, to make up for not renewing the
hostilities with Louis XII that had been interrupted, had just made a
league with the circle of Swabia to war against the Swiss, whom he
had declared rebels against the Empire.  The Florentines, who had
engaged to furnish him with 300 men-at-arms and 2000 infantry, if he
would help them to retake Pisa, had just retracted their promise
because of Louis XII's threats, and had undertaken to remain neutral.
Frederic, who was holding back his troops for the defence of his own
States, because he supposed, not without reason, that, Milan once
conquered, he would again have to defend Naples, sent him no help, no
men, no money, in spite of his promises.  Ludovico Sforza was
therefore reduced to his own proper forces.

But as he was a man powerful in arms and clever in artifice, he did
not allow himself to succumb at the first blow, and in all haste
fortified Annona, Novarro, and Alessandria, sent off Cajazzo with
troops to that part of the Milanese territory which borders on the
states of Venice, and collected on the Po as many troops as he could.
But these precautions availed him nothing against the impetuous
onslaught of the French, who in a few days had taken Annona, Arezzo,
Novarro, Voghiera, Castelnuovo, Ponte Corona, Tartone, and
Alessandria, while Trivulce was on the march to Milan.

Seeing the rapidity of this conquest and their numerous victories,
Ludovico Sforza, despairing of holding out in his capital, resolved
to retire to Germany, with his children, his brother, Cardinal
Ascanio Sforza, and his treasure, which had been reduced in the
course of eight years from 1,500,000 to 200,000 ducats. But before he
went he left Bernardino da Carte in charge of the castle of Milan.
In vain did his friends warn him to distrust this man, in vain did
his brother Ascanio offer to hold the fortress himself, and offer to
hold it to the very last; Ludovico refused to make any change in his
arrangements, and started on the 2nd of September, leaving in the
citadel three thousand foot and enough provisions, ammunition, and
money to sustain a siege of several months.

Two days after Ludovico's departure, the French entered Milan.  Ten
days later Bernardino da Come gave up the castle before a single gun
had been fired.  Twenty-one days had sufficed for the French to get
possession of the various towns, the capital, and all the territories
of their enemy.

Louis XII received the news of this success while he was at Lyons,
and he at once started for Milan, where he was received with
demonstrations of joy that were really sincere.  Citizens of every
rank had come out three miles' distance from the gates to receive
him, and forty boys, dressed in cloth of gold and silk, marched
before him singing hymns of victory composed by poets of the period,
in which the king was styled their liberator and the envoy of
freedom.  The great joy of the Milanese people was due to the fact
that friends of Louis had been spreading reports beforehand that the
King of France was rich enough to abolish all taxes.  And so soon as
the second day from his arrival at Milan the conqueror made some
slight reduction, granted important favours to certain Milanese
gentlemen, and bestowed the town of Vigavano on Trivulce as a reward
for his swift and glorious campaign.  But Caesar Borgia, who had
followed Louis XII with a view to playing his part in the great
hunting-ground of Italy, scarcely waited for him to attain his end
when he claimed the fulfilment of his promise, which the king with
his accustomed loyalty hastened to perform.  He instantly put at the
disposal of Caesar three hundred lances under the command of Yves
d'Alegre, and four thousand Swiss under the command of the bailiff of
Dijon, as a help in his work of reducing the Vicars of the Church.

We must now explain to our readers who these new personages were whom
we introduce upon the scene by the above name.

During the eternal wars of Guelphs and Ghibelines and the long exile
of the popes at Avignon, most of the towns and fortresses of the
Romagna had been usurped by petty tyrants, who for the most part have
received from the Empire the investiture of their new possessions;
but ever since German influence had retired beyond the Alps, and the
popes had again made Rome the centre of the Christian world, all the
small princes, robbed of their original protector, had rallied round
the papal see, and received at the hands of the pope a new
investiture, and now they paid annual dues, for which they received
the particular title of duke, count, or lord, and the general name of
Vicar of the Church.

It had been no difficult matter for Alexander, scrupulously examining
the actions and behaviour of these gentlemen during the seven years
that had elapsed since he was exalted to St. Peter's throne, to find
in the conduct of each one of them something that could be called an
infraction of the treaty made between vassals and suzerain;
accordingly he brought forward his complaints at a tribunal
established for the purpose, and obtained sentence from the judges to
the effect that the vicars of the Church, having failed to fulfil the
conditions of their investiture, were despoiled of their domains,
which would again become the property of the Holy See.  As the pope
was now dealing with men against whom it was easier to pass a
sentence than to get it carried out, he had nominated as captain-
general the new Duke of Valentinois, who was commissioned to recover
the territories for his own benefit.  The lords in question were the
Malatesti of Rimini, the Sforza of Pesaro, the Manfredi of Faenza,
the Riarii of Imola and Farli, the Variani of Camerina, the
Montefeltri of Urbino, and the Caetani of Sermoneta.

But the Duke of Valentinois, eager to keep as warm as possible his
great friendship with his ally and relative Louis XII, was, as we
know, staying with him at Milan so long as he remained there, where,
after a month's occupation, the king retraced his steps to his own
capital, the Duke of Valentinois ordered his men-at-arms and his
Swiss to await him between Parma and Modena, and departed posthaste
for Rome, to explain his plans to his father viva voce and to receive
his final instructions.  When he arrived, he found that the fortune
of his sister Lucrezia had been greatly augmented in his absence, not
from the side of her husband Alfonso, whose future was very uncertain
now in consequence of Louis's successes, which had caused some
coolness between Alfonso and the pope, but from her father's side,
upon whom at this time she exercised an influence mare astonishing
than ever.  The pope had declared Lucrezia Borgia of Aragon life-
governor of Spoleto and its duchy, with all emoluments, rights, and
revenues accruing thereunto.  This had so greatly increased her power
and improved her position, that in these days she never showed
herself in public without a company of two hundred horses ridden by
the most illustrious ladies and noblest knights of Rome.  Moreover,
as the twofold affection of her father was a secret to nobody, the
first prelates in the Church, the frequenters of the Vatican, the
friends of His Holiness, were all her most humble servants; cardinals
gave her their hands when she stepped from her litter or her horse,
archbishops disputed the honour of celebrating mass in her private
apartments.

But Lucrezia had been obliged to quit Rome in order to take
possession of her new estates; and as her father could not spend much
time away from his beloved daughter, he resolved to take into his
hands the town of Nepi, which on a former occasion, as the reader
will doubtless remember, he had bestowed on Ascanio Sforza in
exchange for his suffrage.  Ascanio had naturally lost this town when
he attached himself to the fortunes of the Duke of Milan, his
brother; and when the pope was about to take it again, he invited his
daughter Lucrezia to join him there and be present at the rejoicings
held in honour of his resuming its possession.

Lucrezia's readiness in giving way to her father's wishes brought her
a new gift from him: this was the town and territory of Sermoneta,
which belonged to the Caetani.  Of course the gift was as yet a
secret, because the two owners of the seigneury, had first to be
disposed of, one being Monsignore Giacomo Caetano, apostolic
protonotary, the other Prospero Caetano, a young cavalier of great
promise; but as both lived at Rome, and entertained no suspicion, but
indeed supposed themselves to be in high favour with His Holiness,
the one by virtue of his position, the other of his courage, the
matter seemed to present no great difficulty.  So directly after the
return of Alexander to Rome, Giacomo Caetano was arrested, on what
pretext we know not, was taken to the castle of Sant' Angelo, and
there died shortly after, of poison.  Prospero Caetano was strangled
in his own house.  After these two deaths, which both occurred so
suddenly as to give no time for either to make a will, the pope
declared that Sermoneta and all of her property appertaining to the
Caetani devolved upon the apostolic chamber; and they were sold to
Lucrezia for the sum of 80,000 crowns, which her father refunded to
her the day after.  Though Caesar hurried to Rome, he found when he
arrived that his father had been beforehand with him, and had made a
beginning of his conquests.

Another fortune also had been making prodigious strides during
Caesar's stay in France, viz. the fortune of Gian Borgia, the pope's
nephew, who had been one of the most devoted friends of the Duke of
Gandia up to the time of his death.  It was said in Rome, and not in
a whisper, that the young cardinal owed the favours heaped upon him
by His Holiness less to the memory of the brother than to the
protection of the sister.  Both these reasons made Gian Borgia a
special object of suspicion to Caesar, and it was with an inward vow
that he should not enjoy his new dignities very long that the Duke of
Valentinois heard that his cousin Gian had just been nominated
cardinal 'a latere' of all the Christian world, and had quitted Rome
to make a circuit through all the pontifical states with a suite of
archbishops, bishops, prelates, and gentlemen, such as would have
done honour to the pope himself.

Caesar had only come to Rome to get news; so he only stayed three
days, and then, with all the troops His Holiness could supply,
rejoined his forces on the borders of the Euza, and marched at once
to Imola.  This town, abandoned by its chiefs, who had retired to
Forli, was forced to capitulate.  Imola taken, Caesar marched
straight upon Forli.  There he met with a serious check; a check,
moreover, which came from a woman.  Caterina Sforza, widow of
Girolamo and mother of Ottaviano Riario, had retired to this town,
and stirred up the courage of the garrison by putting herself, her
goods and her person, under their protection.  Caesar saw that it was
no longer a question of a sudden capture, but of a regular siege; so
he began to make all his arrangements with a view to it, and placing
a battery of cannon in front of the place where the walls seemed to
him weakest, he ordered an uninterrupted fire, to be continued until
the breach was practicable.

When he returned to the camp after giving this order, he found there
Gian Borgia, who had gone to Rome from Ferrara and was unwilling to
be so near Caesar without paying him a visit: he was received with
effusion and apparently the greatest joy, and stayed three days; on
the fourth day all the officers and members of the court were invited
to a grand farewell supper, and Caesar bade farewell to his cousin,
charging him with despatches for the pope, and lavishing upon him all
the tokens of affection he had shown on his arrival.

Cardinal Gian Bargia posted off as soon as he left the supper-table,
but on arriving at Urbino he was seized with such a sudden and
strange indisposition that he was forced to stop; but after a few
minutes, feeling rather better, he went on.  Scarcely, however, had he
entered Rocca Cantrada when he again felt so extremely ill that he
resolved to go no farther, and stayed a couple of days in the town.
Then, as he thought he was a little better again, and as he had heard
the news of the taking of Forli and also that Caterina Sforza had
been taken prisoner while she was making an attempt to retire into
the castle, he resolved to go back to Caesar and congratulate him on
his victory; but at Fassambrane he was forced to stop a third time,
although he had given up his carriage for a litter.  This was his
last halt: the same day he sought his bed, never to rise from it
again; three days later he was dead.

His body was taken to Rome and buried without any ceremony in the
church of Santa Maria del Populo, where lay awaiting him the corpse
of his friend the Duke of Gandia; and there was now no more talk of
the young cardinal, high as his rank had been, than if he had never
existed.  Thus in gloom and silence passed away all those who were
swept to destruction by the ambition of that terrible trio,
Alexander, Lucrezia, and Caesar.

Almost at the same time Rome was terrified by another murder.  Don
Giovanni Cerviglione, a gentleman by birth and a brave soldier,
captain of the pope's men-at-arms, was attacked one evening by the
sbirri, as he was on his way home from supping with Dan Elisio
Pignatelli.  One of the men asked his name, and as he pronounced it,
seeing that there was no mistake, plunged a dagger into his breast,
while a second man with a back stroke of his sword cut off his head,
which lay actually at his feet before his body had time to fall.

The governor of Rome lodged a complaint against this assassination
with the pope; but quickly perceiving, by the way his intimation was
received, that he would have done better to say nothing, he stopped
the inquiries he had started, so that neither of the murderers was
ever arrested.  But the rumour was circulated that Caesar, in the
short stay he had made at Rome, had had a rendezvous with
Cerviglione's wife, who was a Borgia by birth, and that her husband
when he heard of this infringement of conjugal duty had been angry
enough to threaten her and her lover, too: the threat had reached
Caesar's ears, who, making a long arm of Michelotto, had, himself at
Forli, struck down Cerviglione in the streets of Rome.

Another unexpected death followed so quickly on that of Don Giovanni
Cerviglione that it could not but be attributed to the same
originator, if not to the same cause.  Monsignore Agnelli of Mantua,
archbishop of Cosenza, clerk of the chamber and vice-legate of
Viterbo, having fallen into disgrace with His Holiness, how it is not
known, was poisoned at his own table, at which he had passed a good
part of the night in cheerful conversation with three or four guests,
the poison gliding meanwhile through his veins; then going to bed in
perfect health, he was found dead in the morning.  His possessions
were at once divided into three portions: the land and houses were
given to the Duke of Valentinois; the bishopric went to Francesco
Borgia, son of Calixtus III; and the office of clerk of the chamber
was sold for 5000 ducats to Ventura Bonnassai, a merchant of Siena,
who produced this sum for Alexander, and settled down the very same
day in the Vatican.

This last death served the purpose of determining a point of law
hitherto uncertain: as Monsignore Agnelli's natural heirs had made
some difficulty about being disinherited, Alexander issued a brief;
whereby he took from every cardinal and every priest the right of
making a will, and declared that all their property should henceforth
devolve upon him.

But Caesar was stopped short in the midst of his victories.  Thanks
to the 200,000 ducats that yet remained in his treasury, Ludovico
Sforza had levied 500 men-at-arms from Burgundy and 8000 Swiss
infantry, with whom he had entered Lombardy.  So Trivulce, to face
this enemy, had been compelled to call back Yves d'Alegre and the
troops that Louis XII had lent to Caesar; consequently Caesar,
leaving behind a body of pontifical soldiery as garrison at Forli and
Imola, betook himself with the rest of his force to Rome.

It was Alexander's wish that his entry should be a triumph; so when
he learned that the quartermasters of the army were only a few
leagues from the town, he sent out runners to invite the royal
ambassadars, the cardinals, the prelates, the Roman barons, and
municipal dignitaries to make procession with all their suite to meet
the Duke of Valentinois; and as it always happens that the pride of
those who command is surpassed by the baseness of those who obey, the
orders were not only fulfilled to the letter, but beyond it.

The entry of Caesar took place on the 26th of February, 1500.
Although this was the great Jubilee year, the festivals of the
carnival began none the less for that, and were conducted in a manner
even more extravagant and licentious than usual; and the conqueror
after the first day prepared a new display of ostentation, which he
concealed under the veil of a masquerade.  As he was pleased to
identify himself with the glory, genius, and fortune of the great man
whose name he bore, he resolved on a representation of the triumph of
Julius Caesar, to be given on the Piazzi di Navona, the ordinary
place for holding the carnival fetes.  The next day, therefore, he
and his retinue started from that square, and traversed all the
streets of Rome, wearing classical costumes and riding in antique
cars, on one of which Caesar stood, clad in the robe of an emperor of
old, his brow crowned with a golden laurel wreath, surrounded by
lictors, soldiers, and ensign-bearers, who carried banners whereon
was inscribed the motto, 'Aut Caesar aut nihil'.

Finally, an the fourth Sunday, in Lent, the pope conferred upon
Caesar the dignity he had so long coveted, and appointed him general
and gonfaloniere of the Holy Church.

In the meanwhile Sforza had crossed the Alps and passed the Lake of
Como, amid acclamations of joy from his former subjects, who had
quickly lost the enthusiasm that the French army and Louis's promises
had inspired.  These demonstrations were so noisy at Milan, that
Trivulce, judging that there was no safety for a French garrison in
remaining there, made his way to Navarra.  Experience proved that he
was not deceived; for scarcely had the Milanese observed his
preparations for departure when a suppressed excitement began to
spread through the town, and soon the streets were filled with armed
men.  This murmuring crowd had to be passed through, sword in hand
and lance in rest; and scarcely had the French got outside the gates
when the mob rushed out after the army into the country, pursuing
them with shouts and hooting as far as the banks of the Tesino.
Trivulce left 400 lances at Novarra as well as the 3000 Swiss that
Yves d'Alegre had brought from the Romagna, and directed his course
with the rest of the army towards Mortara, where he stopped at last
to await the help he had demanded from the King of France.  Behind
him Cardinal Ascanio and Ludovico entered Milan amid the acclamations
of the whole town.

Neither of them lost any time, and wishing to profit by this
enthusiasm, Ascanio undertook to besiege the castle of Milan while
Ludovico should cross the Tesino and attack Novarra.

There besiegers and besieged were sons of the same nation; for Yves
d'Alegre had scarcely as many as 300 French with him, and Ludovico
500 Italians.  In fact, for the last sixteen years the Swiss had been
practically the only infantry in Europe, and all the Powers came,
purse in hand, to draw from the mighty reservoir of their mountains.
The consequence was that these rude children of William Tell, put up
to auction by the nations, and carried away from the humble, hardy
life of a mountain people into cities of wealth and pleasure, had
lost, not their ancient courage, but that rigidity of principle for
which they had been distinguished before their intercourse with other
nations.  From being models of honour and good faith they had become
a kind of marketable ware, always ready for sale to the highest
bidder.  The French were the first to experience this venality, which
later-on proved so fatal to Ludovico Sforza.

Now the Swiss in the garrison at Novarra had been in communication
with their compatriots in the vanguard of the ducal army, and when
they found that they, who as a fact were unaware that Ludavico's
treasure was nearly exhausted, were better fed as well as better paid
than themselves, they offered to give up the town and go over to the
Milanese, if they could be certain of the same pay.  Ludovico, as we
may well suppose, closed with this bargain.  The whole of Novarra was
given up to him except the citadel, which was defended by Frenchmen:
thus the enemy's army was recruited by 3000 men.  Then Ludovico made
the mistake of stopping to besiege the castle instead of marching on
to Mortara with the new reinforcement.  The result of this was that
Louis XII, to whom runners had been sent by Trivulce, understanding
his perilous position, hastened the departure of the French
gendarmerie who were already collected to cross into Italy, sent off
the bailiff of Dijon to levy new Swiss forces, and ordered Cardinal
Amboise, his prime minister, to cross the Alps and take up a position
at Asti, to hurry on the work of collecting the troops.  There the
cardinal found a nest-egg of 3000 men.  La Trimouille added 1500
lances and 6000 French infantry; finally, the bailiff of Dijon
arrived with 10,000 Swiss; so that, counting the troops which
Trivulce had at Mortara, Louis XII found himself master on the other
side of the Alps of the first army any French king had ever led out
to battle.  Soon, by good marching, and before Ludovico knew the
strength or even the existence of this army, it took up a position
between Novarra and Milan, cutting off all communication between the
duke and his capital.  He was therefore compelled, in spite of his
inferior numbers, to prepare for a pitched battle.

But it so happened that just when the preparations for a decisive
engagement were being made on both sides, the Swiss Diet, learning
that the sons of Helvetia were on the point of cutting one another's
throats, sent orders to all the Swiss serving in either army to break
their engagements and return to the fatherland.  But during the two
months that had passed between the surrender of Novarra and the
arrival of the French army before the town, there had been a very
great change in the face of things, because Ludovico Sforza's
treasure was now exhausted.  New confabulations had gone on between
the outposts, and this time, thanks to the money sent by Louis XII,
it was the Swiss in the service of France who were found to be the
better fed and better paid.  The worthy Helvetians, since they no
longer fought for their own liberty, knew the value of their blood
too well to allow a single drop of it to be spilled for less than its
weight in gold: the result was that, as they had betrayed Yves
d'Alegre, they resolved to betray Ludovico Sforza too; and while the
recruits brought in by the bailiff of Dijon were standing firmly by
the French flag, careless of the order of the Diet, Ludovico's
auxiliaries declared that in fighting against their Swiss brethren they
would be acting in disobedience to the Diet, and would risk capital
punishment in the end--a danger that nothing would induce them to
incur unless they immediately received the arrears of their pay.  The
duke, who had spent the last ducat he had with him, and was entirely
cut off from his capital, knew that he could not get money till he
had fought his way through to it, and therefore invited the Swiss to
make one last effort, promising them not only the pay that was in
arrears but a double hire.  But unluckily the fulfilment of this
promise was dependent on the doubtful issue of a battle, and the
Swiss replied that they had far too much respect for their country to
disobey its decree, and that they loved their brothers far too well
to consent to shed their blood without reward; and therefore Sforza
would do well not to count upon them, since indeed the very next day
they proposed to return to their homes.  The duke then saw that all
was lost, but he made a last appeal to their honour, adjuring them at
least to ensure his personal safety by making it a condition of
capitulation.  But they replied that even if a condition of such a
kind, would not make capitulation impossible, it would certainly
deprive them of advantages which they had aright to expect, and on
which they counted as indemnification for the arrears of their pay.
They pretended, however, at last that they were touched by the
prayers of the man whose orders they had obeyed so long, and offered
to conceal him dressed in their clothes among their ranks.  This
proposition was barely plausible; far Sforza was short and, by this
time an old man, and he could not possibly escape recognition in the
midst of an army where the oldest was not past thirty and the
shortest not less than five foot six.  Still, this was his last
chance, and he did not reject it at once, but tried to modify it so
that it might help him in his straits.  His plan was to disguise
himself as a Franciscan monk, so that mounted an a shabby horse he
might pass for their chaplain; the others, Galeazzo di San Severing,
who commanded under him, and his two brothers, were all tall men, so,
adopting the dress of common soldiers, they hoped they might escape
detection in the Swiss ranks.

Scarcely were these plans settled when the duke heard that the
capitulation was signed between Trivulce and the Swiss, who had made
no stipulation in favour of him and his generals.  They were to go
over the next day with arms and baggage right into the French army;
so the last hope of the wretched Ludovico and his generals must needs
be in their disguise.  And so it was.  San Severino and his brothers
took their place in the ranks of the infantry, and Sforza took his
among the baggage, clad in a monk's frock, with the hood pulled over
his eyes.

The army marched off; but the Swiss, who had first trafficked in
their blood, now trafficked in their honour.  The French were warned
of the disguise of Sforza and his generals, and thus they were all
four recognised, and Sforza was arrested by Trimouille himself.  It
is said that the price paid for this treason was the town of
Bellinzona; for it then belonged to the French, and when the Swiss
returned to their mountains and took possession of it, Louis XII took
no steps to get it back again.

When Ascanio Sforza, who, as we know, had stayed at Milan, learned
the news of this cowardly desertion, he supposed that his cause was
lost and that it would be the best plan for him to fly, before he
found himself a prisoner in the hand's of his brother's old subjects:
such a change of face on the people's part would be very natural, and
they might propose perhaps to purchase their own pardon at the price
of his liberty; so he fled by night with the chief nobles of the
Ghibelline party, taking the road to Piacenza, on his way to the
kingdom of Naples.  But when he arrived at Rivolta, he remembered
that there was living in that town an old friend of his childhood, by
name Conrad Lando, whom he had helped to much wealth in his days of
power; and as Ascanio and his companions were extremely tired, he
resolved to beg his hospitality for a single night.  Conrad received
them with every sign of joy, putting all his house and servants at
their disposal.  But scarcely had they retired to bed when he sent a
runner to Piacenza, to inform Carlo Orsini, at that time commanding
the Venetian garrison, that he was prepared to deliver up Cardinal
Ascanio and the chief men of the Milanese army.  Carlo Orsini did not
care to resign to another so important an expedition, and mounting
hurriedly with twenty-five men, he first surrounded Conrads house,
and then entered sword in hand the chamber wherein Ascanio and his
companions lay, and being surprised in the middle of their sleep,
they yielded without resistance.  The prisoners were taken to Venice,
but Louis XII claimed them, and they were given up.  Thus the King of
France found himself master of Ludovico Sforza and of Ascania, of a
legitimate nephew of the great Francesco Sforza named Hermes, of two
bastards named Alessandro and Cortino, and of Francesco, son of the
unhappy Gian Galeazza who had been poisoned by his uncle.

Louis XII, wishing to make an end of the whole family at a blow,
forced Francesco to enter a cloister, shut up Cardinal Ascanio in the
tower of Baurges, threw into prison Alessandro, Cartino, and Hermes,
and finally, after transferring the wretched Ludovico from the
fortress of Pierre-Eucise to Lys-Saint-George he relegated him for
good and all to the castle of Loches, where he lived for ten years in
solitude and utter destitution, and there died, cursing the day when
the idea first came into his head of enticing the French into Italy.

The news of the catastrophe of Ludovica and his family caused the
greatest joy at Rome, for, while the French were consolidating their
power in Milanese territory, the Holy See was gaining ground in the
Romagna, where no further opposition was offered to Caesar's
conquest.  So the runners who brought the news were rewarded with
valuable presents, and it was published throughout the whole town of
Rome to the sound of the trumpet and drum.  The war-cry of Louis,
France, France, and that of the Orsini, Orso, Orso, rang through all
the streets, which in the evening were illuminated, as though
Constantinople or Jerusalem had been taken. And the pope gave the
people fetes and fireworks, without troubling his head the least in
the world either about its being Holy Week, or because the Jubilee
had attracted more than 200,000 people to Rome; the temporal
interests of his family seeming to him far more important than the
spiritual interests of his subjects.




CHAPTER XI

One thing alone was wanting to assure the success of the vast
projects that the pope and his son were founding upon the friendship
of Louis and an alliance with him--that is,--money.  But Alexander
was not the man to be troubled about a paltry worry of that kind;
true, the sale of benefices was by now exhausted, the ordinary and
extraordinary taxes had already been collected for the whole year,
and the prospect of inheritance from cardinals and priests was a poor
thing now that the richest of them had been poisoned; but Alexander
had other means at his disposal, which were none the less efficacious
because they were less often used.

The first he employed was to spread a report that the Turks were
threatening an invasion of Christendom, and that he knew for a
positive fact that before the end of the summer Bajazet would land
two considerable armies, one in Romagna, the other in Calabria; he
therefore published two bulls, one to levy tithes of all
ecclesiastical revenues in Europe of whatever nature they might be,
the other to force the Jews into paying an equivalent sum: both bulls
contained the severest sentences of excommunication against those who
refused to submit, or attempted opposition.

The second plan was the selling of indulgences, a thing which had
never been done before: these indulgences affected the people who had
been prevented by reasons of health or business from coming to Rome
for the Jubilee; the journey by this expedient was rendered
unnecessary, and sins were pardoned for a third of what it would have
cost, and just as completely as if the faithful had fulfilled every
condition of the pilgrimage.  For gathering in this tax a veritable
army of collectors was instituted, a certain Ludovico delta Torre at
their head.  The sum that Alexander brought into the pontifical
treasury is incalculable, and same idea of it may be gathered from
the fact that 799,000 livres in gold was paid in from the territory
of Venice alone.

But as the Turks did as a fact make some sort of demonstration from
the Hungarian side, and the Venetians began to fear that they might
be coming in their direction, they asked for help from the pope, who
gave orders that at twelve o'clock in the day in all his States an
Ave Maria should be said, to pray God to avert the danger which was
threatening the most serene republic.  This was the only help the
Venetians got from His Holiness in exchange for the 799,000 livres in
gold that he had got from them.

But it seemed as though God wished to show His strange vicar on earth
that He was angered by the mockery of sacred things, and on the Eve
of St. Peter's Day, just as the pope was passing the Capanile on his
way to the tribune of benedictions, a enormous piece of iron broke
off and fell at his feet; and then, as though one warning had not
been enough, on the next day, St. Peter's, when the pope happened to
be in one of the rooms of his ordinary dwelling with Cardinal Capuano
and Monsignare Poto, his private chamberlain, he saw through the open
windows that a very black cloud was coming up.  Foreseeing a
thunderstorm, he ordered the cardinal and the chamberlain to shut the
windows.  He had not been mistaken; for even as they were obeying his
command, there came up such a furious gust of wind that the highest
chimney of the Vatican was overturned, just as a tree is rooted up,
and was dashed upon the roof, breaking it in; smashing the upper
flooring, it fell into the very room where they were.  Terrified by
the noise of this catastrophe, which made the whole palace tremble,
the cardinal and Monsignore Poto turned round, and seeing the room
full of dust and debris, sprang out upon the parapet and shouted to
the guards at the gate, "The pope is dead, the pope is dead!"  At
this cry, the guards ran up and discovered three persons lying in the
rubbish on the floor, one dead and the other two dying.  The dead man
was a gentleman of Siena ailed Lorenzo Chigi, and the dying were two
resident officials of the Vatican.  They had been walking across the
floor above, and had been flung down with the debris.  But Alexander
was not to be found; and as he gave no answer, though they kept on
calling to him, the belief that he had perished was confirmed, and
very soon spread about the town.  But he had only fainted, and at the
end of a certain time he began to come to himself, and moaned,
whereupon he was discovered, dazed with the blow, and injured, though
not seriously, in several parts of his body.  He had been saved by
little short of a miracle: a beam had broken in half and had left
each of its two ends in the side walls; and one of these had formed a
sort of roof over the pontifical throne; the pope, who was sitting
there at the time, was protected by this overarching beam, and had
received only a few contusions.

The two contradictory reports of the sudden death and the miraculous
preservation of the pope spread rapidly through Rome; and the Duke of
Valentinois, terrified at the thought of what a change might be
wrought in his own fortunes by any slight accident to the Holy
Father, hurried to the Vatican, unable to assure himself by anything
less than the evidence of his own eyes.  Alexander desired to render
public thanks to Heaven for the protection that had been granted him;
and on the very same day was carried to the church of Santa Maria del
Popalo, escorted by a numerous procession of prelates and men-at
arms, his pontifical seat borne by two valets, two equerries, and two
grooms.  In this church were buried the Duke of Gandia and Gian
Borgia, and perhaps Alexander was drawn thither by some relics of
devotion, or may be by the recollection of his love for his former
mistress, Rosa Vanazza, whose image, in the guise of the Madonna, was
exposed for the veneration of the faithful in a chapel on the left of
the high altar.  Stopping before this altar, the pope offered to the
church the gift of a magnificent chalice in which were three hundred
gold crowns, which the Cardinal of Siena poured out into a silver
paten before the eyes of all, much to the gratification of the
pontifical vanity.

But before he left Rome to complete the conquest of the Romagna, the
Duke of Valentinois had been reflecting that the marriage, once so
ardently desired, between Lucrezia and Alfonso had been quite useless
to himself and his father.  There was more than this to be
considered: Louis XII's rest in Lombardy was only a halt, and Milan
was evidently but the stage before Naples.  It was very possible that
Louis was annoyed about the marriage which converted his enemy's
nephew into the son-in-law of his ally.  Whereas, if Alfonso were
dead, Lucrezia would be the position to marry some powerful lord of
Ferrara or Brescia, who would be able to help his brother-in-law
in the conquest of Romagna.  Alfonso was now not only useless but
dangerous, which to anyone with the character of the Borgias perhaps
seemed worse, the death of Alfonso was resolved upon.  But Lucrezia's
husband, who had understand for a long time past what danger he
incurred by living near his terrible father-in-law, had retired to
Naples.  Since, however, neither Alexander nor Caesar had changed in
their perpetual dissimulation towards him, he was beginning to lose
his fear, when he received an invitation from the pope and his son to
take part in a bull-fight which was to be held in the Spanish fashion
in honour of the duke before his departure: In the present precarious
position of Naples it would not have been good policy far Alfonso to
afford Alexander any sort of pretext for a rupture, so he could not
refuse without a motive, and betook himself to Rome.  It was thought
of no use to consult Lucrezia in this affair, for she had two or
three times displayed an absurd attachment for her husband, and they
left her undisturbed in her government of Spoleto.

Alfonso was received by the pope and the duke with every
demonstration of sincere friendship, and rooms in the Vatican were
assigned to him that he had inhabited before with Lucrezia, in that
part of the building which is known as the Torre Nuova.

Great lists were prepared on the Piazza of St. Peter's; the streets
about it were barricaded, and the windows of the surrounding houses
served as boxes for the spectators.  The pope and his court took
their places on the balconies of the Vatican.

The fete was started by professional toreadors: after they had
exhibited their strength and skill, Alfonso and Caesar in their turn
descended to the arena, and to offer a proof of their mutual
kindness, settled that the bull which pursued Caesar should be killed
by Alfonso, and the bull that pursued Alfonso by Caesar.

Then Caesar remained alone an horseback within the lists, Alfonso
going out by an improvised door which was kept ajar, in order that he
might go back on the instant if he judged that his presence was
necessary.  At the same time, from the opposite side of the lists the
bull was introduced, and was at the same moment pierced all over with
darts and arrows, some of them containing explosives, which took
fire, and irritated the bull to such a point that he rolled about
with pain, and then got up in a fury, and perceiving a man on
horseback, rushed instantly upon him.  It was now, in this narrow
arena, pursued by his swift enemy, that Caesar displayed all that
skill which made him one of the finest horsemen of the period.
Still, clever as he was, he could not have remained safe long in that
restricted area from an adversary against whom he had no other
resource than flight, had not Alfonso appeared suddenly, just when
the bull was beginning to gain upon him, waving a red cloak in his
left hand, and holding in his right a long delicate Aragon sword.  It
was high time: the bull was only a few paces distant from Caesar, and
the risk he was running appeared so imminent that a woman's scream
was heard from one of the windows.  But at the sight of a man on foot
the bull stopped short, and judging that he would do better business
with the new enemy than the old one, he turned upon him instead.  For
a moment he stood motionless, roaring, kicking up the dust with his
hind feet, and lashing his sides with his tail.  Then he rushed upon
Alfonso, his eyes all bloodshot, his horns tearing up the ground.
Alfonso awaited him with a tranquil air; then, when he was only three
paces away, he made a bound to one side and presented instead of his
body his sword, which disappeared at once to the hilt; the bull,
checked in the middle of his onslaught, stopped one instant
motionless and trembling, then fell upon his knees, uttered one dull
roar, and lying down on the very spot where his course had been
checked, breathed his last without moving a single step forward.

Applause resounded an all sides, so rapid and clever had been the
blow.  Caesar had remained on horseback, seeking to discover the fair
spectator who had given so lively a proof of her interest in him,
without troubling himself about what was going on: his search had not
been unrewarded, far he had recognized one of the maids of honour to
Elizabeth, Duchess of Urbino, who was betrothed to Gian Battista
Carraciualo, captain-general of the republic of Venice.

It was now Alfonso's turn to run from the bull, Caesar's to fight
him: the young men changed parts, and when four mules had reluctantly
dragged the dead bull from the arena, and the valets and other
servants of His Holiness had scattered sand over the places that were
stained with blood, Alfonso mounted a magnificent Andalusian steed of
Arab origin, light as the wind of Sahara that had wedded with his
mother, while Caesar, dismounting, retired in his turn, to reappear
at the moment when Alfonso should be meeting the same danger from
which he had just now rescued him.

Then a second bull was introduced upon the scene, excited in the same
manner with steeled darts and flaming arrows.  Like his predecessor,
when he perceived a man on horseback he rushed upon him, and then
began a marvellous race, in which it was impossible to see, so
quickly did they fly over the ground, whether the horse was pursuing
the bull or the bull the horse.  But after five or six rounds, the
bull began to gain upon the son of Araby, for all his speed, and it
was plain to see who fled and who pursued; in another moment there
was only the length of two lances between them, and then suddenly
Caesar appeared, armed with one of those long two handed swords which
the French are accustomed to use, and just when the bull, almost
close upon Don Alfonso, came in front of Caesar he brandished the
sword, which flashed like lightning, and cut off his head, while his
body, impelled by the speed of the run, fell to the ground ten paces
farther on.  This blow was so unexpected, and had been performed with
such dexterity, that it was received not with mere clapping but with
wild enthusiasm and frantic outcry.  Caesar, apparently remembering
nothing else in his hour of triumph but the scream that had been
caused by his former danger, picked up the bull's head, and, giving
it to one of his equerries, ordered him to lay it as an act of homage
at the feet of the fair Venetian who had bestowed upon him so lively
a sign of interest.  This fete, besides affording a triumph to each
of the young men, had another end as well; it was meant to prove to
the populace that perfect goodwill existed between the two, since
each had saved the life of the other.  The result was that, if any
accident should happen to Caesar, nobody would dream of accusing
Alfanso; and also if any accident should happen to Alfonso, nobody
would dream, of accusing Caesar.

There was a supper at the Vatican.  Alfonso made an elegant toilet,
and about ten o'clock at night prepared to go from the quarters he
inhabited into those where the pope lived; but the door which
separated the two courts of the building was shut, and knock as he
would, no one came to open it.  Alfonso then thought that it was a
simple matter for him to go round by the Piazza of St. Peter's; so he
went out unaccompanied through one of the garden gates of the Vatican
and made his way across the gloomy streets which led to the stairway
which gave on the piazza.  But scarcely had he set his foot on the
first step when he was attacked by a band of armed men.  Alfonso
would have drawn his sword; but before it was out of the scabbard he
had received two blows from a halberd, one on his head, the other on
his shoulder; he was stabbed in the side, and wounded both in the leg
and in the temple.  Struck down by these five blows, he lost his
footing and fell to the ground unconscious; his assassins, supposing
he was dead, at once remounted the stairway, and found on the piazza
forty horsemen waiting for them: by them they were calmly escorted
from the city by the Porta Portesa.  Alfonso was found at the point
of death, but not actually dead, by some passers-by, some of whom
recognised him, and instantly conveyed the news of his assassination
to the Vatican, while the others, lifting the wounded man in their
arms, carried him to his quarters in the Torre Nuova.  The pope and
Caesar, who learned this news just as they were sitting down to
table, showed great distress, and leaving their companions, at once
went to see Alfonso, to be quite certain whether his wounds were
fatal or not; and an the next morning, to divert any suspicion that
might be turned towards themselves, they arrested Alfonso's maternal
uncle, Francesco Gazella, who had come to Rome in his nephew's
company.  Gazella was found guilty on the evidence of false
witnesses, and was consequently beheaded.

But they had only accomplished half of what they wanted.  By some
means, fair or foul, suspicion had been sufficiently diverted from
the true assassins; but Alfonso was not dead, and, thanks to the
strength of his constitution and the skill of his doctors, who had
taken the lamentations of the pope and Caesar quite seriously, and
thought to please them by curing Alexander's son-in-law, the wounded
man was making progress towards convalescence: news arrived at the
same time that Lucrezia had heard of her husband's accident, and was
starting to come and nurse him herself.  There was no time to lose,
and Caesar summoned Michelotto.

"The same night," says Burcardus, "Don Alfonso, who would not die of
his wounds, was found strangled in his bed."

The funeral took place the next day with a ceremony not unbecoming in
itself, though unsuited to his high rank.  Dan Francesca Bargia,
Archbishop of Cosenza, acted as chief mourner at St. Peter's, where
the body was buried in the chapel of Santa Maria delle Febbre.

Lucrezia arrived the same evening: she knew her father and brother
too well to be put on the wrong scent; and although, immediately
after Alfonso's death, the Duke of Valentinois had arrested the
doctors, the surgeons, and a poor deformed wretch who had been acting
as valet, she knew perfectly well from what quarter the blow had
proceeded.  In fear, therefore, that the manifestation of a grief she
felt this time too well might alienate the confidence of her father
and brother, she retired to Nepi with her whole household, her whole
court, and more than six hundred cavaliers, there to spend the period
of her mourning.

This important family business was now settled, and Lucrezia was
again a widow, and in consequence ready to be utilized in the pope's
new political machinations.  Caesar only stayed at Rome to receive
the ambassadors from France and Venice; but as their arrival was
somewhat delayed, and considerable inroads had been made upon the
pope's treasury by the recent festivities, the creation of twelve new
cardinals was arranged: this scheme was to have two effects, viz.,
to bring 600,000 ducats into the pontifical chest, each hat having
been priced at 50,000 ducats, and to assure the pope of a constant
majority in the sacred council.

The ambassadors at last arrived: the first was M. de Villeneuve, the
same who had come before to see the Duke of Valentinois in the name
of France.  Just as he entered Rome, he met on the road a masked man,
who, without removing his domino, expressed the joy he felt at his
arrival.  This man was Caesar himself, who did not wish to be
recognised, and who took his departure after a short conference
without uncovering his face.  M. de Villeneuve then entered the city
after him, and at the Porta del Populo found the ambassadors of the
various Powers, and among them those of Spain and Naples, whose
sovereigns were not yet, it is true, in declared hostility to France,
though there was already some coolness.  The last-named, fearing to
compromise themselves, merely said to their colleague of France, by
way of complimentary address, "Sir, you are welcome"; whereupon the
master of the ceremonies, surprised at the brevity of the greeting,
asked if they had nothing else to say.  When they replied that they
had not, M. de Villeneuve turned his back upon them, remarking that
those who had nothing to say required no answer; he then took his
place between the Archbishop of Reggia, governor of Rome, and the
Archbishop of Ragusa, and made his way to the palace of the Holy
Apostles, which had been got ready for his reception.

Same days later, Maria Giorgi, ambassador extraordinary of Venice,
made his arrival.  He was commissioned not only to arrange the
business on hand with the pope, but also to convey to Alexander and
Caesar the title of Venetian nobles, and to inform them that their
names were inscribed in the Golden Book--a favour that both of them
had long coveted, less for the empty honour's sake than for the new
influence that this title might confer.  Then the pope went on to
bestow the twelve cardinals' hats that had been sold.  The new
princes of the Church were Don Diego de Mendoza, archbishop of
Seville; Jacques, archbishop of Oristagny, the Pope's vicar-general;
Thomas, archbishop of Strigania; Piero, archbishop of Reggio,
governor of Rome; Francesco Bargia, archbishop of Cosenza, treasurer-
general; Gian, archbishop of Salerno, vice-chamberlain; Luigi Bargia,
archbishop of Valencia, secretary to His Holiness, and brother of the
Gian Borgia whom Caesar had poisoned; Antonio, bishop of Coma; Gian
Battista Ferraro, bishop of Modem; Amedee d'Albret, son of the King
of Navarre, brother-in-law of the Duke of Valentinois; and Marco
Cornaro, a Venetian noble, in whose person His Holiness rendered back
to the most serene republic the favour he had just received.

Then, as there was nothing further to detain the Duke of Valentinois
at Rome, he only waited to effect a loan from a rich banker named
Agostino Chigi, brother of the Lorenzo Chigi who had perished on the
day when the pope had been nearly killed by the fall of a chimney,
and departed far the Romagna, accompanied by Vitellozzo Vitelli, Gian
Paolo Baglione, and Jacopo di Santa Croce, at that time his friends,
but later on his victims.

His first enterprise was against Pesaro: this was the polite
attention of a brother-in-law, and Gian Sforza very well knew what
would be its consequences; for instead of attempting to defend his
possessions by taking up arms, or to venture on negotiations,
unwilling moreover to expose the fair lands he had ruled so long to
the vengeance of an irritated foe, he begged his subjects, to
preserve their former affection towards himself, in the hope of
better days to come; and he fled into Dalmatia.  Malatesta, lord of
Rimini, followed his example; thus the Duke of Valentinois entered
both these towns without striking a single blow.  Caesar left a
sufficient garrison behind him, and marched on to Faenza.

But there the face of things was changed: Faenza at that time was
under the rule of Astor Manfredi, a brave and handsome young man of
eighteen, who, relying on the love of his subjects towards his
family, had resolved on defending himself to the uttermost, although
he had been forsaken by the Bentivagli, his near relatives, and by
his allies, the Venetian and Florentines, who had not dared to send
him any aid because of the affection felt towards Caesar by the King
of France.  Accordingly, when he perceived that the Duke of
Valentinois was marching against him, he assembled in hot haste all
those of his vassals who were capable of bearing arms, together with
the few foreign soldiers who were willing to come into his pay, and
collecting victual and ammunition, he took up his position with them
inside the town.

By these defensive preparations Caesar was not greatly disconcerted;
he commanded a magnificent army, composed of the finest troops of
France and Italy; led by such men as Paolo and Giulio Orsini,
Vitellozzo Vitelli and Paolo Baglione, not to speak of himself--that
is to say, by the first captains of the period.  So, after he had
reconnoitred, he at once began the siege, pitching his camp between
the two rivers, Amana and Marziano, placing his artillery on the side
which faces on Forli, at which point the besieged party had erected a
powerful bastion.

At the end of a few days busy with entrenchments, the breach became
practicable, and the Duke of Valentinois ordered an assault, and gave
the example to his soldiers by being the first to march against the
enemy.  But in spite of his courage and that of his captains beside
him, Astor Manfredi made so good a defence that the besiegers were
repulsed with great loss of men, while one of their bravest leaders,
Honario Savella; was left behind in the trenches.

But Faenza, in spite of the courage and devotion of her defenders,
could not have held out long against so formidable an army, had not
winter come to her aid.  Surprised by the rigour of the season, with
no houses for protection and no trees for fuel, as the peasants had
destroyed both beforehand, the Duke of Valentinois was forced to
raise the siege and take up his winter quarters in the neighbouring
towns, in order to be quite ready for a return next spring; for
Caesar could not forgive the insult of being held in check by a
little town which had enjoyed a long time of peace, was governed by a
mere boy, and deprived of all outside aid, and had sworn to take his
revenge.  He therefore broke up his army into three sections, sent
one-third to Imola, the second to Forli, and himself took the third
to Cesena, a third-rate town, which was thus suddenly transformed
into a city of pleasure and luxury.

Indeed, for Caesar's active spirit there must needs be no cessation
of warfare or festivities.  So, when war was interrupted, fetes
began, as magnificent and as exciting as he knew how to make them:
the days were passed in games and displays of horsemanship, the
nights in dancing and gallantry; for the loveliest women of the
Romagna--and that is to say of the whole world--had come hither to
make a seraglio for the victor which might have been envied by the
Sultan of Egypt or the Emperor of Constantinople.

While the Duke of Valentinois was making one of his excursions in the
neighbourhood of the town with his retinue of flattering nobles and
titled courtesans, who were always about him, he noticed a cortege an
the Rimini road so numerous that it must surely indicate the approach
of someone of importance.  Caesar, soon perceiving that the principal
person was a woman, approached, and recognised the very same lady-in-
waiting to the Duchess of Urbino who, on the day of the bull-fight,
had screamed when Caesar was all but touched by the infuriated beast.
At this time she was betrothed, as we mentioned, to Gian
Carracciuola, general of the Venetians.  Elizabeth of Gonzaga, her
protectress and godmother, was now sending her with a suitable
retinue to Venice, where the marriage was to take place.

Caesar had already been struck by the beauty of this young girl, when
at Rome; but when he saw her again she appeared more lovely than on
the first occasion, so he resolved on the instant that he would keep
this fair flower of love for himself: having often before reproached
himself for his indifference in passing her by.  Therefore he saluted
her as an old acquaintance, inquired whether she were staying any
time at Cesena, and ascertained that she was only passing through,
travelling by long stages, as she was awaited with much impatience,
and that she would spend the coming night at Forli.  This was all
that Caesar cared to knew; he summoned Michelotto, and in a low voice
said a few words to him, which were heard by no one else.

The cortege only made a halt at the neighbouring town, as the fair
bride had said, and started at once for Forli, although the day was
already far advanced; but scarcely had a league been revered when a
troop of horsemen from Cesena overtook and surrounded them.  Although
the soldiers in the escort were far from being in sufficient force,
they were eager to defend their general's bride; but soon some fell
dead, and others, terrified, took to flight; and when the lady came
dawn from her litter to try to escape, the chief seized her in his
arms and set her in front of him on his horse; then, ordering his men
to return to Cesena without him, he put his horse to the gallop in a
cross direction, and as the shades of evening were now beginning to
fall, he soon disappeared into the darkness.

Carracciuolo learned the news through one of the fugitives, who
declared that he had recognised among the ravishers the Duke of
Valentinois' soldiers.  At first he thought his ears had deceived
him, so hard was it to believe this terrible intelligence; but it was
repeated, and he stood for one instant motionless, and, as it were,
thunderstruck; then suddenly, with a cry of vengeance, he threw off
his stupor and dashed away to the ducal palace, where sat the Doge
Barberigo and the Council of Ten; unannounced, he rushed into their
midst, the very moment after they had heard of Caesar's outrage.

"Most serene lords," he cried, "I am come to bid you farewell, for I
am resolved to sacrifice my life to my private vengeance, though
indeed I had hoped to devote it to the service of the republic.
I have been wounded in the soul's noblest part--in my honour.  The
dearest thing I possessed, my wife, has been stolen from me, and the
thief is the most treacherous, the most impious, the most infamous of
men, it is Valentinois!  My lords, I beg you will not be offended if
I speak thus of a man whose boast it is to be a member of your noble
ranks and to enjoy your protection: it is not so; he lies, and his
loose and criminal life has made him unworthy of such honours, even
as he is unworthy of the life whereof my sword shall deprive him.  In
truth, his very birth was a sacrilege; he is a fratricide, an usurper
of the goods of other men, an oppressor of the innocent, and a
highway assassin; he is a man who will violate every law, even, the
law of hospitality respected by the veriest barbarian, a man who will
do violence to a virgin who is passing through his own country, where
she had every right to expect from him not only the consideration due
to her sex and condition, but also that which is due to the most
serene republic, whose condottiere I am, and which is insulted in my
person and in the dishonouring of my bride; this man, I say, merits
indeed to die by another hand than mine.  Yet, since he who ought to
punish him is not for him a prince and judge, but only a father quite
as guilty as the son, I myself will seek him out, and I will
sacrifice my own life, not only in avenging my own injury and the
blood of so many innocent beings, but also in promoting the welfare
of the most serene republic, on which it is his ambition to trample
when he has accomplished the ruin of the other princes of Italy."

The doge and the senators, who, as we said, were already apprised of
the event that had brought Carracciuolo before them, listened with
great interest and profound indignation; for they, as he told them,
were themselves insulted in the person of their general: they all
swore, on their honour, that if he would put the matter in their
hands, and not yield to his rage, which could only work his own
undoing, either his bride should be rendered up to him without a
smirch upon her bridal veil, or else a punishment should be dealt out
proportioned to the affront.  And without delay, as a proof of the
energy wherewith the noble tribunal would take action in the affair,
Luigi Manenti, secretary to the Ten, was sent to Imola, where the
duke was reported to be, that he might explain to him the great
displeasure with which the most serene republic viewed the outrage
perpetrated upon their candottiere.  At the same time the Council of
Ten and the doge sought out the French ambassador, entreating him to
join with them and repair in person with Manenti to the Duke of
Valentinois, and summon him, in the name of King Louis XII,
immediately to send back to Venice the lady he had carried off.

The two messengers arrived at Imola, where they found Caesar, who
listened to their complaint with every mark of utter astonishment,
denying that he had been in any way connected with the crime, nay,
authorising Manenti and the French ambassador to pursue the culprits
and promising that he would himself have the most active search
carried on.  The duke appeared to act in such complete good faith
that the envoys were for the moment hoodwinked, and themselves
undertook a search of the most careful nature.  They accordingly
repaired to the exact spot and began to procure information.  On the
highroad there had been found dead and wounded.  A man had been seen
going by at a gallop, carrying a woman in distress on his saddle; he
had soon left the beaten track and plunged across country.  A peasant
coming home from working in the fields had seen him appear and vanish
again like a shadow, taking the direction of a lonely house.  An old
woman declared that she had seen him go into this house.  But the
next night the house was gone, as though by enchantment, and the
ploughshare had passed over where it stood; so that none could say,
what had become of her whom they sought, for those who had dwelt in
the house, and even the house itself, were there no longer.

Manenti and the French ambassador returned to Venice, and related
what the duke had said, what they had done, and how all search had
been in vain.  No one doubted that Caesar was the culprit, but no one
could prove it.  So the most serene republic, which could not,
considering their war with the Turks, be embroiled with the pope,
forbade Caracciuala to take any sort of private vengeance, and so the
talk grew gradually less, and at last the occurrence was no more
mentioned.

But the pleasures of the winter had not diverted Caesar's mind from
his plans about Faenza.  Scarcely did the spring season allow him to
go into the country than he marched anew upon the town, camped
opposite the castle, and making a new breach, ordered a general
assault, himself going up first of all; but in spite of the courage
he personally displayed, and the able seconding of his soldiers, they
were repulsed by Astor, who, at the head of his men, defended the
breach, while even the women, at the top of the rampart, rolled down
stones and trunks of trees upon the besiegers.  After an hour's
struggle man to man, Caesar was forced to retire, leaving two
thousand men in the trenches about the town, and among the two
thousand one of his bravest condottieri, Valentino Farnese.

Then, seeing that neither excommunications nor assaults could help
him, Caesar converted the siege into a blockade: all the roads
leading to Faenza were cut off, all communications stopped; and
further, as various signs of revolt had been remarked at Cesena, a
governor was installed there whose powerful will was well known to
Caesar, Ramiro d'Orco, with powers of life and death over the
inhabitants; he then waited quietly before Faenza, till hunger should
drive out the citizens from those walls they defended with such
vehement enthusiasm.  At the end of a month, during which the people
of Faenza had suffered all the horrors of famine, delegates came out
to parley with Caesar with a view to capitulation.  Caesar, who still
had plenty to do in the Romagna, was less hard to satisfy than might
have been expected, and the town yielded an condition that he should
not touch either the persons or the belongings of the inhabitants,
that Astor Manfredi, the youthful ruler, should have the privilege of
retiring whenever he pleased, and should enjoy the revenue of his
patrimony wherever he might be.

The conditions were faithfully kept so far as the inhabitants were
concerned; but Caesar, when he had seen Astor, whom he did not know
before, was seized by a strange passion for this beautiful youth, who
was like a woman: he kept him by his side in his own army, showing
him honours befitting a young prince, and evincing before the eyes of
all the strongest affection for him: one day Astor disappeared, just
as Caracciuolo's bride had disappeared, and no one knew what had
become of him; Caesar himself appeared very uneasy, saying that he
had no doubt made his escape somewhere, and in order to give credence
to this story, he sent out couriers to seek him in all directions.

A year after this double disappearance, there was picked up in the
Tiber, a little below the Castle Sant' Angelo, the body of a
beautiful young woman, her hands bound together behind her back, and
also the corpse of a handsome youth with the bowstring he had been
strangled with tied round his neck.  The girl was Caracciuolo's
bride, the young man was Astor.

During the last year both had been the slaves of Caesar's pleasures;
now, tired of them, he had had them thrown into the Tiber.

The capture of Faenza had brought Caesar the title of Duke of
Romagna, which was first bestowed on him by the pope in full
consistory, and afterwards ratified by the King of Hungary, the
republic of Venice, and the Kings of Castile and Portugal.  The news
of the ratification arrived at Rome on the eve of the day on which
the people are accustomed to keep the anniversary of the foundation
of the Eternal City; this fete, which went back to the days of
Pomponius Laetus, acquired a new splendour in their eyes from the
joyful events that had just happened to their sovereign: as a sign of
joy cannon were fired all day long; in the evening there were
illuminations and bonfires, and during part of the night the Prince
of Squillace, with the chief lords of the Roman nobility, marched
about the streets, bearing torches, and exclaiming, "Long live
Alexander!  Long live Caesar!  Long live the Borgias!  Long live the
Orsini!  Long live the Duke of Romagna!"




CHAPTER XII

Caesar's ambition was only fed by victories: scarcely was he master
of Faenza before, excited by the Mariscotti, old enemies of the
Bentivoglio family, he cast his eyes upon Bologna; but Gian di
Bentivoglio, whose ancestors had possessed this town from time
immemorial, had not only made all preparations necessary for a long
resistance, but he had also put himself under the protection of
France; so, scarcely had he learned that Caesar was crossing the
frontier of the Bolognese territory with his army, than he sent a
courier to Louis XII to claim the fulfilment of his promise.  Louis
kept it with his accustomed good faith; and when Caesar arrived
before Bologna, he received an intimation from the King of France
that he was not to enter on any undertaking against his ally
Bentivoglio; Caesar, not being the man to have his plans upset for
nothing, made conditions for his retreat, to which Bentivoglio
consented, only too happy to be quit of him at this price: the
conditions were the cession of Castello Bolognese, a fortress between
Imola and Faenza, the payment of a tribute of 9000 ducats, and the
keeping for his service of a hundred men-at-arms and two thousand
infantry.  In exchange for these favours, Caesar confided to
Bentivoglio that his visit had been due to the counsels of the
Mariscotti; then, reinforced by his new ally's contingent, he took
the road for Tuscany.  But he was scarcely out of sight when
Bentivoglio shut the gates of Bologna, and commanded his son Hermes
to assassinate with his own hand Agamemnon Mariscotti, the head of
the family, and ordered the massacre of four-and-thirty of his near
relatives, brothers, sons, daughters, and nephews, and two hundred
other of his kindred and friends.  The butchery was carried out by
the noblest youths of Bologna; whom Bentivoglio forced to bathe their
hands in this blood, so that he might attach them to himself through
their fear of reprisals.

Caesar's plans with regard to Florence were now no longer a mystery:
since the month of January he had sent to Pisa ten or twelve hundred
men under the Command of Regniero della Sassetta and Piero di Gamba
Corti, and as soon as the conquest of the Romagna was complete, he
had further despatched Oliverotto di Fermo with new detachments.  His
own army he had reinforced, as we have seen, by a hundred men-at-arms
and two thousand infantry; he had just been joined by Vitellozzo
Vitelli, lord of Citta, di Castello, and by the Orsini, who had
brought him another two or three thousand men; so, without counting
the troops sent to Pisa, he had under his control seven hundred men-
at-arms and five thousand infantry.

Still, in spite of this formidable company, he entered Tuscany
declaring that his intentions were only pacific, protesting that he
only desired to pass through the territories of the republic on his
way to Rome, and offering to pay in ready money for any victual his
army might require.  But when he had passed the defiles of the
mountains and arrived at Barberino, feeling that the town was in his
power and nothing could now hinder his approach, he began to put a
price on the friendship he had at first offered freely, and to impose
his own conditions instead of accepting those of others.  These were
that Piero dei Medici, kinsman and ally of the Orsini, should be
reinstated in his ancient power; that six Florentine citizens, to be
chosen by Vitellozzo, should be put into his hands that they might by
their death expiate that of Paolo Vitelli, unjustly executed by the
Florentines; that the Signoria should engage to give no aid to the
lord of Piombino, whom Caesar intended to dispossess of his estates
without delay; and further, that he himself should be taken into the
service of the republic, for a pay proportionate to his deserts.  But
just as Caesar had reached this point in his negotiations with
Florence, he received orders from Louis XII to get ready, so soon as
he conveniently could, to follow him with his army and help in the
conquest of Naples, which he was at last in a position to undertake.
Caesar dared not break his word to so powerful an ally; he therefore
replied that he was at the king's orders, and as the Florentines were
not aware that he was quitting them on compulsion, he sold his
retreat for the sum of 36,000 ducats per annum, in exchange for which
sum he was to hold three hundred men-at-arms always in readiness to
go to the aid of the republic at her earliest call and in any
circumstances of need.

But, hurried as he was, Caesar still hoped that he might find time to
conquer the territory of Piombino as he went by, and take the capital
by a single vigorous stroke; so he made his entry into the lands of
Jacopo IV of Appiano.  The latter, he found, however, had been
beforehand with him, and, to rob him of all resource, had laid waste
his own country, burned his fodder, felled his trees, torn down his
vines, and destroyed a few fountains that produced salubrious waters.
This did not hinder Caesar from seizing in the space of a few days
Severeto, Scarlino, the isle of Elba, and La Pianosa; but he was
obliged to stop short at the castle, which opposed a serious
resistance.  As Louis XII's army was continuing its way towards Rome,
and he received a fresh order to join it, he took his departure the
next day, leaving behind him, Vitellozzo and Gian Paolo Bagliani to
prosecute the siege in his absence.

Louis XII was this time advancing upon Naples, not with the
incautious ardour of Charles VIII, but, on the contrary, with that
prudence and circumspection which characterised him.  Besides his
alliance with Florence and Rome, he had also signed a secret treaty
with Ferdinand the Catholic, who had similar pretensions, through the
house of Duras, to the throne of Naples to those Louis himself had
through the house of Anjou.  By this treaty the two kings were
sharing their conquests beforehand: Louis would be master of Naples,
of the town of Lavore and the Abruzzi, and would bear the title of
King of Naples and Jerusalem; Ferdinand reserved for his own share
Apulia and Calabria, with the title of Duke of these provinces; both
were to receive the investiture from the pope and to hold them of
him.  This partition was all the more likely to be made, in fact,
because Frederic, supposing all the time that Ferdinand was his good
and faithful friend, would open the gates of his towns, only to
receive into his fortresses conquerors and masters instead of allies.
All this perhaps was not very loyal conduct on the part of a king who
had so long desired and had just now received the surname of
Catholic, but it mattered little to Louis, who profited by
treasonable acts he did not have to share.

The French army, which the Duke of Valentinois had just joined,
consisted of 1000 lances, 4000 Swiss, and 6000 Gascons and
adventurers; further, Philip of Rabenstein was bringing by sea six
Breton and Provencal vessels, and three Genoese caracks, carrying
6500 invaders.

Against this mighty host the King of Naples had only 700 men-at-
arms, 600 light horse, and 6000 infantry under the command of the
Colonna, whom he had taken into his pay after they were exiled by the
pope from the States of the Church; but he was counting on Gonsalvo
of Cordova, who was to join him at Gaeta, and to whom he had
confidingly opened all his fortresses in Calabria.

But the feeling of safety inspired by Frederic's faithless ally was
not destined to endure long: on their arrival at Rome, the French and
Spanish ambassadors presented to the pope the treaty signed at
Grenada on the 11th of November, 1500, between Louis XII and
Ferdinand the Catholic, a treaty which up, to that time had been
secret.  Alexander, foreseeing the probable future, had, by the death
of Alfonso, loosened all the bonds that attached him to the house of
Aragon, and then began by making some difficulty about it.  It was
demonstrated that the arrangement had only been undertaken to provide
the Christian princes with another weapon for attacking the Ottoman
Empire, and before this consideration, one may readily suppose, all
the pope's scruples vanished; on the 25th of June, therefore, it was
decided to call a consistory which was to declare Frederic deposed
from the throne of Naples.  When Frederic heard all at once that the
French army had arrived at Rome, that his ally Ferdinand had deceived
him, and that Alexander had pronounced the sentence of his downfall,
he understood that all was lost; but he did not wish it to be said
that he had abandoned his kingdom without even attempting to save it.
So he charged his two new condottieri, Fabrizio Calonna and Ranuzia
di Marciano, to check the French before Capua with 300 men-at-arms,
some light horse, and 3000 infantry; in person he occupied Aversa
with another division of his army, while Prospero Colonna was sent to
defend Naples with the rest, and make a stand against the Spaniards
on the side of Calabria.

These dispositions were scarcely made when d'Aubigny, having passed
the Volturno, approached to lay siege to Capua, and invested the town
on both sides of the river.  Scarcely were the French encamped before
the ramparts than they began to set up their batteries, which were
soon in play, much to the terror of the besieged, who, poor
creatures, were almost all strangers to the town, and had fled
thither from every side, expecting to find protection beneath the
walls.  So, although bravely repulsed by Fabrizio Colonna, the
French, from the moment of their first assault, inspired so great and
blind a terror that everyone began to talk of opening the gates, and
it was only with great difficulty that Calonna made this multitude
understand that at least they ought to reap some benefit from the
check the besiegers had received and obtain good terms of
capitulation.  When he had brought them round to his view, he sent
out to demand a parley with d'Aubigny, and a conference was fixed for
the next day but one, in which they were to treat of the surrender of
the town.

But this was not Caesar Borgia's idea at all: he had stayed behind to
confer with the pope, and had joined the French army with some of his
troops on the very day on which the conference had been arranged for
two days later: and a capitulation of any nature would rob him of his
share of the booty and the promise of such pleasure as would come
from the capture of a city so rich and populous as Capua.  So he
opened up negotiations on his own account with a captain who was on
guard at one of the gates.  Such negotiations, made with cunning
supported by bribery, proved as usual more prompt and efficacious
than any others.  At the very moment when Fabrizio Colonna in a
fortified outpost was discussing the conditions of capitulation with
the French captains, suddenly great cries of distress were heard.
These were caused by Borgia, who without a word to anyone had entered
the town with his faithful army from Romagna, and was beginning to
cut the throats of the garrison, which had naturally somewhat relaxed
their vigilance in the belief that the capitulation was all but
signed.  The French, when they saw that the town was half taken,
rushed on the gates with such impetuosity that the besieged did not
even attempt to defend themselves any longer, and forced their way
into Capua by three separate sides: nothing more could be done then
to stop the issue.  Butchery and pillage had begun, and the work of
destruction must needs be completed: in vain did Fabrizio Colonna,
Ranuzio di Marciano, and Don Ugo di Cardona attempt to make head
against the French and Spaniards with such men as they could get
together.  Fabrizia Calonna and Don Ugo were made prisoners; Ranuzia,
wounded by an arrow, fell into the hands of the Duke of Valentinois;
seven thousand inhabitants were massacred in the streets among them
the traitor who had given up the gate; the churches were pillaged,
the convents of nuns forced open; and then might be seen the
spectacle of some of these holy virgins casting themselves into pits
or into the river to escape the soldiers.  Three hundred of the
noblest ladies of the town took refuge in a tower.  The Duke of
Valentinois broke in the doors, chased out for himself forty of the
most beautiful, and handed over the rest to his army.

The pillage continued for three days.

Capua once taken, Frederic saw that it was useless any longer to
attempt defence.  So he shut himself up in Castel Nuovo and gave
permission to Gaeta and to Naples to treat with the conqueror.  Gaeta
bought immunity from pillage with 60,000 ducats; and Naples with the
surrender of the castle.  This surrender was made to d'Aubigny by
Frederic himself, an condition that he should be allowed to take to
the island of Ischia his money, jewels, and furniture, and there
remain with his family for six months secure from all hostile attack.
The terms of this capitulation were faithfully adhered to on both
sides: d'Aubigny entered Naples, and Frederic retired to Ischia.

Thus, by a last terrible blow, never to rise again, fell this branch
of the house of Aragon, which had now reigned for sixty-five years.
Frederic, its head, demanded and obtained a safe-conduct to pass into
France, where Louis XII gave him the duchy of Anjou and 30,000 ducats
a year, an condition that he should never quit the kingdom; and
there, in fact, he died, on the 9th of September 1504.  His eldest
son, Dan Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria, retired to Spain, where he was
permitted to marry twice, but each time with a woman who was known to
be barren; and there he died in 1550.  Alfonso, the second son, who
had followed his father to France, died, it is said, of poison, at
Grenoble, at the age of twenty-two; lastly Caesar, the third son,
died at Ferrara, before he had attained his eighteenth birthday.

Frederic's daughter Charlotte married in France Nicholas, Count of
Laval, governor and admiral of Brittany; a daughter was born of this
marriage, Anne de Laval, who married Francois de la Trimauille.
Through her those rights were transmitted to the house of La
Trimouille which were used later on as a claim upon the kingdom of
the Two Sicilies.

The capture of Naples gave the Duke of Valentinois his liberty again;
so he left the French army, after he had received fresh assurances on
his own account of the king's friendliness, and returned to the siege
of Piombino, which he had been forced to interrupt.  During this
interval Alexander had been visiting the scenes of his son's
conquests, and traversing all the Romagna with Lucrezia, who was now
consoled for her husband's death, and had never before enjoyed quite
so much favour with His Holiness; so, when she returned to Rome she
no longer had separate rooms from him.  The result of this
recrudescence of affection was the appearance of two pontifical
bulls, converting the towns of Nepi and Sermoneta into duchies: one
was bestowed on Gian Bargia, an illegitimate child of the pope, who
was not the son of either of his mistresses, Rosa Vanozza or Giulia
Farnese, the other on Don Roderigo of Aragon, son of Lucrezia and
Alfonso: the lands of the Colonna were in appanage to the two
duchies.

But Alexander was dreaming of yet another addition to his fortune;
this was to come from a marriage between Lucrezia and Don Alfonso
d'Este, son of Duke Hercules of Ferrara, in favour of which alliance
Louis XII had negotiated.

His Holiness was now having a run of good fortune, and he learned on
the same day that Piombino was taken and that Duke Hercules had given
the King of France his assent to the marriage.  Both of these pieces
of news were good for Alexander, but the one could not compare in
importance with the other; and the intimation that Lucrezia was to
marry the heir presumptive to the duchy of Ferrara was received with
a joy so great that it smacked of the humble beginnings of the
Borgian house.  The Duke of Valentinois was invited to return to
Rome, to take his share in the family rejoicing, and on the day when
the news was made public the governor of St. Angelo received orders
that cannon should be fired every quarter of an hour from noon to
midnight.  At two o'clock, Lucrezia, attired as a fiancee, and
accompanied by her two brothers, the Dukes of Valentinois and
Squillace, issued from the Vatican, followed by all the nobility of
Rome, and proceeded to the church of the Madonna del Papalo, where
the Duke of Gandia and Cardinal Gian Borgia were buried, to render
thanks for this new favour accorded to her house by God; and in the
evening, accompanied by the same cavalcade, which shone the more
brightly under the torchlight and brilliant illuminations, she made
procession through the whale town, greeted by cries of "Long live
Pope Alexander VI!  Long live the Duchess of Ferrara!" which were
shouted aloud by heralds clad in cloth of gold.

The next day an announcement was made in the town that a racecourse
for women was opened between the castle of Sant' Angelo and the
Piazza of St. Peter's; that on every third day there would be a bull-
fight in the Spanish fashion; and that from the end of the present
month, which was October, until the first day of Lent, masquerades
would be permitted in the streets of Rome.

Such was the nature of the fetes outside; the programme of those
going on within the Vatican was not presented to the people; for by
the account of Bucciardo, an eye-witness, this is what happened--

"On the last Sunday of the month of October, fifty courtesans supped
in the apostolic palace in the Duke of Valentinois' rooms, and after
supper danced with the equerries and servants, first wearing their
usual garments, afterwards in dazzling draperies; when supper was
over, the table was removed, candlesticks were set on the floor in a
symmetrical pattern, and a great quantity of chestnuts was scattered
on the ground: these the fifty women skilfully picked up, running
about gracefully, in and out between the burning lights; the pope,
the Duke of Valentinois, and his sister Lucrezia, who were looking on
at this spectacle from a gallery, encouraged the most agile and
industrious with their applause, and they received prizes of
embroidered garters, velvet boots, golden caps, and laces; then new
diversions took the place of these."

We humbly ask forgiveness of our readers, and especially of our lady
readers; but though we have found words to describe the first part of
the spectacle, we have sought them in vain for the second; suffice it
to say that just as there had been prizes for feats of adroitness,
others were given now to the dancers who were most daring and brazen.

Some days after this strange night, which calls to mind the Roman
evenings in the days of Tiberius, Nero, and Heliogabalus, Lucrezia,
clad in a robe of golden brocade, her train carried by young girls
dressed in white and crowned with roses, issued from her palace to
the sound of trumpets and clarions, and made her way over carpets
that were laid down in the streets through which she had to pass.
Accompanied by the noblest cavaliers and the loveliest women in Rome,
she betook herself to the Vatican, where in the Pauline hall the pope
awaited her, with the Duke of Valentinois, Don Ferdinand, acting as
proxy for Duke Alfonso, and his cousin, Cardinal d'Este.  The pope
sat on one side of the table, while the envoys from Ferrara stood on
the other: into their midst came Lucrezia, and Don Ferdinand placed
on her finger the nuptial ring; this ceremony over, Cardinal d'Este
approached and presented to the bride four magnificent rings set with
precious stones; then a casket was placed on the table, richly inlaid
with ivory, whence the cardinal drew forth a great many trinkets,
chains, necklaces of pearls and diamonds, of workmanship as costly as
their material; these he also begged Lucrezia to accept, before she
received those the bridegroom was hoping to offer himself, which
would be more worthy of her.  Lucrezia showed the utmost delight in
accepting these gifts; then she retired into the next room, leaning
on the pope's arm, and followed by the ladies of her suite, leaving
the Duke of Valentinois to do the honours of the Vatican to the men.
That evening the guests met again, and spent half the night in
dancing, while a magnificent display of fireworks lighted up the
Piazza of San Paolo.

The ceremony of betrothal over, the pope and the Duke busied
themselves with making preparations for the departure.  The pope, who
wished the journey to be made with a great degree of splendour, sent
in his daughter's company, in addition to the two brothers-in-law and
the gentlemen in their suite, the Senate of Rome and all the lords
who, by virtue of their wealth, could display most magnificence in
their costumes and liveries.  Among this brilliant throng might be
seen Olivero and Ramiro Mattei, sons of Piero Mattel, chancellor of
the town, and a daughter of the pope whose mother was not Rosa
Vanozza; besides these, the pope nominated in consistory Francesco
Borgia, Cardinal of Sosenza, legate a latere, to accompany his
daughter to the frontiers of the Ecclesiastical States.

Also the Duke of Valentinois sent out messengers into all the cities
of Romagna to order that Lucrezia should be received as sovereign
lady and mistress: grand preparations were at once set on foot for
the fulfilment of his orders.  But the messengers reported that they
greatly feared that there would be some grumbling at Cesena, where it
will be remembered that Caesar had left Ramiro d'Orco as governor
with plenary powers, to calm the agitation of the town.  Now Ramiro
d'Orco had accomplished his task so well that there was nothing more
to fear in the way of rebellion; for one-sixth of the inhabitants had
perished on the scaffold, and the result of this situation was that
it was improbable that the same demonstrations of joy could be
expected from a town plunged in mourning that were looked for from
Imala, Faenza, and Pesaro.  The Duke of Valentinais averted this
inconvenience in the prompt and efficacious fashion characteristic of
him alone.  One morning the inhabitants of Cesena awoke to find a
scaffold set up in the square, and upon it the four quarters of a
man, his head, severed from the trunk, stuck up on the end of a pike.

This man was Ramiro d'Orco.

No one ever knew by whose hands the scaffold had been raised by
night, nor by what executioners the terrible deed had been carried
out; but when the Florentine Republic sent to ask Macchiavelli, their
ambassador at Cesena, what he thought of it, he replied:

"MAGNIFICENT LORDS,--I can tell you nothing concerning the execution
of Ramiro d'Orco, except that Caesar Borgia is the prince who best
knows how to make and unmake men according to their deserts.
                                               NICCOLO MACCHIAVELLI"

The Duke of Valentinois was not disappointed, and the future Duchess
of Ferrara was admirably received in every town along her route, and
particularly at Cesena.

While Lucrezia was on her way to Ferrara to meet her fourth husband,
Alexander and the Duke of Valentinois resolved to make progress in
the region of their last conquest, the duchy of Piombino.  The
apparent object of this journey was that the new subjects might take
their oath to Caesar, and the real object was to form an arsenal in
Jacopo d'Appiano's capital within reach of Tuscany, a plan which
neither the pope nor his son had ever seriously abandoned.  The two
accordingly started from the port of Corneto with six ships,
accompanied by a great number of cardinals and prelates, and arrived
the same evening at Piombina.  The pontifical court made a stay there
of several days, partly with a view of making the duke known to the
inhabitants, and also in order to be present at certain
ecclesiastical functions, of which the most important was a service
held on the third Sunday in Lent, in which the Cardinal of Cosenza
sang a mass and the pope officiated in state with the duke and the
cardinals.  After these solemn functions the customary pleasures
followed, and the pope summoned the prettiest girls of the country
and ordered them to dance their national dances before him.

Following on these dances came feasts of unheard of magnificence,
during which the pope in the sight of all men completely ignored Lent
and did not fast.  The object of all these fetes was to scatter
abroad a great deal of money, and so to make the Duke of Valentinois
popular, while poor Jacopo d'Appiano was forgotten.

When they left Piombino, the pope and his son visited the island of
Elba, where they only stayed long enough to visit the old
fortifications and issue orders for the building of new ones.

Then the illustrious travellers embarked on their return journey to
Rome; but scarcely had they put out to sea when the weather became
adverse, and the pope not wishing to put in at Porto Ferrajo, they
remained five days on board, though they had only two days'
provisions.  During the last three days the pope lived on fried fish
that were caught under great difficulties because of the heavy
weather.  At last they arrived in sight of Corneto, and there the
duke, who was not on the same vessel as the pope, seeing that his
ship could not get in, had a boat put out, and so was taken ashore.
The pope was obliged to continue on his way towards Pontercole, where
at last he arrived, after encountering so violent a tempest that all
who were with him were utterly subdued either by sickness or by the
terror of death.  The pope alone did not show one instant's fear, but
remained on the bridge during the storm, sitting on his arm-chair,
invoking the name of Jesus and making the sign of the cross.  At last
his ship entered the roads of Pontercole, where he landed, and after
sending to Corneto to fetch horses, he rejoined the duke, who was
there awaiting him.  They then returned by slow stages, by way of
Civita Vecchia and Palo, and reached Rome after an absence of a
month.  Almost at the same time d'Albret arrived in quest of his
cardinal's hat.  He was accompanied by two princes of the house of
Navarre, who were received with not only those honours which beseemed
their rank, but also as brothers-in-law to whom the duke was eager
to show in what spirit he was contracting this alliance.




CHAPTER XIII

The time had now come for the Duke of Valentinois to continue the
pursuit of his conquests.  So, since on the 1st of May in the
preceding year the pope had pronounced sentence of forfeiture in full
consistory against Julius Caesar of Varano, as punishment for the
murder of his brother Rudolph and for the harbouring of the pope's
enemies, and he had accordingly been mulcted of his fief of Camerino,
which was to be handed over to the apostolic chamber, Caesar left
Rome to put the sentence in execution.  Consequently, when he arrived
on the frontiers of Perugia, which belonged to his lieutenant, Gian
Paolo Baglioni, he sent Oliverotta da Fermo and Orsini of Gravina to
lay waste the March of Camerino, at the same time petitioning Guido
d'Ubaldo di Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, to lend his soldiers and
artillery to help him in this enterprise.  This the unlucky Duke of
Urbino, who enjoyed the best possible relations with the pope, and
who had no reason for distrusting Caesar, did not dare refuse.  But
on the very same day that the Duke of Urbina's troops started for
Camerino, Caesar's troops entered the duchy of Urbino, and took
possession of Cagli, one of the four towns of the little State.  The
Duke of Urbino knew what awaited him if he tried to resist, and fled
incontinently, disguised as a peasant; thus in less than eight days
Caesar was master of his whole duchy, except the fortresses of Maiolo
and San Leone.

The Duke of Valentinois forthwith returned to Camerino, where the
inhabitants still held out, encouraged by the presence of Julius
Caesar di Varano, their lord, and his two sons, Venantio and
Hannibal; the eldest son, Gian Maria, had been sent by his father to
Venice.

The presence of Caesar was the occasion of parleying between the
besiegers and besieged.  A capitulation was arranged whereby Varano
engaged to give up the town, on condition that he and his sons were
allowed to retire safe and sound, taking with them their furniture,
treasure, and carriages.  But this was by no means Caesar's
intention; so, profiting by the relaxation in vigilance that had
naturally come about in the garrison when the news of the
capitulation had been announced, he surprised the town in the night
preceding the surrender, and seized Caesar di Varano and his two
sons, who were strangled a short time after, the father at La Pergola
and the sons at Pesaro, by Don Michele Correglio, who, though he had
left the position of sbirro for that of a captain, every now and then
returned to his first business.

Meanwhile Vitellozzo Vitelli, who had assumed the title of General of
the Church, and had under him 800 men-at-arms and 3,000 infantry, was
following the secret instructions that he had received from Caesar by
word of mouth, and was carrying forward that system of invasion which
was to encircle Florence in a network of iron, and in the end make
her defence an impossibility.  A worthy pupil of his master, in whose
school he had learned to use in turn the cunning of a fox and the
strength of a lion, he had established an understanding between
himself and certain young gentlemen of Arezzo to get that town
delivered into his hands.  But the plot had been discovered by
Guglielma dei Pazzi, commissary of the Florentine Republic, and he
had arrested two of the conspirators, whereupon the others, who were
much more numerous than was supposed, had instantly dispersed about
the town summoning the citizens to arms.  All the republican faction,
who saw in any sort of revolution the means of subjugating Florence,
joined their party, set the captives at liberty, and seized
Guglielmo; then proclaiming the establishment of the ancient
constitution, they besieged the citadel, whither Cosimo dei Pazzi,
Bishop of Arezzo, the son of Guglielmo, had fled for refuge; he,
finding himself invested on every side, sent a messenger in hot haste
to Florence to ask for help.

Unfortunately for the cardinal, Vitellozzo's troops were nearer to
the besiegers than were the soldiers of the most serene republic to
the besieged, and instead of help--the whole army of the enemy came
down upon him.  This army was under the command of Vitellozzo, of
Gian Paolo Baglioni, and of Fabio Orsino, and with them were the two
Medici, ever ready to go wherever there was a league against
Florence, and ever ready at the command of Borgia, on any conditions
whatever, to re-enter the town whence they had been banished.  The
next day more help in the form of money and artillery arrived, sent
by Pandolfo Petrucci, and on the 18th of June the citadel of Arezzo,
which had received no news from Florence, was obliged to surrender.

Vitellozzo left the men of Arezzo to look after their town
themselves, leaving also Fabio Orsina to garrison the citadel with a
thousand men.  Then, profiting by the terror that had been spread
throughout all this part of Italy by the successive captures of the
duchy of Urbino, of Camerino, and of Arezzo, he marched upon Monte
San Severino, Castiglione, Aretino, Cortone, and the other towns of
the valley of Chiana, which submitted one after the other almost
without a struggle.  When he was only ten or twelve leagues from
Florence, and dared not on his own account attempt anything against
her, he made known the state of affairs to the Duke of Valentinois.
He, fancying the hour had came at last far striking the blow so long
delayed, started off at once to deliver his answer in person to his
faithful lieutenants.

But the Florentines, though they had sent no help to Guglielmo dei
Pazzi, had demanded aid from Chaumont dumbest, governor of the
Milanese, on behalf of Louis XII, not only explaining the danger they
themselves were in but also Caesar's ambitious projects, namely that
after first overcoming the small principalities and then the states
of the second order, he had now, it seemed, reached such a height of
pride that he would attack the King of France himself.  The news from
Naples was disquieting; serious differences had already occurred
between the Count of Armagnac and Gonzalva di Cordova, and Louis
might any day need Florence, whom he had always found loyal and
faithful.  He therefore resolved to check Caesar's progress, and not
only sent him orders to advance no further step forwards, but also
sent off, to give effect to his injunction, the captain Imbaut with
400 lances.  The Duke of Valentinais on the frontier of Tuscany
received a copy of the treaty signed between the republic and the
King of France, a treaty in which the king engaged to help his ally
against any enemy whatsoever, and at the same moment the formal
prohibition from Louis to advance any further.  Caesar also learned
that beside the 400 lances with the captain Imbaut, which were on the
road to Florence, Louis XII had as soon as he reached Asti sent off
to Parma Louis de la Trimouille and 200 men-at-arms, 3000 Swiss, and
a considerable train of artillery.  In these two movements combined
he saw hostile intentions towards himself, and turning right about
face with his usual agility, he profited by the fact that he had
given nothing but verbal instructions to all his lieutenants, and
wrote a furious letter to Vitellozzo, reproaching him for
compromising his master with a view to his own private interest, and
ordering the instant surrender to the Florentines of the towns and
fortresses he had taken, threatening to march down with his own
troops and take them if he hesitated for a moment.

As soon as this letter was written, Caesar departed for Milan, where
Louis XII had just arrived, bringing with him proof positive that he
had been calumniated in the evacuation of the conquered towns.  He
also was entrusted with the pope's mission to renew for another
eighteen months the title of legate 'a latere' in France to Cardinal
dumbest, the friend rather than the minister of Louis XII.  Thus,
thanks to the public proof of his innocence and the private use of
his influence, Caesar soon made his peace with the King of France.

But this was not all.  It was in the nature of Caesar's genius to
divert an impending calamity that threatened his destruction so as to
come out of it better than before, and he suddenly saw the advantage
he might take from the pretended disobedience of his lieutenants.
Already he had been disturbed now and again by their growing power,
and coveted their towns, now he thought the hour had perhaps came for
suppressing them also, and in the usurpation of their private
possessions striking a blow at Florence, who always escaped him at
the very moment when he thought to take her.  It was indeed an
annoying thing to have these fortresses and towns displaying another
banner than his own in the midst of the beautiful Romagna which he
desired far his own kingdom.  For Vitellozzo possessed Citta di
Castello, Bentivoglio Bologna, Gian Paolo Baglioni was in command of
Perugia, Oliverotto had just taken Fermo, and Pandolfo Petrucci was
lord of Siena; it was high time that all these returned into his own
hands.  The lieutenants of the Duke of Valentinois, like Alexander's,
were becoming too powerful, and Borgia must inherit from them, unless
he were willing to let them become his own heirs.  He obtained from
Louis XII three hundred lances wherewith to march against them.  As
soon as Vitellozzo Vitelli received Caesar's letter he perceived that
he was being sacrificed to the fear that the King of France inspired;
but he was not one of those victims who suffer their throats to be
cut in the expiation of a mistake: he was a buffalo of Romagna who
opposed his horns to the knife of the butcher; besides, he had the
example of Varano and the Manfredi before him, and, death for death,
he preferred to perish in arms.

So Vitellozzo convoked at Maggione all whose lives or lands were
threatened by this new reversal of Caesar's policy.  These were Paolo
Orsino, Gian Paolo Baglioni, Hermes Bentivoglio, representing his
father Gian, Antonio di Venafro, the envoy of Pandolfo Petrucci,
Olivertoxo da Fermo, and the Duke of Urbino: the first six had
everything to lose, and the last had already lost everything.

A treaty of alliance was signed between the confederates: they
engaged to resist whether he attacked them severally or all together.

Caesar learned the existence of this league by its first effects: the
Duke of Urbino, who was adored by his subjects, had come with a
handful of soldiers to the fortress of San Leone, and it had yielded
at once.  In less than a week towns and fortresses followed this
example, and all the duchy was once more in the hands of the Duke of
Urbino.

At the same time, each member of the confederacy openly proclaimed
his revolt against the common enemy, and took up a hostile attitude.

Caesar was at Imola, awaiting the French troops, but with scarcely
any men; so that Bentivoglio, who held part of the country, and the
Duke of Urbino, who had just reconquered the rest of it, could
probably have either taken him or forced him to fly and quit the
Romagna, had they marched against him; all the more since the two men
on whom he counted, viz., Don Ugo di Cardona, who had entered his
service after Capua was taken, and Michelotto had mistaken his
intention, and were all at once separated from him.  He had really
ordered them to fall back upon Rimini, and bring 200 light horse and
500 infantry of which they had the command; but, unaware of the
urgency of his situation, at the very moment when they were
attempting to surprise La Pergola and Fossombrone, they were
surrounded by Orsino of Gravina and Vitellozzo.  Ugo di Cardona and
Michelotto defended themselves like lions; but in spite of their
utmost efforts their little band was cut to pieces, and Ugo di
Cardona taken prisoner, while Michelotto only escaped the same fate
by lying down among the dead; when night came on, he escaped to Fano.

But even alone as he was, almost without troops at Imola, the
confederates dared attempt nothing against Caesar, whether because of
the personal fear he inspired, or because in him they respected the
ally of the King of France; they contented themselves with taking the
towns and fortresses in the neighbourhood.  Vitellozzo had retaken
the fortresses of Fossombrone, Urbino, Cagli, and Aggobbio; Orsino of
Gravina had reconquered Fano and the whole province; while Gian Maria
de Varano, the same who by his absence had escaped being massacred
with the rest of his family, had re-entered Camerino, borne in
triumph by his people.  Not even all this could destroy Caesar's
confidence in his own good fortune, and while he was on the one hand
urging on the arrival of the French troops and calling into his pay
all those gentlemen known as "broken lances," because they went about
the country in parties of five or six only, and attached themselves
to anyone who wanted them, he had opened up negotiations with his
enemies, certain that from that very day when he should persuade them
to a conference they were undone.  Indeed, Caesar had the power of
persuasion as a gift from heaven; and though they perfectly well knew
his duplicity, they had no power of resisting, not so much his actual
eloquence as that air of frank good-nature which Macchiavelli so
greatly admired, and which indeed more than once deceived even him,
wily politician as he was.  In order to get Paolo Orsino to treat
with him at Imola, Caesar sent Cardinal Borgia to the confederates as
a hostage; and on this Paolo Orsino hesitated no longer, and on the
25th of October, 1502, arrived at Imola.

Caesar received him as an old friend from whom one might have been
estranged a few days because of some slight passing differences; he
frankly avowed that all the fault was no doubt on his side, since he
had contrived to alienate men who were such loyal lords and also such
brave captains; but with men of their nature, he added, an honest,
honourable explanation such as he would give must put everything once
more in statu quo.  To prove that it was goodwill, not fear, that
brought him back to them, he showed Orsino the letters from Cardinal
Amboise which announced the speedy arrival of French troops; he
showed him those he had collected about him, in the wish, he
declared, that they might be thoroughly convinced that what he
chiefly regretted in the whole matter was not so much the loss of the
distinguished captains who were the very soul of his vast enterprise,
as that he had led the world to believe, in a way so fatal to his own
interest, that he could for a single instant fail to recognise their
merit; adding that he consequently relied upon him, Paolo Orsino,
whom he had always cared for most, to bring back the confederates by
a peace which would be as much for the profit of all as a war was
hurtful to all, and that he was ready to sign a treaty in consonance
with their wishes so long as it should not prejudice his own honour.

Orsino was the man Caesar wanted: full of pride and confidence in
himself, he was convinced of the truth of the old proverb that says,
"A pope cannot reign eight days, if he has hath the Colonnas and the
Orsini against him."  He believed, therefore, if not in Caesar's good
faith, at any rate in the necessity he must feel for making peace;
accordingly he signed with him the following conventions--which only
needed ratification--on the 18th of October, 1502, which we reproduce
here as Macchiavelli sent them to the magnificent republic of
Florence.

"Agreement between the Duke of Valentinois and the Confederates.

"Let it be known to the parties mentioned below, and to all who shall
see these presents, that His Excellency the Duke of Romagna of the
one part and the Orsini of the other part, together with their
confederates, desiring to put an end to differences, enmities,
misunderstandings, and suspicions which have arisen between them,
have resolved as follows:

"There shall be between them peace and alliance true and perpetual,
with a complete obliteration of wrongs and injuries which may have
taken place up to this day, both parties engaging to preserve no
resentment of the same; and in conformity with the aforesaid peace
and union, His Excellency the Duke of Romagna shall receive into
perpetual confederation, league, and alliance all the lords
aforesaid; and each of them shall promise to defend the estates of
all in general and of each in particular against any power that may
annoy or attack them for any cause whatsoever, excepting always
nevertheless the Pope Alexander VI and his Very Christian Majesty
Louis XII, King of France: the lords above named promising on the
other part to unite in the defence of the person and estates of His
Excellency, as also those of the most illustrious lords, Don Gaffredo
Bargia, Prince of Squillace, Don Roderigo Bargia, Duke of Sermaneta
and Biselli, and Don Gian Borgia, Duke of Camerino and Negi, all
brothers or nephews of the Duke of Romagna.

"Moreover, since the rebellion and usurpation of Urbino have occurred
during the above-mentioned misunderstandings, all the confederates
aforesaid and each of them shall bind themselves to unite all their
forces for the recovery of the estates aforesaid and of such other
places as have revolted and been usurped.

"His Excellency the Duke of Romagna shall undertake to continue to
the Orsini and Vitelli their ancient engagements in the way of
military service and an the same conditions.

"His Excellency promises further not to insist on the service in
person of more than one of them, as they may choose: the service that
the others may render shall be voluntary.

"He also promises that the second treaty shall be ratified by the
sovereign pontiff, who shall not compel Cardinal Orsino to reside in
Rome longer than shall seem convenient to this prelate.

"Furthermore, since there are certain differences between the Pope
and the lord Gian Bentivoglio, the confederates aforesaid agree that
they shall be put to the arbitration of Cardinal Orsino, of His
Excellency the Duke of Romagna, and of the lord Pandolfo Petrucci,
without appeal.

"Thus the confederates engage, each and all, so soon as they may be
required by the Duke of Romagna, to put into his hands as a hostage
one of the legitimate sons of each of them, in that place and at that
time which he may be pleased to indicate.

"The same confederates promising moreover, all and each, that if any
project directed against any one of them come to their knowledge, to
give warning thereof, and all to prevent such project reciprocally.

"It is agreed, over and above, between the Duke of Romagna and the
confederates aforesaid, to regard as a common enemy any who shall
fail to keep the present stipulations, and to unite in the
destruction of any States not conforming thereto.

                         "(Signed) CAESAR, PAOLO ORSINO.
                                   "AGAPIT, Secretary."

At the same time, while Orsino was carrying to the confederates the
treaty drawn up between him and the duke, Bentivoglio, not willing to
submit to the arbitration indicated, made an offer to Caesar of
settling their differences by a private treaty, and sent his son to
arrange the conditions: after some parleying, they were settled as
follows:--

Bentivaglio should separate his fortunes from the Vitelli and Orsini;

He should furnish the Duke of Valentinois with a hundred men-at-arms
and a hundred mounted archers for eight years;

He should pay 12,000 ducats per annum to Caesar, for the support of a
hundred lances;

In return for this, his son Hannibal was to marry the sister of the
Archbishop of Enna, who was Caesar's niece, and the pope was to
recognise his sovereignty in Bologna;

The King of France, the Duke of Ferrara, and the republic of Florence
were to be the guarantors of this treaty.

But the convention brought to the confederates by Orsino was the
cause of great difficulties on their part.  Vitellozza Vitelli in
particular, who knew Caesar the best, never ceased to tell the other
condottieri that so prompt and easy a peace must needs be the cover
to some trap; but since Caesar had meanwhile collected a considerable
army at Imala, and the four hundred lances lent him by Louis XII had
arrived at last, Vitellozzo and Oliverotto decided to sign the treaty
that Orsino brought, and to let the Duke of Urbino and the lord of
Camerino know of it; they, seeing plainly that it was henceforth
impossible to make a defence unaided, had retired, the one to Citta
di Castello and the other into the kingdom of Naples.

But Caesar, saying nothing of his intentions, started on the 10th of
December, and made his way to Cesena with a powerful army once more
under his command.  Fear began to spread on all sides, not only in
Romagna but in the whole of Northern Italy; Florence, seeing him move
away from her, only thought it a blind to conceal his intentions;
while Venice, seeing him approach her frontiers, despatched all her
troops to the banks of the Po.  Caesar perceived their fear, and lest
harm should be done to himself by the mistrust it might inspire, he
sent away all French troops in his service as soon as he reached
Cesena, except a hundred men with M. de Candale, his brother-in-law;
it was then seen that he only had 2000 cavalry and 2000 infantry with
him.  Several days were spent in parleying, for at Cesena Caesar
found the envoys of the Vitelli and Orsini, who themselves were with
their army in the duchy of Urbino; but after the preliminary
discussions as to the right course to follow in carrying on the plan
of conquest, there arose such difficulties between the general-in-
chief and these agents, that they could not but see the impossibility
of getting anything settled by intermediaries, and the urgent
necessity of a conference between Caesar and one of the chiefs.  So
Oliverotto ran the risk of joining the duke in order to make
proposals to him, either to march on Tuscany or to take Sinigaglia,
which was the only place in the duchy of Urbino that had not again
fallen into Caesar's power.  Caesar's reply was that he did not
desire to war upon Tuscany, because the Tuscans were his friends; but
that he approved of the lieutenants' plan with regard to Sinigaglia,
and therefore was marching towards Fano.

But the daughter of Frederic, the former Duke of Urbino, who held the
town of Sinigaglia, and who was called the lady-prefect, because she
had married Gian delta Rovere, whom his uncle, Sixtus IV, had made
prefect of Rome, judging that it would be impossible to defend
herself against the forces the Duke of Valentinais was bringing, left
the citadel in the hands of a captain, recommending him to get the
best terms he could for the town, and took boat for Venice.

Caesar learned this news at Rimini, through a messenger from Vitelli
and the Orsini, who said that the governor of the citadel, though
refusing to yield to them, was quite ready to make terms with him,
and consequently they would engage to go to the town and finish the
business there.  Caesar's reply was that in consequence of this
information he was sending some of his troops to Cesena and Imola,
for they would be useless to him, as he should now have theirs, which
together with the escort he retained would be sufficient, since his
only object was the complete pacification of the duchy of Urbino.  He
added that this pacification would not be possible if his old friends
continued to distrust him, and to discuss through intermediaries
alone plans in which their own fortunes were interested as well as
his.  The messenger returned with this answer, and the confederates,
though feeling, it is true, the justice of Caesar's remarks, none the
less hesitated to comply with his demand.  Vitellozzo Vitelli in
particular showed a want of confidence in him which nothing seemed
able to subdue; but, pressed by Oliverotto, Gravina, and Orsino, he
consented at last to await the duke's coming; making concession
rather because he could not bear to appear more timid than his
companions, than because of any confidence he felt in the return of
friendship that Borgia was displaying.

The duke learned the news of this decision, so much desired, when he
arrived at Fano on the 20th of December 1502.  At once he summoned
eight of his most faithful friends, among whom were d'Enna, his
nephew, Michelotto, and Ugo di Cardona, and ordered them, as soon as
they arrived at Sinigaglia, and had seen Vitellozzo, Gravina,
Oliveratta, and Orsino come out to meet them, on a pretext of doing
them honour, to place themselves on the right and left hand of the
four generals, two beside each, so that at a given signal they might
either stab or arrest them; next he assigned to each of them his
particular man, bidding them not quit his side until he had reentered
Sinigaglia and arrived at the quarters prepared far him; then he sent
orders to such of the soldiers as were in cantonments in the
neighbourhood to assemble to the number of 8000 on the banks of the
Metaurus, a little river of Umbria which runs into the Adriatic and
has been made famous by the defeat of Hannibal.

The duke arrived at the rendezvous given to his army on the 31st of
December, and instantly sent out in front two hundred horse, and
immediately behind them his infantry; following close in the midst of
his men-at-arms, following the coast of the Adriatic, with the
mountains on his right and the sea on his left, which in part of the
way left only space for the army to march ten abreast.

After four hours' march, the duke at a turn of the path perceived
Sinigaglia, nearly a mile distant from the sea, and a bowshot from
the mountains; between the army and the town ran a little river,
whose banks he had to follow far some distance.  At last he found a
bridge opposite a suburb of the town, and here Caesar ordered his
cavalry to stop: it was drawn up in two lines, one between the road
and the river, the other on the side of the country, leaving the
whole width of the road to the infantry: which latter defiled,
crossed the bridge, and entering the town, drew themselves up in
battle array in the great square.

On their side, Vitellazzo, Gravina, Orsino, and Oliverotto, to make
room for the duke's army, had quartered their soldiers in little
towns or villages in the neighbourhood of Sinigaglia; Oliverotto
alone had kept nearly 1000 infantry and 150 horse, who were in
barracks in the suburb through which the duke entered.

Caesar had made only a few steps towards the town when he perceived
Vitellozzo at the gate, with the Duke of Gravina and Orsina, who all
came out to meet him; the last two quite gay and confident, but the
first so gloomy and dejected that you would have thought he foresaw
the fate that was in store for him; and doubtless he had not been
without same presentiments; for when he left his army to came to
Sinigaglia, he had bidden them farewell as though never to meet
again, had commended the care of his family to the captains, and
embraced his children with tears--a weakness which appeared strange
to all who knew him as a brave condottiere.

The duke marched up to them holding out his hand, as a sign that all
was over and forgotten, and did it with an air at once so loyal and
so smiling that Gravina and Orsina could no longer doubt the genuine
return of his friendship, and it was only Vitellozza still appeared
sad.  At the same moment, exactly as they had been commanded, the
duke's accomplices took their posts on the right and left of those
they were to watch, who were all there except Oliverotto, whom the
duke could not see, and began to seek with uneasy looks; but as he
crossed the suburb he perceived him exercising his troops on the
square.  Caesar at once despatched Michelotto and d'Enna, with a
message that it was a rash thing to have his troops out, when they
might easily start some quarrel with the duke's men and bring about
an affray: it would be much better to settle them in barracks and
then come to join his companions, who were with Caesar.  Oliverotto,
drawn by the same fate as his friends, made no objection, ordered his
soldiers indoors, and put his horse to the gallop to join the duke,
escorted on either side by d'Enna and Michelotto.  Caesar, on seeing
him, called him, took him by the hand, and continued his march to the
palace that had been prepared for him, his four victims following
after.

Arrived on the threshold, Caesar dismounted, and signing to the
leader of the men-at-arms to await his orders, he went in first,
followed by Oliverotto, Gravina, Vitellozzo Vitelli, and Orsino, each
accompanied by his two satellites; but scarcely had they gone
upstairs and into the first room when the door was shut behind them,
and Caesar turned round, saying, "The hour has come!"  This was the
signal agreed upon.  Instantly the former confederates were seized,
thrown down, and forced to surrender with a dagger at their throat.
Then, while they were being carried to a dungeon, Caesar opened the
window, went out on the balcony and cried out to the leader of his
men-at-arms, "Go forward!"  The man was in the secret, he rushed on
with his band towards the barracks where Oliverotto's soldiers had
just been consigned, and they, suddenly surprised and off their
guard, were at once made prisoners; then the duke's troops began to
pillage the town, and he summoned Macchiavelli.

Caesar and the Florentine envoy were nearly two hours shut up
together, and since Macchiavelli himself recounts the history of this
interview, we will give his own words.

"He summoned me," says the Florentine ambassador, "and in the calmest
manner showed me his joy at the success of this enterprise, which he
assured me he had spoken of to me the evening before; I remember that
he did, but I did not at that time understand what he meant; next he
explained, in terms of much feeling and lively affection for our
city, the different motives which had made him desire your alliance,
a desire to which he hopes you will respond.  He ended with charging
me to lay three proposals before your lordships: first, that you
rejoice with him in the destruction at a single blow of the mortal
enemies of the king, himself, and you, and the consequent
disappearance of all seeds of trouble and dissension likely to waste
Italy: this service of his, together with his refusal to allow the
prisoners to march against you, ought, he thinks, to excite your
gratitude towards him; secondly, he begs that you will at this
juncture give him a striking proof of your friendliness, by urging
your cavalry's advance towards Borgo, and there assembling some
infantry also, in order that they may march with him, should need
arise, on Castello or on Perugia.  Lastly, he desires--and this is
his third condition--that you arrest the Duke of Urbino, if he should
flee from Castello into your territories, when he learns that
Vitellozzo is a prisoner.

"When I objected that to give him up would not beseem the dignity of
the republic, and that you would never consent, he approved of my
words, and said that it would be enough for you to keep the duke, and
not give him his liberty without His Excellency's permission.  I have
promised to give you all this information, to which he awaits your
reply."


The same night eight masked men descended to the dungeon where the
prisoners lay: they believed at that moment that the fatal hour had
arrived for all.  But this time the executioners had to do with
Vitellozzo and Oliverotto alone.  When these two captains heard that
they were condemned, Oliverotto burst forth into reproaches against
Vitellozzo, saying that it was all his fault that they had taken up
arms against the duke: not a word Vitellozzo answered except a prayer
that the pope might grant him plenary indulgence for all his sins.
Then the masked men took them away, leaving Orsino and Gravina to
await a similar fate, and led away the two chosen out to die to a
secluded spot outside the ramparts of the town, where they were
strangled and buried at once in two trenches that had been dug
beforehand.

The two others were kept alive until it should be known if the pope
had arrested Cardinal Orsino, archbishop of Florence and lord of
Santa Croce; and when the answer was received in the affirmative from
His Holiness, Gravina and Orsina, who had been transferred to a
castle, were likewise strangled.

The duke, leaving instructions with Michelotto, set off for
Sinigaglia as soon as the first execution was over, assuring
Macchiavelli that he had never had any other thought than that of
giving tranquillity to the Romagna and to Tuscany, and also that he
thought he had succeeded by taking and putting to death the men who
had been the cause of all the trouble; also that any other revolt
that might take place in the future would be nothing but sparks that
a drop of water could extinguish.

The pope had barely learned that Caesar had his enemies in his power,
when, eager to play the same winning game himself, he announced to
Cardinal Orsino, though it was then midnight, that his son had taken
Sinigaglia, and gave him an invitation to come the next morning and
talk over the good news.  The cardinal, delighted at this increase of
favour, did not miss his appointment.  So, in the morning, he started
on horseback for the Vatican; but at a turn of the first street he
met the governor of Rome with a detachment of cavalry, who
congratulated himself on the happy chance that they were taking the
same road, and accompanied him to the threshold of the Vatican.
There the cardinal dismounted, and began to ascend the stairs;
scarcely, however, had he reached the first landing before his mules
and carriages were seized and shut in the palace stables.  When he
entered the hall of the Perropont, he found that he and all his suite
were surrounded by armed men, who led him into another apartment,
called the Vicar's Hall, where he found the Abbate Alviano, the
protonotary Orsino, Jacopo Santa Croce, and Rinaldo Orsino, who were
all prisoners like himself; at the same time the governor received
orders to seize the castle of Monte Giardino, which belonged to the
Orsini, and take away all the jewels, all the hangings, all the
furniture, and all the silver that he might find.

The governor carried out his orders conscientiously, and brought to
the Vatican everything he seized, down to the cardinal's account-
book.  On consulting this book, the pope found out two things: first,
that a sum of 2000 ducats was due to the cardinal, no debtor's name
being mentioned; secondly, that the cardinal had bought three months
before, for 1500 Roman crowns, a magnificent pearl which could not be
found among the objects belonging to him: on which Alexander ordered
that from that very moment until the negligence in the cardinal's
accounts was repaired, the men who were in the habit of bringing him
food twice a day on behalf of his mother should not be admitted into
the Castle Sant' Angelo.  The same day, the cardinal's mother sent
the pope the 2000 ducats, and the next day his mistress, in man's
attire, came in person to bring the missing pearl.  His Holiness,
however, was so struck with her beauty in this costume, that, we are
told, he let her keep the pearl for the same price she had paid for
it.

Then the pope allowed the cardinal to have his food brought as
before, and he died of poison on the 22nd of February--that is, two
days after his accounts had been set right.

That same night the Prince of Squillace set off to take possession,
in the pope's name, of the lands of the deceased.




CHAPTER XIV

The Duke of Valentinois had continued his road towards Citta di
Castello and Perugia, and had seized these two towns without striking
a blow; for the Vitelli had fled from the former, and the latter had
been abandoned by Gian Paolo Baglione with no attempt whatever at
resistance.  There still remained Siena, where Pandolfo Petrucci was
shut up, the only man remaining of all who had joined the league
against Caesar.

But Siena was under the protection of the French.  Besides, Siena was
not one of the States of the Church, and Caesar had no rights there.
Therefore he was content with insisting upon Pandolfo Petrucci's
leaving the town and retiring to Lucca, which he accordingly did.

Then all on this side being peaceful and the whole of Romagna in
subjection, Caesar resolved to return to Rome and help the pope to
destroy all that was left of the Orsini.

This was all the easier because Louis XII, having suffered reverses
in the kingdom of Naples, had since then been much concerned with his
own affairs to disturb himself about his allies.  So Caesar, doing
for the neighbourhood of the Holy See the same thing that he had done
far the Romagna, seized in succession Vicovaro, Cera, Palombera,
Lanzano, and Cervetti ; when these conquests were achieved, having
nothing else to do now that he had brought the pontifical States into
subjection from the frontiers of Naples to those of Venice, he
returned to Rome to concert with his father as to the means of
converting his duchy into a kingdom.

Caesar arrived at the right moment to share with Alexander the
property of Cardinal Gian Michele, who had just died, having received
a poisoned cup from the hands of the pope.

The future King of Italy found his father preoccupied with a grand
project: he had resolved, for the Feast of St. Peter's, to create
nine cardinals.  What he had to gain from these nominations is as
follows:

First, the cardinals elected would leave all their offices vacant;
these offices would fall into the hands of the pope, and he would
sell them;

Secondly, each of them would buy his election, more or less dear
according to his fortune; the price, left to be settled at the pope's
fancy, would vary from 10,000 to 40,000 ducats;

Lastly, since as cardinals they would by law lose the right of making
a will, the pope, in order to inherit from them, had only to poison
them: this put him in the position of a butcher who, if he needs
money, has only to cut the throat of the fattest sheep in the flock.

The nomination came to pass: the new cardinals were Giovanni
Castellaro Valentine, archbishop of Trani; Francesco Remolini,
ambassador from the King of Aragon; Francesco Soderini, bishop of
Volterra; Melchiore Copis, bishop of Brissina; Nicolas Fiesque,
bishop of Frejus; Francesco di Sprate, bishop of Leome; Adriano
Castellense, clerk of the chamber, treasurer-general, and secretary
of the briefs; Francesco Boris, bishop of Elva, patriarch of
Constantinople, and secretary to the pope; and Giacomo Casanova,
protonotary and private chamberlain to His Holiness.

The price of their simony paid and their vacated offices sold, the
pope made his choice of those he was to poison: the number was fixed
at three, one old and two new; the old one was Cardinal Casanova, and
the new ones Melchiore Copis and Adriano Castellense, who had taken
the name of Adrian of Carneta from that town where he had been born,
and where, in the capacity of clerk of the chamber, treasurer-
general, and secretary of briefs, he had amassed an immense fortune.

So, when all was settled between Caesar and the pope, they invited
their chosen guests to supper in a vineyard situated near the
Vatican, belonging to the Cardinal of Corneto.  In the morning of
this day, the 2nd of August, they sent their servants and the steward
to make all preparations, and Caesar himself gave the pope's butler
two bottles of wine prepared with the white powder resembling sugar
whose mortal properties he had so often proved, and gave orders that
he was to serve this wine only when he was told, and only to persons
specially indicated; the butler accordingly put the wine an a
sideboard apart, bidding the waiters on no account to touch it, as it
was reserved for the pope's drinking.


[The poison of the Borgias, say contemporary writers, was of two
kinds, powder and liquid.  The poison in the form of powder was a
sort of white flour, almost impalpable, with the taste of sugar, and
called Contarella.  Its composition is unknown.

The liquid poison was prepared, we are told in so strange a fashion
that we cannot pass it by in silence.  We repeat here what we read,
and vouch for nothing ourselves, lest science should give us the lie.

A strong dose of arsenic was administered to a boar; as soon as the
poison began to take effect, he was hung up by his heels; convulsions
supervened, and a froth deadly and abundant ran out from his jaws; it
was this froth, collected into a silver vessel and transferred into a
bottle hermetically sealed, that made the liquid poison.]


Towards evening Alexander VI walked from the Vatican leaning on
Caesar's arm, and turned his steps towards the vineyard, accompanied
by Cardinal Caraffa; but as the heat was great and the climb rather
steep, the pope, when he reached the top, stopped to take breath;
then putting his hand on his breast, he found that he had left in his
bedroom a chain that he always wore round his neck, which suspended a
gold medallion that enclosed the sacred host.  He owed this habit to
a prophecy that an astrologer had made, that so long as he carried
about a consecrated wafer, neither steel nor poison could take hold
upon him.  Now, finding himself without his talisman, he ordered
Monsignors Caraffa to hurry back at once to the Vatican, and told him
in which part of his room he had left it, so that he might get it and
bring it him without delay.  Then, as the walk had made him thirsty,
he turned to a valet, giving signs with his hand as he did so that
his messenger should make haste, and asked for something to drink.
Caesar, who was also thirsty, ordered the man to bring two glasses.
By a curious coincidence, the butler had just gone back to the
Vatican to fetch some magnificent peaches that had been sent that
very day to the pope, but which had been forgotten when he came here;
so the valet went to the under butler, saying that His Holiness and
Monsignors the Duke of Romagna were thirsty and asking for a drink.
The under butler, seeing two bottles of wine set apart, and having
heard that this wine was reserved for the pope, took one, and telling
the valet to bring two glasses on a tray, poured out this wine, which
both drank, little thinking that it was what they had themselves
prepared to poison their guests.

Meanwhile Caraffa hurried to the Vatican, and, as he knew the palace
well, went up to the pope's bedroom, a light in his hand and attended
by no servant.  As he turned round a corridor a puff of wind blew out
his lamp; still, as he knew the way, he went on, thinking there was
no need of seeing to find the object he was in search of; but as he
entered the room he recoiled a step, with a cry of terror: he beheld
a ghastly apparition; it seemed that there before his eyes, in the
middle of the room, between the door and the cabinet which held the
medallion, Alexander VI, motionless and livid, was lying on a bier at
whose four corners there burned four torches.  The cardinal stood
still for a moment, his eyes fixed, and his hair standing on end,
without strength to move either backward or forward; then thinking it
was all a trick of fancy or an apparition of the devil's making, he
made the sign of the cross, invoking God's holy name; all instantly
vanished, torches, bier, and corpse, and the seeming mortuary
chamber was once more in darkness.

Then Cardinal Caraffa, who has himself recorded this strange event,
and who was afterwards Pope Paul IV, entered boldly, and though an
icy sweat ran dawn his brow, he went straight to the cabinet, and in
the drawer indicated found the gold chain and the medallion, took
them, and hastily went out to give them to the pope.  He found supper
served, the guests arrived, and His Holiness ready to take his
place at table; as soon as the cardinal was in sight, His Holiness,
who was very pale, made one step towards him; Caraffa doubled his
pace, and handed the medallion to him; but as the pope stretched
forth his arm to take it, he fell back with a cry, instantly followed
by violent convulsions: an instant later, as he advanced to render
his father assistance, Caesar was similarly seized; the effect of the
poison had been more rapid than usual, for Caesar had doubled the
dose, and there is little doubt that their heated condition increased
its activity.

The two stricken men were carried side by side to the Vatican, where
each was taken to his own rooms: from that moment they never met
again.

As soon as he reached his bed, the pope was seized with a violent
fever, which did not give way to emetics or to bleeding; almost
immediately it became necessary to administer the last sacraments of
the Church; but his admirable bodily constitution, which seemed to
have defied old age, was strong enough to fight eight days with
death; at last, after a week of mortal agony, he died, without once
uttering the name of Caesar or Lucrezia, who were the two poles
around which had turned all his affections and all his crimes.  His
age was seventy-two, and he had reigned eleven years.

Caesar, perhaps because he had taken less of the fatal beverage,
perhaps because the strength of his youth overcame the strength of
the poison, or maybe, as some say, because when he reached his own
rooms he had swallowed an antidote known only to himself, was not so
prostrated as to lose sight for a moment of the terrible position he
was in: he summoned his faithful Michelotto, with those he could best
count on among his men, and disposed this band in the various rooms
that led to his own, ordering the chief never to leave the foot of
his bed, but to sleep lying on a rug, his hand upon the handle of his
sword.

The treatment had been the same for Caesar as for the pope, but in
addition to bleeding and emetics strange baths were added, which
Caesar had himself asked for, having heard that in a similar case
they had once cured Ladislaus, King of Naples.  Four posts, strongly
welded to the floor and ceiling, were set up in his room, like the
machines at which farriers shoe horses; every day a bull was brought
in, turned over on his back and tied by his four legs to the four
posts; then, when he was thus fixed, a cut was made in his belly a
foot and a half long, through which the intestines were drawn out;
then Caesar slipped into this living bath of blood: when the bull was
dead, Caesar was taken out and rolled up in burning hot blankets,
where, after copious perspirations, he almost always felt some sort
of relief.

Every two hours Caesar sent to ask news of his father: he hardly
waited to hear that he was dead before, though still at death's door
himself, he summoned up all the force of character and presence of
mind that naturally belonged to him.  He ordered Michelotto to shut
the doors of the Vatican before the report of Alexander's decease
could spread about the town, and forbade anyone whatsoever to enter
the pope's apartments until the money and papers had been removed.
Michelotto obeyed at once, went to find Cardinal Casanova, held a
dagger at his throat, and made him deliver up the keys of the pope's
rooms and cabinets; then, under his guidance, took away two chests
full of gold, which perhaps contained 100,000 Roman crowns in specie,
several boxes full of jewels, much silver and many precious vases;
all these were carried to Caesar's chamber; the guards of the room
were doubled; then the doors of the Vatican were once more thrown
open, and the death of the pope was proclaimed.

Although the news was expected, it produced none the less a terrible
effect in Rome; for although Caesar was still alive, his condition
left everyone in suspense: had the mighty Duke of Romagna, the
powerful condottiere who had taken thirty towns and fifteen
fortresses in five years, been seated, sword in hand, upon his
charger, nothing would have been uncertain of fluctuating even for a
moment; far, as Caesar afterwards told Macchiavelli, his ambitious
soul had provided for all things that could occur on the day of the
pope's death, except the one that he should be dying himself; but
being nailed down to his bed, sweating off the effects the poison had
wrought; so, though he had kept his power of thinking he could no
longer act, but must needs wait and suffer the course of events,
instead of marching on in front and controlling them.

Thus he was forced to regulate his actions no longer by his own plans
but according to circumstances.  His most bitter enemies, who could
press him hardest, were the Orsini and the Colonnas: from the one
family he had taken their blood, from the other their goods.

So he addressed himself to those to whom he could return what he had
taken, and opened negotiations with the Colonnas.

Meanwhile the obsequies of the pope were going forward: the vice-
chancellor had sent out orders to the highest among the clergy, the
superiors of convents, and the secular orders, not to fail to appear,
according to regular custom, on pain of being despoiled of their
office and dignities, each bringing his own company to the Vatican,
to be present at the pope's funeral; each therefore appeared on the
day and at the hour appointed at the pontifical palace, whence the
body was to be conveyed to the church of St. Peter's, and there
buried.  The corpse was found to be abandoned and alone in the
mortuary chamber; for everyone of the name of Borgia, except Caesar,
lay hidden, not knowing what might come to pass.  This was indeed
well justified; for Fabio Orsino, meeting one member of the family,
stabbed him, and as a sign of the hatred they had sworn to one
another, bathed his mouth and hands in the blood.

The agitation in Rome was so great, that when the corpse of Alexander
VI was about to enter the church there occurred a kind of panic, such
as will suddenly arise in times of popular agitation, instantly
causing so great a disturbance in the funeral cortege that the guards
drew up in battle array, the clergy fled into the sacristy, and the
bearers dropped the bier.

The people, tearing off the pall which covered it, disclosed the
corpse, and everyone could see with impunity and close at hand the
man who, fifteen days before, had made princes, kings and emperors
tremble, from one end of the world to the other.

But in accordance with that religious feeling towards death which all
men instinctively feel, and which alone survives every other, even in
the heart of the atheist, the bier was taken up again and carried to
the foot of the great altar in St. Peter's, where, set on trestles,
it was exposed to public view; but the body had become so black, so
deformed and swollen, that it was horrible to behold; from its nose a
bloody matter escaped, the mouth gaped hideously, and the tongue was
so monstrously enlarged that it filled the whole cavity; to this
frightful appearance was added a decomposition so great that,
although at the pope's funeral it is customary to kiss the hand which
bore the Fisherman's ring, not one approached to offer this mark of
respect and religious reverence to the representative of God on
earth.

Towards seven o'clock in the evening, when the declining day adds so
deep a melancholy to the silence of a church, four porters and two
working carpenters carried the corpse into the chapel where it was to
be interred, and, lifting it off the catafalque, where it lay in
state, put it in the coffin which was to be its last abode; but it
was found that the coffin was too short, and the body could not be
got in till the legs were bent and thrust in with violent blows; then
the carpenters put on the lid, and while one of them sat on the top
to force the knees to bend, the others hammered in the nails: amid
those Shakespearian pleasantries that sound as the last orison in the
ear of the mighty; then, says Tommaso Tommasi, he was placed on the
right of the great altar of St. Peter's, beneath a very ugly tomb.

The next morning this epitaph was found inscribed upon the tomb:

    "VENDIT ALEXANDER CLAVES, ALTARIA, CHRISTUM:
     EMERAT ILLE PRIUS, VENDERE JUKE POTEST";

that is,

    "Pope Alexander sold the Christ, the altars, and the keys:
     But anyone who buys a thing may sell it if he please."




CHAPTER XV

From the effect produced at Rome by Alexander's death, one may
imagine what happened not only in the whole of Italy but also in the
rest of the world: for a moment Europe swayed, for the column which
supported the vault of the political edifice had given way, and the
star with eyes of flame and rays of blood, round which all things had
revolved for the last eleven years, was now extinguished, and for a
moment the world, on a sudden struck motionless, remained in silence
and darkness.

After the first moment of stupefaction, all who had an injury to
avenge arose and hurried to the chase.  Sforza retook Pesaro,
Bagloine Perugia, Guido and Ubaldo Urbino, and La Rovere Sinigaglia;
the Vitelli entered Citta di Castello, the Appiani Piombino, the
Orsini Monte Giordano and their other territories; Romagna alone
remained impassive and loyal, for the people, who have no concern
with the quarrels of the great, provided they do not affect
themselves, had never been so happy as under the government of
Caesar.

The Colonnas were pledged to maintain a neutrality, and had been
consequently restored to the possession of their castles and the
cities of Chiuzano, Capo d'Anno, Frascati, Rocca di Papa, and
Nettuno, which they found in a better condition than when they had
left them, as the pope had had them embellished and fortified.

Caesar was still in the Vatican with his troops, who, loyal to him in
his misfortune, kept watch about the palace, where he was writhing on
his bed of pain and roaring like a wounded lion.  The cardinals, who
had in their first terror fled, each his own way, instead of
attending the pope's obsequies, began to assemble once more, some at
the Minerva, others around Cardinal Caraffa.  Frightened by the
troops that Caesar still had, especially since the command was
entrusted to Michelotto, they collected all the money they could to
levy an army of 2000 soldiers with Charles Taneo at their head,
with the title of Captain of the Sacred College.  It was then hoped
that peace was re-established, when it was heard that Prospero
Colonna was coming with 3000 men from the side of Naples, and Fabio
Orsino from the side of Viterbo with 200 horse and more than 1000
infantry.  Indeed, they entered Rome at only one day's interval one
from another, by so similar an ardour were they inspired.

Thus there were five armies in Rome: Caesar's army, holding the
Vatican and the Borgo; the army of the Bishop of Nicastro, who had
received from Alexander the guardianship of the Castle Sant' Angelo
and had shut himself up there, refusing to yield; the army of the
Sacred College, which was stationed round about the Minerva; the army
of Prospero Colonna, which was encamped at the Capitol; and the army
of Fabio Orsino, in barracks at the Ripetta.

On their side, the Spaniards had advanced to Terracino, and the
French to Nepi.  The cardinals saw that Rome now stood upon a mine
which the least spark might cause to explode: they summoned the
ambassadors of the Emperor of Germany, the Kings of France and Spain,
and the republic of Venice to raise their voice in the name of their
masters.  The ambassadors, impressed with the urgency of the
situation, began by declaring the Sacred College inviolable: they
then ordered the Orsini, the Colonnas, and the Duke of Valentinois to
leave Rome and go each his own way.

The Orsini were the first to submit: the next morning their example
was followed by the Colonnas.  No one was left but Caesar, who said
he was willing to go, but desired to make his conditions beforehand:
the Vatican was undermined, he declared, and if his demands were
refused he and those who came to take him should be blown up
together.

It was known that his were never empty threats and they came to terms
with him.

[Caesar promised to remain ten miles away from Rome the whole time
the Conclave lasted, and not to take any action against the town or
any other of the Ecclesiastical States: Fabio Orsino and Prospero
Colonna had made the same promises.]

[It was agreed that Caesar should quit Rome with his army, artillery,
and baggage; and to ensure his not being attacked or molested in the
streets, the Sacred College should add to his numbers 400 infantry,
who, in case of attack or insult, would fight for him.
The Venetian ambassador answered for the Orsini, the Spanish
ambassador for the Colonnas, the ambassador of France for Caesar.]


At the day and hour appointed Caesar sent out his artillery, which
consisted of eighteen pieces of cannon, and 400 infantry of the
Sacred College, on each of whom he bestowed a ducat: behind the
artillery came a hundred chariots escorted by his advance guard.

The duke was carried out of the gate of the Vatican: he lay on a bed
covered with a scarlet canopy, supported by twelve halberdiers,
leaning forward on his cushions so that no one might see his face
with its purple lips and bloodshot eyes: beside him was his naked
sword, to show that, feeble as he was, he could use it at need: his
finest charger, caparisoned in black velvet embroidered with his
arms, walked beside the bed, led by a page, so that Caesar could
mount in case of surprise or attack: before him and behind, both
right and left, marched his army, their arms in rest, but without
beating of drums or blowing of trumpets: this gave a sombre, funereal
air to the whole procession, which at the gate of the city met
Prospero Colonna awaiting it with a considerable band of men.

Caesar thought at first that, breaking his word as he had so often
done himself, Prospero Colonna was going to attack him.  He ordered a
halt, and prepared to mount his horse; but Prospera Colonna, seeing
the state he was in, advanced to his bedside alone: he came, against
expectation, to offer him an escort, fearing an ambuscade on the part
of Fabio Orsino, who had loudly sworn that he would lose his honour
or avenge the death of Paolo Orsina, his father.  Caesar thanked
Colanna, and replied that from the moment that Orsini stood alone he
ceased to fear him.  Then Colonna saluted the duke, and rejoined his
men, directing them towards Albano, while Caesar took the road to
Citta Castellana, which had remained loyal.

When there, Caesar found himself not only master of his own fate but
of others as well: of the twenty-two votes he owned in the Sacred
College twelve had remained faithful, and as the Conclave was
composed in all of thirty-seven cardinals, he with his twelve votes
could make the majority incline to whichever side he chose.
Accordingly he was courted both by the Spanish and the French party,
each desiring the election of a pope of their own nation.  Caesar
listened, promising nothing and refusing nothing: he gave his twelve
votes to Francesco Piccolomini, Cardinal of Siena, one of his
father's creatures who had remained his friend, and the latter was
elected on the 8th of October and took the name of Pius III.

Caesar's hopes did not deceive him: Pius III was hardly elected
before he sent him a safe-conduct to Rome: the duke came back with
250 men-at-arms, 250 light horse, and 800 infantry, and lodged in his
palace, the soldiers camping round about.

Meanwhile the Orsini, pursuing their projects of vengeance against
Caesar, had been levying many troops at Perugia and the neighbourhood
to bring against him to Rome, and as they fancied that France, in
whose service they were engaged, was humouring the duke for the sake
of the twelve votes which were wanted to secure the election of
Cardinal Amboise at the next Conclave, they went over to the service
of Spain.

Meanwhile Caesar was signing a new treaty with Louis XII, by which he
engaged to support him with all his forces, and even with his person,
so soon as he could ride, in maintaining his conquest of Naples:
Louis, on his side, guaranteed that he should retain possession of
the States he still held, and promised his help in recovering those
he had lost.

The day when this treaty was made known, Gonzalvo di Cordovo
proclaimed to the sound of a trumpet in all the streets of Rome that
every Spanish subject serving in a foreign army was at once to break
his engagement on pain of being found guilty of high treason.

This measure robbed Caesar of ten or twelve of his best officers and
of nearly 300 men.

Then the Orsini, seeing his army thus reduced, entered Rome,
supported by the Spanish ambassador, and summoned Caesar to appear
before the pope and the Sacred College and give an account of his
crimes.

Faithful to his engagements, Pius III replied that in his quality of
sovereign prince the duke in his temporal administration was quite
independent and was answerable for his actions to God alone.

But as the pope felt he could not much longer support Caesar against
his enemies for all his goodwill, he advised him to try to join the
French army, which was still advancing on Naples, in the midst of
which he would alone find safety.  Caesar resolved to retire to
Bracciano, where Gian Giordano Orsino, who had once gone with him to
France, and who was the only member of the family who had not
declared against him, offered him an asylum in the name of Cardinal
dumbest: so one morning he ordered his troops to march for this town,
and, taking his place in their midst, he left Rome.

But though Caesar had kept his intentions quiet, the Orsini had been
forewarned, and, taking out all the troops they had by the gate of
San Pancracio, they had made along detour and blocked Caesar's way;
so, when the latter arrived at Storta, he found the Orsini's army
drawn up awaiting him in numbers exceeding his own by at least one-
half.

Caesar saw that to come to blows in his then feeble state was to rush
on certain destruction; so he ordered his troops to retire, and,
being a first-rate strategist, echelonned his retreat so skilfully
that his enemies, though they followed, dared not attack him, and he
re-entered the pontifical town without the loss of a single man.

This time Caesar went straight to the Vatican, to put himself more
directly under the pope's protection; he distributed his soldiers
about the palace, so as to guard all its exits.  Now the Orsini,
resolved to make an end of Caesar, had determined to attack him
wheresoever he might be, with no regard to the sanctity of the place:
this they attempted, but without success, as Caesar's men kept a good
guard on every side, and offered a strong defence.

Then the Orsini, not being able to force the guard of the Castle
Sant' Angelo, hoped to succeed better with the duke by leaving Rome
and then returning by the Torione gate; but Caesar anticipated this
move, and they found the gate guarded and barricaded.  None the less,
they pursued their design, seeking by open violence the vengeance
that they had hoped to obtain by craft; and, having surprised the
approaches to the gate, set fire to it: a passage gained, they made
their way into the gardens of the castle, where they found Caesar
awaiting them at the head of his cavalry.

Face to face with danger, the duke had found his old strength: and he
was the first to rush upon his enemies, loudly challenging Orsino in
the hope of killing him should they meet; but either Orsino did not
hear him or dared not fight; and after an exciting contest, Caesar,
who was numerically two-thirds weaker than his enemy, saw his cavalry
cut to pieces; and after performing miracles of personal strength and
courage, was obliged to return to the Vatican.  There he found the
pope in mortal agony: the Orsini, tired of contending against the old
man's word of honour pledged to the duke, had by the interposition of
Pandolfo Petrucci, gained the ear of the pope's surgeon, who placed a
poisoned plaster upon a wound in his leg.

The pope then was actually dying when Caesar, covered with dust and
blood, entered his room, pursued by his enemies, who knew no check
till they reached the palace walls, behind which the remnant of his
army still held their ground.

Pius III, who knew he was about to die, sat up in his bed, gave
Caesar the key of the corridor which led to the Castle of Sant'
Angelo, and an order addressed to the governor to admit him and his
family, to defend him to the last extremity, and to let him go
wherever he thought fit; and then fell fainting on his bed.

Caesar took his two daughters by the hand, and, followed by the
little dukes of Sermaneta and Nepi, took refuge in the last asylum
open to him.

The same night the pope died: he had reigned only twenty-six days.

After his death, Caesar, who had cast himself fully dressed upon his
bed, heard his door open at two o'clock in the morning: not knowing
what anyone might want of him at such an hour, he raised himself on
one elbow and felt for the handle of his sword with his other hand;
but at the first glance he recognised in his nocturnal visitor
Giuliano della Rovere.

Utterly exhausted by the poison, abandoned by his troops, fallen as
he was from the height of his power, Caesar, who could now do nothing
for himself, could yet make a pope: Giuliano delta Rovere had come to
buy the votes of his twelve cardinals.

Caesar imposed his conditions, which were accepted.

If elected, Giuliano delta Ravere was to help Caesar to recover his
territories in Romagna; Caesar was to remain general of the Church;
and Francesco Maria delta Rovere, prefect of Rome, was to marry one
of Caesar's daughters.

On these conditions Caesar sold his twelve cardinals to Giuliano.

The next day, at Giuliano's request, the Sacred College ordered the
Orsini to leave Rome for the whole time occupied by the Conclave.

On the 31st of October 1503, at the first scrutiny, Giuliano delta
Rovere was elected pope, and took the name of Julius II.

He was scarcely installed in the Vatican when he made it his first
care to summon Caesar and give him his former rooms there; then,
since the duke was fully restored to health, he began to busy himself
with the re-establishment of his affairs, which had suffered sadly of
late.

The defeat of his army and his own escape to Sant' Angelo, where he
was supposed to be a prisoner, had brought about great changes in
Romagna.  Sesena was once more in the power of the Church, as
formerly it had been; Gian Sforza had again entered Pesaro; Ordelafi
had seized Forli; Malatesta was laying claim to Rimini; the
inhabitants of Imola had assassinated their governor, and the town
was divided between two opinions, one that it should be put into the
hands of the Riani, the other, into the hands of the Church; Faenza
had remained loyal longer than any other place; but at last, losing
hope of seeing Caesar recover his power, it had summoned Francesco,
a natural son of Galeotto Manfredi, the last surviving heir of this
unhappy family, all whose legitimate descendants had been massacred
by Borgia.

It is true that the fortresses of these different places had taken no
part in these revolutions, and had remained immutably faithful to the
Duke of Valentinois.

So it was not precisely the defection of these towns, which, thanks
to their fortresses, might be reconquered, that was the cause of
uneasiness to Caesar and Julius II, it was the difficult situation
that Venice had thrust upon them.  Venice, in the spring of the same
year, had signed a treaty of peace with the Turks: thus set free from
her eternal enemy, she had just led her forces to the Romagna, which
she had always coveted: these troops had been led towards Ravenna,
the farthermost limit of the Papal estates, and put under the command
of Giacopo Venieri, who had failed to capture Cesena, and had only
failed through the courage of its inhabitants; but this check had
been amply compensated by the surrender of the fortresses of Val di
Lamane and Faenza, by the capture of Farlimpopoli, and the surrender
of Rimini, which Pandolfo Malatesta, its lord, exchanged for the
seigniory of Cittadella, in the State of Padua, and far the rank of
gentleman of Venice.

Then Caesar made a proposition to Julius II: this was to make a
momentary cession to the Church of his own estates in Romagna, so
that the respect felt by the Venetians for the Church might save
these towns from their aggressors; but, says Guicciardini, Julius II,
whose ambition, so natural in sovereign rulers, had not yet
extinguished the remains of rectitude, refused to accept the places,
afraid of exposing himself to the temptation of keeping them later
on, against his promises.

But as the case was urgent, he proposed to Caesar that he should
leave Rome, embark at Ostia, and cross over to Spezia, where
Michelotto was to meet him at the head of 100 men-at-arms and 100
light horse, the only remnant of his magnificent army, thence by land
to Ferrara, and from Ferrara to Imala, where, once arrived, he could
utter his war-cry so loud that it would be heard through the length
and breadth of Romagna.

This advice being after Caesar's own heart, he accepted it at once.

The resolution submitted to the Sacred College was approved, and
Caesar left for Ostia, accompanied by Bartolommeo della Rovere,
nephew of His Holiness.

Caesar at last felt he was free, and fancied himself already on his
good charger, a second time carrying war into all the places where he
had formerly fought.  When he reached Ostia, he was met by the
cardinals of Sorrento and Volterra, who came in the name of Julius II
to ask him to give up the very same citadels which he had refused
three days before: the fact was that the pope had learned in the
interim that the Venetians had made fresh aggressions, and recognised
that the method proposed by Caesar was the only one that would check
them.  But this time it was Caesar's turn to refuse, for he was
weary of these tergiversations, and feared a trap; so he said that
the surrender asked for would be useless, since by God's help he
should be in Romagna before eight days were past.  So the cardinals
of Sorrento and Volterra returned to Rome with a refusal.

The next morning, just as Caesar was setting foot on his vessel, he
was arrested in the name of Julius II.

He thought at first that this was the end; he was used to this mode
of action, and knew how short was the space between a prison and a
tomb; the matter was all the easier in his case, because the pope, if
he chose, would have plenty of pretext for making a case against him.
But the heart of Julius was of another kind from his; swift to anger,
but open to clemency; so, when the duke came back to Rome guarded,
the momentary irritation his refusal had caused was already calmed,
and the pope received him in his usual fashion at his palace, and
with his ordinary courtesy, although from the beginning it was easy
for the duke to see that he was being watched.  In return for this
kind reception, Caesar consented to yield the fortress of Cesena to
the pope, as being a town which had once belonged to the Church, and
now should return; giving the deed, signed by Caesar, to one of his
captains, called Pietro d'Oviedo, he ordered him to take possession
of the fortress in the name of the Holy See.  Pietro obeyed, and
starting at once for Cesena, presented himself armed with his warrant
before Don Diego Chinon; a noble condottiere of Spain, who was
holding the fortress in Caesar's name.  But when he had read over the
paper that Pietro d'Oviedo brought, Don Diego replied that as he knew
his lord and master was a prisoner, it would be disgraceful in him to
obey an order that had probably been wrested from him by violence,
and that the bearer deserved to die for undertaking such a cowardly
office.  He therefore bade his soldiers seize d'Oviedo and fling him
down from the top of the walls: this sentence was promptly executed.

This mark of fidelity might have proved fatal to Caesar: when the
pope heard how his messenger had been treated, he flew into such a
rage that the prisoner thought a second time that his hour was come;
and in order to receive his liberty, he made the first of those new
propositions to Julius II, which were drawn up in the form of a
treaty and sanctioned by a bull.  By these arrangements, the Duke of
Valentinois was bound to hand over to His Holiness, within the space
of forty days, the fortresses of Cesena and Bertinoro, and authorise
the surrender of Forli.  This arrangement was guaranteed by two
bankers in Rome who were to be responsible for 15,000 ducats, the sum
total of the expenses which the governor pretended he had incurred in
the place on the duke's account.  The pope on his part engaged to
send Caesar to Ostia under the sole guard of the Cardinal of Santa
Croce and two officers, who were to give him his full liberty on the
very day when his engagements were fulfilled: should this not happen,
Caesar was to be taken to Rome and imprisoned in the Castle of Sant'
Angelo.  In fulfilment of this treaty, Caesar went down the Tiber as
far as Ostia, accompanied by the pope's treasurer and many of his
servants.  The Cardinal of Santa Croce followed, and the next day
joined him there.

But as Caesar feared that Julius II might keep him a prisoner, in
spite of his pledged word after he had yielded up the fortresses,
he asked--through the mediation of Cardinals Borgia and Remolina,
who, not feeling safe at Rome, had retired to Naples--for a safe-
conduct to Gonzalva of Cordova, and for two ships to take him there;
with the return of the courier the safe-conduct arrived, announcing
that the ships would shortly follow.

In the midst of all this, the Cardinal of Santa Croce, learning that
by the duke's orders the governors of Cesena and Bertinoro had
surrendered their fortresses to the captains of His Holiness, relaxed
his rigour, and knowing that his prisoner would some day or other be
free, began to let him go out without a guard.  Then Caesar, feeling
some fear lest when he started with Gonzalvo's ships the same thing
might happen as on the occasion of his embarking on the pope's
vessel--that is, that he might be arrested a second time--concealed
himself in a house outside the town; and when night came on, mounting
a wretched horse that belonged to a peasant, rode as far as Nettuno,
and there hired a little boat, in which he embarked for Monte
Dragone, and thence gained Naples.  Gonzalvo received him with such
joy that Caesar was deceived as to his intention, and this time
believed that he was really saved.  His confidence was redoubled
when, opening his designs to Gonzalvo, and telling him that he
counted upon gaining Pisa and thence going on into Romagna, Ganzalva
allowed him to recruit as many soldiers at Naples as he pleased,
promising him two ships to embark with.  Caesar, deceived by these
appearances, stopped nearly six weeks at Naples, every day seeing the
Spanish governor and discussing his plans.  But Gonzalvo was only
waiting to gain time to tell the King of Spain that his enemy was in
his hands; and Caesar actually went to the castle to bid Gonzalvo
good-bye, thinking he was just about to start after he had embarked
his men on the two ships.  The Spanish governor received him with his
accustomed courtesy, wished him every kind of prosperity, and
embraced him as he left; but at the door of the castle Caesar found
one of Gonzalvo's captains, Nuno Campeja by name, who arrested him as
a prisoner of Ferdinand the Catholic.  Caesar at these words heaved a
deep sigh, cursing the ill luck that had made him trust the word of
an enemy when he had so often broken his own.

He was at once taken to the castle, where the prison gate closed
behind him, and he felt no hope that anyone would come to his aid;
for the only being who was devoted to him in this world was
Michelotto, and he had heard that Michelotto had been arrested near
Pisa by order of Julius II.  While Caesar was being taken to prison
an officer came to him to deprive him of the safe-conduct given him
by Gonzalvo.

The day after his arrest, which occurred on the 27th of May, 1504,
Caesar was taken on board a ship, which at once weighed anchor and
set sail for Spain: during the whole voyage he had but one page to
serve him, and as soon as he disembarked he was taken to the castle
of Medina del Campo.

Ten years later, Gonzalvo, who at that time was himself proscribed,
owned to Loxa on his dying bed that now, when he was to appear in the
presence of God, two things weighed cruelly on his conscience: one
was his treason to Ferdinand, the other his breach of faith towards
Caesar.




CHAPTER XVI

Caesar was in prison for two years, always hoping that Louis XII
would reclaim him as peer of the kingdom of France; but Louis, much
disturbed by the loss of the battle of Garigliano, which robbed him
of the kingdom of Naples, had enough to do with his own affairs
without busying himself with his cousin's.  So the prisoner was
beginning to despair, when one day as he broke his bread at breakfast
he found a file and a little bottle containing a narcotic, with a
letter from Michelotto, saying that he was out of prison and had left
Italy for Spain, and now lay in hiding with the Count of Benevento in
the neighbouring village: he added that from the next day forward he
and the count would wait every night on the road between the fortress
and the village with three excellent horses; it was now Caesar's part
to do the best he could with his bottle and file.  When the whole
world had abandoned the Duke of Romagna he had been remembered by a
sbirro.

The prison where he had been shut up for two years was so hateful to
Caesar that he lost not a single moment: the same day he attacked one
of the bars of a window that looked out upon an inner court, and soon
contrived so to manipulate it that it would need only a final push to
come out.  But not only was the window nearly seventy feet from the
ground, but one could only get out of the court by using an exit
reserved for the governor, of which he alone had the key; also this
key never left him; by day it hung at his waist, by night it was
under his pillow: this then was the chief difficulty.

But prisoner though he was, Caesar had always been treated with the
respect due to his name and rank: every day at the dinner-hour he was
conducted from the room that served as his prison to the governor,
who did the honours of the table in a grand and courteous fashion.
The fact was that Dan Manuel had served with honour under King
Ferdinand, and therefore, while he guarded Caesar rigorously,
according to orders, he had a great respect for so brave a general,
and took pleasure in listening to the accounts of his battles.  So he
had often insisted that Caesar should not only dine but also
breakfast with him; happily the prisoner, yielding perhaps to some
presentiment, had till now refused this favour.  This was of great
advantage to him, since, thanks to his solitude, he had been able to
receive the instruments of escape sent by Michelotto.  The same day
he received them, Caesar, on going back to his room, made a false
step and sprained his foot; at the dinner-hour he tried to go down,
but he pretended to be suffering so cruelly that he gave it up.  The
governor came to see him in his room, and found him stretched upon
the bed.

The day after, he was no better; the governor had his dinner sent in,
and came to see him, as on the night before; he found his prisoner so
dejected and gloomy in his solitude that he offered to come and sup
with him: Caesar gratefully accepted.

This time it was the prisoner who did the honours: Caesar was
charmingly courteous; the governor thought he would profit by this
lack of restraint to put to him certain questions as to the manner of
his arrest, and asked him as an Old Castilian, for whom honour is
still of some account, what the truth really was as to Gonzalvo's and
Ferdinand's breach of faith with him.  Caesar appeared extremely
inclined to give him his entire confidence, but showed by a sign that
the attendants were in the way.  This precaution appeared quite
natural, and the governor took no offense, but hastened to send them
all away, so as to be sooner alone with his companion.  When the door
was shut, Caesar filled his glass and the governor's, proposing the
king's health: the governor honoured the toast: Caesar at once began
his tale; but he had scarcely uttered a third part of it when,
interesting as it was, the eyes of his host shut as though by magic,
and he slid under the table in a profound sleep.

After half a hour had passed, the servants, hearing no noise, entered
and found the two, one on the table, the other under it: this event
was not so extraordinary that they paid any great attention to it:
all they did was to carry Don Manuel to his room and lift Caesar on
the bed; then they put away the remnant of the meal for the next
day's supper, shut the door very carefully, and left their prisoner
alone.

Caesar stayed for a minute motionless and apparently plunged in the
deepest sleep; but when he had heard the steps retreating, he quietly
raised his head, opened his eyes, slipped off the bed, walked to the
door, slowly indeed, but not to all appearance feeling the accident
of the night before, and applied his ear for some minutes to the
keyhole; then lifting his head with an expression of indescribable
pride, he wiped his brow with his hand, and for the first time since
his guards went out, breathed freely with full-drawn breaths.

There was no time to lose: his first care was to shut the door as
securely on the inside as it was already shut on the outside, to blow
out the lamp, to open the window, and to finish sawing through the
bar.  When this was done, he undid the bandages on his leg, took down
the window and bed curtains, tore them into strips, joined the
sheets, table napkins and cloth, and with all these things tied
together end to end, formed a rope fifty or sixty feet long, with
knots every here and there.  This rope he fixed securely to the bar
next to the one he had just cut through; then he climbed up to the
window and began what was really the hardest part of his perilous
enterprise, clinging with hands and feet to this fragile support.
Luckily he was both strong and skilful, and he went down the whole
length of the rope without accident; but when he reached the end and
was hanging on the last knot, he sought in vain to touch the ground
with his feet; his rope was too short.

The situation was a terrible one: the darkness of the night prevented
the fugitive from seeing how far off he was from the ground, and his
fatigue prevented him from even attempting to climb up again.  Caesar
put up a brief prayer, whether to Gad or Satan he alone could say;
then letting go the rope, he dropped from a height of twelve or
fifteen feet.

The danger was too great for the fugitive to trouble about a few
trifling contusions: he at once rose, and guiding himself by the
direction of his window, he went straight to the little door of exit;
he then put his hand into the pocket of his doublet, and a cold sweat
damped his brow; either he had forgotten and left it in his room or
had lost it in his fall; anyhow, he had not the key.

But summoning his recollections, he quite gave up the first idea for
the second, which was the only likely one: again he crossed the
court, looking for the place where the key might have fallen, by the
aid of the wall round a tank on which he had laid his hand when he
got up; but the object of search was so small and the night so dark
that there was little chance of getting any result; still Caesar
sought for it, for in this key was his last hope: suddenly a door was
opened, and a night watch appeared, preceded by two torches.  Caesar
for the moment thought he was lost, but remembering the tank behind
him, he dropped into it, and with nothing but his head above water
anxiously watched the movements of the soldiers, as they advanced
beside him, passed only a few feet away, crossed the court, and then
disappeared by an opposite door.  But short as their luminous
apparition had been, it had lighted up the ground, and Caesar by the
glare of the torches had caught the glitter of the long-sought key,
and as soon as the door was shut behind the men, was again master of
his liberty.

Half-way between the castle and the village two cavaliers and a led
horse were waiting for him: the two men were Michelotto and the Count
of Benevento.  Caesar sprang upon the riderless horse, pressed with
fervour the hand of the count and the sbirro; then all three galloped
to the frontier of Navarre, where they arrived three days later, and
were honourably received by the king, Jean d'Albret, the brother of
Caesar's wife.

From Navarre he thought to pass into France, and from France to make
an attempt upon Italy, with the aid of Louis XII; but during Caesar's
detention in the castle of Medina del Campo, Louis had made peace
with the King of Spain; and when he heard of Caesar's flight, instead
of helping him, as there was some reason to expect he would, since he
was a relative by marriage, he took away the duchy of Valentinois and
also his pension.  Still, Caesar had nearly 200,000 ducats in the
charge of bankers at Genoa; he wrote asking for this sum, with which
he hoped to levy troops in Spain and in Navarre, and make an attempt
upon Pisa: 500 men, 200,000 ducats, his name and his word were more
than enough to save him from despair.

The bankers denied the deposit.

Caesar was at the mercy of his brother-in-law.

One of the vassals of the King of Navarre, named Prince Alarino, had
just then revolted: Caesar then took command of the army which Jean
d'Albret was sending out against him, followed by Michelotto, who was
as faithful in adversity as ever before.  Thanks to Caesar's courage
and skilful tactics, Prince Alarino was beaten in a first encounter;
but the day after his defeat he rallied his army, and offered battle
about three o'clock in the afternoon.  Caesar accepted it.

For nearly four hours they fought obstinately on both sides; but at
length, as the day was going down, Caesar proposed to decide the
issue by making a charge himself, at the head of a hundred men-at-
arms, upon a body of cavalry which made his adversary's chief force.
To his great astonishment, this cavalry at the first shock gave way
and took flight in the direction of a little wood, where they seemed
to be seeking refuge.  Caesar followed close on their heels up to the
edge of the forest; then suddenly the pursued turned right about
face, three or four hundred archers came out of the wood to help
them, and Caesar's men, seeing that they had fallen into an ambush,
took to their heels like cowards, and abandoned their leader.

Left alone, Caesar would not budge one step; possibly he had had
enough of life, and his heroism was rather the result of satiety than
courage: however that may be, he defended himself like a lion; but,
riddled with arrows and bolts, his horse at last fell, with Caesar's
leg under him.  His adversaries rushed upon him, and one of them
thrusting a sharp and slender iron pike through a weak place in his
armour, pierced his breast; Caesar cursed God and died.

But the rest of the enemy's army was defeated, thanks to the courage
of Michelotto, who fought like a valiant condottiere, but learned, on
returning to the camp in the evening, from those who had fled, that
they had abandoned Caesar and that he had never reappeared.  Then
only too certain, from his master's well-known courage, that disaster
had occurred, he desired to give one last proof of his devotion by
not leaving his body to the wolves and birds of prey.  Torches were
lighted, for it was dark, and with ten or twelve of those who had
gone with Caesar as far as the little wood, he went to seek his
master.  On reaching the spot they pointed out, he beheld five men
stretched side by side; four of them were dressed, but the fifth had
been stripped of his clothing and lay completely naked.  Michelotto
dismounted, lifted the head upon his knees, and by the light of the
torches recognised Caesar.

Thus fell, on the 10th of March, 1507, on an unknown field, near an
obscure village called Viane, in a wretched skirmish with the vassal
of a petty king, the man whom Macchiavelli presents to all princes as
the model of ability, diplomacy, and courage.

As to Lucrezia, the fair Duchess of Ferrara, she died full of years,
and honours, adored as a queen by her subjects, and sung as a goddess
by Ariosto and by Bembo.




EPILOGUE

There was once in Paris, says Boccaccio, a brave and good merchant
named Jean de Civigny, who did a great trade in drapery, and was
connected in business with a neighbour and fellow-merchant, a very
rich man called Abraham, who, though a Jew, enjoyed a good
reputation.  Jean de Civigny, appreciating the qualities of the
worthy Israelite; feared lest, good man as he was, his false religion
would bring his soul straight to eternal perdition; so he began to
urge him gently as a friend to renounce his errors and open his eyes
to the Christian faith, which he could see for himself was prospering
and spreading day by day, being the only true and good religion;
whereas his own creed, it was very plain, was so quickly diminishing
that it would soon disappear from the face of the earth.  The Jew
replied that except in his own religion there was no salvation, that
he was born in it, proposed to live and die in it, and that he knew
nothing in the world that could change his opinion.  Still, in his
proselytising fervour Jean would not think himself beaten, and never
a day passed but he demonstrated with those fair words the merchant
uses to seduce a customer, the superiority of the Christian religion
above the Jewish; and although Abraham was a great master of Mosaic
law, he began to enjoy his friend's preaching, either because of the
friendship he felt for him or because the Holy Ghost descended upon
the tongue of the new apostle; still obstinate in his own belief, he
would not change.  The more he persisted in his error, the more
excited was Jean about converting him, so that at last, by God's
help, being somewhat shaken by his friend's urgency, Abraham one day
said--

"Listen, Jean: since you have it so much at heart that I should be
converted, behold me disposed to satisfy you; but before I go to Rome
to see him whom you call God's vicar on earth, I must study his
manner of life and his morals, as also those of his brethren the
cardinals; and if, as I doubt not, they are in harmony with what you
preach, I will admit that, as you have taken such pains to show me,
your faith is better than mine, and I will do as you desire; but if
it should prove otherwise, I shall remain a Jew, as I was before; for
it is not worth while, at my age, to change my belief for a worse
one."

Jean was very sad when he heard these words; and he said mournfully
to himself, "Now I have lost my time and pains, which I thought I had
spent so well when I was hoping to convert this unhappy Abraham; for
if he unfortunately goes, as he says he will, to the court of Rome,
and there sees the shameful life led by the servants of the Church,
instead of becoming a Christian the Jew will be more of a Jew than
ever."  Then turning to Abraham, he said, "Ah, friend, why do you
wish to incur such fatigue and expense by going to Rome, besides the
fact that travelling by sea or by land must be very dangerous for so
rich a man as you are?  Do you suppose there is no one here to
baptize you?  If you have any doubts concerning the faith I have
expounded, where better than here will you find theologians capable
of contending with them and allaying them?  So, you see, this voyage
seems to me quite unnecessary: just imagine that the priests there
are such as you see here, and all the better in that they are nearer
to the supreme pastor.  If you are guided by my advice, you will
postpone this toil till you have committed some grave sin and need
absolution; then you and I will go together."

But the Jew replied--

"I believe, dear Jean, that everything is as you tell me; but you
know how obstinate I am.  I will go to Rome, or I will never be a
Christian."

Then Jean, seeing his great wish, resolved that it was no use trying
to thwart him, and wished him good luck; but in his heart he gave up
all hope; for it was certain that his friend would come back from his
pilgrimage more of a Jew than ever, if the court of Rome was still as
he had seen it.

But Abraham mounted his horse, and at his best speed took the road to
Rome, where on his arrival he was wonderfully well received by his
coreligionists; and after staying there a good long time, he began to
study the behaviour of the pope, the cardinals and other prelates,
and of the whole court.  But much to his surprise he found out,
partly by what passed under his eyes and partly by what he was told,
that all from the pope downward to the lowest sacristan of St.
Peter's were committing the sins of luxurious living in a most
disgraceful and unbridled manner, with no remorse and no shame, so
that pretty women and handsome youths could obtain any favours they
pleased.  In addition to this sensuality which they exhibited in
public, he saw that they were gluttons and drunkards, so much so that
they were more the slaves of the belly than are the greediest of
animals.  When he looked a little further, he found them so
avaricious and fond of money that they sold for hard cash both human
bodies and divine offices, and with less conscience than a man in
Paris would sell cloth or any other merchandise.  Seeing this and
much more that it would not be proper to set down here, it seemed to
Abraham, himself a chaste, sober, and upright man, that he had seen
enough.  So he resolved to return to Paris, and carried out the
resolution with his usual promptitude.  Jean de Civigny held a great
fete in honour of his return, although he had lost hope of his coming
back converted.  But he left time for him to settle down before he
spoke of anything, thinking there would be plenty of time to hear the
bad news he expected.  But, after a few days of rest, Abraham himself
came to see his friend, and Jean ventured to ask what he thought of
the Holy Father, the cardinals, and the other persons at the
pontifical court.  At these words the Jew exclaimed, "God damn them
all!  I never once succeeded in finding among them any holiness, any
devotion, any good works; but, on the contrary, luxurious living,
avarice, greed, fraud, envy, pride, and even worse, if there is
worse; all the machine seemed to be set in motion by an impulse less
divine than diabolical.  After what I saw, it is my firm conviction
that your pope, and of course the others as well, are using all their
talents, art, endeavours, to banish the Christian religion from the
face of the earth, though they ought to be its foundation and
support; and since, in spite of all the care and trouble they expend
to arrive at this end, I see that your religion is spreading every
day and becoming more brilliant and more pure, it is borne in upon me
that the Holy Spirit Himself protects it as the only true and the
most holy religion; this is why, deaf as you found me to your counsel
and rebellious to your wish, I am now, ever since I returned from
this Sodom, firmly resolved on becoming a Christian.  So let us go at
once to the church, for I am quite ready to be baptized."

There is no need to say if Jean de Civigny, who expected a refusal,
was pleased at this consent.  Without delay he went with his godson
to Notre Dame de Paris, where he prayed the first priest he met to
administer baptism to his friend, and this was speedily done; and the
new convert changed his Jewish name of Abraham into the Christian
name of Jean; and as the neophyte, thanks to his journey to Rome, had
gained a profound belief, his natural good qualities increased so
greatly in the practice of our holy religion, that after leading an
exemplary life he died in the full odour of sanctity.

This tale of Boccaccio's gives so admirable an answer to the charge
of irreligion which some might make against us if they mistook our
intentions, that as we shall not offer any other reply, we have not
hesitated to present it entire as it stands to the eyes of our
readers.

And let us never forget that if the papacy has had an Innocent VIII
and an Alexander VI who are its shame, it has also had a Pius VII and
a Gregory XVI who are its honour and glory.





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