Produced by David Widger.


                             *THE BORGIAS*

                                  _By_

                        *Alexandre Dumas, Pere*

              _From Eight Volumes of "Celebrated Crimes"_


                                  1910




CONTENTS


    *THE BORGIAS*
    PROLOGUE
    CHAPTER I
    CHAPTER II
    CHAPTER III
    CHAPTER IV
    CHAPTER V
    CHAPTER VI
    CHAPTER VII
    CHAPTER VIII
    CHAPTER IX
    CHAPTER X
    CHAPTER XI
    CHAPTER XII
    CHAPTER XIII
    CHAPTER XIV
    CHAPTER XV
    CHAPTER XVI
    EPILOGUE




*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 words all Florence was
stirred, and on whose pardon henceforth depended all his hope for
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.

Savonarola 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 for
your crimes." And at each of these names which Savonarola 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 monk,
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 dellaMirandola, 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
down 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 for 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 for
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 dellaRovera, 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 Madonnas 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 from 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 Pope, 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 for 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 born 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 for 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 Roderigo 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 Borgia 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 more 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 for 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 God 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 how 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, on 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 envoys,
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 notions 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 for
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 on 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 for 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 della 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 for 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 come in pursuit of his own interests, regardless of the
common agreemnent 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 della 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 della 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 della
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, della 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 dawn 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 on 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, an 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 tattering, 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 Rovere, 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, on 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 on 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 some 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; an 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 more 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 privileges
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
more 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 dellaLongara. 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 more 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 en 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 della 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 on 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 force, 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 Fornovo, where he arrived
with all his following on the morning of the next day.

From the top of the mountain where the Marechal 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 on 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.
For a moment the young king, drawn on by example, was on 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 for
standard-bearer, pensioners of the king’s household under Aymar de Prie,
some Scots, and two hundred cross-bowmen on 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 ’provveditori’, 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 on 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 Colonna, 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 for 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 Colonna 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 for
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 Gonzalvo 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 on 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 wont, 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
him, 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 on 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 instead 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
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 on 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 more 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 come 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 where 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 a 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 on 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 down 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 for 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 more, 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, anMonseigneur 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 Borgia  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 point 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 had 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
for 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 Leonardo’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 Fra
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 Savonarola, 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 on the roof of
the Duomo and on the top 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 his 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 for 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
Savonarola, 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 Savonarola’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. If 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 on 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 15,000 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 had 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 Forli, 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 more 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 Borgia  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 an; 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 Don 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 ambassadors, 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, on 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 Navarra 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 Navarra.

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 Navarra 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 Navarra 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 Navarra 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 Navarra 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 a right 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; for
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 on 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 hands 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, an 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 Conrad’s
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 dellaTorre at their head. The sum that
Alexander brought into the pontifical treasury is incalculable, and some
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, an 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 called 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 in 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 understood 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 for
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, for 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 on 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 Borgia ,
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.

Some 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 Borgia , archbishop of Cosenza,
treasurer-general; Gian, archbishop of Salerno, vice-chamberlain; Luigi
Borgia , 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 for
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 on
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 know;
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 covered 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 down 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 Caracciualo 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
on 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 Colonna 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
Colonna made this multitude understood 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 Colonna 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, on
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, on condition that he should never quit the kingdom; and there, in
fact, he died, an 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 Borgia , 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 came 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 whole 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 Mattel, 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 Imola, 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 a 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 for 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 d’Amboise, 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
Valentinois 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 d’Amboise, 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 come 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 for 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 both 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 Borgia , Prince of Squillace, Don
Roderigo Borgia , 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 on 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 Imola,
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 della 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 Valentinois 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 for 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 for 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 Vitellozzo 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 for 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 Monsignor 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 down 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; for, 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 so 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 d’Amboise: 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 a long 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 della Rovere had come to buy
the votes of his twelve cardinals.

Caesar imposed his conditions, which were accepted.

If elected, Giuliano della Rovere was to help Caesar to recover his
territories in Romagna; Caesar was to remain general of the Church; and
Francesco Maria della 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 della
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 for 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 Imola, 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, Ganzalvo
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 God 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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