The Borgias
by
Alexandre Dumas, Pere
Part 1 out of 5
This eBook was produced by David Widger
Extensive proofing of this file was done by Trevor Carlson
CELEBRATED CRIMES
BY ALEXANDER DUMAS, PERE
NOTE:
Dumas's 'Celebrated Crimes' was not written for children. The
novelist has spared no language--has minced no words--to describe the
violent scenes of a violent time.
In some instances facts appear distorted out of their true
perspective, and in others the author makes unwarranted charges. It
is not within our province to edit the historical side of Dumas, any
more than it would be to correct the obvious errors in Dickens's
Child's History of England. The careful, mature reader, for whom the
books are intended, will recognize, and allow for, this fact.
INTRODUCTION
The contents of these volumes of 'Celebrated Crimes', as well as the
motives which led to their inception, are unique. They are a series
of stories based upon historical records, from the pen of Alexandre
Dumas, pere, when he was not "the elder," nor yet the author of
D'Artagnan or Monte Cristo, but was a rising young dramatist and a
lion in the literary set and world of fashion.
Dumas, in fact, wrote his 'Crimes Celebres' just prior to launching
upon his wonderful series of historical novels, and they may
therefore be considered as source books, whence he was to draw so
much of that far-reaching and intimate knowledge of inner history
which has perennially astonished his readers. The Crimes were
published in Paris, in 1839-40, in eight volumes, comprising eighteen
titles--all of which now appear in the present carefully translated
text. The success of the original work was instantaneous. Dumas
laughingly said that he thought he had exhausted the subject of
famous crimes, until the work was off the press, when he immediately
became deluged with letters from every province in France, supplying
him with material upon other deeds of violence! The subjects which
he has chosen, however, are of both historic and dramatic importance,
and they have the added value of giving the modern reader a clear
picture of the state of semi-lawlessness which existed in Europe,
during the middle ages. "The Borgias, the Cenci, Urbain Grandier,
the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, the Marchioness of Ganges, and the
rest--what subjects for the pen of Dumas!" exclaims Garnett.
Space does not permit us to consider in detail the material here
collected, although each title will be found to present points of
special interest. The first volume comprises the annals of the
Borgias and the Cenci. The name of the noted and notorious
Florentine family has become a synonym for intrigue and violence, and
yet the Borgias have not been without stanch defenders in history.
Another famous Italian story is that of the Cenci. The beautiful
Beatrice Cenci--celebrated in the painting of Guido, the sixteenth
century romance of Guerrazi, and the poetic tragedy of Shelley, not
to mention numerous succeeding works inspired by her hapless fate--
will always remain a shadowy figure and one of infinite pathos.
The second volume chronicles the sanguinary deeds in the south of
France, carried on in the name of religion, but drenching in blood
the fair country round about Avignon, for a long period of years.
The third volume is devoted to the story of Mary Queen of Scots,
another woman who suffered a violent death, and around whose name an
endless controversy has waged. Dumas goes carefully into the dubious
episodes of her stormy career, but does not allow these to blind his
sympathy for her fate. Mary, it should be remembered, was closely
allied to France by education and marriage, and the French never
forgave Elizabeth the part she played in the tragedy.
The fourth volume comprises three widely dissimilar tales. One of
the strangest stories is that of Urbain Grandier, the innocent victim
of a cunning and relentless religious plot. His story was dramatised
by Dumas, in 1850. A famous German crime is that of Karl-Ludwig
Sand, whose murder of Kotzebue, Councillor of the Russian Legation,
caused an international upheaval which was not to subside for many
years.
An especially interesting volume is number six, containing, among
other material, the famous "Man in the Iron Mask." This unsolved
puzzle of history was later incorporated by Dumas in one of the
D'Artagnan Romances a section of the Vicomte de Bragelonne, to which
it gave its name. But in this later form, the true story of this
singular man doomed to wear an iron vizor over his features during
his entire lifetime could only be treated episodically. While as a
special subject in the Crimes, Dumas indulges his curiosity, and that
of his reader, to the full. Hugo's unfinished tragedy,'Les Jumeaux',
is on the same subject; as also are others by Fournier, in French,
and Zschokke, in German.
Other stories can be given only passing mention. The beautiful
poisoner, Marquise de Brinvilliers, must have suggested to Dumas his
later portrait of Miladi, in the Three Musketeers, the mast
celebrated of his woman characters. The incredible cruelties of Ali
Pacha, the Turkish despot, should not be charged entirely to Dumas,
as he is said to have been largely aided in this by one of his
"ghosts," Mallefille.
"Not a mere artist"--writes M. de Villemessant, founder of the
Figaro,--"he has nevertheless been able to seize on those dramatic
effects which have so much distinguished his theatrical career, and
to give those sharp and distinct reproductions of character which
alone can present to the reader the mind and spirit of an age. Not a
mere historian, he has nevertheless carefully consulted the original
sources of information, has weighed testimonies, elicited theories,
and . . . has interpolated the poetry of history with its most
thorough prose."
THE BORGIAS
PROLOGUE
On the 8th of April, 1492, in a bedroom of the Carneggi Palace, about
three miles from Florence, were three men grouped about a bed whereon
a fourth lay dying.
The first of these three men, sitting at the foot of the bed, and
half hidden, that he might conceal his tears, in the gold-brocaded
curtains, was Ermolao Barbaro, author of the treatise 'On Celibacy',
and of 'Studies in Pliny': the year before, when he was at Rome in
the capacity of ambassador of the Florentine Republic, he had been
appointed Patriarch of Aquileia by Innocent VIII.
The second, who was kneeling and holding one hand of the dying man
between his own, was Angelo Poliziano, the Catullus of the fifteenth
century, a classic of the lighter sort, who in his Latin verses might
have been mistaken for a poet of the Augustan age.
The third, who was standing up and leaning against one of the twisted
columns of the bed-head, following with profound sadness the progress
of the malady which he read in the face of his departing friend, was
the famous Pico della Mirandola, who at the age of twenty could speak
twenty-two languages, and who had offered to reply in each of these
languages to any seven hundred questions that might be put to him by
the twenty most learned men in the whole world, if they could be
assembled at Florence.
The man on the bed was Lorenzo the Magnificent, who at the beginning
of the year had been attacked by a severe and deep-seated fever, to
which was added the gout, a hereditary ailment in his family. He had
found at last that the draughts containing dissolved pearls which the
quack doctor, Leoni di Spoleto, prescribed for him (as if he desired
to adapt his remedies rather to the riches of his patient than to his
necessities) were useless and unavailing, and so he had come to
understand that he must part from those gentle-tongued women of his,
those sweet-voiced poets, his palaces and their rich hangings;
therefore he had summoned to give him absolution for his sins--in a
man of less high place they might perhaps have been called crimes--
the Dominican, Giralamo Francesco Savonarola.
It was not, however, without an inward fear, against which the
praises of his friends availed nothing, that the pleasure-seeker and
usurper awaited that severe and gloomy preacher by whose word's all
Florence was stirred, and on whose pardon henceforth depended all his
hope far another world.
Indeed, Savonarola was one of those men of stone, coming, like the
statue of the Commandante, to knock at the door of a Don Giovanni,
and in the midst of feast and orgy to announce that it is even now
the moment to begin to think of Heaven. He had been born at Ferrara,
whither his family, one of the most illustrious of Padua, had been
called by Niccolo, Marchese d'Este, and at the age of twenty-three,
summoned by an irresistible vocation, had fled from his father's
house, and had taken the vows in the cloister of Dominican monks at
Florence. There, where he was appointed by his superiors to give
lessons in philosophy, the young novice had from the first to battle
against the defects of a voice that was both harsh and weak, a
defective pronunciation, and above all, the depression of his
physical powers, exhausted as they were by too severe abstinence.
Savonarala from that time condemned himself to the most absolute
seclusion, and disappeared in the depths of his convent, as if the
slab of his tomb had already fallen over him. There, kneeling on the
flags, praying unceasingly before a wooden crucifix, fevered by
vigils and penances, he soon passed out of contemplation into
ecstasy, and began to feel in himself that inward prophetic impulse
which summoned him to preach the reformation of the Church.
Nevertheless, the reformation of Savonarola, more reverential than
Luther's, which followed about five-and-twenty years later, respected
the thing while attacking the man, and had as its aim the altering of
teaching that was human, not faith that was of God. He did not work,
like the German monk, by reasoning, but by enthusiasm. With him
logic always gave way before inspiration: he was not a theologian,
but a prophet. Yet, although hitherto he had bowed his head before
the authority of the Church, he had already raised it against the
temporal power. To him religion and liberty appeared as two virgins
equally sacred; so that, in his view, Lorenzo in subjugating the one
was as culpable as Pope Innocent VIII in dishonouring the other. The
result of this was that, so long as Lorenzo lived in riches,
happiness, and magnificence, Savonarola had never been willing,
whatever entreaties were made, to sanction by his presence a power
which he considered illegitimate. But Lorenzo on his deathbed sent
for him, and that was another matter. The austere preacher set forth
at once, bareheaded and barefoot, hoping to save not only the soul of
the dying man but also the liberty of the republic.
Lorenzo, as we have said, was awaiting the arrival of Savonarola with
an impatience mixed with uneasiness; so that, when he heard the sound
of his steps, his pale face took a yet more deathlike tinge, while at
the same time he raised himself on his elbow and ordered his three
friends to go away. They obeyed at once, and scarcely had they left
by one door than the curtain of the other was raised, and the monk,
pale, immovable, solemn, appeared on the threshold. When he
perceived him, Lorenzo dei Medici, reading in his marble brow the
inflexibility of a statue, fell back on his bed, breathing a sigh so
profound that one might have supposed it was his last.
The monk glanced round the room as though to assure himself that he
was really alone with the dying man; then he advanced with a slow and
solemn step towards the bed. Lorenzo watched his approach with
terror; then, when he was close beside him, he cried:
"O my father, I have been a very great sinner!"
"The mercy of God is infinite," replied the monk; "and I come into
your presence laden with the divine mercy."
"You believe, then, that God will forgive my sins?" cried the dying
man, renewing his hope as he heard from the lips of the monk such
unexpected words.
"Your sins and also your crimes, God will forgive them all," replied
Savonarola. "God will forgive your vanities, your adulterous
pleasures, your obscene festivals; so much for your sins. God will
forgive you for promising two thousand florins reward to the man who
should bring you the head of Dietisalvi, Nerone Nigi, Angelo
Antinori, Niccalo Soderini, and twice the money if they were handed
over alive; God will forgive you for dooming to the scaffold or the
gibbet the son of Papi Orlandi, Francesco di Brisighella, Bernardo
Nardi, Jacopo Frescobaldi, Amoretto Baldovinetti, Pietro Balducci,
Bernardo di Banding, Francesco Frescobaldi, and more than three
hundred others whose names were none the less dear to Florence
because they were less renowned; so much far your crimes." And at
each of these names which Savonarala pronounced slowly, his eyes
fixed on the dying man, he replied with a groan which proved the
monk's memory to be only too true. Then at last, when he had
finished, Lorenzo asked in a doubtful tone:
"Then do you believe, my father, that God will forgive me everything,
both my sins and my crimes?"
"Everything," said Savonarola, "but on three conditions."
"What are they?" asked the dying man.
"The first," said Savonarola, "is that you feel a complete faith in
the power and the mercy of God."
"My father," replied Lorenzo eagerly, "I feel this faith in the very
depths of my heart."
"The second," said Savonarola, "is that you give back the property of
others which you have unjustly confiscated and kept."
"My father, shall I have time?" asked the dying man.
"God will give it to you," replied the monk.
Lorenzo shut his eyes, as though to reflect more at his ease; then,
after a moment's silence, he replied:
"Yes, my father, I will do it."
"The third," resumed Savonarola, "is that you restore to the republic
her ancient independence and her former liberty."
Lorenzo sat up on his bed, shaken by a convulsive movement, and
questioned with his eyes the eyes of the Dominican, as though he
would find out if he had deceived himself and not heard aright.
Savonarola repeated the same words.
"Never! never!" exclaimed Lorenzo, falling back on his bed and
shaking his head,--"never!"
The monk, without replying a single word, made a step to withdraw.
"My father, my father," said the dying man, "do not leave me thus:
have pity on me!"
"Have pity on Florence," said the monk.
"But, my father," cried Lorenzo, "Florence is free, Florence is
happy."
"Florence is a slave, Florence is poor," cried Savonarola, "poor in
genius, poor in money, and poor in courage; poor in genius, because
after you, Lorenzo, will come your son Piero; poor in money, because
from the funds of the republic you have kept up the magnificence of
your family and the credit of your business houses; poor in courage,
because you have robbed the rightful magistrates of the authority
which was constitutionally theirs, and diverted the citizens from the
double path of military and civil life, wherein, before they were
enervated by your luxuries, they had displayed the virtues of the
ancients; and therefore, when the day shall dawn which is not far
distant," continued the mark, his eyes fixed and glowing as if he
were reading in the future, "whereon the barbarians shall descend
from the mountains, the walls of our towns, like those of Jericho,
shall fall at the blast of their trumpets."
"And do you desire that I should yield up on my deathbed the power
that has made the glory of my whole life?" cried Lorenzo dei Medici.
"It is not I who desire it; it is the Lord," replied Savonarola
coldly.
"Impossible, impossible!" murmured Lorenzo.
"Very well; then die as you have lived!" cried the monk, "in the
midst of your courtiers and flatterers; let them ruin your soul as
they have ruined your body!" And at these words, the austere
Dominican, without listening to the cries of the dying man, left the
room as he had entered it, with face and step unaltered; far above
human things he seemed to soar, a spirit already detached from the
earth.
At the cry which broke from Lorenzo dei Medici when he saw him
disappear, Ermolao, Poliziano, and Pico delta Mirandola, who had
heard all, returned into the room, and found their friend
convulsively clutching in his arms a magnificent crucifix which he
had just taken dawn from the bed-head. In vain did they try to
reassure him with friendly words. Lorenzo the Magnificent only
replied with sobs; and one hour after the scene which we have just
related, his lips clinging to the feet of the Christ, he breathed his
last in the arms of these three men, of whom the most fortunate--
though all three were young--was not destined to survive him more
than two years. "Since his death was to bring about many
calamities," says Niccolo Macchiavelli, "it was the will of Heaven to
show this by omens only too certain: the dome of the church of Santa
Regarata was struck by lightning, and Roderigo Borgia was elected
pope."
CHAPTER I
Towards the end of the fifteenth century--that is to say, at the
epoch when our history opens the Piazza of St. Peter's at Rome was
far from presenting so noble an aspect as that which is offered in
our own day to anyone who approaches it by the Piazza dei Rusticucci.
In fact, the Basilica of Constantine existed no longer, while that of
Michael Angelo, the masterpiece of thirty popes, which cost the
labour of three centuries and the expense of two hundred and sixty
millions, existed not yet. The ancient edifice, which had lasted for
eleven hundred and forty-five years, had been threatening to fall in
about 1440, and Nicholas V, artistic forerunner of Julius II and Leo
X, had had it pulled down, together with the temple of Probus Anicius
which adjoined it. In their place he had had the foundations of a
new temple laid by the architects Rossellini and Battista Alberti;
but some years later, after the death of Nicholas V, Paul II, the
Venetian, had not been able to give more than five thousand crowns to
continue the project of his predecessor, and thus the building was
arrested when it had scarcely risen above the ground, and presented
the appearance of a still-born edifice, even sadder than that of a
ruin.
As to the piazza itself, it had not yet, as the reader will
understand from the foregoing explanation, either the fine colonnade
of Bernini, or the dancing fountains, or that Egyptian obelisk which,
according to Pliny, was set up by the Pharaoh at Heliopolis, and
transferred to Rome by Caligula, who set it up in Nero's Circus,
where it remained till 1586. Now, as Nero's Circus was situated on
the very ground where St. Peter's now stands, and the base of this
obelisk covered the actual site where the vestry now is, it looked
like a gigantic needle shooting up from the middle of truncated
columns, walls of unequal height, and half-carved stones.
On the right of this building, a ruin from its cradle, arose the
Vatican, a splendid Tower of Babel, to which all the celebrated
architects of the Roman school contributed their work for a thousand
years: at this epoch the two magnificent chapels did not exist, nor
the twelve great halls, the two-and-twenty courts, the thirty
staircases, and the two thousand bedchambers; for Pope Sixtus V, the
sublime swineherd, who did so many things in a five years' reign, had
not yet been able to add the immense building which on the eastern
side towers above the court of St. Damasius; still, it was truly the
old sacred edifice, with its venerable associations, in which
Charlemagne received hospitality when he was crowned emperor by Pope
Leo III.
All the same, on the 9th of August, 1492, the whole of Rome, from the
People's Gate to the Coliseum and from the Baths of Diocletian to the
castle of Sant' Angelo, seemed to have made an appointment on this
piazza: the multitude thronging it was so great as to overflow into
all the neighbouring streets, which started from this centre like the
rays of a star. The crowds of people, looking like a motley moving
carpet, were climbing up into the basilica, grouping themselves upon
the stones, hanging on the columns, standing up against the walls;
they entered by the doors of houses and reappeared at the windows, so
numerous and so densely packed that one might have said each window
was walled up with heads. Now all this multitude had its eyes fixed
on one single point in the Vatican; for in the Vatican was the
Conclave, and as Innocent VIII had been dead for sixteen days, the
Conclave was in the act of electing a pope.
Rome is the town of elections: since her foundation down to our own
day--that is to say, in the course of nearly twenty-six centuries--
she has constantly elected her kings, consuls, tribunes, emperors,
and popes: thus Rome during the days of Conclave appears to be
attacked by a strange fever which drives everyone to the Vatican or
to Monte Cavallo, according as the scarlet-robed assembly is held in
one or the other of these two palaces: it is, in fact, because the
raising up of a new pontiff is a great event far everybody; for,
according to the average established in the period between St. Peter
and Gregory XVI, every pope lasts about eight years, and these eight
years, according to the character of the man who is elected, are a
period either of tranquillity or of disorder, of justice or of
venality, of peace or of war.
Never perhaps since the day when the first successor of St. Peter
took his seat on the pontifical throne until the interregnum which
now occurred, had so great an agitation been shown as there was at
this moment, when, as we have shown, all these people were thronging
on the Piazza of St. Peter and in the streets which led to it. It is
true that this was not without reason; for Innocent VIII--who was
called the father of his people because he had added to his subjects
eight sons and the same number of daughters--had, as we have said,
after living a life of self-indulgence, just died, after a death-
struggle during which, if the journal of Stefano Infessura may be
believed, two hundred and twenty murders were committed in the
streets of Rome. The authority had then devolved in the customary
way upon the Cardinal Camerlengo, who during the interregnum had
sovereign powers; but as he had been obliged to fulfil all the duties
of his office--that is, to get money coined in his name and bearing
his arms, to take the fisherman's ring from the finger of the dead
pope, to dress, shave and paint him, to have the corpse embalmed, to
lower the coffin after nine days' obsequies into the provisional
niche where the last deceased pope has to remain until his successor
comes to take his place and consign him to his final tomb; lastly, as
he had been obliged to wall up the door of the Conclave and the
window of the balcony from which the pontifical election is
proclaimed, he had not had a single moment for busying himself with
the police; so that the assassinations had continued in goodly
fashion, and there were loud cries for an energetic hand which should
make all these swords and all these daggers retire into their
sheaths.
Now the eyes of this multitude were fixed, as we have said, upon the
Vatican, and particularly upon one chimney, from which would come the
first signal, when suddenly, at the moment of the 'Ave Maria'--that
is to say, at the hour when the day begins to decline--great cries
went up from all the crowd mixed with bursts of laughter, a
discordant murmur of threats and raillery, the cause being that they
had just perceived at the top of the chimney a thin smoke, which
seemed like a light cloud to go up perpendicularly into the sky.
This smoke announced that Rome was still without a master, and that
the world still had no pope; for this was the smoke of the voting
tickets which were being burned, a proof that the cardinals had not
yet come to an agreement.
Scarcely had this smoke appeared, to vanish almost immediately, when
all the innumerable crowd, knowing well that there was nothing else
to wait for, and that all was said and done until ten o'clock the
next morning, the time when the cardinals had their first voting,
went off in a tumult of noisy joking, just as they would after the
last rocket of a firework display; so that at the end of one minute
nobody was there where a quarter of an hour before there had been an
excited crowd, except a few curious laggards, who, living in the
neighbourhood or on the very piazza itself; were less in a hurry than
the rest to get back to their homes; again, little by little, these
last groups insensibly diminished; for half-past nine had just
struck, and at this hour the streets of Rome began already to be far
from safe; then after these groups followed some solitary passer-by,
hurrying his steps; one after another the doors were closed, one
after another the windows were darkened; at last, when ten o'clock
struck, with the single exception of one window in the Vatican where
a lamp might be seen keeping obstinate vigil, all the houses,
piazzas, and streets were plunged in the deepest obscurity.
At this moment a man wrapped in a cloak stood up like a ghost against
one of the columns of the uncompleted basilica, and gliding slowly
and carefully among the stones which were lying about round the
foundations of the new church, advanced as far as the fountain which,
formed the centre of the piazza, erected in the very place where the
obelisk is now set up of which we have spoken already; when he
reached this spot he stopped, doubly concealed by the darkness of the
night and by the shade of the monument, and after looking around him
to see if he were really alone, drew his sword, and with its point
rapping three times on the pavement of the piazza, each time made the
sparks fly. This signal, for signal it was, was not lost: the last
lamp which still kept vigil in the Vatican went out, and at the same
instant an object thrown out of the window fell a few paces off from
the young man in the cloak: he, guided by the silvery sound it had
made in touching the flags, lost no time in laying his hands upon it
in spite of the darkness, and when he had it in his possession
hurried quickly away.
Thus the unknown walked without turning round half-way along the
Borgo Vecchio; but there he turned to the right and took a street at
the other end of which was set up a Madonna with a lamp: he
approached the light, and drew from his pocket the object he had
picked up, which was nothing else than a Roman crown piece; but this
crown unscrewed, and in a cavity hollowed in its thickness enclosed a
letter, which the man to whom it was addressed began to read at the
risk of being recognised, so great was his haste to know what it
contained.
We say at the risk of being recognised, for in his eagerness the
recipient of this nocturnal missive had thrown back the hood of his
cloak; and as his head was wholly within the luminous circle cast by
the lamp, it was easy to distinguish in the light the head of a
handsome young man of about five or six and twenty, dressed in a
purple doublet slashed at the shoulder and elbow to let the shirt
come through, and wearing on his head a cap of the same colour with a
long black feather falling to his shoulder. It is true that he did
not stand there long; for scarcely had he finished the letter, or
rather the note, which he had just received in so strange and
mysterious a manner, when he replaced it in its silver receptacle,
and readjusting his cloak so as to hide all the lower part of his
face, resumed his walk with a rapid step, crossed Borgo San Spirito,
and took the street of the Longara, which he followed as far as the
church of Regina Coeli. When he arrived at this place, he gave three
rapid knocks on the door of a house of good appearance, which
immediately opened; then slowly mounting the stairs he entered a room
where two women were awaiting him with an impatience so unconcealed
that both as they saw him exclaimed together:
"Well, Francesco, what news?"
"Good news, my mother; good, my sister," replied the young man,
kissing the one and giving his hand to the other. "Our father has
gained three votes to-day, but he still needs six to have the
majority."
"Then is there no means of buying them?" cried the elder of the two
women, while the younger, instead of speaking, asked him with a look.
"Certainly, my mother, certainly," replied the young man; "and it is
just about that that my father has been thinking. He is giving
Cardinal Orsini his palace at Rome and his two castles of Monticello
and Soriano; to Cardinal Colanna his abbey of Subiaca; he gives
Cardinal Sant' Angelo the bishopric of Porto, with the furniture and
cellar; to the Cardinal of Parma the town of Nepi; to the Cardinal of
Genoa the church of Santa Maria-in-Via-Lata; and lastly, to Cardinal
Savelli the church of Santa Maria Maggiore and the town of Civita
Castellana; as to Cardinal Ascanio-Sforza, he knows already that the
day before yesterday we sent to his house four mules laden with
silver and plate, and out of this treasure he has engaged to give
five thousand ducats to the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice."
"But how shall we get the others to know the intentions of Roderigo?"
asked the elder of the two women.
"My father has provided for everything, and proposes an easy method;
you know, my mother, with what sort of ceremonial the cardinals'
dinner is carried in."
"Yes, on a litter, in a large basket with the arms of the cardinal
far whom the meal is prepared."
"My father has bribed the bishop who examines it: to-morrow is a
feast-day; to the Cardinals Orsini, Colonna, Savelli, Sant' Angelo,
and the Cardinals of Parma and of Genoa, chickens will be sent for
hot meat, and each chicken will contain a deed of gift duly drawn up,
made by me in my father's name, of the houses, palaces, or churches
which are destined for each."
"Capital!" said the elder of the two women; "now, I am certain, all
will go well."
"And by the grace of God," added the younger, with a strangely
mocking smile, "our father will be pope."
"Oh, it will be a fine day for us!" cried Francesco.
"And for Christendom," replied his sister, with a still more ironical
expression.
"Lucrezia, Lucrezia," said the mother, "you do not deserve the
happiness which is coming to us."
"What does that matter, if it comes all the same? Besides, you know
the proverb; mother: 'Large families are blessed of the Lord'; and
still more so our family, which is so patriarchal."
At the same time she cast on her brother a look so wanton that the
young man blushed under it: but as at the moment he had to think of
other things than his illicit loves, he ordered that four servants
should be awakened; and while they were getting armed to accompany
him, he drew up and signed the six deeds of gift which were to be
carried the next day to the cardinals; for, not wishing to be seen at
their houses, he thought he would profit by the night-time to carry
them himself to certain persons in his confidence who would have them
passed in, as had been arranged, at the dinner-hour. Then, when the
deeds were quite ready and the servants also, Francesco went out with
them, leaving the two women to dream golden dreams of their future
greatness.
From the first dawn of day the people hurried anew, as ardent and
interested as on the evening before, to the Piazza of the Vatican,
where, at the ordinary time, that is, at ten o'clock in the morning,
--the smoke rose again as usual, evoking laughter and murmuring, as
it announced that none of the cardinals had secured the majority. A
report, however, began to be spread about that the chances were
divided between three candidates, who were Roderigo Borgia, Giuliano
delta Rovera, and Ascanio Sforza; for the people as yet knew nothing
of the four mules laden with plate and silver which had been led to
Sforza's house, by reason of which he had given up his own votes to
his rival. In the midst of the agitation excited in the crowd by
this new report a solemn chanting was heard; it proceeded from a
procession, led by the Cardinal Camerlengo, with the object of
obtaining from Heaven the speedy election of a pope: this procession,
starting from the church of Ara Coeli at the Capitol, was to make
stations before the principal Madannas and the most frequented
churches. As soon as the silver crucifix was perceived which went in
front, the most profound silence prevailed, and everyone fell on his
knees; thus a supreme calm followed the tumult and uproar which had
been heard a few minutes before, and which at each appearance of the
smoke had assumed a more threatening character: there was a shrewd
suspicion that the procession, as well as having a religious end in
view, had a political object also, and that its influence was
intended to be as great on earth as in heaven. In any case, if such
had been the design of the Cardinal Camerlengo, he had not deceived
himself, and the effect was what he desired: when the procession had
gone past, the laughing and joking continued, but the cries and
threats had completely ceased.
The whole day passed thus; for in Rome nobody works. You are either
a cardinal or a lacquey, and you live, nobody knows how. The crowd
was still extremely numerous, when, towards two o'clock in the
afternoon, another procession, which had quite as much power of
provoking noise as the first of imposing silence, traversed in its
turn the Piazza of St. Peter's: this was the dinner procession. The
people received it with the usual bursts of laughter, without
suspecting, for all their irreverence, that this procession, more
efficacious than the former, had just settled the election of the new
pope.
The hour of the Ave Maria came as on the evening before; but, as on
the evening before, the waiting of the whole day was lost; for, as
half-past eight struck, the daily smoke reappeared at the top of the
chimney. But when at the same moment rumours which came from the
inside of the Vatican were spread abroad, announcing that, in all
probability, the election would take place the next day, the good
people preserved their patience. Besides, it had been very hot that
day, and they were so broken with fatigue and roasted by the sun,
these dwellers in shade and idleness, that they had no strength left
to complain.
The morning of the next day, which was the 11th of August, 1492,
arose stormy and dark; this did not hinder the multitude from
thronging the piazzas, streets, doors, houses, churches. Moreover,
this disposition of the weather was a real blessing from Heaven; for
if there were heat, at least there would be no sun. Towards nine
o'clock threatening storm-clouds were heaped up over all the
Trastevere; but to this crowd what mattered rain, lightning, or
thunder? They were preoccupied with a concern of a very different
nature; they were waiting for their pope: a promise had been made
them for to-day, and it could be seen by the manner of all, that if
the day should pass without any election taking place, the end of it
might very well be a riot; therefore, in proportion as the time
advanced, the agitation grew greater. Nine o'clock, half-past nine,
a quarter to ten struck, without anything happening to confirm or
destroy their hopes. At last the first stroke of ten was heard; all
eyes turned towards the chimney: ten o'clock struck slowly, each
stroke vibrating in the heart of the multitude. At last the tenth
stroke trembled, then vanished shuddering into space, and, a great
cry breaking simultaneously frog a hundred thousand breasts followed
the silence "Non v'e fumo! There is no smoke!" In other words, "We
have a pope."
At this moment the rain began to fall; but no one paid any attention
to it, so great were the transports of joy and impatience among all
the people. At last a little stone was detached from the walled
window which gave on the balcony and upon which all eyes were fixed:
a general shout saluted its fall; little by little the aperture grew
larger, and in a few minutes it was large enough to allow a man to
come out on the balcony.
The Cardinal Ascanio Sforza appeared; but at the moment when he was
on the point of coming out, frightened by the rain and the lightning,
he hesitated an instant, and finally drew back: immediately the
multitude in their turn broke out like a tempest into cries, curses,
howls, threatening to tear down the Vatican and to go and seek their
pope themselves. At this noise Cardinal Sforza, more terrified by
the popular storm than by the storm in the heavens, advanced on the
balcony, and between two thunderclaps, in a moment of silence
astonishing to anyone who had just heard the clamour that went
before, made the following proclamation:
"I announce to you a great joy: the most Eminent and most Reverend
Signor Roderigo Lenzuolo Borgia, Archbishop of Valencia, Cardinal-
Deacon of San Nicolao-in-Carcere, Vice-Chancellor of the Church, has
now been elected Page, and has assumed the name of Alexander VI."
The news of this nomination was received with strange joy. Roderigo
Borgia had the reputation of a dissolute man, it is true, but
libertinism had mounted the throne with Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII,
so that for the Romans there was nothing new in the singular
situation of a pope with a mistress and five children. The great
thing for the moment was that the power fell into strong hands; and
it was more important for the tranquillity of Rome that the new pope
inherited the sword of St. Paul than that he inherited the keys of
St. Peter.
And so, in the feasts that were given on this occasion, the dominant
character was much more warlike than religious, and would have
appeared rather to suit with the election of some young conqueror
than the exaltation of an old pontiff: there was no limit to the
pleasantries and prophetic epigrams on the name of Alexander, which
for the second time seemed to promise the Romans the empire of the
world; and the same evening, in the midst of brilliant illuminations
and bonfires, which seemed to turn the town into a lake of flame, the
following epigram was read, amid the acclamation of the people:
"Rome under Caesar's rule in ancient story
At home and o'er the world victorious trod;
But Alexander still extends his glory:
Caesar was man, but Alexander God."
As to the new pope, scarcely had he completed the formalities of
etiquette which his exaltation imposed upon him, and paid to each man
the price of his simony, when from the height of the Vatican he cast
his eyes upon Europe, a vast political game of chess, which he
cherished the hope of directing at the will of his own genius.
CHAPTER II
The world had now arrived at one of those supreme moments of history
when every thing is transformed between the end of one period and the
beginning of another: in the East Turkey, in the South Spain, in the
West France, and in the North German, all were going to assume,
together with the title of great Powers, that influence which they
were destined to exert in the future over the secondary States.
Accordingly we too, with Alexander VI, will cast a rapid glance over
them, and see what were their respective situations in regard to
Italy, which they all coveted as a prize.
Constantine, Palaeologos Dragozes, besieged by three hundred thousand
Turks, after having appealed in vain for aid to the whole of
Christendom, had not been willing to survive the loss of his empire,
and had been found in the midst of the dead, close to the Tophana
Gate; and on the 30th of May, 1453, Mahomet II had made his entry
into Constantinople, where, after a reign which had earned for him
the surname of 'Fatile', or the Conqueror, he had died leaving two
sons, the elder of whom had ascended the throne under the name of
Bajazet II.
The accession of the new sultan, however, had not taken place with
the tranquillity which his right as elder brother and his father's
choice of him should have promised. His younger brother, D'jem,
better known under the name of Zizimeh, had argued that whereas he
was born in the purple--that is, born during the reign of Mahomet--
Bajazet was born prior to his epoch, and was therefore the son of a
private individual. This was rather a poor trick; but where force is
all and right is naught, it was good enough to stir up a war. The
two brothers, each at the head of an army, met accordingly in Asia in
1482. D'jem was defeated after a seven hours' fight, and pursued by
his brother, who gave him no time to rally his army: he was obliged
to embark from Cilicia, and took refuge in Rhodes, where he implored
the protection of the Knights of St. John. They, not daring to give
him an asylum in their island so near to Asia, sent him to France,
where they had him carefully guarded in one of their commanderies, in
spite of the urgency of Cait Bey, Sultan of Egypt, who, having
revolted against Bajazet, desired to have the young prince in his
army to give his rebellion the appearance of legitimate warfare. The
same demand, moreover, with the same political object, had been made
successively by Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary, by Ferdinand, King
of Aragon and Sicily, and by Ferdinand, King of Naples.
On his side Bajazet, who knew all the importance of such a rival, if
he once allied himself with any one of the princes with whom he was
at war, had sent ambassadors to Charles VIII, offering, if he would
consent to keep D'jem with him, to give him a considerable pension,
and to give to France the sovereignty of the Holy Land, so soon as
Jerusalem should be conquered by the Sultan of Egypt. The King of
France had accepted these terms.
But then Innocent VIII had intervened, and in his turn had claimed
D'jem, ostensibly to give support by the claims of the refugee to a
crusade which he was preaching against the Turks, but in reality to
appropriate the pension of 40,000 ducats to be given by Bajazet to
any one of the Christian princes who would undertake to be his
brother's gaoler. Charles VIII had not dared to refuse to the
spiritual head of Christendom a request supported by such holy
reasons; and therefore D'jem had quitted France, accompanied by the
Grand Master d'Aubusson, under whose direct charge he was; but his
guardian had consented, for the sake of a cardinal's hat, to yield up
his prisoner. Thus, on the 13th of March, 1489, the unhappy young
man, cynosure of so many interested eyes, made his solemn entry into
Rome, mounted on a superb horse, clothed in a magnificent oriental
costume, between the Prior of Auvergne, nephew of the Grand Master
d'Aubusson, and Francesco Cibo, the son of the pope.
After this he had remained there, and Bajazet, faithful to promises
which it was so much his interest to fulfil, had punctually paid to
the sovereign pontiff a pension of 40,000 ducats.
So much for Turkey.
Ferdinand and Isabella were reigning in Spain, and were laying the
foundations of that vast power which was destined, five-and-twenty
years later, to make Charles V declare that the sun never set on his
dominions. In fact, these two sovereigns, on whom history has
bestowed the name of Catholic, had reconquered in succession nearly
all Spain, and driven the Moors out of Granada, their last
entrenchment; while two men of genius, Bartolome Diaz and Christopher
Columbus, had succeeded, much to the profit of Spain, the one in
recovering a lost world, the other in conquering a world yet unknown.
They had accordingly, thanks to their victories in the ancient world
and their discoveries in the new, acquired an influence at the court
of Rome which had never been enjoyed by any of their predecessors.
So much for Spain.
In France, Charles VIII had succeeded his father, Louis XI, on the
30th of August, 1483. Louis by dint of executions, had tranquillised
his kingdom and smoothed the way for a child who ascended the throne
under the regency of a woman. And the regency had been a glorious
one, and had put down the pretensions of princes of the blood, put an
end to civil wars, and united to the crown all that yet remained of
the great independent fiefs. The result was that at the epoch where
we now are, here was Charles VIII, about twenty-two years of age, a
prince (if we are to believe La Tremouille) little of body but great
of heart; a child (if we are to believe Commines) only now making his
first flight from the nest, destitute of both sense and money, feeble
in person, full of self-will, and consorting rather with fools than
with the wise; lastly, if we are to believe Guicciardini, who was an
Italian, might well have brought a somewhat partial judgment to bear
upon the subject, a young man of little wit concerning the actions of
men, but carried away by an ardent desire for rule and the
acquisition of glory, a desire based far more on his shallow
character and impetuosity than on any consciousness of genius: he was
an enemy to all fatigue and all business, and when he tried to give
his attention to it he showed himself always totally wanting in
prudence and judgment. If anything in him appeared at first sight to
be worthy of praise, on a closer inspection it was found to be
something nearer akin to vice than to virtue. He was liberal, it is
true, but without thought, with no measure and no discrimination. He
was sometimes inflexible in will; but this was through obstinacy
rather than a constant mind; and what his flatterers called goodness
deserved far more the name of insensibility to injuries or poverty of
spirit.
As to his physical appearance, if we are to believe the same author,
it was still less admirable, and answered marvellously to his
weakness of mind and character. He was small, with a large head, a
short thick neck, broad chest, and high shoulders; his thighs and
legs were long and thin; and as his face also was ugly--and was only
redeemed by the dignity and force of his glance--and all his limbs
were disproportionate with one another, he had rather the appearance
of a monster than a man. Such was he whom Fortune was destined to
make a conqueror, for whom Heaven was reserving more glory than he
had power to carry.
So much for France.
The Imperial throne was occupied by Frederic III, who had been
rightly named the Peaceful, not for the reason that he had always
maintained peace, but because, having constantly been beaten, he had
always been forced to make it. The first proof he had given of this
very philosophical forbearance was during his journey to Rome,
whither he betook himself to be consecrated. In crossing the
Apennines he was attacked by brigands. They robbed him, but he made
no pursuit. And so, encouraged by example and by the impunity of
lesser thieves, the greater ones soon took part in the robberies.
Amurath seized part of Hungary. Mathias Corvinus took Lower Austria,
and Frederic consoled himself for these usurpations by repeating the
maxim, Forgetfulness is the best cure for the losses we suffer. At
the time we have now reached, he had just, after a reign of fifty-
three years, affianced his son Maximilian to Marie of Burgundy and
had put under the ban of the Empire his son-in-law, Albert of
Bavaria, who laid claim to the ownership of the Tyrol. He was
therefore too full of his family affairs to be troubled about Italy.
Besides, he was busy looking for a motto for the house of Austria, an
occupation of the highest importance for a man of the character of
Frederic III. This motto, which Charles V was destined almost to
render true, was at last discovered, to the great joy of the old
emperor, who, judging that he had nothing more to do on earth after
he had given this last proof of sagacity, died on the 19th of August,
1493; leaving the empire to his son Maximilian.
This motto was simply founded on the five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, the
initial letters of these five words
"AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO."
This means
"It is the destiny of Austria to rule over the whole world."
So much for Germany.
Now that we have cast a glance over the four nations which were on
the way, as we said before, to become European Powers, let us turn
our attention to those secondary States which formed a circle more
contiguous to Rome, and whose business it was to serve as armour, so
to speak, to the spiritual queen of the world, should it please any
of these political giants whom we have described to make
encroachments with a view to an attack, on the seas or the mountains,
the Adriatic Gulf or the Alps, the Mediterranean or the Apennines.
These were the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, the magnificent
republic of Florence, and the most serene republic of Venice.
The kingdom of Naples was in the hands of the old Ferdinand, whose
birth was not only illegitimate, but probably also well within the
prohibited degrees. His father, Alfonso of Aragon, received his
crown from Giovanna of Naples, who had adopted him as her successor.
But since, in the fear of having no heir, the queen on her deathbed
had named two instead of one, Alfonso had to sustain his rights
against Rene. The two aspirants for some time disputed the crown.
At last the house of Aragon carried the day over the house of Anjou,
and in the course of the year 1442, Alfonso definitely secured his
seat on the throne. Of this sort were the claims of the defeated
rival which we shall see Charles VIII maintaining later on.
Ferdinand had neither the courage nor the genius of his father, and
yet he triumphed over his enemies, one after another he had two
rivals, both far superior in merit to him self. The one was his
nephew, the Count of Viana, who, basing his claim on his uncle's
shameful birth, commanded the whole Aragonese party; the other was
Duke John of Calabria, who commanded the whole Angevin party. Still
he managed to hold the two apart, and to keep himself on the throne
by dint of his prudence, which often verged upon duplicity. He had a
cultivated mind, and had studied the sciences--above all, law. He
was of middle height, with a large handsome head, his brow open and
admirably framed in beautiful white hair, which fell nearly down to
his shoulders. Moreover, though he had rarely exercised his physical
strength in arms, this strength was so great that one day, when he
happened to be on the square of the Mercato Nuovo at Naples, he
seized by the horns a bull that had escaped and stopped him short, in
spite of all the efforts the animal made to escape from his hands.
Now the election of Alexander had caused him great uneasiness, and in
spite of his usual prudence he had not been able to restrain himself
from saying before the bearer of the news that not only did he fail
to rejoice in this election, but also that he did not think that any
Christian could rejoice in it, seeing that Borgia, having always been
a bad man, would certainly make a bad pope. To this he added that,
even were the choice an excellent one and such as would please
everybody else, it would be none the less fatal to the house of
Aragon, although Roderigo was born her subject and owed to her the
origin and progress of his fortunes; for wherever reasons of state
come in, the ties of blood and parentage are soon forgotten, and,
'a fortiori', relations arising from the obligations of nationality.
Thus, one may see that Ferdinand judged Alexander VI with his usual
perspicacity; this, however, did not hinder him, as we shall soon
perceive, from being the first to contract an alliance with him.
The duchy of Milan belonged nominally to John Galeazzo, grandson of
Francesco Sforza, who had seized it by violence on the 26th of
February, 1450, and bequeathed it to his son, Galeazzo Maria, father
of the young prince now reigning; we say nominally, because the real
master of the Milanese was at this period not the legitimate heir who
was supposed to possess it, but his uncle Ludovico, surnamed
'il Moro', because of the mulberry tree which he bore in his arms.
After being exiled with his two brothers, Philip who died of poison
in 1479, and Ascanio who became the cardinal, he returned to Milan
some days after the assassination of Galeazzo Maria, which took place
on the 26th of December 1476, in St. Stephen's Church, and assumed
the regency for the young duke, who at that time was only eight years
old. From now onward, even after his nephew had reached the age of
two-and-twenty, Ludovico continued to rule, and according to all
probabilities was destined to rule a long time yet; for, some days
after the poor young man had shown a desire to take the reins
himself, he had fallen sick, and it was said, and not in a whisper,
that he had taken one of those slow but mortal poisons of which
princes made so frequent a use at this period, that, even when a
malady was natural, a cause was always sought connected with some
great man's interests. However it may have been, Ludovico had
relegated his nephew, now too weak to busy himself henceforward with
the affairs of his duchy, to the castle of Pavia, where he lay and
languished under the eyes of his wife Isabella, daughter of King
Ferdinand of Naples.
As to Ludovico, he was an ambitious man, full of courage and
astuteness, familiar with the sword and with poison, which he used
alternately, according to the occasion, without feeling any
repugnance or any predilection for either of them; but quite decided
to be his nephew's heir whether he died or lived.
Florence, although she had preserved the name of a republic, had
little by little lost all her liberties, and belonged in fact, if not
by right, to Piero dei Medici, to whom she had been bequeathed as a
paternal legacy by Lorenzo, as we have seen, at the risk of his
soul's salvation.
The son, unfortunately, was far from having the genius of his father:
he was handsome, it is true, whereas Lorenzo, on the contrary, was
remarkably ugly; he had an agreeable, musical voice, whereas Lorenzo
had always spoken through his nose; he was instructed in Latin and
Greek, his conversation was pleasant and easy, and he improvised
verses almost as well as the so-called Magnificent; but he was both
ignorant of political affairs and haughtily insolent in his behaviour
to those who had made them their study. Added to this, he was an
ardent lover of pleasure, passionately addicted to women, incessantly
occupied with bodily exercises that should make him shine in their
eyes, above all with tennis, a game at which he very highly excelled:
he promised himself that, when the period of mourning was fast, he
would occupy the attention not only of Florence but of the whole of
Italy, by the splendour of his courts and the renown of his fetes.
Piero dei Medici had at any rate formed this plan; but Heaven decreed
otherwise.
As to the most serene republic of Venice, whose doge was Agostino
Barbarigo, she had attained, at the time we have reached, to her
highest degree of power and splendour. From Cadiz to the Palus
Maeotis, there was no port that was not open to her thousand ships;
she possessed in Italy, beyond the coastline of the canals and the
ancient duchy of Venice, the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Crema,
Verona, Vicenza, and Padua; she owned the marches of Treviso, which
comprehend the districts of Feltre, Belluno, Cadore, Polesella of
Rovigo, and the principality of Ravenna; she also owned the Friuli,
except Aquileia; Istria, except Trieste; she owned, on the east side
of the Gulf, Zara, Spalatra, and the shore of Albania; in the Ionian
Sea, the islands of Zante and Corfu; in Greece, Lepanto and Patras;
in the Morea, Morone, Corone, Neapolis, and Argos; lastly, in the
Archipelago, besides several little towns and stations on the coast,
she owned Candia and the kingdom of Cyprus.
Thus from the mouth of the Po to the eastern extremity of the
Mediterranean, the most serene republic was mistress of the whole
coastline, and Italy and Greece seemed to be mere suburbs of Venice.
In the intervals of space left free between Naples, Milan, Florence,
and Venice, petty tyrants had arisen who exercised an absolute
sovereignty over their territories: thus the Colonnas were at Ostia
and at Nettuna, the Montefeltri at Urbino, the Manfredi at Faenza,
the Bentivogli at Bologna, the Malatesta family at Rimini, the
Vitelli at Citta di Castello, the Baglioni at Perugia, the Orsini at
Vicovaro, and the princes of Este at Ferrara.
Finally, in the centre of this immense circle, composed of great
Powers, of secondary States, and of little tyrannies, Rome was set on
high, the most exalted, yet the weakest of all, without influence,
without lands, without an army, without gold. It was the concern of
the new pope to secure all this: let us see, therefore, what manner
of man was this Alexander VI, for undertaking and accomplishing such
a project.
CHAPTER III
RODERIGO LENZUOLO was barn at Valencia, in Spain, in 1430 or 1431,
and on his mother's side was descended, as some writers declare, of a
family of royal blood, which had cast its eyes on the tiara only
after cherishing hopes of the crowns of Aragon and Valencia.
Roderigo from his infancy had shown signs of a marvellous quickness
of mind, and as he grew older he exhibited an intelligence extremely
apt far the study of sciences, especially law and jurisprudence: the
result was that his first distinctions were gained in the law, a
profession wherein he soon made a great reputation by his ability in
the discussion of the most thorny cases. All the same, he was not
slow to leave this career, and abandoned it quite suddenly for the
military profession, which his father had followed; but after various
actions which served to display his presence of mind and courage, he
was as much disgusted with this profession as with the other; and
since it happened that at the very time he began to feel this disgust
his father died, leaving a considerable fortune, he resolved to do no
more work, but to live according to his own fancies and caprices.
About this time he became the lover of a widow who had two daughters.
The widow dying, Roderigo took the girls under his protection, put
one into a convent, and as the other was one of the loveliest women
imaginable, made her his mistress. This was the notorious Rosa
Vanozza, by whom he had five children--Francesco, Caesar, Lucrezia,
and Goffredo; the name of the fifth is unknown.
Roderigo, retired from public affairs, was given up entirely to the
affections of a lover and a father, when he heard that his uncle, who
loved him like a son, had been elected pope under the name of
Calixtus III. But the young man was at this time so much a lover
that love imposed silence on ambition; and indeed he was almost
terrified at the exaltation of his uncle, which was no doubt destined
to force him once more into public life. Consequently, instead of
hurrying to Rome, as anyone else in his place would have done, he was
content to indite to His Holiness a letter in which he begged for the
continuation of his favours, and wished him a long and happy reign.
This reserve on the part of one of his relatives, contrasted with the
ambitious schemes which beset the new pope at every step, struck
Calixtus III in a singular way: he knew the stuff that was in young
Roderigo, and at a time when he was besieged on all sides by
mediocrities, this powerful nature holding modestly aside gained new
grandeur in his eyes so he replied instantly to Roderigo that on the
receipt of his letter he must quit Spain for Italy, Valencia for
Rome.
This letter uprooted Roderigo from the centre of happiness he had
created for himself, and where he might perhaps have slumbered on
like an ordinary man, if fortune had not thus interposed to drag him
forcibly away. Roderigo was happy, Roderigo was rich; the evil
passions which were natural to him had been, if not extinguished,--at
least lulled; he was frightened himself at the idea of changing the
quiet life he was leading for the ambitious, agitated career that was
promised him; and instead of obeying his uncle, he delayed the
preparations for departure, hoping that Calixtus would forget him.
It was not so: two months after he received the letter from the pope,
there arrived at Valencia a prelate from Rome, the bearer of
Roderigo's nomination to a benefice worth 20,000 ducats a year, and
also a positive order to the holder of the post to come and take
possession of his charge as soon as possible.
Holding back was no longer feasible: so Roderigo obeyed; but as he
did not wish to be separated from the source whence had sprung eight
years of happiness, Rosa Vanozza also left Spain, and while he was
going to Rome, she betook herself to Venice, accompanied by two
confidential servants, and under the protection of a Spanish
gentleman named Manuel Melchior.
Fortune kept the promises she had made to Roderigo: the pope received
him as a son, and made him successively Archbishop of Valencia,
Cardinal-Deacon, and Vice-Chancellor. To all these favours Calixtus
added a revenue of 20,000 ducats, so that at the age of scarcely
thirty-five Roderigo found himself the equal of a prince in riches
and power.
Roderigo had had some reluctance about accepting the cardinalship,
which kept him fast at Rome, and would have preferred to be General
of the Church, a position which would have allowed him more liberty
for seeing his mistress and his family; but his uncle Calixtus made
him reckon with the possibility of being his successor some day, and
from that moment the idea of being the supreme head of kings and
nations took such hold of Roderigo, that he no longer had any end in
view but that which his uncle had made him entertain.
From that day forward, there began to grow up in the young cardinal
that talent for hypocrisy which made of him the most perfect
incarnation of the devil that has perhaps ever existed; and Roderigo
was no longer the same man: with words of repentance and humility on
his lips, his head bowed as though he were bearing the weight of his
past sins, disparaging the riches which he had acquired and which,
according to him, were the wealth of the poor and ought to return to
the poor, he passed his life in churches, monasteries, and hospitals,
acquiring, his historian tells us, even in the eyes of his enemies,
the reputation of a Solomon for wisdom, of a Job for patience, and of
a very Moses for his promulgation of the word of God: Rosa Vanozza
was the only person in the world who could appreciate the value of
this pious cardinal's conversion.
It proved a lucky thing for Roderiga that he had assumed this pious
attitude, for his protector died after a reign of three years three
months and nineteen days, and he was now sustained by his own merit
alone against the numerous enemies he had made by his rapid rise to
fortune: so during the whole of the reign of Pius II he lived always
apart from public affairs, and only reappeared in the days of Sixtus
IV, who made him the gift of the abbacy of Subiaco, and sent him in
the capacity of ambassador to the kings of Aragon and Portugal. On
his return, which took place during the pontificate of Innocent VIII,
he decided to fetch his family at last to Rome: thither they came,
escorted by Don Manuel Melchior, who from that moment passed as the
husband of Rosa Vanozza, and took the name of Count Ferdinand of
Castile. The Cardinal Roderigo received the noble Spaniard as a
countryman and a friend; and he, who expected to lead a most retired
life, engaged a house in the street of the Lungara, near the church
of Regina Coeli, on the banks of the Tiber. There it was that, after
passing the day in prayers and pious works, Cardinal Roderigo used to
repair each evening and lay aside his mask. And it was said, though
nobody could prove it, that in this house infamous scenes passed:
Report said the dissipations were of so dissolute a character that
their equals had never been seen in Rome. With a view to checking
the rumours that began to spread abroad, Roderigo sent Caesar to
study at Pisa, and married Lucrezia to a young gentleman of Aragon;
thus there only remained at home Rosa Vanozza and her two sons: such
was the state of things when Innocent VIII died and Roderigo Borgia
was proclaimed pope.
We have seen by what means the nomination was effected; and so the
five cardinals who had taken no part in this simony--namely, the
Cardinals of Naples, Sierra, Portugal, Santa Maria-in-Porticu, and
St. Peter-in-Vinculis--protested loudly against this election, which
they treated as a piece of jobbery; but Roderigo had none the less,
however it was done, secured his majority; Roderigo was none the less
the two hundred and sixtieth successor of St. Peter.
Alexander VI, however, though he had arrived at his object, did not
dare throw off at first the mask which the Cardinal Bargia had worn
so long, although when he was apprised of his election he could not
dissimulate his joy; indeed, on hearing the favourable result of the
scrutiny, he lifted his hands to heaven and cried, in the accents of
satisfied ambition, "Am I then pope? Am I then Christ's vicar? Am I
then the keystone of the Christian world?"
"Yes, holy father," replied Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the same who had
sold to Roderigo the nine votes that were at his disposal at the
Conclave for four mules laden with silver; "and we hope by your
election to give glory to God, repose to the Church, and joy to
Christendom, seeing that you have been chosen by the Almighty Himself
as the most worthy among all your brethren."
But in the short interval occupied by this reply, the new pope had
already assumed the papal authority, and in a humble voice and with
hands crossed upon his breast, he spoke:
"We hope that God will grant us His powerful aid, in spite of our
weakness, and that He will do for us that which He did for the
apostle when aforetime He put into his hands the keys of heaven and
entrusted to him the government of the Church, a government which
without the aid of God would prove too heavy a burden for mortal man;
but God promised that His Spirit should direct him; God will do the
same, I trust, for us; and for your part we fear not lest any of you
fail in that holy obedience which is due unto the head of the Church,
even as the flock of Christ was bidden to follow the prince of the
apostles."
Having spoken these words, Alexander donned the pontifical robes, and
through the windows of the Vatican had strips of paper thrown out on
which his name was written in Latin. These, blown by the wind,
seemed to convey to the whole world the news of the great event which
was about to change the face of Italy. The same day couriers started
for all the courts of Europe.
Caesar Borgia learned the news of his father's election at the
University of Pisa, where he was a student. His ambition had
sometimes dreamed of such good fortune, yet his joy was little short
of madness. He was then a young man, about twenty-two or twenty-four
years of age, skilful in all bodily exercises, and especially in
fencing; he could ride barebacked the most fiery steeds, could cut
off the head of a bull at a single sword-stroke; moreover, he was
arrogant, jealous, and insincere. According to Tammasi, he was great
among the godless, as his brother Francesco was good among the great.
As to his face, even contemporary authors have left utterly different
descriptions; for same have painted him as a monster of ugliness,
while others, on the contrary, extol his beauty. This contradiction
is due to the fact that at certain times of the year, and especially
in the spring, his face was covered with an eruption which, so long
as it lasted, made him an object of horror and disgust, while all the
rest of the year he was the sombre, black-haired cavalier with pale
skin and tawny beard whom Raphael shows us in the fine portrait he
made of him. And historians, both chroniclers and painters, agree as
to his fixed and powerful gaze, behind which burned a ceaseless
flame, giving to his face something infernal and superhuman. Such
was the man whose fortune was to fulfil all his desires. He had
taken for his motto, 'Aut Caesar, aut nihil': Caesar or nothing.
Caesar posted to Rome with certain of his friends, and scarcely was
he recognised at the gates of the city when the deference shown to
him gave instant proof of the change in his fortunes: at the Vatican
the respect was twice as great; mighty men bowed down before him as
before one mightier than themselves. And so, in his impatience, he
stayed not to visit his mother or any other member of his family, but
went straight to the pope to kiss his feet; and as the pope had been
forewarned of his coming, he awaited him in the midst of a brilliant
and numerous assemblage of cardinals, with the three other brothers
standing behind him. His Holiness received Caesar with a gracious
countenance; still, he did not allow himself any demonstration of his
paternal love, but, bending towards him, kissed him on the forehead,
and inquired how he was and how he had fared on his journey. Caesar
replied that he was wonderfully well, and altogether at the service
of His Holiness: that, as to the journey, the trifling inconveniences
and short fatigue had been compensated, and far mare than
compensated, by the joy which he felt in being able to adore upon the
papal throne a pope who was so worthy. At these words, leaving
Caesar still on his knees, and reseating himself--for he had risen
from his seat to embrace him--the pope assumed a grave and composed
expression of face, and spoke as follows, loud enough to be heard by
all, and slowly enough far everyone present to be able to ponder and
retain in his memory even the least of his words:
"We are convinced, Caesar, that you are peculiarly rejoiced in
beholding us on this sublime height, so far above our deserts,
whereto it has pleased the Divine goodness to exalt us. This joy of
yours is first of all our due because of the love we have always
borne you and which we bear you still, and in the second place is
prompted by your own personal interest, since henceforth you may feel
sure of receiving from our pontifical hand those benefits which your
own good works shall deserve. But if your joy--and this we say to
you as we have even now said to your brothers--if your joy is founded
on ought else than this, you are very greatly mistaken, Caesar, and
you will find yourself sadly deceived. Perhaps we have been
ambitious--we confess this humbly before the face of all men--
passionately and immoderately ambitious to attain to the dignity of
sovereign pontiff, and to reach this end we have followed every path
that is open to human industry; but we have acted thus, vowing an
inward vow that when once we had reached our goal, we would follow no
other path but that which conduces best to the service of God and to
the advancement of the Holy See, so that the glorious memory of the
deeds that we shall do may efface the shameful recollection of the
deeds we have already done. Thus shall we, let us hope, leave to
those who follow us a track where upon if they find not the footsteps
of a saint, they may at least tread in the path of a true pontiff.
God, who has furthered the means, claims at our hands the fruits, and
we desire to discharge to the full this mighty debt that we have
incurred to Him; and accordingly we refuse to arouse by any deceit
the stern rigour of His judgments. One sole hindrance could have
power to shake our good intentions, and that might happen should we
feel too keen an interest in your fortunes. Therefore are we armed
beforehand against our love, and therefore have we prayed to God
beforehand that we stumble not because of you; for in the path of
favouritism a pope cannot slip without a fall, and cannot fall
without injury and dishonour to the Holy See. Even to the end of our
life we shall deplore the faults which have brought this experience
home to us; and may it please Gad that our uncle Calixtus of blessed
memory bear not this day in purgatory the burden of our sins, more
heavy, alas, than his own! Ah, he was rich in every virtue, he was
full of good intentions; but he loved too much his own people, and
among them he loved me chief. And so he suffered this love to lead
him blindly astray, all this love that he bore to his kindred, who to
him were too truly flesh of his flesh, so that he heaped upon the
heads of a few persons only, and those perhaps the least worthy,
benefits which would more fittingly have rewarded the deserts of
many. In truth, he bestowed upon our house treasures that should
never have been amassed at the expense of the poor, or else should
have been turned to a better purpose. He severed from the
ecclesiastical State, already weak and poor, the duchy of Spoleto and
other wealthy properties, that he might make them fiefs to us; he
confided to our weak hands the vice-chancellorship, the vice-
prefecture of Rome, the generalship of the Church, and all the other
most important offices, which, instead of being monopolised by us,
should have been conferred on those who were most meritorious.
Moreover, there were persons who were raised on our recommendation to
posts of great dignity, although they had no claims but such as our
undue partiality accorded them; others were left out with no reason
for their failure except the jealousy excited in us by their virtues.
To rob Ferdinand of Aragon of the kingdom of Naples, Calixtus kindled
a terrible war, which by a happy issue only served to increase our
fortune, and by an unfortunate issue must have brought shame and
disaster upon the Holy See. Lastly, by allowing himself to be
governed by men who sacrificed public good to their private
interests, he inflicted an injury, not only upon the pontifical
throne and his own reputation, but what is far worse, far more
deadly, upon his own conscience. And yet, O wise judgments of God!
hard and incessantly though he toiled to establish our fortunes,
scarcely had he left empty that supreme seat which we occupy to-day,
when we were cast down from the pinnacle whereon we had climbed,
abandoned to the fury of the rabble and the vindictive hatred of the
Roman barons, who chose to feel offended by our goodness to their
enemies. Thus, not only, we tell you, Caesar, not only did we plunge
headlong from the summit of our grandeur, losing the worldly goods
and dignities which our uncle had heaped at our feet, but for very
peril of our life we were condemned to a voluntary exile, we and our
friends, and in this way only did we contrive to escape the storm
which our too good fortune had stirred up against us. Now this is a
plain proof that God mocks at men's designs when they are bad ones.
How great an error is it for any pope to devote more care to the
welfare of a house, which cannot last more than a few years, than to
the glory of the Church, which will last for ever! What utter folly
for any public man whose position is not inherited and cannot be
bequeathed to his posterity, to support the edifice of his grandeur
on any other basis than the noblest virtue practised for the general
good, and to suppose that he can ensure the continuance of his own
fortune otherwise than by taking all precautions against sudden
whirlwinds which are want to arise in the midst of a calm, and to
blow up the storm-clouds I mean the host of enemies. Now any one of
these enemies who does his worst can cause injuries far more powerful
than any help that is at all likely to come from a hundred friends
and their lying promises. If you and your brothers walk in the path
of virtue which we shall now open for you, every wish of your heart
shall be instantly accomplished; but if you take the other path, if
you have ever hoped that our affection will wink at disorderly life,
then you will very soon find out that we are truly pope, Father of
the Church, not father of the family; that, vicar of Christ as we
are, we shall act as we deem best for Christendom, and not as you
deem best for your own private good. And now that we have come to a
thorough understanding, Caesar, receive our pontifical blessing."
And with these words, Alexander VI rose up, laid his hands upon his
son's head, for Caesar was still kneeling, and then retired into his
apartments, without inviting him to follow.
The young man remained awhile stupefied at this discourse, so utterly
unexpected, so utterly destructive at one fell blow to his most
cherished hopes. He rose giddy and staggering like a drunken man,
and at once leaving the Vatican, hurried to his mother, whom he had
forgotten before, but sought now in his despair. Rosa Vanozza
possessed all the vices and all the virtues of a Spanish courtesan;
her devotion to the Virgin amounted to superstition, her fondness for
her children to weakness, and her love for Roderigo to sensuality.
In the depth of her heart she relied on the influence she had been
able to exercise over him for nearly thirty years; and like a snake,
she knew haw to envelop him in her coils when the fascination of her
glance had lost its power. Rosa knew of old the profound hypocrisy
of her lover, and thus she was in no difficulty about reassuring
Caesar.
Lucrezia was with her mother when Caesar arrived; the two young
people exchanged a lover-like kiss beneath her very eyes: and before
he left Caesar had made an appointment for the same evening with
Lucrezia, who was now living apart from her husband, to whom Roderigo
paid a pension in her palace of the Via del Pelegrino, opposite the
Campo dei Fiori, and there enjoying perfect liberty.
In the evening, at the hour fixed, Caesar appeared at Lucrezia's; but
he found there his brother Francesco. The two young men had never
been friends. Still, as their tastes were very different, hatred
with Francesco was only the fear of the deer for the hunter; but with
Caesar it was the desire for vengeance and that lust for blood which
lurks perpetually in the heart of a tiger. The two brothers none the
less embraced, one from general kindly feeling, the other from
hypocrisy; but at first sight of one another the sentiment of a
double rivalry, first in their father's and then in their sister's
good graces, had sent the blood mantling to the cheek of Francesco,
and called a deadly pallor into Caesar's. So the two young men sat
on, each resolved not to be the first to leave, when all at once
there was a knock at the door, and a rival was announced before whom
both of them were bound to give way: it was their father.
Rosa Vanazza was quite right in comforting Caesar. Indeed, although
Alexander VI had repudiated the abuses of nepotism, he understood
very well the part that was to be played for his benefit by his sons
and his daughter; for he knew he could always count on Lucrezia and
Caesar, if not on Francesco and Goffredo. In these matters the
sister was quite worthy of her brother. Lucrezia was wanton in
imagination, godless by nature, ambitious and designing: she had a
craving for pleasure, admiration, honours, money, jewels, gorgeous
stuffs, and magnificent mansions. A true Spaniard beneath her golden
tresses, a courtesan beneath her frank looks, she carried the head of
a Raphael Madonna, and concealed the heart of a Messalina. She was
dear to Roderigo both as daughter and as mistress, and he saw himself
reflected in her as in a magic mirror, every passion and every vice.
Lucrezia and Caesar were accordingly the best beloved of his heart,
and the three composed that diabolical trio which for eleven years
occupied the pontifical throne, like a mocking parody of the heavenly
Trinity.
Nothing occurred at first to give the lie to Alexander's professions
of principle in the discourse he addressed to Caesar, and the first
year of his pontificate exceeded all the hopes of Rome at the time of
his election. He arranged for the provision of stores in the public
granaries with such liberality, that within the memory of man there
had never been such astonishing abundance; and with a view to
extending the general prosperity to the lowest class, he organised
numerous doles to be paid out of his private fortune, which made it
possible for the very poor to participate in the general banquet from
which they had been excluded for long enough. The safety of the city
was secured, from the very first days of his accession, by the
establishment of a strong and vigilant police force, and a tribunal
consisting of four magistrates of irreproachable character, empowered
to prosecute all nocturnal crimes, which during the last pontificate
had been so common that their very numbers made impunity certain:
these judges from the first showed a severity which neither the rank
nor the purse of the culprit could modify. This presented such a
great contrast to the corruption of the last reign,--in the course of
which the vice-chamberlain one day remarked in public, when certain
people were complaining of the venality of justice, "God wills not
that a sinner die, but that he live and pay,"--that the capital of
the Christian world felt for one brief moment restored to the happy
days of the papacy. So, at the end of a year, Alexander VI had
reconquered that spiritual credit, so to speak, which his
predecessors lost. His political credit was still to be established,
if he was to carry out the first part of his gigantic scheme. To
arrive at this, he must employ two agencies--alliances and conquests.
His plan was to begin with alliances. The gentleman of Aragon who
had married Lucrezia when she was only the daughter of Cardinal
Roderigo Borgia was not a man powerful enough, either by birth and
fortune or by intellect, to enter with any sort of effect into the
plots and plans of Alexander VI; the separation was therefore changed
into a divorce, and Lucrezia Borgia was now free to remarry.
Alexander opened up two negotiations at the same time: he needed an
ally to keep a watch on the policy of the neighbouring States. John
Sforza, grandson of Alexander Sforza, brother of the great Francis I,
Duke of Milan, was lord of Pesaro; the geographical situation of this
place, an the coast, on the way between Florence and Venice, was
wonderfully convenient for his purpose; so Alexander first cast an
eye upon him, and as the interest of both parties was evidently the
same, it came about that John Sforza was very soon Lucrezia's second
husband.
At the same time overtures had been made to Alfonso of Aragon, heir
presumptive to the crown of Naples, to arrange a marriage between
Dana Sancia, his illegitimate daughter, and Goffreda, the pope's
third son; but as the old Ferdinand wanted to make the best bargain
he could out of it; he dragged on the negotiations as long as
possible, urging that the two children were not of marriageable age,
and so, highly honoured as he felt in such a prospective alliance,
there was no hurry about the engagement. Matters stopped at this
point, to the great annoyance of Alexander VI, who saw through this
excuse, and understood that the postponement was nothing more or less
than a refusal. Accordingly Alexander and Ferdinand remained in
statu quo, equals in the political game, both on the watch till
events should declare for one or other. The turn of fortune was for
Alexander.
Italy, though tranquil, was instinctively conscious that her calm was
nothing but the lull which goes before a storm. She was too rich and
too happy to escape the envy of other nations. As yet the plains of
Pisa had not been reduced to marsh-lands by the combined negligence
and jealousy of the Florentine Republic, neither had the rich country
that lay around Rome been converted into a barren desert by the wars
of the Colonna and Orsini families; not yet had the Marquis of
Marignan razed to the ground a hundred and twenty villages in the
republic of Siena alone; and though the Maremma was unhealthy, it was
not yet a poisonous marsh: it is a fact that Flavio Blando, writing
in 1450, describes Ostia as being merely less flourishing than in the
days of the Romans, when she had numbered 50,000 inhabitants, whereas
now in our own day there are barely 30 in all.
The Italian peasants were perhaps the most blest on the face of the
earth: instead of living scattered about the country in solitary
fashion, they lived in villages that were enclosed by walls as a
protection for their harvests, animals, and farm implements; their
houses--at any rate those that yet stand--prove that they lived in
much more comfortable and beautiful surroundings than the ordinary
townsman of our day. Further, there was a community of interests,
and many people collected together in the fortified villages, with
the result that little by little they attained to an importance never
acquired by the boorish French peasants or the German serfs; they
bore arms, they had a common treasury, they elected their own
magistrates, and whenever they went out to fight, it was to save
their common country.
Also commerce was no less flourishing than agriculture; Italy at this
period was rich in industries--silk, wool, hemp, fur, alum, sulphur,
bitumen; those products which the Italian soil could not bring forth
were imported, from the Black Sea, from Egypt, from Spain, from
France, and often returned whence they came, their worth doubled by
labour and fine workmanship. The rich man brought his merchandise,
the poor his industry: the one was sure of finding workmen, the other
was sure of finding work.
Art also was by no means behindhand: Dante, Giotto, Brunelleschi,
and Donatello were dead, but Ariosto, Raphael, Bramante, and Michael
Angelo were now living. Rome, Florence, and Naples had inherited the
masterpieces of antiquity; and the manuscripts of AEschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides had come (thanks to the conquest of Mahomet
II) to rejoin the statue of Xanthippus and the works of Phidias and
Praxiteles. The principal sovereigns of Italy had come to
understand, when they let their eyes dwell upon the fat harvests, the
wealthy villages, the flourishing manufactories, and the marvellous
churches, and then compared with them the poor and rude nations of
fighting men who surrounded them on all sides, that some day or other
they were destined to become for other countries what America was for
Spain, a vast gold-mine for them to work. In consequence of this, a
league offensive and defensive had been signed, about 1480, by
Naples, Milan, Florence, and Ferrara, prepared to take a stand
against enemies within or without, in Italy or outside. Ludovico
Sforza, who was more than anyone else interested in maintaining this
league, because he was nearest to France, whence the storm seemed to
threaten, saw in the new pope's election means not only of
strengthening the league, but of making its power and unity
conspicuous in the sight of Europe.
CHAPTER IV
On the occasion of each new election to the papacy, it is the custom
for all the Christian States to send a solemn embassy to Rome, to
renew their oath of allegiance to the Holy Father. Ludovico Sforza
conceived the idea that the ambassadors of the four Powers should
unite and make their entry into Rome on the same day, appointing one
of their envoy, viz. the representative of the King of Naples, to be
spokesman for all four. Unluckily, this plan did not agree with the
magnificent projects of Piero dei Medici. That proud youth, who had
been appointed ambassador of the Florentine Republic, had seen in the
mission entrusted to him by his fellow-citizens the means of making a
brilliant display of his own wealth. From the day of his nomination
onwards, his palace was constantly filled with tailors, jewellers,
and merchants of priceless stuffs; magnificent clothes had been made
for him, embroidered with precious stones which he had selected from
the family treasures. All his jewels, perhaps the richest in Italy,
were distributed about the liveries of his pages, and one of them,
his favourite, was to wear a collar of pearls valued by itself at
100,000 ducats, or almost, a million of our francs. In his party the
Bishop of Arezzo, Gentile, who had once been Lorenzo dei Medici's
tutor, was elected as second ambassador, and it was his duty to
speak. Now Gentile, who had prepared his speech, counted on his
eloquence to charm the ear quite as much as Piero counted on his
riches to dazzle the eye. But the eloquence of Gentile would be lost
completely if nobody was to speak but the ambassador of the King of
Naples; and the magnificence of Piero dei Medici would never be
noticed at all if he went to Rome mixed up with all the other
ambassadors. These two important interests, compromised by the Duke
of Milan's proposition, changed the whole face of Italy.
Ludovico Sforza had already made sure of Ferdinand's promise to
conform to the plan he had invented, when the old king, at the
solicitation of Piero, suddenly drew back. Sforza found out how this
change had come about, and learned that it was Piero's influence that
had overmastered his own. He could not disentangle the real motives
that had promised the change, and imagined there was some secret
league against himself: he attributed the changed political programme
to the death of Lorenzo dei Medici. But whatever its cause might be,
it was evidently prejudicial to his own interests: Florence, Milan's
old ally, was abandoning her for Naples. He resolved to throw a
counter weight into the scales; so, betraying to Alexander the policy
of Piero and Ferdinand, he proposed to form a defensive and offensive
alliance with him and admit the republic of Venice; Duke Hercules III
of Ferrara was also to be summoned to pronounce for one or other of
the two leagues. Alexander VI, wounded by Ferdinand's treatment of
himself, accepted Ludovico Sforza's proposition, and an Act of
Confederation was signed on the 22nd of April, 1493, by which the new
allies pledged themselves to set on foot for the maintenance of the
public peace an army of 20,000 horse and 6,000 infantry.
Ferdinand was frightened when he beheld the formation of this league;
but he thought he could neutralise its effects by depriving Ludovico
Sforza of his regency, which he had already kept beyond the proper
time, though as yet he was not strictly an usurper. Although the
young Galeazzo, his nephew, had reached the age of two-and-twenty,
Ludovico Sforza none the less continued regent. Now Ferdinand
definitely proposed to the Duke of Milan that he should resign the
sovereign power into the hands of his nephew, on pain of being
declared an usurper.
This was a bold stroke; but there was a risk of inciting Ludovico
Sforza to start one of those political plots that he was so familiar
with, never recoiling from any situation, however dangerous it might
be. This was exactly what happened: Sforza, uneasy about his duchy,
resolved to threaten Ferdinand's kingdom.
Nothing could be easier: he knew the warlike nations of Charles VIII,
and the pretensions of the house of France to the kingdom of Naples.
He sent two ambassadors to invite the young king to claim the rights
of Anjou usurped by Aragon; and with a view to reconciling Charles to
so distant and hazardous an expedition, offered him a free and
friendly passage through his own States.
Such a proposition was welcome to Charles VIII, as we might suppose
from our knowledge of his character; a magnificent prospect was
opened to him as by an enchanter: what Ludovica Sforza was offering
him was virtually the command of the Mediterranean, the protectorship
of the whole of Italy; it was an open road, through Naples and
Venice, that well might lead to the conquest of Turkey or the Holy
Land, if he ever had the fancy to avenge the disasters of Nicapolis
and Mansourah. So the proposition was accepted, and a secret
alliance was signed, with Count Charles di Belgiojasa and the Count
of Cajazza acting for Ludovica Sforza, and the Bishop of St. Malo and
Seneschal de Beaucaire far Charles VIII. By this treaty it was
agreed:--
That the King of France should attempt the conquest of the kingdom of
Naples;
That the Duke of Milan should grant a passage to the King of France
through his territories, and accompany him with five hundred lances;
That the Duke of Milan should permit the King of France to send out
as many ships of war as he pleased from Genoa;
Lastly, that the Duke of Milan should lend the King of France 200,000
ducats, payable when he started.
On his side, Charles VIII agreed:--
To defend the personal authority of Ludowico Sforza over the duchy of
Milan against anyone who might attempt to turn him out;
To keep two hundred French lances always in readiness to help the
house of Sforza, at Asti, a town belonging to the Duke of Orleans by
the inheritance of his mother, Valentina Visconti;
Lastly, to hand over to his ally the principality of Tarentum
immediately after the conquest of Naples was effected.
This treaty was scarcely concluded when Charles VIII, who exaggerated
its advantages, began to dream of freeing himself from every let or
hindrance to the expedition. Precautions were necessary; for his
relations with the great Powers were far from being what he could
have wished.
Indeed, Henry VII had disembarked at Calais with a formidable army,
and was threatening France with another invasion.
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, if they had not assisted at the fall
of the house of Anjou, had at any rate helped the Aragon party with
men and money.
Lastly, the war with the emperor acquired a fresh impetus when
Charles VIII sent back Margaret of Burgundy to her father Maximilian,
and contracted a marriage with Anne of Brittany.
By the treaty of Etaples, on the 3rd of November, 1492, Henry VII
cancelled the alliance with the King of the Romans, and pledged
himself not to follow his conquests.
This cost Charles VIII 745,000 gold crowns and the expenses of the
war with England.
By the treaty of Barcelona, dated the 19th of January, 1493,
Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella agreed never to grant aid to
their cousin, Ferdinand of Naples, and never to put obstacles in the
way of the French king in Italy.
This cost Charles VIII Perpignan, Roussillon, and the Cerdagne, which
had all been given to Louis XI as a hostage for the sum of 300,000
ducats by John of Aragon; but at the time agreed upon, Louis XI would
not give them up for the money, for the old fox knew very well how
important were these doors to the Pyrenees, and proposed in case of
war to keep them shut.
Lastly, by the treaty of Senlis, dated the 23rd of May, 1493,
Maximilian granted a gracious pardon to France for the insult her
king had offered him.
It cost Charles VIII the counties of Burgundy, Artois, Charalais, and
the seigniory of Noyers, which had come to him as Margaret's dowry,
and also the towns of Aire, Hesdin, and Bethune, which he promised to
deliver up to Philip of Austria on the day he came of age.
By dint of all these sacrifices the young king made peace with his
neighbours, and could set on foot the enterprise that Ludavico Sforza
had proposed. We have already explained that the project came into
Sforza's mind when his plan about the deputation was refused, and
that the refusal was due to Piero dei Medici's desire to make an
exhibition of his magnificent jewels, and Gentile's desire to make
his speech.
Thus the vanity of a tutor and the pride of his scholar together
combined to agitate the civilized world from the Gulf of Tarentum to
the Pyrenees.
Alexander VI was in the very centre of the impending earthquake, and
before Italy had any idea that the earliest shocks were at hand he
had profited by the perturbed preoccupation of other people to give
the lie to that famous speech we have reported. He created cardinal
John Borgia, a nephew, who during the last pontificate had been
elected Archbishop of Montreal and Governor of Rome. This promotion
caused no discontent, because of John's antecedents; and Alexander,
encouraged by the success of this, promised to Caesar Borgia the
archbishopric of Valencia, a benefice he had himself enjoyed before
his elevation to the papacy. But here the difficulty arose an the
side of the recipient. The young man, full-blooded, with all the
vices and natural instincts of a captain of condottieri, had very
great trouble in assuming even the appearance of a Churchman's
virtue; but as he knew from his own father's mouth that the highest
secular dignities were reserved far his elder brother, he decided to
take what he could get, for fear of getting nothing; but his hatred
for Francesco grew stronger, for from henceforth he was doubly his
rival, both in love and ambition.
Suddenly Alexander beheld the old King Ferdinand returning to his
side, and at the very moment when he least expected it. The pope was
too clever a politician to accept a reconciliation without finding
out the cause of it; he soon learned what plots were hatching at the
French court against the kingdom of Naples, and the whole situation
was explained.
Now it was his turn to impose conditions.
He demanded the completion of a marriage between Goffreda, his third
son, and Dada Sancia, Alfonso's illegitimate daughter.
He demanded that she should bring her husband as dowry the
principality of Squillace and the county of Cariati, with an income
of 10,000 ducats and the office of protonotary, one of the seven
great crown offices which are independent of royal control.
He demanded for his eldest son, whom Ferdinand the Catholic had just
made Duke of Gandia, the principality of Tricarico, the counties of
Chiaramonte, Lauria, and Carinola, an income of 12,000 ducats, and
the first of the seven great offices which should fall vacant.
He demanded that Virginio Orsini, his ambassador at the Neapolitan
court, should be given a third great office, viz. that of Constable,
the most important of them all.
Lastly, he demanded that Giuliano delta Rovere, one of the five
cardinals who had opposed his election and was now taking refuge at
Ostia, where the oak whence he took his name and bearings is still to
be seen carved on all the walls, should be driven out of that town,
and the town itself given over to him.
In exchange, he merely pledged himself never to withdraw from the
house of Aragon the investiture of the kingdom of Naples accorded by
his predecessors. Ferdinand was paying somewhat dearly for a simple
promise; but on the keeping of this promise the legitimacy of his
power wholly depended. For the kingdom of Naples was a fief of the
Holy See; and to the pope alone belonged the right of pronouncing on
the justice of each competitor's pretensions; the continuance of this
investiture was therefore of the highest conceivable importance to
Aragon just at the time when Anjou was rising up with an army at her
back to dispossess her.
For a year after he mounted the papal throne, Alexander VI had made
great strides, as we see, in the extension of his temporal power. In
his own hands he held, to be sure, only the least in size of the
Italian territories; but by the marriage of his daughter Lucrezia
with the lord of Pesaro he was stretching out one hand as far as
Venice, while by the marriage of the Prince of Squillace with Dona
Sancia, and the territories conceded to the Duke of Sandia, he was
touching with the other hand the boundary of Calabria.
When this treaty, so advantageous for himself, was duly signed, he
made Caesar Cardinal of Santa Maria Novella, for Caesar was always
complaining of being left out in the distribution of his father's
favours.
Only, as there was as yet no precedent in Church history for a
bastard's donning the scarlet, the pope hunted up four false
witnesses who declared that Caesar was the son of Count Ferdinand of
Castile; who was, as we know, that valuable person Don Manuel
Melchior, and who played the father's part with just as much
solemnity as he had played the husband's.
The wedding of the two bastards was most splendid, rich with the
double pomp of Church and King. As the pope had settled that the
young bridal pair should live near him, Caesar Borgia, the new
cardinal, undertook to manage the ceremony of their entry into Rome
and the reception, and Lucrezia, who enjoyed at her father's side an
amount of favour hitherto unheard of at the papal court, desired on
her part to contribute all the splendour she had it in her power to
add. He therefore went to receive the young people with a stately
and magnificent escort of lords and cardinals, while she awaited them
attended by the loveliest and noblest ladies of Rome, in one of the
halls of the Vatican. A throne was there prepared for the pope, and
at his feet were cushions far Lucrezia and Dona Sancia. "Thus,"
writes Tommaso Tommasi, "by the look of the assembly and the sort of
conversation that went on for hours, you would suppose you were
present at some magnificent and voluptuous royal audience of ancient
Assyria, rather than at the severe consistory of a Roman pontiff,
whose solemn duty it is to exhibit in every act the sanctity of the
name he bears. But," continues the same historian, "if the Eve of
Pentecost was spent in such worthy functions, the celebrations of the
coming of the Holy Ghost on the following day were no less decorous
and becoming to the spirit of the Church; for thus writes the master
of the ceremonies in his journal:
"'The pope made his entry into the Church of the Holy Apostles, and
beside him on the marble steps of the pulpit where the canons of St.
Peter are wont to chant the Epistle and Gospel, sat Lucrezia his
daughter and Sancia his son's wife: round about them, a disgrace to
the Church and a public scandal, were grouped a number of other Roman
ladies far more fit to dwell in Messalina's city than in St.
Peter's.'"
So at Rome and Naples did men slumber while ruin was at hand; so did
they waste their time and squander their money in a vain display of
pride; and this was going on while the French, thoroughly alive, were
busy laying hands upon the torches with which they would presently
set Italy on fire.
Indeed, the designs of Charles VIII for conquest were no longer for
anybody a matter of doubt. The young king had sent an embassy to the
various Italian States, composed of Perrone dei Baschi, Brigonnet,
d'Aubigny, and the president of the Provencal Parliament. The
mission of this embassy was to demand from the Italian princes their
co-operation in recovering the rights of the crown of Naples for the
house of Anjou.
The embassy first approached the Venetians, demanding aid and counsel
for the king their master. But the Venetians, faithful to their
political tradition, which had gained for them the sobriquet of "the
Jews of Christendom," replied that they were not in a position to
give any aid to the young king, so long as they had to keep
ceaselessly on guard against the Turks; that, as to advice, it would
be too great a presumption in them to give advice to a prince who was
surrounded by such experienced generals and such able ministers.
Perrone dei Baschi, when he found he could get no other answer, next
made for Florence. Piero dei Medici received him at a grand council,
for he summoned on this occasion not only the seventy, but also the
gonfalonieri who had sat for the last thirty-four years in the
Signoria. The French ambassador put forward his proposal, that the
republic should permit their army to pass through her States, and
pledge herself in that case to supply for ready money all the
necessary victual and fodder. The magnificent republic replied that
if Charles VIII had been marching against the Turks instead of
against Ferdinand, she would be only too ready to grant everything he
wished; but being bound to the house of Aragon by a treaty, she could
not betray her ally by yielding to the demands of the King of France.
The ambassadors next turned their steps to Siena. The poor little
republic, terrified by the honour of being considered at all, replied
that it was her desire to preserve a strict neutrality, that she was
too weak to declare beforehand either for or against such mighty
rivals, for she would naturally be obliged to join the stronger
party. Furnished with this reply, which had at least the merit of
frankness, the French envoys proceeded to Rome, and were conducted
into the pope's presence, where they demanded the investiture of the
kingdom of Naples for their king.
Alexander VI replied that, as his predecessors had granted this
investiture to the house of Aragon, he could not take it away, unless
it were first established that the house of Anjou had a better claim
than the house that was to be dispossessed. Then he represented to
Perrone dei Baschi that, as Naples was a fief of the Holy See, to the
pope alone the choice of her sovereign properly belonged, and that in
consequence to attack the reigning sovereign was to attack the Church
itself.
The result of the embassy, we see, was not very promising for Charles
VIII; so he resolved to rely on his ally Ludovico Sforza alone, and
to relegate all other questions to the fortunes of war.
A piece of news that reached him about this time strengthened him in
this resolution: this was the death of Ferdinand. The old king had
caught a severe cold and cough on his return from the hunting field,
and in two days he was at his last gasp. On the 25th of January,
1494, he passed away, at the age of seventy, after a thirty-six
years' reign, leaving the throne to his elder son, Alfonso, who was
immediately chosen as his successor.
Ferdinand never belied his title of "the happy ruler." His death
occurred at the very moment when the fortune of his family was
changing.
The new king, Alfonso, was not a novice in arms: he had already
fought successfully against Florence and Venice, and had driven the
Turks out of Otranto; besides, he had the name of being as cunning as
his father in the tortuous game of politics so much in vogue at the
Italian courts. He did not despair of counting among his allies the
very enemy he was at war with when Charles VIII first put forward his
pretensions, we mean Bajazet II. So he despatched to Bajazet one of
his confidential ministers, Camillo Pandone, to give the Turkish
emperor to understand that the expedition to Italy was to the King of
France nothing but a blind for approaching the scene of Mahomedan
conquests, and that if Charles VIII were once at the Adriatic it
would only take him a day or two to get across and attack Macedonia;
from there he could easily go by land to Constantinople.
Consequently he suggested that Bajazet for the maintenance of their
common interests should supply six thousand horse and six thousand
infantry; he himself would furnish their pay so long as they were in
Italy. It was settled that Pandone should be joined at Tarentum by
Giorgia Bucciarda, Alexander VI's envoy, who was commissioned by the
pope to engage the Turks to help him against the Christians. But
while he was waiting for Bajazet's reply, which might involve a delay
of several months, Alfonso requested that a meeting might take place
between Piero dei Medici, the pope, and himself, to take counsel
together about important affairs. This meeting was arranged at
Vicovaro, near Tivoli, and the three interested parties duly met on
the appointed day.
The intention of Alfonso, who before leaving Naples had settled the
disposition of his naval forces, and given his brother Frederic the
command of a fleet that consisted of thirty-six galleys, eighteen
large and twelve small vessels, with injunctions to wait at Livorno
and keep a watch on the fleet Charles VIII was getting ready at the
port of Genoa, was above all things to check with the aid of his
allies the progress of operations on land. Without counting the
contingent he expected his allies to furnish, he had at his immediate
disposal a hundred squadrons of heavy cavalry, twenty men in each,
and three thousand bowmen and light horse. He proposed, therefore,
to advance at once into Lombardy, to get up a revolution in favour of
his nephew Galeazzo, and to drive Ludovico Sforza out of Milan before
he could get help from France; so that Charles VIII, at the very time
of crossing the Alps, would find an enemy to fight instead of a
friend who had promised him a safe passage, men, and money.
This was the scheme of a great politician and a bold commander; but
as everybody had came in pursuit of his own interests, regardless of
the common this plan was very coldly received by Piero dei Medici,
who was afraid lest in the war he should play only the same poor part
he had been threatened with in the affair of the embassy; by
Alexander VI it was rejected, because he reckoned on employing the
troops of Alfonso an his own account. He reminded the King of Naples
of one of the conditions of the investiture he had promised him, viz.
that he should drive out the Cardinal Giuliano delta Rovere from the
town of Ostia, and give up the town to him, according to the
stipulation already agreed upon. Besides, the advantages that had
accrued to Virginio Orsini, Alexander's favourite, from his embassy
to Naples had brought upon him the ill-will of Prospero and Fabrizio
Colonna, who owned nearly all the villages round about Rome. Now the
pope could not endure to live in the midst of such powerful enemies,
and the most important matter was to deliver him from all of them,
seeing that it was really of moment that he should be at peace who
was the head and soul of the league whereof the others were only the
body and limbs.
Although Alfonso had clearly seen through the motives of Piero's
coldness, and Alexander had not even given him the trouble of seeking
his, he was none the less obliged to bow to the will of his allies,
leaving the one to defend the Apennines against the French, and
helping the other to shake himself free of his neighbours in the
Romagna. Consequently he, pressed on the siege of Ostia, and added
to Virginio's forces, which already amounted to two hundred men of
the papal army, a body of his own light horse; this little army was
to be stationed round about Rome, and was to enforce obedience from
the Colonnas. The rest of his troops Alfonso divided into two
parties: one he left in the hands of his son Ferdinand, with orders
to scour the Romagna and worry, the petty princes into levying and
supporting the contingent they had promised, while with the other he
himself defended the defiles of the Abruzzi.
On the 23rd of April, at three o'clock in the morning, Alexander VI
was freed from the first and fiercest of his foes; Giuliano delta
Rovere, seeing the impossibility of holding out any longer against
Alfonso's troops, embarked on a brigantine which was to carry him to
Savona.
From that day forward Virginio Orsini began that famous partisan
warfare which reduced the country about Rome to the most pathetic
desolation the world has ever seen. During all this time Charles
VIII was at Lyons, not only uncertain as to the route he ought to
take for getting into Italy, but even beginning to reflect a little
on the chances and risks of such an expedition. He had found no
sympathy anywhere except with Ludovico Sforza; so it appeared not
unlikely that he would have to fight not the kingdom of Naples alone,
but the whole of Italy to boot. In his preparations for war he had
spent almost all the money at his disposal; the Lady of Beaujeu and
the Duke of Bourbon both condemned his enterprise; Briconnet, who had
advised it, did not venture to support it now; at last Charles, more
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