It was in the king's tent, on the night after the fall of
Vivizano--for so rapid had been the capture of the place that time for
a short march towards Sarzana still remained after its fall, and so
wild and uncultivated was the country round, so scanty the supply of
provisions and fodder, that all were anxious to get into a more
plentiful region--it was in the king's tent then, a wide and sumptuous
pavilion, that on the night after the capture of Vivizano a council
was assembled, amongst the members of which might be seen nearly as
many churchmen as soldiers.
It is impossible to narrate a thousandth part of all that took place;
messengers and soldiers came and went; new personages were introduced
upon the scene; and some of the old characters which had disappeared
returned to the monarch's court.
A young man, magnificently dressed, and of comely form and face, sat
near to Charles on his right hand; and when Bayard, who was standing
with Lorenzo a little behind the king's chair, asked Visconti who the
new comer was, Lorenzo answered:
"That is Pierre de Medici. We were old companions long ago; for he is
not many years my elder."
"His face looks weak!" said Bayard; "I should not think he was equal
to his father."
Lorenzo shook his head with a sigh; and De Terrail continued:
"There is our old friend, Ludovic the Moor, too. He arrived to-day, I
suppose. I wonder the king has you here; he was always so anxious to
keep you out of his way."
"The camp is a safer place than the court," said Lorenzo; "he cannot
well poison me here."
"No, nor stab you either," said Bayard, "that is to say, without being
found out. Yet you had better beware; for he has got a notion, I am
told, that you may some time or another dispute his duchy with him."
"That is nonsense, De Terrail," replied Lorenzo: "the Duke of Orleans
is nearer to the dukedom than I am."
"Ay, but policy might keep the duke out and favour you," said Bayard.
"It does not do to make a subject too powerful. But what are they
about now? What packet is that which Breconnel is opening and laying
its contents before the king?"
"That looks like the papal seal pendant from it," replied Visconti.
"Hark! the bishop is about to read it aloud."
The conversation of the two young men had been carried on in a low
tone, and many another whispered talk had been going on amongst the
courtiers, drowned by the louder sounds which had issued from the
immediate neighbourhood of the table at which the king sat; but the
moment that the Bishop of St. Malo began to read, or rather to
translate aloud, the letters which he held in his hand, and which were
written in Latin, every tongue was stilled, and each ear bent to hear.
"His Holiness greets your Majesty well," said the bishop; "but he
positively prohibits your advance to Rome under pain of the major
censures of the Church. These are his words," and he proceeded in a
somewhat stumbling and awkward manner to decipher and render into
French the pontifical missive.
The despatch was rather diffuse and lengthy, and while the good bishop
went on, an elderly man plainly habited in black, came round and
whispered something several times in the king's ear. Charles turned
towards him and listened while the prelate went on; and at last the
monarch replied, saying something which was not heard by others, and
adding a very significant sign. The secret adviser withdrew at once
into an inner apartment of the tent, from the main chamber of which it
was separated by a crimson curtain. He returned in a moment with a
large book, on the wood and velvet cover of which reposed a crucifix
and a rosary. The Bishop of St. Malo read on; but without noticing
him, the man in black knelt before the king, who immediately laid his
hand on the crucifix, and then, after murmuring some words in a
subdued tone, yet not quite in a whisper, raised the volume to his
lips and kissed it with every appearance of reverence.
The book, the crucifix, and the rosary were then removed as silently
as they had been brought, and the reading of the papal brief proceeded
without interruption. When the prelate had concluded the reading of
the missive which threatened the monarch of France, the eldest son of
the Church, with all the thunders of the Vatican if he dared to
advance upon Rome, Charles, in his low, sweet voice, addressed the
bishop, saying:
"My Lord Bishop, I have but one answer to make to the prohibition of
His Holiness, but I trust that answer will be deemed sufficient by all
the members of my council, though all are devout men, and some of them
peculiarly reverend by profession and by sanctity of life. I should
wish an answer written to our Apostolic Father, assuring him of our
deep respect and our willingness to obey his injunctions in all
matters of religion, where superior duties from which he himself
cannot set us free do not interpose; but informing him of a fact which
he does not know, that we are bound by a sacred vow sworn upon the
Holy Evangelists, and upon a crucifix which contains a portion of the
true cross, to visit the shrine of St. Peter before we turn our steps
homewards. Is that not sufficient cause, my Lord Cardinal," he
continued, looking towards Julian de Rovers, "to pass by all
impediments and prohibitions and go forward on our pilgrimage?"
"Sufficient cause," exclaimed the eager and impetuous prelate, "what
need of any cause? what need of any vow?"
He paused, almost choked by the impetuosity of his feelings; and a
smile which had passed round the council at hearing a vow just taken,
alleged as an excuse for disregarding a prohibition issued long
before, faded away in eagerness to hear the further reply of a man
whose powerful mind and iron will were known to all.
"My lord, the king," he answered, in a calmer tone, after he had
recovered breath. "Your vow is all-sufficient, but there are weightier
causes even than that solemn vow which call you to Rome. The greatest,
the most important task which ever monarch undertook lies before you.
A Heresiarch sits in the throne of St. Peter, a man whose private
life, base and criminal as it is, is pure compared with his public
life--whose guilt, black as it is, as a priest and a pontiff, is white
as snow compared with his guilt as the pretended head of the Christian
church, in negotiating with, and allying himself to infidels--to the
slaves of Mahomed, against Christian men and monarchs, the most devout
servants of the holy see. Well may I see consternation, surprise, and
even incredulity, on the countenances of all present! But I speak not
on rumour, or the vague report of the enemies of Alexander Borgia,
calling himself Pope. Happily into my hands have fallen these letters
which have passed between him and Bajazet, the Infidel Sultan. They
are too long to read now; but I deliver them into the hands of the
kings council, and will only state a few of the facts which they make
manifest. Thus it appears, from these letters, of which the
authenticity is beyond doubt, that this heretical interloper in the
chair of St. Peter, has agreed to receive, and does receive an annual
pension from Antichrist, and that he has engaged for three hundred
thousand ducats to assassinate an unhappy prince of the infidels,
named Zizim, who is in his power, to gratify the impious Sultan of the
Turks. Let the council read these letters; let them consider them
well; let them compare the life and conversation of the man with these
acts of the pontiff, and then decide whether it is not the duty of the
Most Christian King, not only to march to Rome, but to call a council
of the Church Universal, for the trial and deposition of one who holds
his seat, not by the grace of God, but by the aid of simony, and the
machinations of the devil. My lord the king, I address you as the
eldest son of the Church, as the descendant of those who have
struggled, and fought, and bled for her; and I call upon you to
deliver her from the oppression under which she groans, to eject from
her highest place the profane man who has no right to the seat of St.
Peter, and to purify the temple and the altar from the desecration of
a Borgia."[2]
Charles hesitated for a few moments ere he replied, and two or three
of those quiet counsellors, one of whom had previously addressed him,
now came separately and spoke to him in low tones over the back of his
chair.
"My lord the cardinal," he said at length, "the grave subject your
Eminence has brought before us, is of so important a nature that it
requires much and calm consideration. Rome is yet far off, and on our
march thither we shall have many an occasion to call for your counsel.
This subject, surpassing all others in importance, must engage our
attention when we can have a more private interview; for it will be
needful to avoid in doing our best to purify the Church, the great
danger of creating a scandal in the Church itself."
"Wisely spoken, my lord the king," answered the prelate, "but I should
like at present to know, who is the messenger who has had the
hardihood to bear a prohibition from entering the holy city to the
successor of Charlemagne.[3] Can it be one of the Sacred College? If
so, why is he not here present?"
"Why, to speak the truth," said the Bishop of St. Malo, with a rueful
smile, "his holiness has not altogether shown the respect which is due
to his own brief, or to his Majesty's crown, in the choice of a
messenger. He who has brought the missive is a common courier. He
calls himself, indeed, a gentleman of Rome, and, by the way, he has
with him a man who desires to see and speak with your Eminence, for
whom, he says, he has letters. They may, perhaps, throw some light
upon the question why his holiness did not entrust such an important
paper to a more dignified bearer."
To uninstructed ears the words of the good bishop had little special
meaning; but intrigue and corruption were then so general, especially
in Italian courts, that the Cardinal Julian at once perceived from the
language used, a doubt in the mind of some of the king's counsellors
as to whether, while declaiming against Alexander, he might not be
secretly negotiating with him for his own purposes.
"Let the man be brought in," he said, abruptly. "I know not who should
write to me from Rome; but we shall soon see. Good faith! I have had
little communication with any one in that city since the taking of
Ostia. Let the man be called, I beseech you, my good and reverend
lord."
The Bishop of St. Malo spoke to one of the attendants; the man quitted
the tent, and some other business was proceeded with, occupying about
a quarter of an hour, when a personage was introduced and brought to
the end of the table, whom the reader has heard of before. He was a
small, thin, wiry man, dressed as a friar. His countenance was not
very prepossessing, and his complexion both sallow and sun-burned,
except where a thick black beard closely shaved, gave a bluish tint to
the skin; and there a great difference of hue in the skin itself,
seemed to intimate that the razor had only lately been applied.
"Who are you, sir?" said the cardinal sharply, as soon as his
attention had been directed to the new comer, "and what want you with
me? I am Julian de Rovera, Cardinal of St. Peter's, if you are seeking
that person."
"I am but a poor friar of the Order of St. Francis, Brother Martin by
name," replied the man, "and the Signor Ramiro d'Orco, a noble lord
now in Rome, hearing that I was journeying to Bologna----"
"But this is not Bologna," said the Cardinal, "nor on the way
thither."
"True, your Eminence," answered the other, "but, as I was saying, the
Signor Ramiro, hearing that I was going to Bologna, entrusted certain
letters to my care for your Eminence, whom he asserted to be his near
relation----"
"Ay, ay! cousins--first cousins," said the impetuous prelate, "what
then?"
"Why, holy sir," continued the pretended friar, "finding that you were
not where the Signor Ramiro thought, and knowing that the letters were
important, I joined myself to the messenger of his Holiness and came
on hither."
A slight smile passed over the lip of Ludovic the Moor, as the man
spoke; and it is not at all improbable that he recognised in the monk
a follower of his bravo, Buondoni; but he took no notice, and the
cardinal exclaimed:
"Where are these letters? Let me see them, brother."
"They are here, Eminence," answered the man, feeling in the breast of
his gown. "This is for you," and he presented one letter to the
cardinal, while he held another in his hand.
"And what is that? Who is that for?" asked Julian, sharply.
"That is for the Signora Leonora d'Orco, if I can find her," replied
the monk.
"I can find her," said the cardinal; "let me see the letter."
The man hesitated; but the prelate repeated, in a stern tone, "Let me
see the letter," and it was handed to him with evident reluctance.
Without the slightest ceremony he broke the seal, even before he had
examined the letter addressed to himself, and began reading it by the
light of the candelabra which stood near him.
The contents seemed by no means to give him satisfaction, and as he
was much in the habit of venting his thoughts aloud, it is probable
that an oath or two would have found their way to his lips, had he not
been restrained, not only by a sense of his sacred calling, but by the
presence of so many strangers.
"Santa Maria!" he exclaimed, "did ever man hear! A pretty father
truly. Would he cradle a new-born infant in a sow's sty?
"Hark ye, friar! if you reach Rome before me, tell my good cousin that
I have too much regard for his wife's child to let her set her foot in
the palace of any of the Borgias. Tell him that, being guarded by a
noble gentleman and a good soldier, and guided and directed by me, she
will be quite safe till she reaches Florence, and that there I shall
place her under the matronly care of our cousin, Madonna Francesca
Melloni. Now get you gone."
"Your Eminence says nothing of his letter to yourself," said the
pretended friar, with a slight sneer. "I will not fail to give him
your answer to his letter to his daughter."
"Ha! his letter to myself," said Julian; "I had forgotten that--but
doubtless it is of no great importance;--let me see," and he tore open
the epistle.
It seemed to afford him less satisfaction than even the other had
given; for his face worked, and many a broken sentence burst angrily
from his lips; but at length he turned to the messenger, again saying:
"Tell him I will answer this in person--perhaps in the Vatican. Yet
stop; say, moreover, 'none but wolves herd with wolves.' Let him mark
that; he will understand. There is money for your convent; now get ye
gone."
It had not been without some feeling of indignation that Lorenzo had
beheld Ramiro d'Orco's letter to his daughter so dealt with; but the
conclusion to which the prelate came pleased him well.
The whole interview between the cardinal and the messenger had not
occupied much more than about five minutes; but yet it could hardly be
called an episode in the council of King Charles, for on some account
most of those present seemed to take no inconsiderable interest in
what was passing at that part of the table, and all other business was
suspended. The eyes of the king and his counsellors were directed now
to the prelate, now to the messenger, and the only sounds that
interfered with the conversation were some whispered remarks going on
amongst the young officers behind.
When the monk was gone, there was a silent pause, as if every one
waited for another to open some new topic for discussion, but at
length the king said--
"You seem dissatisfied with your cousin's letter, my lord cardinal. Is
it of importance?"
"Not in the least, sire," answered Julian; "Ramiro tries to compose
what he calls, 'an ancient but really slight difference,' between me
and Alexander Borgia. Really slight difference! Oh yes, the saints be
praised, it is as slight as the difference between oil and water, or
fire and ice. Can the man think that a few soft words, or the offer of
two or three towns and castles, can make me look with favour upon a
simonise, an adulterer, a poisoner, a heretic, and an abettor of
heretics, in the chair of St. Peter? No, no. There is the letter, my
lord the king, for your private reading. I have nothing to conceal; I
deal in no serpent-like policy; and now, with your Majesty's
permission, I will retire. I have not the strength I once had, and I
am somewhat weary. If you will allow me I will take the young
gentleman, Lorenzo Visconti, with me, as I see him here. We can take
counsel together as I go to my tent."
"We are sorry to lose your wisdom at our council, my lord cardinal,"
replied the king; "but happily our more important business is over.
Signor Visconti, conduct his Eminence to his quarters."
"Let me call the torch-bearers, my lord," said Lorenzo, springing to
the entrance of the tent, round which a crowd of attendants were
assembled. But the impetuous prelate came hard upon his steps, and
stood more patiently than might have been expected till his flambeaux
were lighted. Two torchbearers and a soldier or two went before, and
he followed with Lorenzo by his side, walking slowly along, and
keeping silence till they had nearly reached his pavilion.
"Well, young man?" said the cardinal at length, "what think you of my
reply to my good cousin Ramiro? Did it satisfy you?"
"Fully, your Eminence," answered the young man; "it was all that I
could wish or desire. Indeed I cannot but think that it was a special
blessing of God that you were here to rescue me from a terrible
difficulty regarding the Signora Leonora."
"How so--how so?" asked the prelate quickly, "you would not have sent
her to Rome, would you, even if I had not been here?
"No, my lord cardinal," answered Lorenzo firmly, "but it is a terrible
thing to teach a child to disobey a parent. You had spiritual
authority and a nearer right, and no one can doubt that you decided
justly and well. Had I done the same, all men would have judged that
my mere inclinations led me."
"You are wise and prudent beyond your years," said the old man, well
pleased, "no use of conference as I told you this morning, there
before Vivizano. I make up my mind of men's characters rapidly but
seldom wrongly. Here take Ramiro's letter to Leonora, and recount to
her all I did. Tell her, that by the altar I serve and the God I
worship, and the Saviour in whom I put my trust, I could not consent
to her being plunged into a sea of guilt and pollution, such as the
world has never seen since the days of Heliogabalus."
"I fear, my lord cardinal, she has retired to rest," said Lorenzo,
"but if so I will deliver the letter and your Eminence's words
to-morrow."
A slight smile came upon the old man's face; but notwithstanding his
sternness and occasional violence, softer and kinder emotions would
sometimes spring up from his heart. He crossed himself as if sorry for
the mere worldly smile; and then looking up on high, where the stars
were sparkling clear and bright, he murmured, "Well, after all, this
pure young love is a noble and beautiful thing. Good night, my son,
God's benison and mine be upon you."
They had now reached the entrance of his tent and there they parted.