On the thirteenth of September 1513 was born in Rome, of Don Tarquinio

Poplicola di Santacroce and Madonna Ersilia his wife, the Noble Don

Prospero Poplicola di Santacroce, afterwards Cardinal-Presbyter of the

Title of San Girolamo _degli Schiavoni_ and Nuncio, who introduced

Tobacco into Italy and gave it the name _Erba Santacroce_, Holycross

Herb.

* * * * *

The life of the Duchess Lucrezia, during the next few years, was a life

of calm after storm, _post tot naufragias tuta_. She won fresh fame by

her goodness to young girls, whom she provided with dowries, to tempt

them to keep continency by marrying well. Delightfully practical age,

which went directly to the point attempting no maudlin half-measures,

“so sweetly mawkish and so smoothly dull”! The ideal of the professional

philanthropist, then, was to make virtue easy, and vice difficult. The

ideal of the professional philanthropist, now, is to make virtue

horribly vulgar and vice an imperious necessity. The Duchess Lucrezia

had observed that the lack of money is the root of all evil; and, at

that root she struck.

Charming descriptions are extant of the evenings which this egregious

lady spent in conversation with poets and scholars, listening to music,

and working on the lovely embroidery for which she was so celebrated. On

the third of July 1515, she presented her lord with a daughter. The same

year she was grieved by the death of her friend, the great printer,

Messer Aldo Manuzio. That cool-headed, shrewd, and very learned

Venetian, the hereditary enemy of Ferrara, has left laudations of the

Duchess Lucrezia which are sincere and unsurpassable. It is not singular

that the great and good among her intimate contemporaries should be

those who praise her; and that her defamers should be professional

squibbers, notoriously base and venal. The following year, the eleventh

of July, 1516, she suffered the loss of her little son who was of the

age of five years. Is the touching letter, by which she conveyed the

news to her confidante and sister-in-law, the Marchioness Isabella

Gonzaga of Mantua, the letter of a wicked woman or of a good? She says,

“——the Most Illustrious Don Alessandro, my youngest son, after a long

and painful illness, in which remedies were of no avail, was seized by

a cruel dysentery. Yesterday, at the fourth hour of the night, (say,

midnight,) the poor little man (_poverino_) yielded his blessed soul

into the hands of our Lord God, leaving me much afflicted and full of

sorrow; as Your Excellency, being a woman and a tender mother

yourself, may easily believe.[97]”

On the Festival of All Saints, she bore another son to Duke Alfonso, who

was baptized by the name Francesco.

* * * * *

On the twenty-sixth of November 1517, there died in Rome Madonna

Giovanna de’ Catanei, the mother of the Duchess Lucrezia; and was buried

in Santa Maria _del Popolo_ by the Flaminian Gate. Nine of her letters

to her daughter, and rather crabbed letters too, are preserved in the

Archives of Modena. They are subscribed, “_La felice ed infelice

madre_;” which seems precisely to describe her condition. She was a

happy mother; happy in the gorgeous loveliness of her children, happy in

their good fortune, happy in being the mother of two dukes, a prince

duke, and a sovereign duchess: but unhappy, in that human law made their

father not her husband. Another letter of hers, dated from Rome the

fifteenth of December 1515, and signed “Perpetua Oratrice Vanozza,” has

been the means of causing some uncertainty as to her real name. The

following is suggested as an explanation.

“Vanozza”, of course, is a familiar abbreviation of “Giovanozza”, which

is equivalent to “Big Jenny”. Italians are deliciously disrespectfully

inoffensive in their use of universal and personal nicknames; which are

taken conferred without the least aggrievance. “Perpetua Oratrice[98]”

is not a name at all: but a quasi-official style.

In England at the present day, one frequently is startled by the receipt

of a letter, from some fervent member of that devout female sex (for

which Holy Church, knowing needs, diurnally prays), bearing as signature

the names of the writer, with the addition “E de M”. If one has not yet

seen the lions, (as the Fifteenth Century said of a novice,) one looks

for the university degree, knightly order, municipal or parochial rank,

of which those letters are the sign. But, when one knows them to stand

for “Enfant de Marie,” one remembers that a pious sodality, of French

origin and called “The Children of Mary,” is an excessively and

universally fashionable one among females; and doubts are at an end.

It is probable that there was some such pious association for females of

the Borgian Era. Madonna Giovanna always was a respectable well-living

character: but we know that she found salvation, was converted, became

_dévote_, in 1508, when she sat under Frat’ Egidio da Viterbo preaching

a course of Lent sermons in Rome.

It is suggested, then, that at once she began “to make her soul,” to

prepare to meet her God, for she was well on in years; and that she

became a member of some Confraternity of Perpetual Prayer, resembling

those of the present day whose members divide among themselves the duty

of praying the clock round, so that an unending stream of supplication

shall flow toward the Throne of Grace. It is suggested, that, being a

human woman, cherishing no objection to a little perfectly legitimate

advertisement of virtue (like the ladies of the “E de M” description),

Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei formed the habit of signing her private

letters “The Perpetual Suppliant, Big Jenny.”

Her epitaph has been given on p. 261.

* * * * *

There are two documents of this year 1517, which go to prove that, at

this time, there existed no idea of concealing the parentage of Don

Giovanni Borgia the sometime Duke of Nepi and Camerino. The boy appears

to have made his home with his sister, the Duchess Lucrezia; for both

documents are issued under her protection and authority. She was

nineteen years older than her brother, who now was of the age of

twenty-one years; and her notable good nature, as well as her royal

estate, make it natural enough that she should be more mother than

sister to her august Father’s youngest son.

The first brief (they both are quoted in Cittadella,) is dated “sub die

Iº Nov. 1517”; and names the Bishop of Adria as Don Giovanni’s agent in

some pecuniary transaction, he being less than twenty-five, and more

than eighteen, years old. It begins, “Ferrariae in palatio habitationis

Ill^{mi} ... Ill^{mus} Dominus Joannes Borgia, _frater_ Ill^{mae}

Dominae Lucretiae Borgiae Ducissae Ferrariae, minor annis

vigintiquinque, maior tamen decem octo,——.”

The second brief is addressed to Messer Filippo Strozzi; and claims,

from the consuls of Pesaro, the baggage which the young noble had lost

after his shipwreck in sight of that city! It is dated the second of

December 1517; and begins, “Mandatum Ill^{mae} Dominae Ducissae

Ferrariae in palatio Ducali ... Ill^{ma} Domina Lucretia Borgia

Estensis ... suo nomine, et nomine ac Tanquam coniuncta persona Ill^{mi}

Domini Joannis Borgiae _eius frater_——.”

Little or nothing further has been discovered regarding the life of this

youth. His history, with that of his brother Prince Gioffredo Borgia of

Squillace, waits to reward research in the archives of Naples, Nepi,

Camerino and Ferrara. Reluctantly, they must be left here among the

_Sparks That Die_.

* * * * *

The following announcement closes the second epoch of the House of

Borgia. It is dated the twenty-first day of June 1519; and was sent by

flying posts to his nephew, the Marquess Federigo Gonzaga of Mantua: “It

hath pleased the Lord God to take unto Himself the soul of the

Illustrious Duchess, my much-beloved Consort. (Signed) Alfonsus Dux

Feraria.”

The “Illustrious Duchess” Lucrezia Borgia was buried in her favourite

church at the monastery of Corpus Domini, by side of her husband’s

mother the Duchess Leonor de Aragona, deeply and sincerely mourned by

her children, and her husband Duke Alfonso d’Este, and, indeed, by all

Ferrara duchy crowding round her bier. She was only in the forty-second

year of her age.

May she rest in the fragrant peace of her good deeds.

=Book the Third=

The Brilliant Light[99]

“_A fire that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays

hold on the faggots; bursts into a roaring blaze, with raging

tongues of flame, devouring all in reach, spangled with sparks

that die; settles into the steady genial glare, the brilliant

light, that men call fire_;”

The Borgia, who have gone before, present no difficulty to the Twentieth

Century. When once their formula has been learned, they are found to be

men of like passions with ourselves. They were born—they struggled

through life with an amazing amount of dignity and success—they died.

For a reason which has yet to be explained, the human race has made them

serve for hell-myths, for prodigies of turpitude, for symbols wherewith

to express ultimate and abysmal crime.

“The slave of his own appetites, in bondage to conventional laws, his

spirit emasculated by the indulgences, or corroded by the cares of

life, hardly daring to act, to think, or to speak, for himself;

man,—gregarious man,—worships the world in which he lives, adopts its

maxims, and treads its beaten paths. To rouse him from his lethargy,

and to give a new current to his thoughts, heroes appear from time to

time on the verge of his horizon; and hero-worship, Pagan or

Christian, withdraws him for a while from still baser idolatry. To

contemplate the motives and the career of such men may teach much that

well deserves the knowing: but nothing more clearly than this—that no

one can have shrines erected to his memory in the hearts of men of

different generations, unless his own heart was an altar, on which the

daily sacrifices, of fervent devotion and magnanimous self denial,

were offered to the only true Object of human worship.”[100]

The wheel of time makes one unerring revolution; and lo, a saint,—a

Borgia Saint.

To write of Saint Francisco de Borja, so that he may be known of men, is

more than difficult. Each man knows another, not by his strength but by

his weaknesses, not as surpassing but as lacking such and such of the

Ideal; for weakness makes men kin. And Saint Francisco de Borja gave no

sign of human weakness, little or no sign of human nature, after he had

reached his manhood. He has been called “a magnified non-natural man”;

and that is the only point of view from which he can be observed. He

lived entirely on the supernatural plane: the world, to him, was nothing

but an enemy with whom he would have neither art nor part: he was in it,

but not of it: his ways were not men’s ways, nor his thoughts men’s

thoughts: he rightly cannot be liked, or disliked, hated, or loved,

admired, or even judged. He must be taken as he was, comparable to none,

the exact antipodes of his strenuous august invincible magnificent

ancestors for there are “diversities of gifts,” in opposition to all

human ideals, a “magnified non-natural man.” His note is brilliantly

personal. He was utterly and absolutely selfishly solicitous about his

own salvation. He made that the unique object of his life; and, to that

end, he deliberately chose renunciation, hardship, ignominy, utter and

extreme. His singular devotion, to the task of living according to his

light, is a phenomenon of an intensity beyond the natural, environing

him with an aura as of one aloof, as of one alien among men, and,

therefore, altogether antipathetic to men.

He was the great-grandson of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Whose bastard

Don Juan Francisco de Borja, Duke of Gandia in Spain, Prince of Teano

and Tricarico, Count of Chiaramonte, Lauria, and Cerignola, Constable of

Naples, and General of the Pontifical Army, had married Doña Maria de

Aragona, a princess of the royal House of Aragon. After the mysterious

murder of her husband at Rome in 1497, the Duchess Doña Maria married

Don Enriquez de Luna, uncle and Master of the Household to the Viceroy

Don Hernando of Castile, and Grand Commander of Leon, who soon left her

widowed the second time. She lived at Baeza in Granada, and devoted

herself to her two children, Doña Isabella, and Don Juan II de Borja,

who succeeded his murdered father as Duke of Gandia and the rest. When

her son married, she retired to the monastery of Poor Clares (the Second

Order of the Religion of San Francesco d’Assisi) at Gandia, where she

took the vows of a nun, and became Suor Maria Gabriella till her death

in 1537. Her daughter, Doña Isabella, who was betrothed to the Duke of

Segorbe, obtained the necessary dispensations, broke before marriage

from her affianced husband; and followed the Duchess of Gandia her

beloved mother to the Poor Clares, where she also took the vows as Suor

Francisca de Jesus.

Don Juan II married, first, Dona Francisca de Castro y Pinos; secondly,

Doña Juana de Aragona, bastard of Archbishop Don Alonso de Aragona of

Saragossa nephew of the Catholic King Don Hernando of Spain.[101]

Fourteen children were the offspring of these marriages;

DON FRANCISCO, THE SAINT:

Don Alonso, Abbot of Valdigna:

Don Enrico, Cardinal-Deacon of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo:

Doña Luisa, married Don Martino de Aragona y Gurrea, Duke of

Villahermosa:

Don Rodrigo, Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolo _in Carcere Tulliano_:

“while still a youth” (Ciacconi)

Don Pedro Luis, Viceroy of Cataluna:

Don Tommaso, Archbishop of Saragossa, (in succession to Archbishop Don

Juan de Aragona bastard of Archbishop Don Alonso,) and Viceroy of

Aragon:

Don Felipe, Knight of Montesa and Governor of Oran:

Don Diego, died young:

_Doña Juana, First Abbess of the Royal Monastery of Discalced

Carmelites at Madrid. She died in the Odour of Sanctity_:

Doña Leonor, married Don Juan de Gurrea:

Doña Magdalena, married Don Hernando de Proxita, Count of Almenara:

Doña Margarita, married Don Fadrique de Portugal y Cordo:

* * * * *

Doña Isabella, followed her grandmother Doña Maria (Suor Maria

Gabriella), and her aunt Doña Isabella (Suor Francisca de Jesus)

to the Poor Clares of Gandia, of which monastery she became

Abbess.

That is a very characteristic family of a Grandee and Hijo de algo (son

of something) of Spain. Leaving the heir out of the question, the eight

sons divide between them two cardinalates, an archbishopric, an abbacy,

two viceroyalties, and a governorship: while, of the six daughters, two

enter religion and become abbesses, and four marry grandees and

semi-royalty of Spain. It is worth noting too, that shame on account of

their origin, or their ancestors’ supposed misbehaviour, has not yet

made its appearance. Alonso was the name of many royal bastards of the

House of Aragon, as well as of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III. Rodrigo was

the name of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, who also began his public career

in the Cardinal-Diaconate of San Niccolo _in Carcere Tulliano_, and

Whose eldest bastard (ob. 1481) was called Pedro Luis. All these names

were repeated here in the third and fourth generation; and the eldest

son of Don Juan II, bore the second name of his murdered grandfather,

Francisco.

The Terrible Pontiff, the Lord Julius P.P. II was reigning in Rome, when

Don Francisco de Borja was born in 1510 at the ducal palace of Gandia in

Spain.

The Terrible Pontiff was only a terrible memory ten years later, and the

Lord Leo P.P. X. was trying hard to “enjoy the Papacy,” in Rome when

riots arose in Gandia, the ducal palace was sacked, and Don Juan II,

with his family, was forced to flee for life. Don Francisco, then a

gracious boy of ten, was sent to his uncle Archbishop Don Juan de

Aragona at Saragossa,[102] who supplied him with a house and retinue

suited to his condition, and masters who taught him music, fencing, and

Latin grammar; for he was to be bred as became the heir to the duchy of

Gandia, and the future head of the Spanish Branch of the House of Borja.

In January 1522 died the Lord Leo P.P. X; and the Lord Hadrian P.P. VI,

a ship-carpenter’s son out of Utrecht in Flanders, was elected Pope,

called the Laocoon a pagan idol, walled-up the Belvedere statue-gallery

of the Vatican; and died. To Him, in 1523, succeeded Cardinal Giulio de’

Medici, cousin and life-friend of the Lord Leo P.P. X, who ascended

Peter’s Throne under the title of the Lord Clement P.P. VII. Great

changes were taking place in Europe. By marriage, conquest, inheritance,

or lapse, the Holy Roman Empire had passed into the hands of Spain. The

Elect-Emperor Carlos V, though he ceremonially had not been crowned with

the Iron Crown or the Double Golden Diadem, ruled in Spain, Naples and

Southern Italy, Germany, Austria, and part of France. King Henry VIII

Tudor, the Defender of the Faith, was becoming a power in England. The

Christian King of France was his rival: but the Continent of Europe

mainly was the Elect-Emperor’s, and wholly, perhaps, the Roman Pontiffs.

At the age of fourteen years, Don Francisco de Borja went to Tor de

Sillas as page of honour to the Infanta Doña Catalina, the

Elect-Emperor’s sister, who was about to be married to King Don Juan III

of Portugal.

When the marriage took place in 1525, Don Francisco did not accompany

his royal mistress to her new kingdom; because his father, who had for

him a higher ambition, had commanded his return to Saragossa to study

rhetoric and philosophy under his uncle, the Archbishop Don Juan. Here

he remained until he passed his seventeenth year; and in 1528 he entered

the Court of the Elect-Emperor Carlos V, where his robust physical

beauty, his courteous manner, and his brilliant ability, gained for him

a notable reception.

Humanly speaking, this acceptance of service under such a potentate is

most astonishing in a youth of the gracious piety of Don Francisco. The

Elect-Emperor was hot and reeking from the commission of what must have

seemed to be a perfectly appalling crime—the ghastly Sack of Rome of

1527, the fierce beleaguerment of God’s Vicegerent the Lord Clement P.P.

VII in the Mola of Hadrian, carnage, pillage, rape, rapine, sacred

monastic enclosures violated, virginity deflowered, nuns and the wives

and daughters of Roman citizens gambled for and ravished in the public

streets by the Elect-Emperor’s unpaid army of drunken Lutheran Goths and

Catholic Catalans. It was to the Court of this monarch that Don

Francisco de Borja brought the Gracious flower of his maiden manlihood.

Amid voluptuous surroundings, he found that it was better to marry than

to burn; and, in 1529, being then of the age of nineteen years, he led

in marriage the Noble Doña Leonor of Portugal. The Elect-Emperor, to

mark imperial approval, perhaps, also, from the generous benevolence of

a man who himself is about to receive—(he had come to terms with the

Lord Clement P.P. VII, and was hoping for the Dual Coronation,)—created

Don Francisco Marquess of Lombay.

The relations between Pope and Elect-Emperor were after this fashion.

Both were exhausted: both were desirous of peace. Peace, then, was

signed, and a perpetual alliance, on the twentieth of June 1527. The

Elect-Emperor had gained territory from Venice, and detached Genoa from

France; the Pope’s Holiness had promised to invest him with crown of

Naples, (which his predecessor the Catholic King Don Hernando of Spain

had stolen from the bastard Aragon dynasty in 1501); and formally to

crown him as Holy Roman Emperor. The Lord Clement P.P. VII had gained a

strong ally, who guaranteed to subdue rebellious Florence for the

pontifical nephew Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, to consolidate the

alliance by marrying the Bastard Doña Margarita of Austria to the said

pontifical nephew; and to procure the restoration of pontifical

authority in Emilia, Ravenna, and Cervia. They had been hideous enemies,

these two; and the Elect-Emperor had behaved abominably. Even now, he

refused to go to Monza or to Sant’ Ambrogio at Milan for the Iron Crown,

or to the Lateran Basilica of Rome for the Golden Imperial Diadem, as by

precedent he would have been compelled to do, had he belonged to the

House of Swabia. But he was a Spaniard, arrogant, cruel, unscrupulous,

and infamously powerful; and he insolently told the Pope’s Holiness that

he had not the habit of running after crowns, for, instead, they came to

him.

If the coronation of the Successor of St. Peter be a remarkable

function, the coronation according to the Roman Rite of the Successor of

Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus is but one degree less

sumptuous. It would be worth the while of any man of the Twentieth

Century to exchange lives with William of Hohenzollern, for the sake of

the opening which lies before him. In the case of Carlos V, all

ceremonies duly were observed. The Lord Clement P.P. VII came to

Bologna, a neutral city, for the coronation, and the Elect-Emperor met

Him there. On the twenty-second of February 1530, in the Chapel of the

Apostolic Palace, the Iron Crown[103] was set upon the imperial head.

Two days later, in the Cathedral of San Petronio, curtains were drawn

around the imperial canopy forming a pavilion wherein the Elect-Emperor

stripped naked for the anointing with holy oil and chrism. He was

ordained deacon, vested in the sacred imperial dalmatica, endued with

orb and sword and sceptre offered by reigning sovereigns, God’s

Vicegerent crowned him with the high closed Double Crown of Empire and

heralds proclaimed him

CAESAR

ROMANORUM IMPERATOR SEMPER AUGUSTUS MUNDI TOTIUS DOMINUS UNIVERSIS

DOMINIS UNIVERSIS PRINCIPIBUS ET POPULIS SEMPER VENERANDUS.

These things having been done, Pope and Emperor appeared in the

cathedral porch. There, Caesar Carlos V vested in full imperial

insignia, held the Pontiffs stirrup as He mounted, and led His palfrey

several paces, as a public act of homage and allegiance to Him By Whose

Sanction Kings Do Reign. Then, he mounted his own charger, and rode by

the Lord Clement P.P. VII’s side through the city of Bologna making

knights, as the way is, when the Pontiff left him.

It is probable enough that the Marquess Don Francisco de Borja

witnessed, and assisted at, this superb ceremony. He was attached to the

personal suite of Caesar Carlos V: but there is another circumstance

that implies that, in some way or another, most presumably in the flesh,

he was brought into contact with the Pope’s Holiness about this time. It

is that a little later, the Supreme Pontiff conferred an extraordinary

favour on his illustrious House, consisting of Five Privileges granted

to Duke Juan II of Gandia, his heirs and descendants of both sexes, and

whomsoever they might marry, IN CONSIDERATION OF THE SIGNAL SERVICES

RENDERED TO THE HOLY SEE BY THE HOUSE OF BORGIA. This unmistakeably

distinct statement shews that calumnies and lampoons of Messer Francesco

Guicciardini had made no ill impression on the Lord Clement P.P. VII,

who actually had met that writer when he was the guest of the _bas bleu_

Madonna Veronica Gambara during the coronation festivities at Bologna.

The fable of Borgia iniquity is a plant of later growth. In 1531 the

House was considered to have rendered signal services, deserving

recognition, _for a perpetual memorial_. Hence the granting of the Five

Privileges which follow here.

I

“To any confessor whom they may select,[104] powers to absolve them

from the gravest ecclesiastical censures and penalties: to commute the

obligation of fasting to almsgiving: once a year to absolve them in

cases usually reserved to the Holy See; or from any oath or vow but

those generally excepted.

II

“Special indulgences for the hour of Death, and for visits to a

church, or an altar: also, for every mass offered _by_ a scion of the

House (he being in priest’s orders), or _for_ any scion of the House,

indulgences equal to those which might be gained at the altars of San

Sebastiano, San Lorenzo, Santa Pudentiana, and Santa Maria _de Panis_

in Rome.

III

“Permission to use _Lacticinia_ (all food made of milk and eggs) and

meat,[105] on fast days throughout the year: this permission to extend

to guests and servants of the family. Permission to take luncheon at

mid-day, and dinner at night. Permission to receive the sacraments

within prohibited times.[106] Permission to be buried on any day in

the year, Easter alone excepted.

IV

“Priests who are scions of the House of Borgia may anticipate or

postpone their recitation of the Breviary Offices without observing

the fixed hours, reciting the whole office at once, or dividing it at

their pleasure.

V

“To female scions of the House of Borgia, or connections by marriage,

liberty once a month to enter the enclosure of nuns,[107] taking with

them four others to converse with the nuns, and to eat with them,

provided only that they do not remain for the night.” (_La heroica

vida, etc., del grande San Francisco de Borja, by Cardinal Alvaro

Cienfuegos. Madrid, 1717._ I. iii. 3, 4.)

The marriage of the Marquess Don Francisco, and the Marchioness Doña

Leonor, of Lombay, resulted in the birth of eight children, who were,

Don Carlos, the heir:

Don Juan, Count of Ficalho; Viceroy of Portugal; Ambassador of King

Don Felipe III.; Author of _Empresas Morales_ (1581); Married to

Doña Lorenza Oñaz de Loyola, heiress of Don Beltrano, Señor de

Loyola:

Don Alvaro, Marquess of Alcaguizes; Ambassador of King Don Felipe III

to the Holy See:

Don Hernando, Knight of the Order of Calatrava:

Don Alonso, Chamberlain to the Empress Maria:

Doña Isabella, married Don Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, Marquess of

Denia, Count of Lerina: (from this marriage descends the ducal

house of Lerina:)

Doña Juana, married Don Juan Enriquez de Almanas, Marquess of

Alcanices:

Doña Dorotea, nun at the monastery of Poor Clares in Gandia.

Six years the Marquess Don Francisco spent in the duties of a husband,

father, and courtier. In 1536, he accompanied Caesar Carlos V on a

futile vainglorious expedition into Provence. Harassed by the French

commander Montmorency, his vast preparations all nullified, his troops

wasted by disease and discredited by disaster, half his army _hors de

combat_ by reason of famine and plague, two months of inglorious

campaigning sufficed for Caesar Carlos V. The French raised the

peasantry against him; his retreat became a rout; and only a shattered

fragment of his once-magnificent army reached the gates of Milan.

Burning to retrieve his shame in the eyes of Europe, he launched a

second vast expedition against Algiers; only to encounter a second

ignominious disaster. Such were the Marquess Don Francisco de Borja’s

experiences of war.

In 1537, died in the monastery of Poor Clares at Gandia, the Suor Maria

Gabriella (Doña Maria de Aragona y Luna) widow of the murdered Duke of

Gandia (bastard of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI), and grandmother of the

Marquess Don Francisco. The same year, also, death claimed his brother

Don Rodrigo, who had enjoyed the Cardinal-Diaconate of San Niccolo _in

Carcere Tulliano_ only one year.

In 1539, an event occurred which fundamentally affected the Marquess Don

Francisco. He and his wife the Marchioness Doña Leonor, were lord- and

lady-in-waiting to Caesar’s wife, the Empress Doña Isabella. While

Caesar was at Toledo trying to wring a grant of money from the Cortes of

Castile, a sudden illness took the Empress, and she died. The Marquess

and Marchioness of Lombay were entrusted with the duty of bringing the

imperial corpse for burial to Elvira. There, was performed the ceremony

of verification. Before the opened coffin, the Marquess Don Francisco

was required to swear before the magistracy, that its contents were the

mortal relics of the Empress Isabella. Corruption had set in, completely

ravaging the dead: the face was like no human face and totally

unrecognizable. The Marquess Don Francisco swore, not from recognition,

but from knowledge that the coffin had never left his care. But a

permanent impression scathed and branded him. He saw Death the

Inevitable, the Horrible. Life at its highest and best, such as he

himself enjoyed, offered no equivalent to, no consolation for, the end

which none escape. He resolved to qualify for life eternal.

Perhaps the most prominent note in the Spanish character is

singlemindedness. It can pursue a single aim with a concentration of

energy, with a fulness and pertinacity of unwavering will which is

simply astounding. Is it kind and noble: the kind nobility of Don

Quixote de la Mancha exemplifies Spanish ideal. Is it cruel: the

ruthless remorseless impersonal cruelty of Torquemada makes worlds to

wince. Is it pious: it achieves complete disagreeable detachment of soul

from every earthly sentiment, possession, hope, desire. Is it impious: a

Spaniard will ravish an abbess of eighty, the corpse of a virginal

novice, the statue of Truth. Is it gay: no lark in the sun on the

morning of Easter is gayer. Is it gloomy: black moonless night,

unstarred, brooding on pools obscure, shadowed by funeral pines, is not

more fathomless than the deep depth of gloom veiling sad Spanish eyes.

The sight of the dead Empress Isabella drew that veil across the joy of

living, for the Marquess Don Francisco. He resolved to abjure the world:

he prayed that God would shew the way, and break the bonds that bound

him there. He was of the age of nine and twenty years.

When he returned to Toledo, Caesar named him Viceroy of Cataluna and

Knight of the Order of Sant’ Jago. Entering with zeal on his new duties,

he swept away the brigands who made travelling dangerous and obstructed

commerce in his province. He found justice hard to come by; and the

judges corrupt and venal. He reformed them all. Hospitals for sick and

needy, schools and colleges for the education of the young, sprang up

under his viceregal rule. A Sixteenth Century Viceroy was responsible,

not to press or parliament or self-styled philanthropists; but to one

earthly power alone—the Caesar. So long as his province regularly paid

its tribute, and gave no trouble to the imperial exchequer, the Viceroy

had absolute freedom. He was a despot in all but name. On this account,

a Viceroy who laboured for his people’s welfare was something of a

novelty. The piety of the Marquess Don Francisco grew intenser; he

changed his habit; going to Holy Communion once a week instead of once a

month. He was trying to detach himself from the world—that despotic

Viceroy.

Presently, there came a new kind of religious man, neither monk, nor

friar, nor secular priest (to speak strictly), but a priest, one Padre

Aretino Aroaz, “of the company of Jesus,” he said; and he preached

before the Viceroy at Barcelona. From him, the Marquess Don Francisco

heard the marvellous history of the marvellous man, the Señor Don Iñigo

Lopez de Recalde, of the House of Loyola; who, born in 1491, the year

before the Borgia Lord Alexander P.P. VI began to rule Christendom from

Rome, had followed a career of arms; taken a serious incapacitating

wound in 1521; become converted; gone on a pilgrimage to Nuestra Señora,

the Μητροπάρθενος, of Montserrat, in 1522; lived ten months in an

hermitage at Manresa; studied theology in that same city of Barcelona;

testified everywhere to his faith in Christ; been imprisoned by the

Spanish Inquisition for heresy—six weeks at Alcala, three weeks at

Salamanca; studied theology again in Paris from 1528 to 1532; received

Holy Order as a priest; founded a Religion of military priest-knights of

Christ; gained the sanction and benison of Christ’s Vicar, the Lord Paul

P.P. III, for his “Company of Jesus”;[108] and given to the world a book

of Spiritual Exercises for the training of the soul in counsels of

perfection. All this was of extreme interest and significance to the

Marquess Don Francisco. To know more, he entertained a correspondence

with this Padre Iñigo de Loyola in Rome.

This same year 1539, the Viceroy’s brother Don Enrico had news that the

Lord Paul P.P. III deigned to raise him to the Sacred College, as

Cardinal-Deacon of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo, the Title of which

previously had been held by Cardinal Francisco de Borja, bastard of the

Lord Calixtus P.P. III who died excommunicate in 1511. Setting out for

Rome to receive the cardinalitial insignia, Don Enrico reached Viterbo,

where he suddenly died in September 1540. His epitaph in the Vatican

Basilica shews that no shame was known at this date on account of

descent from the invincible Lord Alexander P.P. VI.

“HENRICUS . GENTE . BORGIA . NATIONE . HISPANUS .

PATRIA . VALENTINUS . ALEXANDER . VI. . PRONEPOS .

DUCIS . GANDIAE . F . DUM . IN . MAXIMA . SPE . ASSURGERET .

IMMATURA . MORTE . HEU . NIMIUM . RAPTUS . EST .

SPIRITUS . IN . CAELO . CORPUS . HIC . QUIESCIT.”

There were now no cardinals of the House of Borgia.

In 1543, died the Duke Don Juan II. de Borja, father of the Viceroy

Marquess of Lombay, who now succeeded to the Duchy of Gandia, the

principalities of Teano and Tricarico, the counties of Chiaramonte,

Lauria, and Cerignola. Having obtained Caesar’s leave to resign the

Viceroyalty of Cataluna, Duke Don Francisco de Borja returned to court,

where he was appointed Master of the Household of the Infanta Doña Maria

de Portugal. This princess was betrothed to the Infante Don Felipe, son

of Caesar Carlos V; and it appeared that worldly ties were not to be

untied, but tightened for the Duke of Gandia. But the Portuguese Infanta

died before marriage, her household was dispersed; and Duke Don

Francisco retired to his duchy, where he began to make plans for a new

college for the Company of Jesus (which perfectly had charmed him), and

for a new monastery of Dominican nuns in whom his Duchess Doña Leonor

was interested.

* * * * *

The year 1546, in a most signal manner marked the Duke of Gandia’s

progress along the road of detachment from the world.

The Duchess was sick. The Duke was praying for her recovery. The FIGURE

on the Crucifix spoke to him.

What follows here rests on sworn testimony at the subsequent process of

canonization, later to be described; a formal legal process that, from

its scope and stringency, demands as much consideration as the Report of

a Royal Commission, or, better still, a Decision of the Judicial

Committee of the Privy Council, in modern England.

The FIGURE on the Crucifix spoke: “—oyo una voz sensible, carinosa e

distinta, que Christo articulaba desde aquella estatua muerta.”[109]

IT said: “Si tu quieres que te dexe à la Duquesa mas tempo in esta vida,

yo lo dexo en tu mano; pero te aviso que à ti no te conviene esto.” _If

thou askest Me to leave the Duchess longer in this life, I will do so;

but I warn thee that this will not be profitable to thee._[110]

The Duke of Gandia repeated this to his confessor. He also told him his

reply, which was as follows:

“What is this, O my God? Dost Thou indeed commit to a weak and

trembling hand like mine, a Power which belongs to Thy Divine

Omnipotence? What art Thou, O my Only Good? And what am I, that Thou

should’st desire to do my will; when I was sent into the world for the

purpose of doing Thine Alone, and of obeying, not only Every Command,

but Every Inspiration of my Rightful Master? What Immeasurable

Goodness is This, that, in order to shew favour to a creature, Thou

should’st be willing to abrogate Thy Supreme Prerogative as his

Creator! Since it is my wish to belong, not to myself, but altogether

to Thee, I desire that, not my will, but Thine, should be done. Leave

nothing O Lord to the decision of Francisco de Borja. Remember how

often his feelings have blinded him and led him astray. Surely I

cannot do less in return for Thine Infinite Condescension and Gracious

Generosity, than to offer to Thee the lives of my wife and children as

well as mine own, and everything, in fact, that I possess in the

world. From Thine Hand I have received all: to Thee do I return all:

earnestly entreating Thee to dispose of all according to Thy Good

Pleasure.”

The Duchess died.

It is unnecessary to engage in a disquisition anent the Speaking

Crucifix. It is conceivable that He, Who made the ass of Balaam speak,

could also make a statue speak. It already has been said that this

history deals with matters which, as far as little human knowledge

goes—and that is not far—, are out of the course of nature. The affair

most rigorously has been investigated, and admitted, by a competent

tribunal, whose verdict must be taken as going as near the path of truth

as it is possible for a human tribunal to go. Therefore, the item of the

Speaking Crucifix, with other items of supernatural manifestation, will

be related as they occur, without attempts to explain them away, or to

fit them with an adequate apology. If it be granted that they be

possible, they at once become extremely probable. The length and

elaboration of the Duke of Gandia’s reply are considered, by some, as

proving it to have been composed after the event, and with due

consideration. This conclusion is quite worthy of notice, because it is

open to serious and practical objection. The few men, and the many

women, who habitually pray to God and to His saints, who are in direct

frank frequent and habitual communication with the other world, will be

perfectly well aware of the spontaneous ease with which ideas

automatically sort themselves, the formal phrases of the special

language automatically flow, from the lips of those whose life is one

continual prayer. To these the Duke of Gandia’s utterance presents no

difficulty: they recognize a foreign tongue with which they chance to be

acquainted. Also, it is quite permissible to understand those words as

not having been uttered actually, but as clothing the sentiments of the

mind of the Duke of Gandia.

Viewing the affair from a human stand-point, ordinary men will regard

Duke Don Francisco’s conduct as abhorrent, as heartless, as utterly

brutal. It was. Granting the circumstances, he deliberately sacrificed

the life of his wife. But his conduct was purely superhuman, purely

supernatural. He was one of the many Roman Catholics of the Sixteenth

Century—the Twentieth is less prolific—who really and truly believed _In

The Life Of The World To Come_. His actions prove it. He knew that every

man inevitably must submit to the hideous ordeal of surrendering to

God’s enemy, Death, as the price of entrance to eternity. He judged

that, the sooner this ordeal was over, the better it would be.

Therefore, confident in the merits of his Saviour and his wife’s, the

chance of translation being offered, he incontinently accepted on her

behalf. It was the act of a truly Christian, of a cruelly unworldly man.

“He wished to be rid of his wife!”

He did wish. Is it wrong to accept the joy of heaven for one loved,

suffering here on earth? “But his wish was selfish!”

His wish was selfish. The Duke of Gandia gained by the death of his

wife. He gained liberty to tear the flesh of his gracious body with

thongs and scourges. He gained liberty to abdicate his duchy, his

marquessate, his two principalities, his three counties; to strip

himself of every farthing of his enormous wealth; to forsake his home,

his children, his palaces, and his power; to starve on foul bread and

fouler water; to wear odiously ugly clothes; to do menial service for

his natural inferiors; to wheel manure in barrows; worst of all, to herd

with vulgar men; to make himself disliked and scorned and hated,

literally——: if it be selfish to desire these things, then the Duke of

Gandia was a selfish man. “It is impossible to admire him!”

People who say these silly things make the mistake, commit the

injustice, are guilty of the absurd inconsistency, of judging the Duke

of Gandia by comparing him to their own ideal. He must be regarded as he

was; not as he might have been if he had imitated the ideal of some

Twentieth Century plumber, haberdasher, or journalist. It is not

necessary to admire him. He never courted admiration; nor imitation

either. What he did was personal between himself and his God. He acted

up to his lights. He obeyed the voice of his conscience. He took for his

ideal, that of San Francesco d’Assisi,

NUDUS NUDUM CHRISTUM SEQUENS,

He had the right. The affair was his. And his deeds can be related only:

for, to use them to teach a lesson or to point a moral would be like a

vain beating of the air. Lessons in this department of knowledge are

given by no human instructor; and they are given solely to the hearts of

willing learners.

The first hindrance was removed.

A few days after the death of the Duchess, Père Pierre Lefevre of the

Company of Jesus arrived at Gandia, by previous arrangement, to lay the

foundation stone of the college which the Duke was building for the

Jesuits. He brought with him the Book of Spiritual Exercises written by

the General Padre Iñigo de Loyola. The Duke of Gandia took advantage of

his presence to perform these Spiritual Exercises, consisting of

prayers, pious meditations, and rigorous and systematic searchings of

the heart. Feeling profited by this experience, he wrote to the Lord

Paul P.P. III, begging Him to pronounce Apostolic Approval of the book.

In course of post, (which the Sixteenth Century carried on by means of

private couriers,) that is to say in the course of a few months, he

received from the Holiness of the Pope a Brief of Recommendation. The

Bull of Approval was issued on the thirty-first of July 1548.

This Brief caused him to resolve to join the Company of Jesus; and he

wrote his resolution to the General without delay. When the death of his

Duchess made him free to renounce the world, he seriously had thought of

becoming a Friar Minor. His name Francisco gave him San Francisco

d’Assisi, the founder of the Religion of Friars Minor, as his

patron-saint: the abject poverty, the singular contempt of the world,

the awful austerities of the Franciscans admirably agreed with his habit

of mind. He consulted his resident chaplain who himself was a Friar

Minor. To this friar, there came a vision of Madonna Mary saying, “Tell

the Duke to enter the Company of my Son.” To Duke Don Francisco, also, a

statue of Madonna Mary spoke the same words. Hence his final resolution.

Padre Ribadaneira of the Company of Jesus, who, afterwards was his

confessor, and who wrote the life of the Duke of Gandia and swore before

five tribunals of the truth of every word that he had written, says (xv.

238) that, for the next seven days, Duke Don Francisco was afflicted

with an apparition of a sumptuous mitre always floating above his head.

He had much fear. He knew that, when a person of his quality

relinquished a brilliant secular career, an equally brilliant

ecclesiastical one lay open to him. This was the very last thing that he

desired. He swore to God that, unless the apparition left him, and he

should be allowed to practise poverty during his whole life yet to come,

he would refuse to don the clerical habit: for he felt the prospect of

dignity to be a danger. Then the apparition left him: How exceedingly

natural is this example of unconscious cerebration. It would have been

strange indeed if the Duke’s crushed and bruised humanity had not

asserted itself in phantasmal apparitions.

The singular reply of the General of the Company of Jesus shall be given

in full. Its curious worldly care for the worldly welfare of worldly

people, its wonderful depth of spirituality for him who is spiritually

minded, its complete grip of the subject, its polite piety, its discreet

judgment, its personal humility, its impersonal dignity, its

authoritative decision, its quaint gravity of form, stamp it as the work

of a great and powerful mind. Padre Iñigo de Loyola wrote as follows:

“MOST NOBLE LORD:—

“It gave me great delight to hear of the resolution with which God in

His Infinite Goodness has inspired you. Since we, who are on earth,

are unable to render Him sufficient thanks for the favour which He has

been pleased to show to our humble Company, in calling you to join it,

I humbly beseech the angels and the saints who are now enjoying His

Presence in heaven to supply our deficiency in this respect. I trust

that Divine Providence will cause this decision of yours to be the

means of effecting much good, not only in regard to your own soul, but

to the souls of many others who may be led to follow your example. As

for us who are already members of the Company, we shall strive to

serve with increased devotion the Gracious Father, who has given us so

skilled a labourer to aid in the work of cultivating the tender vine,

which He has been pleased to entrust to my care, although I am in

every respect unworthy of the office. In the name of the Lord, I

therefore receive you at once as our brother, and shall henceforth

regard you as such. Most truly can I promise to feel for you, now, and

always, an affection proportioned to the large-hearted generosity with

which you desire to enter the House of God, there to serve Him more

perfectly.

“With reference to your enquiries as to the time and manner of your

entrance into the Company, I have laid the matter before God in

prayer. It is my opinion that this change must be made with much

caution and deliberation, in order that you may not leave any of your

immediate duties unfulfilled; otherwise it may not prove to be

A.M.D.G. (Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam—_To The Greater Glory Of God_; the

motto of the Company of Jhesus.) You had better keep the affair a

secret at present; at least as far as it is possible to do, striving

meanwhile so to arrange things as to be free as soon as you can, and

at liberty to carry out the plan you so ardently desire to execute for

the love of our Lord.

“In order to make myself more plainly understood, I may as well say

that, as your daughters are of a marriageable age, I think you ought

to endeavour to see them suitably settled. It would be well if you

were also to choose a suitable wife for your eldest son, the Marquess

of Lombay. In regard to your other sons, it would be better not to

leave them dependent upon their elder brother: but to assign to each a

suitable and sufficient income of his own; allowing them meanwhile to

pursue their university career. It is reasonably to be hoped that, if

they fulfil, as I trust and believe they will, the promise of their

youth, the Emperor will extend to them the favour he has always shown

to you; and will bestow upon them, when the right time comes,

appointments in keeping with their rank. You must also try and push on

the various buildings you have begun; for I think it desirable that

they should all be completed, before the great change you are

contemplating is generally made known.

“Meanwhile, you cannot do better, since you are already a proficient

in most branches of human learning, than apply yourself to the study

of Theology. It is my wish that you should do this with much care and

pains; for I should like you to take a doctor’s degree in the

University of Gandia.

“I cannot conclude without inculcating upon you to take every possible

precaution in order to prevent this astonishing piece of news from

being prematurely divulged. I feel that I need add no more on this

head.

“I shall hope to hear frequently from you; and I will try to give you

all the advice and assistance you may need. In the meantime, I shall

beseech our Lord to grant you all graces and blessings, in

ever-increasing abundance.”

That truly is an extraordinary letter. The two men had never met. Only a

few letters at long intervals had passed between them; yet there is not

the slightest doubt or misunderstanding. The humble priest, readily but

not avidly, calmly but not arrogantly accepts the role of mentor to the

brilliant duke. He is very glad to get a duke—who will have done with

dukedom: but he will allow no looking back when once the hand is put to

the plough. The severance must be absolute and irrevocable; and, to this

end, Padre Iñigo de Loyola gives an exhibition of plain and practical

common sense expressed in terms of courteous and definite command, _It

is my wish_—_I think you ought_——.

So during the next four years the Duke of Gandia laboured to carry out

the orders of his ecclesiastical superior, removing the only hindrances

that bound him to the world. His late wife’s sister Doña Juana de

Meneses acted as mother to his children. In 1548, he married his heir

the Marquess Don Carlos of Lombay, at the age of eighteen years, to Doña

Magdalene de Centellas y Cardona, Countess of Oliva. In 1549, he married

his daughter Doña Isabella to Don Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas,

Marquess of Denia and Count of Lerina. He finished the buildings of the

Dominican monastery at Gandia, and of the Jesuit College which is richly

endowed with houses for poor scholars, and for children of the Maranas

or Jews on condition of baptism. He also obtained charters from the Lord

Paul P.P. III and from Caesar Carlos V. raising this college to the rank

of an university.

At last, in 1550, he left his duchy of Gandia and journeyed toward Rome,

escorted by a retinue of thirty servants, and his second son Don Juan de

Borgia of the age of seventeen years. He had to pay the penalty of his

extraordinary notoriety. On his passage through Ferrara, the reigning

Duke (who himself came of Borgia stock) met him with fêtes and

processions. At Florence, Duke Cosmo de’ Medici accorded a

state-reception. He was going to renounce the world; and the world made

a triumphal progress of his going. His desire to slink into the lowest

place won him attention verging on adoration. His chagrin was

undisguised. He envoyed an avant-courier to ask his superior’s leave to

enter Rome by night avoiding publicity. Padre Iñigo de Loyola

peremptorily refused: for the Duke of Gandia was too good an

object-lesson to be thrown away. His entrance into the Eternal City,

whose citizens even in 1550 revered the memory of Borgia, was like that

of a king who comes into his kingdom. The Lord Paul P.P. III sent

ambassadors to welcome him, and to offer lodging in the Apostolic Palace

of the Vatican: but the Duke of Gandia hurried to the Jesuit College;

doing obeisance at the feet of the General and Founder of the Company of

Jesus. So these two unique personalities first met, whom now men call

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Francis of Borgia.

Padre Iñigo de Loyola immensely admired the Duke of Gandia. This last,

whose gracious and brilliant figure caused him to be compared to Apollo

and gained for him the nickname The Modern Narcissus, already was known

to fame as a ruler and orator born. He was the master of enormous wealth

and influence; and his only ambition in life was to strip himself of

these and abnegate his will at the command of another. During his

sojourn in Rome, he lavished his revenues on the foundation of the Roman

College. The honourable title of Founder was offered to him by his own

General: but he begged to be excused; and the title afterwards was

accepted by the Lord Gregory P.P. XIII, Who named the college The

Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome. Meanwhile, he sent a courier to

Augsburg, where Caesar Carlos V was, with a letter in which he asked his

sovereign’s leave to resign all his titles and estates. While he was

waiting for the reply, his General obliged him to fulfil all the duties

of his ducal rank; whereby he was brought into intimate relations with

the Holiness of the Pope and the Curial Cardinals. Even in this august

assemblage he won regard. The Pope and the cardinals became so fond of

him, that they disliked the notion of allowing so brilliant a man to

bury himself in the severe Religion of Padre Iñigo de Loyola. It was a

waste of talent, they said; and the Supreme Pontiff proposed instantly

to name him cardinal, like his dead brothers Don Rodrigo and Don Enrico.

It did appear to be a waste of talent. But that was a personal account

which the Duke of Gandia would have to settle with his Judge. In these

specimens of abnormal humanity, interference invariably is fatal, owing

to natural forces. It always is the safest and wisest plan, not to

hinder, but to help a sane well-meaning man, who is aware of his

responsibilities, to do the thing which he wants to do. For human nature

is capable of amazing outbreak, violence, and divarication, where it is

not free.

After four months in Rome, suddenly, and with no leave-taking, the Duke

of Gandia fled to Spain. The prospect of a scarlet hat had become too

real, too terrifying. Of course there is not the slightest danger that a

man may be made cardinal against his expressed desire. The cardinalate

is not an infectious disease like the plague, or scarlet fever; nor is

it a sacrament, like baptism, which leaves an ineradicable mark upon the

soul. It conceivably is possible that only brutal rudeness and

incivility will suffice for its avoidance:—but they will suffice. And it

can always be renounced, rare though renunciations be. The Duke of

Gandia was a very gracious lord, in full possession of all his

faculties, utterly uninfluenced; and, no doubt, he wished to avoid an

occasion when his conscience would direct him to be ungracious or

uncivil to the benevolence of the Holiness of the Pope. In his flight,

he first went to the castle of Loyola, where his General had been born,

to thank Heaven for the nativity of that marvellous man: then, onward

again, a few miles to the little town of Oñata in Guipuscoa, where there

was a house of the Company of Jesus. The Lord Paul P.P. III died in Rome

this year 1550: and was succeeded by the Lord Julius P.P. III.

The Duke of Gandia received a Brief from Caesar Carlos V, dated the

twelfth of February 1551, giving permission, to divest himself of rank

and to renounce the world, with very much regret at losing the

allegiance of his most brilliant subject, and solely because Caesar felt

that to refuse would be opposition to the Divine Will. He made the

formal act of renunciation before a notary at Oñate; bestowing his

duchy, his principalities, and his counties on his heir, the Marquess

Don Carlos of Lombay; distributing his estates and wealth among his

children. He laid aside his sword, which, according to the fashion of

the courtiers of Caesar Carlos V, he rode cock-horse, (so to speak,) as

it hung between his legs. He had his hair cut short, and the tonsure

shaved on his head. He changed his ducal robes for the shabby

ill-fitting black habit of a Jesuit. On Whit Saturday he was ordained

priest; and the Duke of Gandia disappeared in Padre Francisco de Borja.

In his after life, he never would allow of any allusion to his former

style, except when he chanced to hear of the refusal by the Company of

Jesus to admit a would-be but unsuitable novice, when he would say, “Now

I thank God from the bottom of my heart for having made me a duke; for

assuredly there was nothing else about me which could have induced the

superiors to accept me”: an opinion which shews that Padre Francisco’s

extremely poor opinion of himself betrayed him into exaggeration—a

little human touch which brings him nearer to human understanding.

He said his first mass privately in the chapel of the castle of Loyola,

on the first of August 1551, the Festival of St. Peter’s Chains; and

gave Holy Communion to his second son, Don Juan de Borja, who, having

found it hard to leave his father, was losing his young heart to Doña

Lorenza Oñaz de Loyola, heiress of the Señor Don Beltrano de Loyola.

Padre Francisco’s second mass was a public function. All the people

round about persisted in nicknaming him “Lo Santo Duque,” _The Holy

Duke_. The Lord Julius P.P. III granted a plenary indulgence to all who

should assist at this mass, on the usual conditions of confession and

communion. To satisfy the multitude the mass was to be said in the city

of Vergara: but no church would hold the crowd, and the altar was

erected in a field by the hermitage of Santa Ana. It began at nine

o’clock in the morning of the fifteenth of November 1551, and continued

till three in the afternoon, so overwhelming was the number of

communicants. (The ordinary mass lasts half an hour.) The sermon was

preached by Padre Francisco in the courtly Castilian dialect: but it is

recorded that people of all provinces understood him, even those whose

native tongue was Basque. A certain Don Juan de Moschera publicly cursed

him; to whom Padre Francisco instantly went, begging pardon for being

worth a cursing.

He set up as a hermit in a wooden cell near the Jesuit House at Oñate;

and gained fame as a preacher, especially (strange to say) among the

learned clergy. Men who take pleasure in approving of others, newcomers,

of the same trade, are very rare: but for the clergy to approve of a

preacher is rarer. He wrote a manual of Advice to Preachers, which had

an unusual vogue. He was very fond of the breviary hymn _Vexilla Regis

prodeunt_, (The Royal Banners forward go;) and repeated with delight of

soul the stanza,

“_Arbor decora et fulgida,

Ornata regis purpura:

Electo digno stipite,

Tam Sancta Membra tangere._

“O Tree of glory, Tree most fair, ordained those Holy Limbs to bear;

How bright in purple robe It stood, the purple of a Saviour’s Blood.”

(“Hymns Ancient and Modern.”)

He worked miracles. A lady had two splinters of wood; the one was

unnotable, the other was a Relique of the True Cross: but which was the

Relique was not known. Padre Francisco, to decide, broke them both; from

one, Blood dropped upon a piece of paper. An Infanta of Spain put him to

a similar test: but in this case the relique was said to be a piece of

the skin of St. Bartholomew Apostle (he was flayed alive), with another.

Padre Francisco tore both skins; and again blood dropped from one on

linen. The blood-stained paper and the blood-stained linen, with both

reliques, are in the monastery of Poor Clares at Madrid. Multitudes came

to see the quondam duke as hermit; they said that they saw a radiant

nimbus lighting the pallor of his brow; and to prevent Padre Francisco

from becoming puffed up, (an excessively unnecessary precaution, one

would think,) his superior at Oñate, Padre Ochiva, set him to hard

menial labour, to dig, saw, carry stones, chop wood, light fires, help

in the kitchen, and wheel barrows of manure. The General, to whom every

detail was reported, sent Padre Francisco to preach in Portugal, where

the Company of Jesus was little known; and his mission met with great

results. With himself he was most severe. All physical beauty was gone

from his once gracious body, macerated in ceaseless austerities. He took

the habit of signing his letters _Francisco Pecador_, “Francis the

Sinner”: but his sapient General promptly stopped that practice, saying

that Singularity was not the seed of Sanctity. All letters which came to

him addressed to The Duke of Gandia, he returned, inscribed _Not for

me_, _Francisco S.J._

The Lord Julius P.P. III issued a Brief, offering him a scarlet hat. He

sent a firm refusal in reply. It has been said that he feared to accept

the cardinalate, lest he should be elected Pope at the next Conclave.

The statement is absurd; because

(α) in theory, the election of the Successor of St. Peter is the work

of the Holy Spirit; and _ubi Spiritus ibi libertas_, where the

Spirit is there is liberty: not cardinals alone, but humble

priests as well, or newly tonsured clerks, or any Christian

male, is eligible:—there is no such absurd thing as a

restriction on the Right of the Divinity to choose his Vicar;

and Padre Francisco, therefore, was as liable in black, as he

would have been in scarlet:

(β) if he had been elected Pope, it was open to him to refuse or to

accept the Call.

Some Roman Catholics hold that he _could_ not have refused. But Popes

can abdicate, and have abdicated! But _would_ he have refused? Would he

have been allowed by the General of the Company of Jesus to refuse?

There is no knowing. Such a case has never occurred.

There never has been a Jesuit Pope. It would have been an unique, an

unheard of situation,—the Company of Jesus in full power, armed with

plenary authority, absolute in all the world, practising unscrupulous,

uncompromising Christianity. The conditions of the Millennium would

stand in a fair way of being fulfilled—to speak by the Book.—But Padre

Francisco de Borja refused the scarlet hat; for he wished for himself

complete detachment from the world, and nothing more, here.

Returning from his mission in Portugal to Spain, he evangelized the

provinces of Castile and Andalusia. At Alicaza, he healed a cripple

girl. At Valladolid, he raised the dead to life. Two teeth being knocked

out of the head of a great preacher, his companion, they were replanted

by Padre Francisco: and never old age nor decay affected them. The

General named him Provincial for Spain and the Indies; and Father and

Founder of the Company of Jesus in Spain and Portugal. His preaching

converted the rich and worldly Bishop of Plasencia who returned to his

religious duties. Padre Francisco introduced the Company of Jesus at

Valladolid, Medina, San Lucar, Burgos, Granada, Plasencia, Murcia,

Sevilla, Valencia. Did he, in passing through Valencia, find any of the

old stock of Don Juan Domingo de Borja who, exactly a century earlier,

had given the Lord Calixtus P.P. III to Rome and Christendom?

He was the first to establish the Jesuit Noviciates; and the Noviciate

at Simancas was his favourite. Here are his methods of dealing with

novices. A certain novice of noble birth and breeding, but pious all the

same, found it intolerable that he should have to wait upon himself with

no menial to truss his points, or brush his clothes, or sweep his floor

to serve him. Padre Francisco heard his complaint; and, having there

another novice, who in the world had been a valet, he ordered him on his

obedience to serve his noble brother. The thing was done; and in a

little while, the noble novice sensibly took shame at his own

singularity, as might have been expected; and dispensed with further

service. Another noble novice found his narrow cell and his hebdomadal

shirt altogether insupportable. Padre Francisco promptly furnished him

with a large room, and a clean shirt every day; and, presently, he grew

to hate his privileges, renounced them, and assimilated himself with the

rest. Padre Francisco at least believed what already has been said here,

viz., that the wise man does not hinder, but helps the sane well-meaning

man who is aware of his responsibilities, to do the thing that he

desires to do: for, if that thing be undesirable, the doer quickly will

find it out, and so convince himself; while the thing undone, the wish

unsatisfied, causes the unconvinced to hanker after, to struggle for,

and to revolt. Once when Padre Francisco was visiting the College of

Sant’ Andrea of Valladolid, the resources were at an end; and there was

neither food nor money in the house. Natheless, he ordered the bell to

be rung as usual for supper though the board was bare; and, in the nick

of time, there came to the outer door an old grey-headed man with a huge

lovely boy, strangers in the city, who brought baskets of meat and bread

and fish and eggs and wine, and a purse of money: whom the pious have

called St. Andrew and an Angel.

The year 1555 saw three Popes; the Lord Julius P.P. III, Who died and

was succeeded by the Lord Marcellus P.P. II, Who died and was succeeded

by the Lord Paul P.P. IV.

In 1556, Padre Iñigo de Loyola died; and Padre Francisco instantly began

to invoke his departed chief,—_Holy Ignatius of Loyola, pray to the Lord

our God for me_;—while Padre Jago Laynez was elected General of the

Company of Jesus.

In 1558, also died the Holy Roman Emperor Carlos V, who long had given

himself to religion. On his death-bed, Imperial Caesar cried for “santo

Padre Francisco de Borja” to assist him in his agony. But the Jesuit was

unable to arrive except in time to preach the funeral oration. Caesar

had shown to the priest the unparalleled respect and honour of naming

him executor of his will; an office which the unworldliness of Padre

Francisco impelled him to decline. The royal and imperial family,

conscious of the κύδος which they would gain by his acceptance, appealed

against his decision. The Princess-Regent also invoked the General, who

issued a command upon obedience; which Padre Francisco perforce obeyed,

carried out the provisions of the will of Caesar Carlos V, taking as

little as possible of his own share, to avoid offence. Of course, all he

had would go to the funds of his order, his vow of poverty debarring him

from personal possessions.

In 1559, he was in Portugal once more, sick of an intermittent fever at

Evora. The people of this country, natural enemies of Spain and

Spaniards, so loved Padre Francisco that they said he must be a

Portuguese. During his sickness, he wiled the weary waiting and cheered

his soul by setting music to the anthem _Regina caeli laetare_

(“Rejoice, O Queen of Heaven”), and the hundred and seventy-six verses

of Psalm cxviii, Vulgate Version, _Beati Immaculati_, (Psalm cxix,

Authorized Version, “Blessed are the undefiled in the way.”) This year,

his sister Dona Juana de Borja y Aragona (Suor Juana de la Cruz,) died

In The Odour of Sanctity. She was the first Abbess of the Royal

Monastery of Sandalled (Discalced) Carmelites in Madrid. This year 1559,

died the Lord Paul P.P. IV and the Lord Pius P.P. IV succeeded Him. In

1560, Padre Francisco calmed the terrified population of Oporto during a

total eclipse of the sun, spontaneously preaching an impassioned sermon

on the eclipse, of mortal sin, which veils man’s soul from the Sun of

Righteousness. Then, again, sickness laid him low; neuralgia, paralysis,

ulcers. The vile body was resisting the strain which he made it bear.

Restored to health in 1561, he was summoned to Rome and named

Vicar-General of the Company of Jesus. Let it never be forgotten that,

while the Borgia Pontiffs paved the way for, Padre Francisco de Borja

governed the Jesuits throughout the world while the General Padre Jago

de Laynez was present at, the Œcumenical of Trent. The connection

between the House of Borgia and the Tridentine Decrees is of enormous

significance. Here, at last, was the General Council for the Reformation

of the Holy Roman Church, summoned and legally constituted by lawful

authority. For years, self-seeking malcontents, ecclesiastical and

royal, had howled for it. Now, it was come: but the German schism was an

accomplished fact. The cry had gone through Christendom that Rome was

effete, corrupt, on the verge of decay and dissolution. And lo, She

arose in Her strength, and cut away the parasitic ulcers that long had

blurred with open wounds Her contours; refurbished spiritual arms long

rusted; set Her house in order; and was ready again, like a giant

refreshed, for Her interminable affray. The Barque of Peter went into

dock. The Garden of Souls was weeded. The Council of Trent reformed the

Holy Roman Church: and a Borgia, as General’s deputy, was ruling the

Company of Jesus in all the world.

During four years, Padre Francisco was Vicar-General in Rome. He

preached often in the Spanish church of San Giuseppe on Via del

Monserrato. The Religion of Padre Iñigo de Loyola endured one of its

numerous phases of attack. In this world, things being as they are, to

such an institution a liability to disesteem is inevitable. Persecutors

and calumniators arose; and Padre Francisco showed a talent for

successful defence. Having completely crushed himself, he could bring to

his cause an amount of irresistible force of which the ordinary man,

distracted by the whimsy interests of this and that, is altogether

unaware.

[Illustration: _Saint Francis Borgia._]

His behaviour, in one of those cases with which the Holy Roman Church

occasionally shocks the world, is quite remarkable. His son Don Alvaro

de Borja, who was about the age of twenty-seven years, and Ambassador of

Spain in Rome, desired to marry Doña Laniparte de Almansa y Borja,

daughter of his own sister Doña Juana, and of the age of about fourteen

years. Padre Francisco refused to countenance a marriage between his

grand-daughter and his son, between uncle and niece: refused to ask the

Pope’s Holiness for the necessary dispensation. Whereupon, Don Alvaro

approached the Lord Pius P.P. IV directly, in his capacity of

ambassador, and obtained the dispensation; while the Pope scolded Padre

Francisco for his conduct in the matter.

In 1565 Padre Jago Laynez died. Deliberately shutting their ears to his

appeals, the Jesuits elected Padre Francisco de Borja Prepositor-General

of the Company of Jesus on the second of July. With the single exception

of the Roman Pontiff, he now was the most powerful ruler in Christendom,

general of an army unrivalled in discipline, utterly reliable, because

voluntarily enlisted and morally ruled. Yet he gave no sign of pride or

pleasure. He was a perfect Jesuit, humanely sensitive, completely

self-distrustful. He said “It is evident that our Lord has condescended

to assume the government of this Company since He sees fit to use so

deplorably unworthy an instrument.” What words could express more

sincerely abject and unworldly humility than those?

_Aut pati aut mori_ was his motto. As General, he relaxed not one of the

stern rigorous austerities with which he kept under his body and brought

it into subjection. Every passion and appetite of his human nature he

deliberately killed. He slept little. He ate little. He had freed

himself from every earthly love.

What he might have been!

What he was!

A brilliant and gracious duke, master of territories and boundless

wealth, father of a noble family allied with the bluest blood of Spain,

honoured by his sovereign, reverenced by his equals, loved by his kin,

adored by his dependants.

A sinister shadow of a man, wracked with continual pain, deliberately

apart from all his kind, feared, disliked, distrusted, alone,

suffering,—alone.

Every day he systematically meditated during five hours on superhuman

things. Every morning and every night, he subjected his conscience to

rigorous examination, and confessed even every impulse to evil thought.

He prayed without ceasing. Once, when travelling in Spain with Padre

Bustamente, the two slept side by side on the bare floor of a loft,

because there was no room for them in the inn. Padre Bustamente, being

asthmatic, spat all night long, unknowingly on the face of his

companion, who never moved. In the morning light, he was horrified to

see what he had done: but Padre Francisco consoled him, saying that in

all the world no more suitable place could have been found. He had been

very urgent with his sister Doña Juana, Abbess of the Poor Clares at

Gandia, that she should persevere in penance and mortification till her

life’s end. Has there ever been a case of a consistent Roman Catholic

who has committed suicide from religious melancholomania? Rarely; if

ever: for the Church, wisely recognising that peculiar temperament, has

provided a system where voluntary mortification has its places, its

rules, and may be practised by whoever will.

Padre Francisco had the gifts of intuition and of clear-seeing, which

generally are found developed respectively in women and brute beasts. He

knew when a house was about to fall some time before it fell. He knew,

on seeing a courier from his eldest son, that an heir was born to the

Duke Don Carlos of Gandia. The courier did not relish this intuition,

thinking that he deserved reward for his good news: of which disgust,

also, Padre Francisco was aware; and gave reward. _The greater the

detachment from the world, over worldly things the greater power is

gained._ People who saw Padre Francisco during his generalship, saw rays

of mysterious light playing round his head. The phenomenon of the

electric aura now is well-known; and the camera will show it on

occasion. Often, in his trances of prayer, he was seen floating above

the ground.

In 1566 the Lord Pius P.P. IV died; and, succeeding Him, the Lord Pius

P.P. V. stopped his coronation procession at the Jesuit House in Rome,

that He might pay His respects to the holy General. In 1569 Padre

Francisco again was stricken with fever. Recovering, he made a

pilgrimage to the Holy House of Nazareth, which angels carried over the

sea from Palestine and set down at Loreto by Ancona. In 1571 the Pope’s

Holiness sent an embassage to France and Spain and Portugal, to rouse

the sovereigns of Christendom against the Muslim Infidel. The

ambassadors were the Papal Nephew, the Lord Michele Bonello, son of

Madonna Gardina the Pope’s sister, born at Boschi near Alessandria, who

at his august Uncle’s first creation in 1566 had been named

Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria _sopra Minerva_ with the

cognomen Alessandrino; and Padre Francisco de Borgia, Prepositor-General

of the Company of Jesus. The two left Rome in 1571. In Barcelona, they

settled a long-standing dispute between the government and the cathedral

chapter; for Padre Francisco was ever a peacemaker. In the province of

Cataluna, which was not unmindful of him who had been its viceroy, the

ambassadors were received with the highest honour.

The record of this journey, through the scenes of his youthful glory, is

one of the most pathetic things in human history. This sinister

emaciated phantom shabbily robed in thread-bare black, whose thin lips

bit perpetual pain; this great and narrow spirit with eyes tardy and

grave, furtively, drowsily, reluctantly, regarding earthly things,

having seen the heavenly; this mendicant, whose companion was a prince

of the church sumptuous in ermine and vermilion,—he was no stranger in

Cataluna, where aforetime as marquess, duke, and imperial viceroy he had

exercised despotic and sovereign rule. Now he thought no place low

enough, foul enough, for his deserts. He was in, but not of, the world.

At Valencia, his children and his grandchildren knelt to kiss his

way-worn feet. They prayed him to visit his duchy of Gandia. He refused.

He was no longer of the world.

He preached for the last time in the cathedral of Valencia—Valencia the

shrine of the House of Borja. Here, a century and a half earlier, Canon

Alonso de Borja had been raised to the bishopric. The Bishop of Valencia

became cardinal. The Cardinal of Valencia became the strenuous Lord

Calixtus P.P. III. From Xativa by Valencia sprang Don Rodrigo de Lançol

y Borja, Bishop of Valencia, Cardinal of Valencia, the magnificent

invincible Lord Alexander P.P. VI. The splendid Don Cesare (detto

Borgia) also was Bishop of Valencia and Cardinal, before he renounced

the purple for the French duchy of Valentinois. Three huge personalities

had borne the name that now was represented by this obscure wan figure

whose voice, whose magic pleading fading voice, thrilled in the aisles

of Valencia’s fane. Here, in Valencia, the fire was kindled; hence, from

Valencia, blazed the all-devouring flame; here, in Valencia, the cresset

glowed with steady brilliant light, so shining before men that they

might see good works, and glorify the Father which is in heaven. Padre

Francisco de Borja preached for the last time in the cathedral of

Valencia.

In France, the ambassadors met with no success. That miserable country

was in the throes of the Huguenot Rebellion; and the Queen Dowager,

Madame Caterina de’ Medici, ruled the maniac King. After travelling

through France in the winter, gaining converts and confirming the

churches, but failing in the object of their journey, the ambassadors

reached Turin; and became guests of the Duke of Savoy. Padre Francisco,

utterly worn out with exertion and anxiety, his vital forces being on

the verge of exhaustion, fell ill on the second of February, Candlemas

Day 1572. The exigencies of courtly etiquette bored him to distraction;

and he hurried on. Low Sunday found him in Ferrara. Here, having

concluded his ambassadorial duties, the last remains of his strength

departed. His nephew, the Duke of Ferrara, gave him a royal escort, and

a royal litter, as he was too weak to ride, and sent him onward to Rome.

During this last journey, it was noticed that, though he lay still, more

like a corpse than a man, his characteristic gesture of command remained

with him to the very end.

He attained the Flaminian Gate of Rome on the twenty-eighth of

September. All the Company of Jesus were there to receive their dying

General. He was carried to the Jesuit House, and the last Sacraments of

Unction and Viaticum fortified his soul.

On the Festival of St. Michael Archangel, he lay a-dying. The next day,

his speech departed. His last words, the last words of the sometime

gracious and brilliant duke, the last words of the Jesuit General, were

the words of a simple little Christian child, “I long for Jesus!”

He had done with the Latin of the Church. He had gone back to his

mother-tongue, “A Jesus quiero.”

On the first of October 1572, he died of a decline, being of the age of

two and sixty years.

* * * * *

Instantly, the pious opinion was entertained that Padre Francisco de

Borja had died In The Odour of Sanctity.

It was found impossible to undress the corpse. Among others, his brother

Don Tommaso de Borja, the Viceroy of Aragon, made an attempt to perform

the last duties, but all without success. This same Don Tommaso, who

afterwards became Archbishop of Saragossa, wrote a detailed history of

this phenomenon which he calls miraculous. Various explanations are

given of the sudden and complete _rigor mortis_, which, however, are

mystical, not practical ones. It is said that modesty prevented the

disrobing, or that it was intended to hide the scars of long-practised

austerities, or that the greatest reverence was due to the body which

had been the temple of the Holy Spirit.

His family, and all who in his life had known him, looked upon Padre

Francisco de Borja as a saint: as such, they privately venerated his

fragrant memory, and invoked the aid of his intercession. No public

honours were accorded, for his right to these had not yet been made

clear: but it was alleged that these private invocations produced

marvellous results. Two shall be named. The physicians attending the

Duchess of Uzeda in child-bed found themselves unable to effect delivery

owing to congenital malformation. After the invocation of the dead

Jesuit, instant safe and painless delivery took place with perfect

health to mother and child. Queen Doña Margarita, wife of King Don

Felipe III of Spain, endured puerperal fever. The invocation of Padre

Francisco brought a cure. Then, and with these credentials, the Company

of Jesus formally petitioned the Papal Nuncio in Spain, Monsignor Decio

Carafa afterwards Cardinal, to order an enquiry into the virtues and

miracles of the Servant of God, their departed General. Five tribunals

were found at Valencia, Madrid, Barcelona, Saragossa, and Recanati;

multitudes of witnesses were examined and cross-examined. Padre

Ribadaneira, confessor of the deceased, confirmed on oath his book on

the life of Padre Francisco de Borja. From this book, many of the

foregoing facts are taken. In 1615, after thirty-seven years’ labour,

the proceedings of the five tribunals in writing were sent to Rome,

where Spain’s ambassador presented them to the Lord Paul P.P. V with

recommending letters from King Don Felipe III, the Grandees and Hidalgos

of Spain, archbishops and bishops, cathedral chapters, municipalities,

and universities.

The Supreme Pontiff was pleased to refer the matter to the Sacred

Congregation of Rites, the Roman tribunal competent to deal with such a

case. Before this court, all evidence was verified; and a decree was

issued attesting the orthodoxy of the teaching of the Venerable Servant

of God, his sanctity of life, and the authenticity of the alleged

miracles, satisfactorily to have been proved; and granted permission to

proceed to Beatification. The Lord Paul P.P. V confirmed this decree;

and named three Apostolic Commissioners to carry on the cause in Spain.

The proceedings of a Royal Commission are so well understood, that it

merely is necessary to say that the business of an Apostolic Commission

is to search for information, to hear and weigh evidence, and to compile

a report on a given subject.

Meanwhile, the claims of Spain to possess the remains of her renowned

son were recognized; and on the twenty-third of February 1617, the body

of the Venerable Francisco de Borja, (except an arm retained at the Gesù

in Rome,) was translated to the chapel of the Jesuit House in Madrid.

In 1623, the eight years labours of the Apostolic Commission were

concluded; and brought to the usual scrutiny in Rome. Later, the verdict

was given to the effect that the sanctity and miracles of the Venerable

Francisco de Borja fully had been established; and that, therefore, he

was worthy of Beatification: which decision duly was confirmed by the

Lord Gregory P.P. XV.

Thirty-one years later, on the thirty-first of August 1654, a decree in

accord with this decision was issued by the Sacred Congregation of

Rites, and ratified by the Lord Urban P.P. VIII[111], Who, on the

twenty-fourth of November, published the Bull of Beatification with the

Office and Mass in honour of the Blessed Francisco de Borja for the

Universal Church.

Another seventeen years of public prayers and legal action passed; and

on the eleventh of April 1671, the Lord Clement P.P. XI solemnly

canonized Saint Francisco de Borja, adding to the Roman Martyrology,

which is the official roll of sanctitude, the three lines, in which the

Holy Roman Catholic Church delivers Her authoritative judgment, and of

which the following is a literal translation: “_Sixth day of the Ides of

October. This day, at Rome, is kept the festival of Saint Francisco of

Borja, Repositor-General of the Company of Jesus, memorable, having

abdicated secular things and refused dignities of the Church, by

asperity of life, by the gift of prayer._

In 1680, the reliques of the saint were translated to the gorgeous

church in Madrid which the Duke of Lerma built A.M.D.G. To the Greater

Glory of God, and of his ancestor St. Francisco de Borja. So, a century

after his death, a Borgia was numbered with the Saints.

Rational human judgment may be glad to stand aside before the sober

judgment of the Church, so far removed from bias, from ecstatic

extravagance, so calmly judicially personal. She has divined all, and is

reticent. She has settled his key, She has struck his note, and is

sufficient. She has shewn him in an _Ideal Content_. He “left all”; and

for that She honours him: and She has Scriptural Warrant.

“An accomplished courtier, a clever diplomatist, a brilliant and

gracious viceroy, a perfect religious.

“A masterful imperious character—in breaking his own will he broke

himself.

“A magnified non-natural man.

“Saint Francisco de Borja—Memorable—By asperity of life—By the gift of

prayer.

“Memorable.

Ashes

“_A fire, that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it

lays hold on the faggots; bursts into a roaring blaze, with raging

tongues of flame, devouring all in reach, spangled with sparks

that die; settles into the steady genial glare, the brilliant

light, that men call fire: burns away to slowly-expiring ashes_;—

From the birthday to the Life eternal of St. Francisco de Borja, the

Spanish Branch of the House in his direct descendants increased and

multiplied; intermarried with the grandest names in Spain; and decreased

in importance, until its extinction in the penultimate decade of the

last century. Four only, of these, need be mentioned here.

Don Gaspard de Borja was a great-grandson of the Saint, and son of Duke

Don Francisco de Gandia by his wife Doña Juana de Velasco Tovar. He

studied at the Complutensian University, becoming a Laureate in Theology

and Dean of the University. He was the first Grandee of Spain to occupy

the Chair of Professor and Public Lecturer. At the instance of the

Catholic King, he obtained a Canonry at the Metropolitan Cathedral of

Toledo; and here he began to nourish the enormous ambition of becoming

the third Pope of the House of Borgia.[112]

On the seventeenth of August 1611, he was named Cardinal-Presbyter of

the Title of Santa Croce _in Gerusalemme_, being then a youth;

“invenis,” says Ciacconi; twenty-two years of age, says the exact and

uniquely well-informed Moroni. On the fifteenth of May 1630, he was

raised to the Cardinal-Bishopric of Albano, and named Archbishop of

Seville. In Rome, he was on the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office,

and ambassador of the Catholic King to the Holy See. In the Kingdom of

Naples, he was Viceroy. He bought, (Mr. Henry Harland wittily says that

one may buy such things,) the additional title of “Father of the Poor,”

by distributing annually in charity ten thousand crowns; and he

exchanged his archbishopric of Seville for that of Toledo. In 1641, he

held a diocesan synod over which his Vicar-General presided as his

proxy, and governed his archdiocese, while he was cultivating his

ambition in Rome. He was an unwilling assistant at the two Conclaves,

which elected the Lord Gregory P.P. XV and the Lord Urban P.P. VIII. And

in November 1645, while England was in the throes of the Great

Rebellion, he died at Madrid, after fifty-six years of life, and

thirty-four of cardinalate, a disappointed man, and was buried in the

metropolitan cathedral of Toledo.

* * * * *

Don Francisco de Borja, great-great-grandson of the Saint, son of Duke

Don Carlos de Gandia by his wife Doña Maria Ponce de Leon, was born on

the twenty-seventh of March 1659. He was a man of singular and

extraordinary piety and learning, Archdeacon of Calatrava and Canon of

Toledo. By his proved fidelity he gained the favour of the Catholic King

Don Carlos II, who made him Councillor of Aragon. From Rome, he received

the bishopric of Calagurita; and (on the fourteenth of November 1699,

according to Moroni, or on the twenty-first of June 1700, according to

Guarnacci,) the scarlet hat of the cardinalate and the archbishopric of

Burgos. He died on the fourth of April 1702, undistinguishable from

other ecclesiastics of his rank.

* * * * *

Don Carlos de Borja was brother to the foregoing. Born at Gandia his

family’s fief on the thirtieth of April 1653 (Moroni), or 1663

(Guarnacci,) he studied theology at the college of Sant’ Ildefonso, and

succeeded his brother as Archdeacon of Calatrava and Canon of Toledo. On

the death of Archbishop Don Pedro de Portocarrero, the Lord Clement P.P.

XI named him Archbishop of Tyre and Trebizond _in partibus infidelium_;

a see held at the present moment by an Englishman who is the ornament of

the “Black” drawing-rooms of Rome. From Tyre and Trebizond, Archbishop

Don Carlos de Borja rose to the Patriarchate of the Indies, continuing

to reside in Spain where he shewed piety and zeal as chaplain and

almoner to the Catholic King Don Felipe V. On the thirtieth of September

1720, he was raised to the Sacred College; and in his capacity of

cardinal, hurried to Rome for the Conclave of 1721. There, he found

already elected and crowned, the Lord Innocent P.P. XIII, who named him

Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Pudenziana, and placed him on

the Sacred Congregations of The Index of Prohibited Books, of

Indulgences, of Signaturae Gratiae. He died at the Royal Villa of Sant’

Ildefonso near Madrid on the eighth of August 1733, and honourably was

buried there. He has left nothing of his personality, save a physically

effete but beautiful gentle generous shadowy visage, in his portrait

painted by Procaccini, and engraved by Rossi in Guarnacci II. 357–8.

* * * * *

So the Senior Branch, in the line of the direct descendants of the

murdered Duke of Gandia, bastard of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, withered

in sumptuous obscurity; heaping up secular titles and estates by

marriage, heaping up ecclesiastical dignity and preferment by the

enchantment of the Borja name added to personal merit, until its final

extinction only eighteen years ago. The names and titles of the last of

the Spanish Borja, here recorded, will shew what that House had

accumulated in a bare four hundred years—three principalities, seven

duchies, ten marquessates, sixteen counties, and one viscounty, besides

knightly orders and decorations.

His name was

Don Mariano Tellez-Giron y Beaufort Spontin Pimentel de Quiñones

Fernandes de Velasco y Herrera Diego Lopez de Zuñiga Perez de

Guzman Sotomayor Mendoza Maza Ladrón de Lizana Carroz y Arborea

Borja y Centelles Ponce de Leon Benavides Enriquez Toledo

Salm-Salm Hurtado de Mendoza y Orozco Silva Gomez de Sandoval y

Rojas Pimentel y Osorio Luna Guzman Mendoza Aragon de la Cerda

Enriquez Haro y Guzman.

His titles were

Prince of Squillace[113], Eboli, Melito;

Duke of Osuna, Infantado, Benevente, Plasencia, Béjar, Gandia, Arcos

de la Frontera, Medina de Rioseco y Lerma;

Marquess of Tavara, Santillana, Algecilla, Argüesco, Gibraleon,

Zahara, Lombay, Peñafiel, Almenara y Cea;

Count of Benevente, Plasencia, Béjar, Gandia, Arcos de la Frontera,

Medina de Rioseco y Lerma, Real de Manzanares, La Oliva,

Belaleazar, Ureña, Casares, Melgar, Baiten, Mayorga y Fontenar;

Viscount of La Puebla de Alcocer.

He was Ten Times Grandee of Spain of the First Class, Knight of the

Orders of Calatrava, of St. John of Jerusalem, of the Golden Fleece,

Knight Grand Cross and Collar of the Orders of Carlos V, of St.

Hermenegild, of St. Alexandra Newski, of the Christ of Portugal, of the

Crown of Bavaria, of the Legion of Honour, etc., etc., etc.,

He died without issue on the second of June 1882.[114]

=Book the Fourth=

A Flicker from the Embers

_A fire, that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays

hold on the faggots; bursts into a roaring blaze, with raging

tongues of flame, devouring all in reach, spangled with sparks

that die; settles into the steady genial glare, the brilliant

light, that men call fire: burns away to slowly-expiring ashes;

save where smouldering embers flicker, and nurse the glow_,—

While St. Francisco de Borja was his contemporary in the Spanish Branch,

Don Pietro Borgia, (the great-grandson of that Don Pietrogorio Borgia

who was the Trusty familiar of Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna

and Viceroy of the Abruzzi,) was living in Velletri on the frontier of

the Regno, the little Volscian city where his family had been settled

since Don Niccolo Borgia was its Regent in 1417. He married Madonna

Filomena—_gentildonna molto pia_, is the sweet breath of her, which

Archbishop Bonaventura Theuli has preserved for us,[115]—and had three

children:

(α) The youngest son, Don Polidoro Borgia, died in his youth, the year

before St Francisco de Borgia died General of Jesuits in Rome.

His epitaph, in the porch of Santa Maria del Trivito at

Velletri, is as follows

D . O . M .

POLIDORO BOR-

-GIAE INVENI VIR-

-TUTIBUS ET

MORIB. ORNAT-

ISS. FILUMENA

MATER HECTOR

I.V.D. ET HORAT-

IUS BORGIA FR.

B.P . VIX . A . XXII

OB . A . M.D . LXXJ

DIE XII

OCTOB.[116]

(β) The second son, Don Orazio Borgia, became commander of a squadron

of Pontifical Cavalry; and fell gloriously fighting in the

Crusade of Hungary 1597.[117]

(γ) The eldest son, Don Ettore di Pietro Borgia, married Madonna

Porzia Landi, who bore him two sons:—The younger, Don Alessandro

Borgia became Dean of the cathedral chapter of his native city.

The elder, Don Camillo Borgia, became Governor of Velletri,

married the Noble Madonna Constantia Gallinella, and died in

1645. His epitaph,[118] in the chapel of the Visitation of the

Παρθενομητηρ (the patron-saint of the Veliternian Borgia) in the

cathedral of San Clemente at Velletri, is as follows

D. T. V.

CAMILLO BORGIAE NOBILI

VELITERNO

HECTORIS I.C. ET D. PORTIAE LANDAE

FILIO NON MINUS CELEBRI

AVORUM TOGA ET ARMIS INSIGNIUM

CLARITUDINE ILLUSTRI

IN PATRIAE REGIMINE

CONSULI JUDICI ET RECTORI

VIGILANTISSIMO

VITAE CANDORE MORUM SUAVITATE

UBIQ. CLARO OMNIBUS CHARO

ANNO AET. SUAE LV ET MEN. IV

EXTINCTO

DIE XXVI. SEPT. A PARTU VIRGINIS

M. DC. XLV

ALEXANDER I.V.D. ET HUIUS CATHED.

CANONICORUM DECANUS FRATER

HECTOR I.V.D. EX NOBILI CONSTANTIA

GALLINELLA FILIUS

EXTREMUM AMORIS

MONUMENTUM

MŒSTISS . POSUERE[119]

Don Camillo Borgia left three sons,

(α) The youngest, Don Giampaolo Borgia, was a canon of Velletri:

(β) The second, Don Ettore Borgia, was a celebrated Jurisprudent, who

held governorships of pontifical cities, and was auditor-general

and familiar of Prince Savelli, the Hereditary Marshal of the

Holy Roman Church:

(γ) The eldest, the Noble Don Clemente Erminio Borgia, Roman

Patrician, and Governor of Velletri, who married Madonna Cecilia

Carboni, by whom he had seven children at the least.

Five of these children of Don Clemente Erminio Borgia have been traced.

They were

(α) Madonna Angela Caterina Borgia, who became a nun in a convent of

Santa Lucia _in Silice_ at Rome, and who died In The Odour Of

Sanctity:

(β) Don Fabrizio Borgia, born 1689, studied ten years with his uncle

Canon Giampaolo Borgia, became Bishop of Ferentino in 1729, and

died in 1754:

(γ) Don Cesare Borgia, was a Knight-Commander of the Order of St. John

of Jerusalem of Malta in 1703:[120]

(δ) Don Alessandro Borgia, born 1682, studied with his brother Don

Fabrizio under their uncle Canon Giampaolo; won the laurel

wreath of the Archgymnasium of Sapienza at Rome; in 1706, was

attached to the Secret Nunciature of Monsignor Bussi at

Cologne;[121] in 1716, became Bishop of Nocera, and in 1723,

Prince-Archbishop of Fermo. [In _Museum Mazzuchelliana_ (Tom.

II. Tab. CXCIV, p. 382–3) there is an engraving of a medal of

this prince-archbishop, which was struck to commemorate the

consecration by him of his nephew, (the son of one of his

sisters whose name remains to be discovered,) Don Pierpaolo

Leonardi, as Prince-Bishop of Ascoli. The obverse of the medal

shews three bishops sitting and one kneeling, with the

legend A. BORGIA ARCHIEP. ET PRINCEPS FERMANUS P. PAULUM

LEONARDUM EP. ET PRIN. ASCULAN. INUNGIT. The reverse shews the

θεοτόκος in Assumption blessing two churches, with the legend

UTRIUSQUE ECCLESIAE PATRONA FIRMI ET ASCULI A.D. M.D.CCLV.]

Prince-Archbishop Alessandro Borgia died in 1764.

(ε) the heir Don Stefano Camillo Borgia, of the Supreme Magistracy,

who married Madonna Maddalena Gagliardi, and had issue,

(α) Cavaliere Giampaolo Borgia, general in the Pontifical Army;

(β) The Noble Don Stefano Borgia, in whom the embers of the House of

Borgia flickered a hundred years ago.

* * * * *

Don Stefano Borgia was born at Velletri on the third of December 1731.

His early education was conducted in that little Volscian city where his

House had been established certainly since 1417, and probably since the

Document of Donation of the Lord Lucius P.P. III, 1181–1185. (_Ricchi._)

Later, he went to his uncle the Prince-Archbishop Alessandro Borgia of

Fermo, with whom he lived, and under whom he studied, till the latter’s

death in 1756. The nature of this education can be judged from Don

Stefano’s after-life in which he cut so noble a figure as ecclesiastic,

diplomatist, ruler, scholar, archæologist, man of letters, and Christian

gentleman.

At the age of nineteen years, he had written a learned little treatise

on the monument of the Lord John P.P. XVI; and a Short History of the

ancient city of Tadino in Umbria, with an exact account of the latest

researches among its ruins, two octavo volumes published in Rome 1750–1:

so that when he arrived in the Eternal City after his uncle’s death, he

found himself appreciated not only for his illustrious name, but also

for the crescent ability of which he had given evidence. Three years

later, in 1759, he was named Governor of the city and duchy of

Benevento, the pontifical fief formerly occupied by another Borgia, the

murdered Duke of Gandia. Here he wrote his Historical Memorials of the

Pontifical City of Benevento from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Century,

in three quarto volumes published in Rome 1763–9. In 1764 he was

secretary to the Sacred Congregation On Indulgences. In 1765, at the age

of thirty-four years, his hands were anointed and he received the order

of priesthood. In 1770 he was named Secretary _a secretis_ to the Sacred

Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith, (v. title-page of his _De

Cruce_.)

His career was now well-begun; and he had time to pursue his favourite

occupations of letters and archæology. Writing under his initials S. B.,

he published in 1773 his discovery of a Venetian Kalendar of the

Eleventh Century from a vellum MS., and a Koptic and Latin Fragment of

the Acts of St. Koluthus. In 1774, he published an edition of the Lord

Pius P.P. II’s (Enea Silvio) work, _Against the Turks_. In 1775 the

Signor Abbate Stefano Borgia addressed to the Etruscan Academies of

Cortona and Florence, a duodecimo Philological Dissertation on an

antique gem-intaglio, “la pregiabile vetusta agata—la bella e rara

gemma—Gemma Borgiana—”; which the celebrated and learned antiquary

Martinello, in a letter to Padre Ignazio della Croce a sandalled

Augustinian, calls _most scholarly and precious_. In 1776 he produced a

work in quarto on the Shrine of St. Peter in the Vatican Basilica. In

1779, he published a folio on the curious Cross of the Vatican which is

venerated on Good Friday, with the Syriac Rite of Salutation of the

Cross, all most learnedly set forth and illustrated with notes and

commentaries.

He did not forget his House, or his native city of Velletri: for he

established there the Borgia Museum of Antiquities, which chiefly was

famous for the Mexican Codex of his presentation, lately found worthy to

be produced in facsimile in Rome with a splendour and importance

unapproachable by English publishers.

In 1780, he brought out his quarto on the Ancient Cross of Velletri, “a

cross-full of reliques conserved in the cathedral with much decency.”

(_Theuli II._ 158.) It is a curious and luscious work, which relates the

history of the Cross, a fine gold piece encrusted with large single

pearls (unionibus) and other gems, from the middle of the Thirteenth

Century, when it was given to the Veliternian Cathedral of St. Clement

by the Lord Alexander P.P. IV, who, before His election was known as the

Lord Rainaldo de’ Conti di Segni,[122] Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and

Velletri.[123] The year 1788, saw the issue of a new quarto from his

gifted pen, being a Short History of the Temporal Dominion of the

Apostolic See in the Two Sicilies; which went into a second edition the

following year.

But at this point, the year of the French Revolution, the fortunes of

the Abbate Stefano Borgia took a signal turn opening limitless

possibilities. The Lord Pius P.P. VI named him Cardinal-Presbyter of the

Title of San Clemente, in the Consistory of the thirtieth of March 1789;

and promoted him from the secretariate of Propaganda to the Prefectures

of the Sacred Congregation of Index and of the Pontifical Gregorian

University of Rome.

The cardinalitial scarlet is the proper setting for this noble

personage. The Most Eminent Lord Stefano Cardinal Borgia becomes at once

a type of the huge and sumptuous princes of the church, to whom letters

and the fine arts lend their glamour. “Quest’ Amplissimo Porporato,” as

his friend and biographer the sandalled Carmelite Fra Pietro Paolino da

San Bartolomeo calls him, had the two marks whereby the perfect

gentleman and scholar universally may be known. He had a pretty taste

for letters, a habit of acquiring rare books and manuscripts; and was

himself a writer of extreme distinction. He had also a passion for

collecting beautiful and singular things, especially engraved gems. The

magic of carven precious stones enchanted him, as camei and intaglii

ever have enchanted men of delicate and powerful mental mould. The times

in which he lived were not convenient for the cultivation of these

exquisite tastes: but it is in no case desirable that they should be

cultivated. They lead nowhere, neither to heaven, nor to hell.

Essentially they have no relation to the work of life, or death; and it

is not well that they should usurp attention—for there are greater

things. But the possession of these tastes is an imperative necessity to

him who would do those greater things; for they bring, as nought else

brings, the habit of discrimination, of selection, of appreciation; they

refine and temper and grace the steel with which the greater deeds of

life, and death, are done: and, so, their only end is served; while he

who has them in the nature of him, not laboriously acquired but

congenitally possessed, is the better man, the more capable man, the

more enduring, skilful, potent, and triumphant man, and, correlatively,

the happier man. Cardinal Stefano Borgia, then, having this gentle

generous love for books and precious stones, most naturally became one

of the most distinguished ecclesiastics of his age.

In 1791, he published as a supplement to his Short History, a learned

quarto in Defence of the Temporal Dominion of the Apostolic See in the

Two Sicilies. To this, he added, in 1793, a treatise on two Koptic

saints, Koluthus and Panesnice, whose original Acts were in his

possession. But it chiefly was as cardinal of the Curia, as Protector of

Religious, as Ruler and Governour, as Proprefect of Propaganda (to which

he was appointed in 1798,) that he manifested his ability and sterling

worth. When the armies of Revolutionary France invaded Italy, engaging

in those extravagant monstrosities of turpitude which habitually

disgrace the French toward the close of every century, His Eminence

allowed nothing of war or tumult to disturb the serene and strenuous

performance of his multifarious offices. In those horrid times, when

another or lesser man would have been paralysed, he retired with superb

dignity from Rome to Padua, whence he continued to administer and govern

not his own estates only, but all the foreign dioceses and missions

throughout the world which were subject to Propaganda. And it was here

in Padua that he quietly found time to do a beautiful and noble deed, by

which alone, had he done nothing else, he would have prepared for

himself a more illustrious name.

At this time, the College of Cardinals contained a certain August

Personage, an Englishman of paramount importance.

When, in the Revolution of 1688, King James II Stewart had been driven

from his kingdom of England by the Prince of Orange, His Majesty took

refuge in France. His son Prince James, vulgarly called the Old

Pretender, unsuccessfully warred for his rights in 1715; and, on the

death of his father, assumed in exile his birthright with the style,

James III D.G. of Great Britain France and Ireland King F.D. King James

III had two sons,—observe the admirable insouciant carriage of head on

their medals as boys. The elder, Prince Charles Edward, as Prince of

Wales, vulgarly called the Young Pretender, advanced his father’s claim

to the crown of England by force of arms in 1745. The result was the

Massacre of Culloden Moor. The younger, Prince Henry Benedict, the Duke

of York, was a priest. Hunted from France by Hanoverian diplomacy, King

James III found refuge in Rome, where, at length, he died; the Prince of

Wales succeeding him as King Charles III. Prince Henry Benedict

meanwhile rose in ecclesiastical rank through the Cardinal-Bishopric of

Ostia and Velletri (Cardinal Borgia’s city), to the Cardinal-Bishopric

of Tusculum and the Vicechancellorship of the Holy Roman Church. His

medal, by Filippo Cropanesi, dated 1766, shows his royal Stewart

profile, still with the admirable high carriage of head, and the legend

HENRICUS M.D. EP. TUSC. CARD. DUX. EBOR S.R.E.V. CANC.

In 1788, his brother, King Charles III, died at Rome; and was buried

with his father in the crypt of the Vatican Basilica. As he left no

legitimate heirs, his rights in the Majesty of England devolved upon

Cardinal Henry Benedict Stewart, who was known as His Royal Highness the

Cardinal-Duke of York. This Personage combined with transcendent beauty

and truly royal demeanour, rare and solid virtue and the extreme of good

sense. Nothing could have been more perfectly kingly than his easy and

ready realization of his situation. He was aware, as well of his

hereditary rights, as of the fact that his subjects, having settled down

under an usurping dynasty, had disowned and would disown his claims on

their allegiance. He had seen war in his path. He had no insatiable

craving for a crown. He arrived at a decision absolutely luminously

wise. That the rights of his dynasty should suffer no diminution, by

renunciation on his part, he made a technical assertion of his

sovereignty, proclaiming his accession in such a way that the usurpation

of his throne by the Elector of Hanover, (vulgarly called George III)

should be undisturbed, _except by England’s Will_. He caused a medal to

be struck, bearing on the obverse His Majesty’s effigy in a cardinal’s

habit with zucchetto and the pectoral-cross of his episcopate,—the

kingly head is drooping now—; with the legend

HENRY THE NINTH, OF GREAT BRITAIN FRANCE AND IRELAND KING, DEFENDER OF

THE FAITH, CARDINAL-BISHOP OF TUSCULUM.

The reverse shows a design of Faith, at whose feet are the cardinalitial

hat and kingly crown, and who turns from the Lion to the Cross; with the

legend

NOT BY THE DESIRES OF MEN BUT BY THE WILL OF GOD.

At the same time was struck a touch-piece, for distribution among the

few loyal English who had not bowed the knee to Hanoverian Baal, and for

curing those afflicted with struma or _kings evil_; an occult power

which died with this last Stewart. The obverse bears a design of a

frigate with the legend

HENRY THE NINTH, OF GREAT BRITAIN FRANCE AND IRELAND, KING BY THE GRACE

OF GOD, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, CARDINAL-BISHOP OF TUSCULUM.

The reverse shows St. Michael Archangel overcoming the Dragon, with the

legend

TO GOD ALONE BE GLORY.

And that was all,—an enduring record, carven in perennial bronze, that

the King’s Majesty had come to the inheritance of his ancestors. He

believed in his Divine Right, the right implied in his existence, his

existence by the Sanction of Him by Whom kings do reign; and he simply

affirmed his Right, waiting for his people to recognize him as their

lawful sovereign, to do their part as he had done his. Could anything be

more superbly, more contemptuously kingly than this distinction of the

parts of sovereign and subject? Cardinal King Henry IX was happy in his

lot, for he had a goodly heritage,—in the Holy Roman Church. Had His

Majesty desired, the Supreme Pontiff could have released him from his

ecclesiastical estate and obligations by a stroke of the pontifical pen,

to enable him to prosecute his indubitable right. But he did not so

desire. He had chosen the better part—peace—and the happiness of the

subjects who were his, but who never would own him as their liege lord

and sovereign. No more splendid and disinterested example of

self-sacrifice exists in human history than the spectacle of this King

of England who scorned to seek to compel unwilling homage. It was indeed

the act of a king.

After the technical assumption of sovereignty, His Majesty made no

further claim.[124] He did not hesitate to use his regal style on

monuments which he erected in his Sub-Urban Diocese, or in similar

places: but he was content to be called the Cardinal-Duke of York, as

before, though all the world knew him as he really was, and invariably

accorded the respect due to him as a prince of the church. There was,

however, one notorious exception. The chivalrous nation of France, which

formerly had revenged itself on the Lord Alexander P.P. VI by attacking

Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei and Madonna Giulia Orsini nata Farnese, was

just as ready now to strike at the old and helpless; and it is to the

shameful atrocities of France that England owes the noble action of a

Borgia in regard to the last of the Royal House of Stewart.

It has been said that Cardinal Stefano Borgia was at Padua in the autumn

of 1799 while the regicidal armies of the French Consulate were earning

infamy by ravaging the pontifical states. From Padua His Eminence

indited a private letter, dated the fourteenth of September 1799,

addressed to an English baronet, one Sir John Coxe Hippisley, at

Grosvenor Street, London, which will tell a tale. The Cardinal wrote as

follows, in beautiful Italian with the incorrect spelling of a gentleman

born:

“The friendship with which you honoured me in Rome encourages me to

lay before you a case worthy of your most mature reflection: which is,

that, among the other cardinals who have taken refuge in Padua, here

is also the Cardinal-Duke; and it is greatly afflicting to me to see

so great a Personage, the last descendant of his Royal House, reduced

to such distressed circumstances, having been barbarously stripped by

the French of all his property” (_dai Francesi barbaramente spogliato

di tutto_;) “and, if they deprived him not of life also, it was

through the mercy of the Almighty, Who protected him in his flight

both by sea and land, the miseries of which, nevertheless, greatly

injured his health, at the advanced age of seventy-five; and produced

a very grievous sore in one of his legs.

“Those who are well-informed of this most worthy Cardinal’s affairs,

have assured me that, since his flight, having left behind him his

rich and magnificent valuables, which were all sacked and plundered

both at Rome and Frascati, he has been supported by the silver plate

which he had taken with him, and of which he began to dispose at

Messina; and, I understand, that in order to supply his wants during a

few months in Venice, he has sold all that remained.

“Of the jewels[125] that he possessed, very few remain, as the most

valuable had been sacrificed in the well-known contributions (_forced

levies_ would be a juster word than the gentle Cardinal’s meek

_contributions_) “to the French our destructive plunderers; and, with

respect to his income, having suffered the loss of forty-eight

thousand Roman crowns annually by the French Revolution, the remainder

was lost also by the fall of Rome; namely, the yearly sum of ten

thousand crowns assigned to him by the Apostolic Chamber, and also his

particular funds in the Roman Bank.

“The only income which he has left is that of his benefices in

Spain,[126] which amount to fourteen thousand crowns: but this, as it

is only payable in paper at present, is greatly reduced by the

disadvantage of exchange; and even that has remained unpaid for more

than a year, owing, perhaps, to the interrupted communication with

that kingdom.

“But here it is necessary that I should add that the Cardinal is

heavily burdened with the annual sum of four thousand crowns for the

dowry of the Countess of Albany his sister-in-law; three thousand

crowns for the mother[127] of his deceased niece; and fifteen hundred

for divers annuities of his father and brother: nor has he credit to

supply the means of acquitting these obligations.

“This picture, nevertheless, which I present to your friendship, may

well excite the compassion of every one who will reflect upon the high

birth, the elevated dignity, and the advanced age of the Personage

whose situation I now sketch in the plain language of truth, without

resorting to the aid of eloquence. I will only entreat you to

communicate it to those distinguished persons who have influence with

your government; persuaded as I am that English Magnanimity[128] (_la

Magnanimitá Inglese_) will not suffer an Illustrious Personage of the

same nation to perish in misery.

“But here I pause, not wishing to offend your national delicacy, which

delights to act from its own generous disposition, rather than from

the impulse and urgency of others.[129]

“We have here (Padua) not only the Cardinal-Duke, but other cardinals,

namely, the two Doria, Caprara, and Livizzani; and perhaps very soon

they will all be here, as it is probable that the Conclave will be

held in this place; for it has pleased God to deliver from all His

labours the so eminently unfortunate Lord Pius P.P. VI, Who cherished

for you the most tender affection, and Who was pleased when He was in

the Carthusian convent (_Certosa_) at Florence to invest me with the

charge of the Proprefecture of the Congregation of the Propagation of

the Faith.

“My paper fails me, but I shall never fail of being

“Your true friend and servitor (_servitore_)

“STEFANO, CARDINAL BORGIA.”