Caesar remained at Naples, partly to give time to the paternal grief to
cool down, and partly to get on with another business he had lately been
charged with, nothing else than a proposition of marriage between
Lucrezia and Don Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Bicelli and Prince of
Salerno, natural son of Alfonso II and brother of Dona Sancha. It was
true that Lucrezia was already married to the lord of Pesaro, but she
was the daughter of a father who had received from heaven the right of
uniting and disuniting. There was no need to trouble about so trifling a
matter: when the two were ready to marry, the divorce would be effected.
Alexander was too good a tactician to leave his daughter married to a
son-in-law who was becoming useless to him.
Towards the end of August it was announced that the ambassador was
coming back to Rome, having accomplished his mission to the new king to
his great satisfaction. And thither he returned an the 5th of
September,—that is, nearly three months after the Duke of Gandia’s
death,—and on the next day, the 6th, from the church of Santa Maria
Novella, where, according to custom, the cardinals and the Spanish and
Venetian ambassadors were awaiting him on horseback at the door, he
proceeded to the Vatican, where His Holiness was sitting; there he
entered the consistory, was admitted by the pope, and in accordance with
the usual ceremonial received his benediction and kiss; then,
accompanied once more in the same fashion by the ambassadors and
cardinals, he was escorted to his own apartments. Thence he proceeded
to, the pope’s, as soon as he was left alone; for at the consistory they
had had no speech with one another, and the father and son had a hundred
things to talk about, but of these the Duke of Gandia was not one, as
might have been expected. His name was not once spoken, and neither on
that day nor afterwards was there ever again any mention of the unhappy
young man: it was as though he had never existed.
It was the fact that Caesar brought good news, King Frederic gave his
consent to the proposed union; so the marriage of Sforza and Lucrezia
was dissolved on a pretext of nullity. Then Frederic authorised the
exhumation of D’jem’s body, which, it will be remembered, was worth
300,000 ducats.
After this, all came about as Caesar had desired; he became the man who
was all-powerful after the pope; but when he was second in command it
was soon evident to the Roman people that their city was making a new
stride in the direction of ruin. There was nothing but balls, fetes,
masquerades; there were magnificent hunting parties, when Caesar—who had
begun to cast off his cardinal’s robe,—weary perhaps of the colour,
appeared in a French dress, followed, like a king by cardinals, envoys
and bodyguard. The whole pontifical town, given up like a courtesan to
orgies and debauchery, had never been more the home of sedition, luxury,
and carnage, according to the Cardinal of Viterba, not even in the days
of Nero and Heliogabalus. Never had she fallen upon days more evil;
never had more traitors done her dishonour or sbirri stained her streets
with blood. The number of thieves was so great, and their audacity such,
that no one could with safety pass the gates of the town; soon it was
not even safe within them. No house, no castle, availed for defence.
Right and justice no longer existed. Money, farce, pleasure, ruled
supreme.
Still, the gold was melting as in a furnace at these Fetes; and, by
Heaven’s just punishment, Alexander and Caesar were beginning to covet
the fortunes of those very men who had risen through their simony to
their present elevation. The first attempt at a new method of coining
money was tried upon the Cardinal Cosenza. The occasion was as follows.
A certain dispensation had been granted some time before to a nun who
had taken the vows: she was the only surviving heir to the throne of
Portugal, and by means of the dispensation she had been wedded to the
natural son of the last king. This marriage was more prejudicial than
can easily be imagined to the interests of Ferdinand and Isabella of
Spain; so they sent ambassadors to Alexander to lodge a complaint
against a proceeding of this nature, especially as it happened at the
very moment when an alliance was to be formed between the house of
Aragon and the Holy See. Alexander understood the complaint, and
resolved that all should be set right. So he denied all knowledge of the
papal brief though he had as a fact received 60,000 ducats for signing
it—and accused the Archbishop of Cosenza, secretary for apostolic
briefs, of having granted a false dispensation. By reason of this
accusation, the archbishop was taken to the castle of Sant’ Angelo, and
a suit was begun.
But as it was no easy task to prove an accusation of this nature,
especially if the archbishop should persist in maintaining that the
dispensation was really granted by the pope, it was resolved to employ a
trick with him which could not fail to succeed. One evening the
Archbishop of Cosenza saw Cardinal Valentino come into his prison; with
that frank air of affability which he knew well how to assume when it
could serve his purpose, he explained to the prisoner the embarrassing
situation in which the pope was placed, from which the archbishop alone,
whom His Holiness looked upon as his best friend, could save him.
The archbishop replied that he was entirely at the service of His
Holiness.
Caesar, on his entrance, found the captive seated, leaning his elbows on
a table, and he took a seat opposite him and explained the pope’s
position: it was an embarrassing one. At the very time of contracting so
important an alliance with the house of Aragon as that of Lucrezia and
Alfonso, His Holiness could not avow to Ferdinand and Isabella that, for
the sake of a few miserable ducats, he had signed a dispensation which
would unite in the husband and wife together all the legitimate claims
to a throne to which Ferdinand and Isabella had no right at all but that
of conquest. This avowal would necessarily put an end to all
negotiations, and the pontifical house would fall by the overthrow of
that very pedestal which was to have heightened its grandeur.
Accordingly the archbishop would understand what the pope expected of
his devotion and friendship: it was a simple and straight avowal that he
had supposed he might take it upon himself to accord the dispensation.
Then, as the sentence to be passed on such an error would be the
business of Alexander, the accused could easily imagine beforehand how
truly paternal such a sentence would be. Besides, the reward was in the
same hands, and if the sentence was that of a father, the recompense
would be that of a king. In fact, this recompense would be no less than
the honour of assisting as envoy, with the title of cardinal, at the
marriage of Lucrezia and Alfonso—a favour which would be very
appropriate, since it would be thanks to his devotion that the marriage
could take place.
The Archbishop of Cosenza knew the men he was dealing with; he knew that
to save their own ends they would hesitate at nothing; he knew they had
a poison like sugar to the taste and to the smell, impossible to
discover in food—a poison that would kill slowly or quickly as the
poisoner willed and would leave no trace behind; he knew the secret of
the poisoned key that lay always on the pope’s mantelpiece, so that when
His Holiness wished to destroy some one of his intimates, he bade him
open a certain cupboard: on the handle of the key there was a little
spike, and as the lock of the cupboard turned stiffly the hand would
naturally press, the lock would yield, and nothing would have come of it
but a trifling scratch: the scratch was mortal. He knew, too, that
Caesar wore a ring made like two lions’ heads, and that he would turn
the stone on the inside when he was shaking hands with a friend. Then
the lions’ teeth became the teeth of a viper, and the friend died
cursing Borgia. So he yielded, partly through fear, partly blinded by
the thought of the reward; and Caesar returned to the Vatican armed with
a precious paper, in which the Archbishop of Cosenza admitted that he
was the only person responsible for the dispensation granted to the
royal nun.
Two days later, by means of the proofs kindly furnished by the
archbishop, the pope; in the presence of the governor of Rome, the
auditor of the apostolic chamber, the advocate, and the fiscal attorney,
pronounced sentence, condemning the archbishop to the loss of all his
benefices and ecclesiastical offices, degradation from his orders, and
confiscation of his goods; his person was to be handed over to the civil
arm. Two days later the civil magistrate entered the prison to fulfil
his office as received from the pope, and appeared before the
archbishop, accompanied by a clerk, two servants, and four guards. The
clerk unrolled the paper he carried and read out the sentence; the two
servants untied a packet, and, stripping the prisoner of his
ecclesiastical garments, they reclothed him in a dress of coarse white
cloth which only reached down to his knees, breeches of the same, and a
pair of clumsy shoes. Lastly, the guards took him, and led him into one
of the deepest dungeons of the castle of Sant’ Angelo, where for
furniture he found nothing but a wooden crucifix, a table, a chair, and
a bed; for occupation, a Bible and a breviary, with a lamp to read by;
for nourishment, two pounds of bread and a little cask of water, which
were to be renewed every three days, together with a bottle of oil for
burning in his lamp.
At the end of a year the poor archbishop died of despair, not before he
had gnawed his own arms in his agony.
The very same day that he was taken into the dungeon, Caesar Borgia, who
had managed the affair so ably, was presented by the pope with all the
belongings of the condemned prisoner.
But the hunting parties, balls, and masquerades were not the only
pleasures enjoyed by the pope and his family: from time to time strange
spectacles were exhibited. We will only describe two—one of them a case
of punishment, the other no more nor less than a matter of the stud
farm. But as both of these give details with which we would not have our
readers credit our imagination, we will first say that they are
literally translated from Burchard’s Latin journal.
"About the same time—that is, about the beginning of 1499—a certain
courtesan named La Corsetta was in prison, and had a lover who came to
visit her in woman’s clothes, a Spanish Moor, called from his disguise
’the Spanish lady from Barbary!’ As a punishment, both of them were led
through the town, the woman without petticoat or skirt, but wearing only
the Moor’s dress unbuttoned in front; the man wore his woman’s garb; his
hands were tied behind his back, and the skirt fastened up to his
middle, with a view to complete exposure before the eyes of all. When in
this attire they had made the circuit of the town, the Corsetta was sent
back to the prison with the Moor. But on the 7th of April following, the
Moor was again taken out and escorted in the company of two thieves
towards the Campo dei Fiori. The three condemned men were preceded by a
constable, who rode backwards on an ass, and held in his hand a long
pole, on the end of which were hung, still bleeding, the amputated limbs
of a poor Jew who had suffered torture and death for some trifling
crime. When the procession reached the place of execution, the thieves
were hanged, and the unfortunate Moor was tied to a stake piled round
with wood, where he was to have been burnt to death, had not rain fallen
in such torrents that the fire would not burn, in spite of all the
efforts of the executioner."
This unlooked for accident, taken as a miracle by the people, robbed
Lucrezia of the most exciting part of the execution; but her father was
holding in reserve another kind of spectacle to console her with later.
We inform the reader once more that a few lines we are about to set
before him are a translation from the journal of the worthy German
Burchard, who saw nothing in the bloodiest or most wanton performances
but facts for his journal, which he duly registered with the
impassibility of a scribe, appending no remark or moral reflection.
"On the 11th of November a certain peasant was entering Rome with two
stallions laden with wood, when the servants of His Holiness, just as he
passed the Piazza of St. Peter’s, cut their girths, so that their loads
fell on the ground with the pack-saddles, and led off the horses to a
court between the palace and the gate; then the stable doors were
opened, and four stallions, quite free and unbridled, rushed out and in
an instant all six animals began kicking, biting and fighting each other
until several were killed. Roderigo and Madame Lucrezia, who sat at the
window just over the palace gate, took the greatest delight in the
struggle and called their courtiers to witness the gallant battle that
was being fought below them."
Now Caesar’s trick in the matter of the Archbishop of Cosenza had had
the desired result, and Isabella and Ferdinand could no longer impute to
Alexander the signature of the brief they had complained of: so nothing
was now in the way of the marriage of Lucrezia and Alfonso; this
certainty gave the pope great joy, for he attached all the more
importance to this marriage because he was already cogitating a second,
between Caesar and Dona Carlota, Frederic’s daughter.
Caesar had shown in all his actions since his brother’s death his want
of vocation for the ecclesiastical life; so no one was astonished when,
a consistory having been summoned one morning by Alexander, Caesar
entered, and addressing the pope, began by saying that from his earliest
years he had been drawn towards secular pursuits both by natural
inclination and ability, and it had only been in obedience to the
absolute commands of His Holiness that he entered the Church, accepted
the cardinal’s scarlet, other dignities, and finally the sacred order of
the diaconate; but feeling that in his situation it was improper to
follow his passions, and at his age impossible to resist them, he humbly
entreated His Holiness graciously to yield to the desire he had failed
to overcome, and to permit him to lay aside the dress and dignities of
the Church, and enter once more into the world, thereto contract a
lawful marriage; also he entreated the lord cardinals to intercede for
him with His Holiness, to whom he would freely resign all his churches,
abbeys, and benefices, as well as every other ecclesiastical dignity and
preferment that had been accorded him. The cardinals, deferring to
Caesar’s wishes, gave a unanimous vote, and the pope, as we may suppose,
like a good father, not wishing to force his son’s inclinations,
accepted his resignation, and yielded to the petition; thus Caesar put
off the scarlet robe, which was suited to him, says his historian
Tommaso Tommasi, in one particular only—that it was the colour of blood.
In truth, the resignation was a pressing necessity, and there was no
time to lose. Charles VIII one day after he had came home late and tired
from the hunting-field, had bathed his head in cold water; and going
straight to table, had been struck down by an apoplectic seizure
directly after his supper; and was dead, leaving the throne to the good
Louis XII, a man of two conspicuous weaknesses, one as deplorable as the
other: the first was the wish to make conquests; the second was the
desire to have children. Alexander, who was on the watch for all
political changes, had seen in a moment what he could get from Louis
XII’s accession to the throne, and was prepared to profit by the fact
that the new king of France needed his help for the accomplishment of
his twofold desire. Louis needed, first, his temporal aid in an
expedition against the duchy of Milan, on which, as we explained before,
he had inherited claims from Valentina Visconti, his grandmother; and,
secondly, his spiritual aid to dissolve his marriage with Jeanne, the
daughter of Louis XI; a childless and hideously deformed woman, whom he
had only married by reason of the great fear he entertained for her
father. Now Alexander was willing to do all this for Louis XII and to
give in addition a cardinal’s hat to his friend George d’Amboise,
provided only that the King of France would use his influence in
persuading the young Dona Carlota, who was at his court, to marry his
son Caesar.
So, as this business was already far advanced on the day when Caesar
doffed his scarlet and donned a secular garb, thus fulfilling the
ambition so long cherished, when the lord of Villeneuve, sent by Louis
and commissioned to bring Caesar to France, presented himself before the
ex-cardinal on his arrival at Rome, the latter, with his usual
extravagance of luxury and the kindness he knew well how to bestow on
those he needed, entertained his guest for a month, and did all the
honours of Rome. After that, they departed, preceded by one of the
pope’s couriers, who gave orders that every town they passed through was
to receive them with marks of honour and respect. The same order had
been sent throughout the whole of France, where the illustrious visitors
received so numerous a guard, and were welcomed by a populace so eager
to behold them, that after they passed through Paris, Caesar’s
gentlemen-in-waiting wrote to Rome that they had not seen any trees in
France, or houses, or walls, but only men, women and sunshine.
The king, on the pretext of going out hunting, went to meet his guest
two leagues outside the town. As he knew Caesar was very fond of the
name of Valentine, which he had used as cardinal, and still continued to
employ with the title of Count, although he had resigned the
archbishopric which gave him the name, he there and then bestowed on him
the investiture of Valence, in Dauphine, with the title of Duke and a
pension of 20,000 francs; then, when he had made this magnificent gift
and talked with him for nearly a couple of hours, he took his leave, to
enable him to prepare the splendid entry he was proposing to make.
It was Wednesday, the 18th of December 1498, when Caesar Borgia entered
the town of Chinon, with pomp worthy of the son of a pope who is about
to marry the daughter of a king. The procession began with
four-and-twenty mules, caparisoned in red, adorned with escutcheons
bearing the duke’s arms, laden with carved trunks and chests inlaid with
ivory and silver; after them came four-and-twenty more, also
caparisoned, this time in the livery of the King of France, yellow and
red; next after these came ten other mules, covered in yellow satin with
red crossbars; and lastly another ten, covered with striped cloth of
gold, the stripes alternately raised and flat gold.
Behind the seventy mules which led the procession there pranced sixteen
handsome battle-horses, led by equerries who marched alongside; these
were followed by eighteen hunters ridden by eighteen pages, who were
about fourteen or fifteen years of age; sixteen of them were dressed in
crimson velvet, and two in raised gold cloth; so elegantly dressed were
these two children, who were also the best looking of the little band,
that the sight of them gave rise to strange suspicions as to the reason
for this preference, if one may believe what Brantome says. Finally,
behind these eighteen horses came six beautiful mules, all harnessed
with red velvet, and led by six valets, also in velvet to match.
The third group consisted of, first, two mules quite covered with cloth
of gold, each carrying two chests in which it was said that the duke’s
treasure was stored, the precious stones he was bringing to his fiancee,
and the relics and papal bulls that his father had charged him to convey
for him to Louis XII. These were followed by twenty gentlemen dressed in
cloth of gold and silver, among whom rode Paul Giordano Orsino and
several barons and knights among the chiefs of the state ecclesiastic.
Next came two drums, one rebeck, and four soldiers blowing trumpets and
silver clarions; then, in the midst of a party of four-and-twenty
lacqueys, dressed half in crimson velvet and half in yellow silk, rode
Messire George d’Amboise and Monseigneur the Duke of Valentinois. Caesar
was mounted on a handsome tall courser, very richly harnessed, in a robe
half red satin and half cloth of gold, embroidered all over with pearls
and precious stones; in his cap were two rows of rubies, the size of
beans, which reflected so brilliant a light that one might have fancied
they were the famous carbuncles of the Arabian Nights; he also wore on
his neck a collar worth at least 200,000 livres; indeed, there was no
part of him, even down to his boots, that was not laced with gold and
edged with pearls. His horse was covered with a cuirass in a pattern of
golden foliage of wonderful workmanship, among which there appeared to
grow, like flowers, nosegays of pearls and clusters of rubies.
Lastly, bringing up the rear of the magnificent cortege, behind the duke
came twenty-four mules with red caparisons bearing his arms, carrying
his silver plate, tents, and baggage.
What gave to all the cavalcade an air of most wonderful luxury and
extravagance was that the horses and mules were shod with golden shoes,
and these were so badly nailed on that more than three-quarters of their
number, were lost on the road For this extravagance Caesar was greatly
blamed, for it was thought an audacious thing to put on his horses’ feet
a metal of which king’s crowns are made.
But all this pomp had no effect on the lady for whose sake it had been
displayed; for when Dona Carlota was told that Caesar Borgia had come to
France in the hope of becoming her husband, she replied simply that she
would never take a priest for her husband, and, moreover, the son of a
priest; a man who was not only an assassin, but a fratricide; not only a
man of infamous birth, but still more infamous in his morals and his
actions.
But, in default of the haughty lady of Aragon, Caesar soon found another
princess of noble blood who consented to be his wife: this was
Mademoiselle d’Albret, daughter of the King of Navarre. The marriage,
arranged on condition that the pope should pay 200,000 ducats dowry to
the bride, and should make her brother cardinal, was celebrated on the
10th of May; and on the Whitsunday following the Duke of Valentois
received the order of St. Michael, an order founded by Louis XI, and
esteemed at this period as the highest in the gift of the kings of
France. The news of this marriage, which made an alliance with Louis XII
certain, was received with great joy by the pope, who at once gave
orders for bonfires and illuminations all over the town.
Louis XII was not only grateful to the pope for dissolving his marriage
with Jeanne of France and authorizing his union with Anne of Brittany,
but he considered it indispensable to his designs in Italy to have the
pope as his ally. So he promised the Duke of Valentinois to put three
hundred lances at his disposal, as soon as he had made an entry into
Milan, to be used to further his own private interests, and against
whomsoever he pleased except only the allies of France. The conquest of
Milan should be undertaken so soon as Louis felt assured of the support
of the Venetians, or at least of their neutrality, and he had sent them
ambassadors authorised to promise in his name the restoration of Cremona
and Ghiera d’Adda when he had completed the conquest of Lombardy.