The Life of Cesare Borgia

d five galleys, to the end that he should conduct the new duke to France, which fleet

son, in going to France to assume his estate, and for the further purposes of marrying a wife, of conveying to Louis the dispensation permitting his marriage with Anne of B

den with his baggage. The horses of his followers were all sumptuously caparisoned with bridles and stirrups of solid silver; and, for the rest, the sple

sh physician, Gaspare Torella-the only medical man of his age who had succeeded in discovering a treatment for the p

rsini, Pietro Santa Croce, Mario di Mariano, Domenico Sanguigna, Giulio Alberini, Bartolomeo Capranica, and Gianbattista M

blished by the marriage celebrated at the Vatican on September 28 of that

harger, caparisoned in red silk and gold brocade-the colours of France, in which he had also dressed his lacqueys. He wore a doublet of white damask laced with gold, and carried a mantle of black velvet swing

essed in the French mode, like himself, whilst the Sp

owed it with his eyes until it was lost to view, weeping, we are told, for very joy at the contemplation of the splendour and magnificence which it

with Alexander-and presently we shall look into the motives that probably inspired him, a matter which has so far, we fancy, escaped criticism for reasons that we shall also strive to make apparent. To the beginnings of a reconciliation with the Pontiff afforded by his touching letter of condolence on the death

his good graces, and the cardinal replied with pro

. The pomp of his entrance was a thing stupendous. We find a detailed relation of it in Brant?me, translated into prose form some old verses which, he tells us, that he found in the family treasury. He complains of their coarseness, and those who are acquainted with the delightful old Frenchman's own frankness of expression may well raise their brows at that c

, caparisoned in the king's colours of scarlet and gold, to be followed in their turn by sixteen beautiful chargers led by hand, similarly caparisoned, and their bridles and stirrups of solid silver. Next came eighteen pages on horseback, sixteen of whom were in scarlet and yellow, whilst the remaining two were i

earls. The duke was in black velvet, through the slashings of which appeared the gold brocade of the undergarment. Suspended from a chain said by Brant?me's poet to be worth thirty thousand ducats, a medallion of diamonds b

and the chariots bearing his plate and tents and all th

mules were shod in the same metal, and that, either because the shoes were loosely attached of intent, or because the metal, being

Louis XII gave him a warm and cordial welcome, showing him then and thereafter the friendliest consideration. Not so, however, the lady he was come to woo. It was said in Venice that she was in love with a young Breton gentleman in the following of Queen A

antes, whither the Court had moved, a letter in which

" Unfortunately, there was one important exception, as the cardinal was forced to add: "The damsel, either out of her ow

ers, for, when hard pressed to consent to the alliance, she demanded that the Neapolitan ambassador should himself s

eparture a settled matter that in February of 1489, at the Castle of Loches, he received the king's messages for t

irresponsible or malicious statements that have grown up about this subject, driving their roots deep into the soil of history. Not a single chance does malignity, fre

t he desired of him-in short, that he sold him the dispensation for the highest price he could extract. The only motive served by this statement is once more to show Alexander and his son in the perpetration of simoniacal practices, and the statement springs, beyond doubt,

ntil satisfied of the wife and his other desires. And, whilst these things were toward, the king learnt from the Bishop of Ceuta that the dispensation already existe

, does he pretend to possess these details of it? But, leaving that out of the question, his stateme

October 2-the day after Cesare's departure from Rome. And as for the death of Fernando d'Almeida Bishop of Ceuta, this did not take place then, nor until two yea

onsequence would be to drive the Holy Father into alliance with Venice, which was paying its court to him at the time and with that end in view. Eager to conciliate Alexander in this hour of peril, Federigo approached him with alternative proposals, and

ge of Cesare with Carlotta, and one that should more surel

are a suitable duchess. One of these was a niece of the king's, the daughter of the Comte de Foix; the other was Charlotte d'Albret, a daughter of Alain d

ared at the honourable and pious Court of Jeanne de Valois, whence she had passed into that of Anne

s des Reynes, P

of Louis. Considering closely the pecuniary difficulties under which this Alain d'Albret was labouring and his notorious avarice, one is tempted to conclude that such difficulties as he may have made were dictated by his reduced circumstances, his impossibility, or unwillingness, to supply his daughter with

balance by annual instalments of 1,500 livres until cleared off. This sum, as a matter of fact, represented her portion of the inheritance from her deceased moth

by the king between the Duke of Valentinois and Alain's daughter, Charlotte d'Albret. But that was by no means all. Among other conditions imposed by Alain, he stipulated that the Pope should endow his da

st decisive step against the House of Sforza, and so secretly were the negotiations conducted that Lodovico Sforza's first intimation of them resulted from the capture in Milanese territory of a courier from the Pope with letters to Cesare in France. From these

12, and on the 19th he received at the hands of the King of France the knightly Order of St. Michael, which was then the highest honour t

e exists a little data from which we may draw certain permissible inferences. This damsel of seventeen was said to be the loveliest in France, and there is more than a suggestion in Le Feron's De Gestis Regnum Gallorum, that Cesare was by no means i

as Baldassare Castiglione, who mentions it in his Il Cortigiano. Of his personal charm there is also no lack of commendation from those who had his acquaintance at this time.

The sequel justifies in a measure the assumption. Just one little summer out of the span of their lives-brief though those lives were-did

s of war blared out their call to arms. Louis's preparations for the invasion of Milan were c

der a deed dated September 8, and he made her heiress to all his moveable possessions in the event of his death. Surely this bears some witness, not only to the prev

him, he turned his back upon that pleasant land of Dauphiny where the one calm little season of his manhood had been spent, where happiness and peace might have been his lifelong portion had he remained. He set