Alexander carefully followed everything that took place in Ferrara. He never lost sight of his daughter. She and his agents reported every mark of favor or disfavor which she received. Following the excitement of the wedding festivities there were painful days for Lucretia, as she was forced to meet envy and contempt, and to win for herself a secure place at the court.

Alexander was greatly pleased by her reports, especially those concerning her relations with Alfonso. He never for a moment supposed that the hereditary prince loved his daughter. All he required was that he should treat her as his wife, and that she should become the mother of a prince. With great satisfaction he remarked to the Ferrarese ambassador on hearing that Alfonso spent his nights with Lucretia, "During the day he goes wherever he likes, as he is young, and in doing this he does right."[180]

Alexander also induced the duke to grant his daughter-in-law a larger allowance than he had agreed to give her. The sum stipulated was six thousand ducats. Lucretia was extravagant, and needed a large income. The amount she received from her father-in-law did not, however, exceed ten thousand ducats.

In the meantime CÆsar was pursuing his own schemes, the success of which was apparently insured by his alliance with Ferrara and the sanction of France. The youthful Astorre Manfredi having been strangled in the castle of S. Angelo by his orders, Valentino set out for Romagna, June 13th, where he succeeded in ensnaring the unsuspecting Guidobaldo of Urbino and in seizing his estates, June 21st. Guidobaldo fled and found an asylum in Mantua, whence he and his wife eventually went to Venice.

CÆsar now turned toward Camerino, where he surprised the Varano, destroying all but one of them. He reported these doings to the court of Ferrara, and the duke did not hesitate to congratulate him for a crime which had resulted in the overthrow of princes who were not only friendly to himself but were also closely connected with him. From Urbino CÆsar wrote his sister as follows:

Shortly after this he surprised his sister by visiting her in the palace of Belfiore, whither he came in disguise with five cavaliers. He remained with her scarcely two hours, and then hastily departed, accompanied by his brother-in-law Alfonso as far as Modena, intending to go to the King of France, who was in Lombardy.

Reduced facsimile of a letter written by Alexander VI to his daughter, Lucretia.

In the meantime Alexander had arrived at a decision regarding the seizure of Camerino which conflicted with CÆsar's plans, and which shows that the father's will was not wholly under his son's control. September 2, 1502, Alexander bestowed Camerino as a duchy upon the Infante Giovanni Borgia, whom he sometimes described as his own son and at others as CÆsar's. Giovanni had already been invested with the title of Nepi, and Francesco Borgia, Cardinal of Cosenza, as the child's guardian, administered these estates. There are coins of this ephemeral Duke of Camerino still in existence.[181]

September 5th Lucretia gave birth to a still-born daughter, to the great disappointment of Alexander, who desired an heir to the throne. She was sick unto death, and her husband showed the deepest concern, seldom leaving her for a moment. September 7th Valentino came to see her. The secretary Castellus sent a report of this visit to Ercole, who was in Reggio, whither he had gone to meet CÆsar, who was returning from Lombardy. "To-day," he wrote, "at the twentieth hour, we bled Madama on the right foot. It was exceedingly difficult to accomplish it, and we could not have done it but for the Duke of Romagna, who held her foot. Her Majesty spent two hours with the duke, who made her laugh and cheered her greatly." Lucretia had a codicil added to her will, which she had made before leaving for Ferrara, in the presence of her brother's secretary and some monks. She, however, recovered. CÆsar remained with her two days and then departed for Imola. When Ercole returned he found his daughter-in-law attended by Alexander's most skilful physician, the Bishop of Venosa, and out of all danger.[182]

As Lucretia felt oppressed in Castle Vecchio, and yearned for the free air, she removed October 8th, accompanied by the entire court, to the convent of Corpus Domini. Her recovery was so rapid that she was able again to take up her residence in the castle, October 22d, to the great joy of every one, as Duke Ercole wrote to Rome. Alfonso even went to Loretto in fulfilment of a vow he had made for the recovery of his wife. The solicitude which was displayed for Lucretia on this occasion shows that she had begun to make herself beloved in Ferrara.[183]

In this same month of October occurred the disaffection of CÆsar's condottieri which nearly ended in his overthrow. In consequence of the desertion of his generals, the country about Urbino rose, and Guidobaldo even succeeded in reentering his capital city, October 18th. The protection of France and the lack of decision on the part of his enemies, however, saved the Duke of Romagna from the danger which threatened him. December 31st he relieved himself of the barons by the well-known coup of Sinigaglia. This was his masterstroke. He had Vitellozzo and Oliverotto strangled forthwith; the Orsini—Paolo, father-in-law of Girolama Borgia, and Francesco, Duke of Gravina, who had once been mentioned as a possible husband for Lucretia—suffered the same fate January 18, 1503.

The Duke of Ferrara congratulated CÆsar, as did also the Gonzaga. Even Isabella did not hesitate to write a graceful letter to the man that had driven her dear sister-in-law,—whose husband had been forced to flee a second time,—from Urbino. The Gonzaga, who were anxious to marry the little hereditary Prince Federico to his daughter Luisa, were endeavoring to secure this end with the help of Francesco Trochio in Rome. Isabella's contemptible letter to CÆsar is as follows:

CÆsar replied to the marchioness from Aquapendente as follows:

CÆsar was then near the zenith of his desires—a king's throne in central Italy. This project, however, was never realized; Louis XII forbade him further conquests. The Orsini (the cardinal of this house had just been poisoned in the castle of S. Angelo) and other barons whose estates were in the vicinity of Rome rose for a final struggle, and CÆsar was compelled to hasten back to the papal city. Alexander and his son now turned toward Spain, as Gonsalvo had defeated the French in Naples and had entered the capital of the kingdom May 14th. Louis XII, however, despatched a new army under La Tremouille to recapture Naples. The Marquis of Mantua was likewise in his pay, and in August, 1503, the army entered the Patrimonium Petri.

Alexander and CÆsar were suddenly taken sick at the same moment. The Pope died August 18th. It has been affirmed and also denied that both were poisoned, and proofs equally good in support of both views have been adduced; it is, therefore, a mooted question.

Aside from her grief due to affection, the death of Lucretia's father was a serious event for her, as it might weaken her position in Ferrara. Alexander's power was all that had given her a sense of security, and now she could no longer feel certain of the continuance of the affection of her father-in-law or of that of her husband. Well might Alfonso now recall the words Louis XII had uttered to the effect that on the death of Alexander he would not know who the lady was whom he had married. The king one day asked the Ferrarese plenipotentiary at his court how Madonna Lucretia had taken the Pope's death. When the ambassador replied that he did not know, Louis remarked, "I know that you were never satisfied with this marriage; this Madonna Lucretia is not Don Alfonso's real wife."[184]

Lucretia would have been frightened had she read a letter which Ercole wrote to Giangiorgio Seregni, then his ambassador in Milan, which at that time was under French control, and in which he disclosed his real feelings on the Pope's demise.

This statement was very candid. In view of the advantages which had accrued to Ercole's State through the marriage with Lucretia, he might be regarded as ungrateful; he had, however, never looked upon this alliance as anything more than a business transaction, and so far as his relations with CÆsar were concerned his view was entirely correct.

Let us now hear what another famous prince—one who was in the confidence of the Borgias—says regarding the Pope's death. At the time of this occurrence the Marquis of Mantua was at his headquarters with the French army in Isola Farnese, a few miles from Rome. From there, September 22, 1503, he wrote his consort, Isabella, as follows:

The reports of Burchard, of the Venetian ambassador Giustinian, of the Ferrarese envoy Beltrando, and of numerous others describe Alexander's end in almost precisely the same way, and the fable of the devil or "babuino" that carried Alexander's soul off is also found in Marino Sanuto's diary. The highly educated Marquis of Gonzaga, with a simplicity equal to that of the people of Rome, believed it.

The Mephisto legend of Faust and Don Juan, which was immediately associated with Alexander's death—even the black dog running about excitedly in St. Peter's is included—shows what was the opinion of Alexander's contemporaries regarding the terrible life of the Borgia, and the extraordinary success which followed him all his days. Alexander's moral character is, however, so incomprehensible that even the keenest psychologists have failed to fathom it.

In him neither ambition nor the desire for power, which, in the majority of rulers, is the motive of their crimes, was the cause of his evil deeds. Nor was it hate of his fellows, nor cruelty, nor yet a vicious pleasure in doing evil. It was, however, his sensuality and also his love for his children—one of the noblest of human sentiments. All psychological theory would lead us to expect that the weight of his sins would have made Alexander a gloomy man with reason clouded by fear and madness, like Tiberius or Louis XI; but instead of this we have ever before us the cheerful, active man of the world—even until his last years. "Nothing worries him; he seems to grow younger every day," wrote the Venetian ambassador scarcely two years before his death.

It is not his passions or his crimes that are incomprehensible, for similar and even greater crimes have been committed by other princes both before and after him, but it is the fact that he committed them while he was Pope. How could Alexander VI reconcile his sensuality and his cruelty with the consciousness that he was the High Priest of the Church, God's representative on earth? There are abysses in the human soul to the depths of which no glance can penetrate. How did he overcome the warnings, the qualms of conscience, and how was it possible for him constantly to conceal them under a joyous exterior? Could he believe in the immortality of the soul and the existence of a divine Being?

When we consider the utter abandon with which Alexander committed his crimes, we are forced to conclude that he was an atheist and a materialist. There is a time in the life of every philosophic and unhappy soul when all human endeavor seems nothing more than the despairing, purposeless activity of an aggregation of puppets. But in Alexander VI we discover no trace of a Faust, nothing of his supreme contempt of the world, of his Titanic skepticism; but we find, on the contrary, that he possessed an amazingly simple faith, coupled with a capacity for every crime. The Pope who had Christ's mother painted with the features of the adulteress Giulia Farnese believed that he himself enjoyed the special protection of the Virgin.

CARDINAL BEMBO.
From an engraving by G. Benaglia.

Alexander's life is the very antithesis of the Christian ideal. To be convinced of this it is only necessary to compare the Pope's deeds with the teachings of the Gospel. Compare his actions with the Commandments: "Thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not bear false witness."

The fact that Rodrigo Borgia was a pope must seem to all the members of the Church the most unholy thing connected with it, and one which they have reason bitterly to regret. This fact, however, can never lessen the dignity of the Church—the greatest production of the human mind—but does it not destroy a number of transcendental theories which have been associated with the papacy?

The execrations which all Italy directed against Alexander could scarcely have reached Lucretia's ears, but she doubtless anticipated them. Her distress must have been great. Her entire life in Rome returned and overwhelmed her. Her father had been the cause, first, of all her unhappiness, and subsequently of all her good fortune. Filial affection and religious fears must have assailed her at one and the same time. Bembo describes her suffering. This man, subsequently so famous, came to Ferrara in 1503, a young Venetian nobleman of the highest culture and fairest presence. He was warmly received by Lucretia, for whom he conceived great admiration. The accomplished cavalier wrote her the following letter of condolence: