But Siena was under the protection of the French. Besides, Siena was not one of the States of the Church, and Caesar had no rights there. Therefore he was content with insisting upon Pandolfo Petrucci's leaving the town and retiring to Lucca, which he accordingly did.
Then all on this side being peaceful and the whole of Romagna in subjection, Caesar resolved to return to Rome and help the pope to destroy all that was left of the Orsini.
This was all the easier because Louis XII, having suffered reverses in the kingdom of Naples, had since then been much concerned with his own affairs to disturb himself about his allies. So Caesar, doing for the neighbourhood of the Holy See the same thing that he had done far the Romagna, seized in succession Vicovaro, Cera, Palombera, Lanzano, and Cervetti; when these conquests were achieved, having nothing else to do now that he had brought the pontifical1 States into subjection from the frontiers of Naples to those of Venice, he returned to Rome to concert with his father as to the means of converting his duchy into a kingdom.
Caesar arrived at the right moment to share with Alexander the property of Cardinal2 Gian Michele, who had just died, having received a poisoned cup from the hands of the pope.
The future King of Italy found his father preoccupied3 with a grand project: he had resolved, for the Feast of St. Peter's, to create nine cardinals4. What he had to gain from these nominations5 is as follows:
First, the cardinals elected would leave all their offices vacant; these offices would fall into the hands of the pope, and he would sell them;
Secondly7, each of them would buy his election, more or less dear according to his fortune; the price, left to be settled at the pope's fancy, would vary from 10,000 to 40,000 ducats;
Lastly, since as cardinals they would by law lose the right of making a will, the pope, in order to inherit from them, had only to poison them: this put him in the position of a butcher who, if he needs money, has only to cut the throat of the fattest sheep in the flock.
The nomination6 came to pass: the new cardinals were Giovanni Castellaro Valentine, archbishop of Trani; Francesco Remolini, ambassador from the King of Aragon; Francesco Soderini, bishop8 of Volterra; Melchiore Copis, bishop of Brissina; Nicolas Fiesque, bishop of Frejus; Francesco di Sprate, bishop of Leome; Adriano Castellense, clerk of the chamber9, treasurer-general, and secretary of the briefs; Francesco Boris, bishop of Elva, patriarch of Constantinople, and secretary to the pope; and Giacomo Casanova, protonotary and private chamberlain to His Holiness.
The price of their simony paid and their vacated offices sold, the pope made his choice of those he was to poison: the number was fixed10 at three, one old and two new; the old one was Cardinal Casanova, and the new ones Melchiore Copis and Adriano Castellense, who had taken the name of Adrian of Carneta from that town where he had been born, and where, in the capacity of clerk of the chamber, treasurer-general, and secretary of briefs, he had amassed11 an immense fortune.
So, when all was settled between Caesar and the pope, they invited their chosen guests to supper in a vineyard situated12 near the Vatican, belonging to the Cardinal of Corneto. In the morning of this day, the 2nd of August, they sent their servants and the steward13 to make all preparations, and Caesar himself gave the pope's butler two bottles of wine prepared with the white powder resembling sugar whose mortal properties he had so often proved, and gave orders that he was to serve this wine only when he was told, and only to persons specially14 indicated; the butler accordingly put the wine an a sideboard apart, bidding the waiters on no account to touch it, as it was reserved for the pope's drinking.
[The poison of the Borgias, say contemporary writers, was of two kinds, powder and liquid. The poison in the form of powder was a sort of white flour, almost impalpable, with the taste of sugar, and called Contarella. Its composition is unknown.
The liquid poison was prepared, we are told in so strange a fashion that we cannot pass it by in silence. We repeat here what we read, and vouch15 for nothing ourselves, lest science should give us the lie.
A strong dose of arsenic16 was administered to a boar; as soon as the poison began to take effect, he was hung up by his heels; convulsions supervened, and a froth deadly and abundant ran out from his jaws17; it was this froth, collected into a silver vessel18 and transferred into a bottle hermetically sealed, that made the liquid poison.]
Towards evening Alexander VI walked from the Vatican leaning on Caesar's arm, and turned his steps towards the vineyard, accompanied by Cardinal Caraffa; but as the heat was great and the climb rather steep, the pope, when he reached the top, stopped to take breath; then putting his hand on his breast, he found that he had left in his bedroom a chain that he always wore round his neck, which suspended a gold medallion that enclosed the sacred host. He owed this habit to a prophecy that an astrologer had made, that so long as he carried about a consecrated19 wafer, neither steel nor poison could take hold upon him. Now, finding himself without his talisman20, he ordered Monsignors Caraffa to hurry back at once to the Vatican, and told him in which part of his room he had left it, so that he might get it and bring it him without delay. Then, as the walk had made him thirsty, he turned to a valet, giving signs with his hand as he did so that his messenger should make haste, and asked for something to drink. Caesar, who was also thirsty, ordered the man to bring two glasses. By a curious coincidence, the butler had just gone back to the Vatican to fetch some magnificent peaches that had been sent that very day to the pope, but which had been forgotten when he came here; so the valet went to the under butler, saying that His Holiness and Monsignors the Duke of Romagna were thirsty and asking for a drink. The under butler, seeing two bottles of wine set apart, and having heard that this wine was reserved for the pope, took one, and telling the valet to bring two glasses on a tray, poured out this wine, which both drank, little thinking that it was what they had themselves prepared to poison their guests.
Meanwhile Caraffa hurried to the Vatican, and, as he knew the palace well, went up to the pope's bedroom, a light in his hand and attended by no servant. As he turned round a corridor a puff21 of wind blew out his lamp; still, as he knew the way, he went on, thinking there was no need of seeing to find the object he was in search of; but as he entered the room he recoiled22 a step, with a cry of terror: he beheld23 a ghastly apparition24; it seemed that there before his eyes, in the middle of the room, between the door and the cabinet which held the medallion, Alexander VI, motionless and livid, was lying on a bier at whose four corners there burned four torches. The cardinal stood still for a moment, his eyes fixed, and his hair standing25 on end, without strength to move either backward or forward; then thinking it was all a trick of fancy or an apparition of the devil's making, he made the sign of the cross, invoking26 God's holy name; all instantly vanished, torches, bier, and corpse27, and the seeming mortuary, chamber was once more in darkness.
Then Cardinal Caraffa, who has himself recorded this strange event, and who was afterwards Pope Paul IV, entered baldly, and though an icy sweat ran dawn his brow, he went straight to the cabinet, and in the drawer indicated found the gold chain and the medallion, took them, and hastily went out to give them to the pope. He found supper served, the guests arrived, and His Holiness ready to take his place at table; as soon as the cardinal was in sight, His Holiness, who was very pale, made one step towards him; Caraffa doubled his pace, and handed the medallion to him; but as the pope stretched forth28 his arm to take it, he fell back with a cry, instantly followed by violent convulsions: an instant later, as he advanced to render his father assistance, Caesar was similarly seized; the effect of the poison had been more rapid than usual, for Caesar had doubled the dose, and there is little doubt that their heated condition increased its activity.
The two stricken men were carried side by side to the Vatican, where each was taken to his own rooms: from that moment they never met again.
As soon as he reached his bed, the pope was seized with a violent fever, which did not give way to emetics29 or to bleeding; almost immediately it became necessary to administer the last sacraments of the Church; but his admirable bodily constitution, which seemed to have defied old age, was strong enough to fight eight days with death; at last, after a week of mortal agony, he died, without once uttering the name of Caesar or Lucrezia, who were the two poles around which had turned all his affections and all his crimes. His age was seventy-two, and he had reigned30 eleven years.
Caesar, perhaps because he had taken less of the fatal beverage31, perhaps because the strength of his youth overcame the strength of the poison, or maybe, as some say, because when he reached his own rooms he had swallowed an antidote32 known only to himself, was not so prostrated33 as to lose sight for a moment of the terrible position he was in: he summoned his faithful Michelotto, with those he could best count on among his men, and disposed this band in the various rooms that led to his own, ordering the chief never to leave the foot of his bed, but to sleep lying on a rug, his hand upon the handle of his sward.
The treatment had been the same for Caesar as for the pope, but in addition to bleeding and emetics strange baths were added, which Caesar had himself asked for, having heard that in a similar case they had once cured Ladislaus, King of Naples. Four posts, strongly welded to the floor and ceiling, were set up in his room, like the machines at which farriers shoe horses; every day a bull was brought in, turned over on his back and tied by his four legs to the four posts; then, when he was thus fixed, a cut was made in his belly34 a foot and a half long, through which the intestines35 were drawn36 out; then Caesar slipped into this living bath of blood: when the bull was dead, Caesar was taken out and rolled up in burning hot blankets, where, after copious37 perspirations, he almost always felt some sort of relief.
Every two hours Caesar sent to ask news of his father: he hardly waited to hear that he was dead before, though still at death's door himself, he summoned up all the force of character and presence of mind that naturally belonged to him. He ordered Michelotto to shut the doors of the Vatican before the report of Alexander's decease could spread about the town, and forbade anyone whatsoever38 to enter the pope's apartments until the money and papers had been removed. Michelotto obeyed at once, went to find Cardinal Casanova, held a dagger39 at his throat, and made him deliver up the keys of the pope's rooms and cabinets; then, under his guidance, took away two chests full of gold, which perhaps contained 100,000 Roman crowns in specie, several boxes full of jewels, much silver and many precious vases; all these were carried to Caesar's chamber; the guards of the room were doubled; then the doors of the Vatican were once more thrown open, and the death of the pope was proclaimed.
Although the news was expected, it produced none the less a terrible effect in Rome; for although Caesar was still alive, his condition left everyone in suspense40: had the mighty41 Duke of Romagna, the powerful condottiere who had taken thirty towns and fifteen fortresses42 in five years, been seated, sword in hand, upon his charger, nothing would have been uncertain of fluctuating even for a moment; far, as Caesar afterwards told Macchiavelli, his ambitious soul had provided for all things that could occur on the day of the pope's death, except the one that he should be dying himself; but being nailed down to his bed, sweating off the effects the poison had wrought43; so, though he had kept his power of thinking he could no longer act, but must needs wait and suffer the course of events, instead of marching on in front and controlling them.
Thus he was forced to regulate his actions no longer by his own plans but according to circumstances. His most bitter enemies, who could press him hardest, were the Orsini and the Colonnas: from the one family he had taken their blood, from the other their goods.
So he addressed himself to those to whom he could return what he had taken, and opened negotiations44 with the Colonnas.
Meanwhile the obsequies of the pope were going forward: the vice-chancellor had sent out orders to the highest among the clergy45, the superiors of convents, and the secular46 orders, not to fail to appear, according to regular custom, on pain of being despoiled47 of their office and dignities, each bringing his own company to the Vatican, to be present at the pope's funeral; each therefore appeared on the day and at the hour appointed at the pontifical palace, whence the body was to be conveyed to the church of St. Peter's, and there buried. The corpse was found to be abandoned and alone in the mortuary chamber; for everyone of the name of Borgia, except Caesar, lay hidden, not knowing what might come to pass. This was indeed well justified48; for Fabio Orsino, meeting one member of the family, stabbed him, and as a sign of the hatred49 they had sworn to one another, bathed his mouth and hands in the blood.
The agitation50 in Rome was so great, that when the corpse of Alexander VI was about to enter the church there occurred a kind of panic, such as will suddenly arise in times of popular agitation, instantly causing so great a disturbance51 in the funeral cortege that the guards drew up in battle array, the clergy fled into the sacristy, and the bearers dropped the bier.
The people, tearing off the pall52 which covered it, disclosed the corpse, and everyone could see with impunity53 and close at hand the man who, fifteen days before, had made princes, kings and emperors tremble, from one end of the world to the other.
But in accordance with that religious feeling towards death which all men instinctively54 feel, and which alone survives every other, even in the heart of the atheist55, the bier was taken up again and carried to the foot of the great altar in St. Peter's, where, set on trestles, it was exposed to public view; but the body had become so black, so deformed56 and swollen57, that it was horrible to behold58; from its nose a bloody59 matter escaped, the mouth gaped60 hideously61, and the tongue was so monstrously62 enlarged that it filled the whole cavity; to this frightful63 appearance was added a decomposition64 so great that, although at the pope's funeral it is customary to kiss the hand which bore the Fisherman's ring, not one approached to offer this mark of respect and religious reverence65 to the representative of God on earth.
Towards seven o'clock in the evening, when the declining day adds so deep a melancholy66 to the silence of a church, four porters and two working carpenters carried the corpse into the chapel67 where it was to be interred68, and, lifting it off the catafalque, where it lay in state, put it in the coffin69 which was to be its last abode70; but it was found that the coffin was too short, and the body could not be got in till the legs were bent71 and thrust in with violent blows; then the carpenters put on the lid, and while one of them sat on the top to force the knees to bend, the others hammered in the nails: amid those Shakespearian pleasantries that sound as the last orison in the ear of the mighty; then, says Tommaso Tommasi, he was placed on the right of the great altar of St. Peter's, beneath a very ugly tomb.
"VENDIT ALEXANDER CLAVES, ALTARIA, CHRISTUM:
EMERAT ILLE PRIUS, VENDERE JUKE POTEST";
that is,
"Pope Alexander sold the Christ, the altars, and the keys:
But anyone who buys a thing may sell it if he please."
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1
pontifical
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| adj.自以为是的，武断的 | |
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2
cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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4
cardinals
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| 红衣主教( cardinal的名词复数 )； 红衣凤头鸟（见于北美，雄鸟为鲜红色）； 基数 | |
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5
nominations
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| n.提名，任命( nomination的名词复数 ) | |
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6
nomination
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| n.提名，任命，提名权 | |
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7
secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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8
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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9
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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10
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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11
amassed
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| v.积累，积聚( amass的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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12
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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13
steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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14
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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15
vouch
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| v.担保；断定；n.被担保者 | |
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16
arsenic
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| n.砒霜，砷；adj.砷的 | |
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17
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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18
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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19
consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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20
talisman
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| n.避邪物，护身符 | |
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21
puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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22
recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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23
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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24
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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26
invoking
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| v.援引( invoke的现在分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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27
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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29
emetics
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| n.催吐药( emetic的名词复数 ) | |
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30
reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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31
beverage
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| n.(水，酒等之外的)饮料 | |
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32
antidote
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| n.解毒药，解毒剂 | |
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33
prostrated
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| v.使俯伏，使拜倒( prostrate的过去式和过去分词 )；（指疾病、天气等）使某人无能为力 | |
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34
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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35
intestines
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| n.肠( intestine的名词复数 ) | |
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36
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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37
copious
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| adj.丰富的，大量的 | |
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38
whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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39
dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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40
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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41
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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42
fortresses
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| 堡垒，要塞( fortress的名词复数 ) | |
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43
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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44
negotiations
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| 协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过 | |
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45
clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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46
secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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47
despoiled
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| v.掠夺，抢劫( despoil的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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49
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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50
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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51
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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52
pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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53
impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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54
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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55
atheist
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| n.无神论者 | |
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56
deformed
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| adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的 | |
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57
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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58
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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59
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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60
gaped
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| v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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hideously
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| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
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monstrously
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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64
decomposition
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| n. 分解, 腐烂, 崩溃 | |
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65
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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66
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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67
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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68
interred
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| v.埋，葬( inter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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69
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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70
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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71
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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72
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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