§54. POPE ALEXANDER VI — BORGIA. 1492-1503. 459
own eyes and in so short a time so much of dissemblance and crime as she. She was not forty when she died. The old representation, which made her the heroine of the dagger and the poisoned cup and guilty of incest, has given way to the milder judgment of Reumont and Gregorovius, with whom Pastor agrees. While they do not exonerate her from all profligacy, they rescue her from being an abandoned Magdalen, and make appeal to our considerate judgment by showing that she was made by her father an instrument of his ambitions for his family and that at last she exhibited the devotion of a wife and of a mother. Her son, Hercules, who reigned till 1559, was the husband of Renee, the jjrincess who welcomed Calvin and Clement Marot to her court.
Death finally put an end to the scandals of Alexander's reign. After an entertainment given by Cardinal Hadrian, the pope and his son Ciiesar were attacked with fever. It was reported that the poison which they had prepared for a cardinal was by mistake or intentionally put into the cups they themselves used.^ The pontiff's sickness lasted less than a week. The third day he was bled. On his death-bed he played cards with some of his cardinals. At the last, he received the eucharist and extreme unction and died in the presence of five members of the sacred college. It is especially noted by that well-informed diarist, Burchard, that during
1 The question of whether or no poison was the cause of the pope's death must be regarded as an open one. This is the view taken by Gregorovius, Roscoe, I. 193 sq., Reumont, Pastor, III. 499. Creighton, IV. 43, and Hergenrother. III. 987, are against the theory of poisoning. Neither Burchard nor the ambassador of Venice speak of poison. The ambassador of Mantua, writing on the 19th, denies the cliarge, which was freely made on the streets. Ranke, D. roni. Pdpste, p. 35, distinctly decides for poisoning. So also Hase, Kircheiiffesch., III. 363. Many contemporary writers pronounced for poisoning, Guicciardini, Cardinal Bembo, Jovius, Cardinal ^gidius, etc. Alexander's physician gave as the immediate cause of death apoplexy. Against the theory of poisoning is the fact that Cardinal Hadrian was also taken sick. On the other hand is the evidence that Alexander's body immediately after death was bloated and disfigured and his mouth was filled with foam, and that Cfesar was taken sick at the same time with the same symptoms, a fact which Gregorovius, VII. 521, pronounces the strongest evidence for the theory of poisoning.
460 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
his sickness Alexander never spoke a single word about Lucretia or his son, the duke. Caesar was too ill to go to his father's sick-bed but, on hearing of his death, he sent Micheletto to demand of the chamberlain the keys to the papal exchequer, threatening to strangle the cardinal, Casanova, and throw him out of the window in case he refused. Terrified out of his wits, — perterritus, — the cardinal yielded, and 100,000 ducats of gold and silver were carried away to the bereaved son.
In passing an estimate upon Alexander VI., it must be remembered that the popular and also the carefully expressed judgments of contemporaries are against him.^ The rumor was current that the devil himself was present at the deathscene and that, paying the price he had promised him for the gift of the papacy 12 years before, Alexander replied to the devil's beckonings that he well understood the time had come for the final stage of the transaction. ^
Alexajider's intellectual abilities have abundant_£roon5Lt^6 results of his^iplomacyTSy^whichTie was enabled to plot for tjie political advancement of Ctesar Borgia, with the support of France, at whose feet he had at one time been humbled, by his winning back the support of the disaffected cardinals, and by his immunity from personal hurt through violence, unless it be through poison at last. That which marks him out for unmiti- ^ted condemnationjshis^lack of principle] Mental ability, which is ascribed to the devil himself, is no substitute for moral qualities. Perfidy, treachery, greed, lust and murder were stored up in Alexander's heart.^ While he shrank from the commission of no crime to reach the objects of his ambition, he was wont to engage in the solemn exercises of devotion, and
1 There is one exception, the address made in the conclave after Alexander's death by the bishop of (iallipolis. See Garnett's art. Eiiyl. Hist. Bev., 1802, p. 311 sq., giving the text of the British Museum, the only copy in existence.
2 The duke of Mantua, whose camp was near Rome, wrote to his duchess that .seven devils appeared in the pope's room at the moment of his death, that the body swelled and was dragged from the bed with a cord. Gregorovius, Liccr. Bonjia, p. 288,
8 Bishop Creighton, IV. 44, lays stress on the fact that hypocrisy was not added to Alexander's other vices.