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September 4th a courier brought the news that the nuptial contract had been signed in Ferrara. Alexander immediately had the Vatican illuminated and the cannon of Castle S. Angelo announce the glad tidings. All Rome resounded with the jubilations of the retainers of the house of Borgia. This moment was the turning point in Lucretia's life.
Ferrara was a fortunate State, and the house of Este an ancient one; a marriage train of great princes was shortly to come to Rome to take the bride away, and the Duchess of Urbino was to accompany it. September 14th Cæsar Borgia returned from Naples, where Federico, the last Aragonese king of that country, had been forced to yield to France.
Alexander, a worthy disciple of Louis XI, admired falsehood before truth, and sought to win his aims by poisoning his enemies. The career of his nephew Caesar Borgia has supplied history with its most awful picture of successful crime, and the book written in his praise by Macchiavelli has given us a new word for Satanic subtlety and treachery. We call it Macchiavellian.
In the course of the confidence with which the Lord Filippo honoured me I made bold, on the eve of Cesare's arrival, to suggest to him that he should remove his sister from the Palace and send her to the Convent of Santa Caterina whilst the Borgia abode in the town, lest the sight of her should remind Cesare of the old-time marriage plans which his family had centred round this lady, and lead to their revival.
They tolerated the immature greatness of Cæsar Borgia, before whom princes and states trembled for years, and he was not the last bold but empty idol of history before whom the world has tottered. Although Lucretia may not have had a very clearly defined opinion of her brother, neither her memory nor her sight could have been wholly dulled.
Before leaving, however, he awaited the return of his absent cousin, the Cardinal Giovanni Borgia, who, as papal legate, was to receive the oath of fealty of the town; but, instead of the cardinal whom he was expecting, came a messenger with news of his death of fever at Fossombrone.
As Xanthippe spoke, Lucretia Borgia burst into the room. "Hurry and save yourselves!" she cried. "The boat has broken loose from her moorings, and is floating down the stream. If we don't hurry up and do something, we'll drift out to sea!" "What!" cried Cleopatra, dropping her cue in terror, and rushing for the stairs. "I was certain I felt a slight motion.
It all sounded as if he were actuated by nice scruples and high principles; but the opinion is unfortunately not encouraged when we find him, nevertheless, giving his consent to the marriage of his nephew Alfonso to Lucrezia Borgia upon the pronouncement of her divorce from Giovanni Sforza.
Louis XII. was lazy and of small intelligence; Georges d'Amboise and Caesar Borgia, with their Italian ambitions, easily made him take up a spirited foreign policy which was disastrous at home. Utterly as the last Italian expedition had failed, the French people were not yet weary of the adventure, and preparations for a new war began at once.
Down in my heart I laughed to scorn my own wild musings. Cesare Borgia would come to know he must, whether Ramiro told him, or whether he inferred it for himself from the account Ramiro must give him of our meeting how I had thwarted him in one thing, whilst I had served him in another. Fate was against me.
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