The Life of Cesare Borgia Part 35

There he lay for some five or six weeks to recover from the hurts he had taken in escaping, and to allow his hands--the bones of which were broken--to become whole again. At last, being in the main recovered, though with hands still bandaged, he set out with two attendants and made for Santander. Thence they took ship to Castro Urdiales, Cesare aiming now at reaching the kingdom of Navarre and the protection of his brother-in-law the king.

At the inn at Santander, where, weary and famished, they sat down to dine after one of the grooms had made arrangements for a boat, they had a near escape of capture. The alcalde, hearing of the presence of these strangers, and his suspicions being aroused by the recklessly high price they had agreed to pay the owner of the vessel which they had engaged, came to examine them. But they had a tale ready that they were wheat-merchants in great haste to reach Bernico, that a cargo of wheat awaited them there, and that they would suffer great loss by delay. The tale was smooth enough to satisfy the alcalde, and they were allowed to depart. They reached Castro Urdiales safely, but were delayed there for two days, owing to the total lack of horses; and they were forced, in the end, to proceed upon mules obtained from a neighbouring convent. On these they rode to Durango, where they procured two fresh mules and a horse, and so, after further similar vicissitudes, they arrived at Pampeluna on December 3, 1506, and Cesare startled the Court of his brother-in-law, King Jean of Navarre, by suddenly appearing in it--"like the devil."

The news of his evasion had already spread to Italy and set it in a ferment, inspiring actual fear at the Vatican. The Romagna was encouraged by it to break out into open and armed insurrection against the harsh rule of Julius II--who seems to have been rendered positively vindictive towards the Romagnuoli by their fidelity to Valentinois.

Thus had the Romagna fallen again into the old state of insufferable oppression from which Cesare had once delivered it. The hopes of the Romagnuoli rose in a measure, as the alarm spread among the enemies of Cesare--for Florence and Venice shared now the anxiety of the Vatican.

Zurita, commenting upon this state of things, pays Cesare the following compliment, which the facts confirm as just:

"The duke was such that his very presence was enough to set all Italy agog; and he was greatly beloved, not only by men of war, but also by many people of Tuscany and of the States of the Church."

Cesare's wife--Charlotte d'Albret--whom he had not seen since that September of 1499, was at Bourges at the Court of her friend, the saintly, repudiated first wife of Louis XII. It is to be supposed that she would be advised of her husband's presence at her brother's Court; but there is no information on this score, nor do we know that they ever met.

Within four days of reaching Pampeluna Cesare dispatched his secretary Federico into Italy to bear the news of his escape to his sister Lucrezia at Ferrara, and a letter to Francesco Gonzaga, of Mantua, which was little more than one of introduction, the more important matters to be conveyed to Gonzaga going, no doubt, by word of mouth. Federico was arrested at Bologna by order of Julius II, after he had discharged his mission.

France was now Cesare's only hope, and he wrote to Louis begging his royal leave to come to take his rank as a prince of that country, and to serve her.

You may justly have opined, long since, that the story here set down is one never-ending record of treacheries and betrayals. But you will find little to surpa.s.s the one to come. The behaviour of Louis at this juncture is contemptible beyond words, obeying as it does the maxim of that age, which had it that no inconvenient engagement should be observed if there was opportunity for breaking it.

Following this detestable maxim, Louis XII had actually gone the length of never paying to Charlotte d'Albret the dot of 100,000 livres Tournois, to which he had engaged himself by written contract. When Cesare, in prison at Medina and in straits for money, had solicited payment through his brother-in-law of Navarre, his claim had been contemptuously disregarded.

But there was worse to follow. Louis now answered Cesare's request for leave to come to France by a letter (quoted in full by M. Yriarte from the Archives des Ba.s.ses Pyrenees) in which his Very Christian Majesty announces that the duchy of Valentinois and the County of Dyois have been restored to the crown of France, as also the lordship of Issoudun.

And then follows the pretext, of whose basely paltry quality you shall judge for yourselves. It runs:

"After the decease of the late Pope Alexander, when our people and our army were seeking the recovery of the kingdom of Naples, he [Cesare]

went over to the side of our enemies, serving, favouring, and a.s.sisting them at arms and otherwise against ourselves and our said people and army, which resulted to us in great and irrecoverable loss."

The climax is in the deliberate falsehood contained in the closing words. Poor Cesare, who had served France at her call--in spite of what was rumoured of his intentions--as long as he had a man-at-arms to follow him, had gone to Naples only in the hour of his extreme need.

True, he had gone to offer himself to Spain as a condottiero when naught else was left to him; but he took no army with him--he went alone, a servant, not an ally, as that false letter pretends. He had never come to draw his sword against France, and certainly no loss had been suffered by France in consequence of any action of his. Louis's army was definitely routed at Garigliano, with Cesare's troops fighting in its ranks.

But Pope Alexander was dead; Cesare's might in in Italy was dissipated; his credit gone. There lay no profit for Louis in keeping faith with him; there lay some profit in breaking it. Alas, that a king should stain his honour with base and vulgar lies to minister to his cupidity, and that he should set them down above his seal and signature to shame him through centuries still in the womb of Time!

Cesare Borgia, landless, without right to any t.i.tle, he that had held so many, betrayed and abandoned on every side, had now nothing to offer in the world's market but his stout sword and his glad courage. These went to the first bidder for them, who happened to be his brother-in-law King Jean.

Navarre at the time was being snarled and quarrelled over by France and Spain, both menacing its independence, each pretending to claims upon it which do not, in themselves, concern us.

In addition, the country itself was torn by two factions--the Beaumontes and the Agramontes--and it was entrusted to Cesare to restore Navarre to peace and unity at home before proceeding--with the aid upon which he depended from the Emperor Maximilian--to deal with the enemies beyond her frontiers.

The Castle of Viana was being held by Louis de Beaumont--chief of the faction that bore his name--and refused to surrender to the king.

To reduce it and compel Beaumont to obedience went Cesare as Captain-General of Navarre, early in February of 1507. He commanded a considerable force, some 10,000 strong, and with this and his cannon he laid siege to the citadel.

The natural strength of the place was such as might have defied any attempt to reduce it by force; but victuals were running low, and there was every likelihood of its being speedily starved into surrender. To frustrate this, Beaumont conceived the daring plan of attempting to send in supplies from Mendavia. The attempt being made secretly, by night and under a strong escort, was entirely successful; but, in retreating, the Beaumontese were surprised in the dawn of that February morning by a troop of reinforcements coming to Cesare's camp. These, at sight of the rebels, immediately gave the alarm.

The most hopeless confusion ensued in the town, where it was at once imagined that a surprise attack was being made upon the Royalists, and that they had to do with the entire rebel army.

Cesare, being aroused by the din and the blare of trumpets calling men to arms, sprang for his weapons, armed himself in haste, flung himself on a horse, and, without pausing so much as to issue a command to his waiting men-at-arms, rode headlong down the street to the Puerta del Sol. Under the archway of the gate his horse stumbled and came down with him. With an oath, Cesare wrenched the animal to its feet again, gave it the spur, and was away at a mad, furious gallop in pursuit of the retreating Beaumont rearguard.

The citizens, crowding to the walls of Viana, watched that last reckless ride of his with amazed, uncomprehending eyes. The peeping sun caught his glittering armour as he sped, so that of a sudden he must have seemed to them a thing of fire--meteoric, as had been his whole life's trajectory which was now swiftly dipping to its nadir.

Whether he was frenzied with the l.u.s.t of battle, riding in the reckless manner that was his wont, confident that his men followed, yet too self-centred to ascertain, or whether--as seems more likely--it was simply that his horse had bolted with him, will never be known until all things are known.

Suddenly he was upon the rearguard of the fleeing rebels. His sword flashed up and down; again and again they may have caught the gleam of it from Viana's walls, as he smote the foe. Irresistible as a thunderbolt, he clove himself a way through those Beaumontese. He was alone once more, a flying, dazzling figure of light, away beyond that rearguard which he left scathed and disordered by his furious pa.s.sage.

Still his mad career continued, and he bore down upon the main body of the escort.

Beaumont sat his horse to watch, in such amazement as you may conceive, the wild approach of this unknown rider.

Seeing him unsupported, some of the count's men detached themselves to return and meet this single foe and oblige him with the death he so obviously appeared to seek.

They hedged him about--we do not know their number--and, engaging him, they drew him from the road and down into the hollow s.p.a.ce of a ravine.

And so, in the thirty-second year of his age, and in all the glory of his matchless strength, his soul possessed of the l.u.s.t of combat, sword in hand, warding off the attack that rains upon him, and dealing death about him, he meets his end. From the walls of Viana his resplendent armour renders him still discernible, until, like a sun to its setting, he pa.s.ses below the rim of that ravine, and is lost to the watcher's view.

Death awaited him amid the shadows of that hollow place.

Unhorsed by now, he fought with no concern for the odds against him, and did sore execution upon his a.s.sailants, ere a sword could find an opening in his guard to combine with a gap in his armour and so drive home. That blade had found, maybe, his lungs. Still he swung his sword, swaying now upon his loosening knees. His mouth was full of blood.

It was growing dark. His hands began to fail him. He reeled like a drunkard, sapped of strength, and then the end came quickly. Blows unwarded showered upon him now.

He crashed down in all the glory of his rich armour, which those brigand-soldiers already coveted. And thus he died--mercifully, maybe happily, for he had no time in which to taste the bitterness of death--that awful draught which he had forced upon so many.

Within a few moments of his falling, this man who had been a living force, whose word had carried law from the Campagna to the Bolognese, was so much naked, blood-smeared carrion--for those human vultures stripped him to the skin; his very shirt must they have. And there, a stark, livid corpse, of no more account than any dog that died last Sat.u.r.day, they left Cesare Borgia of France, Duke of Romagna and Valentinois, Prince of Andria, and Lord of a dozen Tyrannies.

The body was found there anon by those who so tardily rode after their leader, and his dismayed troopers bore those poor remains to Viana.

The king, arriving there that very day, horror-stricken at the news and sight that awaited him, ordered Cesare a magnificent funeral, and so he was laid to rest before the High Altar of Sainte Marie de Viane.

To rest? May the soul of him rest at least, for men--Christian men--have refused to vouchsafe that privilege to his poor ashes.

Nearly two hundred years later--at the close of the seventeenth century, a priest of G.o.d and a bishop, one who preached a gospel of love and mercy so infinite that he dared believe by its lights no man to have been d.a.m.ned, came to disturb the dust of Cesare Borgia. This Bishop of Calahorra--lineal descendant in soul of that Pharisee who exalted himself in G.o.d's House, thrilled with t.i.tillations of delicious horror at the desecrating presence of the base publican--had his pietist's eyes offended by the slab that marked Cesare Borgia's resting-place.(1)

1 It bore the following legend:

AQUI YACE EN POCA TIERRA AL QUE TODO LE TEMIA EL QUE LA PAZ Y LA GUERRA EN LA SUA MANO TENIA.

OH TU QUE VAS A BUSCAR COSAS DIGNAS DE LOAR SI TU LOAS LO MAS DIGNO AQUI PARE TU CAMINO NO CURES DE MAS ANDAR.

which, more or less literally may be Englished as follows: "Here in a little earth, lies one whom all did fear; one whose hands dispensed both peace and war. Oh, you that go in search of things deserving praise, if you would praise the worthiest, then let your journey end here, nor trouble to go farther."

The pious, Christian bishop had read of this man--perhaps that life of him published by the apostate Gregorio Leti under the pen-name of Tommaso Tommasi, which had lately seen the light--and he ordered the tomb's removal from that holy place. And thus it befell that the ashes of Cesare Borgia were scattered and lost.

Charlotte d'Albret was bereft of her one friend, Queen Jeanne, in that same year of Cesare's death. The d.u.c.h.ess of Valentinois withdrew to La MotteFeuilly, and for the seven years remaining of her life was never seen other than in mourning; her very house was equipped with sombre, funereal furniture, and so maintained until her end, which supports the view that she had conceived affection and respect for the husband of whom she had seen so little.

On March 14, 1514, that poor lady pa.s.sed from a life which appears to have offered her few joys.

Louise de Valentinois--a handsome damsel of the age of fourteen--remained for three years under the tutelage of the d.u.c.h.ess of Angouleme--the mother of King Francis I--to whom Charlotte d'Albret had entrusted her child. Louise married, at the age of seventeen, Louis de la Tremouille, Prince de Talmont and Vicomte de Thouars, known as the Knight Sans Peur et Sans Reproche. She maintained some correspondence with her aunt, Lucrezia Borgia, whom she had never seen, and ever signed herself "Louise de Valentinois." At the age of thirty--Tremouille having been killed at Pavia--she married, in second nuptials, Philippe de Bourbon-Busset.

Lucrezia died in 1519, one year after her mother, Vanozza de'Catanei, with whom she corresponded to the end.

REQUIESCANT!