is obscure death on the Mendavia road, near Viana in Navarre, through
one of the Count of Lerin's soldiers, named Garces, a native of Agreda,
who gave Borgia such a blow with a lance that it broke his armour and
passed all the way through his body.

Caesar was stirred up. Hearing the story of the people who had lived
there, in those very rooms, gave him an impression of complete reality.

When they went out again by the Gallery of Inscriptions, they looked
from a window.

"It must have been here that he fought bulls?" said Caesar.

"Yes."

The court was large, with a fountain of four streams in the middle.
"Life then must have been more intense than now," said Caesar.

"Who knows? Perhaps it was the same as now," replied Kennedy.

"And what does history, exact history, say of these Borgias?"

"Of Pope Alexander VI it says that he had his children in wedlock; that
he was a good administrator; that the people were content with him; that
the influence of Spain was justifiable, because he was Spanish; that the
story of the poisonings does not seem certain; and that he himself could
hardly have died of poison, but rather of a malarial fever."

"And about Lucrezia?"

"Of Lucrezia it says that she was a woman like those of her period; that
there are no proofs for belief in her incests and her poisonings; and
that her first marriages, which were never really consummated, were
nothing more than political moves of her father and her brother's."

"And about Caesar?"

"Caesar is the one member of the family who appears really terrible.
His device, _Aut Caesar, aut nihil_, was not a chance phrase, but the
irrevocable decision to be a king or to be nothing."

"That, at least, is not a mystification," murmured Caesar.

_IN FRONT OF THE CASTEL SANT' ANGELO_

They left the Vatican, crossed the Piazza di San Pietro, and drew near
the river.

As they passed in front of the Castel Sant' Angelo, Kennedy said:

"Alexander VI shut himself up in this castle to weep for the Duke of
Gandia. From one of those windows he watched the funeral procession of
his son, whom they were carrying to Santa Maria del Popolo. According to
old Italian custom they bore the corpse in an open casket. The funeral
was at night, and two hundred men with torches lighted the way. When the
cortege set foot on this bridge, the Pope's retinue saw him draw back
with horror, and cover his face, crying out sharply."

XIX. CAESAR'S REFLECTIONS