? Who will blame him? Who can prevent
him? If he had for his mistress every woman he might single out from
among his captives, why not his sister? If he have the force to carry
out a plan, why should a man stand in his way? The complete facility in
the commission of all actions quickly brings such a man to the limits of
the legitimate: there is no universal cry to tell him where those limits
are, no universal arm to pull him back. He pooh-poohs, pushes them a
little further, and does the iniquity. Nothing prevents his gratifying
his ambition, his avarice, and his lust, so he gratifies them. Soon,
seeking for further gratification, he has to cut new paths in villainy:
he has not been restrained by man, who is silent; he is soon restrained
no longer by nature, whose only voice is in man's conscience. Pleasure
in wanton cruelty takes the same course: he prefers to throw javelins at
men and women to throwing javelins at bulls or bears, even as he prefers
throwing javelins at bulls or bears rather than at targets; the
excitement is greater; the instinct is that of the soldiers of Spain and
of France, who invariably preferred shooting at a valuable fresco like
Sodoma's Christ, at Siena, or Lo Spagna's Madonna, at Spoleto, to
practising against a mere worthless piece of wood. Such a man as Caesar
Borgia is the _nec plus ultra_ of a Renaissance villain; he takes, as
all do not, absolute pleasure in evil as such. Yet Caesar Borgia is not a
fiend nor a maniac. He can restrain himself whenever circumstances or
policy require it; he can be a wise administrator, a just judge. His
portraits show no degraded criminal; he is, indeed, a criminal in
action, but not necessarily a criminal in constitution, this fiendish
man who did not seem a fiend to Machiavel. We are astonished at the
strange anomaly in the tastes and deeds of these Renaissance villains;
we are amazed before their portraits. These men, who, in the frightful
light of their own misdeeds, appear to us as complete demons or complete
madmen, have yet much that is amiable and much that is sane; they
stickle at no abominable lust, yet they are no bestial sybarites; they
are brave, sober, frugal, enduring like any puritan; they are
treacherous, rapacious, cruel, utterly indifferent to the sufferings of
their enemies, yet they are gentle in manner, passionately fond of
letters and art, superb in their works of public utility, and not
incapable of genuinely admiring men of pure life