incident is buried in a mystery as profound as that of the
Grey Room. Our later historians whitewash Alexander VI. concerning
the matter of Prince Djem; but then it is so much the habit of later
historians to whitewash everybody. A noble quality in human nature
perhaps--to try and see the best, even while one can only do so by
ignoring the worst. Certainly, as your poet says, 'Distance makes the
heart grow fonder'; or, at any rate, softer. There is a tendency to side
with the angels where we are dealing with historic dead. Nero, Caligula,
Calvin, Alva, Napoleon, Torquemada--all these monsters and portents,
and a thousand such blood-bespattered figures are growing whiter as they
grow fainter. They will have wings and haloes presently. Yet not for me.
I am a good hater, my friends. But Prince Djem--I wander so. You should
be more severe with me and keep me to my point. Sultan Bajazet wanted
his younger brother out of the way, and he paid the Papacy forty
thousand ducats a year to keep the young fellow a prisoner in Italy.
It was a gilded captivity and doubtless the dissolute Oriental enjoyed
himself quite as well at Rome as he would have done in Constantinople.
But after Alexander had achieved the triple tiara, Bajazet refused to
pay his forty thousand ducats any longer. The Pope, therefore, wrote
strongly to the Sultan, telling him that the King of France designed to
seize Prince Djem and go to war on his account against the Turks. This
does not weary you?"

"No, indeed," declared Mary.

"Alexander added, that to enable him to resist the French and spare
Bajazet's realms the threatened invasion, a sum of forty thousand ducats
must be immediately forthcoming. The Sultan, doubtless appalled by such
a threat, despatched the money with a private letter. He was as great
a diplomat as the Pope himself, and saw a way to evade this gigantic
annual impost by compounding on the death of Djem. Unfortunately for
him, however, both the papal envoy and Bajazet's own messenger were
captured upon their return journey by the brother of Cardinal della
Rovere--Alexander's bitterest enemy. Thus the contents of the secret
letter became known, and the Christian world heard with horror how
Bajazet had offered the occupant of St. Peter's throne three hundred
thousand ducats to assassinate Prince Djem!

"Time passed, and the Pope triumphed over his enemies. He prepared
to abandon the person of the young Turk to Charles of France, and
effecti