's votes, what then? He bought
them, true. But they--they sold him their sacred trust, their duty
to their God, their priestly honour, their holy vows. For the gold he
offered them they bartered these. So much admitted, then surely, in that
transaction, those cardinals were the prostitutes! The man who bought
so much of them, at least, was on no baser level than were they.
Yet invective singles him out for its one object, and so betrays the
aforethought malice of its inspiration.

Our quarrel is with that; with that, and with those writers who have
taken Alexander's simony for granted--eagerly almost--for the purpose
of heaping odium upon him by making him appear a scandalous exception to
the prevailing rule.

If, nevertheless, we hold, as we have said, that simony probably did
take place, we do so, not so much upon the inconclusive evidence of the
fact, as upon the circumstance that it had become almost an established
custom to purchase the tiara, and that Roderigo Borgia--since his
ambition clearly urged him to the Pontificate--would have been an
exception had he refrained.

It may seem that to have disputed so long to conclude by admitting so
much is no better than a waste of labour. Not so, we hope. Our aim has
been to correct the adjustment of the focus and properly to trim the
light in which Roderigo Borgia is to be viewed, to the end that you may
see him as he was--neither better nor worse--the creature of his
times, of his environment, and of the system in which he was reared and
trained. Thus shall you also get a clearer view of his son Cesare, when
presently he takes the stage more prominently.

During the seventeen days of the interregnum between the death of
Innocent and the election of Alexander the wild scenes usual to
such seasons had been taking place in Rome; and, notwithstanding the
Cardinal-Chamberlain's prompt action in seizing the gates and bridges,
and the patrols' endeavours to maintain order, crime was unfettered
to such an extent that some 220 murders are computed to have taken
place--giving the terrible average of thirteen a day.

It was a very natural epilogue to the lax rule of the lethargic
Innocent. One of the first acts of Alexander's reign was to deal
summarily with this lawlessness. He put down violence with a hard hand
that knew no mercy. He razed to the ground the house of a murderer
caught red-handed, and hanged him above the ruins, and so dealt
generally that such order came to