l the wrath
of God for the sins that no man is without?

If humanity contains a type that would not have seen in such a cause for
sorrow a visitation of God, it is the type of inhuman monster to
which we are asked to believe that Alexander VI belonged. A sinner
unquestionably he was, and a great one; but a human sinner, and not an
incarnate devil, else there could have been no such outcry from him in
such an hour as this.

He announced that henceforth the spiritual needs of the Church should be
his only care. He inveighed against the corruption of the ecclesiastical
estate, confessing himself aware of how far it had strayed from the
ancient discipline and from the laws that had been framed to bridle
licence and cupidity, which were now rampant and unchecked; and he
proclaimed his intention to reform the Curia and the Church of Rome. To
this end he appointed a commission consisting of the Cardinal-Bishops
Oliviero Caraffa and Giorgio Costa, the Cardinal-Priests Antonietto
Pallavicino and Gianantonio Sangiorgio, and the Cardinal-Deacons
Francesco Piccolomini and Raffaele Riario.

There was even a suggestion that he was proposing to abdicate, but that
he was prevailed upon to do nothing until his grief should have abated
and his judgement be restored to its habitual calm. This suggestion,
however, rests upon no sound authority.

Letters of condolence reached him on every hand. Even his arch-enemy,
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, put aside his rancour in the face of the
Pope's overwhelming grief--and also because it happened to consort with
his own interests, as will presently transpire. He wrote to Alexander
from France that he was truly pained to the very soul of him in his
concern for the Pope's Holiness--a letter which, no doubt, laid the
foundations to the reconciliation that was toward between them.

Still more remarkable was it that the thaumaturgical Savonarola should
have paused in the atrabilious invective with which he was inflaming
Florence against the Pope, should have paused to send him a letter of
condolence in which he prayed that the Lord of all mercy might comfort
his Holiness in his tribulation.

That letter is a singular document; singularly human, yielding a
singular degree of insight into the nature of the man who penned it.
A whole chapter of intelligent speculation upon the character of
Savonarola, based upon a study of externals, could not reveal as much of
the mentality of that fanatical dem