shown himself the fondest of fathers to his children,
and now he overflowed with pride in this son who already gave such
excellent signs of his capacity as a condottiero, and justified his
having put off the cassock to strap a soldier's harness to his lithe and
comely body.

Cardinals Farnese and Borgia, with an imposing suite, rode out some way
beyond the gates of Santa Maria del Popolo to meet the duke. At the gate
itself a magnificent reception had been prepared him, and the entire
Pontifical Court, prelates, priests, ambassadors of the Powers, and
officials of the city and curia down to the apostolic abbreviators and
secretaries, waited to receive him.

It was towards evening--between the twenty-second and the twenty-third
hours--when he made his entrance. In the van went the baggage-carts, and
behind these marched a thousand foot in full campaign apparel, headed
by two heralds in the duke's livery and one in the livery of the King
of France. Next came Vitellozzo's horse followed by fifty mounted
gentlemen-at-arms--the duke's Caesarean guard--immediately preceding
Cesare himself.

The handsome young duke--"bello e biondo"--was splendidly mounted, but
very plainly dressed in black velvet with a simple gold chain for only
ornament, and he had about him a hundred guards on foot, also in black
velvet, halbert on shoulder, and a posse of trumpeters in a livery
that displayed his arms. In immediate attendance upon him came several
cardinals on their mules, and behind these followed the ambassadors of
the Powers, Cesare's brother Giuffredo Borgia, and Alfonso of Aragon,
Duke of Biselli and Prince of Salerno--Lucrezia's husband and the father
of her boy Roderigo, born some three months earlier. Conspicuous,
too, in Cesare's train would be the imposing figure of the formidable
Countess Sforza-Riario, in black upon her white horse, riding in her
golden shackles between her two attendant women.

As the procession reached the Bridge of Sant' Angelo a salute was
thundered forth by the guns from the castle, where floated the banners
of Cesare and of the Church. The press of people from the Porta del
Popolo all the way to the Vatican was enormous. It was the year of
the Papal Jubilee, and the city was thronged, with pilgrims from
all quarters of Europe who had flocked to Rome to obtain the plenary
indulgence offered by the Pope. So great was the concourse on this
occasion that the procession had the greatest difficulty in movi