g his
last illness, Alexander never once asked for Cesare nor ever once
mentioned the name of Lucrezia. So far as Cesare is concerned, the Pope
knew, no doubt, that he was ill and bedridden, for all that the gravity
of the duke's condition would, probably, have been concealed from
him. That he should not have mentioned Lucrezia--nor, we suppose,
Giuffredo--is remarkable. Did he, with the hand of Death already upon
him, reproach himself with this paternity which, however usual and
commonplace in priests of all degrees, was none the less a scandal, and
the more scandalous in a measure as the rank of the offender was higher?
It may well be that in those last days that sinful, worldly old man
bethought him of the true scope and meaning of Christ's Vicarship, which
he had so wantonly abused and dishonoured, and considered that to that
Judge before whom he was summoned to appear the sins of his predecessors
would be no justification or mitigation of his own. It may well be that,
grown introspective upon his bed of death, he tardily sought to thrust
from his mind the worldly things that had so absorbed it until the
spiritual were forgotten, and had given rise to all the scandal
concerning him that was spread through Christendom, to the shame and
dishonour of the Church whose champion he should have been.

Thus may it have come to pass that he summoned none of his children in
his last hours, nor suffered their names to cross his lips.

When the news of his father's death was brought to Cesare, the duke, all
fever-racked as he was, more dead than living, considered his position
and issued his orders to Michele da Corella, that most faithful of all
his captains, who so richly shared with Cesare the execration of the
latter's enemies.

Of tears for his father there is no record, just as at no time are we
allowed to see that stern spirit giving way to any emotion, conceiving
any affection, or working ever for the good of any but himself. Besides,
in such an hour as this, the consciousness of the danger in which
he stood by virtue of the Pope's death and his own most inopportune
sickness, which disabled him from taking action to make his future
secure, must have concerned him to the exclusion of all else.

Meanwhile, however, Rome was quiet, held so in the iron grip of Michele
da Corella and the ducal troops. The Pope's death was being kept secret
for the moment, and was not announced to the people until nightfall, by
when Corel