said, 'Let him go, let him go.
It is the devil,' and that night he fell ill and died."(1)

1 "Il diavolo sarebbe saltato fuori della camera in forma di babuino, et
un cardinale corso per piarlo, e preso volendolo presentar al papa,
il papa disse lasolo, lasolo che ii diavolo. E poi la notte si amalo e
morite."--Marino Sanuto, Diarii.

That story, transcending the things which this more practical age
considers possible, is universally rejected; but it is of vast
importance to the historical student; for it is to be borne in mind that
it finds a place in the pages of those same Diarii upon the authority
of which are accepted many defamatory stories without regard to their
extreme improbability so long as they are within the bounds of bare
possibility.

After Alexander was dead it was said that water boiled in his mouth, and
that steam issued from it as he lay in St. Peter's, and much else of the
same sort, which the known laws of physiology compel so many of us very
reluctantly to account exaggerations. But, again, remember that the
source of these stories was the same as the source of many other
exaggerations not at issue with physiological laws.

The circumstances of Alexander's funeral are in the highest degree
scandalous, and reflect the greatest discredit upon his age.

On the morrow, as the clergy were chanting the Libera me, Domine in St.
Peter's, where the body was exposed on a catafalque in full pontificals,
a riot occurred, set on foot by the soldiers present for reasons which
Burchard--who records the event--does not make clear.

The clerics fled for shelter to the sacristy, the chants were cut short,
and the Pope's body almost entirely abandoned.

But the most scandalous happening occurred twenty-four hours later. The
Pope's remains were removed to the Chapel of Santa Maria delle Febbre
by six bearers who laughed and jested at the expense of the poor corpse,
which was in case to provoke the coarse mirth of the lower classes of an
age which, setting no value upon human life, knew no respect for death.
By virtue of the malady that had killed him, of his plethoric habit
of body, and of the sweltering August heat, the corpse was decomposing
rapidly, so that the face had become almost black and assumed an aspect
grotesquely horrible, fully described by Burchard:

"Factus est sicut pannus vel morus nigerrimus, livoris totus plenus,
nasus plenus, os amplissimum, lingua duplex in ore, que labia tota
im