signified to the queen, his
wife, with tears--which were Unusual in him even on the death of his
children--that a Pope had been created who would be most pernicious to
Italy."

So that, when all is said, Ferrante shed his kingly tears to his wife
in private, and to her in private he delivered his opinion of the new
Pontiff. How, then, came Guicciardini to know of the matter? True, he
says, "It is well known"--meaning that he had those tears upon hearsay.
It is, of course, possible that Ferrante's queen may have repeated what
passed between herself and the king; but that would surely have been in
contravention of the wishes of her husband, who had, be it remembered,
"dissembled his grief in public." And Ferrante does not impress one
as the sort of husband whose wishes his wife would be bold enough to
contravene.

It is surprising that upon no better authority than this should these
precious tears of Ferrante's have been crystallized in history.

If this trivial instance has been dealt with at such length it is
because, for one reason, it is typical of the foundation of so many
of the Borgia legends, and, for another, because when history has been
carefully sifted for evidence of the "universal dismay with which the
election of Roderigo Borgia was received" King Ferrante's is the only
case of dismay that comes through the mesh at all. Therefore was it
expedient to examine it minutely.

That "universal dismay"--like the tears of Ferrante--rests upon the word
of Guicciardini. He says that "men were filled with dread and horror by
this election, because it had been effected by such evil ways [con arte
si brutte]; and no less because the nature and condition of the person
elected were largely known to many."

Guicciardini is to be read with the greatest caution and reserve when he
deals with Rome. His bias against, and his enmity of, the Papacy are as
obvious as they are notorious, and in his endeavours to bring it as much
as possible into discredit he does not even spare his generous patrons,
the Medicean Popes--Leo X and Clement VII. If he finds it impossible to
restrain his invective against these Pontiffs, who heaped favours and
honours upon him, what but virulence can be expected of him when
he writes of Alexander VI? He is largely to blame for the flagrant
exaggeration of many of the charges brought against the Borgias; that he
hated them we know, and that when he wrote of them he dipped his golden
Tuscan pen in v