in a few words
what use he made of his holy office, declaring, that, "with his
immoderate ambition and poisoned infidelity, together with all the
horrible examples of cruelty, luxury and monstrous covetousness,
selling without distinction both holy things and profane things, he
infected the whole world."[4]

In 1503, after a pontificate of eleven years, Alexander died. Rome
rejoiced. Peace, which for a long time had been banished from her
borders, returned, and she enjoyed for a few days unwonted freedom
from alarm and trouble. Her happiness found expression in verse:--

"Dic unde, Alecto, pax haec effulsit, et unde
Tam subito reticent proelia? Sextus obit."

"Say whence, Alecto, has this peace
shone forth? wherefore so suddenly has
the noise of battle ceased? Alexander
is dead."

The rule of Borgia's successor, Pius III., lasting only twenty-seven
days, afforded little opportunity to the play of indignant wit; but
the nine years' reign of Julius II., which followed, was a period
whose troubled history is recorded in the numerous epigrams and
satires to which it gave birth. The impulsive and passionate vigor of
the character of Julius, the various fortunes of his rash enterprises,
the troubles which his stormy and rapacious career brought to the
Papal city, are all more or less minutely told. The Pope began his
reign with warlike enterprises, and as soon as he could gather
sufficient force he set out to recover from the Venetians territory of
which they had possession, and which he claimed as the property of the
Papal state. It was said, that, in leading his troops out of Rome, he
threw into the Tiber, with characteristic impetuosity, the keys of
Peter, and, drawing his sword from its sheath, declared that
henceforth he would trust to the sword of Paul. The story was too good
to be lost, and it gave point to many epigrams, of which, perhaps, the
one preserved by Bayle is the best:--

"Cum Petri nihil efficiant ad proelia claves,
Auxilio Pauli forsitan ensis erit."

"Since the keys of Peter profit not for
battle, perchance, with the aid of Paul,
the sword will answer."[5]

Julius was the first of the Popes of recent times to allow his beard
to grow, and Raphael's noble portrait of him shows what dignity it
gave to his strongly marked face. The beard was also regarded
traditionally as having belonged to Saint Paul. "For me," the Pope was
represented as saying, "for me the beard of