to a reckoning, and because the murder would result in offering
him opportunities which he desired. He spared himself the trouble of
directing useless reproaches to his son, for Caesar would only have
laughed at them. Was the care with which Alexander had his unfortunate
son-in-law watched merely a bit of deceit? There are no grounds for
believing that the Pope either planned the murder himself or that he
consented to it.

Never was bloody deed so soon forgotten. The murder of a prince of the
royal house of Naples made no more impression than the death of a
Vatican stable boy would have done. No one avoided Caesar; none of the
priests refused him admission to the Church, and all the cardinals
continued to show him the deepest reverence and respect. Prelates vied
with each other to receive the red hat from the hand of the all-powerful
murderer, who offered the dignity to the highest bidders. He needed
money for carrying out his schemes of confiscation in the Romagna. His
condottieri, Paolo Orsini, Giuliano Orsini, Vitellozzo Vitelli, and
Ercole Bentivoglio were with him during these autumn days. His father
had equipped seven hundred heavy men at arms for him, and, August 18th,
the Venetian ambassador reported to the signory that he had been
requested by the Pope to ask the Doge to withdraw their protection from
Rimini and Faenza. Negotiations were in progress with France to secure
her active support for Caesar. August 24th the French ambassador, Louis
de Villeneuve, made his entry into Rome; near S. Spirito a masked man
rode up and embraced him. The man was Caesar. However openly he committed
his crimes, he frequently went about Rome in disguise.

The murder of the youthful Alfonso of Aragon was by far the most tragic
deed committed by the Borgias, and his fate was more terrible than even
that of Astorre Manfredi. If Lucretia really loved her husband, as there
is every reason to suppose she did, his end must have caused her the
greatest anguish; and, even if she had no affection for him, all her
feelings must have been aroused against the murderer to whose fiendish
ambition the tragedy was due. She must also have rebelled against her
father, who regarded the crime with such indifference.

None of the reports of the day describe the circumstances in which she
found herself immediately after the murder, nor events in the Vatican
just preceding it. Although Lucretia was suffering from a fever, she did
not die of grief, no