who saw nothing in the bloodiest or most wanton performances
but facts for his journal, which he duly registered with the
impassibility of a scribe, appending no remark or moral reflection.

"On the 11th of November a certain peasant was entering Rome with two
stallions laden with wood, when the servants of His Holiness, just as he
passed the Piazza of St. Peter's, cut their girths, so that their loads
fell on the ground with the pack-saddles, and led off the horses to
a court between the palace and the gate; then the stable doors were
opened, and four stallions, quite free and unbridled, rushed out and in
an instant all six animals began kicking, biting and fighting each other
until several were killed. Roderigo and Madame Lucrezia, who sat at
the window just over the palace gate, took the greatest delight in the
struggle and called their courtiers to witness the gallant battle that
was being fought below them."

Now Caesar's trick in the matter of the Archbishop of Cosenza had had
the desired result, and Isabella and Ferdinand could no longer impute to
Alexander the signature of the brief they had complained of: so nothing
was now in the way of the marriage of Lucrezia and Alfonso; this
certainty gave the pope great joy, for he attached all the more
importance to this marriage because he was already cogitating a second,
between Caesar and Dona Carlota, Frederic's daughter.

Caesar had shown in all his actions since his brother's death his want
of vocation for the ecclesiastical life; so no one was astonished when,
a consistory having been summoned one morning by Alexander, Caesar
entered, and addressing the pope, began by saying that from his earliest
years he had been drawn towards secular pursuits both by natural
inclination and ability, and it had only been in obedience to the
absolute commands of His Holiness that he entered the Church, accepted
the cardinal's scarlet, other dignities, and finally the sacred order
of the diaconate; but feeling that in his situation it was improper to
follow his passions, and at his age impossible to resist them, he humbly
entreated His Holiness graciously to yield to the desire he had failed
to overcome, and to permit him to lay aside the dress and dignities
of the Church, and enter once more into the world, thereto contract a
lawful marriage; also he entreated the lord cardinals to intercede for
him with His Holiness, to whom he would freely resign all his churches,
abbeys, an