ance! his glance how free! His stature and carriage, his beauty
and the full health of his body, how they enhance the reverence which he
inspires!' Another panegyrist[2] describes his 'broad forehead, kingly
brow, free countenance full of majesty,' adding that 'the heroic beauty
of his whole body' was given him by nature in order that he might 'adorn
the seat of the Apostles with his divine form in the place of God.' How
little in the early days of his Pontificate the Borgia resembled that
Alexander with whom the legend of his subsequent life has familiarized
our fancy, may be gathered from the following account:[3] 'He is
handsome, of a most glad countenance and joyous aspect, gifted with
honeyed and choice eloquence; the beautiful women on whom his eyes are
cast he lures to love him, and moves them in a wondrous way, more
powerfully than the magnet influences iron.' These, we must remember,
are the testimonies of men of letters, imbued with the Pagan sentiments
of the fifteenth century, and rejoicing in the advent of a Pope who
would, they hoped, make Rome the capital of luxury and license.
Therefore they require to be received with caution. Yet there is no
reason to suppose that the majority of the Italians regarded the
elevation of the Borgia with peculiar horror. As a Cardinal he had given
proof of his ability, but shown no signs of force or cruelty or fraud.
Nor were his morals worse than those of his colleagues. If he was the
father of several children, so was Giuliano della Rovere, and so had
been Pope Innocent before him. This mattered but little in an age when
the Primate of Christendom had come to be regarded as a secular
potentate, less fortunate than other princes inasmuch as his rule was
not hereditary, but more fortunate in so far as he could wield the
thunders and dispense the privileges of the Church. A few men of
discernment knew what had been done, and shuddered. 'The king of
Naples,' says Guicciardini, 'though he dissembled his grief, told the
queen, his wife, with tears--tears which he was wont to check even at
the death of his own sons--that a Pope had been made who would prove
most pestilent to the whole Christian commonwealth.' The young Cardinal
Giovanni de' Medici, again, showed his discernment of the situation by
whispering in the Conclave to his kinsman Cibo: 'We are in the wolf's
jaws; he will gulp us down, unless we make our flight good.' Besides,
there was in Italy a widely spread repugnance