Caesar or Nothing Part 40

"What ruffians!" exclaimed Caesar, smiling.

The Englishman continued with the history of Borgia, his intrigues with the King of France, the death of Lucrezia's husband, the a.s.sa.s.sinations attributed to the Pope's son, the mysterious execution of Ramiro del Orco, which made Machiavelli say that Caesar Borgia was the prince who best knew how to make and unmake men, according to their merits; finally the _coup d'etat_ at Sinigaglia with the _condottieri_.

By this time Caesar Moncada was very anxious to know more. These Borgias interested him. His sympathies went out toward those great bandits who dominated Rome and tried to get all Italy into their power, leaf by leaf, like an artichoke. Their purpose struck him as a good one, almost a moral one. The device, _Aut Caesar, aut nihil_, was worthy of a man of energy and courage.

Kennedy seeing Caesar's interest, then recounted the scene at Cardinal Adrian Corneto's country-house; Alexander's intention to give a supper there to various Cardinals and poison them all with a wine that had been put into three bottles, so as to inherit from them, the superst.i.tiousness of the Pope, who sent Cardinal Caraffa to the Vatican for a golden box in which he kept his consecrated Host, from which he was never separated; and the mistake of the chamberlain, who served the poisoned wine to Caesar and his father.

"Here, to this very room, they brought the dying Pope," said Kennedy, and pointed to a door, on whose marble lintel one may read: _Alexander Borgia Valentin P. P._ "They say he pa.s.sed eight days here between life and death, before he did die, and that when his corpse was exposed, it decomposed horribly."

Then Kennedy related the story of Caesar's trying to cure himself by the strange method of being put inside of a mule just dead; his flight from Rome, sick on a litter, with his soldiers, as far as the Romagna; his imprisonment in the Castel Sant' Angelo; his capture by the Great Captain; his efforts to escape from his prison at Medina del Campo; and his obscure death on the Mendavia road, near Viana in Navarre, through one of the Count of Lerin's soldiers, named Garces, a native of Agreda, who gave Borgia such a blow with a lance that it broke his armour and pa.s.sed all the way through his body.

Caesar was stirred up. Hearing the story of the people who had lived there, in those very rooms, gave him an impression of complete reality.

When they went out again by the Gallery of Inscriptions, they looked from a window.

"It must have been here that he fought bulls?" said Caesar.

"Yes."

The court was large, with a fountain of four streams in the middle.

"Life then must have been more intense than now," said Caesar.

"Who knows? Perhaps it was the same as now," replied Kennedy.

"And what does history, exact history, say of these Borgias?"

"Of Pope Alexander VI it says that he had his children in wedlock; that he was a good administrator; that the people were content with him; that the influence of Spain was justifiable, because he was Spanish; that the story of the poisonings does not seem certain; and that he himself could hardly have died of poison, but rather of a malarial fever."

"And about Lucrezia?"

"Of Lucrezia it says that she was a woman like those of her period; that there are no proofs for belief in her incests and her poisonings; and that her first marriages, which were never really consummated, were nothing more than political moves of her father and her brother's."

"And about Caesar?"

"Caesar is the one member of the family who appears really terrible.

His device, _Aut Caesar, aut nihil_, was not a chance phrase, but the irrevocable decision to be a king or to be nothing."

"That, at least, is not a mystification," murmured Caesar.

_IN FRONT OF THE CASTEL SANT' ANGELO_

They left the Vatican, crossed the Piazza di San Pietro, and drew near the river.

As they pa.s.sed in front of the Castel Sant' Angelo, Kennedy said:

"Alexander VI shut himself up in this castle to weep for the Duke of Gandia. From one of those windows he watched the funeral procession of his son, whom they were carrying to Santa Maria del Popolo. According to old Italian custom they bore the corpse in an open casket. The funeral was at night, and two hundred men with torches lighted the way. When the cortege set foot on this bridge, the Pope's retinue saw him draw back with horror, and cover his face, crying out sharply."

XIX. CaeSAR'S REFLECTIONS

"I have had the curiosity," Caesar wrote to his friend Alzugaray, "to inform myself about the life of the Borgias, and going on from one to another, I reached Saint Francis Borgia; and from Saint Francis I have gone backwards to Saint Ignatius Loyola.

"The parallelism between the doings of Caesar Borgia and of Inigo de Loyola surprised me; what one tried to do in the sphere of action, the other did in the sphere of thought. These twin Spanish figures, both odious to the ma.s.ses, have given its direction to the Church; one, Loyola, through the impulse to spiritual power; the other, Caesar Borgia, through the impulse to temporal power.

"One may say that Spain gave Papal Rome its thought and activity, as it gave the Rome of the Caesars also its thought and activity, through Seneca and Trajan.

"Really it is curious to see the traces that remain in Rome of that Basque, Inigo. That half farceur, half ruffian, who had the characteristics of a modern anarchist, was a genius for organization.

Bakunin and Mazzini are poor devils beside him. The Church still lives through Loyola. He was her last reformer.

"The Society of Jesus is the knot of the whole Catholic scaffolding; the Jesuits know that on the day when this knot, which their Society forms, is cut or pulled open, the whole frame-work of out-of-date ideas and lies, which defends the Vatican, will come down with a terrible noise.

"Rome lives on Jesuitism. Indubitably, without Loyola, Catholicism would have rotted away much sooner. It is obvious that this would have been better, but we are not talking about that. A good general is not one who defends just causes, but one who wins battles.

"The Borgias, Luther, and Saint Ignatius, between them, killed the predominance of the Latin race.

"The Borgias threw discredit on the free Renaissance life, before the face of all nations; Luther removed the centre of spiritual life and philosophy to Germany and England; Saint Ignatius prevented Roman Catholicism from rotting away; he put iron braces on the body that was doubling over with weakness, and inside his braces the body has gone on decomposing and has poisoned the Latin countries.

"On hearing this opinion here, they asked me:

"'Then you think Catholicism is dead?'

"'No, no; as to having any civilizing effect, it is dead; but as to having a sentimental effect, it is very much alive... and it will still unfortunately keep on being alive. All this business of the Virgin del Pilar and the Virgin del Carmen, and saints, and processions, and magnificent churches, is a terrible strength.... If there were an emanc.i.p.ated bourgeoisie and a sensible working cla.s.s, Catholicism would not be a peril; but there are not, and Catholicism will have, not perhaps an overpowering expansion, but at least moments of new growth.

While we have a lazy rich cla.s.s and a brutalized poor cla.s.s, Catholicism will be strong.'

"Leaving the utilitarian and moral questions aside, and considering merely the amount of influence and the traces left by this influence, one can see that Rome is living on Loyola's work and still dreaming of Borgia's. Those pilgrims in the Piazza di San Pietro who enthusiastically yell, _Viva il Papa-re!_ are acclaiming the memory of Caesar Borgia. Thus you have the absurd result, people who speak with horror of an historic figure and still hold his work in admiration.

"This Spanish influence that our country gave to the Church in two ways, spiritual and material,--to the Church which now is an inst.i.tution not merely foreign but contrary to our nature,--Spain ought today to try to use in her own behalf. Spain's work ought to be to organize extra-religious individualism.

"We are individualists; therefore what we need is an iron discipline, like soldiers.

"This discipline established, we ought to spread it through the contiguous countries, especially through Africa. Democracy, the Republic, Socialism, have not, essentially, any root in our land.

Families, cities, cla.s.ses, can be united in a pact; isolated men, like us, can be united only by discipline.

"Moreover, as for us, we do not recognize prestige, nor do we cheerfully accept either kings or presidents or high priests or grand magi.

"The only thing that would suit us would be to have a chief... for the pleasure of eating him alive.

"A Loyola of the extra-religious individualism is what Spain needs.

Deeds, always deeds, and a cold philosophy, realistic, based on deeds, and a morality based on action. Don't you agree?

"I think, and I am becoming more confirmed in my opinion, that the only people who can give a direction, found a new civilization with its own proper characteristics, for that old Iberian race, which probably sprang from the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean... is we Spaniards.

"'Why only you Spaniards?' my friend Kennedy asked me; and I told him: