"What have you to say, Signor de Vitry?" asked the pope, affecting a tone of calmness which he was far from feeling.
"Merely this, Holiness," answered Vitry, "the army of my Sovereign Lord the King of France is within an hour's march of the walls; he desires to know if you are prepared to receive him within them. The day is nearly spent; he will have no time to force the gates to-night, and the men must be lodged somewhere."
Alexander trembled--partly, perhaps, with rage, but certainly with fear also. He looked to the Prince of Naples; he looked to his son, the Cardinal Borgia, upon whose handsome lips there was a sort of serpent smile; but no one ventured to utter one word of advice, till Ramiro d'Orco slowly approached his chair, and spoke a few words in a low tone.
"Well," said the pontiff, "tell the King of France, that I will not oppose his entrance. The Church does not seek to drive even her disobedient children to sacrilege. For myself, I will make no treaty--no stipulation with one who can disregard the repeated injunctions he has received. But for this young prince and his forces I demand a safe conduct."
"Not for me, your Holiness," said Ferdinand, raising his head proudly. "I need none. My sword is my safe conduct, and I will have no other."
"Then my errand is sped," said De Vitry. "I understand there will be no opposition to the king's entrance?"
The pontiff bowed his head with the single word, "None," and the envoy retired from his presence and from the city.
"And now to St. Angelo with all speed," cried Alexander. "Quick, Burchard, quick. Let all the valuables be gathered together and carried to the castle. Come, Cæsar--come, my son, and bring all the men you can find with you. The place is well provisioned already;" and he left the room without bestowing another word upon the young Prince of Naples.
Ferdinand paused a moment in deep thought, and then, with a heavy sigh, quitted the Vatican. Half an hour after he marched out of Rome at the head of a few thousand men, and beheld, by the fading light, the splendid host of the king who was marching to strip his father and himself of their dominions, winding onward--like a glittering snake--towards the gates of Rome.
Here, as at Florence, the fouriers and harbingers of the monarch rode on before the rest of the army, and passed rapidly through the ancient streets filled with the memories of so many ages, marking out quarters for the troops and lodgings for the king and his court. They took no heed to triumphal arch, or broken statue, or ruined amphitheatre; but they marked the faces of the populace who thronged the streets and gathered thickly at the gates, and they saw a very different expression on those countenances from that which had appeared amongst the Tuscans. To the Romans Charles came as a deliverer, and an occasional shout of gratulation burst from the people as the strange horsemen passed. Hasty preparations only could be made, for the royal army was close behind, and just after sunset on the last day of the year 1494, the French army reached the gates of Rome. Those gates were thrown wide open; and shout after shout burst from the multitude as the men-at-arms poured in. Charles himself was at their head, armed cap-à-pie; "with his lance upon his thigh," says an eye-witness, "as if prepared for battle." The drums beat, the trumpet sounded; and every tenth man of the army carried a torch casting its red glare upon the dazzling arms and gorgeous surcoats of the cavalry, and upon the eager but joyous faces round. Shout after shout burst from the multitude; and thus, as a conqueror, Charles entered Rome.