The Pope, with his usual clairvoyance with respect to his personal interests, immediately saw an opportunity to profit by the circumstances, and he made a bargain by which, in return for his dispensation, the King agreed to bestow the county of Valence—which was to be raised to a duchy—upon Caesar, who was to renounce his cardinalate. The King also promised to find him a princess for wife. The Cardinal of Valencia was thus to become the Duke of Valentinois. The King also agreed to give him a pension of twenty thousand livres—a great sum for those days—and also to maintain a company of one hundred men-at-arms for him. The bargain also included a cardinal’s hat for the King’s Prime Minister, Georges d’Amboise, Bishop of Rouen, who was always careful not to overlook his own interests.
LVIGI XII·RE DI FRANCIA
LOUIS XII. OF FRANCE.
From an early engraving.
To face p. 122.
In addition the Pope and the King entered into an alliance, offensive and defensive, the Holy Father agreeing to assist the King in the conquest of the Regno, and Louis promising to aid Alexander to reduce the rebellious lords in the Romagna and to re-establish the integrity of the Papal domain. Thus did sovereigns play fast and loose with human destinies. This vast intrigue developed during the first eight months of the year 1498; and August 17th, in a secret consistory, Caesar asked for a special dispensation to enable him to resign his ecclesiastical offices and again become a layman in order that he might marry. On the Pope’s promise that all the offices and benefices his son had enjoyed should revert to the Sacred College, the cardinals promptly consented to the dispensation. The same day Louis de Villeneuve, Baron of Trans, representing Louis XII., arrived in Rome for the purpose of escorting Caesar to France.
Sure of the cardinals’ consent, everything had been arranged in advance for Caesar’s departure, even those who were to accompany him had been selected. His gorgeous wardrobe, which set all Rome to talking, had been prepared. The Baron of Trans had brought the patents of Caesar’s new domain, and, accompanied by a numerous retinue, they set out for Ostia October 1st “for the purpose of going to France by sea, and,” Burchard adds, “I heard that he had a vast amount of money with him and that several of his horses were shod with silver.” The new Duke took with him 200,000 gold ducats, confiscated shortly before from Pedro de Aranda, Bishop of Calahorra, who had recently—most opportunely—been convicted on the charge of heresy—Alexander VI. always endeavoured to pluck his victims and compass his iniquities strictly in accordance with the forms of law. Three hundred Jews and usurers, found guilty of various offences, had been imprisoned, but their terms were commuted into heavy fines, the money going to swell Caesar’s exchequer.
Louis XII. had promised to send a fleet of several vessels to Ostia to conduct him to France, and it was expected about the end of August, but it did not arrive until October 27th, when the new Duke embarked with a hundred pages, servants, equerries, and retainers. Besides his horses he had fifty mules and wagons to carry his personal effects.
In his suite were his secretary, Agapito, the famous Spanish physician, Gaspare Torrella, and his majordomo, Remiro de Lorca, whom he subsequently had beheaded in Cesena for fraudulent and oppressive acts as governor of that place.