"O patria lagrimosa, i como buelves los ojos a los Gelves sospirando!"
The death of the young nobleman is veiled under a beautiful simile, which challenges comparison with the great masters of Latin and Italian song, from whom the Castilian bard derived it.
"Puso en el duro suelo la hermosa cara, como la rosa matutina, cuando ya el sol declina 'l medio dia; que pierde su alegria, i marchitando va la color mudando; o en el campo cual queda el lirio blanco, qu' el arado crudamente cortado al passar dexa; del cual aun no s' alexa pressuroso aquel color hermoso, o se destierra; mas ya la madre tierra descuidada, no l' administra nada de su aliento, qu' era el sustentamiento i vigor suyo; tal esta el rostro tuyo en el arena, fresca rosa, acucena blanea i pura." Garcilasso de la Vega, Obras, ed. de Herrera, pp. 507, 508.
[22] The reader may feel some curiosity respecting the fate of count Pedro Navarro. He soon after this went to Italy, where he held a high command, and maintained his reputation in the wars of that country, until he was taken by the French in the great battle of Ravenna. Through the carelessness or coldness of Ferdinand he was permitted to languish in captivity, till he took his revenge by enlisting in the service of the French monarch. Before doing this, however, he resigned his Neapolitan estates, and formally renounced his allegiance to the Catholic king; of whom, being a Navarese by birth, he was not a native subject. He unfortunately fell into the hands of his own countrymen in one of the subsequent actions in Italy, and was imprisoned at Naples, in Castel Nuovo, which he had himself formerly gained from the French. Here he soon after died; if we are to believe Brantôme, being privately despatched by command of Charles V., or, as other writers intimate, by his own hand. His remains, first deposited in an obscure corner of the church of Santa Maria, were afterwards removed to the chapel of the great Gonsalvo, and a superb mausoleum was erected over them by the prince of Sessa, grandson of the hero. Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 124.—Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. pp. 226, 289, 406.—Brantôme, Vies des Hommes Illustres, disc. 9. —Giovio, Vitae Illust. Virorum, pp. 190-193.
[23] Ximenes continued to watch over the city which he had so valiantly won, long after his death. He never failed to be present in seasons of extraordinary peril. At least the gaunt, gigantic figure of a monk, dressed in the robes of his order, and wearing a cardinal's hat, was seen, sometimes stalking along the battlements at midnight, and, at others, mounted on a white charger and brandishing a naked sword in the thick of the fight. His last appearance was in 1643, when Oran was closely beleaguered by the Algerines. A sentinel on duty saw a figure moving along the parapet one clear, moonlight night, dressed in a Franciscan frock, with a general's baton in his hand. As soon as it was hailed by the terrified soldier, it called to him to "tell the garrison to be of good heart, for the enemy should not prevail against them." Having uttered these words, the apparition vanished without ceremony. It repeated its visit in the same manner on the following night, and, a few days after, its assurance was verified by the total discomfiture of the Algerines, in a bloody battle under the walls. See the evidence of these various apparitions, as collected, for the edification of the court of Rome, by that prince of miracle-mongers, Quintanilla. (Archetypo, pp. 317, 335, 338, 340.) Bishop Fléchier appears to have no misgivings as to the truth of these old wives' tales. (Histoire de Ximenés, liv. 6.)
Oran, after resisting repeated assaults by the Moors, was at length so much damaged by an earthquake, in 1790, that it was abandoned, and its Spanish garrison and population were transferred to the neighboring city of Mazarquivir.
[24] The custom, familiar at the present day, of depositing coins and other tokens, with inscriptions bearing the names of the architect and founder and date of the building, under the corner-stone was observed on this occasion, where it is noticed as of ancient usage, more prisco. Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 28.
[25] Fléchier, Histoire de Ximenés, p. 597.
[26] Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS.—Robles, Vida de Ximenez, cap. 16.— Quintanilla, Archetypo, p. 178.—Colmenar, Délices de l'Espagne, tom. ii. pp. 308-310.—Navagiero, Viaggio, fol. 7,—who notices particularly the library, "piena di molti libri et Latini et Greci et Hebraici."
The good people accused the cardinal of too great a passion for building; and punningly said, "The church of Toledo had never had a bishop of greater edification, in every, sense than Ximenes." Fléchier, Histoire de Ximenés, p. 597.