It is evident then, that pontifical royalty does not date from Alexander VI. and that if it did, as will presently be seen, it would by no means have a shameful origin, since it is not true that he was an unworthy pontiff, though with M. De Lorgues we are willing to allow, that, upon the whole, he was the least worthy of the Popes.

The writers who have particularly treated of Alexander VI. may be divided into three classes: enemies, defenders, and those who are indifferent-that is to say, neither friends nor enemies. Among the first class, the only one we will now advert to, we mention: 1. Francis Guichardini or Guiciardini in his History of Italy. 2. Burchardt in his Diarium or Journal of Alexander VI. 3. Paul Jove, who wrote a history of his times. 4. Tomaso Tomasi, author of a history of Cæsar Borgia. 5. Machiaveli, a secret enemy but an open admirer of the same Borgia. To these original witnesses, or defamers, must be added the following writers, who used them for the purpose of criminating Alexander, to wit: Voltaire and his whole school; M. Mary Lafon, in his Rome moderne; M. Challamel, in his History of the Popes; an anonymous writer, in his Rome et Paris, ou la Question romaine; M. La Rochelle, in the pamphlet we lately mentioned; and, finally, Bianchi Giovini, in an infamous pamphlet bearing the title of Il Diario di Burcardo, Quadro del costumi della corta di Roma. We cannot, at present, spare space or time to advert particularly to the defenders of our pontiff or to the large class who are indifferent in regard to him.

The Critical Studies of M. Favé, a work which is by no means as much known as it deserves to be; the work of the Abbé Jorry; and the article already referred to of the Dublin Review, in our estimation settle the question, and can leave no doubt that Alexander has been the victim of an odious conspiracy of calumnies.

Catholics who have a horror for lies, and who cannot comprehend to what a degree malignity and impudence are capable of exciting the hatred of some of their adversaries, are often induced to make all the concessions which do not compromise faith itself; more than one of them even, after having

read this essay, will still hesitate to believe that calumny has been so audacious in regard to Alexander VI., and probably they will say that there must surely be some truth, however small it may be, where there are so many accusations against a pope of the latter part of the fifteenth century. The adage will occur to them: Where there is smoke there is fire. They will unhesitatingly believe that Voltaire and his disciples, and even some fiery Protestants of the sixteenth century, would not, when needful for their object, shrink from resorting to falsehoods and to the most audacious fabrications; but how admit for a moment that historians like Guichardini and Paul Jove, and a familar acquaintance of Alexander's like Burchardt, who died Bishop of Cotta di Castello, could have been able to forge calumnies to the extent they have done, if that pontiff were really innocent?

We will answer these objections by showing the degree of credence the writers merit who form as it were the arsenalsthat is to say, the sole original sources-whence the enemies and defenders of Alexander have drawn their arms and ammunition, and in doing so we shall make some strange revelations.

Machiaveli may surely first and foremost be rejected as a witness, whom no person who knows his character would accept ; he is well known. This Florentine, who passed a great part of his life in conspiracies, and another in writing unchaste comedies, is the author of a work entitled The Prince, which has become the manual of conspirators, of the ambitious, of cheats and of rascals. His expressed admiration of Cæsar Borgia, whom he secretly hated, would have been of itself an accusation if not a condemnation of that personage, if one could trust the good faith of Machiaveli. Still it is evident, from his recital, that Cæsar in many cases acted from the sheer force of the most imperious necessity, and certainly it is not in Machiaveli that one finds materials for the calumnies with which the memory of Alexander has been so shamefully tarnished.

Guichardini was also a Florentine. He was only twenty years old when Alexander VI. died. Educated and trained, doubtless, by a disciple of Savonarola, of that extraordinary monk whom a Catholic would be disposed to rank among the

holiest of reformers, if he had not put himself in opposition to the Holy See, he imbibed deeply the prejudices and anger of the Florentine monks of that time against Alexander. To have an idea of his good faith and impartiality when speaking of the sovereign pontiffs, let it suffice to say, that he represents throughout his work St. Gregory VII. as the vile paramour of the Countess Matilda, and that he designates as bastards the legitimate children Innocent VIII. had before he entered the priesthood.

The bad faith of this writer is such, that the infidel Bayle says in his Dictionnaire Philosophique: "Guichardini deserves to be detested; he is guilty of the fault of scandalmongers," and that Voltaire himself accuses him of imposture in relation to the death of Alexander. Moreover, we have the judgment of Guichardini himself in regard to his book-a judgment given in the face of death, and which therefore can be questioned by nobody. Some time before his death, he sent for a notary to dictate to him his last will and testament. The notary having asked him what was to be done with his "History of Italy" which he left in manuscript, he answered: "Let it be burned." We do not question the brilliant qualities of this historian, but have we not every right to reject him when he appears as a witness against a pope?

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Paul Jove merits no more credence than does Guichardini in what regards Alexander VI. He was a venal and untruthful writer, who boasted that he wielded two pens of gold, the other of iron-to write of princes according to the favors or disfavors he received from them. Bayle, in his Dictionnaire, thus speaks of him: "Giacomo Gohorri has no hesitation in saying that the adventures of Amadis de Gaul are as real and truthful as the histories of Paul Jove. According to Vossius he set on foot or opened what he called a bank, and promised an ancient pedigree and an immortal glory to any knave who would pay him well for his labor; while, on the contrary, he mercilessly defamed those who would not pay him for his falsehoods."

Tomaso Tomasi, as we are informed by M. Favé, was a countryman of Guichardini and of Paul Jove. He seems

to have proposed to himself two prime objects: one, to pay court to and gain the favor of the Duchess of Florence, a princess of the family of the La Roveres, by vilifying the pope, whom the cardinal of St. Peter-in-Chains had contended with; the other, to show in Cæsar Borgia a picture of monstrosity which the most dissolute imagination could not well conceive. This is what in other terms has been said by Antoine Varillas in his history of Louis XII.

One more yet remains, namely: John Burchardt, once master of ceremonies at the Court of Rome. We will now see what credence the Diarium, or journal, which goes under this worthy's name, merits, and the opinion that may be formed of it. Burchardt died in a quiet obscurity, and few persons were aware that he had written anything, when one hundred and ninety years after his death, in 1636, a French Calvinist came to present to Leibnitz, in the city of Hanover, some detached leaves, some written in French, others in Italian, and still others in Latin. Leibnitz believed, or affected to believe, that he discovered in them some fragments of the Diarium of Burchardt, and published them in his Secret History," expressing in a preface his regret that he had not been able to procure the original text of Burchardt. Eleven years later, in 1707, La Croze found what he considered, or pretended to consider, the Diarium in a library in Berlin, and Jean Eccard published it in 1723, in tom. ii. of his Corpus historicum medii ævi. This Diarium differs in published by Leibnitz.

some important points from that Where is the authentic version, if such be in existence? and what authority, we would ask, can be assigned to a journal written against a Pope, when it is found or discovered only by Protestants, in Protestant libraries, and edited by Protestants? Besides, these are not the only editions of it that exist; others are found which are equally discordant, and M. Chantrel says that the versions likewise, in several places, mutually contradict each other. Is it then, we would ask, on the authority of such a book, of an authenticity so questionable, and of an integrity or truthfulness still more questionable, that a serious accusation can be founded?

But it will be objected that one may at least receive as truth the parts of the different manuscripts that agree among themselves. Be it so! It remains still to be seen what credence the author himself deserves. Now here is what Paris de Grassis says of him:* "Not only was he no man, but he was the most detestable of beasts; moreover, he was very wicked and very spiteful. He has written books which nobody can comprehend, unless it be a sybil, or the devil, his accomplice; he has written them in characters so illegible, with so many erasures and alterations, that I verily believe he had the devil aiding him." This Paris de Grassis was a canon of Bologna, and, at a later period, bishop of Pesaro. His authority then, if it does not nullify or neutralize that of Burchardt, at least permits us to have serious doubts of the latter.

But the book of Burchardt, such as it has descended to us, bears about it characters of falsehood and stupidity which of themselves would suffice for us to adopt the judgment of the canon of Bologna. Audin, estimating the work solely by itself, thus judges the author: "In reading him, one would think he never quitted the pope for a single instant: he follows him to the chapel, to the consistory, to table, to bed; night has no darkness the obscurity of which he cannot penetrate. He is a person who does not believe in the existence of virtue, and who, by the omnipotence of a ducat, would ordinarily explain away a good thought or a good action. Never did a romancer, with a naïvety so comical, sport with the credulity of his readers. Of Alexander VI., who, according to him, was dissimulation itself personified, he makes the chief personage of a melodrama which publishes its dissoluteness to the whole Roman people. Only let a cardinal die, and forthwith he examines the drink of the deceased, and almost always finds in it some traces of poison. What was this poi

son for? It was because Alexander wished to possess himself of the riches of the cardinal. Voltaire, as a tragic poet, has acutely jeered at this violation of the first rules of the dramatic art. "It has been pretended," says he, "that in a

*Ex Diario ad annum 1506.