Secrets of the Past (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 edition. Excerpt: ... without a Pope----the Church of Christ was without a visible head. So perished the man at whose life the world has not yet ceased to shudder. Yet Roderigo Borgia had done some good. He had been an able ruler, he had restored some order to the streets of Rome, and he had cleared the Papal states of banditti--except that greatest of bandits his own son. Machiavelli, the wise Florentine, who looked on at Cesare Borgia's career, had hoped much for Italy from his success. But the praise of Machiavelli is almost a stain. Alexander VI had deserved well of the common people of Rome, as Richard III had deserved well of the commons of London. Yet so much stronger is the moral sense of the populace than their sense of self-interest, that the Pope's death was the signal for a howl of execration which echoed through Christendom. His very corpse even was abandoned on the steps of Saint Peter's. Cesare Borgia survived. His uncommon strength of constitution enabled him ultimately to shake off the effects of the poison, to which he had taken an antidote immediately on reaching the Vatican. But his career was at an end. A new Pope, a determined enemy of the house of Borgia, resumed possession of all the territories which Cesare had spent so much toil and blood in conquering. Driven into exile and imprisonment, he finally perished in an obscure skirmish in the Pyrenees. This story of the poisoned wine has hitherto passed current among writers, who have not paused to detect its improbabilities, as the complete truth with regard to the fall of the two Borgias. Historians have chosen to regard it as one of those marvellous retributions which used to form the staple of the magazine literature served out to children in the last generation....