day remarked in public, when
certain people were complaining of the venality of justice, "God wills
not that a sinner die, but that he live and pay."
The same day, the cardinal's mother sent the pope the 2000 ducats, and
the next day his mistress, in man's attire, came in person to bring the
missing pearl. His Holiness, however, was so struck with her beauty in
this costume, that, we are told, he let her keep the pearl for the same
price she had paid for it.
Roderigo, retired from public affairs, was given up entirely to the
affections of a lover and a father, when he heard that his uncle, who
loved him like a son, had been elected pope under the name of Calixtus
III. But the young man was at this time so much a lover that love
imposed silence on ambition; and indeed he was almost terrified at the
exaltation of his uncle, which was no doubt destined to force him once
more into public life.
THE CENCI
On the 11th of August, 1492, after the lingering death-agony of Innocent
VIII, during which two hundred and twenty murders were committed in the
streets of Rome, Alexander VI ascended the pontifical throne. Son of a
sister of Pope Calixtus III, Roderigo Lenzuoli Borgia, before being
created cardinal, had five children by Rosa Vanozza, whom he afterwards
caused to be married to a rich Roman.
Having seen that Beatrice was sentenced to the torture ordinary and
extraordinary, and having explained the nature of these tortures, we
proceed to quote the official report:-- "And as in reply to every
question she would confess nothing, we caused her to be taken by two
officers and led from the prison to the torture chamber, where the
torturer was in attendance; there, after cutting off her hair, he made
her sit on a small stool, undressed her, pulled off her shoes, tied her
hands behind her back, fastened them to a rope passed over a pulley
bolted into the ceiling of the aforesaid chamber, and wound up at the
other end by a four lever windlass, worked by two men."
MASSACRES OF THE SOUTH
The massacres went on during the whole of the second day, though towards
evening the search for victims relaxed somewhat; but still many isolated
acts of murder took place during the night. On the morrow, being tired
of killing, the people began to destroy, and this phase lasted a long
time, it being less fatiguing to throw stones about than corpses. All
the convents, all the monasteries, all the houses of the priests and
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