reak the nobles
utterly, to remain undisputed master of the territory. That was a
conclusion foregone. And yet our princelings saw the evil approaching
them, and cowered irresolute to await and suffer it.

They had depended, perhaps, upon the Emperor, who, it was known, did
not favour the investiture, nor would confirm it. It was remembered that
Ottavio Farnese--Pier Luigi's son--was married to Margaret of Austria,
the Emperor's daughter, and that if a Farnese dominion there was to be
in Parma and Piacenza, the Emperor would prefer that it should be that
of his own son-in-law, who would hold the duchy as a fief of the Empire.
Further was it known that Ottavio was intriguing with Pope and Emperor
to gain the investiture in his own father's stead.

"The unnatural son!" I exclaimed upon learning that.

Galeotto looked at me, and smiled darkly, stroking his great beard.

"Say, rather, the unnatural father," he replied. "More honour to Ottavio
Farnese in that he has chosen to forget that he is Pier Luigi's son.
It is not a parentage in which any man--be he the most abandoned--could
take pride."

"How so?" quoth I.

"You have, indeed, lived out of the world if you know nothing of Pier
Luigi Farnese. I should have imagined that some echo of his turpitudes
must have penetrated even to a hermitage--that they would be written
upon the very face of Nature, which he outrages at every step of his
infamous life. He is a monster, a sort of antichrist; the most ruthless,
bloody, vicious man that ever drew the breath of life. Indeed, there are
not wanting those who call him a warlock, a dealer in black magic who
has sold his soul to the Devil. Though, for that matter, they say the
same of the Pope his father, and I doubt not that his magic is just the
magic of a wickedness that is scarcely human.

"There is a fellow named Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, a charlatan and
a wretched dabbler in necromancy and something of an alchemist, who has
lately written the life of another Pope's son--Cesare Borgia, who
lived nigh upon half a century ago, and who did more than any man to
consolidate the States of the Church, though his true aim, like Pier
Luigi's, was to found a State for himself. I am given to think that for
his model of a Pope's bastard this Giovio has taken the wretched Farnese
rogue, and attributed to the son of Alexander VI the vices and infamies
of this son of Paul III.

"Even to attempt to draw a parallel is to insult t