anything of the Italy of to-day, you will be able to
conceive for yourself how the Italy of the fifteenth century must have
held her sides and pealed her laughter at the contemptible spectacle of
an unfortunate who afforded such reason to be bundled out of a nuptial
bed. The echo of that mighty burst of laughter must have rung from
Calabria to the Alps, and well may it have filled the handsome weakling
who was the object of its cruel ridicule with a talion fury. The
weapons he took up wherewith to defend himself were a little obvious. He
answered the odious reflections upon his virility by a wholesale charge
of incest against the Borgia family; he screamed that what had been said
of him was a lie invented by the Borgias to serve their own unutterable
ends.(1) Such was the accusation with which the squirming Lord of Pesaro
retaliated, and, however obvious, yet it was not an accusation that
the world of his day would lightly cast aside, for all that the
perspicacious may have rated it at its proper value.

1 "Et mancho se e curato de fare prova de qua con Done per poterne
chiarire el Rev. Legato che era qua, sebbene sua Excellentia tastandolo
sopra cio gli ne abbia facto offerta." And further: "Anzi haverla
conosciuta infinite volte, ma chel Papa non geiha tolta per altro se
non per usare con lei" (Costabili's letter from Milan to the Duke of
Ferrara, June 23, 1497).

What is of great importance to students of the history of the Borgias is
that this was the first occasion on which the accusation of incest was
raised. Of course it persisted; such a charge could not do otherwise.
But now that we see in what soil it had its roots we shall know what
importance to attach to it.

Not only did it persist, but it developed, as was but natural. Cesare
and the dead Gandia were included in it, and presently it suggested
a motive--not dreamed of until then--why Cesare might have been his
brother's murderer.

Then, early in 1498, came the rumour that Cesare was intending to
abandon the purple, and later Writers, from Capello down to our own
times, have chosen to see in Cesare's supposed contemplation of that
step a motive so strong for the crime as to prove it in the most
absolutely conclusive manner. In no case could it be such proof, even
if it were admitted as a motive. But is it really so to be admitted? Did
such a motive exist at all? Does it really follow--as has been taken
for granted--that Cesare must have remained a