, busy and hopeful as he was just then. He dispatched Baldassare
da Scipione to Rome to enlist what lances he could find, and Scipione
put it about that his lord would soon be returning to his own and giving
his enemies something to think about.

And then, suddenly, out of clearest heavens, fell a thunderbolt to
shiver this last hope.

On the night of May 26, as Cesare was leaving Gonzalo's quarters, where
he had supped, an officer stepped forward to demand his sword. He was
under arrest.

Julius II had out-manoeuvred him. He had written to Spain setting
forth what was his agreement with Valentinois in the matter of the
Romagna--the original agreement which was the price of the Pontificate,
had, of course, been conveniently effaced from the pontifical memory. He
addressed passionate complaints to Ferdinand and Isabella that Gonzalo
de Cordoba and Cardinal Carvajal between them were affording Valentinois
the means to break that agreement, and to undertake matters that were
hostile to the Holy See. And Ferdinand and Isabella had put it upon
Gonzalo de Cordoba, that most honourable and gallant captain, to do
this thing in gross violation of his safe-conduct and plighted word to
Valentinois. It was a deed under the shame of which the Great Captain
confessedly laboured to the end of his days, as his memory has laboured
under it ever since. For great captains are not afforded the immunity
enjoyed by priests and popes jointly with other wearers of the petticoat
from the consequences of falsehood and violated trust.

Fierce and bitter were Valentinois's reproaches of the Great Captain for
this treachery--as fierce and bitter as they were unavailing. On August
20, 1504, Cesare Borgia took ship for Spain--a prisoner bound for a
Spanish dungeon. Thus, at the early age of twenty-nine, he passed from
Italy and the deeds that well might have filled a lifetime.

Conspicuous amid those he left behind him who remained loyal to their
duke was Baldassare Scipione, who published throughout Christendom a
cartel, wherein he challenged to trial by combat any Spaniard who dared
deny that the Duke of Valentinois had been detained a prisoner in Naples
in spite of the safe-conduct granted him in the name of Ferdinand and
Isabella, "with great shame and infamy to their crown."(1)

1 Quoted by Alvisi, on the authority of a letter of Luigi da Porto,
March 16, 1510, in Lettere Storiche.

This challenge was never taken up.

Amongst oth