ood, where he was to have been burnt to death, had not rain fallen in
such torrents that the fire would not burn, in spite of all the efforts
of the executioner."

This unlooked for accident, taken as a miracle by the people, robbed
Lucrezia of the most exciting part of the execution; but her father was
holding in reserve another kind of spectacle to console her with later.
We inform the reader once more that a few lines we are about to set
before him are a translation from the journal of the worthy German
Burchard, who saw nothing in the bloodiest or most wanton performances
but facts for his journal, which he duly registered with the
impassibility of a scribe, appending no remark or moral reflection.

"On the 11th of November a certain peasant was entering Rome with two
stallions laden with wood, when the servants of His Holiness, just as he
passed the Piazza of St. Peter's, cut their girths, so that their loads
fell on the ground with the pack-saddles, and led off the horses to a
court between the palace and the gate; then the stable doors were opened,
and four stallions, quite free and unbridled, rushed out and in an
instant all six animals began kicking, biting and fighting each other
until several were killed. Roderigo and Madame Lucrezia, who sat at the
window just over the palace gate, took the greatest delight in the
struggle and called their courtiers to witness the gallant battle that
was being fought below them."

Now Caesar's trick in the matter of the Archbishop of Cosenza had had the
desired result, and Isabella and Ferdinand could no longer impute to
Alexander the signature of the brief they had complained of: so nothing
was now in the way of the marriage of Lucrezia and Alfonso; this
certainty gave the pope great joy, for he attached all the more
importance to this marriage because he was already cogitating a second,
between Caesar and Dona Carlota, Frederic's daughter.

Caesar had shown in all his actions since his brother's death his want of
vocation for the ecclesiastical life; so no one was astonished when, a
consistory having been summoned one morning by Alexander, Caesar entered,
and addressing the pope, began by saying that from his earliest years he
had been drawn towards secular pursuits both by natural inclination and
ability, and it had only been in obedience to the absolute commands of
His Holiness that he entered the Church, accepted the cardinal's scarlet,
other dignities, and finally