s the scaffold had been raised by night,
nor by what executioners the terrible deed had been carried out; but when
the Florentine Republic sent to ask Macchiavelli, their ambassador at
Cesena, what he thought of it, he replied:

"MAGNIFICENT LORDS,-I can tell you nothing concerning the execution of
Ramiro d'Orco, except that Caesar Borgia is the prince who best knows how
to make and unmake men according to their deserts. NICCOLO MACCHIAVELLI"

The Duke of Valentinois was not disappointed, and the future Duchess of
Ferrara was admirably received in every town along her route, and
particularly at Cesena.

While Lucrezia was on her way to Ferrara to meet her fourth husband,
Alexander and the Duke of Valentinois resolved to make a progress in the
region of their last conquest, the duchy of Piombino. The apparent
object of this journey was that the new subjects might take their oath to
Caesar, and the real object was to form an arsenal in Jacopo d'Appiano's
capital within reach of Tuscany, a plan which neither the pope nor his
son had ever seriously abandoned. The two accordingly started from the
port of Corneto with six ships, accompanied by a great number of
cardinals and prelates, and arrived the same evening at Piombina. The
pontifical court made a stay there of several days, partly with a view of
making the duke known to the inhabitants, and also in order to be present
at certain ecclesiastical functions, of which the most important was a
service held on the third Sunday in Lent, in which the Cardinal of
Cosenza sang a mass and the pope officiated in state with the duke and
the cardinals. After these solemn functions the customary pleasures
followed, and the pope summoned the prettiest girls of the country and
ordered them to dance their national dances before him.

Following on these dances came feasts of unheard of magnificence, during
which the pope in the sight of all men completely ignored Lent and did
not fast. The abject of all these fetes was to scatter abroad a great
deal of money, and so to make the Duke of Valentinois popular, while poor
Jacopo d'Appiano was forgotten.

When they left Piombino, the pope and his son visited the island of Elba,
where they only stayed long enough to visit the old fortifications and
issue orders for the building of new ones.

Then the illustrious travellers embarked on their return journey to Rome;
but scarcely had they put out to sea when the weather became adverse, a