of them, for if it had, the fame of the capture of Bologna would not
have fallen to Julius II. The poet says that the Genius of Rome had once
appeared to the people and foretold the fall of Alexander and Caesar,
complaining that all hope of the savior of the line of Calixtus,--whom
the gods had promised,--would expire with them. Eratus had told the poet
of these promises made in Olympus. Pallas and Venus, one as the friend
of Caesar and Spain, the other as the patron of Italy, unwilling that
strangers should rule over the descendants of the Trojans, had
complained to Jupiter of his failure to fulfil his promise to give Italy
a great king who would be likewise her savior. Jupiter had reassured
them by saying that fate was inexorable. Caesar like Achilles had to die,
but from the two lines of Este and Borgia, which sprang from Troy and
Greece, the promised hero would come. Pallas thereupon appeared in Nepi,
where, after Alexander's death, Caesar lay sick of the pest, in his camp,
and, in the form of his father, informed him of his approaching end,
which he, conscious of his fame, must suffer like a hero. Then she
disappeared in the form of a bird and hastened to Lucretia in Ferrara.
After the poet described Caesar's fall in Spain he sought to console the
sister with philosophic platitudes, and then with the assurance that she
was to be the mother of the child who was destined for such a great
career.[213]

According to Zurita, Caesar left but one legitimate child, a daughter,
who was living with her mother under the protection of the King of
Navarre. Her name was Luisa; later she married Louis de la Tremouille,
and on his death Philipp of Bourbon, Baron of Busset. Her mother,
Charlotte d'Albret, having suffered much in life, gave herself up to
holy works. She retired from the world, and died March 11, 1504. Two
natural children of Caesar, a son Girolamo and a daughter Lucretia were
living in Ferrara, where the latter became a nun and died in 1573, she
being at the time abbess of San Bernardino.[214] As late as February,
1550, an illegitimate son of Caesar's appeared in Paris. He was a priest,
and he announced that he was the natural son of the Duke of Romagna, and
called himself Don Luigi. He had come from Rome to ask assistance of the
King of France, because, as he said, his father had met his death while
he was in the service of the French crown in the kingdom of Navarre.
They gave him a hundred ducats, with which he re