which carried the corpse went up the Tiber to the Castello
Sant' Angelo, where it was set down. At once the magnificent dress
was fetched from the duke's palace which he had worn on the day of the
procession, and he was clothed in it once more: beside him were placed
the insignia of the generalship of the Church. Thus he lay in state all
day, but his father in his despair had not the courage to came and look
at him. At last, when night had fallen, his most trusty and honoured
servants carried the body to the church of the Madonna del Papala, with
all the pomp and ceremony that Church and State combined could devise
for the funeral of the son of the pope.

Meantime the bloodstained hands of Caesar Borgia were placing a royal
crown upon the head of Frederic of Aragon.

This blow had pierced Alexander's heart very deeply. As at first he
did not know on whom his suspicions should fall, he gave the strictest
orders for the pursuit of the murderers; but little by little the
infamous truth was forced upon him. He saw that the blow which struck
at his house came from that very house itself and then his despair
was changed to madness: he ran through the rooms of the Vatican like a
maniac, and entering the consistory with torn garments and ashes on his
head, he sobbingly avowed all the errors of his past life, owning that
the disaster that struck his offspring through his offspring was a just
chastisement from God; then he retired to a secret dark chamber of
the palace, and there shut himself up, declaring his resolve to die of
starvation. And indeed for more than sixty hours he took no nourishment
by day nor rest by night, making no answer to those who knocked at his
door to bring him food except with the wailings of a woman or a roar as
of a wounded lion; even the beautiful Giulia Farnese, his new mistress,
could not move him at all, and was obliged to go and seek Lucrezia, that
daughter doubly loved to conquer his deadly resolve. Lucrezia came out
from the retreat were she was weeping for the Duke of Gandia, that she
might console her father. At her voice the door did really open, and it
was only then that the Duke of Segovia, who had been kneeling almost a
whole day at the threshold, begging His Holiness to take heart, could
enter with servants bearing wine and food.

The pope remained alone with Lucrezia for three days and nights; then he
reappeared in public, outwardly calm, if not resigned; for Guicciardini
assures us t