parted, preceded by one of the
pope's couriers, who gave orders that every town they passed through
was to receive them with marks of honour and respect. The same order had
been sent throughout the whole of France, where the illustrious visitors
received so numerous a guard, and were welcomed by a populace so
eager to behold them, that after they passed through Paris, Caesar's
gentlemen-in-waiting wrote to Rome that they had not seen any trees in
France, or houses, or walls, but only men, women and sunshine.

The king, on the pretext of going out hunting, went to meet his guest
two leagues outside the town. As he knew Caesar was very fond of the
name of Valentine, which he had used as cardinal, and still continued
to employ with the title of Count, although he had resigned the
archbishopric which gave him the name, he there and then bestowed an him
the investiture of Valence, in Dauphine, with the title of Duke and a
pension of 20,000 francs; then, when he had made this magnificent gift
and talked with him for nearly a couple of hours, he took his leave, to
enable him to prepare the splendid entry he was proposing to make.

It was Wednesday, the 18th of December 1498, when Caesar Borgia entered
the town of Chinon, with pomp worthy of the son of a pope who is
about to marry the daughter of a king. The procession began with
four-and-twenty mules, caparisoned in red, adorned with escutcheons
bearing the duke's arms, laden with carved trunks and chests inlaid
with ivory and silver; after them came four-and-twenty mare, also
caparisoned, this time in the livery of the King of France, yellow and
red; next after these came ten other mules, covered in yellow satin with
red crossbars; and lastly another ten, covered with striped cloth of
gold, the stripes alternately raised and flat gold.

Behind the seventy mules which led the procession there pranced sixteen
handsome battle-horses, led by equerries who marched alongside; these
were followed by eighteen hunters ridden by eighteen pages, who were
about fourteen or fifteen years of age; sixteen of them were dressed in
crimson velvet, and two in raised gold cloth; so elegantly dressed were
these two children, who were also the best looking of the little band,
that the sight of them gave rise to strange suspicions as to the reason
for this preference, if one may believe what Brantome says. Finally,
behind these eighteen horses came six beautiful mules, all harnessed
with red velv