een concluded by the murder of Djem, was forced to
hand him over to the French king. But the unlucky Turk carried in his
constitution the slow poison of the Borgias, and died in Charles's camp
between Rome and Naples. Whatever crimes may be condoned in Alexander,
it is difficult to extenuate this traffic with the Turks. By his appeal
from the powers of Europe to the Sultan, at a time when the peril to the
Western world was still most serious, he stands attained for high
treason against Christendom, of which he professed to be the chief;
against civilization, which the Church pretended to protect; against
Christ, whose vicar he presumed to style himself.

[1] See the letters in the 'Preuves et Observations,' printed
at the end of the _Memoires de Comines_.

Like Sixtus, Alexander combined this deadness to the spirit and the
interests of Christianity with zeal for dogma. He never flinched in
formal orthodoxy, and the measures which he took for riveting the chains
of superstition on the people were calculated with the military firmness
of a Napoleon. It was he who established the censure of the press, by
which printers were obliged, under pain of excommunication, to submit
the books they issued to the control of the Archbishops and their
delegates. The Brief of June 1, 1501, which contains this order, may be
reasonably said to have retarded civilization, at least in Italy and
Spain.

Carnal sensuality was the besetting vice of this Pope throughout his
life.[1] This, together with his almost insane weakness for his
children, whereby he became a slave to the terrible Cesare, caused all
the crimes which he committed. At the same time, though sensual,
Alexander was not gluttonous. Boccaccio, the Ferrarese Ambassador,
remarks: 'The Pope eats only of one dish. It is, therefore, disagreeable
to have to dine with him.' In this respect he may be favorably
contrasted with the Roman prelates of the age of Leo. His relations to
Vannozza Catanei, the titular wife first of Giorgio de Croce, and then
of Carlo Canale, and to Giulia Farnese,[2] surnamed La Bella, the
titular wife of Orsino Orsini, were open and acknowledged. These two
sultanas ruled him during the greater portion of his career, conniving
meanwhile at the harem, which, after truly Oriental fashion, he
maintained in the Vatican. An incident which happened during the French
invasion of 1494 brings the domestic circumstances of a Pope of the
Renaissance vividly befo