error to counteract the possibility of poison.

Whatever may have been the proximate cause of his sickness, Alexander
died, a black and swollen mass, hideous to contemplate, after a sharp
struggle with the venom he had absorbed.[1] 'All Rome,' says
Guicciardini, 'ran with indescribable gladness to view the corpse. Men
could not satiate their eyes with feeding on the carcass of a serpent
who, by his unbounded ambition and pestiferous perfidy, by every
demonstration of horrible cruelty, monstrous lust, and unheard-of
avarice, selling without distinction things sacred and profane, had
filled the world with venom.' Cesare languished for some days on a sick
bed; but in the end, by the aid of a powerful constitution, he
recovered, to find his claws cut and his plans in irretrievable
confusion. 'The state of the Duke of Valence,' says Filippo Nerli,[2]
'vanished even as smoke in air, or foam upon the water.'

[1] 'Morto chel fu, il corpo comincio a bollire, e la bocca a
spumare come faria uno caldaro al focho, assi persevero mentre
che fu sopra terra; divenne anchor ultra modo grosso in tanto
che in lui non apparea forma di corpo humano, ne dala larghezza
ala lunghezza del corpo suo era differenzia alcuna' (letter of
Marquis of Mantua).

[2] _Commentari_, lib, v.

The moral sense of the Italians expressed itself after Alexander's death
in the legend of a devil, who had carried off his soul. Burchard,
Giustiniani, Sanudo, and others mention this incident with apparent
belief. But a letter from the Marquis of Mantua to his wife, dated
September 22, 1503, gives the fullest particulars: 'In his sickness the
Pope talked in such a way that those who did not know what was in his
mind thought him wandering, though he spoke with great feeling, and his
words were: _I will come; it is but right; wait yet a little while_.
Those who were privy to his secret thought, explained that, after the
death of Innocent, while the Conclave was sitting, he bargained with the
devil for the Papacy at the price of his soul; and among the agreements
was this, that he should hold the See twelve years, which he did, with
the addition of four days; and some attest they saw seven devils in the
room at the moment that he breathed his last.' Mere old wives' tales;
yet they mark the point to which the credit of the Borgia had fallen,
even in Italy, since the hour when the humanists had praised his godlike
carriage and heroic mien