Rosa Vanazza was quite right in comforting Caesar.  Indeed, although Alexander VI had repudiated the abuses of nepotism, he understood very well the part that was to be played for his benefit by his sons and his daughter; for he knew he could always count on Lucrezia and Caesar, if not on Francesco and Goffredo.  In these matters the sister was quite worthy of her brother.  Lucrezia was wanton in imagination, godless by nature, ambitious and designing:  she had a craving for pleasure, admiration, honours, money, jewels, gorgeous stuffs, and magnificent mansions.  A true Spaniard beneath her golden tresses, a courtesan beneath her frank looks, she carried the head of a Raphael Madonna, and concealed the heart of a Messalina.  She was dear to Roderigo both as daughter and as mistress, and he saw himself reflected in her as in a magic mirror, every passion and every vice.  Lucrezia and Caesar were accordingly the best beloved of his heart, and the three composed that diabolical trio which for eleven years occupied the pontifical throne, like a mocking parody of the heavenly Trinity.

Nothing occurred at first to give the lie to Alexander’s professions of principle in the discourse he addressed to Caesar, and the first year of his pontificate exceeded all the hopes of Rome at the time of his election.  He arranged for the provision of stores in the public granaries with such liberality, that within the memory of man there had never been such astonishing abundance; and with a view to extending the general prosperity to the lowest class, he organised numerous doles to be paid out of his private fortune, which made it possible for the very poor to participate in the general banquet from which they had been excluded for long enough.  The safety of the city was secured, from the very first days of his accession, by the establishment of a strong and vigilant police force, and a tribunal consisting of four magistrates of irreproachable character, empowered to prosecute all nocturnal crimes, which during the last pontificate had been so common that their very numbers made impunity certain:  these judges from the first showed a severity which neither the rank nor the purse of the culprit could modify.  This presented such a great contrast to the corruption of the last reign,—­in the course of which the vice-chamberlain one day remarked in public, when certain people were complaining of the venality of justice, “God wills not that a sinner die, but that he live and pay,”—­that the capital of the Christian world felt for one brief moment restored to the happy days of the papacy.  So, at the end of a year, Alexander VI had reconquered that spiritual credit, so to speak, which his predecessors lost.  His political credit was still to be established, if he was to carry out the first part of his gigantic scheme.  To arrive at this, he must employ two agencies—­alliances and conquests.  His plan was to begin with alliances.  The gentleman of Aragon who had married Lucrezia when she was only