The Borgias | Page 4

he had finished, Lorenzo asked in a doubtful
tone:
"Then do you believe, my father, that God will forgive me everything,
both my sins and my crimes?"
"Everything," said Savonarola, "but on three conditions."
"What are they?" asked the dying man.

"The first," said Savonarola, "is that you feel a complete faith in the
power and the mercy of God."
"My father," replied Lorenzo eagerly, "I feel this faith in the very
depths of my heart."
"The second," said Savonarola, "is that you give back the property of
others which you have unjustly confiscated and kept."
"My father, shall I have time?" asked the dying man.
"God will give it to you," replied the monk.
Lorenzo shut his eyes, as though to reflect more at his ease; then, after
a moment's silence, he replied:
"Yes, my father, I will do it."
"The third," resumed Savonarola, "is that you restore to the republic her
ancient independence and her former liberty."
Lorenzo sat up on his bed, shaken by a convulsive movement, and
questioned with his eyes the eyes of the Dominican, as though he
would find out if he had deceived himself and not heard aright.
Savonarola repeated the same words.
"Never! never!" exclaimed Lorenzo, falling back on his bed and
shaking his head,--"never!"
The monk, without replying a single word, made a step to withdraw.
"My father, my father," said the dying man, "do not leave me thus:
have pity on me!"
"Have pity on Florence," said the monk.
"But, my father," cried Lorenzo, "Florence is free, Florence is happy."
"Florence is a slave, Florence is poor," cried Savonarola, "poor in
genius, poor in money, and poor in courage; poor in genius, because
after you, Lorenzo, will come your son Piero; poor in money, because
from the funds of the republic you have kept up the magnificence of
your family and the credit of your business houses; poor in courage,
because you have robbed the rightful magistrates of the authority which
was constitutionally theirs, and diverted the citizens from the double
path of military and civil life, wherein, before they were enervated by
your luxuries, they had displayed the virtues of the ancients; and
therefore, when the day shall dawn which is not far distant," continued
the mark, his eyes fixed and glowing as if he were reading in the future,
"whereon the barbarians shall descend from the mountains, the walls of
our towns, like those of Jericho, shall fall at the blast of their trumpets."

"And do you desire that I should yield up on my deathbed the power
that has made the glory of my whole life?" cried Lorenzo dei Medici.
"It is not I who desire it; it is the Lord," replied Savonarola coldly.
"Impossible, impossible!" murmured Lorenzo.
"Very well; then die as you have lived!" cried the monk, "in the midst
of your courtiers and flatterers; let them ruin your soul as they have
ruined your body!" And at these words, the austere Dominican, without
listening to the cries of the dying man, left the room as he had entered it,
with face and step unaltered; far above human things he seemed to soar,
a spirit already detached from the earth.
At the cry which broke from Lorenzo dei Medici when he saw him
disappear, Ermolao, Poliziano, and Pico delta Mirandola, who had
heard all, returned into the room, and found their friend convulsively
clutching in his arms a magnificent crucifix which he had just taken
dawn from the bed-head. In vain did they try to reassure him with
friendly words. Lorenzo the Magnificent only replied with sobs; and
one hour after the scene which we have just related, his lips clinging to
the feet of the Christ, he breathed his last in the arms of these three men,
of whom the most fortunate-- though all three were young--was not
destined to survive him more than two years. "Since his death was to
bring about many calamities," says Niccolo Macchiavelli, "it was the
will of Heaven to show this by omens only too certain: the dome of the
church of Santa Regarata was struck by lightning, and Roderigo Borgia
was elected pope."


CHAPTER I
Towards the end of the fifteenth century--that is to say, at the epoch
when our history opens the Piazza of St. Peter's at Rome was far from
presenting so noble an aspect as that which is offered in our own day to
anyone who approaches it by the Piazza dei Rusticucci.
In fact, the Basilica of Constantine existed no longer, while that of
Michael Angelo, the masterpiece of thirty popes, which cost the labour
of three centuries and the expense of two hundred and sixty millions,

existed not yet. The ancient edifice, which had lasted for eleven
hundred and forty-five years, had been