Chapter 14
"THE MOST CONTENTED MAN IN THE WORLD"
CESARE'S RECEPTION AT MARSEILLES was suitably boisterous. Welcomed by the roar of cannons, the royal guests were met by four hundred archers who marched forward to escort the visitors to the quarters reserved for them. They spent almost a week in the city, enjoying the entertainments on offer, feasting at several banquets, and being shown such sights as the place had to offer.
Leaving Marseilles at the end of October, Cesare and his entourage started the long journey north to the French court, which was currently in residence in Chinon, some twenty-five miles southwest of Tours, where the divorce commission was still deliberating Louis XII's divorce. At Avignon they were the guests of the papal legate—this was none other than Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who would, as Pope Julius II, later cause such terrible trouble for Cesare. For now, outwardly at least, they were on amicable terms, particularly since Alexander VI was relying on the cardinal to assist with negotiations at the French court in return for the pope's help in restoring the della Rovere family to their former position of influence in Rome.
As a demonstration of this alliance, uneasy though it was, between Alexander VI and Giuliano, the legate had ridden two miles out of Avignon to meet Cesare and escort him into the city. "Avignon never witnessed such an enthusiastic welcome," wrote a witness of the scene. "Nor in the city had there ever been a more splendid procession." He was greeted with fountains gushing wine, presented with valuable pieces of silver plate, and "fêted by ladies and beautiful girls in whom the said Cesare takes much pleasure, knowing well how to dance and entertain them, the dances being morrisses, mummeries and other frivolities."
Unfortunately, Cesare was in no mood to enjoy the festivities. Once again he was suffering from a recurrence of his venereal disease. So, indeed, was Giuliano: "Della Rovere has fallen sick again of that illness of his," one informant told Ludovico Sforza. "Now the flowers [as the syphilitic rashes were euphemistically known] are starting to bloom again; if God does not help him, he will never be quite healthy. Also they say publicly of Cesare that he too has the malady of St. Lazarus in his face and, moreover, he is in a discontented frame of mind."
From Avignon Cesare travelled up the Rhône valley to Valence, the capital of his duchy, and then on to Lyons, where he arrived on November 7. From Lyons he dawdled, taking every opportunity to delay his arrival at the French court until the divorce commission had declared its verdict. Crowds gathered in every town to watch him pass by; as the son of a pope, he was an object of considerable curiosity. His entourage was led by a parade of sumpter mules, each bearing the Borgia crest and followed by two more mules carrying huge chests, the contents of which became a lively subject of debate among the crowds of onlookers. After these came the gentlemen of Cesare's household, their horses caparisoned with immense cockades and silver bridles, followed by twenty pages dressed in red velvet and cloth-of-gold, by young noblemen of Rome and Spain, and by his personal bodyguard of Spanish mercenaries. Cesare himself rode past imperiously, pearls and precious stones decorating his black velvet costume, his hat, and even his boots.
He did not create a good impression on his route north to Chinon. He was said to be aloof and arrogant, all too ready to take offence and to give it. To the French, his ostentatious retinue appeared absurdly pretentious for a twenty-three-year-old youth who was not only illegitimate but was also unable to claim one drop of royal blood. His impassive manner was viewed as haughty; on occasion he was even insolent, as when, at a reception at Valence, Louis XII's representative came forward with the collar of the Order of St. Michael and would have placed it around his neck, but Cesare pushed it away, saying that it was for the king himself to bestow.
Finally, on December 17, the cardinal of Luxembourg announced that the divorce commission had found in Louis XII's favour, freeing him from what he himself described as this "cripple, afflicted with scrofula, repellent in person and mind." The divorced wife, by her own admission not a beauty, had remained dignified throughout the proceedings; she retired to a convent, founded her own order of nuns, and was canonized in 1950.
The following day Cesare made his formal entry into Chinon, crossing the bridge over the Vienne with the great medieval castle, stronghold of the Plantagenet kingdom in France, looming mightily over the town. He was accompanied by Georges d'Amboise, whose red hat was in the duke's baggage, along with the papal dispensation that would allow Louis XII to marry Anne of Brittany. A man who was there gave a description of the occasion:
The Duke of Valence entered thus on Wednesday, the eighteenth day of December 1498 ... preceded by twenty-four handsome mules carrying trunks, coffers and chests, covered with cloths bearing the Duke's arms, then again come another twenty-four mules with their trappings halved in red and yellow.... Then twelve mules with coverings of yellow striped satin. Then came six mules with trappings of cloth-of-gold.... And after came sixteen beautiful great chargers, led by grooms, covered in cloth-of-gold, crimson and yellow ... after these came eighteen pages, each one on a fine charger, of whom sixteen were dressed in crimson velvet, the two others in cloth-of-gold.... Then came six fine mules richly equipped with saddles, bridles and trappings in crimson velvet, accompanied by grooms dressed in the same. Then two mules carrying coffers and all covered in cloth-of-gold.... Then after came thirty noblemen clad in cloth-of-gold and silver, followed by three musicians, two tambours and one rebec, dressed in cloth-of-gold according to the style of their country, and their rebecs had strings of gold. They marched between the gentlemen and the Duke of Valence, playing all the while. Then came four musicians with trumpets and clarions of silver, richly dressed, playing their instruments without ceasing. There were also twenty-four lackeys all clad in crimson velvet halved with yellow silk, and they were all around the Duke; beside him rode [Georges d'Amboise], conversing with him.
As to the Duke, he was mounted on a great tall horse very richly harnessed, with a covering of red satin, halved with cloth-of-gold and embroidered with very rich gems and large pearls. In his cap were two double rows of five or six rubies, as large as a big bean, which gave out a great light. On the brim of his cap there were also a great quantity of jewels, even to his boots, which were all adorned with chains of gold and edged with pearls.
Cesare rode through the town of Chinon, glittering with jewels and the finest clothes. From the castle windows high above, the king and his courtiers watched the procession and were exceedingly entertained by what they considered the "vanity and ridiculous pomposity of this duke." On entering the château, Cesare made "a profound reverence to the ground to His Majesty," reported the Venetian ambassador, "then, half way across the great hall, he made another reverence, and then, coming up to the King, he made as if to kiss his foot, but the King prevented this, so he kissed his hand instead, as did the gentlemen of his suite." And after dinner Cesare was escorted to the royal apartments, where he remained with the king "to the fourth hour of the night," and the following day Louis XII entertained Cesare in the company of several fashionable ladies. Indeed, despite his earlier ridicule, the king was clearly deeply impressed with this extraordinary young man, who could be so agreeable when he chose to be so, especially when flattered by royalty.
On December 21, in a magnificent ceremony in the Church of St.-Mexme at Chinon, in the presence of King Louis and Cesare, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere solemnly invested Georges d'Amboise with his cardinal's hat. "On the journey from the royal court to the church," reported Burchard, who was not there but was informed of the event, "the illustrious Cesare, Duke of Valence, formerly cardinal, carrying the hat for all to see, walked behind the other princes and immediately in front of the King, as if he were the royal equerry."
Cardinal Giuliano sent news to Rome of Cesare's success at the French court. "I cannot refrain from informing Your Holiness that the most illustrious Duke is so endowed with prudence, ability and every virtue of mind and body, that he has conquered everybody," he wrote to the pope on January 18, 1499. "He has found so much favour with the King, and all the princes of this court," he added, "that everyone holds him in esteem and honour of which fact I willingly and gladly give testimony."
Louis XII and Anne of Brittany were married in the castle at Nantes on January 6, 1499. Cesare's marital prospects, however, were not looking so positive. He had hoped that by now Carlotta of Aragon might have changed her mind about marrying him; but the Neapolitan princess was more stubborn than ever in her refusal to do so, "unless," so Cardinal della Rovere reported, "her father insists on it." King Federigo would only agree to the marriage if his rightful position as king of Naples was confirmed by both Alexander VI and Louis XII; Louis XII had his own ideas about who was the rightful king of Naples. For his own part, he did try to force Carlotta to consent to the marriage, and faced by what he saw as her "feminine perversity," even went so far as to threaten to exile her from the French court. It was all to no avail, and in due course she married the Breton with whom she had fallen in love.
Cesare, whose principal reason for going to France was to get married, was furious, blaming the French king for not doing more to help him and threatening to return to Rome to complain of his treatment to his father, who was as angry as his son. "All Europe," Alexander VI declared, "was very well aware that, but for the definite promise of the King of France to find a wife for him, Cesare would have remained in Italy."
In Rome, meanwhile, the issue of the alliance with France was causing violent rifts in the college. "Yesterday in consistory," the Venetian ambassador had reported in December 1498, "Cardinal Ascanio [Sforza] told the Pope that sending his son to France would be the ruin of Italy. The Pope shouted in reply that it had been Ascanio's brother who had first brought the French into Italy." Alexander VI had a point—it was Ludovico who had encouraged the adventurous Charles VIII to invade Italy and assert his claim to the kingdom of Naples, a policy that, in hindsight, appeared rash in the extreme, particularly now his successor to the throne of France had a better claim to Milan than did Ludovico and his brother. The quarrel ended with the pope threatening to hurl Ascanio into the Tiber.
Yet, despite all the difficulties, Cesare was persuaded to stay on in France. There were hopes that all had been resolved when it was reported that King Louis and Cesare had had dinner alone together. In late February Burchard reported the rumour that "the Pope's son, Cesare, lately the Cardinal of Valence, has contracted matrimony with the daughter of the King of Naples, who is living in France," adding that "the marriage has been consummated." Less than a week later, this was flatly contradicted in a letter from Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere: "The marriage of Duke Valentino with the daughter of the King," he wrote, "is now definitely excluded."
Rumours of a possible French bride were now rife in Rome and causing such concern and confusion that the pope not only had to receive deputations of protest from several European powers, even from Portugal, but felt obliged to appear in public with an armed guard. The pope declared to the Venetian ambassador, who came to see him about some other matter, that at the moment he cared little about other problems; he was waiting for news from France. "He is very anxious to hear what is happening there and is kept in suspense."
Finally, after anxious weeks of waiting on the part of the pope, and increasing impatience on the part of Cesare, Louis XII proposed that since a marriage to Carlotta of Aragon could not be arranged, Cesare should marry—instead of an Italian bride—a French one. The king's choice was the sixteen-year-old Charlotte d'Albret, a quiet, religious, good-looking, and good-tempered girl who had excellent royal connections; her father was the Duke of Guienne, her mother was related to the new queen, and her brother was the king of Navarre.
The news that Cesare was to marry Charlotte d'Albret arrived in Rome in late March. The pope disapproved of the match, knowing the inevitable trouble it would make for the papacy in Italy, and would have prevented it had he been able to do so; but in view of his son's determination, he felt constrained to give way, even agreeing to give a cardinal's hat to the girl's brother, Amanieu d'Albret.
The marriage contract was signed on May 10, and two days later the wedding took place in the queen's apartments at the château of Blois. This family ceremony was followed by a grand wedding breakfast served in huge marquees put up in the grounds below the château walls; and after the meal, the marriage was consummated while Charlotte's giggling young ladies took turns in watching the activities of the couple through the keyhole. The pleasure of the bride and groom was evidently spoiled, however, in a manner described by Robert de la Marck, the Lord of Fleurange:
To tell you of the Duke of Valence's wedding night: he asked the apothecary for some pills to pleasure his lady. But he received a bad turn for, instead of giving him what he asked for, the apothecary gave him laxative pills which had such an effect that he never ceased going to the privy the whole night.
The next day Cesare sent a trusty Spanish messenger to his father in Rome. On arrival the courier was immediately summoned to the Vatican and kept there for several hours, so anxious was the pope to hear every detail of the marriage, its preliminaries and its aftermath. He was pleased and amused to hear that his son had "broken the lance" eight times on the wedding night—even the pedantic Burchard recorded this piece of information in his diary. And the French king wrote to the pope with the information that it had been a better performance than he himself had been able to manage; he, too, had "consummated the matrimony eight times," but these eight times consisted of two before supper and six at night.
Over the next few weeks, more couriers arrived from France, each with letters reporting further details of Cesare's success. The pope was delighted with the news that Louis XII had given Cesare the right to use the armorial bearings of the French royal house; the duke's coat-of-arms would henceforth show the Borgia bull quartered with the lilies of France. He was also delighted to hear of Cesare's new command in the French army, with an elite corps of one hundred lancers, of his collar of the royal chivalric Order of St. Michael, which King Louis XII bestowed on him a week after the wedding, and of the estate in France that had been bought with the money that Charlotte had inherited from her mother. Cesare himself wrote to his father to say that he was "the most contented man in the world."
Even Charlotte wrote to her father to say that she was very well satisfied with her husband; and she hoped to be able to go to Rome one day soon to see her father-in-law. She was also satisfied with the presents showered upon her by her enthusiastic bridegroom, many of which had been bought by Cesare for Carlotta of Aragon, and well she might have been, for they included numerous precious stones, pearls and diamonds, brocades and silks, gold chains, silver-gilt dinner services, vessels and vases, miniature silver bell towers and citadels, and mother-of-pearl models of warships.
On May 23, the day the news of the wedding arrived in Rome, the pope declared an evening of celebrations. That night Rome was en fête. Fireworks exploded in the sky; torches burned throughout the night; "bonfires were lit as a sign of joy in the city," recorded Burchard, who reported that even Lucrezia had lit her own fire, despite the fact that the French alliance spelled imminent disaster for her husband, Alfonso of Aragon, and for her sister-in-law Sancia. For Burchard, too, the marriage did not bode well: "It was in reality a great dishonour, a source of great shame for His Holiness and for the Holy See."
The pope, however, was hugely relieved. He admitted to one foreign envoy that he had entertained real doubts as to the marriage ever taking place, but now that it had done so he was delighted, and, whereas he used to speak ill of France, he was "now all French because of the love the King of France had shown towards his Duke." So anxious and impatient of late, he was contented once more and raised no objection when asked to pay the 30,000 ducats required in France toward the cost of accommodating and entertaining his son during his stay there. The benefits that he was expecting from this alliance with France would bring him, and particularly his son, advantages that would far outweigh this sum of money.