Cattaneo was, however, not so impressed with the new duke’s appearance. ‘He is well enough in countenance at present,’ he reported, somewhat grudgingly, ‘but his face is blotched beneath the skin as is usual with the great pox.’ These marks were the customary signs of secondary syphilis, and Cattaneo believed that Cesare was apprehensive about going to France to marry the Neapolitan princess Carlotta of Aragon, lest that scarred face of his, ‘spoiled by the French disease,’ would induce his intended bride to refuse him.
This was not Cesare’s only concern; there were reports that the king of Spain was ‘extremely displeased’ about the Borgia alliance with France. Cattaneo reported that the pope had assured one cardinal that Louis XII was most anxious to have Cesare in his service and the cardinal had replied that ‘it is true Valence is a dexterous man,’ but he warned the pope, ‘Beware, Holy Father, that you do not aim so high that if you or he fall, you will break too many bones.’ Many Italians also feared this alliance between the pope and a king who openly professed his claim to both Milan and Naples; it promised another invasion of the ruthlessmen of the north and, as Cattaneo dramatically put it, ‘the ruin of Italy.’
Such warnings did not deter Alexander VI, who was determined to do all that he could to further his son’s career. He raised 200,000 ducats to cover the expenses of Cesare’s trip to France to ensure that his appearance at the French court was as dramatically imposing as possible. This huge sum came partly, so it was believed, from impositions on the Jews in Rome and partly from the sale of goods confiscated by the pope from his Spanish majordomo, a converted Jew who had been appointed as bishop of Calahorra and had been charged by Alexander VI with heresy.
Cesare spent most of this money on ‘jewels, stuffs, cloth-of-gold and cloth-of-silver, silks and other luxurious goods, much of them imported at considerable expense from Venice.’ For his use on the journey to France, he commissioned a commode for his personal use, ‘covered with gold brocade outside and scarlet inside, with silver vessels within the silver urinals.’ It was said that even the shoes of Cesare’s horses were inlaid with silver and loosened so that they fell off to be picked up by the most nimble-footed among the cheering crowds.
So it was that, on October 1, 1498, Cesare left Rome for Civitavecchia, where two French galleys were waiting to take him to Marseilles. ‘We are sending you our heart,’ Alexander VI had written to Louis XII in a letter that Cesare was taking with him to France, ‘that is to say our beloved son.’ The pope watched the departure of his ‘beloved son,’ standing at the window of the Vatican until the cavalcade was out of sight.
Cesare was, as usual, gorgeously dressed, wearing a black velvet mantle over his shoulder, a white brocade tunic, a black velvet cap, sparkling with rubies, and boots sewn with gold chains and pearl droplets. Riding a bay horse caparisoned in red and gold, the French royal colours, he was accompanied by the French envoy Baron de Trans and by an ostentatiously large retinue: the members of his household, not forgetting his diligent physician, Gaspar Torella; a richly dressed crowd of young noblemen, Spanish and Roman; scores of pages, grooms, and guards; fifty mules and twelve carts piled high with baggage. Carefully secreted in his luggage was the cardinal’s hat for Georges d’Amboise, the archbishop of Rouen, and the dispensation, signed by the pope, that would allow Louis XII to remarry, providing, of course, the divorce commission pronounced in the king’s favour. The new duke was finally on his way to find his own bride.
— CHAPTER 14 — Cesare’s French Bride
‘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.