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 welclass="underline" ‘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.
— CHAPTER 15 — Conquests
‘AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL’
IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE of July 1499 that news reached Rome that the king of France was gathering his troops in Lyons ready for the invasion of Italy and the military campaign to enforce his claims to Milan and Naples. Knowing what was in store for his family, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza fled the city to join his brother, Duke Ludovico. The pope’s son-in-law, Alfonso of Aragon, left on August 2, riding toward Naples, much to the misery of Lucrezia; the young man, according to the Venetian ambassador, had ‘deserted his wife who has been with child for six months and she cries constantly.’ A few days later, Alexander VI sent his reluctant daughter-in-law Sancia off to join her brother in Naples and, on August 8, dispatched their spouses, Lucrezia and Jofrè, north to Spoleto, a town in the Apennines, to which he now appointed the nineteen-year-old Lucrezia as governor, an unusual appointment but one that confirmed the respect the pope had for his daughter’s abilities and the trust he placed in her loyalty — it was an appointment that would have been conventional for a son. Out of respect for her delicate condition, he equipped her with a litter, which was decorated inside with white and crimson satin, to ease what would be an extremely uncomfortable journey up into the hills in the harsh summer heat.
Cesare, meanwhile, had taken leave of his new bride in early July, just two months after his wedding, and ridden south from Blois to join the French troops massing at Lyons. With an army of six thousand cavalry, one company of which was under Cesare’s command, and seventeen thousand infantry, Louis XII was optimistic about his chances of conquering the prosperous duchy of Milan. He declined, however, to lead the troops himself, preferring instead to follow the old French tradition whereby a king without a direct male heir should remain in France.
By the end of the month, the French army had crossed the Alps, negotiating the passes with ease in the midsummer heat, and were now encamped on the Po plain. Alessandria capitulated after a short siege, and several other towns, mindful of the price they would pay for resistance, chose to surrender peacefully. On September 2 Duke Ludovico Sforza, who was not popular in Milan and was suspected by many of having poisoned his nephew to acquire his title, fled the city. The Milanese, unwilling to suffer as Alessandria had done, opened their gates to the French invaders. A month later, on Sunday, October 6, Louis XII made his formal entry into the city, hailed as ‘King of the Franks, Duke of Milan.’
Leading the cavalcade was an armed guard of six hundred soldiers, followed by Louis XII’s general carrying the gilded baton. The French king rode a bay charger caparisoned in gold and clattered triumphantly through the city streets, which had been hung with white awnings emblazoned with the French fleur-de-lis. Also taking part in the procession were Cesare Borgia and Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, as well as the ambassadors of Venice, Spain, Genoa, Florence, Ferrara, and Mantua. The cavalcade, however, was not greeted with as much enthusiasm as Louis XII had hoped; one Venetian eyewitness reported that he heard only a few shouting, ‘France! France!’