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 probably at the time quite sincere. With all his dissimulation, he was a man of vehement emotions. A commission of Cardinals was appointed to deliberate upon ecclesiastical reforms; but by the time when they reported, Alexander's contrition had vanished. Their proposals, indeed, admirable in the abstract, were such as the Church was with difficulty induced to adopt at the Council of Trent, after having been scourged by the Reformation for half a century. Nothing could be more commendable than the prohibition of the sale of spiritual offices; but it urgently raised the question how, in that case, was the Pope's government to be carried on?

The Duke of Gandia's death is chiefly important on account of the character of his successor. There is nothing to prove the murdered prince anything but an ordinary patrician of his age; Cesare Borgia, however, was the complement of his father. Alexander, an indefatigable man of business, could never have wasted his time in inactivity: yet it is conceivable that, had he been without near relations, he might have applied himself to developing the papal estate as he found it, and attempted no ambitious conquests, beyond what was necessary for his own security. But Cesare seemed driven on by an indwelling demon,—insatiable, implacable, uncontrollable. Experience itself could never have given him his father's wisdom and prudence, but his devouring energy was even more intense. From the time of his assumption of a leading part in affairs the papal policy becomes distinctly one of conquest. The profession of care for the general weal of Italy which had marked the first years of Alexander's pontificate disappeared, and any foreign alliance was welcome which seemed to insure another principality for Cesare Borgia. How far this implied a permanent modification in the Pope's views, and how far it was a temporary plan to be discarded in its turn, is an interesting and a difficult question. But certain it is that from this time dates that deliberate creation of a strong Temporal Power as an auxiliary of the Spiritual which the present chapter has to record. Alexander and Cesare might, or might not, intend that the petty principalities of the Romagna successively subverted by Cesare should eventually become an independent kingdom under his government: the only right he could claim to them was by assignment from the Pope; and the only condition on which the Pope could grant this was Cesare's obligation to continue his vassal, and act as his lieutenant. It was a great gain to the Holy See to replace a number of unruly liegemen by a single capable deputy; but even this was but a transition stage in the process which must eventually bring these dependencies under the direct sway of Rome, and constitute by their aggregation the considerable political entity which has until recently existed as the Temporal Power.

Thirst for family aggrandisement was not the sole motive which impelled Alexander to ally himself with the foreigner. The task of