Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/33

7 Garcilaseoi e PARTlTIOiN OF NAPLES. 7 corruptions of the papal court, and that shameless chapter cupidity and lust of power, which made it the con- '- — venient tool of the French monarch. By their orders, Garcilasso de la Veo;a, the Span- Remon- ~ ■* straiice to ish ambassador, read a letter from his sovereigns ""epope. in the presence of his Holiness, commenting on his scandalous immorality, his invasion of ecclesiastical rights appertaining to the Spanish crown, his schemes of selfish aggrandizement, and especially his avowed purpose of transferring his son, Caesar Borgia, from a sacred to a secular dignity ; a cir- cumstance that must necessarily make him, from the manner in which it was to be conducted, the instrument of Louis the Twelfth.^ This unsavory rebuke, which probably lost noth ing of its pungency from the tone in Avhich it was ^^^"<'s» delivered, so incensed the pope that he attempted to seize the paper and tear it in pieces, giving vent at the same time to the most indecent reproaches against the minister and his sovereigns. Garcilas- so coolly waited till the storm had subsided, and then replied undauntedly, " That he had uttered no more than became a loyal subject of Castile ; that he should never shrink from declaring freely what his sovereigns commanded, or what he conceived to be for the good of Christendom ; and, if his Holi- ness were displeased with it, he could dismiss him 5 Louis XII., for the good offices erable force to support him in his of the pope in the affai^: of his di- flagitious enterprises against the voice from the unfortunate Jeanne princes of Romagna. Guicciar- of France, promised the uncardi- dini, Istoria, torn. i. lib. 4, p. 207. nailed Caesar Borgia the duchy of — Sismondi, Hist, des Franqais, Valence in Dauphiny, with a rent torn. xv. p. 275. — Carta de Garci- of 20,000 livres, and a consid- lasso de la Vega, MS.