11 116 ITALIAN WARS. PART he had prepared for others ; thus closing an infa- mous life by a death equally infamous. He was a man of undoubted talent, and uncommon energy of character. But his powers were perverted to the worst purposes, and his gross vices were unre- deemed, if we are to credit the report of his most respectable contemporaries, by a single virtue. In him the papacy reached its lowest degradation. His pontificate, however, was not without its use ; since that Providence, which still educes good from evil, made the scandal, which it occasioned to the Christian world, a principal spring of the glorious Reformation.' The death of this pontiff occasioned no particu- lar disquietude at the Spanish court, where his immoral life had been viewed with undisguised reprobation, and made the subject of more than one pressing remonstrance, as we have already seen. His public course had been as little to its satisfac- tion ; since, although a Spaniard by birth, being a native of Valencia, he had placed himself almost ' Buonaccorsi, Diario, p. 81. — qui resta ouverte. La bi^re dans Bembo, Istoria Viniziana, lib. 6. laquelle il fallait mettre le corps se The little ceremony with which trouva trop petite ; on I'y enfonca Alexander's remains were treated, A coups de poings. Les restes du while yet scarcely cold, is the best pape insultes par ses domesiiques commentary on the general dc- furent portes dans I'^glise de St. testation in which he was held. Pierre, sans 6tre accompagn^s de " Lorsque Alexandre," says the prfitres ni de torches, et on les pope's mai/re </es cerfwjomcs, " ren- pla^a en dedans de la grille du dit le dernier soupir, il n'y avait choeur pour les d6rober aux ou- dans sa chambre que I'^vdque de trages do la populace." Notice de Rieti, le datairc et quclques pale- Burchard,apudBrequigny, Notices freniers. Cette ciiambre fut aus- et Extraits des Manuscrits de la sitOt pillec. La face du cadavre Bibliotheque du Roi, (Paris, 1787 - devint noire ; la langue s'eiifla au 1818,) torn. i. p. 120. point qu'cUe remplissait la bouche
