Chapter XV: Book II: , speaks for the fact that venom was feared, and therefore likely (4)

Doña Margarita, married Don Fadrique de Portugal y Cordo:

* * * * *

Doña Isabella, followed her grandmother Doña Maria (Suor Maria
Gabriella), and her aunt Doña Isabella (Suor Francisca de Jesus)
to the Poor Clares of Gandia, of which monastery she became
Abbess.

That is a very characteristic family of a Grandee and Hijo de algo (son of something) of Spain. Leaving the heir out of the question, the eight sons divide between them two cardinalates, an archbishopric, an abbacy, two viceroyalties, and a governorship: while, of the six daughters, two enter religion and become abbesses, and four marry grandees and semi-royalty of Spain. It is worth noting too, that shame on account of their origin, or their ancestors’ supposed misbehaviour, has not yet made its appearance. Alonso was the name of many royal bastards of the House of Aragon, as well as of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III. Rodrigo was the name of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, who also began his public career in the Cardinal-Diaconate of San Niccolo _in Carcere Tulliano_, and Whose eldest bastard (ob. 1481) was called Pedro Luis. All these names were repeated here in the third and fourth generation; and the eldest son of Don Juan II, bore the second name of his murdered grandfather, Francisco.

The Terrible Pontiff, the Lord Julius P.P. II was reigning in Rome, when Don Francisco de Borja was born in 1510 at the ducal palace of Gandia in Spain.

The Terrible Pontiff was only a terrible memory ten years later, and the Lord Leo P.P. X. was trying hard to “enjoy the Papacy,” in Rome when riots arose in Gandia, the ducal palace was sacked, and Don Juan II, with his family, was forced to flee for life. Don Francisco, then a gracious boy of ten, was sent to his uncle Archbishop Don Juan de Aragona at Saragossa,[102] who supplied him with a house and retinue suited to his condition, and masters who taught him music, fencing, and Latin grammar; for he was to be bred as became the heir to the duchy of Gandia, and the future head of the Spanish Branch of the House of Borja.

In January 1522 died the Lord Leo P.P. X; and the Lord Hadrian P.P. VI, a ship-carpenter’s son out of Utrecht in Flanders, was elected Pope, called the Laocoon a pagan idol, walled-up the Belvedere statue-gallery of the Vatican; and died. To Him, in 1523, succeeded Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, cousin and life-friend of the Lord Leo P.P. X, who ascended Peter’s Throne under the title of the Lord Clement P.P. VII. Great changes were taking place in Europe. By marriage, conquest, inheritance, or lapse, the Holy Roman Empire had passed into the hands of Spain. The Elect-Emperor Carlos V, though he ceremonially had not been crowned with the Iron Crown or the Double Golden Diadem, ruled in Spain, Naples and Southern Italy, Germany, Austria, and part of France. King Henry VIII Tudor, the Defender of the Faith, was becoming a power in England. The Christian King of France was his rival: but the Continent of Europe mainly was the Elect-Emperor’s, and wholly, perhaps, the Roman Pontiffs.

At the age of fourteen years, Don Francisco de Borja went to Tor de Sillas as page of honour to the Infanta Doña Catalina, the Elect-Emperor’s sister, who was about to be married to King Don Juan III of Portugal.

When the marriage took place in 1525, Don Francisco did not accompany his royal mistress to her new kingdom; because his father, who had for him a higher ambition, had commanded his return to Saragossa to study rhetoric and philosophy under his uncle, the Archbishop Don Juan. Here he remained until he passed his seventeenth year; and in 1528 he entered the Court of the Elect-Emperor Carlos V, where his robust physical beauty, his courteous manner, and his brilliant ability, gained for him a notable reception.

Humanly speaking, this acceptance of service under such a potentate is most astonishing in a youth of the gracious piety of Don Francisco. The Elect-Emperor was hot and reeking from the commission of what must have seemed to be a perfectly appalling crime—the ghastly Sack of Rome of 1527, the fierce beleaguerment of God’s Vicegerent the Lord Clement P.P. VII in the Mola of Hadrian, carnage, pillage, rape, rapine, sacred monastic enclosures violated, virginity deflowered, nuns and the wives and daughters of Roman citizens gambled for and ravished in the public streets by the Elect-Emperor’s unpaid army of drunken Lutheran Goths and Catholic Catalans. It was to the Court of this monarch that Don Francisco de Borja brought the Gracious flower of his maiden manlihood.

Amid voluptuous surroundings, he found that it was better to marry than to burn; and, in 1529, being then of the age of nineteen years, he led in marriage the Noble Doña Leonor of Portugal. The Elect-Emperor, to mark imperial approval, perhaps, also, from the generous benevolence of a man who himself is about to receive—(he had come to terms with the Lord Clement P.P. VII, and was hoping for the Dual Coronation,)—created Don Francisco Marquess of Lombay.

The relations between Pope and Elect-Emperor were after this fashion. Both were exhausted: both were desirous of peace. Peace, then, was signed, and a perpetual alliance, on the twentieth of June 1527. The Elect-Emperor had gained territory from Venice, and detached Genoa from France; the Pope’s Holiness had promised to invest him with crown of Naples, (which his predecessor the Catholic King Don Hernando of Spain had stolen from the bastard Aragon dynasty in 1501); and formally to crown him as Holy Roman Emperor. The Lord Clement P.P. VII had gained a strong ally, who guaranteed to subdue rebellious Florence for the pontifical nephew Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, to consolidate the alliance by marrying the Bastard Doña Margarita of Austria to the said pontifical nephew; and to procure the restoration of pontifical authority in Emilia, Ravenna, and Cervia. They had been hideous enemies, these two; and the Elect-Emperor had behaved abominably. Even now, he refused to go to Monza or to Sant’ Ambrogio at Milan for the Iron Crown, or to the Lateran Basilica of Rome for the Golden Imperial Diadem, as by precedent he would have been compelled to do, had he belonged to the House of Swabia. But he was a Spaniard, arrogant, cruel, unscrupulous, and infamously powerful; and he insolently told the Pope’s Holiness that he had not the habit of running after crowns, for, instead, they came to him.

If the coronation of the Successor of St. Peter be a remarkable function, the coronation according to the Roman Rite of the Successor of Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus is but one degree less sumptuous. It would be worth the while of any man of the Twentieth Century to exchange lives with William of Hohenzollern, for the sake of the opening which lies before him. In the case of Carlos V, all ceremonies duly were observed. The Lord Clement P.P. VII came to Bologna, a neutral city, for the coronation, and the Elect-Emperor met Him there. On the twenty-second of February 1530, in the Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, the Iron Crown[103] was set upon the imperial head. Two days later, in the Cathedral of San Petronio, curtains were drawn around the imperial canopy forming a pavilion wherein the Elect-Emperor stripped naked for the anointing with holy oil and chrism. He was ordained deacon, vested in the sacred imperial dalmatica, endued with orb and sword and sceptre offered by reigning sovereigns, God’s Vicegerent crowned him with the high closed Double Crown of Empire and heralds proclaimed him

CAESAR

ROMANORUM IMPERATOR SEMPER AUGUSTUS MUNDI TOTIUS DOMINUS UNIVERSIS
DOMINIS UNIVERSIS PRINCIPIBUS ET POPULIS SEMPER VENERANDUS.

These things having been done, Pope and Emperor appeared in the cathedral porch. There, Caesar Carlos V vested in full imperial insignia, held the Pontiffs stirrup as He mounted, and led His palfrey several paces, as a public act of homage and allegiance to Him By Whose Sanction Kings Do Reign. Then, he mounted his own charger, and rode by the Lord Clement P.P. VII’s side through the city of Bologna making knights, as the way is, when the Pontiff left him.

It is probable enough that the Marquess Don Francisco de Borja witnessed, and assisted at, this superb ceremony. He was attached to the personal suite of Caesar Carlos V: but there is another circumstance that implies that, in some way or another, most presumably in the flesh, he was brought into contact with the Pope’s Holiness about this time. It is that a little later, the Supreme Pontiff conferred an extraordinary favour on his illustrious House, consisting of Five Privileges granted to Duke Juan II of Gandia, his heirs and descendants of both sexes, and whomsoever they might marry, IN CONSIDERATION OF THE SIGNAL SERVICES RENDERED TO THE HOLY SEE BY THE HOUSE OF BORGIA. This unmistakeably distinct statement shews that calumnies and lampoons of Messer Francesco Guicciardini had made no ill impression on the Lord Clement P.P. VII, who actually had met that writer when he was the guest of the _bas bleu_ Madonna Veronica Gambara during the coronation festivities at Bologna. The fable of Borgia iniquity is a plant of later growth. In 1531 the House was considered to have rendered signal services, deserving recognition, _for a perpetual memorial_. Hence the granting of the Five Privileges which follow here.

I

“To any confessor whom they may select,[104] powers to absolve them
from the gravest ecclesiastical censures and penalties: to commute the
obligation of fasting to almsgiving: once a year to absolve them in
cases usually reserved to the Holy See; or from any oath or vow but
those generally excepted.

II

“Special indulgences for the hour of Death, and for visits to a
church, or an altar: also, for every mass offered _by_ a scion of the
House (he being in priest’s orders), or _for_ any scion of the House,
indulgences equal to those which might be gained at the altars of San
Sebastiano, San Lorenzo, Santa Pudentiana, and Santa Maria _de Panis_
in Rome.

III

“Permission to use _Lacticinia_ (all food made of milk and eggs) and
meat,[105] on fast days throughout the year: this permission to extend
to guests and servants of the family. Permission to take luncheon at
mid-day, and dinner at night. Permission to receive the sacraments
within prohibited times.[106] Permission to be buried on any day in
the year, Easter alone excepted.

IV

“Priests who are scions of the House of Borgia may anticipate or
postpone their recitation of the Breviary Offices without observing
the fixed hours, reciting the whole office at once, or dividing it at
their pleasure.

V

“To female scions of the House of Borgia, or connections by marriage,
liberty once a month to enter the enclosure of nuns,[107] taking with
them four others to converse with the nuns, and to eat with them,
provided only that they do not remain for the night.” (_La heroica
vida, etc., del grande San Francisco de Borja, by Cardinal Alvaro
Cienfuegos. Madrid, 1717._ I. iii. 3, 4.)

The marriage of the Marquess Don Francisco, and the Marchioness Doña Leonor, of Lombay, resulted in the birth of eight children, who were,

Don Carlos, the heir:

Don Juan, Count of Ficalho; Viceroy of Portugal; Ambassador of King
Don Felipe III.; Author of _Empresas Morales_ (1581); Married to
Doña Lorenza Oñaz de Loyola, heiress of Don Beltrano, Señor de
Loyola:

Don Alvaro, Marquess of Alcaguizes; Ambassador of King Don Felipe III
to the Holy See:

Don Hernando, Knight of the Order of Calatrava:

Don Alonso, Chamberlain to the Empress Maria:

Doña Isabella, married Don Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, Marquess of
Denia, Count of Lerina: (from this marriage descends the ducal
house of Lerina:)

Doña Juana, married Don Juan Enriquez de Almanas, Marquess of
Alcanices:

Doña Dorotea, nun at the monastery of Poor Clares in Gandia.

Six years the Marquess Don Francisco spent in the duties of a husband, father, and courtier. In 1536, he accompanied Caesar Carlos V on a futile vainglorious expedition into Provence. Harassed by the French commander Montmorency, his vast preparations all nullified, his troops wasted by disease and discredited by disaster, half his army _hors de combat_ by reason of famine and plague, two months of inglorious campaigning sufficed for Caesar Carlos V. The French raised the peasantry against him; his retreat became a rout; and only a shattered fragment of his once-magnificent army reached the gates of Milan. Burning to retrieve his shame in the eyes of Europe, he launched a second vast expedition against Algiers; only to encounter a second ignominious disaster. Such were the Marquess Don Francisco de Borja’s experiences of war.

In 1537, died in the monastery of Poor Clares at Gandia, the Suor Maria Gabriella (Doña Maria de Aragona y Luna) widow of the murdered Duke of Gandia (bastard of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI), and grandmother of the Marquess Don Francisco. The same year, also, death claimed his brother Don Rodrigo, who had enjoyed the Cardinal-Diaconate of San Niccolo _in Carcere Tulliano_ only one year.

In 1539, an event occurred which fundamentally affected the Marquess Don Francisco. He and his wife the Marchioness Doña Leonor, were lord- and lady-in-waiting to Caesar’s wife, the Empress Doña Isabella. While Caesar was at Toledo trying to wring a grant of money from the Cortes of Castile, a sudden illness took the Empress, and she died. The Marquess and Marchioness of Lombay were entrusted with the duty of bringing the imperial corpse for burial to Elvira. There, was performed the ceremony of verification. Before the opened coffin, the Marquess Don Francisco was required to swear before the magistracy, that its contents were the mortal relics of the Empress Isabella. Corruption had set in, completely ravaging the dead: the face was like no human face and totally unrecognizable. The Marquess Don Francisco swore, not from recognition, but from knowledge that the coffin had never left his care. But a permanent impression scathed and branded him. He saw Death the Inevitable, the Horrible. Life at its highest and best, such as he himself enjoyed, offered no equivalent to, no consolation for, the end which none escape. He resolved to qualify for life eternal.

Perhaps the most prominent note in the Spanish character is singlemindedness. It can pursue a single aim with a concentration of energy, with a fulness and pertinacity of unwavering will which is simply astounding. Is it kind and noble: the kind nobility of Don Quixote de la Mancha exemplifies Spanish ideal. Is it cruel: the ruthless remorseless impersonal cruelty of Torquemada makes worlds to wince. Is it pious: it achieves complete disagreeable detachment of soul from every earthly sentiment, possession, hope, desire. Is it impious: a Spaniard will ravish an abbess of eighty, the corpse of a virginal novice, the statue of Truth. Is it gay: no lark in the sun on the morning of Easter is gayer. Is it gloomy: black moonless night, unstarred, brooding on pools obscure, shadowed by funeral pines, is not more fathomless than the deep depth of gloom veiling sad Spanish eyes. The sight of the dead Empress Isabella drew that veil across the joy of living, for the Marquess Don Francisco. He resolved to abjure the world: he prayed that God would shew the way, and break the bonds that bound him there. He was of the age of nine and twenty years.

When he returned to Toledo, Caesar named him Viceroy of Cataluna and Knight of the Order of Sant’ Jago. Entering with zeal on his new duties, he swept away the brigands who made travelling dangerous and obstructed commerce in his province. He found justice hard to come by; and the judges corrupt and venal. He reformed them all. Hospitals for sick and needy, schools and colleges for the education of the young, sprang up under his viceregal rule. A Sixteenth Century Viceroy was responsible, not to press or parliament or self-styled philanthropists; but to one earthly power alone—the Caesar. So long as his province regularly paid its tribute, and gave no trouble to the imperial exchequer, the Viceroy had absolute freedom. He was a despot in all but name. On this account, a Viceroy who laboured for his people’s welfare was something of a novelty. The piety of the Marquess Don Francisco grew intenser; he changed his habit; going to Holy Communion once a week instead of once a month. He was trying to detach himself from the world—that despotic Viceroy.

Presently, there came a new kind of religious man, neither monk, nor friar, nor secular priest (to speak strictly), but a priest, one Padre Aretino Aroaz, “of the company of Jesus,” he said; and he preached before the Viceroy at Barcelona. From him, the Marquess Don Francisco heard the marvellous history of the marvellous man, the Señor Don Iñigo Lopez de Recalde, of the House of Loyola; who, born in 1491, the year before the Borgia Lord Alexander P.P. VI began to rule Christendom from Rome, had followed a career of arms; taken a serious incapacitating wound in 1521; become converted; gone on a pilgrimage to Nuestra Señora, the Μητροπάρθενος, of Montserrat, in 1522; lived ten months in an hermitage at Manresa; studied theology in that same city of Barcelona; testified everywhere to his faith in Christ; been imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition for heresy—six weeks at Alcala, three weeks at Salamanca; studied theology again in Paris from 1528 to 1532; received Holy Order as a priest; founded a Religion of military priest-knights of Christ; gained the sanction and benison of Christ’s Vicar, the Lord Paul P.P. III, for his “Company of Jesus”;[108] and given to the world a book of Spiritual Exercises for the training of the soul in counsels of perfection. All this was of extreme interest and significance to the Marquess Don Francisco. To know more, he entertained a correspondence with this Padre Iñigo de Loyola in Rome.

This same year 1539, the Viceroy’s brother Don Enrico had news that the Lord Paul P.P. III deigned to raise him to the Sacred College, as Cardinal-Deacon of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo, the Title of which previously had been held by Cardinal Francisco de Borja, bastard of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III who died excommunicate in 1511. Setting out for Rome to receive the cardinalitial insignia, Don Enrico reached Viterbo, where he suddenly died in September 1540. His epitaph in the Vatican Basilica shews that no shame was known at this date on account of descent from the invincible Lord Alexander P.P. VI.

“HENRICUS . GENTE . BORGIA . NATIONE . HISPANUS .
PATRIA . VALENTINUS . ALEXANDER . VI. . PRONEPOS .
DUCIS . GANDIAE . F . DUM . IN . MAXIMA . SPE . ASSURGERET .
IMMATURA . MORTE . HEU . NIMIUM . RAPTUS . EST .
SPIRITUS . IN . CAELO . CORPUS . HIC . QUIESCIT.”

There were now no cardinals of the House of Borgia.

In 1543, died the Duke Don Juan II. de Borja, father of the Viceroy Marquess of Lombay, who now succeeded to the Duchy of Gandia, the principalities of Teano and Tricarico, the counties of Chiaramonte, Lauria, and Cerignola. Having obtained Caesar’s leave to resign the Viceroyalty of Cataluna, Duke Don Francisco de Borja returned to court, where he was appointed Master of the Household of the Infanta Doña Maria de Portugal. This princess was betrothed to the Infante Don Felipe, son of Caesar Carlos V; and it appeared that worldly ties were not to be untied, but tightened for the Duke of Gandia. But the Portuguese Infanta died before marriage, her household was dispersed; and Duke Don Francisco retired to his duchy, where he began to make plans for a new college for the Company of Jesus (which perfectly had charmed him), and for a new monastery of Dominican nuns in whom his Duchess Doña Leonor was interested.

* * * * *

The year 1546, in a most signal manner marked the Duke of Gandia’s progress along the road of detachment from the world.

The Duchess was sick. The Duke was praying for her recovery. The FIGURE on the Crucifix spoke to him.

What follows here rests on sworn testimony at the subsequent process of canonization, later to be described; a formal legal process that, from its scope and stringency, demands as much consideration as the Report of a Royal Commission, or, better still, a Decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in modern England.

The FIGURE on the Crucifix spoke: “—oyo una voz sensible, carinosa e distinta, que Christo articulaba desde aquella estatua muerta.”[109]

IT said: “Si tu quieres que te dexe à la Duquesa mas tempo in esta vida, yo lo dexo en tu mano; pero te aviso que à ti no te conviene esto.” _If thou askest Me to leave the Duchess longer in this life, I will do so; but I warn thee that this will not be profitable to thee._[110]

The Duke of Gandia repeated this to his confessor. He also told him his reply, which was as follows:

“What is this, O my God? Dost Thou indeed commit to a weak and
trembling hand like mine, a Power which belongs to Thy Divine
Omnipotence? What art Thou, O my Only Good? And what am I, that Thou
should’st desire to do my will; when I was sent into the world for the
purpose of doing Thine Alone, and of obeying, not only Every Command,
but Every Inspiration of my Rightful Master? What Immeasurable
Goodness is This, that, in order to shew favour to a creature, Thou
should’st be willing to abrogate Thy Supreme Prerogative as his
Creator! Since it is my wish to belong, not to myself, but altogether
to Thee, I desire that, not my will, but Thine, should be done. Leave
nothing O Lord to the decision of Francisco de Borja. Remember how
often his feelings have blinded him and led him astray. Surely I
cannot do less in return for Thine Infinite Condescension and Gracious
Generosity, than to offer to Thee the lives of my wife and children as
well as mine own, and everything, in fact, that I possess in the
world. From Thine Hand I have received all: to Thee do I return all:
earnestly entreating Thee to dispose of all according to Thy Good
Pleasure.”

The Duchess died.

It is unnecessary to engage in a disquisition anent the Speaking Crucifix. It is conceivable that He, Who made the ass of Balaam speak, could also make a statue speak. It already has been said that this history deals with matters which, as far as little human knowledge goes—and that is not far—, are out of the course of nature. The affair most rigorously has been investigated, and admitted, by a competent tribunal, whose verdict must be taken as going as near the path of truth as it is possible for a human tribunal to go. Therefore, the item of the Speaking Crucifix, with other items of supernatural manifestation, will be related as they occur, without attempts to explain them away, or to fit them with an adequate apology. If it be granted that they be possible, they at once become extremely probable. The length and elaboration of the Duke of Gandia’s reply are considered, by some, as proving it to have been composed after the event, and with due consideration. This conclusion is quite worthy of notice, because it is open to serious and practical objection. The few men, and the many women, who habitually pray to God and to His saints, who are in direct frank frequent and habitual communication with the other world, will be perfectly well aware of the spontaneous ease with which ideas automatically sort themselves, the formal phrases of the special language automatically flow, from the lips of those whose life is one continual prayer. To these the Duke of Gandia’s utterance presents no difficulty: they recognize a foreign tongue with which they chance to be acquainted. Also, it is quite permissible to understand those words as not having been uttered actually, but as clothing the sentiments of the mind of the Duke of Gandia.

Viewing the affair from a human stand-point, ordinary men will regard Duke Don Francisco’s conduct as abhorrent, as heartless, as utterly brutal. It was. Granting the circumstances, he deliberately sacrificed the life of his wife. But his conduct was purely superhuman, purely supernatural. He was one of the many Roman Catholics of the Sixteenth Century—the Twentieth is less prolific—who really and truly believed _In The Life Of The World To Come_. His actions prove it. He knew that every man inevitably must submit to the hideous ordeal of surrendering to God’s enemy, Death, as the price of entrance to eternity. He judged that, the sooner this ordeal was over, the better it would be. Therefore, confident in the merits of his Saviour and his wife’s, the chance of translation being offered, he incontinently accepted on her behalf. It was the act of a truly Christian, of a cruelly unworldly man. “He wished to be rid of his wife!”

He did wish. Is it wrong to accept the joy of heaven for one loved, suffering here on earth? “But his wish was selfish!”

His wish was selfish. The Duke of Gandia gained by the death of his wife. He gained liberty to tear the flesh of his gracious body with thongs and scourges. He gained liberty to abdicate his duchy, his marquessate, his two principalities, his three counties; to strip himself of every farthing of his enormous wealth; to forsake his home, his children, his palaces, and his power; to starve on foul bread and fouler water; to wear odiously ugly clothes; to do menial service for his natural inferiors; to wheel manure in barrows; worst of all, to herd with vulgar men; to make himself disliked and scorned and hated, literally——: if it be selfish to desire these things, then the Duke of Gandia was a selfish man. “It is impossible to admire him!”

People who say these silly things make the mistake, commit the injustice, are guilty of the absurd inconsistency, of judging the Duke of Gandia by comparing him to their own ideal. He must be regarded as he was; not as he might have been if he had imitated the ideal of some Twentieth Century plumber, haberdasher, or journalist. It is not necessary to admire him. He never courted admiration; nor imitation either. What he did was personal between himself and his God. He acted up to his lights. He obeyed the voice of his conscience. He took for his ideal, that of San Francesco d’Assisi,

NUDUS NUDUM CHRISTUM SEQUENS,

He had the right. The affair was his. And his deeds can be related only: for, to use them to teach a lesson or to point a moral would be like a vain beating of the air. Lessons in this department of knowledge are given by no human instructor; and they are given solely to the hearts of willing learners.

The first hindrance was removed.

A few days after the death of the Duchess, Père Pierre Lefevre of the Company of Jesus arrived at Gandia, by previous arrangement, to lay the foundation stone of the college which the Duke was building for the Jesuits. He brought with him the Book of Spiritual Exercises written by the General Padre Iñigo de Loyola. The Duke of Gandia took advantage of his presence to perform these Spiritual Exercises, consisting of prayers, pious meditations, and rigorous and systematic searchings of the heart. Feeling profited by this experience, he wrote to the Lord Paul P.P. III, begging Him to pronounce Apostolic Approval of the book. In course of post, (which the Sixteenth Century carried on by means of private couriers,) that is to say in the course of a few months, he received from the Holiness of the Pope a Brief of Recommendation. The Bull of Approval was issued on the thirty-first of July 1548.

This Brief caused him to resolve to join the Company of Jesus; and he wrote his resolution to the General without delay. When the death of his Duchess made him free to renounce the world, he seriously had thought of becoming a Friar Minor. His name Francisco gave him San Francisco d’Assisi, the founder of the Religion of Friars Minor, as his patron-saint: the abject poverty, the singular contempt of the world, the awful austerities of the Franciscans admirably agreed with his habit of mind. He consulted his resident chaplain who himself was a Friar Minor. To this friar, there came a vision of Madonna Mary saying, “Tell the Duke to enter the Company of my Son.” To Duke Don Francisco, also, a statue of Madonna Mary spoke the same words. Hence his final resolution.

Padre Ribadaneira of the Company of Jesus, who, afterwards was his confessor, and who wrote the life of the Duke of Gandia and swore before five tribunals of the truth of every word that he had written, says (xv. 238) that, for the next seven days, Duke Don Francisco was afflicted with an apparition of a sumptuous mitre always floating above his head. He had much fear. He knew that, when a person of his quality relinquished a brilliant secular career, an equally brilliant ecclesiastical one lay open to him. This was the very last thing that he desired. He swore to God that, unless the apparition left him, and he should be allowed to practise poverty during his whole life yet to come, he would refuse to don the clerical habit: for he felt the prospect of dignity to be a danger. Then the apparition left him: How exceedingly natural is this example of unconscious cerebration. It would have been strange indeed if the Duke’s crushed and bruised humanity had not asserted itself in phantasmal apparitions.

The singular reply of the General of the Company of Jesus shall be given in full. Its curious worldly care for the worldly welfare of worldly people, its wonderful depth of spirituality for him who is spiritually minded, its complete grip of the subject, its polite piety, its discreet judgment, its personal humility, its impersonal dignity, its authoritative decision, its quaint gravity of form, stamp it as the work of a great and powerful mind. Padre Iñigo de Loyola wrote as follows:

“MOST NOBLE LORD:—

“It gave me great delight to hear of the resolution with which God in
His Infinite Goodness has inspired you. Since we, who are on earth,
are unable to render Him sufficient thanks for the favour which He has
been pleased to show to our humble Company, in calling you to join it,
I humbly beseech the angels and the saints who are now enjoying His
Presence in heaven to supply our deficiency in this respect. I trust
that Divine Providence will cause this decision of yours to be the
means of effecting much good, not only in regard to your own soul, but
to the souls of many others who may be led to follow your example. As
for us who are already members of the Company, we shall strive to
serve with increased devotion the Gracious Father, who has given us so
skilled a labourer to aid in the work of cultivating the tender vine,
which He has been pleased to entrust to my care, although I am in
every respect unworthy of the office. In the name of the Lord, I
therefore receive you at once as our brother, and shall henceforth
regard you as such. Most truly can I promise to feel for you, now, and
always, an affection proportioned to the large-hearted generosity with
which you desire to enter the House of God, there to serve Him more
perfectly.

“With reference to your enquiries as to the time and manner of your
entrance into the Company, I have laid the matter before God in
prayer. It is my opinion that this change must be made with much
caution and deliberation, in order that you may not leave any of your
immediate duties unfulfilled; otherwise it may not prove to be
A.M.D.G. (Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam—_To The Greater Glory Of God_; the
motto of the Company of Jhesus.) You had better keep the affair a
secret at present; at least as far as it is possible to do, striving
meanwhile so to arrange things as to be free as soon as you can, and
at liberty to carry out the plan you so ardently desire to execute for
the love of our Lord.

“In order to make myself more plainly understood, I may as well say
that, as your daughters are of a marriageable age, I think you ought
to endeavour to see them suitably settled. It would be well if you
were also to choose a suitable wife for your eldest son, the Marquess
of Lombay. In regard to your other sons, it would be better not to
leave them dependent upon their elder brother: but to assign to each a
suitable and sufficient income of his own; allowing them meanwhile to
pursue their university career. It is reasonably to be hoped that, if
they fulfil, as I trust and believe they will, the promise of their
youth, the Emperor will extend to them the favour he has always shown
to you; and will bestow upon them, when the right time comes,
appointments in keeping with their rank. You must also try and push on
the various buildings you have begun; for I think it desirable that
they should all be completed, before the great change you are
contemplating is generally made known.

“Meanwhile, you cannot do better, since you are already a proficient
in most branches of human learning, than apply yourself to the study
of Theology. It is my wish that you should do this with much care and
pains; for I should like you to take a doctor’s degree in the
University of Gandia.

“I cannot conclude without inculcating upon you to take every possible
precaution in order to prevent this astonishing piece of news from
being prematurely divulged. I feel that I need add no more on this
head.

“I shall hope to hear frequently from you; and I will try to give you
all the advice and assistance you may need. In the meantime, I shall
beseech our Lord to grant you all graces and blessings, in
ever-increasing abundance.”

That truly is an extraordinary letter. The two men had never met. Only a few letters at long intervals had passed between them; yet there is not the slightest doubt or misunderstanding. The humble priest, readily but not avidly, calmly but not arrogantly accepts the role of mentor to the brilliant duke. He is very glad to get a duke—who will have done with dukedom: but he will allow no looking back when once the hand is put to the plough. The severance must be absolute and irrevocable; and, to this end, Padre Iñigo de Loyola gives an exhibition of plain and practical common sense expressed in terms of courteous and definite command, _It is my wish_—_I think you ought_——.

So during the next four years the Duke of Gandia laboured to carry out the orders of his ecclesiastical superior, removing the only hindrances that bound him to the world. His late wife’s sister Doña Juana de Meneses acted as mother to his children. In 1548, he married his heir the Marquess Don Carlos of Lombay, at the age of eighteen years, to Doña Magdalene de Centellas y Cardona, Countess of Oliva. In 1549, he married his daughter Doña Isabella to Don Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, Marquess of Denia and Count of Lerina. He finished the buildings of the Dominican monastery at Gandia, and of the Jesuit College which is richly endowed with houses for poor scholars, and for children of the Maranas or Jews on condition of baptism. He also obtained charters from the Lord Paul P.P. III and from Caesar Carlos V. raising this college to the rank of an university.

At last, in 1550, he left his duchy of Gandia and journeyed toward Rome, escorted by a retinue of thirty servants, and his second son Don Juan de Borgia of the age of seventeen years. He had to pay the penalty of his extraordinary notoriety. On his passage through Ferrara, the reigning Duke (who himself came of Borgia stock) met him with fêtes and processions. At Florence, Duke Cosmo de’ Medici accorded a state-reception. He was going to renounce the world; and the world made a triumphal progress of his going. His desire to slink into the lowest place won him attention verging on adoration. His chagrin was undisguised. He envoyed an avant-courier to ask his superior’s leave to enter Rome by night avoiding publicity. Padre Iñigo de Loyola peremptorily refused: for the Duke of Gandia was too good an object-lesson to be thrown away. His entrance into the Eternal City, whose citizens even in 1550 revered the memory of Borgia, was like that of a king who comes into his kingdom. The Lord Paul P.P. III sent ambassadors to welcome him, and to offer lodging in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican: but the Duke of Gandia hurried to the Jesuit College; doing obeisance at the feet of the General and Founder of the Company of Jesus. So these two unique personalities first met, whom now men call Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Francis of Borgia.

Padre Iñigo de Loyola immensely admired the Duke of Gandia. This last, whose gracious and brilliant figure caused him to be compared to Apollo and gained for him the nickname The Modern Narcissus, already was known to fame as a ruler and orator born. He was the master of enormous wealth and influence; and his only ambition in life was to strip himself of these and abnegate his will at the command of another. During his sojourn in Rome, he lavished his revenues on the foundation of the Roman College. The honourable title of Founder was offered to him by his own General: but he begged to be excused; and the title afterwards was accepted by the Lord Gregory P.P. XIII, Who named the college The Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome. Meanwhile, he sent a courier to Augsburg, where Caesar Carlos V was, with a letter in which he asked his sovereign’s leave to resign all his titles and estates. While he was waiting for the reply, his General obliged him to fulfil all the duties of his ducal rank; whereby he was brought into intimate relations with the Holiness of the Pope and the Curial Cardinals. Even in this august assemblage he won regard. The Pope and the cardinals became so fond of him, that they disliked the notion of allowing so brilliant a man to bury himself in the severe Religion of Padre Iñigo de Loyola. It was a waste of talent, they said; and the Supreme Pontiff proposed instantly to name him cardinal, like his dead brothers Don Rodrigo and Don Enrico.

It did appear to be a waste of talent. But that was a personal account which the Duke of Gandia would have to settle with his Judge. In these specimens of abnormal humanity, interference invariably is fatal, owing to natural forces. It always is the safest and wisest plan, not to hinder, but to help a sane well-meaning man, who is aware of his responsibilities, to do the thing which he wants to do. For human nature is capable of amazing outbreak, violence, and divarication, where it is not free.

After four months in Rome, suddenly, and with no leave-taking, the Duke of Gandia fled to Spain. The prospect of a scarlet hat had become too real, too terrifying. Of course there is not the slightest danger that a man may be made cardinal against his expressed desire. The cardinalate is not an infectious disease like the plague, or scarlet fever; nor is it a sacrament, like baptism, which leaves an ineradicable mark upon the soul. It conceivably is possible that only brutal rudeness and incivility will suffice for its avoidance:—but they will suffice. And it can always be renounced, rare though renunciations be. The Duke of Gandia was a very gracious lord, in full possession of all his faculties, utterly uninfluenced; and, no doubt, he wished to avoid an occasion when his conscience would direct him to be ungracious or uncivil to the benevolence of the Holiness of the Pope. In his flight, he first went to the castle of Loyola, where his General had been born, to thank Heaven for the nativity of that marvellous man: then, onward again, a few miles to the little town of Oñata in Guipuscoa, where there was a house of the Company of Jesus. The Lord Paul P.P. III died in Rome this year 1550: and was succeeded by the Lord Julius P.P. III.

The Duke of Gandia received a Brief from Caesar Carlos V, dated the twelfth of February 1551, giving permission, to divest himself of rank and to renounce the world, with very much regret at losing the allegiance of his most brilliant subject, and solely because Caesar felt that to refuse would be opposition to the Divine Will. He made the formal act of renunciation before a notary at Oñate; bestowing his duchy, his principalities, and his counties on his heir, the Marquess Don Carlos of Lombay; distributing his estates and wealth among his children. He laid aside his sword, which, according to the fashion of the courtiers of Caesar Carlos V, he rode cock-horse, (so to speak,) as it hung between his legs. He had his hair cut short, and the tonsure shaved on his head. He changed his ducal robes for the shabby ill-fitting black habit of a Jesuit. On Whit Saturday he was ordained priest; and the Duke of Gandia disappeared in Padre Francisco de Borja. In his after life, he never would allow of any allusion to his former style, except when he chanced to hear of the refusal by the Company of Jesus to admit a would-be but unsuitable novice, when he would say, “Now I thank God from the bottom of my heart for having made me a duke; for assuredly there was nothing else about me which could have induced the superiors to accept me”: an opinion which shews that Padre Francisco’s extremely poor opinion of himself betrayed him into exaggeration—a little human touch which brings him nearer to human understanding.

He said his first mass privately in the chapel of the castle of Loyola, on the first of August 1551, the Festival of St. Peter’s Chains; and gave Holy Communion to his second son, Don Juan de Borja, who, having found it hard to leave his father, was losing his young heart to Doña Lorenza Oñaz de Loyola, heiress of the Señor Don Beltrano de Loyola.

Padre Francisco’s second mass was a public function. All the people round about persisted in nicknaming him “Lo Santo Duque,” _The Holy Duke_. The Lord Julius P.P. III granted a plenary indulgence to all who should assist at this mass, on the usual conditions of confession and communion. To satisfy the multitude the mass was to be said in the city of Vergara: but no church would hold the crowd, and the altar was erected in a field by the hermitage of Santa Ana. It began at nine o’clock in the morning of the fifteenth of November 1551, and continued till three in the afternoon, so overwhelming was the number of communicants. (The ordinary mass lasts half an hour.) The sermon was preached by Padre Francisco in the courtly Castilian dialect: but it is recorded that people of all provinces understood him, even those whose native tongue was Basque. A certain Don Juan de Moschera publicly cursed him; to whom Padre Francisco instantly went, begging pardon for being worth a cursing.

He set up as a hermit in a wooden cell near the Jesuit House at Oñate; and gained fame as a preacher, especially (strange to say) among the learned clergy. Men who take pleasure in approving of others, newcomers, of the same trade, are very rare: but for the clergy to approve of a preacher is rarer. He wrote a manual of Advice to Preachers, which had an unusual vogue. He was very fond of the breviary hymn _Vexilla Regis prodeunt_, (The Royal Banners forward go;) and repeated with delight of soul the stanza,

“_Arbor decora et fulgida,
Ornata regis purpura:
Electo digno stipite,
Tam Sancta Membra tangere._

“O Tree of glory, Tree most fair, ordained those Holy Limbs to bear; How bright in purple robe It stood, the purple of a Saviour’s Blood.” (“Hymns Ancient and Modern.”)

He worked miracles. A lady had two splinters of wood; the one was unnotable, the other was a Relique of the True Cross: but which was the Relique was not known. Padre Francisco, to decide, broke them both; from one, Blood dropped upon a piece of paper. An Infanta of Spain put him to a similar test: but in this case the relique was said to be a piece of the skin of St. Bartholomew Apostle (he was flayed alive), with another. Padre Francisco tore both skins; and again blood dropped from one on linen. The blood-stained paper and the blood-stained linen, with both reliques, are in the monastery of Poor Clares at Madrid. Multitudes came to see the quondam duke as hermit; they said that they saw a radiant nimbus lighting the pallor of his brow; and to prevent Padre Francisco from becoming puffed up, (an excessively unnecessary precaution, one would think,) his superior at Oñate, Padre Ochiva, set him to hard menial labour, to dig, saw, carry stones, chop wood, light fires, help in the kitchen, and wheel barrows of manure. The General, to whom every detail was reported, sent Padre Francisco to preach in Portugal, where the Company of Jesus was little known; and his mission met with great results. With himself he was most severe. All physical beauty was gone from his once gracious body, macerated in ceaseless austerities. He took the habit of signing his letters _Francisco Pecador_, “Francis the Sinner”: but his sapient General promptly stopped that practice, saying that Singularity was not the seed of Sanctity. All letters which came to him addressed to The Duke of Gandia, he returned, inscribed _Not for me_, _Francisco S.J._

The Lord Julius P.P. III issued a Brief, offering him a scarlet hat. He sent a firm refusal in reply. It has been said that he feared to accept the cardinalate, lest he should be elected Pope at the next Conclave. The statement is absurd; because

(α) in theory, the election of the Successor of St. Peter is the work
of the Holy Spirit; and _ubi Spiritus ibi libertas_, where the
Spirit is there is liberty: not cardinals alone, but humble
priests as well, or newly tonsured clerks, or any Christian
male, is eligible:—there is no such absurd thing as a
restriction on the Right of the Divinity to choose his Vicar;
and Padre Francisco, therefore, was as liable in black, as he
would have been in scarlet:

(β) if he had been elected Pope, it was open to him to refuse or to
accept the Call.

Some Roman Catholics hold that he _could_ not have refused. But Popes can abdicate, and have abdicated! But _would_ he have refused? Would he have been allowed by the General of the Company of Jesus to refuse? There is no knowing. Such a case has never occurred.

There never has been a Jesuit Pope. It would have been an unique, an unheard of situation,—the Company of Jesus in full power, armed with plenary authority, absolute in all the world, practising unscrupulous, uncompromising Christianity. The conditions of the Millennium would stand in a fair way of being fulfilled—to speak by the Book.—But Padre Francisco de Borja refused the scarlet hat; for he wished for himself complete detachment from the world, and nothing more, here.

Returning from his mission in Portugal to Spain, he evangelized the provinces of Castile and Andalusia. At Alicaza, he healed a cripple girl. At Valladolid, he raised the dead to life. Two teeth being knocked out of the head of a great preacher, his companion, they were replanted by Padre Francisco: and never old age nor decay affected them. The General named him Provincial for Spain and the Indies; and Father and Founder of the Company of Jesus in Spain and Portugal. His preaching converted the rich and worldly Bishop of Plasencia who returned to his religious duties. Padre Francisco introduced the Company of Jesus at Valladolid, Medina, San Lucar, Burgos, Granada, Plasencia, Murcia, Sevilla, Valencia. Did he, in passing through Valencia, find any of the old stock of Don Juan Domingo de Borja who, exactly a century earlier, had given the Lord Calixtus P.P. III to Rome and Christendom?

He was the first to establish the Jesuit Noviciates; and the Noviciate at Simancas was his favourite. Here are his methods of dealing with novices. A certain novice of noble birth and breeding, but pious all the same, found it intolerable that he should have to wait upon himself with no menial to truss his points, or brush his clothes, or sweep his floor to serve him. Padre Francisco heard his complaint; and, having there another novice, who in the world had been a valet, he ordered him on his obedience to serve his noble brother. The thing was done; and in a little while, the noble novice sensibly took shame at his own singularity, as might have been expected; and dispensed with further service. Another noble novice found his narrow cell and his hebdomadal shirt altogether insupportable. Padre Francisco promptly furnished him with a large room, and a clean shirt every day; and, presently, he grew to hate his privileges, renounced them, and assimilated himself with the rest. Padre Francisco at least believed what already has been said here, viz., that the wise man does not hinder, but helps the sane well-meaning man who is aware of his responsibilities, to do the thing that he desires to do: for, if that thing be undesirable, the doer quickly will find it out, and so convince himself; while the thing undone, the wish unsatisfied, causes the unconvinced to hanker after, to struggle for, and to revolt. Once when Padre Francisco was visiting the College of Sant’ Andrea of Valladolid, the resources were at an end; and there was neither food nor money in the house. Natheless, he ordered the bell to be rung as usual for supper though the board was bare; and, in the nick of time, there came to the outer door an old grey-headed man with a huge lovely boy, strangers in the city, who brought baskets of meat and bread and fish and eggs and wine, and a purse of money: whom the pious have called St. Andrew and an Angel.

The year 1555 saw three Popes; the Lord Julius P.P. III, Who died and was succeeded by the Lord Marcellus P.P. II, Who died and was succeeded by the Lord Paul P.P. IV.

In 1556, Padre Iñigo de Loyola died; and Padre Francisco instantly began to invoke his departed chief,—_Holy Ignatius of Loyola, pray to the Lord our God for me_;—while Padre Jago Laynez was elected General of the Company of Jesus.

In 1558, also died the Holy Roman Emperor Carlos V, who long had given himself to religion. On his death-bed, Imperial Caesar cried for “santo Padre Francisco de Borja” to assist him in his agony. But the Jesuit was unable to arrive except in time to preach the funeral oration. Caesar had shown to the priest the unparalleled respect and honour of naming him executor of his will; an office which the unworldliness of Padre Francisco impelled him to decline. The royal and imperial family, conscious of the κύδος which they would gain by his acceptance, appealed against his decision. The Princess-Regent also invoked the General, who issued a command upon obedience; which Padre Francisco perforce obeyed, carried out the provisions of the will of Caesar Carlos V, taking as little as possible of his own share, to avoid offence. Of course, all he had would go to the funds of his order, his vow of poverty debarring him from personal possessions.

In 1559, he was in Portugal once more, sick of an intermittent fever at Evora. The people of this country, natural enemies of Spain and Spaniards, so loved Padre Francisco that they said he must be a Portuguese. During his sickness, he wiled the weary waiting and cheered his soul by setting music to the anthem _Regina caeli laetare_ (“Rejoice, O Queen of Heaven”), and the hundred and seventy-six verses of Psalm cxviii, Vulgate Version, _Beati Immaculati_, (Psalm cxix, Authorized Version, “Blessed are the undefiled in the way.”) This year, his sister Dona Juana de Borja y Aragona (Suor Juana de la Cruz,) died In The Odour of Sanctity. She was the first Abbess of the Royal Monastery of Sandalled (Discalced) Carmelites in Madrid. This year 1559, died the Lord Paul P.P. IV and the Lord Pius P.P. IV succeeded Him. In 1560, Padre Francisco calmed the terrified population of Oporto during a total eclipse of the sun, spontaneously preaching an impassioned sermon on the eclipse, of mortal sin, which veils man’s soul from the Sun of Righteousness. Then, again, sickness laid him low; neuralgia, paralysis, ulcers. The vile body was resisting the strain which he made it bear.