Free The Borgias by Christopher Hibbert Page A

and pillaging soldiers. ‘The discontent of the people is at its height,’ wrote the Mantuan envoy Fioramonte Bagolo. ‘The looting is fearful, the murders innumerable; one hears moaning and weeping on every side and never, in the memory of man, has the Church been in such an evil plight.’ All those who could afford to do so were packing their valuables into carriages and leaving the city. Looking out through the windows of the Vatican, Alexander VI and his son Cesare watched the enemy troops massing on Monte Mario, just north of the palace,thankful that they, too, had taken the precaution of locking their treasures away in Castel Sant’Angelo and were ready for flight.
    Meanwhile, as rumours spread of the atrocities that the French would inflict, Charles VIII attempted to appease the fears of the Romans. The French Cardinal Bertrand Perauld, who had been refused entry into the city on December 22, was heard to say that the troops ‘would not take a hen or an egg or the smallest item without paying for it in full.’ The next day he wrote to the German colony saying that the invasion would only happen if the king’s ‘enemies,’ by which he meant Alexander VI himself, ‘continue to remain in Rome and prevent an agreement.’ Moreover, he insisted, ‘His Majesty promises that his troops will do no harm to any prostitute in the city, nor to any other person, wherever they are from, unless they fight against the King and his followers.’
    With the city almost surrounded by French troops, the celebrations for the Feast of the Nativity continued with surprising normality: Burchard recorded that the pope himself was present in the Sistine Chapel for Vespers on Christmas Eve. It had been expected that the cardinal of Monreale would celebrate High Mass in the Sistine Chapel on Christmas Day, but before dawn broke that morning, a courier had arrived with an urgent message for Alexander VI to say that Charles VIII desired a peaceful agreement with the pope prior to the king’s entry into the city. Having informed the cardinals assembled in the Sala del Pappagallo that he intended to allow Charles VIII to enter Rome, the pope dispatched the cardinal of Monreale to agree to terms with the king, who likewise sent his envoys to the Vatican for the same purpose. At Mass in the Sistine Chapel the next day, the Feast of St Stephen, Burchard faced an awkward situation, being obliged to organize seating notonly for these French envoys but also for two ambassadors of the king of Naples who were in Rome:
    The latter did not wish to dispute their seats with the new arrivals, and withdrew, claiming not to know who they were, but when on the Pope’s orders, I had explained to them that they were ambassadors from the King of France, the Neapolitans resumed their seats and gave the others precedence in position. A great many other Frenchman came in as well, and sat down quite indiscriminately next to the clerics on their benches. I moved them away and gave them more suitable places, but the Pope disliked what I was doing and summoned me angrily to say that I was destroying all his efforts and that I was to permit the French to stand wherever they wanted. I responded in a soothing manner, saying that God knew, he was not to become upset over the issue because I understood what he wanted and would speak not another word to the Frenchmen, wherever they sat in the chapel.
     
    On December 31 Alexander VI sent his master of ceremonies to Charles VIII: ‘On the orders of His Holiness,’ Burchard wrote, ‘I rode out to find the King of France in order to acquaint him with the ceremonial that would accompany his reception in the city and to hear his own wishes and to do all His Majesty ordered me to do.’ Because of the pouring rain, the roads clogged with mud, ‘and the speed at which His Majesty was riding,’ Burchard was unable to greet the king as formally as he would have wished. In answer to Burchard’s questions, Charles VIII