History has for centuries been preaching to mankind from her great stock text, on war and its consequences;—and at last not so wholly in vain, as in the good old time. But if so terrible an amount of evil be inseparable from the most glorious war,—and the valorous assertion of right, against wrong-doing might is, and must ever be, glorious,—what shall be said of slaughter-matches, in which no high idea or noble feeling had any, the least share; by which the basest passions are intensified, the lowest motives alone brought into action, with only this distinction, that the higher the social rank of the "noble soldier," the baser were the objects he proposed to himself as the prizes of the fight! [Sidenote: ONCE MORE TO ROME.] Towards the end of January, Borgia left Forlì, wholly submitted to his authority, and led away his noble captive to Rome. Catherine, clothed, it is recorded, in a black satin dress, made the journey on horseback, riding between her conqueror and one of the French generals. She arrived in Rome on the 26th of February, 1500. And, as she once again entered that Porta del Popolo, the dethroned widow can hardly have failed to contrast the circumstances of her return with those of her first arrival in the Eternal City. CHAPTER X. Catherine arrives in Rome;—is accused of attempting to poison the Pope;—is imprisoned in St. Angelo;—is liberated;—and goes to Florence.—Her cloister life with the Murate nuns.—Her collection of wonderful secrets.—Making allowances.—Catherine's death. Passing along the same line of streets which she had traversed twenty-three years before as the bride of the then wealthiest and most powerful man in Rome,—as much an object of curiosity now as then to the sight-loving populace, eager to stare at the celebrated prisoner of the now wealthiest and most powerful man in Rome, as then to welcome the great man's bride,—Catherine was led by her captor to the Vatican. Up the well-known stair, and through the familiar chambers, lined, when last she passed across them, with a crowd of bending courtiers, anxious to catch a word or glance from the powerful favourite, who held all Apostolic graces in her hand, she passed on to the presence of the Pontiff. Alexander received her courteously; assigned an apartment in the Belvidere of the Vatican as her prison, and assured her, that no care should be wanting to make her residence there as little irksome as was consistent with the precautions necessary to secure her safe custody. No doubt the haughty lady replied to the Sovereign Pontiff, who, when last they had met, had been too happy in being honoured with her friendship, with equal courtesy. But the feelings in the breast of either interlocutor, which were thus decorously veiled, may be easily estimated. [Sidenote: ACCUSATION AGAINST HER.]