later must have been discovered? May I not trust the official accounts of the Pope’s sickness, more than the mere rumours of the mob? That official account declares the Pope to have died of a double-tertian fever. There is not the slightest vestige of proof in favour of the accusation which you have brought against His memory. His son Borgia[67] happened to fall sick at the time when his Father died. That is the sole foundation for the story of the venom.’” It will appear that the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, from venom, is improbable. It may also be said that it was impossible, for reasons here forthcoming. The Legend of the Borgia Venom One of the stock phrases used by biographers and historians of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries was “he (or she)—died in the odour of sanctity.” Another was “he (or she)—died not without suspicion of venom.” Both phrases are the merest expression of private opinion, the importance of which depends upon the integrity and knowledge of the user: but in no case do they amount to a dogmatic, final, infallible, or authoritative, decision. When a person is said to have departed this life in the odour of sanctity, (a purely technical phrase, insusceptible of literal translation,) sooner or later the process of ecclesiastical law is begun for obtaining for the deceased the successive titles, _Venerable Servant of God_, _the Blessed ——_, and _Saint ——_. These titles, only being conferred after stringent examination of quality lasting many years and sometimes many centuries,[68] are taken to prove the pious opinion “died in the odour of sanctity” to have been founded on a verity.