The so-called scandals of His private life are shewn to have been based upon the malice or the idle gossip of His enemies. He sat in “the fierce light that beats upon a throne.” He was the father of a family. He was not the first or the last Pope Who has been the father of a family. His immediate predecessor, the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, admitted the paternity of seven children. A successor, the Lord Paul P.P. III, also used Himself in a similar manner: nor are these all. If this be vicious, it was only vicious in the Lord Alexander P.P. VI because He was the Lord Alexander P.P. VI; for in other men the same thing was, and is, tolerated, accepted, applauded. A patrician or a plebeian may steal a horse: but a Pope may not look over the wall. _Ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hic diadema._[77] However, as a father, He exhibited an illustrious example of paternal virtue. He was kind, loving, affectionate to his children; solicitous and self sacrificing for their welfare and advancement. That He employed His spiritual power, to build up the temporalities of His family, was a temptation, to avoid which He would need to have been more than human. It was the custom of the time. It was an imperious necessity of the situation. * * * * * The murders and venenations of which He has been accused, in company with Duke Cesare, fail of proof; and indeed His guiltlessness as instigator, principal, or accomplice, appears in every case to be beyond question. The murder of Don Juan Francisco de Lançol y Borja, Duke of Gandia, remains a mystery: but what evidence there is distinctly points to a vendetta of Orsini directed against the Pope through His Captain-General. The murder of the Prince of Bisceglia is referable rather to a vendetta of Sanseverini and Caïetani, than to the Pope or Duke Cesare (detto Borgia). The deaths of Don Astorgio and Don Gianevangelista Manfredi are susceptible of the Venetian Orator’s explanation, _puto mal san_; there positively is nothing to connect the Pope or the Duke with them. The death of the Sultán Djim was due to natural causes, while he was in the hands of the Christian King; and the Pope’s Holiness was a pecuniary loser (to the extent of about £80,000 a year) by his death. The death of Cardinal Orsini was due to natural causes, according to the sworn testimony of physicians provided by the House of Orsini. Fra Girolamo Savonarola Ο.P. was executed on a capital charge by due process of law; and the Pope was an unwilling agent for the administration of that law. (The crime of Fra Girolamo really was that of intriguing with a foreign power with which his country was at war. General Booth committing treachery with Mr. Kruger, or Mr. Ira D. Sankey with the Son of Heaven Kwang Su, would be Twentieth Century parallels of Savonarola and Charles VIII.) Cardinal Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore) died a natural death.