The other death, that of Messer Francesco Trocces is more probable, and mentioned in several dispatches of Orators. He was a papal chamberlain (confidential flunkey of the cloak and sword,—minor situation dear to _petits maîtres_ of the English and Keltic bourgeoisie now;) and was employed as governmental courier. The Republic of Venice was playing fast and loose with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, disliking to see Duke Cesare’s amazing success in the Romagna; and its Orator, Don Antonio Giustiniani carried on relations of a doubtful kind with Messer Francesco Trocces, in the usual manner of ambassadors who find that they can buy state-secrets from a “crapule.” Suddenly, Messer Francesco fled from Rome to Civita Vecchia. He had been complaining to the Venetians about Duke Cesare; and all his treachery had come to light. The Duke’s steel claws were far-reaching. The traitor was captured there and brought to Rome, strangled, and his body hanged on Tor Savelli as an example to others of his kind. Legally speaking he was executed for the crime of high treason; and the formal exposure of his corpse gives the lie to the idea of clandestine assassination. The practice of secret trials and summary executions is odious to the Twentieth Century: but, in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth, not only all civilized governments, but even barons who had power of life and death over their retainers, used these means as a matter of course; and that alone should be sufficient to exonerate the Borgia from blame. It has been said of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI that He habitually envenomed his cardinals, that He might have their goods. The following story is given, not in this connection, by Mr. F. Marion Crawford, and is here inserted on account of its frequent significance. At the corner of the Via Lata in the Corso of Rome, is the Palazzo Doria Pamphili, a typical Roman palace of the Borgian Era, two-thirds the size of the Vatican Basilica, and able to accommodate a thousand inhabitants. It was built by Cardinal Santorio (?), who bought the site from the Chapter of Santa Maria _Maggiore_, and expended thousands of gold ducats in the erection of a House Beautiful. All through the reigns of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and of the Lord Pius P.P. III, he remained in unmolested possession: but during the pontificate of the Lord Julius P.P. II (Giuliano della Rovere) the Pope’s Holiness said to him that his palace was “more suitable for a secular duke than for a prince of the Church”; and forced him to make Him a free gift of it for His Own nephew Don Francesco della Rovere, whom He had created Duke of Urbino. The unfortunate Cardinal Santorio died soon after of a broken heart. It was not Borgia who caused _his_ death, in order to have his palace: but Borgia’s eternal enemy. * * * * *