Alexander and his son perceiving that they could no longer turn to good account the co-operation of Louis for their grasping schemes, began to look round for new combinations: having squeezed the orange they were ready to throw aside the rind. But to such projects their exhausted treasury offered serious obstacles. To supply it they had recourse, on an extended scale, to an expedient which they had invented, and already occasionally employed,--that of poisoning the richest cardinals, seizing on their treasures, and selling their vacant hats to the highest bidders. Among the most recent and wealthy of the sacred college was Adrian of Corneto, and he was therefore selected as next victim. On the 12th of August, the Pope and Cesare invited him to sup in the Belvidere casino of the Vatican, and the latter sent forward a supply of poisoned wine, in charge of his butler, with strict injunctions not to serve it until specially desired by himself. Several other cardinals were to partake of the banquet, and, probably, were intended to share the drugged potion. Alexander had been assured by an astrologer that, so long as he had about him the sacramental wafer, he should not die; and, accordingly, he constantly carried it in a little golden box; but, having on that evening forgotten it upon his toilet, he sent Monsignor Caraffa, afterwards Paul IV., to fetch it. Meanwhile, overcome by the dog-day heat, he called for wine. The butler was gone to fetch a salver of peaches, which had been presented to his Holiness, and his deputy, having received no instructions as to the medicated bottles, offered a draught from them to the Pope. He greedily swallowed it, and his example was more moderately followed by Cesare; thus, "Even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of the poisoned chalice To their own lips." Scarcely had they taken their seats at the table, when the two victims successively fell down insensible, from the virulence of the poison, and were carried to bed. The Pontiff rallied so far as to recover consciousness, and to linger for about a week, but at length sank under the shock and the fever which supervened, his age being seventy-one, and his constitution enervated by long debauchery. The last sacraments were duly administered, and it was remarked that, during his illness, he never alluded to his children Cesare and Lucrezia, through life the objects of an overweening, if not criminal fondness, in whose behalf most of his outrages upon the peace and the rights of mankind had been committed. His death occurred on the 18th of August.[*8]