Cesare Borgia

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In love, although a Cardinal, with the same girl, the beautiful Sancia, as his brother John. Duke of Gandia, Caesar did not hesitate, after an entertainment at the Vatican, to hire bravi, and to have this brother foully done to death, and to be afterwards thrown into the Tiber. For a time the disappearance of John Borgia remained clothed in mystery, but the waters of the river gave up their dead in the very heart of Rome, almost within a stone's throw of the Papal Palace. John's mutilated remains are brought into his father's presence, and Sancia denounces the all-powerful Ceasar as the author of the crime. But if Alexander VI. was at times a powerful ruler, his weakness with his children was complete, and he feared Cesar and also Lucretia, his notorious daughter. Sancia. determined to avenge her lover's death, plans the murderer's undoing. She sends him the following anonymous note:-" A lady who admires and secretly loves Cesar will await him to-night in the Avenue of the Graces." Cesar has his suspicions aroused, yet his fondness for mysterious adventures induces him to cast prudence aside, and, going to the appointment, he falls into the trap laid for him. Thrown into a cell and chained to the wall, he manages to attack his jailer, to overpower the man, and to escape.