price of his simony, when from the height of the Vatican he cast his eyes
upon Europe, a vast political game of chess, which he cherished the hope
of directing at the will of his own genius.




CHAPTER II

The world had now arrived at one of those supreme moments of history when
every thing is transformed between the end of one period and the
beginning of another: in the East Turkey, in the South Spain, in the West
France, and in the North German, all were going to assume, together with
the title of great Powers, that influence which they were destined to
exert in the future over the secondary States. Accordingly we too, with
Alexander VI, will cast a rapid glance over them, and see what were their
respective situations in regard to Italy, which they all coveted as a
prize.

Constantine, Palaeologos Dragozes, besieged by three hundred thousand
Turks, after having appealed in vain for aid to the whole of Christendom,
had not been willing to survive the loss of his empire, and had been
found in the midst of the dead, close to the Tophana Gate; and on the
30th of May, 1453, Mahomet II had made his entry into Constantinople,
where, after a reign which had earned for him the surname of 'Fatile', or
the Conqueror, he had died leaving two sons, the elder of whom had
ascended the throne under the name of Bajazet II.

The accession of the new sultan, however, had not taken place with the
tranquillity which his right as elder brother and his father's choice of