Pageant of the Popes, by John Farrow, , at sacred-texts.com
Italy and France and Spain all struggled to control the next
conclave and the latter two powers did not hesitate to try and
enlist the aid of Caesar Borgia. But happily the sinister
creature was not as active at this important time as he could
have been; for he was yet weak from his illness. "I had counted
on the death of my father and had made every preparation for
it," he lamented, "but it never occurred to me that I should
have at the same time to fight death myself." However he threw
his influence to favor the candidate of the French king. But to
thwart him there now returned to Rome, after an exile of nearly
ten years, the antagonist of his father, the experienced and
veteran Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere who, friendly though he
himself had been with the French, warned the cardinals that if a
Frenchman were elected the papacy faced the danger of being
returned to Avignon. There seemed then every chance of a
deadlock but this prospect was so dis