Cesare Borgia - Rise and Downfall
Cesare Borgia – Rise and Downfall
Cesare Borgia, or Duca Valentino, as he was known, from his title of Duke of Valentinois, bestowed upon him by
Louis XII of France, was twenty-five years old. He was intelligent, ambitious, energetic, strong, exceptionally
handsome, and extremely vain. Second born of the Pope, Alexander VI, and formerly a teenaged archbishop and
cardinal, he was appointed Captain General of the Papal army and in January of 1500 began his campaign to
consolidate the Papal States. They were at that were at that time fragmented, and controlled by a handful of powerful
and ambitious feudal despots; consolidation had been the dream of the Pope, and Cesare was his instrument to see
it done.
In January of that year Borgia began his first campaign, marching over the Apennines with an army of over six
thousand soldiers and mercenaries to capture the city of Forli, as the first step toward his goal. Next were to be Lazio,
Umbria, Marche, and part of Emilia Romagna, the remainder of the Papal States. At this time Italy was comprised of
five “great powers”, of which one was the Papal States; the others were the Kingdom of Naples, the Republic of
Venice, the Duchy of Milan and the Republic of Florence. Within the Papal States, however, only Rome, a few small
cities and some rural areas were actually under the control of the pope.
At Forli, Il Duca was greeted joyously by its citizens, who had no love for their ruler, Caterina Sforza; but she rejected
his generous terms and resolved to defend her citadel. The siege was brief and the defenders were put to the sword,
but so was triumph brief, as Borgia’s foreign troops mutinied and the French were recalled. Several of his military
captains had also temporarily united in hostility to the young duke. He officially pardoned them, and invited them to a
conference at Sinigaglia. There, “with a small escort and a smile on his lips, he went out to meet them at the city
gates. He invited them to meet informally in his rooms, then had them arrested and strangled, ignoring their pleas,
without further form or trial.”
In an era known for intrigue, deception, chicanery and cruelty such treatment was not only accepted, but expected.
When of the Florentine secretary of the second chancery, Nicolo Machiavelli, wrote his renowned book, The Prince, in
which he used Borgia as an example, it was not because he had created something new, but that he did what all
others did, but with greater skill and cunning. What struck the observer was “how supremely efficient the duke was in
everything he undertook; he knew how to delegate power and at the same time keep total control of it. But though it
might seem inconsistent he was also credited with lauded virtues: “no one ever kept his word more faithfully than he;
nor had he ever broken a promise.”
Cesare, after his brief setback, then enticed several nobles to join him, and with a new army of 14,000 set out to
continue retaking control of the Papal States. First Latium, then Rimini and Pesaro fell, with the latter two
surrendering to him after their unpopular feudal barons fled. Faenza resisted and the siege lasted all through the
winter of 1500, before the garrison finally accepted generous terms and a promise of leniency to all, a promise that
was honored. “Make up your minds fast,” he told diplomats, “I cannot keep my army unoccupied in this mountainous
area; there can be no half measures between you and me: you are either my friends or my enemies.”
The fall of Camarino and Urbino followed soon after, and Borgia next added Duke of Romagna to his titles. An
uprising in 1502 was briefly successful, but with a new army of 6000 and some brilliant diplomacy Cesare was able
to put it down and restore order. An interesting anecdote from the Urbino campaign is illustrative in presenting the
complex character of the duke. Despite occupation of Urbino, the fortress of San Leo; well fortified, provisioned and
impregnable; held out, and the possibility of a year’s siege was not attractive. Fortuitously, word came to Valentinois
of the infatuation held by the daughter of the lord of the fortress, Lady Bianca de’ Fioravanti, for one Lorenzo
Castrocaro, Il Duce’s youngest captain, an infatuation thwarted by the fact that Castocaro was an enemy of the lady’s
family. Raised locally, Castrocaro knew the castle well, and volunteered to head a mission to enter it through a little
known, difficult access. Borgia, accepting the proposal and pledging Lorenzo governorship of the castle and a ten
thousand ducat stipend if he succeeded, contrived, unknown to Castrocaro, to permit the Lady Bianca to join her
father, who was sick and died shortly thereafter, in the castle. Lorenzo succeeded in gaining entry to the castle only
through the intercession of Bianca, and San Leo capitulated, with their marriage and Lorenzo’s governorship the
ultimate results. “And so, San Leo, that might have held out for a year, is won,” bragged Borgia. “This Castrocaro
thinks it is all his own achievement. The lady imagines that it is all her own. Neither dreams that all has fallen out as
I had intended, and by my contriving. We who would achieve greatness,” he added, “must learn not only to use men,
but to use them in such a manner that they never suspect they are being used.”
The enigmatic Borgia, on coming to the attention of Machiavelli was made his example of what a prince should be.
“This lord is splendid and magnificent,” exuded Machiavelli. To acquire fame or increase his power, he never takes
any rest and knows neither fatigue nor danger. No sooner has he arrived in a place than word goes out that he has
left. He knows how to be respected by his men, and has succeeded in mustering the best troops in Italy. All these
things, together with his extraordinary good fortune, bring him victory and makes him universally feared. Moreover he
guides argument in such a masterly way that one need plenty of time to be able to gain any point in a discussion with
him. He knows too how to use threat to back up his eloquence.” Borgia had his detractors as well, and his reputation
for cruelty was widespread, partially through a very strong pamphleteer attack instigated and propagated by his many
enemies. Machiavelli said, however, “Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; notwithstanding, his cruelty reconciled
the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. And if this be rightly considered, he will be seen to have
been much more merciful than the Florentine people, who, to avoid a reputation for cruelty, permitted Pisoia to be
destroyed.” Such was the reputation of this enigmatic prince: hated, feared, but respected – and even loved by
subjects to whom he gave fair and efficient government.
This was the situation in August, 1503. Cesare Borgia, on his sick bed, had just been apprised of the death of his
father, Rodrigo, Pope Alexander VI. It did not come as a surprise. They had dined together on the 5th in the vineyard
of Adriano Castellesi da Corneto, a recently appointed cardinal, and afterwards taken of the cool evening air,
inadvisably since malaria was about in Rome. Rodrigo, Alexander’s grand nephew, and Juan Borgia, a cardinal-
archbishop, had both already been taken; both were corpulent and while watching their funeral corteges Alexander,
who was 72 years old and corpulent, noted that it was a bad month for fat people.
In the week following the dinner both Cesare and Alexander fell ill with fever, and rumors of poisoning circulated
freely. On the 12th Alexander became violently feverish and coughed up bile. The doctors bled him of 13 ounces of
blood on the 15th and it seemed to help. But his condition worsened on the 17th and all hope for him was
abandoned; he made his confession and received Last Unction on the next morning, and took his last breath toward
vespers. Meanwhile Cesare had been experiencing fever attacks, stomach pains and vomiting. His doctors plunged
him into an oil jar filled with ice water, causing his skin to peel all over his body. By the 18th Cesare was improving
but still very weak.
On hearing of his father’s death, Cesare gave orders to his faithful servant Michelotto to seize the Pope’s private
treasure, after which, as was the strange but hallowed custom of the time, the palace servants proceeded to ransack
the papal apartments. The situation in Rome was tense: the French army was encamped some forty miles north of
the city and a Spanish army was moving north from Naples. At the same time armed troops of the Colonna and
Orsini were entering the city, and already several of the barons deposed by Borgia had retaken their castles. Still
suffering with swollen feet, shrunken body and violent headaches, Il Valentino relocated his entourage from Rome to
Nepi in response to a request by the cardinals not to put obstacles in the way of the conclave to select a new pope by
his presence. The Orsinni and Colonna troops were removed from the city at the same time. Cesare had promised
support to both the Spanish and French ambassadors for their Papal candidates, but after an intense period of
negotiation, Cardinal Piccolomini, a compromise candidate, was elected as Pius III instead of either d’Amboise or,
della Rovere - a bitter enemy of the Borgias, who had just returned from ten years exile. Pius was friendly to Cesare
and allowed him to return to Rome with a small contingent of loyal retainers. But 27 days later Pius was dead and it
was clearly apparent that this time Cardinal della Rovere’s election could not be prevented.
Seeing no alternative Borgia changed his tactics, and promised support to della Rovere. But meanwhile Venice, not
waiting for the Papacy to organize its forces, seized Rimini, besieged Faenza and made overtures to take as much of
Romagna as possible. Della Rovere, now Pope Julius II, reconfirmed Borgia as Captain General of the Papal forces
and ordered him to go to Imola to recruit a new army. There was nothing at this point in their relationship to signal
the conflicts ahead; Il Valentino trusted the Pope’s promises and there was even talk of a marriage liaison between
Cesare’s daughter and the Pope’s nephew. As a gesture of trust the Pope gave him the town of Ostia, where galleys
were tied up in the harbor, and the Florentines were requested to give the duke safe-conduct for his army through
Tuscany. But where Borgia’s strength had always been inside information from Alexander, now he had none, and his
knowledge of the situation became more limited each day; nor was he receiving any directives from the Pope.
Machiavelli later expressed great surprise that Borgia could think “that another man will keep his word better than one
will one’s own.” Julius’ propagandists at this time increased their efforts to defame Borgia, with great success.
Chafing at the delay in receiving the safe-conduct, he requested leave from Julius to take his five galleys and depart
for Genoa, and thence to begin his campaign to regain the Romagna. But on 18 November, the Venetians captured
Faenza, and when the Pope met with the Venetian ambassador, and was told they were fighting the Borgias, not the
Papacy, he knew it was time to carry out what he had always intended. On November 19, Cesare left Rome for Ostia
and as he was preparing to embark, he was confronted by two cardinals, Remolines and Soderini, who ordered him
in the Pope’s name to give them the passwords for the forts in Romagna still controlled by Borgia. They said this was
necessary to organize resistance against the Venetians. Borgia refused and was immediately arrested by the captain
of the Papal fleet who had received prior secret orders. He was returned to Rome and subjected to house arrest,
replaced as Captain General, and his lieutenants arrested and troops disarmed. Realizing he had been betrayed, he
gave the Pope the passwords, but dispatched two confidants to take charge of his castles. When Julius heard of this
he flew into a rage and threw Cesare into prison. In April, after 5 months imprisonment and negotiation for his
release, and at the intercession of the Spanish ambassador, he was allowed to leave for Ostia, and from there to
Naples.
Cesare was not finished yet. Once feeling safe in Naples, where he was welcomed by Borgia cardinals and his
brother, Jofre, his confidence returned, and with questionable judgement he assembled a small force with which to
begin a campaign to retake the Romagna. But he was betrayed by his lieutenant, Gonsalvo de Cordoba who was
caught between an oath to Borgia and his loyalty to his sovereign. “Santa Maria,” Borgia cursed, “I am betrayed! How
cruelly Gonsalvo has dealt with me!” On orders from Ferdinand of Spain, at the request of Julius, he was arrested and
imprisoned once again, this time in the Castel Nuovo in Naples, where he bitterly recalled his own maxim: “It is good
to deceive those who are past masters in perfidy.”
The Duke of Valentinois’ fate was now in the hands of the Catholic King of Spain, who, strongly resenting his alliance
with the French king, ordered him transferred to Spain, where he was taken to the castle at Chinchilla, two miles
outside Valencia. There he was accused by the widow of the Duke of Gandia, his brother-in-law, of Gandia’s murder.
While awaiting trial at the Spanish court he was further accused of threatening the life of the governor of the town of
Chinchilla, and was moved to the royal fortress at Medina del Campo, far from the sea and chance of escape.
At Medina he became the center of additional Spanish intrigue that threatened to come to a head with the death of
Phillip, archduke of Austria, who was involved in the ticklish question of Spanish regency, and was warned that things
were about to get worse for him. With assistance from his wife, through the offices of her brother, the King of Navarre,
an escape was planned on 25 October, 1506, at the time of the changing of the guard. Ropes were smuggled into
the keep and hung from the tower window, but as he was climbing down, the alarm sounded and the rope was cut,
hurling him into the moat. Badly injured he was still able to mount the horse that was standing ready for him and ride
off into the night. He was secretly nursed back to heath in the town of Villalon in the lands of his ally Benavente, and a
month later he made his way to his brother-in-law’s kingdom of Navarre. During this month in hiding an inkeeper
noticed that “he kept to himself, wrapped in his cloak; he was heavy and of medium eight, with flaring nostrils and big
eyes, and that his hands were bandaged and that he seemed doubled up with a very ugly face, a big nose and dark
complexion. “ So he was perceived by local townspeople. His plan was to recover his funds and retake his lands in
Romagna.
When a vassal of the king, the Count of Lerin, rebelled against the king of Navarre, Cesare was appointed Captain
General of the royal troops and, with 1000 knights, 200 men in arms and 5000 infantry, invested the castle of the rebel
count. On the night of March 11, 1507, a relief column was discovered and the alarm sounded. Cesare, who was
sleeping, quickly donned his armor and mounted his horse, not waiting to see if anyone followed. Cursing and
blaspheming, he galloped through the castle gate, killing three men in the process, before being challenged by 20
knights on horseback, who drew him into a narrow lane. Wounded by a spear thrust into his armpit , he was
unhorsed, then stabbed from all sides. His naked, bleeding body was found by King Jean of Navarre and he was
buried with honors in a simple parish church of the name Santa Maria.
Machiavelli’s epitaph was thus: “he (Alexander) left the duke with the state of Romagna alone consolidated, with the
rest in the air, between two most powerful hostile armies, and sick unto death. Yet there were in the duke such
boldness and ability, and he knew so well how men are to be won or lost, so firm were the foundations which in his
short a time he had laid that if he had not had those armies on his back or if he had been in good health he would
have overcome all difficulties.”
The formal epitaph, written by the poet Soria appeared four years later in the Romancero Espanol, a book of Castilian
poetry:
Here in a scant spot of earth
Lies he whom all the earth once feared,
He who is in His hand once bore
Mankind’s fate of peace or war.
O you who now would wander wide
Seeking things that merit praise,
Here you may your journey stay:
Never farther seek to stray!
References:
The Italian People, Massimo Salvadori, Crown Publishers, Inc, NY, 1972
Lucrezia Borgia, Maria Bellonci, Pyramid Book, NY, 1973
The Borgias, Ivan Cloulas, Franklin Watts, NY, 1989
The Borgias, Michael Mallett, The Bodley Head, London, 1969
The Renaissance, Will Durant, Simon and Schuster, NY, 1953
Fortune is a River, Roger D. Masters, The Free Press, NY, 1998
Cesare Borgia, or Duca Valentino, as he was known, from his title of Duke of Valentinois, bestowed upon him by
Louis XII of France, was twenty-five years old. He was intelligent, ambitious, energetic, strong, exceptionally
handsome, and extremely vain. Second born of the Pope, Alexander VI, and formerly a teenaged archbishop and
cardinal, he was appointed Captain General of the Papal army and in January of 1500 began his campaign to
consolidate the Papal States. They were at that were at that time fragmented, and controlled by a handful of powerful
and ambitious feudal despots; consolidation had been the dream of the Pope, and Cesare was his instrument to see
it done.
In January of that year Borgia began his first campaign, marching over the Apennines with an army of over six
thousand soldiers and mercenaries to capture the city of Forli, as the first step toward his goal. Next were to be Lazio,
Umbria, Marche, and part of Emilia Romagna, the remainder of the Papal States. At this time Italy was comprised of
five “great powers”, of which one was the Papal States; the others were the Kingdom of Naples, the Republic of
Venice, the Duchy of Milan and the Republic of Florence. Within the Papal States, however, only Rome, a few small
cities and some rural areas were actually under the control of the pope.
At Forli, Il Duca was greeted joyously by its citizens, who had no love for their ruler, Caterina Sforza; but she rejected
his generous terms and resolved to defend her citadel. The siege was brief and the defenders were put to the sword,
but so was triumph brief, as Borgia’s foreign troops mutinied and the French were recalled. Several of his military
captains had also temporarily united in hostility to the young duke. He officially pardoned them, and invited them to a
conference at Sinigaglia. There, “with a small escort and a smile on his lips, he went out to meet them at the city
gates. He invited them to meet informally in his rooms, then had them arrested and strangled, ignoring their pleas,
without further form or trial.”
In an era known for intrigue, deception, chicanery and cruelty such treatment was not only accepted, but expected.
When of the Florentine secretary of the second chancery, Nicolo Machiavelli, wrote his renowned book, The Prince, in
which he used Borgia as an example, it was not because he had created something new, but that he did what all
others did, but with greater skill and cunning. What struck the observer was “how supremely efficient the duke was in
everything he undertook; he knew how to delegate power and at the same time keep total control of it. But though it
might seem inconsistent he was also credited with lauded virtues: “no one ever kept his word more faithfully than he;
nor had he ever broken a promise.”
Cesare, after his brief setback, then enticed several nobles to join him, and with a new army of 14,000 set out to
continue retaking control of the Papal States. First Latium, then Rimini and Pesaro fell, with the latter two
surrendering to him after their unpopular feudal barons fled. Faenza resisted and the siege lasted all through the
winter of 1500, before the garrison finally accepted generous terms and a promise of leniency to all, a promise that
was honored. “Make up your minds fast,” he told diplomats, “I cannot keep my army unoccupied in this mountainous
area; there can be no half measures between you and me: you are either my friends or my enemies.”
The fall of Camarino and Urbino followed soon after, and Borgia next added Duke of Romagna to his titles. An
uprising in 1502 was briefly successful, but with a new army of 6000 and some brilliant diplomacy Cesare was able
to put it down and restore order. An interesting anecdote from the Urbino campaign is illustrative in presenting the
complex character of the duke. Despite occupation of Urbino, the fortress of San Leo; well fortified, provisioned and
impregnable; held out, and the possibility of a year’s siege was not attractive. Fortuitously, word came to Valentinois
of the infatuation held by the daughter of the lord of the fortress, Lady Bianca de’ Fioravanti, for one Lorenzo
Castrocaro, Il Duce’s youngest captain, an infatuation thwarted by the fact that Castocaro was an enemy of the lady’s
family. Raised locally, Castrocaro knew the castle well, and volunteered to head a mission to enter it through a little
known, difficult access. Borgia, accepting the proposal and pledging Lorenzo governorship of the castle and a ten
thousand ducat stipend if he succeeded, contrived, unknown to Castrocaro, to permit the Lady Bianca to join her
father, who was sick and died shortly thereafter, in the castle. Lorenzo succeeded in gaining entry to the castle only
through the intercession of Bianca, and San Leo capitulated, with their marriage and Lorenzo’s governorship the
ultimate results. “And so, San Leo, that might have held out for a year, is won,” bragged Borgia. “This Castrocaro
thinks it is all his own achievement. The lady imagines that it is all her own. Neither dreams that all has fallen out as
I had intended, and by my contriving. We who would achieve greatness,” he added, “must learn not only to use men,
but to use them in such a manner that they never suspect they are being used.”
The enigmatic Borgia, on coming to the attention of Machiavelli was made his example of what a prince should be.
“This lord is splendid and magnificent,” exuded Machiavelli. To acquire fame or increase his power, he never takes
any rest and knows neither fatigue nor danger. No sooner has he arrived in a place than word goes out that he has
left. He knows how to be respected by his men, and has succeeded in mustering the best troops in Italy. All these
things, together with his extraordinary good fortune, bring him victory and makes him universally feared. Moreover he
guides argument in such a masterly way that one need plenty of time to be able to gain any point in a discussion with
him. He knows too how to use threat to back up his eloquence.” Borgia had his detractors as well, and his reputation
for cruelty was widespread, partially through a very strong pamphleteer attack instigated and propagated by his many
enemies. Machiavelli said, however, “Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; notwithstanding, his cruelty reconciled
the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. And if this be rightly considered, he will be seen to have
been much more merciful than the Florentine people, who, to avoid a reputation for cruelty, permitted Pisoia to be
destroyed.” Such was the reputation of this enigmatic prince: hated, feared, but respected – and even loved by
subjects to whom he gave fair and efficient government.
This was the situation in August, 1503. Cesare Borgia, on his sick bed, had just been apprised of the death of his
father, Rodrigo, Pope Alexander VI. It did not come as a surprise. They had dined together on the 5th in the vineyard
of Adriano Castellesi da Corneto, a recently appointed cardinal, and afterwards taken of the cool evening air,
inadvisably since malaria was about in Rome. Rodrigo, Alexander’s grand nephew, and Juan Borgia, a cardinal-
archbishop, had both already been taken; both were corpulent and while watching their funeral corteges Alexander,
who was 72 years old and corpulent, noted that it was a bad month for fat people.
In the week following the dinner both Cesare and Alexander fell ill with fever, and rumors of poisoning circulated
freely. On the 12th Alexander became violently feverish and coughed up bile. The doctors bled him of 13 ounces of
blood on the 15th and it seemed to help. But his condition worsened on the 17th and all hope for him was
abandoned; he made his confession and received Last Unction on the next morning, and took his last breath toward
vespers. Meanwhile Cesare had been experiencing fever attacks, stomach pains and vomiting. His doctors plunged
him into an oil jar filled with ice water, causing his skin to peel all over his body. By the 18th Cesare was improving
but still very weak.
On hearing of his father’s death, Cesare gave orders to his faithful servant Michelotto to seize the Pope’s private
treasure, after which, as was the strange but hallowed custom of the time, the palace servants proceeded to ransack
the papal apartments. The situation in Rome was tense: the French army was encamped some forty miles north of
the city and a Spanish army was moving north from Naples. At the same time armed troops of the Colonna and
Orsini were entering the city, and already several of the barons deposed by Borgia had retaken their castles. Still
suffering with swollen feet, shrunken body and violent headaches, Il Valentino relocated his entourage from Rome to
Nepi in response to a request by the cardinals not to put obstacles in the way of the conclave to select a new pope by
his presence. The Orsinni and Colonna troops were removed from the city at the same time. Cesare had promised
support to both the Spanish and French ambassadors for their Papal candidates, but after an intense period of
negotiation, Cardinal Piccolomini, a compromise candidate, was elected as Pius III instead of either d’Amboise or,
della Rovere - a bitter enemy of the Borgias, who had just returned from ten years exile. Pius was friendly to Cesare
and allowed him to return to Rome with a small contingent of loyal retainers. But 27 days later Pius was dead and it
was clearly apparent that this time Cardinal della Rovere’s election could not be prevented.
Seeing no alternative Borgia changed his tactics, and promised support to della Rovere. But meanwhile Venice, not
waiting for the Papacy to organize its forces, seized Rimini, besieged Faenza and made overtures to take as much of
Romagna as possible. Della Rovere, now Pope Julius II, reconfirmed Borgia as Captain General of the Papal forces
and ordered him to go to Imola to recruit a new army. There was nothing at this point in their relationship to signal
the conflicts ahead; Il Valentino trusted the Pope’s promises and there was even talk of a marriage liaison between
Cesare’s daughter and the Pope’s nephew. As a gesture of trust the Pope gave him the town of Ostia, where galleys
were tied up in the harbor, and the Florentines were requested to give the duke safe-conduct for his army through
Tuscany. But where Borgia’s strength had always been inside information from Alexander, now he had none, and his
knowledge of the situation became more limited each day; nor was he receiving any directives from the Pope.
Machiavelli later expressed great surprise that Borgia could think “that another man will keep his word better than one
will one’s own.” Julius’ propagandists at this time increased their efforts to defame Borgia, with great success.
Chafing at the delay in receiving the safe-conduct, he requested leave from Julius to take his five galleys and depart
for Genoa, and thence to begin his campaign to regain the Romagna. But on 18 November, the Venetians captured
Faenza, and when the Pope met with the Venetian ambassador, and was told they were fighting the Borgias, not the
Papacy, he knew it was time to carry out what he had always intended. On November 19, Cesare left Rome for Ostia
and as he was preparing to embark, he was confronted by two cardinals, Remolines and Soderini, who ordered him
in the Pope’s name to give them the passwords for the forts in Romagna still controlled by Borgia. They said this was
necessary to organize resistance against the Venetians. Borgia refused and was immediately arrested by the captain
of the Papal fleet who had received prior secret orders. He was returned to Rome and subjected to house arrest,
replaced as Captain General, and his lieutenants arrested and troops disarmed. Realizing he had been betrayed, he
gave the Pope the passwords, but dispatched two confidants to take charge of his castles. When Julius heard of this
he flew into a rage and threw Cesare into prison. In April, after 5 months imprisonment and negotiation for his
release, and at the intercession of the Spanish ambassador, he was allowed to leave for Ostia, and from there to
Naples.
Cesare was not finished yet. Once feeling safe in Naples, where he was welcomed by Borgia cardinals and his
brother, Jofre, his confidence returned, and with questionable judgement he assembled a small force with which to
begin a campaign to retake the Romagna. But he was betrayed by his lieutenant, Gonsalvo de Cordoba who was
caught between an oath to Borgia and his loyalty to his sovereign. “Santa Maria,” Borgia cursed, “I am betrayed! How
cruelly Gonsalvo has dealt with me!” On orders from Ferdinand of Spain, at the request of Julius, he was arrested and
imprisoned once again, this time in the Castel Nuovo in Naples, where he bitterly recalled his own maxim: “It is good
to deceive those who are past masters in perfidy.”
The Duke of Valentinois’ fate was now in the hands of the Catholic King of Spain, who, strongly resenting his alliance
with the French king, ordered him transferred to Spain, where he was taken to the castle at Chinchilla, two miles
outside Valencia. There he was accused by the widow of the Duke of Gandia, his brother-in-law, of Gandia’s murder.
While awaiting trial at the Spanish court he was further accused of threatening the life of the governor of the town of
Chinchilla, and was moved to the royal fortress at Medina del Campo, far from the sea and chance of escape.
At Medina he became the center of additional Spanish intrigue that threatened to come to a head with the death of
Phillip, archduke of Austria, who was involved in the ticklish question of Spanish regency, and was warned that things
were about to get worse for him. With assistance from his wife, through the offices of her brother, the King of Navarre,
an escape was planned on 25 October, 1506, at the time of the changing of the guard. Ropes were smuggled into
the keep and hung from the tower window, but as he was climbing down, the alarm sounded and the rope was cut,
hurling him into the moat. Badly injured he was still able to mount the horse that was standing ready for him and ride
off into the night. He was secretly nursed back to heath in the town of Villalon in the lands of his ally Benavente, and a
month later he made his way to his brother-in-law’s kingdom of Navarre. During this month in hiding an inkeeper
noticed that “he kept to himself, wrapped in his cloak; he was heavy and of medium eight, with flaring nostrils and big
eyes, and that his hands were bandaged and that he seemed doubled up with a very ugly face, a big nose and dark
complexion. “ So he was perceived by local townspeople. His plan was to recover his funds and retake his lands in
Romagna.
When a vassal of the king, the Count of Lerin, rebelled against the king of Navarre, Cesare was appointed Captain
General of the royal troops and, with 1000 knights, 200 men in arms and 5000 infantry, invested the castle of the rebel
count. On the night of March 11, 1507, a relief column was discovered and the alarm sounded. Cesare, who was
sleeping, quickly donned his armor and mounted his horse, not waiting to see if anyone followed. Cursing and
blaspheming, he galloped through the castle gate, killing three men in the process, before being challenged by 20
knights on horseback, who drew him into a narrow lane. Wounded by a spear thrust into his armpit , he was
unhorsed, then stabbed from all sides. His naked, bleeding body was found by King Jean of Navarre and he was
buried with honors in a simple parish church of the name Santa Maria.
Machiavelli’s epitaph was thus: “he (Alexander) left the duke with the state of Romagna alone consolidated, with the
rest in the air, between two most powerful hostile armies, and sick unto death. Yet there were in the duke such
boldness and ability, and he knew so well how men are to be won or lost, so firm were the foundations which in his
short a time he had laid that if he had not had those armies on his back or if he had been in good health he would
have overcome all difficulties.”
The formal epitaph, written by the poet Soria appeared four years later in the Romancero Espanol, a book of Castilian
poetry:
Here in a scant spot of earth
Lies he whom all the earth once feared,
He who is in His hand once bore
Mankind’s fate of peace or war.
O you who now would wander wide
Seeking things that merit praise,
Here you may your journey stay:
Never farther seek to stray!
References:
The Italian People, Massimo Salvadori, Crown Publishers, Inc, NY, 1972
Lucrezia Borgia, Maria Bellonci, Pyramid Book, NY, 1973
The Borgias, Ivan Cloulas, Franklin Watts, NY, 1989
The Borgias, Michael Mallett, The Bodley Head, London, 1969
The Renaissance, Will Durant, Simon and Schuster, NY, 1953
Fortune is a River, Roger D. Masters, The Free Press, NY, 1998
Henri Cherriere Escapes From Devils’ Island
Henri Cherriere, or Papillon, as he was known, had lived outside the law, but was charged with a murder he did not
commit, the murder of a pimp and stool pigeon who operated in Montmartre section of Paris. Born to a family of
teachers in Ardeche, France, in 1906, he was man of action who loved life; and had a great warmth, a sharp eye, and
a rich and gravelly voice. He was twenty five years old when his lawyer, Raymond Hubert, assured him, “they have no
real proof. I’m confident we’ll be acquitted.” But “they” weren’t. Cherriere was sentenced to hard labor for life and
sent to Saint Laurent du Maroni in French Guiana.
No sooner had he arrived at the prison at Saint Laurent than he contrived to be entered into the hospital, from which
he promptly made an escape. Recaptured in Columbia, he was sent to a dungeon in Rio Hacha – the worst in all
Columbia - and escaped again to live in the mountains for seven months with the Guajira indians. Leaving them, he
was recaptured once again and turned over to the French, where he was imprisoned at Baranquilla, from which he
attempted escape four times before being packed off to the Iles du Salut, a prison island complex primarily for political
prisoners.
The penal colony of Iles du Salut consisted of three desolate rocky islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of
French Guiana. They made a triangle, with Royale and Saint Joseph at the base and Diable, nearest the mainland, at
the top. Royale, the largest of the islands, had a flat coastline, rising up to 600 feet to a plateau, heavy with coconut
palms, and with a number of administrative buildings. It was there Papillon began his confinement. But before it was
over he had lived on all three islands, with Diable the last.
Cherriere began his life on Royale with two years in solitary confinement, after which he attempted an abortive
escape. His next attempt was from the insane asylum on Saint Joseph where he was sent after feigning insanity; his
purpose? Attempting yet another escape. After that failure he asked for and was granted transfer to Diable – Devil’s
Island. At that time he was 35 years old and had been incarcerated for eleven years. His objective there was the
same: to escape.
Diable was the smallest of the three islands, and though closest to the mainland it was also the most exposed to
both wind and waves. Like Royale, it also had a piece of narrow flat coastline that rapidly gave way to a steep slope
that led to a high plateau on one side; on the other side were rugged cliffs and jagged rocks. A guardhouse was
located on the plateu, with the lone barracks building for the prisoners, of which there were only ten. Political
prisoners lived separately in a small tin roofed houses and there were about thirty of them; they stayed mostly to
themselves. Charierre lived in a room with six other men, one of whom was a professional pirate named Chang. He
had known Chang before.
Papillon’s assigned jobs were feeding the pigs and providing fish for the guards and other prisoners, but that left
plenty of time to sit and think and stare out over the ocean waves on the lonely rocky side of the island; since it was
considered impossible to escape from Diable the prisoners’ comings and goings were not closely controlled. His
thoughts were mainly of his next escape attempt, and almost without realizing it he began to come to know the quirks
of the wind and the waves. “When there was a storm,” he remembered, “the sea gave Diable the full force of its fury,
raging in to snatch its piece of the island, then sweeping it away. It hurled the water into every nook and cranny so as
to undermine little by little the giant rocks that seemed to say, You shall not pass. And that’s how I made a very
important discovery.” Near where he sat each day there was a small cove where the waves smashed and withdrew.
If he were to jump in at just the right time, he reasoned, with a bag of coconuts for a raft, there could be no doubt but
that he would be swept out to sea.
Sneaking out of the barracks several nights later, with coconuts gathered from the pigsty and sewn into a bag and
another with a rock about the weight of a man, he made his way to the lonely cove. He was accompanied by Chang
who had agreed to help him, as he knew he would need help to throw the heavy bags in at just the right time and at
the right place in the wave. “The light of the full moon made it as bright as day,” he was to write many years later. “The
noise of the waves was deafening. Chang said, ‘ready Papillon? Into the next one.’ A fifteen foot wave lunged at the
rock as if possessed and broke just below us, but the shock was so violent that the crest past over us and drenched
us. Still we were able to throw the sacks in at the moment the wave went into reverse. Like a straw, the bag was
swept back toward the open sea.”
Five minutes later, however, the bag of coconuts returned and was dashed against the rocks. It didn’t work. But
further study of the waves revealed something else. Only one out of seven had the size and force of the one that had
returned the bag – he named it Lissette after a girl he had known. If he waited until after the big one to jump in with
the bags, the ones that followed wouldn’t have the force to bring him back. He tried it again with Chang on a morning
when the guards were busy with inventory. And this time it worked; the bags did not return; four different times he saw
them beyond the swells, bobbing on the waves. He could barely contain his excitement.
Chang was not interested in accompanying Charriere, so he looked for another, and spent a week convincing a new
arrival to the island, Sylvain, a strong muscular man with intelligence, to accompany him. He figured he would benefit
by having a companion when he finally arrived on the mainland. Sylvain took some convincing. How long would it
take to get to the mainland? Cherriere didn’t know, but guessed about between 48 and 60 hours, demonstrating from
the wave drift the direction they would be traveling at a distance of 75 to 90 miles up the coast from the island;
Cherriere had become adept at evaluating distances at sea during his earlier escape attempts. Sylvain also wanted
to know what they would do when they landed. Chang had a brother on the mainland at a Chinese camp called Ilini;
he would help them. The big man allowed himself to be convinced. He was in.
They made their plans, and when the coconut rafts were ready they took ten days practicing riding on them in the sea
– a pair of bags for each man. It was not as easy as it seemed; they would have to make sure they didn’t fall asleep,
because if they fell off it might be difficult to climb back on again. They lined the bags to make them stronger and
bound them with braided hemp rope and brass wire, sewn with sail thread. Finally the time was set for the next
Sunday at ten o’clock at night, a time of full moon and twenty four inch tide.
Since it was common for them to slip out at night to fish or walk the island, no one thought anything of their leaving.
The night was dark, and overcast with threatening rain clouds and few stars. Chang, Sylvian and Cherriere made
their way quickly to the northern tip of the island where the rafts had been hidden in a cave, and pulled them out. By
then the clouds had passed over, revealing a full moon. They could see clearly now, but the wind was strong and
howled about them.
With Chang’s help they dragged the rafts to the top of the rock. “At the last moment,” remembered Cherriere, “I had
the idea of tying my left wrist to the rope around the sack. I was suddenly frightened at the thought of losing my sack
and being carried off without it….I tied a towel around my head. We had to wait out six waves. More than thirty
minutes.” Chang hugged him and kissed his cheek, then stretched out flat on the rock, wedged into a crack, to hold
their legs against the force of Lissette. The two escapees, holding their rafts also took their places, and waited.
Finally “Lissette was coming straight for us, standing up like the spire of a church. With her usual deafening roar she
broke over our rocks and swept towards the cliff….I threw myself in a fraction of a second before my buddy, but we
were close together as Lissette sucked us out into the open sea with dizzying speed. In less than five minutes we
were over three hundred yards from shore.” Five minutes later they were beyond the danger area and floating away
from the island, rising and falling with the heavy swells. “There’s no need to try to describe the agonies in my gut just
before, during and after the leap,” he wrote. After some more time Charriere caught sight of Sylvain about forty yards
ahead of him. He also caught sight of a tiny Chang waving a white towel from the cliffs they had left behind.
The night went smoothly and then he felt the change in direction of the sea, turning him toward the mainland. By the
time the sun rose he could already barely make out the islands in the distance. He ate sparingly of coconut pulp he
had brought with him, tied in a bag to the raft, and drank carefully from a limited supply of water from a leather bottle,
and also tied to the raft. From time to time as he topped a wave he caught sight of Sylvian. Then suddenly he was in
the water; the raft had turned over. Taking two huge gulps of sea water he almost drowned while grasping for the raft.
The chain around his wrist restricted his movement and he could neither right the raft or climb back on. He treaded
water, gasping for air, and finally succeeded in releasing the chain, not a moment too soon. He was too exhausted to
turn the raft back over, but managed to drag himself back onto it.
The morning sun seared his arms and legs as he lay there, and his face burned painfully. Soon the wind died down.
But then his legs began to cramp and he could do nothing about it. By four in the afternoon he had made eye contact
again with Sylvain, and from then on was in almost view, about 300 yards away. Just before dark, after five tries he
was finally able to turn the raft back over; his food and water bags were attached on the other side and desperate
thirst and hunger lent him strength. Again he was exhausted by the effort, and he was barely able to make it back up
on the raft. He reattached the chain to his belt, but this time making sure it was not so short as to restrict him again;
he was afraid of falling asleep and rolling off. By then the wind had picked up noticeably and it began to clear at about
ten o’clock His stomach cramped and he was wet to the crotch; but no waves came higher than his waist. Despite
trying to resist it, he dropped off to sleep fitfully. He was wracked with fearful anxiety and his head ached.
Late into the second night a freak wave broke over the raft, soaking him thoroughly, but bringing him to his senses.
He had been in the water for over 30 hours and was shivering with cold. “I sat for a long time in an Arab squat. The
change helped. I looked for Sylvain across the brightly moonlit sea, but the moon was so low that it shown in my eyes
and made it hard to see. I couldn’t find him. He had nothing to attach himself to his sacks. Could he have fallen off?
It worried me and I kept looking for him in vein.” He knew when the sun came up it would start cooking him again.
His lips were already burning and so were his arms and legs; the salt water had rubbed him raw between the legs.
But he was free, he kept reminding himself, and there had been no sign of sharks; he was going to make it.
When the tropical sun reappeared in the sky it burned intensely. His left eye was almost glued shut. But he could see
the tops of the trees on the mainland, and they did not seem far off. Then from the top of a wave he spied Sylain
sitting on his raft, less than 200 yards away; finally he got his attention and they waved a greeting. “We waved hello at
least twenty times before we sat down again. Each time a wave peaked, we hailed each other, for luckily we were
rising and falling to the same rhythm. On the last two waves he held his arm out toward the bush, which was now very
distinct. It couldn’t have been more than six or seven miles away. I lost my balance and fell in a sitting position on the
raft. I was so overcome with joy to see my buddy and the bush so near I wept like a child. The tears in my pus-filled
eyes became a thousand little crystals of every color. Like stained glass windows, I thought.”
Suddenly the shore was nearer and the waves moving faster. The details of the trees became clear and he saw birds
and dolphins. At about noon, with the tropical sun directly overhead, he heard the waves breaking on a sand bar just
off the beach. He could see Sylvain most of the time now. Then suddenly he ran aground – quicksand. They had
been warned that it was there and treacherous, and to watch out for it. He knew he would have to wait another three
hours for the tide to come in. But Sylvain would not wait and jumped off his raft into the water, making signs for him to
follow. Cherriere yelled at him not to leave the raft, but the distance was too far. Sylvain had moved about ten yards
from his raft and was already sunk up to his waist.
Terror claimed Cherriere and he paddled wildly toward his buddy. “Sylvain, Sylvain! Don’t move! Lie flat on the
quicksand. Try to free your legs.” But it was no use. He had clawed within thirty yards of the stricken man when a
giant breaker covered him with an avalanche of water, pushing him forward another five or six yards, but when it
subsided Sylvain was gone, and he was alone. Thereafter each wave carried Cherriere a little closer to the trees, but
he was resolved not to make a move until he had a branch of liana in his hand. Twenty yards to go; it took almost an
hour to travel that distance.
“Quickly, before the sun went down, I crept into the bush, half swimming, half walking for there was quicksand
everywhere. The water penetrated so deeply into the bush that, as night fell, I was still far from dry land. The odor of
rot assaulted my nose and the gas was so strong it stung my eyes. My legs were covered with grass and leaves.
Each time I tool a step, I first felt the ground under the water. I moved forward only when I met resistance.” He spent
that night on the trunk of a fallen tree. When he awoke the tide had come back in and he had to wait for several more
hours before he could move. He had run out of drinking water. Finally he was able to walk to the beach, and suddenly
he was on solid land.
Cherriere found the path that led to the Chinese camp and was taken to Chang’s brother who took him by boat to
Georgetown and freedom. His adventures were far from over, but he had escaped from Devil’s Island, never to be
returned.
Years later, when 63 years old and living in Venezuela, he chanced to pick up a book entitled L’Astragale, written by
Albertine Sarrazin about his adventures. Following his example, with no contacts and no literary ambition, Cherriere
sat down with a student spiral notebook and began writing; “Here are my adventures:” he said in a letter to Sarrazin’s
publisher, Jean-Pierre Castelnau, “have a professional write them up.” He had finished the story in thirteen
notebooks in the space of two months. Castelnau, however, altered virtually nothing in the detail, and Papillon was
published just like Cherriere had written it, as the simple, unpretentious story of his great adventure.
Henri Cherriere, or Papillon, as he was known, had lived outside the law, but was charged with a murder he did not
commit, the murder of a pimp and stool pigeon who operated in Montmartre section of Paris. Born to a family of
teachers in Ardeche, France, in 1906, he was man of action who loved life; and had a great warmth, a sharp eye, and
a rich and gravelly voice. He was twenty five years old when his lawyer, Raymond Hubert, assured him, “they have no
real proof. I’m confident we’ll be acquitted.” But “they” weren’t. Cherriere was sentenced to hard labor for life and
sent to Saint Laurent du Maroni in French Guiana.
No sooner had he arrived at the prison at Saint Laurent than he contrived to be entered into the hospital, from which
he promptly made an escape. Recaptured in Columbia, he was sent to a dungeon in Rio Hacha – the worst in all
Columbia - and escaped again to live in the mountains for seven months with the Guajira indians. Leaving them, he
was recaptured once again and turned over to the French, where he was imprisoned at Baranquilla, from which he
attempted escape four times before being packed off to the Iles du Salut, a prison island complex primarily for political
prisoners.
The penal colony of Iles du Salut consisted of three desolate rocky islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of
French Guiana. They made a triangle, with Royale and Saint Joseph at the base and Diable, nearest the mainland, at
the top. Royale, the largest of the islands, had a flat coastline, rising up to 600 feet to a plateau, heavy with coconut
palms, and with a number of administrative buildings. It was there Papillon began his confinement. But before it was
over he had lived on all three islands, with Diable the last.
Cherriere began his life on Royale with two years in solitary confinement, after which he attempted an abortive
escape. His next attempt was from the insane asylum on Saint Joseph where he was sent after feigning insanity; his
purpose? Attempting yet another escape. After that failure he asked for and was granted transfer to Diable – Devil’s
Island. At that time he was 35 years old and had been incarcerated for eleven years. His objective there was the
same: to escape.
Diable was the smallest of the three islands, and though closest to the mainland it was also the most exposed to
both wind and waves. Like Royale, it also had a piece of narrow flat coastline that rapidly gave way to a steep slope
that led to a high plateau on one side; on the other side were rugged cliffs and jagged rocks. A guardhouse was
located on the plateu, with the lone barracks building for the prisoners, of which there were only ten. Political
prisoners lived separately in a small tin roofed houses and there were about thirty of them; they stayed mostly to
themselves. Charierre lived in a room with six other men, one of whom was a professional pirate named Chang. He
had known Chang before.
Papillon’s assigned jobs were feeding the pigs and providing fish for the guards and other prisoners, but that left
plenty of time to sit and think and stare out over the ocean waves on the lonely rocky side of the island; since it was
considered impossible to escape from Diable the prisoners’ comings and goings were not closely controlled. His
thoughts were mainly of his next escape attempt, and almost without realizing it he began to come to know the quirks
of the wind and the waves. “When there was a storm,” he remembered, “the sea gave Diable the full force of its fury,
raging in to snatch its piece of the island, then sweeping it away. It hurled the water into every nook and cranny so as
to undermine little by little the giant rocks that seemed to say, You shall not pass. And that’s how I made a very
important discovery.” Near where he sat each day there was a small cove where the waves smashed and withdrew.
If he were to jump in at just the right time, he reasoned, with a bag of coconuts for a raft, there could be no doubt but
that he would be swept out to sea.
Sneaking out of the barracks several nights later, with coconuts gathered from the pigsty and sewn into a bag and
another with a rock about the weight of a man, he made his way to the lonely cove. He was accompanied by Chang
who had agreed to help him, as he knew he would need help to throw the heavy bags in at just the right time and at
the right place in the wave. “The light of the full moon made it as bright as day,” he was to write many years later. “The
noise of the waves was deafening. Chang said, ‘ready Papillon? Into the next one.’ A fifteen foot wave lunged at the
rock as if possessed and broke just below us, but the shock was so violent that the crest past over us and drenched
us. Still we were able to throw the sacks in at the moment the wave went into reverse. Like a straw, the bag was
swept back toward the open sea.”
Five minutes later, however, the bag of coconuts returned and was dashed against the rocks. It didn’t work. But
further study of the waves revealed something else. Only one out of seven had the size and force of the one that had
returned the bag – he named it Lissette after a girl he had known. If he waited until after the big one to jump in with
the bags, the ones that followed wouldn’t have the force to bring him back. He tried it again with Chang on a morning
when the guards were busy with inventory. And this time it worked; the bags did not return; four different times he saw
them beyond the swells, bobbing on the waves. He could barely contain his excitement.
Chang was not interested in accompanying Charriere, so he looked for another, and spent a week convincing a new
arrival to the island, Sylvain, a strong muscular man with intelligence, to accompany him. He figured he would benefit
by having a companion when he finally arrived on the mainland. Sylvain took some convincing. How long would it
take to get to the mainland? Cherriere didn’t know, but guessed about between 48 and 60 hours, demonstrating from
the wave drift the direction they would be traveling at a distance of 75 to 90 miles up the coast from the island;
Cherriere had become adept at evaluating distances at sea during his earlier escape attempts. Sylvain also wanted
to know what they would do when they landed. Chang had a brother on the mainland at a Chinese camp called Ilini;
he would help them. The big man allowed himself to be convinced. He was in.
They made their plans, and when the coconut rafts were ready they took ten days practicing riding on them in the sea
– a pair of bags for each man. It was not as easy as it seemed; they would have to make sure they didn’t fall asleep,
because if they fell off it might be difficult to climb back on again. They lined the bags to make them stronger and
bound them with braided hemp rope and brass wire, sewn with sail thread. Finally the time was set for the next
Sunday at ten o’clock at night, a time of full moon and twenty four inch tide.
Since it was common for them to slip out at night to fish or walk the island, no one thought anything of their leaving.
The night was dark, and overcast with threatening rain clouds and few stars. Chang, Sylvian and Cherriere made
their way quickly to the northern tip of the island where the rafts had been hidden in a cave, and pulled them out. By
then the clouds had passed over, revealing a full moon. They could see clearly now, but the wind was strong and
howled about them.
With Chang’s help they dragged the rafts to the top of the rock. “At the last moment,” remembered Cherriere, “I had
the idea of tying my left wrist to the rope around the sack. I was suddenly frightened at the thought of losing my sack
and being carried off without it….I tied a towel around my head. We had to wait out six waves. More than thirty
minutes.” Chang hugged him and kissed his cheek, then stretched out flat on the rock, wedged into a crack, to hold
their legs against the force of Lissette. The two escapees, holding their rafts also took their places, and waited.
Finally “Lissette was coming straight for us, standing up like the spire of a church. With her usual deafening roar she
broke over our rocks and swept towards the cliff….I threw myself in a fraction of a second before my buddy, but we
were close together as Lissette sucked us out into the open sea with dizzying speed. In less than five minutes we
were over three hundred yards from shore.” Five minutes later they were beyond the danger area and floating away
from the island, rising and falling with the heavy swells. “There’s no need to try to describe the agonies in my gut just
before, during and after the leap,” he wrote. After some more time Charriere caught sight of Sylvain about forty yards
ahead of him. He also caught sight of a tiny Chang waving a white towel from the cliffs they had left behind.
The night went smoothly and then he felt the change in direction of the sea, turning him toward the mainland. By the
time the sun rose he could already barely make out the islands in the distance. He ate sparingly of coconut pulp he
had brought with him, tied in a bag to the raft, and drank carefully from a limited supply of water from a leather bottle,
and also tied to the raft. From time to time as he topped a wave he caught sight of Sylvian. Then suddenly he was in
the water; the raft had turned over. Taking two huge gulps of sea water he almost drowned while grasping for the raft.
The chain around his wrist restricted his movement and he could neither right the raft or climb back on. He treaded
water, gasping for air, and finally succeeded in releasing the chain, not a moment too soon. He was too exhausted to
turn the raft back over, but managed to drag himself back onto it.
The morning sun seared his arms and legs as he lay there, and his face burned painfully. Soon the wind died down.
But then his legs began to cramp and he could do nothing about it. By four in the afternoon he had made eye contact
again with Sylvain, and from then on was in almost view, about 300 yards away. Just before dark, after five tries he
was finally able to turn the raft back over; his food and water bags were attached on the other side and desperate
thirst and hunger lent him strength. Again he was exhausted by the effort, and he was barely able to make it back up
on the raft. He reattached the chain to his belt, but this time making sure it was not so short as to restrict him again;
he was afraid of falling asleep and rolling off. By then the wind had picked up noticeably and it began to clear at about
ten o’clock His stomach cramped and he was wet to the crotch; but no waves came higher than his waist. Despite
trying to resist it, he dropped off to sleep fitfully. He was wracked with fearful anxiety and his head ached.
Late into the second night a freak wave broke over the raft, soaking him thoroughly, but bringing him to his senses.
He had been in the water for over 30 hours and was shivering with cold. “I sat for a long time in an Arab squat. The
change helped. I looked for Sylvain across the brightly moonlit sea, but the moon was so low that it shown in my eyes
and made it hard to see. I couldn’t find him. He had nothing to attach himself to his sacks. Could he have fallen off?
It worried me and I kept looking for him in vein.” He knew when the sun came up it would start cooking him again.
His lips were already burning and so were his arms and legs; the salt water had rubbed him raw between the legs.
But he was free, he kept reminding himself, and there had been no sign of sharks; he was going to make it.
When the tropical sun reappeared in the sky it burned intensely. His left eye was almost glued shut. But he could see
the tops of the trees on the mainland, and they did not seem far off. Then from the top of a wave he spied Sylain
sitting on his raft, less than 200 yards away; finally he got his attention and they waved a greeting. “We waved hello at
least twenty times before we sat down again. Each time a wave peaked, we hailed each other, for luckily we were
rising and falling to the same rhythm. On the last two waves he held his arm out toward the bush, which was now very
distinct. It couldn’t have been more than six or seven miles away. I lost my balance and fell in a sitting position on the
raft. I was so overcome with joy to see my buddy and the bush so near I wept like a child. The tears in my pus-filled
eyes became a thousand little crystals of every color. Like stained glass windows, I thought.”
Suddenly the shore was nearer and the waves moving faster. The details of the trees became clear and he saw birds
and dolphins. At about noon, with the tropical sun directly overhead, he heard the waves breaking on a sand bar just
off the beach. He could see Sylvain most of the time now. Then suddenly he ran aground – quicksand. They had
been warned that it was there and treacherous, and to watch out for it. He knew he would have to wait another three
hours for the tide to come in. But Sylvain would not wait and jumped off his raft into the water, making signs for him to
follow. Cherriere yelled at him not to leave the raft, but the distance was too far. Sylvain had moved about ten yards
from his raft and was already sunk up to his waist.
Terror claimed Cherriere and he paddled wildly toward his buddy. “Sylvain, Sylvain! Don’t move! Lie flat on the
quicksand. Try to free your legs.” But it was no use. He had clawed within thirty yards of the stricken man when a
giant breaker covered him with an avalanche of water, pushing him forward another five or six yards, but when it
subsided Sylvain was gone, and he was alone. Thereafter each wave carried Cherriere a little closer to the trees, but
he was resolved not to make a move until he had a branch of liana in his hand. Twenty yards to go; it took almost an
hour to travel that distance.
“Quickly, before the sun went down, I crept into the bush, half swimming, half walking for there was quicksand
everywhere. The water penetrated so deeply into the bush that, as night fell, I was still far from dry land. The odor of
rot assaulted my nose and the gas was so strong it stung my eyes. My legs were covered with grass and leaves.
Each time I tool a step, I first felt the ground under the water. I moved forward only when I met resistance.” He spent
that night on the trunk of a fallen tree. When he awoke the tide had come back in and he had to wait for several more
hours before he could move. He had run out of drinking water. Finally he was able to walk to the beach, and suddenly
he was on solid land.
Cherriere found the path that led to the Chinese camp and was taken to Chang’s brother who took him by boat to
Georgetown and freedom. His adventures were far from over, but he had escaped from Devil’s Island, never to be
returned.
Years later, when 63 years old and living in Venezuela, he chanced to pick up a book entitled L’Astragale, written by
Albertine Sarrazin about his adventures. Following his example, with no contacts and no literary ambition, Cherriere
sat down with a student spiral notebook and began writing; “Here are my adventures:” he said in a letter to Sarrazin’s
publisher, Jean-Pierre Castelnau, “have a professional write them up.” He had finished the story in thirteen
notebooks in the space of two months. Castelnau, however, altered virtually nothing in the detail, and Papillon was
published just like Cherriere had written it, as the simple, unpretentious story of his great adventure.
Events Leading up to the Murder of John the ‘Red’ Comyn by Robert the Bruce
The Comyn family name (also spelled Cumin or Cumming) came from Comines, near Lisle in northern France, on
the frontier with Belgium. Although they claimed to be direct descendents of Charlegmagne, they were not among the
landed nobility of Normandy (as were the Bruces, another family to become members of the new Scottish aristocray),
and in fact were probably a family of clerks from cathedral towns such as Bayeux and Rouen. Robert de Comyn
accompanied William the Conqueror to England in 1066 and was given lands in Northumberland. His grandson,
William, came to Scotland during the reign of David I, and was given lands in Roxburghshire; King David I, a Scot by
birth, actively encouraged Anglo-Normans from England to join the Scottish Royal household throughout his reign.
William eventually rose to be Chancellor of Scotland and his nephew married to Hexilda, a granddaughter of Donald
III, second son of Duncan I.
This alliance of mutual self-interest with the Scottish monarchy was to be a trademark of the Comyns during the family’
s rise through the 13h century. Richard Cumin (Comyn),William’s nephew, was awarded the lands of Warwick,
Thornton, Staincroft and Henshaw in Tynedale as a gift on his marriage to Hextilda. These lands were confirmed by
both Henry II and Henry III and remained in Comyn hands until early in the next century. By the middle of the century,
as a result of good marriages, the family held 3 earldoms: Monteith, Menteith and Atholl and Buchan. By 1244 both
Alexander II of Scotland and Henry II of England were concerned enough by Comyn power to attempt to curb it. It was
to be several more years before the Bruce and Balliol families were to achieve similar prominence.
When Alexander II, who became king in 1214 following the death of William the Lion, died in 1249, and his seven year
old son became king, Comyn power was threatened by the control of the government by its main advisor, Alan
Durwood. The Comyn ‘party’ appeal to Henry III to help preserve Alexander’s monarchy was quickly granted, and
Comyns replaced Durwood as Alexander’s chief advisors. Four years later, however, Henry III found it expedient to
support a counter-coup and Durwood was returned to power. In 1255 Comyn agents, supported by the church,
kidnapped the Scottish king and regained power, leading ultimately to a compromise, reached in 1258. With it,
however, and with the more active control of government by Alexander, the Comyn power was to be severely
challenged.
On a dark stormy night in 1286, Alexander III, on his way to Kinghorn to meet his new French wife, died suddenly when
his horse fell over a cliff, and everything suddenly changed. His granddaughter, three year old Margaret, was
proclaimed queen, and a council of six appointed to advise her. Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan; John Comyn, lord
of Badenoch; and William Fraser, bishop of St. Andrews represented Balliol interests. James Stewart and Robert
Wishart represented the Bruce interests. Duncan, earl of Fife, was identified with neither party. Margaret, however,
who was to have been married to the heir of Edward I of England, died four years later, before the wedding could take
place, leaving 13 claimants for the Scottish throne. Edward was invited to decide among them, and agreed, provided
the successor recognized him as overlord of Scotland, a demand Scots were not in a position to deny. John de
Balliol, brother-in-law to John Comyn, known as ‘the Black’ Comyn, was his choice and became king in 1292. Balliol’
s claim to the throne was through his grandmother, daughter of a brother of King William the Lion.
The Bruces were not content with this decision and withdrew from participation in the government. In the meantime
Edward I increased his interference in Scottish affairs and when war broke out between England and France Balliol
was ordered to support the English king. But the Scottish nobles were opposed, and taking the reigns from Balliol
and giving them to a Council of Twelve, they sought an alliance with the French. Scottish allegiances were thus split,
with the Bruces pledging to Edward, the Comyns for the most part siding with Scottish independence. War broke out
in 1296 and an English army dealt heavy casualties in taking the city of Berwick; the Scots, in retaliation, invaded
Northumberland and took the town of Dunbar. The city was quickly reinvested by English troops, however, and in
trying to break the siege, a Scots army was destroyed, resulting in a formal Balliol surrender to Edward. This phase of
the war had lasted only 21 weeks, after which a number of Comyns, including the younger John, known as ‘the Red’
Comyn, were sent to England and ordered to remain there under English observation, leaving the way open for the
Bruces.
A year later another revolt broke out, this time led by William Wallace and supported by commoners, but initially not
nobles. A stunning victory over the English was gained at Stirling Bridge, after which Wallace invaded
Northumberland and Cumberland. But he was defeated the next year at Falkirk and later executed in London. The
elder Robert Bruce had fought on the side of the English, but his son, also Robert, had apparently changed his
allegiance and was assisting Wallace and the rebels at Ayr.
Edward, however, was unable to consolidate his victory over the Scots, and a new Guardianship, established in 1298,
left Scottish noblemen still controlling the government. In the absence of the Comyns, the younger Robert Bruce had
gained considerable power, but both Bruce and John ‘the Red’ Comyn, were initially represented in the new
Guardianship. The power struggle for dominance in Scotland that had developed between them intensified with each
passing year.
By 1300 Bruce was beginning to find his position in Scotland more and more difficult. The new Guardianship had
become more Comyn oriented with the addition of a Comyn ally, and most of the southwest of Scotland, where Bruce’
s lands lay, was under English control; the Comyn lands were mostly in the north. It was also apparent that, as the
result of a truce, John Balliol appeared likely be returning to Scotland as king. This all made another alliance with
Edward appear expedient for Bruce; and it was concluded in February of 1302.
In May of the next year Edward launched another campaign against Scotland, concentrating his effort in the north,
where the Comyn lands lay. John ‘the Red’ Comyn led negotiations for wholesale Scottish submission in January
and February of 1304, shortly after they had lost their only ally, France; Scotland appeared to have finally been
subjected. In 1304 John Comyn also gave his allegiance to Edward and sat on his “Scottish Council.”
At this point Robert Bruce, realizing that Edward was having difficulty with his own nobles, began to develop new ideas
with regard to his family’s long cherished ambitions. They included plans within the next two years to resume the war
of Scottish independence, with a goal of making himself king of the Scots. There was no doubt, however, that John
‘the Red’ Comyn, who still held considerable power among the Scottish nobles, had to be taken into consideration.
The chroniclers of the time, tending toward either Scottish or English traditions, are less than reliable, but one thing is
probably undeniable: both Bruce and Comyn were motivated by their own personal power first and foremost, and
there was need for discussions between them.
In this interest Bruce sent two of his brothers to Comyn’s castle at Dalswinton to meet with him to discuss ‘certain
business’. This business surely had to do with addressing Robert Bruce’s plans, and discussing how Comyn could
be accommodated within them. A meeting was set up between Robert Bruce and ‘the Red Comyn’ for the 10th of
February in the year 1306, at the Greyfriars Franciscan church in the royal burgh of Dumfries, situated on the River Nith
five miles north-west of Carlisle and 90 miles south-west of Edinburgh.
When the two men met in the church the meeting apparently began in friendly fashion, but their mutual antagonism
had been too deep, for too long, and there was too much at stake for each. Bruce abruptly turned and accused
Comyn of reporting to Edward that he, Bruce, was plotting against English rule. A heated argument ensued and each
accused the other of treachery. Suddenly Bruce struck Comyn with a dagger and immediately following Bruce’s men
attacked Comyn’s with swords. John Comyn fell to the ground and his uncle, Robert, was killed when he attempted to
defend his nephew. ‘The Red’ Comyn was initially left for dead, but Bruce’s men shortly returned to make sure, and
finished the job. Although Comyn was a serious rival, it is doubtful the murder was premeditated, but it marked the
decisive event in Bruce’s seizure of the Scottish throne.
Within weeks, on March 25, Robert Bruce was crowned king of Scotland at Scone, and although he was later
excommunicated for the bloody deed at Greyfriars, he remained king until his death in 1329. On his way to re-conquer
Scotland, Edward I died at Burgh by Sands, near Carlisle on July 7, 1307, and the Scots were aided by the ineptness
of his heir, Edward II. The Battle of Bannockburn was fought in June 1314.
References:
Alan Young, Robert the Bruce’s Rivals: The Comyns, 1212-1314. Tuckwell Press, East Linton, Scotland, 1998.
The Ecyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., Chicago/London, 1974
George Way of Plean and Romilly Squire, Scottish Clan & Family Encyclopedia, Harper Collins Publishers, Glascow,
Scotland,1994.
Cliff Hanley, History of Scotland, Brompton Books Corp, Greenwich CT, 1986.
Scotland in Color, Color Library Books, Ltd., Guildford , Surrey, England, 1988.
Baliol, John de, 1249-1315, king of Scotland, http://www.bartleby/65/ba/BaliolJ-kng.html.
Murder of ‘The Red’ Comyn’ 1306, http://www.scotclans.com/clans/1306c.html.
Comyn, John (Red Comyn), d 1306, Scottish nobleman, http://bartleby.com/65/co/ComynJ-Red.html.
Published in The Highlander Magazine
.
The Comyn family name (also spelled Cumin or Cumming) came from Comines, near Lisle in northern France, on
the frontier with Belgium. Although they claimed to be direct descendents of Charlegmagne, they were not among the
landed nobility of Normandy (as were the Bruces, another family to become members of the new Scottish aristocray),
and in fact were probably a family of clerks from cathedral towns such as Bayeux and Rouen. Robert de Comyn
accompanied William the Conqueror to England in 1066 and was given lands in Northumberland. His grandson,
William, came to Scotland during the reign of David I, and was given lands in Roxburghshire; King David I, a Scot by
birth, actively encouraged Anglo-Normans from England to join the Scottish Royal household throughout his reign.
William eventually rose to be Chancellor of Scotland and his nephew married to Hexilda, a granddaughter of Donald
III, second son of Duncan I.
This alliance of mutual self-interest with the Scottish monarchy was to be a trademark of the Comyns during the family’
s rise through the 13h century. Richard Cumin (Comyn),William’s nephew, was awarded the lands of Warwick,
Thornton, Staincroft and Henshaw in Tynedale as a gift on his marriage to Hextilda. These lands were confirmed by
both Henry II and Henry III and remained in Comyn hands until early in the next century. By the middle of the century,
as a result of good marriages, the family held 3 earldoms: Monteith, Menteith and Atholl and Buchan. By 1244 both
Alexander II of Scotland and Henry II of England were concerned enough by Comyn power to attempt to curb it. It was
to be several more years before the Bruce and Balliol families were to achieve similar prominence.
When Alexander II, who became king in 1214 following the death of William the Lion, died in 1249, and his seven year
old son became king, Comyn power was threatened by the control of the government by its main advisor, Alan
Durwood. The Comyn ‘party’ appeal to Henry III to help preserve Alexander’s monarchy was quickly granted, and
Comyns replaced Durwood as Alexander’s chief advisors. Four years later, however, Henry III found it expedient to
support a counter-coup and Durwood was returned to power. In 1255 Comyn agents, supported by the church,
kidnapped the Scottish king and regained power, leading ultimately to a compromise, reached in 1258. With it,
however, and with the more active control of government by Alexander, the Comyn power was to be severely
challenged.
On a dark stormy night in 1286, Alexander III, on his way to Kinghorn to meet his new French wife, died suddenly when
his horse fell over a cliff, and everything suddenly changed. His granddaughter, three year old Margaret, was
proclaimed queen, and a council of six appointed to advise her. Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan; John Comyn, lord
of Badenoch; and William Fraser, bishop of St. Andrews represented Balliol interests. James Stewart and Robert
Wishart represented the Bruce interests. Duncan, earl of Fife, was identified with neither party. Margaret, however,
who was to have been married to the heir of Edward I of England, died four years later, before the wedding could take
place, leaving 13 claimants for the Scottish throne. Edward was invited to decide among them, and agreed, provided
the successor recognized him as overlord of Scotland, a demand Scots were not in a position to deny. John de
Balliol, brother-in-law to John Comyn, known as ‘the Black’ Comyn, was his choice and became king in 1292. Balliol’
s claim to the throne was through his grandmother, daughter of a brother of King William the Lion.
The Bruces were not content with this decision and withdrew from participation in the government. In the meantime
Edward I increased his interference in Scottish affairs and when war broke out between England and France Balliol
was ordered to support the English king. But the Scottish nobles were opposed, and taking the reigns from Balliol
and giving them to a Council of Twelve, they sought an alliance with the French. Scottish allegiances were thus split,
with the Bruces pledging to Edward, the Comyns for the most part siding with Scottish independence. War broke out
in 1296 and an English army dealt heavy casualties in taking the city of Berwick; the Scots, in retaliation, invaded
Northumberland and took the town of Dunbar. The city was quickly reinvested by English troops, however, and in
trying to break the siege, a Scots army was destroyed, resulting in a formal Balliol surrender to Edward. This phase of
the war had lasted only 21 weeks, after which a number of Comyns, including the younger John, known as ‘the Red’
Comyn, were sent to England and ordered to remain there under English observation, leaving the way open for the
Bruces.
A year later another revolt broke out, this time led by William Wallace and supported by commoners, but initially not
nobles. A stunning victory over the English was gained at Stirling Bridge, after which Wallace invaded
Northumberland and Cumberland. But he was defeated the next year at Falkirk and later executed in London. The
elder Robert Bruce had fought on the side of the English, but his son, also Robert, had apparently changed his
allegiance and was assisting Wallace and the rebels at Ayr.
Edward, however, was unable to consolidate his victory over the Scots, and a new Guardianship, established in 1298,
left Scottish noblemen still controlling the government. In the absence of the Comyns, the younger Robert Bruce had
gained considerable power, but both Bruce and John ‘the Red’ Comyn, were initially represented in the new
Guardianship. The power struggle for dominance in Scotland that had developed between them intensified with each
passing year.
By 1300 Bruce was beginning to find his position in Scotland more and more difficult. The new Guardianship had
become more Comyn oriented with the addition of a Comyn ally, and most of the southwest of Scotland, where Bruce’
s lands lay, was under English control; the Comyn lands were mostly in the north. It was also apparent that, as the
result of a truce, John Balliol appeared likely be returning to Scotland as king. This all made another alliance with
Edward appear expedient for Bruce; and it was concluded in February of 1302.
In May of the next year Edward launched another campaign against Scotland, concentrating his effort in the north,
where the Comyn lands lay. John ‘the Red’ Comyn led negotiations for wholesale Scottish submission in January
and February of 1304, shortly after they had lost their only ally, France; Scotland appeared to have finally been
subjected. In 1304 John Comyn also gave his allegiance to Edward and sat on his “Scottish Council.”
At this point Robert Bruce, realizing that Edward was having difficulty with his own nobles, began to develop new ideas
with regard to his family’s long cherished ambitions. They included plans within the next two years to resume the war
of Scottish independence, with a goal of making himself king of the Scots. There was no doubt, however, that John
‘the Red’ Comyn, who still held considerable power among the Scottish nobles, had to be taken into consideration.
The chroniclers of the time, tending toward either Scottish or English traditions, are less than reliable, but one thing is
probably undeniable: both Bruce and Comyn were motivated by their own personal power first and foremost, and
there was need for discussions between them.
In this interest Bruce sent two of his brothers to Comyn’s castle at Dalswinton to meet with him to discuss ‘certain
business’. This business surely had to do with addressing Robert Bruce’s plans, and discussing how Comyn could
be accommodated within them. A meeting was set up between Robert Bruce and ‘the Red Comyn’ for the 10th of
February in the year 1306, at the Greyfriars Franciscan church in the royal burgh of Dumfries, situated on the River Nith
five miles north-west of Carlisle and 90 miles south-west of Edinburgh.
When the two men met in the church the meeting apparently began in friendly fashion, but their mutual antagonism
had been too deep, for too long, and there was too much at stake for each. Bruce abruptly turned and accused
Comyn of reporting to Edward that he, Bruce, was plotting against English rule. A heated argument ensued and each
accused the other of treachery. Suddenly Bruce struck Comyn with a dagger and immediately following Bruce’s men
attacked Comyn’s with swords. John Comyn fell to the ground and his uncle, Robert, was killed when he attempted to
defend his nephew. ‘The Red’ Comyn was initially left for dead, but Bruce’s men shortly returned to make sure, and
finished the job. Although Comyn was a serious rival, it is doubtful the murder was premeditated, but it marked the
decisive event in Bruce’s seizure of the Scottish throne.
Within weeks, on March 25, Robert Bruce was crowned king of Scotland at Scone, and although he was later
excommunicated for the bloody deed at Greyfriars, he remained king until his death in 1329. On his way to re-conquer
Scotland, Edward I died at Burgh by Sands, near Carlisle on July 7, 1307, and the Scots were aided by the ineptness
of his heir, Edward II. The Battle of Bannockburn was fought in June 1314.
References:
Alan Young, Robert the Bruce’s Rivals: The Comyns, 1212-1314. Tuckwell Press, East Linton, Scotland, 1998.
The Ecyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., Chicago/London, 1974
George Way of Plean and Romilly Squire, Scottish Clan & Family Encyclopedia, Harper Collins Publishers, Glascow,
Scotland,1994.
Cliff Hanley, History of Scotland, Brompton Books Corp, Greenwich CT, 1986.
Scotland in Color, Color Library Books, Ltd., Guildford , Surrey, England, 1988.
Baliol, John de, 1249-1315, king of Scotland, http://www.bartleby/65/ba/BaliolJ-kng.html.
Murder of ‘The Red’ Comyn’ 1306, http://www.scotclans.com/clans/1306c.html.
Comyn, John (Red Comyn), d 1306, Scottish nobleman, http://bartleby.com/65/co/ComynJ-Red.html.
Published in The Highlander Magazine
.
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