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Chapter III.
Chapter III.
Of Mixed Princedoms
But in new Princedoms difficulties abound. And, first, if the Princedom
be not wholly new, but joined on to the ancient dominions of the Prince, so as
to form with them what may be termed a mixed Princedom, changes will come from
a cause common to all new States, namely, that men, thinking to better their
condition, are always ready to change masters, and in this expectation will
take up arms against any ruler; wherein they deceive themselves, and find
afterwards by experience that they are worse off than before. This again
results naturally and necessarily from the circumstance that the Prince cannot
avoid giving offence to his new subjects, either in respect of the troops he
quarters on them, or of some other of the numberless vexations attendant on a
new acquisition. And in this way you may find that you have enemies in all
those whom you have injured in seizing the Princedom, yet cannot keep the
friendship of those who helped you to gain it; since you can neither reward
them as they expect, nor yet, being under obligations to them, use violent
remedies against them. For however strong you may be in respect of your army,
it is essential that in entering a new Province you should have the good will
of its inhabitants.
Hence it happened that Louis XII of France, speedily gaining possession
of Milan, as speedily lost it; and that on the occasion of its first capture,
Lodovico Sforza was able with his own forces only to take it from him. For
the very people who had opened the gates to the French King, when they found
themselves deceived in their expectations and hopes of future benefits, could
not put up with the insolence of their new ruler. True it is that when a
State rebels and is again got under, it will not afterwards be lost so
easily. For the Prince, using the rebellion as a pretext, will not scruple to
secure himself by punishing the guilty, bringing the suspected to trial, and
otherwise strengthening his position in the points where it was weak. So that
if to recover Milan from the French it was enough on the first occasion that
a Duke Lodovico should raise alarms on the frontiers to wrest it from them a
second time the whole world had to be ranged against them, and their armies
destroyed and driven out of Italy. And this for the reasons above assigned.
And yet, for a second time, Milan was lost to the King. The general causes of
its first loss have been shown. It remains to note the causes of the second,
and to point out the remedies which the French King had, or which might have
been used by another in like circumstances to maintain his conquest more
successfully than he did.
I say, then, that those States which upon their acquisition are joined
on to the ancient dominions of the Prince who acquires them, are either of the
same Province and tongue as the people of these dominions, or they are not.
When they are, there is a great ease in retaining them, especially when they
have not been accustomed to live in freedom. To hold them securely it is
enough to have rooted out the line of the reigning Prince; because if in other
respects the old condition of things be continued, and there be no discordance
in their customs, men live peaceably with one another, as we see to have been
the case in Brittany, Burgundy, Gascony, and Normandy, which have so long been
united to France. For although there be some slight difference in their
languages, their customs are similar, and they can easily get on together. He,
therefore, who acquires such a State, if he mean to keep it, must see to two
things; first, that the blood of the ancient line of Princes be destroyed;
second, that no change be made in respect of laws or taxes; for in this way
the newly acquired State speedily becomes incorporated with the hereditary.
But when States are acquired in a country differing in language, usages,
and laws, difficulties multiply, and great good fortune, as well as address,
is needed to overcome them. One of the best and most efficacious methods for
dealing with such a State, is for the Prince who acquires it to go and dwell
there in person, since this will tend to make his tenure more secure and
lasting. This course has been followed by the Turk with regard to Greece, who,
had he not, in addition to all his other precautions for securing that
Province, himself come to live in it, could never have kept his hold of it.
For when you are on the spot, disorders are detected in their beginnings and
remedies can be readily applied; but when you are at a distance, they are not
heard of until they have gathered strength and the case is past cure.
Moreover, the Province in which you take up your abode is not pillaged by your
officers; the people are pleased to have a ready recourse to their Prince; and
have all the more reason if they are well disposed, to love, if disaffected,
to fear him. A foreign enemy desiring to attack that State would be cautious
how he did so. In short, where the Prince resides in person, it will be
extremely difficult to oust him.
Another excellent expedient is to send colonies into one or two places,
so that these may become, as it were, the keys of the Province; for you must
either do this, or else keep up a numerous force of men-at-arms and foot
soldiers. A Prince need not spend much on colonies. He can send them out and
support them at little or no charge to himself, and the only persons to whom
he gives offence are those whom he deprives of their fields and houses to
bestow them on the new inhabitants. Those who are thus injured form but a
small part of the community, and remaining scattered and poor can never
become dangerous. All others being left unmolested, are in consequence easily
quieted, and at the same time are afraid to make a false move, lest they share
the fate of those who have been deprived of their possessions. In few words,
these colonies cost less than soldiers, are more faithful, and give less
offence, while those who are offended, being, as I have said, poor and
dispersed, cannot hurt. And let it here be noted that men are either to be
kindly treated, or utterly crushed, since they can revenge lighter injuries,
but not graver. Wherefore the injury we do to a man should be of a sort to
leave no fear of reprisals.
But if instead of colonies you send troops, the cost is vastly greater,
and the whole revenues of the country are spent in guarding it; so that the
gain becomes a loss, and much deeper offence is given; since in shifting the
quarters of your soldiers from place to place the whole country suffers
hardship, which as all feel, all are made enemies; and enemies who remaining,
although vanquished, in their own homes, have power to hurt. In every way,
therefore, this mode of defence is as disadvantageous as that by colonizing is
useful.
The Prince who establishes himself in a Province whose laws and language
differ from those of his own people, ought also to make himself the head and
protector of his feebler neighbours, and endeavour to weaken the stronger,
and must see that by no accident shall any other stranger as powerful as
himself find an entrance there. For it will always happen that some such
person will be called in by those of the Province who are discontented either
through ambition or fear; as we see of old the Romans brought into Greece by
the Aetolians, and in every other country that they entered, invited there by
its inhabitants. And the usual course of things is that so soon as a
formidable stranger enters a Province, all the weaker powers side with him,
moved thereto by the ill-will they bear towards him who has hitherto kept them
in subjection. So that in respect of these lesser powers, no trouble is needed
to gain them over, for at once, together, and of their own accord, they throw
in their lot with the government of the stranger. The new Prince, therefore,
has only to see that they do not increase too much in strength, and with his
own forces, aided by their good will, can easily subdue any who are powerful,
so as to remain supreme in the Province. He who does not manage this matter
well, will soon lose whatever he has gained, and while he retains it will find
in it endless troubles and annoyances.
In dealing with the countries of which they took possession the Romans
diligently followed the methods I have described. They planted colonies,
conciliated weaker powers without adding to their strength, humbled the great,
and never suffered a formidable stranger to acquire influence. A single
example will suffice to show this. In Greece the Romans took the Achaians and
Aetolians into their pay; the Macedonian monarchy was humbled; Antiochus was
driven out. But the services of the Achaians and Aetolians never obtained for
them any addition to their power; no persuasions on the part of Philip could
induce the Romans to be his friends on the condition of sparing him
humiliation; nor could all the power of Antiochus bring them to consent to his
exercising any authority within that Province. And in thus acting the Romans
did as all wise rulers should, who have to consider not only present
difficulties but also future, against which they must use all diligence to
provide; for these, if they be foreseen while yet remote, admit of easy
remedy, but if their approach be awaited, are already past cure, the
disorder having become hopeless; realizing what the physicians tell us of
hectic fever, that in its beginning it is easy to cure, but hard to
recognize; whereas, after a time, not having been detected and treated at the
first, it becomes easy to recognize but impossible to cure.
And so it is with State affairs. For the distempers of a State being
discovered while yet inchoate, which can only be done by a sagacious ruler,
may easily be dealt with; but when, from not being observed, they are suffered
to grow until they are obvious to every one, there is no longer any remedy.
The Romans, therefore, foreseeing evils while they were yet far off, always
provided against them, and never suffered them to take their course for the
sake of avoiding war; since they knew that war is not so to be avoided, but
is only postponed to the advantage of the other side. They chose, therefore,
to make war with Philip and Antiochus in Greece, that they might not have to
make it with them in Italy, although for a while they might have escaped both.
This they did not desire, nor did the maxim leave it to Time, which the wise
men of our own day have always on their lips, ever recommend itself to them.
What they looked to enjoy were the fruits of their own valour and foresight.
For Time, driving all things before it, may bring with it evil as well as
good.
But let us now go back to France and examine whether she has followed
any of those methods of which I have made mention. I shall speak of Louis and
not of Charles, because from the former having held longer possession of
Italy, his manner of acting is more plainly seen. You will find, then, that
he has done the direct opposite of what he should have done in order to
retain a foreign State.
King Louis was brought into Italy by the ambition of the Venetians, who
hoped by his coming to gain for themselves a half of the State of Lombardy.
I will not blame this coming, nor the part taken by the King, because,
desiring to gain a footing in Italy, where he had no friends, but on the
contrary, owing to the conduct of Charles, every door was shut against him,
he was driven to accept such friendships as he could get. And his designs
might easily have succeeded had he not made mistakes in other particulars of
conduct.
By the recovery of Lombardy, Louis at once regained the credit which
Charles had lost. Genoa made submission; the Florentines came to terms; the
Marquis of Mantua, the Duke of Ferrara, the Bentivogli, the Countess of
Forli, the Lords of Faenza, Pesaro, Rimini, Camerino, and Piombino, the
citizens of Lucca, Pisa, and Siena, all came forward offering their
friendship. The Venetians, who to obtain possession of a couple of towns in
Lombardy had made the French King master of two-thirds of Italy, had now cause
to repent the rash game they had played.
Let any one, therefore, consider how easily King Louis might have
maintained his authority in Italy had he observed the rules which I have noted
above, and secured and protected all those friends of his, who being weak,
and fearful, some of the Church, some of the Venetians, were of necessity
obliged to attach themselves to him, and with whose assistance, for they were
many, he might readily have made himself safe against any other powerful
State. But no sooner was he in Milan than he took a contrary course, in
helping Pope Alexander to occupy Romagna; not perceiving that in seconding
this enterprise he weakened himself by alienating friends and those who had
thrown themselves into his arms, while he strengthened the Church by adding
great temporal power to the spiritual power which of itself confers so mighty
an authority. Making this first mistake, he was forced to follow it up, until
at last, in order to curb the ambition of Pope Alexander, and prevent him
becoming master of Tuscany, he was obliged to come himself into Italy.
And as though it were not enough for him to have aggrandized the Church
and stripped himself of friends, he must needs in his desire to possess the
Kingdom of Naples, divide it with the King of Spain; thus bringing into Italy,
where before he had been supreme, a rival to whom the ambitious and
discontented in that Province might have recourse. And whereas he might have
left in Naples a King willing to hold as his tributary, he displaced him to
make way for another strong enough to effect his expulsion. The wish to
acquire is no doubt a natural and common sentiment, and when men attempt
things within their power, they will always be praised rather than blamed.
But when they persist in attempts that are beyond their power, mishaps and
blame ensue. If France, therefore, with her own forces could have attacked
Naples, she should have done so. If she could not, she ought not to have
divided it. And if her partition of Lombardy with the Venetians may be excused
as the means whereby a footing was gained in Italy, this other partition is to
be condemned as not justified by the like necessity.
Louis, then, had made these five blunders. He had destroyed weaker
States, he had strengthened a Prince already strong, he had brought into the
country a very powerful stranger, he had not come to reside, and he had not
sent colonies. And yet all these blunders might not have proved disastrous to
him while he lived, had he not added to them a sixth in depriving the
Venetians of their dominions. For had he neither aggrandized the Church, nor
brought Spain into Italy, it might have been at once reasonable and necessary
to humble the Venetians; but after committing himself to these other courses,
he should never have consented to the ruin of Venice. For while the Venetians
were powerful they would always have kept others back from an attempt on
Lombardy, as well because they never would have agreed to that enterprise on
any terms save of themselves being made its masters, as because others would
never have desired to take it from France in order to hand it over to them,
nor would ever have ventured to defy both. And if it be said that King Louis
ceded Romagna to Alexander, and Naples to Spain in order to avoid war, I
answer that for the reasons already given, you ought never to suffer your
designs to be crossed in order to avoid war, since war is not so to be
avoided, but is only deferred to your disadvantage. And if others should
allege the King`s promise to the Pope to undertake that enterprise on his
behalf, in return for the dissolution of his marriage, and for the Cardinal`s
hat conferred on d`Amboise, I answer by referring to what I say further on
concerning the faith of Princes and how it is to be kept.
[See Venice: Painted by La Touche.]
King Louis, therefore, lost Lombardy from not following any one of the
methods pursued by others who have taken Provinces with the resolve to keep
them. Nor is this anything strange, but only what might reasonably and
naturally be looked for. And on this very subject I spoke to d`Amboise at
Nantes, at the time when Duke Valentino, as Cesare Borgia, son to Pope
Alexander, was vulgarly called, was occupying Romagna. For, on the Cardinal
saying to me that the Italians did not understand war, I answered that the
French did not understand statecraft, for had they done so, they never would
have allowed the Church to grow so powerful. And the event shows that the
aggrandizement of the Church and of Spain in Italy has been brought about by
France, and that the ruin of France has been wrought by them. Whence we may
draw the general axiom, which never or rarely errs, that he who is the cause
of another`s greatness is himself undone, since he must work either by address
or force, each of which excites distrust in the person raised to power.
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