CONCERNING MIXED PRINCIPALITIES
BUT the difficulties occur in a new principality. And firstly, if it be
not entirely new, but is, as it were, a member of a state which, taken
collectively, may be called composite, the changes arise chiefly from an
inherent difficulty which there is in all new principalities; for men
change their rulers willingly, hoping to better themselves, and this
hope induces them to take up arms against him who rules: wherein they
are deceived, because they afterwards find by experience they have gone
from bad to worse. This follows also on another natural and common
necessity, which always causes a new prince to burden those who have
submitted to him with his soldiery and with infinite other hardships
which he must put upon his new acquisition.
In this way you have enemies in all those whom you have injured in
seizing that principality, and you are not able to keep those friends
who put you there because of your not being able to satisfy them in the
way they expected, and you cannot take strong measures against them,
feeling bound to them. For, although one may be very strong in armed
forces, yet in entering a province one has always need of the goodwill
of the natives.
For these reasons Louis XII, King of France, quickly occupied Milan, and
as quickly lost it; and to turn him out the first time it only needed
Lodovico’s own forces; because those who had opened the gates to him,
finding themselves deceived in their hopes of future benefit, would not
endure the ill-treatment of the new prince. It is very true that, after
acquiring rebellious provinces a second time, they are not so lightly
lost afterwards, because the prince, with little reluctance, takes the
opportunity of the rebellion to punish the delinquents, to clear out the
suspects, and to strengthen himself in the weakest places. Thus to cause
France to lose Milan the first time it was enough for the Duke Lodovico
to raise insurrections on the borders; but to cause him to lose it a
second time it was necessary to bring the whole world against him, and
that his armies should be defeated and driven out of Italy; which
followed from the causes above mentioned.
Nevertheless Milan was taken from France both the first and the second
time. The general reasons for the first have been discussed; it remains
to name those for the second, and to see what resources he had, and what
any one in his situation would have had for maintaining himself more
securely in his acquisition than did the King of France.
Now I say that those dominions which, when acquired, are added to an
ancient state by him who acquires them, are either of the same country
and language, or they are not. When they are, it is easier to hold them,
especially when they have not been accustomed to self-government; and to
hold them securely it is enough to have destroyed the family of the
prince who was ruling them; because the two peoples, preserving in other
things the old conditions, and not being unlike in customs, will live
quietly together, as one has seen in Brittany, Burgundy, Gascony, and
Normandy, which have been bound to France for so long a time: and,
although there may be some difference in language, nevertheless the
customs are alike, and the people will easily be able to get on amongst
themselves. He who has annexed them, if he wishes to hold them, has only
to bear in mind two considerations: the one, that the family of their
former lord is extinguished; the other, that neither their laws nor
their taxes are altered, so that in a very short time they will become
entirely one body with the old principality.
But when states are acquired in a country differing in language,
customs, or laws, there are difficulties, and good fortune and great
energy are needed to hold them, and one of the greatest and most real
helps would be that he who has acquired them should go and reside there.
This would make his position more secure and durable, as it has made
that of the Turk in Greece, who, notwithstanding all the other measures
taken by him for holding that state, if he had not settled there, would
not have been able to keep it. Because, if one is on the spot, disorders
are seen as they spring up, and one can quickly remedy them; but if one
is not at hand, they heard of only when they are one can no longer
remedy them. Besides this, the country is not pillaged by your
officials; the subjects are satisfied by prompt recourse to the prince;
thus, wishing to be good, they have more cause to love him, and wishing
to be otherwise, to fear him. He who would attack that state from the
outside must have the utmost caution; as long as the prince resides
there it can only be wrested from him with the greatest difficulty.
The other and better course is to send colonies to one or two places,
which may be as keys to that state, for it necessary either to do this
or else to keep there a great number of cavalry and infantry. A prince
does not spend much on colonies, for with little or no expense he can
send them out and keep them there, and he offends a minority only of the
citizens from whom he takes lands and houses to give them to the new
inhabitants; and those whom he offends, remaining poor and scattered,
are never able to injure him; whilst the rest being uninjured are easily
kept quiet, and at the same time are anxious not to err for fear it
should happen to them as it has to those who have been despoiled. In
conclusion, I say that these colonies are not costly, they are more
faithful, they injure less, and the injured, as has been said, being
poor and scattered, cannot hurt. Upon this, one has to remark that men
ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge
themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot;
therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a
kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.
But in maintaining armed men there in place of colonies one spends much
more, having to consume on the garrison all income from the state, so
that the acquisition turns into a loss, and many more are exasperated,
because the whole state is injured; through the shifting of the garrison
up and down all become acquainted with hardship, and all become hostile,
and they are enemies who, whilst beaten on their own ground, are yet
able to do hurt. For every reason, therefore, such guards are as useless
as a colony is useful.
Again, the prince who holds a country differing in the above respects
ought to make himself the head and defender of his powerful neighbours,
and to weaken the more powerful amongst them, taking care that no
foreigner as powerful as himself shall, by any accident, get a footing
there; for it will always happen that such a one will be introduced by
those who are discontented, either through excess of ambition or through
fear, as one has seen already. The Romans were brought into Greece by
the Aetolians; and in every other country where they obtained a footing
they were brought in by the inhabitants. And the usual course of affairs
is that, as soon as a powerful foreigner enters a country, all the
subject states are drawn to him, moved by the hatred which they feel
against the ruling power. So that in respect to these subject states he
has not to take any trouble to gain them over to himself, for the whole
of them quickly rally to the state which he has acquired there. He has
only to take care that they do not get hold of too much power and too
much authority, and then with his own forces, and with their goodwill,
he can easily keep down the more powerful of them, so as to remain
entirely master in the country. And he who does not properly manage this
business will soon lose what he has acquired, and whilst he does hold it
he will have endless difficulties and troubles.
The Romans, in the countries which they annexed, observed closely these
measures; they sent colonies and maintained friendly relations with the
minor powers, without increasing their strength; they kept down the
greater, and did not allow any strong foreign powers to gain authority.
Greece appears to me sufficient for an example. The Achaeans and
Aetolians were kept friendly by them, the kingdom of Macedonia was
humbled, Antiochus was driven out; yet the merits of the Achaeans and
Aetolians never secured for them permission to increase their power, nor
did the persuasions of Philip ever induce the Romans to be his friends
without first humbling him, nor did the influence of Antiochus make them
agree that he should retain any lordship over the country. Because the
Romans did in these instances what all prudent princes ought to do, who
have to regard not only present troubles, but also future ones, for
which they must prepare with every energy, because, when foreseen, it is
easy to remedy them; but if you wait until they approach, the medicine
is no longer in time because the malady has become incurable; for it
happens in this, as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that
in the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to
detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or
treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to
cure. Thus it happens in affairs of state, for when the evils that arise
have been foreseen (which it is only given to a wise man to see), they
can be quickly redressed, but when, through not having been foreseen,
they have been permitted to grow in a way that every one can see them.
there is no longer a remedy. Therefore, the Romans, foreseeing troubles,
dealt with them at once, and, even to avoid a war, would not let them
come to a head, for they knew that war is not to be avoided, but is only
put off to the advantage of others; moreover they wished to fight with
Philip and Antiochus in Greece so as not to have to do it in Italy; they
could have avoided both, but this they did not wish; nor did that ever
please them which is for ever in the mouths of the wise ones of our
time:– Let us enjoy the benefits of the time — but rather the benefits of
their own valour and prudence, for time drives everything before it, and
is able to bring with it good as well as evil, and evil as well as good.
But let us turn to France and inquire whether she has done any of the
things mentioned. I will speak of Louis [XII] (and not of Charles
[VIII]) as the one whose conduct is the better to be observed, he having
held possession of Italy for the longest period; and you will see that
he has done the opposite to those things which ought to be done to
retain a state composed of divers elements.
King Louis was brought into Italy by the ambition of the Venetians, who
desired to obtain half the state of Lombardy by his intervention. I will
not blame the course taken by the king, because, wishing to get a
foothold in Italy, and having no friends there — seeing rather that
every door was shut to him owing to the conduct of Charles — he was
forced to accept those friendships which he could get, and he would have
succeeded very quickly in his design if in other matters he had not made
some mistakes. The king, however, having acquired Lombardy, regained at
once the authority which Charles had lost: Genoa yielded; the
Florentines became his friends; the Marquess of Mantua, the Duke of
Ferrara, the Bentivoglio, my lady of Forli, the Lords of Faenza, of
Pesaro, of Rimini, of Camerino, of Piombino, the Lucchesi, the Pisans,
the Sienese — everybody made advances to him to become his friend. Then
could the Venetians realize the rashness of the course taken by them,
which, in order that they might secure two towns in Lombardy, had made
the king master of two-thirds of Italy.
Let any one now consider with what little difficulty the king could have
maintained his position in Italy had he observed the rules above laid
down, and kept all his friends secure and protected; for although they
were numerous they were both weak and timid, some afraid of the Church,
some of the Venetians, and thus they would always have been forced to
stand in with him, and by their means he could easily have made himself
secure against those who remained powerful. But he was no sooner in
Milan than he did the contrary by assisting Pope Alexander to occupy the
Romagna. It never occurred to him that by this action he was weakening
himself, depriving himself of friends and those who had thrown
themselves into his lap, whilst he aggrandized the Church by adding much
temporal power to the spiritual, thus giving it great authority. And
having committed this prime error, he was obliged to follow it up, so
much so that, to put an end to the ambition of Alexander, and to prevent
his becoming the master of Tuscany, he was himself forced to come into
Italy.
And as if it were not enough to have aggrandized the Church, and
deprived himself friends, he, wishing to have the kingdom of Naples,
divides it with the King of Spain, and where he was the prime arbiter of
Italy he takes an associate, so that the ambitious of that country and
the malcontents of his own should have where to shelter; and whereas he
could have left in the kingdom his own pensioner as king, he drove him
out, to put one there who was able to drive him, Louis, out in turn.
The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and common, and men always
do so when they can, and for this they will be praised not blamed; but
when they cannot do so, yet wish to do so by any means, then there is
folly and blame. Therefore, if France could have attacked Naples with
her own forces she ought to have done so; if she could not, then she
ought not to have divided it. And if the partition which she made with
the Venetians in Lombardy was justified by the excuse that by it she got
a foothold in Italy, this other partition merited blame, for it had not
the excuse of that necessity.
Therefore Louis made these five errors: he destroyed the minor powers,
he increased the strength of one of the greater powers in Italy, he
brought in a foreign power, he did not settle in the country, he did not
send colonies. Which errors, if he had lived, were not enough to injure
him had he not made a sixth by taking away their dominions from the
Venetians; because, had he not aggrandized the Church, nor brought Spain
into Italy, it would have been very reasonable and necessary to humble
them; but having first taken these steps, he ought never to have
consented to their ruin, for they, being powerful, would always have
kept off others from designs on Lombardy, to which the Venetians would
never have consented except to become masters themselves there; also
because the others would not wish to take Lombardy from France in order
to give it to the Venetians, and to run counter to both they would not
have had the courage.
And if any one should say: King Louis yielded the Romagna to Alexander
and the kingdom to Spain to avoid war, I answer for the reasons given
above that a blunder ought never be perpetrated to avoid war, because it
is not to be avoided, but is only deferred to your disadvantage. And if
another should allege the pledge which the king had given to the Pope
that he would assist him in the enterprise, in exchange for the
dissolution of his marriage and for the hat to Rouen, to that I reply
what I shall write later on concerning the faith of princes, and how it
ought to be kept.
Thus King Louis lost Lombardy by not having followed any of the
conditions observed by those who have taken possession of countries and
wished to retain them. Nor is there any miracle in this, but much that
is reasonable and quite natural. And on these matters I spoke at Nantes
with Rouen, when Valentino, [1] as Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope
Alexander, was usually called, occupied the Romagna, and on Cardinal
Rouen observing to me that the Italians did not understand war, I
replied to him that the French did not understand statecraft, meaning
that otherwise they would not have allowed the Church to reach such
greatness. And in fact it has been seen that the greatness of the Church
and of Spain in Italy has been caused by France, and her ruin may be
attributed to them. From this a general rule is drawn which never or
rarely fails: that he who is the cause of another becoming powerful is
ruined; because that predominancy has been brought about either by
astuteness or else by force, and both are distrusted by him who has been
raised to power.
1. So called — in Italian — from the duchy of Valentinois, conferred
on him by Louis XII.