I say, therefore, that the arms with which a prince defends his state are either his own, or they are mercenaries, auxiliaries, or mixed.  Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious, and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.  The fact is, they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you.  They are ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not make war, but if war comes they take themselves off or run from the foe; which I should have little trouble to prove, for the ruin of Italy has been caused by nothing else than by resting all her hopes for many years on mercenaries, and although they formerly made some display and appeared valiant amongst themselves, yet when the foreigners came they showed what they were.  Thus it was that Charles, King of France, was allowed to seize Italy with chalk in hand;(*) and he who told us that our sins were the cause of it told the truth, but they were not the sins he imagined, but those which I have related.  And as they were the sins of princes, it is the princes who have also suffered the penalty.

(*) “With chalk in hand,” “col gesso.”  This is one of the bons mots of Alexander VI, and refers to the ease with which Charles VIII seized Italy, implying that it was only necessary for him to send his quartermasters to chalk up the billets for his soldiers to conquer the country.  Cf.  “The History of Henry VII,” by Lord Bacon:  “King Charles had conquered the realm of Naples, and lost it again, in a kind of a felicity of a dream.  He passed the whole length of Italy without resistance:  so that it was true what Pope Alexander was wont to say:  That the Frenchmen came into Italy with chalk in their hands, to mark up their lodgings, rather than with swords to fight.”

I wish to demonstrate further the infelicity of these arms.  The mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not; if they are, you cannot trust them, because they always aspire to their own greatness, either by oppressing you, who are their master, or others contrary to your intentions; but if the captain is not skilful, you are ruined in the usual way.

And if it be urged that whoever is armed will act in the same way, whether mercenary or not, I reply that when arms have to be resorted to, either by a prince or a republic, then the prince ought to go in person and perform the duty of a captain; the republic has to send its citizens, and when one is sent who does not turn out satisfactorily, it ought to recall him, and when one is worthy, to hold him by the laws