of the minor states, and to keep all dangerous rivals out of Italy.  Instead of acting thus, he put Romagna into the hands of the Pope and divided Naples with the King of Spain.  ‘Louis indeed,’ concludes Machiavelli, ’was guilty of five capital errors:  he destroyed the hopes of his numerous and weak allies; he increased the power, already too great, of the Papacy; he introduced a foreign potentate; he neglected to reside in Italy; he founded no colonies for the maintenance of his authority.  If I am told that Louis acted thus imprudently toward Alexander and Ferdinand in order to avoid a war, I answer that in each case the mistake was as bad as any war could be in its results.  If I am reminded of his promise to the Pope, I reply that princes ought to know how and when to break their faith, as I intend to prove.  When I was at Nantes, the Cardinal of Rouen told me that the Italians did not know how to conduct a war:  I retorted that the French did not understand statecraft, or they would not have allowed the Church to gain so much power in Italy.  Experience showed that I was right; for the French wrought their own ruin by aggrandizing the Papacy and introducing Spain into the realm of Naples.’

This criticism contains the very essence of political sagacity.  It lays bare the secret of the failure of the French under Charles, under Louis, and under Francis, to establish themselves in Italy.  Expeditions of parade, however brilliant, temporary conquests, cross alliances, and bloody victories do not consolidate a kingdom.  They upset states and cause misery to nations:  but their effects pass and leave the so-called conquerors worse off than they were before.  It was the doom of Italy to be ravaged by these inconsequent marauders, who never attempted by internal organization to found a substantial empire, until the mortmain of the Spanish rule was laid upon the peninsula, and Austria gained by marriages what France had failed to win by force of arms.

The fourth chapter of the Principe is devoted to a parallel between Monarchies and Despotisms which is chiefly interesting as showing that Machiavelli appreciated the stability of kingdoms based upon feudal foundations.  France is chosen as the best example of the one and Turkey of the other.  ’The whole empire of the Turk is governed by one Lord; the others are his servants; he divides his kingdom into satrapies, to which he appoints different administrators, whom he changes about at pleasure.  But the King of France is placed in the center of a time-honored company of lords, acknowledged as such by their subjects and loved by them; they have their own prerogatives, nor can the king deprive them of these without peril.’  Hence it follows that the prince who has once dispossessed a despot finds ready to his hand a machinery of government and a band of subservient ministers; while he who may dethrone a monarch has immediately to cope with a multitude of independent rulers, too numerous to extinguish and too proud to conciliate.