to say which of the two gamesters may have been the more deceived.  But Machiavelli felt that the Borgia supplied him with a perfect specimen for the study of the arts of statecraft; and so deep was the impression produced upon his mind, that even after the utter failure of Cesare’s designs he made him the hero of the political romance before us.  His artistic perception of the perfect and the beautiful, both in unscrupulous conduct and in frigid calculation of conflicting interests, was satisfied by the steady selfishness, the persistent perfidy, the profound mistrust of men, the self-command in the execution of perilous designs, the moderate and deliberate employment of cruelty for definite ends, which he observed in the young Duke, and which he has idealized in his own Principe.  That nature, as of a salamander adapted to its element of fire, as of ’a resolute angel that delights in flame,’ to which nothing was sacred, which nothing could daunt, which never for a moment sacrificed reason to passion, which was incapable of weakness or fatigue, had fascinated Machiavelli’s fancy.  The moral qualities of the man, the base foundations upon which he raised his power, the unutterable scandals of his private life, and the hatred of all Christendom were as nothing in the balance.  Such considerations had, according to the conditions of his subject, to be eliminated before he weighed the intellectual qualities of the adventurer.  ’If all the achievements of the Duke are considered’—­it is Machiavelli speaking—­’it will be found that he built up a great substructure for his future power; nor do I know what precepts I could furnish to a prince in his commencement better than such as are to be derived from his example.’  It is thus that Machiavelli, the citizen, addresses Lorenzo, the tyrant of Florence.  He says to him:  Go thou and do likewise.  And what, then, is this likewise?

Cesare, being a Pope’s son, had nothing to look to but the influence of his father.  At first he designed to use this influence in the Church; but after murdering his elder brother, he threw aside the Cardinal’s scarlet and proclaimed himself a political aspirant.  His father could not make him lord of any state, unless it were a portion of the territory of the Church:  and though, by creating, as he did, twelve Cardinals in one day, he got the Sacred College to sanction his investiture of the Duchy of Romagna, yet both Venice and Milan were opposed to this scheme.  Again there was a difficulty to be encountered in the great baronial houses of Orsini and Colonna, who at that time headed all the mercenary troops of Italy, and who, as Roman nobles, had a natural hatred for the Pope.  It was necessary to use their aid in the acquisition of Cesare’s principality.  It was no less needful to humor their animosity.  Under these circumstances Alexander thought it best to invite the French king into Italy, bargaining with Louis that he would dissolve his marriage in return