of the world were absorbed by it.  Charles V., his son, and his courtiers studied the book.  Catherine de Medici brought it to France.  A copy of The Prince was found on the murdered bodies of Henry III. and Henry IV.  Richelieu praised it.  Sextus V. analysed it in his own handwriting.  It was read at the English Court; Bacon was steeped in it, and quotes or alludes to it constantly.  Hobbes and Harrington studied it.

But now another change.  So then, cried Innocent Gentillet, the Huguenot, the book is a primer of despotism and Rome, and a grammar for bigots and tyrants.  It doubtless is answerable for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.  The man is a chien impur.  And in answer to this new huntsman the whole Protestant pack crashed in pursuit.  Within fifty years of his death The Prince and Machiavelli himself had become a legend and a myth, a haunting, discomforting ghost that would not be laid.  Machiavellism had grown to be a case of conscience both to Catholic and Protestant, to Theologian, Moralist, and Philosopher.  In Spain the author, damned in France for his despotism and popery, was as freshly and freely damned for his civil and religious toleration.  In England to the Cavaliers he was an Atheist, to the Roundheads a Jesuit.  Christina of Sweden annotated him with enthusiasm.  Frederick the Great published his Anti-Machiavel brimming with indignation, though it is impossible not to wonder what would have become of Prussia had not the Prussian king so closely followed in practice the precepts of the Florentine, above all perhaps, as Voltaire observed, in the publication of the Anti-Machiavel itself.  No doubt in the eighteenth century, when monarchy was so firmly established as not to need Machiavelli, kings and statesmen sought to clear kingship of the supposed stain he had besmirched them with.  But their reading was as little as their misunderstanding was great, and the Florentine Secretary remained the mysterious necromancer.  It was left for Rousseau to describe the book of this ‘honnete homme et bon citoyen’ as ‘le livre des Republicains,’ and for Napoleon, the greatest of the author’s followers if not disciples, to draw inspiration and suggestion from his Florentine forerunner and to justify the murder of the Due d’Enghien by a quotation from The Prince.  ‘Mais apres tout,’ he said, ’un homme d’Etat est-il fait pour etre sensible?  N’est-ce pas un personnage—­completement excentrique, toujours seul d’un cote, avec le monde de l’autre?’ and again ’Jugez done s’il doit s’amuser a menager certaines convenances de sentiments si importantes pour le commun des hommes?  Peut-il considerer les liens du sang, les affections, les puerils menagements de la societe?  Et dans la situation ou il se trouve, que d’actions separees de l’ensemble et qu’on blame, quoiqu’elles doivent contribuer au grand oeuvre que tout le monde n’apercoit pas? ...  Malheureux que vous etes! vous retiendrez vos eloges parce que