The Prince (Byerley)/Chapter 7
CHAP. VII.
Of new Principalities acquired by foreign Aid or owing to good Fortune.
Those who from private individuals have become princes solely by the favours of fortune, meet with few difficulties in their progress, but a great many in maintaining themselves on the throne. Encountering no impediments during their journey, they fly; but all the difficulties spring up after they are quietly seated. In this predicament are those who acquire a state either by the means of money or by the favour of those who present it to them. Such were the men whom Darius placed in Greece, in the cities of Ionia, and of the Hellespont, whom, for his own security and his own glory, he made sovereigns. Such were those emperors who, from private rank, arrived at the empire by corrupting the soldiery. These sustained their elevation only by the pleasure and fortune of those who raised them to it, two bases equally uncertain and insecure. They had neither the knowledge nor the power to keep their rank. For admitting him to be a man of superior genius or courage, whoever has lived as a private individual is naturally. and necessarily. ignorant of the art of commanding. He is, therefore, deficient in knowledge; and his power of will equally fail him, because he has no troops on whose attachment and fidelity he can depend. Besides, those states which are so suddenly formed, many things in nature growing so quickly, do not take sufficient root to prevent the first gust of an adverse wind, or the first tempest, from overturning them; unless, as we have already observed, those who so suddenly become princes possess talents so very superior, that they immediately discover the means. of preserving what fortune has placed in their hands; and after becoming princes, merely apply those aids which others had adopted previously to.their becoming princes.
To illustrate these two modes of becoming a sovereign, either by good fortune or superior talent, I will cite two examples of our own time, viz. those of Francis Sforza and of Cæsar Borgia. The former, by lawful means and by his great abilities, from a private individual became Duke of Milan, and he preserved with little difficulty what had cost him so much to acquire. Cæsar Borgia (commonly called the Duke Valentino) acquired a sovereignty by the good fortune of his father, and lost it as soon as his father was, no more. Yet, he put every wheel in motion, and employed every means that skill and prudence could suggest, to retain those states which he held only by the fortune and arms of another. It is unquestionably possible for a man of a superior mind, who has not yet laid the foundation, to lay it afterwards; but this can only be done with much trouble to the architect, and with great danger to the edifice. If we examine the whole conduct of Borgia, we shall perceive all he did, and all that had been done to lay the foundation of his future power. This examination will be far from superfluous; for I know not how to give a new prince a better lesson than by laying before him the actions and example of the duke as his guide; and if, after adopting all these measures, he did not succeed, it was not his fault, but rather the effect of that ill fortune which never ceased to persecute him. Alexander VI; wishing to give his son a sovereignty in Italy, could not but encounter great obstạcles in the outset, and foresaw greater which might occur in future, In the first place, he saw no means of making him sovereign of any state which did not belong to the church. If he should determine on dismembering any one of those, he knew that the Duke of Milan and the Venetians would never consent to it, Since Faënza and Rimini werę already under the protection of Venice, he knew that the armies of Italy, and in particular those of which he could have availed himself, were at the disposal of those who had reasop to fear the aggrandisement of the pope. He could not, therefore, depend on them, because they were in the power of the Orsini and the Colonni, and their partisans.
It was consequently necessary to overturn this order of things, and to overthrow the Italian states, in order to secure the sovereignty of a part. This was easy to accomplish. The Venetians, influenced by motives of a different tendency, had determined to invite the French into Italy. The pope made no opposition to their design; he even favoured it, in consenting to annul the first marriage of Lewis XII. who therefore went into Italy with the aid of the Venetians and the consent of Alexander. He was no sooner at Milan than the pope obtained of him troops to overrun Romagnia, which he acquired by the renown of the arms of that monarch with whonm he was allied.
The duke having thus acquired Romagnia and weakened the Colonni, wished at the same time to preserve and increase his own principality. He did not confide in troops on which he had little reliance, and he could not depend on the consent of France; that is to say, he found that the Orsini, of whom he had availed himself, would fail him at the critical moment, and not only prevenț his further acquisitions, but even deprive him of those he had made.
He had even the same conduct to dread on the part of France; he had been convinced of the trifling reliance he could place on the Orsini, when, after the taking. of Faënza, he attacked Bologna; where they shewed an evident want of activity. And as to the king, his intentions were easily discerned; as after he had gained the duchy of Urbino, and made an irruption into Tuscany; the king obliged him to desist from it. The duke determined, therefore, neither to depend on fortuņe nor the arms of another prince. He began by weakening the party of the Orsini and the Colonni at Rome; in bringing over to his side all the gentry attached to these two houses either by money, by governments, or employments suited to their rank; so that in a few months a complete revolution was effected in their attachment, and they all ranged themselves under the banners of the duke. He had dispersed the Colonni with infinite success and management, and he only waited for an opportunity of destroying the Orsini. The latter perceiving, rather too late, that the power of the duke and that of the church would ruin them, held a diet at Magione in Perugia, from which followed the revolt of Urbino, the disturbances of Romagnia, and the infinite dangers which the duke encountered and surmounted by the aid of the French. His affairs once re-established, he chose neither to rely on France nor any other external force; and that he might put nothing to the risk, be employed only artifices; and he knew so well how to dissemble his designs, that the Orsini were. reconciled to him through the intervention of Signior Paolo, on whom he, for the purpose, lavished presents of dresses, money, and horses. The others were such fools as to put themselves into his power at Signigalia. (Vide Appendix B.) Having thus exterminated the chiefs, and made their partizans his friends, the duke had laid the solid foundations. of his power. He possessed all Romagnia and the duchy of Urbino; he had gained the affection of those two people (particularly the former), who already enjoyed the advantages of his government. As this latter circumstance is worthy of remark, and in this respect deserves to be imitated, I cannot suffer it to pass unnoticed.
After the duke had possessed himself of Romagnia, he found it had been governed by a number of petty princes, who were more occupied in the spoliation than the government of their subjects, and whose political weakness rather served to create popular disturbances than to secure the blessings of peace. The country was infested with robbers, torn by factions, and a prey to all the horrors of civil commotions. He found that in order to establish tranquillity, order, and subordination to the authority of the prince, a vigorous government was necessary. Under this impression, he sent thither as governor Ramiro d'Orco, a cruel but active man, to whom he gave the greatest latitude of power. He very soon quieted the disturbances, united all parties, and acquired the renown of restoring the whole country to peace.
The duke, however, soon afterwards did not deem it pecessary to continue a system of so much rigour, and an authority that would soon have become odious. He erected in the centre of the province a civil tribunal, over which he placed a person who enjoyed the public esteem and confidence, and to this tribunal every city sent a deputy or advocate. He found that the cruelties of Ramiro had drawn upon him a degree of hatred; therefore, to clear himself from all reproach in the minds of the people, and to gain their affection, he resolved to prove to them that the cruelties which had been committed were not attributable to him, but solely to the ferocious disposition of his minister. In pursuance of this plan, he availed himself of the first opportunity favourable to his design; he caused Ramiro to be massacred one morning, and his body to be exposed, stuck upon a stake, in the midst of the market place, with a cutlass near it stained with blood. The horror of this spectacle satisfied the resentment of the people; and petrified them at once with terror and astonishment.
But to return to our subject. The duke now found himself very powerful; he had delivered himself in a great measure from present enemies; by employing against them arms of his own choosing in ruining those powerful neighbours who could annoy him. To secure and increase his conquests, it was only wanting that he should have nothing to fear from the King of France. He was conscious that this prince, who had, though Jate, perceived his error, would not suffer his aggrandisement. He sought, therefore, in the first instance, to form new connections and alliances, and he adopted a system of tergiversation with France at the moment when his arms were employed in Naples against the Spaniards, who had laid siege to Gaëta. His design was to fortify himself against them, and he would certainly have succeeded if Alexander the VIth had longer lived: such was his conduct in the exigencies of that moment.
But the approaching dangers were still more to be dreaded: he had reason to fear that the new pope would be inimical to him, and seek to deprive him of what had been bestowed on him by his predecessor. He endeavoured, therefore, to ward off these dangers, and destroyed, in the first place, the race of all those nobles whom he had despoiled, in order to deprive the future pope of a pretext of doing it himself; secondly, he attached to his interests all the gentry of Rome, in order, by them, to controul the people; thirdly, he gained as many creatures as he was able in the sacred college; fourthly and lastly, he acquired so many states, and such sovereignty and power, previouș to the death of his father, that he was enabled of himself to:resist a first attack. Three of these four means he had employed before the death of Alexander, and he had made every necessary arrangement for putting in practice the fourth. In fact, of the nobles whom he had despoiled he had massacred the greater number, and very few escaped. He had gained over all the Roman gentry. Hiş party was strongest in the college of the cardinals; and as to his acquisitions; he thought of rendering hinmself master of Tuscany. He possessed already Perugia, Piombino, and Pisa, which were placed under his protection, and of which he had only to take possession. His cautious policy with regard to the French was no longer necessary, as they had been driven from the kingdom of Naples by the Spaniards, and each of these people were under the necessity of courting his friendship. Lucca, and Sienna must soon have.yielded, partly through fear and partly through hatred of the Florentines. The Florentines could not defend themselves. He would, therefore, have succeeded in all these designs, and he had already began the execution of them the very year that Alexander died. He had acquired so much power and reputation, that he might have sustained his dignity without depending either on fortune or the aid of any other power.
But Alexander VI. died five years after he had first unsheathed his sword. He left his son firmly established in the single state of Romagnia. All his other conquests were absolutely visionary, he being between two powerful armies, and himself attacked by a mortal disease. The duke had, however, so much ability and courage, and he knew so well whom he ought to cherish, and whom to destroy; the foundations he laid in so short a space of time were so solid, that if he had not had to contend with those two hostile armies, or if he had been in health, he would have surmounted every other difficulty.
As a proof of the soundness of the foundation he had laid, Romagnia continued faithful to him, and waited for him more than a month while he was half dead, though in safety at Rome; and although the Baglioni, the Vitelli, and the Ursini, were all there, they feared to attempt any thing against him. If he could not: elect a pope of his own choice, he was at least able to prevent the election of one unfriendly to his interests. And if he had not been.extremely ill when Alexander died, all things would have been easy to him. He told me on the day that Julius II. was nominated, that he had considered every obstacle which could arise on the death of his father, and had applied adequate remedies, but he did not foresee that át the time of his father's death he himself would be in danger of dying.
On considering all these measufes of the duke, I cannot reproach him with having omitted any thing; and I feel that he merits being proposed, as I have done, as a model for all those who by fortune or by foreign arms have acquired sovereignty. With great views, and still greater projects, his conduct could not be otherwise. The only circumstance which opposed his designs was the too sudden death of Alexander, and the illness with which he was himself attacked. Whoever, therefore, in a new principality, considers it necessary to be as sured of his enemies to make new friends, to conquer by force or cunning, to make himself beloved and feared by the people, respected and obeyed by the soldiery; to destroy all those who can or may be able to injure him; to promulgate new laws, in substitution of old ones; to be at once severe and indulgent, magnanimous and liberal; to disband a militia on which he cannot rely, and form a new one in its stead; and so to preserve the friendship of kings and princes, that they may be prompt to oblige and fearful to offend; he, I say, cannot find more recent examples for his guidance than those furnished by Borgia.
The only thing blamable in his conduct was on the election of Julius II,to the pontificate. He could not, as we have already observed, nominate whom he chose; but he could, at least, have excluded any other. Now, he ought never to have consented to the election of one of the cardinals whom he had injured, and who, having become the pontiff, would have had to dread him; for men injure us either through hatred or fear. Those whom he had injured, were, amongst others, Saint Peter ad Vincula, St. George, and Ascanius. All the rest who came to be elected had to fear him, except the Cardinal de Rouen and the Spaniards; the latter were united to him by family connections, and the Cardinal d'Amboise, supported by France, was too pówerful to fear him.
The duke, therefore, ought in the first instance to have endeavoured to procure the election of a Spaniard, and not being able to succeed, he should have consented to the nomination of the Archbishop of Rouen, and never to that of St. Peter ad Vincula. It is an error to think that new services make the great forget old offences. The duke, therefore, in this election committed a fault, and was himself the cause of his entire ruin.