Anti-Machiavel Literature
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populis nudum et conspicuum exhibere.' Similarly, Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus, c. v, § 7: 'Quibus autem mediis Princeps, qui sola dominandi libidine fertur, uti debet, ut imperium stabilire et conservare possit, acutissimus Machiavellus prolixe ostendit; quem autem in finem, non satis constare videtur. Si quem tamen bonum habuit, ut de viro sapiente credendum est, fuisse videtur, ut ostenderet, quam imprudenter multi Tyrannum e medio tollere conantur. … Praeterea ostendere forsan voluit, quantum libera multitudo cavere debet, ne salutem suam uni absolute credat, qui nisi vanus sit, et omnibus se posse placere existimet, quotidie insidias timere debet; atque adeo sibi potius cavere, et multitudini contra insidiari magis quam consulere cogitur; et ad hoc de prudentissimo isto viro credendum magis adducor, quia pro libertate fuisse constat, ad quam etiam tuendam saluberrima consilia dedit.' Amelot de la Houssaie in his translation and commentary, Le Prince (1683), wrote: 'Il ne faut pas s'étonner, si Machiavel est censuré de tant de gens, puisqu'il y en a si peu, qui sachent ce que c'est que Raison-d'État, et par conséquent si peu, qui puissent être juges compétens de la qualité des préceptes qu'il donne, et des maximes qu'il enseigne,' p. 5; see further his Preface, partly quoted by Burd, 65–6. Amelot's notes are largely made up of passages from Tacitus, 'le Maitre et l'Oracle ordinaire des Princes'. 'En feignant de donner des leçons aux rois', says Rousseau of Machiavelli, 'il en a donné de grandes aux peuples. "Le Prince" de Machiavel est le livre des républicains.'—Contrat Social, iii, c. 6. For Rousseau's views on the sway of 'interest' and of 'Reason of State' in international affairs, see Considérations sur le Gouvernement de Pologne, c. 15. According to Hegel, it was Machiavelli’s high sense of the necessity of constituting a State that caused him to lay down the principles on which alone States could be formed in the circumstances of his time.
B. MACHIAVELLI ON THE OFFICE OF AN AMBASSADOR
Machiavelli, himself an experienced ambassador and negotiator of treaties, shows his conception of the qualities requisite for a successful embassy in the instructions given by him to Raphael Girolami, Ambassador to the Emperor. It is necessary, he held, for an ambassador so to regulate his actions and conversation that he shall be thought a man of honour. A reputation for sincerity is 'highly essential, though too much neglected, as I have seen more than one so lose themselves in the opinion of princes by their duplicity, that they have been unable to conduct a negotiation of the most trifling importance. It is undoubtedly necessary for the ambassador occasionally
