the future.[1] (b) Among the laws concerning the dead, that one seems to me very well founded which requires that the acts of princes be closely scrutinised after their death:[2] they are peers but not masters of the laws; since justice has little power over their lives, it is reasonable that it should have control over their reputations and over what belongs to their successors — matters which we often value more than life itself. It is a custom which affords peculiar advantages to those nations by which it is observed, and is desirable in the eyes of all good princes (c) who have cause to complain that the memory of bad princes is treated like their own. We owe submission and obedience equally to all kings, for those are due to the kingly office; but esteem, like affection, we owe to their virtue alone. Let us yield to political necessity so far as to endure them patiently when unworthy, to conceal their vices, to assist with our commendation their unimportant acts so long as their authority needs our support; but when this intercourse is at an end, it is not reasonable to deny to justice and our liberty the expression of our real sentiments, and particularly to refuse to good subjects the glory of having reverently and loyally served a master whose imperfections were so well known to them; for then would posterity be cheated of a useful example. And those who, through respect for some private indebtedness, basely espouse the memory of an unpraiseworthy prince, do private justice at the expense of public justice. Livy says truly,[3] that the speech of men brought up under a monarchy is always full of foolish boasting and worthless witness, each one equally exalting his king to the utmost degree of supreme worth and greatness. One may blame the great courage of those two soldiers who answered Nero to his face; the one, being asked why he wished him ill: “I loved you when you deserved it; but since you have become a parricide, an incendiary, a mountebank, and a coachman, I hate you as you deserve”; the other, being asked why he wished to kill him: “Because I see no other
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BOOK I, CHAPTER III
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