NEGOTIATING WITH PRINCES
tainly be well repaid if such a policy as I suggest be adopted, for diplomacy will then become the school in which good workmen will rapidly learn the use of their tools.
First Steps at the Foreign Court.On arrival at a foreign court a negotiator should make himself and his mission known to the proper authorities at the earliest possible moment, and request a private audience with the prince in order that he may establish contact immediately, and thus prepare the way for good relations between his master and the foreign sovereign. When he has taken the necessary steps for this purpose he should be in no hurry to embark upon any important steps but should rather study the terrain. For this purpose he should remain a watchful, silent observer of the habits of the court and of the government, and if he be in a country where the prince is really the ruler, he should study with the greatest assiduity the whole life and habits of the latter; for policy is not merely a matter of high impersonal design, it is a vast complexity in which the inclinations, the judgments, the virtues and the vices of the prince himself will play a large part. Occasions will constantly arise in which the adroit negotiator who has equipped himself with this knowledge will be able to use it with the highest possible effect. And he should test his own conclusions by comparing notes dis-99
