the prince who has a reliance on such soldiers will never be safe, because they are always ambitious, disunited, unfaithful, and undisciplined. Brave amongst friends, but cowardly in the face of an enemy, and neither fear God nor keep faith with man; so that the prince who employs thent can only retard his fall by delaying to put their valour to the proof, and in short they plunder the ștate in time of peace as much as the enemy does in time of war. How, indeed, should it be otherwise? This kind of troops can never serve a state but for the sake of pay, which is never so high as to induce them tơ purchase it by the sacrifice of their lives; they are willing enough to serve in time of peace, but the moment war is declared it is impossible to keep them to their colours.
It is a matter easily proved, since Italy world not at this instant have been ruined had, she not played confidence in mercenary troops, who at first indeed rendered some services, but who shewed the extent of their bravery on the appearance of an enemy. Thus Charles VIII. King of France, conquered Italy with a piece of chalk[1] and those were right who said that our sins yere the cause of it. It was, indeed, our errors that produced this misfortune, or rather the fault of those princes who did so, and have suffered for it.
- ↑ A proverbial expression, signifying—"that He needed only a piece of chalk to mark out his cantonments."
