of them have been crowned with success? No one conspires singly, and those with whom they divide the dangers of the enterprise are the discontented, who frequently denounce the conspirators and frustrate their designs, in the hope of a large renuneration from him against whom they complain. Those with whom you are obliged to associate in a conspiracy are placed between the temptation of a considerable reward and the dread of a great danger; so that to keep the secret it must either be entrusted to a very extraordinary friend or an irreconcileable enemy of the prince.
But to place the question in the simplest point of view: on the part of the conspirators there is nothing but fear, jealousy, and suspicion, whilst the prince has the advantage of the splendor and majesty of the government, the laws, customs, and his particular friends, without speaking of the affection which the people naturally feel for those who govern them. So that conspirators have to dread a failure both before and after the execution of their designs, since, the people being against them, they have no resource left. I could, in proof of what I say, adduce a thousand facts recorded in history, but I will only give one which occurred in the last century.
Hannibal Bentivoglio, the grandfather of the reigning Prince of Bologna, had been killed by the
