CHAP. XX.
Whether Fortresses, and other Means which appear useful to Princes, are really so.
There are princes, who, to maintain themselves in their states, disarm their subjects. Others encourage divisions in the provinces subjugated to their rule. Some go so far as designedly to make enemies. Others again strenuously strive to gain over those whom they had at the commencement of their reign suspected: the one builds fortresses, and the other razes to the ground those erected to his hands. It is not easy to determine which mode is the best, without entering into an investigation of the different states to which the rules to be established might properly be applied. I shall therefore rest satisfied by treating the.subject in that general way it requires.
A new prince never disarms his subjects; on the contrary, if he find them defenceless, he hastens to put arms into their hands, and nothing is easier understood; for from that moment these arms are entirely his own. Those whom he suspected become thenceforth attached to his cause, those who
