able to repel the first efforts of a revolt. This mode is very old, and seems to me to be a good one; we have however seen in our own times Nicholas Vitelli demolish the two fortresses of the city af Castello to effect the safety of that state. Guy d'Ubaldo, Duke of Urbino, having recovered his duchy from which Cæsar Borgia had driven him, razed all the fortresses, the more easily to maintain himself therein. The Bentivoglii did the same at Bologna, when that state returned under their government.
Fortresses are therefore useful or otherwise according to circumstances; and if in some cases they are serviceable, they are in others injurious, Thus a prince who is more in dread of his subjects than of foreign foes ought to fortify his cities; but if the reverse, he should do without them. The castle that Francis Sforza built at Milan, has injured, and will yet more injure that family, than all the disorders with which that duchy has been lacerated.
There is no better fortress than the affection of the people, because a prince who is hated by his subjects must expect, when he sees them fly to arms, to see the enemy from without fly to their assistance. We have not seen that fortresses have much assisted the princes of the present day, with the exception perhaps of the Countess of Forli, who, after the death of her husband Count Jerome,
