Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/49

 Europe at the Opening of the Sixteenth Century I I him to pledge it are removed. If all men were good, this would not be good advice, hut since they are dishonest and do not keep faith with you, you in return need not keep faith with them; and no prince was ever at a loss for plausible reasons to cloak a breach of faith. Of this numberless recent instances could be given, and it might be shown how many solemn treaties and engagements have been rendered inoperative and idle through want of faith among princes, and that he who has best known how to play the fox has had the best success. It is necessary, indeed, to put a good color on this nature, and to be skilled in simulating and dissembling. Ikit men are so simple, and governed so absolutely by their present needs, that he who wishes to deceive will never fail in find- ing willing dupes. One recent example I will not omit Pope Alexander VI had no care or thought but how to deceive, and always found material to work on. No man ever had a more effective manner of asseverating, or made promises with more solemn protestations, or observed them less. And yet, because he understood this side of human nature, his frauds always succeeded. ... In his efforts to aggrandize his son, the duke [Caesar 232b. Policy Borgia], Alexander VI had to face many difficulties, both ^ f ,f x ° a p ® der immediate and remote. In the first place, he saw no way to viand his make him ruler of any state which did not belong to the son, Cassar Church. Yet, if he sought to take for him a state of the Bor « ia - Church, he knew that the duke of Milan and the Venetians would withhold their consent, Faenza and Rimini ' being already under the protection of the latter. Further, he saw that the forces of Italy, and those more especially of which he might have availed himself, were in the hands of men who had reason to fear his aggrandizement, — that is, of the Orsini, the Colonnesi, 2 and their followers. These, there- fore, he could not trust. 1 Towns in Romagna, a province upon which Alexander VI had his eyes as an appropriate field of conquest for his son. 2 Powerful families of Roman barons.