e soldiers for dishonor. This will show how all popular
revolutions resemble each other. Catherine's subsequent policy, which
upheld so firmly the royal power, may well have been instigated in
part by such scenes, of which an Italian girl of nine years of age was
assuredly not ignorant.

The rise of Alessandro de' Medici, to which the bastard Pope Clement
VII. powerfully contributed, was no doubt chiefly caused by the
affection of Charles V. for his famous illegitimate daughter Margaret.
Thus Pope and emperor were prompted by the same sentiment. At this epoch
Venice had the commerce of the world; Rome had its moral government;
Italy still reigned supreme through the poets, the generals, the
statesmen born to her. At no period of the world's history, in any land,
was there ever seen so remarkable, so abundant a collection of men of
genius. There were so many, in fact, that even the lesser princes were
superior men. Italy was crammed with talent, enterprise, knowledge,
science, poesy, wealth, and gallantry, all the while torn by intestinal
warfare and overrun with conquerors struggling for possession of her
finest provinces. When men are so strong, they do not fear to admit
their weaknesses. Hence, no doubt, this golden age for bastards. We
must, moreover, do the illegitimate children of the house of the Medici
the justice to say that they were ardently devoted to the glory, power,
and increase of wealth of that famous family. Thus as soon as the _Duca
della citta di Penna_, son of the Moorish woman, was installed as tyrant
of Florence, he espoused the interest of Pope Clement VII., and gave a
home to the daughter of Lorenzo II., then eleven years of age.

When we study the march of events and that of men in this curious
sixteenth century, we ought never to forget that public policy had for
its element a perpetual craftiness and a dissimulation which destroyed,
in all characters, the straightforward, upright bearing our imaginations
demand of eminent personages. In this, above all, is Catherine's
absolution. It disposes of the vulgar and foolish accusations of
treachery launched against her by the writers of the Reformation. This
was the great age of that statesmanship the code of which was written
by Macchiavelli as well as by Spinosa, by Hobbes as well as by
Montesquieu,--for the dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates contains
Montesquieu's true thought, which his connection with the Encyclopedists
did not permit him to d