le affirming that an
ambassador must study to speak the truth, adds that he is not such a
"rustic boor" as to say that an "official lie" (_officiosum mendacium_)
is never to be employed, or to deny that an ambassador should be, on
occasion, _splendide mendax_.[12] The situation is summed up in the
famous definition of Sir Henry Wotton, which, though excused by himself
as a jest, was held to be an indiscreet revelation of the truth: "An
ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his
country."[13] The most successful liar, in fact, was esteemed the most
successful diplomatist. "A prime article of the catechism of
ambassadors," says Bayle in his _Dictionnaire critique_ (1699),
"whatever their religion, is to invent falsehoods and to go about making
society believe them." So universally was this principle adopted that,
in the end, no diplomatist even expected to be believed; and the best
way to deceive was--as Bismarck cynically avowed--to tell the truth.

But, in addition to being a liar _ex officio_, the ambassador was also
"an honourable spy." "The principal functions of an envoy," says
Francois de Callieres, himself an ex-ambassador of Louis XIV., "are two;
the first is to look after the affairs of his own prince; the second is
to discover the affairs of the other." A clever minister, he maintains,
will know how to keep himself informed of all that goes on in the mind
of the sovereign, in the councils of ministers or in the country; and
for this end "good cheer and the warming effect of wine" are excellent
allies.[14] This being so, it is hardly to be wondered at that foreign
ambassadors were commonly regarded as perhaps necessary, but certainly
very unwelcome, guests. The views of Philippe de Commines have already
been quoted above, and they were shared by a long series of theoretical
writers as well as by men of affairs. Gentilis is all but alone in his
protest against the view that all ambassadors were _exploratores magis
quam oratores_, and to be treated as such. So early as 1481 the
government of Venice had decreed the penalty of banishment and a heavy
fine for any one who should talk of affairs of state with a foreign
envoy, and though the more civilized princes did not follow the example
of the sultan, who by way of precaution locked the ambassador of
Ferdinand II., Jerome Laski, into "a dark and stinking place without
windows," they took the most minute precautions to prevent the
ambassadors