d have been
cruel. But where love is mutual, where the object beloved suffers more
in the separation than you do yourself, to part with her is indeed a
struggle. It is the hardest sacrifice a good heart can make to its duty.

_Scipio_.--I acknowledge that it is, and yield you the palm. But I will
own to you, Titus, I never knew much of the tenderness you describe.
Hannibal, Carthage, Rome, the saving of my country, the subduing of its
rival, these filled my thoughts, and left no room there for those
effeminate passions. I do not blame your sensibility; but when I went to
the capitol to talk with Jove, I never consulted him about love affairs.

_Titus_.--If my soul had been possessed by ambition alone, I might
possibly have been a greater man than I was; but I should not have been
more virtuous, nor have gained the title I preferred to that of conqueror
of Judaea and Emperor of Rome, in being called the delight of humankind.

DIALOGUE XII

HENRY DUKE OF GUISE--MACHIAVEL.

_Guise_.--Avaunt! thou fiend. I abhor thy sight. I look upon thee as
the original cause of my death, and of all the calamities brought upon
the French nation, in my father's time and my own.

_Machiavel_.--I the cause of your death! You surprise me!

_Guise_.--Yes. Your pernicious maxims of policy, imported from Florence
with Catherine of Medicis, your wicked disciple, produced in France such
a government, such dissimulation, such perfidy, such violent, ruthless
counsels, as threw that whole kingdom into the utmost confusion, and
ended my life, even in the palace of my sovereign, by the swords of
assassins.

_Machiavel_.--Whoever may have a right to complain of my policy, you,
sir, have not. You owed your greatness to it, and your deviating from it
was the real cause of your death. If it had not been for the
assassination of Admiral Coligni and the massacre of the Huguenots, the
strength and power which the conduct of so able a chief would have given
to that party, after the death of your father, its most dangerous enemy,
would have been fatal to your house; nor could you, even with all the
advantage you drew from that great stroke of royal policy, have acquired
the authority you afterwards rose to in the kingdom of France; but by
pursuing my maxims, by availing yourself of the specious name of religion
to serve the secret purposes of your ambition, and by suffering no
restraint of fear or conscience, not even the guilt of exciti