aux masses dans ces moments
funestes et glorieux ou ils sont appeles a changer la loi et la foi des
nations." His advice, says La Farina, would have saved Italy. Canello
believes that he is disliked because he is mistaken for a courtier:
"L'orrore e l' antipatia che molti critici hanno provato per il
Machiavelli son derivati dal pensare che tutti i suoi crudi insegnamenti
fossero solo a vantaggio del Principe." One biographer, Mordenti, exalts
him as the very champion of conscience: "Risuscitando la dignita dell'
umana coscienza, ne affermo l' esistenza in faccia alla ragione." He
adds, more truly, "E uno dei personaggi del dramma che si va svolgendo
nell' eta nostra."

That is the meaning of Laurent when he says that he has imitators but no
defenders: "Machiavel ne trouve plus un seul partisan au XIXe
siecle.--La posterite a voue son nom a l'infamie, tout en pratiquant sa
doctrine." His characteristic universality has been recognised by
Baudrillart: "En exprimant ce mauvais cote, mais ce mauvais cote, helas,
eternel! Machiavel n'est plus seulement le publiciste de son pays et de
son temps; it est le politique de tous les siecles.--S'il fait tout
dependre de la puissance individuelle, et de ses facultes de force,
d'habilete de ruse, c'est que, plus le theatre se retrecit, plus l'homme
influe sur la marche des evenements." Matter finds the same merits which
are applauded by the Italians: "Il a plus innove pour la liberte que
pour le despotisme, car autour de lui la liberte etait inconnue, tandis
que le despotisme lui posait partout." And his reviewer, Longperier,
pronounces the doctrine "parfaitement appropriee aux etats d'Italie."
Nourrisson, with Fehr, one of the few religious men who still have a
good word for the Secretary, admires his sincerity: "_Le Prince_ est un
livre de bonne foi, ou l'auteur, sans songer a mal, n'a fait que
traduire en maximes les pratiques habituelles a ses contemporains."
Thiers, though he surrendered _The Prince_, clung to the _Discorsi_--the
_Discorsi_, with the pointed and culminating text produced by Mr. Burd.
In the archives of the ministry he might have found how the idea struck
his successful predecessor, Vergennes: "Il est des choses plus fortes
que les hommes, et les grands interets des nations sont de ce genre, et
doivent par consequent l'emporter sur la facon de penser de quelques
particuliers."

Loyalty to Frederic the Great has not restrained German opinion, and
philosophers un