his body was left
naked on the bare ground, bloody and riddled with wounds. He was only
thirty-one.' And so the star of Machiavelli's hopes and dreams was
quenched for a season in the clouds from which it came.

[Sidenote: The Lesson.]

It seems worth while to sketch the strange tempestuous career of Caesar
Borgia because in the remaining chapters of _The Prince_ and elsewhere
in his writings, it is the thought and memory of Valentinois, transmuted
doubtless and idealised by the lapse of years, that largely inform and
inspire the perfect Prince of Machiavelli. But it must not be supposed
that in life or in mind they were intimate or even sympathetic.
Machiavelli criticises his hero liberally and even harshly. But for the
work he wanted done he had found no better craftsman and no better
example to follow for those that might come after. Morals and religion
did not touch the purpose of his arguments except as affecting policy.
In policy virtues may be admitted as useful agents and in the chapter
following that on Caesar, entitled, curiously enough, 'Of those who by
their crimes come to be Princes,' he lays down that 'to slaughter fellow
citizens, to betray friends, to be devoid of honour, pity and religion
cannot be counted as merits, for these are means which may lead to power
but which confer no glory.' Cruelty he would employ without hesitation
but with the greatest care both in degree and in kind. It should be
immediate and complete and leave no possibility of counter-revenge. For
it is never forgotten by the living, and 'he deceives himself who
believes that, with the great, recent benefits cause old wrongs to be
forgotten.' On the other hand 'Benefits should be conferred little by
little so that they may be more fully relished.' The cruelty proper to a
Prince (Government, for as ever they are identical) aims only at
authority. Now authority must spring from love or fear. It were best to
combine both motives to obedience but you cannot. The Prince must
remember that men are fickle, and love at their own pleasure, and that
men are fearful and fear at the pleasure of the Prince. Let him
therefore depend on what is of himself, not on that which is of others.
'Yet if he win not love he may escape hate, and so it will be if he does
not meddle with the property or women-folk of his subjects.' When he
must punish let him kill. 'For men will sooner forget the death of their
father than the loss of their estate.' And moreov