g causes so much disturbance and hindrance in human
affairs, as to be forced, at a moment's notice and without time allowed
for reflection, to vary your plan of action and adopt a different one
from that fixed on at the first. And if such changes cause confusion
anywhere, it is in matters appertaining to war, and in enterprises of
the kind we are now speaking of; for in such affairs as these, there
is nothing so essential as that men be prepared to do the exact thing
intrusted to them. But when men have for many days together turned their
whole thoughts to doing a thing in a certain way and in a certain order,
and the way and order are suddenly altered, it is impossible but that
they should be disconcerted and the whole scheme ruined. For which
reason, it is far better to do everything in accordance with the
preconcerted plan, though it be seen to be attended with some
disadvantages, than, in order to escape these, to involve yourself in
an infinity of dangers. And this will happen when you depart from your
original design without time given to form a new one. For when time is
given you may manage as you please.

The conspiracy of the Pazzi against Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici is
well known. The scheme agreed on was to give a banquet to the Cardinal
S. Giorgio, at which the brothers should be put to death. To each of
the conspirators a part was assigned: to one the murder, to another the
seizure of the palace, while a third was to ride through the streets and
call on the people to free themselves. But it so chanced that at a time
when the Pazzi, the Medici, and the Cardinal were all assembled in the
cathedral church of Florence to hear High Mass, it became known
that Giuliano would not be present at the banquet; whereupon the
conspirators, laying their heads together, resolved to do in church what
they were to have done elsewhere. This, however, deranged the whole
scheme. For Giovambattista of Montesecco, would have no hand in the
murder if it was to be done in a church; and the whole distribution of
parts had in consequence to be changed; when, as those to whom the new
parts were assigned had no time allowed them to nerve their minds
to their new tasks, they managed matters so badly that they were
overpowered in their attempt.

Courage fails a conspirator either from his own poorness of spirit, or
from his being overcome by some feeling of reverence. For such majesty
and awe attend the person of a prince, that it m