The Prince: Chapters 1–5

I have neither decorated nor filled this work with elaborate sentences, with rich and magnificent words, or with any other form of rhetorical or unnecessary ornamentation that many writers normally use in describing and enriching their subject-matter, for I wished that nothing should set my work apart or make it pleasing except the variety of its material and the gravity of its contents.

In this way, if such a prince is of ordinary ability he will always maintain his state, unless some extraordinary and inordinate force should deprive him of it, and although it may be taken away from him, he will regain it at the slightest mistake of the usurper.

In this way, if such a prince is of ordinary ability he will always maintain his state, unless some extraordinary and inordinate force should deprive him of it, and although it may be taken away from him, he will regain it at the slightest mistake of the usurper.

In the first place, if it is not completely new but is like an added appendage (so that the two parts together may be called mixed), its difficulties derive first from one natural problem inherent in all new principalities: that men gladly change their ruler, thinking to better themselves.

It is indeed true that when lands that have rebelled once are taken a second time it is more difficult to lose them; for the ruler, taking advantage of the rebellion, is less reticent about punishing offenders, ferreting out suspects, and shoring up weak positions.

One of the best and most efficacious remedies would be for the person who has taken possession of them to go there to live.

Moreover, the region would not be plundered by your own officers; the subjects would be pleased to have direct recourse to their prince; thus, those wishing to be good subjects have more reason to love him, and those wanting to be otherwise, more reason to fear him.

You will see that he did the contrary of those things that must be done in order to hold one’s dominion in a region with heterogeneous customs, languages, and institutions.

This laudable decision would have succeeded if he had not erred in his other moves.

Nor did he realize that with this decision he had made himself weaker, abandoning his allies and those who had thrown themselves into his lap, and he had made the Church stronger by adding to it so much temporal power, in addition to the spiritual power from which it derives so much authority.

King Louis lost Lombardy, therefore, by not following any of the precepts observed by others who seized territories and wished to retain them.

The opposite occurs in kingdoms governed like that of France, because you can invade them with ease once you have won to your side some barons of the kingdom, since you can always find malcontents and men who desire a change.

These people, for the reasons already given, can open the way to that dominion and facilitate your victory.

Nor is it sufficient for you to wipe out the ruling family, since the nobles who make themselves heads of new insurrections still remain.

When those states that are acquired, as I have said, are accustomed to living under their own laws and in freedom, there are three methods of holding on to them: the first is to destroy them; the second is to go there in person to live; the third is to allow them to live with their own laws, forcing them to pay a tribute and creating an oligarchy there that will keep the state friendly toward you.