Machiavelli. "It was the opinion of Plutarch that the Romans confessed
their obligations to Fortune by consecrating a great number of temples
and statues to that goddess. It was to the courage of her soldiers that
Rome owed the Empire, and it was to the wisdom and conduct of her
administrators and law-givers that she owed its preservation. If fortune
or God rule the world, then man hath no remedy against the evils of his
time, and his prudence avails him nothing. I am in part inclined to this
opinion, since every day we see things happen contrary to all human
expectation; yet, at the same time, man is in some measure free. What I
say, then, is this: that fortune is mistress of little more than half of
our actions, and man himself is master of all the rest. In all things we
may observe the action of certain laws, to which man is subject, but
within the limits of which he hath a certain freedom. So, as a sailor,
knowing the changes of the tide and wind; how it bloweth from the shore
at evening, and from the sea at dawn; and knowing also the mysterious
currents in the sea, and the hidden shallows, and the free channels, and
the stars by which he is to steer, may bring his venture into port,
where one ignorant of these things would suffer shipwreck, the wise man
judging of times and opportunities will use caution or courage, as best
may serve the occasion. He will prosper most whose mode of acting is
adapted to the change of times; but no man is found so prudent as to
know how to adapt himself to all changes, both because he is naturally
inclined to follow one course, and because having prospered in it
hitherto he cannot be persuaded to change. Moreover, fortune is a blind
and irresistible force, while the divine providence of Dante is mild and
beneficent; and though we have instances of fortune we have none of
providence; and to assert that fortune directed the growth of the Roman
Empire is to say a childish thing, for fortune creates nothing, it
rather destroys; but it is man, adapting himself to fortune, who is the
creator. Though we may say that fortune doth in a large measure control
the works of man, we cannot say that the divine providence hath inspired
or maintained in power, by its singular favour, any people. But every
people succeeds or fails according to its wisdom in dealing with events
as they occur, and in guarding against all probabilities of mischance."
While he was speaking, his son, Piero, came into the room with some wine
for them, which he put upon the table. He was not unlike his father,
with a small, close-cropped head and slightly aquiline nose, but the
face had the softer outline and delicacy of youth; something in the
clean-cut features, the thoughtful brows, and firm lips, reminded
Cromwell of a little head of Augustus upon a gem which he had seen at
Rome, but even more, of a small head of Caligula, that debased and
weaker image of Augustus. Machiavelli smiled, took his son's hand, and
talked to him in that spirit of grave banter which is customary with men
when they talk to children, and the boy answered him readily enough,
with responsive smiles, and laughingly, but yet a little embarrassed by
the presence of their guest. Presently his hand was released, and he
slipped silently out of the room.
"It is sad when one thinks of the great empires of the past fallen into
decay, and all their work perished, so that nothing of them can be said
to remain except a shadowy legend and a name."
"Yes, it is sad; but it hath always been so," answered Machiavelli.
"Everything is subject to change and death. Do you know these lines of
Dante, since you study him?
"'_Atene e Lacedemone, che fenno
Le antiche leggi, e furon sì civili,
Fecero al viver bene un picciol cenno
Verso di te, che fai tanto sottili
Provvedimenti, che a mezzo novembre
Non giunge quel che tu d'ottobre fili._'
"They are nothing but a song in our ears. And yet we may comfort
ourselves. For I believe that the world has always been the same and has
always contained an equal mass of good and evil, but I believe also that
this good and evil passes from one country to another, as we may see by
the records of these kingdoms of antiquity, which, as their manners
changed, passed from one to the other, but the world itself remained the
same. There is only this difference, that whereas first the seat of the
world's greatness was at Assyria, whence it passed to the Medes, thence
into Persia, until finally it came to Rome and Italy, and though no
other Empire has followed which has proved lasting, yet now the
greatness of the world is diffused through many nations, in which men
live in orderly and civil fashion. Everything is subject to change and
the vicissitudes of fortune; but passing from change to change all
things return more or less to their former state."
"I remember the lines. Tell me, Messer: Dante calleth Virgil his master;
do you think the poetry of Dante similar and equal to Virgil?"
Machiavelli moved a little in his chair.
"There is a Virgil by your hand, Messer," he said. "Open it. Look at the
print and paper; it was printed at Venice. So I like to read that
splendid verse. And yet Dante scarcely seems a poet to be read in print.
I should like to possess his works written in a fine, neat, clerkly
script, upon vellum, with little illuminations in the margin, angels in
vermilion and ultramarine upon a golden ground; initial letters with
quaint floral devices woven about them, heraldic monsters, the Gryphon
with his car, Beatrice walking by the stream in the earthly Paradise. He
chose Virgil as his master because, to him, Virgil was the sole Roman to
whom the prophecy of Christ's coming had been revealed by the divine
will; because Virgil himself had pictured the state of man after death;
and, finally, because Virgil had been the singer of that Empire which
Dante so greatly reverenced. The poetry of Dante has nothing of
classical proportion; its unity is simply the unity of a philosophical
system; its progress is like a pageant. But it is full of a sudden
wilful beauty, a delight in natural things, moments of birdlike music
when he speaks of birds, as in the lines:
"'_Nell'ora che comincie i tristi lai
La rondinella presso alla mattina,
Forse a memoria de' suoi primi guai._'
and when he describes the flight of cranes, or of the lark:
"'_Quale allodetta, che in aere si spazia
Prima cantando, e poi tace contenta
Dell' ultima dolcezza, che la sazia._'
It is like that delicate work of the illuminators, full of a kind of
homeliness, a clear and luminous beauty; but it is not the same thing as
Virgil's lines:
"'_.... et bibit ingens
Arcus: et e pastu decedens agmine magno
Corvorum increpuit densis exercitus alis._'
I do not think that Dante is a lesser poet; but he hath not, and never
can have, the same universal appeal. He is terrible, full of swiftness,
and energy, and hatred; devouring his subject like a flame. No poet hath
lines so horrible, so inhuman as:
"'_due dì li chiamai poi che fur morti:
Poscia, più che il dolor, potè il digiuno.
Quand' ebbe detto ciò, con gli occhi torti
Riprese il teschio misero coi denti,
Che furo all' osso, come d'un can, forti._'
It is an exultation of hatred, a luxury in disgust, a joy in brutal
vengeance which cannot be paralleled. Turn from it to these lines out of
the _Paradiso_:
"'_O dolce Amor, che di riso t' ammanti,
Quanto parevi ardente in quei flailli,
Ch' aveano spirto sol di pensier santi._'
and you have some notion of his wide range from tumult into calm. Will
you not drink a little wine?"
"This wine is excellent," said Cromwell. "As a rule I find the Italian
wine a little harsh; but this is suave and of a delicate flavour. You
are a great lover of poetry, Messer. I see that your volumes of Tibullus
and Ovid are much worn."
"I carry them out with me when I go fowling, and read them beside the
snares."
"I have little time for such pleasures, alas!" said Cromwell. "Yet I,
too, have great need of the poets, sometimes. I have read the _Commedia_
closely. Tell me, Messer, since you have spoken of Dante's political
principles as enunciated in the _De Monarchia_, did not they suffer a
change in the _Commedia_?"
"Man's ideals are broken as he hath greater experience of life. Dante,
like all enthusiasts, fashioned to his own mind a picture of the ideal
state, upon the hypothesis, as I have said before, that all men are
naturally good. But if you consider his poem you will find that it is
nothing but a record of crimes and their punishment, while even the
crystal air of heaven is disturbed by denunciations of evil. His notion
that the civil power is of God, and that the Church should be subject to
it, is expressed later with even a more vehement conviction in the
_Paradiso_, by Justinian, the supreme legist. In the _De Monarchia_ he
says: 'Si romanum imperium de jure non fuit, peccatum Adae in Christo
non fuit punitum'; and in the _Commedia_ for having withstood the
Empire, Brutus with Cassius still howls in Hell, and 'Piangene ancor la
trista Cleopatra.' But, after his years of exile and wandering, he seems
to have surrendered his faith in a kingdom, which should be of this
world, and sought for justice and the triumph of the good beyond the
grave, as so many others have, likewise; for in the next world we shall
all be justified. Dante's poem is not like the _Æneid,_ an epic: it is
an Apocalypse. The companion of his voyage is less the gentle Virgil,
the maiden of the maiden city, than some later St John, continuing his
fulminations from Patmos, judging all nations and condemning them. It is
only in rare moments that he can speak a tender language as he does of
the Florence of an earlier day, standing in peace, sober, chaste, with
no houses void of a family; with her nobles in leather jerkins, and
their ladies at the cradle, or the distaff, telling their handmaidens
the tales of Troy, and Rome, and Fiesole. Such is the manner of poets:
to praise times past in preference to the present, and usually without
reason. A little later, you will hear Peter condemning his successors,
who imitate him in that calling which he followed before he followed the
call of Christ, rather than in his later life:
"'_Non fu nostra intenzion, ch'a destra mano
Dei nostri successor parte sedesse,
Parte dall' altra del popol cristiano:
Nè che le chiavi, che mi fur concesse
Divenisser segnacolo in vessillo,
Che contra i battezzati combattessi:
Nè ch' io fossi figura di sigillo
Ai privilegi venduti e mendaci._'
Everything in the poem is a condemnation of this world. A sense of
complete isolation has overcome the writer. He stands alone, neither
Guelf nor Ghibelline, but a party to himself: the first Italian."
He paused, drank a little wine, and smiled tolerantly.
"I, too, began life in attaching myself to a party; and when my party
was expulsed I became a Florentine, and now, having considered all the
cities of Italy, I am an Italian. But the great mass of my countrymen
are still as Dante saw them, split up into numerous factions, weak by
divisions, a ready prey to any comer."
Cromwell stroked his chin meditatively and, discreet, said nothing.
"When our dreams have faded, Messer," continued the other, "we can only
sit aloof, watching the comedy of life with at best a tolerant contempt,
but more often hiding, under a mask of cynicism and sarcasm, the maimed
heart that is in us."
The other was a little embarrassed, after a moment he spoke quickly.
"It seems, to my mind, Messer, that Dante's poem hath no progress, no
dramatic progress; beyond the pedestrian interest of the scenes
described there is no motion."
"Thought can be dramatic as well as action," replied the other; "but I
am inclined to agree with you. Consider the poem as a whole system of
thought starting from 'the master of those who know' and ending in the
beatific vision; consider it, next, as a denunciation of all the lusts
and depravity of the world, typified, and made incarnate in historical
characters: Francesca, voyaging for ever through the dusky air, on a
wind that seems to symbolise her own passion; Ugolino, turning his
strong teeth upon that wretched skull: consider, finally, the little
illuminations which have made me compare the poem to a missal or a book
of hours; the terse phrase, the very simplicity of which bites like an
acid, so keen it is. Then, I think, you will see how various was his
mind. His poem is like a great life; his words like actions, sometimes
terrible and inhuman, sometimes like a mother's tenderness with her
child."
Cromwell suddenly broke into a smile.
"Yes, yes, as you say, Messer, it is a whole system of thought. Nay,
even more, it is the whole structure of a past age. But how simple! How
childish! The people of that time seem to me like a few men gathered
together at night round an open fire; at hand is a cheerful warmth, and
light, but a few paces away is the darkness full of terrors, and on the
borders of darkness are monstrous shadows. They sit crouched about the
fire, telling idle tales to beguile their fears, thinking that beyond
that little glow of radiance is nothing, whereas, at no great distance
from them is such another company round another fire. We have explored
the darkness, and now the dawn is beginning."
"_Magnus nascitur ordo_," said Machiavelli, smiling. "How many ages have
said the same thing?"
"But it is here. The new order is born. I am no scholar, Messer, but I
have heard Dean Colet and Erasmus. The recovery of the Greeks hath let
knowledge like a light into many dark places; the whole political fabric
is dissolving, and flowing away into the limbo of dead conceptions. The
secular power, which Dante wished, and which you wish, to see
established, is here."
"Yes, it is here," answered Machiavelli; "but what is it going to do?
Mankind is constantly labouring at an unknown task; and, in seeking to
be free, doth often but rivet its own fetters more securely."
"What do you mean?"
"Take as an example the conflict between the senate and people of Rome.
Marius having been made the champion of liberty is followed by Sulla the
master of reaction; the fight is long, bitter, and when finally the
people triumph they find themselves under the absolute rule of one man.
Now this results from the fact that men worship the name of freedom,
rather than the thing itself; those who fight in the cause of liberty
are fighting for their own establishment in power and, being
established, they seek to protect themselves, and fortify their position
as the central authority; and, having been raised up by the popular
voice, they are stronger than the power which they have supplanted; thus
it happens that the people warring against their government in the cause
of liberty do but increase the power which they have aimed to destroy.
The present struggle is to rid the State of the interference of the
Church: to found greater States. The popes have destroyed Italy by
playing off faction against faction, and city against city, in the hope
that by this method they might become supreme over all; but having
introduced disorder into every town, and destroyed all civic morality,
they have also lessened their own power; for these states and cities
were the Church's bulwarks against the invader. Now, whatever may be the
issue of present affairs, the Pope must become subject either to the
Emperor or to the King of France. This is the nemesis of their policy.
The liberty of the State will be achieved, at least in a great measure;
but the State being stronger will be more absolute, more tyrannous. The
solvent of the new learning, as you call it, will be smiled upon by
kings, so long as it doth help them to rid themselves of the Pope; but
it will be repressed the moment that it shows any desire to alter or
limit the power of the States."
"Yes," answered Cromwell; "but if they once let in the flood, it will be
too late to think of building a dam."
"When I was a young man I remember to have heard Politian," said
Machiavelli. "But I think that the enthusiasm which began with Petrarch,
and continued into my younger days, has died down. It is true that our
studies are better organised: we have the academies; but learning in
Italy at the present day is rather a polite accomplishment than a
serious business. It hath not penetrated the mass of people. To them,
the two bases of the social order are still the Pope and the Emperor, as
in Dante's day; and they condemn the new learning as tending to
overthrow these bases, and so destroy the whole fabric of society. The
monks point to Erasmus as the cause of the present troubles in Germany."
"Erasmus doth seem to me to be the one wise man," answered Cromwell. "He
steereth a middle course, condemning the fanatics on both sides. It is
his wish to avoid any tumult, and merely to further the growth of light
and reason; for he is persuaded the whole evil of the time comes from
ignorance. Colet, such another man, was persecuted with accusations of
heresy, so that he thought well to withdraw himself from the public eye.
But neither of these men desired to overthrow the Papacy or to promote a
schism; for they thought, if I remember aright, that such methods, with
their incidental violence, would only prejudice the cause they had at
heart; their aim was to act upon the Church from within, to reform its
abuses, to root out this pestilent brood of monks, and to promote a
healthy growth of lay opinion. To Erasmus the German schismatics are no
whit less ignorant or less intolerant than his old enemies the monks,
and equally entangled in the webs of vain theological sophistries. He
believes that the great influences are secret, and of slow growth,
gradually penetrating all things; and he seeketh to form a party of
intellectual men, who shall work within reasonable limits, acting as a
new leaven to leaven the whole lump."
"I have little faith in such an influence, except as a preparation for
the combat," said Machiavelli. "What I praise in Erasmus is that
clearness of judgment, which insists that the Bible should be read as
any other book, that each man should go direct to the source, and fill
his own vessel; for by that means they will recognise the chicanery,
which isolates texts and phrases, and distorts their sense. But not by
any gentle methods will the regeneration of Europe come to pass. There
is a stir, a commotion of minds, abroad, which is testing the
pretensions of the Church, and rejecting them one by one. The sands are
shifting beneath the foundations of a structure we thought builded upon
a rock; and though as yet the fabric stands, it showeth great rents. So:
the Pope and Emperor remain to the majority the bases of the social
order, as I have said, and soon it will be perceived by all men that the
humanists, in playing with questions of grammar, have trenched upon
matters of faith: a crime not serious in itself, but exceedingly grave
when after reflection we learn that it compromises temporalities. Men
have not yet clearly seen this danger, though a few, perhaps, have
suspected it. And, when the reaction against humanism sets in, upon what
arm will the humanists rely to defend them?
"They will by that time have created not only a large following, but a
temper among the people. I myself, Messer, have great hopes of our young
King of England, who hath grown under the influence of men similar to
Erasmus. He hath a royal nature, a dominant will, a power not only of
making his people's aspirations his own, but that supreme gift in a
ruler which can make what is to his own private advantage seem a matter
tending to further the public good. Though as yet he be not fully tried,
this much I will venture to prophesy of him, that no hindrances in the
path he chooses will prevent him, and that no man in his realm of
England who fails him once will fail him again."
"You are either very fortunate, or very unfortunate, to have such a
prince," said Machiavelli, with a smile. "But humanism is of recent
growth in your country. It must be followed by reform. And, if your King
hath that quality of true kingliness, which maketh the aspirations of
his people his own, would he withstand reaction?"
"I cannot conceive that one of his nurture and character should be found
on any side but that of reform."
A light, incredulous smile played upon the other's face.
"It might be politic," he suggested.
But Cromwell protruded his under-lip obstinately.
"I cannot conceive the possibility," he said.
Machiavelli shrugged his shoulders, leaned back in his chair, and looked
at his guest over joined finger-tips.
"He hath written against Luther, but rather for the reasons of Erasmus
than for those of the monks," said Cromwell slowly. "It is even
conceivable that if he once take up the business of reforming the Church
in England, he may be forced into a more extreme position; I mean into a
denial of the Pope's authority, and a position similar to that of the
followers of Luther. In that case, I admit, the war will be between two
extreme parties; but it would be difficult to say which he would
support, or how far he would be compelled to go. Certain it is to me
that he will ally himself with whatever party is likely to serve his own
ends, and will not forsake them until they have gained him what he
requires. Then, indeed, he may cast aside the tool, which he hath
blunted by use, and choose one keener; yet, in reality, he would be but
sacrificing the show for the substance; and his vicegerent will always
be the man who discerns his will and executes it. Thus, his policy will
be consistent, though his ministers change; for at times perhaps, since
the people always blame those who surround a prince as the abusers of
his confidence, he may find it necessary for him to discard, or even to
sacrifice one, whose sole fault is in the thoroughness with which he
carries out the royal will, for often in history we read of the
sacrifice of a minister in order to lull popular feeling. Witness the
example, which you yourself give, in your treatise of _The Prince_;
where you show how Messer Remiro d'Orco, Cesare Borgia having set him
over Romagna, by the sternness of his measures soon cleansed it of
evil-doers and reduced it to order, for which his master, fearful lest
the harshness of his lieutenant should be attributed to himself,
rewarded him with axe and block, exposing the severed head in the
market-place of Cesena. Thus, though he had himself commanded the
severities which his lieutenant practised, he escaped the odium
consequent to them, and was hailed by the people as their deliverer."
They sat for a little time, silent, in the gathering dusk.
"Still," said Cromwell thoughtfully, "there must be ways of avoiding the
ingratitude of a master: either by the minister imputing to the King
openly, and upon every possible occasion, all actions, whether of good
or evil; or else by his fortifying himself with powerful friendships,
and seeking in every way to gain the voice of popular favour, so that
becoming greater than his master he may withstand him."
Machiavelli shifted a little in his chair, and the darkness hid an
ironic smile.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_TO ALBERT HOUTIN_
VI
THE PARADISE OF THE DISILLUSIONED
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VI
THE PARADISE OF THE DISILLUSIONED
"The final _Vale_!"
He spoke, and lay silent. The dim figures in the crowded room seemed to
slip away from him, his mind ceased to grasp at earthly realities, a
thick darkness enveloping it and them; but the frail, wasted body still
clung insatiably to life, and answered the phrases of the litany with
long quavering sobs. At last it, too, resigned its hold on life. He
seemed to see again, for one brief moment, the kneeling cardinals; and
then to join some great current of being which swept him away beyond the
consciousness of time and space. Gradually another consciousness dawned
on him. Upon the golden brown clouds, which seemed to limit his vision,
there was projected suddenly a huge grotesque figure; the shadow of a
being more or less similar to man.
"Is it a devil come to torment me?" he wondered incredulously.
As the shadow advanced it became smaller; he noticed that it seemed to
have talons.
"It is a devil."
But even as he spoke the shadow melted about him, and out of the golden
mist came a strange-looking man, with a large, ungainly head, gray hair
in rather long straight wisps, and lively intelligent eyes of a clear
blue. The figure was absurd, gnome-like, with a pear-shaped stomach. The
finger-nails were very long. The stranger bowed, smiling, as he
approached, and spoke in a pleasant voice.
"Monsieur, je suis charmé de vous voir. Etes-vous, par hazard, de notre
petite planète terre?"
"I am Gioacchino Pecci," he answered.
A livelier interest was apparent on the other's face; the smile became
ironical.
"It is curious," he said after a pause. "It is curious that we should
have reached the same paradise. On earth, Your Holiness, I was Ernest
Renan."
"But is this paradise?" said Leo uneasily. "Je n'ai jamais cru----"