resentative of a
power unfriendly at heart under the mask of the expedient friendliness,
his mind already poisoned by all the rumours current throughout Italy,
comes on this mission to Valentinois. Florence, fearing and hating
Valentinois as she does, would doubtless take pleasure in detractory
advices. Other ambassadors--particularly those of Venice--pander to
their Governments' wishes in this respect, conscious that there is a
sycophancy in slander contrasted with which the ordinary sycophancy of
flattery is as water to wine; they diligently send home every scrap
of indecent or scandalous rumour they can pick up in the Roman
ante-chambers, however unlikely, uncorroborated, or unconcerning the
business of an ambassador.

But Macchiavelli, in Cesare Borgia's presence, is overawed by his
greatness, his force and his intellect, and these attributes engage him
in his dispatches. These same dispatches are a stumbling-block to all
who prefer to tread the beaten, sensational track, and to see in
Cesare Borgia a villain of melodrama, a monster of crime, brutal, and,
consequently, of no intellectual force. But Villari contrives to step
more or less neatly, if fatuously, over that formidable obstacle, by
telling you that Macchiavelli presents to you not really Cesare Borgia,
but a creation of his own intellect, which he had come to admire. It
is a simple, elementary expedient by means of which every piece of
historical evidence ever penned may be destroyed--including all that
which defames the House of Borgia.

Macchiavelli arrived at Imola on the evening of October 7, 1502, and,
all travel-stained as he was, repaired straight to the duke, as if
the message with which he was charged was one that would not brook a
moment's delay in its deliverance. Actually, however, he had nothing to
offer Cesare but the empty expressions of Florence's friendship and
the hopes she founded upon Cesare's reciprocation. The crafty young
Florentine--he was thirty-three at the time--was sent to temporize and
to avoid committing himself or his Government.

Valentinois listened to the specious compliments, and replied by similar
protestations and by reminding Florence how he had curbed the hand
of those very condottieri who had now rebelled against him as a
consequence. He showed himself calm and tranquil at the loss of Urbino,
telling Macchiavelli that he "had not forgotten the way to reconquer
it," when it should suit him. Of the revolted condotti