Lehal Library

the prince fear, envy and the demoralizing prospect of punishment, while the ruler on his side has the authority of the government and its laws plus the protection of his friends and the state. Add to all that the good will of the people and it’s extremely unlikely that anyone will be so crazy as to start a conspiracy. Because, while in general a conspirator has most to fear prior to the coup, in this case, with the people against him, he’s going to be in danger afterwards too and the fact that he’s seen off the ruler doesn’t mean he can expect to escape unscathed. I could give infinite examples of this but let’s make do with just one that happened in our fathers’ times. Annibale Bentivogli, grandfather of the present Annibale, was Duke of Bologna when the Canneschis conspired against him and killed him. At that point the only surviving Bentivogli was his son, Giovanni, who was still a baby. All the same, immediately after the murder, the people rose up and killed all the Can- neschis. This was because the Bentivogli family was extremely popular at the time. In fact, when the Bolognese realized that with Annibale dead there were no family members capable of ruling the town, they went to Florence to get a man who was supposedly a Bentivogli, though until shortly before that he had passed himself off as the son of a blacksmith; they asked him to govern Bologna and he duly did so until Giovanni was old enough to take over. My conclusion, then, is that so long as he has the people on his side a ruler needn’t worry about conspiracies, but when they are against him and hate him he’ll have to watch everyone’s every move. Sensible rulers and well-run states have always done all they can not to drive the nobles to despair and to keep the people happy and satisfied; indeed this is one of a ruler’s most important tasks. One of the better organized and well-governed states in our own times is France. It is full of good institutions which guarantee the king’s security and freedom of action. The most important of these is parliament and parliamentary authority.