Lehal Library

aligning he will be surrounded by men who consider themselves his equals, and that will make it hard for him to give them orders or to manage affairs as he wants. But a man coming to power with the support of the common people holds it alone and has no one, or hardly anyone, around him who’s unwilling to obey. What’s more, you can’t in good faith give the nobles what they want without doing harm to others; but you can with the people. Because the people’s aspirations are more honourable than those of the nobles: the nobles want to oppress the people, while the people want to be free from oppression. What’s more, a king can never be safe if the common people are hostile to him, because there are so many of them; but he can protect himself against the nobles, since there are not so many. The worst a king can expect if the people turn hostile is that they will desert him; but when the nobles turn against him, he has to fear not only desertion, but a direct attack. The nobles are smarter, they see further ahead, they always move early enough to save their skins, ingratiating themselves with who- ever they think will turn out the winner. Then, of necessity, a king will always have to live with the same common people; but he can perfectly well get by without the same nobles, since he can make and unmake noblemen every day, giving and taking away honours as he likes. Let’s settle this question of the nobles. As I see it, they can be divided for the most part into two categories: either they behave in such a way as to tie themselves entirely to your destiny, or they don’t. Those who do tie themselves and aren’t greedy should be honoured and loved; the ones who don’t can be further divided into two groups. Maybe they are anxious men, naturally lacking in character, in which case you’d better make use of them, especially the ones with good advice to offer, since when things are going well they’ll respect you and when things are tough you needn’t fear them; but if they’re hanging back out of calculation and ambition that’s a