Complete Anti-Machiavel with introduction

254 Pages·2017·3.7 MB·English

by  Renee Chute

Anti-Machiavel:
A Discourse upon the Means of
Well Governing

By Innocent Gentillet
Translated by Simon Patericke
Edited by Ryan Murtha
Copyright © 2017
Contents

Introduction – Shakespeare, Francis Bacon and
the Anti-Machiavel 1

Francis Bacon, Machiavelli and Modernity 11

Parallel passages in Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, and
the Anti-Machiavel 16

A Discourse upon the Means of Well Governing

Dedication 35

Part I: Counsel

Preface 37
1. A prince’s good counsel ought to proceed from his
own wisdom; otherwise, he cannot be well counseled. 44

2. The prince, to shun and not to be circumvented by flatterers, ought to forbid his friends and
counsellors, that they speak not to him, nor to counsel him anything, but only those things whereof
he freely begins to speak, or asks their advice. (The Prince, chapter 23) 62

3. A prince ought not to trust in foreigners. (Discourses, book 2 chapter 31) 81
Part II: Religion

Preface 87

1. A prince above all things should wish to be esteemed devout, though he be not so indeed.
(The Prince, chapter 18) 91

2. A prince ought to sustain and confirm that which is false in religion, if it turns to the favor
thereof. (Discourses, book 1 chapter 12, 13, 14) 96

3. The pagan religion holds and lifts up their hearts, and so makes them hardy to enterprise great
things; but the Christian religion, persuading to humility, humbles and too much weakens their
minds, and so makes them more ready to be injured and preyed upon.
(Discourses, Book 2 chapter 5) 100

4. The great doctors of the Christian religion, by a great ostentation and stiffness, have sought to
abolish the remembrance of all good letters of antiquity. (Discourses, Book 2) 103

5. When men left the pagan religion, they became altogether corrupted, so that they neither
believed in God nor the devil. (Discourses, book 1 chapter 12) 106

6. The Roman Church is the cause of all the calamities in Italy. 110

7. Moses could never have caused his laws and ordinances to be
observed, if force and arms had wanted. 113

8. Moses usurped Judea as the Goths usurped a part of the empire.
(Discourses, book 2 chapter 9) 114

9. The religion of Numa was the chief cause of Rome’s felicity.
(Discourses, book 1 chapter 12) 116

10. A man is happy so long as fortune agrees with his nature and humor.
(The Prince, chapter 25; Discourses, book 2 chapter 29) 118
Part III: Policy

Preface 121

1.That war is just which is necessary, and therefore arms are reasonable when men can have no
hope by any other means. 122

2. To cause a prince to withdraw his mind altogether from peace and agreement with his
adversaries, he must commit some notable and outrageous injury against them. (Discourses, book
3 chapter 32) 134

3. A prince in a conquered country must place colonies and garrisons, especially in the strongest
places, to chase away the natural and old inhabitants thereof.
(The Prince, chapter 3) 136

4. A prince in a newly conquered country must subvert and destroy all those who suffer great loss
in that conquest, and altogether root out the blood and the race of those who before governed there.
(The Prince, chapter 3) 139

5. To be revenged on a city or a country without striking any blow, it must be filled with wicked
manners. (Discourses, book 1 chapter 35; book 2 chapter 19) 141

6. It is folly to think that with princes and great lords new pleasures cause them to forget offenses.
(The Prince, chapter 7; Discourses, book 3 chapter 4) 142

7. A prince ought to propound unto himself to imitate Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander
VI. (The Prince, chapter 14) 147

8. A prince need not care to be accounted cruel, if thereby he can make himself obeyed.
(The Prince, chapter 17) 150

9. It is better for a prince to be feared than loved. 156

10. A prince ought not to trust in the amity of men. (The Prince, chapter 17) 158
11. A prince who would put any man to death must seek out some apparent cause thereof, and then
he shall not be blamed, if he leaves the man’s inheritance and goods to his children.
(The Prince, chapter 17) 159

12. A prince ought to follow the nature of the lion and of the fox, not of the one without the other.
(The Prince, chapter 18, 19) 160

13. Cruelty which tends toward a good end is not to be reprehended. (Discourses, book 1) 163

14. A prince ought to use cruelty all at once, and do pleasures little by little.
(The Prince, chapter 17) 166

15. A virtuous tyrant to maintain his tyranny ought to maintain partialities and factions among his
subjects, and to slay and take away those who love the commonwealth.
(Discourses, book 2 chapter 2; book 3 chapter 3) 168

16. A prince may be hated for his virtue as well as for his vice. (The Prince, chapter 19) 171

17. A prince ought always to nourish some enemy against himself, so that when he has oppressed
him he may be accounted the more mighty and terrible. (The Prince, chapter 19) 173

18. A prince ought not fear to perjure, to deceive, and to dissemble, for the deceiver always finds
some who are fit to be deceived. (Discourses, book 2 chapter 13; The Prince, chapter 18) 175

19. A prince ought to know how to wind and turn men’s minds, that he may deceive and circumvent
them. (Discourses, book 1 chapter 42; The Prince, chapter 18) 177

20. A prince who uses clemency and lenience advances his own destruction. (Discourses, book 1
chapter 32) 179

21. A wise prince ought not to keep his faith when the observation thereof is hurtful to him. (The
Prince, chapter 18; Discourses, book 3 chapter 42) 181

22. Faith, clemency, and liberality are virtues very damaging to a prince, but it is good that he has
some similitude and likeness thereof. (The Prince, chapter 18) 192
23. A prince ought to have a turning and winding wit, with practice made fit to be cruel and
unfaithful, that he may show himself such when there is need. (The Prince, chapter 18) 203

24. A prince desirous to break a peace promised and sworn with his neighbor ought to make war
against his friend. (Discourses, book 2 chapter 9) 204

25. A prince ought to have his mind disposed to turn after every wind and variation of fortune, so
he may know to make use of a vice when needed. (The Prince, chapter 18, 25) 205

26. Illiberality is commendable in a prince, and the reputation of a tradesman or handicrafts man,
is a dishonor without evil will. (The Prince, chapter 8, 16) 208

27. A prince who will make a straight profession of a good man cannot long endure in this world,
in the company of so many others that are so bad. (The Prince, chapter 15) 214

28. Men cannot be altogether good nor altogether wicked, nor can they perfectly use cruelty and
violence. 215

29. He who has always carried the countenance of a good man, and would become wicked to
obtain his desire, ought to color his change with some apparent reason. (Discourses, book 1 chapter
42) 217

30. A prince in time of peace, maintaining discords and partialities among his subjects, may more
easily use them at his pleasure. (The Prince, chapter 20) 218

31. Seditions and civil dissentions are profitable and blameless. 222

32. The means to keep subjects in peace and union, and to hold them from rebellion, is to keep
them always poor. (Discourses, book 1 chapter 22; book 2 chapter 7; book 3 chapter 16, 25) 225

33. A prince who fears his subjects ought to build fortresses in his country to hold them in
obedience. (Discourses, book 2 chapter 24; The Prince, chapter 20) 229
34. A prince ought to commit to another those affairs which are subject to hatred and envy, and
reserve to himself those that depend upon his grace and favor. (The Prince, chapter 7, 14) 231

35. To administer good justice, a prince ought to establish a great number of judges. (Discourses,
book 1 chapter 7) 231

36. Gentlemen who hold castles and jurisdictions are very great enemies of commonwealths.
(Discourses, book 1) 243

37. The nobility of France would overthrow the estates of that kingdom if their Parliaments did
not punish them and hold them in fear. (Discourses, book 1 chapter 1) 244
Introduction: Shakespeare, Francis Bacon and the
Anti-Machiavel of Innocent Gentillet

For my part, I believe that all these Gentillets are masks, and that the author of Anti-Machiavel is not known.
What is certain is that the name of Francois Gentillet, or Gentilet, is only found in La Croix du Maine... If
Gentillet is not the author of the Anti-Machiavel, as M. de la Monnoye is inclined to believe, it is a much
accredited error among men of letters.
Les bibliothèques françoises (1778 edition)

First published at Geneva in 1576, Innocent Gentillet’s Discours contre Machiavel lay in dusty obscurity
when Edward Meyer published Machiavelli and the Elizabethan Drama in 1879. Researching what he
thought an unfair characature in the Machiavel stage villian, Meyer found a copy in the British Museum
and (in his own words) “proved Gentillet, beyond a doubt, the source of all Elizabethan misunderstanding.”
Since then scholars have debated the extent of this influence; Felix Raab’s The English Face of Machiavelli
(1964) dismissed it as a myth, claiming Gentillet was never of importance in England. More recently Nigel
Bawcutt wrote in “The Myth of Gentillet Reconsidered” (Modern Language Review, Oct. 2004):

That Gentillet had an effect on the Elizabethan response to Machiavelli can no longer be disputed. It would be
helpful if readers of texts from the last quarter of the sixteenth century were to keep alert for more signs of his
influence, so that we can estimate that effect more precisely… I am convinced that there are many more
allusions waiting to be discovered by scholars who know what to look for.
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Anti-Machiavel

All editions of Anti-Machiavel but the first are dedicated – “for kinred” – to Francis Hastings and Edward
Bacon, half-brother of Francis Bacon; and the preface to part one opens with a discussion of deduction
versus inductive (Baconian) reasoning, which strongly resembles Bacon’s New Organon.
Anti-Machiavel:
Aristotle and other philosophers teach us, and experience confirms, that there are two ways to come unto the
knowledge of things. The one, when from the causes and maxims, men come to knowledge of the effects and
consequences. The other, when contrary, by the effects and consequences we come to know the causes and
maxims... The first of these ways is proper and peculiar unto the mathematicians, who teach the truth of their
theorems and problems by their demonstrations drawn from maxims, which are common sentences allowed of
themselves for true by the common sense and judgment of all men. The second way belongs to other sciences,
as to natural philosophy, moral philosophy, physic, law, policy, and other sciences…
New Organon:
There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and
particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and
immovable, proceeds to judgment and middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives
axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most
general axioms last of all.

Most early editions of Anti-Machiavel were anonymous, and the first two (Geneva, 1576 and 1577) were
issued without a name or location of the publisher. These were first in French, then Latin; some sources are
mistaken in the order. Confusion about Gentillet has been the subject of commentary from the beginning;
the leading authority in recent times was probably Antonio D’Andrea, who examined the Geneva archives
and has Edward Bacon living there when Anti-Machiavel appeared. He complained in “The Last Years of
Innocent Gentillet” (Renaissance Quarterly, Spring 1967):

Unfortunately, we are confronted by a long tradition of inaccuracies, unwarranted statements, puzzling gaps
and contradictions, which have grown up over the centuries around the life and works of the Huguenot Innocent
Gentillet. Gentillet was a mystery even to those of his contemporaries who wrote about him, and we find the
mystery perpetuated even in the most recent study devoted to him.
Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812–1817):
Some of the works we are about to mention have been attributed to his son Vincent, although improperly, and
he is with equal impropriety called Valentine in some biographical works… He was obliged to quit his country,
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