[p. 554]
|554| the redemption of Italy, it has nevertheless been shown that he was afterwards, at the summit of his ascent, rejected by fortune, so that Italy, left behind as though lifeless, still waits to see who the one might be who will heal its wounds, put an end to the devastations and plunderings of Lombardy and to the embezzlements and extortions in the Kingdom of Naples and in Tuscany, and let Italy recover from the wounds which have long since eaten into it …
Here is perfect justice, for that war is just because it is necessary, and those arms are holy where there is no hope but in them …
Everything has contributed to your greatness; the rest remains for you to do. God does not will to do everything, so as not to rob us of free will and of the share of honour that is to fall to us …
And I cannot say with what love he [the liberator of Italy] would be received in all those provinces which have suffered from these floods from abroad, with what thirst for revenge, with what unshakeable loyalty, with what reverence, with what tears. What doors would remain closed to him, what communities would refuse him obedience? Where would envy set itself against him, what Italian would deny him allegiance?” –
One can perceive that a man who speaks with this truth of earnestness had neither baseness in his heart nor jest in his head. As for the former, the name of Machiavelli already carries in common opinion the seal of condemnation, and it has made Machiavellian and abominable principles synonymous. The idea of a state which a people is to constitute has been drowned out for so long by the blind clamour of a so-called freedom that perhaps all the misery which Germany [endured] in the Seven Years’ War and in this last French war, and all the further development of
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