The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli Page B

to be attacked, and even if he is, his attackers will leave humiliated, because the world is such a changeable place that it’s almost impossible to keep an army camped outside a city’s walls doing nothing for a whole year. Someone will object: what if people have houses outside the walls and see them being burned down; won’t they get impatient; won’t the long siege and their worries for their own futures make them forget their ruler? My answer is that a leader with power and personality will always get round problems like this; he can raise hopes that the siege won’t last long; he can frighten people with stories about the enemy’s cruelty; he can move quickly to block anyone who seems too hot-headed. Aside from this, it’s obvious that the enemy is going to be burning and razing the countryside as he approaches the town at a time when people are still enthusiastic and determined to resist. This actually gives the ruler less cause for concern, because a few days later, when hearts are cooling, the damage is already done, the blow struck, and there’s no way back. As a result, people will rally round their ruler all the more, they’ll see him as indebted to them because their houses have been burned and their property destroyed in his defence. It’s human nature to tie yourself to a leader as much for the services you’ve done him as the good he’s done you. Hence, when you think about it, if the ruler is sensible, it won’t be that hard to keep people solid throughout the siege, so long as they have food to eat and weapons to defend themselves.

11
    Church states
    The last kind of state we have to look at is the Church state. In this case all the difficulties an eventual ruler must face come before he takes power; because while you need ability or luck to take a state like this you can hold on to it without either. Church states are upheld by ancient religious institutions that are so strong and well established as to keep their rulers in power no matter what they do or how they live. Only Church leaders possess states without defending them and subjects without governing them. And even when undefended their states are not taken off them; even when left ungoverned their subjects don’t rebel; they don’t think about changing ruler and wouldn’t be able to anyway. So this is the only form of government that is secure and relaxed.
    But since Church states depend on forces beyond the reach of human reason, I shall say no more about them. God created them and sustains them and it would be rash and presumptuous for a mere man to discuss them. All the same, if someone were to ask me how the Church has increased its temporal power so dramatically in recent times, progressing from a situation prior to Pope Alexander where even the most insignificant rulers of Italy hardly rated the Church at all in temporal terms to one where a pope can scare the King of France himself and chase him out of Italy and crush the Venetians, then I think it would be worthwhile sorting out the facts for the record, however well known they may already be.
    Before Charles, King of France, came down into Italy, the country was controlled by the pope, the Venetians, the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan and the Florentines. Necessarily, these powerful states had two main concerns: to keep foreign armies out of Italy and to prevent each other from grabbing more territory. The pope and the Venetians were the most eager expansionists. The only way to hold back the Venetians was for all the other states to band together, as they did in the defence of Ferrara; to frustrate the pope, on the other hand, they relied on the Roman barons. Since these barons were divided into two factions, the Orsinis and the Colonnas, they always had something to fight about, and with their swords drawn under the pope’s nose they kept him weak and indecisive. And though from time to time you might get a really