§ 1. Guicciardini, Political Memoranda, 1, warns that a Prince wishing to circumvent another must first deceive the Ambassador. Cassander contemplates
war against Demetrius; he wishes Demetrius to suspect it as little as possible, so that he may overwhelm him unprepared. Accordingly, he sends an Ambassador concerning peace, a treaty, and affinity, and makes a display of an immense desire for friendship. Here they do not wish the Ambassador to be conscious of his lord’s innermost intention. Indeed, they do not wish him to inquire whether his mandates are given truly or feignedly. They say that he must speak what his lord has ordered him to speak, but that it appears better for him not to know what his lord wishes to do, so that he may thus express the pretense more earnestly. In this manner most Political writers commend that cunning as wisdom.
Let me be permitted to weigh the matter by its proper considerations. There is one reason for deceiving the Ambassador: lest he deceive with insufficient earnestness. Yet a man will be found without difficulty who, complying with the character of his Prince with great zeal, will perform that piece of acting more intensely and will delight in the cunning. For pretense performs more and greater things than truth. Indeed, he will handle the deceits with more practiced cunning. Moreover, what if he completes the matter itself and, while pretending, concludes a true marriage? Has an Ambassador ignorant of pretense truly been sent since the foundation of the world?
Accordingly, although I judge it honorable for neither the Prince nor the Ambassador to deceive, but approve truth and candor, nevertheless, if it has been resolved to deceive, the Prince will employ as Ambassador a man not ignorant of fraud and pretense. For many things occur everywhere in the course of business which a man conscious of everything will accomplish according to the mind of his lord more easily than one who is ignorant—especially so that he may draw out the time, not advance farther than is necessary, and not cast the honor of his lord into danger. A man ignorant of fraud does not regulate fraud well.
Indeed, it is also arduous to deceive an Ambassador. For if he shares in secret counsels, he himself will doubt the good faith of his embassy from other acts and deliberations and from the letters of familiars; and he will resent that this was concealed from him to his own insult. If he does not belong to the secret counsels, conjectures will nevertheless not be lacking, and silence at Court is rare. Certainly, whenever he learns that he has been deceived, he will act more slowly, cease to trust his lord, and condemn the embassy himself, if he nevertheless remains faithful. For deception impairs fidelity and impels the man whom you have deceived toward perfidy. Do not believe that a man will be faithful to you who knows that he is not trusted.
It is added that through that pretense the Prince renders himself suspect not only to foreigners but also to his own people, for they rightly judge that a deceitful man is not to be trusted. Nevertheless, they sometimes employ in this fashion blind Ambassadors, or those who are insufficiently cautious, or even Priests and Religious. These conduct the business with great effort and confidence, but, being ignorant of Courtly arts, first perceive that their simplicity has been mocked when they are ridiculed by each party. They endure this, and it is necessary for them to endure it; but other men of great spirit store away deeply in their minds that they were not trusted and were held in mockery. When Louis Trabantius had pledged to the King of France that his lord, the Duke of Brabant, was a friend, but the latter allied himself with the Englishman against the Frenchman, Trabantius, detesting the deceit, refused to return home and wasted away from grief in France.
Accordingly, when Princes resolve in this matter to deceive their own men and their enemies, they sin twice. For they both employ fraud—which, although shameful in all men, is most shameful in Princes—and they handle their deceits improperly by showing that they distrust their own people. Far be it that what Isocrates said against his own people in the oration On Peace should have to be said concerning a Christian Court: “Princes have now been corrupted and depraved for a long time by Courtiers whose whole art is consumed in deceiving.”