Dearest Gentle Readers,
One must never underestimate the allure of a book dressed as advice but intended, instead, as seduction. Machiavelli, ever the scandalous Florentine, claims to write for the noble Lorenzo de’ Medici. Yet let us not be deceived. His slim volume, The Prince, is not a handbook for the powerful, but a masquerade ball where every reader is invited to don the mask of rulership. Imagine yourself sovereign, he whispers, and see how swiftly you are lured into his dangerous little game.
For what a delicious paradox he creates! He scoffs at speculation even as he forces us to speculate, nudging us into the role of prince so that we “discover” his conclusions ourselves. One suspects that Niccolò’s true genius lies not in advice, but in making his readers believe they have uncovered the truth unaided. And what truths they are—truths that turn classical virtue into something altogether new, stitched together from fragments of generosity, cruelty, mercy, and deceit, like a gown of mismatched silks: hideous in principle, yet dazzling on the dance floor.
Observe, for example, his lesson on liberality. To be generous, he suggests, is not to give much, but merely to refrain from taking too much. What a scandalous twist! Generosity, once a shining ornament of the soul, is refashioned into a clever little contrivance. Appear generous, he tells us, but do not practice generosity too dearly, for it will empty your coffers and weaken your rule. And should you be called “mean,” fret not—your reputation will, in time, appear liberal enough if you abstain from excessive taking. Thus the reader, still cloaked in princely finery, begins to wield generosity not as a virtue but as a tool.
Cruelty, too, undergoes its transformation. Well-used cruelty, he insists, is preferable to badly-used mercy. Too much mercy, after all, allows disorder to fester and harms the whole community. Cesare Borgia himself was called cruel, yet his cruelties brought peace. And so we are invited once more to take up the mantle of authority, to imagine that cruelty, far from vice, may be the truest path to good governance. How deliciously improper!
But let us not forget, dear readers, that Machiavelli deals not in Truth with a capital “T.” No, he offers instead the “effectual truth”—that dangerous little gap between how one lives and how one ought to live. It is in this gap that his seduction lies, for it teaches us to be able not to be good, to adorn virtue when useful and cast it off when it hinders.
And then, in Chapter 18, our author delivers his most audacious instruction yet. He summons Chiron, the half-man, half-beast tutor of Achilles. The lesson? Lower one’s moral sights. Do not strive to be godlike; learn instead from the laws of the jungle. Here lies Moral #1. But Machiavelli is not content to stop there. He urges Moral #2: Be all beast. A prince must master both lion and fox, brute force and cunning trickery, for laws alone cannot preserve power among wicked men. Cicero once warned that such extremes are foreign to human nature. How quaint! Machiavelli sweeps Cicero aside, insisting that since men are wicked, deception is not dishonor but necessity.
What does this mean for our readers, those tender souls who entered The Prince expecting lofty lessons? It means they emerge from its pages transformed. No longer are they content with tales of goodness and generosity. Instead, they have rehearsed the art of ruling as though playing at court intrigue—trading mercy for cruelty, virtue for necessity, man for beast.
And so, dear reader, should you catch yourself dreaming not of virtue but of effectual truth, not of nobility but of survival, you must thank Signor Machiavelli. For he has invited you to the most perilous masquerade of all: the masquerade of power, where the finest mask is not goodness, but the fox’s guile and the lion’s strength.
Yours in scandal and sincerity,
Lady Whistledown