“It is not in the compact that you should fall to speaking ill of women again.”
“I think,” replied my lord Gaspar, “that I give them great praise in saying that they wish to bring in a custom approved by so great a man.”
Messer Cesare Gonzaga said, laughing:
“Let us see whether this could have place among my lord Ottaviano’s precepts (I do not know if he has rehearsed them all), and whether it were well for the prince to make it law.”
“The few that I have rehearsed,” replied my lord Ottaviano, “might perhaps suffice to make a prince good, as princes go nowadays; although if one cared to look into the matter more minutely, he would still have much more to say.”
My lady Duchess added:
“Since it costs us nothing but words, tell us on your faith everything that it would occur to your mind to teach your prince.”
31.—My lord Ottaviano replied:
“Many other things, my Lady, would I teach him, provided I knew them; and among others, that he should choose from his subjects a number of the noblest and wisest gentlemen, with whom he should consult on everything, and that he should give them authority and free leave to speak their mind to him about all things without ceremony; and that he should preserve such demeanour towards them, that they all might perceive that he wished to know the truth about everything and held all manner of falsehood in hatred. Besides this council of nobles, I should advise that there be chosen from the people other men of lower rank, of whom a popular council should be made, to communicate with the council of nobles concerning the affairs of the city, both public and private. And in this way there would be made of the prince (as of the head) and of the nobles and commonalty (as of the members) a single united body, the government of which would spring chiefly from the prince and yet include the others also; and this state would thus have the form of the three good kinds of government, which are Monarchy, Optimates, and People.[[442]]
32.—“Next I should show him that of the cares which belong to the prince, the most important is that of justice; for the maintenance of which wise and well-tried men ought to be chosen to office, whose foresight is true foresight accompanied by goodness, for else it is not foresight, but cunning; and when this goodness is lacking, the pleaders’ skill and subtlety always work nothing but ruin and destruction to law and justice, and the guilt of all their errours must be laid on him who put them in office.