(38.) If it is dangerous to be concerned in a suspicious affair, it is much more so when you are an accomplice of the great; they will get clear and leave you to pay double, and for them and for yourself.[466]
(39.) A princeʼs fortune is not large enough to pay a man for a base complacency, if he considers what it costs the man whom he would reward; and all his power is not sufficient to punish him, if he measures the punishment by the injury done to him.
(40.) The nobility expose their lives for the safety of the state and the glory of their sovereign, and the magistrates relieve the prince of part of the burden of administering justice to his people. Both these functions are sublime and of great use, and men are scarcely capable of performing higher duties; but why men of the robe and the sword reciprocally despise each other is beyond my comprehension.
(41.) If it be true that the great venture more in risking their lives, destined to be spent in gaiety, pleasure, and plenty, than a private person who ventures only a life that is wretched, it must also be confessed that they receive a wholly different compensation, namely, glory and a grand reputation. The common soldier entertains no thoughts of becoming known, and dies unnoticed, among many others; he lived indeed very much in the same way, but still he was alive; this is one of the chief causes of the want of courage in people of low and servile condition. On the contrary, those personages whose birth distinguishes them from the common people, and who are exposed to the gaze of all men, to their censures and praises, exert themselves more than they were predisposed to do, even if they are not naturally courageous;[467] and this elevation of heart and mind, which they derive from their ancestors, is the cause of courage being usually found among persons of noble birth, and is perhaps nobility itself.
Press me into the service as a common soldier, I am Thersites; put me at the head of an army for which I am responsible to the whole of Europe, and I am Achilles.[468]
(42.) Princes, without any science or rules, can form a judgment by comparison; they are born and brought up amidst the best things, with which they compare what they read, see, and hear. Whoever does not approach Lulli, Racine, and Le Brun[469] they condemn.
(43.) To talk to young princes of nothing but their rank is an excess of precaution, while all courtiers consider it their duty and part and parcel of their politeness to respect them; so that they are less apt to ignore the regard due to their birth than to confound persons, and treat all sorts of ranks and conditions of men indifferently, or without distinction. They have an innate pride which they show when needed; they only have to be taught how to regulate it, and how to acquire kindness of heart, culture, gentlemanly manners, and sound discrimination.
