the Moorish woman, was installed as tyrant of Florence, he espoused
the interest of Pope Clement VII., and gave a home to the daughter of
Lorenzo II., then eleven years of age.

When we study the march of events and that of men in this curious
sixteenth century, we ought never to forget that public policy had for
its element a perpetual craftiness and a dissimulation which
destroyed, in all characters, the straightforward, upright bearing our
imaginations demand of eminent personages. In this, above all, is
Catherine's absolution. It disposes of the vulgar and foolish
accusations of treachery launched against her by the writers of the
Reformation. This was the great age of that statesmanship the code of
which was written by Macchiavelli as well as by Spinosa, by Hobbes as
well as by Montesquieu,--for the dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates
contains Montesquieu's true thought, which his connection with the
Encyclopedists did not permit him to develop otherwise than as he did.

These principles are to-day the secret law of all cabinets in which
plans for the conquest and maintenance of great power are laid. In
France we blamed Napoleon when he made use of that Italian genius for
craft which was bred in his bone,--though in his case it did not
always succeed. But Charles V., Catherine, Philip II., and Pope Julius
would not have acted otherwise than as he did in the affair of Spain.
History, in the days when Catherine was born, if judged from the point
of view of honesty, would seem an impossible tale. Charles V., obliged
to sustain Catholicism against the attacks of Luther, who threatened
the Throne in threatening the Tiara, allowed the siege of Rome and
held Pope Clement VII. in prison! This same Clement, who had no
bitterer enemy than Charles V., courted him in order to make
Alessandro de' Medici ruler of Florence, and obtained his favorite