Chapter 3

CHAPTER III

CONCERNING MIXED PRINCIPALITIES

But the difficulties occur in a new principality. And firstly, if it
be not entirely new, but is, as it were, a member of a state which,
taken collectively, may be called composite, the changes arise chiefly
from an inherent difficulty which there is in all new principalities;
for men change their rulers willingly, hoping to better themselves,
and this hope induces them to take up arms against him who rules:
wherein they are deceived, because they afterwards find by experience
they have gone from bad to worse. This follows also on another natural
and common necessity, which always causes a new prince to burden those
who have submitted to him with his soldiery and with infinite other
hardships which he must put upon his new acquisition.

In this way you have enemies in all those whom you have injured in
seizing that principality, and you are not able to keep those friends
who put you there because of your not being able to satisfy them in
the way they expected, and you cannot take strong measures against
them, feeling bound to them. For, although one may be very strong in
armed forces, yet in entering a province one has always need of the
goodwill of the natives.

For these reasons Louis the Twelfth, King of France, quickly occupied
Milan, and as quickly lost it; and to turn him out the first time it
only needed Lodovico's own forces; because those who had opened the
gates to him, finding themselves deceived in their hopes of future
benefit, would not endure the ill-treatment of the new prince. It is
very true that, after acquiring rebellious provinces a second time,
they are not so lightly lost afterwards, because the prince, with
little reluctance, takes the opportunity of the rebellion to punish
the delinquents, to clear out the suspects, and to strengthen himself
in the weakest places. Thus to cause France to lose Milan the first
time it was enough for the Duke Lodovico[*] to raise insurrections on
the borders; but to cause him to lose it a second time it was
necessary to bring the whole world against him, and that his armies
should be defeated and driven out of Italy; which followed from the
causes above mentioned.

[*] Duke Lodovico was Lodovico Moro, a son of Francesco Sforza, who
married Beatrice d'Este. He ruled over Milan from 1494 to 1500,
and died in 1510.

Nevertheless Milan was taken from France both the first and the second
time. The general reasons for the first have been discussed; it
remains to name those for the second, and to see what resources he
had, and what any one in his situation would have had for maintaining
himself more securely in his acquisition than did the King of France.

Now I say that