THE MINISTER OF STATE VVherein is shewn The true use OF Modern Policy BY MONSIEVR DE SILHON Secretary to the late Cardinall RICHELIEU Englished by H. H. Tandem didici animas sapientiores fieri quiescendo LONDON Printed for Thomas Dring And are to be sold at his shop at the George in Fleetstreet neare Cliffords Innt 1658. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE LORD THE LORD VISCOUNT SCUDAMORE My Lord THis Translation makes its first addresse to your Honour 's Accurat judgment but craves no protection for the Matter or Expressions of the Originall For the Matter is but the result of your Reasonings and the Expressions but the repetition of your Eloquence In th' Author two things besides his exact knowledge in Civill and Divine affairs are very remarkable his Love to Truth and Hatred to Detraction As to Truth he holds it forth as the best most permanent Policy for Princes and their Ministers of State Buy the Truth but sell it not saies Solomon Magna est Veritas praevalebit As to Detraction he condemns the practice of it in all persons and gives th' example t'others For he is sparing in the discovery of some sharp Truths and permits the Matter Errours or Crimes to publish the men And it were to be wished that personall obloquie were not as modeable in our daies as new dresses In the businesse of Religion he may be found zealous but not superstitious and rather of the Gallican then Papall perswasion Deceits and Vices are decryed by him in what subject soever he finds them Piety and Vertue highly exalted For he made them if report be true his daily exercise as knowing that nothing can be perpetuall but what is founded upon Piety or Vertue for they are equall in the Ballance when Vices endure no equality And being bred in the School of that eminent and successfull Cardinall of Richlieu and cherished in his Conversation and House did collect the most resined products of his Policy Wit and Experience and gather the choicest Flowers of his Garden The Book had a very high esteem in France at the publication in Paris and hath justified its credit in the present use as an approved Jewell and it cannot go lesse in value here where Learning and good Wits abound and the judgment of discerning a true Diamond from a Pibble stone though never so well set equall if not superiour to any Nation of the World My Lord Forgive th'excercise of your patience so long in the Porch of this beautifull and regular Edifice raised from the materialls of the Brain and adorned with the Beauties of Rhetorick and Examples drawn to the life But the Key being now in your hand your Lordship may enter at pleasure and dismisse My Lord Your Lordships humble Servant H. H. ADVERTISEMENT READER I Have some Considerations to represent unto thee concerning this VVork whereupon I beseech thee to cast thy eyes The first is in relation to the Matter which is composed of Reasonings and Examples As to the Reasonings thou shalt know them to be wholly mine and a pure product of my witt and by consequence imperfect and tastes of the weakenesse of the principle from which it is derived When I discourse of past Occurrences and of things hapned in the Raignes of the King If the true motives have not alwaies been encountred by me nor the essentiall causes of their successe I have nothing to say to thee but that I had not the spirit of Divination That I have not received remembrances or instructions from any person And that th'Actions of Princes are like great Rivers the beginning and springs whereof sew persons have seen though an infinite of persons see the course and progresse of them If any person thinks my Judgement too free chiefly when I speake of the Pope and the matters of Rome I beseech him to consider that gentler Consequences cannot be drawn from th'Examples that are brought If th'examples are false I have not invented them the springs are well knowne There 's cause neverthelesse to praise God that some of the Pastors who have governed his Church have not been so black as they are painted If they are true there 's cause to admire the Divine Providence in preserving his Church from decay and spot in the time of corruption of some of its members and in maintaining of it in health the plague being so neer it That is to say as I understand it that nothing was altered of the meanes which God hath appointed to guide us to our supernaturall end That the Doctrine of Faith which is one of the Principles that makes us act Christianly and which hath workes for her nearest end is alwaies the same That the Sacraments which conferr and increase grace in us by virtue of the Institution of Jesus Christ and not by virtue of what we bring unto it of ours as of a meritorious cause are not changed for the number their matter or their forme That the permanent and incorruptible State in these two things is found only in that holy Hierarchy which makes that mysticall Body of Jesus Christ which is composed of a head that represents it and of many principall subalterne members who hold of that head and with an admirable dependency and union amongst themselves That it never hapned that this Head and those members to whom it belongs to guide others have together and with a common consent fayled against these two things and that it will never happen to th' end of the world at least if the Promises of God are eternall and his word unchangeable and therefore no person is to wonder if out of the Church there be no salvation since the Church only containes that means that brings us thither and preserves inviolable the substance and number of the Sacraments and the purity of th'Evangelicall doctrine Moreover and for what respecteth every member of the Church in particular That God hath left them in the hands of their counsell to beleeve or live as they please that hee hath put before them fire and water that they may make their choyce and that he imposeth no necessity upon them but leaves them be power of their will that 's to say the power to follow that good or to forsake it to doe evill or to abstaine from it When I speake then with liberty of the vices of some Popes and of the corruption of some of their Agents I doe not thinke to wrong Religion nor to offend the Church The Cardinall Baronius relates with much more soverity or lesse allay then I doe the abuses which overstowed the Court of Rome when two famous whores Theodosia and Morosia governed it and the Popes of that time A man must not alwaies set himselfe against known truths Who support ill causes lose their credit make themselvs to be suspected when they have good ones to defend resemble certain persons who being equally honest to all the world are not so to any person and putting neither
weightiness nor perish but by the Corruption within and by the vices of the noble parts Such was th' Ancient Republique of Rome after that so many Nations had submitted unto it and that there remained nothing in the world wherewith to fill up th' Ambition of one of its Citizens nor sufficient to make him Great enough without the Ruine of his Country Such is also at this day the Empire of th' Ottomans whose body is so dilated and power so vaste that it seems that nothing ought to affright the Head but the Members nor dissolve the Masse but it s owne Parts There are others whose Extent truly is not small nor forces incosiderable But which have neverthelesse need of foraine Aidâ—… for to support them To fortifie themselves with Alliances To forme Leagues To make use of diversions In short to repaire with Industry what of force is wanting in them either for resistance or enterprize There are Princes who subsist onely by the Conveniences of their Country and by the benignity of its scituation Two great powers betwixt which It is shut up and to whom It serves for Barriere are in perpetuall jealousie that th' one or th' other will make its Accommodation of it there 's nothing that they would not do to hinder them from the change of Master and from submitting to a Domination by them suspected This passion of State hath been th' originall of great wars which have been seene in Piedmont since hundred yeares and of so much Spanish and French blood as hath been shed in that Province There are others who have quit themselves under a voluntary dependency upon a greater power or by reason of some good turne received or to be delivered of the Expence from disturbance and from feare which the Neighbourhood of a greater brings when he is no friend which is seldome but to their Advantage so he is in some sort the Master of the petty States which he protects without Citadelle and Garrison he Commands them and he receives when he hath need considerable supplyes of Money and Men. There are others who are under a forced Dependancy and are become Captives without thinking of it who have given the matter of their Chaine and furnished the Stuffe whereof the yoak was made that oppresseth them Covetousness hath precipitated the Genoueses into this unhappiness That villanous passion hath forged their servitude The Money which they have put into the hands of the Spaniards hath betrayed them and by an Inverted order the Creditors put themselves to the Mercy of their Debtors They cannot now unsay it they have given them pawns and cannot recover them and which they will not suffer them to loose A single free thought cannot enter their spirits They dare not accept th' aid of them who would redeem them for their Captivity and being slaves to their Money they must or necessity be to the Men who keep it for them On the other side 't is a pleasant way of gaining a State that which the Spaniards have practised towards the Genoueses It was never doned so good cheape in other places All others have cost them something if the Great Duke be obliged to the defence of the State of Milan they have rendered unto him the fortresses of the Toscane and given him Sienna If the Prince o Parma ought to furnish them with Men and Money for the same subject He hath received also the Citadelle of Pleasance But here they onely tendred th' hands to take the Money which hath been voluntarity unto them They enjoy it and are the Masters of it In leaving t' others the vaine Names of Creditours and if â—metime they give them somewhat by may of profit even that returnes to them and resembles the water of Certaine Fountaines which by a constrained Motion being forced out of its reserve returnes thither by a Naturall motion and by a necessary fall Let this be said in passage To conclude There are States which are not conserved but by reason of their weakness and in regard they are so inconsiderable that they deserve not the violation of Justice in a Conquerour nor that his Ambition be rendred odious for the desire of them such is the Common-wealth of Ragouse which is so little that to this day it hath not provoaked th' Appetite of the Turk so poor that almost all its Revenues is laid out to feed the great Persons of the family of Porte and to serve for entertainment to the Sangiaes who are their Neighbours A Minister then of State must know That every sort of State requires a different Conduct That th' one ought not to serve as Example to th' other for Government and when any business is to be had with them that they are to be treated withall according to their Power and Liberty Whilst the Common-wealth of Venice was in disorder with Paul the fifth and that Christendom was divided upon that Quarrell the Common-wealth of Genes fell into almost the like Inconvenience This neverthelesse did bend under the will of the Pope And having cast it selfe into a shamefull servitude was carefull to performe such Actions as might deserve the Name of a lawfull obedience and that Spaine whose Aide it wanted was but too much carried to dispose it to raise a prejudice against Venice On the contrary Venice remained inflexible in its pretensions because it had power to maintaine them and pursued the business to th' End that the Liberty which it had not received but from God and wherewith it was borne might not be weakned The designes then of the Pope which prospered for Genes were vaine for Venice and th' Inequality of those two states could not admit of the same Remedies though they laboured of the same Evill and of the like Accident The Eighth Discourse That a Minister of State ought not inviolably t' act that which hath been alwaies practised in the State HE not only acts safely who formes not his conduct upon that of strangers not treats equally with two unequall powers But a Minister of State is farre from that he ought to be if in the State where he acts he tye himselfe servilely to what hath been done before him If he dare not go out of the beaten Road If he have no other marke then th' example of them that have gone before him If he will alwaies walk upon their paces and adore only their foot-steps No comparison was ever more naturall or report more just than that of th' humane and politique body Th' Oeconomy of th' one may serve for Modell to th' other They are both subject to the same Accidents and to the same Symptomes Both of them have ordinarity the birth weak the progress proud and rapid the subsistence trembling and the fal precipitated And nevertheless each of those ages requires a different Regiment and a Conduct altogether diverse These considerations also have place in th' Ecclesiastique State and in the government of Soules And though its foundations be
would supply that defect by his Counsells Th' Army was at Iuetot and the father at Candebu where he was dressed of his wound There he would be Consulted with upon all Occurrences and th' order for what was to be done was fetched a League off In the mean time the time passed in going and coming the state of the warr changed Countenance new Accidents demanded new Counsells and the Spaniards lost faire occasions t' inomomodate us whilst they went t' aske his permission and we made no small advantage of the Disorder of a body that was so disunited from th' head that governed it But to make the benefits of Vigilancy the better t' appeare and th' operations of that sharp virtue and of that unquiet Prudence which is ever in Action which makes profit of all things that suffers nothing t' escape and particularly in the warr where occasions stay not and never returne when they are once fled away Le ts demonstrate this by apt examples When Gaston of Foix drew to the Reliefe of Bonlogna against th' Army of the League which had besieged it If at th' entry of the Towne he had drawn out to Charge th' Enemies he had surprized them He had defeated them without resistance that had not been on their guards because they distrusted nothing and the delay of one night which He gave at the Requests of his Captaines for some rest to his souldiers ravished from us a victory which had all Italy for price and cost us a little after the Life of that prince which was of more vertue then all Italy Th' evening before the battell of Jury The late King had taken his quarter at Menoncour The Marshall of Charters was to discover it and observed that his Army was weake and affrighted Sr. of Maine nevertheless would not Charge that evening t' untire his souldiers who were haressed with the Labour of the way and with the long Marches they had made in the mean time three thousand foot and Eight hundred horse arrived in the night to the King who gave Courage with th' hopes of victory to his Army and after prevailed for the gaine of the Battell which they run hazard the day before to lose As to th' Important victories which Care and Diligence have occasioned and have as it were forced from the hands of destiny I observe three famous ones amongst the Modern and which ought to be observed with a particular attention The defeate of Francis the first before Pavy is without doubt a work of th' Emperours fortune and of the virtue of the Marquis of Pessary who was one of the chiefe Commanders of his Army But it ought chiefly to be attributed to his Industry and to that Indefatigable and hot humour which never gave him any Rest which held him in perpetuall action which exercised him day and night and forced business t' obey him and to come to the point he had proposed to himselfe In that manner He overcame us against all shew of Apparance and got the better of us though we had then no need of any thing but patience t' overcome That we had nothing to do but to defend our selves and t' hinder being defeated for to defeate them First he did beat downe the Forts which covered our Army and rendred his Avenues safe He advanced towards us without losse of time or taking of rest and before almost we could see them come He fell into the Kings Quarters and constrained him to fight and to put t' hazard what he had assured if he had kept his advantage On the contrary there 's no place of excuse for Francis nor palliate his blindness and that stupid negligence wherewith he was possessed in the midst of his Army without knowing the State or Number of it but by the report of his Captaines and not knowing the designes of his Enemies till he was not in a Condition to break them and not being prepared to resist them but believing them too weake t' assault him A notorious fault in Warr wherein the necessity of fighting should never be permitted nor t' act at the pleasure of enemies where they ought never to be despised or esteemed weake where th' Eyes ought to be imployed on all things and nothing neglected and where small Accidents are ordinarily the beginnings of great Revolutions and th' originall of the good or bad success of Enterprizes The second Example is of the last Duke of Guise when he defeated th' Army of Germans which came to overcome France under the Command of the Duke of Bouillon and of the Baron of Auneau So soon as he had discovered th' Army he never allowed in any rest and lost not an occasion of Incommodating it He gave it Continuall A larmes to tire it He had it in his Braine when it Marched He vexed it in its Quarters He cut off the wayes of Provisions from all sides and at last in three encounters at Vimony at Auneau and at Mount beliart dissipated the whole Army The third Example is the Reliefe of th' Iland of Rhé It must be acknowledged that the glory of that success which will appeare another day a Miracle in the life of the King or a fable in History is an effect of the piety of that Prince and a visible Argument of th' Inclination which th' heavens have for him But it must be also confessed that this good fortune was not given him freely and that he hath aided th' Hands of God to work this wonder The feaver hath newly left him His recovery was yet uncertaine and it was necessary for his Courage to compleate the support of his body when he put himselfe into the way to find th' English what he did in an Occasion apparantly deplorable may be judged by his accustomed Actions which were alwayes of greatest difficulty And though th' Actions of Princes resemble th' Essences which containe a great Virtue in a small Quantity and though they do little yet operate much by reason of the force of th' Example So it is that the King would not have believed his Charge to have been discharged but in doing more then th' others If he had put them onely on their way to let them after that march of themselves had he not alwayes served them for guid If he had not made way for them without Interruption and if he had not been the last to quit labour and to retire from Action Moreover it must be further avowed that as in th' affaires whereof we now speak He hath forgot nothing of the duty of an Active and labourious Prince and that he hath also there Compleately served so that th' Instruments which he there imployed betrayed not the virtue of the principall Cause Monsieur his Brother made his first Armes there very remarkable and the beames of that rising valour have been so lively and pure that it was visible they could not proceed but from a spring extreamly faire and that greater beginnings could not be expected from