and danger to the edifice.  If therefore we examine the whole conduct of Borgia, we shall see how firm a foundation he had laid for future greatness.  This examination will not be superfluous—­for I know no better lesson for the instruction of a prince than is afforded by the actions and example of the Duke—­for, if the measures he adopted did not succeed, it was not his fault, but rather owing to the extreme perversity of fortune.  Pope Alexander VI, wishing to give his son a sovereignty in Italy, had not only present but future difficulties to contend with.  In the first place, he saw no means of making him sovereign of any state independent of the Church; and, if he should endeavor to dismember the ecclesiastical state, he knew that the Duke of Milan and the Venetians would never consent to it, because Faenza and Rimini were already under the protection of the latter; and the armies of Italy, from whom he might expect material service, were in the hands of those who had the most reason to apprehend the aggrandizement of the papal power, such as the Orsini, the Colonni, and their partisans.

It was consequently necessary to dissolve these connections and to throw the Italian states into confusion in order to secure the sovereignty of a part.  This was easy to accomplish.  The Venetians, influenced by motives of their own, had determined to invite the French into Italy.  The Pope made no opposition to their design; he even favored it by consenting to annul the first marriage of Louis XII, who therefore marched into Italy with the aid of the Venetians and the consent of Alexander.  He was no sooner at Milan than the Pope availed himself of his assistance to overrun Romagna, which he acquired by the reputation of his alliance with the King of France.

The Duke, having thus acquired Romagna, and weakened the Colonni, wished at the same time to preserve and increase his own principality; but there were two obstacles in his way.  The first arose from his own people, upon whom he could not depend, the other from the designs of the French.  He feared that the Orsini, of whose aid he had availed himself, might fail at the critical moment, and not only prevent his further acquisitions, but even deprive him of those he had made.  And he had reason to apprehend the same conduct on the part of France, and was convinced of the trifling reliance he could place on the Orsini; for after the reduction of Faenza, when he made an attack upon Bologna, they manifested an evident want of activity.  As to the King, his intentions were easily discerned; for when he had conquered the duchy of Urbino, and was about to make an irruption into Tuscany, the King obliged him to desist from the enterprise.  The Duke determined, therefore, neither to depend on fortune nor on the arms of another prince.  He began by weakening the party of the Orsini and the Colonni at Rome, by corrupting all the persons of distinction who adhered to them, either by bribes, appointments, or commands suited to their respective qualities, so that in a few months a complete revolution was effected in their attachment, and they all came over to the Duke.