《君主论·第三章·混合君主国》第12节
Thus King Louis lost Lombardy by not having followed any of the conditions observed by those who have taken possession of countries and wished to retain them. Nor is there any miracle in this, but much that is reasonable and quite natural. And on these matters I spoke at Nantes with Rouen, when Valentino, as Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander, was usually called, occupied the Romagna, and on Cardinal Rouen observing to me that the Italians did not understand war, I replied to him that the French did not understand statecraft, meaning that otherwise they would not have allowed the Church to reach such greatness. And in fact it has been seen that the greatness of the Church and of Spain in Italy has been caused by France, and her ruin may be attributed to them. From this a general rule is drawn which never or rarely fails: that he who is the cause of another becoming powerful is ruined; because that predominancy has been brought about either by astuteness or else by force, and both are distrusted by him who has been raised to power.
注释摘要
这段文字是全章论证的收束，也是马基雅维利在个人经验层面上最为自得的一个注脚。他要论证的是一个非常具体的诊断：法王路易十二之所以丢掉他夺得的伦巴第，不是运气不好，也不存在任何不可解释的“奇迹”，而是因为他一样也没有遵循上文列举的那些保有异邦领地的基本条件。他没有亲自驻跸当地，没有派出殖民，反而扶强了意大利境内本来最危险的势力——教皇，还引入另一个大国西班牙进…