henry frowde oxford university press warehouse amen corner, ec

EARLY CRITICISM OF 'THE PRINCE.' 55
'Moyse n'eust jamais peu faire observer ses ordonnances, si
main arm6e lui eust failly,' he writes as follows :--
'Cest Atheiste voulant monstrer tousjours de plus fort qu'il
ne croit point aux sainctes Escritures, a bien osd vomir ce
blaspheme de dire que Moyse de sa propre vertu et par les
armes s'est fait Princes des Hebrieux . . . Moyse ne faisait
rien que par le conseil et puissance de Dieu seul. De quelle
audace donc ose ce puant Atheiste de desgorger ces propos,' etc.
We may well ask if it was not rather a merit in Machiavelli
to have so early had the courage to read the bible 'sensatamente';
it was at least an advance on the scholastic system,
and even now-a-days more might perhaps be made of the Old
Testament as an unique historical document than has been1.
But the modern version of Gentillet's 'puant Atheiste ' is still
powerful. For the rest, Gentillet takes Machiavelli 'au grand
s6rieux'; none of the apologetic interpretations, which had
ah'eady appeared in abundance, appeal to him ; The Prilzce is for
him the tyrant's handbook _-.
The publication of attacks upon Machiavelli continued with
unabated vigour during the latter portion of the sixteenth
century. When Gentillet's book appeared, 'Machiavellism'
may be regarded as already formed, though Gentillet himself
contributed largely to its making. Now, as ' Machiavellism'
itself is neither a theory, nor a doctrine, nor least of all a set
of books, but simply a state of mind, it is certain that it would
have arisen in the natural course of things, even if Machiavelli
had never written. He is the scape-goat, with whose name
has been associated a certain tendency of political speculation,
which would have been developed, had he never lived, in the
natural progress of thought : and we are only concerned with it
here in so far as it re-acted upon the criticism of Machiavelli's
works.
When once the attack had become general all along the
line, it was natural that the arguments employed should all
bear a strong family likeness to one another ; Protestants and
1 Might not, for instance, the rise of an Oriental monarchy be studied w_th
more profit there than m the pages of Herodotus
20p. cit., Preface to Part III: ' I1 est als6 de cognoistre que son but a este
d'mstrmre le Prince _. estre un vral Tyran, eta luy enselgner l'art de Tyranme ;
auquel art Naehmvel k la v6rit6 s'est monstre estre un grand docteur.'