ON THE MANNER OF
above all to those who are employed by a great monarch on missions to princes of a lower order, for they are apt to place in their addresses the most odious comparisons, as well as veiled threats, which are really only a mark of weakness. Such ambassadors do not fail to bring upon themselves the aversion of the court to which they are accredited, and they resemble heralds of arms rather than ambassadors whose principal aim is ever to maintain a good correspondence between their master and the princes to whom they are accredited. In all cases they should represent the power of their own sovereign as a means of maintaining and increasing that of the foreign court, instead of using it as an odious comparison designed to humiliate and contemn. These misfortunes and many others, which are the result of the lack of capacity and of the foolish conduct of many citizens employed by princes to deal with public affairs abroad, occasioned in me the belief that it is by no means impertinent to set down some observations on the manner of negotiating with sovereigns and with their ministers, on the qualities necessary for those who mean to adopt the profession of diplomacy, and on the means which wise princes will take to secure a good choice of men well adapted at once to the profession of negotiation and to the different countries where they may be sent. But before I
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