Niccolo Machiavelli (Machiavelli, Niccolo)
23 March, 1527
Bologna

LETTER XI.

Magnificent Signori, etc.: —

Since we have the news of the conclusion of the truce, or rather of the promise, I have not written to your Lordships,

as I wanted first to see how it was received here. The Fieramosca wrote yesterday from the camp that, owing to the absence of the Marchese del Guasto from here, it was impossible to conclude anything, but that he had found Monseigneur de Bourbon well disposed; and he urgently requested the money to be sent which, according to the promises, ought to have been paid here yesterday, the amount being forty thousand ducats. He has written again to-day, as your Lordships will see from the copy which the Lord Lieutenant sends to the most reverend Legate, and which, on the whole, shows that everything goes well; but he demands that the whole sum of sixty thousand francs be sent here, so that those who were not favorably disposed to the truce might not have a hook to hang their doubts upon. Therefore, O Magnificent Signori, if ever you have had the thought of saving your country and enabling her to escape the great and imminent dangers that threaten her, then make this last effort to raise this money, so that this truce may be concluded, and the present evils and dangers averted, so as to give us time, or, to say better, put off the ruin; and so that, if the truce cannot be carried into effect, we may at least have the wherewithal to carry on the war, or, to say still better, to sustain it. For in either one case or the other it would give us time; and if ever the proverb was true that “to have time is to have life,” it is in this case most decidedly so.

I recommend myself to your Lordships, quæ bene valeant.

Servitor
Niccolo Machiavelli.
Bologna, 23 March, 1527.