Niccolo Machiavelli (Machiavelli, Niccolo)
7 July, 1510
Lyons

LETTER I.

Magnificent and Illustrious Signori, etc.: —

I arrived here to-day and found your Lordships’ two letters of the 26th and 29th ultimo, containing further advices as to the state of things in Italy; which I will communicate on my arrival at court, and make such use of as your Lordships direct and according as matters may have more or less changed during the six or seven days which it will yet take for me to get to the court. After my arrival there, I shall advise your Lordships fully of all I can learn as to how matters are going on here.

I have heard that the Bishop of Tivoli, the Pope’s ambassador, left here two days ago to go to the court, where he had been sent with all possible speed by the Pope to make known

to the king the reasons for his having arrested Monseigneur d’Auch. Some one who met the Bishop on the road told me that he went most reluctantly to the court because he expected to have to treat of rather unpleasant matters; this person also learned from the Bishop that the king of Spain had a powerful fleet in Sicily, with ten thousand or more troops on board, which he kept there with the intention of employing them in case of need, either for his own use or for that of his allies in Italy. Your Lordships can learn from other sources with more certainty whether this be true or not. As for myself nothing could make me believe it if I saw the Pope less resolute against the French; but as his boldness must have some other support besides his mere sanctity, this sort of preparations must necessarily be true, or at least likely to become true.

Besides my duty of keeping your Lordships advised from day to day of what I learn here, I have nothing of importance to attend to excepting what relates to the presents that were promised at the conclusion of the late treaty with the king, as your Lordships may remember. It was for this reason that I remained so long on the road with Alessandro Nasi, so as to learn from him where those things were, and what I would have to do in the matter. He has fully informed me upon every point, and, as your Lordships will have learned all particulars from him, it is not necessary for me to repeat them here, and I shall confine myself to giving you merely the substance; namely, that by orders from the office in Florence he had promised to pay to Robertet and to Chaumont the amount due them at the next fair in August; and as they count upon this promise, it will have to be fulfilled. Nasi told me moreover that he did not think that the city could possibly exempt itself from the payment of the ten thousand ducats that had been sent here for account of the Cardinal d’Amboise, which had not been paid in consequence of the Cardinal’s death, and for the reasons which Nasi has made known to you.The Cardinal d’Amboise, Archbishop of Rouen, had died at Lyons on the 25th of May, 1510.^* And that he saw only one way to save that money, or at least to defer the payment of it for some time; and that was to divide the ten thousand ducats between the two above-named personages, as so much on account of their portion, and that this might probably satisfy them in full for what they have to receive; at

any rate, it would remove from before their eyes this bait, which would attract their attention and desire so long as it was there. But the paying the amount over to them would either cause the matter not to be spoken of any more, or it would anyhow be a great convenience to your Lordships in making the payments. Your Lordships must therefore write me how I am to act in this matter, in case I should be spoken to on the subject. I shall leave here for the court in a couple of days, and will thence report at length to your Lordships, quæ bene valeant.

Servitor
Niccolo Machiavelli,

Secret.
Lyons, 7 July, 1510.