Xiii.—: The prince who willingly hearkens to lies, has all his servants wicked

When a prince is injudiciously disposed to lend a credulous ear to whisperers and flatterers, pestilent breath seems to proceed from him, corrupting and infecting all his servants; and now some search into his fears, and increase them with fictitious rumors; some raise up in him the fury of envy, especially against the most deserving; some, by accusing of others, wash their own stains away; some make room for the preferment and gratification of their friends, by calumniating and traducing their competitors, etc. And these agents are naturally the most vicious servants of the prince. Those again, of better principles and dispositions, after finding little security in their innocence, their master not knowing how to distinguish truth from falsehood, drop their moral honesty, go into the eddy winds of the court, and servilely submit to be carried about with them. For as Tacitus says of Claudius, “There is no safety with that prince, into whose mind all things are infused and directed.” And Comines well observes, that “it is better being servant to a prince whose suspicions are endless, than whose credulity is great.”