Machiavelli, the Florentine patriot who knew the despair of unnecessary inter-city wars, who lived fragmentation of his country, Italy, as a tear, without any hope of unity (which did not take place until the middle of XIX century), although pure diplomat, was confronted with the harshness of combat time, so that man would write "The Prince", "tribute" Detained in Power, the Political Practices to acquire and maintain and Immorality of leader. In a time of deceit, lies and treachery that was his, where condottieri, adventurers fortune changed sides like a shirt, where armies were fighting, and gave to him who was paying and where life was worth little almost nothing (see the end of Cesare Borgia, model Prince), a genuine political treaty could only be as a reflection of these practices. Ler Prince is that and many other things depending on whether the player has the moral prejudice, ideological or intellectual. As for me, I see a genuine pragmatic thinking, based on the facts, and a real intellectual effort to theorize the practice of Power. It is therefore a work of its time and timeless by what it finds permanent in the history of the policy through the centuries. It is a founding text of the realistic approach compromises between States (one of the applications is indirectly the Treaty of Westphalia of 1642, which stand for almost two centuries the functioning of European states-cf the work of Arnaud Blin this subject). We can also see something else. It is anyway to read and it deserves a different-pity appreciation for this great penseur- that the epithet "Machiavellian" which irresistibly reminds Hannibal the Cannibal, Fantomas or Dr. Septimus the "yellow Brand".
