The School for Ambassadors_Jusserand

The School for Ambassadors

J. J. Jusserand

The American Historical Review, Vol. 27, No. 3. (Apr., 1922), pp. 426-464.

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T H E S C H O O L F O R AllB-4SSADORS

O F the various honors with which I have been favored in the course of a long career, none gave me more pleasure with less trouble than the presidency of the -4merican Historical ,4ssociation: for which, as the last sands in my presidential hour-glass are about to fall, I beg to renew to the members of this society the expression of a truly felt gratitude. The lack of trouble is for me a cause of regret: I wish I had been better able to show my zeal for the great cause we have at heart. And what is that cause, outsiders may say? The cause of truth, with the persuasion that the past, better known, does not merely afford amusement to dilettanti, but may help us to discern the future, to avoid mistakes, to hasten the coming of better days. The past is like a great reflector; we want to keep it bright and its light turned toward the future.

A long career, I sai'd: a very long one, indeed, begun forty-five years ago and continued without a break for illness or any other cause. The war of 1870 determined my choice; too young to enlist, at school while the older boys had joined the army and were defend- ing Belfort, during that gloomy winter, when half the college was set apart for troops on their way to the front, we heard our professors tirelessly repeating that our ignorance, and especially our ignorance of foreign countries, had been our bane. -4nd we were studying furiously, at the same time developing our bodies, by riding, fencing, swimming, climbing, trying to be complete men, learning dead languages and three or four modern ones, graduating in several branches instead of one, in the hope to be some day useful citizens for hard- tried, bleeding France. I took degrees in law, literature, and science, and was studying a variety of other matters besides, when my family remonstrated, declaring: This cannot go on, you should select one special profession; we leave you alot~e this afternoon; when we return you must have made your choice.

So, I remained alone, in our country home, overlooking the valley of the Loire, with the familiar landscape before me, trees, fields, and distant mountains; mute advisers. i4Tould it be a military career or a civil one? I spent some hard moments of doubt, then thought that, with such a terrible war (we considered it so in those days) so recent,

1 Presidential address delivered before the -4merican Historical Associatior. at St. Louis, December 28, 1921.

1426)

4 2 7 Tlze Sclzool f o~ A~rzl?assadors

there would probably be no other for a great many years ; that i f there were, everybody would serve as a matter of course, and that other callings might offer chances of more immediate usefulness. Il"l'hen the family returned, I had made up my mind, and shortly after, having reached the necessary age, I passed the competitive examination and entered the proiession which I have now followed for nearly half a century, my good fortune having secured for me as my post of longest duration, the United States of America.

Of this profession I should like to say a few words to you. TYhat was it in former times, and what is it now? IYill it continue of use when there shall no longer be any distant posts ;when, from his seat, your Secretary of State will be able to call : " Hello, give me .Paris, give me London "; and even when Blhiot's prediction shall have proved true, if ever it does, of people taking their breakfast in Paris, their lunch in New York, and flying back for their dinner in Paris the same day?

I.

Of very ancient lineage, born of necessity, this profession reached, in the fifteenth and immediately following centuries, such prominence as to become the subject of numerous treatises in Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, in which was taught and described the art of diplomacy. the functions of the ambassador, the qualities the man should possess, the means he should resort to and abstain from, with hints as to his dress, his table, his manners, his talk, his secretaries and servants, his wife and whether he had better take her with him, his rights and privileges, the subject and style of his letters, and many more topics: a complete schooling. Those manuals of the perfect ambassador (which is the title of several of them) were especially numerous in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with some excellent ones of an earlier or later date, the work of Rosergius, Barbaro, Dolet, Braun, Dan&, AIaqgi, La Mothe-Le-TTayer, Tasso, Paschal, Hotman, Gentili, illarselaer, Vera de Cuniga. Eragaccia, Germonius, IVicquefort, Rousseau de Chamoy, Callihes, Pecquet, and a host of o t l ~ e r s , ~ Many are of great belonging most of them to the profession. interest, not only on account of their actual subject, but for the insight they give into the private manners and public morals of the day.

O n the antiquity and nobility of the art all agree. -4mbassadors, according to La Mothe-Le-TTayer, became a necessity among men at

2 See a short bibliography of !he subject in Kys, " Les Commencen~ents de la Diplonlatie ", in the Rex'lle dr Droit Ii~teri~:rttoizal(Brussels and Leipzig), XVI. 170, and Dela\-and. Roirsseair de Cl~aiiioy (1912) . p. 16,

the moment, "or shortly after ", when, Pandora's fateful box having been opened, evils were scattered throughout the world, and pros- pered, finding for their growth " a fruitful well-tilled g r ~ u n d " . ~ Vera de Cuniga agrees, ainbassadors became a necessity after Fan- dora's days, when the golden age came to an end, and men began to live in houses and to divide mine from thine: "Ambassadors had then to try and show where equity was, and recover what the ambition and the force of the ones had usurped upon the weakness or sim-plicity of the others. . . . I t is reported that King Belus first made use of this means ;poets however attribute it to Palamedes."

Other writers find for ambassadors an even more exalted origin: the first ones were the angels of God, as was so appropriately recalled to his troops by King Herod, whose envoy had been done to death by the Arabs, a most execrable deed in the eyes of every nation, he said, especially for us who have received "our sacred laws from God, through his angels, who are his heralds and ambassadors ".j Several commentators took pleasure in recalling how Solomon was, in his wisdom, favorable to ambassadors : "X faithful one is for his sentler like the coolness of the snow during the harvest; he gives rest to the sender's soul."

Pecquet at a much later date declares that " fo r men to live together in a state of society implies a kind of continuous negotiation. . . . Everything in life is, so to say, intercourse and negotiation, even between those whom we might think not to have anything to hope or fear from one another ".7 De Rlaulde in our own days wrote to the same effect: "Diplomacy is as old as the world and will not die before the world does."

3 Legaftrs seii de Legafioite, Legaforttiilqne Priz'ilegiis, Ojjicio, ac Jfzriiere Libellits ( I 579). T h e institution began, according to Bragaccia, when the world was still in its cradle: " Cominciarono adunque gli huomini quasi nelli prilmi in- cunabuli del mondo essercitar questo ufficio, trattando fatti di pace e confedera-

tioni di guerre." L'Aiiibasciatore, del Dottore Gaspare Brngaccia, Piaceittiizo, Opera . . . zitilissii?ta alla Giozeiitii, cosi de Repnblica cosi de Corte (Padua, 1626).

4 El Eizbnzador, $07 Doiz Jziarz Ailtorzio de Vera y deCziitiga, Co?i~ii~eizdndor la Barra (Seville, 16zo) , fol. 22. T h e author , born in 1jS8, had been Spanish ambassador to Venice. A French translation by Lancelot, Le Parfait Aliibas-sadezrr (Par is , 163j , several times reprinted, one last edition, Leyden, 17og), greatly contributed to the spreading of his ideas. T h e work is in the for111 of a dialogue between Jules and Louis.

5 In Josephus's His:ory o f tlie Jews, bk. ZV.,ch. 8 ; referred to by Alberico Gentili, De Legatioizibtts (London, ~ g S j ) , ch. XX.. " D e Legationutn Caussa et -4ntiquitate."

G Prov., XXV. 13.

7 D ~ S C O I I Y S de S6gocier (Par is , 173:), x.S I L Y I'Art p p viii,

8 La Diplori~trtie at! Te i i~ps de .linclriaz.el (Par is , 1892. 3 YOIS.), I. I.

429 Tllc Sclzool fov A i~ lbas sadovs

As a matter of fact, whether BeIus or Palamedes, the angels or unconscious Pandora, were the founders of the order, it is a very ancient one, and the oldest and remotest nations had of necessity recourse to it. The more so that, before the establishment of Chris- tianity, which however did not entirely sweep away the evil, every nation, including the most civilized, saw in the others, as a matter of course, and whatever their state of development, enemies and bar- barians. In the Greek language, the word pclppapos means a for-eigner, a man who, being not a Greek, is, of necessity, a barbarian. In Latin the word lzostis means both a foreigner and an enemy; the poet Lucan calls a civil war b c l l z t ~ ~ zsine lloste, a war with no foreigner (no enemy) in it.

In spite of prejudices, intercourse was, however, conducive to a better unde~standing of each other and to the discovery of the fact that, notwithstanding a man's having a native tongue different from ours, he might possibly be something else than a barbarian and an enemy. Embassies were sent, temporary ones, it is true, by all nations, from the earliest days; the Greeks use ambassadors, rrp;cr,Be~s, in the Iliad, among whom figures, I am sorry to say, that shrewd, unscrupulous slacker, rlysses. Plato, under the name of Socrates, derides the use sometimes made of sophists for the purpose, and shows one of the most fan~ous, Hippias, thus explaining the infrequency of his visits to -Athens: " Time has failed me, Socrates. On each occasion Elis has some business to settle with another city, it is of me, first of all, that she thinks for an ambassador, considering me cleverer than any, either to form a judgment or to pronounce the words necessary in those relations between states." V e m p o r a r y satisfaction, especially fo r the speaker, but no durable advantage could be expected, Plato leads us to understand, from the eloquence of sophists.

Immense hopes were raised when that new rigime was established in the world which had for its dogma no longer: any foreign nation is an enemy nation, but "love ye one another ". The consequence was a wonderful attempt to form, in the midst of rampant barbarity and ferocity, of unspeakable sufferings and destruction, of falling empires and dying former-day religions, a first grouping of all the nations of the world or at least the Christian ones, not in a league, or a society, but, for a wonder at such a period, a family of nations: love ye one another.lo

Q Beginning of the dialogue Hifipicrs .llajor. 10 There were even attempts at general arbitraticn covenants, one of 1304:

" Quant au principe de I'arbitrage pour Ia solution des difficultes internationalrs. de tout temps il a &ti. posG et I'on a cherchi. 2. le faire pGnCtrer dans la pratique.

The father of the family, the ever ready umpire, the peacemaker, was to be the Vicar of Christ, the pope. The prodigious attempt was a comparative success and a comparative failure, the sum total being however progress, with the introduction of the " truce of God ", the efforts to localize wars, to suppress private ones, to settle disputes peacefully. God was admittedly the real ruler of the world; popes, holding their powers direct from him, exalted themselves high above kings : hence the devising by kings of the theory of their own divine right, so as not to have to go any more to Canossa.

As the powers of kings rose, that of the pope diminished, but the notion of a family of Christian nations long survived. " Man-kind," wrote the doctor exi~~zius, Suarez, in 1613," although divided into various peoples and realms, ever has a certain unity, not only a specific, but a, so to say, political and moral one, as evidenced bv the natural precept of reciprocal love and pity, which extends to all, including even foreigners of whatever nation." l1 Love ye one another.

No wonder that the first diplomatic service to develop was that of the pope; that of the princes and republics of Italy followed suit, the J'enetian one foremost, endowed with strict regulations as early as the thirteenth century. The dangerous, ill-paid function being not attractive to everybody, the J'enetian appointees were forbidden under severe penalties to refuse to serve except by reason of confirmed ill- health; the slightest indiscretion was punished; on their return the ambassadors were expected to hand to the public treasury any presents they had received while abroad; they had to draw up a general report on their mission, and those reports early enjoyed wide fame, well deserved and still enduring. The clever French diplomat and writer Hotman de Villiers declares in his treatise on L'Anlbassa-d e z ~ , ~ V l ~ a tVenetian envoys will have nothing to learn from him, being themselves past masters.

Des patentes du roi de France du 17 Juin I301 promulguent un pacte d'arbi-trage permanent avec le comte de Hainaut . . . les cas seront jug& par quatre arhitres au choix des deux gouvernements. . . . hfais cette pratique ne fit aucun progres ". De hlaulde La ClaviPre, La Dzploil~atie azb Telizps de Maclziaz'el (1Sgz), 111. 102.

11 "Rat io auteln hujus partis et juris est, quia humanum genus q u a n t u m ~ i s in varios populos et regna divisum, semper habet aliquain unitatem, non solum specificam, sed etialn quasi politicam et morelem, quam indicat naturale praecep- tum mutui amoris et misericordiae, quod ad omnes extenditur, etiam ad exrraneos et cujuscumque nationis." Tractatzrs de Legibsts ac Deo Legislafore . . . azrthore P . D. Stlare=, Gra?tatetlsi (Bntwerp, 1613), p. 129.

12 L'A~~lbassadeirr,par le Siezrr de Vill. H . (n . p., 1663) ; this remarkable work enjoyed great success and had seleral editions; the author, a Protestant, I jjz-

1636, filled several missions as secretary or envoy in Switzerland and to the Protestant princes of Germany.

The ad\-antage of possessing such a service was so oh\-ious that all nations arranged to have one, selecting for the function their best men, and most famous writers, poets, thinkers, speakers. &\tnl>assa-clors, a word in use from the thirteenth century, and like that of tninister meaning servitor, n-ere often called ovators. IYithout speaking of numerous preachers and prelates. Italy had recourse to Dante. Petrarch. Boccaccio, 11achiavelli ; Tasso was secretary of embassy ; France employed Eustache Deschamps, the friend of Chaucer,13 Chartier. " father of French elorluence ", using at the Renaissance the sen-ices of the fanlous humanist l3~1dP as an arnl>assador. and of Ronsarcl and Joachim du l3ella.y as secretaries of eml~assy; England had for her envoys Chaucer. Sir Thonlas I\-yatt. Sir Philip Sidney ;I4 Scotlancl hat1 Sir David L,inclsa!-, and others of great fame.

Tho5e missions were temporary ones ; the cuqtom of having permanent embassies spread greatly however toward the end of the fifteenth centur! ; the illcrease nas coel al with the establi~hment of permanent armies, the one l~eing as the antidote of the other.

The idea of a family of nations had definitively failed; the father of the famil!- had 1)een 11neilual to the task ; the great schism had sho\v11 a houqe divided against itself; worldly, military, political, interests had made it impossible for the popes to in5pire in the con- flicting nation5, with one or the other of ~vhich they were themselves more or less in league, cotlficle~lce in their impartiality; a new religion had sprung up, and there was no longer one Christianity hut, a > it seemed. 5evera1, each warring on the other.

That keen olserver of the ways of the \vorl~l. Erasmus, wa5 qtag-

1: \\.ho described it1 one of his poems the woes, in those days , a n d i n o ther days , of a n " ;\mhns;ador and nivssenyer ".

Yous, ali11,asseur et niessager.

Qui allez par 1e lrlonde ? s cours

Des jirands pr inccs pour hesogner,

\-orre voyage n'est pas cour t . . . . I1 f au t clue xo t r e fa i t soit niis

.%u consi.il, pOur repondre 5 ple in : -%:tcndez encor , nion anii !

T e m p s passe ct ton: x icnt ?L rrl iours.

0 r i r x . l . c ~ .ed. ile Qucux de St . Hi la i re . TIT. I I G . 1 4 T h e only pcr iec t a l i~bas sado r tlla: ever was , according to G , .~ l t i l i :" I n uno

enin1 1-iro excellentam hanc f o r l i ~ a m in\ -eni r i et os tendi posse conf ido: natn onlnia

sic liahet. quae a d sunlmunl hunc nost rum o r a t o r a n constituendulii rccluiruntnr,

u t cunlulatoria ctintn I:nlxat ct ani l~l iora . I s est Plii l ippus Sydneius." De Lc-pr!ioii ibi ls ( H a r i n o ~cr . 160; 1 , last c1inp:er.

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gered at the sight, and, writing in the early years of the sixteenth century his book of advice for the young prince who was to he the famous Emperor Charles IT., this retrogression he wondered how could be possible among Christian nations: how can they try to cle- stroy one another? " In both camps Christ is present, as if H e were fighting against Himself." How could the idea of a family of na-tions have fallen into such disregard? " Plato calls the fights between Greeks and Greeks sedition, not wars, and they should be conducted, he recommends, with great moderation. \That shall we therefore call battles between Christians ancl Christians when they are bound together by such links?" Family ties are falling into dis- respect and the world goes hack to the time when the words foreigner and enemy meant one and the same thing: " Sowadays the English- man hates the French, the Frenchman the English, for no other cause except that he is English." The same with all the others. "How can it be that we are absurdly separated hy those mere names, more than we are bound together by the name of Christ?" l5

KO hope, indeed, was left for a family of nations. In the cease- less turmoil, with religious wars added to political ones, and armies overrunning France, Italy, Germany, whence could come any faint ray of hope for better ancl more peaceful clays? There seemed to be no hope; writing in the latter part of the fourteenth century his famous A r b r c d r s Eataillcs, Prior Honor6 Bonet had already devoted one of his chapters to the question: " Is it a possible thing that nat- urally the world be in peace?" and the first sentence in the chapter was: " To this, I answer, KO." lG 'Znd it had gone since from had to worse.

Having nowhere else to turn, many thought of those messengers of peace, ancl assuagers of quarrels, the puhlic envoys; and then began to flourish that extraordinary literature of manuals to teach those men their duties. and to impress on them the sacredness ancl the quasi-sacerdotal character of a mission, the chief object of which was, of course, the service of their country, but moreover that of the peace and welfare of the whole world. Early expressed, this view was maintained for ages, the consequence being more ancl more strict

15 . lnd this when our fragile lives a re troubled by so many calamities : " Quam fugax, cjuain hrevis, quam fragilis est hominum vita, et quot obnoxia calamitatibus, quippe quam tot morhi, tot casus inlpetunt assidue, ruinac, nauiragia , terrae inotus, fu lmina l S i h i i igitur opus hellis accersere mala et tamen hinc plus malorum qualn e x omnibus illis." I i t s t i t~l t io Pviitcipis Clzristial~i (first ed., Lou\-ain, 1516).

10 " Si c'est chose possible clue n a t ~ i r e l l e c ~ e n tle nlonde soit en p a i x ? .\ quoy je vous respons que nennil." L'Arbrc dcs Batailles, ed. 6 y s ( I S S ~ ) ,par t III., ch. z . Bonet was pr ior in the Benedictine nionastery of Salon.

TIzc Sclzool f 01, i l l 1 2 bnssndors

requirements exacted from people on whose action so much depended. I n the course of the fifteenth century, the French prelate Bernard CIU Rosier (Rosergius), archhishop of Toulouse, had written one of the first manuals for ambassadors, " grande hoc officium ne vilescat ".li As late as the second half of the eighteenth cer,tury Lescalopier de Xourar wrote his, in order to show that, smoothed hy negotiators, the road followed hy mankind could "ljecome the road to happiness. The welfare of nations is in the hands of amhassaclors ; their designs maintain calm or hlow troubles. They arm or pacify nations ".IR

Immense therefore was the responsibility of those men; itnmense the need that they be well chosen, well prepared for the task, and that they act properly. Kever was, and no wonder, a puhlic career the occasion of so many studies ancl guide-hooks, a rather puzzling collection, it is true, for the advice in it, sometimes contra- dictory, was always imperative, heing ever justitied by examples from the Bible ancl the almost equally indisputable practice of the ancients.

In the theories of an art so important for mankind nothing was neglected, from the physical appearance of the person to the most esalted of the religious and moral virtues. .2ccorcling to those ex- perts, an atnhassaclor should be, as far as possible, good-looking; a man who is lame, says the Greek scholar and former secretary of emhassy, Dolet, whose remark does not indicate much kindhearted- ness in his contemporaries. "is received with laughter ".l"rch- bishop Germonius insists: " Beauty con~n~ends a man hetter than any letter " ; rememher that " David is called handsome hy God ", and that one " could not be a TTestal if afflicted with any deformity " . * O T'era y Cuniga tolerates ljaldness, for the unanswerable reason that Cae5ar was bald, and there is nothing to show that this great general would not have been a great amhassador if he had tried.

Each is however wise enough to add that talent is after all the

17 Anzbn?riator, Brez~ilogtls Prosazco Moraliqlte Dogtilate pro Felici e f Pros- prro Dtlcaht ctrca Ai7zbn.r1atas I?lsisteizcizrtiz En-cerpttts, in MS. a t the Xational Library, Paris, printed by V. E. Hraha r in his De Legatis et Legatiotzibtls Trac-tatus Vavzi (Dorpat . 1906). T h e author , Bernard du Rosier ( o r de la Roseraie). wrote his Atizbn?rznfov in 1436: he died, archibishop of Toulouse, in 1475. See also Hraba r in Revzie de Drozt Itttertzatiotzal, second series, I . 314.

18 Le dIitzzst?re d t ~ ~Yigociutertr (Amsterdam, 17631, p. xvi. T h e author, a "ma i t r e des requPtes" and writer on political subjects, was born in Par is . 1709, and died there 1779.

lo " Quod si deformes sumus, aut vitio alicjuo deturpati, aut r e aliqua tnanci, tum cum risu excipimur." De Oficio Legati (1541) , p. 11.

20 Atzastasii Gernzotzii. . . . Arcliiepiscopi et Cot7zifis Tarantasietzsis e t . . . . Allobrogortti~n Dztcis. . . . Legati, De Legatzs Priizczptciiz et Popztlonct~z (Rome, 16271, bk. I., ch. 12. Born in Piedmont in 1 j51 , in great faxor with sexeral popes, he died in 1627, being then ambassador of Savoy to Spain.

chief thing, and must he consitler.ecl first in the selection of an am- I)assaclor. So much the better if he has good looks, if he is in, at least, " motlerately easl- circumstances ",'I ant1 possesses " a well sounding name" (lrgatli~il brlzt. solic~lls nolilrit lltrl~rrcd r b r t ) , but merit outranks all else; Cicero's name was commonplace, ignobilis; none more famous. :2ctual merits are of more import than the deeds of our ancestors."

-4ccording to nearly all, the envoy shoulcl l>e neither so oltl as to be inactive through ill-health or the number of his years, nor so you17g as to prove immature or incotlsitlerate. 'VTera wol~clers \vhether it ~voulcl not l ~ e appropriate to send in some cases two ambassadors, an oltler one who woultl shine by his wisdom ancl a younger one 1,- his sprightliness. The temper of the prince to whom the ambassador is sent shoultl moreover be taken into account, for this as for the rest ; it ~vould never do. Hotman says with unimpeachable wisclom, to sencl a Protestant to the pope or a bishop to the Turk.

l i7ri t ten most of them at the time of the Renaissance or under its influence, those treatises want the ambassador to be very learnetl and supremel!- eloquent. H e should be aide to speak aclmiral~l!., either in private or in pul~lic. the latter, says Hotman. being of importance especially " in popular states ". \vhich continues indeecl to l ~ e true. -411 insist on eloquence. The Italian jurist l laggi \vishes his perfect amhassaclor to possess " sapreme eloquence, the most splenclitl gift ", he says, " hestowed on mankintl hy immortal God ".:l S o one, ac- cortling to Tasso. who wrote on an~bassadors a tlialogue less famous than his Gcr-rtsalc~lll~lc Lil~cr-trftr." can he a perfect ambassador, who is not at the same time a good orator ", ant1 for this reason the Romans hat1 early called their envoys " ~ r a t o r s " . ~ F o r 17era, eloquence " is the most essential part of the amhassaclor "; Gentili has a ~vhole chapter, "Legatus ut sit orator ".?" Sonle aml~assadors of the

"" E n rluelque li1tdiocrit6 p?ur le moins." Hotniati, L 'A~l~bassadcnr( 1 6 o j ) , p. :2.

'2 G t r l i~on ius ,D e Lrgntis I'r.i!ctpniti r t Poptrio~iriii ( 1 6 2 i j , bk. I . , ch. 11. " O n ne choisit pas," Blaise Pascal said la ter , " pour goul-erner un vaiss tau cclui d t s voyageurs cjui est de n ~ e i l l t u r e niaison." P c i ~ s ~ : r s .

2 3 " Trop gay, lkger et iniprudeilt, comme un rlui fu t en\.oy& iqueIques a!- licz de c t s t e couronne, lecjuel se pourinenoit le soir et parrie de la nui t par 1t.s rues,

a\-ec des pens de son aage, jouant de !a !iiaildore, en chausses et en pourpoint." H o t ~ ~ l a i l .L'Aiirbnssadczrr, p. I S .

2 4 Dc Lcgcito Libri Duo Octnvini~i Jlaggi (\-enice, 1 j66). 2 ; " S o i l puo dunque alcuno esser pcrfezto ambascia:ore, ch'insieme non sia

b11on' oratore." I1 .llcssngicro, Di1lioyo tic: S i y ~ i a v To~qicnto Tasso, first t d . (\-enice, :j P 2 ) .

"De Lryatioriibirs Libri I I I . t London, Ij S j , sc\-era1 edi t ionsj . A:btrico

period had among tlieir personnel a professional orator to help them with their speeches.

Tlie envoy must, however, be careful not to allow himself to be carried away by his own gift of speech. After having stated tliat "prudence and learning are of little avail, for an ambassador, without eloquence ", Braun, whose treatise is of 1548, says : "Tlie name of eloquent we refuse however to the verbose, the irrepressible, the in- considerate, the empty and insincere speakers, such as the courts of kings and princes are wont to produce and foster. who fill the lands and the seas with the vain sound of tlieir words . . . to them applies tlie saying of the Scriptures: tlie fool multiplies his words." Tlie really eloquent aptly fit tlieir discourse to the occasion; "their words do not come from their lips but from tlieir hearts." 27

&Able to speak at length when there is need, the ambassador should by preference be brief." "His \Val- of speaking ". Hotman says, "will be grave, brief and weighty, not interspersed with many quota- tions, as a master of arts would do, or with rare words, and antiquated: I have seen more than one fail through affectation."" H e niust attune himself to the people he addresses; to ('pindarize" is not the way to touch the Swiss or the Dutch. H e should prepare his public speeches with care, but never learn them by heart, for fear that, i f a word escapes him, lie might utterly break clo~vn.

&As for knowledge, tliat of tlie ambassador, according to his most zealous teachers and well-wishers, should be boundless. Sir Thonlas Illore's Ctopians liad ambassadors and they selected them, as well as tlieir priests, " oute of this ordre of the learned ".30 The envoy niust he an indefatigal~le reader,31 else lie is as sure to fail as a soldier who shoulcl 11e indifferent to physical exercise. History is to be, of course, his chief study; on this all agree, but this is only one item of the living encyclopedia he must be. l laggi wants him well versed in tlie Scriptures, in tlie art of dialectics, in the civil science, that is

Gentili, an Italian Protestant refugee and very prolific author, was professor of civil law a t Oxford ; he died in 1605.

27 One of ths rare good passages in Braun, a TViirttemberg jurist (d . r j63) , hinlself remarkably \-erbose: D. Co~zvndi Brnn i OperaJ ? c ~ e c o ~ ~ s t t i t i T r ia . . . . De Legat ionib~ts , etc. (Alainz, rj45, fol.). Of pedantic disposition, he examines not only who can be an ambassador but who should not, taking the trouble to exclude children.

2s '' Quid enim ju\-at inanis loquacitas? cui usui est supervacanea scribendi ostentat io?" Dolet, Dc Ofic io Leya t i ( r j q ~ ) ,p. 1 2 .

2Q L ' A ~ ~ z b a s s a d e ~ i r , 16 fl.pp. 30 Ralph Robinson's English version, first ed. I j j I , .-\rber's ed. p. 56.

3 1 " Legato itaquc opus est lectione, eaque assidua; ne sit inutilis labor atque inanis opera." Germonius, p. i g .

the government of states and cities, in natural history, astronoml-, mathematics, geography, the military art, philosophy, for, as Plato has observed, the city will not be happy until philosophers reign or kings philosophize; he must know the lands and the seas and he a good musician; he should practise contemplation, for it is the source of action.

Rlaggi, who had painted his ambassador as his compatriots painted their glorified, godlike princes on the ceilings of their palaces, had gone so far that some protested, Hotnlan for instance, who re-proaches him and his like for making of their diplomat " a theologian, astrologer, dialectician, excellent orator, learned as A\ristotle and wise as Solon~on ". But, while recalling that to he an expert de onzni r e scibili was, especially for a man in active life, an impossibility, critics might have acknowledged the fact, still a fact, that there is no kind of knowledge, science, or accomplishment that cannot happen to be of use in such a profession, and therefore as many as "nostra tam actuosa vita" allows us, to use Rlaggi's words, should be acquired. I should have heen greatly surprised, if I may quote a personal ex-ample, had any one told me, when in boyhood d;.ys I was swimming rivers and climbing rocks, that this " accomplishment" would be of service years later, when, an ambassador in far-off America, in order to keep company with the chief of the state, President Roosevelt, I swam the Potomac and climbed the quarries south of the stream. The same with contemplation; many may have experienced, as I often have, the good clone by a solitary walk, in inspiring resolutions and rectifying judgments.

Even those however who did not go so far as Alaggi, mapped out a wide enough plan of studies fo r their aml~assaclorial pupil. Hot-man, for all his criticism, wants his envoy to know history, moral and political philosophy, foreign languages, Roman civil law, and gen- erally speaking, to be addicted to letters, for such an intellectual training "teaches you how to talk and answer, to judge of the justice of a war, of the equity of all pretensions and requests . . . how to weigh reasons and escape sophisms and suhtilities ". If the appointee lacks that education, he must, even while in oFfice, try to acquire as much of it as he can, "though, truth to say, it is rather late to begin digging a well when feeling thirsty. . . . H e will especially avoid showing disdain for lettered people, but display consideration to men of learning and experience, who are cherished in all civilized states ".32

just measure must be ohserved by him and he shall carefully ah-

32 L'Atirbassadeztr, p 13.

Tl le Sclzool fov L4i i~bassadors

stain from imitating, says IYicquefort, " l'humeur contredisante " of pedants.33

Foreign languages were to be learned hy the ambassador, in spite of the fact that he necessarily possessed Latin which was in early times the common language of all Christian nations, and French which had succeeded Latin, heing spoken, sal-s Rousseau de Chamoy, "by most princes and ministers with whom ambassadors of France have to deal ".3"t is nevertheless a great advantage to know the idiom of the country where you are, and the people are grateful to you for the effort. The idea however that English should be one of the languages to be learned never occurred to any one, ancl it does not, to my knowledge, appear in any list drawn then, of those to be studied. Besides Italian, Latin, Spanish, French, German, Alaggi's list includes Turkish, but not English. Even Callieres's list, which is of 1716, omits E n g l i ~ h . ~ ~

As to the moral virtues of the ambassador the manuals of the period are no less exacting than as to his learning. IIias not the ambassador a kind of lay priest, with a sacred task and moral duties to fulfill, of interest for the whole of mankind? The Ruler of the world must guide him ; piety must therefore be one of his basic qualities : on this all manuals agree. Bernard du Rosier draws, in the fifteenth century, a list of twenty-six virtues with which this pacificator of quarrels must be endowed: he is expected to be "veracious, upright, modest, temperate, discreet, kindly, honest, sober, just ", etc., e t ~ . ~ ~ Errnolo Barbaro, in the same century, wants him to have "hands and eyes as pure as those of the priest officiating at the altar. Let him re- member that he can do nothing more meritorious for the Republic than to lead an innocent and holy life ".3' The same views in the followiilg centuries: " The ambassador," says the friend of Ronsard, Bishop Pierre Dani.s, who had taught Greek at the Coll6ge de France ancl rep- resented the king at the Council of Trent, "must appear, in his private life, pious, just, and a friend of the common quiet ".3s Dolet ~vants him irreproachable in his morals even in countries where, immorality

3 3 L'Aiitbassadeur et ses Foitctioits ( the Hague. 1681), I. 168. 34 L'Idse d t ~ Parfait Aiizbassadetlr (~Ggi),ed. Delaraud, p. 24. 3 3 " I1 serait encore i souhaiter qu'ils apprissent lcs langues vi\-antes afin de

n'0tre pas exposCs B l'infidklitk ou l ' ignorance des interprhtes e t d 'e t re d&livr&s de l 'embarras de les introduire a u x audiences des Pr inces et de leur fa i re par t de secrets importants." Hi s list includes German. Italian, Spanish, and Latin. De la Jlani?re de SPgocicr, p. 98.

36 Aiizbaxiatov, Bi,e.i,ilogzts, as above, p. j. 37 De Oficio Legati, as abo\-e, p. 70. 38 Cotzsei!~(i ztn Ainbassade~cr ( I ;GI), ed. Dela\-aud (191j), p. I I .

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XXVI1.-30.

being widely practised, liis conforming to tlie general custom would possibly be rather approved than blamed : " LTirtutis studlosissimus habeatur " : avoiding however crabbedt~ess : " su:nrnamque severitatem summa cum humanitate jungat " . 3 H o t m a n ' s ambassador is to be above all an honest man, charitable to the poor, and trustworthy fo r all, " careful not to promise lightly, but religiously doing what he has once promised: for, of course, people are less offended by a refusal than by a perfidy ". Eragaccia wants him to possess every xirtue. and devotes a separate chapter in his huge trestise to each virtue, recommeilcling moreover to his envoy to appeal, in his clificulties. " first to God, tlie source of all good "." Let him be virtuous, says Germotlius, who liowex er, as we shall see, condoiles lying, " for there is notliit~g more lovable than virtue, nothing that better wins men's loxe, so much so that we lox e, in a way, for their virtue ancl probity, even men whom we have never seen ".41

- In anonymous Fretlchman, of about 1600, desires the ambassador to show himself " a great observer ancl tlefetlder of liis religion, of j~~st ice , Louis SILT. had observers to ancl of the common weal ".4' tell him whether his ambassadors went to mass exery day, and one of them, Earrillotl, accredited to Englarlcl, got a severe remonstrailce because he did nct, and because he had been seen talking with his neighbors during tlie service.43 This however was no longer piety, but, in an age of pomp, gold lace, wigs, and feathers, a show thereof.

Drinking, which, as one of the manuals recalls, is described by Seneca as " a voluntary madne5s ", is wrong and dangerous, but in some countries of central and northern Europe, indispensable; it is therefore regretfully allowed.

&A fundamental virtue in an ambassador is punctuality. " The people of Troy sent their deputies to Tiberius, in order to offer him condoletlces on tlie death of liis sons, seven or eight months after the exent. 'AAi~dI,' said the emperor, 'deeply regret the loss you sus-tained of Hector your good ancl valorous compatriot.' At which all laughed for Hector had died several centuries before." 4 4

no De 0, f ic io Legati ( r j q r ) , p. 17. 4 0 L'A~r~bnsciatore(Padua, 1626), bli. I., ch. 8. " Della Pieta e Religione

verso Dio dell --lmbasciatorr "-" Diciatno adunque, ch'egli dovra prima ricorrerr a Dio, fonte d'ogni bene, senza l'aiuto e consiglio del quale sono \-ani tutti gli hutnani sforzi e consigli."

41 De Legatis ( 1 6 2 7 ) ~p. 70. 4 2 "Instruct ion GCni-ralle des .\mbassadeurs ", ed. Griselle, Rezile d'His-

ioive Difiloiilntiqtte (1g11) , p 773, 43 LTnprinted letter of Colbert de Croissy to Barrillon, -April 13, 1686, A r c h i i ~ s

of the French foreign office, "Angleterre" , CLYIII., fol. zog. 4.1 H o t ~ n a n , quoting Suetonius ; L'Atlibassndritr, p. 27.

Tlzc School for (iii lbnssadors 439

The good ambassador will watch over his words, never deride the country he is in nor disparage the prince to whom he is accredited; he must not "blame the form of a popular government ", much less will he venture any obloquy to the detriment of his obvn people: " Our country is our mother . . . we must be as jealous of her honor as of our o~vn." 4 z

Owing to the dangers accompanying certain missions, a tempera- ment impervious to fear was held it~dispensable :

For nhicll cause the Romans and other republics, T\ ell a n a r e of the perilous character of legations. honored nit11 a statue the memory of those n h o had died in fulfilling such missions Hence the blunt repl) of an althenian ambass-itlor to King P111lip of Alacedon \ \ho threat- ened him n i th ha\ ing 111s head cut off : " If thou liast this head remoled, my country \I 111 give me another n11icl1 n ill be inlnlortal, statzlavz piyo capl tc; pro i1107.t~ 211111101ta1itatc712."

I t is not everybody however that would enjoy the change, and more than one would prefer keeping his own.""

Alnlong the moral questions relating to the ambassadorial profession, none was more passio~lately discussed, for centuries in succes- sion, than that of whether an ambassador should swerve from the truth, whet1 his country's good is at stake, that is, whether he should answer the definition of his calling humorously inscribed in the albun? of a German merchant at Augsburg, in 1604,by Sir Henry Tl'otton, when on his way to LTetlice as English ambassatlor : " Legatus est vir bonus peregre missus ad mentiendum reipublicae causa", a joke which, brought to the notice of a king who could never understand one, James I., caused the envoy to fall into temporary disgrace.*' Casuists. innumerable in those days. had a splendid field for the exercise of their ingenuity, and of their knowledge of precedents, classical authors, and the Bible.

For a few, there was no question: Sn!zzs popzrli, s l rprc~~za forI C X ; fewer, there was no question : Sztpcr o~~z l z in ;\lachia~elli can- evtfitas.

4 5 Ibid. , p. 38.

46 Same page. 47 Under the name of Oporinus Grubinius, one of his Illany aliases, the in-

farllous black~nai ler Gaspard Scioppius, a inan of se\.eral religions and no fa i th , who alleged that \Totton had tried to ha\-e hi111 assassinated in Milan, wrote a whole pamphlet on this incident, concluding that , so f a r a s \i7otton h i~nse l f was

concerned, the t rue definition was : " 1,egatus Cal i inianus, m a x i ~ n e -lnglicanus, est v i r bonus, peregre missus ad mentiendurn et latrocinandum Reipublicae suae causa." Oporiili Gvzibiizii Leycit~ts Lcitro, lzoc est Defii l i t io Leyat i Calzi~liaizi (Ingolstadt, 1615) .

not imagine that discussion be possible: when the country is at stake, the result only counts, and there is "no longer any question of just or unjust, merciful or cruel, praiseworthy or shameful ".4s For most, however, the question Izas to be discussed and, true casuists as they are, they first peremptorily state that an aml~assador should never lie, for "lying is a mortal sin " ;and then they add that, in certain circumstances, he must. They busy thernselxes thereupon to find the concord of this discord and their usual way consists, after having elo- quently declared in favor of absolute truth, in adding a little b ~ r tor a subtle disti~lgzto.

RIany save themselves by setting apart what they call oflicious lies, o.ficiosa ~lzoldacia, by which they mean those caused by the function, of ic i i causa :" a sufficient justification even for an an~bassaclor an- swering JVotton's ironical definition.

Braun first rejects the officious lie, then admits it if no third party is to suffer. Tasso has also recourse to a d i s t i ? z g ~ t o . ~ ~Gentili writes a treatise D c A b u s u dlctzdacii which is rather one D c Cslr, so numerous are the cases when lies are justifiable, according to his count, on the part of physicians, poets, historians, theologians, and politicians ; an admirer of Machiavelli he agrees with him : the saving of the country is the supreme law.jl Paschalius declares decidedly against lying, adding however the usual but : " I want the ambassador to shine by truth, the best assured of virtues. . . . Eut I am not so boorishly exacting as to entirely close the lips of the envoy to officious lies." j2 For pon~pous, pedantic, retrograde RIarselaer the ideal ambassador must be very noble by birth, very rich, and perfect at dissembling and lying; such is the rule of the game; it is necessary czr~tz vzrlpc vzrlpi- 1 t a ~ i . j ~Eacon's essay " On Truth " resembles that of Gentili, so much does it contain in favor of lies, a necessary alloy to the pure gold of truth : "A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure." Truth absolute is "the honor of man's nature ", but it must be admitted that a "nlixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silxer, which may make the metal work better, but it embaseth it ".54

4 s " Do\ e s i delibera al tutto della salute della patria, non ~i debbe cadere

alcuna consideratione ne di giusto, ne d'lngiusto, ne dl pictoso, ne dl crudele, ne dl laudahile, n e d ingnonlinioso anzi prosposto ogn'altro rispctto scguirc a1 tutto qucl partlto che li s a l ~ i la T ita et r~lantenghile la I ~ h e r t a " Drscorsz . . . sopra la Privta Deru d i T i to Livro (S-enice, I ; lo) .

49 Sciopp~us, a s above p. 3. 50 ' 1 I a io tcco fa\ ellando, cosi dlstinguerb " I1 .Ilessczgzero. 5 1 Alberzri Gentzlis . . . De Ablrslc .Ileizduc~i ( H a n n o ~ e r , 1599) 5 2 Legcztzts (Paris , 1613), chap I IS-. , first ed. Rouen, I 598. 53 Frederrcz de Jfurseluer Eqrtrtis, Legattts (Xntn erp, 1626), p. 170 ; first ed..

less complete, 1618. 54 X late essay, first published in 162;.

T'era and Bragaccia surpass all as casuists. According to the latter, " Pythagoras being asked when men most resembled the gods, answered, 'when they speak truth '. And wisely to be sure, for there is nothi~lg belonging so properly to God as t r u t l ~ . " ~ ' H e demo11- strates, however, that " ill case of urgency or for a good reason ", one may conse~lt not to be so very godlike; there are moreover many ways to speak the truth without revealing it, " for example when you include the lesser in the greater, as one wou1:l say, when having ten crowns, that he has two". I t can scarcely be doubted that the officious lie, bugin o,@ciosn, is a sin, but circumstances can attenuate the fault.

Vera is in no way inferior as a casuist. For him, "there is no end so honest that may cause a lie to be condoned, or may exempt the liar from mortal sin ". True it is that the people of a d~fferent opi~lion allege that inventio~ls and artifices are indispensable a~~t ido tes aga~nst " the venom of a powerful enemy", ancl are a means for transforming inequality into equality. They say also that " Nature, and God her maker, have endowed with ruse and shrewdness the animals which they have not armed with teeth 2nd nails, so that the ones may compe~lsate the others ". But this is a false doctrine, based on pagan authors ancl misinterpreted Bible. " The ambassador must avoid this path, and beware of causing the plans of his king to develop along such a li~ie."

]Ye seem to be on firm ground, but we are not, for TTera now comes to the usual disfilzgzzo, ancl persuades himself that, "between those two extremes, that is to say to conduct business with clown- right falsehood or downright t ruthful~~ess , there can be fou~lcl a mid- way which is the rolclen path of Horatius, and we shall move forth without falling into the abyss of evil, though swerving a little from the straight line of perfect purity " . " j K ~ ~ m e r o u s examples follow, of people who, in old c r recent times, acted thus and, according to Vera, deserved praise.

011dissembling, which is very near lying, Vera has no doubt, " Blamable in a private man, it is excusable in public business, since it is impossible to manage government affairs well if one is unable to dissemble ancl feign. This ability is acknowlei!gecl as the true attribute of kings, ancl it has been observed long ago that one who does not know how to feign is inapt to reign."

T o the credit of Hotman, chief spokesman of the early Fre~lch school of diplomacy, it must be said that, while referring to the Bible

55 L'Antbasczutoue (Padua, 1626), p. 430.

56 El Ellbarador ( S e ~ i l l c ,1620) , fol. 87, 85 99, i o j , I I I .

and admitting that there are cases whe11 a falsehood is unavoidable, he feels, at the thought, pangs of regret, which is very much to his honor. " To act thus is hard," he says, " for a man of worth who does not care to wound his conscience in order to be considered clever; it is hard for a frank and generous soul who, in lying, strai~ls his nature: and no wonder, since to lie and dissemble is an undoubted mark of a low-hearted and low-born individual." There is however a difference between delusive words used to harm, or used to help, as happened when Abraham and Isaac declared that their wives were their sisters, which they did in order to save the honor of these women. X11d remembering the time when he was himself employed abroad, Hotman adds from personal experience :

There was no choice but to tlisguise to the Swiss Leagues, to Ger- many, England, and the other Protestant states and princes the folly of the Saint-Bartholoinew; and I knon some of those who were thus em-ployed \vho nould haxe willingly passed on this d u t to clel-erer liars. But what ? I t was for the serx ice of the king and to entleax or to shield our nation from a stain IT-hich hoivever 110 water has been able to wash away since.5i

The solutio~l of the problem co~ltinuecl remote. \Yell within the seventeenth century appeared the characteristic work before men-tioned, of Archbishop Germonius, whose authority in such matters was great, he being, at the same time, a prelate ancl an ambassador. After having demo~lstrated that " to lie is servile ancl cannot be tol- erated even in a slave"; that "any lie is a sin "; that, according to Aristotle, "the penalty of the liar is that he will not be believed even when he speaks the truth ", the learned author bravely goes on to show that there is nevertheless a good deal to say in favor of ly i~lg: "T\71~at is not permitted by natural reason, is by civil reason; else princes and republics would often be upset and perish. In the same way as, among the laws of old, the most famous is, salzzs popltli sltpvclltn lcx esto, for the same reason, to an ambassador, the safety of the republic must be the supreme law." Can we aspire to be wiser than the Greeks or the Romans? Asked by h'eoptolemus whether it was shameful to lie, Ulysses answered: " h'ot at all if safety is to be the result."" Titus Livius praises Xe~lophanes " for having used the subterfuge of a lie ". No one blames physicians because they cheer their patients wit11 false hopes.

In war, continues the arcl~bishop, who obviously would have been favorable to "camouflaged" c o ~ ~ z ~ i ~ ~ i t ~ i q ~ i i s ,n~ltrlle news may be indispensable to keep up the morale of troops.

5 ; L'Anzbassade~lr (1603) , pp. 48, 49.

5 5 He spcal\s so in the Plziloctetes of Sophocles. to x h i c h Gcrtnonius refers.

H o w much greater and nobler, one may remonstrate, the peoples who need no such falsifications of the truth and whose force of re-sistance grows because they know that the peril is great and not because they fancy it to be small, the nations able to offer thanks even to a T7arro for not having despaired of the Republic, or able to defend ancl save T'erdun whe11 the defense seemed hopeless. A " They shall not pass " from men of heart is worth any amount of sophisticated conltrz titziqlils.

I n defense of his system, Germonius appeals also to the Bible as being full of lies which "get there no co~lclem~lation, ; abut praise " list follows of those of Abraham, " a man of worth, and very pleasing to God", ancl of others. Jacob's lie whe11 securing for himself Esau's birthright was worse than one in words, being one in actio11. "unless we believe with Saint Augustine that we are not confronted with a lie, but with a mystery "." l y e may accept such an interpre- tation if we please, hut cannot be prevented from remembering besides that we have each of us, within ourselre?, a guide, also God- inspired, called conscience.

Corruption, the use of spies, a good deal of i~ltriguing, were admitted as necessities. And then the question arose: I s an ambassador justified in wrong-doing if he is so ordered by his master? I s it permissible for him to interfere in local politics to the detriment of the local sovereign? Tasso bluntly answers : " If the prince orders somethi~lg unjust ", the envoy must try to open his eyes, and if he fails, must obey: " Egli altro non pub facere, ch'essequir il com-mendamento clel Prencipe." \-era thinks it is a pity, but decides in the same fashion, and saves the ambassadors possible doubts by some new sample of his ever ready casuistry: the envoy should discard all scruples, saying to himself that, after all, what he is aiming at is not primarily the destruction of the prince to whom he is accredited, but the salvation of his own :

And i f it happened that the advantage procuretl by the ambassador to his master should result in damage to the other prince, it ~vould he enough for the ambassador to have no load on his conscience, that his object and intention were only to protect his olvn prince against dange-s threatening him; the more so that accidents cannot be prevented.G0

But there were, even in those days, some men with a stricter conscience who would answer such questions with a no, the same Hot- man foremost among them. The amhassaclor should, according to him, entirely abstain from intrigues hurtful to the country where he is :

69 D e Legatis (1627) . bk. I I . , ch. 1-1.

6 0 El Eiiba.rador (1620) , fo!. 101.

\Yhat, ho\ \e\er , i f 11e is commanded to act othernise? . . . \Vill he be allo~ved to excuse liimself, to jutlge of the justice of his master's intentions and of the equitj of his commantls? Does it belong to him to penetrate the secret or control the will of 111s prince? Here the man of \\ortIl will once more fintl himself greatly embarrassed. . . . The solut~on of the problem seems to me to be the same as that adopted by philosophers, jurists, and theologians concerning the obedience due by the son to his father, the slax e to his master, the subject to his prince, and the xassal to his liege l o r d for all agree that this obedience tloes not coler \vl:at is of Gotl, of nature, ant1 of reason. \Yell, to lie. ~ n i s - lead, betray, to attempt a sol-ereign prince's life, to foster rel-olt among his subjects, to steal from h i ~ n or trouble his state, el-en in peace-time and untler cover of friendship and alliance, is directly against tile com-mand of Gocl, against the law of nature and of nations; it is to break that public faith ~vi thout \v l~ ic l~ human hociety and, in truth, the general ortler of the \vorld \vould d~ssolve. *\ntl the ambassador n h o seconds his master's viens in suc11 a business tloul~l!, sins. because he both helps him in the undertaking and performing of a bat1 deetl. and neglects to counsel him better, \ \hen he is bound to do so by his function nllich carries wit11 it the quality of co~lncillor of state for the tluration of his missicn, e len if he hat1 not hat1 the honor of being prel-iously receixed as a c ~ u n c i l l o r . ~ l

IYith a number of fighting bishops along the Rhi~ le (" Bishops' Street ", the valley was familiarly called), with the omnipreseilt but often nebulous pretensions of an elective emperor and an elective pope, with an elective king in Pola~ld, with i~lnumerahle princelings in Germany and Italy, accessible to many reasons with which reason had little to do, intrigue had an immense field. An infinity of tiny states had an i~lfinity of petty ambitions, petty wars, petty pacifica- tions; greater states played some of the smaller ones against the others, the more efficaciously that these diminutive cou~ltries could, according to the ideas of the time, he parcelled out, sold, given away, serve as the pledge for a loan or the portion of a princess, without the inhahita~lts being an! more consulted than their own cattle. The fate of flocks of men and of a number of countries had been changed hy such marriages as that of Eleanora of Aquitania to the future Henry 11. Plantagenet, or Rlary of Burgundy, only daughter of Charles the Bold, to Rlaximilian, the future emperor. Cardinal TI-olsey had however found means to make sure of preservi~lg an even mind in the quarrels between Francis I. ant1 Charles 1'. by accepting pensions from both.

In the hope of winning the help of a nation in a great war, pensions were offered to her ministers, sometimes to her king, rich jewels to the mistress of the king. and the whole court would be in ecstasies as to the good taste and generosity of the sender. The ministers

1L'A>iibnssndelrv (1603) , p 84.

would not only accept but occasionally insist on an increase, for having SO well betrayed their country. " AIo~ley," says Hotman, "opens the most secret cabinets of princes." Rousseau de Chamoy recommends that "gratifications" be adroitly offered to the foreign com- missioners with whom the ambassador has to negotiate a treaty, b11t deplores that the French neglect too much this means of s ~ c c e s s . ~ '

Presents were constantly on the mox-e, between monarchs, ministers, ambassadors, members of public assemblies, etc., and it was no easy matter to discern where courtesy stopped and corruption began. \-enice, as we have seen, solved the problem by obliging her ambassadors to hand to the public treasury the gifts received by them in foreign countries. Parsimonious Bishop Da11i.s advises ambassadors to provision themselves, before starting, with "objects of small value, but rare and therefore greatly esteemed \vhere they go " ; and we know that Regnault Girard, sent to Scotland in 1433 to fetch Pri~lcess Margaret, the betrothed of the future king of France, Louis XI., had brought as presents " a gentle mule ", considered " a very strange beast, because they have none there, six barrels of wine and three of chestnuts, pear., and apples, for there is little fruit in Scot- land ".F3 But you co~lld not win thus the good will of a royal mistress, and the presents sent hy Louis XIV. to a Duchess of Cleveland or a Duchess of Portsmouth were not of so homely a nature; the ladies themselres were not of a homely nature.

The question was again one in which casuists could give free play to their distitty~tos. Vera and others are thus able to both exclude and admit Most manuals however specify that 110ambas-sador should consent to receive any except with the assent of his prince, or when he leaves the country: " A n effect of his abstemious- ness," says Hotman, "will be his refusal to accept any gifts or presents, either from the prince to whom he is sent or from any of his people for any cause whatsoever, unless, having already taken leave, he is about to mount his horse." ,Ilany princes regretfully spent large sums at those partings but considered it a kind, as is now said,

6 2 L'IdCe dl6 Payfait A I I I ~ U S S U ~ C U I . pp. I note(169 j ) , ed. Delavaud, 36, 40. with pleasure in the excellent a r ~ i c l e of Professor S y s , of Belgium, written in

1883, the remark : " On doit cependant dire i l 'honneur des hommes d'ktat f r a n ~ a i s qu'ils ne se laissaient point acheter et demeuraient incorruptibles."

" Les Commencements de l a Diplomatie ", in Rcr'lle de Droit Iiltcr~zatioizal, S V I . 67.

6 3 T h e mission, a t that date, was a \-ery dangerous one, and Girard, to the

indignation of his Icing, had offered 400 crowns to any who would go in his stead. Roinauce o f a King's L i f e (1896), pp. 62, 66.

64 E l Erzba.zadov, fol. 129, I 3 r

of " propaganda ", useful for tlieir good fame and glory."j " The custom is." says Rousseau de Chamoy, " that, o : ~ such occasions, the prince give, as a present to the aml)assador, his portrait set in dia- monds or some similar ol~ject , and that lie cause to 1)e sent to his secretary a golden chain with his medal or something else." "" This use was so well established that when the Anlerican republic was fo~tncled it was considered indispensable to submit to it, and George 11-ashington 1)estowed on foreign envoys as they left the country a golden chain with a medal, choosing ho~vever to send to the Frencli representative a heavier one than to the others. T o that extent at an!- rate did the great man practise secret c1iplornac~-.

Portraits continue to I)e given in our days. I ~ u t consisting in signed pl~otographs, a great improvement and leaving no room fo r casuistr>-; they are accompanied hen-ever in most countries with a decoration, a more del~atable practice.

IV.

Endowed, as much as nature and study would allow, wit11 so many accomplishments. political, moral, or literary, having 1)ought expen- sive carriage.;, liveries, ant1 plate, secured, as hest lie coultl, trust-

: 3 1 i l l r l i i f T ~ - e ~ i ~ - < ~ i i ~ ~ i i e ~ - n i ~

within due limits. They do not back Ben Jonson's aclvice to Politick IITould-bes:

First for your garb, it must be gral-e and serious, Ver? reserl-'d alld lock'd; not tell a secret On ally terms, not to your father, scarce A fable, but \\ it11 cautio11.""

The question of precedence, being of immense importance in those days, gets of course ample attention.'O For questions of precedence, which were supposed to imply the rank and dignity of their country, people would risk their lives and sometimes lose them, the rivalry as is well knolvn being especially keen between France and Spain. The " most Christian " kings of France, anointed with the miraculous oil at Rheims, considered themselves as without a peer. Their right had been recognized at the meeting of more than one coutlcil, that of Constance amolig others in 1131 ''-And not without cause," wrote Claude de Seissel in 1558, " did the king of the Romans, llaximiliatl, playfully say more than once that if he were God and had several children, he would make the eldest God after him, but the second he would make him king of France." 'l The quarrel nevertheless con-tinued more and more fierce, until the terrible cl'Estrades incident occurred, when for a question of precedence between two ambassadorial carriages several people remained dead on the London pave- ment, a general war was with difficulty averted, and the " Catholic King" had to definitively admit the pretension of his "most Chris-tian " but very unyielding brother, young Louis XIL-.'Z

The ambassad~r must be liberal in his expenses. But not extrava- gant; certain envoys have so behaved that it seemed as though they wanted to outshine the greatest of the land where they lived; they have thus displeased the very people they wanted to conciliate. -A sense of measure is an important item in the art of diplomacy, and

69 Volporze, IY. i ; dedication dated 1607. De la Sarraz du Franquesnay writes on this subject: " Les gens du monde regardent cet air mistCrieux des ministres, soit naturel, soit afi'ect6, comme un caractPre de pedanterie; ce dehors

magistral les blesse; il leur senlble que ceux qui l'ont \-iennent donner l e ~ o n

au public." Le ?Viilistrc P~tbl ic darzs Ies Cozirs EfrangZres (1 j31) , p. 171. 70 For instance in IVicquefort, 4Ii:iiioire tol~cliarzt lcs Aiilbassadeiirs (Co-

logne, 16j9) , 11. 18 fi. " I1 faut aussi parler de la prCs&ance," says Hotman, " ou il y a mille belles choses i dire, qui snnt pour un discours i part." L'Aiilbns-sadcttr, pp, 72 ff.

71 Histoirc Sir~gzliii.re dtr Roy Logs X I I . (Paris , I j g S i , fol. 69. 7 2 Year 1661. S o t long after, howel-er, in 1697, Rousseau de Chamoy saw

a sign of narrow-mindedness in paying too much attention to questions of cere-

monial: " Sur cela comme sur toute aurre chose il er i tera d'estre pointilleux et homme i incidents; c'est la inarque d'un petit esprit d'estre remply et virement touche de ces sortes de chos t s" L'Idi:e dlc Parfoit Atilbassadeztr, p. 29.

is of value wl?atever the occasion. For selecting the chief objects of expense, account must Be taken of local tastes : " The expenditure of the house must be well regulated. yet splendid in every respect, chiefly for the tahle and cooking, to n.l?ich foreigners, especially those of the Sortl?, pay more attention than to any other item. In Spain and Italj- the table is frugal; but one must shine there in the iuatter of horses, carriages, garments, and followers." i3

Now for the ambassador's actual functions, his raison d'etre. They are, as we have seen, of the I?ighest a man can he honored with. TVhatever the circumstances and the temptations, he should never forget ~ v h a t the paramount duty of an ambassador consists in, which is to "zealously act in such fashion that he he rather the maker of peace and concord than of discord and of war ".'4 His task will he comparatively easy if he is personally trustworthy and if Ile repre- sents a nation wl?ich also can he trusted: hence the constant recom- mendations to keep promises; one of the elements of Louis XI1-.'s power in Europe was that, with all which now appears to us as blemishes on his politics, he kept his promises more faithfully than any monarch of his time.

The untrust~vorthiness of many envoys, whose word was empty and promises meant nothing, whose conscience was as pliable as casuists would hare it, and whose very presence was a danger for the state, had retarded, in the fifteenth century, the progress of the institution. Several kings, among them Henry 1-11. of England, were averse to receiving any. Philippe de Con~nlines the historian, who had himself been an a~llhassador (c.g., to Lorenzo de' l ledici) , has strong words on the subject: " 'Tis not too safe a thing, those constant goings and comings of embassies, for very often bad things are treated of By them; yet the sending and receiving of them cannot be avoided." II'hat is the remedy? some will ask; others might give a better answer,

-As for me, this I nould do. Ambassadors n h o come from true friends and not to he suspected, I deem that the! s11ouId he \\ell treated and he granted permission to see the prince pretty often, taking hosiever 111to account \ \hat the prlnce himself actually is ; I mean if he be I\ ise and honest; for n h e n he is othernlse, the least shonn the better. And iihen he is shosin, let him be xiell dressed and xiell informed of ~ v h a t he ought to sa?, and let him not stay long. [ I f , on the other hand, ambassadors come from princes filled nit11 a perpetual hatred.] as I h a l e seen it among those man) of xihorn I h a l e spoken before, there is, I think, no safet) in their coming. The? must hone\ er be lie11 and honor-

7 3 Hotman L'Atilbassadezfr, p. 22. 7 4 '\ 'ideat praeterea scdulo ut pacis concordiaeque potius auctor sit quam

11~111et discordiae." Dolet, De Ofiiczo Legat1 ( 1 j 4 1 ) , p zo

- -

- -

TIlc Scllool for '4111bassadovs

ably treated; they should be met on their arrival, comfortably lodged, and safe and sensible people should be ordered to accompany them; \\--hich is both safe and honest, for thus one knon-s viho is about them, and light-headed and discontented men are p r e ~ e n t e d from giving them news, for in no house is e~erybody content.

They must be well feasted, offered presents, promptly heard, and sent Back, " for it is a very Bad thing to keep one's enemies in one's house ". In the meantime a continuous watch ought to be kept, night and day, to know whom they see. "-And for one messenger or ain- bassaclor that would be sent to me I would send two. . . . Some will say that your enemy will take pride on it. I do not care, for thus I shall get more news of him." ' 5

The anlbassador knows from his instructions what he has to do, and if he has followed the wise advice to men of his calling, ,'01ven in 1436 by Llrc l~bis l~op Bernard du Rosier, he must have verified, before leaving, that they were perfectly clear and straightforward, whether expressed verbally or in writing.'"~eing moreover an ambassador, and present on the spot, powers of appreciation are left him; he may have lights that his sender had not, and he must, under his responsibility, follow them; which is just as true today as in the past centuries, and which I , for one, had to put more than once into practice during the Great \I7ar. Dank," Hot-llontaigne, T a s ~ o , ' ~ man, \T7icquefort, Rousseau, all agree. " I t should be noted," says Nontaigne, who wrote no treatise about ambassadors, but who, inter- ested in all kincls of men and things, has a variety of observations to make about them :

1;. JIL:i1:oi7-es, bk. I I I . , ch. VIII . The sending of several ambassadors to-gether becaille exc5ptional after the custonl \\-as established of having permanent embassies. The several aillbassadors forming one single 1l1ission rarely agreed

on all points; rivalries and quarrels arose, and it was thought better to send only one man professionally prepared to assume alone the con~plex task, " except hoxvex-er", Calli6res says, "when the question is of a peace conference "; no single man could then suffice. De lu 3ia?:i2re de -\-boeier, p. 378.

7 6 " Caveant tainen ainbaxiatores, ne instrucciones acephalas, ambiguas, vel dupplicitatem continentes T-erbo T-el scriptis a tliittentibus suscipiant." Am-barriator, Brer'ilog~is, as abox-e, ch. S.

1 " Son illaistre lui peut bien prescrire en gros ce qui est de son instruction pour son serx-ice, mais il ne peut lui bailler ni la direction ni l'industrie pour la conduite des accidens inopines et caiuels : ainsi le jugelllent et la I-igilance sont

deux parties bien recluises i celui qui est constitue en cette charge." Conseils d : (n A~r~bassadeztr (1 j61) , ed. Delavaud. p. 13.

7 s " E se l'.lmbasciatore altro no fosse che semplice relatore delle cose cotn-mendatelo, non hax-rebbe bisongno n6 di prudenza, ni: d'eloquenza, e ciascun' huomo ordinario in quest' ufficio sarebbe a t to : lila noi veggiamo che i Principi con diligente investigazione fanno scielta de gli ambasciatori." I1 .2lessagiero.

It should he noted that unsner\ ing obedience fits only n it11 precise and peremptorj comn~antls. Amhassaclors ha1 e sonlen hat freer duties the fulfill~ng of nhich. in sexera1 respects, entirelj depends on their o n n dis- positions. They (lo not simply execute, hut form also and d ~ r e c t hy their o ~ i n ad1 ice the \I 111 of then masters. I ha1 e seen in my tiay people In authorit) blameti for ha1 ~ i i g ratller obe! etl the 11ords in the king's letters than the dictates of the a f fa~rs in the mitist of n hich theJ then~selx es 11ere.

Hotman, shortly after, wrote

that a nun111er of things iliust he left to the d~scretion of a prudent am-hassatior xvithout thus tying 111s tongue antl hands. J I l t t c s a p i c l ~ t r ~ ~ z , 11111il cilzito But \\hen he has plajed the part of a man of \\orth. 'tis ill done to repa! him with a d i s a ~ o \ \ a l : and such princes do not deserxe to be serletl by people of \\orth, especiallj \\hen these have done for the hest. Industry anti diligence are of oursel\ es; a successful issue is of hea~en. '"

The same views in Rousseau cle Chamoy a century later:

As he is bound to knoll the intereits of his master, he may antl must n-ake up his mind (11i t l~outna i t ~ n g for instructions) in accortiance \\ it11 elent i , ancl those are the occasions \\hen the clexer anti true negotiator distinguishe.; hinlself from the common mail ant1 the ortiinsrj minister of no parts.s0

In negotiating the ambassador will he careful not to be hrus,lue, haughty, arrogant :

Prutience tlemailtls [said, in earlj (la> s, Bishop Danes.] that he l ~ s t e n n it11 gentleness and modest\ to the I easons of others, n ithout being enamored of his o n n nor too absolute in his opinion. LThen one has to contradict somebody else's atixice In a conference, be the cause one sustains ex er so good and nell just~fieti, the nortis must he tempered in such a n a j that none may remain offentled a t the opposition, but that e ler jbot i j . 011 the contrary, may notice the respect felt b j the contra-dictor for the company. One must \ield sometimes out of complaisance. ant1 then axall 11imself of the nest colloquj to amicably bring back the others to the cause of justice "l

Having to keep his government well informed, the amhassador will neglect no opportunity in order to he himself aware of what goes on, and since nothing in the world stands quite apart, and everything has ramifications everywhere, he must be able to establish compari- sons. Early written books advised him to keep up therefore a constant correspondence with the other ambassadors of his country in different lands, having if need be a special code to exchange confiden- tial views with them. H e must also take care to keep well posted on what happens or threatens to happen in his own country, counting for this, less on the secretary of state, often very remiss in that respect, than on some friends or even on paid informers, "not gruclgi~lg two

79 L'Aii~bossndezcr, p. j 7

L'Id;e d ~ cP n r f a ~ tA i ~ ~ b a s s n d e z c r( 1 6 g 7 ) , ed Delaxaud, p. 26.

6 1 C O I Z S ~ I ~ S; as abox e , p. 13.

Tl lc Scllool for '-1 111 bnssatlovs 45 1

or three hundred crowns for this, if need be ". H e will thus be able to counteract enemy propaganda (the thing, not the word, being in use at an early date), especially hurtful to his own country in war

If he uses spies, as was then the custom, he is to be very much on his guard. In order to get pay, rascally fello~vs will bring him thrilling news in abundance. even when there is no news ; being moreover men of no conscience they will never hesitate to betray one pay- master to the advantage of another ancl to their own profit. S o account sl~oulcl therefore be taken of their statements, unless it be possible to control them.

The importance of being well informed is such that Rouss:au tle Chamoy goes the length, alone then of his kincl, of recon~nleilcling the ambassador to read, would you believe i t ? " the gazette, ". The news they give is, to be sure, abunclantly false, but it may chance that sonle be true, though rather difficult to distinguish from the in~aginar;, ; nothing however should be neglected; false news has moreover its advantage, in " evidencing the spirit of partiality in the place where it is clevised ''.s3

Eut above all the ambassador must study the country where he is, ancl do so personally, see people of all ranks, talk wit11 them, uilder- stand the trend of opinion and discover the various forces at play there. The task is not so easy for French ambassadors abroad as for foreign an~bassaclors in France: " Everything. ill France. is bared to the curiosity of foreigners. partly owing to the natural freeclom with ~vhichwe speak of every subject, partly because of the factions in the state and the clivisions in religious matters which have torn France for the last forty years."" This was written in 1603.

The ambassador's despatches will convey to his government all the infornlation he can gather. Must he also send data whicll are

82 " Et d'autant que les secr4taires d'Esta: ne font si frequentes despesche h l'ambassadcur et ne luy donnent toujours advis de ce qui se passe en la Cour

et en 1'Estat si soux-ent conlme il le 1-oudroi: bien et qu'il seroit parfois ex-

pedient qu'il en eus: la cognoissance pour les faux bruits que s61llent ordinairement

les ennenlis d'un Estat . inesn~ement en temps de guerre. . . il sera for t bien d'avoir quelque amy en court qui I'advertisse souvent de ce clui se fait , voire

jusques aux moindres particularitez par lesquelles il pent quelquefois fa i re juge- ment des choses d'importance. La peine oil j'ay veu en Suisse hlonsieur de

Sillery Brulart et en .lngleterre Monsieur de Beaux-oir la Soc le . . . m e fait donner cet advis 5 ceux qui \ o n t en Lkgation. et cju'ils n'y doivent espargner deux ny trois cens escus par an si besoin est." p. 24.Hotman. L'A~~ibossc~dezrr,

6 3 LJId6e dlr Parfait p.A~~ibnssade!rr, 35.

84 Hotnlan. L'Ail~bassade!lr,p. 66.

The question of falsehoods pro bollo pltbliro does not exist for Pecquet : none can ever 11e allowed. -1man is not 1)ound to say all lle knows. but he must nexer speak an ~ul t ru th . " I t has often heen the stu1111111ng-l~lock of man! negotlators," he sa!.s, " to have ignored or have wanted to ignore that one can, ~vithout the help of falsehootl well s e n e one's master and one's country." Hc does not even atlmit the political tlefinitio11 of a lie which I recently heart1 gix en 1))- a man of note : "-1 lie consists ill not speaking the truth to one who 113s a right to know it." I t is. he consitlers, a cluestiol~ of the heart, and we have seen the part reiervetl to the heart il- the new manuals, written in the century of ientiment ancl seniil~ility, the century of Richarclson, liousseau. Eernartlin tle S t . Pierre :

The qualities of the heart in every profession, and especinlly that of the negotiator. are the nlost important. His success cliiefl)- tlepentls upon the confidence he inspires; se:ltiments of cantlor, truth. and probity n1-e intlispensal~le to him. One niay seduce Inen 1 ) ~ -the brilliancy of one's talents. hut i f these are not guided by pl-ol)it!.. they ljecome useless and e\.en tlangerous instruments. l l en tio not forgive having been decei~ed.

Sothing 1)uilt on falsehootl has any tluratio11; events are not long in l~ringin:,. truth to light. "I\-e are persuatled that there remaini today none of tho5e princes ~vllo pridetl them~elves on cleverly tleceivinq others. There is ~ ~ o t h i t l g of his reputation must avoid a man j e a l o ~ ~ s more carefully than missions contra? to prol)it! ." l'"

\IThen the rni5sicn of an amhassador comes to an entl, hi, tluties continue. The knoxvletlge he has accluiretl ljelongs not to hinl hut to hii go~ernn len t , he must su111 it up in a general report which xv111 initruct those ~ v h o sent Ilim ; he will not pu1)lish it for fear of h u r t ~ n g the interests of 11ii OTVTI country. " The pul~lic. usuall> curio*ls, without any at]\-antage for the state, will po5sil)ly see in this ;eser\e nothitlg hut ritliculous icruple ant1 uieless iecrecy, insteat1 of respect- ing a tliscretio11 inspiretl by 11rol)it) and the loxe of the state." The envoy must not yielcl. 1)ut resist an intlucement the more dangerous "that self-love and a tlesire to shine may cause him to fincl a certain satisfaction in falling into this kind of temptation ".

Like the man who has once l)rono~mced perpetual vows. Pec-cluet's aml)assador, when he has returnetl home, will not 1)ecome indolent; 11e may he wanted again 1 , ~ his co~mtry . " -\n envoy mui t cop, Jer himself, e\ en in his moments of rest, as consecratetl forexer to ,L ipecial s e n ice, the 01)llgations of which shoultl 1)e e \ e r present to hi, mintl. 1)e the ol~ject of his stutlies, and s e n e as a rule of con-duct ill his conversations and actions."

j" : :Pec~lvt t . 111). xi\ , 6 ff

1 0 4 Pp. I j 6 . I jS.

Tl l c S c l ~ o o l f bassadorso~ AIIZ 453

thing ". The best, if he can not avoid writing on these " frivolous topics, just fit to amuse idle persons ", is to treat of them in " sep-arate letters which, since they \voulcl not deal with what is the business of ,the office, would not have to be submitted to the council and read there ". This advice mas followed later by the ambassadors to England of Louis XIT7., who, though no "idle person ", greatly relished full accounts of what was going on, in the way of loves and scandals, at the court of his rojal brother the merry monarch Charles 11. Separate sheets added to the official correspondence, and of which many remain in our foreign archives, kept him informed.

In his style the envoy will imitate good models, who differ according to the periods ancl countries : French, Italian, or Spanish, d'Ossat, du Perron, hlazarin, Bellikre, cl'Estrades, the Spaniard Saaveclra, the texts collected by Vittorio Siri, and, for a wonder, one English- man, but at a late date, and in a translation, " le Chevalier Temple ".S7

The despatches will be "grave, brief, compressed, containing much in a few words, drawn in terms rather plain than far-fetched, sea- soned but only seldom with traits and maxims. For the better intelli- gence of the facts, it would be appropriate that each question be dealt with in a separate letter, according to the example of Illonsieur de S'illeroy ". The report might else seem "grotesque ", that is to say like the artificial grottoes so much the fashion in those days, " a patch- work made of different pieces ".SS

Thus admonished, garnering information, remembering prece-dents, studying the approved models of the art, looking splendid in their silks, laces, and embroideries, assisted by the renown of their cook in the North and of their horses in the South, now obeying, now guiding circumstances, and displaying talents sometimes of the highest order, ambassadors worked for two centuries at the establishment in Europe of the system which gradually replaced the family of Chris- tian nations, namely that of the, not yet so called, balance of power. The first had for its basis a hard-to-realize brotherly love; the second, more practical, was grounded on safety. The moment one power, be it the house of Austria, the house of France, or that of Spain, became so strong that it might dominate all the others if it chose, these others. by instinct or treaty, united together for the preservation of equi-librium. The establishment ancl maintenance of this order of things, which rendered great service, and which though much abused and

Pecquet. Disco i~rs s~cr ?Art de .VCgocier ( 1 7 3 7 ) ~p. xlviii . H e had in mind the Lettres de Af. le Ciievalier Teiiiple et aftires A\fi?zistres d'Etat ( the Hague, 1700, 2 ~ 0 1 s . ; se\-era1 editions).

6s Hotman, L'Ambassadezlr ( 1 6 0 3 ) ~p. 71.

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XXVI1.-31.

held antiquated is not yet dead, gave occasion to innumerable negoti- ations and treaties in which envoys could show whether they answered the requirements of the manuals. They have a r;ght to be judged by the outcome, ancl it is a fact that some of the tieaties negotiated by them, those of Iyestphalia or of L-trecht for example, count among the great events in the history of mankind.

Important result5 and a wider practice having permitted the guiding principles of the profession to be better tested, manuals appeared in the eighteenth century in which former-day a d \ ' '1ce was filtered, exaggerations were pruned off, and new pictures were drawn of what a modern an~bassaclor should be. The best of those portraits are so carefully devised as to be worthy of attention even now and doubtless in after time. The most characteristic trait in them is increasing austerity.

Visible already in Rousseau de C h a m o ~ , 1697, the change is much more striking in such manuals as those of Callii.res, a member of the French Academy and a former ambassador, 1716, and Pecquet, a clerk in the French foreign office, 1737, especially the latter, by far the best. IYithout neglecting the gifts of the mind necessary for an ambassador, these two writers give an unwonted place to the qualities of his heart: we are moving further and further away from Machi- avelli. " I t is not enough," according to Calli&res, " in order to make a good negotiator, that he have all the dexterity and the other fine gifts of the intellect; it is necessary for him to possess also those resulting from the sentiments of the heart; there exists no function needing more elevation and nobility in conduct." One who enters this profession without disinterestedness ancl who wants " to promote other interests than those consisting in the glory of having succeeded . . . is sure to play in it the part of a very mediocre individual and if any important negotiation happens to succeed in his hands the result should be attributed only to some happy chance that cleared for him all difficulties ". Pomp, gold lace, embroideries, great wealth, ancient lineage, are but secondary matters: "There are temporary embassies for mere ostentation, for the fulfilling of which nothing is needed but a great name and much wealth, like those for the cere- mony of a marriage or a baptism. . . . But when affairs have to be negotiated, a man is needed, not an idol." '"

"De la .'Yniz~ere dc AVi.gocier nvec lcs Sorlvercr~izs. . . par Llfoizsieztr de Cal l i~rcs. . . cy-deznizt Anzbnssadczcr . . . dii feir Roy poiir lcs Tuaitez de Pazx coilclils a R I S ~ L I C L ,et ['ziti dcs Qiiaraiite de l'Acndi.l?iie Frart~alse (Pans , I j 1 6 ) ,

Tlze Sclzool for A~izbassadors 45 5

Calli6rrs's ambassador must have travelled abroad and studied foreign nations. "but not in the fashion of our young men who, on leaving the academy or the college, go to Rome to see fine palaces, gardens, and the remains of some ancient buildings, or to Venice to see the opera and the courtesans; they ought to travel when a little older and better able to meditate ancl to study the form of government of each country ".

Agreeing with his predecessors, Calli6res wants the envoy's learning to be considerable. on condition however that he be not crushed by it, or make of it his chief occupation. I t is appropriate that " ne-gotiators should have a general knowledge of the sciences sufficient to enlighten their understanding, but they must possess it and not be possessed by it, that is to say that they must not make more of the sciences than they are worth for their profession, but see in them only a means to become wiser and cleverer; abstaining from pride and from showing scorn for those less well informed ". They should moreover not give too much time to those studies. " A man who has entered pitblic employ must consider that his duty is to act ancl not to remain too long closeted in his study; his chief work must be to learn what goes on among the living rather than what went on among the dead."

In the way of austerity Pecquetm is stricter than all. The aims of true diplomacy are so high, the responsibilities so great, that such a calling has a sacred character; for him, more even than for the mentors of early days, it is a kind of apostleship, and in the same way as for other sacred vocations, a severe mental ancl especially moral training, to be begun in boyhood, is indispensable. Fathers of families are guilty in not understanding these truths and in abstaining from a timely preparation of their sons for such a service. The result is that the French do not succeed in it as they shoulcl:

Though desirous oI avoiding a partiality ~vhich every nriter should eschew, it is certain that our nation protluces a large number of bright minds ~ ~ 1 1 0 to attractive parts great sagacity; but thesejoin natural talents are obscured by faults born of inapplication or are devoted to objects entirely foreign to the profession of the negotiator. I do not speak thus out of an undue pretlilection for a profession which, I con-fess, is dear to me, I only speak as a citizen. I have all\-ays considered pp. 3 j , i j ; other editions same year, Brussels and .qtusterdarn; another, "aug-mentee ", London, I j jo . An English translation was published in London, 1716: T h e Avt of Segotiatiag .ioitll .Soz'ereig~z Pritzces. By the same, e. g., De lo Science dl' .lfoiide et des Cor11toissnrlces Ctiles d la Co~zduite d~ l a v ie ' (Brus-sels, 1717).

90 I b i d , pp. j j . gg. 91 Discol~rsstir I'Art de Segocier (Paris , 1f37) , dedicated to the king.

it shameful and hurtful for my country that the lack of preparation and an unjust prejudice on the part of fathers of family leave us inferior in this to other nations who give us very different examples.

Think how important is s

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