It is also desirable that an ambassador should be a man of birth and breeding, especially if he is employed in any of the principal courts of Europe, and it is by no means a negligible factor that he should have a noble presence and a handsome face, which undoubtedly are among the means which easily please mankind. An evil-looking person, as General Philopoemen said, will receive many insults and suffer much trouble, like the man who was made to hew wood and draw water because he looked like a slave. There are of course missions sent on special occasions where nothing is needed but a great name and the prestige of high birth--as, for instance, in the ceremonial occasions of a marriage, or baptism, or the offer of good wishes on the accession of a sovereign to the throne; but when the negotiation concerns important affairs it must be entrusted to a man, not to a gaudy image, unless indeed the image be a puppet in the hands of some crafty colleague who, while possessing the whole secret of negotiation and keeping in his hands all the threads of its designs, leaves the actual public appearance to the ignorant but high-born gentleman whose sole trouble is to maintain a fine table and a magnificent equipage. [Sidenote: _The Knowledge Necessary to a Negotiator._] A man born to diplomacy and feeling himself called to the practice of negotiation must commence his studies by a careful examination of the position of various European states, of the principal interests which govern their action, which divide them from one another, of the diverse forms of government which prevail in different parts, and of the character of those princes, soldiers, and ministers who stand in positions of authority. In order to master the detail of such knowledge he must have an understanding of the material power, the revenues, and the whole dominion of each prince or each republic. He must understand the limits of territorial sovereignty; he must inform himself of the manner in which the government was originally established; of the claims which each sovereign makes upon parts which he does not possess; for these ambitions are the very material of negotiation on those occasions when a favourable turn of events prompts the ambitious sovereign to hope that a long-cherished desire may be realised; and, finally, the negotiator must be able to make a clear distinction between the rights and claims which are founded on treaty obligation and those which rest upon pure force alone. For his own instruction he must read with the most attentive care all public treaties, both general and particular, which have been made between the princes and states of Europe and in our time; he should consider the treaties concluded between France and the House of Austria as those which offer the principal form and model for the conduct of all the public affairs of Christendom on account of the network of liaisons with other sovereigns which surrounds these two great Powers. And since their