“And of those whom you named, do you not think that by his victories Alexander did good to the peoples whom he conquered, having taught so many good customs to those barbarous tribes which he overcame, that out of wild beasts he made them men? He built so many fine cities in lands that were ill-inhabited, and introduced right living there, and as it were united Asia and Europe by the bond of friendship and holy laws, that those who were conquered by him were happier than the others. For to some he taught marriage, to others agriculture, to others religion, others he taught not to kill but to support their fathers when grown old, others to abstain from union with their mothers, and a thousand other things that could be told in proof of the benefit which his victories conferred upon the world. 38.—“But leaving the ancients aside, what more noble and glorious enterprise and more profitable could there be than for Christians to devote their power to subjugating the infidels?[456] Do you not think that this war, if it succeeded prosperously and were the means of turning so many thousand men from the false sect of Mahomet to the light of Christian truth, would be as profitable to the vanquished as to the victors? And truly, as Themistocles once said to his family, being banished from his native land and received by the King of Persia and caressed and honoured with countless and very rich gifts: ‘My friends, we should have been undone but for our undoing;’[457] so with reason might the Turks and Moors then say the same, because in their loss would lie their salvation. “Therefore I hope that we shall yet see this happiness, if God grant life enough for Monseigneur d’Angoulême to attain the crown of France,[458] who gives such promise of himself as my lord Magnifico told of four evenings since; and for my lord Henry, Prince of Wales,[459] to attain that of England, who now is growing up under his great father in every sort of virtue,[460] like a tender shoot under the shade of an excellent and fruit-laden tree, to renew it with much greater beauty and fruitfulness when the time shall be; for as our friend Castiglione writes thence,[461] and promises to tell more fully on his return, it seems that nature wished in this lord to show her power by gathering in a single body enough excellences to adorn a host.” Then messer Bernardo Bibbiena said: “Very great promise is shown also by Don Carlos, Prince of Spain, who (although not yet arrived at the tenth year of his age) already shows so much capacity and such certain signs of goodness, of foresight, of modesty, of magnanimity and of every virtue, that if the empire of Christendom shall be (as men think) in his hands, we may believe that he must eclipse the name of many ancient emperors, and equal the fame of the most famous that have been on earth.”[462] 39.—My lord Ottaviano added: