When, on the 21st of January 1591, a youth offered his services to make away with Henry IV., the Nuncio remitted the matter to Rome: "Quantunque mi sia parso di trovarlo pieno di tale humilita, prudenza, spirito et cose che arguiscono che questa sia inspiratione veramente piuttosto che temerita e leggerezza." In a volume which, though recent, is already rare, the Foreign Office published D'Avaux's advice to treat the Protestants of Ireland much as William treated the Catholics of Glencoe; and the argument of the Assassination Plot came originally from a Belgian seminary. There were at least three men living far into the eighteenth century who defended the massacre of St. Bartholomew in their books; and it was held as late as 1741 that culprits may be killed before they are condemned: "Etiam ante sententiam impune occidi possunt, quando de proximo erant banniendi, vel quando eorum delictum est notorium, grave, et pro quo poena capitis infligenda esset." Whilst these principles were current in religion as well as in society, the official censures of the Church and the protests of every divine since Catharinus were ineffectual. Much of the profaner criticism uttered by such authorities as the Cardinal de Retz, Voltaire, Frederic the Great, Daunou, and Mazzini is not more convincing or more real. Linguet was not altogether wrong in suggesting that the assailants knew Machiavelli at second hand: "Chaque fois que je jette les yeux sur les ouvrages de ce grand genie, je ne saurais concevoir, je l'avoue, la cause du decri ou il est tombe. Je soupconne fortement que ses plus grands ennemis sont ceux qui ne l'ont pas lu." Retz attributed to him a proposition which is not in his writings. Frederic and Algernon Sidney had read only one of his books, and Bolingbroke, a congenial spirit, who quotes him so often, knew him very little. Hume spoils a serious remark by a glaring eighteenth-century comment: "There is scarcely any maxim in _The Prince_ which subsequent experience has not entirely refuted. The errors of this politician proceeded, in a great measure, from his having lived in too early an age of the world to be a good judge of political truth." Bodin had previously written: "Il n'a jamais sonde le gue de la science politique." Mazzini complains of his _analisi cadaverica ed ignoranza della vita_; and Barthelemy St Hilaire, verging on paradox, says: "On dirait vraiment que l'histoire ne lui a rien appris, non plus que la conscience." That would be more scientific treatment than the common censure of moralists and the common applause of politicians. It is easier to expose errors in practical politics than to remove the ethical basis of judgments which the modern world employs in common with Machiavelli.