[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

told you that I understand little of these matters, but I would have -- you best believe it -- ministers who
would know how to respond to all this and demonstrate the danger of the majority of these measures.
Montesquieu: Could you not do this yourself?
Machiavelli: Yes, indeed. To my ministers, the care of making beautiful theories: this would be their
principal occupation. As for me, I would rather speak to you of finances as a statesman than as an
economist. There is something that you too easily forget: of all political matters, those that concern
finances most easily loan themselves to the maxims of The Prince. The States that have such
methodically ordered budgets and such well-regulated official writings remind me of the merchants
who have perfectly kept books and who finally come to ruin. Thus, which among your parliamentary
governments have the largest budgets? Which one costs more dearly than the democratic republic of
the United States or the royal republic of England? It is true that the immense resources of this second
power are placed at the service of the deepest and best-understood politics.
Montesquieu: You have exceeded the question. What are you getting at?
Machiavelli: This: the regulations of the financial administration of the States have no relation to those
of the domestic economy, which appear to be the type of your conceptions.
Montesquieu: Ah! The same distinction as between politics and morality?
Machiavelli: Yes, indeed. Is this not universally recognized, [and] practiced? Are not things the same
today as they were in your times (which were much less advanced in this regard), and did not you
yourself say that the States allow lapses in financial matters that would make the son of the most
excessive family blush?
Montesquieu: It is true, I did say this, but if you can derive an argument that is favorable to your
thesis, I would be really surprised.
Machiavelli: No doubt you would like to say that it is not necessary to avail oneself of what is done,
but what must be done.
Montesquieu: Precisely.
Machiavelli: I would respond that it is necessary to want the possible and that what is universally done
cannot not be done.
Montesquieu: In pure practice, I would agree.
Machiavelli: And I have some idea that, if we would balance the accounts, as you say, my government
-- absolute, as it would be -- would cost less dearly than yours. But let us leave aside this dispute,
which is without interest. You are truly quite deceived if you believe that I would be distressed by the
perfection of the financial systems that you have explained to me. I rejoice with you about the
regularity of tax collection[2] and the completeness of it; I rejoice -- quite sincerely -- about the
exactitude of the accounts. Thus, you believe that, for the absolute sovereign, it would be a question of
putting his hands into the State's coffers, of personally handling public funds. This luxury of
precautions is truly puerile. Is the danger really here? Once more: so much the better if the funds would
be collected, moved and circulated with the miraculous precision that you have advertised. I exactly
reckon [compte] to make all of these marvels of accountability [comptabilite], all these organic beauties
of financial matters, serve the splendor of my reign.
Montesquieu: You have the vis comica.[3] What is more surprising to me in your financial theories is
the fact that they are in formal contradiction with what you said in The Prince, in which you rigorously
recommend, not just economy in financial matters, but avarice, as well.[4]
Machiavelli: If you are surprised, you are wrong, because -- in this point of view -- the times are no
longer the same, and one of my most essential principles is to accommodate myself to the times. Let us
return and, I beseech you, leave a little to the side what you have told me of your chamber of
accounting. Does this institution belong to the judiciary?
Montesquieu: No.
Machiavelli: Thus it is a purely administrative body. I suppose that it is perfectly irreproachable. But
the good advances when this body has verified all the accounts! Can it prevent the appropriations from
being voted upon, the expenditures from being made? Its verificatory decrees do not inform us about [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]