If the tyrant gets the upper hand, the people must expect to be oppressed.

If, on the other side, the people triumph, they must take good care to exterminate the despotic brood: 'The one true remedy would be to destroy and extinguish them so utterly that not a vestige should remain, and to employ for this purpose the poignard or poison, as may be most convenient; otherwise the least surviving spark is certain to cause trouble and annoyance for the future'(p.

215).

The same precise criticism lays bare the weakness of democracy.

Men, says Guicciardini, always really desire their own power more than the freedom of the state (p.