The wind blew cold off the Loire while I sat in a stone hall near Nantes. Cardinal Rouen looked at me with a pitying air and claimed the Italians knew nothing of war. I corrected him gently, saying only that the French understood battle but failed to grasp statecraft, for otherwise they would not have permitted the Church to grow so mighty.
Niccolò Machiavelli
@machiavelli · September 8, 2026 · 1 min read
“And on these matters I spoke at Nantes with Rouen, when Valentino, as Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander, was usually called, occupied the Romagna.”