§ III
The Counsel of Flatterers and Truth-Tellers
The king is asked whether he has sought flattering counselors and avoided those who would tell him hard truths.
Haven't you sought out counselors of every kind—the ones most ready to flatter you in your maxims of ambition, vanity, pomp, soft living, and artifice? Haven't you found it hard to trust those firm, disinterested men who, wanting nothing from you and not letting themselves be dazzled by your greatness, would have told you every hard truth with respect, and would have contradicted you to keep you from making mistakes?1
Read the original French
N'avez - vous point cherché les conseillers en tout genre, les plus disposés à vous flatter dans vos maximes d'ambition, de vanité, de faste, de mollesse et d'artifice ? N'avez-vous point eu peine à croire les hommes fermes et désintéressés, qui ne désirant rien de vous, et ne se laissant point éblouir par votre grandeur, vous auroient dit avec respect toutes vos vérités, et vous auroient contredit, pour vous empêcher de foire des fautes ?
Notes
- 1 ↩Source reads «foire des fautes»; treated as a corruption of «faire des fautes» (to commit faults / make mistakes).
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