I say at once there are fewer dif­fi­culties in hold­ing hered­it­ary states, and those long ac­cus­tomed to the fam­ily of their prince, than new ones; for it is suf­fi­cient only not to trans­gress the cus­toms of his an­cest­ors, and to deal prudently with cir­cum­stances as they arise, for a prince of av­er­age powers to main­tain him­self in his state, un­less he be de­prived of it by some ex­traordin­ary and ex­cess­ive force; and if he should be so de­prived of it, whenever any­thing sin­is­ter hap­pens to the usurper, he will re­gain it.