Politique Observation.
HE that commands an Army, ought to think himself very happy, if his first at∣tempt have good successe with it. Just as in the Orbs of the Heavens, the Primum mobile gives motion to all the rest, so if the first enterprise end advanta∣giously, it hath so great an influence on the spirits of the vanquished, that they are more then half stagger'd to give way for their second overthrow. Fortune doth most commonly adopt ends to their beginnings; and as the Fountain head doth much contribute to the cleernesse and purity of those Waters which flow from it, so the first good successe is a happy Omen of a prosperous issue, even to the very end of the War. Tacitus saith, they are the first chances which beget and breed either courage or cowardize in the hearts of the Souldiers. Orators in their plea∣dings use to place in the Front their strongest reasons and arguments, knowing that by it, they do so arrest and commit a force upon the minds of their Auditors, that when they have but once inclined and perswaded them by those their prime and principal motions and inductions, the rest appear too much the more plausible and effective. A General ought to imploy his very best forces in the assaults of his first siege, or in his first ingagement of Battel, and rest confident that his first Action will give a great stroke in the successe of the rest of the War. Thus Charles the Eighth came into Tuscany▪ by the Road of Pontremole, and being neer Serezza∣nella, which was in his way, seated on a most impregnable Rock, he resolved to take it, that he might give a reputation and credit to his Army, that the World might conceive an opinion that there was not any thing which could withstand the courages and resolution of his Souldiers and Commanders; in a short while he car∣ried it, and by it gained so great an esteem and wonder, that his enemies were asto∣nished at the report of it.