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Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu
http://www.notbored.org/dialogue-in-hell.html

excerpt:
"Soon we will see a frightful calm, during which all will unite against the power that violated the law."

"When Sylla wanted to yield liberty back to Rome, it could no longer receive it."

-- Montesquieu, The Spirit of The Laws.
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excerpt:
Second Dialogue

Montesquieu: Your doctrines are nothing new to me, Machiavelli; and if I have difficulty in refuting them, this will less be because they disturb my reason but because, true or false, they have no philosophical basis. I quite understand that you are, above all, a political man and that deeds touch you more deeply than ideas. But, nevertheless, you agree that, when it is a question of government, it is necessary to have certain principles. You make no place in your politics for morality, religion or rights; you only have two words in your mouth: force and cunning. If your system only says that force plays a great role in human affairs, that cleverness is a necessary quality for a statesman, you understand quite well that these are truths that have no need of demonstration; but if you erect violence as a principle, and cunning as a maxim of government, if you do not account for any of humanity's laws in your calculations, the code of tyranny is no more than the code of the brute, because the animals are also adroit and strong, and indeed there is no other right among them than the right of brute force. But I do not believe that your fatalism goes that far, because you recognize the existence of good and evil.

Your principles are that good can come from evil and that it is permitted to do evil when it can result in good. Thus, you do not say: it is good in itself to betray one's word or it is good to make use of corruption, violence and murder. Instead, you say: one can betray when it is useful, to kill when it is necessary, to take the goods of others when it is advantageous to do so. I hasten to add that, in your system, these maxims are only applied to the princes and when it is a question of their interests or those of the State. Consequently, the prince has the right to violate his oaths; he can spill blood in torrents to seize power or to maintain his control over it; he can skin those whom he has banished, overturn all the laws, make new ones and violate them, too; squander finances, corrupt, repress, punish and strike down without cease.