The claim that Machiavelli would have been proud. Kind of pisses me off.

Machiavelli did not invent the atrocities and vagaries of power, he identified them as the features he saw in the rulers he dealt with as a civil servant.

He was demonized, for centuries, for calling out the bad behavior of rulers and leaders which is how we got to "Machiavelli would be proud" bullshit accusations meant to demean a rather humble guy.

by which the average reader could see through the mists of pomp and identify the true nature of powerful people. Which, then, means "Machiavelli should be proud" of our informed insight unencumbered by the side-show glitz of self-promotional propaganda. You await the , yes?........ Okay, here it comes.
Whoever, then, could have ever profited by misinterpretation of the humble author's intent, in fact, making rather famous to anglophiles' the world over an otherwise obscure Florentine diplomat cum author? What vague necessity could have been purchased by persuading the average reader to see a meaning which is not there? How could there ever be gain by the mislabeling of facts or purposeful confusion of straightforward POV's? Could it be there were some who loathed and feared personal exposure, even today in our enlightened era, some who would see any thought to disparage and dismiss this author a viable and reliable means to prevent the dissemination of dangerous insight in plain sight? Did the distortion begin in Cambridge or Oxford? Did it permeate more the officer classes of the empire's armies or navy? Did, "actually never read the thing, you? No, me neither, never worry m'self 'bout some book 'bout Eye-Ties", punctuate the conventional conversation of the public-school classes? Was it a crown-approved means to lay mockery on the heads of Mediterranean Rome's inheritance? A believable condemnation, them as culturally corrupt, comically inept and thoroughly defeatable and, by extension, a concavely mirrored diminution of Napolean's revolutionary threat and personal height to encourage defenders of their homelands, was a real good thing for the great incestuous households of northern Europe in the early 19th century. Yeah, okay, probably, but who would swallow such swill, smiling goofily in their delusion? As Brexit, the Sepoy rebellion, WW's I née II and Margaret Thatcher have proven, Brits are great candidates to be such blockheads.