The Essays of Montaigne, Complete

M >> Michel de Montaigne >> The Essays of Montaigne, Complete


Sire, your letter of the last of November came to my hand only just now,
when the time which it pleased you to name for meeting you at Tours had
already passed. I take it as a singular favour that you should have
deigned to desire a visit from so useless a person, but one who is wholly
yours, and more so even by affection than from duty. You have acted very
commendably in adapting yourself, in the matter of external forms, to
your new fortunes; but the preservation of your old affability and
frankness in private intercourse is entitled to an equal share of praise.
You have condescended to take thought for my age, no less than for the
desire which I have to see you, where you may be at rest from these
laborious agitations. Will not that be soon at Paris, Sire? and may
nothing prevent me from presenting myself there!--Your very humble and
very obedient servant and subject,
MONTAIGNE.

From Montaigne, this 18th of January [1590].




XV.
To the same.--[ This letter is also in the national collection, among the
Dupuy papers. It was first printed in the "Journal de l'Instruction
Publique," 4th November 1846.]

SIRE,--The letter which it pleased your majesty to write to me on the
20th of July, was not delivered to me till this morning, and found me
laid up with a very violent tertian ague, a complaint very common in this
part of the country during the last month. Sire, I consider myself
greatly honoured by the receipt of your commands, and I have not omitted
to communicate to M. the Marshal de Matignon three times most
emphatically my intention and obligation to proceed to him, and even so
far as to indicate the route by which I proposed to join him secretly, if
he thought proper. Having received no answer, I consider that he has
weighed the difficulty and risk of the journey to me. Sire, your Majesty
dill do me the favour to believe, if you please, that I shall never
complain of the expense on occasions where I should not hesitate to
devote my life. I have never derived any substantial benefit whatever
from the bounty of kings, which I have neither sought nor merited; nor
have I had any recompense for the services which I have performed for
them: whereof your majesty is in part aware. What I have done for your
predecessors I shall do still more readily for you. I am as rich, Sire,
as I desire to be. When I shall have exhausted my purse in attendance on
your Majesty at Paris, I will take the liberty to tell you, and then, if
you should regard me as worthy of being retained any longer in your
suite, you will find me more modest in my claims upon you than the
humblest of your officers.

Sire, I pray God for your prosperity and health. Your very humble and
very obedient servant and subject,
MONTAIGNE.

From Montaigne, this 2d of September [1590].




XVI.

To the Governor of Guienne.

MONSEIGNEUR,--I have received this morning your letter, which I have
communicated to M. de Gourgues, and we have dined together at the house
of M.[the mayor] of Bourdeaux. As to the inconvenience of transporting
the money named in your memorandum, you see how difficult a thing it is
to provide for; but you may be sure that we shall keep as close a watch
over it as possible. I used every exertion to discover the man of whom
you spoke. He has not been here; and M. de Bordeaux has shown me a
letter in which he mentions that he could not come to see the Director of
Bordeaux, as he intended, having been informed that you mistrust him.
The letter is of the day before yesterday. If I could have found him, I
might perhaps have pursued the gentler course, being uncertain of your
views; but I entreat you nevertheless to feel no manner of doubt that I
refuse to carry out any wishes of yours, and that, where your commands
are concerned, I know no distinction of person or matter. I hope that
you have in Guienne many as well affected to you as I am. They report
that the Nantes galleys are advancing towards Brouage. M. the Marshal de
Biron has not yet left. Those who were charged to convey the message to
M. d'Usee say that they cannot find him; and I believe that, if he has
been here, he is so no longer. We keep a vigilant eye on our gates and
guards, and we look after them a little more attentively in your absence,
which makes me apprehensive, not merely on account of the preservation of
the town, but likewise for your oven sake, knowing that the enemies of
the king feel how necessary you are to his service, and how ill we should
prosper without you. I am afraid that, in the part where you are, you
will be overtaken by so many affairs requiring your attention on every
side, that it will take you a long time and involve great difficulty
before you have disposed of everything. If there is any important news,
I will despatch an express at once, and you may conclude that nothing is
stirring if you do not hear from me: at the same time begging you to bear
in mind that movements of this kind are wont to be so sudden and
unexpected that, if they occur, they will grasp me by the throat, before
they say a word. I will do what I can to collect news, and for this
purpose I will make a point of visiting and seeing men of every shade of
opinion. Down to the present time nothing is stirring. M. de Londel has
seen me this morning, and we have been arranging for some advances for
the place, where I shall go to-morrow morning. Since I began this
letter, I have learnt from Chartreux that two gentlemen, describing
themselves as in the service of M. de Guise, and coming from Agen, have
passed near Chartreux; but I was not able to ascertain which road they
have taken. They are expecting you at Agen. The Sieur de Mauvesin came
as far as Canteloup, and thence returned, having got some intelligence.
I am in search of one Captain Rous, to whom . . . wrote, trying to
draw him into his cause by all sorts of promises. The rumour of the two
Nantes galleys ready to descend on Brouage is confirmed as certain; they
carry two companies of foot. M. de Mercure is at Nantes. The Sieur de
la Courbe said to M. the President Nesmond that M. d'Elbeuf is on this
side of Angiers, and lodges with his father. He is drawing towards Lower
Poictou with 4000 foot and 400 or 500 horse, having been reinforced by
the troops of M. de Brissac and others, and M. de Mercure is to join him.
The report goes also that M. du Maine is about to take the command of all
the forces they have collected in Auvergne, and that he will cross Le
Foret to advance on Rouergue and us, that is to say, on the King of
Navarre, against whom all this is being directed. M. de Lansac is at
Bourg, and has two war vessels, which remain in attendance on him. His
functions are naval. I tell you what I learn, and mix up together the
more or less probable hearsay of the town with actual matter of fact,
that you may be in possession of everything. I beg you most humbly to
return directly affairs may allow you to do so, and assure you that,
meanwhile, we shall not spare our labour, or (if that were necessary) our
life, to maintain the king's authority throughout. Monseigneur, I kiss
your hands very respectfully, and pray God to have you in His keeping.
From Bordeaux, Wednesday night, 22d May (1590-91).--Your very humble
servant,

MONTAIGNE.

I have seen no one from the king of Navarre; they say that M. de Biron
has seen him.






THE AUTHOR TO THE READER.--[Omitted by Cotton.]

READER, thou hast here an honest book; it doth at the outset forewarn
thee that, in contriving the same, I have proposed to myself no other
than a domestic and private end: I have had no consideration at all
either to thy service or to my glory. My powers are not capable of any
such design. I have dedicated it to the particular commodity of my
kinsfolk and friends, so that, having lost me (which they must do
shortly), they may therein recover some traits of my conditions and
humours, and by that means preserve more whole, and more life-like, the
knowledge they had of me. Had my intention been to seek the world's
favour, I should surely have adorned myself with borrowed beauties: I
desire therein to be viewed as I appear in mine own genuine, simple, and
ordinary manner, without study and artifice: for it is myself I paint.
My defects are therein to be read to the life, and any imperfections and
my natural form, so far as public reverence hath permitted me. If I had
lived among those nations, which (they say) yet dwell under the sweet
liberty of nature's primitive laws, I assure thee I would most willingly
have painted myself quite fully and quite naked. Thus, reader, myself am
the matter of my book: there's no reason thou shouldst employ thy leisure
about so frivolous and vain a subject. Therefore farewell.

From Montaigne, the 12th June 1580--[So in the edition of 1595; the
edition of 1588 has 12th June 1588]



From Montaigne, the 1st March 1580.

--[See Bonnefon, Montaigne, 1893, p. 254. The book had been
licensed for the press on the 9th May previous. The edition of 1588
has 12th June 1588;]--




ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Arts of persuasion, to insinuate it into our minds
Help: no other effect than that of lengthening my suffering
Judgment of great things is many times formed from lesser thing
Option now of continuing in life or of completing the voyage
Two principal guiding reins are reward and punishment
Virtue and ambition, unfortunately, seldom lodge together






ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazilitt

1877



BOOK THE FIRST

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 2.

I. That Men by Various Ways Arrive at the Same End.
II. Of Sorrow.
III. That our affections carry themselves beyond us.
IV. That the soul discharges her passions upon false objects, where
the true are wanting.
V. Whether the governor of a place besieged ought himself to go
out to parley.
VI. That the hour of parley is dangerous.
VII. That the intention is judge of our actions.
VIII. Of idleness.
IX. Of liars.
X. Of quick or slow speech.
XI. Of prognostications.
XII. Of constancy.



CHAPTER I

THAT MEN BY VARIOUS WAYS ARRIVE AT THE SAME END.

The most usual way of appeasing the indignation of such as we have any
way offended, when we see them in possession of the power of revenge,
and find that we absolutely lie at their mercy, is by submission, to move
them to commiseration and pity; and yet bravery, constancy, and
resolution, however quite contrary means, have sometimes served to
produce the same effect.--[Florio's version begins thus: "The most
vsuall waie to appease those minds wee have offended, when revenge lies
in their hands, and that we stand at their mercie, is by submission to
move them to commiseration and pity: Nevertheless, courage, constancie,
and resolution (means altogether opposite) have sometimes wrought the
same effect."--] [The spelling is Florio's D.W.]

Edward, Prince of Wales [Edward, the Black Prince. D.W.] (the same who
so long governed our Guienne, a personage whose condition and fortune
have in them a great deal of the most notable and most considerable parts
of grandeur), having been highly incensed by the Limousins, and taking
their city by assault, was not, either by the cries of the people, or the
prayers and tears of the women and children, abandoned to slaughter and
prostrate at his feet for mercy, to be stayed from prosecuting his
revenge; till, penetrating further into the town, he at last took notice
of three French gentlemen,--[These were Jean de Villemure, Hugh de la
Roche, and Roger de Beaufort.--Froissart, i. c. 289. {The city was
Limoges. D.W.}]--who with incredible bravery alone sustained the power
of his victorious army. Then it was that consideration and respect unto
so remarkable a valour first stopped the torrent of his fury, and that
his clemency, beginning with these three cavaliers, was afterwards
extended to all the remaining inhabitants of the city.

Scanderbeg, Prince of Epirus, pursuing one of his soldiers with purpose
to kill him, the soldier, having in vain tried by all the ways of
humility and supplication to appease him, resolved, as his last refuge,
to face about and await him sword in hand: which behaviour of his gave a
sudden stop to his captain's fury, who, for seeing him assume so notable
a resolution, received him into grace; an example, however, that might
suffer another interpretation with such as have not read of the
prodigious force and valour of that prince.

The Emperor Conrad III. having besieged Guelph, Duke of Bavaria,--[In
1140, in Weinsberg, Upper Bavaria.]--would not be prevailed upon, what
mean and unmanly satisfactions soever were tendered to him, to condescend
to milder conditions than that the ladies and gentlewomen only who were
in the town with the duke might go out without violation of their honour,
on foot, and with so much only as they could carry about them. Whereupon
they, out of magnanimity of heart, presently contrived to carry out, upon
their shoulders, their husbands and children, and the duke himself;
a sight at which the emperor was so pleased, that, ravished with the
generosity of the action, he wept for joy, and immediately extinguishing
in his heart the mortal and capital hatred he had conceived against this
duke, he from that time forward treated him and his with all humanity.
The one and the other of these two ways would with great facility work
upon my nature; for I have a marvellous propensity to mercy and mildness,
and to such a degree that I fancy of the two I should sooner surrender my
anger to compassion than to esteem. And yet pity is reputed a vice
amongst the Stoics, who will that we succour the afflicted, but not that
we should be so affected with their sufferings as to suffer with them.
I conceived these examples not ill suited to the question in hand, and
the rather because therein we observe these great souls assaulted and
tried by these two several ways, to resist the one without relenting, and
to be shook and subjected by the other. It may be true that to suffer a
man's heart to be totally subdued by compassion may be imputed to
facility, effeminacy, and over-tenderness; whence it comes to pass that
the weaker natures, as of women, children, and the common sort of people,
are the most subject to it but after having resisted and disdained the
power of groans and tears, to yield to the sole reverence of the sacred
image of Valour, this can be no other than the effect of a strong and
inflexible soul enamoured of and honouring masculine and obstinate
courage. Nevertheless, astonishment and admiration may, in less generous
minds, beget a like effect: witness the people of Thebes, who, having put
two of their generals upon trial for their lives for having continued in
arms beyond the precise term of their commission, very hardly pardoned
Pelopidas, who, bowing under the weight of so dangerous an accusation,
made no manner of defence for himself, nor produced other arguments than
prayers and supplications; whereas, on the contrary, Epaminondas, falling
to recount magniloquently the exploits he had performed in their service,
and, after a haughty and arrogant manner reproaching them with
ingratitude and injustice, they had not the heart to proceed any further
in his trial, but broke up the court and departed, the whole assembly
highly commending the high courage of this personage.--[Plutarch, How
far a Man may praise Himself, c. 5.]

Dionysius the elder, after having, by a tedious siege and through
exceeding great difficulties, taken the city of Reggio, and in it the
governor Phyton, a very gallant man, who had made so obstinate a defence,
was resolved to make him a tragical example of his revenge: in order
whereunto he first told him, "That he had the day before caused his son
and all his kindred to be drowned." To which Phyton returned no other
answer but this: "That they were then by one day happier than he." After
which, causing him to be stripped, and delivering him into the hands of
the tormentors, he was by them not only dragged through the streets of
the town, and most ignominiously and cruelly whipped, but moreover
vilified with most bitter and contumelious language: yet still he
maintained his courage entire all the way, with a strong voice and
undaunted countenance proclaiming the honourable and glorious cause of
his death; namely, for that he would not deliver up his country into the
hands of a tyrant; at the same time denouncing against him a speedy
chastisement from the offended gods. At which Dionysius, reading in his
soldiers' looks, that instead of being incensed at the haughty language
of this conquered enemy, to the contempt of their captain and his
triumph, they were not only struck with admiration of so rare a virtue,
but moreover inclined to mutiny, and were even ready to rescue the
prisoner out of the hangman's hands, he caused the torturing to cease,
and afterwards privately caused him to be thrown into the sea.--[Diod.
Sic., xiv. 29.]

Man (in good earnest) is a marvellous vain, fickle, and unstable subject,
and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment.
For Pompey could pardon the whole city of the Mamertines, though
furiously incensed against it, upon the single account of the virtue and
magnanimity of one citizen, Zeno,--[Plutarch calls him Stheno, and also
Sthemnus and Sthenis]--who took the fault of the public wholly upon
himself; neither entreated other favour, but alone to undergo the
punishment for all: and yet Sylla's host, having in the city of Perugia
--[Plutarch says Preneste, a town of Latium.]--manifested the same
virtue, obtained nothing by it, either for himself or his
fellow-citizens.

And, directly contrary to my first examples, the bravest of all men, and
who was reputed so gracious to all those he overcame, Alexander, having,
after many great difficulties, forced the city of Gaza, and, entering,
found Betis, who commanded there, and of whose valour in the time of this
siege he had most marvellous manifest proof, alone, forsaken by all his
soldiers, his armour hacked and hewed to pieces, covered all over with
blood and wounds, and yet still fighting in the crowd of a number of
Macedonians, who were laying on him on all sides, he said to him, nettled
at so dear-bought a victory (for, in addition to the other damage, he had
two wounds newly received in his own person), "Thou shalt not die, Betis,
as thou dost intend; be sure thou shall suffer all the torments that can
be inflicted on a captive." To which menace the other returning no other
answer, but only a fierce and disdainful look; "What," says Alexander,
observing his haughty and obstinate silence, "is he too stiff to bend a
knee! Is he too proud to utter one suppliant word! Truly, I will
conquer this silence; and if I cannot force a word from his mouth, I
will, at least, extract a groan from his heart." And thereupon
converting his anger into fury, presently commanded his heels to be bored
through, causing him, alive, to be dragged, mangled, and dismembered at a
cart's tail.--[Quintus Curtius, iv. 6. This act of cruelty has been
doubted, notwithstanding the statement of Curtius.]--Was it that the
height of courage was so natural and familiar to this conqueror, that
because he could not admire, he respected it the less? Or was it that he
conceived valour to be a virtue so peculiar to himself, that his pride
could not, without envy, endure it in another? Or was it that the
natural impetuosity of his fury was incapable of opposition? Certainly,
had it been capable of moderation, it is to be believed that in the sack
and desolation of Thebes, to see so many valiant men, lost and totally
destitute of any further defence, cruelly massacred before his eyes,
would have appeased it: where there were above six thousand put to the
sword, of whom not one was seen to fly, or heard to cry out for quarter;
but, on the contrary, every one running here and there to seek out and to
provoke the victorious enemy to help them to an honourable end. Not one
was seen who, however weakened with wounds, did not in his last gasp yet
endeavour to revenge himself, and with all the arms of a brave despair,
to sweeten his own death in the death of an enemy. Yet did their valour
create no pity, and the length of one day was not enough to satiate the
thirst of the conqueror's revenge, but the slaughter continued to the
last drop of blood that was capable of being shed, and stopped not till
it met with none but unarmed persons, old men, women, and children, of
them to carry away to the number of thirty thousand slaves.




CHAPTER II

OF SORROW

No man living is more free from this passion than I, who yet neither like
it in myself nor admire it in others, and yet generally the world, as a
settled thing, is pleased to grace it with a particular esteem, clothing
therewith wisdom, virtue, and conscience. Foolish and sordid guise!
--["No man is more free from this passion than I, for I neither love nor
regard it: albeit the world hath undertaken, as it were upon covenant, to
grace it with a particular favour. Therewith they adorne age, vertue,
and conscience. Oh foolish and base ornament!" Florio, 1613, p. 3]
--The Italians have more fitly baptized by this name--[La tristezza]--
malignity; for 'tis a quality always hurtful, always idle and vain; and
as being cowardly, mean, and base, it is by the Stoics expressly and
particularly forbidden to their sages.

But the story--[Herodotus, iii. 14.]--says that Psammenitus, King of
Egypt, being defeated and taken prisoner by Cambyses, King of Persia,
seeing his own daughter pass by him as prisoner, and in a wretched habit,
with a bucket to draw water, though his friends about him were so
concerned as to break out into tears and lamentations, yet he himself
remained unmoved, without uttering a word, his eyes fixed upon the
ground; and seeing, moreover, his son immediately after led to execution,
still maintained the same countenance; till spying at last one of his
domestic and familiar friends dragged away amongst the captives, he fell
to tearing his hair and beating his breast, with all the other
extravagances of extreme sorrow.

A story that may very fitly be coupled with another of the same kind, of
recent date, of a prince of our own nation, who being at Trent, and
having news there brought him of the death of his elder brother, a
brother on whom depended the whole support and honour of his house, and
soon after of that of a younger brother, the second hope of his family,
and having withstood these two assaults with an exemplary resolution; one
of his servants happening a few days after to die, he suffered his
constancy to be overcome by this last accident; and, parting with his
courage, so abandoned himself to sorrow and mourning, that some thence
were forward to conclude that he was only touched to the quick by this
last stroke of fortune; but, in truth, it was, that being before brimful
of grief, the least addition overflowed the bounds of all patience.
Which, I think, might also be said of the former example, did not the
story proceed to tell us that Cambyses asking Psammenitus, "Why, not
being moved at the calamity of his son and daughter, he should with so
great impatience bear the misfortune of his friend?" "It is," answered
he, "because only this last affliction was to be manifested by tears, the
two first far exceeding all manner of expression."

And, peradventure, something like this might be working in the fancy of
the ancient painter,--[Cicero, De Orator., c. 22 ; Pliny, xxxv. 10.]--
who having, in the sacrifice of Iphigenia, to represent the sorrow of the
assistants proportionably to the several degrees of interest every one
had in the death of this fair innocent virgin, and having, in the other
figures, laid out the utmost power of his art, when he came to that of
her father, he drew him with a veil over his face, meaning thereby that
no kind of countenance was capable of expressing such a degree of sorrow.
Which is also the reason why the poets feign the miserable mother, Niobe,
having first lost seven sons, and then afterwards as many daughters
(overwhelmed with her losses), to have been at last transformed into a
rock--

"Diriguisse malis,"

["Petrified with her misfortunes."--Ovid, Met., vi. 304.]

thereby to express that melancholic, dumb, and deaf stupefaction, which
benumbs all our faculties, when oppressed with accidents greater than we
are able to bear. And, indeed, the violence and impression of an
excessive grief must of necessity astonish the soul, and wholly deprive
her of her ordinary functions: as it happens to every one of us, who,
upon any sudden alarm of very ill news, find ourselves surprised,
stupefied, and in a manner deprived of all power of motion, so that the
soul, beginning to vent itself in tears and lamentations, seems to free
and disengage itself from the sudden oppression, and to have obtained
some room to work itself out at greater liberty.