"Messieurs de Montmorency and Brion, who are "here omitted; nay, the name of Madame de Estampes is not so much as once mentioned. "Secret actions may be concealed by an historian; "but to pass over in silence what is known to all "the world, and things too that have produced "effects of such consequence, is a defect not to be "excused. In fine, whoever would have a perfect "knowledge of king Francis, and the affairs of "his time, must, if he will take my advice, look "for it elsewhere. The only advantage he can reap from this work is, by the particular account "of the battles and military achievements, in which "those gentlemen were present; certain expressions "and private actions of some princes of their time, "and the practices and negotiations carried on by "the lord de Langeay, wherein there are throughout things worthy to be known, and reasonings above "the vulgar strain." CHAPTER II. of Cruelty. VIRTUE secins to me to be quite another thing, superior to what is call. and more noble than the inclinations that are innate ed goodness in goodness. Those souls that are well tempered, of nature. and as truly generous, pursue the same tract; and The to be prac difficulty. some offence, arms himself with the weapons of reason against a furious thirst of revenge, and, after a great struggle, at last masters his own passion, undoubtedly performs much more. The first would do well, and the latter virtuously. One action might be called good-nature, the other virtue. For me- Virtue not thinks the very name of Virtue presupposes difficulty tised withand opposition, and cannot be exercised without out some something to contend with. It is for this reason, perhaps, that we call God by the attributes of good, mighty, bountiful, and just; but we do not give him that of virtuous, his works being all natural, and without any effort. The philosophers, not only the Stoics, but also the Epicureans (and this addition* I borrow from the vulgar opinion, which is false, notwithstanding the witty conceit of Arcesilaus, in answer to one, who, being reproached that many scholars went from his school to the Epicurean, but never any from thence to his school, said in answer, "I believe it indeed; numbers of capons being "made out of cocks, but never any cocks out of caponst." For, in truth, the Epicurean sect is not at all inferior to the Stoic in steadiness, and the rigour of opinions and precepts. And a certain Stoic, discovering more honesty than those disputants, who, in order to quarrel with Epicurus, and to throw the game into their own hands, make 66 Montaigne stops here to make his excuse for thus naming the Epicureans with the Stoics, in conformity to the general opinion that the Epicureans were not so rigid in their morals as the Stoics, which is not true in the main, as he demonstrates at one view. This involved Montaigne in a tedious parenthesis, during which it is proper that the reader be attentive, that he may not entirely lose the thread of the argument. In some later editions of this author, it has been attempted to remedy this inconvenience, but without observing that Montaigne's argument is rendered more feeble and obscure by such vain repetitions: it is a licence that ought not to be taken, because he, who publishes the work of another, ought to give it as the other composed it. But, in Mr. Cotton's translation, he was so puzzled with this enormous parenthesis, that he has quite left it out. Diog. Laert. in the Life of Arcesilaus, lib. iv. sect. 43. him say what he never thought, putting a wrong construction upon his words, clothing his sentences, by the strict rules of grammar, with another meaning, and a different opinion from that which they knew he entertained in his mind, and in his morals, the Stoic, I say, declared, that he abandoned the Epicurean sect, upon this, among other considerations, that he thought their tract too lofty and inaccessible; Et ii qui φιλήδονοι vacantur sunt φιλόκαλοι et rodízio, omnesque virtutes et colunt et ratinent : "And those whom we call lovers of pleasure, "being, in effect, lovers of honour and justice, cul"tivate and practise all the virtues;" Cic. ep. 19. lib. xv.) several, I say, of the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, thought that it was not enough to have the soul in a good frame, well tempered, and welldisposed to virtue; that it was not enough to have our resolutions and our reasonings fixed above all the efforts of fortune; but that it was ever necessary to seek occasions to make trial of them: they were for going in quest of pain, necessity, and contempt, in order to combat them, and to keep the soul in exercise. Multum sibi adjicit virtus lacessita:* "Virtue by being attacked becomes the more cou 99 rageous. It is one of the reasons why Epaminondas, who was also of a third sect,t refused the wealth which fortune put into his hand by very fair means, because, said he, I may be able to fence with poverty, in which extreme he always stood his ground. Socrates methinks put himself to a severer trial, keeping, for his exercise, a shrew of a wife; which was a trial with a vengeance. Metellus, the only one of all the Roman senators, who attempted, by the strength of his virtue, to support himself against the violence of Saturninus, the tribune of the people of Rome, who was resolved by all means to get an * Senec. ep. 13, Of the Pythagorean sect. Epaminondas, the Theban, says Cicero, was instructed by Lysis, a Pythagorcan. De Offic. lib. i. c. 41. * unjust law passed in favour of the commonalty, having, by such opposition, incurred the capital punishments which Saturninus had established for the recusants; this very Metellus said to the persons, who, in this extremity, were leading him to the place of execution: "That it was a very easy and a base thing to "commit evil; and that to do good, where there "was no danger, was a common thing; but to do "good where there was danger, was the proper office "of a man of virtue." These words of Metellus clearly show what I would make out, that virtue refuses ease for its companion, and that the gentle ascent, that soft, smooth way, in which those take their steps who are regulated by a natural inclination to goodness, is not the path of true virtue. This requires a rugged thorny passage, and will have either difficulties from without to struggle with (like that of Metellus) by means whereof fortune delights to interrupt the speed of our career, or else internal difficulties that are introduced by the disorderly appetites and imperfections of our condition. souls, such virtue be through ha I am come thus far at my ease; but it just now In noble falls into my imagination, that the soul of Socrates, as those of the most perfect that ever has come to my know- Socrates ledge, would, by this rule, have little to recommend and Cato, it; for I cannot perceive, in this person, any effort comes easy of a vicious concupiscence. In the course of his virtue, I cannot imagine there was any difficulty or constraint. I know his reason had so much sway and authority over him, that it would never have suffered a vicious appetite so much as to rise in him. To a virtue so sublime as his I can set nothing in opposition. Methinks I see it stalk, with a victorious and trium phant pace, in pomp, and at ease, without molestation or disturbance. If virtue cannot shine but by struggling with contrary appetites, shall we therefore say, that she cannot subsist without the assistance of vice, and that it is from thence she derives her reputation * Plutarch, in the Life of Marius, ch. 10 of Amyot's translation and honour? What would become also of that brave and generous Epicurean pleasure, which pretends to nourish and cherish virtue in its lap, giving it shame, sickness, poverty, death, and hell for toys to play with? If I presuppose that perfect virtue is known by contending with, and patiently bearing, pain, and even fits of the gout, without being moved in its seat; if I give it roughness and difficulty for its necessary object, what will become of a virtue elevated to such a degree, as not only to despise pain, but to rejoice in it, and to be delighted with the racking stitches of a violent colic, as is the quality of that virtue which the Epicureans have established, and of which many of them, by their actions, have left very evident proofs? As have many others, who I find have surpassed the very rules of their discipline: witness the younger Cato; when I see him dying, and tearing out his own bowels, I cannot be contented simply to believe that his soul was, at that time, wholly exempt from trouble and fear; I cannot think, that he only supported himself in this step, which was prescribed to him by the laws of the Stoic sect, quite serenely, without emotion or passion; there was, methinks, in that man's virtue too much sprightliness and youth to stop there. I make no doubt but he felt a pleasure and delight in so noble an action, and that it was more agreeable to him than any thing he ever did in his life. Sic abiit è vitá ut causam moriendi nactum se esse gauderet: "He went out of life in such a manner, as if he was "glad he had found a reason for dying."* And I really question, whether he would have been glad to have been deprived of the occasion of so brave an exploit and if that good-nature of his, which made him espouse the public benefit rather than his own, did not restrain me, I should be ready to believe, that he thought himself obliged to fortune, for having put his virtue to so severe a trial, and for * Cic. Tusc. Quæst. lib. i. cap. 30. |