Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 076

But this we also find recorded, that some persons have commanded a thing,
who afterward have severely avenged the execution of it upon him they had
employed, rejecting the reputation of so unbridled an authority, and
disowning so abandoned and base a servitude and obedience. Jaropelk,
Duke of Russia, tampered with a gentleman of Hungary to betray Boleslaus,
king of Poland, either by killing him, or by giving the Russians
opportunity to do him some notable mischief. This worthy went ably to
work: he was more assiduous than before in the service of that king, so
that he obtained the honour to be of his council, and one of the chiefest
in his trust. With these advantages, and taking an opportune occasion of
his master’s absence, he betrayed Vislicza, a great and rich city, to the
Russians, which was entirely sacked and burned, and not only all the
inhabitants of both sexes, young and old, put to the sword, but moreover
a great number of neighbouring gentry, whom he had drawn thither to that
end. Jaropelk, his revenge being thus satisfied and his anger appeased,
which was not, indeed, without pretence (for Boleslaus had highly
offended him, and after the same manner), and sated with the fruit of
this treachery, coming to consider the fulness of it, with a sound
judgment and clear from passion, looked upon what had been done with so
much horror and remorse that he caused the eyes to be bored out and the
tongue and shameful parts to be cut off of him who had performed it.
Antigonus persuaded the Argyraspides to betray Eumenes, their general,
his adversary, into his hands; but after he had caused him, so delivered,
to be slain, he would himself be the commissioner of the divine justice
for the punishment of so detestable a crime, and committed them into the
hands of the governor of the province, with express command, by whatever
means, to destroy and bring them all to an evil end, so that of that
great number of men, not so much as one ever returned again into
Macedonia: the better he had been served, the more wickedly he judged it
to be, and meriting greater punishment.
The slave who betrayed the place where his master, P. Sulpicius, lay
concealed, was, according to the promise of Sylla’s proscription,
manumitted for his pains; but according to the promise of the public
justice, which was free from any such engagement, he was thrown headlong
from the Tarpeian rock.
Our King Clovis, instead of the arms of gold he had promised them, caused
three of Cararie’s servants to be hanged after they had betrayed their
master to him, though he had debauched them to it: he hanged them with
the purse of their reward about their necks; after having satisfied his
second and special faith, he satisfied the general and first.
Mohammed II. having resolved to rid himself of his brother, out of
jealousy of state, according to the practice of the Ottoman family, he
employed one of his officers in the execution, who, pouring a quantity of
water too fast into him, choked him. This being done, to expiate the
murder, he delivered the murderer into the hands of the mother of him he
had so caused to be put to death, for they were only brothers by the
father’s side; she, in his presence, ripped up the murderer’s bosom, and
with her own hands rifled his breast for his heart, tore it out, and
threw it to the dogs. And even to the worst people it is the sweetest
thing imaginable, having once gained their end by a vicious action, to
foist, in all security, into it some show of virtue and justice, as by
way of compensation and conscientious correction; to which may be added,
that they look upon the ministers of such horrid crimes as upon men who
reproach them with them, and think by their deaths to erase the memory
and testimony of such proceedings.
Or if, perhaps, you are rewarded, not to frustrate the public necessity
for that extreme and desperate remedy, he who does it cannot for all
that, if he be not such himself, but look upon you as an accursed and
execrable fellow, and conclude you a greater traitor than he does,
against whom you are so: for he tries the malignity of your disposition
by your own hands, where he cannot possibly be deceived, you having no
object of preceding hatred to move you to such an act; but he employs you
as they do condemned malefactors in executions of justice, an office as
necessary as dishonourable. Besides the baseness of such commissions,
there is, moreover, a prostitution of conscience. Seeing that the
daughter of Sejanus could not be put to death by the law of Rome, because
she was a virgin, she was, to make it lawful, first ravished by the
hangman and then strangled: not only his hand but his soul is slave to
the public convenience.
When Amurath I., more grievously to punish his subjects who had taken
part in the parricide rebellion of his son, ordained that their nearest
kindred should assist in the execution, I find it very handsome in some
of them to have rather chosen to be unjustly thought guilty of the
parricide of another than to serve justice by a parricide of their own.
And where I have seen, at the taking of some little fort by assault in my
time, some rascals who, to save their own lives, would consent to hang
their friends and companions, I have looked upon them to be of worse
condition than those who were hanged. ‘Tis said, that Witold, Prince of
Lithuania, introduced into the nation the practice that the criminal
condemned to death should with his own hand execute the sentence,
thinking it strange that a third person, innocent of the fault, should be
made guilty of homicide.
A prince, when by some urgent circumstance or some impetuous and
unforeseen accident that very much concerns his state, compelled to
forfeit his word and break his faith, or otherwise forced from his
ordinary duty, ought to attribute this necessity to a lash of the divine
rod: vice it is not, for he has given up his own reason to a more
universal and more powerful reason; but certainly ‘tis a misfortune: so
that if any one should ask me what remedy? “None,” say I, “if he were
really racked between these two extremes: ‘sed videat, ne quoeratur
latebya perjurio’, he must do it: but if he did it without regret, if it
did not weigh on him to do it, ‘tis a sign his conscience is in a sorry
condition.” If there be a person to be found of so tender a conscience
as to think no cure whatever worth so important a remedy, I shall like
him never the worse; he could not more excusably or more decently perish.
We cannot do all we would, so that we must often, as the last anchorage,
commit the protection of our vessels to the simple conduct of heaven.
To what more just necessity does he reserve himself? What is less
possible for him to do than what he cannot do but at the expense of his
faith and honour, things that, perhaps, ought to be dearer to him than
his own safety, or even the safety of his people. Though he should, with
folded arms, only call God to his assistance, has he not reason to hope
that the divine goodness will not refuse the favour of an extraordinary
arm to just and pure hands? These are dangerous examples, rare and
sickly exceptions to our natural rules: we must yield to them, but with
great moderation and circumspection: no private utility is of such
importance that we should upon that account strain our consciences to
such a degree: the public may be, when very manifest and of very great
concern.
Timoleon made a timely expiation for his strange exploit by the tears he
shed, calling to mind that it was with a fraternal hand that he had slain
the tyrant; and it justly pricked his conscience that he had been
necessitated to purchase the public utility at so great a price as the
violation of his private morality. Even the Senate itself, by his means
delivered from slavery, durst not positively determine of so high a fact,
and divided into two so important and contrary aspects; but the
Syracusans, sending at the same time to the Corinthians to solicit their
protection, and to require of them a captain fit to re-establish their
city in its former dignity and to clear Sicily of several little tyrants
by whom it was oppressed, they deputed Timoleon for that service, with
this cunning declaration; “that according as he should behave himself
well or ill in his employment, their sentence should incline either to
favour the deliverer of his country, or to disfavour the murderer of his
brother.” This fantastic conclusion carries along with it some excuse,
by reason of the danger of the example, and the importance of so strange
an action: and they did well to discharge their own judgment of it, and
to refer it to others who were not so much concerned. But Timoleon’s
comportment in this expedition soon made his cause more clear, so
worthily and virtuously he demeaned himself upon all occasions; and the
good fortune that accompanied him in the difficulties he had to overcome
in this noble employment, seemed to be strewed in his way by the gods,
favourably conspiring for his justification.
The end of this matter is excusable, if any can be so; but the profit of
the augmentation of the public revenue, that served the Roman Senate for
a pretence to the foul conclusion I am going to relate, is not sufficient
to warrant any such injustice.
Certain cities had redeemed themselves and their liberty by money, by the
order and consent of the Senate, out of the hands of L. Sylla: the
business coming again in question, the Senate condemned them to be
taxable as they were before, and that the money they had disbursed for
their redemption should be lost to them. Civil war often produces such
villainous examples; that we punish private men for confiding in us when
we were public ministers: and the self-same magistrate makes another man
pay the penalty of his change that has nothing to do with it; the
pedagogue whips his scholar for his docility; and the guide beats the
blind man whom he leads by the hand; a horrid image of justice.
There are rules in philosophy that are both false and weak. The example
that is proposed to us for preferring private utility before faith given,
has not weight enough by the circumstances they put to it; robbers have
seized you, and after having made you swear to pay them a certain sum of
money, dismiss you. ‘Tis not well done to say, that an honest man can be
quit of his oath without payment, being out of their hands. ‘Tis no such
thing: what fear has once made me willing to do, I am obliged to do it
when I am no longer in fear; and though that fear only prevailed with my
tongue without forcing my will, yet am I bound to keep my word. For my
part, when my tongue has sometimes inconsiderately said something that I
did not think, I have made a conscience of disowning it: otherwise, by
degrees, we shall abolish all the right another derives from our promises
and oaths:
“Quasi vero forti viro vis possit adhiberi.”
[“As though a man of true courage could be compelled.”
--Cicero, De Offic., iii. 30.]
And ‘tis only lawful, upon the account of private interest, to excuse
breach of promise, when we have promised something that is unlawful and
wicked in itself; for the right of virtue ought to take place of the
right of any obligation of ours.
I have formerly placed Epaminondas in the first rank of excellent men,
and do not repent it. How high did he stretch the consideration of his
own particular duty? he who never killed a man whom he had overcome; who,
for the inestimable benefit of restoring the liberty of his country, made
conscience of killing a tyrant or his accomplices without due form of
justice: and who concluded him to be a wicked man, how good a citizen
soever otherwise, who amongst his enemies in battle spared not his friend
and his guest. This was a soul of a rich composition: he married
goodness and humanity, nay, even the tenderest and most delicate in the
whole school of philosophy, to the roughest and most violent human
actions. Was it nature or art that had intenerated that great courage of
his, so full, so obstinate against pain and death and poverty, to such an
extreme degree of sweetness and compassion? Dreadful in arms and blood,
he overran and subdued a nation invincible by all others but by him
alone; and yet in the heat of an encounter, could turn aside from his
friend and guest. Certainly he was fit to command in war who could so
rein himself with the curb of good nature, in the height and heat of his
fury, a fury inflamed and foaming with blood and slaughter. ‘Tis a
miracle to be able to mix any image of justice with such violent actions:
and it was only possible for such a steadfastness of mind as that of
Epaminondas therein to mix sweetness and the facility of the gentlest
manners and purest innocence. And whereas one told the Mamertini that
statutes were of no efficacy against armed men; and another told the
tribune of the people that the time of justice and of war were distinct
things; and a third said that the noise of arms deafened the voice of
laws, this man was not precluded from listening to the laws of civility
and pure courtesy. Had he not borrowed from his enemies the custom of
sacrificing to the Muses when he went to war, that they might by their
sweetness and gaiety soften his martial and rigorous fury? Let us not
fear, by the example of so great a master, to believe that there is
something unlawful, even against an enemy, and that the common concern
ought not to require all things of all men, against private interest:
“Manente memoria, etiam in dissidio publicorum
foederum, privati juris:”
[“The memory of private right remaining even amid
public dissensions.”--Livy, xxv. 18.]
“Et nulla potentia vires
Praestandi, ne quid peccet amicus, habet;”
[“No power on earth can sanction treachery against a friend.”
--Ovid, De Ponto, i. 7, 37.]
and that all things are not lawful to an honest man for the service of
his prince, the laws, or the general quarrel:
“Non enim patria praestat omnibus officiis....
et ipsi conducit pios habere cives in parentes.”
[“The duty to one’s country does not supersede all other duties.
The country itself requires that its citizens should act piously
toward their parents.”--Cicero, De Offic., iii. 23.]
Tis an instruction proper for the time wherein we live: we need not
harden our courage with these arms of steel; ‘tis enough that our
shoulders are inured to them: ‘tis enough to dip our pens in ink without
dipping them in blood. If it be grandeur of courage, and the effect of a
rare and singular virtue, to contemn friendship, private obligations, a
man’s word and relationship, for the common good and obedience to the
magistrate, ‘tis certainly sufficient to excuse us, that ‘tis a grandeur
that can have no place in the grandeur of Epaminondas’ courage.
I abominate those mad exhortations of this other discomposed soul,
“Dum tela micant, non vos pietatis imago
Ulla, nec adversa conspecti fronte parentes
Commoveant; vultus gladio turbate verendos.”
[“While swords glitter, let no idea of piety, nor the face even of a
father presented to you, move you: mutilate with your sword those
venerable features “--Lucan, vii. 320.]
Let us deprive wicked, bloody, and treacherous natures of such a pretence
of reason: let us set aside this guilty and extravagant justice, and
stick to more human imitations. How great things can time and example
do! In an encounter of the civil war against Cinna, one of Pompey’s
soldiers having unawares killed his brother, who was of the contrary
party, he immediately for shame and sorrow killed himself: and some years
after, in another civil war of the same people, a soldier demanded a
reward of his officer for having killed his brother.
A man but ill proves the honour and beauty of an action by its utility:
and very erroneously concludes that every one is obliged to it, and that
it becomes every one to do it, if it be of utility:
“Omnia non pariter rerum sunt omnibus apta.”

[“All things are not equally fit for all men.”
--Propertius, iii. 9, 7.]
Let us take that which is most necessary and profitable for human
society; it will be marriage; and yet the council of the saints find the
contrary much better, excluding from it the most venerable vocation of
man: as we design those horses for stallions of which we have the least
esteem.


CHAPTER II
OF REPENTANCE
Others form man; I only report him: and represent a particular one, ill
fashioned enough, and whom, if I had to model him anew, I should
certainly make something else than what he is but that’s past recalling.
Now, though the features of my picture alter and change, ‘tis not,
however, unlike: the world eternally turns round; all things therein are
incessantly moving, the earth, the rocks of Caucasus, and the pyramids of
Egypt, both by the public motion and their own. Even constancy itself is
no other but a slower and more languishing motion. I cannot fix my
object; ‘tis always tottering and reeling by a natural giddiness; I take
it as it is at the instant I consider it; I do not paint its being, I
paint its passage; not a passing from one age to another, or, as the
people say, from seven to seven years, but from day to day, from minute
to minute, I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently
change, not only by fortune, but also by intention. ‘Tis a counterpart
of various and changeable accidents, and of irresolute imaginations, and,
as it falls out, sometimes contrary: whether it be that I am then another
self, or that I take subjects by other circumstances and considerations:
so it is that I may peradventure contradict myself, but, as Demades said,
I never contradict the truth. Could my soul once take footing, I would
not essay but resolve: but it is always learning and making trial.
I propose a life ordinary and without lustre: ‘tis all one; all moral
philosophy may as well be applied to a common and private life, as to one
of richer composition: every man carries the entire form of human
condition. Authors communicate themselves to the people by some especial
and extrinsic mark; I, the first of any, by my universal being; as Michel
de Montaigne, not as a grammarian, a poet, or a lawyer. If the world
find fault that I speak too much of myself, I find fault that they do not
so much as think of themselves. But is it reason that, being so
particular in my way of living, I should pretend to recommend myself to
the public knowledge? And is it also reason that I should produce to the
world, where art and handling have so much credit and authority, crude
and simple effects of nature, and of a weak nature to boot? Is it not to
build a wall without stone or brick, or some such thing, to write books
without learning and without art? The fancies of music are carried on by
art; mine by chance. I have this, at least, according to discipline,
that never any man treated of a subject he better understood and knew
than I what I have undertaken, and that in this I am the most
understanding man alive: secondly, that never any man penetrated farther
into his matter, nor better and more distinctly sifted the parts and
sequences of it, nor ever more exactly and fully arrived at the end he
proposed to himself. To perfect it, I need bring nothing but fidelity to
the work; and that is there, and the most pure and sincere that is
anywhere to be found. I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much
as I dare; and I dare a little the more, as I grow older; for, methinks,
custom allows to age more liberty of prating, and more indiscretion of
talking of a man’s self. That cannot fall out here, which I often see
elsewhere, that the work and the artificer contradict one another:
“Can a man of such sober conversation have written so foolish a book?”
Or “Do so learned writings proceed from a man of so weak conversation?”
He who talks at a very ordinary rate, and writes rare matter, ‘tis to say
that his capacity is borrowed and not his own. A learned man is not
learned in all things: but a sufficient man is sufficient throughout,
even to ignorance itself; here my book and I go hand in hand together.
Elsewhere men may commend or censure the work, without reference to the
workman; here they cannot: who touches the one, touches the other. He
who shall judge of it without knowing him, will more wrong himself than
me; he who does know him, gives me all the satisfaction I desire. I
shall be happy beyond my desert, if I can obtain only thus much from the
public approbation, as to make men of understanding perceive that I was
capable of profiting by knowledge, had I had it; and that I deserved to
have been assisted by a better memory.
Be pleased here to excuse what I often repeat, that I very rarely repent,
and that my conscience is satisfied with itself, not as the conscience of
an angel, or that of a horse, but as the conscience of a man; always
adding this clause, not one of ceremony, but a true and real submission,
that I speak inquiring and doubting, purely and simply referring myself
to the common and accepted beliefs for the resolution. I do not teach; I
only relate.
There is no vice that is absolutely a vice which does not offend, and
that a sound judgment does not accuse; for there is in it so manifest a
deformity and inconvenience, that peradventure they are in the right who
say that it is chiefly begotten by stupidity and ignorance: so hard is it
to imagine that a man can know without abhorring it. Malice sucks up the
greatest part of its own venom, and poisons itself. Vice leaves
repentance in the soul, like an ulcer in the flesh, which is always
scratching and lacerating itself: for reason effaces all other grief and
sorrows, but it begets that of repentance, which is so much the more
grievous, by reason it springs within, as the cold and heat of fevers are
more sharp than those that only strike upon the outward skin. I hold for
vices (but every one according to its proportion), not only those which
reason and nature condemn, but those also which the opinion of men,
though false and erroneous, have made such, if authorised by law and
custom.
There is likewise no virtue which does not rejoice a well-descended
nature: there is a kind of, I know not what, congratulation in well-doing
that gives us an inward satisfaction, and a generous boldness that
accompanies a good conscience: a soul daringly vicious may, peradventure,
arm itself with security, but it cannot supply itself with this
complacency and satisfaction. ‘Tis no little satisfaction to feel a
man’s self preserved from the contagion of so depraved an age, and to say
to himself: “Whoever could penetrate into my soul would not there find me
guilty either of the affliction or ruin of any one, or of revenge or
envy, or any offence against the public laws, or of innovation or
disturbance, or failure of my word; and though the licence of the time
permits and teaches every one so to do, yet have I not plundered any
Frenchman’s goods, or taken his money, and have lived upon what is my
own, in war as well as in peace; neither have I set any man to work
without paying him his hire.” These testimonies of a good conscience
please, and this natural rejoicing is very beneficial to us, and the only
reward that we can never fail of.
To ground the recompense of virtuous actions upon the approbation of
others is too uncertain and unsafe a foundation, especially in so corrupt
and ignorant an age as this, wherein the good opinion of the vulgar is
injurious: upon whom do you rely to show you what is recommendable? God
defend me from being an honest man, according to the descriptions of
honour I daily see every one make of himself:
“Quae fuerant vitia, mores sunt.”
[“What before had been vices are now manners.”--Seneca, Ep., 39.]
Some of my friends have at times schooled and scolded me with great
sincerity and plainness, either of their own voluntary motion, or by me
entreated to it as to an office, which to a well-composed soul surpasses
not only in utility, but in kindness, all other offices of friendship: I
have always received them with the most open arms, both of courtesy and
acknowledgment; but to say the truth, I have often found so much false
measure, both in their reproaches and praises, that I had not done much
amiss, rather to have done ill, than to have done well according to their
notions. We, who live private lives, not exposed to any other view than
our own, ought chiefly to have settled a pattern within ourselves by
which to try our actions: and according to that, sometimes to encourage
and sometimes to correct ourselves. I have my laws and my judicature to
judge of myself, and apply myself more to these than to any other rules:
I do, indeed, restrain my actions according to others; but extend them
not by any other rule than my own. You yourself only know if you are
cowardly and cruel, loyal and devout: others see you not, and only guess
at you by uncertain conjectures, and do not so much see your nature as
your art; rely not therefore upon their opinions, but stick to your own:
“Tuo tibi judicio est utendum.... Virtutis et vitiorum grave ipsius
conscientiae pondus est: qua sublata, jacent omnia.”
[“Thou must employ thy own judgment upon thyself; great is the
weight of thy own conscience in the discovery of virtues and vices:
which taken away, all things are lost.”
--Cicero, De Nat. Dei, iii. 35; Tusc. Quaes., i. 25.]
But the saying that repentance immediately follows the sin seems not to
have respect to sin in its high estate, which is lodged in us as in its
own proper habitation. One may disown and retract the vices that
surprise us, and to which we are hurried by passions; but those which by
a long habit are rooted in a strong and vigorous will are not subject to
contradiction. Repentance is no other but a recanting of the will and an
opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please. It makes
this person disown his former virtue and continency:
“Quae mens est hodie, cur eadem non puero fait?
Vel cur his animis incolumes non redeunt genae?”
[“What my mind is, why was it not the same, when I was a boy? or
why do not the cheeks return to these feelings?”
--Horace, Od., v. 10, 7.]
‘Tis an exact life that maintains itself in due order in private. Every
one may juggle his part, and represent an honest man upon the stage: but
within, and in his own bosom, where all may do as they list, where all is
concealed, to be regular, there’s the point. The next degree is to be so
in his house, and in his ordinary actions, for which we are accountable
to none, and where there is no study nor artifice. And therefore Bias,
setting forth the excellent state of a private family, says: “of which a
the master is the same within, by his own virtue and temper, that he is
abroad, for fear of the laws and report of men.” And it was a worthy
saying of Julius Drusus, to the masons who offered him, for three
thousand crowns, to put his house in such a posture that his neighbours
should no longer have the same inspection into it as before; “I will give
you,” said he, “six thousand to make it so that everybody may see into
every room.” ‘Tis honourably recorded of Agesilaus, that he used in his
journeys always to take up his lodgings in temples, to the end that the
people and the gods themselves might pry into his most private actions.
Such a one has been a miracle to the world, in whom neither his wife nor
servant has ever seen anything so much as remarkable; few men have been
admired by their own domestics; no one was ever a prophet, not merely in
his own house, but in his own country, says the experience of histories:
--[No man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre, said Marshal Catinat]--‘tis