Essays of Michel de Montaigne Page #10

The Essays of Michel de Montaigne are contained in three books and 107 chapters of varying length. They were originally written in Middle French and were originally published in the Kingdom of France.

• Essay

								


All in the room were weeping and lamenting; but he held without interruption the thread of his discourse, which was pretty long.  But when he had done, he directed us all to leave the room, except the women attendants, whom he styled his garrison.  But first, calling to him my brother, M. de Beauregard, he said to him: “M. de Beauregard, you have my best thanks for all the care you have taken of me.  I have now a thing which I am very anxious indeed to mention to you, and with your permission I will do so.”  As my brother gave him encouragement to proceed, he added: “I assure you that I never knew any man who engaged in the reformation of our Church with greater sincerity, earnestness, and single-heartedness than yourself.  I consider that you were led to it by observing the vicious character of our prelates, which no doubt much requires setting in order, and by imperfections which time has brought into our Church.  It is not my desire at present  discourage you from this course, for I would have no one act in opposition to his conscience; but I wish, having regard to the good repute acquired by your family from its enduring concord--a family than which none can be dearer to me; a family, thank God!  no member of which has ever been guilty of dishonour --in regard, further, to the will of your good father to whom you owe so much, and of your, uncle, I wish you to avoid extreme means; avoid harshness and violence: be reconciled with your relatives; do not act apart, but unite.  You perceive what disasters our quarrels have brought upon this kingdom, and I anticipate still worse mischiefs; and in your goodness and wisdom, beware of involving your family in such broils; let it continue to enjoy its former reputation and happiness.  M. de Beauregard, take what I say in good part, and as a proof of the friendship I feel for you.  I postponed till now any communication with you on the subject, and perhaps the condition in which you see me address you, may cause my advice and opinion to carry greater authority.”  My brother expressed his thanks to him cordially.

On the Monday morning he had become so ill that he quite despaired of himself; and he said to me very pitifully: “Brother, do not you feel pain for all the pain I am suffering?  Do you not perceive now that the help you give me has no other effect than that of lengthening my suffering?”

Shortly afterwards he fainted, and we all thought him gone; but by the application of vinegar and wine he rallied.  But he soon sank, and when he heard us in lamentation, he murmured, “O God!  who is it that teases me so?  Why did you break the agreeable repose I was enjoying?  I beg of you to leave me.”  And then, when he caught the sound of my voice, he continued: “And art thou, my brother, likewise unwilling to see me at peace?  O, how thou robbest me of my repose!”  After a while, he seemed to gain more strength, and called for wine, which he relished, and declared it to be the finest drink possible.  I, in order to change the current of his thoughts, put in, “Surely not; water is the best.”  “Ah, yes,” he returned, “doubtless so;--(Greek phrase)--.”  He had now become, icy-cold at his extremities, even to his face; a deathly perspiration was upon him, and his pulse was scarcely perceptible.

This morning he confessed, but the priest had omitted to bring with him the necessary apparatus for celebrating Mass.  On the Tuesday, however, M. de la Boetie summoned him to aid him, as he said, in discharging the last office of a Christian.   After the conclusion of Mass, he took the sacrament; when the priest was about to depart, he said to him: “Spiritual father, I implore you humbly, as well as those over whom you are set, to pray to the Almighty on my behalf; that, if it be decreed in heaven that I am now to end my life, He will take compassion on my soul, and pardon me my sins, which are manifold, it not being possible for so weak and poor a creature as I to obey completely the will of such a Master; or, if He think fit to keep me longer here, that it may please Him to release my present extreme anguish, and to direct my footsteps in the right path, that I may become a better man than I have been.”  He paused to recover breath a little; priest was about to go away, he called him back and proceeded: “I desire to say, besides, in your hearing this: I declare that I was christened and I have lived, and that so I wish to die, in the faith which Moses preached in Egypt; which afterwards the Patriarchs accepted and professed in Judaea; and which, in the course of time, has been transmitted to France and to us.”  He seemed desirous of adding something more, but he ended with a request to his uncle and me to send up prayers for him; “for those are,” he said, “the best duties that Christians can fulfil one for another.”  In the course of talking, his shoulder was uncovered, and although a man-servant stood near him, he asked his uncle to re-adjust the clothes.  Then, turning his eyes towards me, he said, “Ingenui est, cui multum debeas, ei plurimum velle debere.”

M. de Belot called in the afternoon to see him, and M. de la Boetie, taking his hand, said to him: “I was on the point of discharging my debt, but my kind creditor has given me a little further time.”  A little while after, appearing to wake out of a sort of reverie, he uttered words which he had employed once or twice before in the course of his sickness: “Ah well, ah well, whenever the hour comes, I await it with pleasure and fortitude.”  And then, as they were holding his mouth open by force to give him a draught, he observed to M. de Belot: “An vivere tanti est?”

As the evening approached, he began perceptibly to sink; and while I supped, he sent for me to come, being no more than the shadow of a man, or, as he put it himself, ‘non homo, sed species hominis’; and he said to me with the utmost difficulty: “My brother, my friend, please God I may realise the imaginations I have just enjoyed.”  Afterwards, having waited for some time while he remained silent, and by painful efforts was drawing long sighs (for his tongue at this point began to refuse its functions), I said, “What are they?”  “Grand, grand!”  he replied.  “I have never yet failed,” returned I, “to have the honour of hearing your conceptions and imaginations communicated to me; will you not now still let me enjoy them?”  “I would indeed,” he answered; “but, my brother, I am not able to do so; they are admirable, infinite, and unspeakable.”
 We stopped short there, for he could not go on.  A little before, indeed, he had shown a desire to speak to his wife, and had told her, with as gay a countenance as he could contrive to assume, that he had a story to tell her.  And it seemed as if he was making an attempt to gain utterance; but, his strength failing him, he begged a little wine to resuscitate it. It was of no avail, for he fainted away suddenly, and was for some time insensible.  Having become so near a neighbour to death, and hearing the sobs of Mademoiselle de la Boetie, he called her, and said to her thus: “My own likeness, you grieve yourself beforehand; will you not have pity on me?  take courage.  Assuredly, it costs me more than half the pain I endure, to see you suffer; and reasonably so, because the evils which we ourselves feel we do not actually ourselves suffer, but it certain sentient faculties which God plants in us, that feel them: whereas what we feel on account of others, we feel by consequence of a certain reasoning process which goes on within our minds.  But I am going away”
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