Essays of Michel de Montaigne Page #15

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

								


X.

To the same.--[The original is among the archives of Toulouse.]

GENTLEMEN,--I have taken my fair share of the satisfaction which you announce to me as feeling at the good despatch of your business, as reported to you by your deputies, and I regard it as a favourable sign that you have made such an auspicious commencement of the year.  I hope to join you at the earliest convenient opportunity.  I recommend myself very humbly to your gracious consideration, and pray God to grant you, gentlemen, a happy and long life.  From Montaigne, this 8th February 1585.  Your humble brother and servant, MONTAIGNE.

XI.

To the same.

GENTLEMEN,--I have here received news of you from M. le Marechal.  I will not spare either my life or anything else for your service, and will leave it to your judgment whether the assistance I might be able to render by my presence at the forthcoming election, would be worth the risk I should run by going into the town, seeing the bad state it is in, --[This refers to the plague then raging, and which carried off 14,000 persons at Bordeaux.]--particularly for people coming away from so fine an air as this is where I am.  I will draw as near to you on Wednesday as I can, that is, to Feuillas, if the malady has not reached that place, where, as I write to M. de la Molte, I shall be very pleased to have the honour of seeing one of you to take your directions, and relieve myself of the credentials which M. le Marechal will give me for you all: commending myself hereupon humbly to your good grace, and praying God to grant you, gentlemen, long and happy life.  At Libourne, this 30th of July 1585.  Your humble servant and brother, MONTAIGNE.

XII.--[“According to Dr. Payen, this letter belongs to 1588.  Its authenticity has been called in question; but wrongly, in our opinion. See ‘Documents inedits’, 1847, p.  12.”--Note in ‘Essais’, ed.  Paris, 1854, iv.  381.  It does not appear to whom the letter was addressed.]

MONSEIGNEUR,--You have heard of our baggage being taken from us under our eyes in the forest of Villebois: then, after a good deal of discussion and delay, of the capture being pronounced illegal by the Prince.  We dared not, however, proceed on our way, from an uncertainty as to the safety of our persons, which should have been clearly expressed on our passports.  The League has done this, M. de Barrant and M. de la Rochefocault; the storm has burst on me, who had my money in my box.  I have recovered none of it, and most of my papers and cash--[The French word is hardes, which St. John renders things.  But compare Chambers’s “Domestic Annals of Scotland,” 2d ed.  i.  48.]--remain in their possession.  I have not seen the Prince.  Fifty were lost .  .  .  as for the Count of Thorigny, he lost some ver plate and a few articles of clothing.  He diverged from his route to pay a visit to the mourning ladies at Montresor, where are the remains of his two brothers and his grandmother, and came to us again in this town, whence we shall resume our journey shortly.  The journey to Normandy is postponed.  The King has despatched MM. De Bellieure and de la Guiche to M. de Guise to summon him to court; we shall be there on Thursday.

From Orleans, this 16th of February, in the morning [1588-9?].--Your very humble servant, MONTAIGNE.

XIII.

To Mademoiselle PAULMIER.--[This letter, at the time of the publication of the variorum edition of 1854, appears to have been in private hands. See vol.  iv.  p.  382.]

MADEMOISELLE,--My friends know that, from the first moment of our acquaintance, I have destined a copy of my book for you; for I feel that you have done it much honour.  The courtesy of M. Paulmier would deprive me of the pleasure of giving it to you now, for he has obliged me since a great deal beyond the worth of my book.  You will accept it then, if you please, as having been yours before I owed it to you, and will confer on me the favour of loving it, whether for its own sake or for mine; and I will keep my debt to M. Paulmier undischarged, that I may requite him, if I have at some other time the means of serving him.

XIV.

To the KING, HENRY IV.--[The original is in the French national library, in the Dupuy collection.  It was first discovered by M. Achille Jubinal, who printed it with a facsimile of the entire autograph, in 1850.  St. John gives the date wrongly as the 1st January 1590.]

SIRE, It is to be above the weight and crowd of your great and important affairs, to know, as you do, how to lend yourself, and attend to small matters in their turn, according to the duty of your royal dignity, which exposes you at all times to every description and degree of person and employment.  Yet, that your Majesty should have deigned to consider my letter, and direct a reply to be made to it, I prefer to owe, less to your strong understanding, than to your kindness of heart.  I have always looked forward to your enjoyment of your present fortune, and you may recollect that, even when I had to make confession of itto my cure, I viewed your successes with satisfaction: now, with the greater propriety and freedom, I embrace them affectionately.  They serve you where you are as positive matters of fact; but they serve us here no less by the fame which they diffuse: the echo carries as much weight as the blow.  We should not be able to derive from the justice of your cause such powerful arguments for the maintenance and reduction of your subjects, as we do from the reports of the success of your undertaking; and then I have to assure your Majesty, that the recent changes to your advantage, which you observe hereabouts, the prosperous issue of your proceedings at Dieppe, have opportunely seconded the honest zeal and marvellous prudence of M. the Marshal de Matignon, from whom I flatter myself that you do not receive day by day accounts of such good and signal services without remembering my assurances and expectations.  I look to the next summer, not only for fruits which we may eat, but for those to grow out of our common tranquillity, and that it will pass over our heads with the same even tenor of happiness, dissipating, like its predecessors, all the fine promises with which your adversaries sustain the spirits of their followers.  The popular inclinations resemble a tidal wave; if the current once commences in your favour, it will go on of its own force to the end.  I could have desired much that the private gain of the soldiers of your army, and the necessity for satisfying them, had not deprived you, especially in this principal town, of the glorious credit of treating your mutinous subjects, in the midst of victory, with greater clemency than their own protectors, and that, as distinguished from a passing and usurped repute, you could have shown them to be really your own, by the exercise of a protection truly paternal and royal.  In the conduct of such affairs as you have in hand, men are obliged to have recourse to unusual expedients.  It is always seen that they are surmounted by their magnitude and difficulty; it not being found easy to complete the conquest by arms and force, the end has been accomplished by clemency and generosity, excellent lures to draw men particularly towards the just and legitimate side.  If there is to be severity and punishment, let it be deferred till success has been assured.  A great conqueror of past times boasts that he gave his enemies as great an inducement to love him, as his friends.  And here we feel already some effect of the favourable impression produced upon our rebellious towns by the contrast between their rude treatment, and that of those which are loyal to you.  Desiring your Majesty a happiness more tangible and less hazardous, and that you may be beloved rather than feared by your people, and believing that your welfare and theirs are of necessity knit together, I rejoice to think that the progress which you make is one towards more practicable conditions of peace, as well as towards victory!
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