The Essays, vol 10 | Page 4

to sample the author's ideas before making
an entire meal of them. D.W.]

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
Translated by Charles Cotton
Edited by William Carew Hazilitt
1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 10.
VII. Of recompenses of honour. VIII. Of the affection of fathers to their
children. IX. Of the arms of the Parthians. X. Of books. XI. Of cruelty.

CHAPTER VII
OF RECOMPENSES OF HONOUR
They who write the life of Augustus Caesar,--[Suetonius, Life of
Augustus, c. 25.]--observe this in his military discipline, that he was
wonderfully liberal of gifts to men of merit, but that as to the true
recompenses of honour he was as sparing; yet he himself had been
gratified by his uncle with all the military recompenses before he had
ever been in the field. It was a pretty invention, and received into most
governments of the world, to institute certain vain and in themselves
valueless distinctions to honour and recompense virtue, such as the
crowns of laurel, oak, and myrtle, the particular fashion of some
garment, the privilege to ride in a coach in the city, or at night with a
torch, some peculiar place assigned in public assemblies, the
prerogative of certain additional names and titles, certain distinctions in
the bearing of coats of arms, and the like, the use of which, according
to the several humours of nations, has been variously received, and yet
continues.
We in France, as also several of our neighbours, have orders of
knighthood that are instituted only for this end. And 'tis, in earnest, a
very good and profitable custom to find out an acknowledgment for the
worth of rare and excellent men, and to satisfy them with rewards that
are not at all chargeable either to prince or people. And that which has
always been found by ancient experience, and which we have

heretofore observed among ourselves, that men of quality have ever
been more jealous of such recompenses than of those wherein there was
gain and profit, is not without very good ground and reason. If with the
reward, which ought to be simply a recompense of honour, they should
mix other commodities and add riches, this mixture, instead of
procuring an increase of estimation, would debase and abate it. The
Order of St. Michael, which has been so long in repute amongst us, had
no greater commodity than that it had no communication with any
other commodity, which produced this effect, that formerly there was
no office or title whatever to which the gentry pretended with so great
desire and affection as they did to that; no quality that carried with it
more respect and grandeur, valour and worth more willingly embracing
and with greater ambition aspiring to a recompense purely its own, and
rather glorious than profitable. For, in truth, other gifts have not so
great a dignity of usage, by reason they are laid out upon all sorts of
occasions; with money a man pays the wages of a servant, the diligence
of a courier, dancing, vaulting, speaking, and the meanest offices we
receive; nay, and reward vice with it too, as flattery, treachery, and
pimping; and therefore 'tis no wonder if virtue less desires and less
willingly receives this common sort of payment, than that which is
proper and peculiar to her, throughout generous and noble. Augustus
had reason to be more sparing of this than the other, insomuch that
honour is a privilege which derives its principal essence from rarity;
and so virtue itself:
"Cui malus est nemo, quis bonus esse potest?"
["To whom no one is ill who can be good?"-Martial, xii. 82.]
We do not intend it for a commendation when we say that such a one is
careful in the education of his children, by reason it is a common act,
how just and well done soever; no more than we commend a great tree,
where the whole forest is the same. I do not think that any citizen of
Sparta glorified himself much upon his valour, it being the universal
virtue of the whole nation; and as little upon his fidelity and contempt
of riches. There is no recompense becomes virtue, how great soever,
that is once passed into a custom; and I know not withal whether we

can ever call it great, being common.
Seeing, then, that these remunerations of honour have no other value
and estimation but only this, that few people enjoy them, 'tis but to be
liberal of them to bring them down to nothing. And though there should
be now more men found than in former times worthy of our order, the
estimation of it nevertheless should not be abated, nor the honour made
cheap; and it may easily happen that more may merit it; for there is no
virtue that so easily