The Essays, vol 18 | Page 9

the shirt: 'tis enough to meal the face, without mealing the
breast. I see some who transform and transubstantiate themselves into
as many new shapes and new beings as they undertake new
employments; and who strut and fume even to the heart and liver, and
carry their state along with them even to the close-stool: I cannot make
them distinguish the salutations made to themselves from those made to
their commission, their train, or their mule:
"Tantum se fortunx permittunt, etiam ut naturam dediscant."
["They so much give themselves up to fortune, as even to unlearn
nature."--Quintus Curtius, iii. 2.]
They swell and puff up their souls, and their natural way of speaking,
according to the height of their magisterial place. The Mayor of
Bordeaux and Montaigne have ever been two by very manifest
separation. Because one is an advocate or a financier, he must not
ignore the knavery there is in such callings; an honest man is not

accountable for the vice or absurdity of his employment, and ought not
on that account refuse to take the calling upon him: 'tis the usage of his
country, and there is money to be got by it; a man must live by the
world; and make his best of it, such as it is. But the judgment of an
emperor ought to be above his empire, and see and consider it as a
foreign accident; and he ought to know how to enjoy himself apart
from it, and to communicate himself as James and Peter, to himself, at
all events.
I cannot engage myself so deep and so entire; when my will gives me
to anything, 'tis not with so violent an obligation that my judgment is
infected with it. In the present broils of this kingdom, my own interest
has not made me blind to the laudable qualities of our adversaries, nor
to those that are reproachable in those men of our party. Others adore
all of their own side; for my part, I do not so much as excuse most
things in those of mine: a good work has never the worst grace with me
for being made against me. The knot of the controversy excepted, I
have always kept myself in equanimity and pure indifference:
"Neque extra necessitates belli praecipuum odium gero;"
["Nor bear particular hatred beyond the necessities of war."]
for which I am pleased with myself; and the more because I see others
commonly fail in the contrary direction. Such as extend their anger and
hatred beyond the dispute in question, as most men do, show that they
spring from some other occasion and private cause; like one who, being
cured of an ulcer, has yet a fever remaining, by which it appears that
the ulcer had another more concealed beginning. The reason is that they
are not concerned in the common cause, because it is wounding to the
state and general interest; but are only nettled by reason of their
particular concern. This is why they are so especially animated, and to
a degree so far beyond justice and public reason:
"Non tam omnia universi, quam ea, quae ad quemque pertinent, singuli
carpebant."
["Every one was not so much angry against things in general, as against

those that particularly concern himself." --Livy, xxxiv. 36.]
I would have the advantage on our side; but if it be not, I shall not run
mad. I am heartily for the right party; but I do not want to be taken
notice of as an especial enemy to others, and beyond the general quarrel.
I marvellously challenge this vicious form of opinion: "He is of the
League because he admires the graciousness of Monsieur de Guise; he
is astonished at the King of Navarre's energy, therefore he is a
Huguenot; he finds this to say of the manners of the king, he is
therefore seditious in his heart." And I did not grant to the magistrate
himself that he did well in condemning a book because it had placed a
heretic-- [Theodore de Beza.]--amongst the best poets of the time. Shall
we not dare to say of a thief that he has a handsome leg? If a woman be
a strumpet, must it needs follow that she has a foul smell? Did they in
the wisest ages revoke the proud title of Capitolinus they had before
conferred on Marcus Manlius as conservator of religion and the public
liberty, and stifle the memory of his liberality, his feats of arms, and
military recompenses granted to his valour, because he, afterwards
aspired to the sovereignty, to the prejudice of the laws of his country?
If we take a hatred against an advocate, he will not be allowed the next
day to be eloquent. I have elsewhere spoken of the zeal that pushed on