The Essays, vol 3 | Page 6

Michel de Montaigne
out of his body."
Tertullian in his Apologetics.]
It appears also that the Roman laws did anciently punish those with
death who had run away; for Ammianus Marcellinus says that the
Emperor Julian commanded ten of his soldiers, who had turned their
backs in an encounter against the Parthians, to be first degraded, and
afterward put to death, according, says he, to the ancient
laws,--[Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiv. 4; xxv. i.]--and yet elsewhere for
the like offence he only condemned others to remain amongst the
prisoners under the baggage ensign. The severe punishment the people
of Rome inflicted upon those who fled from the battle of Cannae, and
those who ran away with Aeneius Fulvius at his defeat, did not extend
to death. And yet, methinks, 'tis to be feared, lest disgrace should make
such delinquents desperate, and not only faint friends, but enemies.
Of late memory,--[In 1523]--the Seigneur de Frauget, lieutenant to the
Mareschal de Chatillon's company, having by the Mareschal de
Chabannes been put in government of Fuentarabia in the place of
Monsieur de Lude, and having surrendered it to the Spaniard, he was
for that condemned to be degraded from all nobility, and both himself
and his posterity declared ignoble, taxable, and for ever incapable of
bearing arms, which severe sentence was afterwards accordingly
executed at Lyons.--[In 1536] --And, since that, all the gentlemen who
were in Guise when the Count of Nassau entered into it, underwent the
same punishment, as several others have done since for the like offence.

Notwithstanding, in case of such a manifest ignorance or cowardice as
exceeds all ordinary example, 'tis but reason to take it for a sufficient
proof of treachery and malice, and for such to be punished.

CHAPTER XVI
A PROCEEDING OF SOME AMBASSADORS
I observe in my travels this custom, ever to learn something from the
information of those with whom I confer (which is the best school of
all others), and to put my company upon those subjects they are the
best able to speak of:--
"Basti al nocchiero ragionar de' venti, Al bifolco dei tori; et le sue
piaghe Conti'l guerrier; conti'l pastor gli armenti."
["Let the sailor content himself with talking of the winds; the cowherd
of his oxen; the soldier of his wounds; the shepherd of his flocks."--An
Italian translation of Propertius, ii. i, 43]
For it often falls out that, on the contrary, every one will rather choose
to be prating of another man's province than his own, thinking it so
much new reputation acquired; witness the jeer Archidamus put upon
Pertander, "that he had quitted the glory of being an excellent physician
to gain the repute of a very bad poet.--[Plutarch, Apoth. of the
Lacedaemonians, 'in voce' Archidamus.]--And do but observe how
large and ample Caesar is to make us understand his inventions of
building bridges and contriving engines of war,--[De Bello Gall., iv.
17.]--and how succinct and reserved in comparison, where he speaks of
the offices of his profession, his own valour, and military conduct. His
exploits sufficiently prove him a great captain, and that he knew well
enough; but he would be thought an excellent engineer to boot; a
quality something different, and not necessary to be expected in him.
The elder Dionysius was a very great captain, as it befitted his fortune
he should be; but he took very great pains to get a particular reputation
by poetry, and yet he was never cut out for a poet. A man of the legal

profession being not long since brought to see a study furnished with
all sorts of books, both of his own and all other faculties, took no
occasion at all to entertain himself with any of them, but fell very
rudely and magisterially to descant upon a barricade placed on the
winding stair before the study door, a thing that a hundred captains and
common soldiers see every day without taking any notice or offence.
"Optat ephippia bos piger, optat arare caballus."
["The lazy ox desires a saddle and bridle; the horse wants to
plough."--Hor., Ep., i. 14,43.]
By this course a man shall never improve himself, nor arrive at any
perfection in anything. He must, therefore, make it his business always
to put the architect, the painter, the statuary, every mechanic artisan,
upon discourse of their own capacities.
And, to this purpose, in reading histories, which is everybody's subject,
I use to consider what kind of men are the authors: if they be persons
that profess nothing but mere letters, I, in and from them, principally
observe and learn style and language; if physicians, I the rather incline
to credit what they report of the temperature of the air, of the health and
complexions of princes, of wounds and diseases; if lawyers, we are
from them to take
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