The Essays, vol 3 | Page 8

Michel de Montaigne
form and model their
master's pleasure. I have, in my time, known men of command checked
for having rather obeyed the express words of the king's letters, than
the necessity of the affairs they had in hand. Men of understanding do
yet, to this day, condemn the custom of the kings of Persia to give their
lieutenants and agents so little rein, that, upon the least arising
difficulties, they must fain have recourse to their further commands;
this delay, in so vast an extent of dominion, having often very much
prejudiced their affairs; and Crassus, writing to a man whose profession
it was best to understand those things, and pre-acquainting him to what
use this mast was designed, did he not seem to consult his advice, and
in a manner invite him to interpose his better judgment?

CHAPTER XVII
OF FEAR
"Obstupui, steteruntque comae et vox faucibus haesit."
["I was amazed, my hair stood on end, and my voice stuck in my

throat." Virgil, AEneid, ii. 774.]
I am not so good a naturalist (as they call it) as to discern by what
secret springs fear has its motion in us; but, be this as it may, 'tis a
strange passion, and such a one that the physicians say there is no other
whatever that sooner dethrones our judgment from its proper seat;
which is so true, that I myself have seen very many become frantic
through fear; and, even in those of the best settled temper it is most
certain that it begets a terrible astonishment and confusion during the
fit. I omit the vulgar sort, to whom it one while represents their great-
grandsires risen out of their graves in their shrouds, another while
werewolves, nightmares, and chimaeras; but even amongst soldiers, a
sort of men over whom, of all others, it ought to have the least power,
how often has it converted flocks of sheep into armed squadrons, reeds
and bullrushes into pikes and lances, friends into enemies, and the
French white cross into the red cross of Spain! When Monsieur de
Bourbon took Rome,--[In 1527]--an ensign who was upon guard at
Borgo San Pietro was seized with such a fright upon the first alarm,
that he threw himself out at a breach with his colours upon his shoulder,
and ran directly upon the enemy, thinking he had retreated toward the
inward defences of the city, and with much ado, seeing Monsieur de
Bourbon's people, who thought it had been a sally upon them, draw up
to receive him, at last came to himself, and saw his error; and then
facing about, he retreated full speed through the same breach by which
he had gone out, but not till he had first blindly advanced above three
hundred paces into the open field. It did not, however, fall out so well
with Captain Giulio's ensign, at the time when St. Paul was taken from
us by the Comte de Bures and Monsieur de Reu, for he, being so
astonished with fear as to throw himself, colours and all, out of a
porthole, was immediately, cut to pieces by the enemy; and in the same
siege, it was a very memorable fear that so seized, contracted, and froze
up the heart of a gentleman, that he sank down, stone-dead, in the
breach, without any manner of wound or hurt at all. The like madness
does sometimes push on a whole multitude; for in one of the encounters
that Germanicus had with the Germans, two great parties were so
amazed with fear that they ran two opposite ways, the one to the same
place from which the other had fled.--[Tacit, Annal., i. 63.]--Sometimes

it adds wings to the heels, as in the two first: sometimes it nails them to
the ground, and fetters them from moving; as we read of the Emperor
Theophilus, who, in a battle he lost against the Agarenes, was so
astonished and stupefied that he had no power to fly--
"Adeo pavor etiam auxilia formidat"
["So much does fear dread even the means of safety."--Quint. Curt., ii.
II.]
--till such time as Manuel, one of the principal commanders of his army,
having jogged and shaked him so as to rouse him out of his trance, said
to him, "Sir, if you will not follow me, I will kill you; for it is better
you should lose your life than, by being taken, lose your empire."
--[Zonaras, lib. iii.]--But fear does then manifest its utmost power when
it throws us upon a valiant despair, having before deprived us of all
sense both of duty and honour. In the first pitched battle the Romans
lost against Hannibal, under the Consul Sempronius, a body of ten
thousand foot, that had taken fright, seeing no other escape for their
cowardice, went
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