The Complete Essays (134 page)

1. On the useful and the honourable

[Montaigne’s conception of the ‘useful’ is, as it often was in his day, one at home in moral philosophy: here it embraces notions which include both what is profitable to a man or to his country and every sort of public and private interest. The moral dilemma caused by the clash between private morality, piety, benevolence and social ethics on the one hand, and
raisons d’état
on the other is always a problem in war, and never more so than in civil wars. Cicero considers such problems in
De officiis
(
On Duties
)
in which he weighs the duties of goodness, expediency and their conflicting claims. Montaigne strongly defends the claims of kinship, loving friendship, personal integrity and humanity, even during the horrors of the Wars of Religion which were marked by almost unparalleled acts of cruelty and treachery. His hero Epaminondas is presented as a model who can serve to counteract the examples of impiety which, in his more barbarous times, risk becoming the norm
.

    
In the Renaissance the word
honneste
had many interlocking meanings including ‘honourable’ and ‘decent’.]

[B] No one is free from uttering stupidities. The harm lies in doing it meticulously:

Nae iste magno conatu magnas nugas dixerit
.
[Of course that chap will make enormous efforts to say enormous trifles!]
¹

That does not apply to me. My trifles escape me with as little gravity as they deserve. Good luck to them for that. I would part with them at once, however low their price. I do not buy and sell them for more than they weigh. I speak to my writing-paper exactly as I do to the first man I meet. Here is proof that what I say is true.

Is there anyone for whom treachery should not be loathsome when even Tiberius rejected it at some cost to himself! Tiberius received word from Germany that, if he approved, Ariminius could be got rid of by poison. (Ariminius was the most powerful of the enemies facing the Romans: he had humiliated them under Varus and alone was preventing Tiberius from
extending his dominion over that territory.) He replied that the Roman People were in the habit of avenging themselves on their enemies sword in hand, by overt means not by trickery and covert ones.
²

He renounced what was useful for what was honourable.

You may reply that he was a hypocrite. I believe he was – hardly a miracle in a man of his line of business. But virtue carries no less far for being professed on the lips of a man who loathes it: indeed truth tears it from him by force, so that even if he does not welcome it inwardly he hides behind it as an adornment.

Both in public and in private we are built full of imperfection. But there is nothing useless in Nature – not even uselessness. Nothing has got into this universe of ours which does not occupy its appropriate place. Our being is cemented together by qualities which are diseased. Ambition, jealousy, envy, vengeance, superstition and despair lodge in us with such a natural right of possession that we recognize the likeness of them even in the animals too – not excluding so unnatural a vice as cruelty; for in the midst of compassion we feel deep down some bitter-sweet pricking of malicious pleasure at seeing others suffer. Even children feel it:

Suave, mari magno, turbantibus æquom ventis,
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem
.

[Sweet it is during a tempest when the gales lash the waves to watch from the shore another man’s great striving.]
³

If anyone were to remove the seeds of such qualities in Man he would destroy the basic properties of our lives. So, too, in all polities there are duties which are necessary, yet not merely abject but vicious as well: the vices hold their rank there and are used in order to stitch and bind us together, just as poisons are used to preserve our health. If vicious deeds should become excusable insofar as we have need of them, necessity effacing their true qualities, we must leave that role to be played by citizens who are more vigorous and less timorous, those prepared to sacrifice their honour and their consciences, as men of yore once sacrificed their lives: for the well-being of their country. Men like me are too weak for that: we accept roles which are easier and less dangerous. The public interest requires men to betray, to tell lies [C] and to massacre;
⁴
[B] let us assign that commission to such as are more obedient and more pliant.

I have certainly been moved to anger at seeing judges use fraud and false hopes of favour or of pardon to tempt criminals to reveal what they have done, even using barefaced lies. It would be helpful to justice (and to Plato, too, who is in favour of that practice)
⁵
to furnish me with other methods, more in keeping with myself. Such justice is crafty: I reckon that it is no less wounded by others than by itself. Not long ago I replied that. I would hardly be one to betray my Prince for a private citizen when I would be deeply grieved to betray any private citizen for my Prince; I not only loathe to deceive, I also loathe others to be deceived about me: I am unwilling even to provide matter or occasion for it. In the little I have had to do with negotiations between our Princes during these disputes and sub-disputes which tear us apart nowadays, I have scrupulously stopped anyone from ‘running himself through with my visor’ – from being deceived by my position. Those in the business hide as much as they can: they present themselves as being as moderate as possible and pretend that their views are very close. For my part I recommend myself by my liveliest opinions and by the manner which is most truly mine. I am a tender novice at negotiating: I would rather let down my negotiations than let down myself. I have been very lucky though so far – and luck certainly plays the major part in this; few men have gone from one armed band to another with less suspicion or more favour and courtesy.

I have an open manner, readily striking up acquaintance and being trusted from the first encounter. Simpleness and unsullied truth are always opportune and acceptable in any period whatsoever. And then frank speech is less suspect or offensive in men who are not working for some private gain and who can with truth make the reply that Hyperides made to the Athenians who complained of his blunt way of speaking: ‘Gentlemen, do not consider only my frankness but that I am frank without having anything to gain, without restoring my own fortunes.’
⁶
My own frankness, by its vigour, has quickly freed me too from suspicion of deceitfulness (since I do not spare men anything, however hurtful or oppressive, which could be put worse behind their backs); and also by showing my frankness to be simple and unbiased. All I want to gain from doing anything is the fact of having done it: I do not attach distant corollaries and pleadings to it; each thing I do does its job separately: let it succeed if it can.

I feel, by the way, no driving passion about the great of the land, neither
love nor hatred: nor has my will in this matter been throttled by private injury or obligation. [C] I think of our Kings with the simple loyal affection of a subject, neither encouraged nor discouraged by personal interest. I feel pleased with myself over that. [B] I am only moderately devoted to public affairs, and only dispassionately to just ones. I am not enslaved by deep-seated pledges and intimate engagements. Anger and hatred go beyond the duty of justice; they are passions which merely serve those who are not held to their duty uniquely by reason. All loyal and equitable purposes are loyal and equitable in themselves; if they are not so they are soon corrupted into sedition and disloyalty.

That is what makes me stride forward, head erect, open-faced and open-hearted. I tell you truly that I am not afraid to admit that, if only I could, I would readily follow that old crone’s plan and offer a candle to St Michael and another to his dragon.
⁷
I shall support the good side as far as (but, if possible, excluding) the stake: let Montaigne, my seat, be engulfed in the collapse of the commonwealth if needs be; but, if needs not be, I shall be grateful to Fortune for preserving it. Was it not Atticus who held to the just side, to the losing side, yet saved himself by his moderation in that universal shipwreck of the world among so many schisms and upheavals?

It is easier for private citizens like he was: in such sorts of turmoil I find that you can, with justice, not be ambitious to get involved unless you are invited to. But I find that to remain vacillating and mongrel, or to keep one’s affections in check, unmoved by civil strife in one’s country and having no preference when the State is divided, is neither beautiful nor honourable: [C]
‘Ea non media, sed nulla via est, velut eventum expectantium quo fortunae consilia sua applicent.’
[That is not the way of moderation: it is no way at all. It is simply awaiting the outcome so as to support those who happen to win.]
⁸
That can be permissible towards the affairs of neighbouring countries: Gelon, the Tyrant of Syracuse, refrained from supporting either side in the war of the Barbarians against the Greeks, keeping an envoy in readiness at Delphi, bearing gifts but waiting to see which side Fortune would favour before seizing the occasion when it was ripe for an alliance with the victor. But it would be a species of treachery to act thus in civil strife at home, in which of necessity [B] we must decide to join one side or other. But (even though I do not exploit it myself) I do find it
to be more excusable in a man who has received no express command or office if he does not actually get embroiled in the strife, except in the case of foreign wars (in which however, by our own laws, no man is involved save by choice). Nevertheless even those who become totally committed can still do so with such order and moderation that the storm may pass over their heads without battering them. Were we not right to think that way about the late Bishop of Orleans, the Sieur de Morvilliers?
⁹
And some others that I know, who are now struggling valiantly, have manners which are so equable and gentle that they are the kind who will remain upright no matter what destructive upheavals and collapses Heaven may have in store for us.

I hold that it is the property of kings alone to feel animosity towards other kings, and I laugh at the types of mind which gaily volunteer for quarrels which are so disproportionate: for a man has no private quarrel with a prince when he marches openly and courageously against him, honourably doing his duty. He may not love that great person but he does something better: he esteems him. And there is always this in favour of the cause of legitimacy, of the defence of the traditional institution: the very ones who disturb it for their personal ends can excuse those who defend it, even though they do not honour them. But we must not (as we do every day) give the name of duty to an inward bitter harshness born of self-interested passion, nor that of courage to malicious and treacherous dealings. What they call zeal is their propensity to wickedness and violence: it is not the cause which sets them ablaze but self-interest: they stoke up war not because it is just but because it is war.

Nothing stops us from behaving properly even when among mutual enemies – nor loyally either. Comport yourself among them not with an equal good-will (for good-will can allow of varying degrees) but at least with a temperate one, so that you do not become so involved with one of those mutual enemies that he can demand of you your all. Be satisfied too with a modest degree of their favour: do not fish in troubled waters, glide through them!

The other way, that of offering one’s services to both sides, savours even less of wisdom than it does of morality. The man to whom you betray another’s secrets although you are equally favoured by both realizes, does he not, that you will do the same by him when his turn comes? He listens to you, gets what he can out of you, turns your treachery to his advantage,
but regards you as a bad man: men of duplicity are useful for what they bring, but mind you see that they take as little away as possible!