Essais de morale. Volume troisième (French Edition)

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Contes pour les femmes. Charpentier, Original wrappers. Frontispiece, dessin de Georges Rochegrosse, pp. Spine cracked, some sections almost detached, very light stains on some pages, but internally very clean.

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La Mer de Nice. Lettres a un ami. Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, Original wrappers. Spine cracked, covers almost detached, but internally clean. Alphonse Lemerre, Original wrappers. Rear covers detached, corners frayed a bit, spine creased, but internally clean. Les Soirees de l'orchestre. Ex-libris on ffep, corners and extremities tattered, occasional spotting to pages, edges and margins slightly foxed, one minor tear to margin on pp.

Ex-libris on ffep, previous owner's name on front fly. Lower end of spine cracked a bit, covers rubbed, corners tattered, occasional spotting to pages, else good. Avec une preface par Charles Gounod. Calmann Levy, pp. Corners and covers rubbed a bit, 1cm conked to the lower extremities of rear covers, else fine. Barthelemy Alix, a Paris.. Veuve de Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy, a Paris. Le The, sa culture et sa manipulation. Sixieme Edition, revue, corrigee et considerablement augmentee.

Rouquette, Contemporaryhalf red morocco over marbled boards, top edge gilt, marbledendpapers. Appel aux conservateurs, par le fondateur du positivisme. Unopened, very good copy. Principes de philosophie positive. Bailliere et Fils, Original wrappers. Bottom of spine torn 3cm, else clean, tight copy. Preface by E Littre. Carilian-Goeury et Victor Dalmont, Catechisme positiviste, ou sommaire exposition de la religion universelle Front cover lost, spine cracked, but internally like new.

Traite des sensations, a madame la comtesse de Vasse par M. Chez De Bure, ; London: Contemporary full speckled calf, spine ornately gilt in compartment, with red morocco labels, marbled endpapers, all edges colour stained in red. Plate 1 of 'Lettre A tight, fine set of these 18th-c. Drame en cinq actes, envers. Alphonse Lemerre, Original wrappers, uncut, large paper edition. Bottom of spine frayed a bit, minor spottings to pages, but overall very good, attractive copy.

Une Idylle pendant le siege. Spine cracked, covers almost detached. Light stain on covers and some pages, else very good. Elements de musique, theorique et practique, suivant les principes de M. With ten folding engraved musical examples bound in. Contemporary full speckled calf, spine gilt decorated in compartments, with five raised bands, red morocco label, marbled endpapers, all edges colour stained in red, Covers slightly dried and rubbed, a 1cm crack between rear covers and spine, but internally very clean.

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Previous owner's name on ffep. Alphonse Lemerre, pp. Contemporary half green cloth over marbled boards, edges stained. Light foxing, occasional spottings, else fine. Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres. Illustrations de Bieler, Montegut, Myrbach et Rossi. Flammarion, no date, ca. Publisher's original red cloth, gilt- decorated and titled on spine and covers, top edge gilt. Contemporary half blue leather over marbled boards.

Light foxing, extremities rubbed, else good. Alphonse Lemerre, Avec une eau-forte de A. Half blue calf on marbled boards, spine gilt decorated, with marbled endpapers. Some light spottings but still fine. Dentu, Dernieres aventures de l'illustre Tartarin. Half crocodile over blue cloth, gilt titled and decorated, top edge gilt, with marbled endpapers. Covers soiled a bit. Very attractive copy of the third volume of 'Tartarin' trilogy. Paris; Ernest Flammarion, Original wrappers, front cover broken off, upper and lower corners torn off, spine repaired by cloth tape, stamps on the verso of title-page and side margin of page 25, else good.

Extremities rubbed, lower spine frayed, previous owner's name on front fly, occasional spotting, else fine. Contemporary full leather, extremities slightly rubbed, else very fine, old MSS note 'Donne par l'auteur' on half-title with stamped 'E. Contemporary blind decoratedfull leather board with professionally repaired spine and cornerswith modern leather. Never literary Attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of human Nature.

It fell dead-born from the Press; without reaching such distinction as even to excite a Murmur among the Zealots. Just prior to saying the Treatise fell dead-born, he had said: In the end of , I published my Treatise; and immediatly went down to my Mother and my Brother, who lived at his Countrey house and was employing himself, very judiciously and successfully in the Improvement of his Fortune.

And just after, he goes on to say: But being naturally of a cheerful and sanguine Temper, I very soon re- covered the Blow, and prosecuted with great Ardour my Studies in the Country. It was, for its time, widely reviewed. Are we to conclude that he did not value these reviews?

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That he did not count them as genuine notice of the Treatise? That by he had forgotten about them? That a dead-born Treatise suited well the literary history of himself that he hoped to promote? Interpolations a missing word, a missing letter, and missing punctuation and corrections a mistaken reference appear within angle-brackets. Original page numbers appear within angle- brackets printed superscript. Finally, quotation marks and their use have been modernized.

The title-page of this copy is shown in facsimile here. Sur la Morale, pagg. A Londres, pour Thomas Longman, , grand Octavo. Elle contient les Sections suivantes. Des Loix des Nations. Conclusion de ce Livre. Non omnis fert omnia tellus. Or cette conclusion est absurde: La question est des plus graves. Et quel est-il ce motif? Page numbers of the original text appear within angle brackets, superscript, just as they do in the transcription above.

London, by Thomas Longman, large Octavo. He treats of those matters of the most concern to the happiness of man. I do not doubt that ordinary readers will understand the principles, provided that they give it the same attention that one gives to all works of this kind. It is only necessary to remember that I always use the terms impressions and ideas in the same sense, and that by A impressions I mean lively and strong perceptions, such as are our affections, our sensations, and our sentiments, while by ideas I only mean languishing and weak perceptions, or the copies of those others in the memory and in the imagination.

Morals especially must be taught with the greatest simplicity. A metaphysician who undertakes to demonstrate the principles of natural right by making them abstract wastes his time and effort. I do not even know whether this method is not really harmful to religion, in spite of the intention of the philosophers that use it. We know that the heart constantly seeks pretexts for avoiding obedience. Is there any more plausible pretext than that drawn from the obscurity of books intended to teach the elements of virtue?

Is this not, on the contrary, the means of making them forever distasteful? We limit ourselves, as can be seen, to elucidating the ideas of the author of this treatise. He has not only sometimes taken care to clarify his principles by using popular examples; he has as well often added notes to the text, and these notes, at least most of them, truly do shed some light on it. This third book is divided into three parts, of which this is the plan.

Part I, which treats of Virtue and Vice in general, contains two sections, one of which is intended to prove that the difference that we observe between Good and Evil does not derive from Reason; the other, that this difference follows from a Sense or Moral Taste that is implanted in our nature. It contains the following sections. Of the Origins of Justice and the Right to Property.

Of the rules that found Property. Of the voluntary transference of Property. Of the Origin of Government. Of the Allegiance due to Government, and of its Principles. Of the Laws of Nations. Of Chastity and Modesty. It is divided into six sections. Of Greatness of Mind. Of Goodness and Benevolence. Conclusion of this Book. Such is the general plan of morals that our author has devised. It could have more order, more clarity, more detail; but also, it could scarcely contain more paradoxes, more singular associations of ideas and words that no one ever thought of putting together before; a greater number of passages likely to arouse the curiosity of people who dislike the usual paths; and, in a word, a greater number of new and original thoughts.

It is necessary to grant that to the subtle and ingenious author.

The author alone is capable of doing this, and when he has done this favour for the public, there will still be wanting readers well-enough versed in metaphysics to be able to follow him in the path of the abstract speculations which he would show them. I candidly admit my ignorance. According to him, the state of the question has not been properly proposed.

Here is what he reduces it to: B Is it by means of our ideas, or of their impressions, that we perceive the difference between vice and virtue, and that we pronounce that an action is either praiseworthy or blameable? A disciple of Clarke or of Wollaston would answer that it is by means of our ideas that we judge of this difference, and that it is exclusively thus that we can judge of it.

But our author is very far from thinking in this way. Recalling here the account of human reason he has presented in his second book, C he holds that this reason, being a lifeless and an inactive principle, is incapable of exciting any passion in us, or of inciting us to perform any action: Let him speak himself and leave to common readers the task of understanding. Consequently, all that is not susceptible of this agreement or of this disagreement, being incapable of being either true B Page 4.

D Page 6 [Treatise 3. Now it is evident that our passions, our volitions, and our actions are not [thus] susceptible, because they are original facts and original realities, each of which exists separately, independently of all other passion, of all other volition, of all other action. Thus one could not call them true or false, conforming or contrary to reason. They are either laudable or blameable, but it would be absurd to call them reasonable or unreasonable.

If E I am mistaken in believing that certain objects can give me pleasure or cause me pain, if I get lost in choosing the means that I use to satisfy my desires, I am to be lamented, but I am not to blame. Such errors cannot blemish my character. Someone objects,F perhaps, that if a mistake of fact can never be taken as criminal, it is not the same with a mistake of right, and that this latter can clearly be a source of immorality or of vice. Hence it follows that if a mistake of right brings with it some kind of immorality, it can only be an immorality derived from some other that exists prior to the mistake itself.

It is, above all, that if right and wrong derive from the observance and breach of certain duties, necessarily attached to such and such relations, then wherever these relations took place the observance of these duties would be required, and would be a virtue, while their breach would be a crime. For example, G there is no crime more outrageous than parricide. F Page 10 [Treatise 3.

G Page 20 [Treatise 3. Is it because of the relation that birth has formed between a son and a father? It is easy to know this. I ask whether this case does not offer to our eyes the same breached relations as in the case of parricide? Does someone say that the tree has neither knowledge nor choice? Of what import is that? It is not the will or freedom that forms between a father and a son the relation of son and father: It is the will or freedom that determines a man to kill his father: Here, in a word, the same relation has certainly different causes, but it remains always the same relation.

I would like to know how it comes about that incest is considered so abominable a crime, among men, while not the least idea of turpitude is attached to it when it is an animal that commits it? Does someone reply that it is because a brute animal does not have enough reason to discover the turpitude of this crime, while a man has all the light required to perceive it?

This would be to fall into a vicious circle, for then one would suppose that there is some turpitude in the nature of things, before reason discovers it; that, thus, the turpitude is independent of the decisions of reason, that it is the object, but not the effect of it. The question is one of the most serious. He also responds to it in detail in section 2 of part 1, and even already at the end of section 1. It is thus of vice and of the virtues as of the sensible qualities, of sounds, of colours, of heat and of cold, etc.

These qualities are properly only perceptions of our mind. They do not exist in the objects. We do not perceive them by means of reasoning: If we think it otherwise it is only because this sentiment is so quick, so gentle, so subtle, that we customarily confound it with the ideas that it generates afterwards. If one wishes to know what the difference is between the impressions that right makes on this mental taste, and those made by wrong, one can instruct oneself only by returning into oneself. What is right gives pleasure and is approved; what is wrong produces pain and is blamed.

There is the key to the whole mystery! It is not, however, without concluding that it is a great mistake, generally speaking, to say that virtue is something natural to man. In the Essais Montaigne describes his existence in the study: This passage serves also as a reminder to the modern reader that Montaigne was not necessarily alone in his tower. He would sometimes have been accompanied by his secretary, to whom he dictated part of the Essais.

As Montaigne relates, he once lost a part of the manuscript for the Essais when his secretary stole the only copy. While the study was large and drafty, Montaigne's second room, his cabinet, was small and well heated. The walls of the cabinet were covered with paintings of Roman scenes, but the warm colors and subjects represented emphasized the more sensual side of Roman civilization.

Among the scenes represented were what may have been a banquet, the burning of Troy, and episodes from Classical mythology such as the lovers Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan. One painting had a maritime theme, with four verses from Horace that served as its legend: He quotes these same verses in his chapter "Sur des vers de Virgile," in which he suggests that he survived the "shipwreck" of his amorous adventures.

Since, he claims, he no longer has anything to lose, he can now write openly about sex in general and about his own sexual being in particular, as though he had stripped away his clothing and were standing naked. In the Essais Montaigne uses nakedness as a metaphor for speaking frankly about himself. Montaigne also had painted on the wall of his cabinet a Latin inscription commemorating his retirement on the day of his thirty-eighth birthday, some six months after his departure from the Parlement. A kind of manifesto, this inscription proclaimed his intention to dedicate what remained of his life to libertas freedom , tranquillitas tranquility , and otium idleness.

After years of public service, he here declared his intention to retire to otium and the muses. Montaigne's exaltation of otium was an articulation of the persistent dream of literary idleness among erudite magistrates, whose lives were characterized at once by an active daily life and an elaborate idealization of leisure. In Montaigne's milieu literary idleness was an art practiced in the shadow of the vita activa but that in reality constituted its complement, for neither letters nor leisure were entirely disinterested pursuits.

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To display erudition and gain recognition through writing was to earn prestige--a valuable form of symbolic capital. Similarly, idleness was an art to master, a mark of culture and nobility, and thus a sign of distinction. Despite his desire to liberate himself from the public sphere, Montaigne's declared intention to practice idleness in earnest thus remained firmly attached to the realm of social practices in his world. While Montaigne probably began composing the first chapters of the Essais around , he had not entirely forsaken public service for letters.

Montaigne's military service probably took place between and Increasingly, the modern court was redefining the aristocrat's role as courtier rather than soldier. The old social order ruled by an aristocratic warrior class was being replaced by the modern state's reliance on a corps of elite functionaries, the so-called robe nobility. Nevertheless, Montaigne and many of his contemporaries continued to exalt the noble life of arms over more-modern careers with the bureaucratic state.

For Montaigne, Spartans were infinitely more noble than Athenians. While he was composing the early chapters of the Essais , Montaigne was also called upon to act as a negotiator during a period of intermittent civil war. The fourth war of religion took place between and and the fifth between and From to Montaigne served as a negotiator between Henri de Navarre, leader of the Protestant armies, and Henri duc de Guise, the charismatic leader of the Catholic League.

Although he does not address his diplomatic service directly in the Essais , the art of negotiation is a theme running through the early chapters of the first book, as some of their titles suggest: The full title of the first English translation of the Essais emphasized its political dimension: The Essayes, or Morall, politike and millitarie discourses of Lo. Amid his military and diplomatic service, Montaigne became gentleman of King Charles IX's chamber in In he became gentleman of Henri de Navarre's chamber.

Montaigne recorded both events in his family's livre de raison household record. In a Renaissance livre de raison the head of the family registered the dates of important public and private events, such as births, deaths, and marriages, as well as distinctions received and public offices held. Montaigne's family's livre de raison was Michael Beuther's Ephemeris historica , a small book published in The format of this book accommodated its intended function as both an agenda and a household record.

One page was devoted to each day of the year: Never intended for publication, this book has been an invaluable source of information on Montaigne's life. The early chapters of the Essais were composed in the immediate wake of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, 24 August With so many prominent Huguenots attending the Paris wedding, the king authorized a massacre of the sleeping Protestants, hoping to strike a decisive blow to their cause by eliminating many of their leaders.

In Paris the bodies of the slain were thrown into the Seine, which was said to turn red with blood. By the end of the night, there were 3, victims out of a total Parisian population of about , The same scenes of horror followed in other cities in the kingdom: Orleans, Lyon, Rouen, and Toulouse. On 3 October, Protestants in Bordeaux were massacred. Following the massacre in Paris, Henri de Navarre was forced to abjure and held as a prisoner at court for the next few years. Indeed, royal legislation that followed the events imposed a silence covering the horror of the massacres. Montaigne, for his part, seems to attempt to obliterate their memory.

Several pages from his livre de raison, including that specific date, have been torn out. In the Essais Montaigne never refers directly to the St. The pages of the Essais , however, do not gloss over human brutality or rationalize royal policies.

The first chapter in book 1 concludes with the spectacle of Alexander the Great massacring the inhabitants of Thebes. The last words of the chapter are: In "De la phisionomie" Montaigne evokes the dangers of using religious sentiment to justify inhumanity: Such was the political and religious climate as Montaigne was beginning the as-yet-untitled Essais. Evidence suggests that Montaigne was reading Seneca at the time. The Epistles to Lucilius was one of his favorite books, and the early chapters cite and paraphrase it abundantly. For example, in "De la solitude" "Of solitude" there are at least thirty quotations and allusions.

With its lessons of self-mastery in the face of adversity, Seneca's Stoic philosophy must have seemed well suited to the times. At roughly the same time as Montaigne was composing the Essais , his brother-in-law, Pressac, had undertaken the first French translation of Seneca's epistles , which Montaigne never mentions in the Essais. In his dedication to Henri III, Pressac emphasized the usefulness of Seneca's lessons for the beleaguered ranks of the nobility in dire need of the constancy taught by Stoic philosophy.

Finally, beyond any question of their philosophical content, Seneca's epistles influenced the literary form Montaigne was elaborating. In his Essais Montaigne often expresses admiration for the epistolary form.

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Several chapters in the Essais are prefaced with dedications to friends, and while he professes little esteem for Cicero , he has abundant praise for the Roman orator and statesman's Letters to Atticus. The familiar letter seems to have partly shaped the nascent essay, as Rigolot observes. On a more general level, the Essais grew almost organically out of Montaigne's notes on Seneca and, indeed, on many other books. The practice of marginalia writing commentary in the margins was an important factor shaping the genesis of his text.

These annotations shed light on the genesis of the Essais , which in some ways resemble a compendium of ancient philosophy and history. The Essais , however, diverge from the tradition of the compendium in two important ways. First, Montaigne rarely identifies his sources. In the editions published during his lifetime, almost none of the quotes are identified--they are italicized, but Montaigne gives neither the author's name nor the title of the work. More important, the wisdom of the ancients is not presented as a continuous whole in the Essais. Montaigne's references bring out discrepancies and discord rather than continuity.

He weighs the Stoics against the Epicureans, the academics against the skeptics, Socrates against Alexander the Great. As critics have pointed out, this movement of weighing one idea or one author against another defines the essay as practiced by Montaigne essai comes from exagium [weighing]. Growing partly out of Montaigne's comments on the authors he read, the Essais themselves came to serve both as text and commentary, for Montaigne also wrote comments and additions in the margins of his own text. The addition of these comments and editorial changes--Montaigne commenting on Montaigne--produced the raw material for the edition.

The first serves as a stock for the second, the second for the third" [III, 13] ; he comments about himself and his era in the final chapter of the Essais. Montaigne's brief preface, "Au Lecteur" "To the Reader" , was among the last parts of the Essais he composed for the first edition. During the Renaissance it was common to leave the prefatory texts such as the dedicatory epistle to the end.

They were often printed last to allow an author who might have been working for years on the text to make last-minute changes in the dedicatee or overall presentation of the text. Montaigne signs and dates his preface "de Montaigne, ce premier de Mars mille cinq cens quatre vingts" "from Montaigne, this first day of March, fifteen hundred and eighty". Given the delays that came with getting a manuscript published, Hoffmann estimates that most of the chapters published in were completed before the end of Hoffmann also describes the active role Montaigne played in getting his manuscript published.

Montaigne bore the responsibility for procuring from a mill the paper to be used approximately reams. Beyond the costs of publication, there remained the legal question of rights. This first edition consisted of two books the third book was added for the edition. Montaigne's first official act after publishing his work was to present one of the bound copies to the king.

The siege began on 7 July In his livre de raison Montaigne writes that his friend and neighbor Philibert de Gramont was wounded and died four days before Montaigne arrived at the siege. With a few companions and servants, including an anonymous personal secretary, Montaigne then set out on a seventeen-month trip through France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Italy. A few years earlier, in , Montaigne had suffered his first attack of kidney stones. After witnessing his father suffer from this painful illness that finally killed him, Montaigne had long dreaded getting it himself.

Part of his trip was thus apparently intended to be therapeutic--he visited mineral baths along the way and experimented with self-medication by drinking various quantities of different mineral waters. But mainly Montaigne seems to have traveled for the pleasure of traveling.

He kept a journal of his trip that he never intended for publication but that was rediscovered in and published for the first time in with the title Journal de voyage de M.

The first part of his Journal de voyage was written by his secretary it was apparently not dictated, since the author uses the third person to refer to Montaigne. The second part, however, is in Montaigne's own hand. He wrote in Italian while he remained in Italian-speaking regions and later in French. Montaigne apparently enjoyed almost all aspects of traveling, from horseback riding and tasting local cuisine to conversing with a wide variety of people he encountered along the way. His Journal de voyage reflects his curiosity about the religious practices he observed.

He attended synagogues and Protestant churches and engaged many people from different faiths in conversation about religion. Montaigne's interest in religion as an anthropological phenomenon is manifest in the pages of his Journal de voyage as well as in the Essais. Montaigne's European tour was also an occasion to visit the Roman ruins--a trip to Rome was a kind of humanist pilgrimage during the Renaissance. The only thing remaining from ancient Rome was the sky above, Montaigne reportedly concluded.

As for modern Rome--the site of pomp and political intrigue rather than of the philosophy and poetry humanists associated with ancient Rome--as Madeleine Lazard points out, Montaigne did not express bitterness at what Rome had become, as Joachim du Bellay had in Le Premier Livre des antiquitez de Rome , The First Book of the Antiquities of Rome; translated as "Ruines of Rome" and "Visions of Bellay," and "Les Regrets" ; translated as The Regrets , Unlike Du Bellay, Montaigne did not feel "exiled" in Rome. He enjoyed the cosmopolitan dimension of the city and its constant activity.

He also visited the Vatican Library, which must have been a sign of favor, since even the French ambassador was not allowed to do so. Montaigne also describes submitting the Essais to the papal censor, a professor of theology at the University of Rome who did not speak French and so relied on help from a French friar. When he arrived in Rome, his books were confiscated at customs, which was at the time a common practice. All of his books were returned to him aside from a Swiss history, which was kept because its translator was a heretic.

When the Essais were returned to him, he learned that six things had been criticized by the censor: During the interview that followed, the explanations for each of the objections that Montaigne offered satisfied the censor. It was left up to Montaigne to redress what was seemingly "in bad taste. In Montaigne received word that he had been elected mayor of Bordeaux in absentia, which prompted him to cut short his trip. He was reelected two years later, which he also noted in his livre de raison. Montaigne thus served as mayor of Bordeaux from to Jacques de Goyon-Matignon arrived in Bordeaux in to serve as the king's lieutenant general in Guyenne.

Matignon's was a delicate position to occupy, since the lieutenant general was also responsible to the Protestant Henri de Navarre. Matignon was a zealous Catholic but also known for having saved the lives of Protestants during the St. Since Montaigne was the friend of Henri de Navarre, the basis was laid for effective negotiation between Navarre and the French crown via Matignon and Montaigne. Montaigne's first term as mayor was relatively tranquil thanks to the Peace of Fleix, which had been concluded in During this time Montaigne made an official visit to court on behalf of the city of Bordeaux.

Although the exact reason for his visit is not known, he was able to negotiate the repeal of a tax on commerce entering and leaving the city. Another of Montaigne's actions as mayor concerned a Jesuit orphanage whose minimal budget left the children in dire conditions near starvation. Montaigne intervened to bring the orphanage under municipal administration and insure that it had adequate funding.

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This action was characteristic of a broader movement in both Catholic and Protestant cities during the Renaissance to establish charitable institutions run by city administrations. Poor relief had previously been left to private charity and to religious institutions. Although he had assumed what must have been a demanding and absorbing public office, Montaigne did not abandon his literary endeavors. In a second edition of the Essais , with some additions, was published by Millanges in Bordeaux. The perspective of a Protestant king of France enraged the Catholic League.

Moreover, although the Peace of Fleix allowed the Huguenots to keep their surety towns, aside from Cahors, for another six years, tensions mounted as these concessions were slow in coming. In Navarre took by force one such location that had been granted to him but not yet turned over: During this crisis Montaigne was called on to mediate between Navarre and Matignon. Letters exchanged between Navarre and Montaigne show the former explaining his intentions and entreating Montaigne to plead his case with Matignon. The mounting tensions were deflated in early , as Navarre was allowed to retain Mont-de-Marsan with Matignon reducing the garrisons at Bazas.

Over the coming years Montaigne continued to mediate between the French monarch and the Protestant Navarre. In his livre de raison Montaigne notes that he released a stag in his forest to entertain his royal guests with a hunt. Near the end of Montaigne's second term the political context degenerated rapidly in Bordeaux. This turn of events came at the end of a series of crises within the city. In May, assassination plots were uncovered against Matignon and Montaigne, who were both accused of being sympathetic to Henri de Navarre by members of the Catholic League. Henri de Navarre wrote Montaigne a letter full of anxiety for the security of the city as well as for Montaigne's own safety.

At the same time the city prepared for its annual muster--when all inhabitants able to bear arms were required to turn out for a general review. The presence of so many armed men was potentially explosive, with tensions high and conspiracies afoot. Municipal authorities foresaw a riot, and Montaigne had cause to fear for his life. The essayist writes of this event in the edition of the Essais.

In "Divers evenemens de mesme conseil" "Various outcomes of the same plan" he describes the debate among the city councillors over what course of action to pursue. The general consensus was to allow only a limited display of artillery fire, thereby limiting occasions for assassination or rioting. Montaigne, however, defended a counterintuitive course. Any sign of fear would be disastrous, he argued. Instead, he pleaded in favor of sending out word that captains should tell their troops to "advertir les soldats de faire leurs salves belles et gaillardes en l'honneur des assistans, et n'espargner leur poudre" "make their volleys fine and lusty in honor of the spectators, and not spare their powder" [I, 24].

Further, he asserted that the municipal authorities should not try to protect themselves from the armed men but should instead walk confidently among them, with their heads held high and an open demeanor. Underlying Montaigne's plan was a strategic use of confidence based on the idea that behaving with one's potential enemies as though they were friends invites them in turn to behave as friends rather than enemies. Montaigne's strategy was adopted, and it proved successful. During these dangerous times no defense was apparently Montaigne's consistent line of defense.

The moderate Catholic views he openly expressed along with his friendship with Henri de Navarre made him suspect to both the Protestants and Catholic League sympathizers in the region. Montaigne's Essais reveal traces of his sustained reflection on diplomatic survival strategies to be employed when in a position of weakness. Throughout the Essais he reflects on ethical and political choices in various circumstances, evoking not only his own experiences but also episodes from the lives of great generals, diplomats, and statesmen culled from ancient and recent history.