Page:Essays Vol 1 (Ives, 1925).pdf/186

166 Montaigne himself also says in the preceding paragraph, “Valour is not shown in war alone.”

On a later page there is a striking account of a scene Montaigne witnessed “when a child” (in 1548, when he was 15 years old). The “great city” was Bordeaux; and the poor gentleman who was killed was named Moneins.

The passage on the next page connects itself with the fact that in May, 1585 (during Montaigne’s mayoralty), there was a great review of all the “citizens’ companies” of Bordeaux; an occasion of possible excitement and perhaps danger.

The last pages of the Essay are filled with three stories from ancient history; and it winds up with a highly philosophical maxim — not very easy to put in practice.

ACQUES AMYOT, grand almoner of France, told mé one day this story to the honour of a prince of ours, — and ours he was, by very good titles, although he was of foreign descent, — that, during our first troubles, at the siege of Rouen, that prince, having been warned by the queen-mother of a conspiracy against his life, and distinctly informed by her letters of the leader in its conduct, who was a gentleman of Anjou or Le Mans, — at that time, with this end in view, frequently with the prince’s household, — he told no one of this warning, but the next day, walking on Mont Sainte-Catherine, from which our guns were trained on Rouen (for it was at the time that we were laying siege to it), having by his side the said lord almoner and another bishop, he descried the gentleman he had been told of, and had him summoned before him. When he was in his presence, observing that he was already turning pale and trembling from his conscience sounding the alarm, “Monsieur So-and-so,” said the prince, “you suspect why I have sent for you, and your face shews it. You have nothing to conceal from me, for I am so fully acquainted with this affair of yours, that you would only make your plight the worse by trying to cover it. You are aware of this and that thing [which were points of the most secret parts of the plot]; do not, on your life, fail to confess to me the truth about this whole project.” When the unfortunate