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21. Against indolence

[ This chapter reveals Montaigne’s resentment as a soldier towards princes who seek honour from battles in which they had not fought and conquests they had not led. Montaigne finds his heroes in Ancient times and in monarchs other than French.]

[A] When the Emperor Vespasian was ill of the illness which killed him, he never ceased to want to learn of the condition of the Empire; from his very bed he ceaselessly dealt with many matters of consequence. His doctor chid him for it as something harmful to his health. ‘An Emperor,’ he replied, ‘should die on his feet.’1 There you have a fine epigram, in my opinion one worthy of a great ruler. The Emperor Hadrian later used the same expression. And we ought often to remind kings of it to make them realize that the great charge entrusted to them is no idle one and that there is nothing which can make a subject more rightly lose his taste for exposing himself to trouble and danger in the service of his prince than to see him meanwhile indolently engaged in occupations base and frivolous, nor lose his concern for his protection than to see him indifferent to ours.

[C] Should anyone wish to maintain that it be better for a prince to conduct his wars through someone other than himself, Fortune will furnish him with plenty of examples of princes whose lieutenants have successfully concluded great campaigns and also of others whose presence would have been more harmful than useful. But no virtuous and courageous prince could tolerate being given such shameful counsels. Under colour of saving his head for the well-being of the state, as though he were some plaster saint, they specifically demote him from his imperium, which consists entirely in military activity, and declare him incapable of it. I know one prince who would rather be worsted in battle than allow others to fight for him while he slept, and who never saw without some envy even his own followers achieve anything great in his absence.2 Selim I was very right, it seems to me, to say that no victories won in the leader’s absence are ever unqualified. And he would have all the more readily maintained that the leader ought to blush with shame to claim a part in them for his own renown when he had contributed nothing to the task but his voice and his thinking – not even that, seeing that in tasks such as these the counsel and commands which bring men their glory are exclusively those which are given on the spot in the midst of the action. No pilot can perform his duty on dry land.

The Princes of the Ottoman nation (the first nation in the world in the fortunes of war) have enthusiastically embraced this opinion. Bajazet II and his son who departed from it and spent their time on erudition and other indoor occupations dealt severe blows to their Empire. And the one who reigns at present, Amurath III, by following their examples has made a good start at proving the same. Was it not Edward III, King of England, who made this quip about our Charles V: ‘Never was there king who less donned his armour. Yet never was there king who gave me more trouble!’ And he was right to find that strange, being the result of luck rather than of reason.3 And let those seek supporters other than me who want to number the Kings of Castile and Portugal among the great-souled conquerors in war because, at twelve hundred leagues from their idle dwellings, they made themselves masters (risking the skin of their factors) of both the Indies; we still do not know whether they would simply have had courage enough to go and take possession of them in person.

[A] The Emperor Julian went further: a philosopher and a gallant man should not pause for breath – meaning that they ought to concede nothing to their bodily necessities except what could not be denied them, since they are ever keeping both body and soul occupied in great and beautiful deeds of virtue. He was ashamed to be seen even spitting or sweating in public (as has also been said of the youth of Sparta, and by Xenophon of the youth of Persia) because he reckoned that exercise, continuous toil and sober living ought to have burnt dry all such excess fluids. What Seneca said would not fit badly here: the Ancient Romans kept their youth on their toes, teaching their boys nothing which had to be learned sitting down.4

[C] It is a noble desire that even one’s death should be manly and useful: but that action lies not in our sound resolve but in our good fortune. Hundreds who have intended to win, or to die fighting, have failed at both, wounds or prisons blocking this design by granting them a compulsory existence. There are maladies which strike to the ground our wishes and our consciousness.

[’95] Fortune did not feel obliged to favour the vanity of the Roman legions who bound themselves by oath to vanquish or to die: ‘Victor, Marce Fabi, revertar ex acie: si fallo, Jovem Patrem Gradivumque Martem aliosque iratos invoco Deos.’ [I shall, O Marcus Fabius, return victorious from the line of battle. If I fail, I invoke the anger of Father Jove, of Marching Mars and the other gods.] The Portuguese tell how in one place during their conquest of the Indies they confronted warriors who had doomed themselves with horrifying oaths to accept no terms other than death or victory; as a sign of that vow they had cropped their heads and shaved off their beards.5

It is no use stubborning it out and taking risks: it seems that blows avoid those who gaily expose themselves to them and never willingly land on those who too willingly face them and thus spoil their intention.

Many a man, unable to manage to get killed by the might of the enemy, despite assaying every way to keep his vow to return with victory or not at all, has been constrained to kill himself in the very heat of battle. There are other examples, but here is one: Philistus, the commander of the navy of the younger Dionysius against the men of Syracuse, engaged the enemy, the battle being bitterly contested since their forces were equal. He got the upper hand at first because of his daring; but the Syracusans took up position round his galley and besieged it: he personally did many gallant deeds-of-arms in an attempt to break through, then, despairing of any other solution, took his own life which he had so freely – and so unsuccessfully – exposed to the hands of his enemies.6

[C] Muley Moloch, the King of Fez who has just beaten Sebastian, King of Portugal, on that famous day which saw the death of three kings and the transfer of that mighty crown to the crown of Castile, was already gravely ill when the Portuguese invaded his territory. Thereafter he daily declined nearer and nearer to a death which he clearly foresaw. Never did a man exert himself more energetically nor with greater glory. He realized he was too weak to stand the ceremonial entry into his camp – an entry which is traditionally full of magnificence and chock-full of action – so he surrendered that honour to his brother. But it was also the only duty of a Commander that he did give up: all the other duties, the necessary and the useful ones, he carried out most rigorously and most punctiliously; he allowed his body to lie down but he kept his mind on its toes and his heart firm until he drew his last breath – indeed a little beyond. He would have been able to sap the strength of his enemies who had imprudently thrust deep into his lands, so it grieved him terribly that, for lack of a little more life and also for the lack of anyone who could take his place in waging that war and guiding his troubled kingdom, he had to go in search of a hazardous bloody victory when a clear and certain one was within his grasp. However he made a wonderful use of his remaining time: he led the enemy to exhaust himself by drawing them far from their navy and the maritime fortresses which they had established on the African coast; that he did until his last day of life which he had kept as a reserve force to cast into that battle. Deploying his troops in a ring he invested the Portuguese army on all sides, closing the circle and squeezing them tight; the fighting was very bitter because of the valour of the young king of the invaders, but the enemy were hampered by having to face attacks from all directions and were unable to flee after they were routed; they were therefore constrained to charge into their own ranks (‘coarcervanturque non solum cæde, sed etiam fuga’) [the dead lay in heaps not only from the slaughter but from the retreat], men, pile upon pile, furnishing the victors with a total and murderous victory. As he was dying he was carried about from place to place wherever need called him; passing through the ranks he exhorted his officers and men one after another. But when the enemy broke through his troops in one sector he could not be dissuaded from mounting his saddle, sword in hand. He strove to join the affray; his men stopped him by clinging to his bridle, to his clothes and his stirrups; but the effort finally overwhelmed what little life he had left. He was laid down again. When all his other faculties were failing he started out of his swoon to warn that his death must be kept quiet – which was indeed the most necessary order which he still had to give – so that news of it should not arouse despair among his troops; he then died, holding his finger to his sealed lips (the common gesture meaning, Keep quiet).7

What man has ever lived so far and so deep into his own death? What man ever died more on his feet!

The ultimate degree of treating death courageously, and the most natural one, is to face it not only without amazement but without worry, extending the ordinary course of your life right into death. As Cato did, who spent his time in sleep and study while keeping present in his head and heart that violent bloody death and holding it in his palm.8