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5. Whether the governor of a besieged fortress should go out and parley

[This chapter, arising from Montaigne’s reflections on his reading of Renaissance French and Italian historians in the light of his own experience of war, belongs to those chapters which he wrote near the beginning of his enterprise, when the Essays appear to have been intended mainly as a gentleman’s thoughts on matters military and political.]

[A] In the war against Perseus, king of Macedonia, the Roman legate Lucius Marcius, wishing to gain the time he still needed to get his army ready, sowed hints of agreement by which the king was lulled into granting a truce for several days, thus furnishing his enemy with the opportunity and freedom to arm himself; because of this the king met his final downfall. Nevertheless [C] the old men in the Senate, mindful of the morals of their forefathers, condemned this action as being opposed to their practices [C] in ancient times which were, they said, to fight with valour not with trickery, surprise attacks or night encounters; nor did they use pretended flight or unexpected charges; they never made war before it was declared and seldom before announcing the time and place of the battle. From the same conscientious scruple they sent that treacherous doctor back to Pyrrhus and that wicked schoolmaster back to the Phalisci. Those were truly Roman ways of acting – not Grecian guile or Punic cunning, for which it is less glorious to win by might than by deceit. There may be a momentary advantage in deception, but only those men acknowledge that they are beaten who know that it was neither by ruse nor mischance but by valour, soldier against soldier in a legitimate and just war. It is clear from what those good men decided that they had not yet accepted [A] that fine saying:

dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat? [Trickery or valour: what does it matter between enemies?]1

[C] According to Polybius, the Achaeans detested all kinds of ruses in their wars, only holding it to be a victory when the hearts of their enemies were beaten low. Another writer said: ‘Eam vir sanctus et sapiens sciet veram esse victoriam, quæ salva fide et integra aignitate parabitur.’ [A man who is pious and wise will know that a real victory is won only when integrity is safeguarded and greatness kept intact.]

Vos ne velit an me regnare hera quidve ferat fors Virtute experiamur.

[Let us make trial by valour, to see whether my Lady Fortune wishes you to prevail or me.]2

In the kingdom of Ternate, among those peoples whom we complacently dub barbarous, custom requires that they never start to fight without a declaration of war, to which is added a full statement of the means they have at their disposal: what they are, how many men they have, what munitions, what arms for both attack and defence. But once having done that, if their enemies do not give in or reach an agreement they permit themselves to do their worst, believing they cannot be reproached for treachery, for cunning or for any means leading to victory.3

The ancient Florentines were so far from wishing to get the better of their enemies by surprise attacks that a month before they sent their armies into the field they gave them warnings by continuously tolling the bell they called the Martinella.4

[A] We are less scrupulous: we hold that the honour of a war goes to him who wins by it, and following Lysander we say that when the lion’s skin does not suffice we must sew on a patch from the fox’s.5 From such cunning derive the most usual opportunities for surprising the enemy: there is no hour when a commander ought to be more on his guard, we say, than during parleys and when treating for peace. That explains why it is a precept on the lips of all fighting-men of our time that no governor of a besieged fortress should ever personally go out to parley. In our fathers’ days the Seigneurs de Montmord and de l’Assigny, when defending Mousson against the Count of Nassau, were blamed for doing so.

But by this reckoning a man would be justified if he went out in such a manner that the safety and advantage remained with his own side, as happened to Guy de Rangon when the Seigneur de l’Escut drew near to parley during the siege of Reggio (if we are to believe Du Bellay, that is, for Guicciardini said it happened to himself): Rangon clung so close to his fortress that when a disturbance broke out during the parley Monsieur de L’Escut and his troops who had advanced with him found themselves to be the weaker party, with the result that not only was Alessandro Trivulzio killed there but l’Escut himself was forced to take the Count at his word and, for greater safety, to dash after him into his citadel to shelter from the violence.6

[B] Eumenes was pressed by Antigonus, who was besieging him in the town of Nora, to come out and parley; after several other considerations, Antigonus asserted that since he was the greater and the stronger it was only right that Eumenes should come out to him. Eumenes made this noble answer: ‘I shall never reckon anyone to be greater than I am so long as I have the use of my sword.’ He would not agree until Antigonus, as he had requested, had handed over his nephew Ptolomy as hostage.7

[A] Yet some have done very well to trust in the word of their assailant and to come out. Witness Henry de Vaux, a knight from Champagne. He was under siege by the English in Commercy castle; Barthélemy de Bonnes, who was in charge of the operations, first sapped the greater part of the fortress so that all that was needed was a match and the besieged would be buried beneath the ruins; he then summoned Henry to come out to parley – for his own advantage. He was one of four who did so. When he was made to see with his own eyes that his destruction was inevitable, he felt singularly indebted to the enemy; once he had surrendered himself and his men into their power the fuse of the mine was lighted, the wooden props began to give way and the castle was blown up from roof to basement.8

[B] I readily trust others: but I would only do so with difficulty if ever I were to give grounds for thinking that I was acting out of despair or from lack of courage rather than from frankness and trust in a man’s word.