The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 10
by Michel de Montaigne

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Title: The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 10

Author: Michel de Montaigne

Release Date: September 17, 2006 [EBook #3590]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE, VOLUME 10 ***

Produced by David Widger

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazilitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 10.

VII. Of recompenses of honour.
VIII. Of the affection of fathers to their children.
IX. Of the arms of the Parthians.
X. Of books.
XI. Of cruelty.

CHAPTER VII

OF RECOMPENSES OF HONOUR

They who write the life of Augustus Caesar,--[Suetonius, Life of
Augustus, c. 25.]--observe this in his military discipline, that he was
wonderfully liberal of gifts to men of merit, but that as to the true
recompenses of honour he was as sparing; yet he himself had been
gratified by his uncle with all the military recompenses before he had
ever been in the field. It was a pretty invention, and received into
most governments of the world, to institute certain vain and in
themselves valueless distinctions to honour and recompense virtue, such
as the crowns of laurel, oak, and myrtle, the particular fashion of some
garment, the privilege to ride in a coach in the city, or at night with a
torch, some peculiar place assigned in public assemblies, the prerogative
of certain additional names and titles, certain distinctions in the
bearing of coats of arms, and the like, the use of which, according to
the several humours of nations, has been variously received, and yet
continues.

We in France, as also several of our neighbours, have orders of
knighthood that are instituted only for this end. And 'tis, in earnest,
a very good and profitable custom to find out an acknowledgment for the
worth of rare and excellent men, and to satisfy them with rewards that
are not at all chargeable either to prince or people. And that which has
always been found by ancient experience, and which we have heretofore
observed among ourselves, that men of q