they,1 not having found after this victory all the gold that they had promised themselves, when they had ransacked and rifled everywhere, began to seek information about it by inflicting upon the prisoners whom they held the severest tortures they could devise. But as they gained nothing by this, finding their victims' hearts stronger than their tortures, they at last became so enraged that, contrary to their faith and to every law of nations, they condemned the king himself and one of the chief nobles of his court to be put to the torture in each other's presence. This noble, finding himself overcome by the pain, being surrounded with hot coals, turned his face piteously at last to his master, as if to ask for mercy because he could endure no more. The king, fixing his eyes haughtily and sternly upon him, as in reproof of his cowardice and pusillanimity, said these words only, in a harsh and unfaltering voice: "And I, am I in a cold bath? Am I more comfortable than you?" The other immediately succumbed to the suffering, and so died. The king, halfroasted, was taken thence, not so much from pity (for what pity ever touched souls so inhuman that, for the sake of uncertain information about some vessel of gold to steal, they would have a man broiled before their eyes, to say nothing of his being a king so great both in fortune and in merit), but because his firmness made their cruelty more and more shameful. They hanged him afterward, he having courageously attempted to free himself by his own hand 2 from the long captivity and subjection; and even thus he rendered his end worthy of a high-minded prince.

At another time they caused to be burned, in one and the same fire, four hundred and sixty living men: four hundred of the common people, sixty of the chief nobles of the province, mere prisoners of war. We have these narrations from themselves, for not only do they admit them, they boast of them and proclaim them. Is it as testimony of their justice or of religious zeal? Unquestionably these are methods too contrary and inimical to so holy an end. Had they proposed to themselves to extend our faith, they would have

1 The Spaniards.

2 Par armes. See Gomara, Histoire Générale des Indes. 4 Gomara was a Spaniard.

considered that it is not by the possession of territory that it increases in power, but by the possession of men, and would have been only too well satisfied with the slaughter made necessary by war, without adding thereto likewise a butchery as of wild beasts, as nearly universal as sword and fire could bring to pass, having intentionally preserved from it only so many as they wished to use as unhappy slaves for labour and service in their mines. Consequently, many of the leaders 1 were put to death in the locality that they had conquered, by order of the kings of Castile, justly outraged by the horror of their conduct; and almost all were held in contempt, and hated. God deservedly ordained that this vast booty should be swallowed up by the sea, in transport, or by the intestine wars in which they consumed one another; and the greater number were buried where they died and had no fruit from their victory.

As for the revenue,-even in the hands of a thrifty and prudent prince,3. -it answers very little to the hopes that were held out about it to his predecessors, and to the first abundant supply of riches which were found in the beginning in these newly discovered lands (for, although much is being drawn therefrom, we see that it is nothing in comparison with what might be expected); this is because the use of coin was entirely unknown there, and consequently their gold was found all in masses, serving no other purpose than for show and parade, as an heirloom descending from father to son through many powerful kings, who were always working their mines to the utmost, in order to make that vast quantity of vessels and statues for the adornment of their palaces and temples; whereas our gold is all used in business and in commerce. We cut it up and change it, circulate it, and disperse it in a thousand ways. Imagine if our kings should thus hoard up for several centuries all the gold that they could lay their hands on and let it lie idle!

The people of the Kingdom of Mexico were somewhat more civilised and more well-informed than the other nations of those lands; so they judged, as we do, that the universe was near its end, and took as a sign of this the desola

1 Of the Spaniards.

3

Philip II.

2 Sur les lieux; that is, in a foreign land.

4 Un meuble reservé.

tion that we brought upon them. They believed that the existence of the world is divided into five ages and into the life of five consecutive suns, of which four had already completed their time; and that the one which then shone upon them was the fifth. The first perished with all the other creatures by a universal flood. The second by the fall of the heavens upon the earth, which stifled every living thing; to which age they assigned the giants, and they shewed the Spaniards bones, according to the proportion of which the stature of men reached twenty palms. The third, by fire, which burned and consumed all things. The fourth, by a tumult of air and wind which cast down even many mountains; human beings did not die, but men were changed to apes (what impressions does not the foolishness of human belief receive!). After the death of this fourth sun the world was in unbroken darkness for twenty-five years, in the fifteenth year of which were created a man and a woman who renewed the human race. Ten years later, on a certain day, the sun appeared, newly created, and since then the numbering of their years begins from that day. On the third day after the creation of the sun, the ancient gods died; the new ones were born after that, from day to day.1 My authority learned nothing of what they think of the manner in which this last sun will perish; but their reckoning of this fourth change falls in with that great conjunction of the planets which caused, some eight hundred and odd years ago, as the astrologers calculate, many great alterations and new conditions in the world.

As to pomp and magnificence, by which path I entered into this subject, neither Greece, nor Rome, nor Egypt can compare, whether in usefulness or difficulty or nobleness, any of its public works to the road which is seen in Peru, built by the kings of the country, from the City of Quito to that of Cusco, three hundred leagues, straight, level, twenty-five paces wide, paved, enclosed on one and the other side by beautiful and high walls; and all along these walls, on the inner side, two never-failing streams bordered by fine trees which they call molly. Where they met with mountains and rocks, they cut and levelled them, and filled the 1 See Gomara, Histoire Générale des Indes.

hollows with stone and lime. At every limit of a day's journey there are fine palaces supplied with provisions, garments, and weapons, as well for travellers as for the armies which have to pass that way. In estimating this work I have taken into account the difficulty of it, which is especially considerable in that region. They did not build with stones smaller than ten feet square; they had no other means of transportation than dragging their load by strength of arm; and had not even the art of scaffolding, knowing in its stead no other way than to pile earth against the building as it rose, and take it away afterward.1

Let us return to our coaches. In place of them and of any other vehicle, these people had themselves carried on men's shoulders. The last King of Peru, the day he was captured, was thus borne among his troops, seated in a chair of gold. As fast as they killed his bearers in order to make him fall to the ground (for they wished to take him alive), as many others immediately took the places of the dead, so that he could not be cast down, whatever the slaughter of those men, until a horseman seized hold of his body and threw him to the earth.2

CHAPTER VII

OF THE DISADVANTAGE OF GREATNESS

THIS Essay might be entitled an Apology for Kings and Princes — for the unfortunate great. Montaigne's wide sympathies included poor peasants and poor princes in his compassion, and he saw the definitions of one and the other plane of human existence.

So it seemed to him that it was not a great sign of magnanimity to despise grandeur, no great wonder to refuse it; and he shrewdly suggests that the very glory of the refusal is a reward of ambition.

As for himself, he "cares too much for himself" to wish for a lofty position. He would like an increase in mental and physical qualities and in wealth, but not in power: he would rather be in the third place than the first, if they were both in Paris; he measures good luck, not by its might, but by its ease. He may admire Regulus more than Balbus, but he would rather be Balbus.

1 See Gomara, Histoire Générale des Indes.

2 See Ibid.

And, to come back to earthly greatness, the most difficult part in the world to play well is that of king. So unbounded a power it is difficult to keep in bounds; yet there is a peculiar incitement to virtue in being in a situation where every good act affects so many men, and where (like preachers) you are chiefly judged by the unexacting, easily deceived, easily pleased common people. But this whole subject is one of those on which our interests make it difficult to pass sincere judgement; so let inflexible and impassible reason tell us what are the disadvantages of greatness.

First, that, out of respect, princes are treated disrespectfully: no man will fight against them; it is only their horses, not their fellows, that afford them an opportunity to shew their abilities in mastering opposition. They are never allowed the honour and pleasure of hazardous deeds; every thing gives way before them, as if by enchantment; they are kept aloof from their kind; their existence is not of life, but of sleep. The power and wealth of man lie in want.

Princes are deprived of all true praise; for the quality of kingship stifles the expression of all virtues that are not directly concerned with this office. A king can be nothing but a king, and his personality is wholly obscured by the light of his crown. His vices are fostered, not merely by approbation, but by imitation.

And, in fine, to be not on a level with other men is to be at a disadvantage as regards success.

S

INCE we can not attain it, let us avenge ourselves by speaking ill of it. Yet it is not altogether speaking ill of a thing to discover defects in it; there are some in all things, however admirable and desirable they may be. Generally speaking, greatness has this manifest advantage, that she can descend from her heights when she pleases; and she well-nigh has her choice between the two conditions: for it is not from all heights that a man falls; from most he can descend without falling.1 It seems to me in truth that we place too high a value on greatness, and that we also over-value the determination of those whom we have seen or heard of as having despised it or as having renounced it intentionally. Its essential quality is not so distinctly of value that we can not without a miracle refuse it. I hold the endurance of ills to be a very difficult effort, but I hold that contentment with a moderate degree of fortune and the absence of greatness is a small matter. That is a virtue, it seems to me, to which I, who am but a green goose, might attain without much struggle. What is to 1 Cf. Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, X.

2 Fuite.