Essays of Montaigne

Monsieur d'Aubigny, besieging Capua, and after having directed a furious battery against it, Signor Fabricio Colonna, governor of the town, having from a bastion begun to parley, and his soldiers in the meantime being a little more remiss in their guard, our people entered the place at unawares, and put them all to the sword. And of later memory, at Yvoy, Signor Juliano Romero having played that part of a novice to go out to parley with the Constable, at his return found his place taken. But, that we might not scape scot-free, the Marquess of Pescara having laid siege to Genoa, where Duke Ottaviano Fregosa commanded under our protection, and the articles betwixt them being so far advanced that it was looked upon as a done thing, and upon the point to be concluded, the Spaniards in the meantime having slipped in, made use of this treachery as an absolute victory. And since, at Ligny, in Barrois, where the Count de Brienne commanded, the emperor having in his own person beleaguered that place, and Bertheville, the said Count's lieutenant, going out to parley, whilst he was capitulating the town was taken.

"Fu il vincer sempremai laudabil cosa,

Vincasi o per fortuna, o per ingegno,"

["Victory is ever worthy of praise, whether obtained by valour or

wisdom."—Ariosto, xv. I.]

But the philosopher Chrysippus was of another opinion, wherein I also concur; for he was used to say that those who run a race ought to employ all the force they have in what they are about, and to run as fast as they can; but that it is by no means fair in them to lay any hand upon their adversary to stop him, nor to set a leg before him to throw him down. And yet more generous was the answer of that great Alexander to Polypercon who was persuading him to take the advantage of the night's obscurity to fall upon Darius. "By no means," said be; "it is not for such a man as I am to steal a victory, 'Malo me fortunae poeniteat, quam victoria pudeat.'"—["I had rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory." Quint. Curt, iv. 13]—

"Atque idem fugientem baud est dignatus Oroden

Sternere, nec jacta caecum dare cuspide vulnus

Obvius, adversoque occurrit, seque viro vir

Contulit, haud furto melior, sed fortibus armis."

["He deigned not to throw down Orodes as he fled, or with the darted

spear to give him a wound unseen; but overtaking him, he confronted

him face to face, and encountered man to man: superior, not in

stratagem, but in valiant arms."—AEneid, x. 732.]

CHAPTER VII. THAT THE INTENTION IS JUDGE OF OUR ACTIONS