“These are the things which properly fall within the province of education, in order to form what we call a man of honor, a man possessed of all the qualities and virtues requisite in this kind of government.

“Here it is that honor interferes with everything, mixing even with people’s manner of thinking, and directing their very principles.

“To this whimsical honor it is owing that the virtues are only just what it pleases; it adds rules of its own invention to everything prescribed to us; it extends or limits our duties according to its own fancy, whether they proceed from religion, politics, or morality.

“There is nothing so strongly inculcated in monarchies, by the laws, by religion, and honor, as submission to the Prince’s will, but this very honor tells us, that the Prince never ought to command a dishonorable action, because this would render us incapable of serving him.

“Crillon refused to assassinate the Duke of Guise, but offered to fight him.  After the massacre of St. Bartholomew, Charles IX., having sent orders to the governors in the several provinces for the Huguenots to be murdered, Viscount Dorte, who commanded at Bayonne, wrote thus to the King:  ’Sire, Among the inhabitants of this town, and your Majesty’s troops, I could not find so much as one executioner; they are honest citizens and brave soldiers.  We jointly, therefore, beseech your Majesty to command our arms and lives in things that are practicable.’  This great and generous soul looked upon a base action as a thing impossible.

“There is nothing that honor more strongly recommends to the nobility, than to serve their Prince in a military capacity.  And indeed this is their favorite profession, because its dangers, its success, and even its miscarriages, are the road to grandeur.  Yet this very law, of its own making, honor chooses to explain; and in case of any affront, it requires or permits us to retire.

“It insists also, that we should be at liberty either to seek or to reject employments; a liberty which it prefers even to an ample fortune.

“Honor, therefore, has its supreme laws, to which education is obliged to conform.  The chief of these are, that we are permitted to set a value upon our fortune, but are absolutely forbidden to set any upon our lives.

“The second is, that when we are raised to a post or preferment, we should never do or permit anything which may seem to imply that we look upon ourselves as inferior to the rank we hold.

“The third is, that those things which honor forbids are more rigorously forbidden, when the laws do not concur in the prohibition; and those it commands are more strongly insisted upon, when they happen not to be commanded by law.”