“Tantum se fortunx permittunt, etiam ut naturam dediscant.”

     ["They so much give themselves up to fortune, as even to unlearn
     nature.”—­Quintus Curtius, iii. 2.]

They swell and puff up their souls, and their natural way of speaking, according to the height of their magisterial place.  The Mayor of Bordeaux and Montaigne have ever been two by very manifest separation.  Because one is an advocate or a financier, he must not ignore the knavery there is in such callings; an honest man is not accountable for the vice or absurdity of his employment, and ought not on that account refuse to take the calling upon him:  ’tis the usage of his country, and there is money to be got by it; a man must live by the world; and make his best of it, such as it is.  But the judgment of an emperor ought to be above his empire, and see and consider it as a foreign accident; and he ought to know how to enjoy himself apart from it, and to communicate himself as James and Peter, to himself, at all events.

I cannot engage myself so deep and so entire; when my will gives me to anything, ’tis not with so violent an obligation that my judgment is infected with it.  In the present broils of this kingdom, my own interest has not made me blind to the laudable qualities of our adversaries, nor to those that are reproachable in those men of our party.  Others adore all of their own side; for my part, I do not so much as excuse most things in those of mine:  a good work has never the worst grace with me for being made against me.  The knot of the controversy excepted, I have always kept myself in equanimity and pure indifference: 

     “Neque extra necessitates belli praecipuum odium gero;”

     ["Nor bear particular hatred beyond the necessities of war.”]

for which I am pleased with myself; and the more because I see others commonly fail in the contrary direction.  Such as extend their anger and hatred beyond the dispute in question, as most men do, show that they spring from some other occasion and private cause; like one who, being cured of an ulcer, has yet a fever remaining, by which it appears that the ulcer had another more concealed beginning.  The reason is that they are not concerned in the common cause, because it is wounding to the state and general interest; but are only nettled by reason of their particular concern.  This is why they are so especially animated, and to a degree so far beyond justice and public reason: 

          “Non tam omnia universi, quam ea, quae ad quemque pertinent,
          singuli carpebant.”

     ["Every one was not so much angry against things in general, as
     against those that particularly concern himself.” 
     —­Livy, xxxiv. 36.]