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that Montaigne's admiration of restraint prevents him from being
biased in his own preferences. There is little question where his
allegiance lies in the internecine conflict (I,xxiii,119; cf. III,i,
793). He is not merely being facetious in the last sentence above.
He does intend that those who disrupt the customs of a country deserve
to be inhibited forcefully from proceeding. One (individual or
country) is justified in defending one's position and customs.
The Heritage of the Middle Ages
Although Montaigne did not see eye to eye with Machiavelli, he
does approach the machiavellian in his view of the Prince and the
State. He sees the sovereign of a nation as the key to the ordered
society, the protector of its traditions. As critics have pointed
/ *5
out, including Dow and Lanson,
Montaigne was very jealous of his
own conscience, but his judgment made him equally willing to submit to
the King in every practical way: (B) "Toute inclination et soubmission
leur est deue, sauf celle de l'entendement. Ma raison n'est pas
duite a se courber et flechir, ce sont mes genoux" (III,viii,935).
Montaigne's independence is often emphasized; however it is a rather
debilitated independence since submission to the current political
power is granted in all the categories where action is involved. Montaigne
has reason for this: the health of the State for the ultimate
43. Neal Dow, The Concept and Term "Nature" in Montaigne's
Essais, (Unpublished dissertation), U. of Penn., Philadelphia, 1940,
p. 55. Lanson, "La vie morale selon les Essais de Montaigne,"
Revue des Deux Mondes, jan.-fev. 1924, 515, Ser.7, vol. 19, pp. 839-40.