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motivated by his own emotional view of the issue. (B) "Le party que je
condemneray en nos guerres, je la condemneray plus asprement fleurissant
et prospere.(Ill,xiii,1100), he admits. So, it is not entirely
a matter of principle with him either, or else he would condemn the
position of the party whether strong or weak. This is no doubt the
sympathy to which Weiler refers that kept Montaigne from being overrun
by his Protestant friends. The real hero as well as the real villain in
the Civil War is man himself who functions mostly at the "gut" level:
(C) Je voy cela evidemment, que nous ne prestons volontiers a
la devotion, que les offices qui flattent nos passions. II
n'est point d'hostilite excellente comme la chrestienne. Nostre
zele faict merveilles, quand il va secondant nostre pente vers
la haine, la cruaute, l'ambition, l'avarice, la detraction, la
rebellion....
Nostre religion est faicte pour extirper les vices; elle les
couvre, les nourrit, les incite (II,xii,444).
He laments in the middle of this passage that any tendency towards virtuous
actions is rarely found and can hardly make any headway. The
civil wars are seen more as the result of uncontrolled passion than the
inverse. The civil war serves as an excuse for personal passions
which, in turn, foster the evils of war. He thinks that he who first
upsets the state of society is absorbed in the holocaust, but he also
admits that the trouble does not end there: (C) "Le fruict du trouble
ne demeure guere a celuy qui l'a esmeu, il bat et brouille l'eaue pour
d'autres pescheurs" (I,xxiii,119). These participants in the conflict
utilize their reason to justify their emotional position rather than
the truth, according to Montaigne. He notes this both in the 1580