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BOOK I, CHAPTER XXXI 285
Three of this people — not knowing how dear the know- ledge of the corruption of this country will some day cost their peace of mind and their happiness, and that from this intercourse will be born their ruin, which conjecture may be already in process of confirmation; ' most miserable in hav- ing allowed themselves to be tricked by the desire for things unknown, and in having left the sweetness of their own skies, to come to gaze at ours—were at Rouen at the time that the late King Charles the Ninth was there? The king talked with them a long while; they were shown our modes of life, our magnificence, and the outward appearance of a beautiful city. Thereafter some one * asked them what they thought of all this, and wished to learn from them what had seemed to them most worthy of admiration. They men- tioned in reply three things, of which I have forgotten the third, and am very sorry for it; but I remember two. They said that, i in the first place, they thought it very strange that so many tall bearded men, strong and well armed, who were about the king (they probably referred to the Swiss of the Guard), should humble themselves s to obey a child, and that they did not rather choose some one of themselves to com- mand them. Secondly (they have a fashion of speech of calling men halves of one another), they had perceived that there were among us some men gorged to the full with all sorts of possessions,‘ and that their other halves were beg-
hunger and destitution; and they thought it strange that these poverty-stricken halves could suffer such injustice, and that they did not take the others by the throat or set fire to their houses. I talked with one of them a very long while; but I had an interpreter who followed me so badly, and who was so hindered by his stu- pidity from grasping my ideas, that I could not have any pleasure in it. en I asked what advantage he derived from his superior position among his people (for he was a captain and our seamen called him king), he said that it was the privilege of marching at their head in war. By how
1 Comme je presuppose qu'elle soit desia avancée.
- In 1562.
- Montaigne himself.
- The editions of 1580-1588 add: et bien souls.