{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "montaigne.essais",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/montaigne/essais/livre-1/passage-15/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "The Essays",
    "author": "Michel de Montaigne",
    "date": "1580-1592; authorial layers, posthumous 1595 edition",
    "summary": "The Essays test a changing life against customs, books, and the body. Montaigne revises his judgment instead of hiding its contradictions.",
    "learning": "Choose an everyday certainty, identify the custom that makes it obvious, seek a counterexample, then state a judgment precise enough for action and modest enough for revision.",
    "long_summary": "The three books do not deliver a finished system. Each chapter tries a question through an experience, reading, anecdote, or embarrassment, then allows the inquiry to move its starting point.\n\nCanonical identity follows book and chapter. The French preserves a posthumous carrier of authorial layers; Charles Cotton’s English remains a distinct historical translation. Chapter I.28 is excluded because that page transmits La Boétie’s sonnets.",
    "historical_context": "The corpus manifests do not yet establish the precise place and circumstances of composition. The images below document the author’s world or the text’s transmission. They do not claim to show the exact scene of writing.",
    "material_world_label": "World of 1989",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Personal computers, satellites, video, industrial robots, and expensive mobile phones exist, but the public Web does not yet.",
        "science": "Computing, genetics, climate science, cosmology, and medical imaging produce growing data and international collaboration.",
        "medicine": "CT, MRI, transplantation, vaccines, and intensive care advance; the AIDS epidemic exposes both medical capacity and its limits.",
        "transport": "Cars, high-speed rail, metros, aircraft, and containers globalize people and goods.",
        "agriculture": "Machinery, chemical inputs, breeding, and cold chains support high yields with increasingly debated social and environmental costs.",
        "communication": "Fixed telephones, fax, television, radio, and newspapers predominate. Email and computer networks remain mainly professional or academic.",
        "clothing": "Loose suits, jeans, trainers, women’s power suits, sportswear, and urban subcultures create highly varied silhouettes."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/30-1989-ce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Personal computers, satellites, video, industrial robots, and expensive mobile phones exist, but the public Web does not yet. Computing, genetics, climate science, cosmology, and medical imaging produce growing data and international collaboration. CT, MRI, transplantation, vaccines, and intensive care advance; the AIDS epidemic exposes both medical capacity and its limits."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/30-1989-ce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "Cars, high-speed rail, metros, aircraft, and containers globalize people and goods. Fixed telephones, fax, television, radio, and newspapers predominate. Email and computer networks remain mainly professional or academic."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/30-1989-ce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Machinery, chemical inputs, breeding, and cold chains support high yields with increasingly debated social and environmental costs."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/30-1989-ce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Loose suits, jeans, trainers, women’s power suits, sportswear, and urban subcultures create highly varied silhouettes."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "skepticism",
        "label": "Skepticism"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "classical",
        "label": "Medieval and Renaissance"
    },
    "languages": [
        "fr",
        "en"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/montaigne/essais/representations/fr.ndjson",
            "language": "fr",
            "records": 106,
            "role": "authorial_french_posthumous_print_carrier",
            "sha256": "c599dc68f0b0c4f45a636a49c711c4eb83598ba2d891783b790f4fc02950ade1",
            "translator": null
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/montaigne/essais/representations/en.ndjson",
            "language": "en",
            "records": 106,
            "role": "historical_translation",
            "sha256": "24da8d9e43beb0ab6ee768be2a04deb6948b19e39c3f484ae047726f42670df2",
            "translator": "Charles Cotton"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "academic_skepticism",
            "label": "Academic skepticism"
        },
        {
            "id": "anger",
            "label": "Anger"
        },
        {
            "id": "care_of_soul",
            "label": "Care of the soul"
        },
        {
            "id": "courage",
            "label": "Courage"
        },
        {
            "id": "custom_and_habit",
            "label": "Custom and habit"
        },
        {
            "id": "death",
            "label": "Death"
        },
        {
            "id": "education",
            "label": "Education"
        },
        {
            "id": "faith",
            "label": "Faith"
        },
        {
            "id": "family",
            "label": "Family"
        },
        {
            "id": "fear",
            "label": "Fear"
        },
        {
            "id": "fortune",
            "label": "Fortune"
        },
        {
            "id": "friendship",
            "label": "Friendship"
        },
        {
            "id": "holiness",
            "label": "Holiness"
        },
        {
            "id": "hope",
            "label": "Hope"
        },
        {
            "id": "human_wisdom",
            "label": "Human wisdom"
        },
        {
            "id": "impressions_and_assent",
            "label": "Impressions and assent"
        },
        {
            "id": "judgment",
            "label": "Judgment"
        },
        {
            "id": "judgment_and_impressions",
            "label": "Judgments and impressions"
        },
        {
            "id": "justice",
            "label": "Justice"
        },
        {
            "id": "law",
            "label": "Law"
        },
        {
            "id": "memory",
            "label": "Memory"
        },
        {
            "id": "messiah",
            "label": "Messiah"
        },
        {
            "id": "nature",
            "label": "Nature"
        },
        {
            "id": "philosophical_training",
            "label": "Philosophical training"
        },
        {
            "id": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        },
        {
            "id": "responsibility",
            "label": "Responsibility"
        },
        {
            "id": "self_portrait_inquiry",
            "label": "Inquiry through self-portrait"
        },
        {
            "id": "service",
            "label": "Service"
        },
        {
            "id": "sin",
            "label": "Sin"
        },
        {
            "id": "time",
            "label": "Time"
        },
        {
            "id": "truth",
            "label": "Truth"
        },
        {
            "id": "virtue",
            "label": "Virtue"
        },
        {
            "id": "war_and_peace",
            "label": "War and peace"
        },
        {
            "id": "wisdom",
            "label": "Wisdom"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "montaigne.essais"
    ],
    "passages": 106,
    "word_count": 458785,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 458785,
        "fr": 366556
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "essais-book-chapter-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "book",
                "label_fr": "Livre",
                "label_en": "Book"
            },
            {
                "key": "chapter",
                "label_fr": "Chapitre",
                "label_en": "Chapter"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Chapitre",
        "leaf_en": "Chapter"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:montaigne.essais:1.15",
    "canonical_ref": "1.15",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "(1, p. 23-23v).Michel de MontaigneC115 On est puny pour s’opiniastrer à une place sans raisonMontaigne - Essais, Éd de Bordeaux, 1.djvuMontaigne - Essais, Éd de Bordeaux, 1.djvu/123-23v\n\nOn est puny pour s’opiniastrer à une place sans raison\nChap. XV.\n\nLA vaillance a ses limites, comme les autres vertus : lesquels franchis on se trouve dans le train du vice ; en maniere que par chez elle on se peut rendre à la temerité, obstination et folie, qui n’en sçait bien les bornes : malaiseez en verité à choisir sur leurs confins. De cette consideration est née la coustume, que nous avons aux guerres, de punir, voire de mort, ceux qui s’opiniastrent à defendre une place, qui par les reigles militaires ne peut estre soustenue. Autrement, soubs l’esperance de l’impunité il n’y\nauroit pouillier, qui\nn’arrestast une armée. Monsieur le Connestable de Mommorency au\nsiege\nde Pavie, ayant esté commis pour passer le Tesin, et se loger aux\nfauxbourgs Saint Antoine, estant empesché d’une tour au bout du\npont,\nqui s’opiniastra jusques à se faire battre, feist pendre tout ce qui\nestoit dedans. Et encore depuis, accompaignant Monsieur le Dauphin\nau voyage delà les monts, ayant pris par force le chasteau de Villane,\net tout ce qui estoit dedans ayant esté mis en pieces par la furie\ndes\nsoldats, hormis le Capitaine et l’enseigne, il les fit pendre et\nestrangler, pour cette mesme raison : comme fit aussi le Capitaine\nMartin du Bellay, lors gouverneur de Turin en cette mesme contrée,\nle capitaine de Saint Bony, le reste de ses gens ayant esté\nmassacré à\nla prinse de la place. Mais, d’autant que le jugement de la valeur et\nfoiblesse du lieu se prend par l’estimation et contrepois des forces\nqui l’assaillent, car tel s’opiniatreroit justement contre deux\ncouleuvrines, qui feroit l’enragé d’attendre trente canons ; où se\nmet\nencore en conte la grandeur du prince conquerant, sa reputation, le\nrespect qu’on luy doit, il y a danger qu’on presse un peu la balance\nde\nce costé là. Et en advient par ces mesmes termes, que tels ont\nsi\ngrande opinion d’eux et de leurs moiens, que, ne leur semblant point\nraisonnables qu’il y ait rien digne de leur faire teste, passent le\ncousteau par tout, où ils trouvent resistance, autant que fortune\nleur\ndure : comm’ il se voit par les formes de sommation et deffi, que les\nprinces d’Orient et leurs successeurs, qui sont encores, ont en usage,\nfiere, hautaine et pleine d’un commandement barbaresque.",
            "source_id": "wikisource-fr-montaigne-essais",
            "translation_type": "authorial_french_posthumous_print_carrier"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "Chapter XV. Of the punishment of cowardice.\n\nI once heard of a prince, and a great captain, having a narration given\n\nhim as he sat at table of the proceeding against Monsieur de Vervins, who\n\nwas sentenced to death for having surrendered Boulogne to the English,\n\n-- --openly maintaining that a soldier could not\n\njustly be put to death for want of courage. And, in truth, 'tis reason\n\nthat a man should make a great difference betwixt faults that merely\n\nproceed from infirmity, and those that are visibly the effects of\n\ntreachery and malice: for, in the last, we act against the rules of\n\nreason that nature has imprinted in us; whereas, in the former, it seems\n\nas if we might produce the same nature, who left us in such a state of\n\nimperfection and weakness of courage, for our justification. Insomuch\n\nthat many have thought we are not fairly questionable for anything but\n\nwhat we commit against our conscience; and it is partly upon this rule\n\nthat those ground their opinion who disapprove of capital or sanguinary\n\npunishments inflicted upon heretics and misbelievers; and theirs also who\n\nadvocate or a judge is not accountable for having from mere ignorance\n\nfailed in his administration.\n\nBut as to cowardice, it is certain that the most usual way of chastising\n\nit is by ignominy and and it is supposed that this practice brought into\n\nuse by the legislator Charondas; and that, before his time, the laws of\n\nGreece punished those with death who fled from a battle; whereas he\n\nordained only that they be for three days exposed in the public dressed\n\nin woman's attire, hoping yet for some service from them, having awakened\n\ntheir courage by this open shame:\n\n\"Suffundere malis homims sanguinem, quam effundere.\"\n\nIt appears also that the Roman laws did anciently punish those with death\n\nwho had run away; for Ammianus Marcellinus says that the Emperor Julian\n\ncommanded ten of his soldiers, who had turned their backs in an encounter\n\nagainst the Parthians, to be first degraded, and afterward put to death,\n\naccording, says he, to the ancient laws,-- --and yet elsewhere for the like offence he only condemned\n\nothers to remain amongst the prisoners under the baggage ensign. The\n\nsevere punishment the people of Rome inflicted upon those who fled from\n\nthe battle of Cannae, and those who ran away with Aeneius Fulvius at his\n\ndefeat, did not extend to death. And yet, methinks, 'tis to be feared,\n\nlest disgrace should make such delinquents desperate, and not only faint\n\nfriends, but enemies.\n\nOf late memory,-- --the Seigneur de Frauget, lieutenant to the\n\nMareschal de Chatillon's company, having by the Mareschal de Chabannes\n\nbeen put in government of Fuentarabia in the place of Monsieur de Lude,\n\nand having surrendered it to the Spaniard, he was for that condemned to\n\nbe degraded from all nobility, and both himself and his posterity\n\ndeclared ignoble, taxable, and for ever incapable of bearing arms, which\n\nsevere sentence was afterwards accordingly executed at Lyons.--\n\n--And, since that, all the gentlemen who were in Guise when the Count of\n\nNassau entered into it, underwent the same punishment, as several others\n\nhave done since for the like offence. Notwithstanding, in case of such a\n\nmanifest ignorance or cowardice as exceeds all ordinary example, 'tis but\n\nreason to take it for a sufficient proof of treachery and malice, and for\n\nsuch to be punished.",
            "translator": "Charles Cotton",
            "source_id": "wikisource-en-montaigne-essais",
            "translation_type": "historical_translation"
        }
    ],
    "content_checksum": "6242f0a8737df8a60ef711d6bbceb7994b1a8f3f95345513d6b0580b5a75766a"
}