The Essays of Montaigne Ch. 7: Your True Intent

Michel de Montaigne

Your True Intentions Matter Most

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Summary

It is a saying that death discharges us of all our obligations. Henry VII takes it as a trick. Philip delivers the Duke of Suffolk on condition that Henry will attempt nothing against the duke's life. The king keeps the letter of that promise until his last will, then commands his son to put Suffolk to death as soon as he himself is gone. At Brussels, Count Egmont, whose word brought Count Horn to the Duke of Alva, asks to mount the scaffold first so that death might release him from the pledge. Montaigne thinks death did not acquit Egmont, and that Horn was already discharged without dying.

We cannot be bound beyond what we are able to perform, because effect is not in our power. We are masters of nothing but the will, and there all the rules and duty of mankind are founded. Egmont meant to keep faith and lacked the power; Henry meant to break it and only delayed the knife. The mason in Herodotus kept the King of Egypt's treasure secret all his life, then told his children at death. People who restore stolen goods only in a will, or hide a grudge until the last gasp, do the same late work. Unjust judges, he says, who defer judgment to a time when they can have no knowledge of the cause.

He will take care, if he can, that his death discovers nothing his life has not first and openly declared.

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Why This Matters

Judging by Intention

A delayed fix can hide a decision you already made while you still had power. Henry VII kept his promise about the Duke of Suffolk only until his death, then ordered his son to execute the man anyway.

Before you accept a late apology, a deathbed confession, or a posthumous repair, ask what the person intended while they could still be held to the act.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Count Egmont

At Brussels, Egmont asks to mount the scaffold first so that death might release him from the pledge that brought Horn to Alva. He wants the old saying to work as a solvent: death discharges us of all our obligations. Montaigne thinks the will already failed while he lived, and death cannot wash a bond the living man still meant, or still broke.

Continue this thoughtA Blow That Left No Mark

Coming Up in Chapter 8

Montaigne retires to his house expecting privacy and a settled mind. Idle ground grows weeds; his thoughts run like a horse that broke from its rider. He starts writing the chimeras down, hoping shame will tame them.

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Original text

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Chapter 07

Your True Intentions Matter Most

THAT THE INTENTION IS JUDGE OF OUR ACTIONS ‘Tis a saying, “That death discharges us of all our obligations.” I know some who have taken it in another sense. Henry VII., King of England, articled with Don Philip, son to Maximilian the emperor, or (to place him more honourably) father to the Emperor Charles V., that the said Philip should deliver up the Duke of Suffolk of the White Rose, his enemy, who was fled into the Low Countries, into his hands; which Philip accordingly did, but upon condition, nevertheless, that Henry should attempt nothing against the life of the…

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Your True Intentions Matter Most

Summary

Why This Matters