Project Gutenberg's The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 8, by Michel de Montaigne

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Title: The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 8

Author: Michel de Montaigne

Release Date: September 17, 2006 [EBook #3588]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE, VOLUME 8 ***

Produced by David Widger

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazilitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 8.

XLVIII. Of war-horses, or destriers.
XLIX. Of ancient customs.
L. Of Democritus and Heraclitus.
LI. Of the vanity of words.
LII. Of the parsimony of the Ancients.
LIII. Of a saying of Caesar.
LIV. Of vain subtleties.
LV. Of smells.
LVI. Of prayers.
LVII. Of age.

CHAPTER XLVIII

OF WAR HORSES, OR DESTRIERS

I here have become a grammarian, I who never learned any language but by
rote, and who do not yet know adjective, conjunction, or ablative. I
think I have read that the Romans had a sort of horses by them called
'funales' or 'dextrarios', which were either led horses, or horses laid
on at several stages to be taken fresh upon occasion, and thence it is
that we call our horses of service 'destriers'; and our romances commonly
use the phrase of 'adestrer' for 'accompagner', to accompany. They also
called those that were trained in such sort, that running full speed,
side by side, without bridle or saddle, the Roman gentlemen, armed at all
pieces, would shift and throw themselves from one to the other,
'desultorios equos'. The Numidian men-at-arms had always a led horse in
one hand, besides that they rode upon, to change in the heat of battle:

"Quibus, desultorum in modum, binos trahentibus equos, inter
acerrimam saepe pugnam, in recentem equum, ex fesso, armatis
transultare mos erat: tanta velocitas ipsis, tamque docile
equorum genus."

["To whom it was a custom, leading along two horses, often in the
hottest fight, to leap armed from a tired horse to a fresh one; so
active were the men, and the horses so docile."--Livy, xxiii. 29.]

There are many horses trained to