Of all the pipe dreams in the world, the most accepted and most universal is the concern for reputation and glory, which we espouse to the point of forsaking wealth, rest, life and health, which are very real and substantial, to follow this vain image and this simple voice which has neither body nor hold:
Fame, which is enchanted by a sweet sound. The proud mortals, and by so beautiful, Is an echo, a dream, rather than a dream a shadow. That is blown away and cleared up by every wind. (Tasso)
And, of the unreasonable moods of men, it seems that even philosophers are later and more likely to lose sight of this one than of any other. It is the most stubborn and obstinate:
Because it never ceases to tempt even the minds of those who are well-off. (St. Augustine)
There is hardly any other of which reason so clearly accuses vanity, but it has such lively roots in us that I do not know if anyone has ever clearly disengaged themselves from it. After you have dictated and believed everything to disavow it, it produces such an internal inclination against your discourse that you have little to hold against it. For, as Cicero says, those very people who fight her still want the books they write about her to bear their name on the front, and want to glory in the fact that they have despised glory. All other things fall under trade: we lend our goods and our lives to the needs of our friends; but to communicate one’s honor and to share one’s glory with others is rarely seen.
Catulus Luctatius, in the war against the Cimbri, having made every effort to stop his soldiers fleeing from the enemy, placed himself among the fugitives and pretended to be a coward, so that they would seem to be following their captain rather than fleeing from the enemy: it was a case of abandoning his own reputation to cover someone else’s shame. When the Emperor Charles V passed through Provence in the year 1537, it is said that Antoine de Lève, seeing that his master was determined to make this journey and considering it to be marvelously glorious for him, nevertheless opined the contrary and advised against it, so that all the glory and honor of this counsel might be attributed to his master, and that it was considered his good advice and foresight to have been such that, against the opinion of all, he had brought to a successful conclusion such a fine enterprise: which was to honor him at his own expense.
The Thracian ambassadors, consoling Archileonide, mother of Brasidas, over the death of her son, and praising him to the point of saying that he was without equal, she refused this private and personal praise and returned it to the public: “Do not tell me that,” she said, ”I know that the city of Sparta has several citizens greater and more valiant than he was.” In the Battle of Crecy, the Prince of Wales, still very young, had to lead the vanguard: the main effort of the encounter was in this place: the lords who accompanied him, finding themselves in a tough fight, ordered King Edward to approach to help them: he inquired about the state of his son, and, having been told that he was alive and on horseback, he said, “I would be doing him an injustice if I were to go and rob him now of the honor of the victory of this combat which he has sustained for so long; whatever the hazard, it will be all his.”
And he neither wanted to go nor to send, knowing that, if he had gone, it would have been said that all was lost without his help, and that he would have been credited with the credit for this exploit:
For what is added last always seems to have brought about the whole thing. (Livy)
Many in Rome estimated, and it was commonly said, that Scipio’s principal achievements were partly due to Laelius, who nevertheless always promoted and supported the greatness and glory of Scipio, without any concern for his own. And Theopompus, King of Sparta, to the one who told him that the public good remained on its feet, insofar as he knew how to command well: It is rather, he said, because the people know how to obey well. Just as the women who succeeded to the peerages had, notwithstanding their sex, the right to attend and give their opinion in cases that fell within the jurisdiction of the peers: so the ecclesiastical peers, notwithstanding their profession, were obliged to assist our kings in their wars, not only with their friends and servants, but also with their persons.
The Bishop of Beauvais, who was with Philip Augustus at the battle of Bouvines, did indeed participate courageously, but he felt that he should not touch the fruit and glory of this bloody and violent exercise. He personally led several of the enemies that day; and gave them to the first gentleman he found, to kill or take prisoners: he resigned all the execution to him; and thus passed the fict of Guillaume Comte de Salsberi to M. Jean de Nesle; of a similar subtlety of conscience to this other: he wanted to knock out, but not to injure, and yet he only fought with his fists. Someone, in my day, being accused by the King of having laid hands on a priest, denied it strongly and firmly: it was that he had beaten him and trampled him underfoot.