3.]--I have known a great man, -- ["It is likely that Montaigne meant Henry III., king of France.
The Cardinal d'Ossat, writing to Louise, the queen-dowager, told her, in his frank manner, that he had lived as much or more like a monk than a monarch (Letter XXIII.) And Pope Sextus V., speaking of that prince one day to the Cardinal de Joyeuse, protector of the affairs of France, said to him pleasantly, 'There is nothing that your king hath not done, and does not do so still, to be a monk, nor anything that I have not done, not to be a monk.'"-- Coste.] prejudice the opinion men had of his devotion, by pretending to be devout beyond all examples of others of his condition.

I love temperate and moderate natures.

An immoderate zeal, even to that which is good, even though it does not offend, astonishes me, and puts me to study what name to give it.

Neither the mother of Pausanias, -- ["Montaigne would here give us to understand, upon the authority of Diodorus Siculus, that Pausanias' mother gave the first hint of the punishment that was to be inflicted on her son.

'Pausanias,' says this historian, 'perceiving that the ephori, and some other Lacedoemonians, aimed at apprehending him, got the start of them, and went and took sanctuary m Minerva's temple: and the Lacedaemonians, being doubtful whether they ought to take him from thence in violation of the franchise there, it is said that his own mother came herself to the temple but spoke nothing nor did anything more than lay a piece of brick, which she brought with her, on the threshold of the temple, which, when she had done, she returned home.