_Scaliger._ Theologians are proud and intolerant, and truly the farthest of all men from theology, if theology means the rational sense of religion, or indeed has anything to do with it in any way. Melancthon was the very best of the reformers; quiet, sedate, charitable, intrepid, firm in friendship, ardent in faith, acute in argument, and profound in learning. _Montaigne._ Who cares about his argumentation or his learning, if he was the rest? _Scaliger._ I hope you will suspend your judgment on this affair until you receive some more certain and positive information. _Montaigne._ I can believe it of the Sieur Calvin. _Scaliger._ I cannot. John Calvin is a grave man, orderly and reasonable. _Montaigne._ In my opinion he has not the order nor the reason of my cook. Mat never took a man for a sucking-pig, cleaning and scraping and buttering and roasting him; nor ever twitched God by the sleeve and swore He should not have His own way. _Scaliger._ M. de Montaigne, have you ever studied the doctrine of predestination? _Montaigne._ I should not understand it, if I had; and I would not break through an old fence merely to get into a cavern. I would not give a fig or a fig-leaf to know the truth of it, as far as any man can teach it me. Would it make me honester or happier, or, in other things, wiser? _Scaliger._ I do not know whether it would materially. _Montaigne._ I should be an egregious fool then to care about it. Our disputes on controverted points have filled the country with missionaries and cut-throats. Both parties have shown a disposition to turn this comfortable old house of mine into a fortress. If I had inclined to either, the other would have done it. Come walk about it with me; after a ride, you can do nothing better to take off fatigue. _Scaliger._ A most spacious kitchen! _Montaigne._ Look up! _Scaliger._ You have twenty or more flitches of bacon hanging there. _Montaigne._ And if I had been a doctor or a captain, I should have had a cobweb and predestination in the place of them. Your soldiers of the _religion_ on the one side, and of the _good old faith_ on the other, would not have left unto me safe and sound even that good old woman there. _Scaliger._ Oh, yes! they would, I hope. _Old Woman._ Why dost giggle, Mat? What should he know about the business? He speaks mighty bad French, and is as spiteful as the devil. Praised be God, we have a kind master, who thinks about us, and feels for us. _Scaliger._ Upon my word, M. de Montaigne, this gallery is an interesting one. _Montaigne._ I can show you nothing but my house and my dairy. We have no chase in the month of May, you know--unless you would like to bait the badger in the stable. This is rare sport in rainy days. _Scaliger._ Are you in earnest, M. de Montaigne? _Montaigne._ No, no, no, I cannot afford to worry him outright: only a little for pastime--a morning's merriment for the dogs and wenches.