3 In reference to this story, Montaigne says in his Essay on Cruelty: “Such as have sensuality to encounter, willingly make use of this argument, that when it is at the height it subjects us to that degree that a man’s reason can have no access... wherein they conceive that the pleasure doth so transport us that our reason cannot perform its office whilst we are so benumbed and extacied in delight.... But I know that a man may triumph over the utmost effort of this pleasure: I have experienced it in myself, and have not found Venus so imperious a goddess as many--and some more reformed than I--declare. I do not consider it as a miracle, as the Queen of Navarre does in one of the Tales of her _Heptameron_ (which is a marvellous pretty book of the kind), nor for a thing of extreme difficulty to pass over whole nights, where a man has all the convenience and liberty he can desire, with a long-coveted mistress, and yet be just to his faith first given to satisfy himself with kisses and innocent embraces only, without pressing any further.”--Cotton’s “Montaigne’s Essays”, London, 1743, vol ii. pp. 109-10. “I pray you, ladies, find me if you can a woman who has ever shown herself as constant, patient and true as was this man. They who have experienced the like temptations deem those in the pictures of Saint Antony very small in comparison; for one who can remain chaste and patient in spite of beauty, love, opportunity and leisure, will have virtue enough to vanquish every devil.” “Tis a pity,” said Oisille, “that he did not address his love to a woman possessing as much virtue as he possessed himself. Their amour would then have been the most perfect and honourable that was ever heard of.” “But prithee tell me,” said Geburon, “which of the two trials do you deem the harder?” “I think the last,” said Parlamente, “for resentment is the strongest of all temptations.” Longarine said she thought that the first was the most arduous to sustain, since to keep his promise it was needful he should subdue both love and himself.