I’OVY autrefois tenir à vn Prince, et tresgrand Capitaine, que pour lascheté de cœur vn soldat ne pouuoit estre condamné à mort: luy estant à table fait recit du proces du Seigneur de Veruins, qui fut condamné à mort pour auoir rendu Bouloigne. A la verité c’est raison qu’on face grande difference entre les fautes qui viennent de nostre foiblesse, et celles qui viennent de nostre malice. Car en celles icy nous nous sommes bandez à nostre escient contre les regles de la raison, que nature a empreintes en nous: et en celles là, il semble que nous puissions appeller à garant cette mesme nature pour nous auoir laissé en telle imperfection et deffaillance.
I once heard a prince, and a very great general, maintain that a soldier could not be condemned to death for cowardice; this was at table, when he was told about the trial of the Seigneur de Vervins, who was condemned to death for having surrendered Boulogne. In truth it is right to make a great difference between the faults that come from our weakness and those that come from our malice. For in the latter we have deliberately set ourselves against the rules of reason that nature has imprinted in us; and in the former it seems we can call that same nature to vouch for us, for having left us in such imperfection and frailty.
De maniere que prou de gens ont pensé qu’on ne se pouuoit prendre à nous, que de ce que nous faisons contre nostre conscience: et sur cette regle est en partie fondee l’opinion de ceux qui condamnent les punitions capitales aux heretiques et mescreans: et celle qui establit qu’vn Aduocat et vn Iuge ne puissent estre tenuz de ce que par ignorance ils ont failly en leur charge.
So that many people have thought we could be blamed only for what we do against our conscience. On this rule is founded in part the opinion of those who condemn capital punishment for heretics and unbelievers, and the opinion that an advocate or a judge cannot be held liable for having failed in his office through ignorance.
Mais quant à la coüardise, il est certain que la plus commune façon est de la chastier par honte et ignominie. Et tient-on que cette regle a esté premierement mise en vsage par le legislateur Charondas: et qu’auant luy les loix de Grece punissoyent de mort ceux qui s’en estoyent fuis d’vne bataille: là où il ordonna seulement qu’ils fussent par trois iours assis emmy la place publicque, vestus de robe de femme: esperant encores s’en pouuoir seruir, leur ayant fait reuenir le courage par cette honte. Suffundere malis hominis sanguinem quàm effundere. Il semble aussi que les loix Romaines punissoyent anciennement de mort, ceux qui auoyent fuy.
But as for cowardice, it is certain that the commonest way is to punish it with shame and disgrace. It is held that this rule was first put into practice by the lawgiver Charondas, and that before him the laws of Greece punished with death those who had fled from a battle; whereas he ordained only that they should sit for three days in the public square dressed in women’s clothes, hoping still to make use of them once this shame had brought back their courage. To bring the blood to a man’s cheeks rather than to shed it. It seems also that in ancient times the Roman laws punished with death those who had fled.
Car Ammianus Marcellinus dit que l’Empereur Iulien condemna dix de ses soldats, qui auoyent tourné le dos à vne charge contre les Parthes, à estre degradez, et apres à souffrir mort, suyuant, dit-il, les loix anciennes. Toutes-fois ailleurs pour vne pareille faute il en condemne d’autres, seulement à se tenir parmy les prisonniers sous l’enseigne du bagage. L’aspre chastiement du peuple Romain contre les soldats eschapez de Cannes, et en cette mesme guerre, contre ceux qui accompaignerent Cn. Fuluius en sa deffaitte, ne vint pas à la mort. Si est-il à craindre que la honte les desespere, et les rende non froids amis seulement, mais ennemis.
For Ammianus Marcellinus says that the Emperor Julian condemned ten of his soldiers, who had turned their backs in a charge against the Parthians, to be cashiered and then put to death, following, he says, the ancient laws. Yet elsewhere, for a like fault, he condemns others merely to be kept among the prisoners under the baggage standard. The harsh punishment the Roman people inflicted on the soldiers who escaped from Cannae, and, in that same war, on those who had followed Gnaeus Fulvius in his defeat, did not go as far as death. Yet it is to be feared that shame may drive men to despair and make them not merely cold friends but enemies.
Du temps de nos Peres le Seigneur de Franget, iadis Lieutenant de la compaignie de Monsieur le Mareschal de Chastillon, ayant par Monsieur le Mareschal de Chabannes esté mis Gouuerneur de Fontarabie au lieu de Monsieur du Lude, et l’ayant rendue aux Espagnols, fut condamné à estre degradé de noblesse, et tant luy que sa posterité declaré roturier, taillable et incapable de porter armes: et fut cette rude sentence executee à Lyon. Depuis souffrirent pareille punition tous les Gentils-hommes qui se trouuerent dans Guyse, lors que le Comte de Nansau y entra: et autres encore depuis.
In our fathers’ time the Seigneur de Franget, formerly lieutenant of the company of the Marshal de Châtillon, was made governor of Fuenterrabía by the Marshal de Chabannes in place of Monsieur du Lude. Having surrendered it to the Spaniards, he was condemned to be stripped of his nobility, and both he and his descendants were declared commoners, liable to the taille and incapable of bearing arms; this harsh sentence was carried out at Lyon. Later, all the gentlemen who were in Guise when the Count of Nassau entered it suffered the same punishment, and others again since then.
Toutesfois quand il y auroit vne si grossiere et apparante ou ignorance ou couardise, qu’elle surpassast toutes les ordinaires, ce seroit raison de la prendre pour suffisante preuue de meschanceté et de malice, et de la chastier pour telle.
Yet if there were an ignorance or a cowardice so gross and obvious that it surpassed all ordinary ones, it would be right to take it as sufficient proof of wickedness and malice, and to punish it as such.