Michel de Montaigne

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO

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UiOA/l

FRENCH MEN OF LETTERS

EDITED BY

ALEXANDER JESSUP, Litt.D.

FRENCH MEN OF LETTERS
Edited by Alexander Jbssup, Litt.D.

A Iready published

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE. By
Edward Dowdkn, LL.D., Professor of
English Literature in the University of
Dublin, author of A History of French
Literature , etc.

In preparation

HONORt DE BALZAC. By Ferdi-
nand Brunkt:erk, President of the French
Academy, author of A Manual of the His-
tory of French Literature, etc.

FRANCOIS RABELAIS. By Arthur
TiLLEY, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of
King's College, Cambridge, author of The
Literature of the French Renaissance ,
etc.

Other volumes to follow

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

BY

EDWARD DOWDEN LL.D.

AUTHOR OF

A History of Frcuch Literature

FRENCH MEN OF LETTERS

EDITED BY

ALEXANDER JESSUP, Litt.D.

PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

MDCCCCV

Copyright, 1905
By J. B. LippiNCOTT Company

Published September, 1905

Electrotyped and Printed by
J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. U.S.A.

PREFACE

The study of Montaigne during the nineteenth
century falls into three periods. The somewhat
barren period of the Eulogies (Alogcs), in the
earlier years of the century, was succeeded by a
period of research; documents were discovered;
the facts of Montaigne's life were carefully inves-
tigated; and the great collection of Dr. Payen,
now preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale,
was brought together. Finally, with further re-
search, directed especially to ascertaining the text
of the Essays (Essais) (i 580-1 588-1 595) in
its various forms, came the period when results
were co-ordinated. In this third period the name
of M. Bonnefon is of high distinction. No one
can write on Montaigne without being his debtor.
I desire here to acknowledge my own debt to
many of my predecessors, and in particular to
M. Bonnefon. But M. Bonnefon was able to
assume an acquaintance with the Essays on the
part of his readers which I have not assumed in
those for whom I write; and accordingly I have
had to proportion the parts of this book on a
principle different from that which guided Mon-
taigne's French biographer.

5

PREFACE

All dates of writings given are those of first
publication, unless otherwise stated. The date,
1 580-1 588-1 595, refers to three successive edi-
tions of the Essays. The titles of books and other
writings have been translated into English, ex-
cept in cases where translation would be mislead-
ing; but the original French titles follov/ the
translated titles in parentheses, the first time
each occurs.

I have endeavoured as far as possible to go to
the sources, but my chief source has been the
Essays themselves. I have interwoven them with
my narrative in many places. The Bibliography,
derived almost exclusively from books on my own
shelves, may assure the reader that I have not
written without much preparatory study. What-
ever its merits or defects may be, I believe it
would not be presumptuous to say of this volume
Montaigne's word : " C'est icy un Livre de bonne
foy, Lecteur,"

Edward Dowden.

University of Dublin, December, 1904.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I — Childhood and Education 9

II— The Magistracy and the Court 39

III — Friendship : La BofeTiE 69

IV — From La Boetie's Death to 1570 104

V — Montaigne in the Tower 140

VI — Montaigne among his Books 166

VII— Life in the Chateau 204

VIII — Writing the Essays 229

IX— The Spirit of the Essays 256

X — Montaigne on his Travels 294

XI — Montaigne the Mayor : Closing Years .... 323
Bibliography : A List of Authorities on Mon-
taigne 361

Index 371

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

CHAPTER I

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

Montaigne is still a challenge to criticism. He
has made the public his confidant, and we seem to
know him as well and ill as we know ourselves, or
as we know human nature. He comes to greet us
as a simple Gascon gentleman, frank and loyal, yet
he eludes us at first and much more afterwards.
We imagine that we shall make acquaintance with
an individual, and we find by and by that we have
to study a population of spirits, moods, humours,
tempers. Is it humanity itself, so undulant and
various, with its strength and its weakness, its ele-
vations and its mediocrities, its generosities and
its egoism, its eternal doubt, its eternal credulities,
its sociability and its central solitude, its craving
for action, its longing for repose, its piety and its
mockeries, its wisdom and its humorous follies — is
it humanity itself that we are coming to know
through this curious exemplar of the race? How
shall we draw the lines which change at every mo-
ment ? How shall we capture Proteus, and induce
him to sit for his portrait? And what should a

9

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

portrait of Proteus resemble, whose unity consists
in his being manifold?

Was there an earlier and a later Montaigne?
Did he undergo a philosophical, if not a religious,
conversion? And are some of the seeming —
seeming, but perhaps also real — inconsistencies of
his opinions and his temperament to be explained
as belonging to the successive Montaignes of dif-
ferent epochs? We must attempt to control the
impressions produced on a reader of the Essays by
collating these with the facts of the writer's life,
for the philosopher was also a magistrate, a cour-
tier, a traveller, a man of affairs. Perhaps we
shall find that the sceptic was a believer, if not a
dogmatist; that the lover of retirement was not
without worldly ambition ; that the egoist was a
citizen possessed by a sense of public duty, and
prepared for a certain degree of sacrifice ; that the
seeker for balance and moderation was capable of
passionate enthusiasm ; that the pursuer of the
wise mean was naturally a man of ardour, if not
a man of extremes. To understand Montaigne
aright we must view him not merely as the occu-
pant of the philosophic tower, with its chapel
below, and its Stoics, its Epicureans, its Pyrrhon-
ists in the library above, but also in connection
with his province, his country, and his times.

And what times those were of change, of trou-
ble, of terror, of advances, alarms, retreats ! The

10

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

philosophy of the Middle Age, under whose shel-
ter or whose tyranny man so long found repose,
had crumbled, but the ruins still stood and were
threatening. The first period of the Renaissance
in France was passing into the second, when the
high hopes of dawning science and of a return to
nature were sobered or touched with a sense of
disillusion, when the enthusiasms of classical cul-
ture had somewhat stiffened and hardened into
pedantry, and when the new passion for art and for
beauty had in some degree sunk into the lust of
luxury, with its curiosities of artificial refinement.
Rabelais's cry of cheer, his gross laughter in the
onset, were growing faint. " Do that which you
will" no longer sounded like a complete code of
morals and breviary of wisdom. The Renais-
sance, with its possibilities of a liberal sanity, was
caught in the toils of the urgent religious conten-
tion. A new dogmatism of new interpreters of
the Bible was at odds with the old dogmatism of
the Church. Calvin, ruler of Geneva under
Christ, was geometrising a Protestant theology.
On the other side the bands arrayed on behalf of
the counter-Reformation were accomplishing
themselves in the drill of Loyola and his tactics of
spiritual warfare. The Council of Trent was for-
mulating the inspirations of the Holy Ghost in
chapter and section. Unhappy France must needs
have her wars of religion, illustrated by perfidies,

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

butcheries, rapes, pillage, conflagration. The zeal
of God's House culminated — even if only by ac-
cident— in the St. Bartholomew massacre. Was
it a deliberate design? Was it the chance-medley
of religious fury? " Everywhere," wrote Father
Panicarola in great joy to Rome, " we have seen
rivers of blood, and mountains of dead bodies."
A medal, struck by Pope Gregory XIII., com-
memorated the glorious triumph of the faith.
" He who in our days," says Montaigne, " is but a
parricide and a sacrilegious person is a man of
worth and of honour."

At such a time to be temperate, loyal, truthful,
tolerant, humane was not a little. Not being able
to govern events, a man might find some gain in
governing himself. To plead for justice, probity,
charity, to honour the wise of past ages, to cele-
brate the joy of friendship, to set forth the princi-
ples of a sane education, to study the springs of
good and evil in human nature, to observe, reflect,
and grow wise, to leave for future generations a
treasury of good sense, good temper, good hu-
mour, was perhaps to do much. The tower of
Montaigne might seem a pharos of illumination,
as we look back upon it, in the midst of this wide
welter of passions, crimes, and follies. There he
might bring together a heritage for the better
France of coming years. " I call Montaigne,"
says Sainte-Beuve, in the closing words of one of

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

his studies, " the wisest Frenchman that ever
lived." His wisdom has been an influence making
for sanity during upwards of three centuries.

The wisest of men, as Montaigne was aware,
may have some grains of folly in his composition.
It was a pardonable infirmity that he wished his
family to be considered more honourable from a
social point of view than the facts warranted.
When Joseph Scaliger described the father of
Montaigne as a vendor of herring, he perverted
the truth only by the error of one generation. The
ancestry of the essayist can be traced back to the
early years of the fifteenth century, when his great
grandfather Ramon Eyquem (or Ayquem) was a
considerable merchant in the city of Bordeaux.
He exported wines and sold pastel (woad) and
dried fish. Heir to his maternal uncle Ramon de
Gaujac, and married to an heiress, Isabeau de
Ferraignes, Ramon increased in worldly goods
through his own industry, and added field to field
and house to house. In 1477, when he was half-
way betw'een seventy and eighty years old, he pur-
chased the noble mansion and property of Mon-
taigne and Belbeys, " with the vines, woods, lands,
fields, and mills, thereto pertaining" — a purchase
made rather in the spirit of the founder of a fam-
ily than through any personal ambition or vanity.
The house stood on the right bank of the Dor-

13

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

dogne, in the department of that name, upon an
elevation not remote from the Lidoire, which
winds in a great curve among its sunny meadows
and below its grassy heights. From the terrace a
wide prospect, rich in rural incidents, is visible.
The country breathes an air of tranquillity, and
across the tranquil spaces comes floating now and
again the sound of a bell from some distant
church-spire. The overlord to whom the Seigneur
de Montaigne did homage was the Archbishop of
Bordeaux. A year after his purchase, just as he
was preparing to set forth on a pilgrimage to St.
James of Compostella (ii June, 1478), Ramon
Eyquem died.

His son, Grimon, born about 1450, continued
to maintain the business in the Rue de la Rousselle,
and extended it in various directions. He became
a person of no small importance in Bordeaux, oc-
cupying municipal positions of distinction, which
serve as evidences of a public esteem based upon a
knowledge of his integrity of character and
soundness of judgment. And again a marriage
with the daughter of a wealthy merchant, Grimon
du Four, added to the family dignity and pros-
perity. In 1 5 18 Grimon Eyquem died at the age
of sixty-nine, leaving behind him four sons and
two daughters. The eldest of these sons was the
father of Michel de Montaigne, the Essayist.

So far, in tracing Montaigne's ancestry, we
14

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

have been among members of the prosperous mid-
dle class. Energy, steadfastness, good sense seem
to have been virtues of the race. Our Montaigne,
of the legend — a legend in the formation of
which he himself assisted — is indolent and idle;
he was, in fact, a man of energy like his ancestors ;
even in his retirement his brain at least was inde-
fatigably agile. His retirement was, indeed, it-
self an act of energetic decision; and in his tower,
as year succeeded year, he was steadfast, amid all
the vicissitudes of his thoughts and what he might
style his reveries or whimsies, steadfast in accom-
plishing a considerable task, which was — as our
tasks should be — a great pleasure. The good
sense of a successful merchant, mingling with
other and widely different qualities, is elevated by
Montaigne into the good sense of a moralist and
a philosopher.*

With Montaigne's father, Pierre Eyquem, we
pass from bourgeois surroundings to a wider field
of experience and adventure. In him we find not
merely the middle-class steadfastness, but a cer-
tain originality of character and of ideas. Pierre,
the eldest child of Grimon Eyquem, was born in
1495 ^t Montaigne — the only Eyquem born or

* Montaigne's notion that his ancestry was in part of
EngHsh origin cannot be established as true, but some con-
nections of the kind supposed may have been formed during
the English occupation of Guyenne.

15

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

buried there, however it may have pleased the Es-
sayist to alhide to the birthplace or the tombs of
his ancestors. On December 30, 15 19, Pierre did
homage for his estates, presented his pair of white
gloves, and received the Archbishop's gracious
embrace. Montaigne, who reverenced his father,
has represented him as deficient in the gifts of
education; but, though afterwards he may have
forgotten his classics, Latin verses written by
Pierre were printed when he was a lad of seven-
teen years of age, and at a later time he was famil-
iar with Italian and Spanish. His younger broth-
ers, Pierre the younger, a churchman, and Ray-
mond, advocate and councillor, were men of
distinguished culture. It was a time when the
Italian wars opened up brilliant possibilities for
an adventurous spirit. Pierre, though low of
stature, was well-shaped, full of force and dex-
terity, dark-complexioned, pleasant to look on, a
lover of manly exercises. He chose to open his
oyster, the world, with a sword rather than a pen.
France had need of gallant service from her sons
both before and after the disastrous battle of
Pavia. We do not know the precise date at which
Pierre Eyquem's sieges, surprises, encounters, re-
treats began, but we know that he was in Italy
during many years and that by January, 1528, he
had returned to France. His son assures us that
he kept a journal of the incidents and events of

16

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

his life as a soldier; unhappily no such manu-
script is now known to be in existence. He
brought back from Italy a love of culture, a faith
in certain new ideas, and a profound reverence —
at which his son smiles, but in no unkindly spirit
— for men of learning, " sacred persons", whose
sentences he regarded as oracles, and to whom his
hospitable doors were ever open.

On his way home from Italy Pierre Eyquem,
whose adventurous life had included no dishon-
orable love-adventure, was married at the age
of thirty-three (15 January, 1528) to Antoinette
de Louppes, daughter of Pierre de Louppes, a
wealthy merchant of Toulouse. The original
name of the family was Lopes; it came from
Villanova, near Toledo, and there is little doubt
that its members, settled in Toulouse and Bor-
deaux as merchants and physicians, were among
the expelled Jews, who had embraced a real or a
professed Christian faith under the stress of per-
secution— the " New Christians", as they were
commonly designated. Thus a Spanish and a
Jewish strain qualified the Gascon blood of Mon-
taigne. It was not without an influence on his
mind that diversity should be his birthright. His
temper could not but be affected by the fact that
the religious differences of the time existed in his
own family, among those whom he esteemed and
loved. His father was a devout member of the
2 17

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Roman Communion. His mother not improbably
adhered to the Reformed Faith, adopted by her
father and her uncle. That Thomas, Seigneur de
Beauregard, one of his brothers, and Jeanne, his
sister, who married the councillor Richard de Les-
tonnac, were Protestants is certain ; perhaps a
second sister held the same creed. The wars of
religion were brought, in seriousness but without
excessive bitterness, into the domestic circle. The
facts of his own household cannot but have stim-
ulated— stimulated and also checked — a critical
spirit in matters of religion. Tolerance may have
been accepted as a part of household piety. And
perhaps the heresy of a brother and a sister may
have served to point out his own special role of
theological originality, as something other than
heresy, a special kind of orthodoxy, a transcen-
dental faith, which might act as a happy substitute
for scepticism, an originality of docility and sub-
mission which allowed him to pursue his own
ideas in a less exalted region of the air with singu-
lar independence. How to be orthodox with the
utmost economy of force was a problem skilfully
solved by Montaigne.

While attached to his seigneurial property of
Montaigne, Pierre Eyquem often occupied his
house in the Rue de Rousselle ; though the heredi-
tary smell of dried fish may now have grown faint,
he was merchant enough to sell in Bordeaux the

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

wine of his own vineyards. His fellow citizens
recognised his integrity, his disinterestedness, and
his vigour in public affairs, and he occupied suc-
cessively all the chief municipal offices from jurat
(town -councillor) to sub -mayor (1536) and
mayor (1554 to 1556). Pierre Eyquem accepted
his public duties in the spirit of serious diligence,
" I very well remember when a boy," writes Mon-
taigne, " to have seen him in his old age cruelly
tormented in mind about these vexing public af-
fairs, forgetting the gentle aspect (le doulx air)
of his own house, to which the infirmity of his
years had for long previously attached him, the
management of his concerns, and his health ; de-
spising his life, which he thought to lose, engaged
as he was, on behalf of others, upon long and
painful journeys.*

On one of these journeys to Paris, the object
of which was the recovery of certain forfeited
privileges of the citizens of Bordeaux, Pierre took
as his eloquent assistants a number of pipes of the
country's wine, v/hich he distributed among those
in powder with the happiest result. A man of lim-
ited education but with an ardent faith in learn-
ing, he occupied himself much with the advance-
ment of education in the city, especially in con-
nection with the recently founded College of

* Essays, III, 10.
19

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Guyenne (1533). Under the principalship of the
distinguished scholar, Andre de Gouvea, a " new
Christian" of Portuguese origin, it became the
best school in France; and it was Pierre, as sub-
mayor, who had handed to Gouvea (1536) his
letters of naturalisation. " Such was he," his son
goes on, " and this humour of his proceeded from
a great goodness of nature; never was there a
spirit more charitable or more devoted to the peo-
ple (poptdaire)."

Bordeaux was Pierre's field of public action;
but Montaigne, with its "doidx air", was the
home of his intimate affection. He was con-
stantly busy altering, improving, adding to his
cherished possession :

" My father took a delight in building at Montaigne,
where he was born ; and in all the ordering of domestic
affairs I love to follow his example and rules, and I would
engage those who succeed me to do the same as far as I
am able. Could I do better for him, I would ; I have my
pride in knowing that his will still operates and acts
through me. God forbid that through my handling I
should let slip any shadow of life which I could render to
so good a father ! When I have concerned myself to finish
some old fragment of wall, or to repair some piece of ill-
constructed building, truly it has been more out of respect
for his design than for any satisfaction of rny own." *

At the close of 1554 Pierre Eyquem obtained
permission from his suzerain, the Archbishop, to

* Essays, III, 9.
20

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

rebuild the chateau, and render it sufficiently
strong to resist any sudden assault, such as might
not improbably be attempted in that time of social
and political disturbance. There was a rare com-
bination of great energy with great gentleness in
Pierre's character; in his bearing a sweet gravity
and modesty were apparent ; he was " mon-
strously punctual" in keeping his word. In old
age he still remained active. " I have seen him,"
writes his son, " when three-score make scorn of
our agility, throw himself in his furred gown on
horseback, make the circuit of the table on his
thumb; and seldom would he mount to his cham-
ber without taking three or four stairs at a
time." *

Montaigne's father died, i8 June, 1568, at the
age of seventy-two. His memory remained as
one of his son's most precious possessions. He
preserved the long wands or rods which the old
man was accustomed to carry in his walks; he
dressed in black or white because to do so was his
father's habit; and when the old cloak worn by
Pierre was thrown about him as he rode, " I
seem," he says, with an outbreak of manly tender-
ness, " to wrap myself up in my father." The
widowed mother of Montaigne for long survived
her husband, and survived also, by several years,

* Essays, II, 2.
21

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

her son, the Essayist. She died, 23 July, 1601, at
a great old age, seventy-three years from the date
of her marriage. In her will she speaks with an
honest pride of her prudent and successful domes-
tic economy.

" I was born between eleven o'clock and noon-
tide, on the last day of February, 1533, as we
reckon at present, beginning the year with Jan-
uary." Thus, with all precision, Montaigne re-
cords the fact. The place of his birth was the
noble house of Montaigne. He was the third
child of his parents, but of those who survived the
eldest; the earlier children had probably died in
their infancy.* Following a practice not infre-
quently adopted, Pierre Eyquem chose as godpar-
ents of the boy persons of the humblest rank, and
from the name of an unknown godfather it is sup-
posed that the Christian name — Michel — was de-
rived, f His father's wish was to attach his son
to the common people, to make him have a care
rather, as Montaigne puts it, " for him who
stretches his arms to me than for him who turns
his back upon me." With the same intention, and
also in the hope of making the boy hardy, Pierre

* The statement here made gives the conclusion generally
accepted, after much discussion.

t M. Bonnefon notices that Montesquieu in Guyenne and
Buffon in Bourgogne were held at the baptismal font by
poor folk.

22

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

sent the infant from the cradle to a poor village
on his estate — conjectured to be Papessus — to be
nursed by a peasant, and reared with the utmost
simplicity. The result of such an experiment
might have been to give Montaigne a distaste for
humble ways of living; but, as a fact, the end
answered his father's expectations, and Mon-
taigne all through his writings shows a compas-
sionate interest in the life of the peasantry and a
respect for their manly virtue. He remained
with his foster-mother for some time after he
had been weaned, and acquired a hardiness in
the matter of diet which was of service to him
in later years.

Pierre Eyquem was a man accessible to new
ideas and disposed to put such ideas into practice.
His son gives an account of a project conceived by
him of a central agency or bureau of exchange in
every great city, where wants could be registered
and supplied, and by means of which situations
could be sought and filled. His ideas on education
were not only of a novel kind, but, in the instance
of little Michel, were carried into effect. At a
time when paternal authority was commonly exer-
cised with harshness, Pierre Eyquem tried the
discipline of gentleness. At a time when the ar-
gument of the rod determined all differences be-
tween father and son, he hung up the rod — which
was only to be employed on the rarest occasions,

23

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

and with a sparing hand — and chose to rule by
love. In Montaigne's own opinion there are only
two faults which ought to be sternly checked and,
if possible, uprooted in childhood — lying and ob-
stinacy; these, if once permitted to grow into
habits, become, he believed, irreclaimable vices.
The offence of lying, the greater vice of the two,
he treats less as a breach of divine law than as
treason against humanity. Man is a sociable
being, and falsehood is an evasion of the duty
and the delight of frank communication. " How
much less sociable," he exclaims, " is false speak-
ing than silence." Yet every little fault, spring-
ing up even in infancy, Montaigne felt, has in it
a threat for future years. The petty cruelties of
a boy are not to be encouraged by a mother as
tokens of a manly temper. A father must not
allow his son to domineer over a peasant or a
servant, nor to overreach a playfellow by some
dishonourable ingenuity. For his own part, Mon-
taigne had the happiness to be brought up to a
plain, straightforward way of dealing with oth-
ers; the habits of openness and integrity became
an instinctive part of his later life.

Pierre Eyquem had consulted those sacred
persons, men of learning, whose acquaintance he
had sought in Italy, and afterw.ards at Mon-
taigne, and they had advised him to train up a
child in all sweetness and liberty, without rigour

24

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

or constraint, S(^ that the love of knowledge might
be a spontaneous and happy blossoming of the fac-
ulties. It is almost a symbol of the whole process
that every morning the boy was lifted out of the
depth of a child's sleep by no rude hand, but
gently, at the invitation of some musical instru-
ment ; the tender cells of the brain were not to be
shattered and the morning spoilt, but a harmoni-
ous mood should meet the harmony of the widen-
ing light.

His advisers had assured Montaigne's good
father that the time spent in laboriously learning
the tongues was the sole cause why the modems
do not obtain the grandeur of soul and perfection
of knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
" I do not, however," comments the Essayist,
smiling a little at his father's simplicity, " believe
that to be the only cause."

" While I was still at nurse" — so Montaigne recounts the
process of the experiment in education — " and before my
tongue was loosed in speech, he gave me in charge to a
German [probably Horstanus], who since died a famous
physician in France, wholly ignorant of our language and
very well versed in Latin. This man, whom he had sent
for expressly, and who was very highly paid, had me con-
tinually in his arms. He had with him two others, less
learned, to attend upon me, and relieve the first. They
spoke to me in no other language than Latin. As to the
rest of the household, it was an inviolable rule that neither
my father himself, nor my mother, nor valet, nor chamber-
maid should utter anything in my company but such Latin

25

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

words as each had learnt in order to prattle with me.
The gain to all of them was wonderful ; my father and
my mother learnt enough Latin to understand it, and to
use it themselves when there was need, as also did the
servants who chiefly waited upon me. In short, we latin-
ised at such a rate that it overflowed upon our villages all
round, where there still survive, having taken root through
custom, many Latin terms for workmen and their tools.
As for myself, I was over six years old before I understood
more of French or Perigordin than I did of Arabic; and
without art, without book, without grammar or rule, with-
out the rod and without a tear, I had learnt Latin quite as
pure as my master's, for I had not the means of mingling
or corrupting it. If a theme was given me, as is the way
in schools, they gave it to others in French, but with me it
had to be given in bad Latin to be turned into good. . . .
As to Greek, of which I have almost no understanding, my
father purposed to have it taught me by art, but in a new
fashion, by way of sport and recreative exercise ; we rolled
about our declensions, like those, who, with games upon a
checker-board, learn arithmetic and geometry." *

That the result of his father's method did not
in the end quite answer his expectations was
caused, Montaigne supposes, partly by the fact
that it was not persisted in for a sufficiently long
time, partly by the fact that the scholar was nat-
urally "heavy, soft, and lethargic." Sound of
constitution he was; reasonably good-natured
and tractable ; but he could not be roused even to
play. And yet underneath this heavy complex-
ion he nourished bold imaginings and opinions

* Essays, I, 25.
26

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

beyond his years. " What I saw," he says, " I
saw aright"; but the slow-witted boy seemed to
advance no further than he was led ; and, to make
matters worse, he suffered from an incredible de-
fect of memory. Roger Ascham, a teacher of ex-
perience, has observed that tough and tardy wits
are not the worst.

The judgment of Pierre Eyquem's friends and
neighbours was adverse to his experiment in edu-
cation, and the good man yielded to public opin-
ion. At the age of six years Michel was sent to
the College of Guyenne, then a celebrated school,
presided over by distinguished teachers. The prin-
cipal, Andre de Gouvea, had come from the Col-
lege of Sainte-Barbe in Paris, in the year 1534,
bringing with him a staff of eminent professors.
It was essentially a grammar school, having as its
special, though not its exclusive, object the study
of Latin. The course extended over seven years
or upwards, beginning with the elements of gram-
mar, and rising at the close to the study of ancient
history and that of rhetoric, with declamations in
the Latin tongue. Greek was reserved for schol-
ars of the more advanced classes. Cicero, and
again Cicero, was for all scholars the staple com-
modity, after the milk for babes had been thor-
oughly assimilated. But this perpetual Cicero-
ising was tempered by plays of Terence, and by
portions of Ovid and Virgil. In consideration of

27

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

his exceptional knowledge of Latin, Montaigne
was at once placed in a class above that which his
age would naturally indicate as suitable. Several
of his masters afterwards assured him that, per-
ceiving Latin to come to his lips as a child with
perfect readiness, they, who could not but pick
and choose their words, were timid of entering
into discourse with him.

Looking back from his later years upon his
course of training, Montaigne hardly does jus-
tice to a system to which he probably owed more
than he was aware. He declares that his Latin
grew corrupt at school, and that, after seven years
of study, he brought with him from the college no
kind of advantage of which he could honestly
boast. Too much time, he thought, was spent
over words ; the memory was overburdened ; the
judgment was exercised little, or not at all. But,
in truth, few other things are so important to us
as words — the tools we have to handle during our
entire lifetime — and the judgment can be little
exercised until the mind, putting to good use the
memory, has possessed itself of a certain body of
facts, on which the judgment may go to work.
The great defect of Montaigne's education was
its neglect of scientific knowledge and scientific
method. His writings might have lost some-
thing, but w^ould have gained more, if his sinu-
osities of meditation had sometimes only served

28

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

to disguise the processes of exact and progressive
thought.

Beside the teachers of the regular school hours,
private tutors, chosen from among those teachers
or from outside the college, were secured for
Michel by the affectionate care of his father.
Pierre Eyquem insisted upon the knowledge of
Greek as a condition of their fitness.* Among
these were Nicolas Grouchy, author of a trea-
tise, De Comitiis Romanorum; Guillaume Gue-
rente, who wrote a commentary upon Aristotle;
the great Scottish poet and scholar, George
Buchanan ; and at a considerably later time, Marc
Antoine Muret, " whom both France and Italy,"
says Montaigne, '' have acknowledged to be the
best orator of his time." Buchanan had fled from
Scotland, where his mockery of the Franciscans
had excited hostility against him. In Bordeaux
his satirical spirit again brought him into trouble,
— now with the Dominicans — and he is said to
have sought and found shelter for a time in Pierre
Eyquem's chateau of Montaigne. The influence
of Muret, still a youth, but one of extraordinary

* Montaigne's sister, Mme. de Lestonnac, it is related,
was able to follow the Greek of a councillor of Bordeaux,
who hoped to convey secretly, in that learned tongue, some
unworthy advice to her husband ; she rose to the occasion,
and scolded the ill adviser out of her doors with Homeric
vituperation.

29

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

and brilliant attainments, may have tended to give
some of that license to Montaigne's tongue which
he indulges, and tries to justify, in the Essays.
Buchanan, Guerente, and Muret were authors of
Latin tragedies, and with the approval of Gouvea,
tliese were presented " with great dignity" by the
students. " I had no little assurance of counte-
nance," writes Montaigne, " and flexibility of
voice and gesture in adapting myself to any dra-
matic part." By the time that he was twelve years
old, he had played the leading parts in many of
these tragedies, and was looked upon as one of
the best actors. Montaigne's awakening to liter-
ature came in his seventh or eighth year, and, as
so often happens, through no regular instruction,
but by a private and solitary experience, and
almost by a happy accident. The story is best
related in his own words :

" The first taste I had for books came to me from the
pleasure I found in the fables of Ovid's Metamorphoses;
for, being about seven or eight years old, I withdrew my-
self from every pleasure in order to read them; so much
the more because this was my mother tongue, and the book
the easiest I had known, and the best suited by its matter
to my tender age. For the Lancelots of the Lake, the
Amadis, the Huons of Bordeaux, and such farrago of
books, in which childhood finds diversion, I had never
heard even their names — nor do I yet know their substance
— so exact was my discipline ! I thereupon grew more
indifferent to the study of my prescribed tasks ; and uncom-
monly lucky it was that I had to do with a tutor of in-

30

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

telligence, who knew how to connive cleverly at this de-
bauch of mine, and at others like it ; for thus at full speed
I ran through Virgil's /Eneid, and then Terence, and then
Plautus, and some Italian comedies, allured ever by the
sweetness of the subject. . . . He bore himself discreetly,
seeming to take no notice ; he whetted my appetite, per-
mitting me to devour those books only on the sly, and
keeping me in an easy way to the other regular studies." *

But for this indulgent tutor Montaigne declares
that he might have carried away from school, as
most young gentlemen do, nothing save a hatred
of books.

Montaigne's views on education are set forth
in the twenty-fifth essay of the First Book. If
any one would make acquaintance not with the
sceptic but with the ardent believer, let him read
this essay. It is the utterance of no weary
doubter, reduced to universal indifference, but of
a man of enthusiastic and joyous faith. It rises
in some passages to a noble, virile eloquence, be-
coming indeed a hymn — but a hymn touched at
times with humour — in honour of a wise and
happy sanity. The essay is addressed to the
Countess de Gurson, who bore an illustrious name
— Diane de Foix. She looked forward to the
birth of her first child, who, Montaigne smilingly
asserts, must surely be a boy, for she is " too gen-
erous to begin otherwise than with a male." The

* Essays, I, 25.
31

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Essayist's words of counsel to the mother form
the best instruction he can give to " the Httle man
that threatens her shortly with a happy birth."
The writer's preluding of self-depreciation, half-
humorous yet entirely sincere, is in his inimitable
manner of easy, amiable, and overflowing confes-
sion. Then he addresses himself to his subject —
The Institution of Children. The prognostics
derived from a child's inclination for this or that
pursuit need not be too seriously regarded. Give
him such studies as are best, and he will become
what nature designed him to be. Choose for the
boy a tutor who has rather a " well-made" than a
" well-filled" head. Such a teacher will exercise
the child's faculties instead of filling his memory
with words and little pellets of indigested facts.
He will encourage the pupil to examine things for
himself rather than to accept statements upon au-
thority. He will allow him to perceive the diver-
sity of opinions on many topics, and if he remains
in uncertainty, is it ill done that he should be
instructed in that important part of human con-
duct— how to doubt?

Montaigne's ideal of education is Socratic and
Platonic in its aiming at life and practice. He
was familiar, of course, in Amyot's translation,
with the treatise on education attributed, probably
erroneously, to Plutarch. From such thinkers he
could not but learn to admire a method of train-

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

ing which develops the whole of our humanity,
body and soul, with a view to conduct rather than
with a view to science. The one science in his
eyes worth knowing thoroughly is that of living
well and dying well. But if classical antiquity lay
behind Montaigne, he was also the offspring of
the Renaissance. Erasmus, before Montaigne,
had protested against the harshness of the disci-
pline of the Middle Age. Rabelais loved knowl-
edge for its ow^n sake with an enthusiasm un-
known to Montaigne. He had been carried away
by a glorious intoxication of knowledge, and in
his vast encyclopaedic scheme of education lay an
anticipation of what generations of men, but
hardly any individual man, might attain, an an-
ticipation of what in a measure they have since at-
tained. Montaigne is more exclusively the moral-
ist, and perhaps a moralist who grasps too eagerly
at immediate gains for character and conduct.
From the mere point of view of science he is some-
what of the dilettante; and, although the little
gentleman whom he would form may learn what
is valuable from a bricklayer or a peasant, he is
essentially an aristocrat. There is, accordingly, in
Montaigne's ideal a certain remoteness from the
devotion to knowledge proper to the scholar or
the man of science. He, like Shakespeare, views
the pedant with a humorous disdain, as one whose
brain is squeezed into a narrow compass by a
3 33

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

superincumbent weight of erudition, or as a seed-
picker who holds knowledge on the tip of the
tongue, or as a mendicant who begs alms from
the volmnes upon his shelves. Even the learned
Turnebus, true scholar and no pedant, did not
dress simply, as a gentleman should. Montaigne
could even speak disrespectfully of the first aorist
of tupto. The learning that he valued is not that
which is tied to the soul, but that which is incorpo-
rated with a man's life and being. He is the moral-
ist rather than, in the widest sense, the humanist.
Yet a humanist Montaigne is; and for the sake
of a robust and completely accomplished human-
ity, he can relax his morals, applauding even an
occasional excess in debauch as something which
a gentleman should not indeed seek, but when
need arises, gallantly sustain ; something in which
he ought not to show himself an inferior. The
reaction against the scholastic methods of the
Middle Age, its ergotisms, its endless dialectic,
and the reaction also against its ideals of almost
superhuman virtue are conspicuous throughout
the essay on Education. Asceticism and authority,
as it has been put by M. Hemon, comprehend the
whole of the Middle Age ; humanity and individ-
ualism comprehend the whole of Montaigne.

Not authority, but wisdom — wisdom, no mat-
ter from what source obtained, if only it be genu-
ine, held as a living possession, and applied to a
34

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

man's best uses ! The honey-bee makes his own
honey, whether it be from marjoram or thyme
that the sweetness comes. Therefore the under-
standing must have Hberty, and roam abroad.
Not merely books, but all the incidents of life
should be our instructors; "a page's roguish
trick, a servant's stupid blunder, a conversation at
table" are so many excellent occasions for learn-
ing. Especially whatever whets and brightens the
mind is to be sought, and hence our young gen-
tleman must travel into foreign countries; not,
indeed, to be qualified to report how many paces
Santa Rotonda is in circuit, or how much longer
and broader is Nero's face in a statue than upon
some medal, but to observe the humours, man-
ners, customs, and to study the laws of various
peoples. Bodily exercises are not to be mere pleas-
ant sport; they should include real strain and
risk, so that a man may learn betimes to endure
hardness. Converse with others should be not for
self-display, but for the acquisition of intellectual
gains, and therefore modesty, and sometimes
silence, are much to be commended in a youth. In
argument let him avoid petty subtleties, and
choose to be bravely honest, loyally submitting to
truth at the first moment he perceives it to tell
against him, even though his adversary has not
caught at the advantage. In company let him
have an eye and ear in every corner ; at the upper

35

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

end of the table the fine folk may only praise the
arras or commend the wine, while at the inferior
part of the board some humble guest may utter a
good word. Let him be inquisitive after many
things — a noble house, a fair fountain, a battle-
field, an eminent man. And as to books, let him
choose those which bring him into communion with
great spirits of the past ages, reading not to learn
the date of the ruin of Carthage, but to study
the manner of life of Hannibal and Scipio, and
upon these to try his judgment. To one who thus
knows how to interpret it aright the most seem-
ingly insignificant fact may become significant.

Some sufficient portion of the true wisdom of
life having been won, all other things, all learning
and science, law, physics, geometry, rhetoric, may
with discretion be added to this ; but this remains
the one thing needful. Such divine philosophy is
not harsh and crabbed, as fools suppose; it is
charming, and even gay. " Who has masked
philosophy with this false visage, pale and hid-
eous? There is nothing more gay, more galliard,
more frolic, and, I had like to have said, more
wanton; she preaches nothing but feasting and
jollity; an aspect melancholic and inanimate
shows that she does not inhabit there." A wise
and joyous soul will temper the body also to sanity
and joy : " the express sign of wisdom is a con-
stant cheerfulness; her state is like that of trans-

36

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

lunary things, always serene. . . . She has virtue
for her end, which is not, as the schools declare,
planted upon the summit of a broken, rugged,
and inaccessible mountain ; those who have ap-
proached her find her, on the contrary, to be seated
in a fair, fertile, and flourishing plain, whence
she clearly discerns all things below." Such is
Montaigne's ideal of human attainment, and, gay
and galliard as the vision may be, it is not a facile
virtue that he commends, but a virtue transformed
through virile passion and effort into a delight.
If fortune fail, and fortitude be required, wisdom
can create a better and a higher fortune based
upon eternal foundations. But should a pupil
shrink back to ease from the toil and sweat of the
battle, *' I see no other remedy," says the moral-
ist, " than to bind him 'prentice in some good
town, that he may learn to make minced pies, ay,
though he were the son of a duke." This tune
goes manly.

The end of all is action. Therefore that
hydroptic thirst for knowledge, of which our poet
Donne speaks, is not to be indulged ; a man may
be " embruted" by such a greed of intellect. Our
pupil may learn philosophy in a garden, at a table,
amid his diversions; so wisdom will gently and
unawares insinuate itself into the soul. It is a
man — soul and body in one — we seek to form,
and the method should be sweet and also severe,

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

or rather both in hving unison^ tine severe doul-
ceur, a severe sweetness. Let the school be no
cruel house of correction for captive youth ;
rather let it be hung with pictures of Joy and
Gladness, of Flora and the Graces. Make a boy
hardy by other instruments than the bloody
stumps of the birch rod ; inure him to heat and
cold, to wind and sun, and to dangers which he
ought to despise. Let him embody true wisdom
in deeds rather than learn it by rote to amuse him-
self with words. As for words, they will rise up
quickly enough and aright upon the vivid percep-
tion of things. You may receive, if you please,
an admirable lesson in rhetoric from a fishwife of
the Petit Pont. Quicken wit, invention, judg-
ment, and then a sinewy, muscular way of
speech, the soldierlike style, straight-flung words
and few, such as Montaigne especially loves, will
come inevitably, and as it were, by nature.

So Montaigne sets forth his doctrine of educa-
tion. If the programme of Rabelais, the sanguine
man of science, be placed side by side with these
counsels of the discreet, yet ardent, moralist, and
if both be conceived as reduced within practicable
limits by the experience and moderation of
Ramus, we shall have before us a view of the most
advanced ideas of the French Renaissance with
reference to a matter which had become one of
the great concerns of the period.

38

CHAPTER II

THE MAGISTRACY AND THE COURT

At the age of thirteen Montaigne had com-
pleted his course at the College of Guyenne. Lit-
tle is known as to his manner of life during the
ten years which followed his school-days, years
of the highest importance in the formation of his
mind. We leave Montaigne a child, and find him
again a man qualified to undertake the duties of
the magistracy. Little is known ; much has been
conjectured. But the joy and profit of conjectural
biography is chiefly for the biographer, and more
especially for that happy biographer who by a
new conjecture triumphs over the latest theory of
a predecessor.

It seems probable, however, that when Mon-
taigne's studies as a schoolboy were ended he
continued to attend the more advanced teaching
given in the precincts of the College of Guyenne,
which was recognised as part of the instruction
in the Faculty of Arts of the University of Bor-
deaux. M. Bonnefon has pointed to a passage in
the essay on Education, which describes the or-
dinary process of training, as being not improba-
bly a record of the Essayist's own experience:

39

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

" We are kept for four or five years learning
words, and tacking them together into clauses ; as
many more in spreading them abroad so as to
form an extended body consisting of four or five
parts ; and yet again five years at least in learning
to mix them and twist them together in a subtle
fashion." That is to say, grammar is succeeded
by rhetoric, and rhetoric by dialectic or law.*

There is no doubt that Montaigne, a boy be-
tween fifteen and sixteen years old, was present
in Bordeaux during the eventful days of the re-
volt of the Gabelle in 1548. Taking the detested
salt-tax as a symbol of all their miseries, the in-
surgents gathered at Saintonge, where the party
of the Reformed Faith was strong. Under the
leadership of the Sieur de Puymoreau they speed-
ily became masters of the whole district. A
formidable party, commanded by Talemagne,
marched upon Bordeaux, conferred at Libourne
with the municipal councillors, and stirred up the
disaffected citizens. The tocsin pealed from the
Hotel de Ville, the streets were filled with uproar
and tumult, the arsenal was seized, and the arms
were distributed among the insurgents. Tristan
de Moneins, lieutenant-general in Guyenne under
the King of Navarre, had been summoned from

* It was probably at this time that Montaigne received
instruction from Muret.

40

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

Bayonne, and held the Castle. At the entreaty of
the President de La Chassaigne he compHed with
the demands of the people, and came forth to con-
fer with them. The boy Montaigne was an on-
looker, and the twenty-third essay of the First
Book relates the event of which he had been a wit-
ness. Moneins advanced towards the insurgents
with a kind of submissive amiability in his aspect.
He ought, says Montaigne, to have met the crowd
with a militaiy bearing, full of confidence and
vigour, and have addressed them with a gracious
severity. Alarmed by the threatening faces and
gestures around him, and also by the accident of
an ill omen — for his nose happened to bleed —
Moneins faltered, his voice was shaken, tears filled
his eyes, and, throwing his gold chain to the mob,
he attempted to withdraw. Then the fury of the
crowd broke upon him, overv/helmed him, and in
a moment all was over. Having chosen his part,
says Montaigne, he should have played it out res-
olutely to the end. '' There is nothing to be less
hoped for from the roused monster than humanity
or gentleness ; it is much more capable of rever-
ence or fear."

Montaigne was perhaps a witness also of the
vengeance taken upon the revolters, and upon the
city by the Constable de Montmorenci, a kinsman
of the murdered Moneins, and by his victorious
army. The axe, the cord, the wheel, the stake

41

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

made short work with the leaders of revolt ; they
were drawn by horses, decapitated, impaled,
broken, burnt. Talemagne was crowned with
red-hot iron before his limbs were broken. The
pleasure of vengeance was extended over some
four or five weeks. The wife of one threatened
victim of distinction sued for mercy from the Con-
stable; he gave her his word to spare the hus-
band if she would gratify his passion for her
beauty ; she yielded ; after which he led her to a
window to look upon her husband's mangled body
and dripping head. The charters of Bordeaux
were publicly burnt in a fire which the jurats were
themselves compelled to light; the privileges of
the city were annulled; the bells which had rung
to revolt were destroyed ; not one remained to tell
the hours; the citizens were commanded to up-
root the hastily buried body of Moneins with their
bare hands as the preliminary to a pompous fu-
neral. It was to recover some of the forfeited
privileges of the city that Pierre Eyquem, with
his pipes of generous wine, journeyed to Paris as
mayor of Bordeaux in 1556.

Montaigne being designed for the magistracy,
it was necessary that he should take out his
courses in law. The University of Bordeaux,
founded in 1441, was not one of the great edu-
cational institutions of France. Its law-school
had no high repute and was but scantily attended.

42

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

But at no great distance, in the city where his
mother had Hved in her maiden days, was a most
distinguished school of law, that of the Univer-
sity of Toulouse. ]\Iany of its students were
drawn from the city of Bordeaux. No docu-
mentary evidence exists to prove that Montaigne
was one of these students, but the probability that
this was the case is considerable. His writings
indicate a personal acquaintance with several of
the professors ; of the students at Toulouse, dur-
ing the period when he may have been in attend-
ance upon the lectures, several are known to have
been connected with him in later years. In 1547
the illustrious Cujas gave his first lecture in the
law-school, and fitienne Pasquier, who in Paris
had been a pupil of Hotman, remembered the day
on which he listened to that lecture as one of the
great days of his youth. Pierre Eyquem may
have desired that his son should profit by the
teaching of a master so distinguished. It is cer-
tain that Montaigne was in Toulouse during his
early years. He met there, he tells us, in the
house of a wealthy old man his physician, Simon
Thomas, who advised the invalid to encourage
the visits of young Montaigne, believing that
the fresh complexion, sprightliness, and vigour
of the youth might, through the influence of
imagination, affect favourably the health of his
patient.

43

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The day's work of a diligent law-student at
Toulouse in the midmost years of the sixteenth
century is described in a passage of the Memoirs
of Henri de Mesmes, which has been often quoted
but which is too interesting to be omitted here.

" In September, 1545," he writes, " I was sent to Tou-
\ louse with my brother to study law. . . . We used to rise

ifrom bed at four o'clock, and, having prayed to God, we
went at five o'clock to our studies, our big books under our
arms, our inkhorns and candles in our hands. We heard

■ all the lectures without intermission till ten o'clock rang;
then we dined, after having hastily compared, during a
half-hour, our notes of the lectures. After dinner we read,
as a recreation, Sophocles or Aristophanes or Euripides,
and sometimes Demosthenes, Cicero, Virgil, or Horace.

■ At one o'clock to our studies ; at five back to our dwelling-
place, there to go over and verify passages cited in the lec-

; tures, until six. Then supper, and after supper we read
, Greek or Latin. On holy days we went to high mass and
\ vespers ; the rest of the day, a little music and walks."

It will be noticed that the study of jurispru-
dence at Toulouse was, in the instance of Henri
de Mesmes, allied with the study of the humani-
ties. This was equally, or in a higher degree, the
case with Montaigne's future friend, fitienne de la
Boetie at the University of Orleans. Such an
" intermarriage" of studies is noted by Pasquier
as characteristic of the period. It formed, indeed,
an essential feature of the new learning as applied
to legal education. The Roman law was not to be
merely repeated by rote ; it was to be understood

44

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

first from the point of view proper to philology;
second, from the historical point of view; and
again to a certain extent from the point of view of
a wider and more speculative philosophy. We
can hardly suppose that at any season of his life
Montaigne was enamoured of studies in which
grammatical discussions and curiosities of inter-
pretative subtlety often rather trammelled than
advanced the business of life. Certainly in his
mature years he had none of the enthusiasm of the
legist, and he regarded the administration of the
law in a spirit of criticism which leaned towards
contempt. He held that the laws of a country
should be obeyed " not because they are just, but
because they are laws" ; this, he adds, is the mysti-
cal foundation of their authority. " How often,"
he cries, " have I done myself a manifest injustice
to avoid the hazard of having yet a worse done
me by the judges, after an age of vexations, dirty
and vile practices, more antagonistic to my nature
than fire or the rack." When a man has lost his
action at law, he ought to rejoice, Montaigne
thinks, as when he has lost a cough. " In a happy
hour I may say it," he writes in one of the essays
of 1588, " I am to this day a virgin from all suits
at law."

Men speak of natural law, the laws of nature,
but what are these ? There is no so-called law of
nature that is not rejected by the established laws

45

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

of this country or of that ; yet there can be no
other evidence that it is natural — so argues the
Essayist — except the universal consent of man-
kind. To meet an infinite diversity of cases, laws
are multiplied to infinity ; yet each case differs in
various circumstances from every other, and their
diversity is never really overtaken by the laws :
" There is little relation between our actions,
which are in perpetual mutation, and the laws,
which are fixed and immobile; the laws most to
be desired are the rarest, the simplest, and the
most general ; and yet I believe it would be better
to have none at all than to have laws as numerous
as we actually have." Add to the multiplicity of
laws and the variety of conflicting customs the
fact that laws are expressed and set forth in a
jargon the strangest and most perplexing. Glosses
and interpretations crowd one upon another, and
the interpretations require to be themselves inter-
preted : " In a science so infinite, depending on
the authority of so many opinions, and dealing
with a subject so arbitrary, it cannot but happen
that an extreme confusion of judgments should
arise."

" Why is it," Montaigne asks, " that our common speech,
so easy for all other uses, becomes obscure and unintelli-
gible in contract and testament? And that he who so
clearly expresses himself in whatever else he says or writes,
cannot here find any mode of utterance that does not fall
into doubt and contradiction — why is this, unless it be that

46

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

the princes of that art, applying themselves with a peculiar
attention to cull out solemn words and frame elaborate
clauses, have so weighed each syllable, so exactly hunted
out every point of connection, that they are entangled and
embroiled in an infinity of figures and divisions, so minute
that they can no longer fall under any rule or prescription,
or any assured intelligence. ... As you see children trying
to bring a mass of quicksilver to a precise number of parts,
the more they press and work it, and endeavour to reduce
it to their rule, the more they excite the liberty of this
generous metal ; it evades their art and sprinkles itself
into so many parts as defy all reckoning ; so it is here, for
in subdividing these subtilties we teach men to multiply
their doubts. . . . We should obliterate the trace of these
innumerable diversities of opinions, not deck ourselves with
their variety, and make giddy the heads of our posterity." *

These were the views of one who had retired
from his position as an administrator of the law,
and who may have found a pleasure in multiply-
ing reasons for his decision, but they do not lead
us to suppose that even in his early days he had a
special vocation for his official duties. It was,
however, his father's wish that Montaigne should
hold the position of a magistrate; and perhaps
with this in view, and intending to resign in fa-
vour of his son, Pierre Eyquem had obtained for
himself by purchase such a post in the newly-
established Court of Aids at Perigueux. To ob-
tain a judicial appointment by purchase was no
irregular procedure; it had been authorised by

* Essays, III, 13.
47

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Francis I., and was found by his successor to be
a convenient mode of replenishing a greedy treas-
ury. IMontaigne in his Essays condemned the
barter of such appointments : " What can be
more savage than to see a nation, where, by law-
ful custom, the office of a judge is put up to sale,
and judgments are paid for with ready money?"
But he well knew that neither his father nor he
had ever turned justice itself into an article of
commerce.

Bordeaux had opposed the establishment of the
Court at Perigueux. Under opposing influences
the King had wavered to and fro. At length the
Court was definitely constituted, and almost at the
moment when Pierre Eyquem became one of
its members he was elected (i August, 1554)
mayor of Bordeaux. There is little doubt that
the position obtained by Montaigne was that left
vacant by his father's resignation upon election
to the more distinguished office. The young man
was only twenty-one years of age, but the statu-
tory obligations as to age were occasionally dis-
regarded. La Boetie was admitted a councillor
at twenty-three and a half years old; Henri de
Mesmes was admitted at a little over twenty. The
Court of Aids at Perigueux had, however, a brief
existence. First limited in the sphere of its opera-
tions to appease the jealousy of the Court at
Montpellier, it w-as suppressed in May, 1557, and

48

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

an order was given that its members should be
incorporated in the corresponding Court of the
Parhament of Bordeaux. The Parhament, antici-
pating a dispersion of its fees among an aug-
mented body of officials, resisted with vigour.
The King's advisers, after an unsuccessful effort
to compromise the matter by establishing a new
Chamber of Requests at Bordeaux, were resolute,
and before the close of 1557 the councillors of the
extinct Court at Perigueux, and Montaigne
among them, were admitted as members of the
Parliament. The relations of the older members
with those newly admitted were at first the reverse
of cordial. If Montaigne were a philosopher and
no more we might smile on observing that his first
public act was concerned with a question of pre-
cedence, which had arisen between the new mem-
bers from Perigueux and those more recently
admitted in the ordinary way — a question con-
cerning which no person now alive need be pro-
foundly moved. But Montaigne, philosopher
though he afterwards might be, was at no time
indifferent to points of dignity, and when the mat-
ter was decided against him and his fellows, he
was probably as willing as the others to carry the
question to the King. It w^as not until September,
1 56 1, that the councillors from Perigueux entered
into possession of their full prerogatives.

The duties of a councillor were judicial and ad-
4 49

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

ministrative rather than legislative. There were
times of disturbance when the councillors acted
also as the guardians of public order. The magis-
tracy of Bordeaux was a learned and laborious
body of men, but not exempted by virtue of their
learning from the violent passions of the time. A
few of them were distinguished diplomatists, sev-
eral were devoted legists, studying the Roman
law, studying the ordinances of the Crown, study-
ing the various customs of their districts, happy
in deploying at large their own subtlety and eru-
dition. Some were zealous in philological re-
search ; some, in historical investigation ; some, in
the lore of antiquaries. There was a minority in
the Parliament that was disposed to liberal viev/s
in matters of religion, or at least was tolerant and
humane. There was a stronger party of violent
orthodoxy, that recognised the sacred uses of the
faggot and the noose. Instructed by the ferocious
lessons of the Constable de Montmorenci, the city
of Bordeaux, after the Revolt of the Gabelle, kept
in general within the bounds of order; but the
neighbouring districts were often turbulent, and
the supporters of the Reformed Faith were numer-
ous both within the city and throughout the prov-
ince. In 1 561 Bordeaux contained seven thou-
sand Calvinists. In 1554 the Protestant preacher,
Bernard de Borda, underwent the torture. In
1556 two youths accused of heresy, Arnaud Mon-
50

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

nier and Jean de Caze, were burnt alive. Terror
seized the populace and even the guard ; they fled,
and the flames mounted around the victims in a
soHtude of horror. In 1559 the wealthy merchant
Pierre Feugere, charged with the mutilation of
sacred images, was condemned to the stake, and
the sentence was carried into effect. In 1561 six
members of the Reformed Communion were
brought to judgment for the offence of having
partaken together of the Lord's Supper. A little
later the burial of Protestants in cemeteries was
forbidden. At length came the Chancellor
L'Hopital's edict of pacification (January, 1562)
which allowed the Huguenots under certain con-
ditions to celebrate worship in places outside the
city gates, a measure of toleration which three
months later received some enlargement. Mon-
taigne, who afterwards dedicated to L'Hopital
the posthumous publication of his friend La Boe-
tie's Latin verses, was assuredly of the party of
moderation ; at the same time he was loyal to the
faith of his father, and was above all a lover of
order.

The edict of January, 1562, guarded, as it was,
in its effort towards toleration, was yet too liberal
for the Parliament of Paris, which accepted it
only under strong pressure from the Chancellor.
It was perhaps too liberal for the Parliament of
Bordeaux. The decree was, indeed, duly regis-

51

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

tered ; but, following the example of Paris, the
Parliament proceeded to establish the orthodoxy
of its own members by a sworn profession of faith.
The spirit of the intolerant Parliament of Paris
was the same spirit that manifested itself in the
massacre of Vassy, and precipitated the horrors
of the civil strife. Montaigne at this time hap-
pened to be in the capital. A few days after the
oath — which, to make orthodoxy more orthodox,
included a pledge of adherence to the formulary
of the Sorbonne of the year 1543 — had been ad-
ministered in Paris, and before the Parliament
of Bordeaux had as yet taken action in the matter,
he voluntarily came forward to make a declara-
tion of his belief. What was Montaigne's motive
in thus hastening to identify himself with an ex-
treme party ? Was his liberality of temper a later
growth? Was his orthodoxy the politic outcome
of a veiled indifference? Was he apprehensive
that the mission with which he had been intrusted
by the Parliament of Bordeaux might have been
compromised if he had failed to tender the oath?
Did he act upon the advice of some superior
friend? It is wise to confess that we do not know.
Some unascertained circumstance of the hour may
have determined his procedure. It is certain that
he regarded the Catholic party, though not in its
acts of sanguinary violence, as the party of order,
and Montaigne's reverence for order was hardly

52

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

of that kind which recognises in audacities of
progress an element essential to the security of
order.

Montaigne's friendship with La Boetie seems
to give us a pledge that even in his earlier years he
was a lover of justice and of temperate reason-
ableness. The passages in the Essays which
breathe the spirit of tolerance were not the effer-
vescence of a passing mood ; they were the out-
come of experience, prolonged observation, and
meditative wisdom. He would prefer, he says, to
treat a witch or a sorcerer with hellebore rather
than with hemlock; much more a Calvinist, like
his own brother and sister. After all, as he char-
acteristically puts it, to burn a man alive is to set
a very high value on one's own conjectures.
" When occasion has summoned me to the con-
demnation of the guilty, I have fallen somewhat
short of justice. . . . Ordinary judgments are
exasperated to punish through horror of the
crime ; it cools mine ; the horror of the first mur-
der makes me fear a second, and the hideousness
of the first cruelty makes me abhor all imitation
of it." Capital punishment he did not condemn ;
but death with torture he regarded as a mere
atrocity. "Anything over and above death seems
to me pure cruelty." To attempt to wring truth
from an accused person by the rack is at the low-
est " a way full of uncertainty and danger" ; it is

53

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

a trial of endurance rather than of truth. And
yet Montaigne, while strenuously condemning
question by the rack, suggests that there may be
something in the notion that an evil conscience
may cause the victim to falter into a genuine con-
fession, while a consciousness of innocence may
prove a sufficient support to fortitude. He could
not himself look upon the execution of a sentence,
how reasonable soever, with a steady eye. The
license of the civil wars had not merely indurated
the hearts of men; there had grown up in them
a strange and unnatural lust of cruelty, a kind of
delighted ecstasy in witnessing the writhing limbs
and hearing the lamentable groans of those who
died in anguish. Montaigne would if possible
turn aside from the sight of a hare caught in the
teeth of a dog. Yet that incomparable military
leader, who always meant business, thinking it
prudent to hang first and sentence afterwards,
that remorseless champion of order, Monluc,
whose two lackeys furnished numberless trees
with the dangling fruit of Huguenot corpses, was
not rejected from his acquaintance by Montaigne.
Perhaps the most affecting page of the Essays,
one which, whenever she read it, brought tears to
the eyes of Mme. de Sevigne, is the page which
tells of the hard man's passion of remorse, be-
trayed in Montaigne's presence, at the memory of
that austerity which had always cloaked his affec-

54

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

tion for the son now dead, dead without once hav-
ing discovered his father's heart.

While Montaigne thought that a witch-burning
or an auto da fe impHes a high esteem for our
own conjectures, he would apply a like criticism
to those who disturb a commonwealth for the sake
of a supposed reformation of the faith, or a polit-
ical theory. Outrages against humanity, during
the troubles in France, were by no means confined
to the royal army or the League. Montaigne dis-
trusted novelty, whatever pretentious promises it
may make, and he believed that the great evils
which he had seen growing and spreading in his
own country warranted his distrust. He had a
sense of the complex and delicate contexture of
society, so gradual in its formation, so liable to
injury, so difficult to repair, and this tended to
make him rather bear existing ills than, in the
hope of amending them, fly to others perhaps
more desperate. " Freely to speak my thought, it
seems to me to argue a great self-love and pre-
sumption to be so fond of one's own opinions that
in order to establish them a public peace must be
overthrown, so many inevitable evils must be in-
troduced, with so dreadful a corruption of man-
ners as civil wars and the mutations of states in
matters of high concern bring in their train, and
all this in a country that is our own. Can there
be worse husbandry than to summon into exist-

55

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

ence so many certain and acknowledged vices only
to combat errors which are debatable and in dis-
pute?"* Montaigne believed that a reformation
going far deeper than the doctrinal, theological
reformation was needed; and it might work in
quietness. How could this doctrinal reformation
be other than shallow or unreal when, in attempt-
ing to remove certain external and superficial cor-
ruptions of the time, it left untouched the
profounder and essential vices of human char-
acter.

For the duties of a magistrate, and especially
of a magistrate at a time of fierce political and
religious differences, Montaigne was assuredly lit-
tle qualified either by the character of his intellect
or by his natural temperament. Of this fact he
can hardly but have been himself aware from the
first. His absences from the Parliament of Bor-
deaux were frequent, and were sometimes of long
duration. The Court — a centre at least of vivid
life — attracted him to Paris. He had a theory
that democracy was the most natural and equita-
ble form of government; but the ancient mon-
archy of France was part of the order of things,
and too good a part to allow Montaigne to think
of its disturbance without alarm and grief. Kings
are to be obeyed precisely because they are kings ;

* Essays, I, 22.
S6

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

whether they are also to be esteemed depends on
their quahties as individual men. There can be
no question that they are the dispensers of fa-
vours. Though he afterwards professed his con-
tentment with a middle sphere of life, we can
hardly doubt that in his early manhood Mon-
taigne was ambitious of advancement. It is cer-
tain that he felt an enthusiasm for the capital, with
its brilliance, its animation, its tides of sentiment
and ideas, which he could not feel for his own city
of Bordeaux. " That city," he wrote of Paris,
" has from my infancy had my heart, and it has
happened, as is the case with excellent things,
that the more I have since seen of other beautiful
cities, the more the beauty of this still wins upon
my affections. ... I love her tenderly, even to
her warts and blemishes. I am a Frenchman
only through this great city, . . . the glory of
France, and one of the most noble ornaments of
the world. May God drive our divisions from
her!"*

Montaigne at this date was not the sage of the
tower, who regarded the whole of life with wise
and humorous eyes, a little disenchanted, yet in-
terested in the infinite variety of things, and inter-
ested above all in observing that most diverse and
complex of God's creatures — himself. He was an

* Essays, III, 9.
57

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

ardent and full-blooded son of the South ; an Al-
cibiades — to whom, indeed, his most intimate
friend compared him — but an Alcibiades who in-
cluded within him a yet puny Socrates. Full-
blooded, somewhat low of stature, a thing to
regret ; but sound and sane of body, broad-shoul-
dered, built for strength and endurance ; not soon
fatigued by the ardour of enjoyment; dressing
richly, and looking well in his fine clothes ; brisk
of step, sudden, and emphatic in gesture, impa-
tient of restraint, flinging forth his words with
prompt decision ; indolent or active as the fit took
him, in love with the world, the stir of life, the
mundane splendours and pleasures; sociable,
frank, joyous, and yet with a haunting thought,
such as possessed our English Donne in his fiery
youth, that life is short, and death is always pres-
ent behind the curtain.

" There is nothing which I have more con-
stantly entertained myself withal than imagina-
tions of death, even in the most wanton season of
my age. ... In the company of ladies, and at
games, certain may have supposed me musing
with myself how to digest some jealousy or the
doubtful promise of some hope, while my thoughts
were occupied with remembrance of one or an-
other that, but few days before, was surprised
with a burning fever, and of his end, coming from
a like entertainment, his head full of idleness, love

S8

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

and jollity, as was mine, and that the same des-
tiny was at hand in wait for me." *

This is like a picture from the Dance of Death,
but from such thoughts as these Montaigne could
suddenly return with an added zest to gather the
roses; or at least, as he afterwards said, to plant
his cabbages.

To attempt to follow Montaigne through his
several visits to the Court would be difficult and
of little profit, for his objects and interests as a
courtier are veiled in obscurity. He certainly in
his youth knew Paris — the old Paris of narrow
streets, through which the courtiers rode, of flap-
ping sign-boards, of great fortified mansions, of
high-walled monasteries, of vast rising structures,
the Louvre, the Hotel de Ville, while then as now
Notre-Dame looked down over the city, but a city
of far smaller dimensions. The groups of emi-
nent men and beautiful women — for Montaigne
set much store on beauty — were a chief attraction
to the Court, and nothing great or small was in-
significant to the eyes of this keen observer from
the provinces. He never flattered, if we may be-
lieve his own word; and, whether he desired
favours or not, he never received a favour.
" Princes give me enough," he afterwards wrote,
" if they take nothing from me, and do me enough

* Essays, I, 19.
59

AIICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

good if they do me no evil. That is all I require."
He honoured the ruler of his people as such, but
rather pitied poor kings, to whom all men bow,
and who can never know the joy, the glow which
accompany a medley of intellects. He remembered
how in the sports of his own childhood he resented
it if things were made too easy by his elders, and
the encounter was not real but amiably feigned.
Yet this is the perpetual condition of a prince.
What honest instructor has he except his horse,
who is no flatterer, and will throw the eldest son
of a king with no more ceremony than he would
throw the son of a porter? Montaigne, in his
recollections of the Court, bore in mind its vexa-
tions— the waiting at doors while an usher bars
the entrance, the ineptitude of courtiers, the babble
of petty mysteries, the falsehoods, the intrigues,
the pledges never meant to be redeemed; and,
though the gentleman from Bordeaux wore his
fine clothes, he perceived that your true gilded but-
terfly — empty-headed youths enough — looked
upon a country squire with a touch of fine disdain,
as a creature from another and a meaner world.

The Court of Henri H. was brilliant in all
things exterior, and under the influence of Cath-
erine de' Medici had been somewhat Italianated.
Montaigne recalls the incident which he had wit-
nessed of the King's embarrassment in failing to
remember the name of a Gascon gentleman not so
60

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

fortunate as to possess a name worthy to live in a
royal ear. When, in the essay That We Arc Not
to Judge of Our Hour Till After Death, he refers,
with an outcry of indignation, to the beheading of
Mary, Queen of Scots, it may be that he remem-
bered having seen her in her triumphant beauty at
the Court. Himself an accomplished horseman,
he was filled with admiration of the splendid man-
age of his steed by M. de Carnevalet, first equerry
of Henri H. He speaks in a way which might
lead us to suppose that he was present when, in
the tourney, Montgomery's spear bore down the
King, and he recalls, as an example of the ease
with which custom passes into authority, the year
of court mourning, when cloth became the fash-
ion, and silks were left to the citizens and the phy-
sicians. He probably looked at the pompous cere-
mony of the consecration of Francois H. at Reims ;
for he records how, a little later, he was with the
newly-consecrated King at Bar-le-Duc, when the
portrait of Rene of Anjou was exhibited, for a
purpose ; and, no doubt, with a commentary highly
favourable to the house of Guise.

On the occasion when Montaigne made his
profession of faith in 1562 he had visited the capi-
tal partly on public business as a representative of
the Parliament of Bordeaux, partly on private
affairs. He accompanied Charles IX. to Rouen
— unhappy city, besieged, captured, given over to

61

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

pillage. He describes, but not as an eye-witness,
the discovery of a plot for the assassination of the
Duke of Guise outside the besieged city ; but what
especiall}^ excited his curiosity and set his imagi-
nation to work was the sight of three natives of
Brazil, unwise seekers for the wisdom of Europe,
who held discourse with the King, and also with
the philosopher, aided by a too unskilled interpre-
ter. In Montaigne's service, but perhaps at a later
date, was a plain, ignorant fellow, all the better
because of the ignorance, which saved him from
the temptation to be rather picturesque than vera-
cious, who had spent some ten or twelve years of
his life in the New World, and in that part of it
from which these inquisitive savages had come.
On various occasions this good fellow had
brought to the chateau of Montaigne sailors and
merchants who had made the same voyage. The
insatiable curiosity of the master was gratified by
what he regarded as honest though insufficient re-
ports. Among the treasures of his house was a
collection of the weapons, domestic furniture, and
musical instruments of savage tribes. He pre-
served a song made by a prisoner among the can-
nibals, in which the poet cheerfully invited his cap-
tors to the feast for which his body was to provide
the viands ; and a second piece of verse, a graceful
love-song, " Stay, adder, stay," which reminded
Montaigne of Anacreon. From what he had

62

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

heard of these barbarians they seemed to him to
have some advantages over the subjects of a most
Christian King. It was surely less atrocious to
roast and eat a lifeless body than to tear it, while
alive, limb from limb, or to roast our shrinking
neighbour under pretence of doing God service.
Montaigne's imagination voyaged forth to
strange, imaginary lands, and undiscovered isles
in far-off seas. Perhaps there are many such.
Perhaps the happiest republic would be one where
there was no name of magistrate :

" Letters should not be known ; riches, poverty,
And use of service, none ; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard none ;
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil ;
No occupation . . . but nature should bring forth
Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance.
To feed my innocent people."

For Gonzalo in The Tempest had been a reader
of the Essays, and on an enchanted island might
plagiarise a little with safety.

Montaigne had read of the perfidies and the
atrocities of the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru,
and all his sympathies went with the magnani-
mous barbarians. He wished that so noble a con-
quest had fallen to Alexander or the old Romans
rather than to pretended Christians, who de-
frauded and slaughtered a people having virtues
like those of the ancient world, Christians who
63

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

brought the contagion of vice to innocent souls,
eager to learn, and well-disposed by nature. The
Brazilians at Rouen expressed their astonishment
that so many tall men, wearing beards, and well-
armed should submit to the rule of a child, when
these tall men might have chosen one from
amongst themselves to be their ruler. They won-
dered also how it should be that some folks were
full, and even crammed with all manner of com-
modities, while many of their brethren — whom
these uninstructed barbarians styled their
"halves" — hunger-bitten and lean with poverty
and famine begged at their gates — begged sub-
missively, though they might have taken the
others by the throat or fired their houses. Such
were the childish notions of untutored minds ! All
this and more of their discourse Montaigne re-
lates, and he thinks their views of things were
" not too bad". But let it pass — " they wear no
breeches!" "Mais quoi! ils ne portent point de
hanlt dc chausscs" ; with which word, a final
proof of our superiority in civilisation, the essay
suddenly and smilingly closes.

In making his appearance from time to time at
the Court, Montaigne fulfilled his part as a gentle-
man of distinction. It was with him a school of
observation, a furlong of the field which he trav-
ersed as a student of humanity. He had his little
successes, his little mortifications; but he did not

64

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

assiduously practice the courtier's trade. His
manner of speech, he declares, had nothing in it
that was facile or polished ; it was rough and im-
patient, irregular and free. In all set ceremonious
forms no one could be more unapt or more un-
ready. He professes that he was wholly without
skill in the art of pleasing, diverting, titillating.
The best story, he would have us believe, grew dry
and lost its colours in his handling. " Princes,"
he adds, with a touch of his disdainful manner,
" do not much affect solid discourse, nor I to tell
stories." He chose rather to be importunate or
indiscreet than to be a flatterer or a dissembler.
There may have been, he admits, something of
pride in his independence; perhaps he followed
nature so frankly because he wanted art; per-
haps there was some incivility in addressing great
persons with no more ceremonious reserve than
he practised in his home. But, in truth — so he
excuses himself — he had not readiness of wit
enough to feign, or to escape by an evasion;
it was better, after all, to abandon himself to a
certain innocent simplicity of speech, to speak
even as he thought, and to leave the event to
fortune.

However the artistic instinct in Montaigne,
which constructed the ideal ego of the Essays on
the foundation of his actual self, may have re-
touched the literal facts, we cannot doubt that any
5 65

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

humorous modifications were developed upon
lines of truth. His book is one of good faith.

He has given us no essay upon the duties of the
magistracy, duties from which he seems to have
been glad to escape. If, as he says, he was ill
practiced in the ceremonious modes of address, he
was wholly incapable of making a speech in pub-
lic, unless, indeed, he adopted the least happy of
methods, that of writing it out beforehand, and
committing it to a memory which he had reason to
distrust. An administrator of the law can hardly
sum up each case with a " Que sgay-je?'' — " What
do I know?" And to arrive at decisions on a
hundred matters about which the inquirer is not
deeply concerned proves a fatiguing process to one
who looks too precisely at the event, and sees
every facet of every question. Nor had Mon-
taigne any of the compensating pleasure of the
magistrate who is big with the pride of place. He
did not enjoy the exercise of mere authority; he
did not rejoice in setting forth an array of legal
learning ; and he was too honest and independent
to allow a doubtful point to be determined by
mere temper or partiality. " However right may
be a judge's intention," says Montaigne, " unless
he lays his ear very close to his heart, and few
people amuse themselves so, his disposition as a
friend or a kinsman, his feeling for beauty or his
desire of vengeance, and not motives as weighty

66

MAGISTRACY AND COURT

as these, but even the fortuitous instinct which
makes us inchne to one thing more than another,
and which without the authority of reason gives
us the power of choice between two things that
are equal, or a shadow of some such vanity, may
insinuate into his judgment the favouring or the
disfavour of a cause, and make the balance dip." *
One pleasure derived from his position he did
certainly receive, and that perhaps in a higher
degree than any other magistrate of France — the
pleasure of smiling gently at the infirmities and
humours of his fellow magistrates ; but some of
the joys of irony are touched with bitterness, and
under the smile we can now and again discern
something of indignant pain. There was, for in-
stance, that judge, who, when he found a question
hang doubtful between such learned jurists as Bal-
dus and Bartholus, wrote on the margin of his
book " A question for a friend," meaning that, in
a matter so controverted and confused, he might
favour either party as a personal regard inclined
him ; and the essayist adds : " It was only for
want of wit and ability that he did not write ' A
question for a friend' on every page." And that
president, who, in Montaigne's presence, boasted
that he had piled up more than two hundred pas-
sages from far-fetched authorities in one of his

* Essays, II, 12.
67

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

presidential decisions. And that learned council-
lor of Montaigne's acquaintance who, having dis-
gorged a whole cargo of paragraphs in the highest
degree contentious and in an equal degree inept,
and having retired for a moment from his seat on
the bench, was heard in his seclusion muttering
between his teeth the words of modest piety, " Non
nobis, Dominc, non nobis, scd nomine tiio da
gloriani." * Such incidents were some small bene-
factions of Providence for the trials of patience
endured by Montaigne the magistrate.

* Bonnefon : Montaigne ct scs Amis, I, 80, where these
and other passages are cited.

68

CHAPTER III

friendship: la eoetie

Among Montaigne's colleagues in the Parlia-
ment of Bordeaux was one whom he placed high
above himself — the " Plappy Warrior", who em-
bodied all the virtues of manhood in a beautiful
and unreproached youth. It was well for Mon-
taigne's character that his life had its one ro-
mance, its great hour of passion — four years, yet
no more than an hour — brief, perfect, and never
to be forgotten. yVnd this romance was the best
of realities ; the passion was not the love of a
woman, with its possible touch of illusion, but the
virile passion of friendship, the hardy comrade-
ship of man with man.* Montaigne had a deep
and tender affection, an unwavering respect for
his father ; he knew that in certain points, in pub-
lic spirit, in devotion to duty, and especially in the
grace of chastity, his father was a better man than
he. Yet he cannot but have felt that his own was
incomparably the larger nature, that his was the

* The friendship was in fact of six years, but Montaigne
in a memorable passage names four, meaning perhaps that
these formed the period of its perfect blossoming. Yet
from the first the attraction was mutual and was strong.

69

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

finer intellect, the more comprehensive soul. To-
wards £;tienne de la Boetie his feeling was differ-
ent. Here whatever he could imagine of Roman
virtue was realised; intellect, heart, will — they
were all above him, and all united to form a com-
plete character, a character wholly directed to hon-
ourable ends. While he himself wavered and
stumbled. La Boetie stood firm; while he scat-
tered his powers in the chance-medley of various
sympathies and casual pleasures, La Boetie con-
centrated his high capacities in seeking and attain-
ing the essential wisdom, that which lives in con-
duct ; while he was a doubter and an intellectual
dilettante. La Boetie was already a well-equipped
scholar and man of science. And this exemplar
of what manhood at its best might be was young ;
everything might be hoped from him in the future.
A being above himself in all things ; yet an equal
through friendship, a comrade, though a superior,
in the pursuit of things of the mind.

To know the man whom Montaigne held in
such high honour, the man to whom he gave his
deep and enduring love, is to know something of
Montaigne himself. M. Bonnefon, the editor of
La Boetie's works, has written the story of his
life at large, with adequate research and excellent
judgment. Here — with due acknowledgment of
the debt to M. Bonnefon and his predecessor, M.
Leon Feugere — it must be told in brief.

70

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

Born at Sarlat, November i, 1530, a little more
than two years before the birth of Montaigne, son
of the deputy-lieutenant of the seneschal of Peri-
gord, La Boetie at an early age lost his father, and
was educated under the care of his uncle, an
ecclesiastic, to whom, as he declared on his death-
bed, he owed all that he was or could ever be.
Having been instructed by this good uncle and
godfather in the humanities, he devoted himself
with the utmost zeal to the study of law at the
ancient University of Orleans, renowned for its
law-school, under the eminent legist Anne du
Bourg, rector of the University, afterwards a Prot-
estant victim of religious persecution. La Boetie
was distinguished not only for his rare mastery of
the studies of law and jurisprudence; he was also
a highly accomplished worker in the field of classi-
cal philology, and found his recreation in compos-
ing verses in Greek, in Latin, and in his native
French. Like Montaigne he was admitted as a
councillor of the Parliament of Bordeaux before
the prescribed age. His marriage with Marguer-
ite de Carle, sister of a bishop and of a president,
seems to have followed soon after his entrance
into the magistracy. She was widow of the
Seigneur Jean d'Arsac, and mother of two chil-
dren. The verses Ad Carliam Vxoreni, written
in absence and anticipating reunion, tell of his
great happiness in his home, and of her domestic

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

virtues, nor have they one touch of what Mon-
taigne describes as " marital coldness".

La Boetie was a model councillor, conscien-
tious, laborious, regular in his attendance at the
sittings of the Parliament, and winning the respect
and confidence of his fellow members, as appears
from the duties which they assigned to him. In
1556 he was requested to make a report upon cer-
tain dramatic performances at the College of
Guyenne — Montaigne's college — which, it was
feared, might contain some matter of offence. In
1560 he was despatched to petition the King on
behalf of some more regular mode of dispensing
the salaries of magistrates. He returned from
Paris successful, and entrusted by the Chancellor,
L'Hopital, with counsels of wise moderation for
the more violent spirits of Bordeaux. In the same
year he accompanied the King's lieutenant, Burie,
a man after L'Hopital's own heart, to the district
and town of Agen, where a turbulent party of the
Reformed Faith was creating disorder. It was a
mission of conciliation, requiring good temper,
discretion, and firmness. " I have with me," wrote
Burie to the King, " the councillor granted me by
the Parliament, by name Monsieur de La Boytye,
who is a very learned and excellent man." The
object of establishing by mutual concessions a
modus vivcndi between Catholics and those " of
the Religion", though the best efforts had been

72

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

made, was not really attained until the edict of
pacification of January, 1562, came to abate, for a
brief season, the evils of religious intolerance. On
the occasion of that edict La Boetie wrote certain
memoirs, dealing with the troubles of the time,
which Montaigne in 1571, perhaps wisely, but un-
fortunately for later students of history, did not
see fit to publish ; they were, he says, too delicate
and refined to be abandoned to the gross and thick
air of an unfavourable time. We cannot doubt
that what La Boetie wrote was wisely temperate
in its spirit.

The words in which Montaigne refers to these
memoirs were also applied by him to the famous
Discourse Concerning Voluntary Servitude (Dis-
conrs dc la Servitude Z'olontaire), or, as it was
often briefly entitled, the Contr'un; but this fell
in with the militant designs of the party of re-
ligious reform, and it was by them turned to
their own account. Copies had been circulated in
manuscript, and from one of these a considerable
extract was made in the Huguenot Alarm-clock
for Frenchmen {Reveille-Matin des Frangois),
printed in 1574, after the massacre of St. Barthol-
omew, at Edinburgh according to the title-page,
but in fact probably in Switzerland.* La Boetie's
complete work was first published in 1576 by the

* The dialogue in which the extract appears had pre-
viously, but in the same year, appeared in Latin.

73

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Protestant pastor of Geneva, Simon Goulard, in
the third volume of his compilation. Memoirs of
the state of France under Charles IX. {Memoir es
de Vestat de France sous Charles neiiviesme) .
When, at a later time, Richelieu wished to read
the celebrated treatise, it was from this volume
that the copy was supplied by his bookseller to the
Cardinal.*

What, then, is this Discourse Concerning Vol-
untary Servitude, which Richelieu desired to
read, which was twice reprinted in a modernised
form in the days of the French Revolution, and
which Lamennais, contributing to the publication
an impassioned preface, afterwards edited? When
did La Boetie write the Discourse, and with what
design? Montaigne himself has added to the diffi-
culty of ascertaining the precise date of author-
ship. In the first edition of the Essays, that of
1580 (and the words were repeated in the text of
1588) his statement is a positive one : " La Boetie
wrote it, by way of an essay, in his earliest youth,
not having yet attained his eighteenth year." In
the copy of the edition of 1588, which Montaigne

* I am indebted for some of these details to M. Bonne-
fon, but my own shelves supply me with copies of the
Reveille-Matin and Goulard's compilation in the second
edition, 1577-1578. This second edition appeared in two
forms, distinguishable by the type. The first edition is
so rare that M. Bonnefon was unable to see a copy.

74

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

furnished with manuscript additions and correc-
tions, afterwards embodied by Mile, de Gournay
in the text of 1595, he erased the word "eigh-
teenth" and substituted for it " sixteenth". He
had at first purposed to append La Boetie's Dis-
course to his own essay on Friendship. Seeing,
however, that it had already appeared in print, and
in a volume, which, while it included documents
of the other side, was essentially anti-Catholic and
polemical, Montaigne decided to substitute for his
dead friend's prose treatise a collection, twenty-
nine in all, of his French sonnets : " Because I
have found that this work has been since put forth,
and to an ill end, by those who seek to trouble and
change the condition of our government, not
caring whether they are likely to amend it, and
because they have mixed up his work with other
writings ground in their own mill, I have re-
frained from giving it a place here." He adds,
with a view to prevent any misconception of the
author's character or principles, that the theme of
his Discourse was handled by him in his " in-
fancy" (enfance) — a word often used by Mon-
taigne for " youth" — and that only by way of ex-
ercitation, " as a common theme that has been
hacknied by a thousand writers". Montaigne
makes no question but that his friend believed as
true what he wrote, for he was so conscientious
that he would not lie even in sport. " I know
75

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

moreover," the Essayist proceeds, " that, had it
been in his choice, he would rather have been born
in Venice than in Sarlat, and with good reason.
But he had another maxim sovereignly imprinted
in his soul, to obey and very religiously to submit
to the laws under which he was born. There never
was a better citizen, nor one more attached to his
country's repose; never one more hostile to the
commotions and innovations of his time; he
would much sooner have employed his powers in
extinguishing than in adding fuel to these. His
spirit was modelled to the pattern of ages other
than ours." *

It may be that in reducing the age of the writer
of the Discourse from eighteen to sixteen, Mon-
taigne desired to diminish the responsibility of La
Boetie for the opinions and sentiments therein ex-
pressed. He wishes it to be regarded as the bril-
liant declamation of a young student on the gen-
eral topic of monarchical tyranny, and as having
no relation to contemporary events in France.
The historian De Thou, on the contrary, connects
the origin of the Contrhm with the feelings
aroused in La Boetie's spirit by the revolt of the
Gabelle, in 1548, and its savage punishment at the
hands of Montmorenci. La Boetie in 1548 was
eighteen years of age, and, according to De Thou,

* Essays, I, 27.
76

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

the Contrun was written one year later. How-
ever this may have been, there can be no douljt
that it was rehandlcci, or at least retouched, at a
subsequent date. Ronsard, Ba'if, and Du Bellay
are eulogised in the Contr'tin for having renewed
or recreated French poetry. TJic Franciadc {La
Franciadc) of the first of these poets is mentioned
with special honour. Du Bellay had published
nothing before 1549. Baif, two years younger
than La Boetie, was unknown as a poet at the
earlier date given by Montaigne. The first four
books of TJic Franciadc appeared in 1572; the
design of that epic, of which no more than a
fragment was ever accomplished, had not been
conceived until about 1552.*

The Discourse Concerning Voluntary Servi-
tude has been described by Sainte-Beuve as no
more than a classical declamation, a masterpiece
of a student's second year in rhetoric. But that
great critic did not fail to applaud its more power-
ful pages, its passages of vigorous and progressive
movement, its eloquent outbreaks of indignation,
and the very remarkable gift of style w^hich it ex-
hibits— " we feel the presence of something of a

* I recite part of M. Bonnefon's argument, Montaigne
et ses Amis, I, 157. Bayle St. John had discussed these
points in 1858; and, with a view to ascertaining the date,
had considered the question of quotations in the Contr'un
from Amyot's Plutarch.

77

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

poet in a great number of its felicitous images."
The question whether La Boetie wrote the Dis-
course merely as an academic exercise, suggested
by the ideal of ancient liberty, or whether he wrote
with genuine conviction and genuine passion, hav-
ing his eye turned upon the condition of contem-
porary France, is one of curious psychological in-
terest. We might imagine it to have been written
by some eloquent young Girondin soon after 1789.
It might almost have been the work of some
youthful Shelley in the days of the English politi-
cal reaction against Revolutionary ideals. But
La Boetie was no Shelley ; he accepted the duties
of a loyal subject and citizen under a monarchy
which had grown shameless in vice. He was a
sincere Catholic, if a good deal also of the antique
Stoic philosopher. He was unquestionably a
member of the middle party of compromise and
of partial yet enlightened toleration. How shall
we interpret his outcry against tyranny in the light
of his conduct as a man of action?

A reader of the Contr'un, especially a reader
who is of another age and another nationality
than those of the writer, cannot pretend to any
authoritative decision. He can only record his
own impression. Montaigne, in admitting that
his friend would have chosen to be born in Venice
rather than in Sarlat, seems to imply that La
Boetie was a theoretical republican. And the

78

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

work of a theoretical republican the Contr'im
surely is. But a theoretical republican may be a
loyal citizen under an established monarchy. At
the same time he may hold up before himself and
others an ideal of a better and happier state, not
in the belief that it lies within the range of what
we term practical politics, but partly as a prophecy,
and partly as a guiding light to conduct in the
limited sphere of what is practicable. A high en-
thusiasm for the abstraction " liberty" may con-
dense itself — and to good purpose — into some
counsel of wise moderation in the little matters
of the day or the hour.

La Boetie expressly dismisses from considera-
tion the question of the relative merits of other
forms of government as compared, with a mon-
archy. He proclaims his belief that the kings of
France have always been so good in peace, so val-
iant in war, that, apart from any hereditary right,
they would seem to have been chosen by God to
be the rulers of his people. It was open to others,
if they should please, to give to this profession an
ironical significance, and undoubtedly the whole
tendency of the Discourse was to arouse a critical
spirit with reference to monarchical government.
The Contr'iin is the cry of a young and ardent
spirit against the tyranny of the One over the
Many; the cry of a lover of humanity on behalf
of freedom, of freedom as a natural right, and one

79

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

which reason justifies. All men are born free and
equal, equal at least in the essential things, and yet
almost all men find themselves enchanted, and
bound in a voluntary servitude. The Discourse is
the expansion of this and of one or two other
ideas. It is often rhetorical, often declamatory ;
but a writer, and especially a writer who is young,
may be at the same time declamatory and very
much in earnest. The advantage as well as the
disadvantage of youth often lies in the dominat-
ing power of a few simple ideas, which to one
experienced in dealing with concrete affairs may
seem somewhat hollow, yet which prove to be
powers with mankind.

How is this, cries La Boetie, that an infinite
number of men are not governed but tyrannised
over by one man, not a Hercules, not a Samson,
rather a poor mannikin, often the most cowardly
and effeminate creature in the nation, unaccus-
tomed to the dust of battle, scarcely even ac-
quainted with the sands of the tilting-field; one
incapable of commanding men by native force, but
lost in vile submission to the meanest and silliest
creatures of the other sex? So La Boetie de-
claims. Is it that men are cowards? Can it be
that millions of men fear such a feeble being as
this? Such a notion is incredible. The vice which
induces men to be slaves must be another and a
baser vice than cowardice. To effect the down-

80

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

fall of a tyrant no struggle is required. To dis-
regard him, to leave him isolated and therefore
powerless is enough. The nation that accepts
servitude is in truth its own enslaver. In order to
possess freedom men have but to desire it.

Has Nature, then, whose purposes are so benefi-
cent, and who has implanted in our breasts de-
sires for all things that we need, has she erred in
one point, and left us with so feeble a desire for
freedom that it can be extinguished by the first
breath of unpropitious chance? Men are pillaged,
their sons are despatched to the shambles of tyran-
nic wars, their daughters are betrayed to gratify
the royal sensuality, and yet men refuse to be free.
The tyrant, who thus abuses them, has but two
eyes, two hands, and one body, while they are the
myriads of a hundred cities, of a thousand fields.
Let them but resolve to cease from servitude, let
them merely refuse to sustain this oppression, and
it will totter, fall, and be shattered like a colossus
whose base has been removed.

There exists in every soul of man a ray of the
light of reason, which is the gift of Nature. And
nothing is more manifest than that Nature de-
signed man for freedom. Men are all fashioned
in the same mould, compounded of the same clay,
in order that they may know that they are breth-
ren. Equality is the true ground of fraternity;
or if one man be born with certain gifts superior
6 8i

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

to those of another, these endowments are granted
only that he may the better serve his fellows. And
as fraternity rests upon equality, so liberty, in the
order of Nature, rises from the foundation of both
of these. Over his equal and his brother no man
can naturally desire to lord it. Even the beasts
themselves will fight to maintain their freedom;
even the beasts themselves languish in servitude.
What freeborn people, except it be the people of
Israel, who petitioned for a king, would yield to
slavery unless it were imposed upon them by force
or by fraud? Too often, indeed, the fraud has
been of their own devising; they have laboured
to deceive themselves ; until, as years roll on, the
later generations lose the very memory of free-
dom, lose the very consciousness of servitude, and
accept their miserable condition as an unalterable
natural fact.

It is custom, then, w^iich lies upon us like a
frost of death ; it is custom v^'hich proves itself
to be stronger than nature. The most wicked citi-
zen of Venice could never wish to be a king; the
most noble-minded citizen born under the rule of
the Turk could hardly imagine freedom in his
dreams. An infant in the country of the Cim-
merians, brought forth during the six months of
darkness, how could eyes of his conceive or desire
the light of the sun? Yet under the worst des-
potism some few finely-constituted souls, one here

82

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

and another there — some student among his
books, some young man enamoured of antique
ideals — feel the weight of the yoke, and long to
be emancipated from it. They are, however, so
isolated that each cannot discover his fellows, and
each alone is helpless. Nevertheless, bold enter-
prises on behalf of freedom, for which a few cour-
ageous spirits are gathered together, concerned for
liberty and careless of self-aggrandisement, are
seldom fruitless of good.

Add to the deadening influence of custom in
perpetuating a voluntary servitude the fact that
under a despotism men lose their virtue, their val-
iance, their gladness in the contest, and, growing
cowardly and efifeminate, they cease to be capable
of great things. The tyrant, w^ell aware of this,
" sugars servitude with an envenomed sweet-
ness"; he turns the nation away from the career
of arms; surrounds himself with foreign mercen-
aries; amuses his subjects with theatres, sports,
farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts,
medals, pictures, and other like seductive ano-
dynes. Meanwhile the bribed populace holds its
true friends in suspicion, and leans trustfully to-
wards its betrayer. Give largess to the greed of
the populace, and it wall not quit its trough to
acquire the liberty of Plato's republic. Nor are
the bribes only of a material kind; the soul re-
ceives its pious sops; religion itself is converted
83

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

into the patron and defender of tyranny. The
King is a sacred, secluded, unapproachable per-
son ; or he comes forth, as a minister of heaven,
to work miraculous cures and to impose upon the
superstition of the adoring crowd.

Some persons may erroneously imagine that
the power of a tyrant resides in his guards, his
archers, his armed footmen, his troops of cavalry.
No; his business is achieved for him by four or
five, or some half-dozen agents, the accomplices of
his cruelty, or pandars of his pleasures. Six hun-
dred others profit by these six; six thousand, by
the six hundred ; and thus, in the end, millions
are attached by a chain, like the chain of Jupiter,
to the tyrant's throne. His subjects are ingen-
iously and successfully employed to enslave one
another. But, alas ! for the life of a despot's
favourite, a life to be wondered at for its wicked-
ness, and often to be pitied for its folly. The
peasant, bound to the furrow, is freer than such
an one, who is not even the master of his own
thoughts. His end is destruction, either at the
hands of his lord or of that lord's successor. Nor
is the tyrant's own lot an enviable one; it is
haunted by suspicion and filled with secret alarms ;
it is condemned to solitude, for with him the basis
of true comradeship or friendship does not exist.

" Friendship," writes La Boetie, " is a sacred name, it is
a holy thing; it never subsists except between persons of

84

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

true worth ; it arises from mutual esteem alone ; it is main-
tained not so much by any profit as by a life that is ex-
cellent. That which gives a friend assurance of his fellow
is the knowledge of his integrity ; the pledges he proffers
are goodness of nature, faith, and constancy. Where there
is cruelty, where there is disloyalty, where there is in-
justice, friendship cannot be. Between evil men, when
they gather together, there may be a complot; companion-
ship there can be none ; there is mutual fear, not mutual
support; such men are not friends but accomplices."

Such reduced to narrow dimensions, which do
not admit of Greek or Roman or Persian authori-
ties, examples, and anecdotes — the fashion of the
Renaissance — but with something of its declama-
tory tone preserved, is the Discourse Concerning
Voluntary Servitude, and this Discourse it was,
which, read in a manuscript copy before he had
made acquaintance with the author, first attracted
Montaigne to the writer. The analysis of the
sources of a despot's power is much more than
mere declamation. In its spirit the little treatise
curiously resembles the temper of Shelley when
he wrote The Revolt of Islam, but the part of
Cythna in revolutionary emancipation had not yet
been conceived. Was it likeness or unlikeness
that drew Montaigne to La Boetie? " The Dis-
course was shown to me," Montaigne writes,
" long before I had seen him, and it gave me my
first acquaintance with his name, thus preparing
the way for the friendship which we cherished as

85

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

long as God willed, a friendship so entire and so
perfect that certainly the like is hardly to be found
in story, and amongst modern men no sign of any
such is seen. So many things must concur to
build up such a fabric that it is much if fortune
should bring the like into existence once in three
ages." *

La Boetie, whose philological studies con-
nected him with scholars, whose French verses
might naturally bring him into relation with the
writers soon to be the luminaries of the Pleiad,
seems to have had a genius for friendship. To
his fellow student in law and in the humanities
at Orleans, Lambert Daneau, he addresses some
verses which tell of the maturity of Daneau's
mind under the appearance of his flourishing
youth. Montaigne's biographer, M. Bonnefon,
imagines the two young men pacing to and fro
among the quincunxes and arbours of the garden
which Antoine Brachet, Daneau's uncle, himself
a scholar and something of a poet, possessed in
the outskirts of Orleans. If this is no fancy, it
is to be feared that the early friendship was sun-
dered by religious differences, for Daneau in later
years became an ardent combatant with the pen
upon the side of the Reformed Faith, f The poet

* Essays, I, 27.

t M. Bonnefon conjectures that La Boetie's Discourse
may have been written at the University of Orleans, that

86

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

Baif was certainly a friend of La Boetie, and he
could not fail to communicate to one who was
himself a poet some of the aspirations and designs
of the Pleiad. With another member of that
brilliant group, the Hellenist Jean Dorat, he must
also have been acquainted, for he composed a
moralising Latin distich On the Horologe of
Marguerite de Laval, and Marguerite was
Dorat's first wife. There are words in the
Contr'un which may, indeed, refer only to the
grace of Ronsard's verses, but which suggest a
personal acquaintance. La Boetie came forward
with a spirited defence of the great poet, when
one of his fellow councillors of Bordeaux main-
tained that Ronsard would be better employed in
singing the praises of God than those of earthly
love. There are many more ways of praising God
than one, declares La Boetie in his Latin epigram ;
let Ronsard celebrate Him in his own divine
verse; the councillor, Gaillard de Laval, may, for
his part, praise God hardly less by silence. The
enthusiastic admiration of " the great La Boetie",

the influence of Anne du Bourg may have assisted in its
inspiration, and that it may have reached the Huguenots
through Lambert Daneau. The " Longa", addressed in
the Discourse, has been identified by M. Dezeimeris as
Guillaume de Lur, a councillor first of Bordeaux, after-
wards of Paris, a lover of letters, the friend of Rabelais
and of Buchanan.

87

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

a man " possessing every gift", one who " will
surpass in every direction what is hoped from
him", expressed by the eminent scholar Julius
Caesar Scaliger is only one more proof of the uni-
versal esteem in which he was held by his con-
temporaries.*

The desire for mutual acquaintance was com-
mon to La Boetie and Montaigne, " We sought
each other before we met, and by the reports we
heard one of another, which wrought upon our
affection more than in reason reports should do,
I think by some secret ordinance of Heaven." At
length, by accident at some great city entertain-
ment, they found each other. Montaigne was in
an unusual degree open to the impression of per-
sonal beauty, and La Boetie's face was not beau-
tiful, in the common acceptation of that word. It
might even be called the reverse of beautiful, but
the irregularity of features was of that kind which
Montaigne describes as a superficial lack of
beauty; it had a character which imposed itself
decisively on the observer, yet one about which
men's opinions may differ, one certainly which
does not react in any prejudicial way upon the dis-
position of its possessor's mind. Not for a mo-
ment was any check interposed in the swift

* See Bonnefon's Montaigne et ses Amis, I, 210; and
Dezeimeris, De la Renaissance des Lettres a Bordeaux au
XV Je siecle.

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

approach of spirit to spirit and heart to heart :
" We found ourselves so mutually taken with one
another, so well acquainted, so bound by obliga-
tions each to the other, that thenceforward noth-
ing was as near us as each was to each." The
feeling had its springs in something deeper than
any reason that could be assigned to explain it.
The essential reason was, as Montaigne puts it in
a celebrated phrase — " Parce que c'cstoit luy;
parcc que c'estoit mor — " Because it zvas he; he-
cause it zvas /."

In this alliance La Boetie was the Horatio,
with blood and judgment well commingled; al-
ready in harmony with himself and his ideals of
duty. Montaigne was the Hamlet, greater by in-
tellect, and imagination, and manifold sympathies,
but still with powers unharmonized ; less stead-
fast and indomitable of will, and by no means
foursquare in complete moral rectitude. The con-
ditions of a perfect friendship, absolute unity and
absolute independence, seem to have been fulfilled
in the highest possible degree. A soft, assenting,
yielding image of himself — himself upon a lesser
scale — would have left Montaigne indifferent, or
would have teased him out of patience. He en-
joyed the contest of intellects, the encounter of
various moods. But underneath that diversity
which made the commerce of mind with mind in-
teresting and profitable, lay a union that was far

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

more than any community of tastes and interests,
a union that had in it something almost of mys-
tical passion, measureless truth, a calm wjth a
radiance at its centre, a deep security, as if rest
had been found, and were sustained on those eter-
nal pillars which upbear the heaven and the earth.
Montaigne, the sceptic, the egoist, as he is called,
— and, in truth, he had something of each in his
composition — describes this friendship in such
words as are usually reserved for the exaltations
of religious ardour; the varied interests which
make up friendship melt together into " I know
not what quintessence which, having seized all my
will, led it to plunge and lose itself in his ; which,
having seized all his will, led it to plunge and lose
itself in mine with an equal hunger and concur-
rence. I may indeed say ' lose', for nothing, his
or mine, was reserved as part of a separate and
peculiar existence."

Among La Boetie's Latin poems are three ad-
dressed to his friend, and it is clear from these
that the elder brother — for the name of " brother"
was accepted by them, with a deeper meaning
than that of mere kinship — gave of his best to the
younger by assuming a certain authority over him
as what we may style the guardian of his virtue.
In one of these poems the name of Jean de Belot,
another friend of La Boetie, is associated with
that of Montaigne. It expresses a mood of

90

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

fatigue and despondency in the writer caused by
the perpetually renewed troubles of France. We
hear La Boetie's sigh for what Southey and Cole-
ridge afterwards imagined as a Pantisocracy on
the banks of the Susquehanna. These strange
lands, these vast new realms discovered by sea-
men across the main, do they not invite a weary
man to peaceful fields and happier duties? And
yet even there the thought of his country's ruin
would pursue him. Of the verses addressed to
Montaigne alone, one is lyrical ; it is a summons
to the choice of the better and the harder way, the
way not of pleasure transitory and meretricious,
but of labour and duty with the loins girt and the
lit lamp :

" To labour nothing Jove denies,
For he the overhanging skies,
The wandering waves, the land,
Rules with no easeful hand.

"What state is his who toileth not?
Sunk in long sleep, of men forgot,
Buried he draws his breath.
Foretasting his own death."

Such is the spirit of La Boetie's call to duty.
Passionate at times in the pursuit of pleasures,
Montaigne at other times revived in manhood the
feeling of some who had known him in his school-
boy days; the boy, they supposed, was not likely
to do much that was ill, but would he do anything

91

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

that was good ? Through his superficial indolence
or nonchalance Montaigne's energy of intellect
and heart were discerned by La Boetie; he had
faith in great, untold possibilities of good; he
summoned his younger comrade to show himself
for what he really was; and if gratitude were
permissible between such friends as these, Mon-
taigne could not but feel grateful to one who
knew him aright and who constrained him to be
loyal to his better self.

" He wrote," says Montaigne, " an excellent
Latin satire, which has been published, in which
he excuses and explains the precipitancy of our
mutual intelligence, coming, as it did, so sud-
denly to perfection. Having so short a term of
duration, having begun so late ( for we were both
men full-grown, and he some years the elder),
there was no time to lose, nor were we bound to
conform to the pattern of those soft, regular
friendships which require so many precautions of
long, anticipatory converse." The " Latin satire"
is the third of La Boetie's poems addressed Ad
Michaehim Montamim. It tells in the opening
lines of that swift mutual intelligence between the
two friends which is referred to by the Essayist.
Many of those who are named prudent — so the
poem begins — hold in suspect a friendship that
has not been tried by years, and by the stress and
strain of life:

92

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

" But us a love scarce elder than a year
Joins, and already love is at the full.

" Nor do I fear, let but the fates be kind,
That they, our children's children, will decline
To vk^rite our names in that illustrious roll
Of famous friends."

Some trees refuse to be grafted with certain
others ; and again some trees accept the graft on
the instant, through an occult kinship of nature;
in a moment of time the buds swell and cohere,
and with a single desire conjoin to bring forth
fruit :

" Thee, thee, Montaigne, through every chance and change,
Nature omnipotent hath joined with me,
Nature, and that most dear constraint of love —
Virtue."

And so La Boetie passes on to his lessons and
exhortations as to conduct, warning his friend
against the special dangers of his own tempera-
ment, and holding up before his imagination the
virile joys of self-restraint, and the happiness of
the hearth and home.

In his essay on Friendship Montaigne com-
pares the love of friend for friend with the other
chief alliances of heart with heart, and gives to
friendship the place of pre-eminence. The rela-
tion of a son to a father may be of great beauty in
its kind — and no one had a more gracious father

93

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

than he — but a father cannot communicate all his
secret thoughts to a son, nor can a son reprove his
father, while reproof is one of the most valuable
offices of a perfect friendship. The interests of
brothers are often detached or even opposed; they
jostle and hinder each the other. And a man's
father or his brother may happen to be of a hu-
mour quite contrary to his own. The passion for
a woman is, indeed, a more active and eager fire
than the temperate affection of friends, but its
flame is less steady and constant. In marriage,
when it has once been entered on, there is a sense
of constraint and even compulsion. Montaigne
in the essay on Experience describes himself as
so enamoured of freedom that were he interdicted
from access to some corner of the Indies, it would
take from him a little of his ease. Moreover, mar-
riage, a bargain seldom based merely on affection,
includes many subordinate interests and relations
which may tangle and intertwist disagreeably
with the chief relation. Nor are women often
capable of that equal communication with a man
which is essential to a high and enduring friend-
ship. Yet Montaigne can imagine a marriage,
freely contracted, founded upon love alone, in
which the soul might have entire fruition, and
the soul's companion, the body, might also have
its part in the alliance ; and such a marriage, he
asserts, would in truth be the most full and per-

94

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

feet form of friendship. Only, he adds, " it is
without example that this sex has ever yet arrived
at such perfection." La Boetie was not merely
of what Montaigne esteemed the nobler sex, he
was the greatest and noblest among the men of
his time : " The greatest spirit I ever knew, I
mean for the natural parts of the soul, and the
best endowed, was Stephen de La Boetie; his
was, indeed, a full soul, showing in every way an
aspect of beauty ; a soul of the old stamp, and one
which would have produced great effects, had his
fortune so pleased, seeing that to those great nat-
ural parts he had added much by learning and
study." * With such a friend mere good offices
and mutual benefits, which are the supports of
ordinary friendship, did not deserve so much as
to be mentioned. Between such a pair of friends
there could be no lending nor borrowing, no giv-
ing nor taking; or, if one gave to the other, the
receiver of the benefit was he who conferred the
greater obligation of the two. This passion, so
high and virile, was an unique experience for each
friend, standing single and alone, and could never
be repeated in the life of the survivor. In the his-
tory of many men there has been some supreme
event which seems to interpret the secret of exist-
ence, which divides the cloud of custom, and gives

* Essays, II, 17.
95

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

a higher meaning to the whole of hfe. With one
man it is religious conversion; with another it is
some heroic act of obedience to duty or of self-
surrender ; with another it is the love of a woman.
With Montaigne it was his friendship with
fitienne de La Boetie.

The last act of La Boetie's public life, of which
we are aware, was that of a guardian of public
order. The Huguenots in the neighbourhood of
Bordeaux, undeluded by the specious calm which
followed the edict of January, 1562, had seized
upon Bergerac, and it was feared that they might
attempt to surprise Bordeaux itself. In Decem-
ber of that year twelve hundred men of the city
were enrolled to secure its safety and quiet.
Twelve councillors of the Parliament were placed
in command of these centuries of citizen soldiers.
Among the officers of this hastily organized body
of guards La Boetie was one.

The end came unexpectedly. The record of La
Boetie's last illness and dying hours is given in
the extract from a letter of Montaigne to his
father, written probably soon after the first days
of sorrow, but not printed until certain of the
writings of Montaigne's dead friend were issued
in 1 571 under his own superintendence. The in-
cidents are told from day to day, almost from
hour to hour, with a sense of deep responsibility
for accuracy of statement. The writer would not

96

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

willingly alter or lose anything of what was all so
rare and precious; he would make the reader as
far as possible a witness of the event; he writes
with restrained tenderness, yielding to no extrav-
agant outbreaks of feeling, which would only ob-
scure the central figure of the narrative, and
would be out of harmony with his friend's grave
temperance and self-possession. Montaigne has
never elsewhere written with such a dignified sim-
plicity.

The death-bed, which he stood by day after
day, was that of a sage who was also a Christian.
Never was the process of dying more free from
unreality, more full of genuine dignity:

" No weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise or blame ; nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble."

During all his years La Boetie had enjoyed vig-
orous and uninterrupted health. On August 9,
1563, when returning from the courts of law,
Montaigne sent to his friend, inviting him to din-
ner. The answer was that La Boetie was not
quite well, and would be pleased if Montaigne
would come and spend an hour with him before
he started for " Medor" ( PMedoc). When Mon-
taigne called, he found La Boetie lying down but
not undressed, and looking much altered in ap-
pearance; he stated that he had caught a chill, as
7 97

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

he supposed, while at play with M. d'Escars. The
plague was in Bordeaux, and Montaigne urged
upon his friend that he should avoid the infected
air by quitting the city, but not venture farther
than the village of Germignan, two leagues to the
northeast. The advice was followed, and La
Boetie was accompanied by his wife and his good
uncle and namesake, the cure of Bouillonnas.

Early next morning Montaigne heard from
Mme. de La Boetie * that her husband was suf-
fering from a violent attack of dysentery. A phy-
sician had been called in. Montaigne hastened to
his friend, who was delighted to see him, and
begged him to sacrifice in such attendance as much
time as might be possible. The anxious wife with
tears entreated Montaigne to stay for the night.
On Saturday, La Boetie, supposing that his mal-
ady might be in some slight degree contagious,
and perceiving a depression which Montaigne
could not conceal, begged him not to remain con-
stantly with him, but to come now and again, and,
indeed, as often as circumstances would permit.
" From that time forward," Montaigne writes, " I
never left him."

* She is styled Mademoiselle, as was also Montaigne's
wife. The wives of persons of high rank and also of a
humble position were called Madame. In an intermediate
social position Mademoiselle was customary with married
women.

98

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

The stages of increasing weakness, the testa-
mentary arrangements, the words of affection, of
resignation, of unalterable equanimity are all duly
placed on record by Montaigne. For the sake of
his wife and uncle, La Boetie at first concealed
the assurance he had that recovery was hardly to
be expected. In their presence he seemed even
gay. He grieved on his wife's account and his
friend's that he must depart; as for himself, his
chief regret was that the opportunity he had an-
ticipated of doing some good work for his fellows
and for his country was not to be granted him :
" Possibly, my brother, I was not born so useless
but that I might have found means of rendering
some service in public affairs." Having explained
the arrangements which he proposed to make with
respect to his worldly goods, he went on to ex-
press his deep gratitude to the uncle who had
been as a father to him, and his entire joy in the
wife whom he addressed by that favorite name he
had chosen for her, "Ma semblance" — "my like-
ness," " my image." Then, turning to Montaigne,
he spoke : " My brother, whom I love so dearly,
and whom I have chosen from among so many
men with you to revive that virtuous and sincere
friendship, the habit of which has through men's
vices been so long estranged from among us that
only some old traces of it remain in the memor-
ials of antiquity, I beg of you as a token of my
99

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

affection for you to consent to be the inheritor of
my hbrary and my books, which I give you, a very
Httle gift, but one of great good-will, and which is
appropriate on account of the regard you bear to-
wards letters. It will be to you '■ir^fiiJ.'xjwMiv tui
sodalis' — ' a memorial of your old companion."
Whereupon he thanked God that he was accom-
panied to the end by those who were dearest to
him in the world. " It seems to me," he said, " a
very comely thing to see a group of four persons
so harmonious in feeling, so united in friendship.
... I am a Christian ; I am a Catholic ; as such
I have lived, as such I am resolved to close my
life. Let a priest be summoned, for I would not
fail in this last duty of a Christian."

All this was spoken with a quiet firmness. Some
hours later the notary was by the bedside, and La
Boetie dictated swiftly and precisely the terms of
his will. Then with wise words of counsel he
took farewell of his niece and of his stepdaugh-
ter. The chamber was full of weeping; he
begged all to withdraw except his " garrison," as
he named the maids who waited on him. Yet for
a little he retained one of the sorrowing group —
a younger brother of Montaigne, M. de Beaure-
gard, vi'ho was a zealous adherent of the Re-
formed Faith, at a later time to become the hus-
band of La Boetie's stepdaughter. The dying
man commended him for his earnestness, his sin-

100

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

cere and simple affection for what he beheved to
be the truth. It was easy to understand how one
should think as he did, seeing the disorder that
had crept into the Church, and the vicious lives of
prelates. La Boetie would not discourage him
from following the dictates of his conscience. All
he begged was that M. de Beauregard should tem-
per his zeal with discretion, and that, as far as
was possible, he should not permit differences with
respect to religion to disturb the unity of his
father's household. Montaigne's brother thanked
his kind monitor heartily and withdrew.

Why trace farther the progress of La Boetie's
decline? Having confessed, and received the sac-
rament, and again made profession of his faith,
he lay in great w^eakness, no longer, as he said, a
man, but the similitude of a man — non homo sed
species Jwmiuis — suffering much, yet possessed
with anticipations " wonderful, infinite, and in-
effable". When he bade his wife a last farewell,
repeating the name of old affection, " Ma sein-
blance," he tried to retract his word " I am going
away", which alarmed her, by turning it into a
simple good-night : " Good-night, my w^ife ; go
thy way." He begged his friend to keep close to
him. For a while his mind seemed to hover be-
tween dreams and realities ; then came a deceptive
lightening before death. He appeared to rest, and
]\Iontaigne left the chamber to rejoice with

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Madame de La Boetie, " About an hour after-
wards," continues the narrator, " naming me once
or twice, and heaving a long sigh, he gave up the
ghost, towards three o'clock on Wednesday morn-
ing, the eighteenth of August, fifteen hundred and
sixty-three, having lived thirty-two years, nine
months, and seventeen days."

There have been deaths more rapturous than
La Boetie's, deaths in which dying seems but the
incident of a moment in some advance upon a
great end. There has been no death of more calm
deliberation, more dignified tenderness. It was,
indeed, touched with the light of Christian hope.
But as a grave withdrawal and leave-taking it
resembled those beautiful classic reliefs in which
a tranquil, pathetic, and, in the old sense of the
word, decent farewell is represented — the son
taking the parent's hand for the last time, the hus-
band withdrawing from the wife, or friend parting
from friend. The gift to Montaigne of the books
which La Boetie cherished was much, but the
most precious bequest was the memory of such a
life and of such a death. The thought of death
had haunted Montaigne even in the midst of his
mundane pleasures. Now he had seen what it is
for a gentleman, a scholar, a philosopher, and a
Christian to die. It made life more intelligible.
Perplexed enough it still might be; but here was
something steadfast, something really ascer-

FRIENDSHIP: LA BOETIE

tained, on which he could lean, and by which he
could support himself.

Writing many years after his loss, Montaigne
declared that, though he had passed his time not
without enjoyment, and with no great affliction
except this one, all the rest of his life, compared
with those few years during which he had the
happiness of companionship with La Boetie,
seemed nothing but a smoke or an obscure and
tedious night : " From the day that I lost him I
have only dragged on in a languishing way, and
the very pleasures that offer themselves to me, in-
stead of consoling me, redouble my grief for his
loss ; w^e were halves throughout ; it seems to me
that I defraud him of his part." In 1581, nearly
a score of years after his friend's death, Mon-
taigne was at the Baths of Lucca; and ailing
somewhat, yet full of the spirit of untiring curi-
osity, which made every place interesting. Sud-
denly the cloud of his early loss overshadowed
him, and all the sunlight was blotted from the
day : " While I was writing that same morning
to M. Ossat," he enters in his journal, " I fell
thinking of M. de La Boetie, and I remained in
this mood so long that I sank into the saddest hu-
mour." So shaken was Montaigne by the long
reverberations of his sorrow.

103

CHAPTER IV

FROM LA BOETIE's DEATH TO 1 5/0

Montaigne's first duty, after the death of his
friend, was to offer such consolation as he could,
in accordance with the dying injunction of La
Boetie, to the afflicted widow. He did not oppose
the outflow of her grief; he rather let it have its
course at first. He did not quote Cleanthes or
Chrysippus, but let her weep without the poor
styptic of philosophical phrases. Taking part
with her in her sorrow, he endeavoured by soft
degrees to lead the conversation away from the
central theme, and to interest her in returning to
life. He had hopes that his efforts were not
wholly useless, but those who were afterwards her
most intimate companions assured him that he
had effected nothing. " I had not," he says, " laid
my axe to the root of the tree." Marguerite de
Carle lived on in sorrow, surviving her husband
some eighteen years.*

It is in the essay on Diversion that Montaigne
speaks of his ineffectual efforts to turn to side
issues a portion of the energy of Madame de La

* I think it hardly doubtful that the opening passage of
Essays, III, 4, refers to Madame de La Boetie.
104

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

Boetie's passion. He held that real grief remains
at its rigid centre always what it was at first : " A
wise man sees his friend dying almost as vividly
at the end of five-and-twenty years as in the first
year" — words which, it may be noted, appeared in
the edition of the Essays published exactly a quar-
ter of a century after La Boetie's death. But
other things happily intervene and distract us
from the sorrow which for a time had wholly pos-
sessed our thoughts. We are often strong to bear
the knowledge of a great loss ; we have to bear it
all our life and we stiffen our back to the burden.
It is some trivial incident, a phrase, a perfume, a
bar of music, the remembrance of a farewell or of
some gesture of peculiar grace, that unmans us.
And regarding man as indeed he is, what an in-
firm and variable creature he shows himself to
be ! Is it not the part of prudence to turn our
own infirmity to good account? If our passion is
running at headlong speed, shall we not fling an
Atalanta's apple to it, and so divert it from the
course? It is so characteristic of Montaigne,
whether we like him the worse for what he con-
fesses or not, that something would be lost by
omitting to tell that, in his real and deep distress
for the death of his friend, he dealt with himself
as an exemplar of that infirm and variable crea-
ture, man, and endeavoured to distract his mind
with a transitory passion of love. His dead friend
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MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

would have counselled him to seek for strength in
duty. Precisely what La Boetie had warned him
against he deliberately sought. " In former
days," he wrote in 1588, "I was wounded by a
grievous displeasure, according to my complex-
ion, and withal more just than grievous; I had
peradventure lost myself in it, had I relied only on
strength of my own. Needing a vehement diver-
sion to distract me from it, I made myself by art
and study a lover, wherein my age helped me;
love solaced me, and withdrew me from the evil
which friendship had caused in me. 'Tis in every-
thing else the same; a violent imagination has
seized me; I find it a readier way to change it
than subdue it; I substitute for it, if not one con-
trary, at least one that is different ; variation ever
solaces, dissolves, and dissipates,"* If once wholly
conquered and beaten down by any passion, Mon-
taigne believed that he could never, as we say, be
his own man again. His marriage followed La
Boetie's death after an interval of two years. If
any reader is so charitable, he may hold that these
words of Montaigne refer to the period of his
courtship. But Montaigne's courtship of Fran-
goise de La Chassaigne was perhaps conducted
in the spirit of philosophical resignation rather
than as a lover. We cannot tell ; and it may not

* Essays, III, 4.
106

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

be unreasonable to give him the benefit of a
doubt.

There can, however, be no question as to the
fact that his early manhood was not like that of
his father, who had

" pass'd by the ambush of young days,
Either not assail'd, or victor being charged."

The age was one in which, as Montaigne him-
self says, virtue was hardly a thing that could be
conceived ; the word sounded like a term of some
old scholastic jargon : " It is a trinket to hang in
a cabinet, or at the tip of the tongue, as a jewel
is worn at the tip of the ear, for an ornament."
His license of manners and morals was never ex-
travagant ; it was less coarse than that of many of
his contemporaries; and his judgment remained
superior to his conduct. He could honour a purity
of life which he himself made no serious efifort
to attain. He claims for himself, and doubtless
with justice, that he never deceived, never made a
false promise, and that, though occasionally his
hasty temper might show itself, never was he
treacherous, malicious, or cruel. Beauty and wit
had a charm for him, and beauty in women even
more than wit; yet sometimes out of regard for
the honour of another, he took sides, as he de-
clares, against himself.

In not a few places Montaigne has written
without modesty or reserve; yet we can believe
107

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

him when he tells us that by his natural instinct
he was fastidiously decorous. The license of his
pen was in part the result of his resolve that in
the Essays he would present himself at full length
as a study towards the natural history of the
genus homo; in part the result of a contemptu-
ous feeling towards conventional proprieties as-
sumed by others as the disguise of a concealed
grossness of living. He at least would be no pre-
tender. He could reflect that his conduct was
more orderly than his speech. And yet he is
aware that speech itself is an important part of
conduct. He does not excuse his license of utter-
ance ; any excuse, he says, w'ould itself have to be
excused. He asserts that the design of his wdiole
book is legitimate, and that this design requires
such unabashed discourse; and, in fine, that he
must give his lesson in natural history in his own
way, not morosely but cheerfully. Nature, the
wanton Pan, is to blame, not he. But, in truth,
the defence is inadequate. Montaigne has neither
the purity of science, to which all things are pure,
nor that of art, which uplifts the humbler facts of
life through a sense of their relation to higher
facts. Nature, which he professes to follow, in-
cludes, if understood aright, all wholesome re-
straints. " The offence," said Emerson, in his
lecture on Montaigne, " is superficial". That is
far from being the case ; superficial it is not ; but
io8

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

it is the offence of a large and a complex per-
sonality, to reject whom for a fault would be to
commit a wrong against ourselves.

Montaigne had lost his dearest friend. He was
thirty-three years of age. His father was old, and
desired to found a family which should possess
his estate, and enjoy the chateau which he had
been at the pains to rebuild. It w^as time that his
eldest son should take to himself a wife. A man
— Montaigne considered — must fulfil the condi-
tions imposed by humanity ; and marriage, after
all, is in the bond. It involves, no doubt, a cer-
tain loss of the independence a man should cher-
ish above everything, but perhaps it is possible to
contrive an independence within the constraint of
marriage. Somehow in the ordinary course of
life this matrimonial relation has to be accepted.
Nothing is more useful, nothing more necessary,
for human society. We must fall in with a ven-
erable and excellent custom ; we must incorporate
ourselves w-ith the race. The point of chief con-
cern is that a marriage in its kind should be good.
The path of wedded life is, no doubt, " full of
thorny circumstances", but at its best it may be " a
sweet society of life", rich in constancy, in mutual
trust, in an infinite number of useful and substan-
tial services and obligations. From the outset let
it be clearly understood that, w^hile marriage is not
dissociated from a reasonable love, love, at least in
109

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

the sense of passion, is not the foundation on
which it rests. We should not confuse and con-
found things that are different; to do so is a
wrong ahke to marriage and to love. Let us
think of it rather as a form, not the highest, but in
its own way excellent, of friendship. Thus alone
can a wife receive her due honour, that of a help-
mate, not a mistress. Thirty-three years old — it
is not quite so satisfactory an age as that approved
by Aristotle, thirty-five. Plato would have no
man marry before thirty. Thirty-three, lying be-
tween the two, cannot be very far astray; and
there are a kind expectant father and mother, and
a house and worldly gear, which by and by cannot
but require a domestic supervisor.

Such, if the Essays do not misrepresent his ear-
lier self, were the reflections of Montaigne in his
character of a wooer.

" Of my own disposition I would not have married
Wisdom herself, if she would have had me ; but, say
what we may, the custom and usage of common life get
the better of us. Most of my actions are guided by
example, not by choice ; and yet I did not properly invite
myself to it; I was led and brought to it by extrinsic
occasions, for not only things incommodious but even
things foul, vicious, and to be avoided, may be rendered
acceptable to us by some condition or accident. So vain
is man's attitude towards things ! And truly I was then
drawn unto it more ill-prepared and less tractable than
I am at present, after having made trial of it ; and as
libertine as I am taken to be, I have in truth more strictly
no

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

observed the laws of wedlock than I cither promised or
hoped. 'Tis too late to kick when a man has let himself
be shackled ; he must prudently economise his freedom." *

Mademoiselle de Montaigne may have read
these words of her husband, printed more than a
score of years after her marriage, and may have
smiled at them, knowing how fortunate the event
was for her philosopher; or he might have read
them aloud for her, and if she had good sense, as
seems to have been the case, and a grain of
humour, they may have smiled together.

The marriage-contract is dated September 22,
1 565 ; the ceremony was celebrated on the
twenty-third. The bride, Frangoise de La Chas-
saigne, eleven years younger than her husband,
was the daughter of Joseph de La Chassaigne, a
councillor of the Parliament of Bordeaux. Her
mother's maiden name was Marguerite Douhet.
Montaigne's wife came of an old family, distin-
guished in the magistracy; a family not lacking
worldly means, for the marriage portion, part paid
down, part to be paid within four years, amounted
to seven thousand " livres tonrnois", equivalent
to some thirty thousand francs, which we must
multiply by ten, if M. Bonnefon's estimate be cor-
rect, to find its present value. The advocate An-
toine de Louppes, a kinsman of Montaigne's

* Essays, III, 5.
Ill

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

mother, assisted in the legal arrangements, which
involved the cancelling of a first marriage settle-
ment, and the substitution for it of a second, with
some slight alteration in its terms.

There are good grounds for believing that the
marriage, judged according to the ideal of wed-
ded happiness which Montaigne sets forth in the
Essays, was a happy one. The " new shoe", to
which he alludes in the essay on Vanity, did
not pinch his foot as much as he may have antici-
pated. When the chateau became his own, and
the books were ranged in his library, there was
always a place of retreat from any excess of
threatening domesticities ; for conjugal as well as
other society was interdicted in the tower. Sen-
eca and Plutarch served as giant warders of the
philosopher's freedom and equanimity. But Mon-
taigne knew, and it was much to him to know,
that household affairs were conducted with discre-
tion while he turned the page, or meditated, with
heels higher than his head, and that a temperate
sunshine of happiness made bright the chateau.
He was himself unskilled in household economy.
He had acres to be tilled or planted, but he could
hardly tell whether the green thing in his kitchen
garden was a lettuce or a cabbage. He could not
keep accounts; he scarcely knew one coin from
another; legal papers, title-deeds and the like, he
chose to lay aside unread and unopened. Where

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

he was deficient, Madame de Montaigne was in
her element. " The most useful and honourable
knowledge and occupation for the mother of a
family," he writes, ''are those of household econ-
omy. I see some that are pinching ; of good man-
agers but very few. It is the supreme excellence
of a woman which should be sought before all oth-
ers, as the sole dowry which serves to save or ruin
our houses. Let them say what they will, I re-
quire, as experience has taught it me, above every
other virtue in a married woman the economic
virtue. I give her the opportunity of practicing it,
leaving her by my absence the whole government
of my affairs." *

It is true that Montaigne's wife plays hardly a
more important part in the Essays than Mon-
taigne's cat ; but she seems to have been as harm-
less and more necessary. Is her husband's silence
due to the reserve of tenderness and respect? Is
it due to indifference? M. Paul Stapfer f justly
calls attention to a passage in the essay on E.i'~
ercitation in which ]\Iontaigne tells of a serious
misadventure which befell him during one of the
periods of civil war — the precise date he could not
remember. He had gone to take the air on horse-
back, attended by his servants. The massive Ger-

* Essays, III, 9.

t La Famillc et les Amis de Montaigne, p. 65.

8 113

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

man horse ridden by one of these, a tall, burly fel-
low, became unmanageable, and the rider came
thundering down, like a Colossus, upon his mas-
ter, " the little man on the little horse". Mon-
taigne was dashed violently to the ground, was
badly hurt, and for the first time in his life he
swooned. As he floated up to consciousness he
observed, with such accuracy as was possible, his
sensations, and the thoughts and feelings that in-
voluntarily arose within him. "As I drew near
my house, where the alarm of my fall had already
arrived, and certain of my family ran to meet me,
with the outcries customary on such occasions,
not only did I utter some word in reply to what
they asked me, but I am told I had sense enough
to bid them give my wife a horse, for I saw her
labouring and incommoded on the road, which is
hilly and rugged." The instinct of help on behalf
of his wife, struggling through his own pain and
weakness, speaks much for Montaigne; it was
prompt, almost as inevitable as a reflex action,
and as quickly forgotten as it was brought into
existence.

True it is that Fran(;oise did not create for her
husband's imagination an atmosphere through
which he saw all of womanhood idealised or enno-
bled. In his pages the ever-renewed civil war be-
tween the sexes breaks forth again and again. He
flings his gibes at women, like sputtering gren-
114

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

ades, sometimes with a clumsy, sometimes with a
dexterous hand. They do not all mean serious
mischief. Montaigne had the tradition of the
mediaeval mockery of women behind him. Some
women, he gladly admits, have given admirable
examples of courage, of virtue, of self-oblivious
love; but these are Plutarch's women, a species
even rarer than Plutarch's men in these our mod-
ern days. The chapter on Three Good Women
opens with the words : '* They are not to be had
by dozens, as every one knows, and especially in
the duties of the married state." The Essayist
proceeds to reproduce the well-worn sarcasm :
" In our age they commonly reserve the demon-
stration of their good offices and vehement affec-
tion for the husbands whom they have lost." If
they would only give us smiles while we are alive,
they might laugh as much as they please when we
are dead. Yonder afflicted widow has cheeks
plump enough, would she but lift the veil, and
such cheeks at least speak plain French. That man
knew something of the business who said that a
happy marriage is one where the wife is blind and
the husband deaf. The passions of women are
not less ardent than those of men ; their virtue is
not to be estimated by their coyness; vigorous
limbs are more to their taste than agile brains ; a
brawny muleteer runs as good a chance of pleas-
ing them as a gallant gentleman; they are in-
115

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

finitely fickle; their favours are sometimes trea-
sons; they are greedy for authority; furious in
jealousy; fond of crossing their husbands in
everything; they would rather chew red-hot iron
than loosen their teeth from an opinion taken up
in anger; their very being is made up of sus-
picion, vanity, and curiosity. So runs on the in-
dictment. Worst oflE'ence of all — they often treat
the volumes of Montaigne's Essays as a piece of
decorative furniture or as a trivial bibelot : " It
vexeth me," thus Florio's translation has it, " that
my Essays serve ladies in lieu of common ware
and stuff for their hall." Was Francis, Duke of
Brittany, far wrong when, on being told that Isa-
bella of Scotland was without learning, he de-
clared that a woman is learned enough if she
knows the difference between her husband's shirt
and his doublet?

Montaigne has better words than these to say
of women ; and in saying these, he does not look
morose ; he smiles partly at his victims but a little
also at himself. He smiles at the professions of
women that their love is wholly spiritual or intel-
lectual. Why then do they always give the pref-
erence to young men tall and proper over a very
Solomon if he be but touched with years? Yet
why should it not be so? There is in us nothing
that is purely corporeal or purely spiritual ; soul
and body should act and enjoy in one. At the
ii6

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

close of his long discourse upon Some Verses of
Virgil, Montaigne confesses that men are almost
as unjust judges of the proceedings of women as
are women of the doings of men. Yet both are
cast in almost the same mould — " apart from edu-
cation and custom the difference is not grea:t. It
is much more easy to accuse one sex than to ex-
cuse the other; it is, as they say, the pot calling
the kettle black."

Let us set over against the indictment of
women, gathered from the Essays, those words
in which Montaigne de4icates to his wife, after
several years of wedded union, his dead friend La
Boetie's translation of Plutarch's Letter of Con-
solation. His marriage for five years had been
childless ; then a girl was born ; and the infant
had but a small handbreadth of life. The Letter
of Consolation was an appropriate gift to offer to
the sorrowing mother, who would hardly have
been offered such a gift had she known no more
than how to distinguish between her husband's
doublet and shirt. " My wife," so begins the ded-
ication, "you are well aware that it is not the part
of a gentleman, according to the rules of our day,
to court and caress you still, for they say that an
accomplished man may indeed take to himself a
wife, but to espouse her is the act of a fool. Let
them talk ; I, for my part, hold to the simple fash-
ion of the olden time ; something of which I show
117

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

in my hair. And in truth novelty, even to the
present hour, has cost this poor commonwealth so
dear, and I know not whether we are yet at the
highest bid, that in everything and everywhere I
have ceased to have a part in it. Let us, my wife,
you and I, live in the old French way [d la
vicUc FrangoiscY' ■ The dedicatory letter goes on
to beg his wife to believe in Plutarch's words for
the love she bore to himself ; and ends by recom-
mending the writer of the dedication very heart-
ily to her good graces, and praying God to watch
over her. These are not the words of a misogy-
nist, nor of a husband who, being shackled, is
stupid enough to kick.

Pierre de Montaigne had not the happiness to
hold in his arms his son Michel's first baby. He
died, June i8, 1566, having passed by a few
months his seventy-second year. His old age, up
to sixty-seven, when he began to be seriously
troubled with the nephritic malady which after-
wards afflicted his son, had been happy and vigor-
ous. He was buried at Montaigne, not precisely
as the Essayist, with a touch of vanity, expresses
it, in " the tomb of his ancestors", but, as Pierre's
will has it, in the tomb of his territorial " prede-
cessors", who were not of his own family. He
left eight children, five sons and three daughters,
the youngest of the sons being only about eight
years old. Michel, the eldest of the surviving

118

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

children, bore the title of Montaigne, and became,
subject to certain conditions, the " universal heir".
To Thomas, the second son, Michel resigned the
noble house, with the title of Beauregard, in the
parish of Merignac, near Bordeaux; to Pierre,
the property and title of La Brousse ; to Arnaud,
Captain St. Martin, another property, with a
sum of money. The boy Bertrand-Charles, who
afterwards took his title from* the noble house of
Mattecoulon, was placed in the wardship of his
brother Michel, associated with other relatives.
Of Montaigne's sisters, one was the wife of Rich-
ard de Lestonnac, a councillor of the Parliament
of Bordeaux ; she had already received her dowry.
Leonor and Marie were given at later dates what
was due to them, when the marriage of each sister
was being arranged. Montaigne's widowed
mother continued to live in the chateau, with her
own attendants, occupying perhaps the so-called
" tour de Madame", with its hall on the ground-
floor and its bedroom on the first story. She may
have assisted in household affairs, but possessed
no legal authority in such matters.

Montaigne's sorrow for a father whom he
greatly loved and honoured may have been quali-
fied a little by the sense of dignity attaching to his
position as the head of his house. He admits that
there is a certain pleasure in command — com-
mand even in a barn — command even of ser-
119

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

vants ; but few persons could be less naturally fit-
ted to enjoy a place of authority than was he. Lit-
tle things broke in upon the quietude that he loved.
The thought of a poor tenant's need, the report of
a trespass upon his land, the negligence of a stew-
ard, the weather, which if it serves the vines must
spoil the meadows, the stupidity of a servant, the
ill grace with which he cheats the master — for we
may tolerate some cheating, if only it be agreeably
conducted — the fall of a tile, the breach of per-
sonal dignity in bustling when guests arrive, yet
bustle one must if things are to go aright — each
of these helped to mar some fragment of the day.
" I came late," he says, " to the management of a
house ; those whom nature sent before me into the
world delivered me for long from that care; so
that I had already taken another ply more in ac-
cord with my complexion." In household affairs
there is always something that goes awry; petty
vexations shatter you into fragments ; your clear-
sightedness is itself a calamity; you try to avert
your eyes, and somehow they are drawn back.
Vain pricks, as of a needle; vain indeed, yet
pricking still! And life is a tender thing, easily
distempered. To forsake such affairs wholly may
not be difficult; to concern one's self about them
in any degree and to escape perturbation, is most
hard. At its best authority is a kind of servitude.
To become the servant of one's self, to shackle

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

one's self to one's own concerns, is something far
removed from tliat liberty which is to be desired.

With one who, hke Montaigne, has a profound
and penetrating sense of the independent individu-
ahty of every human being, the art of command
is never easy. What is right from my own point
of view is right only in a relative way. My wife,
my child, my servant, is a separate human per-
sonality. How unreasonable to assert that my
point of view must be that of any other individ-
ual on the face of the earth ! How barbarous to
impose the fiat of one will upon another, which
possesses the inalienable right of humanity — indi-
vidual freedom. To obey is comparatively easy
for a philosopher; he can adapt himself to all
the necessities of life, and make the best of them.
But it is hard, indeed, to widen the injustice of
the world by giving a command.

It may have been about this time that Mon-
taigne for the first time troubled himself seriously
about ways and means. Beggars and gangrel
bodies may have their glorious hour, like the sing-
ers by the fire at Poosie-Nansie's of Burns's can-
tata. They at least are free, and can rejoice in
their state of nature. But for a comfortable pro-
prietor to fall into indigence may mean not free-
dom but painful constraint. It is not want, but
rather abundance, Montaigne says, that creates
avarice. Probablv v^hen he first felt that he had

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

enough and to spare of worldly goods, he began
to vex himself with the alarms of possible future
poverty. He was now five-and-thirty, an age
when the cares of life begin to weigh upon one
whose temper is not imprudent. For a period of
about twenty years, since he had ceased to be a
child, he had depended wholly upon the generosity
of his father and his friends. His means were
uncertain in amount, and what he received he
spent freely and carelessly. He was never more
at his ease than he was then. The purse of some
acquaintance was always open to him, and to
repay a loan was not merely a duty in which he
never failed, but a pleasure, which brought with
it a sense of freedom and lightness. He lived with
no sense of security or the reverse, as do so
many from day to day, and his experience was
that he could always be jocund, trusting to his
lucky star.

Such was Montaigne's first state in relation to
money. The second was less happy. He pos-
sessed money which he could call his own, and in a
short time he had saved a very considerable sum.
The thought of the uncertainty of riches came to
haunt him. He said not a word to any one of the
growing hoard, which, he thought, never could
be large enough to guard against all possible con-
tingencies. Contrary to his instinct of truthful-
ness, he would even at times profess that he was

122

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

poor. If he journeyed, he loaded himself with
gold, and at the same time loaded himself with
fears for its safety. If he left his cash-box be-
hind, he was filled with suspicions, which he dared
not communicate to the most trusted friend.
It is possible that in all this, as he records it, there
may have been an exaggeration of the memory,
but we cannot doubt that he had troubled his own
calm. He dared not break in upon his reserve
fund; it lay idly growing, and he found himself
degraded into its impoverished guardian. Hap-
pily his various and undulating nature saved him,
and that of a sudden, from ending his life in mi-
serly narrowness of soul. The pleasure which he
had in a certain journey — probably that to Ger-
many and Italy — taken at great expense, made
him cast under foot, as he expresses it, his foolish
imaginings. A third state in relation to money
followed for Montaigne — one more enjoyable,
and, if rightly considered, more orderly than
either of its predecessors. He cut his garment
according to his cloth — so the translator Florio
gives the sense though not the words of his orig-
inal; his outgoings just matched his incomings.
He lived from day to day content to have where-
withal to meet the day's demands. He reformed
his temper with respect to worldly goods. He
trusted to the inward resources of his spirit as
alone sufficient to confront all possible infelicities
123

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

of fortune. " If I lay up anything, it is in the
hope of some employment for it near at hand, not
to purchase land of which I have no need, but t©
purchase pleasure." It was a source of joy to his
heart that he had so reformed himself in a grasp-
ing age, and before the arrival of those years of
life when avarice, the most ridiculous of human
follies, lays hold of many men.

A duty of piety occupied Montaigne and
diverted him from worldly cares for some time
after his father's death. Many years previously a
distinguished Latinist, Pierre Bunel, who died in
1546, had stayed for some days at the chateau of
Montaigne as one of a company of learned men.
At his departure he presented his host, Michel's
father, with a copy of a book entitled Natural
Theology, or the Book of Creatures, by Master
Raimond de Sebonde. Bunel hoped that Pierre
de Montaigne, who was acquainted with both Ital-
ian and Spanish, would not find this work difficult
to read, written, as it was, in a Latin which was
far from classical. It might prove useful to him,
especially at a time when the doctrines of Luther
were obtaining credit, and shaking the Faith. " In
which opinion," says the Essayist, " he was very
well advised, rightly perceiving, by discourse of
reason, that the beginning of this distemper would
easily grow into an execrable atheism." Some
days before Pierre's death, his son tells us — but
124

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

in reality it must have been many days * — the old
man, having found the book under a heap of
papers cast aside, ordered Michel to put it for his
use into French. The task was no light one, for
Sebonde's Natural Theology was of considerable
size ; but Michel had leisure, and he could not re-
fuse to comply with the wishes of the best father
that ever lived. The work of a translator was new
to him ; he did what he could ; his father was
highly pleased with what he saw, and directed that
the book should be printed. Printed accordingly
it was, but after the old man's death. The license,
which does not mention the translator's name, and
refers to the volume under the title Lc Livre des
Creatures, is dated October 17, 1568. The trans-
lation was published in Paris at the close of the
year, with the date of the new year, 1569, upon
the title-page. It is named, not The Book of Crea-
tures, but by the first title of the original, The
Natural Theology of Raymond Sehon, and the
title-page goes on to describe the work as a
demonstration of the truth of the Christian and
Catholic faith, derived from the order of Nature.

* Perhaps a year. Montaigne speaks of " last year"
in the dedication of his translation, which he dates June
18, 1568. But we cannot rely on such a statement. M.
Courbet carries the date back as far as the time follow-
ing La Boetie's death, and conjectures that the transla-
tion was proposed to Montaigne as a distraction from his
melancholy.

125

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Montaigne did his work well. The translation
is faithful yet spirited, enlivened by vivid touches
and phrases which are characteristic of the author
of the Essays. Apart from the manner in which
he executed his task and the dedicatory address to
his father, dated reverentially June i8, 1568, the
day on which Pierre de Montaigne died, there is
nothing in the volume which presents the thought
or feeling of the translator. The argument of the
book, however, as readers of the Essays are
aware, reacted in a singular degree and after a
strange fashion upon his intellect. If his father
had thought of confirming a son's wavering faith
in the Christian religion, by requiring him to sub-
mit his understanding to that of Sebonde, the re-
sult would probably have startled the simple
Pierre, had he lived to read the Essays, the long-
est and most laboured chapter of which is devoted
to both sapping and buttressing the argument of
the fifteenth-century apologist for theism and
Christianity. Only by forming some acquaint-
ance with the drift of Sebonde's contention can
we adequately appreciate the destructive criticism
of Montaigne.

Of the history of his author the translator knew
little, and little is known at the present day. He
supposed that Sebonde was a Spaniard who pro-
fessed medicine at Toulouse " about two hundred
years ago". On inquiring of Adrien Turnebe,
126

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

whose learning is eulogised in the Essays, what
the book might be, Turnebe replied that he sup-
posed it was some quintessence drawn from St.
Thomas Aquinas. That Sebonde was a Spaniard
is uncertain; he was a doctor of medicine and
of theology who taught at Toulouse, as Mon-
taigne believed; but his book, which was written
for his pupils at the university, is not of earlier
date than 1434; its author died two years later,
less than a century before the birth of Montaigne.
It was printed at Deventer about 1484 — perhaps
earlier. In 1551 appeared an abridgement, with
variations in style and substance, by Pierre Gar-
land, under the title Viola animi, which had
considerable popularity as a manual for the faith-
ful. There is no reason to suppose that this
abridgement had ever been in the hands of Mon-
taigne.*

The Natural Theology, even in Montaigne's
translation, is not a piece of light reading; but it
contains an interesting and well-marshalled argu-
ment, and some pages are written with a genuine
and lofty eloquence. It was studied by Pascal
and perhaps by Leibnitz ; it was admired by Vic-
tor Le Clerc. The Council of Trent condemned
it; under Benedict XIV. the condemnation was

* This abridgement was put forth at the request of
Queen Eleanor of Austria by Jean Martin, secretary to
the Cardinal de Lenoncourt.

127

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

withdrawn. Here, with a view to the illustration
of Montaigne's singular Apology — to be spoken
of later — some of its leading thoughts deserve a
brief notice.

The design of Sebonde is to exhibit an argu-
ment, entirely derived from human reason, by
which a man may be delivered from religious
doubts, and may be led on to the love of God and
his fellow men, and to all those duties which love
prescribes. God has given us two books : first,
the universal order of things which we name Na-
ture; and, second, the Divine Word, which we
name the Bible. In the book of Nature every
creature is, as it were, a letter inscribed by God's
own hand, and the capital letter is man. From
these letters words are formed, and from these
words a science, full of grave sentences with many
deep meanings. This Book of Nature cannot
falsify itself, nor is it to be easily interpreted
falsely, as too often the Bible has been. The Book
of Nature and the Book of Revelation agree, in
all essentials, the one with the other.

By the knowledge of Nature we ascend to God.
Man naturally desires the certitude of truth. It
might be supposed that he would' most readily find
this by looking into what lies nearest to him — his
own nature. But, in fact, man, in his present
fallen condition, is far removed from his true self.
He can best discover that true self by climbing the
128

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

ladder or scale of creatures, at the top of which
stands the ideal man. Thus he may perceive his
veritable being, and may even feel after that
which is above him, if haply he may find it. By
way of the inferior creatures, each group of these,
as he examines it, being viewed in its place in the
general scheme of the universe, he may advance
upon himself, and then he will learn that the scale
is still incomplete — that it reaches upward beyond
himself and conducts him inevitably to God.
From inanimate objects in this ladder of existence
we rise to animate creatures, to beings that are
sensitive as well as animate, and again to a crea-
ture that not only lives and feels, but thinks and
is the possessor of free will. Above such a being
is God, and in God man's highest attributes have
illimitable scope and play.

Our understanding has in it a prophecy of some
higher state than this in which we live and move.
Its powers exceed our present uses ; in some re-
spects it rather mars than makes this our earthly
life. Its true ends and objects are not of this ter-
restrial world. Every passion, every thought of
man finds its satisfaction not in things of mor-
tality but in the being of God. From man's
greatness arises the knowledge of God ; from his
feebleness, the need of Divine help.

Having discovered our true nature we obtain
thereby a standard and a test of truth. Every
9 129

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

creature seeks its own well-being, the joyous de-
velopment of its life. Whatever belief aids our
nature towards its fullest attainment, its complete
possibilities, is true. Whatever opinion impairs
our growth and checks our well-being is false.
Thus, the belief that there is a God brings with it
an infinite and incomprehensible good. The opin-
ion that there is no God brings with it the priva-
tion of a measureless gain, and stunts our growth.
Shall we not settle and fix our faith upon that
which is fertile and fruitful rather than upon that
which is sterile and sterilising? Obedience to the
law of Nature, therefore, which requires every
creature to seek its own highest development, en-
sures the belief in a Divine Being. Our content,
our hope, our consolation, our aspiration, all re-
main suppressed or thwarted unless we look
upwards to God.*

We are not left to guess respecting the ob-
jections which arose in Montaigne's mind as he
traversed this long and sometimes tedious apol-
ogy for religion. The hierarchy of creatures,
conceived by Sebonde, did not impress his imag-
ination by its beauty of order or its strict enchain-
ment. He degrades humanity from the pre-emi-

* In the above notice of some ideas of Sebonde's book
I have been in part guided by M. Aime Martin's apergu,
given in the edition of Montaigne's Essais, Garnier Freres,
1866, vol. iv, pp. 305-339-

130

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

nence assigned to it by the author of The Natural
Theology. He finds the understanding, which for
Sebonde was a sacred instrument of illumination,
to be a poor, wavering, uncertain source of error
and illusion. He applies his subtle dissolvent to
every syllogism of the apologist for whom he
apologises. He regards human nature as it is
with an ironical smile which is fatal to all our
lofty pretensions. He ends with his gently re-
morseless question, " Que sgay-jc?"

Yet, while he was engaged on his translation of
Sebonde, there was one thing which Montaigne
never doubted — that his good father was worthy
of all reverence and afifection. Compliance with
such a .father's wishes and regard for his memory
might justly make a demand upon his time and
patience, and the response to that demand should
be dutiful and cheerful. Nor did Montaigne at
this time forget his dead friend. La Boetie. It
was his hope that a monument, small but perhaps
enduring, might by his own care be erected in
honour of that friend. The manuscripts left by
La Boetie had been in Montaigne's hands since
1563. In the autumn of 1570 he came to Paris to
superintend personally the printing of those
which he considered suitable for publication.
Errors of the press in his translation of Sebonde
had made him distrustful of the accuracy of print-
ers working without close supervision. The
131

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

writings of his friend which were connected with
pohtics, whether partly ideal politics, such as are
discussed in the Contr'un, or the practical politics
of the Memoirs suggested by the edict of January,
1562, he did not intend at present to issue. But
La Boetie had been not only a man of affairs ; he
had been a distinguished classical scholar, and a
poet. He had given valuable aid to his friend and
colleague, Arnaud de Ferron, in determining the
text of Plutarch's treatise on Love, a French
version of which Ferron had published in 1557.
With such philological notes as these Montaigne
had no concern. But La Boetie had himself trans-
lated Plutarch's Rules of Marriage, wdiich, for
France of his own time, had a special attraction,
as is evidenced by various other contemporary
translations. Pie had rendered into French Plu-
tarch's Letter of Consolation, written to his wife
after the death of a daughter. He had translated
Xenophon's charming dialogue, The Economics,
under the title La Mcsnagerie dc Xenophon, and
in doing this La Boetie had no predecessor. His
work was that of an accomplished student of
Greek, if not that of a great master of French
prose, such as was Amyot. Beside these transla-
tions of La Boetie, his Latin poems were well
worthy of preservation. Greek verses, known to
have been written by him, were not to be found.
It was the writer's way to unburden himself
132

LA BOETIE'S DEATPI TO 1570

swiftly of whatever fancy occupied his brain,
using the first scrap of paper that came to his
hands, and taking no care to preserve what he had
written. As to his French verses, Montaigne es-
teemed them more highly than their merit quite
warranted. The title-page of the slender volume
of La Boetie's remains announces that these
verses formed part of its contents. Montaigne had
been discouraged by the opinion of friends —
among them probably the poet Baif — to whom he
had shown this part of La Boetie's work, and
who had pronounced that more labour of the file
than had been bestowed was needed. Whether
Montaigne himself applied the file we do not
know; but the Vers Frarigois appeared in a sep-
arate slender sheaf — of which one copy apart
from the prose writings and Latin verses has sur-
vived— in the same year (1571) which saw the
publication of La Mcsnageric and the other re-
mains. The French Verses include a series of
twenty-five sonnets addressed by La Boetie to
Marguerite de Carle, in which, as compared with
the twenty-nine sonnets afterwards published in
the first edition of the Essays ( 1580), Montaigne
supposed that he could detect a touch of marital
coldness.

We are not here concerned with the merits of
La Boetie's work as a translator or a poet. But
Montaigne's general Advertisement to the
133

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Reader, and his special dedications of each sec-
tion of La Boetie's writings may be regarded as,
in a certain sense, anticipations of part of the
noble and touching essay on Friendship. The
dedication addressed to his wife has been referred
to already. While he was in Paris, engaged in
his labours of affectionate duty to the memory of
his friend, he received tidings of the death of his
first daughter, to whom in his absence his wife
and her father had given the name Thoinette. We
know the precise date of her birth, June 28, 1570.
One of the most precious of the volumes in which
Montaigne's handwriting appears is a vellum-
bound copy, mutilated and injured by damp, of
the Ephemerides of Michael Beuther, published in
the year 1551. Each month of the year, and each
day of the month, receives a special printed arti-
cle, which is so arranged by the printer as to leave
half of the page blank, in order that the owner
might inscribe in the blank spaces his own private
memoranda. Montaigne's copy, first described by
Dr. Payen in 1855,* is enriched with forty-one
entries in his handwriting and five in that of his
daughter, fileanore. They record, under the
proper dates, births, marriages, deaths, and events
of personal importance, such as the bestowal upon

* Documents inedits sur Montaigne, No. 3, Paris, P.
Jannet, 1855.

134

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

him of the Collar of St. Michael, and his appoint-
ment as a Gentleman of the Chamber by King
Henri of Navarre. The autograph note for June
28 tells us that his little Thoinette died two
months after her birth on that day of the year
1570. The news of his loss must have taken sev-
eral days to reach Paris. Montaigne may possi-
bly have learnt the event on September 10, the
date affixed to the dedication of La Boetie's
French version of Plutarch's Letter of Consola-
tion, which, in words of tender and cordial affec-
tion, the editor presents to " Madamoiselle Dc-
Montaigne, ma Femme". He had been commu-
nicating La Boetie's writings, he tells her, to his
friends, and her he reckons among the most inti-
mate of these. By a singular inadvertence of the
writer or error of the press, the infant is referred
to in this dedication as having died not in the sec-
ond month but the second year of her life.*

The general address to the reader tells in a few
words all that is needful about the character of
the volume, and Montaigne's connection with it,

* I venture to suggest the possibility of Montaigne's
having made the entry in the Ephemerides at a consider-
ably later date, when he had forgotten the year of Thoin-
ette's birth and her age when she died. The dedication
speaks of the child as born at the end of four childless
years; and Montaigne was married in September, 1565.
June 1569 would be not far from the end of four years.

135

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

as the friend of La Boetie, and the inheritor of his
books and papers. The Economics of Xenophon
is dedicated to a favourite of the Queen Mother,
the diplomatist M. de Lansac, Much as he may
have known of La Boetie's great quahties, says
Montaigne, he cannot have adequately known or
esteemed the man. To tell the whole truth about
him, who was " so nearly a miracle", would be to
run the risk of being discredited as one who deals
in fantastic exaggeration. The dedication con-
tains a hint that Montaigne might have offered
something of his own authorship to M. de Lansac,
were he not restrained by a sense of his insuffi-
ciency. Plutarch's Rules of Marriage are pre-
sented to a person of high distinction — Henri de
Mesmes. Rules of marriage are for him, indeed,
a useless gift; but his wife, Madame de Roissy,
seeing in Plutarch " the order of her household
and her husband's good accord presented to the
life", may be gratified to find that the goodness of
her own natural disposition has not only attained
but surpassed that which the wisest philosophers
could imagine of the duties and the laws of wed-
lock— so gracefully could Montaigne turn a com-
pliment. But the passage of chief interest in this
dedication is one in which the writer makes use
of a favourite thought of Sebonde, presenting it
as a reason for not disturbing beliefs which,
affording mankind contentment and satisfaction,
136

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

have been generally received. Everything under
the heavens, he says, employs the means and in-
struments afforded it by nature to further its life
and render its state commodious. But some men,
to show a gay and sprightly wit, have applied
their understanding to the dissolving of opinions,
which serve us well, and have preferred the un-
happy state of doubt and feverish disquietude to
the possession of a wise repose. They have
mocked at posthumous fame and even at the be-
lief in a future life. For his own part, Montaigne
will go with the common opinion, as offering a
great consolation for an existence so short and
feeble as that of a man on earth. He will even
cherish the hope that his dead friend is somehow
aware of his own efforts to prolong his memory,
and that he is somehow touched with a sense of
pleasure. No one in later years mocked our con-
cern for posthumous reputation more pitilessly
than Montaigne. It is a palmary instance of
" our affections going beyond themselves". And
he at that time found in doubt, or if not in doubt
then in admitted ignorance and contented incuri-
osity, no poison that produces a fever in our veins,
but the gentle pillow for a weary head. So
diverse, so undulant a spirit was his.

The Latin poems of La Boetie are dedicated to
the great chancellor, L'Hopital, fallen from power
since the peace of Longjumeau in 1568. In the
137

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Essays Montaigne names L'Hopital among the
chief Latin poets of the time. But it is rather of
La Boetie in relation to the service of the state
than as one who indulged in the pastime of classi-
cal verse-making that Montaigne desires to speak
to the chancellor. La Boetie had passed his whole
life in obscurity by his domestic hearth; yet so
wisely regulated was his mind that never was man
more contented with his lot. For the public ser-
vice it was unfortunate that one who was quali-
fied to be a worthy captain should have remained
a common soldier; but those who have the be-
stowal of office must needs make their selection
out of a thousand; they cannot possibly always
discern the spirits of men; the advancement of
the deserving, if ever it happens, is almost neces-
sarily an affair of chance. Nowhere has Mon-
taigne pronounced a more carefully weighed or a
more convincing eulogy than in the words of this
dedication which characterise the eminent quali-
ties of his friend. The dedication closes by put-
ting on record La Boetie's admiration of the
chancellor, as a great public servant, whose rule
was that of virtue, and the reverence with which
Montaigne himself regarded the fallen statesman.
Montaigne's last duty to his friend was to
choose a patron for the little gathering of French
poems. It was offered to one of the most culti-
vated men of the day, Paul de Foix, who repre-
138

LA BOETIE'S DEATH TO 1570

sented France as ambassador at various times in
Venice, in London, and in Rome. His death was
afterwards lamented in the essay on Vanity as
a serious loss to his country. La Boetie was not,
and never could have been, a poet of the highest
rank, but he had a genuine enthusiasm for literary
beauty, and he had something also of the accom-
plishment of verse. Montaigne gave what he had
found, without making any selection, " green
wood and dry together". But other poems were
apparently at a later time discovered. In the
Essays of 1580 Montaigne presented to the great
Corisande — Diane d'Andouins — the sonnets of
La Boetie addressed to his early love. They are
graceful fantasies of passion after the manner of
the later Renaissance.

139

CHAPTER V

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

The leisure which enabled Montaigne to re-
main in Paris for so many months while engaged
in superintending the publication of La Boetie's
remains had been gained as the result of an im-
portant decision in the conduct of his life. In
July, 1570, two years after his father's death, he
resigned his position as a councillor of the Par-
liament of Bordeaux, in favour of one who was
afterwards distinguished as a religious contro-
versialist on the Catholic side, and the historian of
heresy — Florimond de Raymond. The duties of
a magistrate, as we have seen, had never been
duties after Montaigne's heart. Upon the death
of Pierre Eyquem, he did not hastily abandon the
profession chosen for him by so considerate a
father. Two years had gone by, during which
he made trial of continuing his work as a public
functionary and also attending to the care of his
property at Montaigne. It seems as if the trial
had not been a success. Possibly his occupation
as the translator of Sebonde had set his mind in
motion in meditative ways, and he may have
dreamed that it would be a happy thing to disen-
140

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

cumber himself of alien eng-agements, and let his
thoughts wander free. Possibly the books once
La Boetie's, now his own, as he turned from one
to another, began to fling their threads around his
soul, and made him wish for hours to be passed
in the outward quietude and inward stir natural
in such delightful company. Obligations were
hateful to him and freedom was attainable. He
could see to his property, superintend his work-
men, enjoy long country rides — for he was
always happy when on horseback — and at the
same time he might economise, increase what had
been left to him by his father, lay by a store of
money, and feel that he was independent of the
accidents of fortune.

Some students of Montaigne's life have sup-
posed that, before settling down to the life of a
country gentleman, he entered for a time upon
the military career, exchanging the robe for the
sword. It is true that in the monument, erected
by his widow in the church of the Feuillants at
Bordeaux, the figure of the author of the Essays
— a man of peace, as we think of him — is clad
in armour, with casque and brassarts by his side,
a lion couchant at his feet. Perhaps Montaigne's
widow regarded the fact that her husband had
been a chevalier of the Order of St. Michael as
the chief honour of his life. The Order was
founded by Louis XL in 1469, and its members
141

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

were expressly confined to " gentlemen of name
and arms". A month after Montaigne's resigna-
tion of his office as councillor the third civil war
had closed with the treaty of St. Germain. The
country was at peace; even if the treaty were but
a snare, the country wore a delusive mask of con-
ciliation. There are references to Montaigne in
Brantome — of a mocking kind — and in other
contemporaries, which have been taken to imply
that he followed at some time, at least in name,
the profession of arms. Passages in the Essays
unquestionably point to the fact that he knew the
camp as well as the court. He suffered, he tells
us, from the choking dust of hot summer
marches; he never travelled without books,
" whether in peace or war"; it happened to him
sometimes to forget the watchword, which, three
hours before, he had given or had received from
another. And in the last of all the essays there is
a spirited eulogy of the soldier's life, evidently
written by one who had himself seen it : " The
company of so many noble, young, and active men
delights you ; the frequent view of so many tragic
spectacles; the freedom of converse without art,
and a masculine way of living, without ceremony;
the variety of a thousand diverse actions; the
rousing harmony of military music, which rav-
ishes and inflames both the sense of hearing and
the soul ; the honour and the noble character of
142

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

the occupation; even its hardships and difficulty."
But, while we may believe that Montaigne bore
arms, no one can fix a date, or name a military
achievement. There is no evidence that he ever
took part in an engagement, or carried off, like
Ben Jonson, his spolia opima. In 1574 the roy-
alist commander, the Duke de Montpensier, de-
spatched him, as we learn from an entry in the
Ephcmcridcs of Beuther, from the camp of St.
Hermine on a mission to the Parliament of Bor-
deaux. There is nothing to show that Montaigne
was attached to the duke during the campaign in
Poitou; he may have been summoned from his
home to act as an emissary for a special occasion.
It may be, for all we know, that his sword had the
quality of " innocence" ascribed to it by one of
his biographers.

Montaigne in his tower, especially in his earlier
days of meditation, certainly liked to speculate
concerning military events, and to consider them,
not so much from the point of view of a military
critic as from that of human prudence. Ought,
for instance, the commander of a besieged place
himself go forth to parley? In times so full of
ingenious treachery as his own, it seemed to Mon-
taigne to be no part of wisdom to place one's self
in the power of adversaries, though he takes care
to tell us that his own temper is confident and
trustful. Is it just, again, to punish with death
143

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

those who obstinately defend a position not tena-
ble by the rules of war? Was the Dnke of Guise
blameworthy for his halts and delays at the battle
of Dreux? In answering such questions as these
Montaigne calls for the assistance of Plutarch
or Xenophon as his adviser. Cleomenes or
Lucius /Emilius Regillus is as much neigh-
bour to him as the Constable or the Ad-
miral. The case of Philopoemen in his encounter
with Machanidas is germane to that of Mon-
sieur de Guise. With special interest Montaigne
studied the method of Julius Caesar in making war
— ^Julius C?ssar, whose writings Marshal Strozzi
had named the breviary of a soldier, and whose
style delighted the reader of the tower by its
grace of directness and promptitude, its concision
and infallible sureness in rendering action into
speech. Towards Caesar as a man Montaigne had
a mingled feeling; but he could not question that
Caesar gave incomparable lessons in the records
of his performances as a military leader. Yet,
when everything that human prudence can fore-
see has been provided for, and everything accom-
plished that human energy can achieve, the event
in war, as in all else, is in great measure deter-
mined by those various, ever-changing, incalcula-
ble forces which we sum up under the name of
Fortune. Fortune! Yes, it is this incalculable
residuum of forces which in the final issue turns
144

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

victory to defeat, or defeat to victory. Men ar-
rive at the same end by wholly different methods,
and again the same methods lead to quite opposite
results. Our judgment is confounded by the pos-
sibilities of the event. It is not only that the
minds of men are so various and undulant that
we can never count on making the impression
upon them which we intend ; the issues of action
seem equally variable. Should we, for example,
push home a victory? Yes, and no. To do so
may lead to a complete triumph; or, arousing in
the enemy the courage of despair, to some fatal
reverse. Or, again, should a general disguise his
person in battle? Alexander, C?esar, and Lucul-
lus loved to make themselves conspicuous in bat-
tle by rich accoutrements, and armour of a pecu-
liar lustre; Agis and Agesilaus were wont to
tight obscurely armed and without imperial osten-
tation. We cannot tell ; in all things we are ban-
died as playthings of the gods.

In the cabinet of Montaigne's tower which ad-
joins his library, placed above a painting which
represents a nude Venus reposing, a Latin in-
scription was to be seen. In 1850 Dr. Bertrand
de St. Germain imperfectly deciphered the faded
and partly obliterated words. Eleven years
later the inscription was more fully and exactly
recovered by the diligence of MM. Galy and
Lapeyre. The Latin is not always classical in its
10 145

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

constructions, and the sense in one or two points
is uncertain; but, rendered into English, it was
substantially this : " In the year of our Lord
1 571, at the age of thirty-eight, on the last day of
February, being the anniversary of his birth,
Michel de Montaigne, long weary of the service
of the Court and of public employments, while
still in his full vigour, betook himself to the bosom
of the learned Virgins ; where, if the fates permit,
he may pass, in calm and freedom from all cares,
what little shall yet remain of his allotted time
now more than half run out. This his ancestral
abode and sweet retreat he has consecrated to his
freedom, tranquillity, and leisure." *

A period of life had closed; a new period was
opening. Was this retirement of Montaigne an
act of happy election of a manner of life which
he desired and loved? Was it an act of resigna-
tion? He was not a poet of the romantic age who
could find infinite charm in the solitude of the
fields. He was not, like his contemporary Olivier
de Serres, interested and skilled in the labours of
the agriculturalist. The cares of household man-
agement were an affliction to him, or at least he
came to think them such. He was eminently soci-

* I cannot accept the rendering of Galy and Lapeyre,
followed by M. Bonnefon, who make Montaigne express
his hope to complete his ancestral abode (taking exigat
with istas scdcs).

146

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

able; the brightness and the movement of Paris
had a strong attraction for him. He beHeved that
he was not ill-fitted by his natural disposition, his
frank and engaging manner, his fidelity and his
discretion, for a part in the conduct of public
affairs. His memory, indeed, was defective; and
that, he felt, was a certain disqualification for bus-
iness. He cared for distinctions, but was not a
lover of authority ; and that, no doubt, made some
of the common aims of ambition distasteful to
him. And, then, he saw too many sides of every
question. He could not be a good hater, though
it was a time when a man should support his own
party even to desperation. He could not be cruel ;
he could not be treacherous; he could not even
flatter. On the whole he did not find himself qual-
ified for success in such an age as his own. He
withdrew; and the private life, which he accepted.,
with a dignified resolution, was already deter-
mined for him by circumstances, by his father's
prudence and care. If Montaigne found " the
bosom of the learned Virgins" occasionally a
place of ennui, there was always, if he could bring
himself to pay the cost, the possibility of a jour-
ney to Paris or of some more distant wanderings.
The chateau of Montaigne, renewed by M.
Magne, the minister of finance under Napoleon
III., was destroyed by fire on January 12,
1885. Only the tower of Montaigne remained
147

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

uninjured. The reconstruction of the building
by M. Thirion-Montauban follows the previous
design. Though styled a chateau, it was more
strictly a manor-house — a landed proprietor's res-
idence, sufficiently strong to oppose the sudden at-
tack of a band of marauders, but by no means
capable of resisting a regular siege. The tower,
which was made originally for defence, was
hardly in keeping with the rest of the structure.
The situation of the chateau was admirable; the
liberal prospect was itself an emancipation for the
mind. The main building, looking southeast,
formed part of the enclosure of a nearly cjuadri-
lateral court, reached by passing through an en-
trance, for which the tower might serve as a pro-
tection. The other sides of the court, as described
by Dr. Bertrand de St. Germain in 1850, were
formed by the stables, the granaries, the cellar,
and the quarters for servants. On the northeast,
opposite to the entrance and the tower of Mon-
taigne, was another tower known as the Trachere,
in which it is supposed that either Montaigne's
mother or his wife had her apartment. Many
alterations, in the course of later years, had been
efifected in the interior. The so-called royal cham-
ber, for example, occupied, as tradition told, by
Henri of Navarre on his visits to Montaigne, was
at a comparatively recent date divided into
smaller rooms. Altogether, if not splendid, the
148

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

chateau was abundantly spacious, and it had
something" of originahty, something of old-fash-
ioned grace in its appearance.*

The tower of Montaigne, round and thickly
walled, contiguous to a square tower, with con-
nected rooms, was entered from the portal which
led to the court. On the ground floor, which
Montaigne reckons as the first story, a round and
vaulted chamber, dimly lighted by two small
apertures, served as a chapel. The stone altar
occupied a niche in the wall. A fresco of St.
Michael and the dragon was the pious decoration,
with the arms of Montaigne to right and left,
surrounded by the collar of his order. " I
bear azure," he wrote in the essay on Names,
" seme of trefoils, or, a lion's paw of the same
fessways, armed gules." The owner of the cha-
teau valued his arms and displayed them with
pride. He thought, with a little regret, that a
son-in-law would transfer them into another fam-
ily, or that some paltry purchaser might after-
wards appropriate them for a fictitious coat.
Through an opening the chapel communicated
with the first story (called by Montaigne the sec-
ond), where in his sleeping-apartment the apolo-

* See, beside Dr. B. de St. Germain's pamphlet, the Nou-
veaux Dociiiiiciits (1850) of Dr. Payen, with its excellent
plans and pictures, and Galy and Lapeyre's Montaigne
cliec lui (1861).

149

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

gist for Sebonde could hear the blessed mutter of
the mass with the utmost economy of exertion and
fatigue. On the summit of the tower in Mon-
taigne's time was a belfry wherein hung a very
great bell, which, with its Ave Maria morning
and evening, "astonished" the very walls; yet —
so much is a human being the creature of custom
— to the noise which at first had seemed insup-
portable the occupant of the tower soon became
so indifferent that it did not even disturb his
slumbers.

By a stone spiral staircase the bedchamber,
above the chapel, is reached. In this circular
room, lit by two small windows and possessing a
large fireplace, Montaigne slept when he desired
to be alone. Yet the existence of Mademoiselle
de Montaigne is perhaps recognised here; over
the mantelpiece letters, including on M and a C —
which may have signified Montaigne and Chas-
saigne — are interlaced.*

The second story — Montaigne's third — is the
true sanctuary and place of pilgrimage. The
Essayist himself shall describe it for us :

" When at home, I resort a little more often to my
library, whence I overlook at once all the concerns of
my household. I enter it, and see below me my garden,

* Galy and Lapeyre suggest that Ave Maria Casta
Carissima may be the interpretation of the letters.
150

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

my base-court, my court, and almost all parts of my
house. There I turn over now one book, now another,
without order or design, in disconnected portions. One
while I meditate, another I set down notes ; and dictate
letting my fancies wander as they do now. 'Tis in the
third story of a tower ; the first is my chapel ; the second
is my bedchamber, with its closet, where I often lie in
order to be alone. Above this is a large room, a ward-
robe, formerly the most useless part of the house. Here
I pass the greater part of the days of my life, and greater
part of the hours of the day ; I am never here at night.
Adjoining it is a cabinet elegant enough, capable of re-
ceiving a fire in winter, with windows very pleasantly con-
trived. And if I did not dread the trouble more than the
cost — trouble, which drives me away from business of every
kind — I could easily connect a gallery on either side, a
hundred paces in length and twelve in breadth, having
found the walls erected for another purpose to the height
I should require. Every place of retirement requires a
walk ; my thoughts sleep if they sit still with me ; my
mind does not walk of itself — as though it were the legs
that put it in motion ; those who study without a book
are all like this. The shape of my room is circular, and
there is no more flat wall than serves for my chair and
table; as it curves, it presents to my view all my books
ranged on five rows of shelves around me. It has three
windows, with prospects noble and free, and is sixteen
paces in diameter. In winter I am not so continually there ;
for my house, as its name imports, is perched upon an
eminence, and no part of it is more wind-swept than this.
I like it as being less easy of access and more out of the
way, both for the sake of exercise and because it keeps me
from the throng. There is my throne, and I try to make
my monarchy absolute, and to sequester this one corner
from all community, whether conjugal, filial, or civil; else-
where I have but a verbal authority, and in substance of a
mixed kind. Miserable, to my thinking, is he who in his
151

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

home has no place where he can be his own sole company ;
where he may invite his mind ; where he may lurk secure.
Ambition pays her followers handsomely by keeping them
always on show, like a statue in the market-place. ... If
any one tells me that it is to degrade the Muses to use
them only as playthings and pastimes, he little knows, as
I do, of how great worth the pleasure, the sport, the
pastime is." *

The " cabinet assc:2 poly", which adjoins the
hbrary, was designed especially for ease and com-
fort. It would have been difficult to warm the
larger room when the winds of winter blew upon
the tower. Here the philosopher, though he pre-
ferred warmth of the sun or warmth of exercise,
could sit before his fire reading or meditating.
Above the entrance to the cabinet is an allegorical
medallion of ships at sea — one in full sail, one all
but swallowed by the waves. The shipwrecked
mariners struggle shore wards, where, if fortu-
nate, they may hang up their dripping garments in
the temple of Neptune. A Mars and Venus sur-
prised by Vulcan is above the fireplace; and sep-
arated from this painting by the arms of Mon-
taigne in gold, on the mantelpiece appears a
treatment of the familiar theme of Cimon nour-
ished in prison by his daughter Pero. A possible
significance of the painting above the entrance can
readily be found. The undulant being, man, is in

* Essays, III, 3.
152

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

the wave of the world; but he may, hke Mon-
taigne himself, see the solid earth and the temple
— yet is it attainable? — of the god. But perhaps
in calling it allegorical we read into the design
more meaning than it was intended to bear. Phi-
losophy had its place in the library; decorative
luxury may have sufficed for the cabinet. Shall
we not take the treatment of themes from Ovid's
Metamorphoses and subjects from the chase as
meaning no more than that Montaigne had senses,
and wished to flatter them with images which
gratify the eye? His painter's mode of working
reminded Montaigne of his own way of writing;
the artist finished the principal designs with his
utmost skill; he filled the blank spaces around
with grotesques, " fantastic paintings, possessing
no grace except what may be found in their
variety and strangeness". Montaigne professes
that in his Essays he had not the art to achieve a
picture really beautiful and rich in colour; all he
could do was to exhibit grotesques and monstrous
bodies, pieced together from various creatures,
without order or preparation, except such as
might come into existence by mere good luck.

The rooms in the tower are floored with brick,
and the ceilings leave the joists and rafters visible.
The joists and rafters of the library constitute in
themselves a volume of disenchanted wisdom, for
on these the occupant of the chamber inscribed
153

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

four and fifty sentences, which were ever visible
reminders of the conditions and the duties of man,
as he conceived them. In certain instances later
inscriptions superseded earlier, which, however,
were not all so effaced as to be illegible. Of these
sentences some were recorded, not with entire ex-
actitude, by Dr. Bertrand de St. Germain; his
list of fourteen was increased to eighteen by Dr.
Payen; the final reconstitution of these inscrip-
tions is due, substantially, to the two friends, M.
Galy, and M. Lapeyre, whose charming record of
their visit to the chateau appeared in 1861.*

The chief sources from which these sentences
were derived are Ecclesiastes, the Epistles of St.
Paul, Ecclesiasticus, the Hypotyposes of Sextus
Empiricus, and the Florileginm of Stobaeus.
Montaigne permitted himself in the case of some
of his Latin quotations to modify at pleasure the
text of his originals. His Greek was probably
insuf^cient to justify him in such alterations. The
Proverbs of Solomon, the Psalms, Isaiah, Homer,
Plato, Epictetus, Herodotus, Pliny, Lucretius,
Horace, Persius, Martial, furnish each a sentence

* Montaigne ches lui (Peregueux: 1861). John Ster-
ling in the Westminster Review in 1837 had noticed the
inscriptions. They are given in full, in a slightly amended
form, in M. Bonnefon's article, La Bibliotheque de Mon-
taigne {Revue d'Histoire litteraire de France; 15, Juillet,
1895).

154

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

or two. From one contemporary writer, L'Hopi-
tal, an inscription is taken :

" Nostra vagatur
In tcnchris, ncc cceca potest mens ccrncre verum — "

(" Our mind wanders in shadows; blind, it can-
not discern the truth".) The mottoes to guide
and control Montaigne's meditations concentrate
in a few pregnant utterances the spirit which is
diffused through many of the essays, and espe-
cially that essay, in itself almost a volume, which
constitutes the capital piece of the Second Book —
the Apology for Raymond Scbond. The words
of Terence, " I am a man, and regard nothing
human as alien from me", indicate the central
standpoint of the Essayist. Another sentence,
which Lucretius supplies, serves to remind us that
the earth on which we move, the sea, the heavens,
are as nothing in comparison with the incompre-
hensible universe. And what, indeed, is this
humanity of which Montaigne himself forms a
fragment, and which interests him so deeply?
" God made man like to a shadow, of which who,
after the setting of the sun, shall judge?" "All
is vanity." "Why is earth and ashes proud?"
Humility is therefore the duty of such a creature,
a distrust of the pretentious intellect, a wise sus-
pense of judgment : " Be not wise in your own
conceit." " There is no reason which is not
155

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

opposed by an equal reason." " It may be, and
may not be." " In equilibrium." Yet there is a
kind of wisdom possible to man, a prudential,
temperate wisdom : " Be not wise above that
which is meet, but be soberly wise." " Rejoice in
those things that are present; all else is beyond
thee." " The final wisdom for man is to approve
things as they are, and as for the rest to meet it
with confidence." " Guiding ourselves by custom
and by the senses." This genuine wisdom is to be
attained by control and regulation of the mind :
" Men are perturbed not by things themselves, but
by the opinions they have of things." Let us
therefore pause and consider : " I determine
nothing, I do not comprehend things, I suspend
judgment, I examine." If there be any knowl-
edge of divine truth for such beings as we are, its
source must be divine: " The judgments of the
Lord are like the great deep."

The scepticism embodied in the sentences is not
an absolute scepticism; it might rather be styled
a prudential agnosticism. Wisdom is attainable,
but it is a sober wisdom, the wisdom which comes
through admitting and accepting our limitations.
If there should be any higher wisdom than this —
and the sentences make no declaration on the
point — it must come to us as a gift from heaven.

Among these inscriptions of a tendency which
did not seem to Montaigne to be desolating, for
156

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

the recognition of our human bounds appeared to
him to be a necessary prehminary to the loyal
enjoyment of life within those bounds, might be
discerned in years now long past another inscrip-
tion, which has been truly called an "act of faith",
an act of faith that had its source not in any book
whose leaves he may have turned over, nor in his
own questioning intellect, but in the grateful
memory of his heart. This inscription, which ran
along the frieze of his library was seen and cop-
ied by the Canon Prunis, when in the second half
of the eighteenth century he made the fortunate
discovery of the manuscript journal of Mon-
taigne's Italian travels. Translated from the
Latin it runs as follows : " Inasmuch as he de-
sired that there should be some unique memorial
of his most sweet, most dear, and most close com-
panion, than whom our age hath seen none better,
none more learned, none more graceful, none
more absolutely perfect, Michel de Montaigne,
unhappily bereft of so beloved a guardian of his
life, mindful of their mutual affection and of the
kindly feeling which united them, hath set up,
since nought more expressive could be found, this
learned shelf, a special apparatus of the mind, in
which is his delight."

The books of Montaigne's library w^ere only in
part the gift of La Boetie. They numbered in
all about a thousand, a collection which, he
157

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

thought, might compare well with other " village
libraries". But he wished to associate with all
these intellectual treasures the memory of the man
whom he loved best among men. While his
understanding sought after a prudent restraint,
his affections, in one direction at least, could not
be satisfied without an expansion which led them,
to use his own phrase, to go beyond themselves.

The life of Montaigne in his chateau is not to
be imagined as that of a solitary. No one ever
was more naturally sociable. The Essays are not
a confession merely, which might be the ostenta-
tious self-exposure of an egoist, whose sanity had
been disturbed. Here the confession is a con-
versation, which has to be genial, and full of good
temper and good sense even in its garrulity, for
otherwise it will not be attended to, when the
tone is not that of a rhetorician, but the unem-
phatic tone of a speaker in his easy chair. Mon-
taigne was never a solitary ; yet he had fled from
the press to dwell with soothfastness, he had
renounced public employments and the ambitions
of the Court. In the essay on Solitude we can,
as it were, overhear him, while he meditates and
discourses on the life in the law-courts at Bor-
deaux, or in the reception-rooms of the Louvre,
and that other life in the fields and woods around
the chateau, or in the seclusion of the tower. He
will not consider the old question of the compara-
158

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

tive excellence of action as compared with con-
templation. The life of retired contemplation may
really be more social than many lives of noise and
bustle. Ambitious men may profess that they
have devoted themselves to the service of the pub-
lic; but, in truth, what passion isolates its votary
or its victims more than ambition? To live well
is possible even in a crowd ; but in a crowd much
evil is ever present, and the danger of contagion
is great. "A man must either imitate the vicious,
or hate them", and either alternative is unfor-
tunate. The sociable nature of man is either
checked and thwarted, or it is corrupted by vice —
by vice which in its very nature is unsocial. True
solitude, however, is not to be found by mere
withdrawal from the crowd; all the evils of the
crowd — ambition, avarice, irresolution, fear, in-
ordinate desires — may pursue us into a private
life, even into the government of a family or an
estate. To find his genuine self, and to dwell with
it, a man must sequester his spirit from the " pop-
ular conditions" that exist in the heart itself. Our
disease lies in the mind, and the true solitude,
which can be enjoyed in cities and in courts,
though not so commodiously as apart, is attained
only when the soul enters into real possession of
itself. A wife, children, worldly goods, and, more
than all else, health, are precious gains of exist-
ence ; but our happiness must not depend on these.
159

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

We must reserve a back-shop — ''unc arricre
boutique'' — wholly our own, wholly free, wherein
to maintain our true liberty and possess our im-
pregnable retreat. Do we need company in our
back-shop? Well, we have a mind, moving and
turning on itself — "'unc aiiic contournablc en soy
mesnie^' — which can both attack and defend
which can both give and take.

Such solitude as this comes fittest after a man
has employed his best years in the service of
others. Then arrives the time when he may live,
in the highest sense of the word, for himself. Let
him make ready for departure, and truss his bag-
gage. Love this or that he may ; but let him enter
into espousals only with his own soul : " The
greatest thing in the world is for a man to know
how to be his own." And as old age advances,
and he becomes less useful and less pleasing to
others, let him see to it that he becomes more
pleasing to himself : " let him flatter and caress
himself, and, above all, let him rule himself aright,
reverencing and fearing his reason and his con-
science." To practice severity against a man's
self, to lie hard, to pluck out our eyes, to fling our
wealth into the river, to seek for pain and smart —
all this ascetic practice belongs to " an excessive
virtue". Montaigne will have none of this. It is
enough for him to prepare his mind for pos-
sible future adversity, and meantime, in his
i6o

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

present condition, to pray God for a contented
spirit.

The employments suitable to the solitary life
are such as bring with them neither pain nor
weariness. The care of a house and lands was
found by Montaigne, upon trial of it, to be vexa-
tious; but a mean, he thinks, can be discovered
between sordid absorption in such business and
entire neglect. Nor would he employ his leisure
in the pursuit of literary fame; this is to quit the
world in order to return to it in a roundabout
fashion, or to step back in order to gain the im-
petus for a forward leap. The religious solitary
is far more reasonable in his aims. Of his wisdom
and his joy Montaigne speaks not in the phrases
of official pietism, but with an ardour which, if
only that of a mobile imagination, is yet genuine
in its kind, and remarkable in its degree. The
object of the solitary in religion is God, an object
infinite in goodness and power; the soul, enjoy-
ing entire liberty, finds that which can satisfy all
its desires; afflictions and griefs are turned to
gains. For the expectation of an eternal, blessed
life our transitory pleasures may be well aban-
doned : " He who can really and constantly in-
flame his soul with the glow of this living faith
and hope creates for himself in solitude a
voluptuous and delicious life beyond what is
proper to any other kind of existence."
II i6i

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The student in his citadel has no such rapture
as this. There is indeed a voluptuousness in
study, but it may be one of those treacherous
pleasures which at first fawn upon us in order
that they may strangle us in the end. Our health,
our gaiety are more to us than books can ever be,
and what if books rob us of these best posses-
sions? For his own part Montaigne cares only
for two kinds of books — those that being pleasant
and easy can tickle his fancy, and those, secondly,
which console him, and counsel him how to regu-
late his life and death. He is not wise or strong
enough to fashion for himself a purely spiritual
repose; if advancing years deprive him of some
chosen pleasures, he educates and whets his appe-
tite for such pleasures as remain — " we must
tooth and nail strive to retain the use of the pleas-
ures of life, which the years snatch from us one
after another." If this is Epicurean philosophy,
at least it must be interpreted by words which
follow : " Retire into yourself, but first prepare
yourself to be your own host; it were folly to
trust yourself into your own hands if you have not
attained to self-government." Yes, and more
than self-government, for Montaigne's soul had a
peculiar delicacy of its own — your attainment
must include a certain bashfulness and self-respect
in your own solitary presence. Then, indeed, you
may bid the world good-bye, may forget the fame
162

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

that lies in broad rumour, and follow the example
of those wild beasts that efface the track at the
entrance to their den.

In all this Montaigne is not a mere historian or
memoir-writer recording- the spiritual adventures
of the interior of his tower. The memoir-waiter
he is in part, but he is also a good deal of the
artist. He describes something more than a
mood ; he indicates a real tendency of his nature ;
but at the same time he constructs an ideal upon
the basis of this genuine tendency, and constructs
it partly from external material found in ancient
writers of the Stoic school. In the population of
moods which made up his mind were many others
different from that which supplied a foundation —
a substantial, not an imaginary, foundation — for
this particular ideal.

In considering Montaigne, the lover of solitude
and retirement, we must bear in mind that as a
councillor of the Parliament of Bordeaux he had
already during many years lent himself, if he did
not ever give himself, to the public service; that
he found himself ill-fitted for such duties; that
afterwards, when age was growing upon him, and
his health was seriously impaired, he came forth
from his seclusion — which was never wholly
seclusion — to preside during four years as mayor
over the affairs of the city ; and that all this time
there lay within him powers which he employed
163

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

in a better service than that of magistrate or
mayor, and not for his own time only but also for
succeeding generations. Nor should we forget
what a time for France that was, in which he
withdrew from the strife, and endeavoured to
obtain the leisure to be wise. He was in truth a
great artist, and a great artist, except in very ex-
ceptional crises of events, can serve the world
most effectively in his atelier. The library and
the cabinet of the tower formed the studio in
which Montaigne drew a most ingenious series of
studies in humanity, and painted that portrait of
himself which still fascinates us by its mysterious
resemblance in feature and expression to each of
ourselves, for in painting his own likeness he rep-
resented the species in the individual. Outside the
tower not only the storms of winter but the fiercer
storms of civil war might ramp and rage. He
could not wholly escape their stress; but it was
wholly beyond his power to rule the storm. Could
he rule his own soul? Not even that perfectly.
Could he, in an age of cruelty and falsehood, find
a habitation for temperance and truth ? Could he
inform men as to where their real interests, their
true happiness, lay? Could he by a little abate
the pride, the violent passions, the dangerous fol-
lies of men? Could he bid the eager reformer
pause, and first reform himself before he ventured
to pull to pieces the mysterious contexture of so-

164

MONTAIGNE IN THE TOWER

ciety? Could he tell the remorseless dogmatist
that there is more of true wisdom in the question-
ing spirit than in his ? Could he persuade men to
return upon themselves before they launched forth
in the exercise of sword and fire? Could he say a
word that might make for reasonableness, and say
this with amiable insinuation, genially, humor-
ously? Montaigne in his study did not put all
these questions to himself. He had no ambitious
programme, no high design of serving the world.
But in effect his seclusion was proved to be the
essential condition for accomplishing his best
work ; and, if any justification be needed, this con-
stitutes its justification.

165

CHAPTER VI

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

With his own thoughts and the vokimes
ranged on his shelves Montaigne in his tower was
provided with admirable company. From the
Essays, with their penetrating comments on an-
cient and modern authors, and their innumerable
quotations, multiplying from the earliest to the
latest text, we can in a considerable measure
reconstitute his library of a thousand books. The
collection after his death remained for a time in
possession of his daughter. In her will, of the
year 1615, she left her father's books to the grand
vicar of the diocese of Auch, Gaudefroy de Roche-
fort, giving him permission to dispose of them as
he pleased. They had the usual fortune of such
collections, which for a few years have been the
cherished toys or tools of the collector — they were
scattered, and disappeared from sight. For-
tunately it was Montaigne's custom to write his
name upon the title-page of each book. In some
instances he annotated the margins, or added in
his autograph at the end a brief estimate of the
work and its author. By the diligence of those
who love such treasures no fewer than seventy-
166

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

six precious waifs and strays from the dispersed
library of Montaigne, or volumes which had been
once in his hands, have been recovered. Thus, on
the quays of Paris one happy explorer lighted
upon the copy of Plantin's edition of Caesar's
Commentaries, which Montaigne began to read,
as a note records, in February, 1578, and finished
in July of the same year. More than six hundred
notes in his handwriting appear on the margins;
at the end is his appraisal of C?esar, which fur-
nishes interesting matter of comparison with the
later judgment pronounced in the Essays. M.
Parison, the lucky bibliophile, cannot be censured
for imprudence in his expenditure of ninety cen-
times upon the acquisition of this volume.

M. Bonnefon, in an article in the Reviezv of the
Literary History of France (15 July, 1895), has
described each of these seventy-six waifs and
strays, and has endeavoured to ascertain the local
habitation of each. Both in that article and in his
Montaigne and his Friends, he has considered the
indications which they afford respecting Mon-
taigne's tastes as a reader and a lover of literature.
Little more can here be attempted than to bring
within a narrow compass what he has set forth at
large. Some of the books which have been recov-
ered may have formed part of the legacy of La
Boetie, but no decisive evidence that it once be-
longed to Montaigne's dead friend has been found
167

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

in any one of them. It may be assumed that they
were in the main acquired by Montaigne himself,
and so considerable a fraction of the whole col-
lection may fairly be regarded as representative.

Latin, we must remember, was Montaigne's
mother tongue. His first enthusiasm for litera-
ture was awakened by the luxuriant beauty of the
poetry of Ovid. Virgil and Terence delighted
him not only in his elder but in his youthful years.
It is true that at a comparatively early age he
ceased to speak Latin, and did not often use it in
writing; but if any shock of joy or pain surprised
him — as when his father once tottered against
him in a swoon — it was a Latin exclamation that
instinctively would rise to his lips. We should
expect to find that a large proportion of the books
which constantly nourished his mind, more often
dipped into than continuously studied, were in the
language which alone he had spoken as a child.
Such is actually the case with the group which
now represents the collection on which the posses-
sor's eyes fell as he looked up from his chair at
the rows of books upon his walls. Thirty-five of
the seventy-six volumes are in the Latin lan-
guage. Of these the larger number are by mod-
ern writers, but Caesar, Suetonius, Quintus Cur-
tius, Terence, and Virgil appear in the list. Like
the copy of Caesar, that of Quintus Curtius is
annotated in Montaigne's handwriting, and has a

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

final note by way of general estimate or comment,
to which is affixed the date, "July 3rd, 1587",

The Greek books are only nine in number. A
copy of Homer's Odyssey of the year 1525, once
the property of Mirabeau the elder, sold in Paris
in 1792, was alleged to have belonged to Mon-
taigne, and to exhibit marginal notes in his hand-
writing. It has disappeared from view, and the
description in the sale-catalogue cannot now be
verified. Among the volumes in Greek, setting
aside a folio Bible printed at Bale in the year
1545, that of greatest interest is a copy of
Froben's edition (1560) of Plutarch's Lives; but
the name of Montaigne, written upon one of its
leaves, does not seem to be in his own handwrit-
ing. On the back of the title-page is found a
manuscript list of authors, which has a better
claim to be regarded as an autograph ; perhaps
they were authors whom he had read or hoped to
read. But, in truth, Montaigne did not become
familiar with Plutarch in the original. Unlike
his greatest English contemporary, he had much
Latin ; but, like Shakespeare, he had certainly less
Greek. It was through a translation, itself a work
of original genius in its mastery of the spirit of
the French language, the translation of Jacques
Amyot, that Montaigne entered into intimate com-
panionship with his favourite author. With Amyot
he was personally acquainted; from his lips he
169

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

heard the story, told in one of the essays, of the
magnanimous conduct of the Duke of Guise
towards a gentleman who had joined in a con-
spiracy against his life, and whose treachery,
having been discovered, was anticipated with an
indignant mercy. Montaigne gave Amyot the
palm above all French writers of his time for the
naivete and purity of his style, for that literary
virtue of constancy which enables an author to
accomplish a labour of great length, and especially
for having had the discretion to choose so worthy
and so suitable a gift for his country as the works
of Plutarch. " Let people tell me what they will,"
writes Montaigne, depreciating his own attain-
ments in a way which commended them, " I
understand nothing of Greek. . . . We ignorant
fellows were lost, had not this book raised us out
of the mire; thanks to him, we dare now speak
and write; the ladies, with his aid, can instruct
learned professors ; it is our breviary." * The
essay goes on to direct Amyot's attention to
Xenophon, as an author suitable to a translator
whose years of greatest vigour were already past.
In the spring of 1581, when Montaigne was in
Rome, he dined with the French ambassador, and
found, among other learned men who were of the
company, his old instructor of early days in Bor-

* Essays, II, 4.
170

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

deaux, the distinguished scholar Muret. Some-
what rashly Montaigne alleged on behalf of his
favourite Amyot that, in passages where he may
have missed the precise sense of his original, he
yet gave a good approximate meaning, which
went well with what preceded and followed in
the text. His scholarly acquaintances at once
brought the rash eulogist to book, and confronted
him with two passages where the imperfect schol-
arship of Amyot had evidently led him far astray.
Montaigne could not question their authority ; he
professed himself entirely of their opinion, and
was much too courteous to beg any of the learned
critics to peruse his own essay on Pedantry.

Of modern authors in other languages than
Latin, whose works appear among the remaining
volumes of Montaigne's library, by far the larger
number, as might be expected, are French. Two
are Spanish. One of the volumes is a portion of
the history of Portuguese conquests in the East
by a writer who is known as a laborious and con-
scientious investigator, Lopez de Castanheda.
Readers of the essay on Coaches and that on Can-
nibals are aware that Montaigne was painfully
and indignantly interested in the relations of so-
called civilised nations to the nations styled, some-
what hastily as he held, savage. The other vol-
ume gives in a rare edition the last book of the
romance of Amadis of Gaul, which may have
171

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

found its way to the tower through some idle
curiosity of its occupant, desirous perhaps to ex-
periment on his mature taste with extravagances
of fancy, which even when he was a boy had no
attraction for him. A second Spanish romance of
chivalry, the Cared de Amor of Diego de Sant
Pedro, appears also in the list, but in an Italian
translation. The Italian books, which number
thirteen, are in part historical, the chronicles of
Villani, the history of his own times by Lionardo
Aretino, and others. Certain of the volumes were
probably procured by Montaigne either in antici-
pation of his journey to Italy, or while he was
upon his travels. One might have served as a
guide-book to the antiquities of Rome ; one dealt
with the waters of Italy and their medicinal uses.
Others represent those numerous Italian treatises
on love — somewhat too sublimated to please Mon-
taigne in certain of his moods — which, with trea-
tises on beauty, were a product of the Renais-
sance, when Platonism was subtilised and even
methodised. A copy of Petrarch, of small size, is
interesting because it contains a note in the pos-
sessor's handwriting which appears in two other
volumes, as if the writer had in a peculiar sense
adopted it as his own: "Mentre si _puo"s:—"gCr
cording to what a man can". " My God!" ex-
claims Montaigne in one of the essays, " how good
an office does wisdom to those whose desires it
172

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

limits to their power! There is no more useful
knowledge ; ' according to what a man can' was
the refrain and favourite word of Socrates, a word
of mighty substance." Two of the books are by
an illustrious theological revolter of Italy, Bernar-
dino Ochino of Siena, in one of which Montaigne
wrote the words ''Liber prohihitiis'' ; but this pro-
hibited book, as an inscription on the same page
informs us, was chosen as a gift for Montaigne's
disciple, Pierre Charron, when he was a visitor at
the chateau on July 2, 1586.

In earlier days Montaigne had cared much for
Ariosto, but as age grew upon him the fantasies
of Ariosto had no longer power to tickle his " old
heavy soul". He was indignant with the " bar-
baresque stupidity" of those who dared to com-
pare Ariosto with Virgil. The class of books
written in Italian which had a special attraction
for Montaigne was that considerable one formed
by the works of the letter-writers. His friends
were of opinion, he says, that he could himself
" do something" in this kind. He confesses that
he would have preferred to throw his meditations
into the form of letters rather than that of essays ;
but, since La Boetie's death, he had no friend with
whom he cared to correspond, no friend who
could excite and sustain his thoughts. To forge
vain names of imaginary correspondents, and thus
" traffic with the wind as others do", he could not ;
^73

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

to do this would be to live in dreamland. " I
think I have," he says, " a hundred different vol-
umes of such letters ; those of Annibale Caro seem
to me the best." Such letters, sometimes spoilt by
being tricked out too artificially, were, in fact,
often miniature essays, dealing with a central
theme, yet straying from it with an air of disen-
gagement. They were not of excessive length,
and Montaigne, whose eyesight was quickly
fatigued by the printed characters of a page, even
when dulled by a superimposed sheet of glass pre-
pared for the purpose, enjoyed a book which he
could drop or lay aside. Had the letters been
preserved which he had formerly scribbled to
ladies — for he loves to think of these passions of
his youth — they might perchance be found to con-
tain a page or two worth communicating to youth-
ful lovers. Nowadays if he writes a letter it is
always in post-haste; the handwriting is infa-
mous, yet he has no patience to delay like a
leisurely scribe : "I have accustomed the great
. folk who know me to bear with my scrapings and
cancels, and my paper without fold or margin.
Those letters that cost me most pains are v^^orth
the least; when I once begin to labour them, 'tis a
sign I am not there; I start content with having
no design ; the first word begets the second." To
write such a letter was easy for Montaigne; but
to fold it correctly was not to be compassed by his

174

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

clumsy fingers. That operation was always
assigned to some one else.

Of the seventeen books written in French
which survive from the library, incomparably the
most important and precious is the copy of the
1588 edition of Montaigne's own Essays, now in
the public library of Bordeaux, on which he in-
scribed those frequent corrections and additions
embodied by its editors in the posthumous text
of 1595. Of this a little more must be told in a
later chapter. The other volumes are for the
greater part historical, but the poems of Baif
appear in an edition (1573) which includes six
sonnets of La Boetie, differing in various read-
ings from the same sonnets as given by Mon-
taigne. Here also is a copy of Sebastian Mun-
ster's Cosmography, a book which Montaigne
regretted that he had not brought with him to
Germany and Italy. He seems on his return to
have consulted it in the light of his travels, for
many passages which have reference to Italian
cities visited in the course of his wanderings are
underlined by his pen. One other of these vol-
umes in French deserves special mention — Mon-
taigne's copy of the Annals and Chronicles of
France (1562), by Master Nicolle Gilles, not
quite perfect, but enriched with over one hundred
and seventy of the Essayist's annotations and
underlinings.

175

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Another principle of classification beside that
of the several languages in which they were writ-
ten is applied by M. Bonnefon to the extant relics
of Montaigne's library — a classification according
to subjects. Including the Bible, and two pieces
of heterodox theology, the books which can be
classed under divinity are only five. Law and
medicine may each claim two volumes. The ex-
magistrate had not perhaps retained his law
library, if he ever possessed one worthy of con-
sideration; that of La Boetie did not form part
of his legacy to Montaigne. As to physic, Mon-
taigne, though he would consult a doctor in his
need, was, like his father, profoundly sceptical.
He supposed — and the thought was a bitter one
— that La Boetie might have recovered, if only
the physician had not been by his bedside. Poetry
is far less inadequately represented. The Greek
Anthology, Terence, Virgil, Ausonius, Petrarch,
Beze, Baif, with perhaps the Homer which for
the present has vanished from men's eyes, are
enough to prove (if proof were needed, when
every page of the Essays displays its poetical cita-
tions) that Montaigne did not disregard this
province of a well-equipped library. Homer,
"Jhe first and last of poets", he placed in
his trinity of the most excellent men that the
I world has seen. The other two, Alexander and
I Epaminondas, are assigned this pre-eminence on

176

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

grounds unconnected with literature. But Mon-
taigne did not consider himself a competent judge
of the art of Homer; he grasped at the glorious
substance of the Homeric poetry, but was unable
to taste and dwell upon its style with that fine
sense which enjoyed, as the tongue enjoys some
exquisite fruit, the savour and flavour of Virgil's
verse. The Gcorgics seemed to him the most t
accomplished work in the whole range of poetry, i
Of the JEneid he considered the Fifth Book the
most admirable. Lucan he loved, not so much
for his style as for a certain personal worth which
he recognised through the poetry, and for the
truth of his judgments and opinions. Horace
and Catullus he placed in the first rank of lyrical
writers. Among dramatists he assigned the
highest position to Terence, '7^ bon Terence'',
whose delicate mastery of the graces of language
was felt by Montaigne as a merit hardly inferior
to the fidelity and animation with which he rep-
resents the various movements of the soul and
depicts the manners of society. With fine literary
discrimination Montaigne observed that the con-
temporary writers of comedy piled together in-
cidents, intertangling three or four arguments
from Terence or Plautus to make one of their
own, or heaping five or six tales of Boccaccio on
the top one of another, because they could not
rely upon the interest of their art as such;
12 177

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

whereas with Terence " the perfection and beauty
of his way of speaking make us lose our appe-
tite for his plot; his grace and elegance hold us
throughout." Montaigne extended this remark
by adding that the ancient poets, unlike the mod-
erns, avoided affectations, and not only those fan-
tastic Spanish and Petrarchan exaltations of
modern verse, but even the milder and less aggres-
sive " points" which constitute the chief orna-
ments of later poetry.

Without any system of literary rules or doc-
trine, which he would leave to pedants, Mon-
taigne had formed his literary taste upon classical
models, and his judgments are given with al-
most unerring propriety, like that of a genuine
connoisseur of wines when he pronounces on the
vintages of famous years. Matthew Arnold, in
a well-known preface, insisted on the contrast be-
tween classical and modern poetry precisely in the
spirit in which Montaigne writes. A good sen-
tence or a thing well said, Montaigne admits, is
always in season. But no coruscating beauties in
a work of art can compensate for a central de-
ficiency in the design. So Menander, when they
reproached him, as the day drew near by which
one of his comedies was promised, that he had not
yet put his hand to the work, replied, " It is com-
posed and ready, I have only to add the verses."
The growth of Montaigne's literary feeling may
178

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

be indicated by three successive names, expressive
of three successive stages — Ovid, Lucan, Virgil ;
or, as he distinguishes the master quahties of
these poets, first he yielded himself to the charm
of " a gay and ingenious fluidity", next, to the
attractions of a subtlety which is elevating and
penetrating; finally, to the sense of "a mature
and constant force" in perfect balance with grace.
Yet no one recognised more clearly than Mon-
taigne that there is something irreducible to rule
and method, something incalculable in poetry,
something which seems to be the unforeseen gift
of a fortunate moment, and that " a grain of
folly" in a poet may be a grain of divinest wis-
dom : " The true, supreme, and divine poesy is
above all rules and reason." And the critic him-
self is carried away by the enthusiasm of his de-
light : " Whoever discerns the beauty of it with
an assured and steady sight sees in truth nothing
of it, any more than he who can gaze upon the
splendour of a flash of lightning; such poetry
does not exercise our judgment; it ravishes and
ravages it. . . . From my earliest childhood
poetry has had the power to transpierce and trans-
port me." * And again : " As Cleanthes has de-
scribed the voice constrained within the narrow
channel of a trumpet, and so coming forth with

* Essays, I, 2^.
179

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

more piercing power, so it seems to me that a
sentence, compressed within the harmonious
hmits of poesy, darts forth with much more sud-
den force, and strikes me with a hveher impact." *
A poet whose invention does not enable him
to attain excellence of matter, or such incalculable
beauties as are proper to genius alone, must needs
garnish his poverty with the tags and ribbons
of ingenuity. Montaigne, after his manner, ex-
presses his thought by vivid imagery, which his
Elizabethan translator, Florio, has transformed
into his old English with so much spirit that his
words are perhaps better than a more exact trans-
lation :

" Even as in our dances those base conditioned men that
keep dancing-schools, because they are unfit to represent
the port and decencie of our nobilitie, endeavour to get
commendation by dangerous lofty trickes, and other strange
tumbler-like friskes and motions. And some Ladies make
a better show of their countenances in those dances
wherein are divers changes, cuttings, turnings, and agita-
tions of body than in some dances of state and gravity,
where they need but simply to tread a natural measure,
represent an unaffected carriage, and their ordinary grace.
And as I have also seen some excellent Lourdans or
Clownes, attired in their ordinary worky-day clothes, and
with a common homely countenance, afford us all the
pleasure that may be had from their art : Prentises and
learners that are not of so high a forme, to besmeare their

* Essays, I, 25.
180

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

faces, to disguise themselves, and in motions to counter-
feit strange viages, and antickes, to enduce us to laughter." *

Montaigne proceeds to contrast Virgil's Aineid
with Ariosto's Orlando Furioso; the former
" soaring aloft with full-spread wings, and with
so high and strong a pitch, ever following his
point" ; the latter faintly hovering and fluttering,
skipping from bough to bough, " always distrust-
ing his own wings, except it be for some short
flight, and for fear his strength and breath should
fail him, to sit down at every field's end." Such
criticism of poetry is that of one who was himself
a poet, though not in verse.

Montaigne was not so illiberal as to reserve all
his admiration for the poets of Greece and Rome.
He had a peculiar pleasure in the accomplished
Latin versifiers of his own century; Dorat,
Buchanan, Beze, L'Hopital, Mondore, Turnebe
are named with special honour. He hailed the
leaders of the Pleiad as the new lights of French
poetry. He supposed that Ronsard and Du Bel-
lay could never be surpassed, and in their best
work it seemed to him that they approached even
classical perfection. But for the crowd of
rhymers, who had caught the trick of phrasing
and the turns of harmony from these masters, he
had no toleration. What he could least endure in

* Essays, II, lo.
i8i

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

poetry was mediocrity. A man may play the fool
elsewhere, he thought, but not in poetry. Yet
there is a kind of poetry with far humbler pre-
tensions than that of the aspirants who never at-
tain mastery, which Montaigne highly esteemed.
It was asserted by Ampere that Montaigne was
the earliest writer to employ the expression " pocsie
populairc" ; perhaps he was the first to indicate
the folk-song as a species in itself. " Popular and
purely natural poetry," he says, " has certain
naiveties, certain graces by which it may come
into comparison with the greatest beauty of
poetry perfected by art; as we see in the vil-
lanelles of Gascony, and in the songs brought to
us from nations that have no acquaintance with
writing. The poetry that occupies the mean be-
tween these two is despised, of no honour and of
no value." * With the folk-song of Gascony he
Vk^ould probably have classed his charming " Stay,
adder, stay" of the savages.

In the essay. Upon some Verses of Virgil,
which was first published in 1588, a passage from
Lucretius, describing the amorous delight of Mars
is quoted, and Montaigne holds upon his literary
palate verb and adjective and participle, as if to
draw out the full flavour of the words. " This
noble circumfttsa", this pascit, pendct, percurrit —

* Essays, I, 54.
182

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

he rolls each expression as a sweet morsel under
his tongue. In comparison with this almost ma-
terial realisation of things in words he despises
the little points, and verbal ingenuities, and allu-
sive remoteness from reality, which have made
their appearance in later literature. He loves this
sinewy, solid, almost carnal, style, which does not
so much gratify as replenish the mind : " When
I see these brave forms of expression, so living,
so profound, I do not say * This is well said', but
'This is \vell thought'." Such painting is
achieved not by dexterity of touch, but by having
the eye possessed by the object; then the maga-
zine of words is forced to render up the absolute
expression — " the sense lights up and produces
the words, not now words of air, but of flesh and
bone." There is then no need to seek out curi-
osities of diction, to follow the wretched affecta-
tion of some new style. The old familiar words
submit themselves to more vivid and intimate
meanings. They may, like shrubs or flowers, be
transplanted, and thereby grow stronger ; a word
of the chase or a military term may be precisely
the needful word to interpret some act of the
mind, some passion of the soul. Our vocabulary
is copious enough, but it might be more pliable
and sinewy. How often in presence of a powerful
conception it seems to succumb, and when it flags
and languishes we turn for help to Latin or, it
183

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

may be, to Greek. To reanimate language by in-
tense observation, by vital penetrating perception,
by feelings exact, vivid, and profound — such is
the true process of an original style. It is, indeed,
as if Montaigne were giving us the secret of his
own method, so marvellous when at its best in
producing a style pregnant with imaginative life,
a thing of abounding vigour, yet so easy, so in-
sinuating ! Is the glove which his hand wears of
cheverel or of steel?

Dear as poetry was to Montaigne, he loved the
best writers of prose hardly, if at all, less. " The
best ancient prose," he says, " shines throughout
with a poetic vigour and boldness, and not with-
out some air of its fury." Plato, for example, is
wholly poetic; the old theology, as the learned
assert, is all poetry; the first poetic philosophy is
" the original language of the gods". Some of
the volumes of prose which he had beside him
were read merely for rest and recreation; they
were simply pleasant, " simplcment plaisant",
and among the moderns this class was best repre-
sented by The Decameron of Boccaccio. As be-
longing to this group he names also the writings
of his great predecessor in the literature of the
i French Renaissance — Rabelais. It is strange that
1 the penetrating vision of Montaigne should not
1 have discovered the exultant earnestness of Rabe-
' lais's shout on behalf of emancipation, and his

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

serious enthusiasm for science. But the full sig-
nificance of recent and contemporary writers is
often veiled for a time, and Rabelais had himself
thrown the jester's motley over his warrior's garb.
Perhaps the minstrel Taillefer, as he charged at
the battle of Senlac with his song and his jong-
leur's trick, was regarded by the horsemen who
followed him as no more than "simplcment plais-
ant'\ Montaigne, indeed, came at a time which
seemed to belie the highest hopes of Rabelais.
While Calvinist and Catholic were at each other's
throats, the prophecy of Rabelais sounded like a
voice carried away by the storm, and its words
were not intelligible. Only the enormous buffoon
could be seen gesticulating and tumbling in the
mire.

Whether he read books simply pleasant or those
which, he hoped, might lead him to a knowledge
of himself and instruct him how to live, Mon-
taigne was accustomed to form no large designs,
but rather to live in the moment and to make
much of it. Ideas came to him through books,
not by a continuous process of study, but by sud-
den rays and instantaneous flashes. If he met
difficulties in his reading, he " did not bite his
nails". After a charge or two against the ob-
stacle, he left it. His intellect was impatient and
swiftly prehensile. He took things at the first
bound or not at all. And so in his own body of
i8s

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I thought he did not construct a unity or even a

harmony ; such unity as there is grows out of his

temperament and character; it is not formal but

vital. In minor matters if he contradicts himself

I — well, he contradicts himself, and why not?

When his dealings were with books and authors,

he desired above all to preserve his spirit of

gaiety ; he was always at his best " under a clear

sky". Continuance and contention, even with a

favourite author, dazzled, dulled, and wearied his

judgment. The effect was like that of scarlet on

the eye, when gazed at obstinately and long. " If

one book tires me," he writes, " I take another,

and yield myself to it only in those hours when

the tedium of doing nothing descends upon me.

I do not much addict myself to new ones, because

the old seem fuller and stronger; nor to Greek

books, because my judgment cannot do its work

aright, where my intelligence is imperfect like

' that of a child or of one learning his trade."

I The historians and the moralists, even more

! than the poets, were the special " game" hunted

by Montaigne. The historians were regarded by

j him not as chroniclers, telling a tale of little mean-

^ ing, but as moralists teaching by example, and,

in a wider sense, as presenters of that curious

creature, man, while they set forth his various

[ customs, manners, laws, complexions, humours;

man, perpetually changing from age to age, every-

i86

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

where diverse from clime to clime, yet ever and
everywhere the same marvellously vain, shifting,
undulant being. Thirty-one out of the total of
seventy-six books, once Montaigne's, which have
been recovered, are historical ; not far from half |
of the entire number. On the memorials of indi- ,■
viduals and of the species found in such records j
as these, it was the essay or trial of his judgment
that Montaigne especially desired to make. He
did not care merely to load his memory with [
facts; his memory was a most convenient sieve, |
which let the idle rubbish of insignificant, un- ;
illuminated facts escape. He would not be a |
pedant, who makes his jewel of an opaque pebble. |
A fact v/as of value to him as the means of attain- •'
ing a truth. Whatever threw light upon any
feature, any aspect of human nature, he appro-
priated for his own uses. Such " game" he
bagged in that serviceable memory of his safely
enough; and often an anecdote seemingly trivial,
but significant when turned around and seen on
the right side, told him more than any pompous
setting- forth of public events ; for these, as he
would say, are often the result not of human
character or human resolve but of that incalcu-
lable " fortune" which determines the issues of
things. Caring for anecdotes, he turned with
peculiar interest to the biographical side of his-
tory; he could not learn enough about men and
187

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

the lives of men in their minutest details : " Those
who write Lives, by reason that they concern
themselves more with counsels than events, more
with what proceeds from within than what hap-
pens without, are the more proper for my reading,
and this is the reason why Plutarch" — our Plu-
tarch, as Montaigne elsewhere familiarly calls him
— " above all others is the man for me." He
desired to study action in relation to character,
as the most fruitful form of study. But even in
the case of men of thought rather than of action
he divined that there might be some occult rela-
tion between abstract dogma and personal char-
acteristics or the play of a peculiar environment.
He did not find one Diogenes Laertius sufficient
with his Lives of the Philosophers; he wished
for a dozen ; for he was " equally curious to
be acquainted with the lives and fortunes of these
great instructors of the world and with the diver-
sity of their dogmas and conceits." Diversity
everywhere; diversity lying within the bounds,
so narrow yet so indeterminable, of humanity;
and the chief word in Montaigne's logic was the
word Distinguo.

The historians seemed to him to fall into three
groups. The division that he had made in poetry
— " popular" poetry or folk-song on the one hand,
the divine masters of poetic art on the other, and
between them a worthless tribe of imitators and

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

aspirants — was, in a slightly altered form, applic-
able here. There were first the " simple" his-
torians, who are diligent to gather concrete facts
and to record them with entire good faith ; they
add nothing of their own, but they provide
genuine matter on which the judgment can make
its essay. Perhaps Montaigne did not quite do
justice to the artistic gift of honest Froissart —
*' le bon Froissart'' — when he named him as rep-
resentative of the class. Such writers give us the
naked and inform matter of history, from which,
according to his understanding, every one may
make his profit. The highest order of historians
select what is essential fact, they establish true
connections, they draw just inferences, they pro-
nounce wise judgments; and thus they regulate
our belief. The middle sort — and most historians
fall within this class — are those who spoil every-
thing they touch ; they will chew our meat for us ;
they wrest facts aside according to their own bias ;
select what is impertinent, omit what is signifi-
cant, because they have not wit to perceive its im-
port; judge without judgment; and leave us
nothing to do, for we have got nothing rendered
to us purely and in good faith. Such writers are
for the most part mere men of letters, whose chief
qualification for dealing with real affairs is that
they can string sentences together. In the opinion
of Montaigne the only good histories are those
189

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

written by persons who themselves were men of
j action and of authority, and whose judgment had
j been made ripe by experience in the kind of affairs
) of which they write.

Through such authors he not only made a real
acquaintance with the subjects handled in the
masterful way of the masters; he also entered
into that intimacy with superior minds which is
j the happiest part of study. " I have a singular
curiosity to know the soul and the spontaneous
I judgments of my authors." The form thus be-
came almost more important than the matter, or
rather the form became itself a more important
kind of matter — the true matter for his examina-
tion. How things shape themselves in the minds
of the masters ; how, like an etcher of genius,
they select the essential, the dominant lines ; how
they take things up, as we say, by the right handle ;
how they distinguish and how they combine ; upon
what hints they conjecture or infer; upon what
grounds they draw conclusions ; what kindles their
■ enthusiasm; how they hold the balance between
intellect and emotions ; what temper controls their
words and models their sentences — to observe
and ponder such matters as these is to receive the
best lessons and the substantial delights of litera-
ture. And it was in this way that Montaigne
hoped that his own writings might be regarded
by a thoughtful reader. " Let him attend not to

190

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

my body of matter but to the fashion in which I
mould it." As a reader, he often cared only to
rest his busy brain; he often cared only to give
his languid brain a fillip; but sometimes he read
pen in hand, underlining what seemed to him
remarkable; commenting and questioning upon
the margin; alive in all his mind. Finally he
would sum up, briefly, and. as one who speaks
with authority, all his impressions in one decisive
estimate of his author. He has given us ex-
amples of such verdicts on three of the historians
whom he had read with special attention — Guic-
ciardini, Philippe de Comines, and, descending
from the past to his own early days, Martin du
Bellay who in his Memoirs had the assistance of
his brother, Guillaume de Langey. The cynicism
of Guicciardini, who never attributes an action to
any but a base or a self-interested motive, is re-
garded by Montaigne as a somewhat shallow
error of judgment. The moral cjualitics of Co-
mines are applauded with genuine warmth, but
Montaigne finds in his work a certain insuffi-
ciency of intellect. The Memoirs of Du Bellay
he would apparently place high in his second class
rather than in the first and most excellent rank of
histories. The writers lack the disinterested free-
dom of spirit which he finds in both Joinville and
Comines; their work is more an apology for
King Francis than genuine history.
191

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The Cresar, so fortunately recovered by M.
Parison, adds another to these estimates written
by Montaigne upon the fly-leaves of his books,
when, as he tells us, he had decided not to read
the book again and desired to preserve his im-
mediate impression from the blurring effect of
time upon a memory on which recent things were
constantly scribbled and older things faded or
were entirely effaced. Nearly five months of the
year 1578 were devoted to the study of the Com-
mentaries. At the close Montaigne felt that
during all those days he had been in contact with
" one of the greatest miracles of Nature" — for,
indeed, from the stuff she mingled in Caesar, Na-
ture might have made two extraordinary men —
an incomparable military chief and also an his-
torian of absolute precision and sincerity, whose
words had the exactness and the authority which
words of command possess.* After the first en-
thusiasm of his reading had declined, Montaigne
could make reservations; if he turned over a
page it was still with a sense of reverence almost
greater than can be due to human works ; but
Caesar was ambitious ; he even speaks of the
" ordure" of Caesar's " pestilent ambition" — that

* This MS. note in Montaigne's copy of Csesar was
printed by Dr. Payen, Documents inedits, No. 3 (1855),
PP- 3i> 32, and is given by M. Bonnefon, Montaigne et ses
Amis, I, pp. 265, 266.

192

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

of a " pii1)lic roliber", who has left a memory
" abominable to all worthy men". And yet the
spell of Cresar was one from which his critic
could not escape. The least incident, the lightest
word of Caesar interested Montaigne — how he
wore rich garments in battle, how he honoured a
favourite horse, how he scratched his poll with
one finger, how he turned away his eyes from
the sight of Pompey's head, his choice of a death,
" the least premeditated and the speediest", his
saying, on which an essay is founded, that it is a
common vice of nature to derive most assurance
and most terror from things unseen, concealed,
and unknown. He thought of Caesar's justice,
his clemency, his promptitude, his vigilance, his
patience in labour, his regard for friends, the
grandeur of his courage, his great amorousness
which never trammelled his great passion for
power — and when all was felt and pondered,
Montaigne concluded that ambition had spoilt
the most rich and beautiful nature that ever
was.

In his earlier essays Montaigne occasionally
makes a quotation from Tacitus, but he does not
seem to have devoted serious attention to that
great writer until the period of leisure which fol-
lowed those years during which he held the
mayoralty of Bordeaux. Then, yielding to the
urgency of a friend, he read in Tacitus constantly
13 193

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

from day to day, and in Tacitus alone. It was
twenty years, he says, since he had kept to any
one book for an hour together. Montaigne valued
whatever throws light on personal characters and
manners in history, and though he found not a
little of this in Tacitus, he wished for more than
he had received. He thought that Tacitus is
sometimes less penetrating in his judgments of
character than a historian ought to be. He com-
mends him for his courage in giving reports of
things in themselves improbable or hardly credi-
ble. We ought not to set limits to the power of
Nature; we ought to accept the testimony of wit-
nesses. A historian should record even popular
rumours and opinions as a highly important part
of history; it is for his reader to consider and
pronounce upon their truth. He censures Tacitus
— and this is characteristic of the author of the
Essays — because, having to refer to himself as
an office-holder of dignity, he apologises for this
reference as if it might be regarded as ostenta-
tion. Such an apology was a little unworthy of
such a spirit as that of Tacitus : " Not to speak
roundly of one's self convicts a writer of some
want of courage; a man of inflexible and lofty
judgment, who judges soundly and surely, makes
use of instances drawn from himself on all occa-
sions as if from some matter foreign to him, and
bears testimony frankly concerning himself as if
194

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

it concerned a third party."* Montaigne, as a
critic of literature, is not ill represented by the
words in which he sums up the peculiar qualities
of the work of Tacitus : " It is rather a judgment
than a narration of history ; f there are in it more
precepts than stories; it is not a book to read,
but one to study and learn ; it is so full of moral
sentences that some of these are right, some
wrong; it is a nursery of ethic and politic dis-
courses for the use and ornament of those who
have any place in the management of the world.
He always urges his plea with strong and solid
reasons, in a style full of points and subtleties,
according to the fashion affected by his age ; they
so loved a swelling dignity that where they failed
to find points and subtleties in things, they sought
for these in words. He does not fall much short
of Seneca's way of writing; he seems to me the
more brawny (charnii) ; Seneca, the more keen.
The service he renders is most suitable to a
crazed, troubled state such as ours at present is;
you would often say that he paints us and pinches
us to the quick." :}:

Plutarch — the French Plutarch of Amyot —
had a double attraction for Montaigne; he was

* Essays, III, 8.

t The word narration (1588) became deduction in the
later edition of the Essays (1595).
t Essays, III, 8.

195

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

both historian and moralist. As a historian he
seemed to Montaigne to be pre-eminent as a judge
of human actions. As a morahst he was not a
maker of systems, but a penetrating observer of
the facts of human nature, who wrote discur-
sively and who could be read in a spirit of serious
gaiety. " I have not had commerce with any
solid book," Montaigne writes to the Countess de
Gurson, " except Plutarch and Seneca, from
whom, like the Danaides, I draw my water, in-
cessantly filling and as fast emptying." The
Morals of Plutarch were as frequently in the
hands of Montaigne as the Lives, and he found
it highly satisfactory that if his favourite author
was in a certain sense a philosopher, he was
assuredly no metaphysician. The metaphysical
systems of the old world floated past Plutarch
like wrecks after a tempest. He had his own
tendencies, his own grasps of guess, but he never
fashioned these into a foursquare body of doc-
trine. '* He is perhaps the sole moralist of an-
tiquity," writes M. Octave Greard, " who has not
discussed the problem of the sovereign good." *
He was, like Montaigne himself, an interested
student of the world and of human life; he loved,
like Montaigne, the concrete ; he reasons through
examples. Had Montaigne needed a model for

* Dc la Morale dc Plutarcjtic, p. 53.

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

his Essays, some of the discourses of Plutarch
miglit have stood him in good stead. Pkitarch's
writings — to quote M. Greard again — seem often
the rendezvous of all the doctrines, and some of
Montaigne's own essays could hardly be more
accurately described.

Through his imagination, and only through it,
Montaigne was — or, to be more exact, was at
times — a Stoic. Seneca served him if not as a
director of his conscience, at least as a guide to
his imaginative ideals of morality. His name, as
in the opening of the essay on the Institution of
Children is often coupled with that of Plutarch.
Both the Greek and the Roman moralists pleased
him because they could be read in short, discon-
nected pieces — " it is no great matter to take them
in hand, and I quit them when I list." Montaigne,
in his musings, was conducted by Seneca up the
rugged heights which led to a somewhat barren
pinnacle of virtue. But when he awoke from his
musings he found himself upon the plain, the plain
it may be of an elevated table-land, and Plutarch
was his companion in his search after a temperate,
amiable, unrepelling human virtue, which should
serve him in his daily needs. In an essay of
the Third Book — that Of Physiognomy — he
contrasts Seneca's laboured efforts to fortify
himself against death, his sweating and panting
in the toil of it, with Plutarch's more virile way,
197

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

that of a soul whose motions are regular and
assured. Yet he remembers that, after all, Seneca
did not fail in the last trial : " The one — Seneca
— more sharp," he says, " pricks us, and sends
us off with a start; he touches the spirit more.
The other — Plutarch — more solid, fashions, es-
tablishes, and supports us constantly. That
ravishes our judgment; this wins it"; or, as he
elsewhere has it, Seneca impels and Plutarch
guides us. An entire essay (Book II, 32) is
devoted to a grateful defence of his two chief
teachers against what Montaigne regarded as un-
just criticism. Montaigne cannot credit the accu-
sation that the life of Seneca gave the lie to his
writings, that he was effeminate, ambitious,
avaricious, a false pretender to philosophy. And
he maintains against his contemporary, Jean
Bodin, the eminent author of TJic Republic, that
Plutarch, the most judicious author in the world,
exhibited no want of judgment in setting down
things in his story which might to Bodin ap-
pear incredible or absolutely fabulous. Looking
around him at the surprising events and incidents
of his own time, looking into his own heart and
perceiving there the seeds of all possible mag-
nanimities, all possible meannesses, Montaigne
believed that we should be slow to affirm of any-
thing that it is incredible. But Plutarch's ex-
cellent judgment appears less strikingly in his
198

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

narrative than in his parallels of the Greeks and
Romans — precisely where Bodin failed to recog-
nise it, where Bodin charged Plutarch with unfair
partiality for the Greeks.

Montaigne loved an author who gave him a
quick and full return for the time and pains be-
stowed by the reader. He complains that Cicero
fatigued him with his long preparatory or initia-
tory passages :

" What there is in him of life and marrow is smothered
by his long preambles. When I have spent an hour in
reading him, which is much for me, and try to recall what
I have thence extracted of juice and substance, for the
most part I find nothing but wind. . . . For me, who de-
sire only to become more wise, not more learned or elo-
quent, these logical and Aristotelian dispositions of parts
are unsuitable ; I would have one begin with the last and
chief point. I know well enough what death and pleasure
are; let not a man busy himself to anatomise these. I
look for good and solid reasons, at the outset, which may
instruct me how to sustain their assaults ; for which pur-
pose neither grammatical subtleties, nor the ingenious con-
texture of words and argumentations are of any avail. . . .
I would not have an author make it his business to render
me attentive, or that he should shout at me fifty times
Oycz! as they do. The Romans in their religious exercises
were wont to say Hoc age ; we, in ours, say Sursum corda;
these are so many lost words for me ; I come already
fully prepared from my chamber. I need no allurement,
no sauce; I eat the meat uncooked; and instead of whet-
ting my appetite with these preparatives and flourishes,
they tire and pall it." *

* Essays, II, lo.
199

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

These are the confessions of a hearty lover of
good books, read not for scholarship but for the
uses of life. The acknowledgments made in
favour of Cicero are made, as it were, against the
grain. And here, as elsewhere, Montaigne takes
his own way, for Cicero was exalted, by virtue of
that eloquence which Montaigne recognises and
applauds, to a pre-eminent place in the esteem of
classical students in Renaissance days. The man
himself (and now Montaigne accepts what he calls
the common opinion) seemed wanting in dignity
and strength of soul ; a mendicant spirit that
could not live without the alms of popular ap-
plause. " Shame upon that eloquence," he cries,
" which fills us with desire of itself and not of ac-
tual things ! Unless, indeed, one should argue that
Cicero's eloquence is of such supreme perfection
that it constitutes a substantial body in itself."

To handle things — that was what brought
satisfaction to Montaigne, and the book which
brought him things in their real substance was
the book he prized, not that which merely ar-
ranged a decoration of words. He viewed the
art of rhetoric with suspicion; it was often like
rougeing and plastering a wrinkled and faded
face. The truly " consular spirits" of ancient
Rome were not masters of tongue-fence. The
jargon of the fine arts, the jargon of literary
criticism seemed to him of no more real meaning
200

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

than the babble of his chambermaid. He had the
advantage, on one occasion, of holding discourse
with a master of eloquence who was also an emi-
nent master of science — an Italian, formerly
house-steward of Cardinal Caraffa. Montaigne
loved to converse with a learned man in his spe-
cial province. With profound gravity and a
magisterial countenance the great artist poured
forth an eloquent discourse on the gullet-science,
as if he were handling some high point of the-
ology. Montaigne with a reserved smile noted
the orator's divisions and subdivisions, and re-
cords them in the essay on The Vanity of Words.
The exordium in particular was adorned with
rich and magnificent phrases, such as we make
use of when treating of the government of an
empire. But the great rhetorician's interlocutor
would have valued more a hare or a haddock
creditably cooked.

Looking back in his elder days upon the
" three commerces" or societies which had made
up so large a portion of his life — that with men
in friendship and the clasp of minds, that with
women in the delights of beauty and of art, and
that calmer commerce with the faithful com-
panions on the shelves of his library — Montaigne
cannot assign the highest place to the last except
for its virtues of facility and constancy. Many
persons require some foreign matter to give their
20 1

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

thinking power exercise and animation; for his
own part he obtained these when his mind made a
return upon itself and recollected itself in solitary
meditatings. Books brought him rest or distrac-
tion more often than exercise; they might, in-
deed, debauch the mind by diverting it from its
more vigorous, unassisted toil. And yet when he
read, he often found his intellect rising to grapple
with things, his judgment — that which he most
valued in himself — engaging itself in a manly
play. And so he looks gratefully from his chair
at " the learned shelf" and finds that he had
rightly named its contents " meas delicias." This
commerce with books had been with him, during
his whole course of youth and manhood, always
an assistance to his life : " It consoles me in old
age and solitude; it eases me from the weight of
weary indolence, and delivers me at all hours
from vexatious company; it blunts the edge of
pain if this be not extreme and masterful. To
divert myself from any importunate fancy, I have
only to turn to my books; they readily win me
to themselves, and banish the other from my
mind, nor do they mutiny because they perceive
that I seek them only for want of other com-
modities more real, lively, and natural ; they ever
entertain me with the same countenance." *

* Essays, III, 3.
202

MONTAIGNE AMONG HIS BOOKS

Troubled with a painful malady during these
latter years, Montaigne felt that he resembled
King James of Naples and Sicily, who was borne
about in a poor gray robe on a pitiful litter, but
attended with royal pomp, gallant nobles and
gentlemen, led horses, and splendid circumstance.
The volumes around his walls were Montaigne's
brave attendants. If he was not actually enjoy-
ing his possessions, he knew, like a miser, that his
wealth was there to gloat over when he pleased.
" This is the best munition," he says, " that I
have found in our human wayfaring, and I pity
much those men of understanding who are un-
provided of it. I the rather accept any other sort
of amusement how light soever, because this can
never fail me."

The best viaticum of the journey through this
our life! Such a happiness in communing with
the highest intellects for the sake of exercise and
rest, of wisdom and comfort and recreation, had
in it something of the nature of virtue. This was
not the dilettante's regard for books, though in
Montaigne there was something of the dilet-
tante; it was essentially a virile passion of the
mind.

203

CHAPTER VII

LIFE IN THE CHATEAU

The life of Montaigne during those years
when the essays of the first two books were grad-
ually forming themselves was by no means that
of a recluse. A new link of connection with the
great world was created in the early days of his
retirement, when, on October i8, 1571, he re-
ceived from Blois a letter in which Charles IX.
informed him that " for his virtues and merits" he
had been chosen and elected as one of the Knights
of the Order of St. Michael, and directed him
to repair to the Marquis de Trans in order that
he might receive from his hands the collar of the
order. He had in his earlier manhood desired
much to obtain this honour. It was then a mark
of rare distinction. When fortune brought it to
him, he says with a touch of irony, she was kinder
than he had hoped; instead of lifting him up out
of his place, she brought the coveted honour down
as low as his own shoulders, and even lower.
The collar had in truth been cheapened by the
efforts of the Guises to secure friends and fol-
lowers at little cost to themselves, and by the care-
less facility of Charles in his distribution of re-
wards. M. Courbet has conjectured that Gas-
204

LIFE IN THE CHATEAU

ton de Foix, the Marquis de Trans, having fallen
under the serious displeasure of the Chancellor
L'Hopital, on the occasion of the visit of Charles
IX. to Bordeaux six years previously, may have
engaged the services of Montaigne with the Chan-
cellor on his own behalf, and may now have
cleared off the old score by procuring a cheap dis-
tinction for the man who had done him a good
turn. Some scornful words of Brantome, who
had a touch or aristocratic disdain for the legal
profession, indicate that the Marquis had a hand
in obtaining the collar for Montaigne. However
this may have been, Montaigne reserved for him-
self, a little inconsistently, the double satisfaction
of pride in the distinction and pride in being
superior to that pride. He displayed the collar in
effigy upon the walls of his chapel and his private
cabinet in the tower. He makes little of the
honour — degraded during recent years — in two
of the essays.* And as the order had been origi-
nally designed to reward not merely valiant sol-
diers but great military leaders, he finds, with
some subtlety, a warrant of his own inclusion in
it. Military valour and prudence are, after all,
only one ray issuing from that perfect and philo-
sophical valiance, that force and assurance of the
soul, which enable it to despise all kinds of ad-

* Book II, 7; and Book II, 12.
205

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

verse accidents and to remain equable, uniform,
and constant. Montaigne was aware that he was
far from being the tranquil possessor of such
philosophical valiance, yet it was an ideal which
he held up before himself, and which in some in-
adequate degree had even incorporated itself with
his spirit.

In 1574 Charles IX. was succeeded on the
throne by his brother, Henri III. It is certain
that Montaigne was one of the many gentlemen
in ordinary of the King's chamber, but the date
of his appointment has not been ascertained. On
the title-page of the first edition of the Essays
(1580) the author describes himself as "Cheva-
lier de Vordre du Roy et Gentil-homme ordinaire
dc sa Chambre." Such gentlemen in ordinary
were very numerous; the Venetian ambassadors
to the Court in 1577 were impressed by the great
array of the King's attendants. The duties of
those in residence were not laborious; they in-
troduced persons to the royal presence, and held
themselves in readiness to receive and execute his
orders. But so great was the number of these
functionaries that residence was probably not re-
quired of all. The title served as a distinction,
and permitted its owner, if he desired it, to ap-
proach the person of the monarch.* A like ap-

* A. Grijn, La Vie puhliqtic de Montaigne, p. 180.
206

LIFE IN THE CHATEAU

pointment — and here Montaigne's own entry in
the Ephcmcridcs of Beuther enables us to fix the
date, November 29, 1577 — was conferred upon
him by King Henri of Navarre. Why this
favour, unsought by its recipient and unknown
to him until the letters patent were placed in his
hands, was conferred can only be conjectured.
Montaigne's relations with Henri of Navarre at
a later date were of a close and confidential char-
acter. It may be that in 1577, as has been sug-
gested, he had already rendered some service to
the King of Navarre and also to his fellow citi-
zens in difficulties which had arisen when Henri
desired to enter the city and the civic authorities
were obliged to intimate to him their unwilling-
ness to receive him.* When at Blois in the au-
tumn of 1588, a witness of the meeting of the
States General, Montaigne entered into conversa-
tion with the historian De Thou. In his Memoirs
De Thou reports words of Montaigne to the effect
that he had formerly acted as an intermediary
between the King of Navarre and the Duke of
Guise when these princes were at the Court ; that
the Duke had made every effort to gain the friend-
ship of the King; that he had found this impos-
sible, and as a last resource to defend the honour
of his house, had resorted to war; and that each

* E. Courbet, Essays, Vol. V, pp. 104, 105.
207

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

of the two could live in security only through the
death of the other. As to religion, Montaigne
went on, which they both paraded as a motive, it
was a mere pretext to confirm their respective
followers; the fear of being deserted by the
Protestants prevented the King of Navarre from
declaring himself a Catholic, and the Duke would
have been ready to accept the Confession of Augs-
burg, had it not been prejudicial to his interests.
If the negotiation referred to by Montaigne really
took place at the Court of the French King, it must
be assigned to some date between the marriage of
Henri of Navarre in August, 1572, and his escape
from the Court in February, 1576. But it seems
on various grounds probable that in his mention
of the presence of the King of Navarre at the
Court, De Thou cannot have accurately reported
Montaigne's conversation. His diplomatic ser-
vices between the great rivals may more probably
belong to a later date — perhaps to a date between
his return from Italy and 1588, the year of the
publication of the Essays, in their extended form,
and that of the assassination of the Duke of
Guise. It is not desirable to construct from slen-
der hints an imaginary biography of Montaigne,
but we may be assured that in such a negotiation
as this — whatever its date may be — he would
have impressed the parties concerned favourably
by his manifest fidelity, his openness, his discre-
208

LIFE IN THE CHATEAU

tion, his desire for a peaceful solution of the ques-
tions at issue, his real disinterestedness. These
merits as a diplomatic agent he claims for himself
in the Essays, and such independent testimony as
we possess confirms his not overweening asser-
tion.

It would be a mistake to treat as of high im-
portance what has been called the " public life"
of Montaigne during the decade which preceded
his travels in Italy. Yet, as we have seen, he
acted in 1574 as the intermediary between the
Duke de Montpensier and the Parliament of Bor-
deaux and he acquitted himself well. Such an
incident as this was, however, only the interrup-
tion of a life essentially private, spent in the
chateau with his wife in the old French fashion,
among the labourers in the fields who capped to
him as he went by on horseback with his hounds,
and whose homely virtues he regarded with so
much respect — for he knew the pleasures of the
chase, though he shrank remorsefully from its
triumphs — above all in his library meditating
much, reading a little, and either writing now
and again a page or dictating to that servant-man
who once made off with the manuscript as if it
were a treasure, and who got so little — Mon-
taigne reflected to his comfort — through such a
refined taste in peculation.

After the death of his first child in 1570 he was
14 209

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

not for long childless. On September 9, 1571,
his daughter Leonor was born. Four other chil-
dren followed during the twelve succeeding years;
but Mademoiselle de Montaigne, with all her
household virtues, was not " generous" enough
to give her husband a son; and of his six girls
only Leonor lived to be more than an infant.
Montaigne was one of those fathers who^ while
not lacking in paternal tenderness, have no ex-
ultant pleasure in the small new-born human ani-
mal ; it was the growing intellect of a child which
interested him. He did not choose that his babies
should be put to nurse in the chateau; their
foster-mothers were peasants of the neighbour-
hood ; and, when he recalls, with a real or affected
vagueness, that he had lost " two or three" of
these nurselings, he confesses that his regret,
though it might have been real, was not acute;
yet there is hardly any accident, he adds, which
more touches men to the quick than the death of
a child. Montaigne did not love sorrow, and had
no pride in maintaining it in its excess; he was
always happy to be happy, in which, as well as in
the pride of sorrow, there is a good deal of human
nature. His regard for children was not slight,
as the essay on Education shows. His heart
was tender; he delighted to set free any captive
wild creature of the woods or fields; he speaks
of what was little understood in the sixteenth
210

LIFE IN THE CHATEAU

century, the duty of humanity not only to all our
living fellow creatures which have life and sense,
but even to trees and plants, " We owe justice
to men," he writes, " and graciousness and be- :
nignity to other creatures that are capable of re- ;
ceiving these; there is a certain commerce and a
mutual obligation between them and us. Nor do ■
I fear to confess the tenderness of my nature, as j
so childish that I cannot well refuse to my dog i
the merrymaking which he unseasonably offers i
or asks of me." And in a well-known passage :
" When I play with my cat, who knows whether
I do not make her more sport than she makes
me? we mutually divert each other with our
monkey-tricks ; if I have my hour to begin or
refuse, she also has hers." Such a man could not
but have responded to the pretty ways and wiles
of a child. Yet he thought that there is a wiser
and better way of loving our children than for
our own sport, '' like monkeys". The ideal train-
ing, he thought, is that which results in making
a father and his children friends and, as far as
may be, comrades. Having the memory abiding
with him of his own father's gentleness, he be-
lieved that harshness can serve no good purpose
in domestic relations. He had seen fathers — and
such instances in those wild times were not few —
who had refused their sons every need and every
indulgence, and driven them to a life of robbery

211

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

and open violence. For his own part he held
that a father should share his worldly goods with
his adult children, and might with advancing
years wisely resign the domestic authority to a
son, though with the power of resuming it, should
a necessity arise. He thought that no position
can well be more miserable than that of an old
man who has a passion for rule and is incapable
of ruling, who is feared without being respected,
who spies and is spied upon, who is viewed only
as the senile holder of possessions which are
coveted by those who are capable of enjoying
them. Next to the verdict of one's own con-
science he considered the opinion held of a man
in his own household the surest testimony as to
character and conduct. " Few men have been ad-
mired by their domestics; no man has ever been
a prophet, not merely in his own house, but in his
country." He bore himself in his household
openly : he loved to show frankly all that was
in him; to live, as it were, in the full light and
the open air. Sometimes a sudden fit of anger
came upon him ; he did not then consume his own
smoke, a process which may darken the counte-
nance for days; his passion if sharp was short;
he tried to moderate the little whirl of temper and
to accept good humour gladly as soon as it re-
turned. Occasionally he found it expedient to
feign anger, for a dull-witted servant can hardly

212

LIFE IN THE CHATEAU

be ruled by the rod of a refined irony. As to
little Leonor, she never saw the rod and never
heard from father or mother any words that were
not kind. And had his children been sons, Mon-
taigne declares, he would have been even more
studious to preserve in them a spirit of frank in-
dependence, for the male is less born to subjection
than the female — " I should have loved to expand
their hearts with ingenuousness and freedom."
It was, no doubt, a cause of some regret for him
that he was without a son, though he professes
that the common desire for an heir male is un-
reasonable in its degree. There was much in his
daughter's upbringing with which Montaigne
could not or would not meddle — " feminine polity
hath a mysterious procedure; we must e'en leave
it to them." Leonor was of a " tardy com-
plexion"— lingering still in childish girlhood,
when she might have been expected to have
bloomed into womanhood. From her mother and
a certain ancient dame, as learned as Lady Capu-
let's nurse — her mother's assistant — the child
acquired the proprieties and the pruderies for
which her father had small respect ; they formed
part of the mysterious feminine polity, and he did
not interfere. He taught her, as far as was per-
missible, frankness and entire truthfulness —
truthfulness even in her little sports. When at
a later time Montaigne would quit his tower, and
213

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

enjoy a game of cards with his wife and daugh-
ter, he was punctiHous in observing the strictest
fairness in play; veracity, which is the bond of
society, cannot be too much insisted on. At other
times the game was not at cards, but of Mon-
taigne's own invention — one of those clever de-
vices with which clever men puzzle and plague
their womankind; the game, we may call it, of
extremes and the mean. Mademoiselle de Mon-
taigne— good, busy housekeeper — and Leonor,
of the tardy complexion, were challenged to
name the greatest number of things in which the
extremes had somewhat in common with each
other which was not possessed by the mean.
Were they too unapt for the sport or too respect-
ful to name among these things a philosopher and
a fool? In such a sport Montaigne was sure to
win. He had in general renounced games of
mingled skill and chance for the unphilosophical
reason that he could not bear to be beaten with-
out more disturbance of temper than was agree-
able. Chess he hated, because it is too earnest a
pursuit, and he chose to concentrate his attention
on what yielded a better result.

Frankness and simplicity — these were what
Montaigne most cared for in his home. Cere-
monious ways might be proper in the courts of
kings, but they seemed out of place in the simple
house of a country gentleman. The little Leo-
214

LIFE IN THE CHATEAU

nor was not instructed to address her father by
the customary titles of reverence. The word
"father" was enough; it signified both rever-
ence and affection. " We call God Almighty
' Father','' Montaigne writes, " and we disdain
to have our children call us so; in my family
I have reformed that error." If a friend or a
stranger took up his abode for a while in the hos-
pitable chateau, he found that it deserved the
name of Liberty Hall. Through ceremonies and
formalities, as Montaigne thought, we lose the.
substance of things for the shadows; " ceremony
forbids us to express by words things that are
lawful and natural, and we hold by it; reason
forbids us to do things unlawful and evil, and
we will not listen to it." In the chateau both the
master, his household, and his guests enjoyed an
unaccustomed freedom ; " there is here a truce
to ceremony, to usherings and attendance at de-
partures and such like troublesome rules of cour-
tesy ; oh, the servile and importunate custom !"
Every one governs himself after his own fashion;
he who pleases, may indulge or communicate his
thoughts; I sit mute, musing and self-involved,
without offence to my guests." Now and again,
perhaps, some dignified visitor might be ruffled
a little because he had not been greeted on his
arrival and conducted with state to the principal
apartment. Montaigne comforted himself with

215

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

the reflection that it was better to offend a
stranger once than incommode himself every day,
for that would be a perpetual servitude. He had
been carefully taught in his youth the observances
of society; he accommodated himself, wherever
he went, to the customs of the place; but he
would not be tied to a code of artificial manners,
and he thought that if a formality is omitted, not
through ignorance but discretion, the omission
may be as agreeable as the observance, " I have
often," he says, " seen men uncivil by overcivility
and troublesome in their courtesy."

No one, when he found the right person, en-
joyed talk more heartily or entered into it with
more spirit than Montaigne. He felt that he was
a little too fastidious in the choice of the persons
to whom he could open his mind, and he envied
those whose facile disposition made them all
things to all men. He would have liked to talk
to a neighbour of his building, his hunting, his
quarrels ; to chat with a carpenter or a gardener ;
to speak not only amiably, as he did, but famili-
arly with a household retainer, from whom the
poor prerogative of fortune ought not to estrange
a master. Still he must needs make distinctions ;
while there were moods in which, contrary to his
wont, he could even suffer fools gladly ; and, after
a manner ascribed at a later time to Addison and
to Swift's delightful Stella, would gently lead
216

LIFE IN THE CHATEAU

tliem on in their self-conceited folly; in general
what he most desired was what he too rarely
found — the company of worthy and accomplished
men. With regard to the majority of his ac-
quaintances he was content to believe that if he
did not give them reason to love him, no man
ever gave less occasion of being hated ; they knew
that he did not surrender himself wholly to them;
they may have thought him reserved or even cold ;
but at least he had excited no animosities, he had
offended no susceptibilities. He felt, indeed, that
he could not give himself by halves; it must be
all or almost nothing; "my motion is not
natural, if it be not with full sail." But having
found the right man, he abandoned himself to
the joy of real communication of his whole self,
throwing aside all the servile restraints and reser-
vations of mere prudence — prudence which the
dangerous times of the civil wars might seem to
make more than ordinarily expedient. Seated
with such a companion, Montaigne surprised him-
self by his own energy of speech, his vivacity,
his happy sallies. He found better things than he
sought. His mind became the plaything of for-
tune— fortune the unexpected, the incalculable :
" the occasion, the company, the agitation of my
own voice, draw forth from my mind more than
I find when I sound it and employ it by myself."
In comparison with such conversation, which
217

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

seemed to him the most fruitful and natural exer-
cise of the mind, he perceived that the study of
books is a languishing and feeble motion. If he
were compelled to choose, he would rather lose
his sight than his hearing and power of speech.
He liked best to encounter a rude and vigorous
j ouster, who would press upon his flanks and prick
him right and left; "perfect agreement in con-
versation is of all things the most tiresome".
Knowing the diversity that there is in the minds
of men, he was astonished by no proposition, how-
ever novel, nor hurt by any confession of faith,
how widely soever it might differ from his own.
He would listen with tolerance to the most ex-
travagant conceits, or the flightiest tales of won-
der, and inwardly ask why he should discredit or
deny them — " Que sgay-jcf' It was not that he
was indifferent to truth, but that he thought it a
cowardly and ill policy to close any of the avenues
which might by any chance lead to truth. He
exposed his own opinions gladly to adverse criti-
cism— the rougher and bolder such criticism the
better. Montaigne was prouder to acknowledge
bravely that he had been worsted in argument
than to snatch a victory by mere strategy and
tactics. To be so disinterested was his best
homage to reality, to substance and not to show :
" I joyously entertain and caress truth in what-
ever quarter I find it, cheerfully surrender myself
218

LIFE IN THE CHATEAU

to it, and hold forth my conquered arms to it when
from afar ofT I see it approach." What offended
him most in discussion was a neglect of what he
styles " order" — the rational form of argument :
" When the disputation is irregular and troubled,
I leave the thing itself, and cling to the form with
anger and indiscretion, flinging myself into a
headstrong, malicious, imperious way of debate,
for which I am afterwards obliged to blush."
But then to deal fairly with a fool is not an easy
matter. Nor was it an artificial, scholastic way
of handling a subject that Montaigne required;
it was rather the free, natural way of good sense ;
attention to the " knot," as he would call it, of
the question considered, a sure and dexterous
process of untying it, clear vision, good humour,
due regard for the arguments of an opponent ; in
a word, reasonableness and not the methodic lines
of circumvallation of formal logic : " I had
rather a son of mine should learn to speak in a
tavern than in the schools of prating." " Take a
master of arts," he says, " strip him of his gown,
his hood, and his Latin, let him not batter our
ears with Aristotle pure and crude, and you
would take him for one of ourselves, or worse."
And yet, after all, why should we be so impatient
with another man's way of giving his notions a
shape, even if he be a logical or a learned fool?
How often we are fools ourselves ! We must live
219

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

among the living, and " let the river run under
the bridge" without our care, or at least without
our interference. A hundred times a day we
mock ourselves in mocking our neighbour. To
know this is perhaps our chief advantage over a
self-complacent, obstinate, zealous fool, all aglow
with his folly; and a considerable advantage it
must be — " Is there any creature so assured, re-
solved, disdainful, contemplative, grave, and seri-
ous as an ass?"

Montaigne's house was always open. Some-
times it was a friend that visited him, like
Jacques Pelletier — poet, grammarian, mathema-
tician— who in 1572 or 1573 was invited to ac-
cept the headship of the College of Guyenne, in
which Montaigne preserved his old friendly in-
terest. It was Pelletier who instructed his host
in the properties of the asymptote, which continu-
ally approaches a curve and never meets it, a fact
demonstrable by reason which yet, Montaigne
thought, subverts the truths of experience. And
he it was who gave Montaigne a certain precious
amulet of gold, whereon were graven some celes-
tial figures, virtuous against sunstroke, but which
the new owner, playing benevolently on the im-
agination of a newly-wedded acquaintance, put
to unanticipated uses. The chateau lay open not
to friends only but to foes, and this was part of
what its master, with his psychological instinct,

LIFE IN THE CHATEAU

held to be a prudent policy. " Our desires arc
augmented by difficulty" ; therefore no marauder
should be tempted to rob him of his worldly
goods by the ambition of achieving a feat in the
fine art of looting. Wandering bands of soldiers
in a disturbed district during the civil wars might
have thought it a gallant thing to capture a
Catholic gentleman's chateau if he had defended
it ; and so Montaigne would have no defence.

" I make their conquest of my house dastardly and
treacherous ; it is never shut to any one that knocks ; it
has no other provision but a porter, of ancient custom and
ceremony, who does not so much serve to defend my gate
as to oflfer it with more decorum and grace ; I have no
other guard nor sentinel than what the stars provide me
with. A gentleman wrongs himself in making a show of
defence, when he cannot thoroughly defend himself. . . .
This is my retreat wherein to rest me from the wars. I
endeavour to withdraw this corner from the public tem-
pest, as I do another corner in my soul. Our war may
change its forms, may multiply and diversify itself into
new parties ; for my part, I stir not. Among so many
houses put in defence, I myself alone amongst those of my
rank, so far as I know, in France, have trusted merely to
heaven, for the protection of mine, and have never removed
plate, deeds, or hangings. I would neither fear nor save
myself by halves. If a full acknowledgment can gain the
Divine favour, it will remain with me to the end; if not,
I have continued long enough to make my continuance re-
markable, and worthy of record. How? It is full thirty
years." *

* Essays, II, 15.
221

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Montaigne's policy of the open door, so long
successful, was not successful to the end. A time
came — at the close of his mayoralty of Bordeaux
— when his chateau was pillaged, and its master,
with his wife and daughter, fearing the plague
more than the irregular soldiery, the picorciirs,
were wanderers without a home. The confident
aspect of the undefended chateau was reflected in
the confidence of Montaigne's face, and on more
than one occasion, if we are to believe him,
when danger threatened he was saved by his
frank countenance and his courageous bearing.
A neighbour had planned to surprise Montaigne's
house; he professed to be in need of a refuge
from pursuers; the gates were opened to him as
a matter of course. Presently arrived small par-
ties of his soldiers, all with the same story on
their lips. Montaigne's suspicions were aroused,
but he resolved to go through with his courtesy
and to trust to fortune. The horsemen were at
the gate, their leader was within the house;
nothing remained to be done except to execute the
plan that he had formed. " Often he has said
since then," writes Montaigne, " for he was not
afraid to tell the tale, that my countenance and
my frankness had snatched the treachery out of
his hands. He remounted his horse, his fol-
lowers, who had their eyes upon him, to see what
signal he might give them, being much astonished

LIFE IN THE CHATEAU

to find him issue forth and yield up his advan-
tage." *

Montaigne describes his house as situated in the
midst of the tumuU and trouble of the civil v^'ars ;
his province was always the first in arms, and the
last to lay them down. Guyenne and Gascony were
in truth a great wrestling-ground for the rival
factions, and they swayed incalculably hither and
thither in victory or defeat. The greater num-
ber of Montaigne's neighbours were Protestant
gentlemen, and he was known to be a Catholic
and a royalist. He was neither a sceptic without
political convictions, nor a man so indifferent and
egoistic that he could not take a side. It would
have been pleasant, certainly, to do like the pru-
dent old woman and carry one candle to St.
Michael and another to the dragon. Montaigne
would follow the better party even to the fire ; but,
if possible, would omit that last disagreeable in-
cident; he would be swallowed up in the public
ruin ; but, should there be no need of this, would
be well pleased if fortune saved him; and as
far as duty gave him leave, he did not neglect
self-conservation. If he could escape from a
beating by creeping under a calfskin, he was not,
he confesses, the man to shrink from such a
refuge. These are not heroic utterances ; unless,

* Essays, III, 12.
223

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

indeed, it be heroic to confess that one is not a
hero. But, while in the case of a war in other
lands it might be possible to remain indifferent,
Montaigne felt than in a civil war it would have
been treason merely to stand aside and look on.
He did not hesitate to speak and to act on behalf
of what he regarded as the better cause. Only
he would endeavour to hold his own convictions
and to act on their behalf in the spirit of modera-
tion, of reasonableness, and, at the same time,
to regard his opponents in the temper of equity.
He was sufficiently attached to his own party by
the bond of reason, and therefore did not need
the bondage of wrath and hatred. He could
commend a Huguenot poet, or the style, though
not the matter, of a Huguenot pamphlet, to do
which was almost a proof of heresy. He could
celebrate in the same paragraph the courage and
constancy of the Constable de Montmorenci, and
the unfailing goodness, sweetness of manners,
and " conscientious facility" of the Protestant
leader. La None. He could, when the right time
came, centre all his hopes and desires for France
— poor vessel staggering under the tempest —
upon the person of Henri of Navarre. He de-
tested the spirit which had " filled fraternal hearts
with parricidal hatreds", the terrible code of
morals which made cruelty a virtue and violence
a form of sacred justice. The ancient religion
224

LIFE IN THE CHATEAU

and government of the kingdom ought assuredly
to be maintained, but a Catholic and a royalist
should remember that those arrayed against him
were Frenchmen — and that they were men. Re-
ligion, which should form men to its own high
ends, had been shaped anew by them to their own
worst designs:

" They who have taken it on the left hand, they who
have taken it on the right, they who call it black, they who
call it white, alike employ it in their violent and ambitious
enterprises, and conduct themselves in relation to it with
a progress so alike in riot and injustice that they render
the diversity they pretend in their opinions, in a matter on
which the conduct and law of our life depend, doubtful and
almost incredible ; could one see morals more akin, more
absolutely identical, issue from one and the same school
and discipline? See the horrible impudence with which
we toss divine reasons to and fro, and how irreligiously
we have both rejected and retaken them according as for-
tune has shifted our places in these public storms." *

Montaigne had seen the sufferings of the
peasantry — feet roasted upon gridirons, fingers
crushed under the pistol-cocks, bloody eyes
squeezed out by cords — and he had marvelled at
their endurance. " A monstrous war !" he cries ;
"... all discipline flies it ; it comes to cure sedi-
tion, and is itself full of the same evil ; would
chastise disobedience and is itself the example;
and, employed for the defence of the laws, is itself

* Essays, II, 12.
IS 225

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

a rebel to its own." At such a time to despair
would have been easy.

Nor had his own spirit of moderation given
Montaigne immunity from suffering; rather, in
some respects, it had enhanced the difficulties and
dangers of his position : " I was spoiled on all
hands; to the Ghibelline I was a Guelph; to the
Guelph, a Ghibelline." Formal accusations were
not laid against him; no foundation existed for
these; but mute suspicions crept about him in
underhand ways, and it was his way not to evade
these, not to justify or explain himself, but to
sit silent, or sometimes even ironically to assert
his guilt. A thousand times as he lay down at
night to sleep, he questioned whether he would
ever see the morning. One should live among
one's neighbours by right, but he felt that he
lived by sufferance or by favour. His losses
might be endured, but the offence of wanton out-
rages was hard to bear with equanimity. Now
and again a spasm of fear seized him as to the
future of himself and his household, and there
was nothing that he feared so much as fear itself.
And yet when he looked back at the worst of these
years he felt almost ashamed to confess how
much repose and tranquillity were his amid the
ruin of his country. Custom itself benumbed the
sense of many evils. His health had been good,
and how few of the blessings of life are equal to
226

LIFE IN THE CHATEAU

health ! There was a kind of bitter comfort in
reflecting' that if France had fallen, the fall was
from no great height; the state of society even
before the civil wars had not been one of Utopian
happiness. He tried to assure himself that even
when the contexture of society seems desperately
rent, somehow it still holds together; that the
shuffling and jostling of atoms somehovv' results
in a readjustment; that under all disorder lies
a law of order mysteriously at work. It was not
a period of strange alteration for France alone;
other states were also menaced by some vast
process of change. " Everything about us
crumbles" ; but " all that totters does not fall" ;
or if everything falls, nothing is felt to fall.
" The contexture of so great a body holds by
more nails than one; it holds even by its an-
tiquity, like old buildings, whose base has been
worn away by time, without mortar or coating,
which yet support themselves by their own
weight." The troubles of the time helped above
all to make Montaigne seek for strength not in
things around him, not in the future, but in the
citadel of his own soul. We so often run after
airy and distant hopes ; we so seldom arrive at
ourselves; and if we arrive at ourselves it is
sometimes late in the day, when we are tired
and faint. He could think with satisfaction that
it was his fortune to live in an age which at least
227

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

was not idle, languishing, or effeminate. And
for a spectator there was a strange interest — like
that of one who watches some portentous tragedy
upon the stage — in assisting at the agony of an
ancient kingdom. " Good historians fly from
calm narration, as from stagnant water and a
dead sea, to return to seditions and wars, to which
they know that we summon them." Yes — Mon-
taigne, the artist, could not but feel a certain
fascination in the unfolding of a drama, where
great actors played their parts and even the simple
clowns might deserve applause. Montaigne, the
student of human nature, had an ample field of
observation, where good and evil passions were
naked to his view, and the behaviour of that sin-
gular creature, man, could be studied under the
most varying conditions and in the testing crises
of events.

228

CHAPTER VIII

WRITING THE ESSAYS

In the interval between 1571, the date of Mon-
taigne's withdrawal to "the bosom of the Muses",
and 1580, the date of publication, the first two
books of the Essays were written. They were the
leisurely accumulation or growth of nine years,
embodying the wisdom of mature manhood. It
is probable that they had their origin in the
writer's custom of annotating certain books which
he had read with special attention, of annotating
them and adding at the close a brief estimate of
the work or of the merits and defects of the
author. The satisfaction which he felt in seeing
his own thought fixed in written words, so pre-
served from the fluctuations of his feelings and
from the treachery of his memory, led him on
to make essays of his judgment, essays of his
" natural faculties", on other topics which came
before him from time to time. At first Mon-
taigne may have had no design of publication in
view ; the jottings from books and the records of
his own ideas may have been regarded only as
private memoranda ; but a writer of genius, who
can express himself on hardly any subject without
229

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

originalit};' of conception and of manner and who
has a dehght in all the inventions of literary
style, is before very long caught in the web which
he himself has spun. Gradually ]\Iontaigne
found himself entangled in his own delight, and
could not choose to escape from it. The writer
of disconnected memoranda was transformed into
an author. For a time he was his own public ; but
as he contemplated what la}^ before him, he per-
ceived that it had in it an appeal for other minds,
and he became one of a larger public with whom
the most sociable of writers could now enjoy an
endless conversation, while conversing with him-
self.

The Essays themselves give various accounts
of the motives which brought them into being,
and probably in each account there is a fragment
of the entire truth. In his retirement there were
times when Montaigne suffered from the tedium
of solitude ; a " melancholic humour", very much
out of accord with his natural complexion, threat-
ened to lay hold upon him ; he needed some occu-
pation to banish his ennui, and he took up his
pen and found that he was happily astir. But to
write Avas not only a stimulus ; it was also a con-
trol. A rich soil that lies idle produces all manner
of troublesome weeds ; so it is with the mind,
which if not occupied and restrained runs into
every kind of extravagances in the vague field of
230

WRITING THE ESSAYS

the imagination. When he retired to his own
house, he tells us, intending, as far as might be,
to pass in repose the short remainder of his hfe,
he supposed that he could do himself no better
service than to let his mind entertain itself, as it
should please, in entire idleness. He hoped that
years had tamed his spirit, and brought it within
the bounds of reason. But it proved otherwise.
Like a horse broken loose from the rider, his mind
flung up its heels and started on an extravagant
career. " It gives birth to so many chimeras and
fantastic monsters, one upon another, without
order or design, that to contemplate at my ease
their ineptitude and strangeness I have begun
to set them down in a roll, hoping with time to
make my mind ashamed of itself." There was
never any very acute shame in Montaigne's con-
templation of his chimeras, for he did not aspire
to be an angel or a Cato ; he was only, he would
reflect, a specimen of the average human being,
with certain advantages arising from the fact that
he recognised his monsters as fantastic; and it
was not his business to play the weeping philoso-
pher of humanity, when it was more agreeable
and perhaps more effective to smile. But, in
truth, he did not at first take himself for the
central subject of his study. On whatever matter
happened to interest him he made the trial of his
judgment, and every matter proved fertile; a fly

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

would serve as well as a philosopher or an envoy
of state. To be started on a train of meditation
vi^as all that he required — " I take the first argu-
ment that fortune offers me; they are all equally
good for me ; I never design to treat them in their
totality, for I never see the whole of anything,
nor do those see it who promise to show it to us.
Of a hundred members and faces which each
thing has, I take one, sometimes to touch it only
lightly or to graze the surface, and sometimes to
pinch it to the bone; I give a stab not as wide
but as deep as I can, and in general I love to seize
things by some unwonted lustre." The judgment
was an instrument which had always its uses. If
the subject was one which he did not understand,
he used his judgment to sound the depth of the
ford, and finding it too deep for one of his stature,
he kept to the bank. If the subject was frivolous,
the judgment was an instrument which might give
it substance and support. If the subject was a
noble one, already trodden and trampled into a
thousand paths, the judgment had still its oppor-
tunity in discovering the best of all those paths.

The master faculty worked in mysterious ways ;
not always deliberately; often spontaneously,
oracularly, suddenly, carrying one away, per-
suading or dissuading, speaking with authority,
not balancing and weighing, as the judgment
ordinarily does, but presenting itself like some
232

WRITING THE ESSAYS

unexpected fiat of the will. What else but this
was the demon of Socrates? And have we not,
each of us, our demon? Montaigne's best
thoughts came to him when he seemed to seek
them least; and, to his grief, they often vanished
as quickly — gifts of the gods, but snatched away
by some invisible harpies. Such thoughts offered
themselves as he lay in bed, or sat at table, or on
horseback — especially on horseback, for the stir
in the blood somehow set his mind astir and made
it quick and apprehensive. But if they were not
captured and secured on the moment, only a vain
image remained with him, like the shadow of a
lost dream which haunts us after waking.

The subjects which set him thinking as he rode
through the country or sat in his library might be
remote from Michel de Montaigne; yet somehow
Michel de Montaigne almost always consciously
or unconsciously played his part in the meditation.
Even on a wholly detached theme it was his own
judgment which was defining itself. He could not
think or write like a pedant whose wisdom lies all
on his shelves and not in his own consciousness,
his own experience. Good and evil, he held,
reside not so much in things themselves as in
our opinion of things, the way we regard them,
the way we deal with them; and therefore if he
sought for wisdom and knowledge, he must to a
great extent seek it in himself, in the form im-
233

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

posed on things by his own mind, in his opinions,
in his fecHngs, in his habits of Hving, even in his
trivial pecuHarities, for these might have some
significance which he did not wholly comprehend,
and more might be implied by them than appeared
upon the surface. Thus, without at first enter-
taining such a design, he was drawing, pencil-
stroke by pencil-stroke, a portrait of himself.
The features of a man began to look out upon
him from the drawing-board, and the features
were his own. A new motive and a new pleasure
entered into Montaigne's work; he would com-
plete by a multitude of touches seemingly casual
yet nicely calculated, this work of art, and it
should remain as a memorial of him with his
friends. A foolish project! Pascal afterwards
pronounced it ; a foolish project to occupy one's
self with this hateful thing, the ego. But Mon-
taigne, with easier wisdom, maintained that if he
was playing the fool, at least it was at his own
expense ; his folly would die with him and would
create no train of evil consequences. And he did
not, in truth, regard the project as foolish. The
attainment of self-knowledge was no fool's task,
but an arduous undertaking for those who would
be wise. " It is a thorny enterprise, and more so
than it seems, to follow a pace so vagabond as
that of the soul, to penetrate the dark profundities
of its internal windings, to choose and lay hold of
234

WRITING THE ESSAYS

so man}' little modes of its motions ; it is a new
and extraordinary amusement which withdraws
ns from the common occupations of the world;
yes, and from those most recommended. It is
now many years since I have had no aim for my
thoughts save myself, since I have supervised and
studied only myself; and if I study aught else it
is straightway to lay it upon, or, to speak more
accurately, wathin myself. And I do not think/
I err, if, as is done in other sciences incomparably
less profitable, I communicate what I have learnt "
in this, though I am ill satisfied with the progress
I have made." If Montaigne's way of self-study
were to be dignified with the name of a method,
— a word inappropriate enough with such a
writer — we should have to describe it as the
method of observation, the empirical, or — shall
we sa}'? — the experimental method. He started
wath no a priori assumptions, theological or philo-
sophical; he did not systematise his results; he
made no attempt even to unify the record of his
thoughts and feelings under any theoretical con-
ception of himself; he was content to set down
an observation here and another observation
there; if the Llontaigne of to-day differed from
the Montaigne of yesterday, he recorded the pres-
ent and immediate fact; he differed from him-
self as much as from other men; he was one of
a diverse and undnlant species. Yet an ideal con-
235

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

ception of himself gradually formed itself in his
mind; a unity in multiplicity gradually became
apparent; and there was a certain artistic pleas-
ure in giving salience to those traits which served
best to illustrate and expound this, his own ideal
of Montaigne. And why should he not speak of
himself? The rule to be silent with respect to
one's self is only a bridle for calves! Neither the
saints, who speak of themselves so loftily, nor
the philosophers, nor the theologians tolerate such
a curb.

Montaigne was not a saint; nor did he claim
for himself the title of philosopher. He pro-
fessed himself no more than the average man.
And precisely for this reason he had the better
right to be communicative about himself ; through
his representation of an average man — neither a
saint nor a beast — he was really exhibiting hu-
manity itself; "each man carries in his own
person the entire form of the condition of the
race". He offered himself to the world, if the
world chose to take him so, as a specimen of the
genus homo, as one of themselves. To his friends
he offered the portrait of Michel de Montaigne.
He was not erecting the statue of an illustrious
individual in the great square of a city, in a
church, or any public place. It was for the corner
of a library, to entertain a neighbour, a kinsman,
a friend. There was not so much of good in
236

WRITING THE ESSAYS

him that he could not tell it without blushing.
Here, as the author in his opening words informs
the reader, his end was private and domestic;
when his friends had lost him, they might find
him here, his humours and conditions, his few
merits and his many defects. Had he lived among
those nations which dwell under the sweet liberty
of the primitive laws of nature, he would gladly
have painted his portrait at full length and with-
out a rag of clothing. All the worth of his book
lay in the fact that it was " a book of good
faith". And yet the other thought, that in painting
himself he was painting the human creature, and
not merely an individual, was always in the
" back-shop" of Montaigne's mind. He could
not construct a foursquare body of philosophy;
he was not a system-maker or system-monger;
yet one thing he might give as his gift to the
world — some scattered notes on that curious
creature, man, as seen in the example which lay
nearest to his observations; as seen in himself.

As he proceeded with his task, which was also
his recreation, he began to perceive that his book
was reacting upon his character. He did not
form his book more than his book was forming
him. After all, the portrait had in it something
of an ideal. He was sometimes hasty and intem-
perate, but here he was giving pledges to reason-
ableness and moderation. He was often tempted
22>7

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

to exclaim " All or nothing", but here he pleaded
for the wisdom of the mean, the " juste milicii\
He sometimes wearily gave over the search for
truth, and despaired of any certitude, but here he
declared that the world is a school of inquisition ;
to enter it is not the great point, but to run the
fairest course; the chase is our business, our
game; we are inexcusable if we conduct the
chase carelessly and ill; to fail in capturing the
game is another matter; we were born to pursue
the quest for truth; to possess it belongs to a
higher power. Thus the Essays became to their
author in some measure a rule of conduct; or, if
not a rule, for he loved to live in the freedom of
the present moment, at least an impulse and a
guide. Montaigne had become through them in
some degree the director of his own conscience,
his own Seneca, and also his own gentle and
encouraging counsellor and companion, his more
intimate Plutarch.

Perhaps, too, his book would prove useful to
others. Perhaps from among those who had
found it helpful to them or who cared for the
portrait he had drawn, he might win a friend.
" Oh ! a friend" — the cry or the sigh of Mon-
taigne in the text of 1588 no longer appears with
the same directness in the edition published after
his death. He thought of what the friendship of
La Boetie had been to him in his earlier man-
238

WRITING THE ESSAYS

hood; and now age, with its stealing step, had
crept upon him. Friendship — sweeter and more
necessary than the elements of water and fire !
He would go very far to find a friend; and in-
deed in the self-confessions of his book he had
already gone more than half way. Could it be
that a bookseller's shop might bring him the
friend he sought? We know that Montaigne's
hope was in a measure fulfilled. He found, in-
deed, no second La Boetie. But his book brought
him two later friends — the enthusiastic young
lady whom he adopted as his spiritual daughter,
and a philosophic disciple, perhaps a little of the
pedant, yet one who was also a thinker; and no
master should judge too severely a devoted
famulus, even though he be a Wagner; or, what
is considerably better than a Wagner, a Pierre
Charron.

To render some service to others — this was
assuredly one of the motives which impelled and
sustained Montaigne in his delightful labours,
egoist though he sometimes professed himself.
Did he exhibit his own faults or defects? Well,
this might be of use as a warning to others. Did
he point to the infirmities of the intellect of man ?
This should touch at once the dogmatists who
would forever moor in some oozy haven the voy-
aging spirit of man, and those wild speculators who
would subvert the old order of society for the
239

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

sake of a theory. He could not dazzle men with
a vision of great hope, as Rabelais had done;
then it was the morning, and now the noon hung
heavy and clouds had overcast the heavens. But
he might do what perhaps was needed by his
time — he could plead for sanity. The future of
his country depended on the presence in it of a
group — possibly an enlarging group — of men who
were sane, who could play the part of reconcilers
between the madness of extremes, who were not
blinded by authority or by custom, who were uni-
versal questioners, who were pliable to the touch
of reality, who dared to doubt as well as to be-
lieve, who took, as he did, the balance for their
emblem, and who could pause to weigh things
before they applied themselves to action. Of zeal
and passion there was enough ; there was too
much. It were better for France if men were
less zealous if only they were more sane.

Trenchant critic of the vices and errors of his
own time as Montaigne was, he did not declaim
-in the manner of a preacher. His tone was that
of conversation : " I speak to paper as I do to the
first person I meet." But what a conversation
it is ! how rich in ideas ! how vivid and opalescent
in expression! And, doubtless, the chief motive
for continuing to write endlessly, whenever the
mood came upon him, was the delight which he
felt in writing. He talks in his easy, engaging
240

WRITING THE ESSAYS

way of the vanity of scribbling; he could not
spell, forsooth; he never knew how to place a
comma or a period; this scribbling propensity
was only the idle humour of a very idle man.
There should be a law against foolish and im-
pertinent authors; though in his time, indeed,
doing ill was so common that to do what was only
vain and useless had in it a kind of commenda-
tion. Such was Montaigne's way of wearing his
wisdom and his art lightly, to all appearance, and
so insinuating himself into his reader's good
graces, disarming opposition with his humour of
self-depreciation, which was meant to deceive no
one. But, in truth, he enjoyed, as much as any
man ever did, the triumphs of a great virtuoso
performing upon his divine instrument. No one
felt more than he that the right word, the word
which lives with a strong corporeal life, springs
from intensity of vision ; that style, as we call it,
is simply the body of thought, and that nothing
proper to us is either wholly corporeal or incor-
poreal. If his Essays were praised, it ought not
to be for their language, nor yet precisely for
their matter, but for the form impressed upon the
matter by his mind, of which spiritual form the
language was only the inevitable consequence.
And therefore he was in the highest degree curi-
ous and scrupulous about the language which he
would not wish to see praised by any one apart
i6 241

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

from the spiritual form. " Cupid is a felon god" —
" Cupidon est nn dicu felon" : the earlier text had,
as the epithet, the word " ambitieux" ; Montaigne
felt his way a little nearer to his meaning and wrote
" arrogant" . No! that was not right, and he re-
placed it with " mutin". Finally came, as he be-
lieved, the inevitable, unalterable word — " un dieu
felon" * Yet there is no appearance of curiosity,
of painful research ; there is not a touch of pre-
ciosity in his style. " May I use no words," he
writes, " but those which are current in the Paris
markets." His utterance seems to be, and no
doubt in great part it was, in the highest degree
spontaneous, as if he caught his prey at the first
bound. Its characteristic, at its best, lies in the
union of strength with ease. To the imagination
it is a perpetual feast, with its litheness of move-
ment, its iridescence, its ideas incarnated in meta-
phors, metaphors often homely yet each a fresh
surprise; always original, always his own. And
out of this admirably pedestrian prose rises now
and again a lyric cry (all the more poignant and
penetrating because to be a poet is not the writer's
trade) ; now a cry of indignation, now a cry of
pity, now the cry of memory or of desire. And

* Noted from the Bordeaux copy of Essays (1588)
with autograph corrections, by Gustave Brunet : Les
Essais, Legons ineditcs, p. 15.
242

WRITING THE ESSAYS

sometimes the page is one of a superb rhetoric,
ample and sonorous, Hke that in the Apology for
Raimond de Sehondc, which humihates man in
presence of the starry heavens, a passage that may
possibly have suggested a rapture of Hamlet,
which also proves to what sublime uses prose may
be applied :

" Let us consider then, for the present, man alone, without
foreign help, armed only with his own arms, and deprived ^
of the Divine grace and knowledge, which is all his honour, |
his strength, and the foundation of his being; let us see
what posture is his in this goodly equipage. Let him make
me understand by force of reasoning on what foundation
he has built those great advantages which he thinks he
has over other creatures. Who has persuaded him that
the admirable movement of the celestial vault, the eternal
light of those luminaries (flambeaux) rolling so proudly
over his head, the tremendous movements of that infinite
sea, were established, and continue so many ages, for his
commodity and service? Is it possible to imagine any
thing so ridiculous as this miserable and wretched creature,
who is not so much as master of himself, exposed to the
injuries of all things, and who yet names himself master ^
and emperor of the universe, of which it is not in his |
power to know the least part, much less to command it? '
And this privilege which he attributes to himself of being
the only creature in this vast fabric who has the capacity
to know its beauty and all its chambers, the only creature
who can render thanks to the architect, and keep account
of the revenues and outgoings of the world — who has
sealed him this privilege? Let him show us his letters
patent for this great and noble charge."

No writer is at once so translatable and so
itai^
243

untranslatable as Montaigne. After much has

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

been lost in the rendering, so much remains that
almost any version seems full and sufficient. But
compare it with the original, and it will appear
that the best translation is indeed the wrong side
of the tapestry; the colour of the original is en-
feebled; the concentrated force of phrases, when
Montaigne gives one of his swift, deep stabs,
has to be expanded and attenuated ; the incessant
imagery has often to be surrendered; only its
significance and not the visible aspect and gesture
can be brought over into another language than
that of the writer.

Montaigne had not the happy self-satisfaction
of those authors who sun themselves in the per-
fection of their own work. He found what he
had written " excusable" in view of things that
were worse ; but he saw, beyond his own achieve-
ment, the unattainable beauty ; " I have always
an idea in my soul, and a certain troubled image,
which presents me as in a dream some better
form than I have made to serve my needs; but
I cannot lay hold of it nor work it out; and even
that idea itself attains only to mediocrity." The
productions of the great and rich souls of former
times were far beyond the utmost bounds of his
imagination or his desire; "their writings" —
and we cannot doubt that he speaks in all sin-
cerity— " not only satisfy and fill me, but they
astound me and ravish me with admiration." To
244

WRITING THE ESSAYS

such beauty as theirs he did not dare even to
aspire. He could not anticipate what the fortune
of his book might be ; perhaps the work was bet-
ter than the workman. Sometimes he placed the
Essays high in his esteem, and then again their
value seemed to fall, and he looked at them with
a discouraged gaze. He wrote, as he sometimes
believed, only for a few men and those of a few
years. Had he hoped for distant fame, he should
have written in a language less subject to altera-
tion than his own. French seemed to slip
through his fingers every day; during his own
lifetime, he thought, it had changed to the ex-
tent of one-half. As for the glory of authorship,
in his own Gascony, they looked upon it as a
drollery that Michel de Montaigne should be seen
in print. Farther off things were somewhat bet-
ter indeed — " I buy printers in Guyenne ; else-
where they buy me." But whatever might be the
value of contemporary praise, he tried to assure
himself that posthumous praise, given to him
either as a man or as an author, was of far less
account. And yet he thought that a man might
rejoice in the strength and the beauty of his spirit-
ual offspring with even a finer joy than in the
sons and daughters begotten of his body. Of
such offspring the single parent is both father and
mother; they have no beauty or grace of their
own which is not derived from him. Montaigne
245

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

would not say but that he might rather choose
to be the father of a very beautiful child through
his commerce with the Muse than of one born to
him by his wife. He doubted much that Phidias
would have been as anxious for the preservation
of a living boy or girl of his own as of some
admirable statue which with long labour and
study he had fashioned to perfection. The off-
spring of the soul, as Plato held, are the immortal
children. Such words of Montaigne are not to
be taken as exhibiting any lack of paternal tender-
ness, but rather as evidencing his enthusiasm for
artistic beauty.

The essays are, as is natural, of very unequal
merit. Some are mere notes on subjects which
have little or no relation to life and character.
If the essays appropriated by the servant-man,
who thought he had obtained a treasure in his
master's manuscripts, were of a kind like unto
that on Thumbs or that on Posting, we can bear
our loss with equanimity. Although a fly might
be enough to set Montaigne's mind in motion, he
is at his best only when he deals with some serious
matter of human life or some of the great powers
or the infirmities of human nature. We cannot,
indeed, found our anticipations respecting the
interest of an essay on the title at its head. That
on Coaches contains a majestic description of the
pomps of ancient Rome and an eloquent denun-
246

WRITING THE ESSAYS

ciation of the perfidies of the conquerors of the
New World; when it is time to utter the words,
" Return we to our coaches," the essay is ended,
and only the reverberation of its lofty music lives
in our memory. The Essayist's career has been
somewhat extravagantly run on horseback, and
at the close it is the King of Peru, and not we,
whose carriage stops the way. When Montaigne
wanders from his professed theme, why should
we quarrel with him? He never wanders from
himself, and from humanity which is his true
theme. If he goes out of the beaten track "it is
rather by license than oversight". His fantasies
follow one another, but " sometimes with a wide
interval"; they look towards one another, but
sometimes with an oblique glance. " I love a
poetic progress, by leaps and skips; it is an art,
as Plato says, light, fleeting, and demonic. . . .
It is the indiligent reader who loses my subject,
and not I ; there will always be found some word
or other in a corner, that will prove sufficient,
though closely couched," He does not care to
link matter with matter by formal connections,
and supposes that there may be as much con-
tinuity in a rivulet as in a chain. Such an apol-
ogy for his leaps and " gambades" means that
Montaigne in his Essays does not write treatises,
nor deliver speeches, but converses with himself
and his readers. The unity which each possesses
247

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

is not that of formal arrangement but the unity
of a mind at play with us and with itself. We
come to his book not to exhaust a subject, but
to hold converse with a friend,

" The word is late," wrote Bacon of his Es-
says, " but the thing is ancient." In the applica-
tion which he gave to it, the word seems to be
an extension of use due to Montaigne. But he
was not without models for " the thing". The
Discours of his French, the Discorsi of his Italian,
contemporaries are often of a kind similar to
Montaigne's Essays; their subjects are in many
instances identical with the subjects of his choice.
His originality consists, as he himself would put
it, not in " artificialising nature" in a new literary
form, but in " naturalising art". He gave the
Discourse, if not greater freedom of digression,
certainly greater spontaneity; he made it less
of a miniature treatise and more of a conversa-
tion. Above all, he made it personal; he took
away from it any pretence to an absolute or ab-
stract exposition of truth ; he made all the views
of things presented relative to himself; he ani-
mated the Discourse with his own individuality,
the vital spirit of a living man, and through what
is personal he reached forth towards what is uni-
versal.

The portrait which Montaigne has drawn of
himself emerges from the entire canvas of the
248

WRITING THE ESSAYS

Essays for him who stands at the right point of
view. Regarded from one position we discover
in the book a series of Discourses, moral, pohtic,
and miHtary. Moving aside, and looking at it
obliquely, the portrait exhibits itself. In the
Third Book, published eight years after the first
two, Montaigne allows himself to be more gar-
rulous than he had previously been. Not because
he had reached those years when men are apt to
babble of themselves; in 1588 Montaigne was
only midway between fifty and sixty, which latter
age he never reached. Not for this reason, but
because he had grown more intimate with his
public and could afford to be more confidential ;
because the author of the Essays was a personage
interesting to many, and in days when the profes-
sional " interviewer" did not exist, he must play
the part of his own interviewer on behalf of the
friendly reader; because, looking at the portrait
he had painted, he perceived that many little
touches could be added to it, and he desired that
it should not leave out a wTinkle or a mole. In
the Second Book the essay on Presumption is
that most copiously communicative about the
author. In the Third Book the most frank
garrulities are found in the admirable essay on
Experience, which concludes the entire series.
Montaigne had become " his own metaphysic, his
own physic", and how could he study himself too
249

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

minutely? It was through the long attention
which he had employed in considering himself
that he had become qualified to judge — " pass-
ably", at least — of others. It was through this
long attention that he had learned something of
the nature of that frail thing — a human creature.
Even the failures in his attempt to understand
himself were light-bearing, if not fruit-bearing,
experiments ; " we must push against a door to
ascertain that it is bolted against us".

The essay Of Presumption tells much of
Montaigne's natural characteristics; that Of
Experience much of his acquired habits. He
distinguished between the form of self-esteem
which leads us to set too little value upon other
persons and that which leads us to set too great
a value upon ourselves. He rejoiced, he tells us
elsewhere, and the Essays give ample proof that he
spoke truly, in the virtue of those great and in-
comparable spirits that shine upon us from the
past — a Socrates, an Alexander, an Epaminon-
das — spirits that are admirable not through a
single faculty, but through a comprehensive and
various possession of eminent powers. Other
men might speak cynically of the virtue of these
exalted souls; for his part, he could not meanly
endeavour to lower in value what he felt to be
so precious, so inestimable. As to himself, he
believed that his error lay in esteeming things
250

WRITING THE ESSAYS

at less than their true vakie because they hap-
pened to be his own. The house, the horse of a
neighbour, though no better than his own, were
viewed by him with more favourable eyes because
they were not his. He felt that he w^as unjust to
himself; tried to alter his humour ; and fell back
into the old way. He had bodily strength; and
for long that blessing of blessings, perfect health.
But he thought of what went to counterbalance
these advantages — his shortness of stature, his
somewhat ungraceful figure, the clumsiness of
his hands in whatever required dexterity or skill.
Vigour of body he possessed, but lightness, alert-
ness were wanting to him. And so, he believed,
it was also with his mind; it moved heavily, or
did not move at all, unless under the stimulus and
excitement of pleasure. Yet, in truth, his mind
when roused was highly sensitive, eager in its
curiosity, and often needed lead more than wings.
This, however, was either when he pursued ideas
rather than action, or else when the action was
swift and impulsive. Montaigne shrank from
the deliberation which precedes action that is
considerate. All the reasons for and against any
course of conduct were present to his mind; it
cost him infinite pain to decide and constrain
himself to the voluntary servitude of his own will.
His years of meditation, no doubt, years of float-
ing hither and thither among ideas, tended to
251

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

enfeeble his power of volition. Yet when he had
decided, he could adapt himself to what he had
himself made inevitable, a part, as it were, of
fortune or of fate. It was perhaps the chief in-
firmity of his character that he was always more
ready to fit his own temper to things than to alter
things to correspond with his own ideas and feel-
ings. This is the infirmity of those who live an
interior life, and who aim at an equanimity which
they do not attain. Self-reformation seems to
such men the only valuable kind of reform ; but it
is the readiness to accept as inevitable a condition
of things which may be altered that, in fact, needs
to be reformed. Had a hinge of his library door
grated, we can imagine that Montaigne, like
another great humourist, might have waxed elo-
quent upon door-hinges, but he could never have
discovered that three drops of oil with a feather
and a smart stroke of a hammer might have saved
his honour for ever. In truth, the amendments
we effect in things external react upon our own
character. But, except when the tortures of his
malady drove him abroad to drink the waters,
Montaigne preferred a course of Stoical moral-
ising, which, he was aware, was often more verbal
than real, to casting himself into the infinite sea
of action, where every decision would have cost
him a world of pains in balancing his scruples
and his drams. When he acted, as on occasions
252

WRITING THE ESSAYS

he did, with energy and promptitude, it was under
the authority of his Socratic demon. His com-
plexion, as he says, was dehcate; he had, from
early boyhood, lived much at his ease; he was
disposed to think that, life and health excepted,
there was nothing for which he need bite his
nails. Yet Montaigne was by no means leth-
argic; his physical energy and endurance were
great; his voice was loud and full of manly
vigour; his speech was bold and frank; he was
all alive, having quicksilver, he tells us, in his
very heels ; he cared supremely for reality, for the
substance and not the shadows of things; he
liked a strenuous assailant in debate; he never
sought his case by the cowardly short-cut of a
lie. Only, all the movements of his mind must
be in perfect freedom and in pursuit of his proper
game. He would not, or he could not, cast up
an account; he never would untie his bundle of
title-deeds and afflict his brain with their legal
jargon; he hardly knew one coin from another;
he might, for all the difference that he could per-
ceive, call his barley rye or his lettuce cabbage;
he would not be bullied by practical persons into
acquiring useful knowledge, or by pedants into
acquiring the useless knowledge, which is their
pride. How to enjoy loyally his own being
was the only knowledge worth the research of
Montaigne. To enjoy loyally his own being —
253

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

that indeed was an absolute, almost a divine, per-
fection.

To such self-revealments as these Montaigne
adds, and especially in the later essays, many
petty details which yet are not all insignificant
and help to make us as intimate with the owner
of the chateau as one might have become, who,
like Pater's Gaston de Latour, had been a vis-
itor within its walls for months. In customary,
habitual ways Montaigne found a certain free-
dom; they released him from many small em-
barrassments; but habits may grow into a
tyranny, and he thought that a young man at
least would do well at times to cross his own
rules. He himself was naturally pliant and
flexible, and he believed that the best of all habits
is the habit of flexibility. And yet as he grew
older he found that in little things he was falling
into a groove. He could not be comfortable out-
of-doors unless he were braced and buttoned and
wore his gloves; yet man in a state of nature
does not find gloves a necessity. He needed at
table his fine, clear drinking-glasses, though he
drank wine but moderately, and never beer; he
needed his napkin, for in eating he used his awk-
ward fingers more than fork or spoon; at his
two full meals — swiftly despatched — he ate
abundantly whatever came before him, preferring
fish to flesh and not disdaining a hearty enjoy-

254

WRITING THE ESSAYS

ment of his food. He liked to lie on a hard bed,
but he could not dispense with bed-hangings, and
he even thought that a prudent traveller should
take these with him on his journey ings. Eight
or nine hours of uninterrupted sleep were not too
many for him, and to rise at seven o'clock was
for Montaigne to rise early; yet when occasion
demanded it, or sometimes with no other motive
than to break a habit, he could be content with as
little sleep as any one. When resting in the day-
time he did not doze; but the little man liked
to sit with his heels higher than his seat, and to
scratch his ears, for scratching is " one of Nature's
sweetest gratifications", and not unworthy in a
philosopher. Even in this indulgence, however,
as experience instructed him, a philosopher should
endeavour to avoid violence and excess, never
passing beyond the wise mean of prudent titilla-
tion.

Let us leave Montaigne in his pleasant attitude,
engaged in his meditative recreation, and let us
consider what thoughts occupied his busy brain —
the philosophy and not the philosopher. The two,
however, cannot in reality be separated, and per-
haps the word " philosophy" sounds too ambi-
tious, too suggestive of system. It is wiser to
speak of Montaigne's body of thought, not as a
system, but as some of his ideas concerning hu-
man nature and human life.
255

CHAPTER IX

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

Those well-known words which form what
might be called the epilogue to the Essays give
in little the central result of all Montaigne's di-
verse and wandering inquisitions after truth:

" It is an absolute perfection, and as it were divine, for
a man to know how to enjoy loyally his being. We seek
for other conditions because we understand not the use of
our own, and go forth from ourselves because we know not
what abides within us. If we mount us on stilts, well and
good, for on stilts it is still our own legs we walk on ;
and sit we upon the highest throne of the world, yet sit we
upon our own tail. The fairest lives, in my conceit, are
those which adapt themselves to the common and human
model, with order but without miracle, without extrava-
gance. Old age has a little need to be handled more ten-
derly. Let us recommend it to that God, who is the pro-
tector of health and wisdom, but blithe and social."

Is this an easy doctrine of hedonism? Whether
we name it hedonism or not, Montaigne did not
account it easy ; he thought all other attainments
less rare and difficult than mastery in the art of
loyally enjoying our being. A life at once truly
human and complete in all its parts is " the
great and glorious masterpiece of man". To
reign, to lay up treasure, to build — these are easy
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THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

things, mere " appendices" of true living. Have
you known — he asks — how to meditate and man-
age your hfe? You have accomphshed the great-
est work of all. Have you known how to regulate
your conduct ? You have done more than he who
has composed books. Have you known how to
take repose? You have done more than he who
has taken empires and cities.

For the art of loyally enjoying our being we
might substitute the expression : the art of living
completely and living aright. And why should
this be difficult to attain? Such was the thought
of Wordsworth's Matthew, the " gray-haired
man of glee". The blackbird and the lark " Let
loose their carols when they please, Are quiet
when they will" — they know unerroneous energy
and exquisite repose:

" With Nature never do they wage
A foolish strife ; they see
A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free."

Montaigne often recurs to the old formula —
" to live according to Nature" ; to live thus is to
Hve completely and aright; it is to enjoy loyally
one's own being. Wordsworth's Matthew passes
from the life of the lark and blackbird to that
of humanity with the words, " But we are pressed
by heavy laws." Montaigne refuses to recognise
17 257

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

these heavy laws as Natural ; he declares that we
have forged them ourselves, that we are our own
oppressors.

With this thought in his mind he indulges in
the fancy that the primitive races, the newly-dis-
covered peoples of the West, the " cannibals", as
we call them, have certain real advantages over
the races which we name civilised. The " canni-
bals" are surely nearer to Nature than we; the
laws of Nature still govern them, if not in perfect
purity, yet less vitiated by custom than they are
with us. If they "wear no breeches" (which is
sad), yet they have not even the words that sig-
nify lying, treachery, dissimulation, avarice, envy,
detraction ; and in this there is some compensa-
tion. But to see the happiness of a state of society
which approaches the state of Nature, we need
not survey mankind at so great a distance as
Peru or Prospero's island. We need not go be-
yond the foot of the mountains where, at Lahon-
tan, Montaigne himself had a share in the
patronage of a benefice. The little state from the
remotest antiquity had preserved its own peculiar
manners, customs, and laws. It avoided all
alliances and commerce with the outer world.
No judge ever crossed its borders; the voice of
no advocate was ever heard within its bounds ;
no physician was there to invent high-sounding
names for trivial maladies and prescribe per-
258

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

nicious drugs. In the last essay of the Second
Book Montaigne tells how the first notary played
the part of the serpent in this happy Eden, and
how the doctor of medicine followed in his train.
The happy people of Lahontan have since then
been afflicted with a thousand legal quarrels and
a legion of newly-invented diseases.

Montaigne does not, like Rousseau, erect his
whimsy, as he might call it, into a doctrine. His
humorous praise of the cannibals is partly the
dream of a poet, partly an advocate's statement of
a case against the vices of civilisation in his own
day — its treacheries of statecraft, its cruelties of
fratricidal war. But nurtured as he was when
a child among peasants, seeing their sufferings,
their loyalty, their boundless endurance, and being
himself often fatigued in heart and brain by the
heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelli-
gible world, which they felt not at all, or bore
so lightly and so bravely, Montaigne believed that,
if we have gained much, we have also lost much
by our complexities of thought and our refine-
ments or perversions of the elementary passions
of humanity. We cannot return to the simple
state of the peasant ; having once eaten of the in-
sane root which ravages the brain with the disease
of speculation, we can heal our malady only by
pursuing the problems that harass us until we
have solved them or ascertained that they are in-
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MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

soluble. A hasty agnosticism is, indeed, treason
against the intellect of man. It is our business to
pursue the truth, and there is joy in the pursuit.
But if, in the end, we learn that to possess the
truth respecting many curious questions belongs
to a Higher Power than our reason, shall we be
afraid to confess this truth itself, which is the
result of our long research? And may not the
admission of our ignorance be an important step
towards that loyal enjoyment of our being, in its
real fulness and in its alloted sphere, which is our
end? For such high enjoyment we need action
and we need repose. How shall we act aright
if we waste our energy in a sphere which is not
proper to us? How shall we rest if we are tor-
mented by desires for that which it is not given
us to attain?

But the knowledge of our ignorance is to be
won only by a persistent reaching forth to the
utmost bounds of our knowledge, l " No generous
mind can stop in itself; it ever makes claims and
goes beyond its strength; it has sallies beyond
its effects; if it does not advance and press for-
ward, and retire, and drive home, and recoil upon
itself and turn about, it is but half alive.'f There
is an " abecedarian" ignorance, Montaigne de-
clares, which goes before knowledge, and a " doc-
toral" ignorance which follows after knowledge —
" an ignorance which knowledge makes and en-
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THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

genders, even as it unmakes and destroys the
first." The simple peasants are worthy folks; so
too are the philosophers, strong and perspicacious
spirits, enriched with an ample instruction in the
profitable sciences. In the middle region between
the two, and in understandings of average
capacity, instructed but not fully instructed (and
Montaigne would place himself among these)
arise all the errors of vain opinions. The hasty
half-views of truth, which such persons attain,
induce them to quit the old paths in which their
fathers walked; they are the illuminated, the men
of the Aufkldrung, the revolutionary doctrinaires,
dangerous, inept, importunate ; sitters between
two stools, who sooner or later come to the
ground; mongrels, who have scorned the abe-
cedarian ignorance and have not the faculty to
ascend to the doctoral. From among great souls,
more composed, more clear-sighted, come the
great believers, " who by a long and religious in-
vestigation, penetrate a more profound and ab-
struse light in the Scriptures, and are sensible of
the mysterious and divine secret of our ecclesias-
tical polity."

Montaigne's admiration of those full and com-
plete souls, which ascertain the bounds of human
capacity and then proceed to work out all that
is best within the appointed bounds, is genuine
and ardent. But the average human creature,
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MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

occupying' the middle region between the two
ignorances, needs more to be reminded of his in-
firmities than to be exalted with vain flattery of
his nature. The doctoral ignorance is " strong
and generous", yielding nothing in honour and
in courage to knowledge. The hastily-assumed
knowledge of the middle region is really the shal-
lowest self-conceit, true though it be that almost
all opinions have in them a tincture of reason.
And what a thing is this nature of man ! Look-
ing into himself Montaigne could credit all old-
wives' fables of strange monstrosity — and yet
what is that which we name " monstrosity" but
nature misunderstood? — for nowhere did he per-
ceive so strange a monster as himself. A mon-
ster not twiformed but shaped from a thousand
incoherent pieces. The longer he dwelt with him-
self the more his deformity astonished him, the
less he could comprehend so anomalous a creat-
ure. To understand how a single thought, a
single feeling arose within him was difficult, so
dazzling was its iridescence; to understand his
whole course of life was a hopeless task, so much
it differed from itself. The only thing constant
seemed to be inconstancy. " It looks as if there
were a show of reason in forming a judgment of
a man from the most general features of his life;
but, considering the natural instability of our
manners and opinions, it often seems to me that
262

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

even the best authors are wrong in obstinately en-
deavouring to form out of us any constant and
soHd contexture; they make choice of some gen-
eral aspect, and according to that image they
arrange and interpret all a man's actions; if they
cannot bend these sufficiently, they dismiss them
as proceeding from dissimulation ... I can
more hardly credit a man's constancy than any
other thing, and I credit nothing more readily
than his inconstancy. He that would judge a
man in detail, separating him bit by bit, would
oftener light upon a true word." * Our accus-
tomed motion is to follow the inclinations of our
appetite, to left, to right, up hill, down dale, as
the wind of occasion blows us. As for Montaigne
himself, he had only added to the other instabili-
ties of human nature the agitation and trouble of
contemplating his own instability. " If I speak
variously of myself, it is because I consider
myself variously; all contrarieties are found in
me, at this turn or that, in this way or another;
bashful, insolent ; chaste, luxurious ; prating,
taciturn; laborious, delicate; ingenious, dull;
fretful, debonair ; lying, truthful ; knowing, ignor-
ant; and liberal, and avaricious, and prodigal."
The way of wisdom should be a constant way;
and how shall one who has not in the main

* Essays, II, i.
263

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

directed his course to a certain end, how shall he
dispose his particular actions? But we, human
creatures, resemble that animal which takes its
colour from whatever leaf or stone that is on
which it rests.

The infirmity of human intellect is only part
of a nature which is all infirmity. We inhabit
the region of perturbations, to which the peasant
has not yet climbed and which the philosopher
has transcended, and all we can hope for at best
is to moderate those perturbations. Our affec-
tions carry themselves away beyond our nature
and our reach. This is of all errors the most
common, if indeed it be an error and not rather
a cunning provision of Nature herself, which sac-
rifices the individual in order that her w'ork may
be accomplished, and lures us forever beyond
ourselves by delusive imaginations. . If the soul
should miss its true objects, it must find objects
that are false on which to expend its passions ; if
these again should fail, the soul turns inward and
discharges its violence upon itself. It would
rather cheat itself by creating something wholly
fantastic on which to wreak its rage or its love
than be defrauded of some outlet for its desire.
And even if its passions are directed aright, it
will convert good to evil by their excess. "We
may lay hold upon virtue so that it will become
vicious, if we clasp it with too rude and violent
264

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

an embrace." We taste nothing" pure; our
virtue is never without some alloy of evil, our
vice is seldom without some touch of goodness.
We are one thing to-day, and to-morrow its
opposite.

So ever and anon, if not continuously, through-
out the Essays proceeds Montaigne's indictment
of humanity. What is the final issue ? Should it
not be a misanthropy like that of Swift? Or, if
not this, some melancholy kind of pessimism? It
is neither of these with Montaigne, for at heart
he loves life and would loyally enjoy his being.
He makes a return upon himself, and accepts the
conditions of humanity, accepts such limitations
and infirmities as are inevitable, and endeavours
to cultivate his garden, even as it is. " Greatness
of soul consists not so much in mounting and in
pressing forward as in knowing how to range and
circumscribe one's self; it takes for great every-
thing that is enough, and shows its stature by
preferring moderate to eminent things. There is
nothing so beautiful and so legitimate as well and
duly to play the man; nor science so arduous as
well and naturally to know how to live this life
of ours; and of our maladies the most wild and
barbarous is to despise our being. . . . For my
part then, I love life and cultivate it, such as it has
pleased God to bestow it upon us." In this pres-
ent, created for us by God, he goes on, there is
26s

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

nothing unworthy of our concern; we stand ac-
countable for it even to a hair.

" Well and duly to play the man." ' Let the
heroes of our race, heroes of the life of thought
like Socrates, heroes of the life of action like
Epaminondas, play the man in their own great
way. They are accountable, even to a hair, for
their heroisms. As for us of the middle region,
our heroism lies in moderation, in accepting our
place, and finding our happiness in its labours,
its pleasures, and its repose. This, and this alone,
is the meaning of the old precept to live according
to Nature. And, indeed, Nature is " a gentle
guide, but not more gentle than prudent and
just". The infinite prudence of Nature — on this,
one of her most admirable virtues, Montaigne
waxes eloquent. As she has given us feet to walk
with, so she has given us enough of her prudence
to conduct us through life; a prudence not so
ingenious or pompous as that professed by the
crowd of contending philosophers, but which
achieves what they only talk of, a prudence that
is " facile, quiet, and salutary". And of a life
so guided the ultimate attainment should be a
radiant calm : " The soul estimates how much it
owes to God to have repose of conscience and
freedom from intestine passions ; to have the body
in its natural disposition, orderly and adequately
enjoying those soft and gratifying functions, with
266

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

which He by his grace is pleased to compensate
the sufferings wherewith his justice in its turn
chastises us; the soul considers of how great
worth it is to be stationed at such a point that,
which way soever it turns the eye, the heavens
are cahn around it; no desire, no fear or doubt
to trouble the air; no difficulty, past, present,
future, over which its imagination may not pass
without offence." * Montaigne was no religious
mystic. He embraced, he says, of philosophical
opinions those which are the most solid — that is
to say, the most human, the most our own. But
a religious mystic could hardly shadow forth in
words a peace more pure or more luminous than
this.

Self-sacrifice, self-surrender may be the means
to some great end; it may be endured for some
joy that is set before it; but self-sacrifice cannot
itself be our end. " Loyally to enjoy our being"
is Montaigne's expression, as it were, for his
private edification ; but to challenge opponents
he needs a less elevated and a more irritating
word, one that may serve as a lash to the dulness
of the average understanding, and he chooses the
word " pleasure". In virtue itself the final aim of
all our efforts is this decried thing, pleasure; this,
and nothing else. " It pleases me to batter men's

* Essays, III, 13
267

AIICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

ears with the word, and if it has acquired the sig-
nificance of some supreme dehght and excessive
contentment, this is more owing to the help of vir-
tue than to any other help." The voluptuousness
of virtue, in that it is more gay, more sinewy, more
robust, more virile than any other, is only the
" more seriously voluptuous". We ought rather
to name virtue, Montaigne thinks, a more gra-
cious, sweet, and natural pleasure than name it,
as we are accustomed to do, from its quality of
manly vigour. Other pleasures are troubled with
crosses and inconveniences, are momentary, are
thin and watery, or entail a dull weight of satiety.
Virtue, it is true, is attained through trials and
difficulties, but these in a peculiar degree " en-
noble, sharpen, and heighten the divine and per-
fect pleasure which it procures us. He who would
weigh the cost against the fruit is very unworthy
of entering into intimacy with it." Its pursuit,
however arduous, is itself a joy, and, in truth, at
best we are ever in pursuit. Our whole life can
be no more than an apprenticeship to the ideal.

IVIontaigne will not allow the name of virtue to
those inclinations towards goodness which are
born with us. One who is naturally sweet-tem-
pered may not resent an injury, and such a dis-
position is a thing of rare beauty. But he who
is stung to the quick and masters the passion of
vengeance has attained to something higher, has
268

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

attained to virtue. It requires " a rough and
thorny way", difficulties to wrestle with, either
external to the soul, the tests placed in our way
by fortune, or internal, arising from our dis-
orderly appetites and the defects of character. We
are reminded of the distinction made by Words-
worth in his Ode to Duty between those who do
the work of duty and know it not, whose security
can yet never be absolute, and those who, checked
and reproved by the " stern daughter of the voice
of God", have at length made her law their own.
The highest state of all, and that of the rarest at-
tainment, is when virtue has become, as it were,
nature — a second nature, with all its inevitable-
ness and all its sweet facility. In the opening of
the essay, Of Cruelty, Montaigne points to So-
crates and to the younger Cato as examples of
virtue which has climbed to the height where it is
possession rather than pursuit, where effort is
lost in absolute light and absolute joy, a light that
is unerring, and a joy that is its own security.
As for himself, returning from his hymn in
honour of Greek and Roman virtue to plain
prose he assures us that he has not given good
proofs even of the lower and laborious excellence :
" I have made no great effort to curb the vices
by which I have been importuned ; my virtue
is a virtue, or rather an innocence, accidental and
fortuitous; had I been born of a more irregular
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MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

complexion, I fear it would have gone miserably
ill with me ; for I have hardly ever tried to con-
firm my soul against the press of passions." If
he was exempt from many vices, this was rather
his happy fortune, he says, than the result of
reason. He came of a race distingushed for in-
tegrity, he was brought up by an admirable father,
and naturally held most vices in detestation.

It would not profit us much to find a label
which might be affixed to Montaigne as a moral-
ist. If we should name him a Stoic of the more
gracious and amiable type we should have to re-
mind ourselves that he has close affinities with the
sect of Epicurus, " the opinions and precepts of
which in firmness and rigour yield nothing to the
Stoic School". We should in the end have to de-
scribe him as an eclectic, whose morals, humane
and yet, in a true sense, severe, were those of
the antique world, touched — not penetrated — by
a beam of Christian light. In the honour and
affection with which he regarded the body he held
that he was only developing into its wider mean-
ings a truth which is implied in the faith of Chris-
tianity; yet it may be conjectured that St. Paul
would hardly have recognised in Montaigne a
fellow disciple. His feeling has in reality no
direct relation with any form of religious belief,
though it determined some of Montaigne's ec-
clesiastical preferences; it is founded upon his
270

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

observations in the natural history of the genus
homo and of the specimen of that genus which he
had most persistently studied. There is nothing
in us, he maintains, wholly incorporeal and
nothing wholly corporeal. It will serve no good
purpose to break ourselves up into fragments. He
hated " that inhuman wisdom which would make
us hostile to the culture of the body or scornful
of it". Instead of sequestering, each from the
other, the two parts of our nature, we should
rather closely couple them or, as far as may be,
reunite them : " We must command the soul not
to withdraw and entertain itself apart, to despise
and abandon the body (neither can she do it but
by some counterfeited apish trick), but to re-ally
herself with it, to embrace it, to cherish it, to
assist, to control it, to counsel it, to bring it back
when it goes astray ; in a word, to espouse and be
a husband to it, so that the result of their opera-
tions may not appear to be diverse and contrary,
but concurring and uniform." As Montaigne
advanced in years he professed himself more
deliberately Anacreontic, and thought it wise to
defend himself now against temperance, as he had
formerly defended himself against pleasure. Old
age grows dull and besotted with prudence, but he
would have it gay, as far as good sense permits.
He would seize the least occasions of pleasure,
he, who was so often racked with pain. Why
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MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

should he not lash a top if it amused him?
" Plato ordains that old men should be present
at the exercises, dances, and sports of young
people, that they may rejoice by proxy in the
suppleness and beauty of body which are no
longer theirs, and call back to mind the grace
and comeliness of that flourishing age." * Like
another sage, Montaigne had eagerly frequented
the Doctors, and heard great argument about it
and about :

" but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went."

Now there were moods when he would allege
to himself that it were well to divorce old barren
Reason from his bed, and take the daughter of
the vine to spouse. And he was well aware, as
was his fellow sage of Persia, that there is some-
thing of pathos, something sadly self-conscious
in such expedients of old age, which is glad be-
cause it is melancholy. A young man who pre-
tends to a taste in sauces should be whipped ; as
sexagenarian years approach, let us begin to learn
the i'erious value of a sauce — it is not too volup-
tuous an indulgence of our senility; we must
wheedle ourselves a little — and how little it is,
after all, that we can wheedle ourselves ! Neither

* Essays, III, 5.
272

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

the great masters of warfare nor tlie great phi-
losophers despised an exquisite dinner, and the
httle philosopher of the tower — essentially simple
in all his ways — plays with the thought of three
feasts of his earlier manhood, which fortune had
made of sovereign sweetness to him, and which
his reason bids his recollection cherish as memor-
able gains of his life. But better than these,
better than all, except friendship and wisdom, is
health, which in its full, continuous possession can
no more be had. " I receive health with open
arms, free, full, and entire; and by so much the
more whet my appetite to enjoy it, by how much
it is at present less ordinary and more rare; so
far I am from troubling its repose and sweetness
with the bitterness of a new and constrained man-
ner of living." Let those who would impose laws
against the sane satisfactions of the body for-
swear breathing; let them refuse the light of the
sun. There is season and a time to every pur-
pose under the heaven ; a time, says Solomon,
to embrace — and shall we then occupy our
thoughts with the quadrature of the circle? — and
a time to refrain from embracing : " When I
dance, I dance ; when I sleep, I sleep ; nay, when
I walk in the solitude of some fair orchard, if my
thoughts for some part of the time are taken up
with external occurrences, during some other part
of the time I call them back again to my walk,
1 8 2-]z

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

to the orchard, to the sweetness of that soHtude,
and to myself."

It is not surprising that Montaigne should have
seen little wisdom in the practices of ascetic dis-
cipline. Discipline there is in the various efforts
which are needful in order that we may learn
loyally to enjoy our being. To attain the higher
ignorance requires an askcsis of the intellect. To
attain virtue is impossible without trial, difficulty,
and danger. Moderation is less easy to maintain
than abstinence. When the natural discipline of
life has been put to use and found inadequate,
we may consider the uses of self-inflicted hard-
ships. There is a place, Montaigne tells us, where
the sun is abominated and darkness adored ; for
his own part, he saw best under a clear sky and
was thankful to the Giver of Light. Shall we
consider our own fantastic rules as superior to the
laws of Nature and of God? Or is God, indeed,
a cruel and capricious deity, who delights in
human sacrifice? " Behold, lord," said the Mexi-
cans to Cortez, " here are five slaves : if thou art
a fierce god that feedeth upon flesh and blood,
devour them, and we will bring thee more; if
thou art an affable god, behold here incense and
feathers; if thou art a man, take these fowls and
these fruits that we have brought thee." And
shall we look upon our God as a more furious
Cortez? Those devotees who by their ascetic
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THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

practices hope to dissociate the soul from the
body, save in rare examples of extraordinary
spirits, would fain cease to be men. " It is folly,"
pronounces Montaigne; "instead of transform-
ing themselves into angels they transform them-
selves into beasts; instead of elevating they de-
grade themselves. These transcendental humours
affright me, like high and inaccessible places."
He chose rather to associate his soul gratefully
with all the sane and natural joys of the body.
" Between ourselves," he whispers in his reader's
ear, " there are two things which I have always
seen to be of singular accord — supercelestial opin-
ions and subterranean manners." By dying, after
a fashion, while we are still alive, it is by no
means difficult to avoid the trouble of living well.
The fact that we are " wonderfully corporeal"
and that it is the part of wisdom, as he believes,
to keep the soul and body harmoniously together,
predisposed Montaigne against those forms of
religion which do not appeal to the senses and
the imagination as well as to what is purely
spiritual in man. He judged the Reformed Faith
as one who stood wholly apart from it, and who
knew not to what the zeal of its followers could
be ascribed except to the spirit of faction and
division : " Let those who, of these late years,
would erect for us an exercise of religion so con-
templative and immaterial not wonder if some are
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MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

found who think that it would have escaped and
sHpped through their fingers were it not main-
tained among us as a mark, a title, and an in-
strument of separation and faction rather than
for its own sake." Were Montaigne not a Chris-
tian and a Catholic, he would have chosen, he
says, to be a worshipper of the sun ; its grandeur
and beauty address themselves to the senses, and
it is so remote from us that under a visible image
we might still adore it as the Unknown God.
When Numa attempted to direct the devotion of
the Roman people to a purely spiritual religion he
undertook a hopeless and useless task, the human
mind cannot maintain itself as it wanders in " the
infinite of inform thoughts." The Divine majesty
for our sakes permitted itself in some sort to be
circumscribed in corporal limits : " His super-
natural and celestial sacraments have signs of our
terrestrial condition; the adoration of God ex-
presses itself through sensible offices and words ;
for man it is who believes and who prays." Mon-
taigne could not but be of the opinion that the
sight of the crucifix and of the paintings of a
suffering Saviour, the ornaments of churches, the
ceremonious gestures of the celebrant, the voices
of singers attuned to devout thought and feeling,
the stir of all the senses, infused into the souls of
the pious crowd a warmth of religious passion
which had its excellent uses. Sensitive himself
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THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

to all sweet odours, which clung to his person in
a peculiar degree, he approved the use of incense
and perfumes in churches — though simple and
natural odours pleased him best — as ancient and
almost universal means of cheer and refreshment
which awaken and purify the senses and render
us more apt for contemplation. He could not
hear without emotion an ode of Horace or Catul-
lus sung by fair, young lips; the voice was for
him, as an old philosopher had called it, " the
flower of beauty". And why should not all beauty
subserve the devout spirit? What soul of man is
there so stubborn, he asks, that will not be touched
with some reverence in considering the sombre
vastness of our churches, the variety of ornaments
and order of our ceremonies, in hearing the re-
ligious tones of our organs, and the harmony, so
tempered and so devout, of voices. " Even those
who enter in a scoffing spirit feel a certain shiver
run through their hearts, and a certain awe which
bids them hold their opinion in distrust." *

Montaigne had another ground of hostility to
the Reformed Faith beside the fact that it com-
mended to men what he regarded as an " incor-
poreal" religion ; it seemed to him to invite minds
that were ill-qualified for such an enterprise to be-
come judges of Divine truth. He held that if such

* Essays, IT, 12.

^77

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

truth is to be received, it must be received upon
authority ; we have no faculties for speculation in
things above our modest sphere. In morals,
which really interested him and on which he knew
that the conduct of life depends, Montaigne would
by no means renounce his rights of private judg-
ment. As for the Christian Faith, however much
he reverenced it, however he may have enjoyed
the artistry of defending it by an ingenious dia-
lectic, it did not penetrate and possess his nature ;
he found no great difficulty — to use a rude ex-
pression— in kicking it upstairs, or — to use a re-
spectful expression — in placing it high above the
meddling of the human intellect ; Divine doctrine,
" as queen and regent of the rest", is to keep her
queenly state apart, there to be sovereign and not
suffragan or subsidiary. It discomposed Mon-
taigne to see the crowd bandy to and fro in rash
debate the Unknown God. Most men are Chris-
tians and Catholics, as one born in Perigord is
a Perigourdin ; and this at least was better than
to make the mysteries of our religion the sport
and recreation of eager disputants. That the
Psalms of David should be made popular in
French verse, and sung by a 'prentice in his shop
among his frivolous thoughts, and as an exercise
of his lungs, seemed to Montaigne more impious
than pious. The Bible, the holy book of mys-
teries, was not a book to be tumbled up and down
278

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

a hall or a kitchen. It should be reverently ap-
proached with a Sursum corda as a preface. He
smiled at the notion that a translation of its words
would make it intelligible to the vulgar reader;
rather, he feared, by understanding a fragment
such a reader would more profoundly misconceive
the purport of the whole. That women and chil-
dren should undertake to teach old and experi-
enced men ecclesiastical polity was indeed gro-
tesque. As to himself, in his Essays he proposed
merely human fantasies, fantasies merely his own,
as children present their exercises and essays, not
to instruct but to be instructed.

In all that Montaigne says there is an air of
devoutness, and for himself it was more than an
air or an attitude. He wrote sincerely; he was
not a sceptic grinning behind a mask; but his
form of piety was hardly consistent with his gen-
eral principles. If I contradict myself, he might
have replied, well, then, I contradict myself; but
that is hardly a satisfactory answer for any one
except the speaker. While he would keep the
body and soul harmoniously together as mutually
helpful companions, he would divide the soul it-
self into two separate compartments — the com-
partment of reason and the compartment ai faith.
Each was a genuine portion of the entire man,
and he would have been a different human being
if either had been annihilated. But a faith which
279

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

is held, as it were, in reserve, which does not
permeate the whole body of beliefs, which does
not penetrate the whole character, is a singularly
artificial product. Montaigne the moralist walks
on the substantial earth, and Plutarch and Seneca
are companions good enough for all his needs ; or
he rests his head, like a peasant or a philosopher,
on Mother Earth, only interposing as a soft, sane,
and easy pillow the ignorance and incuriosity
which suit a well-ordered head; his faith floats
aloft in a balloon attached to the ground by a
sure but slender cord; by and by he enters the
car of his balloon, reason suffers for a moment
from vertigo, and is presently asphyxiated as
Montaigne, the believer, approaches the peace of
the Divine mysteries of religion. The division of
his own nature made by the ascetic who sunders
the soul from the body is less destructive of unity
than such a division as this — a division of the
soul itself.

How independent was the pagan philosopher,
who constituted three-fourths of Montaigne, from
the Christian, who sailed in the car of the balloon,
may be seen from a glance at his thoughts on
repentance, and his thoughts on death. With
respect to the sense of sin and the sorrow for sin
Montaigne's book may deserve the title given to
'it by Cardinal Du Perron — the breviary of
honnetes gens; it is not the breviary of Chris-
280

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

tians. " Be pleased to excuse what I often say,"
Montaigne writes, " that I rarely repent, and
that my conscience is satisfied with itself, not as
the conscience of an angel, or of a horse, but as
the conscience of a man." * The Christian enters
swiftly and adds the qualification that he speaks —
and here Montaigne avows his sincerity — in sub-
mission to the accepted and legitimate beliefs on
this subject. That is to say, the pagan philoso-
pher lifts his cap in all reverence to the Cross,
replaces it, and moves forward. Looking back
over his past life, he found that on the whole it
had been lived in conformity with Nature; he
had not flown high, but he had walked in an
orderly fashion ; he saw, amid all its diversity, a
certain unity in his life — " almost from my birth
it has been one; the same inclination, the same
route, the same force." He found it very hard
to imagine any sudden change of heart or life.
He could conceive a desire for a complete altera-
tion or reformation of his being, but this was no
more repentance, he says, than if he were dissatis-
fied because he was not an angel or Cato. On
the whole he could do no better than he had done ;
in the same circumstances he would again act as
he had acted ; it may be that he was stained
throughout with a universal tincture, but there

* Essays, III, 2.
281

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

were no definite spots; if he were to repent at all,
it must be not a particular, but a universal repent-
ance, and he was well pleased to be a man. True,
he had now and again erred seriously, but this
was not through lack of prudent deliberation; it
was rather through want of good luck ; the events
could not have been other than they were; they
belonged to the large course of the universe, to
the entire enchainment of Stoical causes. Cer-
tainly the voice that speaks to us is not the voice
of St. Augustine, nor the voice of St. Paul.
Montaigne never could have known Pascal's tears
of joy, for he had never known the tears of
anguish. But he is one of the tribe of honnetcs
gens, and the breviary is a book of good faith.
He writes with admirable sincerity, and will not
budge an inch from the facts of his consciousness
to construct a romance of religious experience.

The thought of death was constantly with Mon-
taigne from his early years. In the midst of his
youthful pleasures it haunted him as a skeleton
at the banquet of life. He was not melancholy
by temperament, but he was meditative and he
held hard by realities ; death was of all things the
I most certain ; life appeared to him but as " a
i flash in the infinite course of an eternal night".
The day of death was for him " the master day" ;
then no counterfeiting would avail ; then we must
i speak out plain — "il fault parler frangois'\ Pie

282

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

was curious to learn how this man and that con-
fronted it; perhaps they did not know that they
were dying; perhaps they were of the common
opinion that so great a revolution of Nature could
not come to pass without a solemn consultation of
the stars ; and yet, after all, each of us is but one,
and our petty interests do not disturb the heavens.
And how little we can prepare ourselves for the
great act; we cannot rehearse that scene even
once; we are all apprentices when we come to
die. Yet how can we live happily for an hour un-
less we have learnt a contempt of death? The
remedy of the vulgar crowd is simply not to think
of it ; but from w' hat embruted stupidity, inquires
Montaigne, can such gross blindness be derived?
No — we should keep death forever in view; we
should always be booted for the journey and ready
to depart ; we should at once live and detach our-
selves from life. " Let death find me planting my
cabbages, unconcerned by its coming, and still
less concerned for my unfinished garden." In
his premeditations upon death Montaigne forti-
fied his spirit with every consideration except
those which are the hope and joy of a Christian.
We may find it, he thought, less formidable than
it appears in anticipation ; at all events it can hap-
pen only once, and nothing that happens only once
can be a serious grievance; death is part of a
universal order; if we have lived a day, we have
283

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

seen all and should be ready to depart. These,
he tells us, are the good lessons of our mother
Nature. For a moment, indeed, he speaks of
death as the entrance to another life, and he
speaks elsewhere of the belief of the mortality of
the soul as an unsocial belief — one which isolates
us from the hope of companionship with those we
love. But he is not penetrated and possessed by
the Christian thought that the sting of death has
been taken away forever, that life has become the
victor. In the essay on A Custom of the Isle
of Cea he regards death as the means of escape
from ills of this world, and studies the conditions
under which suicide becomes legitimate. His
ideal of the conduct of life, as death makes its
approaches, was to look at death steadily, without
astonishment, if possible without concern, and to
carry on freely the action and processes of life
up to the final moment, to live as long as possible
and as far as possible into the depth of the shadow
of death.

As Montaigne advanced in years his mood
changed. The thought of death still followed
him. Seldom on his travels did he come to an
inn without thinking whether or not he could
there die at his ease. Perhaps death could be
made more than easy, perhaps it could be made
even voluptuous; at least he might aspire to
something between the death of a wise man and
284

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

that of a fool. An emperor should die standing-,
and why should not every gallant man ? But the
sentence seemed to him to be touched with ex-
aggeration, and he struck it out. After all, it is
best, he thought, to die simply and modestly, to
have done with premeditations of death, to have
done with the consolations of philosophy, and to
let that unimportant quarter of an hour come in
its own way and come when it will. In his earlier
days he had thought of the peasant's indifference
to dying until it is actually at hand, and he de-
cided that it was better to play the philosopher.
Now he would revert towards the peasant. He be-
lieved that as death is troubled by the care of life,
so life is troubled by the care of death. The pre-
cept of true philosophy is not Memento mori, but
Remember to live. Have we known how to live
steadfastly and tranquilly, then we shall know
how to die in like manner. *' If you know not
how to die, never trouble yourself ; Nature will in
a moment fully and sufficiently instruct you ; she
will exactly do that business for you; take you
no care for it." This may be excellent counsel for
honnetes gens; death will bandage our eyes, and
somehow we shall creep past; meanwhile let us
live sanely and well. But such a death as ]\Ion-
taigne imagines is untouched by any ray of light
from the great Christian morning.

And yet the longest and most elaborate of his
285

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

essays, in itself almost a volume, the Apology
for Raimond de Sehonde, is a defence of the
Christian Faith. Nor did Montaigne neglect the
practices of the Catholic Church. In his travels
it was his custom on arriving at a town, when
circumstances made it possible, to be present at
the mass. He thought that the Lord's prayer can-
not be too frequently in use ; he had great venera-
tion for the sign of the Cross, and observed it
even on slight occasions if to do so fell in with
the custom. " There is nothing so easy, so sweet,
and so favourable," he writes, " as the Divine
Law ; she invites us to herself, faulty and de-
testable as we are; extends her arms to us and
receives us in her bosom, foul and polluted as we
are, and as we needs must be in the days to
come." He would not limit the Divine power in
Nature by the denial of miracles. He thought at
one time, indeed, to decrassify his religious prac-
tice by eliminating certain rules and observances
that were distasteful to him ; but afterwards he
recognised that entire submission of self-will was
required and ought to be accorded. At the shrine
of Our Lady at Loreto he placed four figures
wrought in silver — those of the Virgin, of his
wife, of his daughter, and of himself. He died
with hands devoutly clasped as the priest was in
the act of elevating the Host.

The Essays are a book of good faith, and Mon-
2Ze

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

taigne's apology for revealed religion is not a
mere piece of artifice. It would not be unfair,
however, to call its dialectic a work of art. He
dismisses Sebonde's " quintessence drawn from
St. Thomas Aquinas" with the remark that it is
as creditable a performance as other like defences
of revelation which invoke the aid of human
reason; it is laudable to accommodate, as far as
we can, our natural capacities to the Divine truth ;
it is desirable to accompany our faith with the
reason which we possess, poor though that reason
may be; such arguments as those of the old Pro-
fessor at Toulouse may in some degree help to
qualify us for receiving the grace of faith. For
his own part, Montaigne chooses to adopt a more
ingenious and, he hopes, a more effective line
of defence; he will confound man's understand-
ing before the voice of God; he will build a
rampart for the city of God from the ruined frag-
ments of human reason ; he will make scepticism
subserve belief. Or, to adopt his own metaphor,
he will resort to the last and most hazardous, yet
the surest trick of fence ; he will make a desperate
thrust which, in disarming the adversary, will
force the challenger to drop his own weapon —
a trick of fence to be practiced only in the last
extremity. The finest use of human reason, ac-
cording to the paradox of Montaigne, is to de-
prive reason — at least in this province — of its
287

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

uses. And we cannot but perceive that the
obedient son of the Church enjoys above all
things the dexterity of his feat; there is some-
thing of high humour in turning the edge of
human judgment against its master; one who
is convinced will surely cry with Dumain, of
Navarre, " Proceeded well, to stop all good pro-
ceeding!" Montaigne, we may conjecture, had
never more of human pride than in his desperate
polemic against the pride of humanity.

His zeal as an artist in dialectic in some degree
defeats itself. He abandons his accustomed spirit
of moderation and for once becomes extravagant ;
and his extravagance does injury to his art. If
he had confined his attack on human reason to
reason as employed in the spheres of theology
and of metaphysics his case would have been
stronger ; but, with an eagerness characteristic of
Montaigne when thoroughly roused, he will have
all or nothing. His own convictions within the
area of human life and moral prudence were many
and unhesitating; he was no Pyrrhonist here, and
he had great confidence in his judgment. The
entire collection of the Essays is a refutation of
many pages of this, the central piece ; and it must
be confessed that many pages are no better than
a chaos of ill-digested facts, or of fictions assumed
to be facts for the purpose of argument. The
general result of his discussion is not to confirm
288

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

revealed religion, but to confirm the spirit of ac-
quiescence in whatever creed we happen to be
born and brought up. A Mohammedan could
apply all the pleadings of the Apology for Rai-
mond dc Schondc to justify his faith in Moham-
med; a Buddhist could apply them to justify his
faith in Buddha. Christianity might well look
with suspicion upon its self-constituted champion.
Having eloquently set forth the insignificance
of the place occupied by man in the vast universe,
man whose conditions are governed by the stars,
and who except through obedience can have no
commerce with the heavens, Montaigne proceeds
to demonstrate that he has no real advantage over
the brutes that perish, the most ugly and abject
of whom he most nearly resembles. It is true
that he is cursed with imagination more than
they, and has created for himself unnatural desires
and a swarm of vices unknown to them. The re-
morseless critic strips man to the shirt and dis-
covers him to be but a poor, bare, forked animal.
As for his knowledge, does it exempt him from
evils? Or rather is not the opinion of wisdom
his special plague? " I have seen in my time a
hundred artisans, a hundred labourers wiser and
happier than the rectors of the University. . . .
A thousand poor simple women (mille femme-
lettes) have lived in a village a life more equable,
more sweet, more constant than that of Cicero."
19 289

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

A confession of our ignorance, a habit of sim-
plicity and submission — these are in truth our
proper virtues, and those which render us apt
receivers of divine knowledge. There follows
Montaigne's impressive record of the contrarieties
and contradictions of learned opinion on all the
highest subjects of human speculation — an end-
less jangle of philosophic brains. Insensate man!
he who cannot fashion one flesh-worm and who
will fashion gods by the dozen! Let him climb
to the summit of Mount Cenis, he will be no
nearer heaven than if he were at the bottom of
the sea. With an admirable irony, which was en-
joyed by Bossuet and remembered by Pope,
Montaigne's goose enters on the scene to ex-
pound a goose's philosophy of Nature — there is
nothing which the vault of heaven regards so
favourably as a goose ; she is the darling of Na-
ture; man is her provider, her host, her servitor.
But it is not only of things in the heavens that we
are ignorant; we know nothing of the human
soul, and little indeed — witness the myriad errors
of physicians — of the human body. Such genuine
knowledge as we may possess of these comes to
[ us, as it were, by accident. Most of what we
1 style knowledge is but opinion, growing and
withering and falling away, and forever replaced
by new opinion as transitory. Even the senses
themselves are weak and uncertain, subject to

290

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

illusion, and imposing their illusions upon the un-
derstanding. We need some " judicatory instru-
ment" by which to verify the declarations of our
several faculties, which instrument would itself
need to be verified, and so we should enter on a
process which runs into the infinite. It is God
alone who can save us from ourselves and bring
us to the resting-place of His truth.

Such reduced to miniature proportions is Mon-
taigne's apology for revealed religion. His temper
of suspended judgment made belief difficult and
disbelief no less difficult. At one time he dis-
missed as fables the tales of witchcraft, ghosts,
prognostications, and the like. Afterwards he
thought it more intellectually prudent to suspend
his judgment and consider in each case the evi-
dence for alleged facts. He was not able to reject
exact testimony even for a modern miracle. But,
being slow to move, he inclined a little towards
the solid and the probable. He would not be
threatened or cufifed into credulity, even though
it was orthodox. " How much more natural and
more probable it seems to me," he says, '* that
two men should lie than that one man in twelve
hours should pass, even with the wind, from the
Orient to the Occident ; how much more natural,
that our understanding should be borne away
from its place by the volubility of our disordered
mind than that one of us should be carried, flesh
291

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

and bones as we are, by a strange spirit up the
shaft of a chimney." But to accept all the truths
of divine revelation was an escape to harbour
from the troubled waves of human opinion ; and
to observe dutifully all the practices of the Church
was an easy burden, because it was traditional
and customary, and was at the same time the
submission proper for a frail and erring will to
the divine ecclesiastical polity.

Perhaps his faith wavered ; perhaps he could
not really check the advance of his questioning
spirit at the point which seemed most convenient.
The higher souls alone, he thought, know an
assured belief. He at least, imperfect believer as
he was, had provided, by his ingenious artistry,
a defence of the faith, unconceived by them. He
could imagine their happier state, and he would
in his outward conduct conform to all the duties
which such a state implies. Was he a sceptic?
Perhaps so, at times, in the back-shop of his mind.
But he was also a Perigourdin, a Christian, a
Catholic, a conservative, and as such he would
behave. It was as if the tower of Montaigne
were an allegory of the fabric of his soul. Below
was the chapel with its altar, where the mass
might be devoutly celebrated. Up aloft was the
bell which at the appointed hour rang its Ave
Maria. Below was the region of ceremonial
practice. Above was the region of spiritual faith,
292

THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAYS

but the place was not quite habitable. Between
the two was the library, where Montaigne spent
most of his days, and most of the hours of each
day. It was the region of moral prudence. In
the library he could think his own thoughts, or
gaze at its beams and joists and ponder the sen-
tences of a philosopher's creed ; here he could be
wise with a human wisdom, and Seneca and
Plutarch — not the fathers of the Church — were
his companions.

293

CHAPTER X

MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

The volume of Montaigne's Essays, a thick
octavo consisting of two books, was published
by Simon Millanges at Bordeaux in 1580. When,
eight years later, the Third Book was added, the
earlier books were augmented by a large mass
of insertions, some of which impair the original
design, if we may speak of a design, of certain
of the essays. The last essay of the Second Book,
written shortly before the date of publication, that
on the Resemblance of Children to Fathers tells
of his having suffered during some eighteen
months from the painful malady — " nephritic
colic" — which he believed he had inherited from
Pierre Eyquem, though it had not declared itself
until about his forty-fifth year. He had inherited
also a profound distrust of the treatment of six-
teenth-century physicians and a strong distaste
for their nostrums. But he hoped for some bene-
fit from such natural waters, taken internally and
used as baths, as were supposed to be suitable to
the ailment which afflicted him. Change of scene
and variety of company would at least help to
distract from himself one whose curiosity was
294

MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

boundless. There was always a certain inevitable
pang in leaving home, in parting from his wife
and daughter, in quitting his chair in the library.
But home had also its vexations from which it
was pleasant for a time to escape ; and the politi-
cal condition of France was full of troubles which
Montaigne would gladly forget. He had no heirs
for whom it was necessary to save; he might in-
dulge himself in his desire to see something of
the world; and he knew that the domestic econ-
omy of the chateau was safe under the prudent
conduct of his wife. Conjugal friendship might
even be increased by a period of absence; it is
a poor kind of affection which requires perpetual
neighbourhood. He could ride for many hours
without fatigue. If it rained, he enjoyed the rain,
and though in some things he was fastidious, he
could dabble in the dirt like a duck. All skies
were alike to him. And when he thought of
death as possible, he added the thought that all
places — the road, the tow-boat, the inn — are good
enough to die in. He loved variety, diversity, the
observation of strange manners and customs.
Travel was a school of education. If he was old,
he was not too old to learn, and old age is the
time when we have a right to please ourselves.
Yes — he would travel, and he would not bind
himself strictly to a route or a date; he would
travel through country and town as he travelled
295

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

through books — wherever the incHnation took
him.

In the second half of the eighteenth century,
about one hundred and eighty years after the
death of Montaigne, Canon Prunis was engaged
in collecting materials for a history of Perigord.
He visited the chateau of Montaigne, then in the
possession of the Count de Segur, a descendant
of the Essayist's daughter. They showed him an
old coffer containing papers which had long since
been laid aside. He rummaged and discovered
among these papers the manuscript journal of The
Travels of Montaigne, a volume in folio of two
hundred and seventy-eight pages. The opening
pages were wanting; somewhat over a third of
the manuscript was in the handwriting of a ser-
vant who acted as Montaigne's secretary and who
wrote at his master's dictation, but in the third
person; the remainder was in the master's auto-
graph ; the greater portion was in French — show-
ing, as do the Essays, the Gasconisms of Mon-
taigne. While at the Baths of Lucca he determined
to continue his journal in Italian — such Italian
as he was able to write; and just before the close
he again returned to his native tongue. The
manuscript was deposited in the King's Library,
and was open to inspection; it was carefully ex-
amined by the librarian, M. Capperonnier, and by
others, and was pronounced to be genuine. In
296

MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

1774 it was published, in quarto and in a smaller
form, at Rome and Paris, under the editorship of
an industrious man of letters, Meusnier de Quer-
lon. It has been in our own day republished as
an important document for the knowledge of Italy
in the sixteenth century, by Professor Alessandro
D'Ancona, who has added a large body of
scholarly annotations. The original manuscript
has unhappily disappeared. It was evidently
written with no view to publication; the Italian
portion may have been composed not only as a
record of travel but as an exercise in the lan-
guage; the portion in French is sometimes a
series of jottings ill-connected and set down with
no attempt at literary grace; the details of Mon-
taigne's state of health are such as could have
interested no one but himself. Many of these
entries of an invalid have been discreetly omitted
by the latest English translator.

On June 22, 1580, Montaigne bade farewell to
his wife and daughter, who, as it proved, were
not to see him again until the close of November
in the following year. He journeyed to Paris
and thence to the camp outside La Fere, where
the royal army, under Marshal Matignon, was
conducting a siege. According to the report of
a contemporary, which may be more than a
legend, a presentation copy of the Essays was gra-
ciously received by King Henri III., who de-
297

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

clared that it pleased him much. " Sire," re-
sponded Montaigne, " it follows then that I am
pleasing to your Majesty, since my book is pleas-
ing, for it contains nothing but a discourse con-
cerning my life and my actions." Having fol-
lowed to Soissons, amid lamenting crowds, the
body of Philibert de Gramont, la belle C orisande' s
husband, who had lost an arm in the siege and
had died of the wound, Montaigne set forth on
his travels. He was accompanied by his young
brother Bertrand, Lord of Mattecoulon, the
Seigneur de Cazalis, probably a kinsman by mar-
riage, and the Seigneur du Hautoi, a gentleman
of Lorraine. At Beaumont the party was joined
by the Seigneur d'Estissac, doubtless a son of the
lady to whom the eighth essay of the Second Book
is addressed. The young man was the bearer of
letters of commendation from the King and the
Queen Mother to the Duke of Este. The troop,
riding on horseback, was followed by valets,
lackeys, and muleteers.

The youngest member of the party could not
have ridden with more of quicksilver in his nerves
than Montaigne, who was not far from his fiftieth
year, and who from time to time was subject to
acute attacks of what he terms his " colic". He
rode with an open mind, ready to enter into every
pleasure, prepared to fall in with all the ways and
manners of foreign places, disposed to tliink well
298

MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

of humanity, though it might differ from what
was famiHar in Perigord or in Paris, full of an
untiring intellectual curiosity. His feeling for
external nature was not that of the nineteenth
century, but he enjoyed a fair prospect more, and
was horrified by a mountain less, than many of
his contemporaries. His feeling for art, except
for the literary art, had been little cultivated ; he
was not without a certain interest in sculpture,
but the debased ingenuities of the declining Re-
naissance impressed him as much as the statues
of Michael Angelo in the Medici Chapel, which
he mentions with passing praise; concerning the
great Italian painters he is almost silent; Titian
and Tintoretto did not interest him at Venice,
nor Raphael at Rome. Pie had an imaginative
sense of the greatness of the ancient world, as it
may be guessed at through some vast crumbling
fragment or some disinterred relic ; but he was
not in any high degree skilled as an antiquary or
archaeologist. His proper game, as he might
have called it, was man — man in his diversity of
creeds, ceremonies, opinions, politics, civic and
domestic arrangements, with all the devices which
he has invented for the splendour, the comfort,
and the convenience of life. Now Montaigne
holds converse with some learned doctor on the
theory of the sacraments, and now he inspects
with interest a smoke-jack or a spit. Now he
299

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

dines with a cardinal or a grand duke, and
studies the manners of the great; and he is just
as well pleased when mine host of " The Grape"
at Miilhausen, who has returned from presiding
at the Town Council, pours out the wine for his
guests, and discourses, unabashed and unpreten-
tious, of his condition and way of living. The
traveller had none of that " taciturn and incom-
municable prudence" which is proper to the way-
farer in foreign parts who carries his native preju-
dices and ill manners with him, " defending him-
self from the contagion of an unknown air". He,
a Frenchman to the core, was also a cosmopolitan,
and chose rather to consort with strangers, from
whom he could learn something new, than with
his own countrymen who found their joy in
grumbling at foreign manners and foreign fare.
He had always, he said when at Brixen in Tyrol,
distrusted the judgment of those who spoke of the
conveniences and discomforts of foreign coun-
tries, not one of them knowing how to appreciate
these except by his own accustomed rule and the
usage of his village. Now, indeed, he was more
than ever amazed at their stupidity, having heard
tell of the passes of the Alps as full of difficulties,
of the uncouth manners of the people, of inacces-
sible roads, wild places of abode, and insupport-
able air. All had been accepted by him as suffi-
ciently agreeable; and if he had to choose a walk
300

MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

for his little eight-years-old girl he would as soon
take her along this road, he declared, as any path
of his own garden.

He could not wander out of the way, for every
way pleased him, and therefore was the right one.
His companions might be impatient to arrive at a
destination, but he was always content with the
open road. " I truly believe," writes the secre-
tary, " that if he had been alone with his own
attendants, he would rather have gone to Cracow
or towards Greece by land than have turned off
towards Italy; but the pleasure which he took in
visiting unknown countries — so delightful to him
as to make him forget the infirmities of his years
and health — he could not impart to any of his
company, each of them longing for a place of rest.
As for him, he was wont to say that after having
passed a disturbed night, when at morning he
reflected that a new city or a new country was to
be seen, he rose with eager gladness. Never did
I see him less weary or less disposed to com-
plain of his sufferings; his spirit, both on the
road and at his resting-places, was so much on the
stretch to meet things and to take advantage of
conversing with every stranger that I believe it
beguiled him of his malady." Montaigne ob-
jected only to traversing the same road twice over.
It was all to him, he said, like reading some very
delightful story or admirable book and he feared
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MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

to arrive at the closing page. Such was his tem-
per while his health allowed him to enjoy life;
when illness obliged him to remain still and to
suffer, he accepted the inevitable in the spirit of a
philosopher : " It would be too great cowardice
and weakness on my part," he writes at the Bagni
della Villa, " if knowing that every day I am in
danger of death in this manner, and that it must
needs draw nearer every hour, I did not make
every effort, before its arrival, to meet my end
without anxiety whenever it may come. And in
this respect it is wise to receive joyfully the good
which it may please God to send us. There is no
other medicine, no other rule or knowledge by
which to avoid all those ills which assail man from
every side and at every hour except the resolu-
tion to bear them humanly {nmanauicntc) , or else
boldly and promptly to make an end of them."

It is not possible here to follow Montaigne
through all the pleasant incidents of his way-
faring from Beaumont to the Baths of Plom-
bieres, through Switzerland and Tyrol and the
Empire until on All Saints' Day he entered
Verona. At Meaux he visits the so-called tomb
of Ogier the Dane, and sees the garden and the
curiosities of little old Juste Terrelle, long a so-
journer in Eastern lands. At Epernay he con-
verses with the learned Jesuit Maldonatus, who
gives him a detailed account of the Baths of Spa.
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MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

The little house where Joan of Arc was born,
decorated with paintings of her great deeds, in-
terests him at Domremy. He turns aside from
his road to fipinal in order to visit the nuns of
Poussay, who exhibit the diversity of devotion,
for they take no vow of virginity. At Plom-
bieres, where he stayed for ten days, he gained
the friendship of the Seigneur d'Andelot, a dis-
tinguished military commander, and observed the
singularity of his beard and eyebrows, in part
blanched, and that in a moment, by the shock of
his brother's tragic death. On his departure from
the baths Montaigne left with his landlady, after
the custom of the country, the escutcheon of his
arms on wood, to be hung on the outer wall, an
innocent piece of vanity which he indulged else-
where, though unauthorised by custom. At Bus-
sang he descended in linen garments into the
silver mines, and, riding forward by and by
through a mountain pass, peered up at the nests
of the goshawks perched on inaccessible rocks.
In Switzerland he learns with open mind that
Protestantism is not quite an " immaterial" re-
ligion, nor necessarily a religion of faction, but
may be part of a dignified order coexisting with
freedom ; yet he notices also the dangers arising
from variations within the Protestant faith. He
holds discourse with the learned men of Basel,
and among them with the French jurisconsult
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MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Hotman — a refugee since the St, Bartholomew,
to whom he afterwards addressed a letter telling
of his happy journey ings in Germany. In ob-
serving the manners and customs of each locality
in the minutest details he is ever alert, and for
the comeliness or the ill-favour of the women and
the fashion of their attire he has himself an old
goshawk's eye. And so he rides onward, starting
each morning without breakfast, but provided
with a hunch of dry bread, drinking little wine,
or if more than a little only for courtesy, fas-
tidious about nothing except cleanliness and the
mattress and hangings of his bed, ready to con-
verse on theology or the equally abstruse science
of the gullet, and having but three regrets — that
he had not brought with him a cook to study
foreign methods, a German valet who might act
as an interpreter, and a Murray or Baedeker of
the sixteenth century which might have informed
him better than a clergyman or a fool of a school-
master concerning the rare and remarkable sights
of town and country. At Augsburg he and his
friends had the happiness to be taken for barons
and knights; and, greatness being thrust upon
him by fortune. Baron Montaigne was pleased to
widen the basis of his experience by accepting
the consideration which accompanied his new dig-
nity. He attended the services of the churches,
Catholic and Lutheran, with impartial interest,
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MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

discoursed with a Protestant minister, witnessed
a baptism, was present at the wedding of a
weahhy young lady of the city — but the bride
was ill-favoured, and not a good-looking woman
among the guests atoned for her deficiencies —
attended an exhibition of the art of fencing, and
inspected that curious postern-gate of the city, the
secret of which Queen Elizabeth of England had
in vain sought to learn through an ambassador
extraordinary. The pride of Baron Montaigne
was humbled a little later, when, at Hala, the
Archduke Fernand of Austria, to whom Mon-
sieur de Montaigne desired to be presented, de-
clined that honour, somewhat ruffling thereby the
philosopher's temper.

To Italy Montaigne brought his abundant good
humour, which was heightened rather than di-
minished by the devices of knavish innkeepers to
entrap him, was little disturbed by their indif-
ferent wines, and even survived noisome odours
and the nocturnal sallies of vermin ; at the worst
he could avoid a bed and stretch himself in his
clothes upon a table. He enjoyed the aspect of
the country, the vine-festoons, the great gray
oxen in the fields, the cultivation climbing up the
steeps, the patches of pasture scattered among pre-
cipitous cliffs and splintered crags, the chestnut-
woods, the olive-trees; yet he must needs lament
a little w^hen the mulberries were stripped of their

20 30s

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

leaves and forced to put on an untimely appear-
ance of winter. The dignity of the peasantry
pleased him ; even in asking alms they seemed
hardly mendicants. More often they were busy
at their country labours, or spinning, and this on
a Sunday as well as on week-days, or with lutes
in their hands they sang the pastoral songs of
Ariosto. The beauty of the women he thought
had been overrated, but afterwards in the upper
ranks of society he saw many faces of dignity and
sweetness. At Venice, at Florence, in Rome he
observed the manners of those who made mer-
chandise of their beauty and their wit, and, to
satisfy his curiosity the better, would pay for a
conversation in some splendid apartment, and
presently be off to listen to an eloquent preacher
in the church. To be at once exceedingly devout
and extremely disregardful of morals was com-
mon enough in Italy of the Renaissance — we see
the curious coalescence in Cellini's Autobiography
— and Montaigne was amused by this concordant
discordance as one of the varieties of human na-
ture. There were no Lutheran or Calvinist
ministers here, as in Switzerland and Germany,
with whom he could discuss the theological mys-
tery— source of a thousand disputes — involved in
the word " Hoc'\^ but an interesting survival of

* " Hoc est corpus mcuni."
306

MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

ancient faith could be studied in the Jews. At
Verona he visited their synagogue, and held long
discourse with them concerning their ceremonies.
In Rome he was again present at a synagogue,
noting all that happened during the service, and
in a private house he witnessed the solemn rite of
circumcision. Nor did he fail to attend in the
church of the Trinita the Lenten sermon of a re-
canted Rabbi for whom a congregation of sixty
of the unconverted (for the Scripture saith,
"Compel them to come in") was duly provided
by the authorities. Thus Rome, in its Christian
zeal, made amends for Calvary.

The palaces of the great nobles and the princes
of the church, with their elaborately disposed gar-
dens, were a delight to Montaigne. Pratolino,
the splendid villa of the Duke of Florence, its
long garden-alleys, and grottoes, and stone-
benches, and the yet more sumptuous garden laid
out near Tivoli for the pleasure of Cardinal Ippo-
lito d'Este, especially impressed his imagination;
he had an almost childish admiration for their
fantastic ingenuities in water-works, which
chirped like birds, performed upon the organ, put
statues in motion, or surprised the unwary visitor
with sudden jets or sprayings. The Cardinal
Luigi d'Este, at the date of ]\Iontaigne's arrival
in Italy, chose to sojourn in the stately house of
a Paduan gentleman, partly to bathe his gouty
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MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

limbs in medicinal waters, but chiefly that he
might enjoy the neighbourhood of the ladies of
Venice, being a cardinal who if gouty was also
gay. These visits to the marvels of ingenious
luxury were diversions for Montaigne. With
more earnest eyes he followed the traces of the
history of his own nation on Italian soil. His
father had fought in the wars of Italy ; his friend
Monluc had made himself glorious by his defence
of Siena; Strozzi, a marshal of France, had
also performed wonders to prevent its fall, and,
though defeated, had struggled gallantly against
superior forces. At Epernay Montaigne had
sought out the undistinguished grave where
Strozzi's body lay; at Florence he saw hanging
from the church walls the banners which Strozzi
had lost ; at Siena he inspected the position of the
city with a special view to understand more ex-
actly the military operations; on his way from
Pavia to Milan he turned aside from the road to
visit the field where King Francis had been de-
feated and taken captive. His father's journal
had probably made Montaigne already familiar
with many forgotten incidents of war.

Wherever he went he seems to have observed
the outward practices of the Christian Faith, as he
found it in Italy. He saw before him a religion
which, however abstruse its theological dogma
might be, was, in its dealings with men and
308

MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

women, an appeal to emotions, a religion half-
supernatural, half-mundane, and always essen-
tially popular. It was not removed from ordinary
life, but entered into that life, and that life seemed
to enter into, and become a part of religion. It
was an affair which highly deserved the atten-
tion of a student of human nature. There were
things in it, or encrusted upon it, which might
look specially suitable to persons not overwise or
even quite childish ; but in most men and women
there is something of the fool and a good deal of
the child. When Montaigne was present at high
mass in the Cathedral of Verona, the people in
the choir chatted, with hats upon their heads, and
carelessly turned their backs upon the altar; he
was surprised and a little shocked, but still the
great act was performed, and at the elevation of
the Host, the noisiest gossips became worshippers.
On Christmas Day, at St, Peter's, during the
mass the Pope and Cardinals sat with covered
heads and freely conversed with one another;
before the cup touched any sacred lips its con-
tents was tested lest the wine should have been
dosed with poison; but still the mass was cele-
brated, and the Pope had taken his part. His
Holiness had a natural son, whose mother was a
servant, but if the Vicar of God was a man, he
was none the less God's Vicar. When on Holy
Thursday a canon of St. Peter's read aloud to
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MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

the assembled crowd the bull which excommuni-
cated " an infinite variety of people", and when
he came to the article wdiich cut off those who
had laid hands on any of the Church's estates, the
Cardinals Medici and Caraffa burst into a fit of
laughter; yet, all the same, the Pope, who, hard
by, held the lighted torch and at the close flung
it among the people, to scramble for its frag-
ments, had done the stupendous deed, and all
these evil ones were cast out. The " Peniten-
cers", as Montaigne calls them, marched by torch-
light through the streets in Lent, to the number of
five hundred, scourging themselves with cords till
their backs were piteously raw and bloody ; many
were boys, who, as one declared, did their pen-
ance for the sins of others, not for their own ;
they seemed to enjoy the sport ; perhaps they had
greased their backs, as Montaigne was told, and
possibly they were well paid for their pains. But
pious torture had certainly been gaily undergone;
and the day was holy; among the ladies that
looked on, not an amorous glance or gesture was
to be discovered as the thousands of torches swept
by towards St. Peter's. A popular religion in
truth ! The priest, wearing red gloves, displayed
from his pulpit the handkerchief of St. Ve-
ronica; instantly the vast throng fell prostrate;
and cries of pity and the sobs of weeping men and
women filled the church ; then the crowd changed
310

MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

and was perpetually renewed. " Here," cries
Montaigne, " is the true Papal Court ; the pomp
of Rome, and its principal grandeur, lies in the
show of devotion. It is pleasant in these days
to see the ardour for religion of a people, so in-
finite in number."

From Verona Montaigne journeyed by Vicenza
and Padua to Venice; from Venice by Ferrara,
Bologna, Florence, Siena, to Rome. With Venice
he was somewhat disappointed, though the
French ambassador, then troubled by his master's
unpaid debts to the Venetians, strove to make
himself entertaining, and the famous Veronica
Franca, courtesan and authoress, honoured him
with a copy of her Letters. Montaigne did not
accept as final his first impressions, and resolved
to return to Venice; in later years he thought of
it as a place of happy retreat for one's decline
into old age. At Ferrara, where M. d'Estissac
presented his letters of commendation, the Duke
conversed with the elder and the younger French
gentlemen, and remained courteously uncovered
during the wdiole reception. The Essays inform
us of what the Journal is silent — that Montaigne
also visited at Ferrara one more illustrious than
the duke, the afflicted Tasso, then immured in the
Hospital of Ste. Anna. He had often thought of
insanity as one of the most appalling evidences of
the infirmity of man, of how some trivial misad-
311

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

venture to the brain may in a moment convert
the wisest philosopher to a driveller and a show.
Tasso was not, like Swift, an object of repulsion;
but he was a piteous example, as it seemed to
Montaigne, of infinite wit, by virtue of its force
and suppleness, turning against itself; reason
had produced unreason; his mind's eye had been
blinded by excess of light.

It was only on his later visit to Florence that
Montaigne learnt her right to the title " La
bella". On his way Romewards he was charged
at a costly rate for uncomfortable quarters and
poor entertainment. A dinner with the Grand
Duke, a broad-shouldered dark man, with a genial
countenance, made some amends; and there in
the place of honour sat the voluptuous beauty, full-
breasted, low-bodiced, Bianca Capello, now, after
her shames and crimes, the Duchess of Florence.

As Montaigne drew towards Rome his eager-
ness increased. He believed that the dew of
evening and of early morning was injurious to his
health, but on the day that he passed through the
Porta del Popolo — November 30, 1580 — he set
forth three hours before sunrise that he might see
by daylight the approach to the city. He thought
that he had known it well already ; but Rome, like
the ocean, is always new. For him it was, first,
the buried Rome of the past, buried far deeper
than he had imagined; but soon the life of the
312

MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

present grew upon him. He saw in Rome a city
existing for the court and the nobihty, a centre of
ecclesiastical idleness and ease, to which every one
who would be in harmony with his surroundings
must adapt himself; but also a centre for all the
world, the great metropolitan, cosmopolitan city,
in which differences of nationality almost disap-
peared. During the earlier days of his residence
he walked unceasingly in the hilly district where
the ancient city stood, but the city itself could not
be traced, and it seemed to him that even the
slopes of the hills must have changed their forms.
He declared that " one could see nothing of Rome
but the sky under which it lay and the outline of
its site; that the knowledge he had respecting it
was an abstract and contemplative knowledge, in-
cluding nothing which addressed itself to the
senses ; that those who said that at least the ruins
of Rome might be seen said too much; for the
ruins of a machine so terrible would bring more
of honour and of reverence to the memory of it;
it was nothing but Rome's sepulchre." He went
on to assert that the world, hostile to the long
domination of Rome, had shattered into frag-
ments the wonderful unity, and then, in horror of
the deed, had buried the very ruins. As for the
constructions of the modern bastard Rome, they
reminded him of the nests hung by crows and
martins from the roofs and walls of churches de-
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MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

molished by the Huguenots. Nowhere else does
the Journal depart so far from its famihar style,
and rise to a sustained rhetoric, as it does in this
passage.

When Montaigne first came to Rome he pro-
cured the services of a French guide; but soon,
with the aid of books and maps studied each even-
ing, he made himself a complete master of high-
ways and byways. He found always abundance
of pleasant occupation. One day it is dinner with
a French cardinal, follov^^ed by vespers in the Hall
of the Consistory. Another, it is a visit through
special favour to the Library of the Vatican,
which the French ambassador had never been
permitted to see. There Montaigne inspected
with peculiar interest a manuscript of Seneca and
a manuscript of the minor works of Plutarch ; saw
the handwriting of St. Thomas Aquinas, and
the original written copy of the book upon the
Sacraments which Llenry VIII. of England had
sent some sixty years previously to Pope Leo X.
Now he observes the Muscovite ambassador in
his furred hat, scarlet mantle, and coat of cloth of
gold ; and now he converses with an old Patriarch
of Antioch, learned in many tongues, and receives
from his hands a drug infallible as a remedy for
his affliction, the stone. Or there are races along
the Corso — races of children, Jews, old men
naked — and Montaigne must look on. Or the
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MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

heads of St. Peter and St. Paul are exhibited
in St. John Lateran, and the philosopher of the
tower must needs be one of the devout. Twice,
though tender-hearted, he witnessed the brutali-
ties of public executions, in one instance with
hacking and hewing of the dead body, responded
to, at every stroke, by shudders and outcries of
the crowd. And once he observed the pious
process of an exorcism ; but the priest had to ex-
plain that the devil, tenanting the possessed man,
was of quite the worst species, obstinate, and par-
ticularly hard to deal with ; only yesterday a simi-
lar operation had been quite successful, or would
have been so, had not a second and less malicious
demon entered into the patient and disguised the
operator's triumph ; he was acquainted, says
Montaigne, with the names, the classification, and
the particular distinctions of all the diabolic tribe.
These w-ere incidents of ordinary Roman days.
But that was a high day when Montaigne w-as in-
troduced by the French ambassador and the Papal
chamberlain to Plis Holiness, Gregory XIII.,
when he knelt on one knee or on two knees at
the appointed stations, and when, as he stooped
to kiss the foot, His Holiness raised a little the
red shoe with its cross of white to meet the lips
of a faithful son of the Church. The Pope ex-
horted Montaigne to continue in that devotion
which he had always manifested towards Rome,
31S

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

and assured him and his companions that he
would gladly render them any services in his
power — the services, comments the narrator, of
Italian phrases.

The ability and power of the Jesuits made a
deep impression on Montaigne. Never did any
other society, he thought, attain to eminence like
theirs, or produce effects such as they were likely
to produce. They held the whole of Christendom
in possession; they formed a nursery of great
men in every order of greatness. And yet he
missed in Rome two things which he had found
in Venice and in the Protestant cities of Germany
and Switzerland — he missed order and he missed
freedom. The safety of the streets, especially at
night, was ill-secured; robberies were frequent;
and at the same time to lift up one's voice against
the sloth and luxury of the higher ecclesiastics
was a crime visited with imprisonment. On en-
tering Rome Montaigne had to permit his boxes
to be searched by the officials, and all his books
had been seized. One, The Hours of Our Lady,
was viewed suspiciously because it was printed In
Paris; others, because, though orthodox, they
made mention of heretical errors. Fortunately he
had not brought with him from Germany a single
treatise by a Lutheran. Among the volumes in
his baggage lay, however, a copy of his own lately
published Essays, and this was carried off to be
316

MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

examined by the experts in heresy-hunting and
in the detection of Hterary improprieties. When,
after a long interval of time, the book was re-
turned to him, " castigated according to the
opinion of the monastic doctors", the censure did
not prove excessively severe. The Master of the
Sacred Palace knew no French, and he was
politely satisfied with Montaigne's explanation of
the passages which had met the reader's disap-
proval; he left it to Montaigne's conscience to
make amendments in whatever was wanting in
good taste. Montaigne had used the word " For-
tune" ; he had named certain heretical poets, such
as Beze ; he had apologised for Julian the Apos-
tate; he had asserted that one who prays should
for the time be free from vicious inclination ; he
had said that whatever goes beyond the mere pun-
ishment of death is cruelty; he had argued that
a child should be rendered capable by education
of doing all manner of things. Montaigne pro-
fessed that he had only put forth his own opinions,
not holding them for errors, and he alleged that
his meaning had not been always rightly caught.
The Maestro was gracious, and pleaded on the
Essayist's side against an Italian who was present.
When Montaigne was about to quit Rome and
went to take his leave of his censors, the affair
was a thing of the past ; they begged him to pay
no regard to the objections; they complimented
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MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

him on his good intentions, his abiht}^ his affec-
tion for the Church ; and they left it to himself to
retrench in future editions whatever might seem
too free-spoken, and in particular the references
to Fortune. The speakers were persons of high
authority, not cardinals, but " cardinalable".
None the less Montaigne took his own way ; in the
edition of 1 588 he made it clear that he expressed
in the Essays only his private opinions, and used
certain words in a layman's sense ; but he altered
not one of the passages against which the Roman
censor had raised objections; Beze was still com-
mended as a poet ; Julian the Apostate was hon-
oured; and the incalculable residuum of forces
which determines so many events was still de-
scribed as Fortune.

In one of the later essays, that on Vanity, it is
Fortune that he thanks for an airy favour, but
one highly valued by him, which crowned his
ambition at Rome. He lived, as he says, with the
dead ; Lucullus, Metellus, and Scipio were to him
as near and as real as his own father, w4io was
also among the departed. A hundred times he
had quarrelled on behalf of Pompey and for the
cause of Brutus. To be himself a citizen of Rome,
to possess the authentic bull of Roman burgess-
rights, with all its pomp of seals and gilded letters
— this was an object with splendid flattery in it
for Montaigne's imagination. Was it a piece of
318

MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

mere inanity and foppery to feel a pride in such
a distinction? Well, there is plenty of foppery
and inanity in each of us, which should make us
deal lightly with the foible of Montaigne. He
sought for the empty title, the Journal confesses,
with " all his five natural senses" ; the Pope's
majordomo was kind and helpful ; Fortune
smiled upon his folly; and before he quitted the
city on his pilgrimage to Loreto, the Senate and
the people of Rome had decreed that the most
illustrious Michel de Montaigne should be ad-
mitted to all those privileges which signified so
little, and so much.

The journey to Loreto in the latter days of
April, 1 581, was full of delight. The Journal be-
comes picturesque in its descriptions of mountain
and valley, wooded hill, and torrents transform-
ing themselves on the level ground to pleasant
and gentle streams. Yet Montaigne was not too
much occupied either with thoughts of nature or
of grace to restrain him from an outbreak of
sudden indignation caused by the misconduct of
his vctturino; the man's ears did not escape a
smart boxing at the hands of the Roman citizen
and Knight of the Order of St. Michael, who
prudently altered his course lest he should be
brought before a magistrate on the charge of
assault. Pilgrims, single or in troops, clad in
the appropriate garb, and bearing banners and
319

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

crosses, as he drew near to Loreto crowded the
highway. In the holy place he gazed upon the
wooden image of Our Lady, and in a favoured
position affixed as an offering his silver figures
of the Montaigne family. Having, in the chapel
of the Cassctta, partaken of the Blessed Sacra-
ment, and listened to many tales of miracles,
ancient and modern, on the credibility of which
he pronounces no judgment, he set forth before
the end of April, in the faint hope of some heal-
ing for the body, towards the Baths of Lucca.

At the Bagni della Villa, Montaigne, who
arrived before the season had opened, chose a
lodging not merely for its interior comfort but
because its outlook on the valley and mountains
was beautiful; at night the soft rippling of the
Lima was in his ears. His host, a gallant cap-
tain, was also an apothecary. Here, as at other
baths which he had visited, he disregarded the
regular mode of treatment and freely took his
own way, believing that the waters could do little
harm or good. " A vain thing, indeed," he sighs,
" is medicine". But his malady was not always
troublesome. Soon after the season had begun,
observing a pleasant custom of the place, he in-
vited both gentlefolk and rustics to a ball, and
himself provided the pipers, the supper, and prizes
for the most graceful dancers among the villagers.
There is genuine glee in his record of the gaiety,
320

MONTAIGNE ON HIS TRAVELS

and of the ceremonious presentations to the prize-
winners. And it was not only the comely maidens
who were made happy by his kindness. Poor
Divizia, thirty-seven years old, ugly, with her
wallet of a goitre, unable to read or write, yet de-
lighting to hear Ariosto recited, and shaping her
poor thoughts and fancies into instinctive verse,
was given a place at his table, and repaid his
goodness with rhymes in his honour, which,
though no more than rhymes, had a certain
grace of style. It was the busy time, when mul-
berry leaves are plucked, and yet a hundred young
men and maidens attended the dance.

Towards midsummer Montaigne left the baths
and again visited Florence, where between
chariot-races, state ceremonies on St. John's Day,
inspecting ladies, purchasing books at the shop of
the Giunti, and what not, he found much to enter-
tain the time. Pisa, where his feeling for the
beauty of art was in some degree awakened, and
where a battle royal between ecclesiastics in the
church of San Francesco made gossipry lively,
pleased him as well or better. From Lucca, in
mid-August, he returned to the Baths, and there
on September 7 came a letter from Bordeaux
which brought a great surprise for the reader —
more than a month previously, as it informed him,
he had been elected mayor of the city. Five days
later he was on his way to Lucca. He did not
21 321

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

hasten back to France. He returned to Rome,
But there upon the day of his arrival — Sunday,
October i, 1581 — a letter was handed to him,
from the jurats of Bordeaux, begging him earn-
estly to repair with all convenient speed to their
city. On the morning of the 1 5th he parted from
his young brother Mattecoulon, who stayed in
Rome to perfect himself in the art of fencing, and
from young d'Estissac, and was on his homeward
way. Partly on horseback, partly borne in a
litter, he crossed Mont Cenis ; and, his impatience
rising as he approached home, entered the chateau
of Montaigne, after an absence of over seventeen
months, on the last day of November, 1581.

322

CHAPTER XI

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR: CLOSING YEARS

The first act of Montaigne on learning that he
had been elected mayor of Bordeaux was an ex-
pression of his wish to be " excused". A letter
from Henri HI., written at Paris five days before
the traveller's arrival at the chateau, expressly en-
joined him, under pain of the King's serious dis-
pleasure, to yield to the wishes of his fellow citi-
zens. It was a time when the pointer of the
political weather-glass trembled towards concilia-
tion. Montaigne's predecessor in the mayoralty,
a fiery spirit, the Marshal de Biron, had made
himself unpleasing to the people, to Henri of
Navarre, to his Queen, and now to Henri III. in
his pacific mood. The election of Montaigne
gratified all parties, except Biron and Biron's son.
Montaigne's father had been a mayor devoted to
his municipal duties; he was himself a man of
some wealth and of much distinction ; he was
known to be no violent partisan, but on the con-
trary eminently reasonable, moderate, and dis-
creet. But, if he was not old, he felt that he had
lost some of his youthful energy ; his health was
323

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

broken; he was a lover of retirement, one who
commended " a Hfe ghding shadowy and silent".
With characteristic frankness and fidelity he repre-
sented himself to the electors as he felt himself
to be — " without memory, without vigilance,
without experience, and without vigour ; but also
without hatred, without ambition, without ava-
rice, and without violence." They were not to
expect him to be like his father; he could not
undertake to lose himself in their civic affairs.
He might lend himself to the public ; but give
himself he would not, and could not. It was,
indeed, his habit to promise less than he hoped to
perform. Much of wisdom, he thought, lies in
finding the exact degree of friendship which each
man owes himself; it is true that we cannot live
aright for ourselves unless we live for others;
and when duties have been accepted, we must be-
stow our best care and attention upon them, and
" if need be our sweat and our blood". Yet if
we can give our gifts quietly, without eagerness
or perturbation, and can still possess our souls, it
will be best. Even business itself will move more
surely and more smoothly if, in a certain sense,
we stand above it, and remain sufficiently detached
from it to exercise on every matter a disinterested
judgment and use our address and skill in busi-
ness cheerfully, but without passion.

With thoughts such as these Montaigne ac-
324

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

cepted an office wliich he had never thought of
seeking and was obedient to the King's monition.
It was an office of no common distinction. The
privileges of which Bordeaux had been deprived
after the revolt of the Gabelle were now almost
fully restored to the city. Montaigne's predeces-
sors had been persons of eminence. For being
influenced by this consideration he smilingly finds
a precedent in Alexander the Great, who declined
the citizenship of Corinth until he was informed
that Bacchus and Hercules were also on the regis-
ter. The actual duties of the mayoralty in times
of quiet were not arduous, but the mayor was im-
portant, robed in his brocaded red-and-white
velvets or satins, as a representative of the ancient
dignities of Bordeaux ; he took precedence of
many eminent nobles, and in times of disturb-
ance his responsibility was great. The office was
without emolument, and was held for a period
of two years, with the possibility of reelection;
Montaigne could feel that if he lent himself to the
interests of his fellow citizens, it was no affair
of hire or salary, but an unmercenary loan. The
titular governor of Guyenne, under the King of
France, was Henri of Navarre. The active
authority was wielded by the lieutenant-governor,
the Marshal de Matignon, whom Montaigne had
met at the siege of La Fere, a courageous and
loyal Catholic, but liberal, tolerant, and discreet.
325

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

With him such an official as Montaigne would
not find it difficult to cooperate.

Montaigne's period of mayoralty was extended,
by reelection in 1583, from two to four years.
The first term of office passed in comparative tran-
quillity. It was necessary to recall the Jesuits to
a sense of their duty towards the unhappy found-
lings, whose care they had undertaken in con-
sideration of certain advantages to themselves,
and had transferred at a low rate of payment to
an unscrupulous agent, with the result that the
mortality among the little ones had become a
scandal. The self-indulgent egoist of the Mon-
taigne legend — which is not wholly a legend —
came forward on this occasion as a defender of
the weak against the strong. In the first days
after his reelection he shows himself again in the
same character. Many of the wealthy inhabitants
of Bordeaux had asserted their right to exemption
from certain taxes on the ground of being con-
nected directly or indirectly with the public ad-
ministration, and the taxes in consequence bore
heavily upon the poor. The mayor and the
jurats made the cause of the feeble their own,
and addressed a spirited remonstrance to the
King, taking the opportunity also to urge that
each parish should maintain its own poor, and
that religious foundations should not neglect their
charitable duties. In his own old school, the Col-
326

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

lege of Guyenne, the mayor maintained his in-
terest; towards the rival institution, of more
recent origin, presided over by the Jesuits, he
showed, as far as can be ascertained, no hostility ;
but the college to which his father had sent him
when a boy, now presided over by the venerable
filie Vinet, claimed his special regard, and he
gave his official approval to the regulations which
were published in 1583 under the title, Schola
aquitanica. He pleaded with the lieutenant-gov-
ernor, Henri of Navarre, on behalf of those who
were suffering from restraints placed upon the
free navigation of the Garonne. He assisted in
making arrangements for the reconstruction of
the Tour de Cordouan, a lighthouse essential for
the security of sailors near the point where the
Gironde meets the sea. He journeyed to Paris
probably to secure the complete restoration of the
privileges of his fellow citizens. Montaigne had
not promised to be very zealous in public affairs,
and at times he preferred his quiet chateau to the
streets of Bordeaux; but upon the whole he was
better than his word.

By the convention of Fleix it had been deter-
mined that, with a view to securing judicial im-
partiality between the contending parties in the
province, a new Court of Justice for Guyenne, the
members of which were to be drawn from more
disinterested quarters than Bordeaux, should be
327

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

established, and should hold its first session in the
city over which Montaigne presided as mayor.
Its proceedings were opened in January 1582.
Among the members were the future historian,
Jacques- Auguste de Thou, then aged twenty-nine,
and a grandson of Montaigne's friend, the Chan-
cellor I'Hopital. An inaugural address, explain-
ing the origin and object of the court, and pro-
claiming, in oratorical periods, the doctrine of
conciliation, was delivered in the great hall of the
convent of the Jacobins, and in the presence of
Montaigne, by the advocate-general, Antoine
Loisel. He also pronounced the closing address
in August of the same year. The first of these
discourses, published in 1584 under the title Of
the Eye of Kings and of Justice, was not long
since announced by an English writer as possibly
a hitherto unrecognised work of Montaigne; the
Montaignophiles of Bordeaux smiled at the
courageous discoverer, and one of them had the
infinite satisfaction — at which Montaigne himself
might have smiled — of exposing the incompetence
of the " hihliopliile anglais".^ The second dis-
course, designed to do honour to the city of Bor-
deaux (where the speaker had passed several
months), to its monuments, and to its illustrious

* See Un Livre inconnu attribnahle a Montaigne . . .
par Philomneste Senior, Bordeaux : 1902.

328

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

citizens — among others to the citizen of Rome
who now was mayor — is dedicated to Montaigne.
" one of the principal ornaments not only of
Guyenne but also of the whole of France". When
the Essays were published in the edition of 1588,
Montaigne presented a copy to Loisel bearing an
inscription in which, with an added touch of
humorous self-depreciation, he begs for the kind
advice of his friend. Loisel's colleague, De Thou,
was already devoted to historical research. In
his Memoirs he speaks of his intercourse with
Montaigne. "He gained," he says, "much in-
struction from Michel de Montaigne — a man of
frank and open nature, averse to all constraint,
one who had entered into no cabal ; highly in-
structed, moreover, in our affairs, chiefly in those
of Guyenne, his native country, about which he
was thoroughly informed."

The mayor of Bordeaux, during his first two
years of office, was little concerned in political
affairs. But the season of political calm was pass-
ing aw'ay. Already some trouble had arisen be-
tween the municipal authorities and the Baron de
Vaillac, a man of extreme Catholic sympathies,
governor of the Chateau Trompette, wdiich from
a military point of view dominated the city. The
reelection of Montaigne did not pass without
some resistance, though a resistance that was
brushed aside on an appeal to the King. In
329

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

August of that year Henri III., after his pubhc
insults to his sister, the Queen of Navarre, had
ordered her to quit Paris. Dishonoured as she
was with accusations of a shameless life, Mar-
guerite was an outcast from her husband. In
November Henri of Navarre took sudden action,
seized upon Mont-de-Marsan, and held it in force.
It was a part of prudence that he should stand
well with the mayor of Bordeaux. A series of
letters were addressed by Du Plessis-Mornay, on
behalf of his master, to Montaigne with the object
of detaching him from the lieutenant-governor,
Matignon, or at least of securing a fair hearing
for the explanations and pleas of the King
of Navarre. Mornay had the assurance that
the mayor of Bordeaux, in his " tranquillity of
spirit, was neither a stirrer up of strife nor him-
self stirred up for a light cause". His master,
he assured Montaigne, desired nothing but
peace.

And, in truth, peace was convenient at this
moment for the King of Navarre, but he desired
to obtain favourable military concessions as an
equivalent for his generosity in receiving back his
discredited Queen. Suddenly, while these nego-
tiations were in progress, the whole position of
affairs was altered by what Montaigne might have
named Fortune. On June lo, 1584, the Duke of
Anjou died, and by his death left Henri of Na-
330

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

varre the heir presumptive to the throne of
France.

Montaigne held Henri of Navarre in high
esteem; he accepted a legitimate title because it
was legitimate ; he saw no serious difficulty in the
King's adherence to the Reformed Faith, which
he regarded aright as more politic than theologi-
cal ; and Henri assuredly believed in tolerance
and humanity. When the League put forward
the Cardinal de Bourbon as a rival claimant for
the succession of the crown, no support was given
to the faction by Montaigne. In the spring of
1584 he was at the chateau, resting and recover-
ing from an attack of his malady. In May he
was engaged as an intermediary between the King
of Navarre and Matignon. Towards the close
of the same year Henri was at no great distance
from the chateau. The jurats of Bordeaux en-
treated the mayor to return to the city; he had
no choice but to excuse himself — he had the whole
court of the King of Navarre upon his hands;
they were about to come and see him ; by and by
he would be more free; meanwhile, in the matter
which immediately concerned them, his presence,
he assured them, would bring them " nothing but
his own embarrassment and uncertainty in form-
ing an opinion or a decision".

A few days later, on December 19, 1584, Henri
of Navarre, followed by a train of some forty
331

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

persons of the highest distinction, arrived at the
chateau of Montaigne. It had never before en-
tertained so brilHant an assemblage, and Mon-
taigne enumerates with pride the names of the
principal guests in his copy of Beuther's EpJiem-
erides. They were served by his own atten-
dants; here was no fear of foul play, and the
meats were eaten unassayed; the King slept in
Montaigne's own bed. During two days they
enjoyed the hospitality of the chateau, and as they
set forth a stag was started for them in their
host's forest, which gave them sport for two days
more. This on Montaigne's part was honourable
service to the future King of France. Had he
desired to ingratiate himself in dishonourable
ways, the opportunity for doing so was open to
him. Montaigne had long been in cordial rela-
tions with Diane d'Andouins, '' la belle Cori-
sande", who now held Henri under her spell. He
chose a more courageous and an honester course
of action than that of flattering her on her tri-
umph ; he counselled her " not to entangle with
his passions the interest and fortune of the prince,
and since her influence over him was so great to
have more consideration for his usefulness * than
his private humours." She may have regarded
such advice, without active resentment, as part of

* Or perhaps " his profit" — " titilite".
332

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

an old friend's kindly prudence, but she had a
more powerful counsellor in the passion of the
King.

Though looking upon the King of Navarre as
the hope of France, Montaigne never forgot that
his loyalty was due to Henri HI. The old mari-
ner in a great tempest, he tells us in one of his
essays, spoke thus to Neptune : " O God, thou
wilt save me, if it be thy will, and if thou
choosest, thou wilt destroy me ; but, however it
be, I will always hold my rudder straight." And,
indeed, a supple, ambiguous man might have been
less secure than Montaigne. He kept himself in
close communication with Matignon, the acting
representative of the King of France, and fur-
nished him, in letters which remain to us, with
whatever information might prove useful. The
danger of the time, and especially the danger for
the peace of Bordeaux, arose more from the de-
signs of the League than from those of the King
of Navarre. In April, 1585, the Leaguers had
the hope that by a sudden rising they might obtain
command of the city. Vaillac, the governor of the
Chateau Trompette, was zealous in their cause.
With the pretext that he had orders to communi-
cate from the King, Matignon summoned an
assembly of the mayor, the jurats, and the prin-
cipal members of the administration. The pas-
sages to the chamber in Matignon's hotel were
32Z

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

occupied by armed guards. In some opening
words he spoke of the evil intentions of the
League; he went on to explain the immediate
danger to the city, for which the remedy must
needs be short and sharp. Then turning his eyes
on Vaillac, he declared that his fidelity was sus-
pected, and that he must forthwith place the
Chateau Trompette in loyal hands. Vaillac
quailed, but protested and pleaded his honour.
Matignon silenced the speaker, demanded obedi-
ence under threat of immediate execution in
presence of his garrison, disarmed him, delivered
him to the guards, and directed the mayor to
make known to the citizens of Bordeaux the pur-
poses of the King and his lieutenant-governor.
For some hours Vaillac still resisted, then made a
virtue of necessity, was handed back his sword,
and standing at the gate of the Chateau Trom-
pette directed his officers to come forth and take
their orders from the marshal. It only remained
for the mayor and jurats some days later to em-
body in writing a fervent declaration of their
loyalty to the King.

Thus the danger from the Leaguers within Bor-
deaux was averted. The movements of the
Huguenots throughout the province caused
anxiety from the opposite side. A month after
the seizure of the Chateau Trompette, Matignon
was absent at Agen, and had left the city under

334

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

the care of men on whom he could rely and,
among them, the mayor. The responsibihty
weighed upon Montaigne; he saw to gates and
guards, feared some unforeseen movement which
might suddenly " take him by the throat", and
prayed for the return of the marshal. It was the
time of the annual review of the armed citizens of
Bordeaux. Some of the authorities hesitated and
spoke of the serious risks, under the present cir-
cumstances, of such a gathering. Montaigne,
who always walked with head erect, urged that
prudence lay in boldness; the officials, whose
danger was greatest, should, he declared, assume
a confident bearing, and should beg the captains
to order that the salvoes should be " belles ct
gaillardes" in honour of those who were present,
and that the powder should not be spared. Mon-
taigne's counsel was justified by the event, yet
still there was much cause for anxiety. On May
27 he writes to Matignon : " The neighbour-
hood of M. de Vaillac fills us with alarms, and
there is no day that does not bring fifty and of
an urgent nature. We most humbly beg you to
come to us as soon as ever your affairs will
permit you. I have passed every night either in
the city under arms or without the city on the
port; and before receiving your information, I
had already watched throughout the night, upon
intelligence of a boat laden with armed men,
335

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

which was to pass." A postscript adds the words :
" Every day I have been at the Chateau Trom-
pette. You will find the platform made. I see
the Archbishop daily."

A more irresistible terror than that caused by
the machinations of the League invaded Bordeaux
as Montaigne's second period of mayoralty drew
towards a close. The city was stricken by the
plague. Almost every citizen whose circum-
stances permitted it took to flight. The Parlia-
ment ceased to sit. On the last day of July Mon-
taigne's term of office expired. Matignon had
returned to the stricken city a month previously.
On the eve of the election of Matignon as his
successor, Montaigne was at Libourne. He wrote
to the jurats, assuring them that he would spare
neither his life nor any other thing in their ser-
vice, and leaving it to them to decide whether the
gain of his presence at the approaching election
was worth the risk which he should run by enter-
ing the infected city. He proposed, as a com-
promise, that he should next day approach as near
as Feuillas, a chateau opposite Bordeaux on the
right bank of the Garonne, and should there de-
liver up his charge. On July 31 he was at
Feuillas, and again addressed a letter to the jurats.
His last act as mayor of Bordeaux was to give
the weight of his authority against the inhuman
practice of taking women and children prisoners.
336

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

Our information should be much fuller than it
is at present before we should be justified in
passing a sentence of condemnation on Mon-
taigne for remaining absent from the city during
the visitation of the plague. Matignon may have
made such arrangements as would have rendered
Montaigne's residence in Bordeaux an act of use-
less chivalry. Neither Matignon nor any of his
contemporaries censured him. He was not, as
was Rotrou, poet and mayor of Dreux, who per-
ished through his zeal, a man of the heroic breed ;
but he was a loyal man, who would neglect
nothing that he judged to be a real duty. He
had recently borne much stress and strain; he
had shown his energy, his courage, and his public
spirit. Some months previously his state of
health had made it needful for him to retire to
the repose of his chateau. We cannot tell whether
an access of his malady did not compel him to
retire again. " Nothing noble," he wrote, " can
be done without hazard. . . . Prudence, so deli-
cate and circumspect, is a mortal enemy of high
exploits." We do not know whether high exploits
were possible for Montaigne; we do not know
whether he yielded to necessity or to an unheroic
prudence; we can neither applaud nor justly con-
demn.

Looking back upon his services as mayor of
Bordeaux, he did not himself find much to praise
22 337

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

or anything to blame. He had played his part;
he had donned his shirt, but the shirt was not the
skin — " the mayor and Montaigne were always
two, with a very evident separation". His work
had been that of conserving and holding on —
" conserver et durer", not the work of an initiator
or a reformer : " To forbear doing is often as gen-
erous as to do, but it is less in the light, and what
little worth I have is of this kind." On the whole
Bordeaux during his administration had enjoyed
" a sweet and silent tranquillity" ; if this was due
to Providence rather than to any exertions of his,
he was well content that he should owe his suc-
cesses to the grace of God. He was not satisfied
with himself, but he had done almost as well as he
had hoped to do, and had exceeded by a great
deal what he had promised to others. He was
confident that he had left no offence or hatred
behind him — " to leave behind regret and desire
for me I at least know for certain was not a thing
which I greatly affected." His hours of office
passed without mark or trace. Very well ! — " il
est bon!" He might be accused of doing too
little, but was it not a time when almost every
one might be convicted of doing too much? So
he ponders the past, and his final verdict upon
himself is given in all sincerity — " I did not, to
my knowledge, omit any exertion which my duty
really demanded of me."
338

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

The plague was not confined to the city of Bor-
deaux. It ravaged the country, and reached the
neighbourhood of Montaigne's chateau, where
contagion had never before, in the memory of
man, obtained a hold. The grapes hung un-
touched upon the vines, the fields were neglected ;
no outcries of lamentation or despair were heard ;
the peasantry accepted the inevitable with a
strange patience, came, as it were, to terms with
death, and cared only that their bodies might not
lie uncovered by the earth. Montaigne had not
much apprehension for himself; he believed that
he was little liable to infection ; and death by the
plague did not seem to him the worst of deaths.
But his wife, his daughter, and his aged mother
must, if possible, be placed in safety, and he must
act as guide and conductor to his caravan of dis-
tracted women. His undefended house was pil-
laged by the irregular soldiery wandering over the
country. Persons passing from an infected dis-
trict to one still free from attack were regarded
with horror; if one's finger ached, it must needs
be the plague, and departure was demanded.
Montaigne, who had been so hospitable, could
with difficulty find any shelter for his family, and
during six miserable months they shifted from
place to place. Two excellent preservatives, how-
ever, he always carried with him — resolution and
endurance,

339

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The evil days passed, and probably before the
end of the year the homeless wanderers had re-
turned to the chateau. Montaigne was freed from
anxiety, released from public duties in Bordeaux,
and able once more to enjoy the delights of soli-
tude or the company of his beloved books ; able to
read, to invite his soul, and to speak to the sheets
of paper that lay before him. During the interval
between the close of 1585 and the opening of
1588 he occupied himself with preparing the Es-
says in the form in which they appeared in the
latter year. The Essays in the original edition
of 1 580 had met with a favourable reception ; two
years later they were reprinted with a few slight
touches showing the author's interest in his work.
The edition of 1588 is called on the title-page the
fifth ; but only those now mentioned, and a Paris
reprint of 1587, are known. That which has dis-
appeared is conjectured to have been an unauthor-
ised reprint of Rouen.

Montaigne had been asked to write a history
of his own times, which, it was supposed, would
have had the advantage of being the work of an
impartial spectator rather than of a heated par-
tisan. But he could not lay such a burden upon
his own shoulders. The free, discontinuous way
of writing suited his temper best. Yet, in the new
confidence acquired from proofs of his popularity
as an author, he was disposed to let his chapters
340

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

run to greater length, if they were not formal in
their continuity; if within the ampler bounds he
might go forward or turn aside as the humour
took him. He thought that the frequent breaks
in the earlier and shorter essays dissipated the
reader's attention almost as soon as it was cre-
ated ; a reader who would not give an hour gave
him nothing, and need not be considered. He
spoke more freely and familiarly of himself, feel-
ing now more than ever before that any contribu-
tion he could make towards true views of human
life must be taken in relation to the speaker; the
angle of incidence where the ray impinges must
be calculated; the book was no more than the
opinions of Michel de Montaigne, but while he
might have his individual peculiarities, v;hich
ought to be known, he had within him also some-
thing of universal humanity. He drew such
wisdom as he had to offer primarily from him-
self. In writing he did not need a great library;
he looked with some scorn upon scholars of men-
dicant understanding, who gather the alms of
knowledge from their shelves. As for himself,
Plutarch was enough, Plutarch alone was indis-
pensable. If he borrowed, it was to make others
say for him with happier utterance what he had
himself thought. And it was pleasant to consider
that if a reader quarrelled with the Essayist, he
might really be railing, not against Montaigne,
341

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

but Seneca; or in giving a fillip on Montaigne's
nose might in fact malve Plutarch his jest or his
victim. Wherever in his reading he noted a quo-
tation which confirmed or added force to what he
had written, he inserted it in an appropriate place.
Many of the additions to the first two Books are
of this kind; but the earlier essays were elastic
enough to be extended in other ways; a place
here and a place there was found for anec-
dotes, personal reminiscences, new and striking
thoughts; something of the original scheme and
sequence was lost ; but scheme and sequence were
not the special virtue of the Essays. The banyan-
tree threw down its branches ; and, as they rooted,
they changed to trunks supporting more spacious
crowns. To trace out the logic of an essay, the
earlier form is valuable; but the added wisdom
and play of mind more than make amends, in
such work as this, for any loss of formal evolu-
tion. " I add, but I correct not", he says ; and
he goes on to explain that having parted with his
book, he no longer felt that it was his to alter,
nor indeed was he sure that years had brought
him any new wisdom which might justify emen-
dations of the work of his former self. And yet,
in fact, there are passages where he alters as well
as adds, in some few instances qualifying or
attenuating what he had previously written, but
more often enhancing the force of his idea or the
342

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

vivacity of its expression. To the criticism of
friends or acquaintances Montaigne was not dis-
posed to yield; if a definite error were pointed
out he was wilHng to correct it; but if objections
were made to his crowded metaphors, his seem-
ing paradoxes, his imperfect knowledge, his Gas-
con turns of expression, his words uttered in jest
w^hich might be taken for words uttered in
earnest, he had an answer ready. These things
were part of himself; he had represented himself
to the life ; every one would recognise him in his
book, and the book in him. If the whole volume
was a piece of ill-joined marquetry, it was the
marquetry of an ill-joined mind. If he fagoted
his notions as they fell, was not he himself no
better than a bundle of humorous diversities?

Solitude among unlettered folk did not seem
to Montaigne to be wholly a disadvantage. Un-
der other conditions his book might have been
better, but it might have been less his own. He
met hardly a man who understood the Latin of
his Paternoster; he had no assistant to aid him
or to lighten his labours. Yet one man of learn-
ing he did meet, and entertained in July, 1586,
under his hospitable roof. Pope, in one of his
" moral essays", connects the name of Montaigne
with that of " more sage Charron" — more sage,
says Warburton, because Charron moderated the
extreme Pyrrhonism of Montaigne. In truth he
343

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

systematised and methodised the suspended judg-
ment of Montaigne, or incHned the balance of
" Que sgay-je?" towards nescience rather than
knowledge. He was eight years younger than
Montaigne, joyous of temper, jovial of counte-
nance, an ecclesiastic of distinction, a believer
who was also a sceptic, qualified in all ways, ex-
cept for a certain lack of intellectual flexibility,
to be Montaigne's devoted disciple. Such a dis-
ciple was welcome to the solitary philosopher of
the tower; " praise," we read in the Essays, " is
always pleasant"; and discipleship is the most
efficient kind of praise. After all, Montaigne had
belied himself — he could produce not only " es-
says", but " effects".

Early in 1588 Montaigne left the chateau for
Paris, probably with the intention of superintend-
ing the new edition of the Essays as it went
through the press. Near the forest of Villebois
he was attacked by a band of some fifteen or
twenty gentlemen of the League, wearing vizors,
and followed by an overwhelming wave of mus-
keteers on horseback. He was dismounted,
robbed of his horse, his money, his papers, all his
possessions of travel. His ransom was discussed ;
his life seemed to be in question. He bore him-
self stoutly ; and once again, as in the former plot
to seize upon the chateau, he was saved by his
frank, courageous countenance and his gallant
344

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

speech. According to the dramatic version of
the incident given in the essay on Pliysiognomy,
the leader pulled off his vizor, declared his name,
and restored to the captive all that he had been
deprived of. A letter to Matignon written from
Orleans represents the Leaguers as less generous ;
they dismissed him, but retained his money, with
many of his papers and part of his other proper-
ties. It may be that these were afterwards sent
to him and that the dramatist of the Essays does
not depart very widely from the prosaic facts.

About midsummer, 1588, the Essays in their
new form appeared. To this period of Mon-
taigne's residence in Paris we may with proba-
bility refer a dangerous illness spoken of by his
friend Pierre de Brach, the poet and advocate, of
Bordeaux, in a letter addressed after the Essay-
ist's death to the eminent humanist, Justus Lip-
sius. " Being together, some years ago, in Paris,"
he writes, " the physicians despairing of his life,
and he himself hoping only for his end, I saw him
when death looked him closest in the face, repel
far from him its terror by contemning it." De
Brach goes on to describe Montaigne's equa-
nimity, and to refer to his words of philosophic
wisdom; "he had cheated death by his self-pos-
session, and death cheated him by his convales-
cence." He was sufificiently recovered in June and
July to follow the French King in some of the
345

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

enforced wanderings of his Court when the capi-
tal was held by the Duke of Guise and the League.
A disagreeable surprise awaited Montaigne on
his return from Rouen to Paris. He was seized
at his lodgings in the Faubourg St. Germain
and he, who had never known the interior of a
prison, found himself, as we learn from the
Ephemcridcs, a prisoner in the Bastille. He was
told that his seizure was by way of reprisal for
the like treatment by the King of a gentleman of
Normandy. It was a brief incarceration, hardly
long enough to widen the basis of Montaigne's
experience. His arrest was at three or four
o'clock on the afternoon of July lo; at eight
o'clock in the evening of the same day he was
released. The favour was granted through the
special intervention of the Queen Mother, Cathe-
rine de' Medici.

Paris, which he loved so warmly, was not
wholly unkind. It was here that he had received
an eager salutation from a young, accomplished,
and enthusiastic stranger, attracted to him solely
by her admiration of the Essays, Marie le Jars de
Gournay. Montaigne was no surly philosopher of
the cynic sect. He responded with all the warmth
of fifty-five years, which had not grown frosty,
to the ardour of her summer-time of twenty-
three. Soon he became her spiritual father and
she became his " Ullc d'alliance", a title by which,
346

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

as she herself declares, she felt herself " glorified
and beatified". She lived in Picardy with her
mother, the widow of a distinguished public offi-
cial who had died young; she read with passion-
ate curiosity, mastered Latin, faltered at Greek,
and before the year 1588 was ended, had written
a romance of love, in the Renaissance manner,
with a Persian princess for her heroine. In
honour of the visits of Montaigne to Gournay-
sur-Aronde — visits which extended over some
three months — and especially with a recollection
of one walk in the course of which Marie dis-
closed its plot, the romance was proudly entitled
Le Proiimenoir de M. de Montaigne. The philos-
opher received the homage of his female dis-
ciple with grateful feelings. He celebrates the
friendship which came to him so late in a passage
at the close of the essay on Presumption, a pas-
sage added in the posthumous edition of 1595,
which Mile, de Gournay herself saw through the
press. In her edition of 1635, dedicated to Car-
dinal Richelieu, the old lady, who then seemed
to belong to a remote generation of the past,
modestly suppressed her own praises, and apolo-
gised for this audacious modesty.

On October 15, 1588, the States General met

at Blois. Montaigne was present not in an official

capacity but as an interested observer. There,

renewing his former acquaintance, he discussed

347

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

public affairs with De Thou. There he hstened,
silently and no doubt smilingly, to Pasquier as
he pointed out the atrocious Gasconisms of the
language of the Essays; the critic was confident
that he had made an impression, but the Gascon-
isms reappear in the posthumous text, although
the author had made careful preparations for the
edition which he did not live to superintend.
There, too, he conversed with the King's geogra-
pher, De Laval, and it has been plausibly con-
jectured that certain annotations made by Laval
upon the Essays may contain traces of the con-
versations at Blois.

The assassination of Guise, during the session
of the States General at Blois, was avenged before
many months by the assassination of the French
King, who had distributed the daggers to his mur-
derers. In August, 1589, the King of Navarre
became the King of France, though not as yet
with an undisputed title. Montaigne had returned
to Bordeaux before the startling event of the pre-
ceding Christmas-tide. The vigorous rule of
Matignon, shown in his expulsion of the Jesuits
from the city, had preserved Bordeaux from the
domination of the League. We cannot doubt that
Montaigne was hopeful that the poor vessel,
France, would at length right herself under the
steerage of so skilful and prudent a helmsman as
Henri IV. Three days after the battle of Coutras,
348

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

in October, 1587, Henri had visited for the second
time the chateau of Montaigne. It is doubtless
the King whom Montaigne describes, without
naming him, in the essay on the Management
of the Will, applauding him for his tranquil self-
possession and freedom of spirit in the conduct
of great and thorny affairs — "I find him greater
and more capable in ill fortune than in good ; his
losses are more glorious than his victories, and
his mourning than his triumph." Montaigne was
well aware — so, recalling a conversation, reports
Agrippa d'Aubigne — that in reaching the throne
the last step was the highest and most difficult of
all. He did not live to hear of the meeting of
the States General at the Louvre, in January,
1593, the reconciliation of Henri to the Church
of Rome, and the submission of Paris to the King.
But before the battle of Ivry he could see whither
things were tending. In two admirable letters
addressed by Montaigne to Henri, in reply to
letters from the King, he unites entire loyalty with
a gracious independence. In the earlier, dated
January 18, 1590, he congratulates the King on
the successes which had attended his arms, and
expresses his hope that the tide of popular favour
had now begun to flow in his direction; at the
same time he regrets that any of the King's suc-
cesses should have been tarnished by the violence
or rapacity of his soldiery ; he could have wished
349

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

that Henri had had the opportunity as a victor
of being more generous to his mutinous subjects
than their own leaders had shown themselves.
The welfare of King and people are in truth
essentially bound together; it was to be desired
that every good fortune which befell the King
should cause him to be rather loved than feared
by his subjects. Such thoughts and aspirations
as these speak nobly for the writer's heart and
intellect. The second letter, written in Septem-
ber of the same year, declares his zeal to
obey certain commands of the King, which re-
quired that he should hold personal communica-
tion with Matignon. In response to some pro-
posal that he should attend upon Henri and
receive a recompense for his services, he professes
with an honourable pride that whatever duties he
may at any time have rendered to the throne were
disinterested and unrewarded : " I am, Sire, as
rich as I wish to be. When I shall have exhausted
my purse in attendance on Your Majesty in Paris,
I shall make bold to let you know it; and then,
should you think me worthy of being retained in
your suite, you shall have me at a cheaper rate
than the most insignificant of your officers."

Montaigne had not the happiness to see Henri

IV. in the Louvre, His years were drawing to

a close. He occupied himself partly in the affairs

of his estate, his husbandry and his vines. He

350

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

corresponded with the eminent scholar, Justus
Lipsius, to whose learning he does honour in the
Essays, and with his '' fillc d'alliancc", Mile, de
Gournay ; but none of these letters of Montaigne
have reached us. He gave much time to revising
the Essays in their enlarged form of 1588, and
to enlarging them yet further with a view to a
future edition.

In June, 1590, the chateau lost some of its
brightness. Leonor, Montaigne's only living
child, then aged nineteen, was married on May
27 to Fran9ois de la Tour, and three weeks
later she departed with her husband to her new
home in Saintonge. Next year, at the close of
March, a grandchild of Montaigne's was born, a
girl, to whom the Christian name, Fran^oise, that
of Leonor's mother — the infant's godmother —
was given. The child was precocious at least in
wedlock, being married, with a view to arrange-
ments respecting property, at the age of nine to
a husband aged six.

We possess but scanty memorials of Mon-
taigne's last illness, and yet enough to assure us
that he foresaw and calmly accepted the end.
The letter of the poet Pierre de Brach (who was
not present) to Justus Lipsius is one of sorrow,
somewhat rhetorically dressed, and tells little more
than that Montaigne regretted that he had no
one near him " to whom he could unfold the last
351

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

conceptions of his soul". Florimond de Ray-
mond, on the other hand, speaks of Montaigne's
" philosophising between the extreme fits of suf-
fering". Pasquier states that for three days he
was without the power of speech and expressed
his wishes by his pen; he adds that he sum-
moned certain gentlemen, his neighbours, to
bid them farewell; and it is he who mentions,
speaking from hearsay, that Montaigne with
a pious gesture rendered up his soul to God at
the moment of " the elevation of the Corpus
Domini".

Bernard Anthone, in his commentary on the
customs of Bordeaux, relates what w-e can well
believe to be founded on fact ; feeling his end
approach, Montaigne rose from bed, threw his
dressing-gown around him, opened his cabinet,
and bade them summon all his valets and other
legatees, to whom he paid in person the bequests
left them by his will. The immediate cause of
Montaigne's death was said to be the quinsy ; but
his health had long been declining. He died on
September 13, 1592, when a little more than mid-
way in the sixtieth year of his age. We may
hope that the most natural of all incidents was
accepted tranquilly by Montaigne and was pre-
ceded by no fanfaronade of philosophy or osten-
tation of feelings that had not been part of the
habit of his mind.

352

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

An entry written in the Ephcmeridcs in an
unknown hand records that the heart of Mon-
taigne was deposited in the church of St. Michel
Montaigne, w^iere it is supposed to have re-
mained undisturbed. The body was conveyed to
Bordeaux and was placed in the church of the
Feuillants, May i, 1593. An enlargement of the
church led to the transfer of the coffin in 1614
to the crypt of a lateral chapel. In September,
1800, a pompous translation of what was sup-
posed to be the remains of Montaigne from the
church to the museum of the city took place; it
was ascertained before long that the honours had
been paid not to the ashes of Montaigne but to
those of his niece. In 1871, in consequence of a
fire, the recumbent statue, clad in armour, resting
on the sarcophagus, was placed in the vestibule of
the Faculties of Bordeaux. Epitaphs in Greek
verse and in Latin prose, believed to be the com-
positions of a Bordeaux scholar of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, Jean de St. Martin,
celebrate the virtues and the distinctions of the
dead with perhaps a little less vagueness in eulogy
than is common in such inscriptions. The sage,
declares the Greek epitaph, allied to the dogma
of Christ the scepticism of Pyrrho. The words
in Latin tell of his incomparable judgment, his
wide sympathies, his incapacity either to flatter or
to wound, the becoming close to his admirable
22, 353

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

life, and the devotion of Montaigne's widow to
his memory.

Mme. de Montaigne lost her husband when
she was forty-eight years of age. She lived to be
eighty-three. In all that concerned the fame of
her husband she was deeply interested ; and, de-
vout as she was, she was resolute in asserting her
rights to do his memory all due honour, when
the religious men of the Church of the Feuillants
found it convenient to neglect their engagements
respecting his place of burial. To her excellent
judgment and loyal regard for her husband's
wishes we owe the first text of the Essays.
During his declining days Montaigne had kept
before him a copy of the edition of 1588 and had
covered the margins with innumerable additions
and alterations; he had revised the spelling of
words, and in a considerable degree altered his
system of punctuation, partly with a view to
breaking up sentences that straggled to excessive
length; he had written directions to guide the
printer. The copy of the book which he had
thus prepared is doubtless that which at present
is a chief treasure of the public library of the city
of Bordeaux. The posthumous edition, seen
through the press at Paris, by Mile, de Gournay,
and published in folio by Abel L'Angelier in the
year 1595, differs in many details from the manu-
script text on the margins of the Bordeaux copy.
354

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

To some extent modifications may have been
deemed necessary or advisable by Mile, de Gour-
nay, but according to the ideas of the time she
seems to have executed her task with substantial
fidelity. A second corrected copy, differing in
details from that which remains, may have dis-
appeared; more probably the additional correc-
tions and alterations may have been inserted by
Montaigne on loose slips of paper which, after
use had been made of them, were not preserved.
Until after she had completed her preparation of
the edition of 1595, Montaigne's " fille d' alli-
ance" was not an inmate of the chateau. She
acknowledges her obligations to Pierre de Brach,
the poet of Bordeaux and the friend of the Essay-
ist. It seems to be certain that Mme. de Mon-
taigne placed the manuscript material in the
hands of De Brach, and that he furnished Mile, de
Gournay with the copy on which she and the
printers went to work. No quarrels of authors
arose; all parties, as far as we can perceive,
laboured harmoniously together, and when her
toil of some nine months was at an end, Mile, de
Gournay visited Montaigne's widow and daugh-
ter and found herself among the places with which
the memories of her spiritual father were most
closely associated. There are some readers who
prefer the form of the Essays which their author
had himself put forth in 1588 to the more en-
355

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

cumbered and sometimes interrupted mass of
reflections and reminiscences which make up the
posthumous edition. But the gains must be set
over against the losses. Much that is valuable,
much that is characteristic is to be found only
in the edition of 1595. An author has a right to
present his work as he deems best, and though
Montaigne did not live to bestow his own care
upon the Essays as they reached the press in their
final form, there is no doubt that the posthumous
edition approximates closely to what he would
have desired to see.

Montaigne's daughter lost her husband in 1594,
four years after her marriage. In 1608 she be-
came the wife of Charles de Gamaches, who took
up his abode in the chateau, then the property of
Leonor. There was composed his volume di-
rected against the principles of the Reformed
Faith,* but it cannot be said that the atmosphere
of the tower imparted literary inspiration to Mon-
taigne's son-in-law; such interest as his work
possesses must be sought in its references to the
kinsfolk and descendants of Montaigne. The
little girl, child of Leonor's first husband, who
had gone through the form of marriage with
Honore de Lur, a child younger than herself,

* Le Sense raisonnant sur les passages de V£criture-
Saincte contre les pretcndus rcformez.
356

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

died twelve years later (1612) in giving birth to
a son. This Charles de Lur was killed at the
siege of Salces in Roussillon in 1639, and left no
offspring. By her marriage with Charles de
Gamaches, Leonor became mother of a second
daughter, who at seventeen found a husband in
the brother-in-law of her half-sister. Through
this granddaughter of Montaigne — Marie de Lur
— his posterity has been continued to our own
days. Leonor died in 1616, leaving the little
Marie to be the comfort of Mme. de Montaigne's
old age. Her father's library was bequeathed by
Leonor to M. de Rochefort, grand-vicar of the
archbishopric of Auch. The chateau remained in
the possession of descendants of Montaigne until
the year 181 1.

To trace the influence of Montaigne on French
and on English literature is beyond the scope of
this volume. It would be of deep interest to study
the impression made by Montaigne's writings
upon the mind of Pascal, the acceptance and the
more vehement rejection of his spirit and his
philosophical doctrine by a spirit having certain
points of kinship and much more of contrast or
opposition to his own. The reader must seek for
the history of this contention of two great minds
in Sainte-Beuve's volumes upon Port-Royal. In
England from the first Montaigne was accepted
almost as if he had been an English writer.
357

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Within a few years after their author's death the
Essays were translated by Florio in a version
which, if it sometimes departs widely from the
original, has the merit of being written in the
vivid and picturesque language of the time of
Elizabeth. From Hamlet to The Tempest — if
not in earlier plays — traces of Montaigne may be
found in Shakespeare. A copy of Florio's trans-
lation, with what may be the autograph signature
of Shakespeare on the fly-leaf, is in the British
Museum. There, also, is the copy of the Essays
possessed by Ben Jonson. The title of the most
popular of the writings of Bacon — that which
most came home to men's business and bosoms —
is taken from Montaigne. In the first of Bacon's
essays Montaigne is quoted, and with a reference
to Bacon's source. Sir William Cornwallis, the
younger, adopted for his volume of 1600 the same
title — Essays — and in the Second Part, published
in 1610, he claimed that title as appropriate rather
for 'prentice work like his own than for such
accomplished writings as those of Montaigne,
which " are able to endure the sharpest trial".
During the contention between Roundhead and
Cavalier the temperate wisdom of Montaigne was
not much to the mind of the embittered parties,
though at such a time its lessons would have been
most seasonable. But the Essays had at no time
two better readers than in the second half of the
358

MONTAIGNE THE MAYOR

seventeenth century. One of these was Charles
Cotton, whose translation has justly been es-
teemed a masterpiece. The other was George Sa-
vile, Marquis of Halifax, to whom Cotton dedi-
cated his translation. The admirable author of
The Character of a Trimmer was by the very
constitution of his mind a spiritual kinsman of
Montaigne, whose Essays he describes as " the
book in the world I am best entertained with".
Halifax writes to Cotton with the highest satis-
faction in his work as a translator — to Cotton
alone he yields in his devotion to Montaigne " as
to a more prosperous lover". But Cotton him-
self frankly acknowledges that he had found the
Essays " the hardest book to make a justifiable
version of that I yet ever saw in that, or any other
language I understand" ; and it is true that
spirited and vigorous as his translation is, it has,
in not a few instances, missed the meaning of the
original. Unhappily the correctors of Cotton do
not always mend the matter, and sometimes they
make the departures from the sense of Montaigne
still wider. A translation substantially that of
Cotton, but freed from Cotton's errors, and indi-
cating, as far as could conveniently be done, the
chronology of passages — those of 1580, those of
1588, and those of 1595 — is still a thing to be
desired. No single French edition adequately
presents the successive states of the text; but an

359

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

advance in the direction of such an edition has
been made by reprints of the three original texts,
and by the collation made by MM. Courbet and
Royer of the latest of these with the manuscript
annotations in the Bordeaux copy of the last edi-
tion personally superintended by tlie author.

360

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A LIST OF AUTHORITIES ON MON-
TAIGNE

The earliest editions of the Essais were A.
B our deans, par S. Millangcs: 1580, two parts in
one volume, 8vo; 1582, 8vo (same place and
publisher); 1587, Paris, Jean Richer, i2mo;
1588, Paris, Abel L'Angelier, in quarto (second
form of the Essais); 1593, Lyon, 8vo; 1595,
Paris, Abel L'Angelier, folio (third form of the
Essais).

Montaigne's translation. La theologie naturelle
de Raymond Sehon . . . appeared, without the
translator's name, in Paris; Gille Gourbin, 1569,
8vo. It was republished, Paris, Guillaume Chau-
diere, 1581, 8vo.

In what follows I do not attempt an extended
bibliography, contenting myself with a list of
books which are in my own possession ; but they
include, with several of slight value, those of chief
importance. I have not included historical works,
histories of French literature, Shakespeare and
Montaigne books, nor — except in one instance —
articles found in periodicals.
361

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Author unknown. Un Livre inconnu attribuable a
Montaigne. Reponse a un Bibliophile Anglais par
Philomneste Senior. Bordeaux, 1902, pp. 40. Showing
Antoine Loysel to be the author of L'Giil des Kois ....

BiGORiE DE Laschamps (F.). Michel de Montaigne. Paris
and Rennes, 1855, pp. 327.

BiMBiNET (Eugene). Les Essais de Montaigne dans leurs
rapports avec la legislation moderne. Orleans, 1864,
PP- 73-

BiOT (J. B.). Montaigne. Discours qui a obtenu une
mention, etc. Paris, 1812, pp. 68. Justly commended
by Dr. Payen.

Bois-Gallais (Fr. Lepelle de). Encore une Lettre inedite
de Montaigne. London, 1850, pp. 32, with facsimile.

Bonnefon (Paul). Montaigne. L'Homvie et L'CEuvre.
Bordeaux and Paris, 1893, 4to, pp. xiii, 502. Contains
many illustrations.

Bonnefon (Paul). Montaigne et ses Amis. Paris, 1898,
2 vols. 8vo, pp. 413 and 339. The last, with illustra-
tions omitted, but added studies of La Boetie, Charron,
Mile, de Gournay.

Bonnefon (Paul). La Bibliotheque de Montaigne (article
in Revue d'Histoire litter aire de la France, 15 July,
1895, pp. 313-371). The chapter on Montaigne, La
Boetie, Charron, Du Vair, in L. Petit de Julleville's
Histoire . . . de la Litterature fran^aise, vol. Ill, chap.
8, is by Paul Bonnefon. See La Boetie.

Brunet (Gustave). Les Essais de Michel de Montaigne.
Lei^ons inedites. Paris, 1844, pp. 51. Readings from
the Bordeaux copy of the Essais, with Montaigne's
autograph corrections and additions.

Catalan (£tienne). Etudes sur Montaigne. Analyse de
sa Philosophic. Paris and Lyon, 1846, pp. 350. Intro-
duction and extracts.

Champion (Edme). Introduction aiix Essais de Mon-
taigne. Paris, 1900, pp. 313. A clever, brightly-written
study.

362

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Church (R. W., Dean of St. Paul's). Miscellaneous Es-
says. London, 1888. The Essays of Montaigne occu-
pies pp. 1-85. Originally in Oxford Essays, 1857.

Collins (W. Lucas). Montaigne. Edinburgh and Lon-
don, 1879, pp. 192. In foreign Classics for English
Readers. An informing and popular little book.

Cotton (Charles). Essays of Michael Seigneur de Mon-
taigne. Fourth edition, 171 1, 3 vols. First published
in 1685.

Cotton (Charles). Essays of Montaigne. . . . Edited by
W. Carew Hazlitt. London, 1902, 4 vols. Some re-
vision, not always successful, is attempted. Letters are
included.

De Gourgues (Alexis). Reflexions sur la Vie et le Carac-
tcre de Montaigne. Bordeaux, 1856, pp. 85. Some
documents of interest.

Denis (Ferdinand). Une Fete Brcsilicnne celebree a
Rouen en 1550. Paris, 185 1, pp. 104.

Devienne (Dom). Dissertation sur la Religion de Mon-
taigne. Bordeaux, 1773, pp. 32.

Dezeimeris (Reinhold). Notice sur Pierre de Brach.
Paris, 1858, pp. 133.

Dezeimeris (Reinhold). De la Renaissance des Lettres
a Bordeaux au xvi^ siecle. Bordeaux, 1864, pp. 66.

Dezeimeris (Reinhold). Recherches sur I'auteiir des £pi-
taphes de Montaigne. Paris, 1864, pp. 83, with fac-
simile.

Dezeimeris (Reinhold). Recherches sur la Recension du
Texte posthume des Essais de Montaigne. Bordeaux,
1866, pp. 31 -j- 15.

Dezeimeris (Reinhold). Plan d'Execution d'une Edition
critique des Essais de Montaigne. Bordeaux, 1903,
pp. 24.

Droz (Joseph). Eloge sur Montaigne. Paris, 1812, pp.
38.

DuMONT (Leon). La Morale dc Montaigne. Valen-
ciennes and Paris, 1866, pp. 48. An adverse criticism.

363

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DuTENS (J.). £loge dc Michel de Montaigne. Paris, 1818,
pp. 76.

Emerson (R. W.). Representative Men: Montaigne or
the Sceptic. These lectures were given in 1845-46;
published 1850.

Faguet (£mile). Seisieme Steele. Paris, 1894. Montaigne
occupies pp. 365-421. Life and character; his design;
scepticism ; dogmatism ; man of the Renaissance ; so-
ciologist ; painter of his time ; the writer. An ad-
mirable piece of criticism.

Faugere (A. Prosper). Du Courage Civil ou L'Hopital
ches Montaigne. Discours qui a remporte le Prix
d'Eloquence . . 1836. Publication of the Institute, pp. 2,7-

Favre (Mme. Jules). Montaigne, Moraliste et Peda-
gogue. Paris, 1887, pp. 341.

Feugere (Leon). Etienne de la Bo'etie, ami de Montaigne.
Paris, 1845, pp. 309. To a great extent superseded by
Bonnefon's edition of La Boetie.

Feugere (Leon). Caracteres et Portraits litteraires du
xvie siecle. Paris, 1850, 2 vols., pp. 516 and 503. La
Boetie (the last reprinted) and Montaigne, vol. I, pp.

I-I35-

Feuillet de Conches (F.). Causeries d'un Curieux.
Tome Troisieme. Paris, 1864, pp. 568. Lettres de
Montaigne, pp. 231-360.

Florio (John). Essays . . . done into English . . . Lon-
don, 1613, pp. 630. First published in 1603, again in
1632. Reprint, 6 vols., in Dent's The Temple Classics;
also in Nutt's Tudor Translations.

Galy (E.) and Lapeyre (L.). Montaigne ches lui. Peri-
gueux, 1861, pp. 69. Describes the chateau, with plan;
gives the inscriptions.

Gauthiez (Pierre). Etudes sur le Seisieme Siecle. Paris,
1893. Contains studies of Rabelais, Calvin, and Mon-
taigne.

Grun (Alphonse). Montaigne Magistral. Paris, 1854,
pp. 48. Superseded by the next item.

364

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Grun (Alphonse). La Vie publiquc de Montaigne. Paris,
1855, pp. 414. Important, but exaggerates the " public
life".

GuizoT (Guillaume). Jeunesse de Montaigne, and Mon-
taigne et Ics Lois de son temps (in Revue dcs Corns
litteraires, 13 and 20 January, 1866). Also Montaigne,
1899, with preface by £. Faguet.

Hazlitt (W.) The IVorks of Montaigne. London, 1865.
Cotton's translation, with an attempted revision. Trav-
els, Letters, Bibliography (from Dr. Payen), and sub-
sidiary matter.

H^MON (Felix). Montaigne. Paris, 1892. In Cours de
Littcrature a I'tisage des divers exaniens, pp. xxiv, 47,
4O1 36, 51. Gives a brief history of moral philosophy
in France ; studies on Essays on Friendship, Educa-
tion ; Montaigne as a Moralist ; Essays on Books. A
useful little book.

James (Constantin). Montaigne. Ses Peregrinations
d, quelques Eaux mincrales (Feuilleton in Gazette med-
icate de Paris, June-July, 1859). Republished in a
volume, 1859.

JuBiNAL (Achille). Une Lettre inedite de Montaigne.
Paris, 1850, pp. 116.

KuHN (Emil). Die Bedeutung Montaignes filr unsere
Zeit. Strassburg, 1904, pp. 80.

La Boetie. Le Reveille-Matin des Francois, et de leurs
Voisins. ... A. Edimbourg, 1574. Contains a frag-
ment of La Boetie's Discours de la Servitude volon-
taire, printed for the first time.

La Boetie (£tienne de). La Mesnagerie de Xenophon,
etc. . . . Item, un Discours sur la mart du dit Seig-
neur De la Boetie, par M. de Montaigne. Paris, 1571,
fF. 131. A rare and interesting book.

La Boetie (Etienne de). Memoires de I'Estat de France
sous Charles IX., 1577-78, 3 vols. Prints for the first
time the Servitude voluntaire in vol. Ill, pp. 83-99. The
first edition of Memoires (1576), is of extreme rarity.

365

BIBLIOGRAPHY

La Boetie (fixiENNE de). CEiivres completes (ed. P. Bon-
nefon). Bordeaux and Paris, 1892, pp. Ixxxv, 444.

La Dixmerie (M. de). Eloge analytique et historique de
Michel Montaigne. Amsterdam, 1781, pp. 396.

Lanusse (Maxime). Montaigne. Paris, 1895, pp. 240.
In Collection des Classiques populaires. Biography
slight ; criticism excellent.

Leveaux (Alphonse). Etude sur les Essais de Montaigne.
Paris, 1870, pp. 473.

Lowndes (M. E.). Michel de Montaigne, a Biographical
Study. Cambridge, 1898, pp. 286. A scholarly and sub-
stantial piece of work.

Malvezin (Theophile). Michel de Montaigne, son orig-
ine et sa famille. Bordeaux, 1875, pp. 344. Impor-
tant.

Malvezin (Theophile). Notes sur la Maison d'Habita-
tion de Michel de Montaigne a Bordeaux. Bordeaux,
1889, pp. 63, with plans and illustrations.

Marionneau (Ch.). Une Visite aux Ruines du Chateau
de Montaigne. Bordeaux, 1885, pp. 24. Written after
the fire which destroyed the chateau.

Mazure (F. a. J.). £loge de Montaigne. Paris and An-
gers, 1814, pp. 51-

Montaigne (Michel de). Livre des Essais . . . divise en
deux parties. ... A. Lyon, 1593. First Book, pp. 318.
Second Book (with separate title), pp. 819. A rare
edition, giving the text of 1588.

Montaigne (Michel de). Essais de Michel Seigneur de
Montaigne. Paris, Chez Jean Petit-pas, 1608. Rare.
First appearance of J. de Leu's portrait of Montaigne.

Montaigne (Michel de). Les Essais . . . avecque la vie
de I'Autheur. Paris, 1635, folio. Mile, de Gournay's
last edition, with revised text and a long Preface.

Montaigne (Michel de). Essais. Ed. J-V. Le Clerc.
Study by Provost-Paradol. Paris, 1865, 4 vols. A use-
ful and well-printed edition, with valuable supple-
mentary matter in vol. IV.

366

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Montaigne (Michel de). Essais. . . . Texte original de
1580. . . . ed. R. Dezeimeris et H. Barckhausen. Paris
and Bordeaux, vol. I, 1870; vol. II, 1873. Publications
of the Societe des Bibliophiles de Guyenne. Essential
for study.

Montaigne (Michel de). Les Essais de Montaigne pub-
lics d'aprcs I'cdition de 1588. Ed. H. Motheau et D.
Jouaust. Paris, 7 vols., n. d. (Nouvelle Bibliotheque
classiques des editions Jouaust). There is also a four-
volume edition of the same. Essential for study.

Montaigne (Michel de). Les Essais. . . . Ed. E. Cour-
bet and Ch. Royer. Paris, 5 vols., 1872-1900. The
text of 1595, with variants of earlier editions and of
the annotated copy in the public library of Bordeaux.
Essential for study.

Montaigne (Michel de). Essais. . . . Ed. Charles Louan-
dre. Paris, n. d., 4 vols. Called an " edition vario-
rum", but not so in any full sense ; convenient and
useful and well indexed.

Montaigne (Michel de). Journal du Voyage de Michel
de Montaigne en Italie . . . avec des Notes par M. de
Querlon. Rome and Paris, 1774, 2 vols., pp. cviii,
324 and 601. Also published in one volume, quarto,
same date, and three volumes, i2mo.

Montaigne (Michel de). The same, edited by Professor
Alessandro D'Ancona. Citta di Castello, 1905, pp. Iv
-\- 719. An elaborate and valuable edition, with the
title L'ltalia alia fine del secolo xvi^, giornale del
viaggio di Michele de Montaigne in Italia ncl 1580 e
1581.

Neyrac (Joseph). Montaigne: Le Chateau, Montaigne
intitne, Pierre Magne, La Paroisse. Bergerac, 1904,
pp. 338. Montaigne posed a little too much as a Catho-
lic saint ; but has some local interest.

Norton (Grace). Studies in Montaigne; and The Early
Writings of Montaigne, and Other Papers. New York,
1904, 2 vols., pp. 290 and 218,

367

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Owen (John). Skeptics of the French Renaissance. Lon-
don, 1893.

Pater (Walter). Gaston de Latour. London, 1896 (pre-
viously in Macmillan's Magasine, 1889). Chapter V.,
Suspended Judgment, gives one aspect of Montaigne's
way of thought with Pater's happiest art ; in great
part a mosaic made from the Essays.

Pa YEN (J.-F.). Notice Bibliographique sur Montaigne.
Paris, 1837, pp. 76.

Payen (J.-F.). Documents inedits . . . sur Montaigne.
Paris, 1847.

Payen (J.-F.) Nouveaux Documents inedits ou peu con-
nus sur Montaigne. Paris, 1850, pp. 68, with fac-
similes.

Payen (J.-F.). Documents inedits sur Montaigne. No. 3.
Paris, 1855, pp. 40, with facsimiles.

Payen (J.-F.). Rccherches sur Montaigne, documents in-
edits. No. 4. Paris, 1856, pp. 68, facsimiles, plans,
and lithographs.

Payen (J.-F.). Rccherches sur Michel Montaigne. Cor-
respondence relative a sa mort. {Bulletin du biblio-
phile, 1862, pp. 1291-1311. All these are important, but
are scarce.

Prevost-Paradol (L.-A.). £tudes sur Ics Moralistes fran-
gais. Paris, 1901. Ninth edition. Montaigne occupies
pp. 1-40; La Boetie, pp. 41-78.

Reaume (Eugene). Les Prosatcurs frangais du xvic
siecle. Paris, i86g. Montaigne occupies pp. 145-179.

RiCHOU (Gabriel). Inventaire de la Collection des Ouv-
rages et Documents sur Michel de Montaigne reunis
par le Dr. J.-F. Payen et conserves a la Bibliotheque
Nationale. Bordeaux, 1877, PP- ^vii, 397. (Tablettes
des Bibliophiles de Guyenne.) Contains correspond-
ence of Montaigne's widow.) A most useful bibli-
ography.

Ruel (fioouARD). Du Sentiment artistique dans la Morale
de Montaigne. CEuvre posthume. Paris, 1902, pp. Ixiv

368

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(Preface by fi. Faguet) and 431. A remarkable book,
but somewhat diffuse.

Russell (Sir E. R.). A French Gentleman of the Six-
teenth Century. Liverpool, n. d. (PiSqi), pp. 27. A
lecture.

Sainte-Beuve (C. a.). Port-Royal. Paris, 1888 (fifth
edition), B. Ill, Chaps. 1-3 (in vol. II). Very valua-
ble, suggestive criticism, but written when Pascal could
deflect Sainte-Beuve's criticism.

Sainte-Beuve (C. A.). Causeries du Lundi, IV. Paris,
1852. Nouveaux Documents sur Montaigne, pp.
65-80.

Sainte-Beuve (C. A.). Nouveaux Lundis, II. Paris, 1864.
Montaigne en Voyage, pp. 155-176.

Sainte-Beuve (C. A.). Nouveaux Lundis, VI. Paris,
1866. Montaigne, Maire de Bordeaux, pp. 239-264.

Sainte-Beuve (C. A.). Nouveaux Lundis, IX. fitienne
de la Boetie, pp. 1 12-128.

St. Germain (le Dr. Bertrand de). Visite au Chateau
de Montaigne en Perigord. Paris, 1850, pp. 15.

ScHWABE (Paul). Michel de Montaigne als philosoph-
isclier Charakter. Hamburg, 1899, pp. 190. The me-
diaeval and Renaissance Montaignes in conflict.

Staffer (Paul). Montaigne. Paris, 1895, pp. 198. In
Les grands Ecrivains frangais series. An excellent lit-
tle book.

Staffer (Paul). La Famille ct les Amis de Montaigne.
Paris, 1896, pp. 361.

Stephen (Sir J. Fitzjames). Horce Sabbaticae. First
series. London, 1892. Montaigne's Essays, pp. 124-
144.

St. John (Bayle). Montaigne the Essayist. London,
1858, 2 vols., pp. 336 and 327. Too diffuse, but pleas-
antly written and the result of much study.

Talbert (M. l'Abbe). £loge de Michel Montaigne. Lon-
don and Paris, 1775, pp. 146. Some interesting matter
in the notes.

24 369

BIBLIOGRAPHY

TiLLEY (Arthur). The Literature of the French Renais-
sance. Cambridge, 1904, 2 vols. (Montaigne, vol. II,
pp. 136-179)

Vernier (Theodore). Notices et Observations pour pre-
parer et faciliter la Lecture des Essais de Montaigne.
Paris, 1810, 2 vols., pp. 331 and 396.

ViLLEMAiN (A.-F.). Rlogc de Montaigne, Discours qui a
remporte le prix d'£loquence, etc. Paris, 1812, pp. 45.
Eloquent, but has less in it than Biot's Discours.

ViNET (A.). Moralistes des xvi^ et xvii<^ Siccles. Paris,
1904. (Montaigne, pp. 53-123.)

Waters (W. G.). The Journal of Montaigne's Travels.
London, 1903, 3 vols., pp. 195, 209, and 214. With an
interesting introduction.

Whibley (Charles). Literary Portraits. London, 1904.
Montaigne occupies pp. 181-221.

Edward Dowden.

370

INDEX

Names including dc, de la, du, are, for convenience of
reference, entered under the last portion of the name.
Titles of works are listed under their English designations
except in cases where translation would be misleading, as
in the main portion of this book. The Index contains ref-
erences to the main portion of the book only, not to the
Preface and Bibliography.

Agesilaus, 145
Agis, 145

Alarm-clock for Frenchmen {Reveille-Matin dcs Fran-
cois), 77,, 74 n
Alcibiades, Montaigne compared to, 57, 58
Alexander the Great, 145, 176, 250, 325
Amadis of Gaul, 171
Ampere, 182

Amyot, 2)2, 169, 170, 171, 195
Ancestry, Montaigne's, 13-15
Ancona, Professor Alessandro D', 297
Andelot, Seigneur d', 303
Andouins, Diane d', 139, 298, 332
Angelo, Michael, 299
Anjou, Duke of, 330
Anthone, Bernard, 352
Antioch, Patriarch of, 314

Apology for Raimond de Sebonde, 155, 243, 287-291
Aretino, Lionardo, 172
Ariosto, 173, 181
Arms, Montaigne's coat of, 149

Arnaud, Captain St. Martin (Montaigne's brother), 119
Arnold, Matthew, 178

371

INDEX

Arsac, Jean d', 71

Art, Montaigne's feeling for, 299

Asceticism, 274, 275

Ascham, Roger, 27

Aubigne, Agrippa d', 349

Augsburg, Montaigne at, 304, 305

Authorship in Gascony, 245

Bacon, Francis, 358

Bagni della Villa, 320, 321

Baif, ^^, 87, 133, 175

Beauregard, Thomas de, 18, 100, loi, 119

Bellay (J.), Du, ^^, 181

Bellay, Martin du, 191

Belot, Jean de, 90

Benedict XIV., 127

Beuther, Michael, 134, 207

Beze, 176, 181, 317, 318

Bible, the, 169, 176, 278, 279

Biron, Marshal de, 323

Blois, States General at, 347, 348

Boccaccio, 184

Bodin, Jean, 198

Body and soul, 270, 271

Bonnefon (P.), 22 n, 39, 68 n, 70, 74 n, 77 n, 86, 86 n, 88 n,

III, 146 n, 154 n, 167, 176, 192 n
Book of Creatures, see Natural Theology
Books, Montaigne's, 157, 158, 166 seq.
Borda, Bernard de, 50
Bordeaux, magistracy of, 50
Bordeaux, University of, 39, 42
Bossuet, 290

Bourbon, Cardinal de, 331
Bourg, Anne du, 71, 87 n
Brach, Pierre de, 345, 351, 355
Brachet, Antoine, 86
Brantome, 142

372

INDEX

Brazil, natives of, 62-64
Buchanan, George, 29, 30, 181
Buffon, 22 n
Bunel, Pierre, 124
Burie, 72

Cabinet of Montaigne, 152, 153
Caesar, Julius, 144, 145, 192, 193
Caesar's Commentaries, Montaigne's copy of, 167
Calvin, 11

Cannibals, Montaigne on, 258
Capello, Bianca, 312
Capperonnier, M., 296
Caraffa, Cardinal, 201, 310
Car eel de Amor, 172
Carle, Marguerite de, 71, 104, 133
Carnevalet, M. de, 61
Caro, Annibale, 174
Cato, the younger, 269
Catullus, 177

Cazalis, Seigneur de, 298
Caze, Jean de, 51
Cellini, 306

Censors of books in Rome, 317, 318
Ceremony, freedom from, 215
Charles IX., 61, 204, 206
Charron, Pierre, 173, 239, 343, 344
Chateau Trompette, 329, 333, 334, 336
Cicero, 199, 200
Civil wars, 225, 226
Cleanthes, 179

College of Guyenne, 19, 20, 27, 72, 326, 327
Comines, Philippe de, 191
" Commerces, the three", 201-203

Contr'un, see Discourse Concerning Voluntary Servitude
Conversation, Montaigne on, 217-220
" Corisande, La belle", 139, 298, 332
373

INDEX

Cornwallis, Sir William, the younger, 358

Cortez, 274

Cotton, Charles, 359

Councillor, duties of a, 49, 50

Courbet (E.), 125 n, 204, 207 n, 360

Court, Montaigne at the, 59-61, 64, 65

Cujas, 43

Daneau, Lambert, 86, 87 n

Death, Montaigne on, 282-285

Dezeimeris, M., 87 w, 88 71

Digressions, Montaigne's, 247

Diogenes Laertius, 188

Discourse Concerning Voluntary Servitude (La Boetie's),

73-85
Diversion, Montaigne on, 106
Divizia, 321
Donne, John, 37
Dorat, Jean, 87, 181
Douhet, Marguerite, iii
Dreux, battle of, 144

Economics (Xenophon's), 132, 136

Edict of January, 1562; 51, 52, 73

Education, Montaigne on, 24, 31-38

Elizabeth, Queen, 305

Emerson, 108

Epaminondas, 176, 250, 266

Ephemerides (Beuther's), 134, 135 n, 143, 207, 346, 353

Epitaphs on Montaigne, 353

Erasmus, 33

Escars, M. d', 98

Essays, Montaigne's annotated copy of, 175

when written, 229

motives for writing, 230, 231

the Third Book of, 249, 340^343
Este, Cardinal Ippolito d', 307
374

INDEX

Este, Cardinal Luigi d', 307, 308

Este, Duke of, 298

Estissac, Seigneur d', 298, 311, 322

Exorcism, 315

Eyqueni, Grimon, 14

Eyquem, Pierre, 15-17, 18-24, 26, 27, 29, 42, 47,

124-126
Eyquem, Ramon, 13, 14

Faith and reason, 279, 280

Fernand, Archduke of Austria, 305

Ferraignes, Isabeau de, 13

Ferron, Arnaud de, 132

Feugere, Leon, 70

Feugere, Pierre, 51

Florence, 312, 321

Florio, 116, 123, 180, 358

Foix, Diane de, 31

Foix, Gaston de, 205

Foix, Paul de, 138, 139

Form and matter in books, 190, 191

Fortune, Montaigne on, 144, 145, 317, 318

Four, Grimon du, 14

Franca, Veronica, 311

Franciade, The, 77

Francis, Duke of Brittany, 116

Frangois II., 61

French Verses (of La Boetie), 133

Friendship, La Boetie on, 84, 85

Montaigne on, 85, 86, 93-96
Froissart, 189

Gabelle, revolt of the, 40, 41, 76
Galy, M., 145, 146 n, 150 n, 154
Gamaches, Charles de, 356
Garland, Pierre, 127
Garrulity, Montaigne's, 249

375

INDEX

Gasconisms of Montaigne, 296, 348

Gaujac, Ramon de, 13

Germignan, 98

Gilles, Nicolle, 175

Goulard, Simon, 74, 74 n

Gournay, Mile, de, 75, 239, 346, 347, 351, 354, 355

Gouvea, Andre de, 20, 27, 30

Gramont, Philibert de, 298

Gregory XIII., 12, 315

Grouchy, Nicolas, 29

Guerente, Guillaume, 29, 30

Guicciardini, 191

Guise, Duke of, 62, 144, 170, 207, 208

Gurson, Countess de, 196

Habits, Montaigne's, 254, 255

Hamlet (Shakespeare), 243, 358

Hautoi, Seigneur du, 298

Health, 273

Hemon, M., 34

Henri II., 61

Henri III., 206, 297, 323, 330, 333

Henri IV. (Henri of Navarre), 135, 148, 207, 208, 325, 330-

332, 348, 349, 350
Historians, three groups of, 188-190
History, how read by Montaigne, 186-188
Homer, 154, 169, 176, 177
Horace, 177
Horstanus, 25
Hotman, 303, 304

Ignorance of man, 260-262

Inconstancy of man, 262, 263

Infirmity of man, 264, 265

Inscriptions of Montaigne's library, 154-157

James, King of Naples, 203
Jesuits, 316, 326, 2)^7

376

INDEX

Jews, 307

Joan of Arc, 303

Joinville, 191

Jonson, Ben, 358

Judgment, Montaigne's 231, 232

Julian the Apostate, 317, 318

La Boetie, fitienne de, 44, 48, 53, 69-103, 125 n, 131, 136-138

La Boetie, Mme. de, see Carle, Marguerite de

La Brousse, Pierre de (Montaigne's brother), 119

La Chassaigne, Frangoise de, see Montaigne, Mme.

(Montaigne's wife)
La Chassaigne, Joseph de, iii
La Chassaigne, President de, 41
La Fere, 297
Lahontan, 258, 259
Lamennais, 74
La Noue, 224
Lansac, M. de, 136
Lapeyre, M., 145, 146 n, 150 n, 154
Latin, Montaigne learning, 25, 26
Laval, De, 348
Laval, Gaillard de, 87
Laval, Marguerite de, 87
Law, Montaigne on, 45-47
Le Clerc, Victor, 127
Leibnitz, 127

Lenoncourt, Cardinal de, 127 n
Leonor (fileanore) (Montaigne's daughter), 134, 166, 210,

213-215, 351, 356, 357
Leonor (Montaigne's sister), 119
Lestonnac, Jeanne de, 18, 29 n, 119
Lestonnac, Richard de, 18, 119

Letter of Consolation (Plutarch's), 117, 132, 135, 136
Letter-writing, Montaigne on, 173, 174
L'Hopital, Chancellor, 51, 72, 137, 138, 181, 205
Library of Montaigne, 150-152
License of Montaigne's pen, 107-109
377

INDEX

Limitation, wisdom in, 265

Lipsius, Justus, 345, 351

Loisel, Antoine, 328

Loreto, 319, 320

Louppes, Antoine de, iii, 112

Louppes, Antoinette de (Montaigne's mother), 17, 21, 22,

119
Lucan, 177, 179

Lucca, Baths of, 103, 296, 320, 321
Lucullus, 145
Lur, Charles de, 357
Lur, Guillaume de, 87 n
Lur, Honore de, 356, 357
Luther, 124

Magistrate, Montaigne as a, 66-68

Magne, M., 147

Maldonatus, 302

Marguerite of Navarre, 330

Marie (Montaigne's sister), 119

Ilarriage, Montaigne on, 94, 95, 109-111

Martin, Aime, 130 n

Martin, Jean, 127 n

Mary, Queen of Scots, 61

Matignon, Marshal de, 297, 325, 331, 333-335. 337. 345

Mattecoulon (Montaigne's brother, Bertrand-Charles), 119,

298, 322
Mayor of Bordeaux, Montaigne elected, 321, 322
Medici, Cardinal, 310
Medici, Catherine de', 346

Memoirs of the state of France under Charles IX., 74
Mesnagerie de Xenophon, La, 132
Menander, 178

Mesmes, Henri de, 44, 48, 136
Meusnier de Querlon, 297
Miracles, 291, 292
Models for the Essays, 248

378

INDEX

Moderation, duty of, 266

Mondore, 181

Moneins, Tristan de, 40-42

Money, Montaigne in relation to, 121-124

Monluc, 54, 308

Monnier, Arnaud, 50, 51

Montaigne, cliateau of, 13, 14, 21, 62, 147, 148, 220, 221

Montaigne, Mme. dc (Montaigne's wife), 106, 111-114, 354,

355
Montaigne, Michel de, passim
Montaigne, Pierre de, see Eyquem, Pierre
Montesquieu, 22 n
Montgomery, 61

Montmorenci, Constable de, 41, 50, 224
Montpensier, Duke de, 143
Monument to Montaigne, 141, 353
Munster, Sebastian, 175
Muret, Marc Antoine, 29, 30, 40 n, 171

Natural Theology of Raimond de Sebonde, The, 124-131
Nature a guide, 266

Montaigne's feeling for external, 299
" New Christians", 17
Numa, 276

Ochino, Bernardino, 173

Of the Eye of Kings and of Justice (De I'CEil des Rois et

de la Justice), 328
Offspring of mind and of body, 245, 246
Ogier the Dane, 302
Old age, 271, 272
Orleans, University of, 44, 71
Ossat, M., 103
Ovid, 30, 179

Panicarola, 12
Papessus, 23
Paris, 56, 57

379

INDEX

Paris, Parliament of, 51, 52

Parison, M., 167, 192

Pascal, 127, 234, 357

Pasquier, £tienne, 43, 44, 348

Pater {Gaston de Latour), 254

Paternal feeling, Montaigne's, 210-212

Payen, Dr., 134, 149 «, 154, 192 n

Peasants of Italy, 306

Pelletier, Jacques, 220

" Penitencers", 310

Perfumes, 277

Perigueux, Court of Aids at, 47, 48

Perron, Cardinal du, 280

Petrarch, 172

Physic, Montaigne on, 176

Physiognomy, influence of Montaigne's, 222

Plague in Bordeaux, 336, 22>7, 339

Plato, 184, 272

Pleasure an end, 267, 268

Pleiad, the, 181

Plessis-Mornay, Du, 330

Plombieres, 303

Baths of, 302
Plutarch, 32, 169, 188, 195-19?
" Poesie populaire", 182
Poetic vocabulary, 182, 183
Poetry, Montaigne on, 184
Poets, ancient and modern, 178
Pope, Alexander, 290, 343
Portrait (of Montaigne) in Essays, 234-237
Pratolino, 307
Prunis, Canon, 157, 296
Psalms, the, 154, 278
Puymoreau, Sieur de, 40

Querlon, Meusnier de, 297

Quintus Curtius, Montaigne's copy of, 168, 169
380

INDEX

Rabelais, ii, 33, 38, 184, 185

Ramus, 38

Raymond, Florimond de, 140, 352

Reading, Montaigne's way of, 185, 186

Reformation, Montaigne on the, 55, 56

Reformed Faith, 275-277

Religion, a popular, 308-311

Rene of Anjou, 61

Repentance, Montaigne on, 280-282

Reveille-Matin dcs Frangois (Alarm-clock for Frenchmen) ,

73, 74 n
Richelieu, Cardinal, 74, 347
Rochefort, Gaudefroy de, 166, 357
Roissy, Madame de, 136
Roman citizenship, 318, 319
Rome, 312 seq.
Ronsard, 77, 87, 181
Rotrou, 337
Rouen, 61, 62
Royer (C), 360
Rules of Marriage (Plutarch's), 132, 136

St. Bartholomew, massacre of, 12

Sainte-Beuve, 12, 77, 357

St. Germain, Dr. Bertrand de, 145, 148, 149 n, 154

St. Germain, treaty of, 142

St. John, Bayle, 77 n.

St. Martin, Jean de, 353

St. Michael, Order of, 141, 142, 204

Sant Pedro, Diego de, 172

St. Peter's at Rome, 309, 310

Savile, George, 359

Scaliger, Joseph, 13

Scaliger, Julius Caesar, 88

Sebonde, Raimond de, 124-131, 136

Self-study, Montaigne's, 234, 235

Seneca, 197, 198

381

INDEX

Serres, Olivier de, 146
Sevigne, Mme. de, 54
Shakespeare (The Tempest), 63

(Hamlet), 243, 358
Shelley, 78, 85
Siena, 308
Socrates, 250, 266, 269

demon of, 233, 253
Soldiers, life of, 142, 143
Solitude, Montaigne on, 158-165
Spa, Baths of, 302

Spaniards in Mexico and Peru, 63, 64
Stapfer, Paul, 113
Sterling, John, 154 n
Strozzi, Marshal, 144, 308
Style, an original, 184

Montaigne's literary, 241-244
Swift, 265, 312

Tacitus, 193-195

Talemagne, 40, 42

Tasso, 311, 312

Tempest, The (Shakespeare), 63

Terence, 177, 178

Terrelle, Juste, 302

Thirion-Montauban, M., 148

Thoinette (Montaigne's daughter), 134, 135

Thomas, Simon, 43

Thou, De, 76, 77, 207, 208, 328, 329, 348

Tivoli, 307

Torture, Montaigne on, 53, 54

Toulouse, University of, 43

Tour de Cordouan, 327

Tour, Frangois de la, 351

Tower of Montaigne, 149-155

Trachere, the, 148

Trans, Marquis de, 204

382

INDEX

Travel, Montaigne's temper in, 295-301

Travels of Montaigne, The ; discovery of MS. of, 296

Turnebe (Turnebus), A. de, 34, 126, 127, i8i

Vaillac, Baron de, 329, 333-335

Vatican, Library of the, 314

Venice, 311

Villani, 172

Vinet, £lie, 327

Virgil, 177, 179, 181, 182

Water-works, 307
Will, Montaigne's power of, 252
Women, Montaigne on, 114-117
Wordsworth, 257, 269

THE END

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