Some might question whether there is still any need for an essayist such as Montaigne. Twenty-first-century people, in the developed world, are already individualistic to excess, as well as entwined with one another to a degree beyond the wildest dreams of a sixteenth-century winegrower. His sense of the “I” in all things may seem a case of preaching to the converted, or even feeding drugs to the addicted. But Montaigne offers more than an incitement to self-indulgence. The twenty-first century has everything to gain from a Montaignean sense of life, and, in its most troubled moments so far, it has been sorely in need of a Montaignean politics. It could use his sense of moderation, his love of sociability and courtesy, his suspension of judgment, and his subtle understanding of the psychological mechanisms involved in confrontation and conflict. It needs his conviction that no vision of heaven, no imagined Apocalypse, and no perfectionist fantasy can ever outweigh the tiniest of selves in the real world. It is unthinkable to Montaigne that one could ever “gratify heaven and nature by committing massacre and homicide, a belief universally embraced in all religions.” To believe that life could demand any such thing is to forget what day-to-day existence actually is. It entails forgetting that, when you look at a puppy held over a bucket of water, or even at a cat in the mood for play, you are looking at a creature who looks back at you. No abstract principles are involved; there are only two individuals, face to face, hoping for the best from one another.
Perhaps some of the credit for Montaigne’s last answer should therefore go to his cat—a specific sixteenth-century individual, who had a rather pleasant life on a country estate with a doting master and not too much competition for his attention. She was the one who, by wanting to play with Montaigne at an inconvenient moment, reminded him what it was to be alive. They looked at each other, and, just for a moment, he leaped across the gap in order to see himself through her eyes. Out of that moment—and countless others like it—came his whole philosophy.
There they are, then, in Montaigne’s library. The cat is attracted by the scratching of his pen; she dabs an experimental paw at the moving quill. He looks at her, perhaps momentarily irritated by the interruption. Then he smiles, tilts the pen, and draws the feather-end across the paper for her to chase. She pounces. The pads of her paws smudge the ink on the last few words; some sheets of paper slide to the floor. The two of them can be left there, suspended in the midst of their lives with the Essays not yet fully written, while we go and get on with ours—with the Essays not yet fully read.
(illustration credit i20.3)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My five years of “voluntary servitude” to Montaigne have been an extraordinary half-decade, during which I have learned a lot—not least about the kindness of the friends, scholars, and colleagues who have helped me in so many ways.
In particular, I wish to thank Warren Boutcher, Emily Butterworth, Philippe Desan, George Hoffmann, Peter Mack, and John O’Brien, for the warmth of their encouragement, the generosity of their assistance, and their willingness to share their time, knowledge, and experience.
My gratitude goes to Elizabeth Jones for supplying me with fascinating material from her documentary, The Man Who Ate His Archbishop’s Liver, as well as to Francis Couturas at the Musée d’art et d’archéologie du Périgord in Périgueux, Anne-Laure Ranoux at the Musée du Louvre, Anne-Sophie Marchetto of Sud-Ouest, and to Michel Iturria for permission to use his cartoon “Enfin! Une groupie!” I am also extremely grateful to John Stafford for allowing me to use his photographs.
I relied a great deal on libraries including the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Bibliothèque municipale de Bordeaux, the British Library, and the London Library, and I thank the staff of all these for their expertise. Stanford University Press’s generosity in so readily granting permission to quote from Donald Frame’s translation is very much appreciated.
The book was completed with the help of an Authors’ Foundation grant from the Society of Authors, and a London Library Carlyle Membership; I am most grateful for both.
As always, many thanks go to my agent Zoë Waldie at Rogers, Coleridge & White, and to my editor, Jenny Uglow, as well as Alison Samuel, Parisa Ebrahimi, Beth Humphries, Sue Amaradivakara, and everyone else at Chatto & Windus who believed in the book and helped bring it to life.
For reading the manuscript in various stages of disarray, advising me wisely, and reassuring me that everything was going according to plan, however unlikely this looked, I thank Tündi Haulik, Julie Wheelwright, Jane and Ray Bakewell, and Simonetta Ficai-Veltroni—who lived with Montaigne for so long and never lost faith in him (or me).
I first met Montaigne when, some twenty years ago in Budapest, I was so desperate for something to read on a train that I took a chance on a cheap Essays translation in a secondhand shop. It was the only English-language book on the shelf; I very much doubted that I would enjoy it. There is no one in particular I can thank for this turn of events: only Fortune, and the Montaignean truth that the best things in life happen when you don’t get what you think you want.
CHRONOLOGY
1533 (Feb. 28) Montaigne is born.
1539?–48 He goes to school at the Collège de Guyenne, Bordeaux.
1548 (Aug.) Salt-tax riots in Bordeaux; Montaigne witnesses the mob killing of Moneins.
1548–54 He studies: probably law, probably in Paris and/or Toulouse.
1554 He begins work at the Cour des Aides in Périgueux.
1557 All Périgueux men are transferred to the Bordeaux parlement.
1558–59 Montaigne becomes friends with Estienne de La Boétie.
1559 Treaty of Câteau Cambrésis ends France’s foreign wars, with disastrous consequences.
1562 Massacre of Vassy: beginning of the civil wars. In Rouen with Charles IX, Montaigne meets three Tupinambá Brazilians.
1563 (Aug. 18) La Boétie dies, Montaigne at his bedside.
1565 (Sept. 23) Montaigne marries Françoise de La Chassaigne.
1568 (June 18) Pierre Eyquem dies, and Montaigne inherits the estate.
1569 Montaigne publishes his translation of Sebond’s Natural Theology.
Montaigne’s brother Arnaud dies in a tennis accident.
1569 or early 1570 Montaigne himself almost dies in a riding accident.
1570 Montaigne retires from the Bordeaux parlement.
His first baby is born, and dies after two months.
He edits the works of La Boétie.
1571 (Feb.) Montaigne makes his birthday inscription in his library.
(Sept. 9) His only surviving child, Léonor, is born.
1572 Montaigne probably begins work on the Essays.
(Aug.) St. Bartholomew’s massacres.
1574 Death of Charles IX; Henri III becomes king.
1576 Montaigne has his medal struck, with scales and the motto epokhe.
1578 He suffers his first kidney-stone attacks.
1580 Essais: 1st edition.
(June)–1581 (Nov.) Montaigne travels in Switzerland, Germany, and Italy.
1581 (Aug.) He is elected mayor of Bordeaux.
1582 Essais: 2nd edition.
1583 (Aug.) He is reelected mayor of Bordeaux.
1584 (Dec.) Henri de Navarre stays at Montaigne estate.
1585 Plague on the estate; Montaigne flees.
1587 Essais: 3rd edition.
(Oct.) Henri de Navarre again calls at Montaigne estate.
1588 Montaigne in Paris on secret mission, then follows court of Henri III. He meets Marie de Gournay.
(May) Day of the Barricades; Henri III flees Paris.
(June) Essais: the much enlarged 5th edition (the 4th, if it existed, has never been traced).
(10 July) Montaigne imprisoned in the Bastille, and released.
(Autumn) He recuperates in Picardy with Marie de Gournay.
(Dec.) Henri III has the duc de Guise assassinated.
1588–92 Montaigne works on final additions to the Essays.
1589 (Aug.) Henri I
II is assassinated; Henri IV succeeds to the throne, though his claim is disputed.
1592 (Sept. 13) Montaigne dies of a quinsy.
1595 Marie de Gournay’s edition of the Essais, which will dominate Montaigne-reading for three centuries.
1601 Death of Montaigne’s mother Antoinette de Louppes de Villeneuve.
Pierre Charron’s “remix,” La Sagesse.
1603 Essayes: first English translation by John Florio.
1616 Death of Montaigne’s daughter, Léonor.
1627 Death of Montaigne’s widow Françoise de La Chassaigne.
1637 Descartes’s Discours de la méthode.
1645 Death of Marie de Gournay.
1662 Blaise Pascal dies, leaving the notes published as the Pensées.
1676 Essais placed on Index of Prohibited Books.
1685–86 Essays translated into English by Charles Cotton.
1724 French Essais published in London by refugee Pierre Coste.
1772 Discovery of Montaigne’s travel journal in an old trunk.
Annotated “Bordeaux Copy” of Essais unearthed from archives and used to authenticate the journal.
1789 French Revolution.
1800 Revolutionary authorities decide to re-bury
Montaigne as a secular hero in the Bordeaux
Académie, but the plan goes awry.
1850 Montaigne’s “plague” letters published, causing consternation.
1854 Essais removed from the Index of Prohibited Books.
1880–86 Montaigne’s tomb renovated and moved to University of Bordeaux.
1906 First volume of Strowski’s edition published, based primarily on “Bordeaux Copy.”
1912 First volume of Armaingaud’s edition published, based primarily on “Bordeaux Copy.”
2007 New Pléiade edition published, based primarily on Gournay’s 1595 edition.
NOTES
Unless otherwise specified, Montaigne references are to Donald Frame’s translation of the Essays: Montaigne, The Complete Works, tr. and ed. D. Frame (London: Everyman, 2005). In each case the standard volume and chapter citation is followed by the Frame page number.
Full details of works listed here by author only or with brief titles can be found in Sources, pp. 365–70 below.
Q. How to live?
1 The Oxford Muse: http://www.oxfordmuse.com.
2 Melon: III:13 1031. Sex: III:13 1012. Singing: II:17 591. Repartee: II:17 587; III:8 871. Being alive: III:13 1036.
3 Levin: The Times (Dec. 2, 1991), p. 14. Pascal: Pascal, Pensées no. 568, p. 131.
4 “There is always a crowd”: Woolf, V., “Montaigne,” 71. “As we face each other”: “The Mark on the Wall,” in Woolf, V., A Haunted House: The Complete Shorter Fiction (London: Vintage, 2003), 79–80.
5 Tabourot et al.: Étienne Tabourot, sieur des Accords, Quatrième et cinquième livre des touches (Paris: J. Richer, 1588), V: f. 65v. Cited Boase, Fortunes 7–8 and Millet 62–3. Emerson 92. Gide, A., Montaigne (London & New York: Blackamore Press, 1929), 77–8. Zweig, “Montaigne” 17.
6 Amazon readers: http://www.amazon.com/Michel-Montaigne-Complete-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140446044. Comments from tepi, Grant, Klumz, diastole1 and lexo-2x.
7 “Do I contradict myself?”: Whitman, W., “Song of Myself,” in Leaves of Grass (Brooklyn, 1855), 55.
8 “I cannot keep my subject still”: III:2 740.
9 Firing a pistol: Saint-Sernin, J. de, Essais et observations sur les Essais du seigneur de Montaigne (London: E. Allde, 1626), f. A6r.
10 “It is the only book in the world”: II:8 338.
11 Our own bum: III:13 1044.
12 Flaubert: Gustave Flaubert to Mlle Leroyer de Chantepie, June 16, 1857, cited Frame, Montaigne in France 61.
1. Q. How to live? A. Don’t worry about death
1 Young man who died of fever: I:20 73.
2 “To philosophize is to learn how to die”: Cicero, Tusculan Disputations I: XXX, 74. Cicero took the idea from Plato’s Phaedo (67 e). Montaigne used it for the title of his essay: I:20.
3 Death of Arnaud, and “With such frequent and ordinary examples”: I:20 71.
4 “At every moment”: I:20 72.
5 Montaigne imagining his deathbed scene: III:4 771.
6 Death a few bad moments: III:12 980.
7 Riding: we do not know exactly when this incident occurred, but Montaigne says it was during the second or third civil wars, which puts it between autumn 1568 and early 1570: II:6 326. Montaigne’s feeling of escape: III:5 811. On Montaigne and riding, see Balsamo, J., “Cheval,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 162–4.
8 Far-flung vineyards: Marcetteau-Paul 137–41.
9 Montaigne’s speculations: Marrow: II:12 507. Remora: II:12 417. Cat: I:21 90–1.
10 Montaigne’s description of the accident and its after-effects: II:6 326–30. All quotations in the next few pages are from this description, unless otherwise specified.
11 “Enfeeblement and stupor”: III:9 914. Petronius and Tigillinus: III:9 915. Both from Tacitus: Petronius from Annals XIV:19; Tigillinus from Histories I:72. Marcellinus: II:13 561–2. Source is Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 77. Loeb edn II:171–3.
12 “I never saw one of my peasant neighbors”: III:12 980.
13 “If you don’t know how to die”: III:12 979.
14 “Battered and bruised,” “I still feel the effect,” and return of his memory: II:6 330.
15 “Bad spots”: III:10 934.
2. Q. How to live? A. Pay attention
16 Montaigne’s retirement: it was made official on July 23, 1570, but the transfer to his successor was signed in April 1570, so he must have made the decision earlier. See Frame, Montaigne 114–15. On his rejected application: ibid., 57–8.
17 Retirement inscription: as translated in Frame, Montaigne 115.
18 Montaigne’s mid-life crisis compared to Don Quixote and Dante: Auerbach, E., Mimesis, tr. W. A. Trask (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), 348–9.
19 On the Montaigne château and tower, see Gardeau and Feytaud; Willett; Hoffmann 8–38; Legros 103–26; and Legros, A., “Tour de Montaigne,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 984–7. “Very big bell”: I:23 94.
20 Shelves: III:3 763. Inheritance from La Boétie: III:12 984.
21 “I keep their handwriting”: II:18 612. South American collection: I:31 187.
22 Private library trend: Hale 397. “Room behind the shop” and “Sorry the man”: III:3 763.
23 Murals in side-chamber: Willett 219; Gardeau and Feytaud 47–8. Roof-beam quotations: Legros. On other similar inscriptions: Frame, Montaigne 9.
24 On the fashion for retirement: Burke 5. “Let us cut loose”: I:39 214.
25 Seneca’s warnings: Seneca, “On Tranquillity of Mind,” in Dialogues and Letters 34, 45.
26 A “melancholy humor”: II:8 337–8. Runaway horse, water reflections and other images: I:8 24–5.
27 On reverie: Morrissey, R. J., La Rêverie jusqu’à Rousseau: recherches sur un topos littéraire (Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1984), esp. 37–43.
28 The reverie of writing: II:8 337–8. “Chimeras and fantastic monsters”: I:8 25.
29 Salvation lies in paying full attention: Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 78, Loeb edn II:199.
30 Writing for family and friends: “To the reader,” Essays I p. 2. On commonplace books, see Moss, A., Printed Commonplace-Books and the Structuring of Renaissance Thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996). I am indebted to Peter Mack for the suggestion that Montaigne was partly inspired to write the Essays by reading Amyot’s translation of Plutarch.
31 The dates of his writing are derived from Villey’s study in Les Sources: see Frame, Montaigne 156. There has since been some disagreement about the dating.
32 “Each man is a good education to himself”: II:6 331. Source is Pliny, Natural History XXII: 24.
33 “It is a thorny undertaking”: II:6 331.
34 “I meditate on any satisfaction,” and having himself woken f
rom sleep: III:13 1040.
35 Heraclitus, Fragment 50. Heraclitus, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus, tr. and ed. C. H. Kahn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 53. Stream of consciousness: James, W., The Principles of Psychology (New York: Henry Holt, 1890), I:239.
36 Montaigne quotes Heraclitus: II:12 554. “Now gently, now violently”: II:1 291. Sand dunes: I:31 183. “A perpetual multiplication and vicissitude of forms”: III:6 841. Branloire: III:2 740. See Rigolot 203. On general sixteenth-century fascination with flux and metamorphosis: Jeanneret, Perpetuum mobile.
37 Theories of sex with lame women: III:11 963. Source for Aristotle is Problemata X: 24, 893b. See Screech 156–7.
38 “That our happiness must not be judged until after our death”: I:19 64–6. Sources for Solon are Herodotus, Histories I: 86, and Plutarch’s “Life of Solon,” in Lives, LVIII.
39 “If my mind could gain a firm footing”: III:2 740.
40 “I do not portray being”: III:2 740.
41 “Observe, observe perpetually”: Woolf, V., “Montaigne,” 78.
42 Mynah birds: Huxley, A., Island (London: Chatto & Windus, 1962), 15.
43 “It will cause no commotion” and “You must drink quickly”: Seneca, “On the Shortness of Life,” in Dialogues and Letters 68–9.
44 “A consciousness astonished at itself”: Merleau-Ponty 322. Astonishment and fluidity: Burrow, C., “Frisks, skips and jumps” (a review of Ann Hartle’s Michel de Montaigne), London Review of Books Nov. 6, 2003.
45 “I try to increase it in weight”: III:13 1040.
46 “When I walk alone” and “When I dance, I dance”: III:13 1036.
3. Q. How to live? A. Be born
1 His birth: I:20 69, and Montaigne, Le Livre de raison, entry for Feb. 28. On his nickname of Micheau: Frame, Montaigne 38. Eleven months: II:12 507–8. “Does this sound strange?”: Gargantua, I:3, in Rabelais, The Complete Works 12–14.
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