“Do not read it like children – for amusement, nor like the ambitious – to become wise. No, read it to live.”
Gustave Flaubert, Letter to Laroir de Chantilly (1857)“The very fact that such a man wrote does indeed increase the pleasure of earthly life. In any case, since I have known this free and steadfast soul, I wish to say of him what he himself said of Plutarch: “From the moment I laid eyes on him, I felt as if I had grown an extra leg or a wing.”
Friedrich Nietzsche “Untimely Reflections”
Here I will write about what preceded the writing of the "Essays," and you, go and read them!
Michel de Montaigne's Family – From Fish Merchants to Nobles of the Sword
Montaigne's family background is an example of the social mobility in France of his time. Montaigne's paternal great-grandfather, Ramon-Felipe Ickem, made a fortune in trading.
in salted fish, in Eustis and Bain, and in 1477 he purchased the family estate – Château de Montaigne. His grandfather, Grimaud, took another step towards the nobility, and after consolidating the family fortune, he ceased to engage in trade himself and entered local politics. His father, Pierre, already considered himself a nobleman for all intents and purposes, and turned to a military career. He was one of those French nobles who plundered Italy and at the same time drank in its culture with thirst and were greatly influenced by the humanism of the Renaissance era that was coming to an end. After retiring from warfare, Pierre returned to managing his estate, and like his father, he became involved in the politics of BordeauxHe also served as mayor.
Michel's mother, Antoinette López de Villeneuve, was also born into a prosperous and politically influential merchant family. Michel's maternal grandfather, Pedro López, was a wealthy convert from Zaragoza. Before we get too excited about Montaigne being one of our own (there is evidence of Jewish-convert roots in his father's family as well), it is worth clarifying that Montaigne was not Jewish from a halachic point of view (his maternal grandmother was a pure Catholic) and never considered himself one (he may not even have suspected the existence of his Jewish roots). His attitude towards the Jews was calm and even somewhat sympathetic, but it did not go beyond the bounds of his characteristic insatiable curiosity. The Jews and their customs were just as interesting to him as the Protestants, the Indians, the cats, the carriages, the thumbs and the sand dunes on his brother's estate.
Unlike his father, who is greatly admired in the Essays, Montaigne rarely mentions his mother, and their relationship seems to have been strained. Antoinette was an opinionated and active woman, who enjoyed her position as mistress of the estate during the long periods her husband spent fighting in Italy, and who believed (apparently rightly) that she could manage the estate much better than the dreamy structure. The transfer of the estate to his possession must have given rise to frequent friction, and precisely the kind that Michel deeply abhorred.
Pierre and Antoinette had eight sons and daughters, Michel was the eldest (his two older brothers did not survive), and the age gap between the siblings was large – Michel was 27 when Bertrand, the youngest, was born. The extended family, on both the Ickem and Villeneuve sides, was also large, wealthy, and influential.
Montaigne learns to speak Latin like a native
Pierre's Italian fighting had a profound impact on his son's life, both in the education he received and in the attitude he developed toward his father's experiences and views. Let's start with education.
It began with his father's very original decision to entrust the infant to the care of a local peasant family. The custom of employing a wet nurse, or even temporarily entrusting the infant to her family, was common enough among the upper classes, but this was not the case here. Pierre the humanist believed that as the future lord of Faudélie, it was fitting that Michel should experience the lives of those who would become his subjects. Obviously, the separation from his mother at such a young age could have contributed to the future coldness in their relationship.
We do not know exactly how long he stayed there, estimates range from one to three years, but the second stage of his initiation was completely opposite to the first. Pierre, whose knowledge of Latin was very limited, wanted to raise Michel as a native Latin speaker. To this end, the services of a private Latin tutor were hired, a former soldier of German origin, “Doctor Horst,” who did not know a word of French, and all members of the household were forbidden to address Michel or answer him in any language other than Latin.
Latin was at that time much more than just an international language, and the analogy with modern English would be completely incorrect. Knowledge of Latin gave access to the treasures of classical culture, to a deep understanding of religion, which played a huge role, to every type of official literature, from laws to sciences. The quality of Latin a person mastered determined the quality of his education, was a measure of his thinking skills and a good predictor of the career horizons that would open up before him. Montaigne's unique education indeed made him the first native Latin speaker in about a thousand years (and probably the last), and even significantly expanded the circle of Latin speakers in his environment, from his parents and farm workers to the villages connected to the estate.
Pierre's educational experiment did not end there – the fashionable pedagogical ideas of the time dictated a sympathetic and indirect education, devoid of coercion and striving to awaken in the child the “natural” thirst for knowledge. Unlike other children, young Michel was hardly exposed to corporal punishment and educational dogmatism. Even his awakening in the mornings was incredibly gentle – like a cobra, he was lured out of bed by the gentle sounds of a flute or harp. It is likely that his education contributed greatly to the independent thinking that he demonstrated in adulthood. The unique framework in which he grew up imposed unique limitations on him, and at the same time granted him no less unique freedom.
College studies and conflict with the French education system
The experiment was abruptly ended – at the age of 6 Michel was sent to the Collège de Guevara, and had to endure the shock of the transition from village to city life, and from private to public education. The college was an excellent institution, and the focus of his studies was Latin, and although Montaigne's skills amazed his teachers and promoted him in his studies, his opinion of the college in retrospect was poor – none of which could compare with his own skills, which suffered as a result. Montaigne believed that his Latin was worse at the end of his studies than he had been at the beginning.
His college years were marked by social upheavals, both in his city, Bordeaux, in particular, and in France in general. It was the time of the Reformation, and the Lutheran and Calvinist gospel was spreading across Europe like wildfire. Religious conversion and the violent conflicts that accompanied it tore European society apart across all its regions and classes. For example, Montaigne's native province, Gueigne, became largely Calvinist, while the provincial capital, Bordeaux, remained a firm base for the Catholic faith. Even Montaigne's family was exposed to the new faith: his mother and one of his brothers converted to Protestantism.
The religious schism was accompanied by political upheavals. During Montaigne's studies at the Collège de Guevara, a rebellion broke out in Bordeaux over the new salt tax, and young Michel witnessed the mob lynching of the royal commissioner, Tristan de Monot. The mob was finally pacified by the one who would later become Montaigne's father-in-law, Geoffrey de la Chaussée. The crown sent an expedition to Bordeaux led by the Comte de Montmorency, who was the ruler of the province under a reign of terror. The city's privileges were revoked, and were only gradually restored, following the efforts of his father, Pierre de Montaigne, who served as mayor.
We have no solid information about Montaigne's youth, but it is assumed that he received a higher education in law, in Toulouse or Paris, and around the age of 24 he began his public career, in the parliament of PérigordAfter it was dissolved and merged with the Parlement of Bordeaux, Montaigne began working as a legal advisor in the Bureau of Inquisition: to this was referred all cases that were too complex for immediate ruling by the judges. Montaigne's role was to summarize the arguments of both sides in each case, and it is commonly assumed that it was here that he first learned to examine different and diverse points of view. Hence also came his aversion to scholarly interpretation and secondary sources.
The French civil wars had a profound influence on Montaigne's writings.
During the many years that Montaigne worked in parliament, he had the opportunity to closely examine human nature and the law: there he saw the human tendency to err, the constant lack of solid evidence, the necessity of caution in passing judgment. He foresaw cases of criminal violence and judicial violence, and became very skeptical about both. During these years, Montaigne also participated in delegations to the parliament of Paris And to the royal court. He personally met Henry II, his successors Charles IX and Henry III, and their mother, the Queen Mother. Catherine de Medici. His extended stay in the capital and at the royal court also contributed to his studies of human nature and government. As mentioned, this was a turbulent period, characterized by frequent religious and civil wars. The accepted minyan is eight, although it could just as easily be argued that this was a single, prolonged religious war, with short periods of ceasefire. Below is a partial list:
1563-1562 – Began with the massacre of Protestants in Wassy by the soldiers of the Duke of Guise. Ended with the peace treaty of Ambroise.
1568-1567 – began with the massacre of Catholic boys, ended with the peace treaty of Longjomou.
1570-1568 – Began with renewed legislation against Protestant freedom of worship (Edict of Saint-Maur) and ended with the Treaty of Saint-Germain.
1573-1572 – opened with a massacre Bartholomew's Day The Holy See and ended with a peace treaty in La Rochelle.
This dynamic clearly demonstrates to us what a significant part the civil war played in Montaigne’s life. The eighth war, in the late 16s, was the most dramatic of all: the “War of the Three Henrys” was fought between a Catholic coalition (“the League”) led by Henry of Guise, (son of Duke François of Guise, who commanded the Massacre of Vassy and was murdered by a Huguenot assassin shortly afterwards) and the Protestant coalition, led by Henry of Navarre. In the middle, desperately defending himself against everyone, was Henry III, the last king of the dying Valois dynasty. During this war, the king murdered the Duke of Guise in his chambers, and was himself murdered by a Catholic assassin. As he lay dying, he bequeathed his kingdom to Henry of Navarre, on condition that he convert to Catholicism. This decision was preceded by secret and lengthy negotiations, in which the king and the Protestant leader used the mediation services of Montaigne, perhaps the only person they both trusted.
Death is the ultimate mass.
As if the Wars of Religion were not enough horror, they were also accompanied by outbreaks of epidemics. The plague that broke out in 1563 robbed Montaigne of his closest friend, soulmate, and model of wisdom and conduct, Étienne de La Boissy, author of the world’s first anarchist treatise, “On Voluntary Enslavement.” It seems that the “Essays” were originally intended as nothing more than an embellishment to encompass La Boissy’s literary and poetic work.
In 1565 he married Françoise de la Chassagne, another strong and opinionated woman who demanded control of his life. The marriage seems to have been fairly stable, but it did not bring him much contentment or happiness: of their six children, only the second daughter survived.
The series of deaths in his life continued: after La Boissy, Montaigne lost Pierre, his father, in 1568. In the spring of 1569, one of his younger brothers, Arnaud, was killed – after a light hit on the head by a tennis ball during a cheerful game. In June 1570, his first daughter was born, who died two months later. Montaigne must have felt that death was beginning to close in on him from all sides. But by then, he had already understood what needed to be done to overcome the existential terror – he must examine himself.
This realization came to him after an incident in which he himself was as close to death as could be: Sometime in 1569 or 1570, he went on a horseback ride around his castle, accompanied by his servants. The times were civil war times, everyone traveled armed, but Montaigne, a small man, chose a small, docile horse this time, after all – the tour was planned as a short and short-term one.
When he was violently thrown from his horse, he first thought he had been shot from an ambush. When he managed to reconstruct what had happened from the carefully filtered testimonies of the servants (he questioned them meticulously and cross-examined, one by one, as he lay on his sickbed), he discovered to his surprise that body and mind could be even more disconnected than he had previously thought: he was told that he had bled heavily and vomited incessantly, that his hands had tried to tear his jacket while he was completely unconscious. As soon as he regained consciousness, he answered questions and gave instructions without being aware of it. All the way home he did not experience any pain, and only when he did regain full consciousness was he attacked by pain and unpleasant sensations.
Montaigne conducted a thorough interrogation of witnesses in order to obtain full information about what had happened: it turned out that one of his servants, a large man on a large horse, decided to show off to others, started galloping and crashed violently into his master and his small horse (the other servants tried to defend him with vague answers, but Montaigne managed to get it out of them in the end).
He now examined his initial state, sensory dullness, as the closest thing to death, and this taught him not to fear this state. As Pliny the Elder said: “Each of us is an excellent subject of study for himself, provided he is able to examine himself closely.”
All the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers he loved so much had taught him since his youth that death was the ultimate practice (which can be translated into French as “essay”), but Montaigne was determined to engage in such practices from now on, and writing the essays helped him improve himself, as long as he remained honest with his readers.
Montaigne Invents the First Blog and Facebook Page
He had long since grown weary of political life – at the end of the Third War of Religion, Catholic Bordeaux, the capital of the Calvinist province of Guienne, was a particularly difficult arena for maintaining governance and the rule of law (he would later serve as mayor there several times).
The peace of mind that was sometimes available to him in his castle (which he divided between his wife, his mother, and himself, – a tower on the right for him, a tower on the left for Françoise, and his mother in the middle), – tempted him to withdraw from the urban race and focus exclusively on writing.
In 1570 he sold his servant, and on his 38th birthday, in February 1571, he ordered the following inscription to be written inside the library room in his tower:
“In the year of our Lord 1571, at the age of thirty-eight, on the last day of February, his birthday, long weary of the servitude of court life and public service, and while still lucid in mind, he retired to the bosom of learned virgins, where, free from all cares, he will spend in peace the little that remains of his life, of which half has already passed. If fate permits, he will complete the construction of this place, this sweet refuge in the abode of his ancestors, and he dedicates it to his freedom, his peace of mind, and his leisure.”
The writing of the "essays" began.
To live is my occupation and my art,” he wrote, and anyone who sees “Essays” as a guide to action or a factual historical investigation would be mistaken. This book is the first blog, the first Facebook page in the world, and it is all Montaigne’s investigation of himself, of what is going on in his soul. After all, it was he who claimed, paradoxically, that “judgment by actions” could actually be misleading. Actions could be contingent, utilitarian, and not necessarily derived from the personality of the doer. “I do not put my actions on paper, but myself, my essence.
Thank you for the article that excellently summarizes Montaigne's life.