Philippe Desan

Michel de Montaigne was not just the inventor of a genre, nor merely the author of the Essays, which have gripped readers from Shakespeare to Virginia Woolf and Orson Welles. He also led an extraordinary life. Descended from merchants, he underwent unusual immersion in Latin during his pre-school years. From the age of six onwards he was taught by leading Renaissance humanists (including the Scot George Buchanan) at the Collège de Guyenne in Bordeaux. Michel entered the nobility, thanks to a combination of the family’s seigneury (purchased by his grandfather) and a councillorship in the Bordeaux Parlement (obtained through nepotism). There, he drafted reports on thorny lawsuits, which he helped judge. But, opposed to the condemnation to death of Protestants by the Parlement and with his options changed by the loss of his father, when he was passed over for promotion Michel resigned his office and withdrew to the family estate, aged just 38.

Although Montaigne’s tower was soon built – complete with chapel, bedroom and library – he did not immediately become the reclusive author of legend. Certainly, he spent some of the ensuing decade writing a work published in 1580 as the Essays (later greatly expanded). He also forged a new career as emissary and negotiator in the Wars of Religion that were tearing France apart. Recommended to the king (Charles IX) by a powerful Guyenne neighbour (Gaston de Foix), whose château was just 20 kilometres away, Montaigne was made Knight of the Order of St Michael. It was a huge social leap. Unusually, he also became Gentleman of the Chamber of the great pretender to the throne, the Protestant Henri de Navarre (later Henri IV). Montaigne was a go-between, valued by both sides.

Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.

Neil Kenny is Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. His books include Death and Tenses: Posthumous Presence in Early Modern France (Oxford, 2015).… (mehr)