Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/798

Rh 768 MONTAIGNE of the Pleiade. Montaigne remained at school seven years, and, like almost all Frenchmen of all times, retained no pleasant or complimentary memory of it. At thirteen he left the College de Guienne and began to study law, it is not known where, but probably at Toulouse, the most famous university, despite its religious intolerance, of the south of France. Of his youth, early manhood, and middle life extremely little is known. Allusions to it in the Essays are frequent enough, but they are rarely precise. In 1548 he was at Bordeaux during one of the frequent riots caused by the gabelle, or salt tax. Six years afterwards, having attained his majority, he was made a counsellor in the Bordeaux parliament. In 1558 he was present at the siege of Thionville. Like his father, he certainly served in the army, for he has frequent allusions to military experiences. He was also much about the court, and he admits very frankly that in his youth he led a life of pleasure, if not exactly of excess. In 1566 he married Frangoise de la Chassaigne, whose father was, like himself, a member of the Bordeaux parliament. Three years later his father died, and he succeeded to the family possessions. Finally, in 1571, as he tells us in an inscription still extant, he retired to Montaigne to take up his abode there. This was the turning-point of his life. It has been said that his health was never strong, and it had been further weakened by the hard living (in both senses of that phrase) which was usual at the time. He resolved, accordingly, to retire to a life of study and con templation, though he did not in the least seclude himself, and indulged in no asceticism except careful diet. Mon taigne was a large country house unfortified (in which circumstance its astute possessor saw rather safety than danger from the turbulence of the religious wars), and its owner s revenues, without being large, appear to have been easy. He neither had nor professed any enthusiastic affection for his wife, but he lived on excellent terms with her, and bestowed some pains on the education of the only child (a daughter) who survived infancy. In his study, which he has minutely described, he read, wrote, dictated, meditated, inscribed moral sentences, which still remain on the walls and rafters, and in other ways gave himself up to learned ease. He was not new to literature. In his father s lifetime, and at his request, he had translated the Theologia Naturalis of Raymond de Sebonde, a Spanish schoolman. On first coming to live at Montaigne he edited the works of his deceased friend Ltienne de la Boetie, who had been the comrade of his youth, who died early, and who, with poems of real promise, had composed a declamatory and schoolboyish theme on republicanism, entitled the Contr Un, which is one of the most over estimated books in literature. But the years of his studious retirement were spent on a work of infinitely greater importance. Garrulous after a fashion, as Mon taigne is, he gives us no clear idea of any original or definite impulse leading him to write the famous Essays. It is very probable that if they were at first intended to have any special form at all it was that of a table-book or journal, such as was never more commonly kept than in the 16th century. But the author must have been more or less conscious of an order existing in the disorder of his thoughts, and this may have induced him to keep them apart in chapters, or at least under chapter-headings, and at the same time not to cut them up into mere pensees. It is certainly very noticeable that the earlier essays, those of the first two books, differ from the later in one most striking point, in that of length. Speaking generally, the essays of the third book average fully four times the length of those of the other two. This of itself would suggest a difference in the system of composition. For the present, however, we may confine ourselves to the first two books. These appeared in 1580, when their author was forty-seven years old. They contain, as at present published, no less than ninety-throe essays, besides an exceedingly long apology for the already-men tioned Raymond Sebonde, which amounts to about a quarter of the whole in bulk, and differs curiously from its companions in matter no less than in scale. The book begins with a short avis (address to the reader), opening with the well-known words, &quot;C est icy nn livre de bon foy lecteur,&quot; and sketching in a few lively sentences the character of meditative egotism which is kept up throughout. His sole object, the author says, is to leave for his friends and relations a mental portrait of himself, defects and all ; he cares neither for utility nor fame. The essays then begin without any attempt to explain or classify their subjects. Their titles are of the most diverse character. Sometimes they are proverbial sayings, or moral adages, such as : &quot;Par divers moyens on arrive a pareille fin&quot;, &quot;Qu il no faut juger de notre heur qu apres la mort &quot;, &quot; Lc profit de Ton est le dommage de 1 anltre. &quot; Sometimes they are headed like the chapters of a treatise on ethics : &quot; De la tristesse &quot;, De 1 oisivete &quot;, &quot; De la peur &quot;, &quot;De 1 amitie.&quot; Sometimes a fact of some sort which has awaked a train of associations in the mind of the writer serves as a title, such as: &quot;On est puni de s opiniastrer a une place sans raison&quot;, &quot;De la bataille de Dreux&quot;, &c. Occasionally the titles seem to be deliberately fantastic, as : &quot; DCS puces &quot;, &quot; De 1 usage de se vestir. &quot; Sometimes, though not very often, the sections are in no proper sense essays, but merely commonplace book entries of singular facts or quotations with hardly any comment. These point to the haphazard or indirect origin of them which has been already suggested. But generally the essay-character that is to say, the discussion of a special point, it may be with wide digressions and divergences displays itself. The digressions are indeed constant, and sometimes have the appearance of being absolutely wilful. The nominal title, even when most strictly observed, is rarely more than a starting-point ; and, though the brevity of these first essays for the most part prevents the author from journeying very far, he contrives to get to the utmost range of his tether. Quotations are very frequent. These are the principal external characteristics of the book ; its internal spirit had better be treated when it can be spoken of completely. Between the publication of the first two books of essays in 1580 and the publication of the third in 1588, Mon taigne s life as distinguished from his Avritings becomes somewhat better known, and somewhat more interesting. He had, during the eight years of composition of his first volume, visited Paris occasionally and travelled for health or pleasure to Cauterets, Eaux Chaudes, and elsewhere. Charles IX., apparently, had made him one of his gentle men in ordinary, and perhaps conferred on him the order of St Michael. The fiercest period of the religious wars, save that yet to come of the League, passed over him with out harming him, though not without subjecting him to some risks. But his health grew worse and worse, and he was tormented by stone and gravel. He accordingly re solved to journey to the baths of Lucca. Late in the 18th century a journal was found in the chateau of Montaigne, giving an account of this journey, and it was published in 1774; part of it is written in Italian and part dictated in French, the latter being for the most part the work of a secretary or servant. Whatever may be the biographi cal value of this work, which has rarely been reprinted with the Essays themselves, it is almost entirely destitute of literary interest. Written, moreover, according to its own showing merely for the author s own eye, it contains abundance of details as to the medicinal effect of the various baths which he visited, details which may be said to be superfluous to a medical reader, and disgusting to any other. The course of the journey was first north wards to Plombieres, then by Basel to Augsburg and Munich, then through Tyrol to Verona and Padua in Italy. Montaigne visited most of the famous cities of the north and centre, staying five months at Rome, and finally establishing himself at the baths of Lucca for nearly as long a time. There he received news of his election as mayor of Bordeaux, and after some time journeyed home wards. The tour contains much minute information about roads, food, travelling, itc., but the singular condition in which it exists, and the absence of a really good critical