Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/801

Rh M O N M O N 771 Not much is known of him in these later years, and indeed, despite the laborious researches of many bio graphers, of whom one, Dr Payen, has never been excelled in persevering devotion, it cannot be said that the amount of available information about Montaigne is large at any time of his life. It would seem that the essayist had returned to his old life of study and meditation and working up his Essays. No new ones were found after his death, but many alterations and insertions. His various maladies grew worse ; yet they were not the direct cause of his death. He was attacked with quinsy, which rapidly brought about paralysis of the tongue, and he died on the llth of September 1592, under circumstances which, as Pasquier reports them, completely disprove any intention, at least on his part, of displaying anti-Christian or anti- Catholic leanings. Feeling himself on the point of death, he summoned divers of his friends and neighbours to his chamber, had mass said before him, and endeavoured to raise himself and assume a devotional attitude at the elevation of the host, dying almost immediately afterwards. He was buried, though not till some months after his death, in a church in Bordeaux, which after some vicissi tudes became the chapel of the College. During the Revolution the tomb and, as it was supposed, the coffin were transferred with much pomp to the town museum ; but it was discovered that the wrong coffin had been taken, and the whole was afterwards restored to its old position. Montaigne s widow survived him, and his daughter left pos terity which became merged in the noble houses of Segur and Lur-Saluces. But it does not appear that any male representative of the family survived, and the chateau is not now in the possession of any descendant of it. When Mademoiselle de Gournay heard of the death of Mon taigne she undertook with her mother a visit of ceremony and con dolence to the widow, which had important results for literature. Madame de Montaigne gave her a copy of the edition of 1588, annotated copiously ; at the same time, apparently, she bestowed another copy, also annotated by the author, on the convent of the Feuillants in Bordeaux, to which the church in which his remains lay was attached. Mademoiselle de Gournay thereupon set to work to produce a new and final edition with a zeal and energy which would have done credit to any editor of any date. She herself worked with her own copy, inserting the additions, marking the alterations, and translating all the quotations. But when she had got this to press she sent the proofs to Bordeaux, where a poet of some note, Pierre de Brach, revised them with the other annotated copy. The edition thus produced has with justice passed as the standard even in preference to those which appeared in the author s lifetime. Unluckily, Mademoiselle de Gournay s original does not appear to exist, and her text was said, until the appearance of MM. Courbet and Royer s edition, to have been somewhat wantonly corrupted, especially in the important point of spelling. The Feuillants copy is in existence, being the only manuscript or partly manuscript authority for the text. It was edited in 1803 by Naigeon, the disciple of Diderot ; but, according to later inquiries, considerable liberties were taken with it. The first edition of 1580, with the various readings of two others which appeared during the author s lifetime, was reprinted by MM. Dezeimeris and Burck- hausen. Hitherto the edition of Le Clerc (3 vols., Paris, 1826-28) and in a more compact form that of Louandre (4 vols., Paris, 1854) have been the most useful. The edition, however, of MM. Courbet and Royer, which is based on that of 1595, will undoubtedly be the standard ; but, though the text is complete (Paris, Lemerre, 1873- 1877), the fifth volume, containing the biographyjand all the editorial apparatus, has unluckily yet (1883) to make its appearance. The editions of Montaigne in France and elsewhere, and the works upon him during the past three centuries, are innumerable. His influence upon his successors has already been hinted at, and cannot here be traced in detail. In one case, however, that of Pascal it is of sufficient importance to deserve mention. Pascal, who has left a special discourse on Montaigne, was evidently profoundly influenced by him, and the attitude towards his teacher is an interesting one. The sceptical method of the essayist is at once tempting and terrible to him. He accepts it in so far as it demolishes the claims of human reason and heathen philosophy, but evidently dreads it in so far as it is susceptible of being turned against religion itself. In England Montaigne was early popular. It was long supposed that the autograph of Shakespeare in a copy of Florio s translation showed hL&amp;gt; study of the Essays. The autograph has been disputed, but divers passages, and especially one in The Tempest, show tlmt at first or second hand the poet was acquainted with the essayist. Towards the latter end of the 17th century, Cotton, the friend of Isaac Walton, executed a complete translation, which, though not extraordinarily faithful, possesses a good deal of rough vigour. It has been frequently reprinted with additions and alterations. The most noteworthy critical handling of the subject in English is unquestionably Emerson s in Representative Men. (G. SA.) MONTALEMBERT, CHARLES FORBES DE (1810-1870), historian, was born on 29th May 1810. The family was a very ancient one, belonging to Poitou, or rather to Angoumois. Direct descent is said to be provable to the 13th century, and charters and other documents carry the history of the house two centuries further back. For some generations before the historian the family had been dis tinguished, not merely in the army, but for scientific attain ments. Montalembert s father, Rene, emigrated, fought under Cond6, and subsequently served in the English army. He married a Miss Forbes, and his eldest son Charles was born at London. At the Restoration Rene de Montalembert returned to France, was raised to the peerage in 1819, and became ambassador to Sweden (where Charles received much of his education) in 1826. He died a year after the overthrow of the legitimate monarchy. Charles de Montalembert was too young to take his seat as a peer (twenty-five being the necessary age), but he retained other rights ; and this, combined with his literary and intellectual activity, made him a person of some importance. He had eagerly entered into the somewhat undefined plans of Lamennais and Lacordaire for the establishment of a school of Liberal Catholicism, and he co-operated with them, both in the Avenir (see LAMEN NAIS, vol. xiv. pp. 239, 240) and in the practical endeavour, which absorbed some of the best energies of France at the time, to break through the trammels of the system of state education. This latter scheme first brought Montalembert into notice, as he was formally charged with unlicensed teaching. He claimed the right of trial by his peers, and made a notable defence, of course with a deliberate intention of protest. His next most remarkable act was his participa tion in the famous pilgrimage to Rome of his two friends. This step, as is well known, proved useless to mitigate the measures which private intrigues, and perhaps a not alto gether injudicious instinct, prompted the Roman curia to take against the Avenir and the doctrines of its promoters. Montalembert, however, submitted dutifully to the ency clical of June 1835, and only devoted himself more assiduously to the work on which he was engaged, the Life of St Elizabeth of Hungary. This appeared in 1836. It displayed Montalembert s constant literary characteristics, and, though inferior to Les Moines d Occident in research and labour, is perhaps superior to it as a work of art. The famous speech by which Montalembert is best known, &quot; Nous sommes les fils des croises et jamais nous ne re- culerons devant les fils de Voltaire &quot;, expresses, or at least indicates, his attitude not insufficiently. He was an ardent student of the Middle Ages, but his mediaeval enthusiasm was strongly tinctured with religious sentiment, and at the same time by no means connected with any affection for despotism. Montalembert still clung to his early liberalism, and he made himself conspicuous during the reign of Louis Philippe by his protests against the restrictions imposed on the liberty of the press, besides struggling for freedom in national education. The party which he represented, or rather which he strove to found, was by no means wholly Legitimist at heart, and at the downfall of Louis Philippe Montalembert had no difficulty in accepting the republic and taking, when elected, a seat in the assembly. He had not a little to do with the support given by France to the pope. As he had accepted the republic, he was not disinclined to accept the empire ; but the measures which