Texts:St. John/Montaigne

<title>Texts:St. John/Montaigne</title>

text-indent: 0;">Bayle St. John

London:Chapman and Hall, 1858

PREFACE. There remains very little for me to say by way of Preface, except that this contribution to the biographical history of French literature is in tended to be the first of a series, which, when completed, will form a view of the formation and variations of opinion, prejudice, character, taste, and, to a certain extent, manners in France, from the time of Rabelais to that of Rousseau. But I take this opportunity of recording my thanks to M. and Madame de Curial for the hospitable manner in which they received me during my visit to the Chateau de Montaigne ; and to Mr. Henry Wallis — whose excellent VI PREFACE. painting of the interview between the Essayist and Marie de Gournay, all visitors to the last — Exhibition of the Academy will remember for the sketch of the interior of Montaigne's Tower, which forms the frontispiece of the second volume. The Portrait is taken from a published copy of the original painting on wood, in the possession of Dr. Payen ; whom also I thank, though I have not the pleasure of knowing him, for the great assistance I have derived from his " Researches." B. St. J. Paris, November 1857. *

CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. PRELIMINARY .1 ... 6 II. THE ANCESTORS OF MONTAIGNE III. ADVENTURES AND CHARACTER OF PIERRE EYQUEM ..... .16 IV. BIRTH, AND EARLY EDUCATION OF MONTAIGNE 35 V. HOW MICHEL STUDIED THE HUMANITIES . 43 VI. THE BOY IS SENT TO COLLEGE . . .50 VIT. STUDENT-LIFE OF MONTAIGNE . . .61 VIII. THE REBELLION OF 1548 69 .... IX. MONTAIGNE AT COURT IN EARLY LIFE . 94 X. MONTAIGNE AS A LOVER . . . .102 XI. COURT LIFE OF MONTAIGNE FROM 1557 TO 1563 121 XII. MONTAIGNE FORMS A FRIENDSHIP WITH ESTI­ ENNE DE LA BOET1E . . . .138 XIII. TWO INGENIOUS WRITERS CONFRONTED . . 146 XIV. EARLY LIFE OF ESTIENNE DE LA BOETIE . 154 XV. LA BOETIE WRITES A TREATISE AGAINST DES POTISM 169 ...... XVI. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE TREATISE ON VOLUN TARY SERVITUDE . . . . .179 Vlll CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE XVII. THE APPEARANCE OF THE PLEIAD . .197 XVIII. LA BOETIE AT PARIS, AND AS A LATIN POET . 207 XIX. THE LAST MOMENTS OF LA BOETIE . . 216 XX. MARRIAGE OF MONTAIGNE 234 .... XXI. THE PARLIAMENT OF BORDEAUX . . . 243 XXII. THE TRANSLATION OF RAYMOND DE SEBONDE 257 XXITI. DEATH OF PIERRE EYQUEM, AND ITS CON SEQUENCES 266 xxiv. Montaigne's editions of la boetie . .271 XXV. MONTAIGNE IN LITERARY SOCIETY . . 285 XXVI. MONTAIGNE RETIRES TO HIS CHATEAU . . 297 XXVII. THE CHATEAU DE MONTAIGNE . . . 305 XXVIII. EXPERIENCES OF COUNTRY LIFE AND MANNERS 314 XXIX. PERSONAL DETAILS ON MONTAIGNE . . 322 XXX. THE ESSAYIST PAINTS HIS OWN MORAL POR TRAIT . 330 Illustrations. portrait OF monta^ne . . Frontispiece THE CASTELLET OF LA BOETIE . . . .154 THE CHATEAU OF MONTAIGNE .....

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. A BIOGRAPHY.

CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY. No French writer has exerted so much influence on English literature with the exception, perhaps, of Rabelais as Montaigne. The Essays are known in substance far beyond the circle of readers who can decipher their idiomatic French, studded with Gascon phrases, or relish the quaint old English translations by Florio and Cotton, however modernised. From Shakspeare and Bacon, down to the humblest essayist earnest enough to make man the theme of his specu lations, we find traces of communion with Montaigne. His acquaintance is sometimes acknowledged, oftener implied. Butler and Pope quote, but Swift and Sterne show that they were familiar with him. There is something marvellously fascinating in his society, VOL, I. B MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. which explains this influence far more than any poverty of thought in our great writers. No man can pass an hour with him without feeling wiser and more inclined to be sententious. The range of his observations was so vast, that to borrow from the Essays seems equivalent to borrowing from the collective experience of humanity. Montaigne would have been the last man to complain of such treat ment ; for if all his successors, especially in our island, have taken from him, he took from all his predeces sors. We are never sure, when we open the Essays and are dazzled by some saying that sparkles like a diamond, whether we should admire Plutarch, Seneca, or Montaigne. To point out, therefore, that English writers are under obligation to this wonder ful speculator, is not to diminish their value but to show that it is a debt of gratitude in us to study his career. There are some features in the Biography of Montaigne which have become part of the tradition evoked to the memory of most serious readers by his name. That he came into the world sixty years after the discovery of printing, forty after the discovery of America, and fifteen after Luther preached his reform ; that he was made the subject of a singular experiment in education ; that his early life was distinguished by — a sort of heroic friendship for Estienne de la Boetie the greatest man of that age; that he retired from the turmoil of courts to studious seclusion in his ancestral mansion ; that he wrote a series of desultory Essays on Man, drawing materials chiefly from observation of his own character ; that he was the first to circulate sceptical ideas in a popular form, and yet that he is still claimed as a good Catholic by the Church, still suspected by fanatical free-thinkers ; that, whilst some religious men have condemned him for his doubts, others, as religious, have loved him for his honesty; all these things are incorporated in the history of literature. It is also pretty generally known, that great uncertainty exists about most actual facts in the biography of the Essayist which he has not himself communicated ; and yet that he has a retinue of ad mirers, in whom admiration often degenerates into mania, and who devoutly spend their days in searching for traces of his footsteps.

But the truth is, that the life of Montaigne has generally been studied in an antiquarian spirit. Much — material has been unearthed, like the miscellaneous of discovered beneath Egyptian fragments temple a loam,—but no one has undertaken the task of re in both ways. storation. may claim to have laboured I During fifteen years, every interval of repose has been — occupied in this study charming intervals, though by result often unblessed valuable and if noany ; manuscript journal, note, or register, has been first if me,— importance has met my ear after escaping the diligence of its dust by local tradition of stripped no of provincial enthusiasm, believe that these volumes I The whole field of contain narrative entirely new. a MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. the literature of the sixteenth century in France has been questioned for purposes of illustration and inter pretation ; and many casual statements of the Essayist himself have been listened to for the first time with due curiosity. My object has been, not merely to paint a moral and intellectual picture of those times, but strictly to elucidate the chronology and incidents of the life of Montaigne — his character, his literary and philosophical intentions, his relations with contempo raries, the influences he received and imparted to — produce, in fact, a complete body of information, which may worthily serve as an introduction to the works of so remarkable a man. In another place will be found recapitulated the principal sources of information from which I have drawn; but I think it right to mention here the names of three laborious students, whom I shall often be com pelled to refute, but who have done good service in bringing together materials for the lives of Montaigne and La Boetie M. Leon Feugere, M. Griin, and Dr. Payen. Of the last-mentioned an English writer has recently most justly observed : " His name, like that of Mademoiselle de Gournay, must ever be associated with that of Montaigne.'" "When in 1844 I undertook this work, after publishing the first chapter I relinquished

it, feeling that the state of knowledge at that time by Having collected, was incomplete. patient reading, I vast quantity of notes, pamphlets, containing much that was new, and en abling me to fill up many lacunes. With this assist met at last with Dr. Payen's a PRELIMINARY. ance, and that of the two other learned persons I have alluded to above, not to mention here minor authorities,I fearlessly pushed on to its end this investigation ; which has given me, I must confess, all the delight of a search for Treasure.

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

CHAPTER II. THE ANCESTORS OF MONTAIGNE. The narrative of the life of Michel de Montaigne takes us at the outset into Perigord, a region of France, on the state and manners of which towards the beginning of the sixteenth century but a dim light A sort of morning mist it, and is shed. over spreads few figures moving amidst only just we can a see colourless objects. Perigord was one of the least pros perous and civilised portions of that great province by the English under the name of Guyenne, created and including the Bordelais, Saintonge, the Agenais, Quercy, Perigord, and Limousin,—with Bordeaux for capital. Perigord had some broad, open plains, a where armies might manoeuvre and truffle-hunters wander, but most of its hills were covered with forests which the of chestnut-trees, furnishing food a pea santry and the swine they tended consumed in com wild and uninhabited butmon. Many parts were ; near the roads between the fortified towns, and espe cially along the banks of the Dordogne, numerous seats of the nobility and gentry were scattered all battlemented, and moated, and garrisoned, even in time of peace. The province was famous, as it long continued to be, for the narrow patriotism of its in habitants, their attachment to local privileges, and proneness to resist the encroachments of a central

power. Frequently this turbulent spirit was encouraged by the great families, whilst at other times it was di rected against them. Perigord has some Jaqueries of its own to record. On a tertre, or eminence, overlooking the retired valley of the Didoire, that winds away northward from the great basin of the Dordogne, the chateau of Mon taigne seems to have risen from time immemorial, out living dynasties and revolutions, and receiving a suc cession of families to which it has more than once given a name. In the sixteenth century it belonged to the Eyquems, or rather to a branch of that house, once so important in Guyenne. Michel was the son of Pierre Eyquem, usually stated to have belonged to a branch that had preserved its nobility intact, whilst others maintain it to have derogated so far as to exercise trade in the preceding century. The ques tion, so idle in the eyes of formal moralists, is in teresting to biography. When we see a man step out into the light of fame, we naturally seek some knowledge, not only of the paths he has himself trodden, but of the wanderings of his family, their meetings, their alliances, their adventures in obscurity. We inherit more than existence from our forefathers.

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. The finest fruits have some flavour of the soil in which they grow. And it is scarcely possible duly to appreciate the career of the Gascon Essayist without knowing the exact social position from which he started.

We are met, at the threshold of our inquiries, by " the startling assertion of Scaliger : Montaigne's father was a herring-monger." This phrase, gathered from the testy savant's conversation and usually quoted as a calumny, should be considered as a mere joke; based however, there can be no doubt, on some fact well known at that time. It is scarcely serious to say, that if the statement were literally true " Montaigne would lose nothing, and herring-mongers would gain a great deal." Real liberality is not so squeamish. We want to know whether the Essayist was a gentleman of old family or of new family, whether he had good here ditary claim to nobility and was entitled to talk of his escutcheon, or whether he was really but two removes from a worthy merchant of the city of Bordeaux, and therefore garrulous about his new dignity. It is a curious illustration of the uncer tainty of our knowledge about times comparatively recent, that the most industrious research has not been able definitively to appease dispute. We know that there existed a very extensive noble family, whose name under various forms — as Ayquem, Eyquelm, Eyquem — is frequently alluded to in the history of the province of Guyenne. As far back as the time of the Black Prince we find it mentioned, and it occurs in every list of wine-proprietors to this day. We may even now see it written over the shops of tradesmen on the quays of Bordeaux ; and the first

impression certainly is, that it must be "essentially

of Gascon origin." But we observe in various French of of the evidence unsettled biographies state a very mind on this subject and an incautious Englishman ; might easily be betrayed into claiming Montaigne as countryman. If we stand aside and do not interfere, a we may, perhaps, have him handed over to us at last. Already the name of Eyquem, suspected on account of its foreign aspect, has been referred to Flanders ; found under differentindeed, slightly where, is it a form. But what connexion had Flanders ever with and shall we forget that the English created Gascony ? of Guyenne, for hundredsand occupiedthe province it It was easy to make Eyquem of Oakham of years ? ; of Egham absurd; the and all is if suggestion not I fail we have the statement, which Scotch word am unable to verify, signifying " Moun that Eyquem " is a Molieire was of British origin, therefore ! tain taigne may have been. He himself tells us, indeed, that he was connected with an English family; men tions that he had relatives in England; and adds, that in consequence of our long occupation of Guyenne the people of his neighbourhood had much intermarried with us; even that in his own house there still re mained traces of " Mon this ancient cousinhood." It is, per haps, worth observing, as evidence to change of man MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. ners, that Montaigne claims relationship with England in a tone implying a certain pride. The family name of the Essayist being known to have been Eyquem, the discussion turns, among an tiquaries, on the period at which his predecessors became possessed of the chateau in the valley of the Didoire. There are some contradictions in the testi mony brought forward, but the probability is that they were established there for centuries. From the fact that their dwelling-place crowned an eminence they were called the Eyquems of the Mountain, or simply the Seigneurs de Montaigne — a Petrus de Montanha is mentioned as doing homage for the estate in 1306— and this title, it is likely, was adopted gradually by them, without any new letters of knighthood to distin guish them from the too-numerous Eyquems. Michel himself gives an account of the process by which such mutations usually took place, and severely blames the custom, to which he was obliged to yield, of calling every one by the name of his estate. "Thus are families confounded and origins obscured," he says, proceeding to direct the point of his wit against parvenus, for whom illustrious genealogical titles, un known to their fathers, are at once found when they have become rich and powerful. By dropping the name of Eyquem, and assuming that of Montaigne, the family succeeded in isolating itself from its relatives, more or less distant ; but, to its annoyance, often became confounded with other

/ families who had derived their titles from similar local circumstances, and had no connexion of blood with them whatever. The care with which the Essayist points out this fact will appear puerile only to those who do not know that there was a man of the same name, a maistre-d'hostel of the Duke of Guise, who had earned an infamous celebrity in the pamphlets of the time as the instigator of the massacre of Vassy, the real beginning of the religious wars in France. Montaigne, however, carefully avoids alluding to this wretch ; and tells us merely that there was a family at Montpellier and Paris called Montaigne, and another in Brittany and Saintonge. It may be observed paren thetically, that when Oliver St. John, some time Chief Justice of England, went to live in exile with his wife at Montpellier, he assumed the name of Monsieur Montaigne. At the very time at which the Essays werev-written there existed in England, as I find from a MS. in the British Museum, a George Montaigne, D.D., Master of the Savoy Hospital ; and another contemporary, also called George Montaigne, is men tioned as the author of a book on the Poor of Paris. The secretary of Catherine de Medici is now well known. Towards the end of the century the name is of frequent occurrence in the history of Bordeaux. The negligence of the Canon Prunis has been de plored, because, having before him certain documents in which the Eyquems of Montaigne — always called Damoiseaux, or gentlemen who were not knights — were traced back to a.d. 1400, he neglected to copy

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. them. It seemed as if we scarcely required all this— hardly possible, at any rate, that Dr. Payen, after spending his life in studying Montaigne's, should imagine that the documents above-mentioned referred to certain fabulous Montanhas, not to the Eyquems. Michel himself tells us that most of his ancestors were born at their favourite residence of Montaigne, and in timates that his great-grandfather was born there in 1402. He even enters into detail, stating that his great-grandfather lived nearly to the age of eighty, his grandfather to that of sixty -nine, and his father to that of seventy-four ; and implies, as strongly as lan guage can, that they were all born, brought up, and all died near the same hearth, and under the same roof. But in the absence of legal proof that the Montaigne estate belonged to the Eyquems before 1473, it has been suggested that by " ancestors" Michel means his uncles and aunts : no allusion is made to the three generations ; and we are introduced to some quaint old gentlemen of the Eyquem stock, Ramons and Grimons, who were merchants and citizens of Bordeaux towards the middle of the fifteenth cen­tury. Ramon Eyquem was called in his will, "Ramon Ayquem, marchant, parropiant de la gleysa de Sent Miqueu et borgues de Bordeu." A Ramon de Gaujac, alias Locodot, is also called merchant ; and Isabeau de Verteuil, niece of Grimon, married one Dufleys, a mer chant. All these personages appear by a flickering light, and we cannot exactly say how they stand or where they are standing. But it is probable that, as

in Brittany, a noble origin was no impediment to trading in Guyenne, and that the Perigord squires had always houses and interests engaged —perhaps ships, perhaps fishing-boats, or herring-smacks, at Bordeaux. It is curious that one chronicler makes Scaliger say that Montaigne descended from a fisherman of Brit tany, who set up as a herring-monger in the quarter of La Roussette, where still exists a blind alley called Montaigne. These traditions, vague though they be, evidently point all one way— towards facts which are them selves concealed from us. We may be certain that the Eyquems earned their right to be called burgesses of Bordeaux by trade of some kind, but this does not in reality disprove the nobility of the family. At any rate, we can infer nothing positive from the fact that the estate of Montaigne, the possession of which con ferred nobility, is not mentioned in the will of Ramon Eyquem, whilst it afterwards appears in the possession of Grimon. The estate of Mattecoulon was not men tioned in the will of Pierre Eyquem, because he gave it to his son, Bertrand Charles, brother of our Michel, during his own lifetime. Be this as it may, if Ramon seems something mythological in character, Grimon comes out into historical clearness. He is called in old documents a " nobleman," and " lord of Montaigne ;" and we may safely award victory in argument to the patient and ingenious men who have thought it worth while to make a stand for the gentleness of his blood. In the absence, indeed, of direct proof, knowing as we

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. do the swarm of Eyquems that existed, and the com monness of such names as Ramon, we cannot refer to the family of our philosopher every document in which a Ramon Eyquem is mentioned. We shall observe, whilst following Montaigne through his varied intellectual career, that he never ceases any moment to remember that he belonged to a privileged class. He was proud of the distinction, and grateful for it. It was, indeed, something in those days to be a gentleman. The position was a pedestal and a vantage-ground. We may fairly sus pect, moreover, that had Montaigne been less inde pendent of the world's more vulgar cares than he was, he would never have written, or written anything but philosophical essays. There was at first something menial in the position, and there remained something menial in the tone of many of the other writers of the sixteenth century. Montaigne speaks with the ease, not to say flippancy, of a man who has a dozen farms inherited from his ancestors; and who knows that no one can say a word as to his origin. He is evidently the representative of a long line of country squires, who from the time of the English conquest had lived in that retired nook of country, almost out of the track of armies,—not utterly isolated, but keeping up a con nexion with the capital of the province, and never failing to offer their services to their sovereign when there was a prospect of glory, booty, or adventure. The continued existence of this family on the same estate, in the same house, through a period so full, according to public histories, of troubles and tem pests —when we imagine the population to have been unstable as water —reminds us that society is rarely ever stirred to its depths; and that even when we read of Ruin and Disaster sweeping over a whole country, we must remember that those terrible visitants generally travel by the highway.

In the Middle Ages all families of any power or wealth, moreover, built, as I have said, castles or fortified mansions, round which the tide of devas tation flowed. The dwelling of the Eyquem family appears always to have been sufficiently strong to resist sudden attacks, and was in the neighbourhood and under the protection of more imposing fortresses. But during the period immediately preceding that which we are now about to examine, comparative tran quillity had blessed the province. Country gentlemen could leave their doors open and go forth into their orchards, unbraced, without a morion on their heads.

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

CHAPTER III. ADVENTURES AND CHARACTER OF PIERRE EYQUEM. Grimon Eyquem was born about 1440 and died before " 1509, as we learn, says Dr. Payen, from an order of revelation " emanating from Pope Leo the Tenth, insist ing that all who knew of debtors to the estate should reveal them, under pain of excommunication. Pierre Eyquem appears to have been the eldest son of Grimon. He had three brothers the Sieur de St. Michel, who died young ; the Sieur de Bussaguet, conseiller in the Court of Parliament, who, though apparently the strongest in health, died because he put himself into the hands of the doctors ; and the Seigneur de Gaviac, a churchman, who lived long because he had a whole some aversion to medicine. His nephew, with an odd mixture of gravity and irony, tells us that the said lord of Gaviac, having been once seized with a violent fever, was informed by the doctors that if he would not comply with their prescriptions all was over with him. " Then I am a dead man already," he exclaimed. But having, it would appear, declined their services, he recovered by the grace of God. Montaigne belonged ADVENTUEES OF PIEKRE EYQUEM. to a family, most of whom were humoristic opponents of the medical art. We shall presently see that many other of his humours for he was essentially a hu morist were, to a certain extent, home crotchets. One of his great is, that he makes himself charms

of little body of doctrine, forged in the exponent a retired society, retired place, that small in by a a family of oddities; whose oddities were often genial views of life and intuitive perceptions of how its com forts might be increased. It necessary to trace briefly the career of Pierre on those features in his is Eyquem, touching character, position, and adventures, which seem to have most influenced the opinions and the conduct of his son. by Brevity in this case the lawsenforced, not only by is of proportion, but scantiness of materials. We know very little of Pierre Eyquem during the active part of his was during that period that, it career yet ; in common with so many other of his countrymen, he intellectual impulse, which, in his received strong a communicated through his son, and the famous is case, allude to his experiences in unto us. even Essays, I Italy, whence he brought back, not only his peculiar theory of education, but his fondness for learning generally, and his admiration of learned men. During the reigns of Charles the Eighth, Louis the Twelfth, and Francis the First, the French spirit of adventure set in towards Italy.strong current a Those kings warred for family and personal objects ; bya mass ofand were accompanied and imitated vast VOI. I. MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. the ambitious nobility of the country. Every royal army was swelled by a number of volunteers young gentlemen of family, who left their homes partly from mere love of fighting, partly impelled by that vague desire of experience which France has so seldom yielded to, but which, in this case, so marvellously influenced its fortunes. A recent historian picturesquely calls this move ment, The Discovery of Italy. And it was, morally and intellectually, a discovery. Without adopting the exaggerated language it is the custom to use with respect to the Renaissance which was a stride in civilisation following on many good steps, but falling far short of its aim we must admit the peculiar importance of that period in the history of France. The French adventurers in Italy were more simple­minded and susceptible of impression than their heirs ; quite as corrupt in manners, but less egotistical ; astute and able, but not so aware of their defects and their virtues; more disposed to fraternal inter course even with enemies. Europe at that time was laying open new empires in the East and West. The world was growing under men's feet as the heavens were deepening to their gaze. France shared little in this grand labour. It had remained shut up in its almost provincial indifference developing moderate talents in literature and art, small poets and estimable ornamentists, but no men of science of note ; great only in bigots, wranglers, and formal philosophers. Italy was a revelation to the nobility and fighting men, though

ADVENTURES OF PIERRE EYQUEM. net quite a revelation to the artisan, not at all to the trader. Even now Italy is a revelation to poets and moralists who come down the southern slope of the Alps for the first time. We advance under the blue sky dim with light, or beneath an awning of brightly-tinted clouds. White cottages, villas, clustered villages, and steepled cities though often found silent and weed-grown when we draw nigh—expand, look beautiful, and shine in that brilliant atmosphere, which exaggerates everything. The dusty plain of stubble, with its undergrowth of pale wild flowers, seems like a garden; the expanse of corn, shot with variegated

it, like the breeze trembles over seems a green as water-meadow. All the women are waiting by the wayside to be hallowed into Madonnas by some Raphael. Bring with us what prejudices we may, world of strongerwe feel wafted into another world a; passions, brighter impressions warmer and more glittering than our imagination has dared to picture. But what this to the Italy of the sixteenth century is ? The severe manners of the Republics — severe, com had luxury, paratively given place to portentous a never surpassed in modern times, save in some Eastern despotism. Poison and the dagger were often at work, true, in gloomy alcoves or dreary porticoes, at it is by but these were episodes recorded night the ; whisper of fear, or rolled along the lower levels of by the echoing voice of popular rumour. The society outside aspect was marvellously gay, and bright, and fascinating. Palaces of marble were decorated with MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. all the luxury of the goldsmith's art — which ex hausted its resources, and then made way for costlier ornaments dug out of the deepest mines of genius. Swarms of princes, and dignitaries, and chiefs, from the Papegaut of the Vatican down to the Gran' Diavolo, who patronised Aretino and introduced him to Francis the First, glittered or rioted amidst brocaded and silken courts —where merriment, and music, and dance, and song, and compassionate beauty, and more refined sources of pleasure, slaked all the senses and stimulated all the faculties of man. There was nothing wanting in that resplendent civilisation, which put on more gorgeous colours at the approach of death — " " the last still loveliest nothing, save morality. The intellect and the hand alike created miracles ; but no high purpose actuated man or society. Italy was a brilliant and cultivated libertine, too old to begin a new career, too hardened to repent; sinking amidst sweet sounds, and perfumes, and down, and gold, and caresses, and the last thrills of pleasure, always so fondly savoured, to a dishonoured grave. We must not, however, listen to exaggerated reports of the immediate influence of Italy upon the French imagination, or take for granted that the Romans understood that they were witnesses of "a revolution, not of the passage of an army," when they beheld the well-equipped troops of Charles the Eighth march by torchlight amidst fantastic shadows through their long streets. All Italy looked upon the French as barbarians, who came like a storm to destroy, and

ADVENTURES OF PIERRE EYQUEM. would pass away like a storm. The barbarians them selves were impelled chiefly by greed of luxury and gold ; and having satisfied their desires, retired for the most part as unimpressed as a wild beast that might seek its prey or its partner amidst the rich tapestries or art-marvels of a palace. Stupid they went, and stupid they came back —yet not quite so stupid in all cases; for, as I have implied, on the imaginations of some, strong impressions, more or less correct and de finite, were made. Francis the First is the type of the Frenchman of that period, not of the best or the worse, but of the class susceptible of civilising influences. What a strange personage he seems in the atmosphere of history, which has been able to exaggerate his pro portions but not to give dignity to his form or de meanour ! A giant boy, with all a boy's cunning and unscrupulousness in the pursuit of pleasure, with some of a boy's naivete, a boy's courage not safe from panic, a boy's superstition and love of the gaudy and flaunting — all a boy's greed of praise, less than a boy's honour, — with a man's cruelty, and a king's selfishness such seems to me the impression produced of Francis the First by the ordinary official histories. It would even yet be worth while to examine him under a clearer light; but this does not form part of my task, and it is only necessary here to point out in what degree may be received the panegyrics lavished on him as Restorer of Letters and Patron of the Arts. We may accept his father's^stimate of him. Louis the Twelfth used to say : " All my labour will be spoiled by that gros .^I^-La XU-nJ~ ~it^ \<JXiA~ J %

garqon" as who should say a booby, a sort of "lub berly boy," mysteriously destined to occupy the throne. Francis came, perfectly uncultivated, in contact with a very brilliant civilisation; and being possessed of unusual love of praise and fondness for display, with sufficient observation to see whence the brilliance of the Italian courts was derived, determined by an exertion of power, and without any personal sacrifices, to be sur rounded, when the society of panders and harlots palled, by artists and men of letters. How much plea sure he found in their works we cannot determine. Probably his vanity only was appealed to : for we are unable to see what place for the pure delights that are derived from art and poetry could be found in the mind of one who was ever in alternate fits of licentiousness and superstition, when he did not combine the two ; who has the especial honour of having revived the pu nishment of heresy by fire ; the great proof of whose ingenuity wastheinventionofthe Estrapade—amachine for ducking heretics into the flames and lifting them out again, so that the tortures of martyrdom might be prolonged; whose jaded senses derived but a moderate excitement when he went to a burning, as an English mob goes to a hanging, from the shrieks and struggles of suffering saints. Verily, this bosom-friend of Caesar Borgia, whose gallantry was that of the mastiff for — instead of courting ladies, he forced his way sword in hand into their chambers, brutally driving the husband — away this smirking, rawboned, apoplectic hero of a country fair, whose portrait disfigures the gallery of

ADVENTURES OF PIERRE EYQUEM. the Louvre — this blusterer, half whose phrases flattery effaces to convert him into a hero — " all is lost except honour.... and life, which is safe"—this savage per secutor, without the excuse of faith, exactly comes up to the idea of a Patron of Letters, who forbids the exercise of the art of printing in his dominions ! The French, like their king, went to Italy because there was fighting to be done and booty to be got there. Some of these adventurers have left narratives of what they did and what they saw, which enable us to appreciate the extent of their action and the nature of their impressions. Robert de Fleurange, whom we may take as a type of the class, informs us, that having read books that narrated the deeds of doughty knights of old, he was seized with the desire to imitate them before he was ten years of age; and actually went to the court of Louis the Twelfth to offer his services. He was slightly rebuffed by the monarch, who sent him to play at soldiers with young Francois d'Angouleme, afterwards king, at Amboise. We learn that the two children were put into the same litter, and had a good fight to decide which should get out first, "for the young adventurer thought himself as great a man as the prince." In due this fiery gentleman time obtained permission to cross the mountains and engage in serious battles; and if any one wishes for materials to guess at the kind of experiences which Pierre Eyquem went through at a slightly subsequent period, he has nothing to do but read the memoirs of The Adventurer.

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. Pierre was born in 1495, but we have no record of the year at which he went to the wars. Probably, like the Adventurer and his companions, who rendez­vou'd at Lyons, he was a mere stripling, and began his soldier's life before 1515. In 1511, it is true, we find him as a lad at Bordeaux writing Latin verses — which indicates a pacific disposition. We can easily imagine that he fought and rode about the country long, without even beginning to understand it. The naive confessions of the Adventurer are before us, as the best source of illustration. He frequents, during many years, the principal towns of northern and central Italy; and never allows a single allusion to the artistic treasures they contain to escape him, except one, which " I cannot forbear extracting : Now there was in the city of Bologna, above the portal of the principal church, a pope all in massive bronze, which had been made by order of Pope Julius, big as a giant, and visible from the square. The Bentivogli, annoyed by

by a it, the sight of tied cables to its neck, number and of hands broke its back. Therehauled down and it upon the lord of Bentivoglio began to swear to Mon sieur de Nemours and to the Sieur Jacques that he would make the pope belch against his own castle of Bologna; and forthwith had the statue melted, and a double cannon made, which within six days was battering the said castle." With such soldierly indifference does this Adventurer write; and have to art no I doubt that the chief of his companions were of the All the rest of his book filled with kidney. is same — accounts of battles, sieges, surprises, and cruelties some of which, as the smoking to death of a thousand persons in a cavern by Captain Lerisson, remind one of modern times ; and is diversified only by snowball matches at Correggio and Parma. What part Pierre Eyquem took in all these wars and adventures we know not. He was very probably present at the battle of Pavia ; but he does not seem to have returned at once to France after that event. He remained in Italy until towards 1528, but in what capacity it is difficult to guess. According to a passage in the Essays of his son, he was present at Milan when the people, worn out with disgust at their alternations of misery in different shapes during the wars, were seized with a mania for suicide. Twenty-five heads of houses destroyed them selves in a week ; but this appears to have happened at a time when Milan was in the hands of the Spaniards. These ruthless masters tortured with every manner of persecution the citizens on whom they were quartered. The horrors of military occupation had never been felt in so aggravated a form. The Milanese went mad, and hung themselves, or leaped from the terraces of their houses, or cast themselves down wells. The traitor of Bourbon came, and promised deliverance for money. Money was given, but deliverance was withheld. Then the self-destruction of the inhabitants went on. It would be interesting to know in what character Pierre Eyquem was present at all these atrocities. Possibly he was there as a prisoner; and he may

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. have been taken with so many other gentlemen on the field where Francis the First so easily lost the military reputation he had so easily won. Pierre Eyquem kept a journal of all his adventures, as well as of all public transactions, during the time of his stay in Italy. Montaigne inherited and used the manuscript, but it was never published. Probably nearly all the references to Italian history made in the Essays were based on this document, which may still exist, and very possibly formed part of the papers found by the Canon Prunis in an old box in the last century at the Chateau de Montaigne. This box contained the original journal of the travels of Michel himself, and it is likely that the importance of such a discovery quite dazzled the worthy Canon, and diverted him from further search. Recent historians insist much more than did con temporary writers on the influence of the Italian ladies on the French invaders, and complain of the cor rupting influence of beauty. This is an artful way of making the national boast : We came, were seen, and conquered. Pierre Eyquem's experiences were of may a different kind. He averred that through all that adventurous time he remained as innocent as a child ; and we believe the statement. He seems in

after life to have been by no means squeamish used, indeed, to talk triumphantly of the extraordinary private adventures that he had had in his time with women " of good reputation. Nature and art had prepared him for a gracious reception with ladies." We have here

ADVENTURES OF PIERKE EYQUEM. a singular picture of family manners in the sixteenth century. Michel, the son, launches forth against the scandalous behaviour of women in his days : Pierre, the father, replies, that the change that had taken place was more in appearance than in reality; "for of old a sense of propriety induced sinners to conceal their sin." In a whole province of any note there was scarcely a woman of bad reputation. But by his own confession, as we have seen, Pierre Eyquem had no experience of the sex until after his marriage. It was whilst on his way back from the Italian wars, at the age of thirty-three, that he made the acquaintance of Antoinette de Louppes and married her. The union seems to have been a comfortable one in every respect. Many children resulted therefrom. Madame Eyquem was probably a colourless personage ; for, except when she increased the family, we find scarcely any other allusion to her until her death is recorded in a manuscript note on the Ephemerides of Beuther, as having taken place at Bordeaux in 1601, seventy-three years after her marriage, and nearly ten years after her son had concluded his long and famous career. Pierre Eyquem, though fond of the mansion and estate he had inherited from his forefathers, spent a considerable portion of his life at Bordeaux—where he possessed a house and some land in the neigh bourhood of the Minimettes. He was a bourgeois within the walls of the city if a gentleman without. Two years after his return from the wars he was

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. elected Jurat and Prevot; and, as we shall see, he continued at intervals, all through his life, to exer cise high municipal functions. Pierre was essentially a man of order and rule. Besides employing a man to keep a register of the business of his household, in which were set down all petty accounts and payments, and all such bargains as did not require the assistance of a notary, he made his secretary record in a book every event of any moment, so that day by day were written "the memoirs of his house." " Very agreeable things to read," says Montaigne, "when time begins to efface the remembrance of things; and very useful to set us right if we are in doubt when such a business was begun, when it was ended ; what companies of travellers have passed by, and how many have stopped; our voyages, our absences, marriages, deaths ; the receipt of happy or unhappy news; change of most important servants, and such-like matters. This was an old custom which it would be good to revive, each for himself ; and I think I have been a great fool to have failed to keep it up." One of the most interesting documents added by the researches of Dr. Payen to our materials for the Life of Montaigne, is a copy of the Ephemerides of Beuther, — a work commonly used in that time for the record, in blank spaces purposely left after each day's historical reference, of events connected with domestic history. In this volume, published in 1551, there are about forty entries in Montaigne's own hand,

ADVENTURES OF PIERRE EYQUEM. with several by his daughter Eleanore ; and the history of the family is even continued in scattered notices up to the beginning of the last century. For many reasons, however, I do not give the notes transcribed it, the im I though portance claimed for them. Montaigne was so un certain when he wrote, that in many cases he put events down at the wrong date, and was obliged after wards to erase notes and repeat them elsewhere. He even records, without correction, the death, in 1573, of the Seigneur de Gaviac, whom he states in his Essays to have been alive, at the age of sixty-seven, in from admit them to be genuine,

1580— is, he, Michel, born in 1533, that when was forty-seven years of age. Still more remarkably erro the entry No. 30, where the fatal death of is neous three of Montaigne's friends at the battle of Mon- made to happen on July 27, 1587, whereas crabeau is this event occurred July 26, 1580. These discrepancies, however, though they induce me never to correct a date mentioned in the Essays on the authority of the newly-discovered Ephemerides, do not, to my mind, diminish the interest that ought to be felt in that document, as illustrating the character of Mon taigne, and adding two or three most curious facts his naturalThe philosopher had to biography. a but propensity to forget and confuse dates events ; left on his mind vivid impressions, which were easily coined into vivid language. We may find the origin of such notes as he has set down in the mood of by mind produced the reflections above quoted from MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. the Essays. " I have been a great fool not to keep a journal," exclaims Montaigne ; and so he snatches up the Ephemerides and hastily fills in various blanks, chiefly from memory. On no other supposition can we explain the mistakes made in that volume. There is something Shandean in the character of Pierre Eyquem as described by his son ; but the touches by which it is brought out are so fine, so mixed up with the substance of the Essays, that I can scarcely expect to bring even the chief of them together with much success. At every turn we find the oddities of the father influencing the oddities of the son. There was a great cloak, a heir-loom in that family. Pierre left it to Michel, who wore it in preference to any other. " When I have it on," he used to say, " I seem to wrap myself up in my father." And, indeed, his father seems constantly to have been present with him, modifying and directing his speculations. But this cloak was not the only personal relic he possessed of the worthy gentleman. " Away with the new fangled notions which make people despise the portraits of their ancestors, the shape of their clothes, and their very arms ! / keep the family writing-desk, seal, and sword, and have not cast out from my study the long rods which my father used to carry in his hand " when he walked about ; and if," he drolly adds, my posterity fail to pay me the same respect, why I don't care ; for they will never be able to be so indifferent to me as I shall then be to them." Pierre Eyquem, according to his son, spoke little, but well ; and now and then adorned his language with allusions to common books, especially Spanish books ; among others, a work falsely attributed to Marcus Aurelius. " He had no knowledge of letters" — an ex pression which I throw entirely on Michel's shoulders. It seems to mean no more than that the worthy Gascon squire was not a savant, but a mere smatterer in learning. He too was, no doubt, educated at college ; and we have already seen that he was taught to write Latin verses. In 1511, when scarcely sixteen years of age, he composed some distichs, addressed to

Guillaume Pielle, author of a poem on the expulsion of the English from France, which were considered suffi ciently good to be printed in the following year. I do not think it worth while quoting them, being con tent to subscribe to Dr. Payen's opinion, that their author would have made a very fair Bachelor of Arts in the nineteenth century. They are dedicated to one Jean Duras, member of a family with which the Mon­taignes seem always to have been on terms of intimate friendship. About the time of Pierre Eyquem's marriage, Mar guerite de Navarre, who had shared her brother's dis honour in Spain, but who no longer retained that deplorable hold on his affections which makes us pity and avert our eyes from her, had established her little court at Pau. Here she surrounded herself with learned, wise, and imaginative men—held a perpetual levee of genius and virtue. Her court was not otherwise very brilliant: there was little money to support it. But,

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. nevertheless, it became celebrated, and, no doubt, much contributed to spread a taste for letters and arts in those southern provinces. Many of the learned men who called at the Chateau de Montaigne were on their way to or from the court of Navarre. We shall see that at a future period relations of a different kind existed between the two places. But it was more as a country gentleman than as a savant that Pierre distinguished himself. His de meanour was marked by gentle gravity, humility, and modesty. He was singularly careful of the cleanliness and decency of his person and clothes, whether he appeared on horse or foot. His love of truth was prodigious, his conscience very sensitive, his religion hearty, and rather inclined to superstition than the other extreme. For a man of small stature he was full of vigour, upright, and well-proportioned, of an agreeable countenance, somewhat dark in complexion. In all noble exercises great was his proficiency. He left behind him sticks loaded with lead, with which he was accustomed to practise his arms before he threw the bar or the quoit, or went to the fencing-ground ; and he even used shoes with loaded soles, in which he prepared himself for running and leaping. His feats in leaping without running were handed down as little miracles. When he had passed sixty years of age he laughed at the agility of young men — what old man does not ? would vault on horseback in — his stuffed gown, go round a table on his thumb, never scarcely went up to his room save at three or

four steps at a time. Michel evidently envied these corporeal qualities, which he could not emulate. In tastes Montaigne's father differed also somewhat from his son at least the son insists most on the differences. Pierre was remarkably fond of domestic affairs, and particularly apt for conducting them. I find an illustration of this in the numerous additions he made to his property, which Dr. Payen quotes to show that the family had freshly come into possession. The public library of Bordeaux possesses a register, in which Pierre Perreau, the notary, has inscribed all the acquisitions made by Pierre Eyquem from 1528, the year of his marriage, to 1559. They are no less than two hundred and fifty in number, and their total cost wa3 4332 livres, 10 sols, and 10 deniers, without counting the corn and other produce given in ex change. Pierre Eyquem's mind appears to have been fertile in ideas. He once thought of starting a pe culiar institution-^ a sort of Miscellaneous Exchange — which would have been very useful in the absence of the press and the advertising system. There ought, he said, to be a particular place in every city where people who are in want of anything may repair, and have set down their desiderata in a book by a public officer : as, for example, " I want to sell pearls ; I want to buy pearls ; So-and-so wants a companion in a journey to Paris ; such a one seeks a servant of such a nature ;I want a master ; I want a workman, and so on." Montaigne takes occasion, when noticing this unac- VOL. I. B

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. complisbed scheme, to bewail the general difficulty of communication in those days, and the sad results to which it sometimes led. " I hear," he says, " that to the great disgrace of our age, under our very eyes, two persons excellent in learning have died, because they had not sufficient to eat Giraldi in Italy, and Chas­teillon in Germany. Yet, I am sure that there exist a thousand men who would have offered them very advantageous conditions to come and live with them, or sent them succour where they were, if their case had been known. The world is not so generally cor rupt that there is lack of men who would very heartily use their wealth to succour rare and remarkable per sons, whom misfortune has driven to extremity." The rage for building had at that time seized upon France. Francis the First was in his architectural fit. Pierre Eyquem imitated him in his small way. He was very fond of building at Montaigne, where he was born, and seems to have made many and important additions to the chateau. Some of the works he un dertook Michel carried on to a conclusion, out of mere filial reverence. I must not, however, insist further on the character of Pierre before introducing him in his relations to his son.

HIS BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION.

CHAPTER IV. BIRTH, AND EARLY EDUCATION OF MONTAIGNE. Montaigne was an eleven-months' child. He was born, third son of his father, between eleven and twelve o'clock on Friday the last day of February, "" 1533, as we now count," says he ; beginning the year in January:" for when he wrote a change had recently been made, the year having previously begun at Easter. This particular way of mentioning the first event in his history is characteristic of the man, and illus trates the kind of detail in which he thinks it necessary to indulge. From this time forward, indeed, —although he touches but lightly on many of what may be called the public incidents of his life we are kept fully in — formed, not only on the development and vagaries of his character, but even on the minutest physical ac cidents that happened to him. My endeavour will be to chronologise and classify the most interesting reve lations he makes; but not always to follow him into the private corners whither his pleasant, but rather audacious garrulity, leads his readers. MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. The training and education of gentlemen in France up to the sixteenth century, had been admirably adapted to convert them into reckless soldiers or swashing retainers of a court. Indeed, it is only in comparatively recent times that refinement and know ledge have been considered compatible with exalted station. Those were regarded as the most fortunate youths of the French aristocracy who succeeded in being attached as pages to some queen or princess. An inevitable fatality seems to lead persons whose posi tion differences them most from other men, to imitate the baseness of valets. Francois de Scepeaux, afterward Marshal of France, was brought up as page of honour to Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis the First. All powerful lords, however, kept also, as it were, a school of gentility or servitude ; and were willing to receive as retainers any striplings of good family whose parents chose to commit them to their care. Montaigne some where speaks of and approves this practice ; and as we have no allusion to the education of his elder brothers, and observe no traces of them as mingled with his youthful history, it is probable that they were early disposed of in this manner. But Michel happened to be born just as Pierre Eyquem was warm on the subject of certain theories of education, which he had brought back from Italy. They had remained some time in abeyance, but now were constantly discussed with the various learned men, who, hearing that his fancy was to imitate in miniature the conduct of Francis the First, as a patron of letters,

HIS BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION. habitually called at his chateau in their wanderings. Having paid homage, it would seem, to the practice of the day, in the case of his first and second born, Pierre determined to experiment on the third, and put certain of his crotchets to the test. This is a character familiar to our minds ; and when we read of the somewhat eccentric conduct of this retired soldier, we endeavour to remember where we have met him before, and find at last that he is the type of the inimitable Thomas Shandy. Towards the middle of the sixteenth century, in France, the subject of education had begun to occupy an important share of attention. Learned works were written thereon in prose and verse. But when Pierre Eyquem undertook to make a prodigy of his infant son by a new process, he must have been regarded, es pecially in his out-of-the-way province, almost as a madman. No one had as yet ventured to suggest that the stupid routine followed in the schools was not the best 'system of education possible — save, perhaps, Rabelais. The first work of that wonderful buffoon, — the Chronique Gargantuine, which "sold more copies in two months than were sold of Bibles in nine years," — was published just a year before Montaigne's birth. It already contained some excellent ideas, afterwards better developed, and then brought to their perfection in Pantagruel. The latter work, which sold three editions in one year, was published in 1533, and may fairly be supposed, by the discussions it must have created, to have influenced Pierre's opinions. Despite

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. this, however, we must give him credit for great courage and originality. His learned contemporaries did so, after a short time ; and the public waited not to imitate until the publication of the Essays. Pierre Eyquem's method was known and discussed by the most eminent professors of the day. I have no doubt the report of it greatly influenced the treatment of Henry the Fourth as an infant ; and if we examine the biographies of remarkable men born subsequently in that century —so full of thirst for novelty —we shall almost always find traces of the influence of this example. The health of Michel's body was thought of before the development of his mind; but his character first of all. Pierre desired to bring up his son with humble and popular notions. He began, therefore, by having him held over the font by persons of the most abject fortune, that he might be under obligations and at tached to them. His godfather and godmother, he says, in direct opposition to the servile habit of the time, were chosen, not among princes, but among the peasantry of the neighbourhood. This example was imitated by the parents of Montesquieu, who gave him a beggar for godfather. Of the same humble order naturally was Michel's nurse. He was put to the breast of a poor woman belonging to one of Pierre Eyquem's villages, which still exists to the north of the chateau, and bears the name of Papessus. A few years ago a house, of a better appearance than the others, used to be pointed out as having belonged to one of the guards of the chateau; and a minutely ingenious biographer, forgetting that we are not to seek for any

aristocratic distinction whatever in the nurse of Mon taigne, conjectures that this said respectable house may have belonged to her. Michel was kept at the village of Papessus for some time, — even after he was weaned, in order that he might become accustomed to a hardy common way of life. Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter. Pierre wished his son to descend from what was rugged and difficult to what was plain and easy ; but above all, " he wished to ally him in sympathy with the people," and that condition of men which was in want of his " aid. " Let him look," said he, rather at those who stretch out their arms towards him, than at those whose backs are turned his way." There is something extremely charming in this Utopia of good sense and feeling. We can have no doubt that such an infantine experience left its mark in Montaigne's character. Perhaps we may partly trace to it his persistent affec tion for a rough and common style of speaking, as we certainly may those easy and popular manners which took him safely through the civil wars, more effectually than his reputation and his talent. A story they used to tell him at this early period of his life, left a deep impression on his mind. Once upon a time, they said, there lived in a neighbouring land a king, who, having received a beating from above, swore to be revenged on God, and ordered that for ten years no one should pray to him, speak of him, or believe in him ! This

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. apologue was intended to express, not the absurdity, but the pride of a country believed to be Spain ; and we may easily conceive the curious applications Mon taigne made of it to political and ecclesiastical history. I would not be supposed to approve without reser vation, even at this early period, the peculiar system of training adopted by Pierre Eyquem. It may be that a system of training is condemnable because peculiar. The exaggerated estimation of it in the in ventor's mind makes its application inexorable. The material is clipped rigidly according to the pattern; whereas in ordinary cases, the common way being roughly applied by indifferent masters, a sort of general resemblance is all that is required. We are, however, always too apt to forget the production of nature, the — Man that is born and the necessary development he will take. All schemes for bringing to perfection, sud denly and early, such of our qualities as may be in fluenced by training, contain a danger that is usually overlooked. We require from the plant a growth in compatible with the nourishing powers of the soil. We have all of us but so much stuff, and if we make use of it to-day shall not have it at hand to-morrow. If the affairs of this world require the presence of clever boys, let us have them; but if not, let boys keep their cleverness to themselves as long as possible. They will require the whole of it in time. Some natures refuse to lend themselves to the forcing process; and Montaigne's, luckily, seems, to a certain extent, to have been one of these. The boy met his father's ingenuity by a sort of stolid laziness, an unwillingness to be developed before his time. In after life he boasted of this, though rather as a gentleman indifferent to acquired learning might boast of idleness at school, than as if he perceived exactly of how much value had been to him a negative quality that, no doubt, often drove poor Pierre Eyquem to despair. Yet the philosopher, careful of the reputation of the boy from which he had grown, will not admit that he was stupid because he seemed so. It would have been injustice, he says, to displace him from

his rank because he was more heavy and leaden slower and more unmanageable in learning, not only than all his brothers, but than all the children of his province, both in mental and bodily exercises. He instinctively put on an appearance of stupidity as a cuirass to protect him from the attacks of pedantry. His mind was not inactive. What he saw, he saw well; and under a heavy complexion indulged in bold imaginations and cherished opinions beyond his age. But he was incommunicative, digesting his thoughts in solitude and keeping his firm appreciation of things to himself. This is why in his school days he got among his companions a reputation for absurd pride. The experience of boys and men teaches us that we are never judged so severely for the vices that we show, as for those which are attributed to us because of our reserve. We can have no doubt that Montaigne's dis like of sweets and all kinds of confectionary as a child was attributed to a depraved taste ; and that when, by the operation of a natural incredulity, he refused to

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. believe in stories of ghosts, prognostics, and enchant ments, he was accused of mere dulness. We may be quite certain, at any rate, that when Pierre Eyquem determined that his son should be brought up as no other child had ever been, Michel was placed in imminent danger of flashing forth as a prodigy, or of becoming absolutely null. The stolidity of which he was afterwards, even in the midst of his boastings, somewhat ashamed, seems to have been nothing but the modest attitude of a virgin mind re sisting a too early attack on its chastity. With that protection he at once warded off and profited by his young experiences. These remarks apply to the whole six years of his infancy, during which the educational mania of his father was in its full fervour. We shall presently watch the forcing process to which he was subjected, but a detail must come in here that contrasts with the har dening process noticed at the beginning of this chapter. In order to save Michel from the unpleasant start with which a rough shake or a loud call usually brings back childhood from the deep depths of slumber, his father caused him always to be awakened by the sound of some musical instrument playing under his window. Parental affection, in whatever quaint company, adopt ing, as it were, the machinery of the gallantry of that age to express itself, suggests a very touching picture ; and I am fond of thinking of this athletic little oddity of a squire appearing with a musician at early dawn on the terrace of his tree-embowered castle, and giving the signal of some sweet strain.

CHAPTER V. HOW MICHEL STUDIED THE HUMANITIES. Pierre Eyquem, like most of the people of his gene ration who had any respect for learning at all, laid great stress on the acquisition of the classical languages. At that time, not to know Latin at any rate, was to be ignorant; and the race of men is not yet extinct who look with profound contempt upon all unfamiliar with that language. It is true, popular prejudice is now inclined to run the other way; the indolence of men of letters cheerfully accepts this license to avoid study; and a vague use of our language is beginning to introduce itself. The curious bias given to the meaning of words in America no doubt has the same origin. Perhaps the time has come for some one to preach with authority that English is anchored, as well as French, on a Latin bottom; and that if we cut the cables our words will necessarily begin to drift. In this particular, Michel had reason to be thankful for being made the subject of experiment. His father took pity in his person on the infant of all future time, thinking that it was difficult enough to learn at all, MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. without having to contend with artificial obstacles. In those days learning Latin was a species of torture. There were no grammars in the vernacular. Isidore of Seville, Donat, and other middle-age grammarians, were alone used for the purposes of instruction ; and, as some one has ingeniously remarked, their books being written in Latin, children were obliged, in order to learn that language, to proceed from the unintel ligible to the unknown. Port Royal first introduced the use of grammars in French; but that venerable institution laboured for another age; and Pierre Eyquem was obliged to invent a system of his own, which his son afterwards set forth with the express object of provoking imitation; for in the ordinary way, Latin " and Greek, however useful, were bought too dearly." Michel's narrative is very interesting. He says that his father made all the inquiries it was possible for a man to make, among people of learning and understanding, for the best method of education; which shows that his eccentricity consisted, not so much in inventing anything himself, as in perceiving the inconvenience of common plans, and going to the right source for information. In this case his learned friends pointed out to him the absurdity of the system usually applied; and with agreeable pedantry assured him, that if modern men did not reach the grandeur and the knowledge of the old Greeks and Romans, it was because of the time the former were obliged to spend in learning languages which cost the latter nothing ! " I don't think this is the only cause,"

says Montaigne, in a sly parenthesis. However, he approves of the expedient which his father discovered, or agreed to apply. Even whilst he was at nurse, before he could utter a word probably, therefore, — before he was brought back from Papessus —the little Michel was put under the charge of a German, who afterwards became celebrated as a medical doctor in France, but who at that time had not learned a syllable of French and was a mighty Latinist. We are now transported into quite a Pedant's Utopia. This German we can imagine him with his fair face — and flaxen locks —was sent for from beyond the Rhine on purpose ; and, being well paid, thought it not beneath his dignity to be continually dandling the little Michel in his arms scolding or coaxing him in the language of Terence and Plautus. To ease his learned biceps two other professors, less knowing a but quite capable of keeping up perpetual supply of Latin, were associated with the German; and these three continually wandered along the banks of the Didoire, or amidst the woods towards Papessus, labouring to preserve the small Michel from the necessity of ever using a grammar or a lexicon. His ears were carefully protected from any scrap of French or Perigord dialect. When he waxed older, and was finally installed at the chateau, with strength to toddle from room to room and escape from the parlour to the kitchen, all the family, from poor colourless Antoinette de Louppes down to the turnspit, were compelled to discourse within hearing of the

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. babe in nothing but Latin. Pierre Ey quem brushed up his knowledge for the occasion ; and when he, the mother, the valet, or the chambermaid, was unable to find classical expressions for modern wants and ideas, the law was, Silence ! By degrees Necessity proved an excellent teacher. The whole establishment, urged by the hatred of taciturnity common to human nature, grew tolerably proficient. Whoever came in contact with Michel was Latinised; and to such an extent that many words actually spread among the neigh bouring villages — names of workmen and tools and remained in ordinary use, even to the day when Mon taigne looked back to that rare time of pedagoguish enthusiasm, and recorded all these doings for the benefit of posterity. We may easily believe, that by the means I have described the little Michel soon obtained a remarkable proficiency in the Latin language; nor need we be surprised that a modern pedant, the Abbe Mangin, forgetting all disadvantages in the consideration of one advantage, should have written a book, called " The Education of Montaigne, or Art of Teaching Latin according to the Method of Roman Mothers," in which he recommends the establishment of schools, whither infants, as soon as weaned, should be taken, to learn the spirit of the as in prtesenti. Previously some solemn Professor had recommended to a mighty monarch also, perhaps, on the hint of Montaigne — the founding of a city, isolated from the world, in which nothing but Latin should be spoken. The learned Buchanan was more in accordance with the spirit of his age, however, when he promised Mon taigne to recommend his father's system in a forth coming Essay on Education.

It was not the fault of the system, but of its dis continuance, that Montaigne so easily forgot a language in which he became early so proficient. When he wrote his Essays he could still speak Latin, as could all men of letters in those days, but with difficulty;

it, inand had lost even the habit of writing which Like his father he hecomplete master.once was a used, when young, to compose Latin verses, but noticed that he always imitated the last poet he had read, and so abandoned that exercise. By degrees he seems to have had no more ordinary command over Latin than he had been merely grounded in at school if it ; and this, no doubt, would always be the result of any such experiment, unless sufficiently well carried boy ignorant of his out to leave own language. this a Montaigne states, however, that early ex in left ineffaceable, though perience foreign language a deeply-buried, traces in his mind. We can always find the direction of last we seek them if year's paths under the winter's fall of leaves. If Michel's studies did not make him learned man thanmore a many with far less of educated connected some it system, his primary emotions so completely with Latin that its words sometimes came to his lips on occasions of sudden feeling before the corresponding French ones. Once especially, when his father, who appeared to be MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. in full health, fell, without warning, fainting against him, his first exclamation was in Latin. This insur rection of early habits against more recent ones is remarkable to observe, and may account for the re miniscences of a state seemingly former to this one, that sometimes float through the mind like light clouds that have gathered overhead, and have not been seen to come from the horizon. Pierre Eyquem desired, also, that his son should learn Greek, against which there was an ecclesiastical prejudice at that time. The Church did not like comparisons to be made between the Vulgate and the Septuagint. However, although Pierre seems to have been religious even to superstition, he did not in this case submit to the dictation of the theologians. Francis the First had recently founded the College of France, and under the shadow, as it were, of the white beard of old Lascaris, Greek was for the first time publicly professed in Paris. The Court of Navarre was still more liberal, and, obeying these two influences, Pierre Eyquem set to work to teach the language of Plutarch to his son. As usual, his method was peculiar. Michel was made to study his declensions under the form of a game of his father's invention. He does not give the details, but compares the system to that according to which arithmetic and geometry were taught like a game of draughts. It is worth noting here that La Boetie mentions the practice of luring children to learn to read by means of brightly-illuminated books.

STUDIES THE HUMANITIES. An instance of the care and gentleness with which Montaigne was brought up is given by himself, where he says that in all his childhood he was only whipped twice, and that very mildly. He considered characteristically that he thus contracted a debt towards his own children, and he never allowed his daughter to be beaten at all.

VOL. I. E MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

CHAPTER VI. THE BOY IS SENT TO COLLEGE. The eccentric lord of Montaigne was, perhaps for tunately, not suffered to carry out his original plan of education without opposition. The public opinion of his neighbourhood seems, indeed, to have de clared against him. Possibly the difficulties of his undertaking increased as the boy grew. The family found the whole affair, no doubt, a bore. Besides, Mademoiselle Antoinette had been all this time rapidly adding to the worthy knight's family— boys and girls, who do not seem to have been made the subject of any educational experiment whatever. Two brothers, Thomas and Peter, and a sister Jane, were born before 1540. The attention of Pierre Eyquem was, no doubt, " diverted by these new cares. At any rate, the good-man," we are told, began to fear failure in a matter which he had so much at heart. What if instead of making his boy a sage he made him a dunce? All the world was ready unanimously to say, "We told you so." The boy himself seemed inclined to confirm all the SENT TO COLLEGE. world's opinion by his heavy taciturn manner. Pierre took fright. He was no longer surrounded by the inexorable pedants who first suggested the new system to him. So he at length allowed himself to be carried " away by common opinion, which always follows the leader like storks," and sent Master Michel, aged

—that 1540—to the College is, about six years towards of Guyenne, of new institution, but flourishing, and considered the best in France. This college had been, since 1534, under the pre of learned Portuguese, Andre de Gouvea. sidency a The city of Bordeaux had invited him from Paris, to minister to an increased desire of study and knowledge which had manifested itself there, as in all parts of He of great France. considered power; manwas a legist, has been placed by some above the and, as a celebrated Cujas. The College of Guyenne, which numbered as many as two thousand five hundred pupils, flourished under his auspices. Various learned professors, some of whom have left reputations that still endure, successively came to his assistance; as Nicolas Grouchy, who wrote De Comitiis Romanorum Guillaume Guerente, who commented Aristotle with such success that students left Paris to follow his Mark Antony Muretus, the lessons elegant poet and burnt in ; accomplished orator, who effigywas once withToulouse Huguenot stained nameless at as is a pilloried before posterity as theand who vices, Catholic apologist of the Saint Bartholomew and ; George Buchanan, who may have derived some of his ; MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. anti-monarchical theories from the same source at which La Boetie, so much younger, about the same time was drinking so copiously, to find utterance so much earlier. Montaigne, somewhat cavalierly, calls these four dis tinguished men his "domestic preceptors;" and else where, his "chamber preceptors." Perhaps some of them were paid to act as his private tutors. As for Muret, I cannot find a place for him at all ; and it is to be observed, that in the first edition of the Essays his name was not mentioned. He did not become a professor at Bordeaux until about 1547, when Mon taigne had left college; but it is just possible that, before going to expound Terence and Cicero in 1544, at the age of eighteen, in the house of the Archbishop of Auch, he had been recommended to Pierre Eyquem as a precocious youth, and employed as a private tutor to watch over Michel out of school hours. It is curious to observe that Muret was a protege of old Julius Scaliger, with whom Montaigne's father may have had relations of friendship that afterwards turned to hereditary hatred ; and we must not forget, that at some time before 1549 he was one of the companions of Ronsard at the College of Coqueret in Paris. Buchanan was a political refugee. After having acquired learning in the midst of poverty and diffi culties of every kind, he had been patronised by James the Fifth of Scotland, and made preceptor of his natural son the Earl of Murray. In an evil hour, however, he allowed himself to be spirited on to a vigorous onslaught against the monkish order, of which his royal master had reason to complain. The monks were lashed up to fury; and the king abandoned Buchanan, as it was natural to expect. He was im prisoned ; but escaped, first to London, then to Paris, and finally to Bordeaux, where he found quiet and employment in the society of his staunch friend Andr6 Gouvea. He professed at the college for three years, and wrote two Latin tragedies for the use of the scholars, but in 1543 was frightened away by the plague. We shall find that he met Montaigne at a

more advanced period of life, and complimented him on his extreme proficiency in Latin as a boy. Neither he nor the other masters dared accost Montaigne. They were sure of an answer more startling and idiomatic than they could ever compete with. What a curious life was that of these professors or pedants of the sixteenth century, ever on the move, wandering from place to place, disseminating classical and philosophical knowledge as they went ! If some of them suffered misery, and even died of hunger, utterly neglected, others earned marvellous reputations, such as learning will never probably command any more. Kings and courts vied for their possession. In 1547, John the Third of Portugal, desirous to found an university at Coimbra, summoned his subject Gouvea to preside over it ; so that great teacher abandoned Bordeaux, taking along with him Guerente and Grouchy, and went to teach law in his native land. Presently afterwards, remembering again his old friend

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. Buchanan, he invited that restless genius to join him ; and he did so. But no enemy of monkdom could dwell with impunity in Portugal. The fame of Buchanan's satire accompanied him, and the cowls began to wag with fury. Gouvea died, and the great Scotchman was glad to escape from the hands of his persecutors back to France. Pierre Eyquem, at any rate at first, tried to carry out part of his peculiar views, even though he had sent Michel to a college ; but though he was very particular in his choice of tutors, and in all circumstances con nected with the boy's training even endeavouring to obtain the modification of certain regulations in — his favour he could do very little. College, as Montaigne says, is always college. His Latin gradually deteriorated. Yet he admits that his unaccustomed proficiency in that language enabled him rapidly to reach the first classes, and to finish his education at thirteen. It is quite unnecessary either to refute or to accept as strict matter of fact, what Montaigne tells us about the little profit he derived from his early education, or indeed about his own deficiencies generally. What great importance can we assign as a statement — whatever we may assign to it as a revelation of his habit of thought—to what he says to the effect that of all the sciences of which he had tasted the outer crust in childhood, nothing but a vague remembrance of their general character and tendency remained in his mind ? It is at that age that the mould of our after ideas is always formed. I think it evident that Montaigne's education at the College of Guyenne left a peculiarly profound impression on him. We may even infer this from his comical hatred of pedants. He felt, and could never shake off their influence.

In the sixteenth century the word University meant in France, as now in England, a local institution for the purpose of education in all its provinces. The College of Guyenne, to which Michel was sent, formed part of the University of Bordeaux. It should be observed, that all scholars throughout France were dressed in a black gown with a belt, and a round cap. The Regents wore square caps, and flowing robes with long rows of buttons. On entering a school it was the custom to pay in advance for what were called "letters of schooldom" — at the rate of about two sous a month. There were extras for benches, candles, and so forth. Books were bought, of course, by the parents : a dictionary in small folio cost twenty-five sous, a Cicero De Amicitia one sou ; and other books sold at the same cheap rate. The discipline attempted to be maintained in these schools was tolerably severe. Whenever a Regent passed, all the scholars were obliged to stop, uncover, and bow ; and when he entered the class-room it was the custom to applaud, stamp with the feet, thump the desks with books, and cry Vivat ! As now, lads fre quently played practical jokes on their professors. Whilst Muretus was teaching, some wag once began ringing a bell : he looked up and said ; " Amongst so many

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. beasts I should have been surprised not to find one sheep!" The bell was silenced. One of the scholars was chosen as Explorator, or overseer; and he was particularly ordered to report whoever spoke in French ; for the scholastic language was Latin. A good deal of corporal punishment seems to have been inflicted in " these colleges, which Montaigne calls very gaols of " captive youth. How vividly their horrors recurred to his imagination ! "Draw near them in school-hours," he exclaims ; " and what do you hear ? Nothing but the screams of children tortured, or of masters drunk with their own rage!"—"It were better," says Rabe lais, " to be a galley-slave in the hands of the Moors and Tartars, a murderer in prison, or even a dog, than a collegian." " We used to be up at four o'clock in the morn ing," says Henri de Mesmes ; " and having prayed to God, went at five o'clock to the school-room, our big books under our arms, our inkstands and candlesticks in our hands." In the short days they began study before light, and continued until after dark. We may be perfectly certain that Montaigne, accustomed by his father to be waked by the sound of music, did not relish this change of life, and I can find many traces of disgust in his writings. He learned rapidly, but without loving what he learned. The first time he really looked upon books with pleasure was when the Metamorphoses of Ovid fell into his hands. He was then only seven or eight years old, and he used to steal away from play to read those wonderful stories. We must remember that Latin was, as it were, his mother tongue. The book was easy to him, and suited his childish taste. As for Launcelot du Lac, Amadis, and Huon de Bordeaux, and " such rubbish," with which boys were wont to amuse themselves, he was so well watched that he did not even know them by name. The tutor discovered Michel's taste for Ovid and poetry generally, and, instead of interfering, quietly winked at private readings, which seem to have been a breach of the regulations. In this way the boy ran through, after Ovid, the iEneid ; then through Terence, then Plautus, and at last came to the Italian Comedies, always lured on by the pleasantness of the subject." If any tutor," says Montaigne, " had been so absurd as to interfere with this course of reading, I fancy I should have brought back from college nothing but a hatred of books, as nearly all our nobility does." Instead of acting thus imprudently, the said tutor, whilst he pretended to see nothing, sharpened Michel's appetite for secret reading, by throwing some slight obstacles in his way, and keeping him gently to the regular course of study gently; for the chief qua lities which Pierre Eyquem sought in those to whose

" care he committed his son were debonnairety and facility of complexion." Montaigne not only witnessed the acting of plays at college by his fellow-pupils, but took a very brilliant part in this amusement himself. He had an assurance of countenance, he says, and a suppleness of voice and gesture, most remarkable. When he was scarcely

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. twelve years of age, as he quaintly lets us know by quoting a line from Virgil, he played the principal cha racters in the Latin tragedies of Buchanan, Guerente, and Muret, which were represented with great pomp at the College of Guyenne. Andre de Gouvea had a remarkable talent for directing such ceremonies, in which Michel was considered a " master-workman." The origin of this custom of acting in the colleges does not seem to be known. Its introduction has been made an accusation against the Jesuits, but it existed before their time. In the year of Montaigne's birth, Marguerite, sister of Francis the First his Mignonne, as he called her — was introduced by the students, under the incitement of their masters, on the theatre of the College of Navarre at Paris, in the character of a Fury, with torch in hand, because she resisted perse cution against the Calvinists. The king, irritated at the attack on his then too-beloved sister, sent his archers to arrest the professors ; but the latter roused their scholars, who, furious, bigoted, and dirty, col lected in immense throngs in the narrow passages that led to the college, and repulsed the royal agents with stones and other weapons. Nearly all through the sixteenth century we find the students acting as the army of fanaticism. What a change has now come over this corporation ! The Parisian student may still be inclined to resist authority, but how far is he now from being made the instrument of religious bigotry ! It is very curious that this insult to power, sup ported by means so audacious, should have been com

pletely successful. There were about forty thousand students of the Four Nations at Paris in those days; and shortly afterwards Gamier, in his commentary on Ronsard, talks, rather at random, of a hundred thousand. The custom of allowing the students to act plays in their colleges continued throughout the greater part of the sixteenth century. The representations were much frequented by the nobility, the clergy, and the magistracy; but in 1579 the ordonnance of Blois for bade all kinds of comedies or dramatic pieces to be performed in colleges. I have no doubt that it is to this that Montaigne, writing a little afterwards, alludes, when he says, " I do not blame this practice in young children of family, and I have seen our

princes since that time is, when he was at col[that follow in person, after the example of some of lege] it the ancients, in decent and praiseworthy manner. a The actor's art was not considered shameful in Greece; have always accused those persons of imper I and tinence who condemn this sort of amusement, and of injustice those who envy the people such pleasures, and forbid the entrance of our cities to good come dians." He then goes on to defend public amuse ments generally, as likely to divert people from bad and secret actions. " Why should not men collect together to amuse themselves, just as they collect together to worship?" Why not, indeed ! Montaigne, as we see from all this, not only went through the ordinary routine studies of his time, and MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. with great honour, but being naturally of a sedate and retired disposition, spent his leisure hours in reading, and so rapidly improved his mind that, as we have seen, his school education was considered complete at the age of thirteen. We must not, however, regard this as a very remarkable instance of precocity. Many biographies of men of the sixteenth century begin with statements still more extraordinary. Agrippa d'Aubigne claims to have read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, when he was six years of age, and says he translated the Crito of Plato at seven and a half! But as we shall see, in those days of strife, political and religious parties, besides contending in arms, sought to outvie each other, not only in talent and reputation for virtue, but in the number of infant prodigies they could produce. If Agrippa could be believed, Bongars and La Bo'etie would be thrown into the shade ; and there can be little doubt that this was the intention of his fable.

CHAPTER VII. STUDENT-LIFE OF MONTAIGNE. Pierre Eyquem, we must remember, was not only lord of Montaigne, but citizen of Bordeaux. He spent a great part of his time in that city, and early aspired to and attained civic honours there. In 1530 he was elected Jurat and Prevot, and in 1536 Deputy Mayor. In 1540, Pierre Eyquem, described as Ecuyer and Seigneur de Montaigne, was again elected Jurat. In short, all through the period corresponding with the education of Michel, his father was a remarkably important man in the capital of the province of Guyenne. There is nothing surprising, therefore, in the fact that, his first and second born, if both were alive at the time, being destined to live like fighting-gentlemen, he should determine to make a magistrate of Michel. We have, in reality, no direct information at all as to where Montaigne studied after leaving college, about 1546. " Whilst I was a child (or very young)I was plunged over head and ears in law," is almost MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. all he says himself; and we are left to conjecture, not only the place or places in which he passed his early youth, but nearly all the incidents that attended it. Similar uncertainty prevails as to the early lives of many others of the civil heroes of the sixteenth century. We know, for example, that Bodin, born in 1530, studied law at Toulouse; but this is almost the only fact ascertained of that sagacious writer's youthful life. As for Montaigne, we are told by flippant biographers that he studied at some " school of law." We may be sure of that, since he became a lawyer. A recent conscientious critic, M. Griin, ingeniously argues that he must have been sent to Toulouse. He infers this, from the neighbourhood and celebrity of that school where Cujas professed in 1547; and from the fact that four or five persons, who were afterwards Montaigne's friends, were educated for the law at that place. But Cujas could not have been the attraction, as he supposes. That legist was born in 1526, and was, therefore, but a young professor when Montaigne began studying law. He did not become very celebrated until twenty years afterwards. How ever, it is true that he was even then admitted to give great promise ; and Estienne Pasquier, who was present at his first lecture at Toulouse, mentions the general favourable impression. The same kind of argument, moreover, that enables an ingenious pleader to suggest strongly that Mon so taigne studied at Toulouse as, for example, that he was a friend of Henri de Mesmes, who certainly did

HIS STUDENT-LIPE. study there would enable me to show the great pro bability that he was sent to Paris. One of his most intimate friends, Guy du Faur de Pibrac, born in 1528, went, at the age of fourteen, to Paris, though a native of Toulouse itself, and studied law also under Cujas, then quite a stripling; and belles-lettres and philosophy under Pierre Bunel, the man who spoke and wrote Latin the best of all his time. The supposition would be corroborated by the fact, that the said Pierre Bunel, also of Toulouse, was a friend of Pierre Eyquem, used to visit him at his chateau, and would, no doubt, dilate on the superiority of the University of Paris. As, however, there was a university at Bordeaux itself, it is probable that Montaigne studied chiefly

But is, that Pierre there. Eyquem my impression took him first to one place and then to another, him the opportunity of hearing of giving variety a teachers. This was the custom of the day. Students attended one course of lectures in one city, and then hastened to another. Pasquier had listened to Balduin and Hottoman at Paris for year before he went to This a study under Cujas at Toulouse. method was supposed to be the best. M. Griin, then, not deserving of grave rebuke is for maintaining the probability of Montaigne's having studied at Toulouse. The future philosopher was there during his adolescence, as we learn from the story he tells of his meeting with Simon Thomas, "a great physician in his day." Montaigne happened MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. to be in the house of a rich consumptive old man at Toulouse when Simon came in to give his professional advice. They talked of the means of cure. Among other observations the doctor made was this, that it would be wise in the sick old man to make his house " attractive to young Montaigne : fix your eyes often " on the freshness of his face," said he, and your thoughts on the joy and vigour that overflow on every side from his adolescence. Fill all your senses with this youth's flourishing state, and your health may amend." " He forgot," adds Montaigne, " to say that mine might be destroyed." The French student in the sixteenth century enjoyed many privileges. When he arrived in city a where he intended to study, and went in search of lodgings, nobody could refuse to receive him, and he could sometimes force a landlord to expel an old lodger to make room for him. If too high rent was demanded, an appeal was made to magistrates appointed by the University, who fixed a reasonable price. We may easily imagine, then, that a landlord had not an arbitrary right of giving warning. On the contrary, if the noise of a blacksmith's hammer or of a turner's wheel incommoded the student, he could get his neighbours sent away; and even any one who sang too loudly could be forced to move. Books could never be seized for rent or for any other debt, nor received in payment of dinner by any eating-house, nor pawned. Students were allowed to wear short vests of any colour they pleased, and could carry arms in travelling. They

HIS STUDENT-LIFE. were exempt from mounting guard at the gates of the city, in time of war plague. Neither even or scholars nor professors could be excommunicated with out express permission of the Pope. It is easy to conceive that these privileges and immunities may have contributed to nourish a sense of dignity in some, whilst they encouraged others to license. Villon has been a student from all time in Paris. The disciples of the Muses or of Themis, of Plato or Aristotle, often went out to read in the streets, in order to attract the eyes of ladies from their windows; and were blamed for light talk, but especially for dirt and gluttony. Formerly, says a Laudator temporis acti, contemporary with Pierre Eyquem, students used only to eat three times in two days — now they eat three times an hour ! Their life was adventurous, ending not un frequently in prison, sometimes on the gibbet. As might have been expected, among the best minds the spirit of opposition and free examination arose; and the students were generally celebrated as frondeurs and mockers. In the sixteenth century, however, most of the universities seem to have rallied to Catholicism under the influence of their professors, and frequently furnished an army to bigotry. Under such auspices did Montaigne study the law. The Parliament of Bordeaux was one of the most celebrated of the eight parliaments which, at that time, existed in France. I cannot here undertake to describe the organisation of these bodies, or the extent of their jurisdiction, but it is necessary to say that they exercised VOL. I. F

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. a very varied authority, and that their members were, in the strictest sense of the word, magistrates. To our parliaments they had scarcely any resemblance but in name. Their seats were filled by the king; and were procurable sometimes by favour, sometimes by pur chase. They had nothing to do with the making of laws, but their duty was to administer them. In their court, however, it was necessary for royal edicts to be registered before they could be enforced ; and they were thus enabled sometimes to exercise a power of veto. But in all important cases almost, a Bed of Justice was held and registration was enforced. It was with a view of his becoming a member of this corporation, and wearing the red robe of Conseiller, that Pierre Eyquem directed the studies of his son. In spite of the appointment, towards the end of the fifteenth century, of the Grand Council destined to curb the Parliaments, those bodies had retained nearly all their influence, and were considered, at the time when Michel aspired to belong to them, the most august in the kingdom. Afterwards prostituting their power to the service of fanaticism with vain occa sional attempts to favour toleration when they saw their authority diminish they gradually declined, and never recovered respect. Beneath them swarmed an immense number of courts and magistrates, with intri cate jurisdictions and duties which modern men shrink from describing or understanding. There they were in their black silk robes, or their robes of black wool some exercising power over provinces, some going from

HIS STUDENT-LIFE. village to village, even from field to field, setting up their benches under the first tree—they were called Juges de I'Orme—and deciding the causes submitted to them. Never, perhaps, was there such a deluge of lawyers and judges as in the sixteenth century. Their pro fession was almost the only one of any dignity to which the rising middle classes could devote them selves. As we have seen, even gentlemen began to leave the profession of arms for this more tranquil and respectable one. We have no reason, however, to believe that Michel de Montaigne ever attained any great proficiency as a legal student. All we can be sure of is the fact that he did study. In a subsequent page I shall bring together the proofs which convince me that his early experiences were much more varied and extensive than seem mention generally supposed. But I may here, not to give the subject too much importance, that partly, perhaps, from the absence of direct details on Montaigne's legal education, the writers of the seven teenth century took it into their heads that our gentleman philosopher was so ashamed of his profession as to avoid speaking of it. Balzac, eagerly quoted by the writers of Port Royal — to whom the Essayist was especially distasteful pleasantly suggests the accu sation without insisting on it. He regrets, however, that Montaigne had not been more communicative; " for he could have told us plenty of amusing things about the doings at the Palais de Justice, the humours of the judges, the misery of the pleaders, the artifices

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. and stratagems of La Chicane." " No," replies a solemn biographer; "the man of genius would not have fulfilled the expectation of the man of wit. He " would not have made fun of the lawyers ! The fact is that Montaigne, if his apologists will allow me to say so, without endeavouring to conceal the notorious fact that he belonged to the magistracy — he constantly alludes to his profession as if everybody knew of it does affect a sort of disdainful tone in — speaking on the subject. Since he put on the sword he regretted that he had ever worn the robe. No one was ever more anxious to impress the fact that he was a gentleman author. Buffon wrote in ruffles ; Montaigne always had the escutcheon of his family before him.

CHAPTER VIII. THE REBELLION OF 1548. Montaigne was in some sort the Epitome of his Age; and, though he shrank from writing history, there is scarcely a single public event of that time an appre ciation of which does not lurk in some corner of the Essays. He is often thinking of Frenchmen and Italians when his pen seems to deal with Phrygians, Romans, and Greeks. Every page we read of the annals and literature of the sixteenth century enables us to understand him better. There is a constant temptation, therefore, in writing his Life, to turn aside and paint the scenes amidst which he moved — scenes that gave a colour to his mind and a tone to his speculations. But general and particular histories have sufficiently enlarged on the social aspects of France at that period. The country, like the rest of Europe, was feeling the throes of the new form of Christianity now known under the name of Protestantism. Calvin began to preach about the year of Montaigne's birth ; but by this time had retired to Geneva, and was laying the MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. foundations of his theocratic government. He had sown the seeds of Reform in many provinces of France, especially in Saintonge, whence we shall now see his doctrines come out armed, to influence the destiny of Montaigne and his dearest friend. The Huguenot party was not yet, however, constituted. It takes much persecution to change Saints and conscientious Christ ians into Rebels and Heroes. No doubt their doctrines were opposed to what was called lawful authority at that period ; but opposed only as purity must ever be opposed to vice and corruption. It is a mistake to imagine that Puritanism is necessarily anti-monarch ical, unless we take Monarchy to mean, which I always do take it to mean in these pages, the absolute authority of one man brought to bear on the lives and fortunes of a people, without even the supposed check of laws, as in Ideal Despotism, or in defiance of law, as it was almost always in France in the sixteenth century. Kings with the blood of the Guises in their veins perished in the attempt to introduce the same practice into our island : for here Puritanism was victorious ; there, though it struggled nobly, it fell. The contest essentially was between virtue and vice — between men who believed that we had, in truth, some thing supernatural and divine in us, and men who recognised little more than our most beastly instincts. The latter were in power ; the former, if they could grow strong enough, would naturally aim at power. Any one, accordingly, who led a particularly pious and exemplary life, was straightway believed to harbour revolutionary intentions. Long before the Reformers had allowed the word Republic to enter into their minds—when they were a humble, manageable, loyal body, asking only permission to preach and to pray, not in public, or even in quiet, but without being dragooned and burned Francis the First and other

— great pillars of order denounced them as subverters of authority and civil society. This was the perpetual accusation against " the new religion," by which Catholic princes excused themselves, often with success, to Protestant princes for their cruelties and perse cutions. The Guises professed always to act in the interest of Order rather than of the Church. Religious persecution soon became a habit, and burning heretics almost a public amusement. But the people in various provinces were beginning at last to show signs of bitterness and independence. Political reasons assisted in producing disaffection. Arbitrary and extreme taxes spread ruin on every side. Just as Michel was concluding his college education, in 1545, the Vaudois were being massacred in the east of France by order of the reckless and sanguinary king, to please his bigoted and sanguinary parliaments ; and, in the very province of Perigord, insurrections of the nopeasantry, incited partly by social causes, partly, doubt, by the indignation of persecuted faith, were taking place. In 1546, as we find related in the Life of Palissy the Potter, persecution of the Saints waxed hot in Saintonge; and was not submitted to with anything like humility. Everything seemed to give

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. warning of an approaching tempest. The moral atmosphere was dark and lowering. On all sides timid or conscientious people were flying the country. Geneva was becoming as it were the external capital of French Protestantism. The last years of the reign of Francis the First exhibit that monarch in a condition so abject that we can scarcely repress a sentiment of pity. The " old gallant," as his discarded mistress, who had taken up with his son, called him, was no longer fit for government or debauchery. Body and mind had equally been destroyed in those wretched resorts to which the monarch, led by his innate tastes and his morbid imagination, fired by the revelations of his favourite writer Aretino, went to escape from the comparative refinement and decency of his court. His sister was far removed from him in a matrimonial banishment at Nerac. Catherine de Medici already disfigured his court. The Guises were rising, and had made their characteristic debut by murdering the king's younger son in the midst of a snowball romp. "There comes the vanguard of my happiness," cried Henry, as his brother's coffin passed by ; alluding to the near death of his father. Diana laughed at and encouraged this ferocious pleasantry. Henry the Second succeeded Francis in 1547; just as Michel de Montaigne left college and began studying for the law. The repulsive scenes that ushered in his reign, and the fact that Catherine de Medici was queen under the haughty sufferance of Diana of

THE REBELLION OP 1548.

Poitiers, are but too well known ; and as we have no good ground for supposing that Pierre Eyquem took his son to Paris immediately, unless he went as a matter of form, with all the other nobility and gentry, to do homage to the new monarch, and witness the famous Coup de Jarnac, we need not at present turn our attention to the Court. In 1548 we find Mon taigne, a lad of from fifteen to sixteen, living at Bordeaux, during a terrible insurrection which took place there. That insurrection was one of the most important events that had occurred since the time of the Jaquerie, and in many respects seems to have been similar in character. Montaigne himself describes vividly only single scene. Ordinary history gives a an outline of the whole, but rather as an episode than as a step in the political progress of the country. Nowhere do we find any attempt to discover the true character, or trace the deep sources of the movement. I must, therefore, as far as my space will allow, construct a narrative of those terrible scenes, so well fitted to strike the imagination of a lad of sixteen. The young Montaigne, not much capable of enthusiasm, seems to have escaped from the revolutionary contagion. At any rate, the chief influence on his mind of this sedition was, doubtless, when the first fervour had passed away, to make him mistrustful of extreme principles, and disposed to take shelter under the wing of authority. But this was a lesson which all the events of that time taught one of his calm and timid disposition; and I should not think it necessary to

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. enlarge on the obscure history of this revolution if we had not been informed by De Thou of the mighty influence it exerted on the mind of young Estienne de la Boetie, at that time eighteen years of age, and probably a student at the University of Bordeaux. M. Henri Martin, in his admirable history, gives a picturesque, though brief, narrative of what took place, but does not attempt to connect the insurrection with the great movement of religious and political ideas that was going on ; omits to mention some of the most important leaders and most characteristic incidents ; and, indeed, taking his tone from contemporary memoir-writers soldiers who could not understand, — and middle-class royalists who would not — represents the whole affair as little better than a huge riot. De Thou and the Memoirs of Vieilleville furnish him with his chief materials : he does not quote the graphic description of Montaigne, that gives so different a colour to a well-known incident, and does not appear to have consulted the Memoirs of the Duke of Guise, the letter of the Cardinal of Vendome, or the extra ordinary " Pasquille," or Satire, in which a dramatic account of the whole of what took place at Bordeaux is given by a very curious process. All the personages who played a part, from the " Coward King" to the " little children," are brought upon the scene, and represented as speaking in Latin phrases from the Scriptures. I shall make a sober use of this document, but should have regretted to miss some of the hints it contains.

THE REBELLION OF 1548. The movement did begin with all the outward character of a mere insurrection of misery against the monopoly of salt. For a long time, as I have said, the Province of Guyenne had been undisturbed, but men's minds were deeply moved by religious dis cussions. The internal sedition was carried on in peace and quietness, as it always would be if there were no attempt at compression. Henry the Second, by a violent edict, insisting on the levying of the gabelle against the privileges of the province, provoked discontent in all classes, and amongst all sects. When the first rising against the Gabelleurs took place at Jorignac in the Angoumois, on the 1st of May, it was led by a priest. The example was speedily followed, and the whole country soon swarmed with insurgents. Every village, hamlet, farm-house, supplied its con tingent. Men came out of the forests to join the insurrection. The anger of the people seems to have been unanimous. But it was in Saintonge, the stronghold of the Reformed doctrine, that the first attempt at organisation was made. Fifty thousand men collected on some plain, and elected as their Grand Corrounal, or Colonel, the Sieur de Puymoreau, one of the principal gentle men of the country, with four deputy-corrounals to aid and advise him, named Bouillon, Galafre, Cramaillon, and Chateauroux. Puymoreau did the work he had to do, and died amidst calumny and outrage ; but he was probably a man of large views and firm character, fit to be understood by La Boetie, and his friend

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. Longa. None of the cruelties committed on the agents of royal exaction are attributed to him. Once, however, when marching through the country, he came to a village where a poor man threw himself on his knees, and complained that the cure had just stolen his mare by violence, and could not be made to give it up. The Grand Corrounal instantly ordered restitution, had the priest tied to a tree and whipped, and proceeded on his way. Every man who passed the tree struck the wretched culprit till he died. Puymoreau carefully avoided pillaging the castles of nobles who remained neutral, but used terrible severity against one who took an insurgent and put him to death. Terror kept the great lords quiet. Orders " were issued in the name of the Grand Corrounal of Saintonge," to all cures, vicars, and ecclesiastics, to ring the bells of the churches, to call the people together ; " which order was more exactly obeyed than if issued by the king." For a whole month Puymoreau and his colleagues were absolute in Saintonge. They took all the chief towns, beat the King of Navarre's cavalry, liberated prisoners, punished exaction, pillaged some places, but in general endeavoured to maintain order. Their objects, and those of their followers, are not clearly known. They seem, however, to have been a sort of fanatical republicans, or Fifth Monarchy men. Their favourite Scripture quotation as it was — of our Puritans, who came of the same stock — appears to have been, " Put not your trust in princes." Whilst Puymoreau was thus establishing his autho

THE REBELLION OF 1548. rity, and those of his sect or party, in Saintonge, another chief, named Talemagne the same who beat the men of the King of Navarre marched from the centre of the insurrection towards Bordeaux. But meanwhile meetings of the peasantry had been called, and revolutionary circulars were issued. " The con tagion spread like a stain of oil." Talemagne found everything ready, and after making an attempt on the castle of Blaye, boldly turned his attention towards Bordeaux. He took possession of Libourne, and then wrote to the Jurats to come and wait on him. They did so; and he was enabled to ascertain that two at least of their number were favourable to his cause, besides other persons " of consequence and credit." Whilst negociations were going forward, emissaries from the insurgent camp introduced themselves into the city, and incited the discontented masses to rise. The " new doctrine" had many disciples in Bordeaux, and they now began to speak out and attract the multitude. The great dispute afterwards was as to who first rang the tocsin, and, of course, the magistrate tried to throw the whole blame on the fanatical strangers from Saintonge. As soon as the movement had declared itself on the 28th of May, they sent, or claim to have sent for it is not clear that at the out set they were not accomplices —in all haste for Tristan de Moneins, appointed the previous year lieutenant of Henri d'Albret, king of Navarre, in Guyenne. This person seems to have been of a humane and concili ating disposition. He was not far off, and made all

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. haste to reach Bordeaux. When he drew near, the great bell of the H6tel de Ville was ringing the tocsin, and presently afterwards the bells of the parishes of St. Michel and Ste. Eulalie were heard in full swing. A roar of voices filled the street, and the people were all running like madmen in one direction. A public meeting of citizens was convoked in the Hotel de Ville; and some of "the people, to prevent dis content," were admitted. Thousands of armed insur gents stationed outside. Moneins spoke fair, but slightly blaming the audacity of those who had excited the troubles in Guyenne. Whereupon a man named Guillotin how strange to find this name in con nexion with the revolution in the sixteenth century !— boldly said that the neighbouring towns had done well, and rendered a valuable service to the public by their insurrection. He even went on to appeal to the patriotism of the good people of Bordeaux —incited them to imitate the glorious example set them, " with out fearing the most frightful punishments" —and re commended them to "recover the liberties of their ancestors." Where did this man come from ? Was he related to the Alexandre Guillotin, Docteur en Droit of the Comte Venaisin, the chief of the Protestant insurrection in that district in 1560 ? What was his " aim ? What were these liberties intended to be re covered 1" What means were at his disposal? We have little materials even for guessing; but it is singular that this movement, which is treated by all historians as a mere food-riot, should have so stirred

THE REBELLION OF 1548. the minds of the men of that generation that its doctrines and its aspirations should have been incor porated in by far the most eloquent and impassioned attack upon monarchy ever written the Treatise on — Voluntary Servitude, by Estienne La Boetie. Guillotin's language was so violent that Moneins was offended; but he afterwards apologised, and the night passed in comparative tranquillity. The king's lieutenant, however, retired to the Chateau Trompette, into which, together with the Chateau Haz, he caused all the provisions and stores to be removed. This exasperated the people more and more. They seized the Arsenal, distributed the arms, got out cannon to breach the castles, and rang the tocsin ; which, says the historian, " has a wonderful effect in exciting the people at such times." The populace of Bordeaux seemed about to anti cipate the taking of the Bastille. It is singular how many expressions in the contemporary narratives of these events remind one of 1789. The insurgents from the various surrounding towns were coming in in bodies. "" At the most critical moment the people of Saintes arrived. Does this refer to the arrival of Talemagne ; or are we to understand that Puymoreau had marched to Bordeaux with the main body of the insurrectionary army ? His name does not recur until we hear it again on the scaffold. However this may be, from that time forward the reaction seems to have com menced by the retirement of the chief among the bourgeoisie from the popular cause. The Catholic and

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. Republican middle classes may have been alarmed by the Protestant and levelling doctrines of the peasantry. The Parliament, seeing the danger of Moneins, inter posed with its good offices, and deputed the President De la Chassagne to speak to the malcontents. He represented the danger they ran of royal vengeance, and made the usual promises of clemency. Some one cried out that all would be over if Moneins came forth from the castle. Whereupon La Chassagne went and persuaded him to condescend to the wishes of the people. The unfortunate man seems to have been afraid from the beginning of what occurred. Mon taigne, who was present throughout all these events, adds many details, from personal experience, to the ordinary narratives. He says, speaking no doubt of what he saw from the balcony of some house, that Moneins came out of the castle in order to appease the tumult, and thus put himself in the power of the mutinous mob. The effect did not answer his expect ations. His memory was commonly reproached, says the Essayist, with imprudence ; but in reality his fault was not overboldness but want of firmness. He was too submissive and gentle. Instead of guiding the storm, he tried to pacify by humility. His mistake was committed, not when he threw himself unarmed in his pourpoint amidst the tempestuous waves of that popular sea, but when he showed that he repented what he had done. It was in the Hotel de Ville. The crowd was shouting and pressing towards him. Misgivings seized him when he saw the danger close

THE REBELLION OP 1548. at hand ; his nose bled ; his countenance, which was at first only flattering and fawning, became expressive of terror; his voice and his eyes were full of alarm and repentance : he tried to go to cover like a rabbit, and dodged to escape. Thus it was that he inflamed the people and drew them on him. Montaigne's sympathies were evidently on the other side, and he takes a sort of malicious pleasure in describing the undignified terror of a man whom his party had exalted into a hero. De Thou suppresses all the humiliating details, and says only that Moneins, seeing that the people were fighting who should get at him, in order to cover his retreat threw amongst them a handsome gold chain ; thinking, no doubt, with aristocratic contempt of human nature, that all they meant was pillage. But one of them caught him a blow on the left cheek ; whereupon the historian, ashamed of the truth, makes him draw to defend himself. He was killed, at any rate, and his body was exposed to insult during two days. When the President La Chassagne, who had pledged his word to Moneins, saw the tragic termination of the attempt to pacify the insurgents, he took refuge in the convent of the Dominicans; but they went and carried him away from the altar, and forced him to become their leader. De Thou obtained the chief part of his inform ation on the history of Guyenne from Montaigne, who, no doubt, attenuated as much as possible the part played by a relative of his father-in-law. The "Pasquille"I have mentioned, which is exact in all facts it states in common with other narratives, introduces La Chas- VOL. I. G

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. sagne afterwards appearing for judgment before the victorious Connetable, sent by the king to put down the insurrection, and saying, "Ave, Rabi." The Connetable answers: "Ergo rex es tu?" La Chassagne: " Tu dicis." The Provost of the Marshal interposes : " Dost " thou not hear what is said to thee ? La Chassagne answered not a word. Then the Provost repeated : "Dost thou answer nothing?" La Chassagne said: " Thou hast no power whatever over me." This parody of Scripture, which was not thought irreverent at that time, expresses clearly that La Chassagne was the chief of a defeated insurrection. The story of the flight to the convent was, perhaps, invented afterwards. At any rate, apparently under the guidance of La Chassagne, the people went and pillaged the houses of the officers of the Gabelle. Andrault the receveur was caught, and horribly maltreated till he died. Popular vengeance went, it appears, to extreme excesses. Terror filled the city. One St. Simon, a Conseiller of the Parliament, assembled his family to address them on the subject of the public calamities, and suddenly hearing a great shout under his window fell down dead at the beginning of his discourse. The night passed thus. Next day the President began to obtain the upper hand, and cleverly incited the insurgents to massacre one another. Within four days the disturbances, having, on account of the divisions and misunderstandings of the leaders and the people, no longer any definite object, stopped of themselves. The news came, too, that the Connetable de Mont THE REBELLION OF t548.

morency, a near relation of Moneins, had been sent by the king (Henry the Second, then at Turin) on the first report of the insurrection in Guyenne, and was advancing rapidly with his army from Toulouse. There was no prospect of efficient assistance from any quarter. In spite of the solicitations of De Biren, ambassador of the Emperor at London, England was not inclined to take this opportunity of recovering her province of Guyenne. Everybody was ashamed or alarmed. We must not, I repeat, pay attention to the ordinary histo rians, who represent the whole affair as a rising of the lower classes, spurred by misery or avarice and headed by a few disreputable gentlemen, and who maintain that all presidents and important people who interfered were, forsooth, forced by the mob. It is evident that the movement was almost a unanimous one at first. All classes joinedi n it. In the memoirs of Francois de Guise it is distinctly stated, that the Bordeaux insur rection was headed by Lavergne a merchant, says De — Thou —Macquenan, and Lestonnac, who was at any rate a gentleman, at that time Jurat. The family of the last -mentioned was afterwards related to Mon taigne ; for Jane his sister, whose birth I have men tioned, married a Lestonnac. De Thou informs us, that when the people first expressed their indignation against Moneins, they wished Frederic de Foix Candale, a great lord of Guyenne, whose family once possessed the whole of Medoc, to be put in his stead. But the historian, who was a friend of the Foix family, does not allow us

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. to suppose that this M. de Candale was in any way ambitious, or implicated in the movement. From the "Pasquille," however, we find that he was included in the accusations. It represents him, indeed, as ready "to " die and suffer the cross with the people of Bordeaux, before the arrival of the Connetable ; and as afterwards imploring mercy for himself or for them. It seems certain that he had much to do with pacifying the city ; but this does not prove that at the outset he did not encourage the insurrection. When failure came, the powerful made arrangements to escape, and their friends ever afterwards tried to misrepresent the affair. All this might indeed be inferred from the conduct of the brutal Montmorency. The Parliament of Bordeaux had already begun to curry favour by cruelty. They had sentenced a townsman, who first rang the tocsin, to be drawn by four horses ; and now despatched a boat, fitted up magnificently with glass chambers, painted with gold and azure, and speckled with the arms of the terrible Connetable, to meet him. They expected, by sacrificing a few nobodies, to be received again as loyal subjects. But Montmorency replied to their compliments that he would not use their boat, nor, for that matter, the gates of their city. He had twenty-four good keys of his own,—pieces of artillery. With this message he dismissed the emissaries, and the city remained for a week in expectation of being utterly given up to pillage. When the army arrived, though welcoming flags were hoisted on every pinnacle and flaunted hypocritically from every window, a breach

THE REBELLION OP 1548. was indeed made, out of mere insolence, and the pun ishment of revolt at once began. There can be no doubt that the Connetable was partly actuated by fury for the death of his relative Moneins ; but he must also have received some private order from the king. The " " souldars " and the " lansquenets are represented as full of joy at the easy task confided to them; and " applauded loudly at the " Confundanter omnes of the Connetable, whom "the people of Medoc" call, in the "Pasquille," a "Samaritan possessed by the devil!" That was a dreadful time, which may well have produced a lasting impression on the young and virtu ous La Boetie, and given him food for indignant de nunciation of monarchy. Above a hundred and forty persons "of mark" were hung, beheaded, broken on the wheel, impaled, torn by four horses, or burned. Three were pounded until they were half dead, and then cast into the flames. Guillotin was one of those who suffered death by fire. The " Pasquille," which calls him Carlotain by mistake, implies that he met his death " with courage, and in an enthusiastic manner : Fear not them who kill the body, for they cannot kill the soul." Lavergne was drawn by horses. Galafre and Talemagne were broken alive. Lestonnac, Chevalier du Guet, Jurat, and Du Sault his brother, governor of the Chateau du Haz, had their heads cut off. Leston nac had a beautiful wife, who went to beg her husband's life of Montmorency. He promised it on one infamous condition. The poor woman complied, and he then

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. took her to a window just as her husband's head was falling. As almost the whole of the "Pasquille" I have so often quoted is made up of quotations from Scripture, it is necessary not to strain the interpretation too far in a religious sense; but it is worth noticing that the sentiments put in the mouths of all the sufferers express gentleness, resignation, piety. M. de Les­tonnac says, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me ; have patience with me and I will restore all to thee :" which may imply that he wished to save his life ; and the Capitaine du Sault protests his inno cence. But M. de Pommiers, M. de Bales, M. de Ciret, M. de Moneins, Conseiller in the Parliament of Bordeaux, M. de Gans, Conseiller in Guyenne, and M. Jehannot le Sec, who were all probably condemned to the galleys, speak with Christian resignation; and Guillotin, as we have seen, assumes the attitude of a martyr. The President La Chassagne, though violently accused, —Si hunc dimittis non es amicus Cesaris con trived to escape positive punishment, but remained long in disgrace. He was acquitted, too, when, three years after, Dame de Lomagne, widow of Moneins, prosecuted him for the murder of her husband before the Parliament of Toulouse. The city itself was impeached, tried, and condemned. Even the bells that had served as a signal of revolt were punished by being destroyed. Not a bell, and indeed not a clock, was left entire in Bordeaux or its neighbourhood. This

THE REBELLION OF 1548. indicates that not only the people but some of the clergy were engaged in the revolt. A hundred youths were publicly whipped, moreover; and the inhabitants of the city were compelled to do penance for the death of M. de Moneins, by scratching up his body with their nails from the hole in which it had been buried, and preparing a magnificent funeral. It took place at night. The Jurats and one hundred and twenty bourgeois, in mourning, first followed the bier, each with a torch in hand ; and then came more than five thousand people of all estates—also with torches. When they arrived in front of the Connetable's house, in the street of the Red Hat, they were compelled to prostrate themselves and cry mercy. Then the Jurats produced the titles and privileges of the city, and burned them in a fire lighted by their own hands. Heavy pecuniary fines were, of course, not forgotten. But we have still more intimate details of the events that accompanied the suppression and punish — ment of this terrible insurrection details that place in a far clearer light the connivance of the upper and middle classes. Monsieur de Vieilleville marched from Poitiers to effect a junction with the Connetable. Being of a very humane disposition he forbade his troops to rob and plunder on the way, and actually paid for what he consumed. Thus he reached, at last, a large village, about three leagues from Bordeaux, and halted there. His grooms happened to discover, concealed under a heap of straw and hay, a quantity of old arms ; as two hundred pikes of Biscay wood, eighty

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. arquebuses, sixty morions, engraved without gilding, and so forth. This looked very suspicious. Mine host was probably a leader of the insurrection. But Vieilleville, instead of sending him at once to punish ment, spoke kindly to him, and allowed himself to be persuaded of his innocence. It appears that the man had a good reputation, and was really on excellent terms with the rebels, for various gentlemen of the neighbourhood had sent as many as thirty-five chests and coffers, by night, filled with valuable property, which they committed to his care, and which he caused to be walled up in a secret cellar. The moral of the story seems to be, that Vieilleville was a man of mar vellous probity, and very different from the other of ficers of the army, for he neither delivered up the host to the prevots to be judged nor robbed the property. The said host was mayor of his village and well to do in the world, and so glad to escape scot-free that he would have adored M. de Vieilleville, if the latter would have allowed him. He had reason to be grateful, for all around the lansquenets and souldars were murdering and plundering. Everybody they wished to annoy was accused of having rung the tocsin. The host did his best to cover his friends and relations ; but he lost all sympathy with his colleagues in rebellion, and often went afterwards, perhaps rather to prove his loyalty than for the mere sake of enjoyment, to witness the executions at Bordeaux, never omitting to take fruit and other presents to his preserver by the same opportunity.

THE REBELLION OF 1548. 8£ Vieilleville went afterwards to garrison a village about a league from Bordeaux. The principal person of the place seems to have been a M. de Valvyn, Conseiller of the Parliament, who received the officer with profuse hospitality, and at once begged his pro tection. This person, too, appears to have dabbled in the insurrection, for he was profuse in his pro fessions of innocence. Mademoiselle de Valvyn, his wife such was the old style in speaking of married bourgeois ladies —in company with her daughters, of excellent beauty, also implored the protection of the humane soldier. She was quite wild with fear. The preceding night the house of her sister, a widow, who had likewise two very handsome daughters, had been attacked, and the whole family had fled to her for refuge. She fell on her knees. M. de Vieilleville replied that he too had daughters, and would be her guard. He was thanked with many tears ; and it then came out that the pretence of her having given en couragement to the rebels was a mere cover to the designs of a young rake of the neighbourhood, who wished to break into her niece's room. M. de Valvyn had reason to thank the benevolence of Vieilleville. When the other Parliament men were compelled to do penance, his neighbours collected round his house to force him and all the ladies to go likewise ; which looks as if the peasantry of the neighbourhood of Bordeaux regarded the insurrection as a mere bourgeois move ment. They fetched the archers to assist them ; cudgels were brought into play ; and both archers and the

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. populace were compelled to retreat. M. de Vieilleville afterwards used his influence effectually to protect his host. The gendarmes and archers from all the villages around used to obtain holidays by turns to go into Bordeaux, in order to enjoy the sight of the executions. Some of them came back with an idea that they thought might prove profitable. They went to the cure, and said that two victims, before dying, had accused him of having rung the tocsin, and threatened arrest if he did not at once pay them money. " The poor man," writes the chronicler naively, "knowing what was going on in Bordeaux, where people were put to death on a simple accusation, without witnesses or form of trial, offered eight hundred ecus to be let off. It is true he felt a little guilty." The robbers thereupon increased their demands, and asked for all the church plate. Whilst they were chaffering with the priest, whom they had bound in a retired room, his nephew arrived, ran away and fetched the armed force, which soon gave matters another face. All these revelations enable us to appreciate the horrible state of the country, given up to murder and pillage, and account for the extreme indignation which breathes through the Treatise of La Boetie, the first draft of which seems to have been written as soon as a dead calm succeeded to this violent tempest. We may trace much of the Anabaptistic tone of the work to the contagion of this great movement of 1548. I must not forget to notice that the young Duke

of Aumale, afterwards known as the great Guise, was also ordered to march towards Bordeaux ; and there exists a letter from the king, who upon his return from Piedmont wrote when at Moulins to the duke, expressing his hope and confidence that the expedition would be easily successful. It is a curious contrast to observe in this letter that the king,— immersed in pleasures, thinking on his way to Paris of nothing but arcs of triumph, obelisks, columns, and inscrip tions, of festivals with imitations of the ancient gladiatorial exhibitions, of Florentine comedies after the manner of the ancients, and jousts upon the water, —has scarcely a word to say of the immense insurrection which had brought his court back from Turin. The principal part of his letter, indeed, refers to the fact that his daughter, the Queen of Scotland—that is the infant Mary, betrothed to his son Francis had just arrived on the previous Sunday, in very good health, at Carrieres, where were his own children. Evidently this domestic business touches him more than the public one. We are reminded of Louis Quatorze re ceiving the future Duchesse de Bourgogne : " I learn " by my letters," says Henry, as well from my cousin your mother, as from the Sieur d'Humieres, that my son Francis and she (Mary) were as familiar together the first day as if they had known each other a long time, and no one approaches her who does not praise her as if she were a marvel. This redoubles my desire to see her, as I hope soon to do." But whilst the king thus thought chiefly of the

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. beautiful child come to adorn his court and family, the Cardinal de Guise, more practical, had written to his brother, saying, " It is pitiful to reflect how this poor people has so forgotten itself to disobey the as king ; but I suppose you will so set them to rights that they will think twice another time." The Cardinal talks also a great deal, however, of marriages and festivals. This letter, by the way, tells us that one Muret, possibly our Muretus, was in the service of the Cardinal, and acted on this occasion as his messenger to his brother at Bordeaux. The Duke of Aumale, on his way to Bordeaux with his army, pacified Saintonge, which was still in re bellion, without imitating the severity of the Con­netable. He was content with the submission of the people and the destruction of the church bells. The Cardinal de Vendome, bishop of Saintes, wrote to the Duke next year to use his influence to allow the bells to be replaced; and from his language it seems evident, that not only were there many Calvinists in Saintonge, but that heresy had taken a peculiar form in 1548, and in that form had been successfully put down. The clergy and inhabitants, he said, had come to him with so many and pitiable remonstrances, that he really hoped the bells would be restored " for the honour of God, who otherwise would be very badly served in Saintonge, especially by those who little approve the service of the church, of whom the number is too great, and who would probably increase if a decent excuse were afforded them for absenting them

THE REBELLION OF 1548. selves from church ; namely, their not being aware of the hour when service begins. It would be much more difficult," adds the Cardinal, " to prevent this error from re-entering my diocese than it was to expel it." In 1549 the inhabitants of Bordeaux also begged the Duke of Aumale, as their natural protector, to intercede with the king for the restoration of their privileges ; and it is very likely that in the negociations that took place in order to bring about this result, Montaigne and his father were brought into contact with the Guises for the first time. The connexion of Michel with the great Lorraine family in early life is too evident to be denied. I have no doubt that when La Dixmerie describes Montaigne as coming to court, and much sought after by the Cardinal de Lorraine, and even guided by him in the court as in a world new to him, he refers to some tradition of this early visit, and not to a period subsequent to the death of Charles the Ninth, when Montaigne was an old courtier.

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

CHAPTER IX. MONTAIGNE AT COURT IN EARLY LIFE. The inhabitants of Bordeaux sent a Procureur of the city to present their petition to the king. We learn from Darnal, in his " Continuation of the Chronicle of Bordeaux," that Maistre Pierre Eyquem was elected in 1546 procureur of the city. But this Pierre is described as Sieur de Gaujac, and was evidently the uncle of Michel. He resigned his office, probably from ill health, in the following year. As for Pierre Eyquem of Montaigne, he does not seem to have held any official position during the events I have narrated ; but he was, no doubt, present throughout : for where his son at that time was, he probably was also. Very likely, when the peasantry began to rise, he retired, as so many other gentlemen did, from his chateau into the city, expecting to find safety there. So great was the respect in which he was held by his fellow-citizens, that we are surprised not to find his name mentioned as having been sent to Paris to plead for the restoration of the privileges of Bordeaux. AT COURT IN EARLY LIFE. However, we are obliged to infer a visit to the capital about this period. Montaigne tells us that he knew Paris from " his infancy," by which he means his early youth. He professes to have been at once particularly struck with Paris, and always retained a tender for that city. All he finds to blame in affection it is the sharp smell of its mud, which he compares to t at of Venice. In the comparison he institutes be tween the states of various nations he condemns France, but remembers Paris to except it. " I am never so " angry with France," says he, that I cease to regard Paris favourably. That city had my heart from my very childhood. Its fate with me has been that of all excellent things. Whatever beautiful cities I have since seen, the beauty of this one wins upon my affec tion. I love it for itself, and more in its own simpli city than glossed over with foreign pomp. I love it tenderly, even to its warts and its stains. I am a — Frenchman only by this great city great in its popu lation, great in the happiness ofits site—but above all things, great and incomparable in variety and diversity of conveniences and appliances of all kinds ; the glory of France, and one of the noblest ornaments of the world. May God expel from it our discords ! Let it only be united, and it need fear no external I warn

it, that of all parties, the worst will violence. be that which shall introduce discord into it. fear I but from itself do fear for I I but much as for any other piece of this state. As long as whither for nothing it it as ; lack endures shall not it retreat I a may MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. retire and die. It is sufficient to make me lose the regret of any other retreat." The Paris of Montaigne's youth was very different in aspect from the Paris of to-day ; yet he speaks of it with the same reverence and affection that does now

it, the Frenchman. When he first visited the modern Louvre was rising from the ruins of the old feudal Hotel by Francis the First castle destroyed and the ; — de Ville begun the year of Montaigne's birth —had not yet got beyond the second story. Nearly all the rest of the city was invested with character; middle-age a the hand of the Renaissance being visible only here and there, as in the magnificent Hotel de Carnavalet, where Montaigne was received in his young days. Vast certain extent, fortified mansions, the refuges and, to a of the great nobility, who were always ready to become chiefs of parties and leaders of the people, were to be Italian with at every turn, and somewhat met a gave air to this northern city. Above the mass of private buildings rose the stupendous form of Notre Dame, far more in harmony then than now with the city it over and in various parts, but especially towards shadowed ; the mountain of Ste. Genevieve, and all along the river bank, where are now the wine depot and the Jardin des Plantes, stretched vast monasteries, masses of dead by wall that resembled fortresses. Thither day flocked crowds of the idle poor, among whom Irish are par ticularly mentioned, to be fed on ecclesiastical charity. On the opposite side, the Bastille and the Arsenal frowned over the military quarter; but even then, in AT COURT IN EAKLY LIFE. that neighbourhood industry had taken refuge, and factories collected masses of workmen's dwellings about them. What is now the quartier St. Germain was an open plain, where an annual fair, frequented even by the Court, was held a monstrous prototype of the ffites of the present day; but the quartier Latin was already the learned quarter, where the schools rose, the students lodged, and booksellers were confined by law. The river was covered chiefly with boats of wine-dealers, distinguished by their bright flying colours, and crossed by several bridges of wood and stone, the latter laden with double rows of houses. The Court, and whatever could be called society, was chiefly col lected in the quarter of the Louvre, which palace soon became the favourite residence of the kings. Here it was that Montaigne especially loved to dwell, and with him the Louvre and Paris are sometimes almost sy nonymous words. In the time of Henry the Second, "" this city, so great in population, contained about fifteen thousand houses and four hundred thousand inhabitants. The streets, even the four chief ones that crossed at the quarter of the Halle, were extremely narrow. Their principal characteristic was the pro digious number of sign-boards that hung out from the shops like wooden banners, and creaked and groaned in each passing gust of wind. Carriages were not yet used in those days, though they became common before Montaigne ceased to write. Courtiers and citizens used the saddle. Henry the Second, the effeminate, seems to have been the first king who habitually rode VOL. I. H

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. in a coach — an elegant vehicle, with a roof supported by pillars. Montaigne, though a philosopher, appears not in any way to have analysed or studied the population of Paris. He saw nothing but the grand external aspect of the city, the bustle and brilliancy of the Court, the activity of learning, and the general comfort and civilis ation of the middle classes. No doubt his imagination was affected, too, by the mighty buzz of the great city, contrasting so strangely with his quiet province the infinity of cries in the street of hawkers selling all things, from oranges of Portugal, cherries of Poitiers, wine, gilded sweetmeats, to books and prophetic broad sheets ; the gaiety and love of pleasure of the inhabi tants, who went in those days to dance at the Mal­maisons, at Bagnolet, and in the islands of the Seine ; the affluence of elegant crowds in the public walks ; the strange scenes of the masquerade, when students and citizens by thousands, disguised as wolves, panthers, bears, or asses, streamed through the streets. But,

is, above all, what explains his love for Paris no doubt, that all these things were presented to him in very early life, in company with the development of his passions. Paris, as of thought, of business, centre a and political excitement, became known to him at later period. Its external a doubt, chiefly qualities, no struck him in what he calls his childhood. Henry the Second reigned twelve years, during but which time Montaigne was much at court itis ; impossible to decide exactly at what periods. In 1554, AT COURT IN EARLY LIFE. as we shall see, he became a magistrate ; but although we may suppose that many of his courtly experiences took place before this period, his appointment did not restrain his vagabond propensities. Even his friend ship for La Boetie, as I shall presently show, could never keep him quiet. He was always, in youth as in age, hankering after the Court ; but, in youth as in age, he seems to have been easily disgusted with it. He could never learn to keep his body and his counte nance sufficiently under command ; his glances always wandered, or some unconventional gesture escaped him. When he sat he never felt seated ; and yet he had seen even ladies keep their eyes fixed as statues ! Montaigne talks familiarly of Monsieur de Carna­valet, who acted as horse-breaker to Henry the Second ; and refers to stories of equestrian feats which he heard of in his childhood, as performed by Prince Sulmone at Naples. These are topics likely to interest a young courtier ; and we need not be surprised that the stable gossip of early life left an impression upon the philoso pher's mind. It is not, however, necessary to establish the exact dates of the events of Michel's youth. It is sufficient if we know their character and the general period to which they belong. Tradition tells us that Montaigne, though so young, much pleased King Henry the Second by his powers of conversation; and he has himself taken care to let us know that he was often in presence of that monarch. " I have seen the king, Henry the " Second," says he, prove himself unable to name correctly a gentleman of this part of Gascony, [he may mean himself], and he chose to designate one of the maids-of-honour of the queen by her general family name, because that of her father was too difficult to remember."

In 1554 Pierre Eyquem was elected mayor by the city of Bordeaux, and gave general satisfaction. He received Fran§ois de Maury, the Archbishop, on occa sion of his solemn entry into Bordeaux the same year, and delivered a fine speech, as is recorded in the " Gallia Christiana." Soon after, he was sent to the Court on business for the city ; and twenty pipes of wine were voted in order that he might make presents to the lords who were favourable to the said city. There can be little doubt, at any rate, that Michel accompanied his father on this occasion. In this imperfect way, in as far as positive facts are concerned, is the narrative obliged to usher in the period of Montaigne's manhood. All attempts at arriving at a chronology, or at any detailed narrative, have so far failed. There is some important infor mation, however, as to Montaigne's inner experiences, which I shall give after having explained what at this time was the official position of Montaigne. In 1554 the king, in order to replenish his coffers, was en gaged in creating new offices for sale. Among other institutions he thought of establishing a Cour des Aides for Guyenne, Auvergne, and Poitou. There was competition between Bordeaux and Perigueux as to where the Court should sit, and the latter city

101 obtained the privilege for fifty thousand francs. " Among the first members elected was Pierre Eyquem, of the house of Montaigne in Perigord, jurisdiction of Montravel." But before the first meeting Pierre Eyquem received news of his election as mayor of Bordeaux, and accordingly seems to have given up his place at Perigueux to his son Michel, who against the laws, but by special dispensation of the king, became a conseiller at the early age of twenty-one. The fact that he belonged to this court is mentioned in a receipt under Montaigne's own hand, still existing in the National Library at Paris, and the only doubt that remains seems to be as to the date and mode of his nomination, which we may leave antiquaries to dispute about. In 1557, in consequence of intrigues and disputes, on which it is unimportant to insist, the Cour des Aides of Perigueux was incorporated with the Parliament of Bordeaux. The name of Michel de Montaigne occurs in the registers that record the official reception of the new members on the third of December, on which day it is interesting to know that Montaigne at length became the colleague of Estienne de la Boetie. Mon taigne occupied his new position for thirteen years ; but I shall be obliged to speak of him further on in his character as conseiller, and must now mention facts that will show that his office, if not a sinecure, was far from absorbing a very important portion of his time.

CHAPTER X. MONTAIGNE AS A LOVER. We have Montaigne's own confession or boast that he first felt the power of love when extremely young. If we were to interpret his vague expressions we should be almost obliged to set him up as a rival to Rousseau, whose infantine passions for Mesdemoiselles Goton and Vulson are so well known. He is ashamed to state the exact age at which the tender sentiment took possession of his heart, — drolly compares himself to Martilla, says the affair was an accident, a sort of miracle, that happened before the time of choice or the development of reason, in his usual material way, couples this sentimental incident with the wonderfully early development of his beard, " that astonished his mother," he tells us in the words of Martial; and leaves us to guess at all details and consequences. At a later period of youth, Montaigne, we know, plunged into the stream of boisterous and coarse de bauchery, which took its rise in the court of Francis the First, and went on increasing in depth and fetidness until the Valois branch perished. There do not exist, AS A LOVER. 103 out of the Essays, materials for saying anything of this part of Montaigne's life. It is necessary, therefore, to develop the suggestions they contain, and to rely on the news we have from other quarters of the general cha racter of the age. All Montaigne's confessions, however, cannot be insisted on. His cynical allusion to his hump-backed mistress is but one among a dozen that must be passed by without further notice. In the Essay on Paternal Affection, addressed to Madame d'Estissac, there is a vigorous denunciation of the parsimony of fathers ; but Montaigne does not seem to have suffered much in this particular. I have little doubt, however, that when he describes the atten tion of parents as gradually diminishing from infancy upwards, instead of increasing as reason would dictate, he makes reference to his own case. They had meant him to be a genius, a light of the age, and had made him Conseiller in a Parliament. Fathers treated their children, he bitterly says, as playthings —like apes, not like human beings. If there be any reminiscence of his own experience in this, we need not suppose that when he goes on to talk of a father on the brink of the grave enjoying his wealth alone, and making his sons lose their best years without seeing life, he is expressing any personal feeling. Many instances appear, however, to have occurred in that time of youths of good families provoked to robbery and all manner of crime by the extreme avarice of their parents. Harpagon, so vigorously painted in the next century by Moliere, seems to have had many predecessors. Montaigne was once re quested by a gentleman to remonstrate with his brother, who admitted that he had become a confirmed thief in consequence of the tyranny exercised in the paternal mansion. He had just stolen the rings of a lady at whose levee he was present with many others. Another gentleman he knew of had got into such a habit of pilfering when young, from poverty, that when he came into his fortune he could never pass a shop without feeling, and often yielding to, the desire to steal things, which he afterwards paid for. Many instances of a similar kind had come under Montaigne's

own observation. With reference to this tendency to pilfering, deve loped in so many persons of good family, it may be as well to mention that Montaigne is not the only writer

it, who alludes although others differentto give a reason for its existence from the parsimony of fathers. The young princes and courtiers in the time of Charles the Ninth were all accused of stealing in the houses to which they were admitted. The example had been set by that king himself. One day he caused ten young members of the corporation of cut -purses — " les — Matte" Enfants la be invited to de the Louvre, to by himself with and entertained admiring the dexterity which they stripped his guests at ball banquet and a a — given for the purpose. All the booty purses, jewels, pearls, and cloaks was brought to him, and it was with extreme delight that he estimated its value at three thousand ecus. The sight of the court gallants AS A LOVEE. 105 going sulkily away in their fine dresses without cloaks especially amused the royal wag, who gave back all the plunder to the thieves, and sent them away with a warning that if they continued their trade he would hang them. It is curious to add that the same monarch was an expert forger, and that his brother, Henry the Third, afterwards opened a public gambling- house in the very Louvre, where he played with all comers, and once lost thirty thousand ecus at dice to some Italian blacklegs, who had been sent for to Paris on purpose by a band of confederates. The facts mentioned by the Essayist, therefore, lose much of their singularity. Montaigne informs us, that for nearly twenty years after his " childhood" he lived without any certain

is, upon his family. means, dependent upon others ; that During that time he spent freely, and never husbanded. He was never more comfortable. It happenednever him that he found the of friend closed, to a purse for he got the reputation of being always anxious to pay. He " practised," in the words of Cotton's trans " at lation, withal, kind ofthrifty, and, once a a alluring honesty." Yet he was bad borrower, pre a ferring always to trust to letter rather than to an a interview. But his manner of life during his youth proves that he was not very straitened for means. Evidently he was very free, both in play and women. Games of hazard especially fascinated him from his early years. Cards and dice were the sources of his pleasure. The taste lasted some time, but he got rid MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. of it ; for although he generally succeeded in wearing a good countenance after his losses, he could not help feeling internally annoyed. Montaigne incidentally describes a scene in which, in the midst of ladies and cards, he was suddenly seized with a fit of melancholy and thoughtfulness. His companions believed he was devoured by jealousy, or calculating his chances, or regretting his losses. In reality, he was thinking of a man who a few days before, on leaving such an orgy as that, his head filled, as Montaigne's was, " with idleness, love, and jollity," had been seized with a fever, and suddenly carried away. A similar fate, he thought, might be in store for him ; and he tries to persuade himself and us that the presence of this idea did not pucker his brow. " He constantly meditated on death, he says, even at the most licentious period of his life." Where did this orgy take place ? Not at Mon taigne, and not probably at Bordeaux, under the eyes of his family. Very likely at Paris, whilst he was a student, or playing the part of a courtier, instead of attending to his duties as Conseiller at Perigueux_ It is quite evident that " the licentious period of his life" was by no means an episode; and he constantly seizes on the opportunity to tell us, that when young he was gay to an excess. The principal Latin poem of La Boetie, moreover, is filled with reproaches to Mon taigne, on account of his debauchery. The Essayist, like all old men, is fond of repeating and exaggerating the wickedness of his youth ; but having always the AS A LOVER. 107

care of his reputation in view, he adds, that he no more, when young, missed perceiving vice in the midst of volupty than when old he missed the volupty in the vice. He avoided excesses at a late period from prudence, not from morality. Arguing, perhaps, from

is, his own experience that from the fact that he was not corrupted he advises that young men should be thrown out into the world in contact with all nations and companions, and accustomed, if necessary, to de bauchery and excesses. Rousseau evidently meditated on this hint, and, as we shall see, Rome was highly it. All but subtle readers by scandalized arevery point of such Mon apt to miss the statement as a taigne's or Rousseau's, and fancy that is given as of the which merely an admission is coarse precept a necessities of life. It easy, in reading the memoirs of the time and of the court is reflecting on all their revelations of Henry the Second, to imagine what kind of life our truant have led at Paris. It is impossible,young lawyer must to paint, except for of however, secret gallery, copies a the manners of period when seems to have been it a the custom for ladies to overwhelm their lovers, other wise coy, with presents; when an Italian prince in marriage from marvelled young girl to receive a France uncorrupted; when that strange instrument, so ludicrously exhibited at the Museum of Cluny, was at the fair of St. Germain by husbands publicly bought forced to leave their wives unguarded, until lovers threatened to murder the dealer if he did not decamp ; and when men-servants dressed and undressed their noble mistresses, put on their stockings and handed them their chemises. The records we have of the mingled naivete and coarseness of that age are astonish ing. It was firmly believed by many that a magician once, to please Francis the First, made the toilettes of all the ladies of that prince's court invisible or trans parent. Impassioned lovers, when they bought silk stockings, used to go to their mistresses and beg them to wear them for a few days before they put them on. The Court transacted its affairs quite in a family way. Mademoiselle de Limeuil wrote a clever satire when she came to court to attend on the queen, and was whipped with two accomplices for her impertinence. At this time the French ladies had not yet acquired their reputation for elegance and taste in dress. They were taught the art of the toilette by the Queen of Navarre, who carried out the views of her sagacious mother. Indeed, as soon as the influence of Catherine de Medici began to be felt in reality, the corruption of France increased, but became more gorgeous and refined. There was then a perfect fury for adorn ments and costumes; and, as a historian naively remarks, "modesty suffered." I should think so, when at the banquet of Plessis-les-Tours, given by Henry the Third, all the ladies were dressed as men, in green silk ; and at one immediately following, given by the Queen-Mother at Chenonceaux, they served

AS A LOVEK. 109 at table almost without any dresses at all ! But matters had not gone quite so far in Montaigne's young time, when gallantry was rather fantastical than corrupt. It is a commonplace to say that love, although the same passion in the sixteenth century as now, took different forms and manifested itself in a different manner. That was the age of slovenly and ungartered, but also of point-device and spruce lovers as hope or despair was in the ascendant. Those sanguinary and ruthless heroes from whom we shrink with horror, were the most fastidious, and ceremonious, and fantastical, and amusing men in private life. Montluc, Mon taigne's friend, the most odious personage, perhaps, who ever dared to print his confessions —for the — deepest crime is incapable of this frankness the man who not only hanged enthusiastically his fellow-countrymen and fellow-creatures who differed from him in opinion, but boasts of having been guilty — of the blackest perfidy to compass his ends, naively " tells us how he was very much in love, when he had leisure," with a certain lady how he wore in her honour hose of crimson velvet with golden fringe ; a vest of the same stuff and hue ; a worked shirt, also of crimson silk, with a rich thread of gold ; and, in order to declare the colours of his mistress, which were white and grey, a hat of grey silk with a silver tie and silver feathers, and a cape of grey velvet lined with silver cloth. We can easily imagine Montaigne setting aside his conseiller's red robe, and decking himself out in some such extravagant fashion, for he is careful to tell

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. us that when he was young he was not only fond of dress, but that dress became him. Elsewhere, it is true, he talks of his carelessness in the matter of costume when young. We may, perhaps, count it as rather singular that tradition in the age of femmes galantes has preserved to us no personal details of the love-adventures of Montaigne not a single allusion, not even a scandalous — anecdote. Of all other men almost many of much less importance — we have some information of this kind. It is certain that revelations of weakness and affection, when they come to the knowledge of posterity, give a tender interest to a biography, which indeed seems incomplete and arid without. We may regret even the absence of ingenious fiction. In various " Scenes," Montaigne has been introduced as an Es sayist ; as anever man. Are we to suppose that what he relates, or rather insinuates, of his extravagant loves in early life, is merely an exaggeration of memory, the sly boasting of an old man seeking consolation for present restraint; or that such circumstances took place in his student life, among comparatively humble people, whose glances and oglings have not had memoir-writers to watch and record them ? However this may be, we know abso lutely nothing but what Montaigne himself, in his careless and allusive way, chooses to communicate. Like Rousseau, he tells us what kind of love-intrigues he avoided, and for what reasons ; and assures us that association with beautiful and respectable

AS A LOVER. Ill women was always most agreeable to him. By" respectable" he does not mean " chaste." He found it necessary always to be on his guard ; for, constituted as he was, there was perpetual danger that he should fall in love. He was once terribly scalded in his youth ; and felt all the rage which, according to poets, is incident to those who yield to passion without order or judgment. It is true that this coup de fouet had since served him as a lesson for "whoever has escaped the rock of Caphareus shuns the Eubcean Sea ever afterwards; and it is absurd to absorb all one's thoughts in love, and plunge into a furious and indiscreet passion." Montaigne's moralising was pro voked rather by the end of his intrigue than the beginning. Calm men are not unaccustomed to fancy their minds have been ravaged by moral tempests ; and we cannot, therefore, estimate the violence of the passion that inspired those eloquent love-letters to which Montaigne alludes, and the destruction of which he regretted when he saw the favour accorded to pedantic imitations of such compositions by the public. " If I still had all the paper I have formerly scribbled over for ladies, when my hand was really urged by passion," he says, "no doubt I should find some page worthy to be communicated to our idle youth, fascinated as it is by this madness." It is curious to compare in our imagination love-letters written under real impulse, by such men as Montaigne, with the elaborate trifling of Maistre Estienne Pasquier, and others of the same

kidney. "No mind," says our Essayist, "which has not given good earnest of its strength at twenty years of age, has ever after distinguished itself." We may, perhaps, fairly infer that the love-letters, of which he had previously spoken, were still in his recollection when he wrote this. There are times when the minds of all but very practical men prefer rather to deal with latent facts — than facts apparent to all the world with the per fume of a flower rather than its shape and colour— the coy form that flies to the willows rather than the waiter by the wayside the ultimate meaning of a phrase rather than its mere words; and projects by preference its sympathies, when dwelling on the life of a writer like Montaigne, who has confessed so much, towards what he has refrained from confessing. In such moods I have often endeavoured to create, to — invent, to discover his mistress to snatch her out from the chaos of his general allusions and semi-confidences to get a glimpse of her, as it were, — through the crannies of his style. By this process, however, I found that I was led too near the confines of romance, and, dismissing the phantom that may have been like reality, I have endeavoured, though without complete success, to forget the outline that was drawn, to put together the scattered pieces of the real picture, and boldly leave the blanks without any attempt to fill them up by colour. Montaigne tells us that he had scarcely more than six mistresses in all, but as he does so in the words

AS A LOVER. 113 of Ovid, we must take this to mean no more than that he was a model of constancy in that inconstant age. Out of the six, it is no unpardonable curiosity to desire to know who was the favoured one the one whose remembrance made his heart beat —the one he really loved. But we see her only reflected like a solitary star in the depths of his mind, and cannot tell even to what constellation she belonged. We may be quite certain, however, that she was very beautiful; for he admits, that if he had been obliged to choose he would have preferred beauty to wit. But the woman who left the chief mark in his life, if beautiful, was unkind; or if kind once, ultimately unfaithful. Montaigne, indeed, often talks of the rigour of mistresses, and implies that it was the source of some delight ; but this is the way that memory always consoles itself. The desire of pleasure, which is pain whilst it lasts in its intensity, becomes equivalent in force when time has passed to the languor of satisfaction, and is equally agreeable in the after-relish. Montaigne says that life seemed so desolate to him after the death of La Boetie, that he would have been quite lost had he not determined to fall in love again. He succeeded in inflaming himself, his age helping; and as little more than two years elapsed between the loss of his friend and his marriage, I once hoped that Franchise de la Chassagne had something to do with saving his life. At any rate, love cured him of the sickness that friendship had caused. But it would be to misconceive the character of VOL. I. I

Montaigne, his country, and his time, if between these two distant incidents his great passion as a youth, and his artificial passion when disconsolate for the loss of a friend we did not place many intrigues and — partial affections six, or sixteen, the number matters little. The heart has extempore yearnings that must be satisfied at once. Montaigne was no longer in danger of being led too far. He had already begun to be a philosopher in practice, and triumphantly relates how he opposed the progress of love when he found it to be gaining too firm a hold on him, and how he studied that it should not be so agreeable to him as to take him by force and captivate him entirely. Despite his affectation of caution, however, Mon taigne admits that he joined, without the excuse of sentiment, in the reckless search after pleasure common to the youth of his time ; and it is almost impossible to separate his half-boastful reminiscences of mere gal lantries from his poignant allusions to one deep, un satisfied feeling. How naively and complacently he talks of the cavalier way in which he used to treat his mistresses ! He even blames lovers, men and women, for attempting to exert authority one over the other. C'est une convention libre. This is the tone of a gallant of the court accustomed to deal with ladies made fickle by much license, and himself fickle from the same cause. In his time, he tells us, he had carried out " that bargain," as far as nature would allow, as conscientiously as any other bargain. He used only to testify as much affection as he felt, and

AS A LOVER. 115 boldly confessed the rise, and falls, and intervals of his passion. "In such matters," he naively says," there are fits and relapses." All this is very matter-of-fact, and Montaigne does not yet appeal to our sympathies. He must have been a pedantic and priggish suitor after all, and our knowledge of human nature forbids us to admit that his misplaced frankness could have been charitably received. Michel was a man made to be jilted; and when he says that he never broke off as long as he was held by a thread, and never, whatever reasons were given him, carried a rupture to contempt and hatred, he suggests himself to us in many strange situations. Let us not be more squeamish for him than he was himself. When he writes, " My mistresses have found in me fidelity, even at the service of their inconstancy ; I say inconstancy, avowed and sometimes multiplied;" he almost pleads guilty to the patience of a Des Grieux. But afterwards he lets us know, as if ashamed of the fact, that he did " sometimes exhibit rage, and rather indiscreet im patience." We are not, however, amidst all this regretful moralising, brought any nearer to the Laura or the Beatrice, the Diana or the Ninon, to whom, perhaps gratuitously, I suppose those burning love-letters, the loss of which he regretted, and those Latin poems of which he somewhere speaks, to have been addressed. We approach her society, perhaps, when we see emotion troubling his words, as he writes of these juvenile experiences in old age. We cannot take for granted, as I have hinted, what we are told about the zest given to his passion by repulse. Women who derive the advantage alone appreciate what appears mere suffering to their admirers, until the passion and the suffering are alike things of the past. However,

I imagine that Montaigne's anger and impatience at his mistresses for their double-dealing and evasion of his wishes, though they sometimes burst forth, could not have been very terrible. He was petulant by nature, but in general — as is evident from the easy relations I have alluded to, and from the whole tone of his writings —he regarded women too much as Phryne or Francoise de la Chassagne to have been very serious in his quarrels, except with that one masked and muffled lady, of whom he speaks in the plural number it is true, because he is discreet, because time has passed that way, but with a con strained and merciful bitterness which cannot avoid notice. Evidently as he goes on trifling with his pen about women, and his loose relations with them, memory individualises some form, and he feels, as it were, the necessity of apologising to himself for that want of tact in early youth by which he lost favour irrevocably with one who was dear to him. See how cautiously he moves about the scarcely cicatrised wound ! If he had given fraternal and sharp advice to his lady, and " pinched her where she smarted," it was because his judgment had been formally appealed to. The only ground he had afforded her for complaint was his

AS A LOVER. 117 absurd scrupulousness. He had actually kept his word when he was expected to break it. A restraint on his passions, which the Queen of Navarre reckoned almost a miracle, he found not to be very difficult. Conscientious Montaigne ! He religiously observed the capitulations, the conditions, imposed on him by the trembling lips of yielding Virtue ! No wonder he was not forgiven. He had forborne his delight in the interest of the honour of her he loved, had plied her with sage advice, and furnished her with prudent maxims, as a protection against her pretty wrong­headedness. The adventure pleased him, but he " never forgot himself." He always preserved un disturbed the " little sense and discretion" that nature had given him for his lady's use and his own : a little emotion, but no reverie! Decidedly, Montaigne was not a man of his age not the man to please the robust and reckless, but romantic beauties of the sixteenth century, who could carry the heads of their murdered lovers about in their carriages whilst dreaming of adventures new. I do not think they could have been grateful to him for his extreme prudence for their sake ; perhaps they thought it was for his. In as far as he had been able he had, however, incurred personally all the danger of their assignations, and had even chosen the most rugged and unexpected paths in order to avoid suspicion and for greater real facility. Most of the touches in this sketch, given in general terms, are clearly derived from one intrigue or passion. There is no doubt it ter urinated in a disappointment or betrayal; for Mon taigne says, knowing he would have no opportunity of being tested, that if he had to begin again he would again adopt the prudent and reserved system, however

ineffectual it may have proved. We may seek in this story for the source of that little jet of bitterness which sprinkles over his pages whenever he comes to talk of women. Who can tell? Perhaps his friendship at first sight for La Boetie was nothing at the outset but the second ebullition of a feeling which had suddenly been checked. He must have been very well aware of the power of love over him when he fled to a semblance of it as a refuge from grief. At any rate, the pleasure he derived at some period of his life from a noble affection, enabled him authoritatively to condemn as more than brutal the unfeeling gallantry, or rather mere licentiousness, of the times in which he wrote. It is impossible then, we may, to attempt search as even a guess at the name of the person whom Mon taigne most loved when young; but it is certain she was of high degree. " I will say this much," he writes," of the errors of my youth, that I always despised facile amours, and sought to sharpen pleasure by difficulty, mixing up the idea of glory with my love. The ways of the Emperor Tiberius pleased me ; for that monarch was influenced as much by modesty and nobility as by any other quality. Pearls and gold brocade have certainly something to do in this matter ; and titles and pomp of life." We are reminded of

—J AS A LOVER. 119 Kousseau choosing a less pretty face set off by a prettier ribbon. Wit, too, was a great attraction, provided beauty accompanied it; for without that quality Montaigne could not be satisfied. Wit, then, and beauty, and rank, and modesty our researches take us upon high — ground, but without further information it is im possible to be more precise. All we really know is that he was unfortunate in his courtship, and that his disappointment left a deep impression on him. It is true, he always tries to speak of love as an affair of temperament that dies away with time. Rarely, he says, we meet with men worthy of friendship ; and love fades under the influence of age. " These two passions, therefore, would not have sufficiently satisfied the yearnings of my life." So he turned to books, and his thirst for heart-enjoyment, balked twice, by death and inconstancy, sought to slake itself at another source, which external circumstances could not dry up. But he sat down by its brink weary and heavy-laden. The element of sadness which pervades the Essays, and sobers even the most joyous sentences, has never been sufficiently insisted on ; yet it is this, perhaps, that most attaches us to Montaigne, despite his affected worldliness, his desperate doubts, his mild hypocrisies, his tone of comfortable egotism, his in consistencies, and his trifling. We feel that he too shared that devouring melancholy which, concealed sometimes under irony, and often taking its origin in compassion for self, rises at last into compassion for the world, and is the distinctive characteristic of the greatest manifestations of modern literature and art. We are all put apprentices to sorrow in our own misfortunes, but how few reach to master ship and learn to sorrow for us all !

HIS COURT LIFE.

CHAPTER XI. COURT LIFE OF MONTAIGNE FROM 1557 TO 1563. The future Essayist was at most twenty-four years of age when he became the friend of a man to whom it has been necessary already to make so many allusions — preliminary strains ere his appearance on the stage Estienne de la Boetie. We cannot, however, as yet, dwell on these relations, because we have not com pletely elucidated the position and mode of life of Montaigne. There is no possibility of constructing a chronological narrative. But this is immaterial. I shall endeavour merely to show, that neither friendship nor duty confined Montaigne to Bordeaux between the years 1557 and 1563; and that, in fact, no period of his life was more active. We shall then be able better to understand the incidents of his celebrated friend ship. The reign of Henry the Second, after the great insurrection of Guyenne, was disturbed more by foreign wars than domestic troubles ; and his court was, per haps, one of the most brilliant that France had known. Catherine de Medici, his queen, was already sur rounded by Italian favourites, and labouring to intro duce Italian manners. Mary Stuart, who had come as a betrothed infant from gloomy and faction-torn Scotland, was brightening in beauty and fascination in that more congenial atmosphere like a poison-flower beneath a southern sky. There was, perhaps, not much refinement, but there was a great deal of luxury. Art and literature, too, were encouraged, as well as mountebanks and jugglers. Everything that could contribute to the glare and glitter of the court, and hide the absence of purity and honour, was hospitably received. As I have already mentioned, we have Montaigne's direct testimony that he much frequented the court of Henry the Second; and some biographers have not only stated that he was gentleman in ordinary of the chamber of that king, but confuse facts so far as to make him appointed thus early Chevalier of the Order of Saint Michel. At any rate, these traditions, which must have had some basis, entitle us to consider Mon taigne as having been a very assiduous frequenter of the Louvre long before 1559. To his experience during that period may be referred many of the allu sions contained in the Essays to the annoyances of — a courtier's life from the necessity of squabbles with ushers at a door, to the being subject to the fickleness of princes. He had, no doubt, at some time been expected to show off in high places ; but says that to serve as a sight to great folks to lionise, in fact —is a —

HIS COURT LIFE. trade unworthy of a man of honour. Among his varied observations is one which proves how truly he paints the manners of all times from his experience of one. " I perceive in our young courtiers," he says, " that they care only for men of their own sort, and look upon us country squires as fellows of another world— with disdain and pity. But get them away from their babble of court-mysteries, and they have nothing to say for themselves." Few men of genius have been led by accident or servility to associate in any country with persons of the class to which Montaigne alludes without perceiving the same truth ; but few complain with less acrimony. He felt, perhaps, more at home from the fact, that though a rustic he was a gentleman ; though not powerful, yet a man of property. He easily got accustomed to say Sire, and Your Highness, but not so easily to apply these titles to the right people. It is unlikely that a man of Montaigne's frame of mind consumed all his time in conversation with jockeys, such as M. de Carnavalet, or in intrigues with the beautiful and dissolute ladies of the court. There were other attractions for him. That was a period of great literary and learned enthusiasm. The reign of Henry the Second coincided with one of the most remarkable developments of the French mind— with a sort of insurrection against routine and vul garity, that soon became an insurrection against rule and simplicity. That time of exciting discussion and — fanatic pedantry straining towards a result which — was not and could not be attained the elevation of the French language to classical vigour and purity— produced a wonderful effect, nevertheless, on the lite rature of the country. The influence which Ronsard had upon Montaigne himself dates, no doubt, from this period; for afterwards when he began to write, the great poet, though neither dead nor forgotten, had somewhat descended from his lofty position. Literary

— predilections are generally formed in youth when our minds are, as it were, in a state of fusion, and receive impressions easily. The aim of Ronsard and his colleagues known — under the collective name of "the Pleiad"—was to substitute for the somewhat artless but sweet literature of the preceding age, in which four or five men of more natural taste than culture had distinguished themselves, a literature of sounding words and lofty periods. Their Poesy should not, they determined, appear in shepherdess's weeds, or crowned with wild flowers, but in all the pomp and majesty of a tragedy-queen. For a time the new fashion was triumphant. Thought never ventured to appear abroad save clothed in brocade, and sometimes fainted under the weight of its costly habiliments. The art of expression, like the art of dress, was used in that age rather to hide than to reveal or suggest forms of grace and beauty. Words and phrases were never in greater honour. Such was the influence of the new school, that the progress of French literature thenceforward, instead of being merely a work of refinement, as in other countries, became also a work of simplification. The French had

HIS COUKT LIFE. 125 ,to learn, but they also had to unlearn. As we shall see, the part Montaigne played in the great movement was one of reaction against the ideal which he had himself accepted in his youth. But he was scarcely conscious that he was reacting ; he modestly thought that he merely fell short of the perfection which his contemporaries had attained in style and expression; and feeling unable to imitate their vast phrases, or wield their gigantic words, gave himself up to a familiar and gossiping tone, and trusted to wit and naivete for lack of learning. But although Montaigne was influenced in his tastes by the literary enthusiasm that existed in the court of Henry the Second, we have no ground for supposing that literature formed the chief subject of his thoughts at that period. He was still in the age of love, jollity, and action. We now come, indeed, to a subject which seems to have utterly escaped the notice of all biographers ;I mean, the military experiences of Montaigne as a young man. M. Griin multiplies citations from the Essays to prove an obvious fact, that Montaigne had seen a good deal of fighting in the course of his life; but devout respect for his hero prevents him "from insulting Montaigne by ranking him with those warlike magistrates whom L'Hospital so severely reprimanded in the Bed of Justice held at Bordeaux in 1565, for abandoning the judge's bench to go and fill military functions." Not being so tender of the reputation of Montaigne, I was glad to find this allusion as the last

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. link in the chain of evidence I had fastened together. The position of conseiller and that of soldier seemed to me incompatible. They were so in law, but not, it appears, in practice. The harangue of the Chancellier de L'Hospital gives us a strange picture of the manners of the con­seillers of those times. He begins by blaming the in dependence of the Parliament, and its tendency to resist the king's orders. Then he points out that it is divided into factions, and that its register contains evidence that the members frequently disputed one with the other, and almost came to blows. He adds, that many scandalous forced marriages had recently taken place. " If there be a rich heiress known, she is for M. le Conseiller, despite everything." Some of them during the troubles had made themselves captains, others commissaries of provisions. Many had excused murders; many were usurers : it was a common saying, that the Conseillers of Toulouse were too grave, and those of Bordeaux too familiar; gambling was common among the latter, who crowned all by neglecting their duties and falsely cer tifying that they had served when they were absent. We need not be surprised, therefore, to find Mon taigne constantly absent at Court, or following the army as an amateur. In his chapter on Presumption he says : "the most notable men I have judged by ex ternal appearances have been, in respect of war and military capacity, theDuke of Guise, who died at Orleans, and the late Marechal Strozzi. Any one accustomed to Montaigne's way of expressing himself would at HIS COURT LIFE.

127

once infer that he had served under both these generals, or, at any rate, had followed their armies. But we are here most concerned with the Marechal Strozzi. That distinguished general, who, as Montaigne tells us, always took Cffisar for model, and was assiduous in studying the " Commentaries," was killed on the 20th of June, 1558, at the siege of Thionville. Montaigne, then twenty-five years of age, was certainly present ; and it is not likely he was there in any other character than as a volunteer. Probably he had accompanied Guise and Strozzi in their successful enterprise against Calais and Guignes. These two generals joined the army of Vieilleville, which was laying siege to Thion ville, on the 28th of May, and on June 20th Marechal Strozzi was killed. Vincent Carloix, relating the life of his hero Vieilleville, not only makes out this Italian to have committed huge blunders in opining upon the siege, but paints him as an atheist who died with his mouth full of blasphemies. When Montaigne, in 1580, happened to be at Epernay, in Champagne, he went to the church of Notre Dame to hear mass, partly because it was his custom, and "partly because formerly, when the Marechal Strozzi was killed at the siege of Thionville, he had seen his body carried to the said church." We are to infer from this passage of the Travels, that Mon taigne when young had sufficient respect for the Mare chal to follow his funeral all the way from Thionville to Epernay. In his ripe age he was particularly anxious to know how the place of sepulture was marked. He inquired about and found that Strozzi it, was buried without any monument, coat of arms, or epitaph, opposite the great altar. They said that the Queen Catherine, his countrywoman, had ordered the burial to take place without pomp or ceremony, because such had been the will of the Marechal. This state ment, however, is probably a confirmation of what Carloix says as to the very unedifying death of Strozzi. I may here add, that just before the siege of Thionville, a person was employed at Augsburg as a pensioner, secret agent, or spy, who is called the Sieur de Montanus. As I am persuaded that Montaigne had far more to do with public affairs at this period than seems supposed, and as one or two circumstances — for example, the fact that Montaigne, when he after wards went to Augsburg, concealed his name —for "certain reasons" not given — and went about the streets hiding his face with a handkerchief, not to be — known seem to group themselves round this indi cation, I was inclined at first to put forward a startling hypothesis ; but I forbid myself such indulgences, and endeavour that the germ of my inferences shall always be rigidly contained in my facts. The Montanus alluded to was probably a German. Further research might, perhaps, enable us to trace Montaigne through many of the chief scenes of the reign of Henry the Second and his immediate suc cessors ; but what I have already said will be sufficient to indicate the character of his youthful experiences. It is not likely that he was very constant in his at tendance on the army. The Court had always greater HIS COURT LIFE.

129 fascinations for him, and we may be sure, that whilst the king showed him marked attention he was not unnoticed by the young queen, Catherine de Medici — as corrupt in mind as in blood for whom he ever entertained an inexplicable respect, and whom he evidently regarded as a patron, almost as a friend. Some time afterwards, indeed, his relations with her became so intimate that when, by a mere error, he was asserted, in the last century, to have acted as her secretary, the statement was accepted without reserve, as perfectly in harmony with other known facts, and remained incorporated in all biographies until de finitively expelled by Dr. Payen. In June, 1559, Henry the Second received his death-wound from the lance of Montgomery ; a cir cumstance which Montaigne mentions almost in the tone of an eye-witness, " I hate mortally those games in which people fight for pleasure. I have two seen princes of our royal blood killed in them." It is particularly to be noticed, that in those days of pageantry when the Court endeavoured to absorb — — all the life of the nation the upper and middle classes "assisted," as the French say, far more than they -do at present, at public events. De Thou, not yet six years old, was present at this famous tourna ment, and says he saw the king killed by Mont gomery. His friend, M. de Vic, obtained the salade

worn by the king, and kept it, still stained with blood, curiosity. as a "We wore mourning at the Court," Montaigne VOL. I. K elsewhere says, "for a year after Henry the Second's death; and in the opinion of us all silk had come to be so contemptible (mourning being made of cloth), that when we saw any one dressed in it we at once set him down as a citizen. Silks were, indeed, left to physicians and surgeons." The least strained inter

is, of this passage that, at any rate during pretation great part of the short reign of Francis the Second, a Montaigne, continuing to abandon his province and his duties as conseiller, spent his time in Paris, or followed the Court in its progresses. Two or three this view; is important other facts confirm and it to insist on them in order to understand what Mon taigne really meant when he talked, at subsequent a period, of his retirement from the Court and public life. About this great feature in the life of Montaigne more misapprehension seems to exist than about any other. M. Griin has written large book, the tendency a of which to reduce the retirement of Montaigne is almost to nothing, whilst most critics refuse to con him all, sider public andcharacter at persist a as in speaking of him as an odd Gascon gentleman, who surveyed the world from his tower and studied himself from want of other materials to study. Those who desire really to understand the Essays and to know with what kind of circumstances the writer's mind came in contact, how his opinions were influenced, what scenes he traversed, in what by bitter experience he attained the and whatway HIS COURT LIFE. 131 somewhat painful ataraxia which is his principal cha racteristic, will cheerfully follow me through this some what laborious investigation. It is not sufficient to say that Montaigne had early experience of courts and camps, for so simple an assertion cannot force its way into minds already filled with the contrary prejudice. A few months after the death of Henry, in Sep tember, the king, Francis the Second, made a journey into Lorraine, to accompany his sister Claude, married to Charles the Third, duke of that province. Montaigne went with him, and mentions in his Essays that when at Bar le Due he saw presented to the king a portrait which Rene, king of Sicily, had painted of himself. This voyage made an impression on Montaigne's mind, and more than twenty years after wards, passing at Bar on his roundabout way to Italy, he tells his secretary to set down that he had formerly visited the same place. This seems to have been the period of Montaigne's greatest assiduity at court ; and we may trace to the — impression then produced upon him, by Mary Stuart that brilliant wife of that wretched king, whom popular prejudice accused of drinking children's blood to purify his corrupt frame —the unusual passion with which her execution was afterwards spoken of in the Essays. It can scarcely be accounted a reproach to his memory that he sympathised with one whose beauty, whose station, and whose crimes, obtain sympathy for her even now.

Mary had become the chief ornament of the French Court. She was the darling of poets and the dream of youth. Even pedants loved her, and spoke with pride of the Latin orations, on the pleasures and ad vantages of learning, which she publicly delivered at the age of fourteen in the Louvre. No one foresaw what fruit the lessons of perfidy and cruelty daily given her would bear. Playing about the same court was to be seen the child Marguerite de Valois, afterwards the friend and patroness of Montaigne, and the wife of the prince in whom he placed his last hopes. At that time the civil wars had not begun, but the divisions they represented were preparing beneath the surface. Marguerite, in her Memoirs, relates a curious anecdote of how her brother Henry the Third, as a man so bigoted, when a mere boy used to burn her chaplets and prayer-books, because they were Catholic, and try to make her read Huguenot psalms and hymns. This he did, more from childishness and impertinence than any other reason ; and poor Marguerite, in her dishonoured old age, makes us smile when she relates her heroic baby resolve to be whipped and killed rather than be damned. Catherine soon found out the heretical ten dencies of the young Duke of Anjou, and "constrained him to resume the true, sacred, and ancient religion of his fathers." He afterwards showed that he had, indeed, resumed it; and we do not read that he re tained even the humanity of his father, who turned sick at the sight of a heretic burning, and refused to

HIS COURT LIFE. 133 go with the ladies of his court any more to see such sights ; saying, that " they were not amusing." About July, 1560, Montaigne was again at the court of Francis the Second, as we learn in a very roundabout manner. In the account of his education he says : " I met Buchanan in the suite of the Marechal de Brissac, acting as tutor to the young Comte de Brissac." Now Buchanan returned definitively to Scot land in 1560, and before that year had lived with his pupil in Piedmont. In July, 1560, the Marechal came back to France ; so that exactly then, and at no other time, could Montaigne have met Buchanan under the circumstances he mentions. In the absence of other accounts of the movements of Montaigne about this period, we are obliged to put up with evidence of this kind ; which, however, is conclusive, and which I am surprised no biographer has made use of. The most profound obscurity hangs over the life of Montaigne during the conspiracy of Amboise, and we do not know whether or not he sympathised with it. The researches of M. Michelet have at length given that event its due importance. It was not yet quite a republican movement ; but it was an attempt of the more enlightened middle classes to deliver the monarch from his Italian advisers, and to prevent sovereign power being used as an instrument of persecution against a sect. The conspirators appointed to meet at court on a certain day, and were radiating towards it from all sides, when the usual traitor did his work. The Cardinal of Lorraine and the Chancellor Olivier —

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. both patrons of the Essayist,—were the instruments of vengeance on the defeated party ; but we shall presently see that Montaigne had a friend with different doctrines and higher views. As a partizan of monarchy, accom panied by law and justice, he may have regretted the failure of La Renaudie. Charles the Ninth became king in December, 1560. There occurs here another lacune in the life of Mon taigne, of more than two years. The battle of Dreux, — at which Montaigne may have been present though " by saying " our battle he merely means to indicate on which side were his sympathies was fought in 1562. That dreadful civil war, which made so deep an impression on his mind, and which ultimately led to his retirement in disgust from the world, had begun. The massacre of Vassy, urged on, as I have said, by the ferocious counsels of a man who bore the same name with him,— a familiar of the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, — had given the signal of those dreadful convulsions which continued almost

without intermission for thirty years ; that is, during the whole remainder of his life. It is nearly certain that our young conseiller, turned courtier, was with Charles the Ninth at Rouen, in October, 1562. Most of the biographers make him to have been present in that city at the time of the declaration of Charles's majority in 1563 but at that ; very time —from August 9th to August 18th, —Mon taigne wa^in Guyenne, attending on the death-bed of friend, whom he preferred before all monarchs. a HIS COURT LIFE. 135 Rouen was besieged in 1562; and though Montaigne may not have been present at the operations, it is probable that he was there soon afterwards, and heard immediately the adventure which he relates on the authority of Jacques Amyot. However, it is quite certain that about this time Montaigne visited Rouen, in company with Charles the Ninth. The circumstance that made him remember it was the presence of three American Indians savages, as he calls them —who were introduced to the king. M. Griin, too familiar with the manners of the six teenth century, informs us that it was an almost in variable custom on the occasion of public festivals to exhibit real or sham savages ; troubles himself to dis cover when there were rejoicings at Rouen, and when there were not ; cannot bring Montaigne, Charles the Ninth, and the Americans comfortably together through the labyrinth of his suppositions ; suggests that there may be a mistake in the name of the king, in the name of the city — why not in the origin of the people observed, or the individuality of the observer himself? — and at last ingeniously suggests that the philosopher might have been with Charles the Ninth at Rouen in 1562, when there were no fetes. But this common­ sense conclusion, so elaborately arrived at, is drowned at once in a sea of other conjectures. The biographer unfortunately knows, and therefore cannot refrain from saying, that savages were some times brought to maritime cities, not as sights, but in

order to be converted to Christianity and sent back as missionaries, and so on. Montaigne expressly states that one of these savages was a king, who had come with his companions voluntarily, moved by curiosity, to observe the customs and borrow the inventions of Europe. They were all presented to Charles the Ninth, and were shown French ways and pomps, and the form of a beautiful city. Then some one asked their opinion, and wished to know what had struck them most. They answered, three things ; one of which, probably referring to religion, Montaigne pretends to forget. Their two other observations were, first, that it appeared strange to them that so many tall, strong, bearded, and armed men, should obey a child, instead of choosing one among their own number to command; and second, that there should exist people crammed with all sorts of riches and comforts, whilst " their halves," meaning their brethren, were beggars at their doors, lean from hunger and misery, and yet refrained from taking them by the throat and setting fire to their houses. Mighty observers were these savages, and it is a pity we know not what the sickly young king said to their philosophy. Montaigne himself conversed with them, but complains that he had a bad interpreter, who could not "receive his imaginations." All he could get out of the one, whom the sailors that had brought him called a king, was, that his only royal privileges were to march at the head of his troops in war, and have a trail made for him through the woods

HIS COURT LIFE. 137 when he progressed from village to village. " Not so had this I" exclaims our philosopher slily ; " but what " then ? These poor devils don't wear breeches ! M. Payen proves that Montaigne was absent from Bordeaux in November, 1562 — against the opinion of M. Griin —and not only so, but in June and Decem ber, and probably, therefore, in the whole intervening period. On December 1, the Court of Bordeaux had taxed its members for the support of the poor, and Montaigne is mentioned as not having been present to pay his quota. In February, 1563, he was still absent; for M. Nicolas Bresson is ordered to pay monthly, out of the salary due to Montaigne and some others, their share of the tax, until they shall return and pay them selves. This is the dry, imperfect way, in which we are obliged to speak of the movements of the Essayist during the time of his early manhood. Concerning his inner-life we have far more ample materials.

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

CHAPTER XII. MONTAIGNE FORMS A FRIENDSHIP WITH ESTIENNE DE LA BOETIE. During the latter years of the reign of King Henry the Second, there circulated " in the hands of people of understanding " a manuscript Treatise, a diatribe against the institution of Monarchy— absolute Mo — narchy, or Despotism without any title or signature, but known by those who took the trouble to inquire to be the production of Estienne de la Bo'etie, of Sarlat in Perigord, Conseiller in the Parliament of Bordeaux since 1552. This work fell into Montaigne's hands long before he had seen the author, whom it gave him an extreme desire to know. Conceiving our Essayist as a cautious lover of compromise, a detester of extreme measures and extreme ideas, submitting to monarchy as an inevitable necessity in his day, but submitting with a cheerfulness that was half philosophy and half indifference, we are at first at a loss to divine what there could have been for him, I will not say to admire, but to love and yearn towards, in this tempestuous 139 work, invoking tempests, of his young fellow-country man. But, with the exception of the Bordeaux insur rection, which may have left more indignation against power than fear, no great manifestation of the popular element had presented itself to Montaigne's experience ; and it is possible that, like so many noblemen and gentlemen in more recent times, disciples of Alfieri, he may have hoped to combine the advantages and excite ment of revolution with the comforts and privileges of aristocracy. He thought otherwise when the sombre form of Democracy rose up for a moment, with all the grime and all the wildness of one escaping from the pit suddenly into light. The democrat of the sixteenth century in France often carried the cross, and was armed with the dagger; he served the church, and preached and practised regicide. But before 1557 Montaigne may have been able to sympathise with some of the republican enthusiasm of La Boetie. He was at any rate just on the threshold " of manhood, thirsting for a friend, a witness of his life," to cheer and guide him ; and even if we set aside political ideas, there is nothing surprising in his sudden passion —no other word expresses the truth—for one in whose pages such passages as the following are found :— " Our nature is such, that the common duties of friendship occupy a considerable portion of our lives. It is reasonable to love virtue, to esteem high deeds, to be grateful to those from whom we have received benefits, and often to diminish our own comfort in order to augment the honour and advantage of him one loves, and who deserves our love Certainly the tyrant is never loved, and never loves. Friendship is a sacred name, a holy thing; it takes place only between worthy people, and springs only from mutual esteem : it feeds not on interchange of benefits, but in

contemplation of good life. What renders a friend sure of a friend is the knowledge he has of his in tegrity ; his pledges are the virtue, faith, and constancy of the other. There can be no friendship where is cruelty, treachery, injustice ; and between the wicked when they assemble there may be joint action, but there is no society : there is an interchange of fear, not of affection, for they are not friends but accomplices." Montaigne tells us, that not only did he yearn towards La Bo'etie before they met, but that La Bo'etie had yearned towards him. This mutual yearning had fed on reports that came to each of the other's qua lities. Montaigne had done nothing worth notice that we know of, but may have been celebrated from his peculiar education. At any rate, these reports pro duced a greater effect on the two young men than was justified by the nature of the things reported. Mon taigne thinks he sees the hand of heaven at work. There is a passage in La Boetie's Treatise which seems to be an invocation to Montaigne, before he knew him personally, to leave the court, and seek purer pleasures in purer society. All the wretched features of a palace-life are brought out. The courtier is compared, now to the butterfly flaunting into flame

it, that burns now to the satyr that went and kissed by Prometheus, because it possible," cries La Boetie, looked " that the fire brought down " Is so beautiful. it any one will accept this wretched place of servant to so dangerous a master as a king ? What suffering,

what martyrdom not, good God to strain night is it ! and day to please one whom yet you fear above all others, always with listening ear and watchful eye looking out for the coming blow, translating the phy siognomy of companions, ferreting out traitors, meet ing every one with good cheer, and yet doubtful of all, without declared enemies or assured friends, smiles ever on the face and sick at heart, merriment im " possible, sadness dangerous ! This description, in the style of Tacitus, was, no doubt, drawn from experience. There is every reason to believe that La Boetie went very young to court. — D'Aubigne understandrebel who could not a revo a lutionist — tells an anecdote to account for the writing of the Treatise. He says, that one day La Boetie wished to enter the ball-room of the Louvre, and that an archer of the guard, thinking he looked very young, halbert. Thehis toes with fiery young tapped a Sarladais upon this ran about the palace calling out for justice, but the supercilious courtiers only laughed at him. All biographers seem agreed to reject this anec with because does not squaredote as apocryphal, it their lofty ideas of La Boetie' character. No doubt the s Treatise was not written, as D'Aubigne foolishly sup but poses, in revenge for this affront highly pro itis ; bable —and this view is supported by a passage in the Treatise —that La Bo'etie's feeling of independence, his pride, may have some day come in contact with the etiquette of the court and the brutality with which it was supported. At any rate we have a right to suppose that before meeting Montaigne, La Bo'etie had been to Paris and the Louvre. There are very few clear and undoubted statements with reference to the life of Montaigne as a young man. Most biographers make the beginning of his friendship for La Boetie to coincide with his appoint ment as conseiller in the Parliament of Bordeaux ; and he once says that he knew him six years—that is, from the middle of 1557 to August 1563. But in the Essay on Friendship, or rather on his friendship for La Boetie, he distinctly tells us that he knew him only four years. We cannot accept the explanation that he alludes to " the most intimate period of their friend ship," for the tenor of his remarks is that their friend ship was complete from the beginning. But as far as Montaigne's life is concerned, it matters little whether he met La Boetie in 1557 or 1559. The meeting took place by chance in a great festival or town-party, probably at Bordeaux, and their union was thence forward close and indissoluble. The appearance of La Boetie, who had something repulsive at first sight in his complexion or his features, was no hindrance to a sudden attachment. It would appear even that the mutual friends of Montaigne and La Boetie thought the impromptu nature of their friendship strange, not

FRIENDSHIP WITH LA BOETIE. 143 knowing, probably, of their previous yearnings ; and the latter, therefore, a year afterwards, wrote a Latin Satire to explain and justify what had taken place. In this it is that he lays so much stress on the de bauched manners of his new friend, who afterwards himself confesses, that even during this perfect friend ship certain volatile affections found place with him — " not to speak of La Boetie, who admits this but too openly in his verses." As I shall presently show, La Bo'etie's amours were not contemporary with those of Montaigne, as the latter seems to imply." Our friendship," says Montaigne, majestically speaking of it as of a great fact in nature, that had its necessary evolution and termination, " having so short a time to last, and having begun so late (for we were both grown men, and he older than I by a year or two), had no time to lose, and had no business therefore to square itself to the pattern of weak and regular friend ship, which requires so many precautions and so much preliminary experience Our souls mixed and melted into one another so completely, that there was no trace of the join left. If I am pressed to say why I loved him, I feel that I cannot better express it than by answering, Because it was he, because it was I. Indeed, beyond the causes I can particularly set down, there was at work an inexplicable and fatal force me diatrix of this union. A thousand influences mastering my entire will led it to drown and lose itself in his, and mastering his entire will led it to drown and lose itself in mine, with equal hunger and yearning. I say,

. lose itself; for, in truth, we reserved nothing for our selves —nothing for him, nothing for me. Montaigne professes to have known his friend to the inmost core, and I have no doubt this was true. We have, therefore, a right to complain, that knowing so much he has told us so little. We admire those mag nificent descriptions of the mutual friendship of two young men who moved hand-in-hand, looking into the depths of one another's souls, through the first years of the civil discords in France, and are dis satisfied that the one to whom long life was vouchsafed has revealed no more of the one who died so near the beginning. We have Montaigne's own word, and the word of all contemporaries, that La Boetie was one of the most extraordinary men that ever lived; but instead of revealing his doctrines and his power, the Essayist talks eloquently and pathetically of their mutual affection, as if love were any proof of genius ! In one place he intimates that La Boetie's memory had been attacked and torn, and that he had always defended it. But why attacked, and how defended? Was it in compliance with Montaigne's request that Henri de Mesmes did not publish the violent criticism he had prepared on La Boetie's Treatise ? We are not informed ; and, to be candid, we must admit that Montaigne did not do all he ought for the memory of his friend. He even shrank from publishing his most important work, misinterpreted its meaning, misre presented its origin, and the importance that should be assigned to it amongst the productions of La Boetie.

FRIENDSHIP WITH LA BOETIE. 145 On the other hand, we must remember that he has done more than he has left undone. Whilst, from prudence or other motives, he suppressed or distorted all facts relating to the Treatise, he embalmed the memory of his friend in a few pages, which as long as literature endures, if all other traces of La Boetie were to disappear, would ensure immortality to his name. The friendship of these two men has become proverbial. It assumed classical proportions. It influenced the character of Montaigne, helped in developing his mind, gave a tone to his writings, and links the world with its object after the lapse of centuries. VOL. I.

CHAPTER XIII. TWO INGENIOUS WRITERS CONFRONTED. An episode on La Boetie is here not only excusable, but necessary. There are few personages in the history of literature about whom so much strange and wanton speculation has been indulged. Neither his character nor his intellectual position has yet been elucidated. Every one seems to conspire to praise and misrepresent him, to place him on a pedestal and deny his title to be there. Even Montaigne, from too great prudence, and perhaps miscalculating tenderness for a reputation left to his care, imposes on us as a dogma the belief in his friend's greatness, and gently diverts our glances from its most genuine manifestation. From his time until the present a series of systematic mistakes con stitutes the staple of nearly all the biographies and appreciations of the man whom the sixteenth century somewhat fondly hailed as the greatest it had pro duced. Two ingenious and most learned writers have re cently, in France, made La Boetie the object of par ticular research —Dr. Payen and M. Leon Feugere. The former, a great excavator of facts relative to Montaigne, full of information derived from documents printed or manuscript, armed with notes and authorities innumerable, deliberately adopts an absurd random statement, to the effect that La Boetie's Treatise on Voluntary Servitude was written at the age of sixteen. He is led into error, it is true, by one whom we are all accustomed to consider a respectable authority on such a subject, — by Montaigne himself, who ought to have known, and did know, the literary history of his friend. "A great diversity of opinion/' says Dr. Payen, who is usually not superstitious in accepting Mon taigne's statements as to dates when he can find the least scrap of old paper that contradicts him, "exists as to the age at which La Boetie wrote his Treatise, arising from the fact that it circulated at first in manuscript, without date, without author's name, and even without any title. Some writers say sixteen or less, others seventeen, others eighteen, and lastly some, of whom is De Thou, say nineteen. But it is evident, amidst so many doubts, that the person whose tes timony we should receive is Montaigne. Now in all the editions which he published during his life-time he had written eighteen years; but in the copy anno tated for a new edition, and in that of Bordeaux, in which a third of the essays is in his own hand, he has scratched out the word eighteen and substituted (I have now the tracing before me) sixteen. This word, espe cially authoritative since it is the result of a correction,

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. could not have been introduced except for good reasons, is, therefore, no reason information. There and on new it, and accordingly found in all thefor rejecting it is — But let us listen to this lad of editions since 1595 : " sixteen.' An amusing told against the Protestants,

is story to the effect that in order to have youthful prodigy a in their ranks to compete with La Boetie, they pur posely falsified the age at which one of their celebrities, that Bongars, Montaigne, having wrote. suspect I shall show, from political and already, personal I as motives, ante-dated the Treatise, hurriedly made this new correction, to which Dr. Payen attaches so much from puerile desire toimportance, mere a exaggerate of his friend and that he neverthe precocity thought ; afterwards of comparing his statement with the facts that obviously demonstrated its absurdity. Dr. But, without have said, Payen accepts I as criticism the incredible assertion of Montaigne, and " La Boetie builds up his little romance thereon is : ; sixteen years of age the history of antiquity he has just left college he has fed ; laborious he active, is on ; ; versification no longer satisfies his precocious maturity; for amplification,he chooses subject suggested per a Plutarch, —'the by Montaigne inha haps, as says, bitants of Asia obeyed single man, because they one syllable —No;' he a knew not how to pronounce friend made who has Longa, hasat college, one a shown himself indulgent for his verses to him

already ; he dedicates his work, which meets with unexpected success, excites curiosity, is copied, and circulates in manuscript until the opposition of the day adopts it as it did in 1789, and as it has done in our own day . . . It would seem that the Servitude Volontaire made a great sensation when it appeared ; for we find in the manuscript Memoirs of Vivant, governor of Perigord, that the people of Sarlat were urged to revolt by the reading of it." I leave Dr. Payen to reconcile the single fact he adds to his suppositions with the perfectly harmless nature of the Treatise as he interprets it. Imagine a college amplification inspired by classical hatred of tyranny, and directed merely "against Dionysius and Sylla," exciting an insurrection in a little country town ! M. Feugere, for his part, pays no attention what ever to the statement of Montaigne, disdains to discuss the question, is impatient to reach a point when he can be eloquent with ease, and obeying the hint of indolent common-sense, accepts the account of De Thou, which makes the Treatise to have been written about the age of nineteen, and soon after the insurrection in Guyenne. But he accepts also the ludicrous interpretation of the historian, that the sight of the punishment inflicted on the unresisting inhabitants of Bordeaux, when the revolt was over, suggested the idea that "kings have long arms, " and always succeed in punishing those who revolt ! " It was to prove this, says our judicious annalist "— — I quote the incredible words of M. Feugere " that La Bo'etie composed his discourse on Voluntary Servi

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. tude." I own that I have tried to conceive the possi bility of a person of good faith reading La Bo'etie's passionate invectives against Monarchy, and taking them as M. Feugere professes to do for apologies: but I have not been able. Yet this writer does not stand alone. With the exception of a few revolutionists, who, guided by instinct rather than enlightened by research, have from time to time adopted the Treatise as a machine of war, which it was originally intended to be, and perhaps of M. Matter, who seems to regret that La Boetie was not " dragged before a Court of Justice," nearly all editors and commentators, unable to escape from the influence of deliberate contemporary misrepresentations, have gone on speaking of La Boetie as a precocious genius, who, without forgetting that he was a loyal subject, wrote against tyranny in the interest of monarchy, and attacked the government of one, whether imposed by "conquest, inheritance, or election," in order to support that beautiful and vene rable institution which allowed the braggadocio Francis and the sawny Henry to wallow in pleasure and blood, whilst the state was driving towards the rocks ! I shall now endeavour, avoiding the discussional tone as much as possible, to bring together the few facts I have been able to gather on the literary and political life of La Boetie ; and shall allege the direct reasons which make me believe the Treatise on Volun tary Servitude to be the production of his manhood. As in this I contradict expressly all writers who have put forward statements on the subject, I feel

< obliged, however, here, to show that these writers have made very careless assertions, and are not to be accepted as infallible authorities. Both Dr. Payen and M. Feugere, for example, agree that La Boetie was born in 1530; but one maintains that he wrote the Treatise at sixteen, the other asserts that it was at eighteen or nineteen. Yet see how they deal with facts, when they have not the question of chronology before their minds ! M. Feugere says : " In the passages which La Boetie borrows from Plutarch he makes use of the translation of Amyot, his contem porary;" and Dr. Payen, annotating the anecdote of the two dogs of Lycurgus, tells us: "This is taken from Amyot's translation of a treatise by Plutarch, entitled, " ' How Children ought to be Educated/ I have not thought it worth while to examine whether La Boetie does use the words of Amyot, because, if the similarity pointed out exists, it is likely that Amyot adopted a translation which came before him and which he found

is, The fact that the first publication of the good. Lives of Plutarch by Amyot was in 1559, when La Boetie was twenty-nine years of age, and already the friend of Montaigne and the first publication of the on Education, in ; Moral Works, containing the Treatise M. Feu eleven years after La Boetie' death1572, s ! inclined to defend his position to the last gasp, if gere, circulation of the Lives; might suppose manuscript a but M. de Blignieres, in his admirable researches on Amyot, has proved, quite without reference to this dis cussion, that Amyot did not begin the translation of the Moral Works until about 1560. If, therefore, La Boetie was obliged to use the translation of another, he must have had communication of a MS. of Amyot, and have touched up his Treatise, which he is repre sented to have finished and abandoned in 1546, after 1560 ! What M. Feugere says about La Boetie following in the steps of Amyot as a translator is less easily assailable ; but in 1546 there was published only " the Chariclea " of Longus ; and it was not until 1554 that the translation of Diodorus Siculus appeared. According to M. Feugere, the Treatise was not written in 1546, but in 1549. This leaves time, though not much, for the influence of Amyot, in as far as his " Chariclea " could be influential, to work ; but M. Feugere' s erudition is so extensive, that he not only unwittingly gathers weapons against others but against" himself. When La Boetie wrote, he says, a violent but salutary revolution had just taken place in the French Parnassus ;" that is to say, Ron sard and his school had appeared. La Boetie was excited to emu lation. He, too, wrote poetry. The twenty-nine printed sonnets of La Boetie, by no means his first " productions, were written at the same season of his age" at which he wrote the Servitude Volontaire; (1549 ?) and yet in the Treatise we have an account of " the revolution in Parnassus," accomplished after 1550; and we are gravely told by M. Feugere that La Boetie was a disciple of Ronsard, and actually imitated from him a passage in those very twenty-nine sonnets !

In all the critical notices of La Boetie that have come under my notice, I have met with the same confusion, the same disregard of the assistance to be derived from comparative chronology, the same want of industry in comparing doubtful with ascertained facts. It is needless further to point out how ill the statements of M. Feugere agree with those of Dr. Payen, or to insist, in opposition to such testimony, on the unlikelihood of a lad of sixteen, not only writing a treatise like the Servitude Volontaire, but being able to call himself author of French poetry, of four impor tant translations, and composing at the same time a long series of passionate sonnets to his mistress. I have necessarily been very much on my guard, on account of these observations, in using the materials gathered by Messrs. Payen and Feugere, and have always preferred dwelling on the statements of Mon taigne and other contemporaries, and interpreting them by a method of criticism which close study of the circumstances of the times suggests. It is necessary, however, here to mention, that Dr. Payen has recently discovered a manuscript copy of the Treatise on Voluntary Servitude, which supplies a number of new readings, enables us to correct many mistakes, and altogether gives a slightly more anti-monarchical tone to the language.

CHAPTER XIV. EARLY LIFE OF ESTIENNE DE LA BOETIE. The La Boeties, as we learn from the invaluable materials collected by Dr. Payen, were an ancient family of Perigord, who derived their name from an estate in the neighbourhood of Sarlat. The Castellet of THECASTELLET,NEARSARLAT. La Bo'etie, like the chateau of Montaigne, still exists. The family seems to have been illustrious in the middle EARLY LIFE OF LA BOETIE. 155 ages ; and it is interesting to notice that in the twelfth century a certain Robert de la Boetie distinguished himself in the long and often sanguinary struggles carried on by the consuls of Sarlat against the ty rannical pretensions of the abbot and the monastery. The father of our Estienne was brother-in-law of a president of the Bordeaux parliament, and the family, by many threads, was connected with that company. Estienne was the only son ; but he had two sisters, named Clemence and Anne. He was born at Sarlat itself, the chief town of Black Perigord ; was early left an orphan; and was brought up by the care of the Sieur de Bouilhonnas, his godfather and uncle. La Boetie was sent to the College of Bordeaux, but we know nothing about his studies or his pro fessors. Dr. Payen gives him the same masters as Montaigne ; but on what vague grounds is illustrated by the fact that Muret, whom he particularly mentions, did not become a professor at Bordeaux until after

1546; is, date to which hethat after the assigns the composition of the Servitude Volontaire, when La Boetie "had just left college!" From one of La Boetie's Latin pieces we learn that he was in the habit of copying out the works of classical authors. We know nothing, however, of when he began to write ; yet, even with the deductions from the cautious ex aggerations of his panegyrists and I friends which shall presently make, we are obliged to admit him to have been an accomplished author before he had thatperiod of boyhood and therefore passed the ; Baillet and Klefeker have reasonably placed him among celebrated children. What they tell of his precocity, however, is nothing to what is asserted of D'Aubigne, who translated, we are required to believe, the " Crito " of Plato at the age of eight years ! La Boetie appears to have begun his literary career by translations and French poetry. Nearly all the writers of the sixteenth century, as M. Feugere remarks, were translators; and the mania for translation spread so rapidly that Du Bellay protested, and said that such literary work should only be done at express command of great lords. French critics speak in high terms of the skill and grace with which many passages of Aristotle, Xenophon, and Plutarch are rendered by La Boetie; but, as I have said, they all seem to regard him as following in the track of Amyot as a translator, just as they make him follow in the track of Ronsard as a poet ! This confusion is chiefly caused by the unanimous determination to antedate the Treatise; but perhaps one of the claims of La Boetie to fame

is, that he wished to innovate in literature as well as in politics, and that he was kept from founding school, as he refrained from heading revolution, a a by a touch of that ironical scepticism and sad reserve which so often prevents genius from exposing itself to the rough handling of the crowd, and deprives the world of so many prophets and martyrs. La Bo'etie's first literary efforts, whatever they him his if have been, we are to preserve to may EARLY LIFE OF LA BOETIE. 157 reputation for precocity, must have preceded the great outburst of classical enthusiasm, which prepared and signalled the coming of Ronsard. The "French rhymes," which he mentions in his Treatise as having been composed " formerly," were written under the inspiration of Marot. Then seems to have followed a collection of French and Latin poems, known in his day under the name of "Gironde," but probably circulated in manuscript and never printed. His friends used to learn portions by heart and recite them. "I have heard admirable fragments from persons who knew him long before I did," says Montaigne; who, however, could not obtain a copy when he was col lecting the works of his friend. No trace of them has since been found. La Boetie rarely made clean copies of what he composed, but dashed down verses on the first scrap of paper that fell under his hand, and then con temptuously threw them aside. He was not the man to admire the dribblings of his genius. At some subsequent period came certain Greek poems, composed no doubt during the erudite fervour ; but these also have been lost. We might be writing of Menander or the Flower Poet. The literary history of the sixteenth century, indeed, contains passages quite as obscure as any in the lives of those two Greeks. The first translation undertaken by La Boetie seems to have been the first book of the Economics of Aristotle. He next tried his hand at the Economics of

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. Xenophon a charming work, which he has translated charmingly. Then turning to Plutarch, he chose the Essay on Marriage and the Letter on Consolation to exercise his pen, and reproduced them with an emotion and an energy that enabled him to master an undisciplined idiom. It is usual to separate scanty the information existing on the moral life of La Boetie from what is known of his literary life ; but this method must always leave an imperfect impression. In all men there is a nearer relation between sentiment and action than academical narrators are prone to allow. La Boetie in early life seems, like Montaigne, but in a far greater degree and with more earnestness, to have conceived a passion for a person of exalted station, whose name is not known. This passion stimulated his genius. " Among Montaigne's friends was the Great Cori­sande d'Andoins," countess of Guissen, wife of the Count of Grammont, and afterwards mistress of Henry the Fourth. She was particularly fond of poetry, and interested in poets ; and in a letter to her the Essayist promises to whisper some day in her ear the name of the person who excited La Boetie's passion : but no one has ever thought it worth while even to suggest an inquiry as to the incidents of this amour. It seems now too late to repair so disdainful a neg ligence, The sentimental history of La Boetie's love is contained in the twenty-nine sonnets composed at

" the same season of his age" to which is attributed the composition of the Servitude Volontaire. Mon taigne evidently means that he was about eighteen. Another batch of sonnets exists, addressed to the lady who afterwards became his wife; and are said by Montaigne, somewhat satirically, to have already a certain touch of marital coldness. But this first collection "was written in his greenest youth, when he was warmed with a fine and noble ardour" for that mysterious lady whose name is not pronounced. Montaigne does not shrink from criticism. "You will agree with me," says he, "that these verses are worth cherishing, for there have come none out of Gascony in which are more invention and prettiness, and which show that they have proceeded from a richer hand"—"they are more lively and boiling than the succeeding ones." Later writers have not counter signed this judgment ; and some, rebutted by the want of modern smoothness and technical dexterity, declare — that the sonnets contain "nothing interesting, scarcely anything, in fact, but amorous complaints, expressed in rather a rude style, exhibiting the weaknesses and the violences of an unquiet passion, which feeds on the suspicious fears and mistrusts by which it is environed." This excellent description, meant to be depreciatory, first convinced me that the sonnets were worth reading. It is apropos of these sonnets that M. Leon Feugere, usually so judicious, makes the singular mistake of describing La Boetie as the pupil of

Ronsard. We are told that the young poet, escaping from the influence of his master, " avoided the double rock of Italian affectation and pedantic rubbish." La Boetie is praised for preserving traces of the melan choly reverie of Villon, the grace and facility of Marot, whilst others succumbed to the dangers of maladroit imitation. All this may apply to some of the later productions of Estienne, although he seems always to have belonged to the school of which Saint Gelais was the chief, and which made love the chief subject of its writings; but unless we adopt an entirely new chronology, and not only assign, as I do, a new date to the Treatise, but reject all the testimony of the sixteenth century, it does not apply to these twenty-nine sonnets, which are unanimously declared to have been written at least two years before any of Ronsard's poems were published. Yet M. Feugere, curiously inverting facts, gives two parallel passages, one from the sonnets of La Boetie and the other from Ronsard, in which the former is said to have imitated the latter. It is astonishing also, in face of Montaigne's express assertion that La Boetie addressed a real personage whom he loved, to hear any talk of the imaginary mistresses who may have inspired such learned triflers as Pasquier, and the fifty or sixty gentlemen who brought to bear the whole force of their intellect at Poitiers to immortalise a Flea although in this — case also the assertion is a mere cover to I suspect — their gravity but had certainly nothing to do with the origin of the passionate stanzas of the young Estienne,

EARLY LIFE OF LA BOETIE. 161 For my part I cannot fix a precise date to La Boetie's first collection of sonnets; but I think it evident that Montaigne means that they were composed long before the age of twenty at any rate, before 1550. I do not intend to analyse them as poetical works, or to appeal further from the decision which has classed them as mere curiosities — at best as proofs of the influence of "the king of poets and poet of kings." But I shall note one or two expressions which are as pretty in English as in French, and one or two allusions to the position of the object of love and to attendant circumstances. "Pardon, Love, 0 my lord, I dedicate to thee the remainder of my years, my voice, my writings, my sobs, my sighs, my tears, my cries." The poet says, he had fought proudly against love until it overcame him by main force. Writing a month after his defeat, he feels the defeat to be irrevocable. " It was when, the heats being over, autumn went about treading in the vats the full grape under his slippery " foot." The peasant was beating his gathered sheaves, and rolling his boiling must to his cellars, and loading his lofts with fruit." "I saw her piercing eyes, I saw her bright countenance, and none without injury can gaze upon the gods ! Cold, without courage, her victorious glance left me, stunned by the shock of so powerful a light. I was as one surprised at " night, out in the fields, when it lightens ! His lady's eyes that had this effect upon him were green ; an expression that, no doubt, had nothing ludicrous VOL. I. M in it at that time, although, shortly afterwards, Shakspeare, probably referring to the poetry of the Pleiad, makes fun of it. Thisbe's eyes, according

" to him, were green as leeks." Has the influence of Ronsard and his School on Shakspeare been pointed out ? Has the famous description of the war-horse by Du Bartas been compared with that in " Henry the Fifth ?" Further on La Boetie says that he dare not express the great name of her he loved in his verse, but that the people, astonished to hear her praised so much, desired to know her, endeavoured to give her a name, and sought her sacred name at hazard. This is no doubt a poetical license, intended to introduce " the hyperbolical praise : if they want to know her, let them choose the most perfect among the perfect may and boldly exclaim, It is she I" But we reason ably infer that some curiosity had been excited by the six early sonnets circulated among friends in manuscript. La Boetie yearns after the time when he should be able to make all France resound with her name, which he often wrote down and as often effaced. At last he gives her the name of the river on the banks of which he lived ; calk her his Dordogne, — as he had perhaps called some previous mistress — his Gironde and plays prettily on this fancy. An — accident, real or imaginary a tempest — separates him from his love. He addresses the winds, and says,— " Go and frighten the merchant who seeks his treasure on the seas ; I am not to be thus easily cast down."

EARLY LIFE OF LA BOETIE. Once he receives a letter, and of course is in ecstasies — promising to build an altar to place it on. His doubts and suspicions return; he asks to be punished, and his lady says to him, "I forgive you. But my decree is, that you spend your years in enriching

France with my name through your verses." No other favour could he obtain than this encouragement to write, and he begs his friends not to request him " I All to obtain some sighs of sympathy from the people to love her no longer. " expect, however," he says, is of the future, and that some one shall compassionately say, His lady and he were destined to live until death, the one in purity, the other in love." These pro fessions of despondency, however, are not very sincere, and the last sonnet has calm and tranquil tone, a which leads us to suspect that after all the nameless love of La Boetie had not for ever the coldness or of Laura. How the the virtue amour ultimately a ended we know not, but can guess. La Boetie's mistress who inspired andwas great coquette, a destroyed, he says, "more sudden loves than autumn beats down leaves upon the plains, or than the pleasant spring renews." The song complaining of an un faithful mistress may be considered the conclusion of La Boetie's great passion. La Boetie's second series of sonnets was addressed to Marguerite de Carles, who subsequently became his wife. family whichMarguerite belonged to was already with two a allied to his by She was widow,marriage. a children; one of whom, named Jacquette d'Arsac, after wards married a brother of Michel de Montaigne, and had a son, who was killed fighting against the English in the isle of Rhe in 1627. We do not know what interval elapsed between the youthful and irregular love of Estienne and his second more honourable one. He seems to have known Marguerite long. She greatly influenced his literary character. By her command he translated a long extract from Ariosto, and sent it to her with a graceful and witty epistle in verse against translators, which shows him to have had a most flexible and varied mind. The twenty-six new sonnets of La Boetie contain, of course, very few biographical allusions. That form of poetry was in those days, and especially in the hands of La Boetie, very much composed of conventional phrases and exaggerated conceits, copied from Petrarch and applied rather at haphazard. Still, here and there, in the midst of the vaguest generalities, we have agreeable personal allusions. Marguerite was evidently a learned lady. Her lover talks of her manner of walking and dancing, but also represents her as constantly reading and writing, and records : La belle majeste de son grave silence." They exchange presents of books : Marguerite sends to her lover the Arte di Cortegiano of Balthasar Castiglione, probably to prepare him for some visit to court, possibly that he might learn not to allow his independent spirit to come once more in contact with etiquette at the Louvre.

EAKLY LIFE OF LA BOETIE. 165 Among the works attributed to La Boetie, and now lost, is an historical description of the Wild and Solitary Country of Medoc ; and it is, therefore, inte resting to point out that the last sonnet but one of — this collection reads as follows " This day the bright :

heat of the sun has gilded the long tresses of the beautiful Ceres but it now ; and I of the sweet evening. We follow out through the woods some path that has gone astray. Love goes and my Marguerite enjoy the freshness retires, we walk behind when we are wearied with the before, ; green of the deep forests, we go down to see the colour of the meadows. We live free from troubles, and have no care for kings, for the court, nor for towns. Oh ! Medoc, my wild and solitary country, there no land is more agreeable than thou art in my eyes. Thou art the end of the world, and that love thee. I why We are the last to hear of the misfortunes of our time." In this pleasant manner, indeed, terminated the courtship of La Boetie with the fair and learned is at widow. They married, but at what unknown. date is Their lives afterwards seem to have been as happy as the marriage state, with all its revelations of mutual weakness, allows. They were both well read, and full of taste. Marguerite, like many other ladies of her time, at the head of whom was Mary Stuart, was pro ficient in the Latin language. Her husband, about to long journey, addresses her some charming depart on a verses, in which, with the confidence of affection, he paints the joy she will feel on his return her alternate ; blushes and pallor when, leaving her household occupa tions, she will hasten to meet him ; her embraces, her silent contemplation of his face, her voice choked by tears, her welcoming words at last. He describes, in language that sometimes is arranged with something besides classical ingenuity, the whole household in a tumult of joy, the servants hurrying to behold their long-absent master, the logs heaped on the fire. We are forced to imagine the Castellet actually the scene of such a return ; or the house in Medoc. In fine, La Boetie expresses a hope that Death may find them both there in their quiet country house, waiting, grey headed, his decree. As we shall see, Marguerite long survived her husband. La Boetie' s repute for learning, wit, and eloquence, may have contributed, as the biographers fondly sup pose, to bring about his election as Conseiller of the Parliament of Bordeaux ; but family influence, no doubt, played its part. We may be here passing by the period at which the Servitude Volontaire received its last touch, and was put in circulation ; but this cannot be determined. It was on the 14th of October, 1552, when he had not attained the age of twenty-two, that La Boetie was elected Conseiller in the place of a M. de Lur. An examination as to fitness, however, was now necessary, according to law, though often dispensed with by corruption. One aspirant conseiller, totally ignorant, obtained his admission by sending a large block of marble to the king, and was ever after known as The Marble Conseiller. But Estienne was prepared for any test. According to the manuscript registers of the Parliament of Bordeaux, on May 17, 1553, the chambers assembled " to proceed to the examination of the Sieurs Pommier and La Boetie, who, having been found capable, were allowed to take the oath."

It is worth noticing, that among the Latin poems of La Boetie is a distich addressed, not to this Pom mier, as M. Feugere supposes, but probably to his father, " a good old man." The two young men who entered Parliament and took the oath together, were probably intimate friends. A Pommier is mentioned among the persons condemned to the galleys in 1548, on account of having been connected with the insur rection. According to Montaigne, La Boetie became " the oracle of his company," and acquired in that rank more reputation than any other man had ever done. A tradition difficult to substantiate, but easy to be accepted, says, that as long as he exercised his office he never gave his vote without considerable emotion ; which, as he was a judge, often deciding on questions of life and death, is not surprising to us, but seems to have been unusual in that reckless age. We shall see further on at what a perilous period for character and reputation La Boetie was called upon to exercise the functions of judge. The crime against which the Parliament of Bordeaux was most severe was the crime of heresy. It was a burning, hanging, and persecuting court.

La Bo'etie, though there can be little doubt that he felt at one time the influence of the spirit of re ligious as well as political revolt, remained in name a Catholic. But I believe his mind in reality, shrinking equally from the two parties, one of which was too ferocious and dogmatical, the other too aggressive and perilous, took refuge at last in a kind of philosophical Paganism ; at any rate, in so individual and undoc­trinal a view of Christianity, that few now would accept him as orthodox. But this was after he had hurled himself with the blind devotion of youth against the adamantine bulwarks of wrong, and had fallen, bruised and bleeding, to their base.

CHAPTER XV. LA BOETIE WRITES A TREATISE AGAINST DESPOTISM. Many of the circumstances which I have related must evidently have occurred subsequently to the writing of the Treatise on Voluntary Servitude, to which we must now turn our attention, and as author of which La Boetie, considered as other than the friend of Montaigne, the layman of the Essay on Friendship, really claims celebrity. I have already mentioned, that one tradition makes the Servitude Volontaire to have been written at the age of sixteen (1546), and another at the age of eighteen or nineteen (1549). The latter opinion is adopted, not only by M. Feugere, but by M. Henri Martin, author of the most admirable narrative history of France. The origin of it, have already inti I as be traced to De Thou,mated, is who, though to perfectly acquainted with his friend Montaigne's state not into account, and tells us that the takes ment, it aspect of the sudden calm which succeeded the insur rection of Guyenne suggested to the mind of the MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. 170 young La Boetie the important fact that " kings have long arms; that their power is communicated from one person to another, and that thus a sort of chain is formed which captivates men, and subjugates them " necessarily ! La Boetie's object in writing was no other than to prove this. When he took pen in hand " he had already a superior mind and a formed judg ment, which rendered him subsequently one of the principal ornaments of the Parliament of Bordeaux. Those who published his book after the celebrated day of the Saint Bartholomew, which took place twenty-four years later, gave it a very different sense from what the author intended." We must remember that De Thou wrote under the monarchy, on which he was dependent, and amidst constant persecution for his liberalism ; and that he had a long correspondence, which is extant, with our James the First personally, in which he was forced to excuse himself for seeming to approve of the death of Mary Stuart ; if we would understand the cautious misrepresentations of De Thou. The facts of La Boetie's life were evidently so little known by the public of the sixteenth century, that writers used them as tragedians use the fables on which they base their pieces treated them as mythological and heroic materials, to be modi fied according to the exigencies of art or doctrine. Their chief object was to express admiration for this great citizen, unfortunately born the subject of a luxu rious and sanguinary monarchy, which they themselves dared not hate and condemn. None of them looked forward to the time when the denunciations of the enthusiastic young democrat should be heard and answered. The gloom of despotism seemed to have settled down for ever upon France, and the greater part of Europe. No one as yet foresaw the possibility of establishing perfect freedom by the side of a throne, even with its assistance and under its shadow.

Monarchy seemed one of the conditions of human existence, like disease or death : it was evil the foil of

it, To attack to aim at happiness and good. was lot sort of splendidwas to commitbeauty above our a; the creature should accept from the impiety, if as Creator all blessings and refuse all chastenings. La Boetie, in the eyes of these prudent literary gentlemen ; these philosophers, who kept on good terms with the sacristy; these magistrates learned in texts, who had bought their places as estates, but who were compara tively virtuous, of cultivated tastes, and capable of high views, —he seemed to them, we must believe, to have gone up to the Empyrean and brought down fire, the purity of which they acknowledged, but which would dazzle the eyes of the profane vulgar. He had dreamed dream of purity amidst corruption, such as only Marina might have dreamed in the house of Frost. a They entered, therefore, into tacit conspiracy to mask a him from the world. Montaigne spoke of him as " aa ;" Baillet classed him among remarkmarvellous boy and De Thou, with imperturbable confiable children ; dence in human love of subtilty, attributes to him of boomerang mode of dialectical sort extravagance, a MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. reasoning, which might be natural in a pedantic old lawyer, but which is incompatible with the fire and honesty of youth. Moreover, even in modern times, except by some republicans, with the idea of using La Boetie's work — — as a pamphlet, an incitement to insurrection, no attempt has been made to show that the Treatise on Voluntary Servitude was anything more than an attack on ancient tyrants in the interest of the mild and legal monarchy of France ; or the academical essay of a lad of genius, who afterwards learned to know better and discard his " statuesque republicanism," and look upon " the world as something else than a mere stage for declamation." Montaigne's own account, though full of sup — pressions and some wilful misrepresentations destined, it would seem, to protect his friend from the horrid charge of having continued to the last a revolutionist — is much more natural than most others. The Servi tude Volontaire is a discourse, he says, which those who knew not its original name have since rebaptized, very properly, the Contr'Un. La Bo'etie wrote it by way of essay in his early youth, in honour of liberty " — against tyranny when he was not yet eighteen years of age," says the edition of 1588; but this phrase was afterwards expunged because it disagreed with the new version of " sixteen," wantonly adopted by Montaigne soon before his death. We must observe that the friendly tone of apology obscures the related facts. By way of essay 1 Not a word of the troubles in Guyenne, or the crimes of monarchy in general ! Yet the truth is implied here, though not found in the indifferent statement of the age of the writer, now inserted, now

"" erased. Early youth is the period of illusion and " enthusiasm, be it sixteen or twenty-six. The Treatise had passed into the hands of many people of under standing, not without very great and merited approval ; for it is pretty, and as full of matter as is possible. I do not say that this was the best thing he could do ;

if, and knew him, heat the more advanced age when similar design with mine I had entertained to put his a phantasies in writing, we should have seen many rare things, which would have taken us very near the honour of antiquity for in this part of the gifts of ; I nature, (the power of writing), to him." know none comparable Montaigne then goes on to say, that with the exception of the opuscules he had already published, and some memoirs of the famous Edict of January, 1562, (which he definitively suppressed), nothing re mained of La Boetie but this discourse, which was accident, and " had never, he believed, by preserved by first escaped him." been the author since it seen It important to notice, that this last detail is a is con stituent part of Montaigne's statement. He expressly tells us that the Treatise was written at one time — at were —and was not afterwards revisedone breath, as it and corrected. He denies what he must have known on this treatise La Boetie hadto be true that it was lavished all his pains and intellect. MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. The reason, indeed, of the importance I assign to the approximative establishment of the date at which the Treatise was written, is this : I consider it the capital work of its author, the work which contains his deepest convictions and his highest aspirations ; a work perfectly mature, unless maturity implies the beginning of corruption ; a work full of thoughts, such as only the breast of youth, it is true, harbours, but expressed in language that reveals an art and a knowledge to youth seldom given. Indeed, I am persuaded that whatever now — may be the opinion of the critics, patrons, and admirers of — La Boetie his friends who survived him in the six teenth century regarded him simply as the author of the Treatise on Voluntary Servitude ; the first man who perceived, when France was beginning its deplorable journey towards unity and equality by the aid of kings, that there was another alternative. My convictions are, first, that La Boetie wrote the Treatise when very young and in this I agree with universal testimony ; second, that he was, nevertheless, not only more than sixteen, but more than nineteen years of age when he gave it much of its present form and so far I contradict all the statements of contempo raries, which would be bold, indeed, if all these state ments did not contradict each other ; third, that the Treatise, perhaps based upon a sketch thrown upon paper in 1549, under the excitement of the affair of Bordeaux, was composed between 1551 and 1553 and this agrees with De Thou, where he implies that

the work was written before La Boetie became a member of the Parliament ; but, fourth, that he con stantly touched and retouched it, which may account for some of the innumerable discrepancies that exist, not only between the various printed copies, but be tween all these and the manuscript of Henri de

Dr. Payen. This by Mesmes, recently discovered manuscript proves, too, that editors from timidity have themselves tampered with the text, and made it less directly anti-monarchical. One of the most re " There are this markable instances three sorts of is : byby by tyrants — succession."election, conquest, " After tyrants, all the editions speak of wickedhave, I princes," an alteration evidently made saving a as La Boetie intended clause for French kings whereas ; to include all kings. M. Feugere lays stress on this saving clause, when he argues that La Boetie was not really anti-monarchical. Elsewhere, speaking of the Lacedaemonians, the printed editions say that they would rather deaths than recoghave thousand a died nise any other lord than Law and the King." La Boetie wrote " Law and Reason." need scarcely enter into any criticism of the of the Treatise. I literary character By common consent, of the French classed now among the masterpieces it is No be full of eloquentdenies language. it toone amplifications and fiery apostrophes, of sentences, of images, of turns of phraseology that render marvel, it a no matter at what age written. Its influence has been on troublous times. There are passages in Milton's prose works which would seem written under that inspiration, if Milton, equally imbued with classical literature, and more copious, more enthusiastic, more republican still, did not rather naturally fall into the same tone. We find reminiscences of La Boetie in Rousseau, in Lamennais, in all who have had occasion to attack Monarchy. On English readers, who neglect to carry back their imaginations three centuries, and into another country, his tone sometimes produces an unpleasant effect. Misled by the name of the office of our chief magistrate, against whom boys of sixteen, less cul tivated than La Boetie, perhaps now imitatively declaim, they are offended by this terrific attack on great, especially the style of republican writers in

Monarchy ; which is, of course, as inapplicable to any part of our institutions as diatribe against an Elector to an Elector of "West a of Hanover would be if applied minster. The Treatise addressed, after the classical model, is friend of the author, named Longa, to whom he to a had been previously accustomed to show his French verses, and who used to encourage him by his approval. This hint occasion of the quotation of two is given on lines from some poem in favour of liberty, which the author had written " formerly, when he used to pass For Longa, will not his time in composing French rhymes. fear," he adds, " in thee,addressing to mingle here and there some of my verses, which I never read to thee without being made proud by thy seeming approval." The lines quoted are as follows : Mesmes les boeufs soubs le pois du joug geignent, Et les oiseaus dans la caige se pleignent." This, by the way, is a proof that the speculations of La Boetie in the Treatise were not isolated, but that the glorification of liberty and the condemnation of tyranny had occupied his pen long before. M. Leon Feugere calls this said Longa, who is men tioned twice in the Discourse, "an unknown personage;" but Dr. Payen informs us that he was Bertrand de Lar­mandie, fourth of the name, Baron de Longa (or Longua), a chateau in the neighbourhood of Sainte Foix, and not far from Montaigne. He was nephew of the Bishop of Sarlat, and related by marriage to the Montaigne family. I have sought to obtain further information about him by independent research, but have only found, after reading as much as would have enabled me to master the elements of a science, that a person named Longue was secretary of Henry the Second in 1558, and that Longa afterwards belonged to the Reformed religion, and is several times men tioned in the correspondence of Andre de Bourdeilles, Syndic of Perigord in 1574. He seems to have been an influential person in his province, and Charles the Ninth wrote to him directly, and exhorted him to loyalty. Longa promised to live quietly accordin g VOL. I. N

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. to the edicts published after the Saint Bartholomew. Subsequently Henry the Third wrote to the Marechal Montluc not to molest this same Longa, and also to redress certain wrongs committed against him by a serjeant of Captain La Place.

CHAFTER XVI. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE TREATISE ON VOLUNTARY SERVITUDE. Whoever would appreciate the frame of mind in which La Boetie wrote his great work, must not only recur to the narrative I have given of the insurrections in Guyenne, but endeavour to picture to himself the frightful cruelties and exactions that led to an out break so violent and wide-spread. He must also remember that the description of a king given by Samuel is almost the same as that given by La Boetie : indeed, many of his expressions are translated from the Scriptures. The young Sarladais recognised in the conduct of the princes that reigned over him most of the features described in the Sacred Volume, some not described. Every form of debauchery, even incest in various degrees, was publicly practised at court. Virtue, modesty, honour, honesty, even common were derided. The extravagance was so reckless, that in spite of the most ruinous taxation all attempts at filling the treasury, even for a moment, failed. Money destined to support armies, or pay debts, was squan dered on mistresses and minions with a profusion that would be incredible, if anything wicked were incre dible. The taxes were collected with a violence and injustice unknown now anywhere save in Eastern despotisms. Amidst huge talk of law, and an in credible abundance of lawyers, there was nothing to protect an individual from the rapacity of power. Add to all this, that every heart was panting with a new desire — "liberty of conscience;" and that to express such a desire was a crime punished with death by the fagot; and add, again, that the kings Francis the First and Henry the Second — used actually and literally to attend with the ladies of their courts to see their fellow-creatures burned, simply as an amusement ;

is, and the subject of wonder not that La Boetie incited to this horrible his countrymen to rise and put an end scandal and oppression, but that he was not listened to. The principal scope of the Treatise, indeed, is not good form of governto discuss whether Monarchy is a ment, but to excite people to overthrow it. It would appear that even in those days the debating-society question, as to the relative merits of monarchy and " other forms of the republic," was in vogue, probably among young men. La Boetie refuses to enter on this ground. Monarchy, he says, has nothing public in it. It extreme misfortune to be subject to is single a an and may be bad this is all.man, who may be good Every one, he assumes, feels the rigour of the yoke. the facility with which What he undertakes to prove is could be shaken off. As Montaigne observes,— it " The saying of Plutarch, that the inhabitants of Asia obeyed one man, because they did not know how to pronounce a single syllable — that is, No — furnished, perhaps, the matter and the opportunity to La Boetie of his Voluntary Servitude." The young demagogue had, indeed, already perceived the servile unwillingness of his countrymen to say " No." He therefore narrows the debate, and appeals to the passion of

pride, evidently with the direct intention of exciting a revolution doubt that his preaching" How and there a is no ; almost successful few years later. is it was possible," he asks, " that so many men, so many boroughs, so many cities, so many nations, should single tyrant, who has no power but what is obey a given him — who has no power to injure them, except inasmuch as they have will to endure?" This the is idea developed in the Treatise, under an infinite variety of aspects, in the most eloquent and passionate it, for and whoever can read and mistake ; manner juvenile exercitation, must have his heart imbedded it a in eternal academical ice. The origin of monarchy, or rather the reason of its force and persistence, is, according to the Treatise, by that people are "enchanted and charmed simply this name of One." La Boetie, no doubt, had observed the peculiar adoration of his countrymen for the idea by of unity which they mean, the assimilation of all conventional type; the destruction of ; things to one one of every two opposing the stifling of the elements ; the silencing of negative in presence of the affirmative ; contention ; all the free steps of nature set aside for the military tramp; absence of contrast; subjection; moral death. They appear to strain after this hateful result with the passionate energy of fear. The sound of antagonist forces in the air smites them with dismay. Rival religious sects, political associations with inter- destructive principles, a free press, all the bustle and apparent confusion of a human society, varied in appearance as the inflexions of human character, they cannot away with. This explains the frantic eagerness of the majority to crouch at the feet of power, and urge that power, whether it be monarchical or revo lutionary, free-thinking or religious, to kill, exile, and the gag minority. A victory which does not exterminate the adversary is scarcely a victory in France. This is the vice of the national mind, against which such men as La Boetie have always protested and struggled, though aware that failure in the attempt may be martyrdom. But the democrats and free

thinkers have usually truckled to, or shared it, as well as Louis the Eleventh and Cardinal de Richelieu. Fierce revolutionists have absolved those cruel tyrants, because they laboured in the " sacred cause of French that is, of slavery. ;" have never met French unity I a by who was not deceived the hypocritical unity sceptic, of the Catholic Church, who did not say, that of any if religion he would be of that religion, and who did not consider an unanswerable attack on Protestantism it that was "divided into contending sects." They it make no account of the irresistible tendency of human passions, tastes, aptitudes, to transform in our mental mirror the reflection of truth, which is One; and unless the reflection also be One, or called by the same name, which satisfies them, they go on their way with a query, like jesting Pilate. Unity of doctrine, unity of power, unity of institutions, laws, customs, that is to say, under some form or another, democratic or monarchical, the negation of liberty, this is the dream of poets, patriots, usurpers, and revolutionists in France; and to realise it they will stop at no absurdity, and shrink from no crime. We are all, more or less, liable to be irritated by the presence in this world of opinions different from our own. But some love discussion and the exhilarating clamour of debate. In England we are angry with our opponents, but we are not afraid of them. We do not shrink from the intellectual fatigue of wrestling with them, and are even impatient to go down into the arena. This is not so, and never has been so in France. Differences of opinion arise more often, perhaps, there than elsewhere, but they are almost always individual protests. Here and there, dispersedly, some original mind revolts against the horrid uniformity which public opinion would impose ; but its effort is stifled, or becomes celebrated only as a scandal. It is astonishing, to one who attentively observes, to notice how under the gay, off-hand, seemingly spontaneous conversation, even of French youth under the varied — forms of a literature more artistic within its narrow

bounds than any other in these modern days—lurks the stock of congenital convictions, differenced occa sionally by some individual prejudices and crotchets. Human nature seems divested here of its most mag — nificent characteristic Diversity; the characteristic which, however paradoxical it may seem to say so, contains its resemblance to the divine nature. The true road to unity is diversity. Nothing is more pitiful than the unity of men who are obliged to suppress all vigorous and original movements in order to arrive at agreement in some single statement. La Boetie is not so unreasonable as to maintain that nations are culpable for choosing some great personage, who has been useful to them, to be their governor, although he thinks it not wise to exalt a man from a position where he has done good to one where he may do harm. But his indignation rises when he turns from this supposition to the truth, and beholds

France, —not obeying is, ; but serving the avarice, cruelty, and licentiousness, Samson, but " the world, that and prey to a not of Hercules or mere mannikin, a a a generally the most cowardly and effeminate of the — nation not only unknown to the dust of battle, but almost to the sand of the tournament-field—not only incapable of commanding men, but corrupted by vilely little female This description serving the meanest well applies !" to Henry the Second, living in the toils of his father's cast-off mistress. The contemptible submission of millions to one is La described in magnificent accumulative style. a Boetie proves that it cannot even proceed from cow ardice, because one man may frighten ten but not a whole country. "" What monstrous vice then is this," he asks, which does not even deserve the name of cowardice? —which cannot find a title sufficiently odious ?—which nature disowns having created, and the tongue refuses to name ?" There can be very little doubt that before the unsuccessful revolution of Guyenne, in which, as I have shown, even the middle classes joined, and which evidently was directed against monarchy, political dis cussions for and against a republic were common. The classical writings, suddenly and widely commu nicated, could scarcely have failed indeed to direct men's minds into this channel ; and the more intimate acquaintance with Italy just obtained would naturally assist this result. La Boetie, says Montaigne, for getting that his friend was to be a republican only for " a burst in his youth would rather have been born at Venice than at Sarlat." Venice, indeed, seems to have been the great object of admiration in those times; and this is probably the reason why certain foreign writers, into imitation of whom, from love of the picturesque and the melodramatic, liberal writers have suffered themselves to be betrayed, have always laboured to paint the history of that glorious city in such horrid and repulsive colours. " " The Venetians," says La Boetie, are a handful of people, living so freely, that the most wicked among

them would not be a king ; and are all so born and bred, that they know no other ambition than to sur pass one another in the defence of their liberty. Thus fashioned from their cradle, they would not accept all the other felicities of the earth in exchange for the slightest tittle of their franchises!" But the spirit of imitation of ancient times or foreign countries is never really the initial reason of a political movement. When Hobbes proscribed the study of the classics, as likely to create anti-monarchical feelings, he forgot that the love of the good and the beautiful is almost always overcome by interest ; and did not foresee that Athenian literature might be eagerly studied without producing a single republican, or teaching anything but pedantry and prosody. An opposite mistake has led many high-minded and ardent men to exaggerate the importance of classical studies, which they have thought would stimulate a spirit of liberty. But liberty is always conceived in the womb of long-suffering nations ; and the task of intelligence and enlightenment is to bring it forth. How often has this great suffering been endured in vain ! How often have we listened in vain for the cry of the infant, and found it dead and motionless, destroyed by the throes that were to bring it into the world ! The idea of getting rid of the monarchy was suggested to France in the sixteenth century, chiefly by the misery produced, evidently by misgovernment and wanton tyranny—and was favoured also by the religious reformers.

The bourgeoisie seem to have perceived a practical method of carrying out their views. At least I have no doubt that the suggestion insisted on by La Boetie in so varied a manner, that the way to overthrow tyranny was to refuse taxes, was not the product of his for the not brain, but had often been talked of. Indeed the Revolution of 1548 began by an attack on the tax­ —

gatherers people were yet sufficiently advanced to proceed by legal opposition ; as the Par liament men of Bordeaux seemed to have thought possible. "Let us give them nothing," says Boetie, "and they will dry up and die like trees, the roots of which are deprived of nourishment." Very practical this for a schoolboy's exercitation ! Read, too, the unsurpassed eloquence with which he thunders against the "nations obstinate," who act as " receivers for the thief who robs them, as accom plices of the murderer who kills them, and as traitors to themselves ;" and see how it will harmonise with the idea propagated by Montaigne and his imitators, that La Boetie did not write with the idea attributed to him by those who printed his works at Middelbourg — namely, of subverting monarchy in France. "You sow your fruits, that he may ravage them ; you furnish and fill your houses that he may have something to steal ; you bring up your daughters that he may slake his luxury; you bring up your sons that he may take them to be butchered in his wars, to be the ministers of his avarice, the executors of his vengeance; you disfigure your forms by labour, that he may cocker

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. himself in delight and wallow in nasty and disgusting " pleasures ! If the man who could write all this was not ready to ring the tocsin, all laws of inference are false ; but it would be equally false to see in him an anarchist or lover of disorder. The Revolutionist of one age is often the Conservative of the next. "We never sorrow for what we never possessed, and regret comes after pleasure. With the knowledge of present evil is mixed the memory of past joy. It is the nature of man to be free and to desire freedom ; but likewise it is his nature naturally to preserve the bend which custom has made him take. All things are, in a certain sense, natural to man to which he is brought up and accustomed ; but that only is native to which his simple unaltered nature incites him. The first reason of Voluntary Servitude is custom. Just as the most fiery coursers, who at first bite the bit, then play with it ; at first rear against the saddle, then wear harness as an ornament, and proudly strut under their trappings ; so men say that have always been subject, that their fathers have so lived,—think themselves bound to endure the evil, and gather examples to cheat themselves into this belief; justify their tyrants by appealing to length of possession —forgetting that time, instead of excusing, aggravates injury. There are some, it is true, better born than others, who feel the weight of the yoke, and cannot refrain from shaking it off, who never are broken in to slavery ; and who ever, like Ulysses, by sea and land, look out for the smoke of their

homestead : that is, cannot refrain from remembering their natural privileges and bearing in mind their ancestors and their former state. These are they who, with clear understandings and penetrating minds, are not content, like the coarse populace, to look ever down at their feet, but cast their glances over the

tract they have passed and over the tract that is before them. They remember things of former times, to judge the things of time to come, and estimate the present. With heads naturally well framed, they by have andsought improvement study knowledge. Even liberty were utterly lost, quite expelled from if the world, these men would imagine in their and feel it souls, aye, and relish there and, however daintily it ; will not." servitude may be attired, receive it they We have here the best description ever written of the learned and enlightened, but not numerous society, which in the sixteenth century thought " Utopia" the most amusing romance ever written and ; which, receiving the impression of ancient republican happiness, without paying much attention to the miseries and defects of those small and brilliant but ephemeral societies, contrasted them with the gross and barbarous forms under which they were born, and looked back with wondering regret to what sort of political Paradise.they considered conceive a I that they and their successors, who have endeavoured rosy hue over ancient republican civilisation, to cast a have done ill-service to the cause of liberty. Men in happiness their do not believe or, at any rate, ; happiness is mingled with the idea of contention. He who promises peace speaks for the other world. All editors and critics of La Boetie have insisted on the statement that he makes no allusion to his own times. Certainly his work is not what we call a pamphlet. He does not discuss the conduct of kings, ministers, and magistrates. He does not speak of Francis the First and Henry the Second, of the Connetable and the Guises. But there is a constant under-current of allusion to his own age and country — quite as much as was safe at a period when there was no great political party to back him and espouse his cause. La Boetie, it must be remembered, wrote long before the beginning of the religious wars : he wrote after, and, according to De Thou, under the impression of an insurrection suppressed with the most awful severity — accomplices, and tacit approvers, and lukewarm opponents, being enveloped in the same doom. Yet he does not fear to say: "Who would believe in this baseness, that one man should be allowed to a govern country according to his good pleasure, — if he did not see it if he only heard that such a fact took place in strange countries and foreign lands?" There are many such appeals to personal experience, which can scarcely be explained by the imitative character of the Treatise. But once, La Boetie, after detailing the means by which the Roman emperors deceived the people, expressly says : " In our times do not behave much better those who scarcely do any evil, however great, without ushering it in by some fine

talk of the public good and common benefit. For thou knowest well, 0 Longa, the usual formula, which sometimes they might use with some ingenuity, though for the most part there can be little ingenuity where there is so much impudence." The whole piece is in the tone, now of a letter ad dressed to Longa, now of an oration addressed to living people : but this form might be reflected from classical models. How, however, can we explain the vehemence,

the personality of his " preaching," as he calls it, he merely spoke of circumstances thousands of years if old? What should we think of young writer who a should thunder out against superstition and idolatry now-a-days in France Should we believe he made ? no allusion to Catholicism because he spoke of Pagans Evidently, when La Boetie opposes the Grand only ? Turk to Venice he means France, at that time in " The Grand Turk alliance with the Ottomans knows : well," he says, " that books and doctrines give, more than anything else, to men the sense and under standing to look about them and hate tyranny. I hear that in his territory he has few learned people, and does not want any." This sounds like an allusion to the attempts to repress printing and the spread of knowledge, made by Francis the First when he saw the danger of his dilettanteism. According to La Boetie, who arrives at this result by subtle process, whatever may be the good a very fortune mankind can possess the want of liberty makes without savour. " Yet liberty men do not desire, it it would seem, because if they desired it they would have it." "Be resolved, 0 people," he exclaims," no longer to serve ; and you are at once free. I do not ask you to push tyranny roughly, or to shake but only not how like to sustain it ; and then behold,

great Colossus, whose pedestal has been shattered a by its own will topple down and be dashedweight, " it to pieces ! But the staple of the in Treatise is toappeal surrection under various forms, or rather incitements to people not any longer to put up with the odious institution of monarchy. In one place the writer of inhuman admits that he always felt joy sort a in reading the misfortunes of Israel, which, without king; constraint, or any necessity, chose and the a concluding sentence of the Treatise follows, —" For my part I is as something in the spirit of Quevedo : think, and am not deceived, that since there nothing is so contrary to God, so liberal and debonnair, as tyranny, that he has set apart down there (in hell) some special punishment for tyrants and their accom plices." La Bo'etie feels discouragement now and then in the midst of his enthusiasm; and once im plies that he spoke at the wrong time. "Doctors advise that incurable wounds should not be meddled with;

in preaching I and to the people, which has long lost all consciousness, on this subjectact not wisely it, disease, since does not feeland whose must be it mortal." He pauses accordingly in his "preaching," to inquire into the origin of tyranny, and we see that it, his speculations, excited by the events his youth had witnessed, and the doctrines inculcated, had some tinge of what is now called Socialism. The reader will do well to turn to this pregnant Treatise, which may be called the first, as it is the most remarkable production of the revolutionary spirit in modern times. He will find everywhere the evidence of generous feeling and keen intelligence, which more than makes up for the want of moderation, and the apparent absence of a practical knowledge of politics. The theory of La Boetie is a subversive theory, and as such can be admired by those who enjoy some portion of the felicity he desired, only

of history. In estimating it, must matter we as time when soulsthat he wrote well remember at as a under oppression and thatas bodies were it was ; an act of wonderful courage to plead for liberty either of soul or body. To do so was to call up enemies, not only in high places but among the rabble. difficult for us now to conceive the gloom that It is spread over the moral world in those days, the narrow ness of the horizon, the leaden weight of the sky. Great must have been the terror of the simple when the vapour overhead began to reel to and fro, and the war of distant conflict in the upper intellectual regions came to their ears. We must endeavour not to be un just to the populace in the sixteenth century. Save in some out-of-the-way districts—where legends of former — liberty remained the humble, when not goaded personal suffering, were averse to religious or political vol. t. o by reform ; but because it seemed to shock their moral sense, because their teachers instilled ferocious pre judices into their minds. The Eastern story, narrating the struggle of the good spirit with the evil spirit, that had changed a Prince into an Ape, tells how the former assumed in succession shapes even more hor rible than the latter ; so that he that was imprisoned in the odious form knew not which was friend, which foe. Thus the stupefied Man of the Middle Ages beheld the Reformers who fought for him as hideous monsters. Their end for the most part, too, was the end of the good spirit ; but mortally wounded in the struggle, they did not have the satisfaction to see man released, or to taste the balm of his gratitude. Through flames and persecution they sought their reward elsewhere. This is the saddest sight in the world,—the martyrs of freedom of soul and body perishing with the curses of those for whom they die in their ears. Many, pro bably, have gone away doubting their own mission, or despising themselves for having loved man. The up-heavers of the world are usually blasted with the charge of ambition. They would sack society, forsooth, in order to slake their passions in the hubbub ! We have not seen much proof of this. Luxury satisfies its hunger and its thirst best in the vast tranquillity of despotism. Its safe field of action, when hunting up its means, is on the Exchange, where nothing is to be lost but honour, and the lack of that, wealth remaining, never deprived a man of respect. What is there to tempt unscrupulous ambition on the squalid path of revolt ? Success is more than doubtful, always

ephemeral, waited on by care, followed by ingratitude. He who undertakes to bring the world into the like ness of his beautiful idea, and expects more than the artist's reward, is a fool. He is sure to be felled by some butcher, or delivered to some hangman, or to be disturbed in his grave by cavaliers in search of orna ments for Temple Bar. La Bo'etie, when he dared to stretch out his hand and shake at the too solid foundations of French Monarchy, was not young enough to be ignorant of this. We must give him the full benefit of his dis " interestedness. " The people," he says, are always suspicious of those who love them, and simple towards those who deceive them." And then he goes on to enumerate the instruments by which tyrants draw — people to servitude theatres, games, farces, spec tacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures all used as baits and deceptions ; and tells how, when the Roman Emperors distributed provision, the cleverest and best of the rabble would not have left his bason of soup to recover the liberty of the republic of Plato. Then he adds, in a passage which editors have in part suppressed, because no doubt the memory of Nero appeared to them to be pursued with too obstinate vituperation — to be blackened with an enthusiasm that carried the writer beyond the limits of literary, perhaps political etiquette : " I see no one now who, on mention of Nero, does not tremble at the very name of that nasty and filthy MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

plague of the world ; and of this fellow, of this in cendiary, of this hangman, of this savage beast, it may be said, that after his death, as odious as his life, the noble Roman people so grieved, remembering his games and his festivals, that they were actually dis posed to wear mourning ["

Evidently La Boetie, in all this, wrote from his very entrails. He hated Nero, true type of kings. He does not flout, or criticise, or abuse him —he scalps him. But when he held this villain in bis grasp he wreaked, in imagination, his rage on the living tyrants, inaccessible amidst the pikes and halberds of their guards, and the fiery halo cast round them by popular superstition.

CHAPTER XVII. THE APPEARANCE OF THE PLEIAD. In order more clearly to appreciate the career, not only of La Bo'etie but of Montaigne himself, and understand the literary influences to which they were subject at the age of impressions, I must here take a rapid view of what was going on in the world of letters in France, under the reign of Henry the Second. As I proceed, the elements of proof as to the date of the Treatise will gather ; but it is not necessary to keep this point too much in mind. Estienne Pasquier, whom it is good to quote as an eye-witness of the revolution, and an actor, though not brilliant —in his "Researches on France" has a chapter " treating of the great fleet of poets produced by the reign of Henry the Second, and the new form of poetry by them introduced." This reign began in 1547, — a year after the lad of sixteen is supposed to have written; and, so far as literary taste was con cerned, remained for some time under the same influ ences as the concluding years of Francis the First. The MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. elegant Melin de St. Gelais was the king's almoner his poet laureate was Francis Hebert. No one as yet suspected the revolution, which had been preparing in silence and retirement. The men who began the reform, says Pasquier, professed rather to content their own tastes than the opinions of the common run of people. The first was Maurice Seve of Lyons, who set up for a mark, in imitation of the Italians, a Mistress named Delia ; and fired at her, not in sonnets, "which were not then introduced," but in continual dixaines. The honour of introducing the sonnet is usually given to Du Bellay. Let me observe here, that Melin de St. Gelais, and even Marot himself, had already composed sonnets ; otherwise I should be obliged to claim the introduction into France of that neat and complete form of poetry for our La Bo'etie, who composed many sonnets long before Du Bellay published a line. It was in his " Illustration of the French Language," published in 1550, (when La Boetie was twenty years of age), that Du Bellay laid down the doctrines on which the pro posed reform was to base itself, and recommended the introduction of the Epigram, the Eclogue, the Elegy, the Sonnet, the Satire, and the Pindaric Ode. Most of these forms, however, had been attempted before. Contemporary with Maurice Seve was Theodore de Beze, who composed verses on the accession of King Henry the Second, so pathetic, that they drew tears from Pasquier's legal eyes. Jacques Pelettier du Mans also began to dress French poetry in a new fashion, and made many innovations in orthography. " That was a fine war," enthusiastically exclaims Pasquier," which was then undertaken against ignorance ! The van was led by Seve, Beze, and Pelettier. After them came Pierre de Ronsard and Joacquim du Bellay, with Baif, Pontus de Tiart, Jodelle, Belleau, and many others. I myself, about this commencement, brought into light my Monophile/ which was favourably re ceived ; and in my hours of leisure nothing has ever pleased me more than making Latin verses, or French. All this happened under the reign of Henry the Second. I compare this brigade to the main body of the army. Every one of them had his mistress, and every one aspired to immortality by means of his verses. Yet, alas ! some have survived their own books. After the death of Henry the Second, the wars that happened in France on account of religion troubled a whit the water which was drawn from the fountain of Parnassus. However, recovering our selves somewhat, we produced other poets, whom I shall place among the rear-guard, as Desportes, Scevole de St. Marthe, the two Jasmins, the Seigneur de Pibrac, du Bartas, du Perron, Jean Bertaut ; to whom I will not scruple to add Mesdames des Roches of Poitiers, mother and daughter, but especially the latter, who shone as a writer among ladies like the moon among the stars ! As to tragedy and comedy, we owe the first introduction thereof to Estienne Jodelle. He wrote two tragedies, the 'Cleopatra' and the 'Dion and two comedies, the Rencontre and Eugene.' The

'Rencontre' and the Cleopatra' were represented before the king, Henry, in Paris, at the Hotel de Reims, with great applause of all the company, and afterwards at the College de Boncourt, where all the windows were crammed with an infinity of persons of honour, and the court was so full of scholars that even the gateways were jammed full. I speak as one who was present in the same room with the Great Turnebus. As for hymns and heroic poems, such as the Franciade/ we owe them entirely to Ronsard, who was not at first appreciated ; some saying that he was too great a bragger, some that he was too obscure. He had for enemy Melin de St. Gelais, who belonged to the poets of the reign of Francis the First, and who on account of I know not what jealousy, disgusted King Henry with the pro ductions of the young Ronsard." This account, which I have condensed from Pas­quier, is sufficient for my purpose. We see that some time after the accession of Henry the Second, and about the time when Montaigne began to be an assidu ous courtier, a completely new school of poetry arose, and under circumstances so remarkable, that its advent could not escape the notice of a literary contemporary. Any work not containing a reference to the new move ment, or some traces of its influence, might safely be rejected as not belonging to the time. The exact date at which this literary revolution commenced, and attracted the attention of all France, is known. Pierre de Ronsard was born in 1524, of a family of Hungarian origin. He studied a little at

THE APPEARANCE OF THE PLEIAD. 201 the college of Navarre, then entered the service of the Duke of Orleans, and subsequently, quite as a boy, that of James, king of Scotland. He visited our island a second time in 1540, and after having tra velled in Germany and Piedmont, being seized at once with deafness and with love, retired to a life of study at the college of Coqueret about 1542, being then only at most about eighteen years of age. He re mained there seven years, preparing himself for a great revolution of the French language, in company with Baif, Belleau, Muretus —" already erudite," says M. Sainte-Beuve (he was only about sixteen years of age) —and Lancelot de Carles, who was a relative of the family of La Boetie's subsequent wife. It would be absurd to suppose that before 1546 the first attempts of the new school of poets were already familiarly known in Guyenne; and even if we imagine a correspondence between young De Carles and La Boetie, or conversations with Muretus, when he came to profess at the college of Bordeaux, this will not be sufficient to explain in the Treatise on Voluntary Servitude the allusions to the triumph of the revolution in poetry. M. Sainte-Beuve, in his elegant life of Bonsard, expressly says that the retire ment at the college of Coqueret lasted until 1548 or 1549. It was not until the former year that Bonsard met and formed a friendship, in an h6tel between Poitiers and Paris, with Joacquim du Bellay, then tormented by poetic conceptions, to which he had not given birth, and who had been studying law at Poitiers. Ronsard was not then celebrated : he had not published a line. The new friends talked of poetry, and determined to join in a crusade against the old naive and vulgar forms. It is good to observe, that the precise character of Ronsard's proposed reforms and productions was at this time so secret that even Du Bellay, in order to become acquainted with them, was obliged to resort to theft. There was a quarrel between the two friends on this account, and

even talk of an action at law. Du Bellay got the start of Ronsard, and published before him in October 1549. His " Illustration of the French Language" did not appear until February 1550, and his " Olive" not until the end of the year, when the first poems of Ronsard were printed. Baif who was — actually younger than La Boetie (not much more than fourteen when the Treatise is supposed to mention him as a reformer of French poetry !) entered the field as a poet afterwards, and the real victory of the new school did not take place until towards 1552 or 1553. How naturally the following sentences, which occupy a prominent place in the Treatise of La Boetie, would come from the pen of a young writer about 1553 :— " I think that those kings who have taken ad vantage of religion to be wicked will receive due treatment down there. Our kings scattered in France all sorts of things, as toads, fleurs-de-lys, the ampoule, and the oriflamme all which, for my part, I will not — disbelieve, because neither we nor our ancestors have hitherto had occasion to disbelieve ; for we have always

THE APPEARANCE OF THE PLEIAD. 203 had kings so good in peace, and so valiant in war, that although they be born kings, it would seem that they like the others (that is, like all have not been made other kings) by nature, but chosen by the all-powerful God before their birth for the government and preser

vation of this all this if kingdom; and even were would not on that account enter the lists to I not so, debate the truth of our histories, nor examine them too should deprive of good keenly, lest material our I French poetry, just now not newly accoutred, but it by would Ronsard,entirely renewed our seem our by Baif, our Du Bellay, who, doing, have so ad so hope that soon I that Greeks and Romans will little surpass us, except in the vanced dareour language I I And certainly word fond of using, priority of time. should much wrong not dis our rhyme am a as pleasing to me, though some have made the art me I chanical, for and restore see that many are at work to ennoble it, to its primitive honour should be it I say, to deprive our rhyme of those fine I I very wrong, stories of King Clovis, which already, methinks, see wonderfully well handled in the 'Franciade' which knowknow his reach Ronsard is composing. I ;I know the of the man. He his keen mind; I grace will make as good use of the oriflamme as the Romans did of their ancilia and their bucklers cast down from heaven. He will manage our ampoule as well as the he will cause Athenians did the basket of Erichthone ; our arms to be talked of as much as the Olive/ which they still maintain to be in the temple of Minerva. MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. 204 Verily I should be audacious, indeed, to contradict our books, and meddle with the matter of our poets." This passage, so full of grave irony directed against French monarchy, and against fables which were at that time universally believed, contains its own date better than if it was expressed in figures; —after the revolution in French poetry effected by Ronsard, Baif,

— is, and Du Bellay ; that after before the1551 pub is, Franciade Thelication of the before 1557.that only way of avoiding this demonstration is to suppose that La Boetie wrote the sketch of the Treatise much but this would earlier, and made additions afterwards ; also contradict Montaigne, who professes to know his friend to his heart's core, and says that having once In my opinion, written.it, he never looked at it again. not important to decide how soon La Boetie is it in politics, or revolutionist, reformerbegan to be a a important for his reputation to but point out that itis until he was grown man, and thathe remained so a the eloquent work which has arrested our attention so not the opinions of but the long contains schoolboy, a opinions of an aspirant conseiller in the Parliament of It just possible that the ironicalBordeaux. is tone substituted for the declamatory tone in the passage riper mind and have quoted may indicate cooler a passions; but, whatever I we form, what the friends of La hypothesis by of thesaid made have attempt Boetie to conceal his political opinions remains un touched. shall not here do more than hint at in I a .very I THE APPEARANCE OF THE PLEIAD. 205 — teresting subject of discussion, whether, whilst the great monarchies of Europe were beginning to knit, it would have been possible for an enlightened minority to give public opinion another direction, and spare the world three hundred years of oppression, and revolt, and wars for mere family objects. The Republics of Italy were, it is true, disappearing ; but this may have been solely on account of the corrupt neighbourhood of the Papacy. On the other hand, the prosperity of Switzerland may be explained by its poverty. Two very Republican, or, I should rather say Liberal, elements had, however, been infused into Europe the Reformation and the Revival of Classical Learning, which, in fact, created modern Society. The Dutch, who have been pursued ever since with a ridicule that we do not, perhaps, trace to its origin, were the first after the Renaissance to experiment in free institutions ; but circumstances enabled them to apply doctrines and theories which in every country had disciples among the educated and industrious. A history of that great intel lectual movement should be written without monarchical prejudices, but without revolutionary enthusiasm. It would be seen, that in the sixteenth century the Mon archy was to some extent the Tribunate of the ignorant rabble ; and that the middle classes then first withdrew their sympathies and interest from the courts, and began to entertain ideas of reform, which during three hundred years have seldom been triumphant, except as a compromise. Perhaps, after all, La Bo'etie was not so unpractical when he made himself the Preacher of the

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. 206 doctrine which has been the leaven of modern times. The echo of the tocsin that rolls along his sentences vibrates to our hearts even now; but in this island, where we reap the advantage, the response is Gratitude. It is not our fault if everywhere else the response is Fear.

LA BOETIE AS A LATIN POET. 207

CHAPTER XVIII. LA BOETIE AT PARIS, AND AS A LATIN POET. In an anecdote which I have already quoted from D'Aubigne, mention is made of some early visit of La Bo'etie to Paris. Like all other young gentlemen in the sixteenth century, he was of course introduced to the Louvre. I doubt whether a single instance could be found of a country squire remaining in his own district in those days without an occasional visit to the capital, to do homage to the king or admire the beauties of the new buildings. When we talk of the increased loco motion of our modern times, we must not forget that it has chiefly benefited commerce, and is facilitating the emancipation of the humbler classes from the deadening influence of home — so fatal to the develop ment of high faculties, so dear to the affections when we have found out the vanity of life. But noblemen and gentlemen of old went abroad to note manners and survey realms. They repaired personally from time to time to the great mart of civilisation and thought which spontaneously starts up in the centre of every country. Down in their chateaux, in the absence of the press, they were compelled to depend for news on the vague rumours of a credulous public, or the chance visit of some trusty friend. La Boetie never became in strict terms a courtier, whether he was disgusted by the heavy halbert on his toes or not. He preferred his quaint little city of Sarlat, his Castellet, or, better still, his retirement in the wild and solitary Medoc, out amidst the Landes towards the rustling shores of the sea. Duty forced him at seasons to dwell in busy Bordeaux, and literary tastes sometimes, and sometimes, doubtless, his friend ship for Montaigne, led him to Paris. Here he seems, with so many other worthy and dignified persons, to have courted and been patronised by the infamous Cardinal of Lorraine. One of his Latin poems is addressed to the Muses from the celebrated grotto at Meudon, and contains a description of the winding course of the Seine, and the distant view of Paris. We feel that it must have been written on the spot. A word on the Cardinal of Lorraine. I am willing to judge mercifully many historical personages whose principles I detest, and who stand boldly up for their portraits with innocent blood upon their hands. Fa naticism, ignorance, prejudice, even obscure whisper ings of interest, are reasons for indulgence to those who feel themselves not perfect. But this hypocrite, this persecutor of the saints in whose doctrines he believed, for the behoof of a church which he despised, this dark intriguer, this nudger-on of the gross and

LA BOETIB AS A LATIN FOET. 209 fraudulent conspirator, whom history, stunned into acquiescence by the vociferous applause of the Church, has consented to call the Great Guise —this incarna tion of evil cannot be excused or defended by any in whom the moral sense remains intact. How melan it, to his palace at Meudon

choly is then, to reflect, that all that was wise, and learned, and brilliant in France, — flocked whilst Rabelais, resting from his labours, laughed in his sleeve in the parsonage below that Ronsard and the Pleiad, that Montaigne came to do homage, that our La Boetie, his lips still vibrating with denunciations of tyranny, fed at the board and walked in the gardens of this mean prelate! But the mind of France at that time was in a principles chaotic and as the most contradictorystate ; by found place did the side side, most oppositeso There civil characters associate. it a was, were, as war in every man's breast. No complete body of doctrine of any kind existed. There were republicans opposed to free examination in religion; there were great religious reformers, who argued in favour of passive obedience; there were stanch Catholics, who learned to preach regicide; there were philosophers ready to burn heretics, and heretics ready to burn each in fact, was in of complete other. stateSociety, a dissolution. In La Boetie's Latin poems we find allusions to many events of his time, which, we were to judge as if history usually judges, we could scarcely suppose to have come from the same man at any rate from the VOL. I. P author of the Treatise on Voluntary Servitude. He con gratulates, as a good patriot, Henry the Second on the re treat of Charles the Fifth after the destruction of Hesdin and Terrouane in 1553 ; and in a curious piece intended for the tomb of Jean Gontaut de Biron, his friend, who died in prison, after having been taken wounded at the battle of St. Quentin in 1557, from the ill treatment inflicted by the Count de Mansfeldt, he predicts the ruin of Philip the Second. One of his poems, sin gularly enough, is an attack on the great Guise for his expedition into Italy, and a general ridicule of his exploits even the taking of Calais. The importance of the latter event was not appreciated at all in the six teenth century, except by the Spaniards and their allies

It is, curious to find, in France, however,the Guises. that so far back as then the utility of Calais, Boulogne, and the neighbouring ports for an invasion of England, has been of latewas insisted and it on as seriously as ; De Thou, in Satire, clearly shows that French flat-were intended a bottomed boats and galleys to co-operate by La Bo'etie, led away his hostilitywith the Armada. to the Catholic and persecuting party, naturally ridi all these intentions but haveafter, cules soon I as said, we find him at Meudon, and one of his last poems ; sort of complaint for the very great Guise whom isa by satirised. the influence he had Perhaps,previously of Montaigne, the opinions of La Boetie were modified. We learn from the Latin poems the names of many of La Boetie's friends. Besides the pieces addressed to Belot, for whom Montaigne, there he is one to seems LA BOETIE AS A LATIN POET. 211 to have had a particular affection ; one on the tomb of Martial Belot, the father ; one to La Chassagne, after wards the father-in-law of Montaigne ; one, as I have said, to Pommier ; another to Marguerite Laval ; another to Jean de Maumont, to whom Amyot's trans lation of Plutarch had been attributed; others to an obscure advocate named Bontan ; to a Chaumont ; to Guy Brassac, on the death of J. C. Scaliger in 1558; and an epistle to the same Scaliger, to whom Brassac had sent some of La Boetie's verses, and who had praised them highly. In 1562, an edict in favour of the Protestants was promulgated by the influence of the Chancellier de L'Hospital. The Parliament of Bordeaux was violently

it, and refused at first to register it. Theopposed to Parliament of Paris never at all. There it registered upon some disturbances arose between the Catholics and Huguenots, and La Bo'etie wrote memoirs on the subject. These memoirs, probably narrative mixed with reflections, remained in manuscript, and were It by difficultMontaigne. to decide is suppressed in what spirit they were written. At that time mo narchy was apparently on the side of toleration, and was contending with the Parliaments. Did La Boetie suppress his theoretical convictions, and support the seeming good intentions of monarchy so. hope ? I I Yet incapable from his position of properly appreciating the importance and justice of toleration, were proved to have maintained the freedom of Parliament against this fiery patriot, should not be surprised if the violence of the king; and whilst recommending mildness towards the Protestants, have condemned them as disturbers of the public peace ; men who in terfered by their turbulence with the great projects of civil liberty he had formed ! It is certain, however, that we do not possess a full knowledge of the views and intentions of La Boetie ; and have a right to complain that Montaigne, who professed to know them all, did not communicate them in a clearer manner. He would have served the repu tation of his friend better ; but perhaps he might have — done injury to himself a mighty consideration for a friend ! We are reduced to guess the steps that separ ated the Treatise, with its turbulent appeal to the revo lutionary spirit, its ardent democratic aspirations, from the discouragement and melancholy of the Latin address to Belot and Montaigne, in which, abandoning all hope of regenerating his country, he calls on them to freight an earlier "Mayflower," and take refuge with him in America. Perhaps, if death had not been too swift, the circumstance that prevented him, as Cromwell and Hampden were prevented, from emigrating, might have given time for the development of a more martial spirit. These mighty discouragements of great minds are often but lulls before the tempest. No one who carefully reads the history of the sixteenth century, can doubt that there was a point when it would have been possible, with the assistance of classical fervour, to have founded a republic as in the Netherlands. Had LaBoetie lived, he might have been the Washington of his age. The praises of Montaigne and his con temporaries were either trivial rhetorical exaggerations ; or have that signification, and no other.

But I must give the piece entire : To Belot and Montaigne. " 0 Montaigne, equitable judge of my mind ! and thou, 0 Belot, whom antique candour and faith adorn ! you, 0 my friends, my companions, my care ! you, whom the anger of the gods and cruel fate have condemned to live in this sad time, what say ye ? what are the dictates of your heart ? " For my part, one idea only is present in my mind

fly on the paths of Fortune, and escape on steeds, or in vessels, from our abandoned hearths. — that we should "And I ! I will the possibility of exile yet remains. " How wretched and how sad Yet still work, do no more useful if so you see and if think it long and lasting adieu to our nativenecessary to pay a We are witnesses of its ruin why should country. we : any longer trample on the ashes of our sires? I Since will spare my eyes the sight I assist my country, her discomfiture. cannot of would have been It better, fly whilst she was yet tottering than perhaps, to now utterly destroyed. Let she us not regret, however, is that as devoted citizens we have paid her the last is, offices of duty. To have done at any rate, con a so solation, though sterile. "Already the less favourable divinities counselled us to fly, when they revealed to us towards the west countries until then unknown, and when mariners navigating the vast ocean discovered unpeopled tracts, empty empires, another sun, and new lands, with other stars sparkling in another sky. "Doubtless the gods, when they resolved to de vastate Europe by war, and changed the aspect of our fields deserted by labourers, prepared a New World for

fly this the world which now, the people andto to is ; in this age, has risen out of the sea. "There we are told the earth shows scarcely any sign of inhabitants the light soil waits for the crooked ; plough, and having as yet produced nothing, asks for cultivation. There boundless fields acknowledge the first-comer as lord, and become the property of the man who tills them. "There lies our path Out with the sail and the oar thy ! ! From that distant I shore shall not see thee throw up thy shall not see, despairing, ! France the 0 I agony, far from civil war, There, to angry gods arms ! will choose an abiding-place, and sad stranger as a will cultivate my humble domains. There, with you, will 0 my friends, whatever place be allotted I to me, take refuge from my country's ruin. But still the spectacle of its grief and its melancholy countenance will haunt me, and neither reason, nor age, nor the vast sea flowing between, will weaken my sorrow. in all other by Troubled this alone, matters tranquil, certain never again to behold my domestic hearth, shall be ready as an exile on distant shores to work out I ray destiny, whether the sadness of a foreign clime shall oppress me to early death, or whether Fate shall still lengthen out my days." In order that we may appreciate the importance of this invocation, we must remember that Montaigne always spoke of La Boetie as the greatest man of his — age "who would have produced the greatest effects if Fortune had so willed it;" and yet, who, though "one of the most proper and necessary men" for the highest offices in France, had all his life "remained despised amidst the ashes of his domestic hearth." It was not, therefore, as a translator or as a poet, not even as a political writer, that La Boetie appeared to his friends, but as the fated arbiter of public affairs. "If he had lived," says Montaigne somewhere, "he might have been useful in appeasing our discords." Perhaps the sight of the apparently irremediable dis order of France, and the thought that he had no part to play in such an age, may have made La Boetie less attached to life.

CHAPTER XIX. THE LAST MOMENTS OF LA BOETIE. The friendship of La Bo'etie and Montaigne had lasted about six years. In that brief time they had each travelled round the other's mind, and exchanged all the emotions of which their hearts were capable. Even without accepting all the classical grief of the Essay on Friendship, we still feel that we are in presence of two men who clung to each other during life with a potent embrace, and could not be cloven asunder without suffering. That is a strange image that Mon taigne suggests, when he says, that the arms of friend ship, however long, cannot overstretch the fissure between this and the other world. I think I see some of the fantastical figures of Blake catching at each other with elastic limbs. The narrative of the circumstances attendant on the death of La Boetie, is contained in a very long letter addressed by Montaigne to his father, and supposed to have been written immediately afterwards. It was not published, however, for nearly ten years; and bears many marks of careful composition and patient study. — Its tone, indeed, is so pathetic and sustained I may say, in parts so classical and even pagan that it seems written under the inspiration of the Phaeclo of Plato, and here and there recalls that most moving of all tragedies. We must observe, that in this special work, of which I shall make a compressed translation in a respectful spirit, Montaigne admits the immense importance he attached to the last words of La Boetie ; and says that he was so convinced that something worthy of record would come from his lips that he kept a careful watch. However, his memory was short, and troubled also by the sadness of the scene. "To paint him as he appeared, thus proudly checked in his career, and bring to your eyes that invincible courage in a body beaten down and stunned by the furious assaults of death and pain, would require a much better style than mine; for even when full of health, when he discoursed on grave topics, he spoke so that it would be difficult to equal him in writing ; and yet in that last emergency his wit and his tongue seemed to vie one with the other which should best perform its last services. I never saw him so full of fine thoughts, nor of such eloquence, as during that illness." Montaigne then says, that he set down many common and light phrases, because such, spoken at that crisis, are a singular testimony of a soul possessed by repose, tranquillity, and assurance. "I was returning from the Palace (of the Parlia

I inent) on Monday, the 9th of August, 1563, when I sent to him to come and dine with me. I got word from him that he thanked me, but that he felt a little unwell, and would be pleased if I came and spent an hour with him before he started for Medoc. I went to him soon after dinner, and found him lying down in his clothes, with already I know not what change on his face. He said that he had taken cold as he was playing (at tennis) in his pourpoint under a silk gown, with Monsieur D'Escars ; and that he had often been ill in a similar manner from the same cause. I thought it right that he should carry out his intention of going away ; but advised him not to go farther that evening than Germignac, which is only two leagues distant from the city. My reason for wishing him to leave was, that the place where he lodged was sur rounded with houses infected by the plague. He had some fear of that disease, as he had just returned from Perigord and the Agenois, where it was very prevalent. Besides, for a similar disease to his, I had once found horse-exercise good. So he set out with Mademoiselle de la Boetie his wife, and Monsieur de Bouilhonnas his uncle. " Next day, very early, one of his people came to me from Mademoiselle de la Boetie, saying that he had been taken bad in the night with a violent dysentery. He wanted a doctor and an apothecary, and begged me to go too, which I did in the afternoon. "When I arrived he seemed quite rejoiced to see me; and when I wished to say good-by and go away,

promising to return on the morrow, he begged me, with more affection and earnestness than he had ever exhibited, that I should be with him as much as possible. This greatly touched me. Nevertheless, I was going away when Mademoiselle de la Boetie, who had a presentiment of something evil, begged me, with tears in her eyes, not to stir that night. Thus she prevented my going, at which he expressed delight. Next day I came back, and returned to him on the Thursday. His disease was becoming worse, and he grew gradually weaker. "On Friday I left him again; and returning on Saturday found him very much cast down. He then said that his disease was somewhat contagious, and moreover that it was unpleasant and melancholy, that he knew my temperament, and begged me to be with him only by fits and starts, but as often as possible. From that I never him. Up to time forward left Sunday he had said nothing of what he thought of his state, and we only spoke of the particular incidents of his disease, and what the ancient physicians had said thereon. Of public affairs we talked very little ; for I found him disgusted with them from the first day. But on Monday he had a great swoon ; and on coming to himself he said he had seemed to be in a confusion of all things, and could see nothing but a thick cloud and obscure mist, in which all was pell-mell and without order ; yet that in this accident there was no unpleasantness. Death has nothing worse than that.

my brother/ said I. It has nothing so bad/ he answered. " From that time forward, as he had been deprived of all sleep since his illness, and as no remedy, not even those used at the last extremity, had any effect, he began to despair entirely of his cure; and commu nicated the same to me. That very day, as it was thought advisable, I said to him, that it would ill become me, on account of the extreme friendship I bore him, if I did not care to see him continue to act as prudently in illness as he had always done in health; and that, if God willed he should grow worse, I should be very grieved if for want of warning he left any of his private affairs unsettled, both on account of the damage his parents would incur and for the sake of his reputation. " He took this in very good part ; and after having turned the matter over in his mind, begged me to call his uncle and his wife alone, that they might hear what he had determined as to his will. I said that he would alarm them. 'No, no/ said he, 'I will console them, and give them much better hope than I have myself.1 Then he asked me if his swoons had not a little alarmed us. They are nothing, my brother/ said I, and commonly happen in such diseases.' — Truly, no, they are nothing, my brother/ answered he, even if they lead to what you most fear.' That would be only happiness for you/ replied I ; 'but the injury would be to me, in losing the com

THE LAST MOMENTS OF LA BOETIE. 221 pany of so great, so wise, and so certain a friend, one the like of whom I shall never find.' 'What you say may well be/ he added ; and I assure you, that what makes me take some care for my cure and prevents me from finishing willingly the journey, which is half made, is the thought of your deprivation, and that of that poor man and that poor woman (meaning his uncle and his wife), both of whom I dearly love, and who will bear very impatiently, I am sure, my loss ; which, in truth, will be a great loss for you and for them. I also think of the sorrow which will possess many excellent people who have loved and esteemed me during my life, and whose conversation I confess, if it lay in my power, I should be glad not to lose. And if I go, my brother,I beg of you, who know them, to report the goodwill I bear them, up to this last hour of my life. Moreover, my brother, perchance I was not born so useless that I might not have been of service to my country {la chose publicque respublica). But, however this may be, I am ready to depart when it may please God, being assured I shall find the happiness you predict to me. As for you, my friend, I know you wise, that, are so despite your interest, you will conform willingly and patiently to whatever his holy Majesty ordains of me ; and I beg you to take care that mourning for my loss does not carry that good man and that good woman beyond the bounds of reason.' " He then asked me how they bore the affliction so far. I said, Well enough, considering the importance — of the thing.' Yes/ quoth he, now that they have

still a little hope ; but when they lose that, my brother, will find it difficult to restrain them.' For this you reason, as long as he lived afterwards, he concealed from them his certainty that he was going to die, and begged me to be equally reserved. When they were by his side he affected the most lively manner, and fed them on hope." I went to fetch them. They composed their countenances as much as possible for awhile. When we were seated round his bed, we four all alone, he said, with a calm and even lively expression, My uncle, my wife, I assure you, on my faith, that no new attack of my malady has moved me to call you to me in this way ; for, thank God, I feel even well, and full of hope ; but having by long experience and study learned the instability and uncertainty of human affairs, and knowing that whoever is taken ill by that very fact is nearer death, I have determined to do something towards putting my private affairs in order.' " Then, turning towards his uncle, he said :— My good uncle, if I had to repay you all the obligations I am under to you, the trouble would be great. It is sufficient that, up to this time, wherever I have been, and to whomsoever I have spoken, I have always said that whatever a prudent, good, and liberal father could have done for his son you have done for me not only — in having me educated in good letters, but in pushing me forward in public employments. In this way the whole course of my life has been filled by great and commendable offices of friendship performed by you to

THE LAST MOMENTS OF LA BOETIE. 223 me ; so that whatever I have I owe to you, who are my true father. Therefore I have no power to dispose of anything unless you give me permission.' He remained silent then, and waited until the sighs and sobs that burst forth subsided and enabled his uncle to answer. " La Bo'etie then addressed his wife :— My Like ness/ he said, for thus he often called her — having — been joined with you in the sacred bond of marriage, which is one of the most respectable and inviolable which God has ordained here below for the main tenance of human society, I have loved, cherished, and esteemed you to the utmost of my power, and am assured that you have returned an equal affection, for which I cannot be too grateful. I beg you to take that part of my goods which I give you and to be content, although what I bestow is little compared with your deserts.' "'My brother/ afterwards said he to me, 'my brother, whom I love so dearly, and whom I had chosen from among so many men, to renew with you that virtuous and sincere friendship, the use of which by the triumph of vice has for so long been removed from among us, that only some old traces remain in the — memory of antiquity I beg of you, as a testimony of my affection, to be the heir of my library and my books, which I give you. This is a very small present, but it is heartily bestowed, and is appropriate on account of the affection you bear towards letters. It will be to you /ii/jj/ioVt/vov tui sodalis.' " Then, speaking to all three generally, he thanked

God for that, being in such an extremity, he was surrounded by the persons who were dearest to him of any in the world. It was fine, he said, to see an assembly of four so united together in perfect friend ship. Having recommended us one to the other, he pursued : Having now settled my worldly affairs, I must think of my conscience. I am a Christian and a Catholic : as such have I lived, and as such I am determined to close my life. Let a priest be called, for I would not fail in this last duty of a Christian.' "La Bo'etie," continues Montaigne, "finished his discourse, which he had carried on with such assurance of countenance, such force of language and of voice, that whereas I had found him, on entering his chamber, feeble, slowly dropping his words one after the other, his pulse low, death striving to approach, his visage pale and livid, it seemed now that as if by miracle he had resumed his vigour, a more rosy countenance, and a stronger pulse. I made him feel mine, to compare the two together. At that time, however, my heart was so full that I knew not what to answer. But two or three hours after, partly to maintain that great courage, partly on account of the care which I always had, all my life, for his glory and his honour, and wish that there should be more witnesses of his magnanimity, I said to him when the room was full of people, that I had blushed for shame that I had failed in courage to listen to what he, being in that state, had had courage to speak ; that until that time I had scarcely believed that God ever enabled us thus to surmouut human accidents, or given credit to what history told of such cases ; but that, having now been convinced, I was thankful that the example had been given by one who loved me so much, and whom I so much loved, and should know how to act when my time came.

" He interrupted me to exhort me to behave as I said I would, and to show that we did not carry our maxims merely in our mouth, but engraved on our heart and soul, to be applied when needful. This should be the result of study and philosophy. Taking my hand, he added : My brother, my friend, I assure you I have done many things in my life with as much pain and difficulty as this one. And when all is said,I have been long prepared, and know my lesson by heart. Is it not enough to have lived to the age I have reached ? I was about to enter my thirty-third year. God has been so gracious, that my life up to this time has been full of health and happiness. This could scarcely last, seeing the inconstancy of human things. I should have had to set in earnest to business, and to see a thousand unpleasant things, and to bear the inconveniences of old age, from which I am now quit. Moreover, it is probable that I have lived up to this time with more simplicity and less of cunning than I might perhaps have done if God had let me live until the idea of getting rich and making myself comfortable had entered my head. As for myself, I am certain that I am going to God, and to the regions of the happy.' VOL. I. Q

" As I showed, even in my face, the pain his words gave me, he exclaimed : What, my brother ! you want to frighten me ! If I were afraid, who should reassure me but you?' " Towards evening the notary came, and when the will was drawn out I went and asked La Bo'etie if he would sign it. He replied that he would not only

For it, but compose himself. sign time, however, it a he felt he was too weak. Then, recovering him self, he said that at the hour of death people must not be idle, asked rapid hand, and the notary had his will if a fast that he could with soon after dictated so difficulty be followed. When was finished, he begged it him, and then said, speaking of hisread to it me to Sunt hac qua hominibus vocantur bona.' property : When the will was signed, the room being full of would do him any harmpeople, he asked if if to it me said No/ he spoke gently. speak. I " Upon this he called Mademoiselle de Saint Quentin, his niece, and said that he had perceived the goodness of her nature, thanked her for her kindness and attention to him during his illness, exhorted her to piety, without which could be no virtue, to filial reve rence, to aversion for pleasure, and especially from im modest playfulness with men, which, harmless at first, and leads to laziness and vice. Be by degrees corrupts, lieve me/ said he, the surest guardian of girl's chastity a severity.' After this he called Mademoiselle D'Arsac, is of his wife told her that he had cared forthe daughter ; and for those of her brother as if they had her affairs been his own, and that he needed not exhort her to virtue, because the very name of vice was, he knew, abhorrent to her. " Every one in the chamber wept and lamented, but not for this did he interrupt his discourse, which was long. Afterwards he wished everybody to retire, except his garrison, as he called the girls who attended on him. Then calling my brother, De Beauregard, he said : I thank you much for the sorrow you show on my account. Will you allow me to say something which I am called upon to say to you?' My brother having answered in the affirmative, he pursued : I swear to you, that of all who have applied themselves to the reformation of the Church,I have never thought that any set about the work with more zeal, and a more entire, sincere, and simple affection than you; and I believe that you were only incited to do so by the vices of our prelates, which have, doubtless, need of great correction, and by some imperfections which in the course of years have crept into the Church. It is not my desire at present to move you from your position, for I do not wish to beg any one to act against his conscience ; but I wish to warn you, that from respect for the good reputation — which your house has acquired good God ! what a house must that be from which none but honest men —— have come ! from respect to the will of your father that good father, to whom you owe so much — of your uncle and your brother, you should avoid the ex tremities to which you go. Be not so harsh and

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. violent. Fit yourself better to your family. Don't separate yourself; join with them. What ruin those dissensions have introduced into this kingdom ! what greater ruin they will yet -introduce ! As you are prudent and good, take care not to distract your family in this way, for fear of tarnishing the glory and the happiness it has until now enjoyed. Take in good part, Monsieur de Beauregard, what I tell you, and as a testimony of my friendship for you. I have put off saying this until now, thinking that the state in which you see me must give more weight and authority to my words.' My brother thanked him very heartily. " On Monday morning he was so ill that he had lost all hope of life ; so that when he saw me he called out piteously, and said : My brother, have you no compassion for the torments I suffer ? Do you not see that all your help only prolongs my pain?' Soon after he fainted away ; and we thought at first that he had gone, but he was brought back by vinegar and wine. But for a long time he could see nothing; and hearing us crying around him, he said : 0 God, who torments me in this way ? Why am I deprived of the pleasant rest I was enjoying ? Leave me, I pray.' Then hearing me, he said : You, too, my brother ! Will you not let me be cured? What comfort you deprive me of!' Then, having recovered himself a little, he asked for a little wine. This restored him somewhat, and he said to me it was the best drink in the world. No, truly/ said I, to make him talk ; but water is.' True/ he replied, quoting Pindar,

THE LAST MOMENTS OF LA BOETIE. 229 li<5wgaoisrov.' By this time all his extremities, even his face, was chill, and a cold sweat passed over his body : no pulse scarcely could be found. " In the morning he confessed to his priest ; but, from want of something that had been forgotten, mass could not be said. But on Tuesday morning he asked for it; and afterwards, when the priest was bidding him adieu, he said to him : My spiritual father, I beg humbly for the prayers of you and those of whom you have charge;' and again made profession of attach ment to the Catholic religion. Whilst he was speaking he uncovered his shoulder, and, although he had a valet near, requested his uncle to cover him, saying to me : Ingenui est cui multum debeas, ei plurimum velle debere.' " Monsieur de Belot came to see him in the after noon ; and to him he said, giving him his hand : My good friend, I was quite ready to pay my debt, but have found a good creditor who has released me.' A little while after, waking with a start, he exclaimed : Well, well, come when it may, I am ready for it ! — words he often repeated. Then, when some one was opening his mouth by force to make him swallow some thing, he said, turning again to Belot : Is life worth all this?' " Towards evening he began in good truth to draw towards death ; and whilst I was supping, sent for me. He was now but the seeming of a man ; yet he con trived to say : My brother, my friend, would to God I could realise the imaginations I have just had ! After

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. haviDg waited some time, during which he did not speak, but sighed much, I asked : What are they, my brother?' Great, great/ he replied. 'There never was a time/ said I, when you did not honour me by communicating all the imaginations that came into your mind. Will you not let me still enjoy the same privilege?' 'It is my wish that you should/ he answered ; but, brother, I cannot. These are ad mirable, infinite, beyond expression ! He paused then, for he was quite exhausted. A little before he wanted to speak to his wife, and said, with as gay a countenance as he could put on, that he would tell her a story. Endeavouring to go on, his strength failed, and he asked for a little wine. This had no effect, for he swooned at once, and remained long in that state. " When death was very near, hearing the lamenta tions of Mademoiselle de la Boetie, he called to her, and said : My likeness, you torment yourself too soon. Will you not have pity on me? Take courage.' After many more soothing words he suddenly said : But I am going.' This was because he felt faint. Then, fearing he had alarmed her, he said : I am going to sleep ; good night, my wife : go away ! This was the last farewell he took of her. When she was gone, My brother/ said he to me, keep close by me, if you please.' Afterwards, feeling the nearer attacks of death, or stimulated by a medicament that was given him, his voice increased in power, and he moved vio lently in his bed ; and every one began to have some hope, for it was of weakness he was dying. Then,

among other things, he began to beg me over and over again with extreme affection to give him a place ; so that I thought his mind was wandering, and even gently told him that he was giving way, and that these were not the words of a man in full possession of himself. But he did not give in at first, and repeated with greater energy, My brother ! my brother ! do ' you then refuse me a place f I was obliged to appeal to his reason, and convince him that since he breathed and spoke and had a body he occupied a place. True, true,' answered he at last, I have one ; but that is not the one I want: and then, after all, I have no longer any being.' 'God will give you a better one answered soon/ said I. Would I were there already,' he. For these three days I have been panting to depart.' After this he often called out to know if I were near him. Then he began to rest a little, which confirmed us in our good hopes ; and I went out of his chamber to rejoice with Mademoiselle de la Boetie. But about an hour afterwards, naming me once or twice more, and heaving a long sigh, he gave up the ghost, about three o'clock on Wednesday morning, the eighteenth of August, fifteen hundred and sixty-three, having lived thirty-two years, nine months, and seventeen days." I do not wish here to disturb the solemn effect of this narrative of the death of a great and good man in the hired room of some hotel at Germignac ; but it is impossible not to notice that amidst all his friend ship and devotion, real as they were, Montaigne paints

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. himself, no doubt with an unerring pencil, as behaving in a pedantic and self-absorbed manner that irresistibly creates a smile. La Boetie, in his agony, calls out for a place — perhaps the place in history that has been given him and his friend at that moment cannot refrain from rebuking him with scholastic ar guments ! But it is not necessary to make a com mentary on these peculiarities, which harmonise en tirely with whatever else we know of Montaigne's character. What became of the works of La Boetie will appear further on, and his name will constantly recur in the following pages. He ever remained as present with Montaigne, in death as in life ; and without any wish to depreciate the sincerity of the Essayist, I may even say that his friendship appears to have deepened and taken a higher tone when he took up his pen and began to write. The chapter on Friendship is a noble work, and almost everywhere throughout the Essays, when La Boetie is alluded to, we are touched and our sympathies are aroused. It must be confessed, however, that Montaigne, with the hearty relish of existence which he long preserved, makes an unjusti fiable appeal to our feelings when he implies that ever after La Boetie' s departure " he dragged on a lingering existence;" that his life was but smoke, but a dark and wearisome night; that his pleasures even redoubled the loss of his friend ; that all the rest of his life would be "employed in performing his obsequies," and so forth. I should have preferred

THE LAST MOMENTS OF LA BOETIE. 233 reading the touching inscription which M. Jouannet appears to have seen in Montaigne's library to the memory of La Boetie, but which has been effaced. We are not, however, in want of most genuine tes timonies to his long-enduring grief. The following simple note in the journal of his visit to Italy, per formed nearly twenty years afterwards, is especially interesting: —"M. de Montaigne was suddenly seized with such painful thoughts of M. de la Boetie, and it was so long before he came to himself, that it did him much harm."

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

CHAPTER XX. MARRIAGE OF MONTAIGNE. As I have already said, soon after the death of La Boetie, Montaigne, to escape from his melancholy, chose a new mistress ! This circumstance seems to clash with the idea we are accustomed to frame to ourselves of his excessive and tragic grief: but he declares, that had he not adopted such remedy some he might have perished or gone mad. His tempera ment was in want of a vehement diversion ; and so, by art and study, he contrived to fall in love with a person whom, as usual, he does not name or describe. His time of life was favourable to the success of the experi ment. Love relieved him from the suffering that friendship had caused. This is an episode that may be lightly passed over, with the remark that Montaigne, hastening to return to the dissipation from which the wise words of La Boetie had withdrawn him, as soon as the lips which uttered those wise words were cold and persuading — himself and posterity that it was necessary for his HIS MARRIAGE. health —exhibits himself as an odd mixture of hypo crisy and simplicity : yet let us pause before we call him a hypocrite, or a fool for of such inconsistencies are we all made. I once thought that the lady towards whom Mon taigne directed the attachment from which La Boetie had fled, might have been Francoise de la Chassagne, who in due course became his wife. But Franchise was not so fortunate as Marguerite de Carles. Mon taigne's marriage, of which we have now to speak, was purely one of convenience and family arrangement. He pretends, indeed, that he was married against his will; that he was pushed on —possibly by his father, not approving his way of dissipating sorrow. Of his own accord he would never have thought of it. But this is when, in a licentious mood, he is commenting certain verses of Virgil ; and just after he has declared that willingly he would not have married Wisdom herself. However, we may suppose that having reached the age of thirty-three, and not having as yet consented theoretically to Aristotle's rule, or found out that fine reasoning against the neighbourhood of parent and child in years, he married without much pressing, in " order to comply with what he himself calls the custom and usage of common life." It is worth while noting here, that there are no greater slaves, even now, of the proper and the conventional, than these terrible French sceptics and Frondeurs of established institutions and received ideas. I know men, too, nearer home, who, though in perpetual insurrection, if you will believe them, against all moral and religious laws, yet move meekly on athwart the cross-currents of life, under the yoke of propriety, and are ever nervously anxious about what their neighbours and the parson will say.

It is curious that uncertainty should long have existed as to the date of Montaigne's marriage. Some of his biographers say 1564, and M. le Clerc says 1566, —"I know not on what authority," writes Dr. Payen, with his usual amusing contempt for the state ments of his adored Montaigne himself. " I was married at the age of thirty-three," is the philosopher's own statement, which evidently suggests the date given by M. le Clerc. If Dr. Payen's new discoveries be authentic, however, we must fix the date of the marriage at September 23, 1565; that is to say, two years after the death of La Boetie a brief interval, which we regretfully discover was filled up by an amourette. Among the papers of one Destivals, notary of Bordeaux in the sixteenth century, have been found two contracts of marriage of Michel de Montaigne. The first is annulled, although signed by the greater number of the persons present, even by the couple themselves. As Pierre Eyquem's name does not appear, it has been supposed that he objected to some of the clauses of the contract and refused his sig nature. The bride, as I have said, was Frangoise de la Chas­sagne, and was chosen from a Parliamentary family. Pierre Eyquem, thinking that his son would continue

HIS MARRIAGE. 237 to pursue a legal career, laboured to increase his connexions of that kind. Joseph, the father of Franchise, was a conseiller, and related to the President La Chassagne, whose conduct at the time of the insurrection of Bordeaux gave such great offence to the Court. One of his sons, M. de Pressac, was gentleman in ordinary of the king's chamber. He himself is said to have been one of the most renowned members of the Parliament. He gave seven thousand francs with his daughter as a dowry. After the marriage took place, Montaigne seems to have continued to reside either at the chateau or in his father's house at Bordeaux. All through the Essays we meet with reflections on the character of women as members of a household, which may be partly taken as a sort of revenge for the deprivation of liberty to which Montaigne was subjected against his will, partly as a sort of philo sophical protest against temporary annoyances which his Franchise —whom he vainly endeavours to exalt into a Xantippe caused him, and which he perhaps dared not resent in any other way. Debauched humours such as his were not fit for marriage. He was ! islike a not steady enough " Marriage cage : those birds that are inside desire to get out, and those that are out want to get in." Imagine our easy-going Montaigne in the character of the Starling ! Oddly comparing himself to Cato, he says : " That great Cato, like ourselves, was disgusted with his wife as long as she was his." He was apt to depreciate what he possessed and to exalt the possessions of his neigh

" bours ; as, for example, in the case of his wife. — There are not good women by dozens." " However licentious people may think me," says Montaigne, " I have in truth observed the laws of marriage more severely than I ever promised or hoped." It is not necessary to examine how literally this piece of gratuitous information is to be taken. I shall only observe that Montaigne, more clearly, as far as I know, than any preceding writer, lays down the theory of marriage as it prevails in France, even among the highest and purest minds. " A good marriage," he says, " refuses company con the and ditions of love, and endeavours to represent those of friendship. It is a gentle way of social life, full of constancy and confidingness, with an infinite number of useful and solid offices and natural obligations. No woman who has savoured the taste thereof ( Optato quam junxit lumine tseda,') would wish to stand in lieu of mistress to her husband. If she is lodged in his affections as wife, she is much more honourably and surely lodged. When he is carrying his emotions and attentions elsewhere, ask him to whom he would prefer that an insult or a misfortune should happen to his wife or to his mistress and be sure of his answer in a healthy marriage." We must take care to point out where this Breviary of the Worthy, as the Essays have been called, deviates

HIS MARRIAGE. 239 from true morality. Here we have it taken for granted that the married man may or must have a mistress; and the ideal of modern French society is set before our eyes. As for Montaigne's simple observation about the respect preserved for the wife, whilst the passion is reserved for the mistress — except where this respect is a form of self-love I do not believe in it. In real life, the wife under such circumstances degenerates into a victim or a drudge. The woman Montaigne talks of as submitting to her husband's esteem, whilst morally and in every other way de prived of his love, is a monster of his imagination. I am sure that the wives of practical philosophers of his school take care practically to protest against this ludicrous division. Certainly the ideal of love is seldom or never obtained in a marriage. There are always short comings and disappointments. But this is so through out life ; and why abase the Ideal ? Montaigne himself for a moment, perhaps, dreamed the bright dream of love in marriage which we all cherish when young. He regrets repeatedly, at any rate, that the nature of woman is so weak as to be incapable of the higher efforts of friendship. Otherwise, he says, the allure ments of beauty being superadded to the allurements of intellect and virtue, the most perfect example of union would be exhibited. I am glad to have an opportunity of quoting one of Montaigne's references to the Ideal which his experience had destroyed. " As for marriage," he says, in his Essay on La Boetie, 240 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

after alluding to the intrigues with which he diver sified his friendship, " besides that its entry only is free, and its duration is constrained and forced, depending on something else besides our will, and that it is an agreement contracted with other views, a thousand things interfere to interrupt in it the course of a keen affection, whereas friendship has nought to do but with itself. But, in addition to this, the truth is, that women are not commonly capable of that communion on which this sacred attachment depends; their souls are not firm enough to withstand the embrace of so tight and lasting a bond. Otherwise, if there could be achieved a free and voluntary association, in which not only our souls should taste this complete enjoy ment,butour othernature also—inwhich,Isay,the whole man should be interested it is certain that friendship would be more complete ; but that sex has hitherto given no example of reaching such a height." Montaigne refers to the authority of the ancient schools, but I have no doubt that here and elsewhere he draws general conclusions from his own unfor tunate experience. In all these observations there is constrained emotion, totally apart from the tone of raillery against women which the sixteenth century had inherited from the middle ages. In those times marriage was almost always a matter of convenience ; and Montaigne goes so far as to admit, as a true Frenchman and Catholic was bound to do some of the most glorious love-marriages on record took place during the Huguenots in those days — that,

HIS MARRIAGE. 241 after all, he approved of the method of conducting marriages by third hands, and not allowing love or preliminary affection to interfere in the slightest degree. According to his almost invariable mode of treating a subject seeing only one side at a time, and avoiding — all compromises and balancings, the true opposite of the critical way he says that people do not marry for — themselves, but for their posterity, for their family ; that the use and interest of marriage concerns our race much more than it concerns us. So that, according to this odd style of reasoning, we take wives for the sake of our grandchildren, and, therefore, must not be so improper as to mix up love with this "prudent bargain," as Montaigne calls marriage. Still further carried away, he declares it would be a sort of incest to'do so; and then goes on to repeat certain medical absurdities which he remembered, and which came to the support of his — marvellous care for posterity in theory. What that care was in practice, we shall presently see. It is good to observe, before we come upon philo — sophic ground, in these comparatively unimportantI mean unabstruse discussions the peculiar way in — which Montaigne reasons, or rather allows his ima gination to carry him away, substituting prejudices and first impressions for principles. This is almost always his mode of proceeding ; and no one can be familiar with his style of writing, or at all on his guard against sophism, without being aware that he seldom really derives a conclusion logically from premises laid down, but seizes the imaginations that rise thicker and faster VOL. I. R as his mind gets into play, and sometimes sets down the most solid truths in the most brilliant language, and sometimes, in language equally brilliant, commu nicates the most absurd notions and the most trivial theories and deductions.

CHAPTER XXI. THE PARLIAMENT OF BORDEAUX. Between the marriage of Montaigne and the death of his father an interval of about five years very few —— incidents present themselves for record. Yet we know that this was one of the most active periods of his existence. It must be remembered that he was still a magistrate. After the death of his friend, and espe cially after his marriage, which no doubt prevented him for a time from following the Court, he became more assiduous than before in attending to his duties as Conseiller. This, therefore, will be the best opportunity of sketching briefly his connexion with the Parliament of Bordeaux ; and alluding to the incidents which troubled France whilst it lasted, and which chiefly in fluenced him at a subsequent period in breaking his connexion with the public life of the time, ceasing to be an actor, becoming an observer, and preparing to appear on the scene again, to deal with or observe the working of the elements he had in part prepared. It is necessary here to guard against an impression which is likely to be conveyed to whomsoever does not accept my words in their plain and narrow sense. Al­* though Montaigne, almost from the time he left college until he was near forty, was constantly and actively mixed up in public life, although he followed the Court and sometimes joined the royal camp, and was in daily communication with the most remarkable men of the time, we must not conceive him as a great diplomatist or a great soldier. He was neither one nor the other. But he was a gentleman of good position, full of talent and powers of observation, disinterested in character, sufficiently vain to be fond of associating with and giving advice to great people, and very anxious not to spend his time more than was absolutely necessary in the insipid duties of a magistrate. There is a tradition that about this period Montaigne was employed to negotiate a friendship, or the making up of a quarrel, between the Duke of Guise and the King of Navarre. But my researches have ascertained no detail. I have already mentioned the time at which Mon taigne first joined the Cour des Aides of Perigord, and ultimately the Parliament of Bordeaux. He be came a member of the latter in consequence of a royal edict incorporating the Cour des Aides wholesale in the Parliament. This edict was resisted at first by the Parliamentarians of Bordeaux, who refused to admit their brethren of Perigueux on equal terms. They declared that the new conseillers should not appear voluntarily at the assemblies of the chambers, but should only come when called for. At that time Mon

THE PARLIAMENT OF BORDEAUX. 245 taigne, young and ardent, and under the influence of his father, was sufficiently interested in the dignity of the body to which he belonged to join it in making a demonstration against the pretensions of the Bordeaux Parliament. He and his colleagues presented them selves at the chambers without being summoned ; the court ordered them to retire ; they refused ; there was a great dispute; and it was only several months after wards that the new conseillers gained their point. The magisterial career of the Essayist runs parallel with many of the incidents I have previously related. Montaigne was a conseiller of Bordeaux when he was at the siege of Thionville, when he followed the courts of Henry the Second, Francis the Second, and Charles the Ninth, and during the whole time of his friendship with La Boetie ; and, as we shall presently see, at his father's death. In short, he belonged to the Parlia ment during thirteen years. There are, it is true, very few traces of his personal action ; and it would, perhaps, be unjust to make him responsible for the iniquitous acts committed by that body, both before and during the first religious troubles. We may even refer to the impressions of disgust produced in him at that period against the barbarous legislation of his country—so barbarously applied—both his ultimate retirement from legal life, and his distrust of human prudence and sagacity. M. Victorin Fabre eloquently describes the oppres sive and passionate justice of the time, its obscure forms, its cruel acts ; and denounces the monstrous and

barbarous laws of the sixteenth century; the insane decrees, the punishments worthy of cannibals, in which were used the gibbets, the stakes, the wheels, the wedges, and the iron clubs that inspired Montaigne with so much horror; I mean in after-life; for no — one can have observed attentively the course of human affairs, and suppose that amidst the excitement of action we can ever keep our minds apart and sit in judgment on what passes around us. We are only warned that actions are admirable or detestable by certain secret and spontaneous movements of the conscience, which are generally stifled. If we could suppose that Mon taigne saw the doings of his contemporaries as we see them, we should shrink with horror from him for having called some of them his friends. But, in reality, we ought to be surprised only at the vigorous manner in which, as soon as he stood aside, he disengaged him self from the prejudices of his age, and condemned actions whilst he absolved men. It would be a great mistake, however, one which confounds all sane judg ment of the Essayist, to suppose that, because his — opinions are apparently moderate, he was not capable of passion, even at times of the most generous indig nation. Montaigne evidently thought the legislation of his age barbarous and monstrous. What he says about attacking the practice, not the principle, is merely a concession to his legal and magisterial friends : for he clearly lays down that the law in France was not only unjustly applied but unjust in principle. He

relates a curious story illustrative of the horrible pedantry of the bench in his day. A man was con demned to death. His innocence was afterwards proved by the confession of the real criminals. Yet the judges met and decided that execution must take place, for it was better to sacrifice an innocent man than endanger respect to law. The man was accord ingly hanged ! In 1560, a trial that came off at Toulouse caused great excitement in the south of France ; and Mon taigne appears to have made a journey expressly to be present at the debates. At any rate the fact was so

it, isolated that, when afterwards writing of he supposes to have taken place during his childhood or youth it ; unless he exaggerates purposely in order to make his of memory, on which he insisting, is want more re by The facts De Thou, in his markable. are related by "Universal History;" Pasquier, in his "Researches;" of work and were made the thesubject special at a by Jean Corras, the time famous jurisconsult. One Martin Guerre, having been married for about ten years to Bertrande de Roltz, in the town of Artigues, abandoned his country for some reason and went to take service in Spain, where he remained twelve years, until the battle of St. Quentin. During thi last eight years his wife had received no news of him; but presented himself, in suddenly man a appearance, manners, and knowledge of intimate particulars, so completely the counterpart of Martin, that Bertrande accepted him as her husband, and all relatives received MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. him unhesitatingly. The impostor was named Arnaud Tillier, or Du Tilh, and both De Thou and Pasquier gravely suggest that the means by which he succeeded were magical. Bertrande and he lived some time very comfortably together; but at last he began to spend money too rapidly, and suspicions pointed by interest were aroused. A soldier passing by reported that Martin had lost a leg at the battle of St. Quentin. It seems evident to me that the wife, however much she may have been deceived at first sight, had become an accom plice until misunderstandings arose. She then accused Arnaud before the Seneschal of Rieux, who, in a most expeditious manner, apparently without witnesses or grounds of any kind, condemned him to death. Arnaud appealed to Toulouse, and a long trial took place, during which the opinion of the public and the Parliament remained in suspense, or varied back wards and forwards between the accusers and the accused. The false husband knew so much, and de fended himself so well, that he would probably have been acquitted, had not the one-legged Martin Guerre suddenly appeared in person. Even then Arnaud would not give in, maintaining that the new-comer was the impostor, not he. However, in September 1560, he was condemned to ask pardon of God, the King, Justice, Martin Guerre, and Bertrande de Roltz, with a torch in his hand, in the Parliament House; then to repeat the same ceremony before the porch of the principal church of Artigues ; and was afterwards hanged and burned. It is worth observing, that Mon

THE PARLIAMENT OF BORDEAUX. taigne was not at all convinced of the justice of the sentence, or rather of the guilt of Arnaud. He enters into no detail, but probably meant that Bertrande, as I have hinted, and as Martin himself believed, was never really deceived; for he had no faith in magic, and it was as a magician that Arnaud was executed. De Thou pretends that the man had served with Martin, but Pasquier says that they had no knowledge of each other. We find innumerable other allusions and anecdotes in Montaigne, to say nothing of contemporary memoirs, which justify his dislike of legal proceedings in his time. But what chiefly offended him was probably the fact that the Parliament of Bordeaux was essentially Catholic and intensely persecuting. An extraordinary scene had ushered in its proceedings against the Protestants. Two young men, much beloved and re spected in Bordeaux, had embraced the new doctrines. They were brought for trial before the Parliament. Conflicting opinions were expressed. Some were for instant execution; but a voice we may feel sure it was that of Estienne de la Boetie was raised in — favour of humanity. Let these boys, it said, be confined for six months, and given time for study and reflection. But the bigots howled and raved; and a majority decreed death, and death by fire. The stake was planted in the principal place of the city, and the fagots were heaped around it. Windows, and balconies, and housetops, and the wide square, and the adjoining streets, and the branches of trees,

were thronged with spectators, who wished probably to "" see how a Christian could die ! A strong guard occupied various points. The victims were bound, the wood was lighted, the flames began to rise, the shrieks or the prayers of the victims were stifled by the :alleluiahs of ferocious monks and the stormy hum of frenzied curiosity. Suddenly the whole assembled population of the city felt some strange presence around them. The Avenging Angel seemed to hover in the air. Fear seized simultaneously on all. A horrid cry of despair arose ; and the people began

fly in all directions, had beaten if to an as enemy in their gates. Window, and balcony, and housetop, and the wide square, and the adjoining streets, and the branches of the trees, were suddenly deserted. The guards likewise abandoned their posts. Cravens and caitiffs hid from the wrath of heaven in caves. The souls of Monier and De Cazes departed in terrible solitude.and anguish, amidst vast silence aa of the ParliaAfter Montaigne memberbecame a of the Pierre merchant Feugere, city, ment, was a sentenced to the stake, being accused of defacing some images of Christ and the Virgin. This was the first time these little images were set up, in France, at the corners of streets and elsewhere. As lamps or lanterns were burned near them through the night, the custom led to the lighting of the streets; but of persecution,at first they being placedwere means a by furious Catholics who lingered in the neighbour hood on the watch for Huguenots, and who scarcely ever failed to mob or murder people who passed without saluting their idols. Pierre Feugere may have broken the images to revenge this monstrous oppression exercised in the name of Unity. The Edict of January, 1562, brought about chiefly by the Chancellier de L'Hospital, put an end for a time, and in some degree, to persecution. I have already mentioned that La Boetie's last work was a memoir on the troubles caused by this edict. We are not informed which side he took, but as there was a contest on this occasion between the Parliament and the royal authority, people, knowing his republican opinions, have supposed that he must have supported Parliament and fanaticism against royalty and tolera tion. But there is really no likelihood of this ; and the fact that Montaigne afterwards dedicated some of La Boetie's works to L'Hospital, author of the edict, suggests on which side his pen was employed. La Boetie's last known public act is a mission, in com pany with M. de Burie, the mild and moderate go vernor of Bordeaux, to Agen, to induce the Huguenots to give up to the Dominicans of that place a convent which they had seized. The Parliament of Bordeaux not only refused to verify the edict of January for a long time, but when it had done so, passed many measures, the tendency of which was to nullify it. Among other strange acts it voted, July 1562, that all its members, and even the meanest officers about the court, should make a public profession of Catholic faith in presence of the Arch

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

252 bishop of Bordeaux. Montaigne, therefore, was obliged to go through this formality ; and it is specially noted that he did so. We learn, also, that " Michel de Montaigne, conseiller in the Parliament of Bordeaux, came and made his reverence to the court and Par liament of Paris, and pronounced his profession of faith like the others, in order to have a deliberative voice at the audience of the court, at which he was present, June 12th, 1562." As I have said, Montaigne cannot be made directly responsible for the acts committed by his corporation, and his condemnation of them was marked and energetic, though enveloped in general words. The real beginning of the religious wars at length came, and the Parliament, still intolerant, gave considerable trouble to the agents of the king, by its constant inter meddling with political affairs. In 1564 the Catholics murdered during the night a number of defenceless Protestants, and the magistrates, by not attempting to punish this crime, showed that they approved it. In 1565 took place the progress of Charles the Ninth to the south of France, undertaken by the Court in order to prepare the massacre of the St. Bartholomew. During this progress, in which bloody intentions were concealed under festivals and rejoicings, Bordeaux was visited, and the Chancellier de L'Hos pital, who had not yet discovered that he was the dupe of the Guises, and was used by them and the queen-mother to give a semblance of rectitude to the Court, was delighted at the opportunity of delivering a moral discourse to the licentious and fanatical Par liament. We do not know whether the chancellor was already a friend of Montaigne, or whether their friendship began on this occasion. At any rate, it is certain that Montaigne deserved some of the re proaches which were addressed to the body collectively, and the principal of which I have already alluded to.

We have full details of all the ceremonies that took place on this occasion, and know how the city made great preparations to receive the Court ; how, in order to fit it for such visitors, the magistrates were ordered to be unusually severe, and purge the place of all vagabonds and evil-livers; how provisions of all kinds — hay, straw, barley, wheat, and wood were gathered ; how it was ordered, in contempt of political economy, that everything should be charged only a reasonable price; how the Jurats were in structed to have the paving mended, and sand strewed in the streets where the royal party was to pass ; how the members of the court who were unprovided with scarlet robes were requested to communicate with their tailors; and how it was decreed that all conseillers should attend in full dress, and leave off for the nonce their loose habit of going about the streets in dressing-gowns ! The reception was as grand as a city recep tion could be, and the only disagreeable incident that occurred was that the young king was terribly bored by the long speech of Jacques Benoist, the President, and actually cut him short. M. Griiu, to whom no portion of Montaigne is uninteresting, suggests that he must have been among the conseillers who were present on horseback at the entrance of the king, and as they waited a long time, is fearful that our sympathies may be too keenly excited. He therefore quotes diverse passages from the Essays to prove that Montaigne was accustomed to the saddle, so that we may reserve all pathos for another opportunity.

The effect of the chancellor's admonishing speech, or rather violent scolding, was not very effective in repressing the fanaticism of the Parliament, which even during the king's residence in various ways resisted measures favourable to the Protestants. Very little modification, indeed, took place in their conduct up to the time when Montaigne ceased to be a member of their body. They openly encouraged Frederic de Foix, the Marquis de Trans, one of Montaigne's re latives, and other lords, in carrying on a sort of private war against the Reformers; and, in fact, on every occa sion showed that the idea of toleration had never presented itself to them. We have very little information on the part played by Montaigne in the Parliament. Contemporary writers inform us that he was a distinguished magistrate ; and a tradition exists that he was particularly remark able for the luminous equity with which he drew up reports. M. Griin represents him as already possessed of all the manners and ideas of the Essayist, talks of his calmness amidst the passions of his colleagues, and so forth ; to which Dr. Payen replies by describing a scene in which, during a dispute between the Par

THE PARLIAMENT OF BORDEAUX. 255 liament and M. D'Escars, the king's lieutenant in Guienne, Montaigne, accused among others of having rendered himself "contemptible," by accepting too many invitations to dinner—carried away, says the — report, by the vivacity of his character had a dis cussion with the President, spoke violently, left the court in a passion, was recalled and made to explain his words, and altogether acted like a man interested even in the smallest details of the business of his corps. I think, therefore, I am right in inferring that we should not strive to recognise the Essayist in all the acts of Montaigne, either as a courtier or a magistrate. This is not the place to describe the laborious creation of the theory of toleration ; but I think it will be con ceded by every one that that theory, though preached, not practised, by Luther, was very imperfectly under stood even by the best minds in France before 1570. The toleration of L'Hospital was the toleration of a lawyer. He did not approve of proceeding against heretics by massacre or any irregular means ; and, being a prudent and cold man, took every opportunity of proposing some half measure, under cover of which the Huguenots could have lived safely. But although he was one of the conspirators in the celebrated affair of Amboise, he long afterwards consented to serve as the blind of the Guises and Catherine de Medici. As we have seen, we cannot even decide whether even La

Boetie was tolerant. There is, at any rate, no reason whatever for supposing that Montaigne, member of a persecuting body, a friend of the principal and most active Catholic chiefs, was at all awake at this time to the real atrocity of the acts that were passing around him I mean, awake to the extent of feeling our mo dern repulsion for those who committed, or a troubled conscience for having participated in them. I have no doubt that, with most of the lawyers and the majority of France at that time, he thought heresy an irregular, disagreeable thing ; but he had also a natural benignity of disposition, and an aversion to blood. To the as sistance of his humanity came the fact that his brother, Beauregard, was one of the converted ; that many of the most virtuous men he knew were on the Protestant side; that L'Hospital was at any rate favourable to all toleration consistent with State ideas. But at that period of his career we must not suppose him even a sceptic, still less that higher character who is capable of belief, and of pardoning others for believing dif ferently.

CHAPTER XXII. THE TRANSLATION OF RAYMOND DE SEBONDE. About 1567 there happened a remarkable accident in the intellectual life of Montaigne. Despite the example of his friend La Bo'etie, he does not seem, up to this time, to have practised the art of writing, except, perhaps, as a pastime or an exercise. His life had been one of pleasure and business, of adventure, and routine occupation. It was spent in palaces or law-courts, in cities, on roads, even in camps, amongst soldiers, jurisconsults, gentlemen and ladies, virtuous or otherwise. He seems to have played the subordinate part in his friendship with La Boetie, to have admired what the other wrote or spoke — to have hung upon his lips as a bee upon a flower; but during all this time his experience was spreading over a vaster circle every day, his judgment was becoming firmer and more loftily seated, and he was learning, if not to write, yet to speak, growing familiar with the springs of human action, practising how to VOL. I. S touch them, watching their play — educating himself in wisdom before he dreamed of making others wise. The hint of action came from his father. Pierre Eyquem's house, from the time of his return out of Italy, had always been a place of learned resort. The worthy knight, hearing the praises with which the air was filled of Francis the First, for his patronage of letters, determined to imitate him as well as his means would allow, and spent much care and money in seeking the acquaintance of studious men. He received them under his roof as if they were sacred characters, particularly inspired by Divine wisdom, and picked up their sentences and remembered their discourses as if they had been oracles. " His respect," observes his son with quiet humour, " was in equal ratio with his ignorance; for neither be nor his pre decessors were remarkable for learning. I, too, like letters very well," adds Michel, "but I do not adore them." Among the visitors at Montaigne, as we have previously seen, was Pierre Bunel. He came during the boyhood of Michel, and stayed some days with Pierre Eyquem, who had many guests of the same kidney. On going away he made a present to the master of the house of a book entitled "Theologia Naturalis, sive Liber Creaturarum Magistri Baimondi de Sebonde." The object of the writer was to prove by human arguments, not only the existence of God, but the necessity of faith in revealed religion, and even to base what are called mysteries on reason.

The book was, indeed, a sort of Catholic " Reason ableness of Christianity." " Sebonde's object," says Montaigne, " is bold and courageous ; for he under takes, by human and natural reasons, to establish and verify against the atheists all the articles of the Christian religion, in which, to say the truth, I find him so firm and so happy that I do not think it possible to manage the argument better, and believe that nobody has equalled him." The book was written, we are told, in a hybrid tongue, a sort of Spanish with Latin terminations ; and as Pierre Eyquem knew Spanish as well as Italian, his friend thought, that with a little assistance he could make it out. "It is a useful book," said he, "and useful for the season in which we live." That was about the time when "the new ideas of Luther" were beginning to acquire credit, and " to shake in many places the ancient faith." The comment that Montaigne makes on the recommendation of Pierre Bunel, sounds so extraordinary, as proceeding from a man whom we are accustomed to hear called The Sceptic, that I cannot refrain from quoting it. "Pierre Bunel was led by reason to foresee that this commencement of disease (the Reform) would easily decline into an execrable atheism ; for the vulgar, not having the faculty of judging of things in themselves, being led away by chance and ap pearances, when it is suggested to them to despise and criticise the opinions they once extremely re spected as, for example, those on which their sal

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. 260 vation depends —and when some articles of their religion are shaken and made doubtful, they soon feel a similar uncertainty about all the other pieces of their belief which were not more firmly established than those which are unsettled, and shake off as a tyrannical yoke all the opinions they have received by the authority of laws or respect of ancient custom ; (' Nam cupide conculcatur nimis ante metutum ;') undertaking thenceforward to receive nothing to which they have not given attention and particular consent." Some of these phrases may probably be taken as purely precautionary ; and it is possible that Montaigne —disdainful of faith himself— may have thought it advisable to keep the common people Catholics, or any rate religious. But I have no doubt that the general impression they leave is nearly correct. Mon taigne asserted his right to set himself face to face with Catholicism and supernaturalism, and deny it

it, but he wouldand criticise and scoff at not allow it ; any one to modify its doctrines. Few men whose mental education has been Catholic whether they affect to throw off the Catholic yoke or not can — see any point of repose between blind acquiescence in the Church and utter rejection of all its doctrines. by They have been prepared for this of the teaching their masters, who are eager to maintain that there no evidence of divine truth but the affirmation is of As soon, therefore, Catholic thinker infallibility. as a begins to exercise the faculty he calls Reason which, in utter ignorance of the constitution of the human mind, he has been taught to consider as opposed to Faith his progress towards complete disbelief or denial, which is not the same thing, is rapid indeed. Every young man who leaves the Church becomes an accomplished infidel at once. He has no doubts, no scruples, no anguish of soul—at any rate, that he will admit. He comes out of the lobby of Faith and goes into the lobby of Reason, and cries " No," while others cry "Aye," that is all; and fancies he has made wonderful progress, and flings up his heels, pricks his ears, and scampers about rejoicing, all in " the vain imagination that, by a sort of " Hey-presto \ touch, he has been converted from a Christian into a philosopher, knowing the causes and the forms of things ; whereas in reality he is nothing but a Papist running about with his coat turned inside out, and perfectly prepared to let the priest turn it back again on his death-bed. Montaigne, with more gravity and purpose, much resembled the young truant I have described. He, too, but almost with complete con sciousness, because he thought the material comfort of the world might be influenced thereby, came out

it, of the visible Church, skirmished against pointed out its weak sides, laboured to take down its pride, break open its gates and but he always kept up ; by connexions with the folks inside, and crept back when danger threatened. meet a postern I many men, even now, more or less in the same intellectual MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. position ; and own that I cannot assign a high degree of gravity or earnestness of character to people who are so merciless in treating their hopes and those of others. If they were the victims of free examination, the result would be more varied. Granting that the perfection of human reason is to discover that there is no God to take an active interest in human affairs, no chance of immortality for the soul; as human reason does not exist in perfection in every man, I think, if they were in any sense of the word free, they would arrive at varied conclusions, and that we should find them here and there on the infinite plain between the affirmative and the negative. But when they leave one camp they fly rapidly, obeying irresistible attraction, towards the other, flouting as they pass the Protestants, who, earnest and sad, are establishing their locations here and there, but in one vast colony, that has its various states and uncertain borders, and who do not torment themselves about unity here below, satisfied that their glances, no matter from what point of the vast circle of the intellectual universe they proceed, must centre in a single point, which is God. When Pierre Eyquem received the work of Raymond de Sebonde from Bunel, he does not seem to have been prepared to relish it. But a short time before his death some days, says Montaigne, in his vague way he found this book under a heap of forgotten papers, and "commanded his son to do it into French." His curiosity had probably been stimulated by reading an abridgment by one Jan Martin, published in 1551, and erroneously attributed to Eleonore, sister of Charles the Fifth.

" It is pleasant," observes Montaigne, " to trans late authors like Sebonde, in whom there is scarcely anything but the sense to reproduce ; whereas those who have given much pains to the grace and elegance of language are dangerous to undertake, especially if we attempt to turn them into a weaker idiom. This occupation was very strange and very new to me ; but happening at that time to be at leisure, and being unable to refuse anything to the requests of the best father that ever lived, I set to work and did the busi ness as well as I could." Pierre Eyquem was so pleased with his son's work, that he insisted on having it printed ; and his desire was complied with after his death. Montaigne appears to have gone to Paris to do his translation; and having

it, by concluded dedication to his father,wrote a a singular coincidence, on the very day of that father's death, viz. June 18, 1568, we can be sure we know if the real date. Dr. Payen most singularly supposes that the choice of this date was arbitrary, and intended, by a sentimentality that can only be appreciated for the by a butbibliographer, to testify respect deceased ; he could not have noticed that Montaigne concludes happy life, piece of by wishing his father long and a a unfilial irony in which he not likely to have indulged. is The dedication informs us, that in obedience to Pierre's commands, which had been expressed the previous year, his son had "cut out and worked up, with his own hand, for Raymond de Sebonde, that great Spanish theologian and philosopher, a French dress. In doing this, in as far as was in his power, he had divested him of the savage mien and barbarous deportment he for merly possessed, and made him presentable in good

is, that he had almost entirely rewritten company;" singular, that after this statement him. It no editor is should have thought of including the translation in a complete edition of Montaigne's works. La Boetie's translations are preserved carefully as his originals. as Every one would thus be able to compare the progress, not only of Montaigne's language, which he even then it, but of his admits to have had Gascon flavour about a style and of his mind for itis impossible to reconstruct ; work without putting much in such subjecton a a dividuality into it. It worth noticing that the Abbe is Laborderie rather jesuitically made up his book, on the Christianity of Montaigne, chiefly of extracts from in the dedicationthis translation. There is no trace of the sceptical tone. Montaigne talks of Sebonde's " excellent and most religious discourses, his lofty, would bedivine conceptions;" and and, it it were, as merely gratuitous to see anything like irony and doubt further on in this. shall be compelled to say some I thing about the influence of this treatise on Montaigne's mind and here, therefore, merely indicate when he ; it, with and point out its became familiarly acquainted effect in first inducing him to use his pen on serious subjects. As to Raymond de Sebonde, or Sebon, or whatever the name may be, people seem to be very doubtful about his history. He is said to have professed medi cine, philosophy, and theology at Toulouse, about 1430, and his work is supposed to have been printed for the first time in 1487. If the reader wishes to have his mind thrown into a perfect state of bewilderment and confusion, let him consult Dr. Payen's letter on the subject to M. Gustave Brunet. But the life and biblio graphy of Sebonde form no part of my subject. What Montaigne says, despite the vagueness of his dates, is " sufficient for our purpose. This work seemed to me too rich and fine for an author whose name was so little famous, and of whom all we know is that he was a Spaniard, who professed medicine at Toulouse about two hundred years ago. I formerly asked Adrien Turne­bus, who knew everything, what the book might be. He replied, that he thought it was as it were a quintessence derived from Saint Thomas d'Aquinas; for, in truth, that mind, so full of infinite erudition and of admirable subtlety, was alone capable of such imaginations. At — any rate, whoever be the author or inventor, and there is no reason, except better grounds, to deprive Se on bonde of this title, he was a very sufficient man, with many fine parts." Montaigne's translation of Sebonde was first pub lished in 1569. A second edition appeared in 1581, after the publication of the Essays, which doubtless drew new attention to the work, until then forgotten.

CHAPTER XXIII. DEATH OF PIERRE EYQUEM, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. The sudden death of Pierre Eyquem left Michel in a position to obey his secret inclinations, though it did not make much difference in his worldly position. He signed " Michel de Montaigne" in addressing his father, and probably had for some time managed the property; but being a most respectful son, and observant of parental wishes, he seems to have concealed his distaste for the legal profession, even after the death of his elder brother. Pierre Eyquem was evidently formed by nature for a civil life. All his tastes were turned that way. What a passionate love he had for the govern ment of his domestic affairs ! He was the model of a good old country gentleman, fond of peace, and learn ing, and agriculture, and yet interested in municipal business. When elected mayor of Bordeaux in 1553, obeying a maxim he had heard, that it was the duty of a citizen to abandon private for public affairs, though age had begun to weaken him, he left his chateau and took up his abode once more in the capital of the pro DEATH OF PIERRE EYQUEM. 267 vince, and attended to the business of the city with the same ardour as he attended to the direction of his own farms. Afterwards he appears to have remained prin cipally at Montaigne, where at length he was afflicted by the stone, which, having caused him to suffer dread fully for seven years, brought about his death, as I have said, in 1568. He left eight children, five sons — — and three daughters. Their names were as follows : Michel, seigneur de Montaigne ; Thomas, seigneur de Beauregard ; Pierre, seigneur de la Brousse ; Jeanne, married to M. de Lestonnac; Arnaud; Leonor, married to M. de Camein ; Marie, married to M. Cazelis ; and Bertrand Charles, seigneur de Mattecoulon. The last and Beauregard survived the other brothers, and lived till towards the end of the century, and Leonor was still living in 1602. The mother of Montaigne sur vived her husband many years, residing at the chateau during the life of her son, and afterwards at Bordeaux, where she died in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Biographers usually make Montaigne to have given up his place as conseiller at the death ofhis elder brother, by which they would imply that he did not at once be come the head of his family, in 1568. But, in fact, his elder brothers had died some time before. One of them, known as Captain St. Martin, commanding a band of footmen called the regiment of Sarlabous, at the age of twenty-three was playing at tennis, and was struck by the ball a little above the right ear. He did not sit down or leave off playing, but five or six hours after wards died of apoplexy. This occurred in 1565, at Condom.

Pierre Eyquem was lord of Montaigne and Bal­beyron, for which he did homage to the Archbishop of Bordeaux. His possessions included also the fief of La Brousse, the noble house of Beauregard, an estate in the Isle of Macau, near the Bee d'Ambes, and the estate of Marrous, afterwards called Mattecoulon. This extensive property was divided by will among the child ren. As for Montaigne, who got the principal share, he afterwards made some additions to his possessions, and we know that he died worth ninety thousand francs ;

is, thirty thousand francs of floating capital, that and sixty thousand francs in land. His regular revenue was about six thousand francs. When the estate went out of his family, in the beginning of the present cen was worth inbrought only double what the it it tury, is,a hundred and twenty thou sixteenth thatcentury ; but in thirty yearssand francs was estimated it more : at two hundred and twenty-four thousand francs and ; was recently advertised for sale, estimated at above half million. Between the years 1568 and 1570 we almost lose sight of Montaigne. In 1569, a we know that he pub lished the first edition of his translation of Raymond de Sebonde. It met with great success, and was read by both sexes eagerly. Many persons, however, and little scandalisedespecially women, seem to have been a by an attempt Montaigne to have their doubts solved. The many to reason on Christianity, and came to conversations he had, ultimately gave rise to the famous " Apology for Raymond de Sebonde." With this excep tion we know nothing of Montaigne's movements at this time. It is not likely that he continued to attend much to his duties as conseiller, which had become more and more irksome to him. In the following year, indeed, he determined to abandon law altogether; and an entry in the registers of the Parliament informs us that on July 24, 1570, the king accepted the resigna tion of the office of conseiller made by Michel de Mon taigne in favour of Florimond de Raymond. This Florimond was author of a furious Catholic pamphlet, called " The History of Heresy," and was considered a clever Latin poet in those days. His name con stantly occurs in the collections of epitaphs called " Tombs," which used to be published as pamphlets on the deaths of eminent people, or at the end of post humous works. We hear of him disgracefully shortly after his nomination, as demanding the exhumation of some young Protestant girls who had been buried in a Catholic cemetery. I will observe, as an additional reason for Mon taigne's retirement from the office of conseiller, that nearly all the Parliaments had recently made them selves very odious on account of the injustice they had exhibited in the trials of Protestants. This injustice was so evident, that at the peace concluded just after Montaigne's resignation, it was stipulated that the Protestants should never be tried by the Parliament of Toulouse at all, and that they should have the right of challenging four conseillers in each class of the Parlia ment of Bordeaux, without assigning any cause. From this time forward the their

Parliaments utterly lost reputation, and were deserted by public opinion in their attempts to struggle with royalty. Montaigne, there fore, rightly chose his time for "assuming the sword;"

that is, becoming mere gentleman, and giving up all a connexion with law.

CHAPTER XXIV. Montaigne's editions of la boetie. For some time before Michel de Montaigne's resigna tion of his office of conseiller, he had been engaged in a labour of love. Having begun his literary career, and a sort of connexion with the booksellers, by means of the translation of Sebonde, he determined to collect and publish all the works of his friend La Boetie which contained nothing of a dangerous character. Had he really been an industrious friend he would have performed this duty long before, and not waited for the spread of the civil war to render the appear ance of the Treatise on Voluntary Servitude inoppor tune. He is obliged to say, speaking of this Treatise and the Memoirs on the Edict of January : " As for these two pieces, I think their fashion too delicate and elegant to expose them to the gross and heavy air of so unwholesome a season." This expression, which evidently supposes the Memoirs to have been equally revolutionary with the Treatise, is very timid and disingenuous. Montaigne at that time clearly had the intention of suppressing his friend's important works altogether. After the St. Bartholomew, the Protestants, made quite republican by despair and just indignation, published the Treatise ; and it is possible that Mon taigne, partly from compunction of conscience towards his friend, partly from horror which he was obliged to dissimulate, communicated a copy for the purpose to some Huguenot acquaintance. I may as well finish the history of the Treatise at once. Ten years later, in 1580, when Montaigne published his Essays, he seems to have felt another twitch of conscience. He begins his Essay on Friendship by a somewhat pompous comparison of his method of writing with that of a painter whom he was employing to decorate his chateau, and who chose the fine clear space in the middle of the wall to place an elaborate picture, and filled up the borders with scrolls and grotesques. " What are these " Essays of mine, indeed," he says, but grotesque and inform monsters, different members brought together or without certain shape, any order, sequence, or pro portion, but from chance ? I do not dare to undertake a rich finished picture according to the rules of art : therefore I have thought of borrowing one from Estienne La Boetie, which will honour all the rest of my work. It is a discourse to which he gave the name of Voluntary Servitude. This, with some Me moirs on the Edict of January, which may find a place elsewhere, is all I have been able to recover of his remains —I, to whom, with so loving a recommendation, when death was in his throat, he left by will his library

— and papers all except the little volume I have already published." Here we see that La Boetie left a copy of this work, which he is said never to have seen since he wrote it, with warm recommendations to Montaigne, who at

it, length determined to publish and give it a con spicuous place in his Essays promising, too, to bring ; : in further on the Memoirs him. He thought at first, that but his courage again failed by making out the — work to be the production of " Let us listen awhile lad, he might venture a : to this lad of eighteen." Even this immense exaggeration, afterwards increased by two years, did not make him consider himself safe. At the last moment, while the Essays were going through the press, he took out the Treatise, and printed in its stead the twenty-nine sonnets have already noticed, I friend of La Boetie, M. Poyferre, had which acci a dentally found and sent to him. These sonnets were printed in all editions until 1595, then excluded until 1727; since when they have always been reprinted as by of of the three editors,Essays, one except" they part worth whom reproducing, notcoolly aresays : because they are not worth reading." Montaigne's excuse for making this substitution is so characteristic, and supports my view so completely, in his own words. The tone of I that apology, the desire to represent the Treatise shall give it mere as a youthful escapade, struggles evidently with the internal reproaches of his conscience; in the same breath he VOL. I. T tells us that La Boetie, in attacking monarchy, did not lie, and was yet a most loyal subject. " Because I have found that this work has since been published with evil intentions by those who seek to trouble and change the state of our government, without caring whether they will amend it or not, I have refrained from bringing it in here. And in order that the memory of the author may not be misunder stood by those who had not the opportunity of closely looking at his opinions and actions, I tell them that this subject was treated by him in his infancy, by way of exercitation only, as a common subject discussed in a thousand books. I doubt not that he believed what he wrote, for he was sufficiently conscientious not to lie, even in sport ; and I know, moreover, that if he had had his choice he would have rather have been born at Venice than at Sarlat : and in this he was right. But he had another maxim deeply imprinted — in his mind that it was proper to obey and submit very religiously to the laws under which he was born. There never was a better citizen, nor one more fond of the repose of his country, nor more inimical to the novelties and movements of his time. He would rather have employed his power in extinguishing them than in furnishing them with new fuel. His mind was moulded on the pattern of other ages than these." But this, as I have said, was in 1580. Ten years before, Montaigne's friendship, which increased, as many friendships and affections do, by being kept

HIS EDITIONS OF LA BOETIE. 275 like wine in a cellar, out of sight, was not so lively and conscientious. He deliberately announced his in tention of suppressing the Treatise. If he afterwards gave a copy for the collection of memoirs or pamphlets on the time of Charles the Ninth, published by the Protestants at Middlebourg, it was done with the most profound secrecy. This terrible work ran through three editions from 1576 to 1578, but it does not appear to have been reprinted separately. It dis appeared from circulation so much, that when Cardinal Richelieu, seeing allusions to it in the edition of Montaigne dedicated to him by Mademoiselle de

it, in vain to allGournay, wished to read he sent the booksellers of the Rue St. Jacques. At last one Blaise pretended that he knew an amateur who but would not part with under it possessed a copy, five pistoles. The Cardinal agreed to give so much, out of of and the bookseller cut the Treatise a copy the Memoirs he possessed, bound up, and received it his price. At length, in the eighteenth century, the Treatise was reprinted with the Essays, from which it In 1789 modernhas since rarely been separated. a ized version was given, and another in 1791. The Treatise had at length found its proper atmosphere. In 1802, of theunder the Consulate, separate edition a original work appeared. In 1835 M. de Lamennais and still later, M. Charles published two editions ; Teste, brother of the minister of that name under Louis Philippe, prepared modernised edition, printed a at Brussels but never circulated, making very direct applications to contemporary personages. The Treatise has been translated into Italian and English; into the latter admirably in 1735, into the former by Caesar Parabelli, who published at Naples in the seventh year of the Republic. But to return from this digression. In August 1570, Montaigne, no longer conseiller, even in name, was at Paris writing the advertisement to his edition of the minor works of La Boetie, and beginning to overlook the printers. He had been extremely dis satisfied the year before with the numerous errors left in his translation of Sebonde, brought out under the sole superintendence of the printer and publisher, Gabriel Buon. This may account for his employing this time a new printer, Federic Morel, as well as for his determination to be at Paris whilst the work was going through the press. The printing was concluded on the 24th November, but the volume was not published until the following year. It con tained the translations from Xenophon and Plutarch, with the Latin verses, several dedications, and the letter of Montaigne to his father on La Boetie's death. In 1572, some sheets containing the French poems were added to the same volume. After Montaigne's death, the manuscript translation of Aristotle's Econo mics was found and printed in 1600. The pages contributed by Montaigne to the edition of 1571 are interesting, as throwing a light on the state of his mind at this period, on his position at court, and on his relations with persons of distinction.

HIS EDITIONS OF LA BOETIE. 277 The advertisement begins as follows : — " Read er ! thou owest to me all that thou enjoyest of the late

Estienne de la Bo'etie ; for let me tell thee, that he had no intention of communicating to thee anything of what I now produce — not esteeming it worthy. But I am not so disdainful, and having found nothing else in his library, which he left me by his will, am not willing to let this perish." Montaigne then enters into details on biographical facts, which I have already given. In another part of the volume, prefixed to the Menagerie of Xenophon, we find a letter to M. de Lansac, Chevalier of the King's Order, Privy Councillor, Superintendent of the Finances, and Captain of the hundred Gentlemen of his house — a singular pluralist — from which we learn that that nobleman had known La Boetie in his public capacity, and admired him. "But you were very far from knowing him entirely," says Montaigne, preluding already to the Essay on Friendship. " He did me the honour whilst he lived, which I regard as the greatest piece of good fortune that ever befel me, to form with me a friendship so closely knit, that there was not a tendency or move ment of his mind which I was unable to consider and judge—except in so far as I may have been short-sighted. Now, without any lie, if we take him for all in all, he was so nearly a miracle that, for fear of being disbelieved, I am obliged to lower my tone in speaking of him. I beg you to believe, however, that our Guienne has not seen the like of him among men of his robe." Then, after some circumlocution, Mon­taigne admits that he himself had been thinking of writing something. He says, " Save that my insuf ficiency expressly forbids me, I would present you with something of my own, in acknowledgment of the obligations I owe to you, and the ancient favour and friendship you have shown to those of our house."

The Chancelier L'Hospital, after having tried in vain to struggle against the fanaticism, real or assumed, of power, had now retired to his country-house at Vignay, where he occupied himself in writing Latin poetry. This celebrated man had all the stuff of a reformer, except the vital energy. His preambles and his speeches, it has been remarked, contain a sort of foretaste of 1789. In 1560, when the Protestant nobility and the Liberal middle classes endeavoured by a wonderful effort to deliver the young king Francis from his Italian mother and the Guises, L'Hospital not only approved of the attempt, but actually joined in the conspiracy. About the time of the publication of La Boetie's works, indeed, the good man ran extreme danger on this account. Agrippa d'Aubigne, talking carelessly to the father of his mistress, had mentioned that he possessed the signature of L'Hospital for the enter prise of Amboise, and was recommended to use it as a means of extorting ten thousand ecus. He in dignantly rejected the proposition and burned the documents, upon which his adviser affected to be so pleased that he promised him his daughter in — marriage, a promise which he afterwards retracted on pretence of differences in religion. Montaigne de

HIS EDITIONS OF LA BOETIE. dicated the Latin poems to the retired chancellor, whom he considered to be a man of no common virtue, and whom, he says, La Boetie wished much to know. In doing so he talks politically, enlarges on the ne cessity of putting the right man in the right place, and says that the interests of France greatly suffered by the non-promotion of La Boetie to high office. " It was true, that at the age of thirty-two he occupied the highest position as conseiller; but this was not enough. We should not leave in the ranks a man capable of being a captain. But, in truth, his strength was ill managed, and too much husbanded. He had great parts, that remained idle and useless. There fore, as he was so careless of his reputation during lifetime, I greatly desire that his memory should be properly treated by persons of honour and virtue." Here follows, as it were, another preparation for the Essay on Friendship : " Quite against the custom of the architect, who turns the handsomest part of his building towards the street, and of the chapman, who puts in show the richest specimen of his merchandise, what was most recommendable in him, the true juice and marrow of his worth, went with him : nothing remains to us but the bark and the leaves. He who should set forth the regulated movements of his soul, his piety, his virtue, his justice, the vivacity of his mind, the weight and health of his judgment, the loftiness of his con ceptions, so far raised above the vulgar, his knowledge, the graces that accompanied all his actions, the tender love he bore his wretched country, his capital and

sworn hatred against all vice, but chiefly against that ugly traffic which hides itself under the name of justice, would certainly beget in all worthy people a singular affection for him, mingled with a marvellous regret for his loss." I have already hinted, that some of Montaigne's expressions in the Essays are so hy perbolical and exaggerated as to seem cold, and suggest, erroneously, the idea of insincerity. In this letter, written about seven years after La Boetie's death, when his feelings had had time to disengage them selves from the weight of daily cares, but not to acquire a marked development, his friendship seems to me more justly and pathetically expressed. Already, however, he was secretly comparing himself and La Boetie to ancient examples of affection : " nothing has been said in the schools of the philosophers on the rights and duties of sacred friendship that this person age and I did not practise together." Another dedication in the same volume is to M. de Foix, " Privy Councillor and Ambassador of His Majesty to the Signoria of Venice," one of the most remarkable men of his time, of whom De Thou says that he never left his society without feeling himself improved, and better disposed to virtue. Montaigne tells us that he belonged to the first house of Guienne by inheritance, and had acquired the first rank by capacity. He had previously been ambassador in England, and was shortly afterwards sent again to Italy, on a complimentary journey to the Pope and other princes. Learning and ability had early dis

tinguished him. His house was always full of learned men, as Jacques Carpentier, the adversary of Ramus, Augustin Nypho, and others, with whom he loved to discourse on his favourite philosopher, Aristotle. A young reader whom he employed, constantly read out to him indeed he scarcely ever used his own eyes for purposes of study. When he wished to become ac quainted with the doctrines of Plato on his way to Italy — a journey he performed on horseback he made Armand d'Ossat ride by his side, and explain them to him, whilst all the rest of his suite, among whom was the young De Thou, kept at a distance. It was to this amiable and learned man that Montaigne dedicated the French poems of La Boetie. His tone, as usual, is panegyrical. "To me alone," says he," did he communicate himself entire. I only can describe the million graces, perfections, and virtues

which idly decayed in his mind. . . . The truth is, his destiny in by having been the flowersurprised of his age, in the midst of very vigorous and happy a health, he had thought of nothing less than publish ing works to testify to posterity what he andwas ; probably he was sufficiently proud, he had if even it, Howthought of not to care much about it . . . " well ever," continues have thoughtMontaigne, it I find entire among his roughwhat could to collect I drafts and papers, scattered here and there, the sport of the wind and his studies, and to separate the into could, in order whole to re as many parts I as commend his memory to as many people, choosing the MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. 282 most apparent and worthy personages of my acquaint ance ; as, for example, you, sir, who may have known him a little during his life, but not sufficiently to estimate his worth. Posterity may believe me if it please, but I swear to it upon my conscience that I knew him, and saw him in such wise that, all things considered, scarcely by imagination can I rise higher, far from being able to give him many companions." He then says that north of the Loire, that is in the real French provinces, these poems of La Bo'etie had not been thought sufficiently polished, for which reason he had delayed their publication. However, other literary judges having given a more favourable opinion, Montaigne, whose partiality wonderfully exaggerated the merit of these pieces, determined to present them to the public. But among all these dedications, which are already

is, almost Essays, the most interesting that perhaps, of the Rules of Marriage of Plutarch to M. de Mesmes, Seigneur de Roissy et de Malassize, and Privy Coun cillor. M. de Mesmes was of the same age as Mon taigne, and has left valuable memoirs of his life. He had just negociated peace between the Catholics and a Protestants, which had restored sudden but uncertain tranquillity to the country, and was rising every day in popularity. He was once actually and literally kicked out of court by Henry the Third. The scan dalous anecdotes of the time accuse him of peculation, but this less certain than that he was protector of is a poets and the learned. Itis curious that the manu script of the Voluntary Servitude, recently discovered by Dr. Payen, belonged to him, and contains many marginal notes for an elaborate refutation of the re publican and socialist doctrines of the young Sarladais. It probably came direct from Montaigne himself. " " La Boetie," now says Montaigne roundly, was, in my opinion, the greatest man of our age; and I should be ill doing my duty if I did not endeavour to resuscitate and keep alive his reputation. I think he must in some sort feel and be touched, and re joiced, by my care; and, in truth, he is here within me so entire, and so living, that I cannot believe him to be so heavily buried, nor so completely distanced from communion with us." But what makes this little production remarkable is the blame incidentally inflicted on the sceptical habit. " It is one of the most notable follies that men commit, to employ the force of their understand ing in ruining and shocking the common and received opinions which produce in us satisfaction and content. Whilst all other things under the sun apply the means and instruments which nature has given them for the utility and commodity of their being, such men, in order to seem of a more sprightly and lively wit, unwilling to receive anything which has not been a thousand times touched and balanced by the most subtle reason, go on disturbing their minds from its peaceable repose, and succeed, after long search, in filling it with doubt, disquietude, and fever. It is not without reason that childhood and simplicity have been so much recommended by Truth itself. For my part, I would rather be more at my ease and less clever, more content and less knowing."

In this last touch Montaigne gives the whole spirit of his Essays by anticipation. But we need not suppose that his respectful allusion to Christianity, and his horror of doubt, were at all hypocritical. At that time Montaigne, like most of the other active men of his age, was probably a staunch believer from habit. He had not had leisure to disturb his own belief, or " employ the force of his understanding in ruining and shocking the common, received opinions" of others; but his character was formed, and he was already yearning after that famous ataraxia, the mirage of philosophers. He at first sought it in faith, where he might have found it : afterwards he sought it in doubt, by means of which he tried to persuade himself, and has succeeded in persuading many of his admirers, that he came back to faith.

IN LITERARY SOCIETY. 285

CHAPTER XXV. MONTAIGNE IN LITERARY SOCIETY. The long residence of Montaigne at Paris, necessitated by the task of overlooking the printers, and prolonged on account of the unusual tranquillity of the country, no doubt brought him much in contact with the literary men of the day. Buon and Morel, who published Sebonde and La Boetie, seem to have been the two fashionable publishers, and produced the works of Ronsard and the other great poets of the period. Montaigne, at Meudon and the Louvre with La Boetie, formerly knew and admired the shining lights of the Pleiad ; but he had no reason then to claim their intimacy. Now, his position entitled him to do so, and there can be no doubt that he profited by the op portunity. It is not good in biography to supply too often the want of facts by conjectures and speculations, but sometimes they are allowable, nay, necessary. A conjecture, naturally suggested, that takes its place among ascertained facts, harmonises with them, com pletes them, and illustrates them, is almost a new fact. The relations of Montaigne with the Pleiad are no way stated, but will scarcely be denied by any one who reads his works. The splendid position of Ronsard at the period of which we now speak is known. He was the literary king of his time ; and, as has been well remarked, no man save Voltaire ever exercised so much influence in France on the taste of his contemporaries. The favour of Charles the Ninth —the sickly, insane, yet poetic young Nimrod, who hunted beasts whilst waiting to hunt men — had replaced the favour of Henry the Second. Abbeys, benefices, pensions, gifts of all kinds, were heaped upon him. A vast multitude of young poets, whom failure could not discourage nor disdain drive to despair, were exercising their talents in flattering him. The air was as full of his praises as with the murmur of grasshoppers on a summer day. Montaigne could not fail to be attracted towards such a reputation during his literary residence in Paris. About that time was formed a centre where genius and learning could meet and communicate, and interchange criticism and flattery. Antoine de Bai'f, overwhelmed with royal munificence, had established a kind of Academy, the nucleus of which was collected, according to Pasquier, under Henry the Second. He lived in the Faubourg St. Marceau, in a house on the site of which was afterwards built the convent of English nuns, now celebrated as the place of education of Madame Sand. In order that nobody might fail to know that a man of erudition lived there, he caused inscriptions to be written in large letters under every

IN LITERARY SOCIETY. 287 window :—extracts from Anacreon, Pindar, and Homer, which agreeably regaled the eyes of learned passers-by. In this house, which has sometimes been spoken of as a petite maison, Baif lived a life of learned ease, kept an excellent table, and invited literary men and musi cians to share his good fortune. By degrees, the idea occurred to him of establishing an Academy of poets, and beaux esprits, and musicians, with a view at first chiefly of measuring the elementary sounds of the language. It was in 1570, whilst Montaigne was printing his La Boetie at Paris, that Charles the Ninth granted to this Academy letters patent, in which he declared, that " in order that it may be honoured by the greatest, he accepted the title of protector and first auditor." The verification of these letters was violently opposed by the Parliament, instigated by the University and the Bishop of Paris; but this opposition was overruled. Charles the Ninth used often to be present at the meetings of the Academy, and it is especially recorded that the members were allowed to sit in his presence. The unhappy young king had already, in a poem, laid his crown at the feet of Ronsard. At the death of Charles the Ninth, Henry the Third took the Academy under his protection. He wrote out new letters-patent on vellum with his own hands, signed them, and made his mother Catherine, the Duke of Joyeuse, the Duke of Retz, and most of the lords and ladies of his court, sign also, and promise to pay an annual subscription. Occasionally he came gravely to listen to philosophical discourses by Amadis Jasmyn.

288 MOXTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. But instead of going always to the house of Baif, the king made the Academy meet twice a-week in his own cabinet, where many learned men and even ladies dis puted on set questions of criticism and philosophy a — model of our debating societies. He who most dis tinguished himself at one meeting, chose the subject for the next. Music played a great part in this Academy, and a kind of opera was once performed in the house of Baif. But the Academy only lasted until the death of its founder, when it dispersed, and was forgotten amidst the stern business the country had to settle : all its archives were actually sold to a pastry cook. The letters-patent were long afterwards acci dentally found by a son of Baif. Among the mem bers of the Academy were Pierre Ronsard, Amadis Jasmyn, Guy du Faur de Pibrac, Philippe des Portes, Jacques Davy du Perron, and afterwards Agrippa d'Aubigne, with others; and we can scarcely doubt that Montaigne was present, introduced by his friend Pibrac at some of the sittings. It would appear even that Ronsard used to read his poems to him ; for to whom but to Ronsard can — the following passage allude ? " Somebody once tried to persuade me that a man, whom all true French men know, had imposed upon me by reciting verses he had written. His pronunciation gave price to his works. If I had read them myself, I should have thought otherwise." Among the striking events that occurred during the residence of Montaigne at Paris, in the winter

IN LITERARY SOCIETY. 289 of 1570-71, was the arrival of the Cardinal d'Este, having in his suite Tasso, who, although only twenty-a six years of age, had acquired brilliant reputation, and was sent as likely to please the literary young king. The poet, by the recommendation of the Princess Leonora, had obtained the honour of dining, not in the pantry, but at the Cardinal's ordinary table, and thus was not confounded with that crowd of eight hundred servitors who followed the splendid church man. It is necessary occasionally to remind the reader of these irruptions of Italian splendour into the semi-barbarous society of France at that period. The Italian cardinals of the sixteenth century much resembled, in their ways of going on, Oriental kings. One day the Cardinal d'Este, as a caprice, sent to the king forty war-horses, with saddles and trappings embroidered with gold, and led by forty grooms dressed in silk. Tasso, accustomed to the accomplished luxury of his country, was astonished by the rude state of France. He complained that, instead of marble palaces, he found in Paris houses generally of wood, with no spacious staircases, but winding steps leading to low, dark rooms, heaped together irregularly, so that no two were ever on the same level. Above these frail struc tures rose huge, solid cathedrals, of an architecture that appeared to him barbarous, decorated with sculp tures and paintings of primitive simplicity ; but lighted through broad painted windows of unequalled beauty, that tinted with fantastic hues the crowds of kneeling VOL. I. V

worshippers, whose assiduity and earnestness surprised him. When Montaigne afterwards went to Milan he compared it to Paris ; Tasso compared Paris to Milan. But he disliked the changeableness of the climate, and accounted by it for the fickleness of the inhabitants, who ever kept in motion, lest, like the wheels of a clock that have run down, they should grow rusty. Tasso became acquainted with Ronsard, who was preparing the edition of his works in six volumes, published in 1572. The two poets read their verses to each other, and interchanged admiration. Tasso translated Ronsard's hymn on Henry the Second. He became very popular at first in France; and as Mon taigne afterwards went to see him when he was shut up in a madhouse in Ferrara, they probably met and knew each other in the early part of 1571. It is a curious circumstance, illustrative of the condition of literature in those days, that although Tasso's expenses were paid during this journey, he was left so poor that he was obliged occasionally to borrow a few francs of his French friends, and went back to Italy, after a year's residence, with the same coat in which he came. I cannot refrain here from giving a specimen of contemporary French criticism. M. St. Marc Girardin, mentioning the visit of Tasso, exclaims : " Observe the caprices of posterity ! When he came to see Ronsard and to ask his advice, he was only called Messer Torquato Tasso; and since then France has called

291 him Le Tasse!" Observe the caprices of posterity! Rome knew a Titus Livius, whom France has since called Tite Live! Montaigne seems always to have remained a favourite of Catherine de Medicis, as he had been a favourite of her husband. She introduced and recommended him to the three kings, her sons. This is the most obscure passage in the life of Montaigne. We almost shrink from examining it too closely, for fear of coming upon facts too disagreeable. The statement that Montaigne once acted as the queen's secretary is now refuted, after having formed part of his biography for more than a century; but that he was on good terms with the queen and her court is proved by many circumstances. Montaigne probably came in contact with Charles the Ninth, both at the Louvre and at the Academy of Baif; and had opportunities of appreciating his private character, and observing the good qualities that have been concealed from the eyes of posterity by the bloody vapour which he afterwards cast about himself. It is necessary to insist on these suppositions, because the reputation of Montaigne is directly in terested. He never mentions the Saint Bartholomew, which his master Muretus and his friend De Pibrac approved of ; and it is certain that some powerful motive must have existed to make him keep silence on such a subject. No mere inadvertence can account for the omission. The true reason seems to me that, during a great part of the reign of Charles the Ninth,

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. Montaigne was closely connected with the Court, and attached by ties of friendship and gratitude both to the queen-mother and the king. He was also publicly a member of the Catholic party; an intimate friend of the old Marechal Montluc, who had, just before the peace of 1570, received at the taking of the Protestant town of Rabestens the wound that disabled him from further service, and had revenged himself by ordering the massacre of all within the place, men, women, and children ; a friend of the young Count de Brissac, the pupil of Buchanan, who was killed by a Huguenot shot at the siege of(Mu§idan ; and, indeed, was everyway compromised to approve of the policy which he had no influence to alter, and which led to the famous day of massacre. The overt manner in which he identifies himself with this policy in the Essays is remarkable. He talks, for example, of the thousand little pamphlets which "those of the religion so-called Reformed circulated for the defence of their cause, written sometimes by able hands which he regretted not to see employed on a better subject;" and says deprecatingly, that in one a comparison was made between the government of " the late poor king, Charles the Ninth," and that of Nero. This tone, it is true, may be reconciled to the supposition, so firmly supported by our knowledge of Montaigne's moderate opinions, that he condemned the Saint Bartholomew as cruel and unwise ; because it implies that he agreed with those who considered Charles the Ninth to have been mad. The praises given to Cathe rine for her natural liberality and magnificence, and her love of building, are more offensive, but may be explained by the desire of the prudent philosopher to keep well with the Court, and maintain himself in a favour which he often wanted once, especially,

— to rescue himself from the Bastille. But most inexcusable is the adulatory manner, though qualified by certain restrictions, in which Montaigne exalts the memory of the Cardinal de Lorraine, who was employed at Rome to carry the glad tidings of the massacre to the Pope; whose whole career, however splendid, was one of perfidy and cruelty; and who haunted his accomplice and probable mur deress Catherine, like Banquo, amidst her women, who saw nothing whilst she trembled with terror. A bigoted Catholic soldier or churchman we might expect to hear talk of that corrupt man's "wit, elo quence, zeal towards religion, and the service of his king," and so forth ; but no one can believe that Montaigne could have been sufficiently blinded. He was evidently inclined to be a flatterer of the powers that be. The Guises were high in favour when he wrote. We should very much misunderstand his character indeed, and confound him with those com plete men who, in classical times, from philosophic or patriotic enthusiasm, in modern times from Christian faith or republican convictions, have been ready to sacrifice their lives for the truth, if we did not recog nise in him occasionally the time-server and the egotist. These sceptics have always been remarkable for the zeal with which they have taken care of their persons. Montaigne suggests an unfortunate com parison of himself with the cowardly Panurge, who was always ready to maintain his opinions, jusqu'au feu exclusivement. There was, it must be admitted, some thing of the Panurge in him ; but accompanied after all with so many fine qualities, that we easily forgive him. Indeed those whom we love most are not necessarily possessed of the greatest courage.

Among the proofs of Montaigne's favour at court about this period, we must count his admission into the Order of St. Michel. He tells us, that when young he had desired above all things to receive this Order, because it was then the extremest mark of honour of the French nobility, and very rare ; but that he did not receive it until it had utterly fallen off in public estimation, in consequence of the immense number of unworthy appointments made. It had come to be called " the collar of all beasts." Of course, how ever, the appointment was intended as a compliment. Montaigne was probably not among the importunate gentlemen mentioned by Pasquier, who clamoured for reward for their services ; and who, there being no money to give, were recompensed with appointments to the Privy Council and the Order of St. Michel. Brantome pretends that the whole affair was a sort of practical joke of Gaston de Foix, Marquis de Trans, a neighbour and friend of Montaigne, and who also attained a similar honour for his butler ; but the Sieur de Bourdeilles was a pedantic courtier, who was offended by seeing honours granted to a conseiller who had quitted his robes and his square hat and girded on the sword, as Montaigne had done. The truth seems to be, that when Montaigne retired from court and public affairs, his friends reminded the king that he had not received any reward : in consequence of which, about eight months after he had taken up his residence at Montaigne, he received the following letter :—

— "Monsieur de Montaigne, For your virtues and merits I have chosen and elected you among the number of the Chevaliers of my Order, to be associated with them ; and that your said election may be notified to you, and that you may receive the collar of the said Order, I have written to my cousin the Marquis de Trans, to whose presence you will repair for the purpose. This is to augment more and more the affection and good will I bear you, and to give you occasion to persevere in your devotion for my service. Praying God, &c. " Written at Blois, the eighteenth of October, 1571. (Signed) " Charles." The most careful researches do not seem to have established the exact date of an appointment which Montaigne received between the years 1569 and 1580, that of Gentleman in Ordinary of the King's Bed chamber, an office to which many privileges and some emoluments were attached. He rarely fulfilled his duties, but the appointment was useful to him when he came to court, as it gave him free access to the king, and enabled him to take up a position that was no doubt satisfactory to his vanity.

RETIRES TO HIS CHATEAU. 297

CHAPTER XXVI. MONTAIGNE RETIRES TO HIS CHATEAU. There still exists in the Chateau of Montaigne the following inscription :— " In the year of our Lord 1571, aged thirty-eight, on the eve of the Kalends of March, (the last day of February), the anniversary day of his birth, Michel de Montaigne, having long been weary of the slavery of courts and public employments, takes refuge in the bosom of the learned Virgins. He designs, in quiet and indifference to all things, to conclude there the re mainder of his life, already more than half past, and he has dedicated to repose and liberty this agreeable and peaceful abode, which he ha3 inherited from his ancestors." Some persons seem to have taken this inscription as a proof that, from its date forward, Montaigne gene rally lived the life of a hermit, and kept almost utterly apart from the world. This is an exaggeration. But, despite the attempts made recently to convert him into a public man, it is quite evident that, whether at home or abroad, in his chateau or in the Louvre, Montaigne from this time forward lived the life of a literary man ; and looked upon the world and upon himself almost exclusively as materials for Essay-writing. Previously he had had literary tastes, and had studied a good deal ; but his existence had been noisy and public. It is difficult, therefore, to say what was the amount of his knowledge when he turned his back on the Court and the house of law and took up his pen. We know, however, that even then he could write well ; and no one writes well by instinct, nor without long and painful experience. We can pretty well appreciate, also, Mon taigne's character, and find in his experience the type of his impressions. But they who would take to pieces such a man as they take to pieces a machine, and discover the reason of all his movements, who would account by inferences from accumulated facts for the growth of his genius, who would discover the precise point at which he was converted from a mere ordinary courtier or lawyer into one of the teachers of our race, may be utterly disappointed, and driven to the conclusion that they are dealing with an absolute power, sent into the world to do such and such things ; no more, no less — but that, and that only;— Homer, Dante, and Shak­speare, predestined Epic Drama. This easy to or explanation cannot satisfy the eager student. But, unfortunately, what he most desires to know is the most difficult to know. We open biographies of great writers, great poets, great thinkers, and seek in vain to find how and when they became as it were trans

RETIRES TO HIS CHATEAU. 299 figured. We are led on by the promise of revelations. It is just as if we should chase the morning light on Eastern hills. The time arrives, unperceived, when we look back and find the rays shining another way. I have endeavoured to trace Montaigne through his early experiences in the Louvre, the camp, the law courts, the college, the boudoir, the arms of friendship and of love, because everywhere he must have been subject to influences that reappear in his speculations in after life. It is not necessary to describe the in tellectual chemistry to which his experiences were subjected in order to produce the result we see. We all feel how such influences work, and can watch, if we please, the transformation of fact into sentiment and thought. There was nothing very wonderful in the adventures of Montaigne's youth. As we have seen, his life was that of a tolerably commonplace gentleman, born to move in good society, with a little more knowledge than gentlemen thought necessary at that time. The only very remarkable incident is his friendship for La Bo'etie. There are but five or six such recorded instances since the beginning of the world, and unrecorded instances cannot be taken into account ; for in the friendships of celebrated men who have influenced the world, the world herself is interested. Influence comes to us from that friend ship. In a brief life of Montaigne up to this period it would be necessary only to say : He lived as other men of his rank lived in those times, and he was the friend of Estienne de la Boetie. For my part, I find

two men in Montaigne, such as he appears to me at theprimeoflife —the man ofwide capacity ofmind, of vivid imagination, humorous, but solid character, nimble judgment, and natural faculty of expression, who would have made himself remarkable in any age or country, and who supplies that part of his Essays which makes him kin to the whole world — but also the man of his age and country ; the somewhat ungrateful heir of Rabelais, the forerunner of Bayle and Voltaire ; the experienced courtier, who despised kings because he knew their manners, but had no enthusiasm to object to the institution of monarchy ; the lawyer, who cared too little for law to espouse its prejudices, and sat half apart, like a quiet man in society, observing absurdities which others hotly and unconsciously acted ; the half-convinced Catholic, who looked upon reform as a disturbance, but who, when like an honest man he turned round to examine his own convictions, saw them vanishing in the distance ; the stern thinker in morals ; the cheerful and some what lax actor ; the incomplete savant, who despised pedantry ; the eloquent writer, who felt that his idiom was not formed, and disdained to formit; idle and industrious by turns ; of prodigious memory, yet fond of accusing himself of want of memory when he forgot anything ; the easy-going Gascon gentleman, who from fear of shipwreck in the storm he saw gathering for the Saint Bartholomew was then darkening the air as it approached retired to his comfortable home in an out-of-the-way district, and, partly as an excuse for

301 his timidity, set to work philosophising, under the protection of powerful friends and a long-established reputation for probity. In speaking of La Boetie, I have been incidentally led to allude to the state of literature in France, when Montaigne was likely to receive his most vivid and lasting impressions of that kind. He was, as it were, present at the submerging of the few gentle and native — reputations that flourished, like little oases, amidst the desert of ignorance and barbarism, by a sudden — flood of learning disguised as genius, or genius dis guised as learning, that burst from the monastery of Coqueret. During the whole time of his residence at court this deluge covered the earth. There was no sign whatever of the subsiding of the waters. He felt, it would seem, a feeling of despondency and dis couragement. It was impossible for him, he thought, to know so much, or to express himself so well. Never till the latest hour of his life did he cease to look with awe upon the genius of the men who at that time won his admiration. It would, indeed, have been a sort of insult to La Boetie to have done so. He always spoke of Ronsard and Du Bellay with profound respect, and never ceased to admire " the rich descriptions of the one, or the delicate inventions of the other." According to him, these two men " were little removed from the perfection of the ancient poets" —the highest praise that could be given at that time —and in so saying he ratifies the prediction of his friend.

That was the golden age of learned men in France. They acquired reputations in the strangest manner, and for the strangest reasons. The country had so recently been barbarous from excess of ignorance, that extravagant respect paid knowledge of every was to kind, but especially to knowledge of antiquity. Even the greatest poets stood little chance by the side of " the Great Turnebus and the merest collector of quotations from ancient authors was placed on a level with the most eminent writer. Feron, a lawyer, pub lished " The Armories of Universal History," and began with the escutcheon of Adam, bearing a device from Ovid; and, no doubt, would have been offended at not being considered a more important man than the ignorant Marot. The epithet, " bold ignoramus," was applied by Scaliger to Montaigne himself. It was, certainly, more on account of their immense display of learning than their genius that the new school of poets achieved their success. We must remember that literature was not in those days, properly speaking, constituted. Scarcely any one wrote as a profession ; but every one who felt the influence of the culture that was spreading, wrote more or less. Almost all royal personages of the sixteenth century had pretensions to poetry. We have verses of all the kings, from Francis the First to Henry the Fourth. Marguerite of Navarre, and Marguerite of Valois, have left most interesting works, the " Heptameron" and the " Memoirs." Mary Stuart was a poet. Rene de France wrote poetry, and

encouraged the learned. Nearly all the celebrated courtiers, diplomatists, lawyers of the age, wrote. Few celebrated books had for authors men who in their time were not far more celebrated for something else than writing. At the courts of the kings and queens of France, and in the houses of princes and noblemen, there were always, it is true, certain pages or parasites, whose principal claim to notice was their skill in inditing amorous and other poetry, and who were helping to found the modern literary class, which lived so long on patronage. Jean Marot had been private secretary and poet of Louis the Twelfth. Clement Marot, Victor Brodeaux, and Jean Chapuis, were valets-de­chambre of Francis the First. Saint-Gelais, and a few other elegant writers of that stamp, were, it is true, courtiers. But nearly all who studied form, merely for form, were at that time in a humble or menial position. Ronsard was a page and a retired soldier. The learned were mostly professors, and laboured under the accusa tion of pedantry. Amyot was a servant at college, and studied, like Ramus, by the light of burning charcoal from want of candles ; but his translations earned him a mitre as well as renown. Duchatel rose from being reader in a printing-office to be grand almoner of France ; and was paid by the king to talk to him during his meals. Other learned men were only too happy to accept printers for patrons, and have recorded with gratitude their dinners with the Plantins, whose proofs they corrected. It is easy to understand that at such a time Montaigne determined to devote himself to letters; and not yet having his philosophical object clearly in view, was at first puzzled what form to adopt. Once he thought of writing the history of his times ; but he was not industrious enough to collect the facts, and indisposed by nature to lay out a vast framework. He talked to a friend, probably Pasquier, on the best shape in which to put his desultory thoughts, and was

advised to write letters. He would have done so, he says, if he had known to whom to have addressed them. How he came to adopt the form of Essays we shall see in due time.

THE CHATEAU DE MONTAIGNE. 305

CHAPTER XXVII. THE CHATEAU DE MONTAIGNE. Montaigne, as we have seen, was thirty-eight years of age when, professing to be weary of the slavery of courts and public employments, he retired to dwell in the mansion of his forefathers, and devote himself to study and meditation. We shall presently note that his retirement was neither so absolute nor so prolonged as he expected. He knew the world by experience, and found it to be full of annoyances ; but he did not yet know solitude and the painful yearning for variety which visits the soul when too long becalmed in the domestic haven. I have reserved for this place a description of the castle of Montaigne, with which the philosopher has, to a certain extent, identified himself and his works. It was the place of his meditations, as the court and the world formed the place of his experiences. Curiosity and veneration have made it the goal of pilgrimage. Visitors, few and choice it is true, every year demand admission at its gates, or linger modestly on neigh- vol. i. x MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. bouring heights. They are not led thither by that passionate fondness, that mysterious and almost sinful affection, which converts into valuable property every place where Rousseau suffered or was eloquent ; but by a calm sympathy, an honest admiration of worth, circumscribed in its manifestation by cheerful egotism, which is one of the characteristics that finds the sym pathy of the steady readers for whom these pages are chiefly written. You will generally observe that the admirers of Montaigne have a great many books of their own, not modern cheap editions, but solid calf-bound volumes, bought at second-hand much cheaper; that they are, if not exactly eccentric people, people of marked features of character ; that they have often a good sober-looking volume in their pockets, and form, in fact, a coterie of observers and thinkers, who run together like quicksilver when they meet, and are rather formed to instruct youth and suggest wisdom to the idle or impetuous, than themselves to take any very active part in this world's affairs. I approached the limits of Perigord from Libourne, —— a name which will recur in this biography along the valley of the Dordogne. This valley, though without any very marked features, is by no means unpleasant to behold. Tints of yellow were mingling with the green when I passed. The reaches of the river were lighted by a sky of great depth, that warmed with bright colours morning and evening. The villages are towards the tops of the uniform hills, or crowd amidst trees at the narrow entrances of valleys. This THE CHATEAU DE MONTAIGNE.

307 arrangement marks a particular degree in the develop ment of civilisation. There was one remnant of a — castle on a rock a sort of stump worn down and jagged like a tooth in an old man's jaw. They told me that the Auvergnats, during the revolution time, had spread their devastations thus far, sacking the lordly castles, which the timid and humble peasants of Perigord neither coveted nor defended. I heard many whining dialogues between natives of the country on the probable failure of the grape harvest for ever. Discouraged by three bad seasons, they predicted that within fifty years wine would be only found in the shops of chemists. There was little to notice by the wayside that was characteristic. There were huge pumpkins drying on the sloping roofs of the farm-houses ; quinces, nearly golden in colour, were hanging from the trees ; tomatoes glowed amid pale-green foliage in the fields, the hedge-rows of which were of vines. Sullen-looking oxen, with their heads enveloped in sheepskins and their horns half sawn off, butted slowly and sternly against their yokes ; and the huge, ungainly carts, moved on. There was a slowness and solemnity about all habitual operations ; but our diligence rolled along smoothly enough, and evidently corresponded to a certain demand for activity felt in some awakened section of the population. A plentiful supply of pas sengers' parcels and bags of specie were received and registered by the conductor, who talked or swore all the way.

St. Michel de Montaigne, say the biographers, is near Ste. Foi. Properly speaking, it is near to Cas­tillon, through which town Ipassed, carelessly omitting to mention the object of my visit. Visitors had better make inquiries there. I spoke to the swearing con ductor when the place was a league behind, and learned that I must return to Castillon and accept his services as guide and postilion from that place, which I did. In besieging Castillon our great Talbot fell. It was a fortified place in Montaigne's time, when it stood a long siege. At present it is an open, straggling place, suggestive of dreary agricultural and provincial content. The road, for a short time, is the same as that to Ste. Foi; but soon it turns off, and we see the castle on the shoulder of a hill to the right, overlooking the undulating country. The approach to it is circuitous, for the Didoire is not bridged in many places. It unfortunately rained, and a slaty cloud seemed every now and then threatening to hide the castle. At length, leaving the road to Monpin, we entered at once on the Montaigne estate, and returned towards the chateau by a bad road and two dangerous bridges over the Didoire and a little confluent. This part was principally wood and meadow, and probably has not much changed in three centuries. We might choose any one of these glades as the background of a portrait of Montaigne. The peasants of his time could scarcely have been more wild-looking, and no doubt resembled those of the present day pretty nearly, except that they always went armed. Perhaps they were worse covered, for it was the custom in that part of the country in Montaigne's time for the contadins, or peasants, to go with breasts and stomachs naked.

The road ascends diagonally along a steep, wooded slope, that rises to the terrace in front of the chateau. Now, as in ancient times, it winds round to the rear, and leads to the semi-fortified entrance, guarded by Montaigne's own tower, at one of the angles of the

THECHATEAU,FROMTHE COURT-YARD. great court-yard. The principal part of the building, an irregular but picturesque pile, though doubtless nearly in the same state, considered as a mass, as in Montaigne's time, suggests no remark, except that the walls are extremely thick, and the apartments very spacious. The imagination, however, is naturally ex cited by its aspect; and we remember, not without a certain feeling of sadness and awe, that some of the most celebrated men of the sixteenth century came MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. thither full of life and learning, ambition and business, and are now the objects of elaborate research. Pierre Eyquem, as his son often tells us, was fond of building, and made many additions to the chateau. Perhaps it was he built the great tower called the Tour de Montaigne that overlooks the entrance, and the small tower at the other angle called the Trachere, which tradition, for no reason except its own love of completeness, makes the special habitation of Mon taigne's wife, and which has recently been partly destroyed for lime-making purposes. Egyptian temples and the abodes of genius are destined to the same fate. Around the wall encircling the court, and partly concealed by stables and offices, seems formerly to have ran a ledge or walk, near the summit, which served as a footing to the garrison when engaged in repulsing any attack. The most interesting traces of old times are, how ever, to be found in the Tour de Montaigne, which is now no longer inhabited, but preserved as a relic of genius. A lady, referring to this care, said : " What has he done, this Montaigne, to be venerated?" I thought at first this was a sign of rustic ignorance of his Essays ; but when I found it was not, I was led to reflect : " After all, what has he done that we should visit his library as a saint's shrine ? Have we not substituted the idolatry of genius for the idolatry of virtue? and is this progress?" There are two stories to the tower, which is round THE CHATEAU DE MONTAIGNE.

311 and massive like a dungeon, and attached to a square tower, smaller, but of about equal height. On the ground-floor, which Montaigne counts as a story, we find the chapel alluded to in the Essays. There we are shown the altar, and an aperture communicating with a recess on the first-floor, where Montaigne, according to local tradition, used sometimes to sit and hear mass ; perhaps with a Seneca slily in his hand, or a night-cap on his head. On the summit of the building may still be seen the little chamber where hung a huge bell, which every day, morning and even ing, used to ring the Ave Maria with such violence that the tower itself was "astonished;" yet Montaigne

it, by degrees got accustomed and was no more keptto by of his chaplain awake than the he had if sermons one, and did not rather depend upon some neighbour or chance passenger for spiritual food. Perhaps there chapel for his retainers in thewas no other and farmers district. On the first-floor, reached bya winding-staircase, circular chamber and small there isa large a square one, which formed Montaigne's bed-room and dressing-room, when he chose to sleep alone. Above, exactly by the shape of the twoon the same plan, determined contiguous towers, are another circular room and another square cabinet. The rafters of this great room, which was Montaigne's library, are quite bare, as they have always been, and covered with inscriptions care fully cut under Montaigne's own direction. Not very little set of shelves was shown long ago having a as contained the philosopher's books, and a table "on which he wrote his Essays." These have been removed, and need not be regretted ; for the shelves, at any rate, were apocryphal. Montaigne's books were ranged on shelves attached to the wall in five rows, all round the room. On the sides of the little square cabinet, which was capable of a fire in winter, still remain the traces of the fresco paintings, which the philosopher himself men­ . tions. He tells us that he had a painter whose way of working he desired to follow. I observe, he says, that he chooses the clearest and most central part of each wall, in order to place there a completely elaborated picture, whilst the empty spaces around he fills with grotesque or fantastical paintings, whose only grace is variety and strangeness. These elaborated paintings consisted, oddly enough, of a portrait of Eleonore his daughter, and a series of sprightly, or rather erotic scenes; as, for example, Venus surprised by Vulcan with Mars. They have been carefully daubed over by a successor, perhaps by Eleonore's own command, and all we can distinguish is a head here, a leg there, and a few vague flourishes, remnants of the grotesques, the women ending in fish-tails, which Montaigne pretends he succeeded better in imitating in his style than the finished works. From the three windows, looking out of deep em brasures, in the great circular room, a very extensive view can be obtained over the estate and the distant hills of Perigord. Now, too, as in Montaigne's time, you can see the garden, the farm-yard, the court, and obtain a glimpse into most of the rooms of the house. A fine position for a master ! It was in two sides of the square room that Montaigne thought of opening

" doors to communicate with two terraces, or proume­noirs," each a hundred feet long and twelve feet wide, which he wished to establish. The walls were already finished, being the great outer wall, and an inner one built for some purpose not known to him ; and there was nothing to do but to lay down the flooring. He shrank, however, from the trouble and expense, although often sadly at a loss in spite of his great room, six teen paces in diameter for a place to stretch his legs, — and thus relieve his ideas. His thoughts slept if he sat down. All who study without books, he says, are in this predicament. Without books ! This is a bold expression for a man to set down in the midst of a well-furnished library. We shall examine presently what he means by it.

CHAPTER XXVIII. EXPERIENCES OF COUNTRY LIFE AND MANNERS. Even in the present day Montaigne is quite an out-of­ the-way place. There is no town in sight, even on the extreme horizon ; which everywhere is high, undulating, forested. The remains of the chateau de Gurson — situated on a hill, which Montaigne often uses as a term of comparison in his Travels indent the sky towards the north. In his time it was inhabited by a family with which he was on constant terms of inter course —the family of the Gaston de Foix, Marquis de Trans, whom I have already mentioned. Around, as now, amidst the meadows and fields, were a few villages or hamlets, the residence of the peasantry. Society was rare ; merely depending on chance. Montaigne, who owes so much to reading, pretends that when he wished to write he kept as far as possible from the company and memory of books, " lest they should interfere with his form;" and even ventures to say, that it was in search of this kind of originality, so narrow and valueless, that he chose to write at home, in a savage country, where there was no one to help or correct him ; where, as a rule, he frequented no one who understood the Latin of his Pater Noster ; where French was even less known than Latin. As we shall see, however, Montaigne greatly exaggerates his isola tion. We know his library; and know, too, that learned strangers were constantly winding up towards the chateau in quest of hospitality. And we know that Montaigne, despite the society that came to him, sallied forth from time to time to see how the world went, and returned with new stores of experience. Still, the Essays bear many marks of having been written by a country gentleman. The murmur from the farm-yard sometimes resounds through Montaigne's sentences ; and breezes from orchard, and hill, and valley, fan our cheeks as we flutter his leaves. He is no minute describer : he does not paint the roughnesses of tree bark or count the veins of a leaf; but the masses around cast impressions into his mind which he " reproduces. When I dance, I dance," says he ; ex-. plaining how each pursuit absorbed him in its turn. " When I slumber, I slumber ; and when I stroll alone beneath the branches of a fair orchard, if I allow my thoughts to commune awhile with things remote and foreign, some other while I recall them to my stroll, to the orchard, to the sweetness of the solitude, and to myself." This fair orchard belonged to him and still exists behind the chateau, gently spread on the eastern slope of the hill. All his illustrations of a similar kind seem gathered under the shadow of his castle, on the day he uses them. They are like fresh-picked flowers, which have not yet felt the warmth of the bosom on which they glow. He finds them in every corner of the valley : " We do not advance in this life, we are carried along, like trifles floating on a stream ; now lapsing gently, now hurrying rapidly, as the water is lively or slow." He is evidently down on the banks of the Didoire, which indeed, when I last ruffled its grassy banks, creating an image to flit by me through

— those solitudes for our minds are the tombs from — which ghosts come out to haunt the world was here whirling autumn leaves along in a narrow bed, there allowing them to rest in tiny reaches. But he goes further, and notices the progress which the Dordogne is making in eating away its banks, so as to carry off many houses by the foundations. This, and the destruction of his brother's estate in Medoc by the sea, enabled him to understand the supposed disappearance of the Atlantis. La Bo'etie had already humorously described a dog with a stick tied to his tail by village urchins. Mon taigne has many of this class of observations. " It is a pastime to mothers," he notes, on returning from one of his villages, " to see a child wring the neck of a pullet, and eagerly attempt to wound a dog or a cat." Singularly enough, he was fond of hunting; yet his heart was touched by the sobbing of the hare in its agony when torn by the dogs, and he could never help feeling for the hunted deer. If he took an animal alive he restored it to liberty, like Pythagoras.

Most readers will remember a curious accident that happened to Rousseau, who, having been overthrown by a dog, took occasion thereon to found one of his most agreeable reveries. In his manner of relating the circumstance, he evidently imitates Montaigne; who has left a detailed account of a similar accident which befel him in the neighbourhood of his own castle. It was during the second or third troubles —he did not remember which. Feeling inclined to walk out, al though in the very centre of the most disturbed districts of the kingdom, he ventured to the distance of a league. As he did not intend to wander far, or expect to have to ride for safety, he took with him a very easy-going, but not very steady horse, which one of his people led. Having finished his walk, he got into the saddle, and was jogging back in a leisurely manner, when suddenly one of his servants, a tall strong fellow, mounted on a powerful bay with a desperate mouth, fresh and vigor ous, began to show off and gallop ahead of his com panions. He so contrived as to follow Montaigne's path exactly, and came thundering like a Colossus "on the little man and the little horse." Down they both went, heels uppermost. Montaigne was thrown a dozen paces off on his back, his face wounded and torn, his sword dragged off, his girdle in tatters, without movement or consciousness more than the stump of a tree. The people with him tried in vain to bring him to himself, and then fancying he was dead, took him in their arms to carry him towards his house. On the road, after having been thought dead for two hours, he moved and breathed, and being set on foot brought up, as it were, a pail full of blood. He describes most minutely and admirably his return to sensation and thought. He was dead, and came to life again. When he began to see, his sight was so troubled, so feeble, that he could distinguish nothing but light — no object. The functions of the soul reawakened in the same pro gressive manner as those of the body. He saw that he was bloody, and his first thought was, that he had been shot by an arquebus in the head ; and it was true that he had heard several shots fired, not far off, as he fell. It seemed to him that life was fluttering on his lips. He says, that he shut his eyes to help it to go, and felt pleasure in giving way. The willingness to die floated superficially in his mind, like all other imaginations; but his feelings were not unpleasant, rather sweet than otherwise, like those who are sinking into sleep. This must be the sensation, he believed, of those who faint at the approach of death, whom we probably pity without reason, thinking them to be suffering from pain, or troubled with painful cogitations. " It has always been my opinion," he continues, "against that of many, and even of Estienne de la Boetie, that those whom we see thus stupefied at the approach of death, though they may sigh and groan, are, in reality as it were, without feeling. If it were not so, I can imagine no state more insupportable or horrible than this,—to

have the mind alive and afflicted, and no means of complaint." On drawing near the chateau, Montaigne's wife and family, to whom report of the accident had been carried, hastened out with the cries customary on such occa sions. Not only did he answer something when they spoke to him, but even thought of ordering a horse to be given to his wife, whom he saw stumbling in the steep road. But he was not yet exactly conscious. He did not know whence he came, whither he was going, or what had happened. He saw his house without recognising it. When they put him to bed he felt infinite delight, for he had been terribly pulled about by the people who had taken the trouble to carry him in their arms by a very long and bad road, which tired several parties of them one after the other. All medi cines offered him he refused, for he believed he had received a mortal wound in the head. According to his account, he was so near death and suffered so little, that he wished he had gone then. Two or three hours afterwards he woke back to complete life with pain; and suffered dreadfully for some nights. He never quite recovered from the shock. He notes, as curious, that the last thing he conceived clearly was how and when the accident happened. They tried to

it, in conceal what had caused order to save the his anger but awkward servant from the secondon ; him day he vision, which flashedsuddenly saw a on like lightning, of the man riding down upon him so rapidly, that not only had he no time to move out of the way, but not even to be afraid. I says: —"As village about two leagues from In another Essay he was passing through yesterday a my house, I found the place still hot from a miracle which had just been found out, and by which the neighbourhood had been amused for many months, so that distant provinces had begun to hear of the story, and were coming in great crowds to gratify their curiosity. A young man of the place, from mere wantonness, took one night to counterfeiting in his own house the voice of a spirit. As he succeeded better than he expected, in order to make the joke more complete, he took into partnership a stupid idiot of a village-girl, and then another, and after having played this game in private for some time, came public to exhibitions. They hid under the altar of the church, spoke only at night, and forbade any one to bring a light. They at first spoke of the conversion of the world and the day of judgment, but then said and did such ridiculous things that nothing so absurd could have occurred in the playing of little children. If, however, fortune had been a little more favourable, who knows how far this matter might have been pushed ? These poor devils are now in prison, and will bear the penalty of public folly ; and perhaps some judge will revenge upon them his own credulity." Another time Montaigne says :—" Some peasants have just come to warn me in all haste that they have found in one of my forests a man covered with a hundred wounds, who called out for water and assistance to get up. But they did not dare to go near him, and fled away lest the justice-folks should seize them ; in which case they would have been treated as it is customary to treat people found near a murdered man, for they had no influence or money to prove their innocence. What can I say to them ? It is certain this office of humanity might have brought trouble on them."

Elsewhere the Essayist notes the arrival at his castle of a little man from Nantes, born without arms, who had learned to use his feet instead, and did so most ingeniously. This man used to wander about, making a show of himself, and is mentioned by I/Etoile as being in Paris in 1586. We see by these instances that the manuscript of the Essays, or even a printed copy, was always lying open on his table, and served him as a sort of journal, in which he jotted down, without dates, such curiouF things as he observed, and which happened to bear more or less on a subject he was treating, or had treated. VOL. I. Y

CHAPTER XXIX. PERSONAL DETAILS ON MONTAIGNE. Montaigne is looking at himself in the glass, and dictating what he observes, or thinks he observes. Per haps his secretary is dozing over the desk in a corner, unconscious of the value of the words he is waiting to set down ; and wondering whether there may not be a brighter and more profitable way of life than blacken ing paper with the twaddle of this egotistical master. — We need not join him in his criticisms; for so far we have only to use the Essays as storehouses of fact, mere reports, in which we must allow, on some un varying principle, for the bias of the reporter. Montaigne was under the middle size, and considered his diminutiveness not only ugly, but inconvenient for one obliged to fill offices of dignity. In form he was sturdy, and even squat. His face, though not fat, was " full ; his complexion varied between the jovial and the melancholy was moderately sanguine and warm." Up to forty, that is, during his active life, he was of excellent health, having rarely been afflicted with maladies; but at forty, "when he began to be old," perhaps partly in consequence of the sudden change in his mode of life, he was no longer more than half himself. He had never been proficient in bodily exercises, except in running, in which he was tolerable. He had tried to improve in this exercise by adopting a bandage round the body, but found it of no use. In dancing, tennis, wrestling, he was but very mode rately successful ; and he could never learn to swim, to fence, or to leap, all which formed part of the military education of his time. His walk was rapid and firm. All these little communications suggest the picture of a quiet country gentleman, who would rather handle a book than a sword; and yet was fond of strolling and riding about, and might often be re quired to use his heels or his fist to save himself. Montaigne possessed portraits of himself at the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five, and wonders at the change that had taken place when he wrote his Essays. One of these portraits seems to be in the Museum at Versailles, where Montaigne is represented young. But his portrait was no doubt often executed after wards ; and I think he alludes to one wherein he is represented as bald and turning grey. As we have already seen, he employed an artist for some time at his chateau, who did the likeness of his daughter, and probably his own likewise. When he was in Italy he had his portrait painted in oils, and brought it back with him. It was engraved " by Saint-Aubin for the quarto edition of the Travels."

Dr. Payen possesses another portrait, executed on wood. Beneath another, engraved by Thomas de Leu, occurs — the following quatrain : Voici du grand Montaigne une entiere figure, Le peintre a peint le corps, et lui son bel esprit : Le premier, par son art, egale la nature, Mais l'autre la surpasse en tout ce qu'il ecrit." These verses seem to have been an early production of Malherbe ; perhaps the earliest, except his epigram on the enterprising flea that skipped to the bosom of Mademoiselle Desroches at Poitiers. It is curious to observe that the portrait to which they are appended has been turned the other way, and made to do duty for Olivier Delaunay, Chevalier of the Order of St. Michel, Conseiller, Superintendent and Controller-general of the Hostel of Madame Eleanor of Austria, Queen of France ! I am told that Montaigne is sometimes represented in England with his cat, a hint taken from Butler : — (" For Montaigne, playing with his cat, Complained she thought him but an ass.") Our Essayist does not lay so much stress on the "purring diminutive lion," as a Pleiadist would say. He tells a story of a cat in a pie, and of a cat fascinating a bird. He also, in the passage to which Butler alludes, says, that if he thought that cats were created for his use, cats, on the other, thought that he was created to smooth them. But elsewhere he rather contemptuously notes, that no one takes pleasure in looking at the gambols of the inferior animals.

Montaigne, following the example of his father, always dressed in plain white or black, in opposition to the gaudy costume of his time. He liked to be tightly buttoned and braced up, yet pretends to con sider dress a mere luxury that might be dispensed with. No gentleman, he says, should dress well at home. Nothing displeased him so much at the Court as its absurd costume, which was imitated by the rest — of France, the ugly hose, ugly and indelicate; the huge pourpoint, swelling out the body and concealing its natural shape ; the long, effeminate tresses worn in front, whilst the back of the head was cropped accord ing to a fashion just introduced. It is amusing to notice how peevishly Montaigne speaks of the decrease of the natural heat of his body as he grew older ; and how triumphantly he announces that as to his legs, he covered them still at a late period of life with a simple silk stocking. It was true that, on account of his colds, he had consented to clothe his head and body more carefully. He had passed, by many degrees, from a simple cap to a double hat. The padding of his pourpoint at last only served to give him a shape ; he was obliged for warmth to add the skin of a hare or of a vulture. " If I go on like this, what shall I come to V he says. " I am determined I won't do any more. If I dared, I would retract the conces sions already made." But he was obliged to persevere, especially as he could not comfortably support the heat of a fire. All this is very characteristic and amusing. Iu deed, as I arrange these little confessions these

puerilities, if you will—I begin to see the man, despite the interval of time that separates me from him. see him fussy, hypochondriacal, pedantic, and good­ humoured; and can understand why students who have pored long over the Essays, without much caring for the period at which they were written, and which they reflect as a mirror with a thousand facets, should be somewhat indignant when proofs are brought for ward that Montaigne was a courtier, a diplomatist, and a soldier. They think one set of facts destroys the other, from a romantic rather than an accurate view of human nature. Why do we hear people so often say that they find such and such a great man very dif ferent — meaning inferior to what they had expected? His domestic habits and tribulations produce impres sions on them quite different from those of his public or imaginary career. I have heard that a great poet of these times utterly fell in the opinion of a good judge, because he was seen toying in an unnecessary manner with his nose. The fastidious writers of the seventeenth century, who rarely reached to Montaigne's waist, are very angry with his revelations. It is perfectly indifferent to them that the philosopher was fond of perfumes, and wore a collet de fleurs, or scented collar, even though he derives from his own experience curious observations on the dulling of the senses by habit. It is not, however, for his " improvements" that re­lishers of Montaigne are pleased with these con

fessions. They like them, because in an infinitely delicate way they paint the man ; or rather, in him exhibit ourselves in our fondest Narcissus moods, ad miring and loving ourselves, and carefully passing, as it were, a microscope, fitted to discover beauties, not blemishes, over our whole being. Montaigne loved good smells, and hated beyond measure evil ones. This is not the point. But the man comes completely before us, when he goes on to analyse and note all the circum stances dependent on his partiality. He likes simple and natural odours best. But odours of all kinds have a particular aptitude for clinging to him. It is astonishing how his skin absorbs them, and how, his moustaches being particularly large, they hang about them, so that if he puts up his gloves or hand kerchief, all saturated with perfume, they preserve the smell throughout the day ! These self-same mous taches, with their perfume-collecting qualities, were very tell-tales. They betrayed where he had been ; and the close kisses of youth, sweet, eager, and adhesive, used to cling to them, and hover there for hours after ! Is this mere twaddle ? Or do we not feel drawn by sympathy towards this old philosopher, sitting up in his tower, and allowing his thoughts to meander backwards towards such tender moments, leaning his brow against his window-panes, with the shadows of past times flitting athwart his mind ? Who will not sub scribe, likewise, to his observation, that incense, wafted in silvery clouds through the dim religious light of cathedrals, rejoices the soul, awakens and purifies the

senses, and renders us more fit for contemplation and prayer ? Montaigne gives as a reason for liking less to live in Paris than he should otherwise have done, — the disagreeable smell of its mud. It is in this tone that he tells us all about his personal habits, his prejudices, and his antipathies. He talks of people who affected to fear the smell of apples more than the detonation of an arquebuse, to be terrified at a mouse, to be ill at the sight of cream : he had cured himself of all these things, except an aversion to beer. Nothing concerning him does he think unworthy of being set down. He often felt inclined to abuse himself aloud ; was awkward in many things; could not play music, nor sing; could scarcely dance, or fold a letter, or mend a pen, or carve meat, or saddle a horse. He could not remember his dreams ; swore by God ; feared dew, but liked rain like ducks ; was irritated if a slipper went wrong, or the thong of his saddle ; liked to rest with his legs in the air, and was fond of scratching his ears ! Montaigne gives us the most minute account of his taste in cookery, which he calls " the science of the gullet." He liked fish, and observes that that aliment had always enjoyed the especial privilege of being attended to, and even cooked, by great people. He liked salt-meat, but would not allow salt to be put in his bread ; which was baked, of course, at home. He liked meat underdone, but not hard. In wine he was very particular, and talks so much about it that he sometimes produces the impression that he must have been a bibber. Yet not so. He drank usually about three demi-setiers at a meal, but put a third, or half water. In imitation of his father, who had been ordered to this by his doctor, he had his wine mixed by his butler two or three hours before the repast.

Sometimes he has a fancy for red wine, sometimes for white. "What the deuce is that to us?" cries his friend Dupuy indignantly. Yet readers now-a-days are not offended by these confessions, however much some may be by their critic. Montaigne knew a man who seldom drank anything, and when he was ill himself he disliked wine. Montaigne says he was hungry only at table — uses the phrase I'appetit vient en mangeant; came to table some time after the others, because he did not like to sit long, and was averse to seeing many dishes on the table, thinking a crowd of dishes as bad as any other crowd ; ate hastily, and often bit his tongue and his fingers. These are specimens of the minutiae to which he descends ; but it is useless to catalogue them all ; for who would not rather read them in the Essays ?

330 MOXTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

CHAPTER XXX. THE ESSAYIST PAINTS HIS OWN MORAL PORTRAIT. Montaigne has been so copious in revelations as to his character, that we are at first sight inclined to believe that no man can be better known. This is not so. No man has been appreciated more differ ently. I have never read a character of him, however eloquently and copiously written, which did not leave an impression of incompleteness, as if the writer had indeed looked at him from one, two, many points of view, but had neglected some of the most essential. There is also a vagueness, a generality, in the qualities attributed to him, which arises from the fact that Montaigne, even when he uses the first person most perseveringly, oftener describes Man than his own individual character; yet his own statements are ge nerally taken as the colours with which to paint, without any allowance for the errors necessarily in cident to observations of self— errors, the amount of which a moralist should be able to establish with some precision. It will be curious to collect the chief admissions, confessions, or boasts, that Montaigne makes about himself, in order to see how far they go to make a portrait. At the outset he tells us that he was mar vellously inclined to mercy and mansuetude ; and the humane tone of all his writings assures us that he did not take credit where credit was not due. He writes against torture in an age when men were a prey to a sort of furious panic, produced by the dis covery that they had been living in a fabric, all the foundations of which were not solid as a rock that some of the chambers in which their souls were wont to take refuge were domed with vapour instead of marble, and that there was a heaven dimly blue and fearfully vast beyond. During this period of delu sion the people, accustomed by the schools to divide men and things, and class them under names, against the definitions of which there was no appeal, seem really to have believed that to be called Albigeois, Atheist, Free-Thinker, Huguenot, Protestant, or Re former, was equivalent to a sort of transubstantiation, according to which human flesh, that appeals to our love, becomes demon's flesh, to be lacerated and mangled at pleasure. It required great natural ten derness —the same feeling that made Montaigne, amidst brutal sportsmen, be touched by the sobbing of the hare in its agony, torn by the dogs, and feel like Jaques for the hunted deer, and suffer at seeing a pullet killed to allow the idea that torture might be a sin to penetrate his mind in that violent time. He considered cruelty " the extreme of all vices," and says that public executions, however just they may be, he could never look firmly at. But we must re member with all this, if we would understand Montaigne and his time, that he was for many years member of a Parliament which had much innocent blood on its head, that he was a friend of the Guises and of the blood-stained Montluc, and always spoke with re verence and affection of those who carried out the

Saint Bartholomew. Montaigne informs us that he was exempt from sadness ; but this was when in the prime of life, having as yet scarcely learned what illness or pain was, he was beginning to speculate in a high stoical tone. As we go on, melancholy strains gradually mingle with his triumphant music. In the third book we miss more and more the liveliness of the earlier Essays. He begins to complain painfully, hungers after variety, seems to grow querulous. Then a cheerful gleam breaks in : " One of my teeth has just given way," says he, " without pain, without effort. That was the natural term of its duration. God is merciful to those from whom he takes life by little parcels. The last death will be less dis agreeable." He was subject violent passions, and la not to boured to deaden what he had by reason — rarely or never wept, though he felt sometimes inclined to, not from sorrow, but imitation; yet, as we have seen, he was capable of being carried away by indig nation, even in matters for which he pretended to have a contempt. In his household he was often heard to storm and scold, but his anger easily

was appeased. Injuries left little impression on him. think he was even too prone to forgive injuries against right and humanity. The ballast of his character seems to have been a kind of constitutional temper ance. But he admits that he yielded to certain vices, whilst others he avoided as if he were a saint. He compounded for sins he was inclined to, not by damning, but by avoiding others. He was not revengeful, not resentful ; inherited hatred of lying from his father; was not proud, though a little in clined to that vice from temperament; was not cruel, treacherous, a thief, or a drunkard ; had never afflicted or ruined any one ; nor exercised vengeance, nor been guilty of envy, nor publicly offended the laws, nor introduced novelty or trouble, nor broken his word ; had never laid his hand on the goods or the purse of any Frenchman, either in war or peace, and had never failed to pay for services rendered : but he was somewhat rough, inclined to disdain politeness; in different to others not immediately attached to him by friendship, so as not to care even to open their letters; rather irresolute, a characteristic exhibited in his writings; inclined in his youth to debauchery, of which he cured himself in middle life, but relapsed towards it in inclination as he grew older. " I ad " mire," he says, in his off-hand, impudent way, the chastity of the Feuillans and Capuchins, just because

334 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. they are different from me." In that age, for a gentle man to speak otherwise would have been looked upon as hypocrisy. As has been already remarked, Mon taigne accuses himself only of those faults which few are offended at having revealed, and attributes to himself all the virtues which make a man honourable and respectable. His opinions on morals were early settled and fixed. In consequence of this, he says, — setting aside certain temporary yieldings to great — passions, his course of life and his actions were uniform, and he therefore deemed he had little to repent. He would rather have been an angel or a Cato, but he cannot repent that he was not. His own conscience he thought sufficient arbiter of his own actions ; to be just in one's own breast he deemed the highest degree of virtue the next degree was to be just in one's own house. He evidently, despite the liberty he arrogated to himself, felt galled at times by the bonds of society. He would have accommo dated himself easily to the careless life of savage nations, and every now and then shows a yearning for the new kind of existence which his friend had once pointed out to him. His heart, too, leaped towards Utopia in desponding moods ! But anon we find him regretting the bustling life of court, and persuading himself that he was born to shine there. This is no contradiction. As he somewhere says: "If I speak diversely of myself, it is that I look diversely at myself." On the whole, perhaps, he was right when he said that his manners were far less intemperate

than his speculations : his moderation in one licensed him, as it where, to be less fastidious in the other. When he did exceed the limits of what he considered propriety, it was far less than most people; and he judged more severely of his own actions than of those of others. But, after all, descriptions of character are always unsatisfactory. However temperately written, with due sacrifice of antithesis, they ever produce the impression of a jumble or chaos,—unless conceived in a tone of panegyric or vituperation, in which case they are worthless. The reason, of course, is in the irregularity and inconsistency of human nature ; and the impossi bility, in so vast and varying a subject as man, of seizing all gradations. In the most elaborately written portraits of St. Simon we have to proceed by break neck leaps, as it were, and are frequently surprised to find ourselves now on a pinnacle, now in an abyss. Montaigne's character was more complete than that of most men, and more uniform. His was a sort of Mediterranean mind, with weak tides. There have been minds of vaster expanse, whose energies seem now to huddle down in the centre, like the ocean, now to brim up to overflowing. He was more equable and constant, and almost deserved the title of a philo sopher. But his character will be best understood from the Essays, if we notice less what he says of himself and more the tone in which he says it. We have but to read and the impression of worth will gradually be made, even if criticism discovers many

336 faults and shortcomings. As to Montaigne's Egotism, it was of a peculiar sort. He loved himself, but felt kindly towards the world. I have no doubt he often did good, because doing good is an enjoyment. Ordi nary selfishness repels ; but the selfishness of Montaigne seems to make him more amiable. There is something feminine about it ; but, more than this, we feel it to be a flattered portrait, that will bear public exhibition, of our own cruel indifference to the wants and sufferings of our fellow-creatures.

END OF VOLUME T. London:PrintedbyG.Barclay, CastloSt.LeicesterSq.

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

BAYLE ST. JOHN. ify lUnstrstbns. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY 1858. Therightof TranslationU reserved.

LONDON : Printed by G. Barclay, CastleSt. LeicesterSq. 33J HQ i CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. CHARACTEE OF FRANCOISE DE LA CHASSAGNE, AND HEB RELATIONS WITH HER HUSBAND . ] II. THE CHILDREN OF MONTAIGNE ... 8 III. HOUSEHOLD EXPERIENCES . . . .14 IV. NEIGHBOURS AND FRIENDS OF MONTAIGNE . 18

V. LA TOUR DE MONTAIGNE 29

.... VI. WHAT BOOKS WERE CONTAINED IN MONTAIGNE'S LIBRARY 37 ...... .... VII. ORIGIN OF THE ESSAYS 54 VIII. THE ESSAYS. § 1. MONTAIGNE'S OBJECT WASTOPROMOTETOLE RATION CO ..... § 2. IMMEDIATE INFLUENCE OF THE ESSAYS . 72 § 3. MONTAIGNE'S METHOD OF ARGUING FROM EXPERIENCE . . . ., . 74 § 4. THE ESSAYS REFLECT THE SPIRIT OF THE TIMES. .... .77 § 5. POLITICS 79 ...... § 6. NEWS FROM AMERICA 84 .... § 7. RELIGION 86 ...... § 8. MORALS ... . . . .93 § 9. SCEPTICISM 94 ..... § 10. ATTACK ON SPIRITUALISM ... 97 § 11. IDEAS ON EDUCATION 99 .... § 12. CONCLUDING OBSERVATION . . .100 ix. events of Montaigne's life during the WRITING OF the essays , . . .102

X. PUBLICATION OF THE ESSAYS . . .112

XI. WAR AGAINST THE DOCTORS . . .116 XII. TRAVELS OF MONTAIGNE . . . .127 1

CONTENTS. CHAT. PAGE

XIIT. JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND LORRAINE . 183 XIV. JOURNEY THROUGH SWITZERLAND AND GER MANY 140 ....... xv. from trent to padua . . . .160 xvi. venice, florence, and sienna . . .169 xvit. Montaigne's residence at rome . .182 xviii. Montaigne's pilgrimage to loretto . 309 xrx. the baths of della villa . . .216 xx. election of montaigne as mayor of bor deaux his return to france . . 229 xxi. first period of montaigne's mayorship . 235 xxii. second period of montaignes mayorship . 247 xxiii. the plague of 1s85 . . .' 262 xxiv. completion of the essays and journey to paris 268 ...... xxv. a plea for the flesh 275 .... xxvi. the story of marie de gournay . . 286 xxvii. imprisonment in the bastille and resi dence at blois 293 ..... xxviii. charron . . . . . . .300 xxix. Montaigne's relations with henry the fourth . 305 .... xxx. death of montaigne 312 .... note on the materials for the life of mon TAIGNE 322 ...... lUttslraiwms. interior of montaigne's library Frontispiecela tour de montaigne . 29 Montaigne's house at bordeaux . 313

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. A BIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER I. ERRATA IN VOL. II. Page 13, line 22,for uncle's husband read husband's uncle. Page 181, line 13, read : Where they found comedians the per formances did not begin until six o'clock, at the lighting of the torches : they lasted two or three hours and then made way for supper. the world got tired at last of the monotony of this complaint, and reverted to romance —in France, at least —under the auspices of that gross gallant, Francis the First. The satirical attack, at any rate, was sus pended for many years. Nothing was talked of but Delias and Cassandras in the most high-flown language. But at last the wrath of Genius turned again in its former direction ; and not long before Montaigne sat VOL. II. B CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE

XIII. JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND LORRAINE . 183 XIV. JOURNEY THROUGH SWITZERLAND AND GER MANY 140 ....... xv. from trent to padua . . . .160 •xvi. venice, florence, and sienna . . .169 xvii. Montaigne's residence at rome . .182 xviii. Montaigne's pilgrimage to loretto . 209 xxx. the baths of della villa . . .216 XX. ELECTION OF MONTAIGNE AS MAYOR OF BOR DEAUX HIS RETURN TO FRANCE . . 229 XXI. FIRST PERIOD OF MONTAIGNE'S MAYORSHIP . 235 XXII. SECOND PERIOD OF MONTAIGNES MAYORSHIP . 247 XXIII. THE PLAGUE OF 1585 . . . .' 262 XXIV. COMPLETION OF THE ESSAYS AND JOURNEY TO _ PARIS ififi riUTE U« THIS MATlSUiAIjS l'Oli T11J5 HFJL Ot MUJN­TAIGNE 322 Utafraiimts. interior of Montaigne's library . Frontispiece la tour de montaigne . • . . . .29 Montaigne's house at bordeaux ....

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. A BIOGEAPHY. CHAPTER I. CHARACTER OF FRANCHISE DE LA CHASSAGNE, AND HER RELATIONS WITH HER HUSBAND. Middle-age literature is filled with an almost unani mous condemnation of the character of women. No writer who had any pretensions to wit, laid down his pen without having one fling, at least, at the creatures, who, armed with the ignis fatuus of beauty, were per petually leading men into pools and ditches. But the world got tired at last of the monotony of this complaint, and reverted to romance in France, at — least—undertheauspices ofthat gross gallant,Francis the First. The satirical attack, at any rate, was sus pended for many years. Nothing was talked of but Delias and Cassandras in the most high-flown language. But at last the wrath of Genius turned again in its former direction ; and not long before Montaigne sat VOL. II. B MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. down to write the war had recommenced against that inconstant, coquettish, impertinent sex, that, leaving domestic duties, and letting their households go adrift, were invading society with their half-learning and incapacity for reason. He was quite in the spirit of his times, therefore, when he spread through his Essays a number of the sharpest sayings he could invent or remember against women. I have already separated from these sayings what seemed to me allusions to Montaigne's own experiences of love. I find that one biographer has collected many others, referring to what is vulgarly called "the aggravating character" of married women, their ten dency to cross and contradict their husbands, to answer "before their anger cools," in order to prove that Demoiselle Franchise de la Chassagne was a sad shrew, who made our philosopher's life unhappy. There seems to me, however, no reason to be melan choly over his matrimonial mischances, We have seen how he married ; and it is not serious to talk of " the violence done to his inclinations." But there is really no ground for supposing that in any way Franchise was the plague of Montaigne's life. In the Essays, it is true, there are allusions to scenes of domestic wrath ; but these will astonish no one who has seen the interior of any family. He was accustomed, he says, to warn those who had a right to be angry in his house, " first, to be chary of their anger, and not to let it loose without reason : if you always scream no one will attend to you, and 'tis absurd to scold a servant in

CHARACTER OF FRANCHISE LA CHASSAGNE. the same tone for having badly rinsed a glass or ill set a chair as for committing a theft ;—secondly, not to be angry to no purpose, and to take care that their scolding should hit the mark; for usually women scream before the culprit has appeared, and continue screaming a century after he has gone away." This humorous observation was no doubt derived from experience in Montaigne's household, but proves nothing against Franchise except that she had a rapid tongue. "I have known hundreds of women and Gascony — is famous for such examples — whom you could have sooner forced to bite at red-hot iron than made give up an opinion conceived in anger ; and I quite believe the story of the woman who, when she called her husband 'lousy/ and was ducked in the pond on that account, after having lost all power of speech, being brought to the surface made the sign of scratch ing her head in order to show that she did not mean to give in. . . . Those who have had to treat with obstinate women must have noticed into what fury they fly when silence and coldness are opposed to their agitation, and when we disdain to feed their anger." These allusions we know to have been derived from home experience, for a note has been found written in Montaigne's own handwriting, admitting that for once he has based an " Essay on his wife ; an excellent virtuous woman," he says, " but who will not always listen to my advice. The sin is committed, God forgive it to me!" Those who derive inferences from such facts to prove that

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. Montaigne was unhappy with Franchise, must have a singularly exalted idea of the person he might have married. What woman would have furnished an observer of his character with fewer caustic remarks? I conceive, then, that all that has been said about Montaigne's ennui in his home is ill-founded at least, if we make Franchise responsible for it. It was after six years of experience of marriage that he determined to shut himself up in his chateau, with this " frequent

storm if not continual tempest of his life." If, after some ten years of solitude, he again felt an inclination to "rub his brain against other brains," he became morose, discontented, uneasy, we can find if ample reason for all this in the approach of old age, in the attacks of disease, in the uncertainty to which his speculations had brought him, the contrast of the stoical maxims he was so fond of parading with his in in the and puerilities; word,own pettinesses a of death, for which man with his tempera approach a ment, without religion, vainly endeavours to prepare himself. Half the attacks on women which his book contains were aimed in various directions, not all point­ blank across the court at Frangoise. But this if what then? What if Montaigne really were not so, by himself that this he was made miserable persuaded wife of his Slight must be the experience of stormy ? human nature which does not warn us, that nearly all our complaints of others, our accusations of interference with the comfort of our lives, — are the mere unjust exhalations of spleen. OF FRANCHISE I acquit Franchise de la Chassagne, and send her out of court without a stain on her character. There is one passage in the Essays which, better than any other, seems to me illustrative of the home-manners of Montaigne I mean, the one in which he describes himself as playing at cards with his wife and daughter for small sums, as seriously and earnestly as if double doubloons were at stake. Montaigne, though he gave up gambling, seems always to have remained fond of cards. Chess he avoided, because it excited him, and called into play too many passions and faculties, which he preferred reserving for other occasions. He had observed, however, that games of hazard develope also the ferocious part of our nature ; and says it was quite common to see people gnaw and swallow cards, and thrust dice down their throats, as a sort of revenge for the loss of their money. But the ex citement he found in playing against his wife and daughter, could have in no way resembled this; and we may be quite sure of the fact, that his playing at all shows that he was tolerably comfortable and happy. Dr. Payen seems to believe that Montaigne's wife some times acted as his secretary. At an early period of his marriage Montaigne wrote a letter to his wife, dedicating to her Plutarch's " Letter of Consolation," which was among the works translated by La Boetie. This letter, it is true, was intended for publication, but its tone is quite na tural, and reveals anything but a dissatisfied state of mind : G MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

"To Mademoiselle de Montaigne, my wife. "My Wife, you are aware that it will not seem proper for me, as a gentleman, according to the rules of this age, to court and caress you still ; for they say that a clever man may take a wife, but to marry her is a fool's act. Let them talk as they please. I stick, for my part, to the simple fashion of the olden time — to — which my hair begins to show I belong; and, in truth, novelty, up to this hour, hath cost so dear to this poor state (and I know not whether the highest bidding has yet taken place), that in everything and everywhere I cease to have anything to do with it. Let us live, you and I, my wife, in the old French way. Now, you may remember how the late Monsieur de la Boetie, that dear brother and inviolable companion of mine, left me, when he was dying, his papers and his books, which I have counted since then as my most favourite pieces of furniture. I will not stingily make use of them for myself alone, not being deserving of this : so I have desired to communicate them to my friends. And because I have, I think, no more intimate friend than you, I send you the Letter of Consolation' of Plutarch to his wife, translated by La Boetie into French : being much grieved that Fortune has rendered this present so appropriate, as having no child but a daughter, long-expected, after four years of marriage, you have lost it in the second year (or month) of its life. But I leave to Plutarch the task of consoling you, and of pointing out your duty in this case, begging you to believe him for the love of me; for he will declare my intentions, and what can be said on this subject, much better than I. And now, my wife, I

recommend myself much to your good graces, and pray God to keep you. "From Paris, this tenth day of September, 1570. " Your good husband, "Michel de Montaigne."

CHAPTER II. THE CHILDREN OF MONTAIGNE. By his wife Montaigne had several children, besides the one mentioned in the letter just quoted ; but only one of them passed the period of infancy. He says somewhere, having wound himself up to a pitch of stoical resolution on paper, speaking of the loss of children : " I once said jokingly of some one, that he had cheated Divine Justice, for the violent death of three grown-up children having been sent to him in one day, we must believe as a sharp lash, —he almost received it as a singular favour of Heaven. My cha racter is not so eccentric : but I have lost two or three children at nurse, if not without regret, at least without repining ; yet there is scarcely any accident that touches men more to the quick." The expression, "two or three," seems to one critic "odious;" but there is really nothing odious in it. Montaigne is stimu lating himself to face the disasters of life. Among these is the loss of children ; and, grateful for the one left him, he does not shrink from admitting or boasting HIS CHILDREN. that he had been deprived of two or three very young children without any great despair. His tone is influ enced, also, by the comparative lightness of his loss with that to which he refers, and which is elsewhere recorded by him thus : " The Comte de Gurson, the Comte de Fleix, and the Chevalier, three brothers, my good lords and friends of the house of Foix, were killed at Moncrabeau, in the Agenois, in a very fierce conflict in the service of the King of Navarre." These three gentlemen were sons of the Marquis de Trans, whom I have already mentioned. Whilst defending Montaigne from the absurd charge of barbarity, it would leave a very incomplete conception of his character if we omitted to notice that he expressly disclaims all share in that mysterious affection, that yearning of parent for child, which seems to be the real link of the great chain of humanity. • We must not be surprised at this : Montaigne had to " do work essentially opposed to what is supernatural " and divine in our nature." He could not receive that passion, which makes people embrace children scarcely born, without any movement in their soul, nor recognisable form in their body, by which they may " render themselves amiable, and always objected to let them be nursed in the house." This is probably the reason why they nearly all died. We have the record of each successive disaster. In Montaigne's journal of family events, which was evidently fabricated for him self at a late period of his life,— perhaps all at one

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. sitting — and is full of the strangest mistakes as to dates, we find the following entries :— " June 28, 1570, was born of Franchise la Chas­sagne and me a daughter, whom my mother and the President La Chassagne, father of my wife, named Toinette. This is the first child of my marriage. She died two months after." The same child, in the dedication of La Bo'etie's " Letter of Consolation," is said, according to Dr. Payen by a misprint, to have lived two years. " September 9, 1571. About two hours after mid day, Francoise la Chassagne, my wife, brought forth at Montaigne my daughter Leonore, second child of our marriage ; which Pierre Eyquem de Montaigne, Sieur de Gaviac, my uncle, and Leonore my sister, baptized." " July 5, J 573. About five o'clock in the morning was born at Montaigne my third child. M. l'Abbe de Verteil, my wife's uncle, and Mademoiselle de Mons, held her over the font, in the chapel of my house, and named her Anne. She only lived seven weeks." "December 27, 1574, my fourth daughter was born, and died about three hours afterwards ; having been baptized hurriedly, necessity pressing." " May, 1557, was born my fifth child, who died a month afterwards. My brother, the Sieur de Matte­coulon, and my sister Mary, baptized her without ceremony." " February 21, 1583, we had another daughter, who was named Marie, and baptized by the Sieur de

HIS CHILDREN. Jl Jauvillac, conseiller in the Court of Parliament, her uncle, and my daughter Leonore. She died a few days afterwards." Elsewhere, writing upon education and against the practice of beating, Montaigne says :—"All my children die at nurse ; but Leonore, our only daughter, who has escaped this misfortune, has reached the age of six and more without having been punished, the indulgence of her mother aiding, except in words, and those very gentle ones." Although Montaigne had little of real parental love, he was just the man to be accessible to the influence of qualities by which children, as they grow up, " render themselves amiable." He gradually became fond of Leonore, as he might have grown fond of the amiable child of any other person, just as he became fond of the Demoiselle de Gournay, whom he adopted as a sort of intellectual daughter in his after-life. Like Henry the Fourth, he always made her call him papa ; and he often patiently sat and listened to her reading to her governess, when she was of a marriageable age." The occasion on which he mentions this is charac teristic. He is complaining that women are brought up to think only of love from their very childhood; their grace, their decking out, their science, their con versation, all their instruction, has that only in view Their governesses make no other impression on them, even by continually warning them against it. "My daughter, my only child, is of a marriageable age; but she is of a tardy complexion, slight and soft, and

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. has been brought up by her mother in a very private and reserved way, so that she is only just beginning to lose the naivete of childhood. She was reading the other day a French book before me : a word capable of a coarse, double meaning, occurred; her governess instantly stopped her short, rather roughly, and made her skip the passage. I let her alone, not to interfere with their rules, for I don't meddle in that business. Feminine police works in a mysterious way, which we must let alone ; but I am very much mistaken if inter course with twenty lackeys would have been able to impress upon the girl's fancy in six months the intel ligence, the use, and all the consequences of the sound of those rascally syllables so completely as did this good " old woman by her reprimand and her interdiction ! Montaigne then goes on to make revelations, which of course apply only to women of his age and country, declaring that the female mind produces coarse and licentious ideas as naturally as trees do fruit ; so that he almost accepts Plato's idea, that in a former state of existence they must have been debauched boys." I once happened," he says, to overhear them talk without suspicion, and say Oh, that I dared to repeat what they said ! By Our Lady ! thought I, we go and study phrases in Amadis and facts in Boc caccio and Aretino, and fancy we can teach these crea " tures anything ! Montaigne professes not only not to regret that he had but one child, but denies that he possessed the common tie which is said to bind men to the future by

HIS CHILDREN. the children which bear their name and their honour. To be without offspring seemed to him no defect ; yet elsewhere he expresses himself desirous to find a son-in-law who would take care of his affairs and relieve him of their weight. "But we live/' he adds, "in a world where loyalty in one's own children even is un known." We find that he at last met with a son-in­law to suit him, and the history of the marriage is contained in the following four entries in his journal :— " May 27, 1590, Sunday. Leonore, my only daughter, married Frangois de la Tour, in presence of Bertrand her father, of me and my wife, in this house. " June 23, Saturday. At the point of day, the heat being extreme, Madame de la Tour, my daughter, left here to be taken to her new home. " September 5, Wednesday. At nine o'clock at night, died at La Tour the Seigneur de la Tour, father of my son-in-law, aged, as he had told me, seventy-one years. " March 31, 1591, was born to Madame de la Tour, my daughter, her first child, a daughter, baptized by the Sieur de Saint Michel, her uncle's husband, and by my wife, who named her Franchise de la Tour."

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

CHAPTER III. HOUSEHOLD EXPERIENCES. We have seen by the negative way in which Montaigne represents himself as interfering in his daughter's education, how likely a man he was to hold the reins of his household lightly. He seems to imply, however, that he was obliged to interfere more than he felt in clined, because his wife was not a good woman of business. It was his theory, that women should be educated to look after all household affairs, instead of wasting their time in thoughts of toilette and society. When he was away from home, spending money on travel, he did not find that the expense was in any way diminished. He makes a great virtue of not letting his affairs go to the dogs ; tells us that it is as trouble some to govern a family as to govern a kingdom ; that as small type wearies the eyes more than large type, so petty cares fatigue the mind more than great cares : but I think he meddled a great deal more in household matters than he will acknowledge. " I cannot avoid," he says, " running up against something at home every hour that displeases me." How often must he have laid down his pen, with which he was making a pish at chance and sufferance, to look out of the window of his tower and trouble himself to know what was going wrong, what vessel was broken, what pilfering had been " discovered ! The pilferings they think they conceal best from me," he notes with a sort of chuckle at his own sagacity, " I know best." He admits that he used to feign to be in a passion in order to govern his house, and probably imitated the vociferations of the voluble Francoise. When he says " feign," those who know the proportions of consciousness and unconscious ness in anger, will understand what he means. It is certain that the multiplicity of petty concerns at home kept this fidgetty philosopher in a continual state of annoyance. The tiles blown off his tower by the wind made him melancholy. He breathed freely when on a visit to a strange house, and was happy there ; except, perhaps, when he thought of the disorder that might be in his own. Montaigne entered late in life on the management of a household, and evidently had little real delight in

though his love of order made him interfere. "I wish," he says, " that instead of some other piece of it, his succession my father had left me that passionate love which, in his old age, he had for household affairs." As for himself, during the eighteen years he had been of the head house, he had never had to a courage examine the title-deeds of his estate. His father had prognosticated that he would ruin his fortune, being MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. too fond of wandering ; but, in spite of his easy mode of proceeding, he had rather improved it than other wise. The fact is, that during the first few years that he was the master of his fortune, he seems to have of artificialin himself, like Alfieri, sort developed a

avarice. Afterwards he became much easier and looser in his money transactions. hundred men Montaigne employed about upon a his estate; and his household seems to have been In for country gentleman. one numerous a mere place he says he could not remember their names, but only those of their offices. His character is developed his in his account of the rules he observed in choosing servants. His choice fell, he says, not on the chaste valet, or on the cook that did not swear, but on the diligent valet and the clever cook. He tells of his gardener, his groom, his valets, and his page. " What the deuce do we care to be informed whether he had " cries one of his surly critics. Theor not a ? page is, that Montaigne mentions this circumstance in fact the account of an adventure he once met with when he was attacked, and lost men and horses. " Among " they ofkilledothers," he miserably a pagesays, Italian gentleman, whom carefully mine, was an I In him youth ofextinguished bringing was up. a very fine promise." The critics, leaving aside the pathetic part of this reminiscence, hang all their re " page." suppose the same class ofmarks on the word I indifferent about the information that Mon writers is taigne, so severe on his wife's noisy anger, used to fly HOUSEHOLD EXPERIENCES. into a passion with his people, halloo at them, and call them "calves;" but his anger soon passed. His wrath was oftener roused, pedant that he was, by the bad reasons than by the bad actions of his household. That he was not a comfortable master, is proved by the admission that he knew many servants who would rather beg their bread than serve him. He makes the observation which was, no doubt, the origin of Catinat's bon-mot : " Few men have been admired by their valets-de-chambre." He always speaks of the people he employed as " belonging to him" for the time. " I have a painter," he says ; and elsewhere, " I have a good fellow of a tailor, who never uttered a truth in his life, even when it would have been serviceable to him." One of his valets acted as his secretary, and stole a number of pieces chosen out of the Essays. Elsewhere he mentions having in his service a man who had travelled in America, and was sufficiently intelli gent to give him much information on the manners of the savages. He talks of a Swiss apothecary kept by his father, a quiet, respectable man, who told droll stories of the effect of imagination on a former master. All these little detached hints give us the idea that his chateau was very populous, and help to paint the pe culiar state of society in those days when civilisation was dispersed, as it were, over the country in little shining globules, not collected in one great central mass. VOL. II.

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

CHAPTER IV. NEIGHBOURS AND FRIENDS OF MONTAIGNE. As the whole valley of the Dordogne was studded with mansions such as Montaigne's, with here and there a vast chateau belonging to the great lords of the country, he had many neighbours of his own rank in life. His most frequent relations seem to have been with the chateau De Gurson, belonging to Gaston de Foix, Marquis de Trans, which rises, as I have said, upon a hill in sight of his house to the north. The Essay on the education of children is dedicated to the daughter-in-law of the Marquis, Madame Diane de Foix, Comtesse de Gurson. Her husband was afterwards killed at Moncrabeau. Montaigne had had much to do with bringing about her marriage ; and relates that her husband, his intimate friend, came to him on the wed ding-day, and said that a rival was present who would certainly cast a charm upon him. An old lady, also a relation, felt much interest in this matter; was in a state of great excitement, and whispered her delicate fears to Montaigne. We know all the details of this HIS NEIGHBOURS AND FRIENDS. marvellous adventure : how the wedding folks, according to usual custom, entered the bridal chamber some time after the happy pair had retired, in order to bring them the cup of spiced wine ; how Jacques Pelletier's amulet was brought into play, and how the enchantments which really took place were defeated. In due time, Montaigne's advice on the bringing up of the first child became necessary. In his Essay, he tells us this Diana was of a lettered race ; for there existed books by the ancient Counts of Foix ; and Francois de Candale, her uncle, was still distinguishing himself as a writer. This De Candale great patron of was^the science and literature in Guienne. He possessed many chateaux on the banks of the Garonne, and in one of them had laboratories, workshops, and forges set up, in order to indulge his taste for mechanics. He was very fond of relating an ascent he once made of the Jumelles, in the Pyrenees, for the purpose of measuring its height ; and he and other learned men seem to have considered it one of the loftiest mountains in the world. As an instance of his sagacity, we are told that, before setting out, he provided himself with a furred gown, whilst the young gentlemen who accompanied him were so ignorant that they started with simple blouses. They did not believe that they could find it too cold anywhere in the month of May. We have already seen that Montaigne dedicated one of La Boetie's works to another member of this great family, Paul de Foix. He moved, indeed, as a gentleman remarkable for learning and talent, and well-looked upon at court, in

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. the highest society in the province. When he was conseiller he was intimate with M. d'Escars, the king's lieutenant. He always kept up relations with Montluc, and relates how that able general and vigorous writer, having lost his son in an expedition against the island of Madeira, was seized with remorse for the severity and reserve he had always shown towards him. " He came to me," says Montaigne, " and expressed his that the poor lad had only seen a stern andsorrow — contemptuous expression on his countenance an ex pression merely assumed, from a mistaken notion of the dignity it was necessary for a father to keep up." The Essay in which this anecdote is related is addressed to Madame d'Estissac, a widow lady of Gascony, who had been left by her husband at the head of a large fortune, which she had to take care of for her son. Montaigne praises her for having refused many honour able offers of marriage, in order to attend entirely to her maternal duties. Young M. d'Estissac afterwards accompanied Montaigne to Italy. To enumerate all Montaigne's distinguished friends would, however, be to enumerate the most distinguished persons of the day. I refer here principally to his countrymen and neighbours. Among these we must reckon Monsieur de Pibrac, "of agreeable mind, whole some opinions, and gentle manners," whose death he mentions respectfully ; forgetting, of course, to note that this gentle man had apologised for the St. Bar tholomew ; and refraining from any allusion to his unfortunate, and somewhat humiliating passion, when

HIS NEIGHBOURS AND FRIENDS. the fire of passion should have been quenched, for Marguerite de Valois. Montaigne had opportunities at court of seeing this Marguerite de Valois, about the time of her mar riage with Henry the Fourth; and when she became his neighbour at Nerac, in 1579, determined to dedicate " to her his famous Apology for Raymond de Sebonde." He received permission so to do from the learned princess; who allowed him also to quote as much Latin as he pleased. Something, however, seems to have occurred at the last moment to make him deem it advisable to withdraw her name from the head of the Essay; but here and there the epistolary form is still preserved. Compliments to her beauty are not spared. In another place Montaigne, alluding to the time when he knew her at court, calls her a maiden, the first of our princesses ;" and quotes something she said to him, to the effect that too much learning must stifle the judgment. Montaigne was constantly visited by learned and literary men in their voyages in Guienne, and received them as hospitably as his character would allow. On one occasion he deliberately omitted the compliment of riding out on the road to meet his guests ; and this seems to have given great offence. He retired to his tower and wrote an Essay against the ceremonial part of politeness. He was never a great favourite with the learned class of his time, who did not like the airs of gentility he gave himself. Scaliger called him "a bold ignoramus," and said impertinent things about

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. him. Tradition explains this by the compliments Mon taigne paid to Lipsius, whom he called the most learned man that remained after the death of Turnebus. Lip sius, in return, though usually despising the French writers, called Montaigne the French Thales. But we have better opinions than that of this weak-minded peripatetic philosopher, who changed his religion as often as his abode, and was little worthy of the praise given him. Scaliger, a neighbour of Montaigne's, whose father had admired the verses of La Bo'etie, may have been hurt by so misplaced a compliment ; but it is more likely that his ire was roused by the affectation of contempt with which Montaigne spoke of the learned class of his day, whom he describes as issuing greasy, filthy, and morveux, from a garret where they had not been searching how to make themselves better and wiser, but seeking to discover the measure of the verses of Plautus, or the true orthography of a Latin word —

is, that labouring to render study more easy for Mon taigne and other ungrateful fine gentlemen. It easy to collect ludicrous facts about learned is men, much easier and more amusing, than to describe their general simplicity and exemplary behaviour. very strong in such instances. Some of Montaigne is his anecdotes are quite comic. Many of his acquaint ances, he says, kept their learning in their libraries ; him what heand he knew man who, when he asked a a to show him, and did not dare tofetched book knew, without going to his say he had pimple on his nose a lexicon to study what and what pimple. was nose a a HIS NEIGHBOURS AND FRIENDS. On one occasion, a friend of his, meeting at Montaigne one of the same kidney, a man of letters and reputa tion, with a fine flowing gown, opened a dispute with him, and kept it up the whole day in an extempore jargon, interlarded with a few words and phrases that had some reference to the matter supposed to be under examination. This is a touch that recalls the gesticu lating dispute carried on between Master Thaumaste, the learned Englishman, and the inimitable Panurge. Elsewhere Montaigne tells an anecdote of a man who launched forth into a Philippic against the vices of — the world in talk and wrote about kitchen and law- reforms. We have traces of the visits, however, of many really learned men to the chateau de Montaigne. Turnebus seems to have made one call. Jacques Pelletier, a famous mathematician, poet, and gram marian of those days, used often to come there; and once, taking advantage perhaps of his host's inexact knowledge, boasted that he had found in geometry inevitable demonstrations that subvert the truth of experience : as, for example, that two lines may ap to proach one another which yet all eternity, however prolonged, could never touch. On another occasion the same wag made him an odd present, namely, a flat

it, piece of gold with some celestial figures engraved on intended as an amulet against sun-strokes. It was by the top of the headto fasten it on a necessary ribbon that passed under the chin. Montaigne kept it MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. by him, and afterwards, as we have seen, turned it to a droll use. Thus all the meetings of Montaigne with remark able persons left their trace in his writings. But his Essays are full of anecdotes of his most insignificant friends and neighbours. He intimates that most of the people about him were ignorant and boorish. But from the most ignorant he could learn something, if not by questioning, at any rate by observing them. He has left us a portrait gallery of his country neigh bours, which show that some of them were oddities indeed. The humour of the old gentleman who was so attentive to his food and its results, too nearly resembles that described in Matthew Bramble's famous letter from Bath to enable me to quote it. Here is another, which is droll enough :—One of our gentle " men used to wipe his nose with his fingers, an act very contrary to our custom;" but he obstinately justi fied his practice. He used to say : " What privilege has this filthy excrement that we should prepare a fine

it, delicate piece of linen to receive and then it wrap in It muchcarefully and put it is our pocket up ? away." — more absurd to do so than to throw it Another man, Dean of St. Hilary, had come through a melancholy to love solitude so much, that on Mon taigne's first visit he learned that for twenty-two years he had never gone out of his room, and only allowed people to visit him once a-week. Every day servant a brought him his food. He spent his time in reading and walking about, and thus obstinately remained shut up till he died. Another of Montaigne's friends, a gentleman of good family, was born blind, but had got so accustomed to speak as other people spoke, that when one of his godchildren was presented to him he would say, " Good heavens, what a handsome child ! How pleasant it is to see him ! What an agreeable " countenance ! He would also commonly exclaim : "This is a fine light room ; this is a fine sunny day." In that part of the country the common amusements were hunting, tennis, shooting at a mark with the arquebus, and so this poor blind gentleman thought it necessary to interest himself much in these matters. His people " used to cry out to him, "A hare ! a hare ! and he would give chase, and presently afterwards would say, " Here it is ;" and was as proud of his capture as any one else. He must needs play at tennis, too, and fired at the mark with the others, and believed all that was told him of his excellent aim. Another gentleman in the neighbourhood being marvellously subject to the gout, was pressed by the doctors to leave off altogether the use of salt meat, but always replied pleasantly that he wanted to keep the power of complaining of something, and that by crying out and damning, now the sausage, now the tongue, and then the ham, he felt himself relieved. Thus we see that Montaigne kept a register of the oddities of all his friends, and introduces them to us whenever he can. " I know a lady of very high rank," he says, " who believes that it gives a person a

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. disagreeable appearance to be seen in the act of chewing, and for this reason will scarcely ever eat in public." This lady would have met with the approval of Byron. Although Montaigne had many noblemen and gen tlemen among his neighbours, we must not suppose that he was, therefore, wrong in saying that he had little intellectual intercourse. The nobles of his day were almost all ignorant ; and it was, indeed, considered so essential to the sword to be ignorant, that Montaigne throughout his book, even when he most eloquently insists on education, affects a sort of gentlemanly contempt for learning. We have seen, however, from what we have said of his conversation, that he must have been always rather out of place among the rustics and squires of his neighbourhood. Their chief subject of talk was genealogy. " Yesterday/' says Montaigne, in his strange journal, " I saw a man of understanding making fun pleasantly and justly of the absurd habit of another, who bored every one with the register of his genealogies and alliances, more than half false; and yet this very man, if he had observed himself, would have found that he was not less intemperate and troublesome in constantly talking of the high lineage of his wife." Another time there was a meeting of gentlemen to decide the quarrel of one lord with another, who had, indeed, some prerogatives above the common nobility. "Apropos of these prerogatives, every one, trying to equal him, alleged, some one origin, some another,

some the resemblance of a name; others that of a coat of arms, others an old private parchment, so that it turned out that the least of them was descended from some outlandish king. As they were about to sit down to dinner, one of my friends, instead of taking his place, withdrew with profound reverences, begging all present to excuse him if from rashness he had until then lived with them as a companion, assur ing them that, now that he had learned all their old qualities, he should begin to honour them according to their rank, and that it was not proper for him to sit down among so many princes. After carrying on his joke for some time he abused them soundly, saying, Let us be content, in God's name, with what con tented our fathers, and with what we really are. We are good enough if we know how to maintain our position. Let us not disown the fortune and condition of our ancestors ; and away with these stupid imagina tions, which every one can bring forward who has only " the impudence to do so ! But it would be impossible to extract from the Essays all instances of observation on the characters of neighbours and friends, for a principal part of them is composed of such material. Nor need we classify all Montaigne tells us as to his method of conversation with them. No doubt when he did speak he spoke some thing in the manner of the Essays, where he does not brace himself up and imitate the classical step. He tells us he was not fitted, like some of his friends, to entertain the ears of princes with chat, or a

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. company with tales ; but in animated conversation he produced a powerful effect. Malebranche complains of the contagious influence of his imagination. This was, no doubt, observable as much in his conversation as it is in his writings. He spoke loud and in an eager manner when interested, otherwise he was cold and reserved. He rather made speeches than con versed. He ridiculed the learned language usually employed in conversation, even by women, whom he recommends to eschew it. When he argued he was obstinate and persevering, but he was also full of anecdote and advice, and sentences and sayings. He lays a great deal of stress on his method of argumenta tion, and, whatever he may say to the contrary, must have been not only a good talker, but a great talker, and, no doubt, had a reputation as such.

CHAPTER V. LA TOUR DE MONTAIGNE. In describing the present state of Montaigne's chateau,I have sketched the great tower overlooking the en- MONTAIGNE'S TOWER. MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. trance to the court-yard, which he reserved entirely for his own use, and which was the chief scene of his meditations, his studies, and his writings. It is im possible to dissociate the Essays from that tower. Whoever reads them is at first disposed overlooking

the fact that in every page there is, thread it were, as a — with the busy world to conceive them it connecting the work of solitary philosopher, who has as a pur posely isolated himself in order to indulge in fan tastical speculations, and make havoc with his own ideas, fancies, prejudices, and hopes. Their popularity arises chiefly perhaps from the impression produced of separation from the times in which they were written. What seems to appeal to no particular time, all time is, and there indeed,seems to appeal to a; universal element in Montaigne's book the painting of human nature in its most unclothed, unartificial by state — which makes be appreciated the it to man by of this day of that. would It the it was man as have been appreciated thousands of years ago, at the outset of the intellectual development of which it con tinues the tradition. Plato would have loved and it, aye, and Confucius understood for, it belongs as ; in this respect to no time, it belongs to no country.so the least French of all books. It begins by It is an anecdote of the Black Prince, and ends by quotation a of nationality from Horace and there not is trace a ; from beginning to end. For, in his tower, Montaigne looked upon all men as his kin. From that look-out of the world became skeleton the not a map map, LA TOUR DE MONTAIGNE. blotched with distinctive colours. Costume, hats and turbans, boots and sandals, and breeches and stomachers, were all torn away and thrown aside, and the great infant Man gambolled before his fancy. But his was not the mind to think much of the primitive or the ideal state. The naked man he saw bore the marks of the girths he had worn, and the burdens he had carried. In order to reach this centre, Montaigne, advanced by two distinct paths that must inevitably intersect. His philosophy was as much the result of reading as of experience. He did not belong to the school which affects to separate the study of men from the study of books, as if books did not contain the most intimate and completest revelations of man ! Montaigne looked at the stage from the slips as well as from the boxes. He knew that the vast and populous spectacle of the Present, with all its colours, its lights and shades, its bustle and confusion, could teach absolutely nothing to him who was too idle or contemptuous to look back and see of what materials similar pictures were made in past times. Every man has experienced, every man sees as much of the world as another; and this is why " all pretend to have a knowledge of human nature." But the world is a pantomime, which cannot be under stood without some previous knowledge of what is going on. We must, at least, have a playbill in our hands. Montaigne was perfectly aware, from the outset, of the importance, for the man who intends to write,

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. of knowing what has been written before him, and of taking advantage of all previous discoveries and studies; and instead of depending for originality on ignorance, so apt to deal in pompous truisms and commonplaces, sought for new truths and ideas beyond the limits of the known. Learning furnished him with an indispensable ballast, without which he would have rolled about and gone to pieces in the sea of specula tion. It is true that, according to the mood he was in, giving in this an instance of how "diverse and undu

lating" a thing man is, he now affected to work without books, and now pretended that his Essays were mere a patchwork from all sides. Of course neither de He carried erudition very far, scription is correct. and stopped only just short of pedantry, he did stop if short; and at the same time gave the reins to his imagination to such an extent that we frequently fancy playing with his subject and his reader. he is insight into Mon We shall, then, acquire new a taigne's character, and better understand the Essays, by penetrating once more into the upper story of his view of its contents. and taking accurate tower, more a We already know its plan and present state. In well furnished,Montaigne's time was, no doubt, it according to the fashion of the day. On the rafters were carefully inscribed in black letters verses from the Bible, with Greek and Latin sentences. In Greek there — were written the following maxims " It : not so much things that torment man, as the is things." " Every reasoning has that he has of opinions LA TOUR DE MONTAIGNE. its contrary." "Wind swells bladders; opinion swells men." The Latin inscriptions are :— "Mud and ashes, what have you to be proud of?" " Our understanding wanders blind amidst darkness, and cannot seize on truth." In large letters on the central rafter is seen this device : "I do not understand. I pause. I examine." But the chief ornaments of this chamber were the books. The nucleus of the collection was the library of La Boetie, which he left by will to his friend. Montaigne tells us somewhere — that he possessed above a thousand volumes a great many for those days of folios; and elsewhere, re turning to the charge, he says, " My library is one of the finest in any village." " The form of the room" —he goes on —"is circu lar, and the only straight piece of wall is where I place my table and my chair. As I sit I can take in at one glance round the curve all my books, ranged on shelves, five ranges one above the other. Three windows give me three wide and rich views over the country. The room is sixteen paces in diameter. In winter I am less continually there, for my house is perched on a hill, as its name imports, and none of its rooms is so exposed to the wind as this one. Yet it pleases me because it is somewhat difficult of access, and retired, as much on account of the utility of the exercise, as because I there avoid the crowd. Here is my seat, my place, my rest. I try to make it purely my own, and to free this single corner from conjugal, filial, and VOL. II. D

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. civil community. Elsewhere I have but a verbal authority, merely essential and confused. Wretched is he, who in his own home has really no home of his own, where he can pay court to himself and hide himself when he pleases ! Ambition must recompense its followers well to induce them to remain ever in view, like the statue in a market-place. Magna servitus est magna fortuna ! They have not even their wardrobe for retreat. Verily, I would rather be ever alone than never alone." We must observe, however, that when Montaigne retired to his Library, he was not always necessarily alone. "I turn over the leaves now of one book," he says, "now of another, without order or design, disconnectedly. I meditate, I Sometimes sometimes sit down, or dictate as I walk about these dreams" (his Essays). As we have already seen, Montaigne employed one of his servants as secretary. It is difficult, however, to understand how any part of the Essays could have been dictated. They are so personal ! Elsewhere Montaigne says, that though he wrote an insupportably bad hand, he preferred writing his private letters to dictating them.

it, Montaigne made think business to it a were, as at his castle. He was ever on the look-out for ideas thought would suddenly strike him in and images. A the family part of his house, and he would often, not having his tablets at hand, hurry across the court and climb his tower, in order down. Experience, it to set however, had taught him that the thought might be LA TOUR DE MONTAIGNE. lost on the way, whisked out of sight, by some sudden gust of sensation; so he used to take care before setting out to tell it to his wife, his daughter, or anybody else who might happen to be at hand. Imagine a gaping servant-girl of Perigord being en trusted with such valuable deposits ! What an amusing revelation is there in all this of Montaigne in his — literary character Montaigne the maker of books. His Essays were never out of his mind ! He seems ever to have been employed in meditating and carefully inscribing his thoughts in his brain, so that his manner of speaking to others was constrained, dry, and brief. He hastened back, as it were, to his own thoughts, for fear he should lose sight of them. Montaigne sometimes passed the night in his tower, sleeping in the room on the first floor just under his library. He mentions that he was often annoyed as he wrote by the falling of slates, and says that he would feel less the fall of a tower absent. We can imagine him awakening from his philosophical specu lations, laying down his pen, throwing away a half-finished Essay, and beginning to fret and fume about the dilapidated state of his house, calculating the cost of repairs, cursing the expense, and regretting that he had not inherited the constructive mania of his father. Perhaps, for a day after, he would be in a state of nervous excitement ; as when the bridle of his horse got out of order, or a small strap flapped insolently against his leg. Another time the chimney would smoke, or a drain stink, in spite of the care he had

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. taken to have them set to rights as soon as he became master of Montaigne. At other times, the horrible howlings of a tempest made him shiver with terror at the idea of being exposed out in the country. He evidently kept his imagination in an excited state, the peculiar advantages of which none perhaps but a literary man can appreciate.

BOOKS IN HIS LIBRARY.

CHAPTER VI. WHAT BOOKS WERE CONTAINED IN MONTAIGNE'S LIBRARY. We have not got a complete list of all the thousand volumes which filled Montaigne's shelves. If we had, the collection would probably appear strange enough. But we must remember, in order to understand his choice and his preferences, that, with the exception of Italy, no country, whatever antiquarians and enthu siasts may say, had produced what could be called a literature in modern times. At any rate, the master pieces of France, England, and Germany, existing in 1571, when Montaigne retired to his tower, may be counted on the fingers of one hand : Rabelais, Calvin, Luther, Sir Thomas More, Chaucer. What more ? How few of the names which come trippingly to the tongue when we talk of the genius of modern times ! The joints of the printing-press had indeed, so to speak, only just begun to move easily. In the six teenth century, printing, instead of being merely a trade, was so new and wonderful as to be considered a learned and most responsible profession. Some of MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. the ablest minds attended to it. The " Great Turne­bus," and the Estiennes of illustrious origin, took to it with enthusiasm. The Estiennes, known, after the manner of kings, as Henry the First, Henry the Second, and so forth, made an immense reputation. The first began to print before the eddies of classical revival had reached France. Within twenty years, however, he brought out above one hundred and twenty works. By degrees, the duties of the printer became more im portant and more dangerous. As soon as the Reform spread, new editions of the Scriptures began to be demanded, and printers were at the same time theolo gians and critics. Their adventures and tribulations form some of the most moving and interesting episodes of the history of those times. It is probable that Montaigne bought almost all the good editions of classical works that appeared. He was an indefatigable reader, or rather skimmer through of books. We are accustomed to hear him spoken of, on the hint given by himself, as a compiler from Plutarch and Seneca an improver on their maxims; but he ransacked all classical literature for gems of thought, and generally used them in so new and startling a manner, that the original owners would no more have thought of claiming them than so many separate words. In Montaigne they become words of vast extent and complete meaning, in which he clothes his speculations. In his first book alone there are quotations from above sixty Greek and Latin writers. Sometimes mere quo tations are concealed in the text, though they may be

BOOKS IN HIS LIBRARY. discovered, as Montaigne too modestly says, by any one of judgment, as "flowers too rich for such a field." To the general reader he offers them as traps, or rather as checks "on the temerity of those hasty judgments which are passed on all sorts of writings, especially of living persons who use the vernacular." He warns people that they may give a fillip to Plutarch on Mon taigne's nose ; and in that time, to speak ill of an ancient was almost sacrilege ; at any rate, great ingratitude : for the ancients had taught them all they knew, waked them up, set them on their feet, and prepared them for fresh discoveries. As for order, Montaigne pretends to have none. Chance decides the arrangement of his ideas : they sometimes come in crowds, sometimes one by one. As they come, he sets them down. For his object is to paint himself under his various aspects ; and he is too tender of his reputation to endeavour, like some more modern Essayists, always to be epi grammatic and startling. In reading books, Montaigne says that if he met

it, he did not bite his nailsany difficulty butover If one bookafter one or two attempts passed on. He never obstinatelywearied him, he threw aside. it fixed his attention wander.when it was disposed to He only read at hours when the weariness of doing nothing seized him. "I rarely use modern books," he says, "because the ancients seem to me fuller and loftier; I because mastered the language." His principal reading, then, was of Latin, and of some few translations of the best Greek books, sufficiently nor never MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. Greeks. His dear Plutarch he principally read in Amyot ; and it is curious to notice that the date of the publication of the " Moral Works "(15 72), from which he chiefly drew, coincided almost exactly with the com mencement of the Essays. " The books I chiefly use to form my opinions," he says, "are Plutarch, since he has become French, and Seneca." He considered Amyot best among the writers of his day. But it will be interesting to examine Montaigne more closely a literary man, forming and expressing as a judgment on the works of others. We shall thus make better acquaintance with his library, and be able to trace his speculations to their origin. In his " Essay on Books," which is a criticism of the contents of his shelves, he begins by speaking of productions " simply agreeable;" and oddly enough mentions, among the moderns, only the "Decameron" of Boccaccio; Rabelais, and the " Kisses" of Johannes Secundus ! Montaigne, though a contemporary of Rabelais, had no suspicion of his character ; perhaps regarded him not, with Car­lyle, as "a fervid Genius in the mask of a Buffoon;" but, with Verdier, as " the great Mocker of God and of the World." Elsewhere Montaigne mentions the " Hep­tameron" of the Queen of Navarre ; and alludes also to the works of Aretino, severely blaming the Italians for applying the title of Divine to such a writer, who, except for the ingenious but fantastical and far-fetched points with which he was filled, had no pre-eminence over the authors of his age. It is to be observed, that Aretino was the first man in modern times who printed

his letters. He set the fashion in Italy ; and Mon taigne had, he says, about a hundred different volumes of works of that kind. He preferred those of Anni­balo Caro, first published in 1572, and still considered models of Italian prose. Montaigne evidently read all his contemporaries whose works made any noise ; but seems to have had a very contemptuous opinion, not ill-founded, of the prose writers of France. He describes how he looked through one book, and the startling effect which a fine but stolen passage had on him.

When he came to it and left it,it like going up was and down precipice. a We have already seen that, even in his youth, Montaigne had an aversion to the Amadis, and that sort of writing in other words, to sentimental romance ; ; and he notes that this distaste ever continued. When he wrote the Essays, however, this annex of modern ofliterature had for fashion.moment out a gone People cared more about pamphlets. For his part, as he grew old he grew more fastidious in poetry. Not only Ariosto but Ovid ceased to please him. Itis worth partiality for noting, however, that he had a the Centos, so popular in his day,—poems composed of lines and phrases of other poems twisted from their original meaning, as had been the verses of Virgil by with approval the efforts in Ausonius mentionsand ; this line of Lellius Capilupus, whose cento on the by Bayle to be inimitable. But he speaks monks said is with contempt of poets who wrote whole works, every line of which began with the same letter and actually ; MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. ventures to disdain those Greeks, who, by shortening or lengthening their verses, made their poems represent eggs, balls, wings, or hatchets ! In poetry Montaigne gave the first rank to Virgil, Lucretius, Catullus, and Horace. He considered the " Georgics " of Virgil the most accomplished work of poetry, and regretted that the author had not had leisure to brush up some of the passages of the "iEneid." The fifth book of the "^neid" seemed to him the most perfect. In the times neighbouring to Virgil's, people complained of the comparison of Lucretius with him. " What would they have said," exclaims Montaigne," to the absurdity and barbarous stupidity of those who now compare Ariosto with Virgil ? What would Ariosto himself have said ? Compare the iEneid' and the Orlando Furioso:' —the former wings rapidly along with a lofty and firm flight, straight to its object ; the latter flutters and hops from story to story, as from branch to branch, trusting to its wings for only a short space, alighting at every moment for fear that breath and strength may fail." I register these opinions of Montaigne without discussing them. He liked Lucan more for his opinions than his style ; and was charmed with the good Terence, whom he could never read without discovering some new beauty and grace. He notices, by the way, that in his time those who meddled with comedy-writing — as, for example, the Italians, who were pretty successful — employed three or four plots of Terence or Plautus to make one ; or in a single comedy heaped up five or six

BOOKS IN HIS LIBRARY. stories of Boccaccio. " They have nothing of their own to say, and so try to amuse us with the intrigue. But in my author (Terence) it is just the contrary : the perfection and beauties of his style check our appe tite for the story. His sweetness and elegance make us linger everywhere." Montaigne notes that the good ancient poets avoided affectation and research, not only after the fantastical Spanish and Petrarchal elevations, but even gentler and more moderate points, such as are the ornament of later poetical writings. He com pares the equal polish, the perpetual sweetness, and flowing beauty of Catullus, with the stings stuck in the tails of Martial's " Epigrams." His comparisons illus " trate the manners of his time. The best writers," he says, " can laugh without tickling themselves; but others, as soul fails them, make up for its want by body." They reminded him of the balls of humbler people, where the dancers, unable to imitate the carriage and decency of the nobility, sought to attract notice by furious leaps and mountebank contortions. He had seen excellent actors in their every-day dress, and with their ordinary countenance, give all the pleasure that their art could afford ; whilst beginners and men of less talent were obliged to put flour on their faces, disguise themselves, and make savage grimaces to raise laughter. Monsieur Villemain, noticing the "Essay on Books," has already spoken with admiration of Montaigne, as the great critic of the sixteenth century. It would be worth while, therefore, to group his opinions on literary

44 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. matters, even if, someby so doing, we did not in respect become acquainted with the growth of his mind. He always laid great stress on poetry, and makes many as have many other " critics who just remarks thereon ; have failed ust as the voice constrained

J as poets. in the narrow channel of trumpet bursts forth more a seems to me thatsharply and strongly, so it sentence a by of poetrydown the numerous feet pressed leaps forward more suddenly, and strikes with lively more a —" shock." am not of those who think that good I rhythm makes good poetry. Let him (the poet) in short lengthen he if syllable we are pleases a 'Liberty Hall;' his invention wit and if if smiles, judgment have done their duty, he is good poet, a will say, but bad versifier." From Montaigne's a earliest youth, poetry had the power to pierce and trans port him but his taste had varied from the best of ; one class to the best of another. First, he liked a gay and ingenious fluidity; then and elevatedsharp a —first Ovid,ripe and then force subtlety constant a; : then Lucan, then Virgil. He notes, indeed, with surprise, that in his manhood he no longer cared for Ariosto and Ovid; but certainpreserved always a respect for the "Fables" of Esop. We see, then, that Montaigne's judgment was sure when he criticised the ancient poets. It was naturally less so when he came to speak of the " moderns. But his opinion worth having. is I think," he says, "that Latin poetry has had its vogue in this age. We have abundance of good artisans in I — that trade, D'Aurat, Beze, Buchanan, L'Hospital, Montdore, Turnebus. As to French poetry, I think we have carried it to as high a degree as it will ever reach ; and in the parts in which Ronsard and Du Bellay excel, I find them little removed from ancient perfection." Perhaps Montaigne was not far wrong in thinking that French poetry, in as far as language was con — cerned I mean, in as far as poetry depends on the assistance of a special vocabulary could not be carried further than it was carried in his day. For my part, I conceive that the great service rendered by Malherbe and his successors to French literature was to prove that the language was really incapable of cadenced and verbal poetry, and to warn men of genius that if they attempted to produce anything save rhymed prose, they would lose their time. Montaigne, by the way, " wishes to God" that the printers and publishers of his age would write over their doors a warning to mediocre poets not to approach ; " because," as he " says, a man is free to be a fool anywhere else, but not in poetry." He knew a poet to whom the clever and the weak, in crowds and in private, nay, to whom heaven and earth, cried out that he had no vocation. Not for all this would he abate one jot of his self-approval. He ever recommenced, ever con sulted his friends, ever persisted ; and passed his wretched days in producing wretched rhymes. Mon taigne had no real tenderness, or he would not have brushed by this man without a kind word. There

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. is nothing so hateful as the ferocious criticism, in which some indulge, of singing-birds, young or old. Every man who writes poetry must be capable of appreciating poetry. If he endeavour to do what he admires, why should he be broken on a wheel ? However, Montaigne was a greater reader of poetry, and derived much literary fruit therefrom. He was the first, it is said, to use the expression" popular poetry," and to point out the simplicity and the graces by which it resembled the principal beauty of poetry, perfect according to art. He quotes as an example the Villanelles of Gascony, and the songs, specimens of which had been brought from nations who knew no science, and were ignorant even of the art of writing. Montaigne gives specimens of these songs, which he had obtained from his servant, who had been in America, and whose information he used in preference to that contained in the cosmographies. Montaigne's constant and special studies of poetry explain, in a great measure, the figured style of the Essays. It is customary to admit that he collected sentences and facts with great care, but to imply that, so far as expression goes, he had as it were a well­spring of them within himself, from which they rose with inexhaustible abundance. This is not the case with Montaigne, as it has not been the case with any great writer. We have the note-books of some that seem the most spontaneous; and it has always been found that a large proportion of thoughts, and ideas, and forms, have been either laboriously worked out

BOOKS IN HIS LIBRARY. from some obscure hint, derived from observation or found by anxious meditation, or more frequently im proved from the less perfect expressions of others. Montaigne, like Shakspeare, and Butler, and Milton, owed debts, even in matters that appear most personal, on every side. Not only classical, but Italian and French poetry, furnished him with colours, which he used without scruple. There have been earnest, self-sacri ficing men, who have disdained this process, fancying that they were bound to get their silk out of their own entrails, and that mulberry-trees were made for nothing. But it has been followed by all great national writers, and it is necessary to point out that it was followed especially by Montaigne. The Essayist read poetry, he says, for pleasure only ; but other books for intellectual profit, too, as Plutarch and Seneca. Both these Moralists had that notable convenience for him, that they wrote in a broken manner, and did not require any obstinate read ing. The " Opuscules " of Plutarch, and the " Epistles " of Seneca, he considered the finest and most profitable part of their writings. Their instruction is the cream of philosophy, and is presented in a simple and per tinent fashion. Plutarch is more uniform and con stant ; Seneca more undulating and diverse. This one troubles himself, and makes violent efforts, to arm virtue against weakness, fear, and the vicious appetites. The other seems not to estimate the danger so greatly, and disdains to hurry his step and take up a posture of defence. Plutarch has Platonic opinions, gentle and

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. accommodated to Civil Society ; the other has Stoical and Epicurean opinions, further removed from common use, but in Montaigne's opinion more adapted to private use, and firmer. " It appears in Seneca, that he gives way a little to the tyranny of the emperors of his time (for I hold it as certain that it was by a forced judgment that he condemned the cause of those generous murderers of Caesar), whilst Plutarch is free everywhere. Seneca is full of points and sallies ; Plutarch of things. The former warms us and moves us more ; the latter gives more content, and repays us best. He leads, whilst the other pushes." Elsewhere Montaigne says that his Essays are built up with the spoils of Plutarch and Seneca. Never was author so scrupulous in acknowledging his general obligations to others as Montaigne. Indeed he far exaggerates them. He rarely, however, gives references, and sometimes melts extracts so completely into his own speculations that we are not aware they are not original. Writers have been accused of plagiarising the Essays, who have merely imitated the ancients. Cicero's philosophic works pleased Montaigne best, but he was bold enough to say—and in that age of classical superstition this was bold indeed " Cicero's style of writing seems to me tiresome ; his matter is stifled by his long rhetorical preparations. I know what death and volupty are, and do not want him to anatomise them. What I want is reasons by which I may sustain their attack. What is the use of crying cOyez, Oyez/ fifty times, like our heralds?" Even

BOOKS IN HIS LIBRARY. Plato's " Dialogues," to Montaigne, who could not ap preciate their Attic style, and was always impatient, looking only, as it were, for the facts of philosophy, appeared very wearisome. We need not be surprised, therefore, that the preparatory flourishes of the Roman orator were unpleasant. The letters to Atticus being, to a certain extent, biographical, were agreeable to " Montaigne, who had a singular curiosity to know the minds and the spontaneous judgments of his authors." It may be imagined that history was a favourite " reading of Montaigne. In it man in general, of whom he sought the knowledge, appeared more living and complete than elsewhere." But the part of history which he preferred was biography. Plutarch was his man ; and he would have liked a dozen such writers as Laertius. He was as anxious to know the lives and fortunes of philosophers, those great preceptors of the world, as "the diversity of their dogmas and phantasies." In this department of study, he thought that all authors, ancient and modern, whatever jargon they used, ought to be consulted. He expected historians either to be very simple or very excellent very simple, like Froissart, who related without criticism, was not ashamed to correct in one place what he had misstated in another, and thus even represented the diversity of the reports current, and the diverse inter pretations made; — or very excellent, by men capable of judging the events related, and of penetrating by the force of their intellect through the outward crust of events, finding out the springs of action, and laying VOL. II. E

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. them bare : but these he thought were very few. He mentions Macchiavelli, but rather as the author of the "Prince" than of the history of Florence ; and evidently assumes the common opinion as to the intention of that so. astute writer. Reasonably The Florentine may have meant the "Prince" as a satire; but his work was at once adopted as the handbook of tyrants, and repro bated by all friends of liberty. If he was misunder stood, it was his own fault ; and he was guilty of one of the greatest literary blunders ever committed. Montaigne, in his Third Book, tells us that, against his custom when younger of sitting scarcely an hour at each book, he had just read right through, at once, the "History" of Tacitus, at the recommendation of a gentleman " whom France esteemed greatly, as much for his own value as for that of his brothers." He calls Tacitus a nursery of ethical and political discourses; and it was natural to expect him to admire so sen tentious a writer. " His lessons," says Montaigne," are good for troubled and diseased states like ours ; it seems that he paints us and pinches us." Mon taigne blames Tacitus for not speaking more boldly of himself. His whole criticism is acute and striking. But Cajsar's "Commentaries," the favourite book of Strozzi, was the Latin history which Montaigne placed highest, an opinion in which I discern the traces of some military pedantry. However, his admiration of the literary merits of Csesar does not prevent him from calling him " a brigand," for having trampled the liberties of his country underfoot. " I have read in

BOOKS IN HIS LIBRARY. Titus Livius," says Montaigne, "a hundred things that others have not read ; and Plutarch probably read a hundred things more — even more than the author meant." Montaigne used often to take up as new a book which he had some years before covered with notes. He absolutely forgot its contents, he says, and what he had thought of them. On this account he adopted a plan of writing at the end of each book he read, without intending to do so again, the date at which he finished it, and the opinion he had formed. Some of these criticisms he has preserved ; as for example, those on Guicciardini, Philippe de Commines, and Du Bellay the memoir-writer. Specimens of autograph notes of this kind exist in the possession of the Due d'Aumale. As I have said, Montaigne read the literature of his day constantly, though he admired little save the pro ductions of the new erudite school of poets. He read in order to keep pace with opinion and doctrine the — chief matter of his criticisms. "I was turning over two Scotch books, for and against monarchy," says he in one place. He read Bodin, quotes him, and evi dently held him in unusual respect. Whilst refuting some of his criticisms on Plutarch, he calls him "a good author of our time, accompanied with much more judgment than the rabble of scribblers of his age, a man meriting to be judged and considered." Bodin was a type of the class of writers, always so popular, which makes general statements of contemporary facts and admissions of contemporary necessities, and fancies

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. it has produced a theory. Montaigne's references to contemporaries, however, are generally disrespectful. He ridicules certain writers who exercise their ingenuity in discovering petty causes for the great actions of antiquity, and, indeed, of all time. Voltaire's system of writing history would have been inexpressibly dis tasteful to him. He mentions a learned writer of his day, a Parisian, to boot, who wrote to advise women who had been outraged to refrain from committing suicide ; and regrets that he had not had an oppor tunity of telling him a bon-mot of a Toulouse woman, which he had heard, and which, by the way, Brantome afterwards appropriated.

The truth is, that when Montaigne formed his literary tastes, French literature, despite the innu merable titles of books that can be disinterred, was composed almost entirely of memoirs, commentaries, pamphlets, and bad poetry. The only remarkable literary fact — except the appearance of Rabelais, who was scarcely recognised, and Calvin, whose reputation writer has been made since — was the foundation as a of the school of Erudites, so interesting from their furious studies of antiquity, and their determination to know what the human mind had produced already, before producing again at the risk of gratuitous labour. Naturally, erudition led to its exaggeration pedantry at first. Young writers always overwhelm us with the knowledge they are acquiring as they write; and every in book they read leaves deposits the interstices of new their style. Montaigne, in literary taste, was far in BOOKS IN HIS LIBRARY. S3 advance of his age ; and though he extravagantly admired Ronsard, in reality began the reaction in the whole field of literature, afterwards carried out in part by Malherbe, then a young gentleman writing epi grams, about the time of the appearance of the Essays, with so many other pedants, on the Flea that invaded Mademoiselle Desroches' bosom. Montaigne, however, was unjust to the pedants. When he wrote, for some half a century France had been occupied in studying the newly-discovered classical literature, and learning that the ancients were not answerable for that crabbed doctrine which, under the name of Aristotelism, had formed their intellectual food for ages. In the absence of grammars, dictionaries, translations, or correct copies of the ancients, whom people had a fierce eagerness to read, because, with few exceptions, native books were mere rubbish,— all men with literary taste and appreciation passed their time in studying and commenting the ancients. They mistook often their own intense pleasure and ad miration for genius, and wrote ; but they wrote gener ally about the objects of their love, and with a sort of unconscious modesty, preferring quoting to criticising. Thus they made books that are unreadable now ; and were unreadable by fastidious scholars such as Mon taigne even then. But it was they civilized Europe.

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

CHAPTER VII. ORIGIN OF THE ESSAYS. Without referring to Montaigne's self-alleged want of memory, M. Villemain somewhere says, " His in exhaustible memory placed at his disposal all that men is, thought." This perhaps, an exaggeration ever ; but we may certainly reject much of what Montaigne states as to the failures of his memory, without accusing him of want of sincerity. Whenever he happened to forget anything, especially towards the latter part of his life, he complained, as old men will, that he remembered nothing. He sometimes forgot where he had hidden his purse, and at once began to fear that his readers himself. The by he was tiring repeating people of his neighbourhood identified memory with he himself says, that to judgment and lose memory ; would be to lose all the faculties of the mind. In part of the reality, essential is vast a anmemory definition of wide capacity of mind. What is a vast a mind with nothing in Nothing. The size of the it ? ORIGIN OF THE ESSAYS. mind is determined by what it contains. Very likely these constant references to want of memory in Mon taigne were a sort of coquetry, intended to suggest originality to vulgar readers. I may as well here describe what may be called the material nature of the Essays, into the construction of which, and their tendency, we are now about to examine. The Essays consist, in their present state, of three books, each containing a certain number of chapters, entirely disconnected one with the other. The most important in length is the twelfth chapter of the Second Book, known as the "Apology for Raymond de Se­bonde ;" but, in general, the longer Essays are to be found towards the end. The first book contains fifty-seven, the second thirty-seven, and the third only thirteen Essays. Montaigne explains somewhere why he lengthened his chapters as he went on. The real reason, however, was probably that he wrote them with more preparation, and constructed their plan before hand ; although he never desisted from his habit of digression, apparently without cause. Many of the Essays consist simply of an anecdote, or two or three anecdotes, from ancient or modern history ; but princi pally from ancient history, with consequences deduced more or less directly therefrom. At other times, but rarely, Montaigne treats a subject completely; as in the "Apology," the "Essay on Friendship," and the "Essay on Education." Sometimes he professes to treat of one subject, and treats of another. His attack on miracles is contained in an " Essay on Lame People," and so on. In the first edition of the Essays, comprising only two books, there was much more sequence than now appears. Montaigne added and added sentences and paragraphs without number, but scarcely ever altered what he had already printed. Nearly all the quotations from Latin poets were added after the first edition. It cannot be denied that this process has often obscured his meaning and injured his literary fame.

As we know with what kind of books Montaigne's library was furnished, we may imagine him, if we please, with the piece of glass he talks of laid, accord ing to his habit, on the page to deaden its whiteness ; but "never with spectacles" engaged in the search — after knowledge. As poetry furnished him with forms and expressions which he unhesitatingly adopted, so the philosophers, moralists, and historians, all the mute teachers who surrounded him, furnished him with ideas which he used as postulates or principles, and by means of which he carried on the work of speculation. He rarely read a book from beginning to end, but pre ferred fluttering the leaves under his hand and allowing his attention to rest here and there. He cared not where he got his quotations at first or second-hand — and with pleasant self-sufficiency says : " I have but to stretch out*my hand and take down a dozen books, consisting of extracts strung together, if I want to give an appearance of reading to this 'Essay on Physio

ORIGIN OF THE ESSAYS. gnomy.' A single German preface would supply me with a store of learning." The Germans had the same reputation then as now. Afterwards Montaigne laughs at the book-wrights who in his days made up their works of little quota tions ; and tells us that authors used to beg for refer ences and extracts amongst their learned friends, and make a fagot of them and be satisfied. " The ink and paper at any rate are theirs." In this way they taught the public, " not that they knew how to make a book, but that they did not know." Montaigne finishes this little picture of the compilers of his day by mentioning that he once heard a President boast that he had made above two hundred citations in a single decree. For his part he rarely failed, he says, to give a new turn to what he quoted. " We Natural ists," as he singularly continues, believe that there is an incomparable distance between the honour of invention and the honour of allegation." By Natural ist, he means learned in human nature ; and perhaps* from his avoidance of scientific terms, he was supposed by his friends not to merit this title. He begins his "Essay on Fear" thus: " I am not a good Naturalist, they say ; and indeed scarcely know by what springs fear acts in us." There seems no subject connected with pure lite rature on which so much variety of opinion exists as on this of invention. The paradox that there is nothing in the mind but what is introduced there from without, and yet that, do what you will, you never

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. can add to a man's power and capacity, is difficult of digestion by most. Few persons agree even on the definition of invention,— perhaps because few bring to the discussion of critical questions any philosophical knowledge of the relations of man to the world of fact. Does invention consist in finding out truths and forms, or in creating something that never existed before ? Is there such a thing as spontaneous birth, or fruc tification without seed? Many decide the question peremptorily, and are all for spontaneous production and creation; have no mercy on any man who, as they express it, " steals a thought read poetry in the spirit of a detective, and think that critics should be a sort of literary thief-takers, ever on the watch for plagiarism. This shows that they believe each thought is a separate entity, like a pearl or a guinea in a purse, —not part of one great whole ; not a colour, or form, or flash of light, or vibration communicated from the moral universe. These are they who overwhelm book men with their compassionate contempt, and reserve their chief admiration for people who seem to say things that have never been said before. Montaigne was not of this class. No man had more contempt for compilers, for men who were proud of " alleging the thoughts of others;" but no man more than he made use of the labours of his predecessors. He was afraid, if he did not read, that with infinite labour and thought he might contrive at last to say just what another had said before him. He absorbed all past knowledge, and when he knew what had been done

ORIGIN OF THE ESSAYS. and said, tried to say and do something more,—that is, carried on the work of human reasoning. In order to do this, he felt it to be necessary avoid, to above all things, the persevering search after origin ality. Having conceived his general plan, the theory he wanted to establish, or the duty to enforce, he tried, not to say something of his own, in his own way, but to say something apt, whether it was an old idea in a new dress, or a new idea in an old dress. All great national writers have followed the same method, and it is idle to discuss whether they are more commendable for what they have created or for what they have borrowed. If they had not borrowed they would never have had leisure to create. With the exception, too, of a few fierce minds, working in narrow limits, and spinning out, as it were, their own entrails, all writers who seek originality in the avoid ance of models clearly and honestly placed before them, arrive at commonplace by imitating their own vague reminiscences, and solemnly repeating the truisms that are floating about in society. See how surely Mon taigne proceeds when he undertakes to develope some moral idea ! He knows who have said the best things on the subject. He turns to their pages, reads them over and over again, and, perfectly certain that his mind is not enslaved by theirs, makes use of their knowledge as they had made use of the knowledge of their predecessors ; gives, perhaps, a touch here, and adds a tint there, and sometimes, having done no more than this, appeals to the judgment of the judi cious whether he has not worked well ; and cares nothing for the minute critic who follows him with a cry of "Stop thief!"

Montaigne, then, was essentially a reader ; and this is why I have thought it necessary to describe his library so carefully before coming to the history of the composition of the Essays. The idea of those Essays did not occur to him at first. He was wealthy, and in as high a position as he chose to aim at, and therefore really studied to improve his mind without at first any intention to address the world. He was led to write partly by the love of fame, which he affected so much to despise ; partly by the mere superabundance of thoughts, that filled his mind as soon as it was with drawn from the bustle of the world ; and partly, perhaps, in truth, as he once pretends, by sheer melancholy — though this, I suspect, was a special cause of industry at particular moments, not a primary cause. The silence of his chateau was so great, contrasting with the noise of the Court, that he heard his own heart " how

it, beat, and listened and was ledto to study strangely and wonderfully we are made." " Recently," he says in an early Essay, " when I far could, retired to my house, resolved, to I as meddle with nothing, and seek only to pass in repose as little I of life, to my mind and apart the that remained to me I thought than leave could not do greater favour a in complete idleness, to stay at home and it

— with itself I the which the future be able more easily to do, inasmuch as with would for it hoped converse ORIGIN OF THE ESSAYS. 61 time it had become weightier and riper ; but I find that, on the contrary, like a runaway horse, it works a hundred times faster on its own account than it did for others, and gives birth to so many chimeras and fan tastical monsters, one after the other, without sequence or purpose, that, in order to contemplate at my ease their absurdity and strangeness, I have begun to set them down, hoping that in time my said mind will be ashamed of its folly." This little narrative, of course, must be accepted with some restriction, and, indeed, may be taken rather as a precautionary excuse for the boldness of certain ideas. But we may easily suppose that the first rough note of an Essay was thrown upon paper some evening when Montaigne, finding his worldly prejudices settling down, as it were, discovered that there was something else in his mind. The first time he exercised his critical power independently, and laid aside the for mula with which,all minds were so plentifully furnished in that age, must have been, as it were, a revelation to him. We have no reason to suppose that the first Essay now published was the first Essay written. Who knows ? Montaigne, looking over his dedications of La Boetie, may have been struck by the tyrannical manner in which he had himself defended the love of posthumous fame, a sentiment entirely of Pagan origin ; and observing that, in spite of his efforts to thrust it aside, the veil of forgetfulness was inexorably descend ing over the head of his friend, and threatening to muffle it for ever, may, half in earnest, half in sport,

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. have sought for reasons of consolation. This would account for the " Essay on Glory," in the First Book in which Tasso is quoted describing Fame as — Un' eco, un sogno, anzi del sogno un' ombra." What may be called the official explanation of the origin of the Essays may be found in the address of the author to the reader, published at the beginning of the first edition. " This book," he says, " has a domestic and private object. It is intended for the use of my relations and friends; so that when they have lost me, which they will soon do, they may find in it some features of my condition and humours, and by this means keep up more completely and in a more lively manner the knowledge they have of me." We have here the origin of the famous traditionary preface, according to which all bad books profess to have been originally intended for a few friends ; but we shall see from the care which Montaigne took in publication, how much stress we may lay upon this assertion. Elsewhere he better expresses the truth, when he says that he wrote " to be read in the corner of a library to amuse a neighbour, a relative, or a friend." But this refers to a time when he had clearly a literary object in view. The student would like to be present in spirit, ifit were possible, when the seed within him was first quickened. He appears to have been always successful in writing letters ; and, indeed, first used his genius, as we have seen, in the service of love. Perhaps his power was originally revealed to

ORIGIN OF THE ESSAYS. himself by that admirable letter on the death of La Bo'etie, which I deliberately compare, on account of its constrained but evident emotion, its philosophical tone, its lofty way of relating the minute incidents of the deathbed of a great and good man, to the " Phsedo" of Plato. " If I were a book-maker," he says, think ing of the success of his letter, " I would write a com mented register of various deaths." The influence of La Bo'etie is as evident in the earlier Essays as the influence of the classics. It is there we find most of those lofty and stoical maxims, those defiances ad dressed to death, those professions of insensibility, which make Montaigne so much resemble a classical writer of the sonorous and declamatory school. He wears a buskin at first, and treads loftily ; but as'he goes on forgets that he is playing a part, and soon moves with all the ductility of nature. He imitates Seneca because La Boetie admired him. It is in the earlier Essays that we find the declaration that popular government seems to him the most natural and equitable ; and indeed in them, especially as originally written, we find little that is characteristic of our Conservative moralist, who in some later moods would have had all the world, aye, and nature itself, stand still and be hushed, that he might be able to overthrow his own religious belief, and that of others, in peace. Some one who had read and admired the letters of Montaigne, both private and published, advised him to adopt the epistolary form, in order to pour out

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. his thoughts. We have already seen how fashionable letter-writing, for the sake of publishing, had become in that age. But it was the custom to address either imaginary persons, or indifferent persons, or strangers. There was no real necessity or object in writing. This sham displeased Montaigne. If he had still possessed, as he once did—he here again refers to La Boetie—a friend to sustain and stimulate him, well and good. He would have been more attentive and sure of himself, addressing a single strong and friendly man, than with the diverse countenances of a crowd before him. But he would not create a sham correspondence for the sake of publishing it. Montaigne was probably diligently engaged in read ing and making notes, and may not have definitively adopted the form of Essays, when Amyot published his translation of Plutarch's Moral Works in 1572. "We were lost but for them," said he, and I have no doubt he partly refers to his own case. He determined at once to select a form midway between Seneca and Plutarch, and at once set to work to arrange and co-ordinate his materials. " Fifteen days ago," says he in the nine teenth chapter of the first book, I passed my thirty-ninth year." This must have been in March 1572. It would be impossible, as I have said, with any cer tainty, to establish what he wrote first ; for he always, before publication and after, went on adding here and there. He seems to have intended at the outset to make a sort of gathering of stoical maxims, by the help of which he might struggle against his ownHoo easy

ORIGIN OF THE ESSAYS.

and pliant and feminine nature. But the calm charac ter of his mind is indicated by the very title of the first Essay. "By diverse means we arrive at the same end.'" And soon the sceptical tone comes on, and then the humane tone. The man who sets out with God like maxims on contempt of death, ends by recording all the petty experiences of a valetudinarian lover of existence. His factitious fierceness melted by degrees; and only after speculating for twenty years does he seem perfectly to comprehend the nature of unsophis ticated man, and see that it is not wise, even if possible, to stilt him on maxims. By recognising this as the development of his mind any one will be able, as far as is necessary, to chronologise his Essays, considered as moral revelations and studies, irrespective of a tem porary object. VOL. II. F MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

CHAPTER VIII. THE ESSAYS. § 1 . Montaigne's object was to promote Toleration. Montaigne had opinions, but no doctrine, properly so called. He did not come forward with any new theory, religious, moral, or political. In physical science — except when, guided by humanity, he saw through such absurdities as sorcery and witchcraft he — was rather behind his age than before ; and he scarcely troubled himself about metaphysics. A considerable it, knowledge of history, especially the anecdotical part of but history in its largest sense, including the sequence, ramifications, and influences of laws, manners, opinions, ideas; scholar-like acquaintance and complete and a with ancient, at least Latin, literature; large ex a perience of society, and the method of transacting its fruitful intercourse with all affairs, public and private ; — classes of men, learned and unlearned even the with La by high tone given to his mind friendship of moralist Bo'etie, formed the qualifications rather a THE ESSAYS. of the observing and picturesque class, than of a philo sopher destined to influence the creed of his own or future generations. There have been endless discussions throughout Europe as to the real intentions of Macchiavelli, whether he desired to serve or dis-serve tyranny; there have been discussions as numerous in France as to the intentions of Montaigne, whether he wrote to strengthen or overthrow Catholicism. I have already pointed out some of the obscurities and contradictions which will probably render this debate interminable, and shall have occasion to do so elsewhere. But, if we escape from the influence of particular passages and circumstances, alleged as proofs on one side or the other, and take into consideration the general verdict of Europe, which has never troubled itself about this controversy between the Church and Free-thought in France, we shall come to the conclusion that Montaigne was a Sceptic in the true modern sense. He had not, like Voltaire and his accomplices, a secret, unac knowledged end in view. To have engaged in a conspiracy against Christianity, and committed all the unscrupulous acts which a conspiracy implies, would have seemed shocking to this honest Gascon gentleman let us venture to say "honest," despite a certain tendency to casuistry, a certain proneness to compro mise and concession : a man may be honest in this in complete world, and not rigid. But Montaigne was no Believer, in the proper sense of the word, nor inclined to call for help to

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. his unbelief. In his time, religion had usurped too great a control over humanity extended its authority too far, and in the wrong direction. He felt inclined to shake it off, in order to be more free in his acts and thoughts. His objection was not so much to Catholi cism, with its mysteries and contempt of the human understanding, as to spiritualism in general, with its enthusiasm and contempt of human flesh. Protestant ism to him was no promise ; it was an additional element of disorder and discomfort. The martyrs who would rather be burned than recant, who set their souls, the existence of which might be made doubtful by a syllogism, above their bodies, (unmistakeable tenements of pain and pleasure) these men, who went — singing to the stake, and fixed sorrowful but forgiving eyes on their persecutors, were almost more detest able to Montaigne than the persecutors themselves. He pitied their sufferings, but was angry with the unreasonable strength of their convictions. Why could they not have quietly doubted the dogmas of the Catholic Church, without making all this fuss about their doubts ? After all they might be mistaken — blank nonentity might be behind the door towards which they so resolutely advanced. They were far too earnest in their way of seeking le grand peutetre as if they had special news from those regions ; and were therefore entitled to disturb the peace of the world, and put in peril the lives and fortunes of their fellow-citizens, among others of Michel de Montaigne, who had two thousand ecus per annum, a comfortable

THE ESSAYS. chateau, an agreeable if somewhat shrewish wife, altogether a respectable position, and who wished to spend his days in sunshine and his nights on down. This mode of viewing things might have led Montaigne to join the bigots and the persecutors, but for the ten derness and the humanity which formed so marked an element in his composition. His opinions on men and things were the combined result of the egotism on which so much stress has been laid, and of a sympathy with human kind, which has sometimes been lost sight of. When he published, it was with the definite idea of checking fanaticism and enthusiasm, of leaving man's body to be dealt with only by the civil law, and of confining the Church to the use of spiritual weapons ; of enabling, in fact, Catholicism and Protestantism to live side by side together, just as he himself lived with his brother Beauregard. Naturally, at first, Montaigne had not full con sciousness of his mission. Like most persons who have influenced their age, he began his march blindfold and uncertain, amidst clouds and vapour, through unmarked paths ; and the air cleared around him, and his step became firmer as he advanced. We may imagine his joy when the sun first struck on the shining goal in the far distance : it was like seeing the sparkle of that white tomb that marked the well in the desert. Whilst seeking merely to put a drag on the rapidity of enthusiasm, to fashion some of his contemporaries to his own indifference of thought and action, the idea of toleration rose in his mind; not

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. merely religious toleration, but universal tenderness and mansuetude, the necessity of gentleness of man towards man, the greater value of your neighbour's little finger than your own most deep-rooted con victions, which may be absurdities. He was not the first to conceive this idea in the sixteenth century. Rabelais bad preached it in his jovial way ; but without any other result than admiration ; for immediately after his death the rack, the gibbet, and the stake set to work, not to rest for thirty years. The discovery of the idea of toleration was easier to Montaigne than to any other. He is usually rebuked for his egotism and scepticism ; but it was to a certain extent because he was an egotist and a sceptic that the truth became apparent to him. We rightly admire the heroes of self-sacrifice, the servants of faith : they are, perhaps, the highest product of humanity. But we should be very much mistaken if we expected the idea of toleration to come from them. He who sacrifices himself expects others to sacrifice themselves, and is disposed to kill when he cannot convince. When the Revival of Letters and Arts, and the Reformation, came —let us be bold enough to ac knowledge so much our world had been producing saints and martyrs, in crowds, for some fifteen centuries. We need not accept the Romish Calendar, but it does not include all saints. Joan of Arc, the type of self-sacrifice, patriotism, heroism, faith, has never been canonised. But every age, every country, every city, every village, every monastery, in those dark times,

THE ESSAYS. when reason was clouded, produced as a contrast to the general mass of lordly, peasant, and monkish brutality, miracles of constancy and virtue. They enlightened the world by their example, and incited others to follow in the same path. But they, like their admirers often sottish and stupid never —— dreamed that it was not good to force humanity to enter amidst the thorns and rough stones that frightened its unprotected feet. Tread on : why should you be more timid than I ? Still less did they conceive the possibility that the emotions which produced in them such ineffable delight, and led to such mag nificent actions, were doubtful in their principle, subject to examination, unacceptable by many. Blasphemy was . . . opposition to their ideas — which they identi fied with God's ideas. How could they think of toleration ? Toleration was impiety ; and he who suffered impiety here, took the responsibility of it hereafter. It cannot be denied that Faith is dangerous and intolerable when unaccompanied by Charity ; and is, in fact, the least divine part of the Christian religion, the one in which it resembles all other religions : whereas Charity, so formally insisted upon by Christ, was rejected with unanimous enthusiasm by the world, as inhuman and supernatural, as soon as He had gone. If the case had been otherwise, we should have never stood in need of the toleration of Montaigne, which is essentially of temporary use, and is based on indifference to high truth, on doubt,

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

and on contempt of human nature contempt mitigated by affection of a prudent and decent character. § 2. Immediate Influence of the Essays. But it little matters how low Montaigne stooped in order to pick up this pearl of great price, the idea of toleration, which is the capital one of his book, but which he conceals under various forms, and mixes with a thousand different ingredients, in order to make it suit the palate of his times. It would not be important, biographically speaking, to trace its origin, if we did not know its immediate practical influence, and that, though trial drew it bias and thwart, it led within the lifetime of its preacher to a very definite and appreciable historical result. Montaigne, indeed, much by his writings and something by his personal influence, was one of the chief agents in forming that party of mild and tolerant men, who prepared the advent of Henry the Fourth —that is, the only termination possible, at the time, of civil war and religious discord —the com promise of indifference and bigotry. Every party must have its man of doctrine, as well as its historians, its pamphleteers, its libellers, and its songsters. The moderates, who were allowed to save France because few remained uncorrupted, had De Thou, Pasquier, D'Aubigne, and the authors of the Satire Menippee. Montaigne supplied its philosophy, and accommodated a THE ESSAYS. himself as well to its licentiousness and indifference, as to its humanity and love of peace. France was guided, by him and his friends, from fanaticism, mingled with the most horrible debauchery on one side and repulsive sternness on the other, into a sort of half-way house, where toleration could lead an easy life with Henry the Fourth and the Belle Corisande, and not be too much shocked when the Belle Corisande made way for the Belle Gabrielle. I subscribe to M. Peyrat's admirable criticism of the victim of Ravaillac. Similar reading has led me to a similar result. But he will not deny that the advent of Henry was, under the circumstances, the best thing that could have happened for France ; nor that the part played by Montaigne, in pre

it, public opinion for We paring was meritorious. need not, perhaps, make our Essayist responsible for by the exceptionally base act of abjuration, which, to a certain extent, the labours of the Politic party were nullified. If every man were made responsible for all the consequences contained in his principles, the burden would be too great. Scepticism, of course, prepares for abjuration, when in view. Mon there is prize a taigne might have been of the party of Sancy, who, worthy man, changed his religion to though tolerably a place, and maintained, before Hobbes, under get a Henry the Fourth, that was good subject always a of the religion of his prince. Not caring for place, the Essayist might have abjured, set the example of to — obedience just for the same reason that, whilst labouring to unsettle the base of Catholicism, he made MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. — profession of its doctrines with a servility that is almost hypocrisy. § 3. Montaigne's method of arguing from Experience. I have thus endeavoured to point out what was the main object of Montaigne ; and as it would be out of place here to analyse the Essays, nothing now remains to do but to say something of his way of working, his method of argument, and his individual opinions on certain important topics. The subject of the Essays is ostensibly Montaigne himself ; but this is because the writer regarded each man as an epitome of human nature. As a biographer,I have used the Essays as if they had been Memoirs, almost a journal. But they were not intended as such. They are a series of sketches of the attitudes, physical, moral, and intellectual, of the man with whom Montaigne was always in company. His great difficulty was to find the proper limit for his con fessions. He did not at first profess, like Rousseau, to tell all. He only revealed as much as he dared, but the older he grew the bolder he grew. At last,I suspect, he keeps very little in the background. He told things, he says, in print which he would not confess to friends, and sent those who wanted to know his most secret thoughts to a bookseller's shop. It is true that he afterwards pretends, that if any one wanted to learn his inclinations he would most wil lingly reveal them by word of mouth. "But still,"

THE ESSAYS. he goes on, " in these Memoirs, if you look closely, you will find that I have said all, or indicated all. What I cannot express I point at. I leave nothing to desire or guess. I would willingly come back from the other world to contradict any one who should paint me as other than I am." Elsewhere he says,— " This book is consubstantial with myself." Once or twice he seems troubled by fear of the charge of egotism, and abuses himself for speaking of himself, in order to take the words out of people's mouths. " How often, and, mayhap, how foolishly, have I " stretched out this book, by speaking of myself ! This is the theme that has chiefly been insisted upon by the critics, from Du Puy and Scaliger down to the present day. All accuse him, more or less earnestly, of twaddling ; all quote as crimes certain comical instances of communicativeness. But they utterly lose sight of the method of the Essays, of the peculiar dialectical system, as original as the Socratic, invented by Montaigne. This system, of course, is matter of criticism ; but it is absurd to squabble about the value of certain isolated observations on white or red wine, on a page, on certain personal defects, and not notice the general reason of their existence. Mon taigne determines to set down all his thoughts, in order that for once he and posterity may be able to contemplate the inside of a man's mind, in its most lofty aspirations as in all its meannesses. He does not determine beforehand to give so much space to grand ideas, so much to mean ideas; but lets the

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. importance assumed in his mind by whatever ideas are of literature, moreover, was full enough of grand and pretentious maxims. Men usually showed but one portion of themselves that which they thought fine ; as the courtesans of Rome showed the feature or limb which was most attractive. But Montaigne deter mined to exhibit himself as a changeful, erring being — never absolutely good or absolutely bad; never entitled to be certain of anything, and, therefore, logically bound to be humble, to spare others, to remain in doubt as to his rights, if not as to his duties. Montaigne admitted that there was something" supernatural and divine" in man, which was called into play on great occasions, and formed, as it were, his essence and differential character. But these depths of our nature had been too much stirred, too much groped in by inquirers incapable of understand ing even the surface. They had brought back nothing but maxims that served as manacles for mankind. We all have souls, and an interest in their fate ; but we are not all equally qualified to discuss their qualities and destiny. Yet theologians, and men who borrowed their language, talked then, as now also they do, with flippant familiarity, of the inner mysteries of Being and the ways of God, as if they were dealing with their own especial property, and knew more about them than about their pantry or their till. Mon

THE ESSAYS. taigne saw the immense and fatal consequences of this arrogance. Its direct product is bigotry, intolerance, and persecution : under its influence, interference with the occupations, pleasures, and general conduct of your neighbour, becomes the first duty of religion. The Essayist more by instinct at first than delibera tion determined to combat it by an appeal to ex perience. Having looked around him, and found that the horizon is distant, and every object on it vague to say nothing of what is beyond —he looks at his

feet, and at things within reach of his hand. It is, of ironicalin spirit that he indeed, sort gravely a directs attention to the most ludicrously minute par ticulars. When he tells you that experience teaches him that he likes to scratch his ears, and that the that they itch, he thereof thinking that is is reason can connect profound philosophers rarely cause with and, yet, what are not their pre effect certainly so ; tensions ? 4. The Essays the Times.reflect the Spirit of § Montaigne's speculations on man and society were, by his moral in determined and a great mameasure, terial position at the time at which he wrote. He was no mere litterateur, imprisoning ideas more or less useful or agreeable in forms of art. His mind was by oftormented, the common accidents not only of by humanity, but the peculiar dangers and miseries his torments chiefly in the that time and he reveals ; MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. hope of finding a remedy. This is the reason that a knowledge of his biography and contemporary history is so essential to comprehension of the Essays. Speak ing only of myself, not more than a third appealed merely to my unlearned sympathies ; but every new fact I noted down for this work enabled me to open Montaigne with increased pleasure, and find an earnest meaning under what appeared before to be vague phraseology. The real introduction of the Reformation into France dates from about the time of the birth of Montaigne. As soon as he began to understand any thing, he must have heard the conflicting arguments of the rival sects. Soon afterwards, the burning of heretics began in his own neighbourhood. Then he was obliged at least to be present at their condemna tion himself, if not to witness their torments. Next he saw the whole of France, with but few intervals of uncertain peace, disturbed by a most ferocious and bloody Civil War for ten years. There is no document to prove an hypothesis which I entertain, and, there fore, I have not alluded to it in the previous narrative. But I believe that Montaigne's intercession between princes and parties, so often alluded to, and referred now to one time, now to another, preceded his retire ment to his chateau, and that this retirement was the result of sudden disgust, produced by the discovery that among the chiefs on both sides ambition was the prime motive, religion a pretext. The friend of La Bo'etie may have hoped to play the part of mediator,

THE ESSAYS. '79 which was only suited to that great man. He dis covered that all the fine arguments he had prepared to reconcile conflicting beliefs were impotent to reconcile conflicting interests. You will find throughout the Essays the profoundest distrust of all leaders in quest of place and power, and contempt for enthusiastic followers, civil and military, who kill or die, as they imagine, for ideas. It was, then, as a gentleman and a man of pro perty, somewhat galled by his want of influence, and a little uneasy about his own safety, with very little belief himself, and a conviction, seemingly based on experience, that belief diminished in an equal ratio with the increase of knowledge, that Montaigne began to speculate. However varied may be the topics which he treats, they are all contemporary topics ; and though his conclusions sometimes appear contradictory, and he often comes to no conclusion at all, he is always evidently labouring to release man from being governed by combinations of words supposed to re present duties, instead of by his own natural instincts, enlightened by conscience. 5. Politics. § In the sixteenth century almost every man was a politician. Scarcely any one ever took up a pen except to discuss some question connected with Church or State. There never was such a swarm of projects and theories. Above them all soared, eagle-like, the ter

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. riblc manifesto of La Boetie. But Montaigne was not sufficiently active, or sufficiently interested in man kind, or sufficiently enthusiastic, to engage in such work. His absence from the contest, the death of his friend, the corruption of some intellects, the cowardice of others, may, in part, explain the failure of one of the most active political movements on record a — movement even more active and radical than that which took place in England in the next century. France is subject to these paroxysms, that remind one of the mountain in the fable. All those books, those pamphlets, those satires — to say nothing of those con spiracies and those battles for reform in politics—ended in the substitution of a Bourbon for a Valois, by here ditary succession, on condition of perjury in the ad journment of Liberalism for exactly two centuries ! The only writer of Montaigne's time who has pre served any reputation as a politician is Jean Bodin, " to whom even Bayle accords a great genius, vast knowledge, and prodigious reading." Bodin was, in deed, an able man, but a pedant and a time-server, who saw that France was settling down into absolute monarchy, and constructed his theories accordingly. He was in favour of religious liberty, and of all sorts of excellent reforms, like L'Hospital : but he could see no " means of bringing them about, save a pure and absolute monarchy." It may be curious, therefore, to study Bodin as the expression of his age ; but to bring him forward as a predecessor of Montesquieu, and lavish praises on his penetration and superiority to his con

THE ESSAYS. temporaries is puerile. In every age and every country we have these official philosophers, who pretend to stand apart and speculate independently; and who construct theories and utter maxims which can be adapted exactly to the government existing, and to no other. Bodin wrote his "Republic" when he was a favourite of Henry the Third ; but the praises lavished on his work induced him to believe himself one of the pillars of the State. On one occasion he actually op posed the king's wishes ; for which piece of pedantry, into which an absolutist in theory is very liable to fall, he incurred immediate disgrace. He then attached himself to the Due d'Alenc,on, who headed a sort of government opposition; he next allied himself with the Ligue ; and died in the service of Henry the Fourth. Montaigne's political career—if such an expression may be used with reference to the sequence of his opinions on State affairs and his connexion with parties — very much resembled that of Jean Bodin, whom he knew and admired. But he did not attempt to form any theory of his own. When young, he probably shared the opinions of La Boetie, who had evidently the power of communication in a high degree ; but as soon as he got beyond that great man's influence, he adopted opinions more in harmony with his court life. He professes in his earlier Essays, at any rate, to admire popular government; says it was "the most natural and equitable;" but when he talks of monarchy, goes no further than a condemnation of evil princes and of those who treat them with the same respect as good vol. II. a

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. princes. " That rascal Nero/' and other such expres sions, are mere reminiscences of the "Treatise on Voluntary Servitude." As to the admission that an emperor, if seen behind the curtain, may be viler than the least of his subjects, it is but the unanimous ad mission of courtiers, the only persons who see kings as they are. " The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould," may be of Christian or clas sical origin, but has nothing to do with anti-monarchi cal feeling. It is the familiarity of the honest valet with his master, whose vices he ventures to rate and his pride to take down, but whom he cannot conceive " otherwise than as his master. He describes em perors and philosophers, aye, and ladies too," as he wickedly adds, under the most humiliating circum stances, and draws our attention to them, and laughs at them, and covers them with confusion. " The heart of a great and triumphant emperor is but the breakfast of a little worm," says he elsewhere, in the true Hamlet vein. But the fact is that Montaigne, whatever may have been his secret convictions, makes profession of the most degrading passive obedience, unrelieved even by any theoretical preference. He not only congratulates himself that the laws have chosen a master for him individually, and thus saved him a great deal of trouble, but elsewhere, alluding to the discussions of his time, distinctly says, " To desire to be governed by a few or in a popular manner, or to wish for any change in a monarchy, is vice and folly." He quotes his friend

THE ESSAYS. Pibrac, who, in a quatrain, maintains the same thing; adding the reason, very proper in the mouth of a sincere Catholic, ludicrous in that of Montaigne : " For God has caused us to be born in that condition." Elsewhere our indolent philosopher, exalting the hap piness of passive obedience, is absolutely enthusiastic : " Happy the people which does what it is commanded to do better than they who command, without tor menting itself about causes, which allows itself quietly to roll on like stars in their celestial order ! Obedience is never pure and tranquil in him who reasons and pleads." All these fine phrases, we must remember, were written at a time when France was deluged with blood, in consequence of the refusal of its best citizens," who would reason and plead," to square the pattern of their religion to the orders of Francis the First and his insane and sanguinary brood ; and are intended, we must regretfully admit, as a justification of the monarchy, which was struggling to oppress the con sciences of men until it chose, from caprice or judg ment, to lay down other rules. Elsewhere, it is true, Montaigne pleads for mercy ; but in doing so, accord ing to his own theory, he departs from pure and tran quil obedience. What he would have liked would have been a sort of Paraguay immobility, the people brigaded and kept in respectable ease, whilst he had full liberty to play with his own hopes and shake the hopes of others. A considerable portion of the Essays deals, how ever, with the practical part of politics, on which Mon

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. taigne expresses his opinions very freely. Here and there we. may find very good Whig wisdom. He discusses the conduct of princes and of parties with the idea of compromise ever in his mind ; but this part of his writings, together with his strictures on military and diplomatic matters, is comparatively un important. § 6. News from America. We have already seen that La Boetie's imagination was struck by the news that daily arrived of the won ders of America, and that he conceived a project of colonisation. When Montaigne came to write on the same subject, he recovered all his natural sagacity. "Our world," he says, "has just discovered another; and who knows whether this will be the last of its brothers, since its existence was concealed until now from the Dsemons, from the Sybils, and from us? ... . If we argue well, that other world will enter the light just as we are about to leave it." He exaggerates the simplicity of the Americans, and exalts their good faith and virtues above those of their conquerors. If the Greeks or Romans had discovered those vast regions, how differently would they have dealt with them ! The cruelty of the Spaniards excites his wrath. " Who ever set at so high a price the service of trade and traffic ? So many cities razed to the ground, so many nations exterminated, so many millions of people put to the sword, and the richest and most beautiful part

THE ESSAYS. of the world desolated, to favour dealings in pearls and pepper ! Mechanical victories ! Never did ambition, never did public enmity, urge men to inflict on each other such horrible hostilities, calamities so wretched." The fortunes of America interested Montaigne so much, that he took into his service a man who had travelled there, and who constantly supplied him with information. He had lived ten or twelve years in the country where Villegaignon landed in 1557, — at that time called Antarctic France, now the Brazils. He resided long at the chateau, whither he brought from time to time sailors and traders whom he had known during his voyage. Montaigne resolved to be satisfied with his information, without inquiring what the Cos­mographers said. The Essay " On Cannibals," in which Montaigne relates all this, may be said to contain his Utopia. Here we find the hint of Rousseau's paradox against civilisation ; as well as the first sketch of Gonzalo's Commonwealth in the " Tempest." " It is a nation," to use the words of Florio's translation, from which Shakspeare copied many whole phrases, " that hath no kind of trafficke, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, of politic supe­ nor rioritie ; no use of service, of riches, or of povertie ; no contracts, no successions, no partitions, no occupation, but idle ; no respect of kindred, but common ; no apparel, but natural ; no use of wine, corne, or metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulations, covetousness, envie, detraction and par don, were never heard amongst them." This passage had long ago been used by Commentators on Shak­speare ; but recently, with one or two other less direct examples, has been made the foundation of an elaborate theory on 'the influence of Montaigne on our dramatist. It is needless to point out how exaggerated this theory is. Many other writers were used more copiously by Shakspeare than was Montaigne. On the other hand, it would be interesting to trace in a moderate spirit the influence of the Essayist on the writers, not only of the age of Queen Elizabeth in England, but up to the reign of Queen Anne, when more modern French literature began to have its day. " Epitomes," says

" Bacon, are the moths and corruptions of learning."..." Every abridgment of a good book," says Mon taigne, "is a stupid abridgment." Examples of this kind might be collected to make a volume. § 7. Religion. When Protestantism was first introduced into France, the nobility, little serious in anything, adopted the new doctrines as they might have adopted a new fashion. At the court of Francis the First, despite that monarch's unenlightened bigotry, it was a mark of good taste and cultivation to be Protestant. The Re form appeared only as a kind of witty and moral protest against the absurdities of the Church and the vices of the clergy. No one suspected the terrible earnestness, so opposed to the ordinary French character, that there

THE ESSAYS. was at the bottom of it. Even the court ladies piqued themselves on being Calvinistic, until it was found that in the new religion adultery was not only blamed, but punished. But by degrees all this changed. The Church, — taken by surprise at first a fact well expressed in Bandello's story of the praises lavished on Luther by — Leo the Tenth and then, for a time, puzzled how to regain lost ground, soon collected its forces and came back furious to the charge. If we look towards the beginning of the sixteenth century, we shall see a bright ray of sunshine resting on the earth ; but pre sently a heavy black cloud comes and overshadows it. A long and sanguinary reaction, with many pauses, during which new strength was gathered, began. Never was the violent and Macchiavellian character of the Catholic Church more completely exhibited than in France during the sixteenth century. The Albigeois were killed by men who, to a certain extent, believed. The Catholic Church in the sixteenth century believed in little save its temporal goods. To defend these, it lashed up itself and its ignorant adherents to fury. The Historian of the Jesuits calls Luther " The Hog of " Epicurus ! Let us note that the Noyades were intro duced into France by the Catholics, as punishments of a defeated party. They were first used, singularly enough, in the Loire, after the conspiracy of Amboise ; but the Protestants did not find the secret, as did later the Royalists of France, of iterating their maledictions until their enemies were overwhelmed by public hatred.

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. It is true, this mode of proceeding was in harmony with that age. One of the Strozzis, happening to ob serve that a number of loose women followed his army despite his repeated orders, adopted the Turkish method, and ordered eight hundred of them to be drowned. We must remember such examples when we estimate the cruelty of the Church, lest we be carried too far. Its crime was that it used force at all, without the stimulus of profound belief : the extent to which it used it was, of course, determined by the character of the age. It was about 1552 that all attempts at reconciliation between the Protestants and Catholics seem to have failed : none repeated them afterwards, save dupes or hypocrites. Montaigne was then a youth, and made his choice between the two doctrines ; deciding in favour of the established religion with his friend La Boetie. A younger brother became a Protestant ; and, as we have seen, maintained his new opinions with much zeal and heat. Pierre Eyquem remained a Ca tholic, and rather superstitious ; but, even in 1563, does not seem to have been very much hurt at the conversion of Beauregard. No doubt the latter had warm dis cussions with Montaigne on religion. Perhaps it was he who used to hold that " fantastical opinion," accord ing to which, all who showed much intelligence and professed Catholicism were hypocrites. At any rate, the Essayist had evidently been suspected of dishonesty in this respect. He, therefore, tells the story of a man who confessed to him that all his life long he had pro

THE ESSAYS. fessed a religion which he thought damnable, in order not to lose his credit and position ; and severely blames such conduct. Montaigne takes up the extremest views of the Catholic Church, and laughs at the people who thought to render the Bible more accessible by having it trans lated into the vernacular. He will not even allow the words of Scripture to be quoted to appease debate, depending entirely on the interpretations of authority. This is so like the language of a staunch Catholic that I am not surprised simple men have been led astray ; have not perceived the sly innuendo of the Essayist ; and have written whole books to claim him as a faithful servant of Mother Church. Montaigne, by inclination, by prudence, by indifference to religion generally, was averse to Protestantism, which he calls a " contem plative and immaterial religion ;" and this aversion alone made him two-thirds a Catholic. But he was not incapable of seeing the advantage which the com petition of the new sect had proved of to the Church. From this point of view, he says, " I know not if the utility does not surpass the damage ;"—a hint on which no true believer in that age would have ventured. But Montaigne in reality disliked Protestantism because it was new, and not victorious ; because it bored and frightened him. He never knew how much of his own speculations derived that All was from source. his life he professed dutiful submission to the Catholic

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. Church. He went to chapel in his own house; and when he travelled, took every occasion to attend mass. We shall presently see him on the road to Loretto, and kissing the Pope's toe. He prayed and used the Lord's prayer, the more frequent repetition of which he recom mended. He would have had it repeated at sitting down to table and at rising, on getting up in the morning and on going to bed. I suspect he took this hint, without acknowledgment, from the Protestants. But, at any rate, the whole "Essay on Prayer" breathes a true spirit of devotion, though rather such as might actuate a philosophical Christian or mere Deist, than a good Catholic. However, he had the habit of crossing himself on all occasions of peril, even when he yawned ; though he thought it wrong to use so sacred a sign so lightly. Elsewhere, defending the pomps and cere monies of the Church against the Protestants, he says : " It will be hard to make me believe that the sight of our crucifixes and the painting of that pitiable death, that the ornaments and ceremonious movements of our churches, that the voices adapted to the devotion of our thoughts, and that emotion of our senses, do not warm the soul of the people with a religious passion of very useful effect." Again : " There is no mind," he " says, so obstinate that it is not touched with some reverence at beholding the sombre vastness of our churches, the diversity of the ornaments, the order of our ceremonies ; at hearing the devout sound of our organs, the harmony, so measured and religious, of our voices.

THE ESSAYS. Even they who enter with contempt feel a certain thrill in the heart, and a certain terror which makes them suspect their own opinion." (" And those who came to scoff remained to pray.") In fact, all through Montaigne's writings we see traces that he was a professing Catholic and the pro fessor comes often to believe from habit who, for — good reasons of his own, wished equally to disculpate himself from the charge of being a Leaguer or a heretic, " which had been brought against him : I much dis like that vicious form of expressing one's self, 'he belongs to the Ligue, for he admires the grace of M. de Guise ;—the activity of the King of Navarre astonishes him: therefore he is a Huguenot."' Some one had condemned him for putting a heretic among the best poets of the age : " May I not say of a thief," he asks, rather unpolitely for Theodore de Beze, "that he has a well-made leg?" It is not, however, so important for the estimation of Montaigne's character and doctrine as may at first sight appear, to decide what were the dogmas he held in his ordinary life and moods. His distinctive characteristic is the internal boldness, encouraged by indifference, with which he grapples with his own opinions, as well as those of others, and shakes them, as if to see that they are solid, but without much care whether he does not leave them ever after unsteady and tottering. Though Reimmann classes Montaigne, with the

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. suitors of Penelope and every one whom he dislikes, in his catalogue of Atheists, it is certain that he believed in God, of whom he speaks with devout enthusiasm. He adopts the declamatory Ciceronian proofs of the existence of a Divine Being ; and, against his usual custom, suggests no doubts. Montaigne attacks idolatry, and, perhaps covertly, the Catholic worship of images, which he openly " approved : We cheat ourselves with our inventions, as children are frightened by their companion's face which they have blackened. We are very far from honouring Him who made us when we honour what we have made. Man is mad : he can't make a monkey ; he makes gods by dozens and so forth. § 8. Morals. The most considerable part of Montaigne's Essays is that which treats of Morals ; but of this I shall say the least. It is by his maxims and developments of the duties of man that he has gained his world-wide reputation; and nothing can be more beautiful than his method of saying the best-known truths over and over again, striking his reader each time with some new turn, some new figure, some new application. He admired and imitated the Stoics and Epicureans in their loftiest demands on human nature ; but it is impossible to disguise that he was himself, to a certain extent, an Epicurean in the modern and now proper sense of the word. Thus there is a constant war between the

THE ESSAYS. sentences which so thickly stud the Essays, especially towards the outset, and the confessions that accompany and drolly nullify them, chiefly towards the end. In a word, Montaigne, though a good, and by no means licentious man, if compared with his age, made larger concessions, in theory and practice, to appetite, than any ethical writer would now venture to approve of. This was partly matter of temperament, but in part flowed from his system. Like Rabelais, he was dis gusted with the enormous contrast between the divine maxims of the " Imitation," and the practice of those who read and professed to admire them. "Let us aim at less and pretend less/' he cried; "and perhaps our professions and our actions may be less far apart." Many men, of very pure manners, have sometimes felt a wicked delight in calling things by their right names in the presence of piety that suggests the idea of hypocrisy. A great deal of Montaigne's obscenity is of this kind. But some is evidently introduced to make the Essays "a book for a parlour window" — even to bring them within that class the difficulty of reading which, in quarto days, a lady of the eighteenth century once deplored. Perhaps every heroic saying is counterbalanced by a little filth. A wonderful book of maxims and moral thoughts might be made out of the Essays at the risk, some times, of ascribing to Montaigne what had been said three thousand years before him sometimes of ap — pearing to borrow from the world's general stock of proverbial wisdom: "Our minds are never at "home, —

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. but ever beyond home." " I will take care, if possible, that my death shall say nothing that my life has not said."—" Life in itself is neither good nor bad : it is the place of what is good or bad."—" Knowledge should not —" be stuck on to the mind, but incorporated in it." Ir resolution seems to me the most common and apparent vice of our nature."—"Age wrinkles the mind more than the face."—" Habit is a second nature," said Montaigne for the first time, we are told. —" Hunger cures love."—"It is easier to get money than to keep it."—"Anger has often been the vehicle ofcourage.""It is more difficult to command than to obey."—"A liar should have a good memory."—" The world seems made only for brutal or divine minds." —" Ambition is the daughter of presumption." "Reason is a pot with two handles, that you may take hold of right or left." — " To serve a prince you must be discreet and a liar." "We learn to live when life has passed." —" The mind is ill at ease when its companion has the colic." " We are all richer than we think ; but we are brought up to go a-begging." —" The greatest masterpiece of man is . . . to be born at the right time !" § 9. Scepticism. Montaigne once says : " We are, I know not how, of a double nature, so that what we believe we do not believe." This sentence well expresses the state of uncertainty in which he himself seems to have remained on the

THE ESSAYS. most important subjects that occupy human specu lation. In most men, perhaps, there is something of the sceptic and of the believer at the same time ; and the opposition of these two characters may be the struggle of our animal and spiritual natures ; but in Montaigne the co-existence of two apparently inter-destructive principles was, in general, most remarkably evident. This appears to me, at any rate, a sounder, at least a more humane view, than that which makes him to have been a mere hypocrite when he went to mass or uttered devout sentiments, and more sensible than that which represents him as a good Catholic, anxious to fortify the Church by confounding and humiliating the reason of man. Montaigne's earnest desire to submit to the Church was nullified by bis irresistible tendency to free examination. Naturally of an inquiring, doubting, balancing mind, he was forced to think, by the very Protestantism which he feared. When his father entrusted to him the task of translating and improving the arguments of Raymond de Sebonde, it is probable that some slight and fleeting hesitations on the great metaphysical facts which form the basis of religion — as the existence of an overruling Providence, and the immortality of the soul —had already disturbed him. These hesitations must have returned whilst the work was progressing ; and we may be quite sure, that whilst the study of the "Natural Theology" gave to his mind and language a pietist hue which they

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. never afterwards quite lost, it left him in a state of uncertainty from which he never recovered. If we could believe that Montaigne was capable of absolute hypocrisy, it would be after reading the famous "Apologie" from beginning to end. He sets out with the profession that he intends to take down the pride of human reason, in order to leave no rival to faith ; and yet, throughout that Essay, he employs now the most subtle argument, now the most audacious sophistry, in order to disturb the basis of faith. I shall not here attempt to analyse his sceptical reason ings, my object being to describe the nature of the Essays, not to criticise them philosophically. These reasonings are not to be found only in the " Apologie/' but are artfully scattered here and there, especially where you would not expect to find them; for the attack on miracles is introduced in an " Essay on Lame People." Now-a-days they are no longer new and surprising to the popular, as they were neither new nor surprising to the learned in the sixteenth century. Sextus Empiricus had embodied them long before, and the ancient schools were familiar with them. But they had not been circulated among the general public. For the last three hundred years, however, a class of literary men, chiefly in France, have become the pedlars of these old-fashioned wares, amidst which from time to time, at long intervals, a new article, or a newly-adorned one, takes its place. Every one is more or less prepared to be a customer. The faith which can

THE ESSAYS. move mountains is as absent now as of yore from the world. But Montaigne did not expect, as some of his less sagacious followers seem to have expected, to overthrow doctrines which are coeval with humanity, or even the creed against which he more particularly directed his attacks. Taking, as usual, his image of human nature from himself, and assuming a duality, according to which belief and disbelief necessarily exist side by side, he endeavoured to extend the dominions — of the latter partly because the former had too long reigned nominally supreme, and was tormenting the world ; partly from mere love of intellectual mischief. I have endeavoured already to show how Montaigne's scepticism was enlisted in the service of toleration, and that what he chiefly objected to was the ferocious earnestness of people who " set their opinions at so high a rate that they were ready to burn those who differed from them." Most of his anti-Christian ar guments, therefore, were used for the Christian purpose of appeasing the rage of man against man. I suspect he has never made a single unbeliever, and cannot imagine any one but a very serious bigot indeed being offended by his speculations. They come in, as it were, as part of the picture of man, always so liable to doubt and uncertainty. § 10. Attack on Spiritualism. Whilst attacking dogmatism of all kinds, Mon taigne was helping to carry out the great work of the VOL. II. H

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. sixteenth century, which I shall call the Naturalisation of Man ; in other words, a return towards the avowed dominion of the natural instincts, which had been theoretically too much suppressed and despised by the scholastic philosophy. This also was apparently an attack on Christianity ; but in reality only a pedantic and sham Christianity was concerned. There are far more concessions to the body in Scripture than theo logians will allow; and exaggerated interpretation in this sense, but not mere delusion, was the origin of some of the extraordinary sects which sprung up as soon as the Scriptures were placed in the hands of the people. But Montaigne was not only an adversary of the theologians and metaphysicians of the middle ages ; he laboured also —sometimes using popular prejudices and the most absurd fables as weapons — to deliver man from the horrible positiveness of science science based chiefly on a priori reasoning, or on tradition. His now humorous, now fervid, attack on the doctors, was part of this work. Like Rabelais, he had dwelt so much on the arrogance of the men who professed to have a special call to take care of our bodies and our souls, that he almost hated them. At any rate, he was in perpetual insurrection against them, as he was against legislators and judges. There were more laws, he said, in France than would have sufficed to govern all the worlds of Epicurus. He dared to disbelieve in sorcery, and wrote with rare indignation against torture. Everywhere we find

THE ESSAYS. Montaigne meeting the solemn affirmative with an almost ironical negative. He wished to bring us down into the middle region ; but, had not his influence been counteracted, would have weighed us consider ably below it. His pleadings for the body sometimes forget what is " supernatural and divine" in us. § 11. Ideas on Education. To Montaigne we owe the first rational system of education propounded in modern times. It is needless to insist on the beauty and simplicity of his theory, or on the exquisite language in which it is conveyed.

is, There probably, no Essay better known than that to Madame Diane de Foix, on the " Instituaddressed tion" of the little Count who was soon to be in her with wis arms. Every sentence almost is pregnant into consideration dom and we take the difference if ; between these times and those, and are confined in of of the education young gentlemanour object to a to add or to property, there really is nothing subtract. The rash and indolent students, who will not study for fear of stifling their originality, may learn the by theory of reading" The bees the following whole reflecting on fly here and there rifling the flowers, figure : honey which all their own but of them they make is ; no longer thyme nor marjoram." Montaigne reminds the teacher of his duty. " It is is it body, you have to train, butsoul, is it not nor a a a Man." He indignant against corporal punishment is MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. inflicted on children, and, indeed, forestalls most of the reasonable ideas of Rousseau. Locke, too, was indebted to him for many hints. Indeed, not only

on this topic, but on most others, Montaigne's Essays, being, from their form and substance, peculiarly sus ceptible of such treatment, have been used as a store house both of expressions and ideas — as often without as with acknowledgment. Thus he fell under the law of retaliation, but I am sure it is a libel to represent him as indignant thereat. § 12. Concluding Observation. An endeavour to sketch some of the chief features of the Essays in a way suited to the undidactic cha racter of this work has led me into a desultory chapter. It would, however, be difficult to describe so varied and complicated a work in a manner more connected. If my account be incomplete, it suggests at any rate the idea of incompleteness ; and if an apparent con tradiction sometimes occurs, it is because Montaigne is full of contradictions, which can be explained in only one way. " If I paint myself diversely," he says," it is because I see myself diversely." How imprison a judgment of such a man's productions in a few even and consistent sentences ? Those who have endea voured to do so, have generally been content to take a portion of Montaigne for Montaigne himself. For my part, I feel an uncertainty about some of his doctrines, which I should with regret see displaced by absolute con THE ESSAYS. 101

viction. When a definite critical conviction is formed, it is often put aside and allowed to grow rusty. Doubt keeps the mind active. Was, then, the Essayist an absolute unbeliever, hiding behind the mask of false piety; or was he half a Christian, half a Pagan an admirer sometimes of the Apostate Julian, sometimes a worshipper of " Truth itself?" Both opinions, as the Jesuits say, are probable ; and I often feel inclined to lean towards the one, often towards the other. Morally and philosophically, however, it is a venture some task to judge any man in the last resort; and, after some years communion with a professed doubter,I have learned to doubt my infallibility as a critic. We must remember, finally, that Montaigne would not say "I am ignorant," or " I doubt ;" for this was affirmation; but adopted as his device the interroga tion, Que s§ay-je ? And with this perpetual question on his lips he passed through life.

CHAPTER IX. events of montaigne's life during the writing of the essays. I believe the ordinary account, which makes Mon taigne spend about eight years, chiefly in Perigord, after his retirement in 1571, to be the correct one. We cannot otherwise understand the production of the Essays. The attempt to diminish the length and the intensity of Montaigne's seclusion, and to transmute him into a sort of small diplomatist and second-rate politician, who jotted down his thoughts on such trifles as morality and religion in odd moments, has not been successful. Luckily so. Posterity, indeed, cannot do otherwise than regret that, after his twenty years of experience of the court and public life in a small way, Montaigne was not able to spend the whole remainder of his time in recording the results of that experience, and comparing outward facts with revelations of his inner life. " Every man is a fool or a physician at forty." What more has Montaigne to learn from con tact with men ? Too long experience of active life deadens the moral sense, and makes us love the world and it alone. There are millions of " observers" who have nothing to tell us. If we were to find out that Montaigne, as soon as he had set up his inscription, did really flinch and go perpetually hankering back for office and employment, or even the society of great people, we should be disposed to suspect his value. He had no call to meddle in politics. He did not understand them. There were advocates enough of passive obedience; and it is already sufficiently dis agreeable to find the friend of Estienne de la Boetie appearing, even at wide intervals, as a valet and a courtier. But although we may be quite sure that the two — books of Essays first published I mean the prepara — tory reading for them as well as the execution were sufficient to occupy Montaigne the chief part of the eight years which Dom de Vienne says he spent in his chateau, it is not necessary to suppose that he abso lutely shut himself up there and never on any occasion went forth. This would be too romantic a fact to be accepted, even if there were no positive proofs to the contrary ; as, for example, where he says that he wrote bit by bit, and was sometimes interrupted by absences of several months. He accounts in this way for the disconnexion of the Essays, their jerks and transitions. " I am no artist," he says, " but write as I feel the impulse." In one place he attributes the origin of the Essays to a melancholy humour, produced by the chagrin of the solitude into which he had cast himself for some years ; but we know that he began to write at once in 1571, and dashed down the sketches of nineteen Essays in the first year. There is every ap pearance that he made arrangements for his retirement with the deliberate intention of writing. But, as I have said, he never meant to imitate his friend the Dean of St. Hilary, and put himself in perpetual quarantine.

In order to prove Montaigne's presence in Paris in 1572, we are told that Charles the Ninth held then a chapter of the Order of St. Michel, in order to give a sort of sanction to the St. Bartholomew ; and as all the members were invited, it is supposed that our Essayist could not have failed to come. But we like to believe that Montaigne was not in Paris during that horrible year. At any rate, better proofs are required. Until they appear, let us imagine him studying quietly in his chateau, and receiving from some chance pas senger the news of the massacre. Until the Paris Matins, an unusual quiet had brooded over France, resembling the silence of nature about to give birth to an earthquake. When the shock took place, its vibrations were rapidly felt all through France. Petty massacres took place here, fierce resistance rose there. In Guienne, the chief Protestants seized as many fortified towns as they could by surprise and escalade, and prepared to sell their lives dearly. Many little posts in the neighbourhood of Montaigne's chateau were occupied by rival parties, but there was little fighting. The Catholics were al

EVENTS OF HIS LIFE. 105 most ashamed of their victory. The Protestants were stunned ; and many, indeed, began to doubt whether those doctrines could be true which brought upon the country such terrible disasters. We need not be sur prised, therefore, if Montaigne complained of them as introducers of novelties. In 1573, the passage of the Dordogne was once vigorously disputed, and the whole country on its banks was overrun by small armed parties. But the great struggle was elsewhere, at La Rochelle heroine — among cities. But another lull was preparing. De spite the Republican pamphlets that were in circulation, there was no chance left of a modification in the form of government. The wretched Charles the Ninth died, and was succeeded by the equally wretched Henry the Third. The only palliation that took place was the formation of the party of Politicals, the basis of which had been laid before his death by L'Hospital. The chiefs of this party were Guillaume de Montmo rency and Henri de la Tour, Vicomte de Turennes. Our Essayist was too cautious to join it at first. Indeed he seems to have been a member of the Ligue until that association openly broke with Henry the Third : afterwards he gradually veered toward the party of Henry of Navarre, without going further than loyalty allowed until the throne became vacant. We know that, in 1574, Montaigne was employed by the Duke of Montpensier, commanding one of the king's armies in Poitou about the time of Charles the Ninth's death, on a mission to the Parliament of Bordeaux. The secret registers of the Parliament con tain, indeed, a statement to the effect that in May, 1574, it was announced that "the Sieur de Montaigne, a chevalier of the Order of the King, and formerly conseiller in the court, was in the hall of audience asking to speak to the said court, and that it was resolved that he should be admitted and allowed to take his place in the middle of the bureau of the Grand Chambre. When the said Montaigne entered, he presented the letters of the Sieur de Montpensier addressed to the court. After they had been read, the said Montaigne made a long speech."

The "long speech" has not been preserved, and we do not know on what business Montaigne was en gaged. It is pretty evident, however, that being a distinguished member of the Royalist and Catholic party, on whom distinctions had recently been be stowed, he was employed to carry a message of some importance to a Parliament in which he had many friends. That his mission, however, had little influence on the course of public affairs, we may infer from the fact that De Thou, who got all his information on the history of Guienne from Montaigne, never alludes to it. It is not necessary to suppose that this episode was of long duration, or distracted him very much from his studies. Whenever he sallied forth from his chateau, he must have seen new reasons, in the deplorable state of the country, to regret the absence from the world of the simple principle, " live and let live," which he was employing himself in illustrating and enforcing.

M. Griin has some very ingenious and almost conclusive reasonings to prove that Montaigne was at court about this time, employed in his famous nego­ciation between the Guises and Henry of Navarre. He cleverly argues, also, that Montaigne was at court during the early part of the reign of Henry the Third, from an observation of his to the effect that formerly gentlemen remained covered in presence of the king, but that when he wrote the forty-third chapter of the " First Book he said : we are now compelled to remain uncovered." This innovation was introduced by Henry the Third, it is true, but it is not proved that the practice was discontinued during his reign. The old custom was, however, revived afterwards, and is allu ded to by Webster in " The Duchess of Malfi :"— I've heard you say that the French courtiers Wear their hats on 'fore the king." At any rate we must necessarily suppose a journey to court to account for the title of Gentilhomme ordinaire de la Chambre du Roi, which we find Montaigne bearing in 1580. But this journey took place probably just before the publication of the Essays. The Gentlemen of the Bedchamber were then no longer called valets, and wore a gold key attached to their girdles. They were in every respect servants of the king. They became so numerous under Henry the Third, that, like the members of the Order of St. Michel, they ceased to be respected ; and we can only regret that Montaigne who, by the by, never received a title while it was worth

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. having, consented, or was compelled, to take such an office. A debate has been opened as to whether he received any emoluments, but he himself boasts that he never got anything from a king; and as officers nominally entitled to a salary, unless Mignons, were scarcely ever paid by Henry the Third, it is possible that Montaigne gained nothing but a very equivocal honour. It seems, at any rate, certain, that Montaigne's estate and chateau, being situated somewhat out of the way, suffered little or nothing during the various wars that took place between the Saint Bartholomew and the publication of the Essays. This may partly have arisen from his not coming forward in an obnoxious manner, although he was universally known to belong decidedly to the Catholic interest. The identification of Montaigne with a party has not been sufficiently noticed. He always most clearly ranges himself under a particular banner. His "Essay on Conscience" begins as follows : " As my brother, the Sieur de la Brousse, and I, were travelling one day during our civil wars, it fell out that we met a gentleman of good appearance. He was of a contrary party to ours ; but I knew nothing of it ; for he pretended to be what he was not. The

is, of these that the worst by is beaten,packwars so is distinguished from no apparentyour enemy you mark, neither of language nor carriage. He has been brought up under the same laws, with the same and in the same air, so that difficult to is it manners, avoid confusion and disorder. This made me, myself, EVENTS OF HIS LIFE. 109 fear to meet our troops in a place where I was unknown, lest I should be obliged to tell my name, or meet with worse annoyance. The poor gentleman whom we met was in such a dreadful fright, that he seemed ready to die every time we crossed a horseman, or passed through a town which held for the king. In this way I divined that his conscience was troubled. It seemed to him, that through his mask and the crosses on his cassock I could read in his heart his secret intentions." We have curious details on the state of Montaigne's house, and his way of life during this eventful period. He says, that in order to avoid attacks, he made a great show of not defending himself. He opened his doors, so that no one could have the excuse of being incited by the love of glory to attack him. Whoever knocked was admitted. The only defence was a porter, according to ancient use and ceremony, who served not to forbid his door but to offer admission more decently and graciously. No one mounted guard or was sentinel for him, save the stars over his head. He objected to the system of semi-fortification adopted by his neigh " bours. Unless you are well fortified, it is best not to be fortified at all." He notices the increase of facilities for attack, and says that his house was considered strong in old times, but that he had not gone on fortifying it. He knew that when peace came he should be obliged to destroy his works. Besides, in civil wars, your valet may be of the opposite party, and even your relations. To be always ready for defence 110 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

would ruin any private finances, and the only way would be to do as so many others did to live on unpro tected neighbours. Montaigne had seen many well-guarded houses provoke assault and be taken. "As " for me," he says, let danger come, I will not call it. This is the retreat in which I rest from the wars. I try to relieve this corner from the public tempest as I do another corner in my soul. Our war may change and our its forms multiply parties if it pleases. I will not budge. Among so many armed houses I am the only man that I know in France, of my condition, who has confided purely to Heaven the protection of mine. I have never sent to a place of safety neither vessel of silver, nor title-deed, nor tapestry." We shall see, however, further on, what happened as times became worse and the country more de moralised. During the whole of his first retirement Montaigne was almost unmolested. Several important events occurred in the neighbourhood. At the Paix de Monsieur, in 1576, so favourably to the Protestants, Perigueux was given to them, as one of their places of surety. In 1577 conferences took place between the representatives of Henry the Third and the King of Navarre, at Bergerac, and a treaty was signed. These treaties, however, were rarely adhered to by chiefs or partizans. In 1579 another conference was thought necessary at Nerac, and a new confirmatory edict. It was in 1579 that the Lovers' War broke out. Then Catherine was at Agen with Marguerite. In 1580 a conference was held at Fleix, between the Duke of EVENTS OP HIS LIFE.

Ill Anjou and the Protestant delegates. Fleix belonged to the Marquis de Trans. The terms of the article of Nerac were reverted to. But, unless some new documents are produced — and this is not likely we may safely consider Montaigne to have been almost exclusively occupied from 1571 to 1580 with his Essays.

CHAPTER X. PUBLICATION OF THE ESSAYS. At length the reward of Montaigne's exertions came. His manuscript was in a fit state to be delivered to the printer. It must have been curious to look at. Montaigne dictated a part of the Essays ; and probably had all copied. This is why he says, with gentlemanly ease : " My secretaries must answer for orthography and punctuation." He very probably, indeed, at first, did leave this care entirely to others. With good reason ; for, in spite of his elaborate education, the specimens we have of his own writing show that he generally spelt like an ignorant soldier. Afterwards, finding himself forced to attend to these things, he drew up a list of directions for the printer, which shows that he had good common-sense notions about orthography, mingled with some crotchets. We have very few facts to record with reference to the preparations made for publication. Sterne has said, that Montaigne feared his Essays would become " a book for a parlour-window." Montaigne had, certainly, the ladies much more in view when he wrote than any other author of the day, except the poets and romancers. And this although he pretends, with Moliere, that he would confine women to the wardrobe and the kitchen ! The influence of the sex on style in France began in the sixteenth century. Montaigne felt

it, it, tried to resist said coarse things in order to show his independence, but yielded, nevertheless, in great a measure. Mr. Emerson, in his " Eepresentative Men," curiously enough remarks, that the coarseness of Mon by the fact that such writings is taigne explained were by read This intended to be ladies. never was so little the case, that not one of the dedicated is Essays Montaigne seems to have forgotten the to man. a cluster of noble friends to whom he inscribed the works of La Boetie. This an observation that has not been is particularly illustrative of his character. made, and yet is He tells us himself that the translation of Raymond de by Sebonde had been much read ladies, who had been the meaning, and had come to him for by puzzled enlightenment. He therefore wrote the "Apology," to Marguerite of Navarre. The "Essay addressing it on the love of Fathers to their Children" addressed is of La Boetie's Madame d'Estissac the collection to ; " Sonnets" to Madame de Grammont the "Essay on ;; to the Comtesse de Gurson and now, in the Education" — midst of the last Essay of the Second Book that is, of the last Essay published in the first edition we find — dedication to Madame de Duras, another intercalated a lady belonging to the Grammont family. That lady VOL. II. I 114 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. had recently paid him a visit, and had spent some time at his house. Her husband, Jean de Durfort, seigneur de Duras, had just fought a duel, supported by Rosans, a relative, against the Vicomtes de Turennes and Salignac. They fought on the banks of the Garonne, and the Duras obtained the victory. But they were accused of foul play, and were compelled to hide at the house of some friend. As the residence of Madame de Duras at Montaigne coincides in date with this incident, it was probably to Montaigne that they retired. Imay as well add that this Madame de Duras was the confidante, the female minister, of Marguerite of Navarre. When the latter left Paris, in 1583, to return to the court of Nerac, whither news had been sent of her disorders, Henry the Third, her brother, caused her to be searched ; and arrested Mesdames de Duras and Bethune. M. de Duras was afterwards her representative at Agen, whilst she was carrying on the war against her husband and her brother in the name of the Ligue; and so tyrannous over the inhabitants was he as nearly to drive them to insurrection. All the external incidents of this part of the life of Montaigne are but very obscurely known. The first edition of the Essays was printed and published at Bordeaux ; but we have no statement as to the kind of success it met with. Philarete Chasles observes that the works of Tabourot, "who never wrote six pages exempt from madness and bad taste," had a greater vogue in that day than the Essays. This is possible.

115 PUBLICATION OF THE ESSAYS. Montaigne himself has said that his book was not fitted for the loftiest or the humblest minds, being too learned for the one and not enough for the other ; but was made to live in a humble way in the middle region.I believe his popularity among the best intellects was immediate, although we have no trace of criticism at first. The people of Gascony, who knew him personally, thought it droll, he says, to see him in print. But as his book went further off it was better appreciated : he had to pay printers and publishers in Guienne; elsewhere they were eager to buy him. However, it is evident the book sold and was read. The favourable reception of the first edition it was that encouraged him to go on, though he feared to tire the public, as a learned man of his age had done. He set to work at once to improve and polish what he had already published. As to the opinions of his personal friends, he seems to have cared little about them ; for in his case, as in most others, personal friends were the last to perceive his value. " Really very clever for an illiterate country gentleman," was at first the judgment of Pasquier and his learned colleagues. This was partly because of the absence of quotations from the classical authors. In subsequent editions Montaigne determined to repair this defect, and sometimes inconveniently crowded his margin, whence the notes ultimately were merged into the text. The irregular, fragmentary, but pregnant work thus created, is, or should be, in the hands of all serious readers.

CHAPTER XL WAR AGAINST THE DOCTORS. One of the most amusing and characteristic parts of the Essays is the persevering attack carried on against the Doctors. It was stimulated partly, as we have seen, by an old tradition in the family, and conducted in a humoristic way ; but it was connected also with Montaigne's general scepticism, and his opposition to the formularism of his age. The great objection of literary men and thinkers to medicine has always been the arrogance of the doctors, their assumption of learn ing, their absoluteness, their determination to apply rules at all hazard in a manner which our studies of " the divers and undulating" nature of man, and our consideration of the fugitive circumstances which now envelope him and now disappear, teach us to be against reason in all departments. Montaigne did not understand Paracelsus, and was alarmed by Vesalius. The practice of anatomy may have appeared impious to him in some Catholic mood. He had read of the horrible dissections of live criminals, condemned by WAR AGAINST THE DOCTORS. Celsus, but practised at Rome, in the vain hope of discovering the mystery of life. Montaigne's way of speaking of the great revolutionist in medicine is remarkable. " They say/' he writes, " that a new comer, named Paracelsus, changes and overthrows all the order of the ancient rules of medicine, and main tains that up to this time it has only served to kill men. I think he will easily be able to prove this; but as to putting my life in his hands, I don't think it would be a mark of wisdom." The movement of Paracelsus was contemporary with Montaigne's child hood ; and he must have been better known than this phrase would imply. But Montaigne was not the man to understand a reformer, who with the en thusiasm of faith united the manners of an impostor. Indeed this strange being has not been understood until our own day, when he is at last admitted to have been the first man who did in medicine what Rabelais and Montaigne did in morals, —the first to go direct to nature, without having anything whatever to do with the conventional maxims of the day. About the year 1579, immediately before the pub lication of the first edition of the Essays, at the age of forty-seven, Montaigne wrote in substance :—" I am now seven or eight years older than when I com menced writing, not without gaining something new, for I have now got the colic (he means the nephritic colic, produced by the stone) from the liberality of years. It is difficult to have much to do with them without some such fruit. But I wish they had given

me anything else. This was the disease which from early childhood I most feared. However, during about eighteen months which I have suffered, I have already begun to get used to the pain, and even find grounds of consolation and hope ; so apt are men to cling, under no matter what circumstances, to this wretched life. What a stupid humanity was that of Tamerlane, who killed all beggars he met, thinking he did them a favour by delivering them from life ! The sufferings which simply touch the soul afflict me much less than they afflict most men, partly because the world thinks many things horrible, to be avoided even at the price of life, which are nearly indifferent to me; partly because my complexion is stupid and insensible, not moved except by what concerns myself : which com plexion I consider one of the best pieces of my natural condition. But essential and corporal sufferings I feel more keenly. Yet, when I looked forward to them from the midst of that long and happy health which God gave me during the best part of my time, they seemed to me more insupportable than I find them. In truth, my fear was greater than the pain. This strengthens in me every day the belief that most of the faculties of our souls, as we employ them, rather interfere with than assist the repose of life!" " I am seized by the worst of all diseases, the most sudden, the most painful, the most mortal, and the most irremediable. I have already gone through five or six very long and painful attacks. However, either I flatter myself, or it is possible to sustain this

state, for him whose soul is freed from the fear of death ; and freed also from the menaces, conclusions, and consequences with which medicine troubles us. But pain itself is not so keen that a solid man should be driven by it into rage and despair. This colic will do what remained to do in preparing me for death. It will detach me completely from this life, to which I hold by the love of life alone. God grant that it may not drive me to the other extreme, and make me wish for death I" Montaigne then apologises for those who by sighs, groans, and cries, and violent gestures, testify their struggle with pain. " What matters it if we wring our hands, so that we do not distort our minds ?" For his part, however, he had met his disease with a better countenance than this, and was content to groan, but did not cry out. Either his pain, he says, was not so excessive, after all, or he had more firmness than common people. He com plained when he was sharply pricked, but never went so far as despair. In the midst of his sufferings he was fond of examining himself, and he always found that he was capable of speaking, thinking, and an swering as clearly as at any other hour, but not so constantly. " When they suppose to most me be cast down and spare me, I often try my strength, and start subjects of conversation quite foreign to my state. I can do everything by a sudden effort, but oh, take away duration. As soon as the pain passes I can return to my ordinary posture, for my soul is no other wise affected than by the influence of the body ; and MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

this I certainly owe to the care which I have always taken to prepare myself by reason for such accidents. It is true that I am tried somewhat severely, for I have suddenly passed from a very sweet and very happy condition of life to the most painful that can be imagined. The attacks come on so frequently that I am now scarcely ever in good health ; yet up to this hour I keep my mind in such a state that, providedI can go on this way, I shall consider myself in a better condition of life than a thousand others, who have neither fever nor pain except what they give to themselves by the fault of their reason."

We have no ground for thinking that Montaigne gives other than a true account of the way in which he met the first attacks of the disease which troubled him all his life afterwards. It would, indeed, have

if, after studying so long how tobeen surprising receive pain, and preparing himself for death so diligently, he had shown less fortitude than this. Montaigne's father died of the stone, which seized his death. him The Essayist takes few years before a for granted that the disease was hereditary, though it, of his brothers bad and does not note that none attacked him when he went to live at Montaigne it under the same circumstances as his father. He was sufficient of an experimentalist for that. have not I read in Coray's " Commentary on Hippocrates" that in some parts of France, is the stone frequentvery by caused where not drinking sufficient water. itis " My aversion " to medicine," says Montaigne, is hereditary, like my disease. My ancestors detested medicine by some occult and natural inclination. The very sight of drugs was horrible to my father. How ever, if this had not been the case I should have tried to cultivate this antipathy. My reason confirms my instinct. But I do not refuse medicine because of its bad taste. Health is worth being bought at the price of all possible cauteries and incisions; but there are other appearances which make me suspect physic. I do not, however, deny that there may be an art of medicine, nor that among all the works of nature there are things proper for the preservation of our health. There are simples that have specific effects, as as I know by experience ; just I know that mutton nourishes, and that wine warms. Solon said that food was, like other drugs, a medicine against a disease of hunger. ["Iqiongueritlafaim etlasoif" inourdays, says a French village cabaret.] I do not disavow the usage which we may derive from the world, nor doubt the power and fertility of nature, nor its application to our wants. I see that pike and sparrows find her treatment excellent, but I mistrust the inventions of our mind, of our science and art, for which we have abandoned nature and her rules, and which we wot not how to moderate. I know the glorious name of medicine and its promises to human nature, but its practiceI neither honour nor esteem." Montaigne then goes on to say that experience made him doubt of phy sicians. None were so easily ill or cured with so much difficulty as those who were under their direction.

He had often been ill, and had always got through without their assistance. For this reason he cared not where he was, with or without aid, for he trusted to nothing but his own constitution. He accumulates instances of nations that lived without medicines, or with merely popular remedies. The villagers round about him whenever ill, no matter of what disease, always drank the strongest wine they could find, mixed with saffron and spices, and their system suc ceeded as well as any other. In fact, all the general arguments directed by homoeopathy against positive medical science are to be found in Montaigne. Montaigne criticises the manners of the doctors of his day, and grimly complains that in such disorders as his, for example, disdainfully taking advantage of human misery, they administered rats' dung and other such filth. He alludes to him who had the throats of children cut in order to use their blood;" meaning, probably, Francis the Second, accused by the people of using this expedient, under the direction of his mother, to prolong his wretched life. I believe it was she who was said to have used a child's blood " to make a wash." In fact, Montaigne found that all the pre judices and superstitions of the ancients continued in practice up to his own time, with the addition of many others. Medicine, indeed, had become so confused and arbitrary, that it was rather a magical art than a science. He notices the recent introduction of gayac, sarsaparilla, and other drugs; but, as I have said, the revolutions attempted in his time equivalent to the

WAR AGAINST THE DOCTORS. revolutions in religion, philosophy, literature, and the arts, by Paracelsus, Fioravanti, and Argenterius, he did not appreciate. As might have been expected, he takes a malicious pleasure in enumerating the mistakes of doctors. A kind of plague had ravaged the country in his neighbourhood shortly before, and carried away an infinite number of men. As soon as the storm was passed, a famous doctor published a pamphlet on the subject, and confessed that the chief cause of the mortality that took place was that the disease was met by bleeding, instead of some other remedy. Kecently also, at Paris, a gentleman was cut for the stone, who had no such disease ; and a bishop, a great friend of Montaigne, called him once to come and advise him whether he should comply with the wishes of the doctors, and consent to be cut. Montaigne, on the faith of others, persuaded him. When he was dead and opened they found his disease had some other seat. These and other accidents made Montaigne determine, whatever might happen, never to consent to the opera " tion. " These doctors," he says, don't know anything about the police of this little world. Because they would not stop a dysentery for fear of bringing on fever, they killed me a friend, who was worth more " than them all put together ! Among Montaigne's friends was the Baron de Caup&ne en Chalosse, son of the Marechal Montluc. They enjoyed in common the right of patronage over a benefice of great extent, at the foot of the mountains (of Perigord) called Lahontan. "The inhabitants of 124 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

this corner, like those of the valley of Angrogna," says Montaigne, "had a life apart, ways, costumes, and manners apart. They were governed by certain private laws and customs, handed down from father to son, which they obey without any other constraint than their own reverence. This little state had continued from the most ancient times in a condition so happy, that no neighbouring judge had been called in to meddle with their affairs, no lawyer had been employed to give them advice, no stranger invited to settle their quarrels, and none of them had ever been reduced to beggary. They fled the alliances and commerce of the outer world, in order not to corrupt the purity of their government, until, as they say, one of them, (remem bered by their fathers), having his mind pricked by a noble ambition, and desirous of bringing his name into credit and reputation, took it into his head to make one of his children, Maistre Jean, or Maistre Pierre ; and having caused him to learn to write in some neighbour ing city, turned him out at last as a fine village notary. This gentleman began to disdain the ancient customs of the place, and to suggest the pomp of the outward regions. The first of his compeers who lost a goat was counselled by him to appeal to the royal judges of the neighbourhood, and so on till all was bastardised. After this corruption, they say, there was introduced inconti nently another still worse, by means of a doctor, who took a fancy to marry one of their girls and establish himself among them. He began to teach them first the names of fevers, rheums, tumours, the situation of the

WAR AGAINST THE DOCTORS. heart, of the liver, and the intestines, of which they had no previous knowledge ; and instead of garlic, with which they had learned to expel all sorts of ills, he taught them for a cough or for a chill to take strange mixtures, and dealt not only in their health, but also in their death. They swear that it is only since then that they have perceived that the night-air made their heads heavy, that drinking hot hurt them, that the winds of autumn were more injurious than those of spring; and that since the use of this medicine they have found them selves overwhelmed with a legion of unaccustomed diseases, perceive in general a falling off in their ancient vigour, and find their lives shortened by one half." As Montaigne had many doctors among his friends, he thinks it necessary to say that he has seen many honest men in the medical profession worthy of being loved. It is not them he attacks, but their art ; and he does not think them very wrong for taking advan tage of human stupidity, for on these principles the greater part of the world was governed. He even called them in when he was ill, if they happened to be near, talked to them, and paid them like other people. But he never complied with their directions, unless they agreed exactly with his own common sense. It is in the midst of this Essay on his disease that Montaigne introduces the dedication to Madame de Duras, of which I have already spoken. Writing to her he says that the doctors, when they despair of their patients, send them on a pilgrimage, or advise them to " go to a watering-place. Do not be angry, madame," he adds ; " this does not allude to the watering-places in this country, which are all under the protection of your house—all Grammontoises." Montaigne him self was, to a great extent, a believer in medicinal baths. Many of his absences from his chateau, between the years 1571 and 1580, supposed by some to have been caused by political motives, were really employed in visiting the various watering-places in the Pyrenees. He preferred going to the baths where much com pany assembled, which were prettily situated and com fortably arranged for visitors, and mentions among these Bagneres. But he seems to have tried them all; as Aigues Caudes, on the mountain of Ossan, in Bearn ; Barbotan, in the county of Armagnac ; and Pressac, near Acques, in Gascony. It was partly because he felt no relief from these baths, though chiefly, perhaps, because he wished to see the effect of his Essays in Italy, that in the year 1580, immediately after he had done printing, he began to make preparations for the longest journey he had yet undertaken. He was a traveller, however, by nature; and, as we have seen, must have spent a great part of his time in moving to and fro. We must now, therefore, before accompany ing him to Italy, make acquaintance with his manners

on the road.

HIS TRAVELS. 127

CHAPTER XII. TRAVELS OF MONTAIGNE. In Montaigne's days, despite the want of our modern means of communication, there was much moving to and fro ; and France, although by no means equal to Germany in that respect, was tolerably well furnished — with that essential thing to wayfarers good hotels. Great care was taken with the government of these establishments. All aubergistes, cabaretiers, and ta­verniers were obliged to be provided with royal letters or licenses; and all places of rest for travellers had written over them in large characters, " Hostelerie, Cabaret, or Taverne, by permission of the king." There were auberges for foot-travellers and auberges for horse-travellers, each with fixed prices, written in a conspicuous manner outside; as "Dinner for a foot­" traveller, six sols ; bed for a foot-traveller, eight sols ; or else "Dinner for a horse-traveller, twelve sols; bed for a horse-traveller, twenty sols." A man travelling on horseback could not dine for six sols, and a foot­traveller was not allowed to be so extravagant as to MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. spend twelve. It is worth mentioning, as we shall principally have to deal with Montaigne on horseback, that when such a traveller could not pay his bill, the host had the alternative of sending him to prison or seizing his horse. In 1563, an ordonnance of the Parliament of Paris decreed that the hotel-keepers should disarm their hosts as soon as they entered, in order to check the sanguinary brawls that took place between parties of rival opinions. In the sixteenth century there were a good many excellent roads in France, constructed principally by means of forced labour, in true Egyptian style, though sometimes out of the revenues of the provinces. But, once these high roads abandoned, the country was traversed by means of tracks. We learn a good deal from the Itineraries of the day, which tell you where on such a road the pavement commences or finishes, and where there is no road at all. In the latter case they become very communicative, advising you to " " turn to the right," to " turn to the left," to go " above the village," or " below it," to cross such a field," or " follow the ditches in such a direction," and so forth. They also tell what roads deserve the name of Chemins du Diable, or Rues d'Enfer; where brigand ages have been committed, what passages are dan gerous ; and and significantly say, " Pass now then quickly." They do not forget to note what are the best hotels — the White House, or the Red House; where are to be found good beds, good wine, and good landlords ; and even point out occasionally the curio

HIS TRAVELS. 129 sities of the country. " See the Leap of Kegnault de Montauban," says one. The great difficulty in travelling was the passage of rivers. There were comparatively few bridges — one of the most noted in France was at Bergerac, near Montaigne and even ferries were not always found. A traveller often had to ford, or even swim a river. Montaigne mentions that he had swam rivers on horse back, and thought it not dangerous when the horse could get easily into the water, and there was a good landing-place. He did not like boat-travelling, con sidered the most luxurious in his days. He was very subject to sickness, but could stand a rough tossing about better than the slight jerk produced by the oars in calm weather. He was frequently, however, forced to travel in this way, and alludes often to sailing across streams, floating down, or ascending by means of the towing-rope. When he moved about with his family, he was often compelled to use what was called a cache d'eau, sometimes decked out in those days with flowers, in order to attract passengers. When he wished to go down to Blaye from Bordeaux, there was the gabarre, called " The Eel," which plied every morning, weather permitting. Montaigne's Essays, from the very beginning, are full of allusions to his travels, and the benefit he derived from them. He tells us that when on the road, in order to profit by communication with others — one of the best schools possible —he always took care to bring those whom he met to talk about the VOL. II. K things with which they were best acquainted, about their trade and occupation, not about general subjects.

Elsewhere he ridicules the travelling of the nobility of his days. "Our French nobility," he says, "come back and tell us how many paces broad is the Sancta Rotonda, and what a beautiful pair of drawers the Signora Livia wore, and that the face of a Nero in such a ruin is longer or broader than in such a medal; but they never think of studying the manners of the nations they pass through." There is no point upon which Montaigne so much insists as on the advantage of travelling. He seems to think that there was no school so good; but admits that one of his own reasons for leaving his home was a vague and unquenchable desire of the unknown. As he grew old, indeed, he became restless and uneasy; and even persuaded himself that he should have liked to start away and travel all his life over the world, seeking a place of repose, but without feeling the obligation to return to his chateau. If any one asked him the reason of his voyages, he always replied : "I know well what I am, but I do not know what I seek." It appears that his friends, perhaps incited by Francoise de la Chassagne, thought him wrong after he was married, and when he began to get old, to continue to travel. But their reasonings had no effect upon him. Nothing could restrain him from riding out in search of intellectual adventures, —for material ones he always avoided. Though he never composed Essays except at home, he was always on the watch for

HIS TRAVELS. 131 anecdote and illustration. He remembered, when he wrote, incidents that happened before he became a writer. " I was one day going to Orleans," he says, " and met on the plain this side of Clery, two Regents, on their way to Bordeaux, about fifty paces one before the other. with Further behind I saw a large company, a master at their head, who was no other than the late Count de la Rochefoucauld, [murdered at the Saint Bartholomew]. One of my people inquired of the first of these Regents (university professors) who was that gentleman who came behind?' He had not turned round to see the troop I mention, and thinking his companion was alluded to, answered drolly, He is not a gentleman ; he is a grammarian, and I am a logician.' " Elsewhere Montaigne notices, as a vicious custom of his nation, that of stopping people on the road, and asking them who they were, and being offended by their refusal to answer. Montaigne, as I have said, always travelled on horseback. He liked to have a considerable suite, and did not care much for expense. He entrusted, a indeed, all money-matters to servant, in whose honesty he had confidence apparently the same who acted as his secretary. When he started for Italy he admits that he felt some pain at separating from his family; but he did not flinch, for he had not only to struggle for life but to enjoy his fame. There is some obscurity about his first movements. He left his chateau on June 22, 1580 ; and seems to have gone straight to Paris. Probably he there learned that his Essays were likely to give great offence to bigoted Catholic partisans, and in order to conciliate them he actually went and joined the army of Marechal Matignon, which was besieging La F&re. On this occasion, at any rate, he acted as a soldier of the Ligue. He found many of his friends in the camp among others the husband of the famous Corisande d'Andouins, the Count of Grammont. This gentleman was killed by a cannon-shot on the sixth of August, and Montaigne and many other persons set out for Soissons to accompany his body. The Essayist notes that the pomp and solemnity of their procession moved the people of the places through which they passed even to tears, although no one knew the name of the deceased.

After having shown his good will to the cause, Montaigne, exercising the privilege which gentlemen arrogated to themselves in those days of joining and quitting an army when they pleased, returned to Paris ; and determined at once to set out for Germany and Italy.

CHAPTER XIII. JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND LORRAINE. The Journal of Montaigne's Travels was in part kept by a confidential servant, who noted down, sometimes in his own language, but generally under dictation, all the incidents that occurred, and all observations made. It is somewhat uncouth reading ; and full of most minute details on the progress and symptoms of the traveller's disease. But it is very remarkable for its tone — so different from that adopted now-a-days, even by the most liberal and enlightened Frenchman as soon as he passes his frontier. There is no assumption of superiority, no vulgar contempt aroused by difference of manners contempt analogous to that of the clown who sees a well-dressed stranger pass through his — hamlet no boasting, no impertinence; but a calm, equable, almost indifferent way of setting down facts, as if they referred to beings different in nature from him. Montaigne's philosophical meditations have borne good fruit. He sees his brother in the German, the Swiss, and the Italian, before he sees the German, the Swiss, or the Italian. Even the Memoir-writers of that age have, it is true, something of this cosmopolite feeling, which has at last utterly disappeared ; being forced out, as it were, by a series of prejudices cast into the French mind as if you were to cast stones into a well and fill it to its brink, causing the water to overflow and be lost. But Montaigne's impartiality was so great, that his ignorant secretary absolutely mistook it for hatred towards his own country ! I shall rapidly sketch this journey, pausing every now and then to give specimens of the kind of ob servations Montaigne thought it important to record. We shall thus at the same time make farther acquaint ance with the character of his mind, and obtain some insight into the manners of the generation which was called upon to read and relish the Essays. Montaigne's fame, we may infer, had already preceded him in many places. His work was published in the spring of 1580, and had had four or five months to circulate. In those days of eager, learned correspondence, this was more than sufficient, even in the absence of adver tisements and reviews, to allow all choice spirits to learn the news. We left Montaigne at the siege of La Fere. The Journal takes him up at Beaumont, whence he had just sent his brother, Mattecoulon, to inquire after the health of a certain Count, who had been wounded ; but, as it appeared, not mortally. Here M. d'Estissac joined party, accompanied by "a gentleman, the a valet-de-chambre, a mule, a muleteer on foot, and also

two valets." The gentleman appears to have been M. de Hautoy. Montaigne had the same suite, and it was agreed to share expenses. Leaving Beaumont on the fifth of September, 1580, they went to sup at Meaux; where, among other curiosities, they visited the Abbey of St. Faron, and the tomb of Ogier the Dane, and another of his Paladins. " In the treasury are the bones of those knights. The upper bone of the arm is about the length of the whole arm of an ordinary man in these days, and a little longer than that of M. de Montaigne." The traveller made a point of visiting all learned men who lived by the way. At Meaux he called on Juste Terrelle, and examined his library and garden. Two or three days afterwards he was at Espernai, seeking, in the church of Notre Dame, for the tomb of Strozzi, whom he had seen killed when young at the siege of Thionville. "It was the custom," however, of Montaigne and D'Estissac to go to mass at every opportunity : the former, indeed, could not by any means afford to neglect that duty. After the service Montaigne went up to Maldonat, a famous Jesuit, and talked learnedly with him both there and after dinner, to which he invited him at the hotel. The baths of Spa formed also a subject of copious conversation. The Jesuit brought with him a maistre d'hotel of M. de Nevers, who gave to Montaigne a printed statement on the difference between his master and the Duke of Montpensier, as to the Baillee des Roses in the Parlia " ment, in order that he might know the facts, and be

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. able to instruct gentlemen who were inquisitive on the subject." At Vitri le Francois Montaigne learned three memorable histories : first, that Antoinette de Bour bon, mother of the Great Guise, was still living, aged eighty-seven, and able to walk a quarter of a league a day ; second, that a girl had just been hung for dis guising herself with several companions in male costume, and carrying the joke so far as to marry a damsel of the neighbourhood ; third, the odd story, to be found in the Essays, of Marie Germain, who was changed suddenly from a female to a male, and re-baptized by the Cardinal of Lenoncourt. Ambroise Pare believed this story ; and the girls of Vitri hummed about the streets a song, warning one an other to be careful how they trod, for fear of meta morphosis ! After passing Bar, "where M. de Montaigne had formerly been," the traveller suffered a good deal, and determined to hasten to the Baths of Plombieres. At " Donremy they learned that the descendants of Joan of Arc " had received letters of nobility : the front of the house where she was born was covered with paint ings, representing her high deeds, but much damaged by time. Further on a visit was paid to the nuns of Poussay, of an order established for the education of daughters of great families. Children at nurse were received. The nuns were not bound to celibacy ; and gentlemen who wished to marry them could go and court them if they pleased. In general, however, they

were too satisfied with their condition to desire a change. At Plombieres Montaigne resolved to stay some time, drinking the waters and taking baths. His secretary everywhere describes most minutely his regi men and its effect. But I shall rarely allude to this subject, it being sufficient to remember that Montaigne was a valetudinarian in search of health, believing not in doctors, but a good deal, in spite of affected incre dulity, in the virtues of mineral waters. The baths were usually deserted after August, but the weather was so fine that year that some company still remained. Among others whose acquaintance Montaigne made in the bath-room was the Seigneur d'Andelot, formerly in the service of Charles the Fifth, and governor for him of St. Quentin. One side of his beard and one eyebrow were white; and he related that this change came to him in an instant one day as he was sitting at home, with his head leaning on his hand, in profound grief at the loss of a brother, executed by the Duke of Alba as accomplice of Counts Egmont and Horne. "When he looked up and uncovered the part which he had clutched in his agony, the people present thought that flour had been sprinkled over him. Montaigne lodged at the sign of the "Angel," which was near the two baths; and commends the good cookery, the comparative cheapness, and the com fort of the place. He liked the fashion of rooms com municating not through the partition walls, but by means of an outside gallery. "The wine and bread

" are bad," he says ; but 'tis a good nation, free, sen sible, and serviceable. All the laws of the country (Lorraine) are religiously observed. Montaigne gives in full a quaint series of bye-laws for the regulation of the watering-place. According to its provisions, the repression of minor offences was left in the hands of the Protestant Germans, "as of old;" but they were enjoined to be impartial, and to avoid "uttering blas phemy and irreverent words against the Catholic Church and its traditions :" no one was to carry arms, to use insulting words, or give the lie to any one ; no public women were to come within five hundred yards of the baths under penalty of the whip ; no dames, demoiselles, women, or girls, were to be insulted by men, verbally or otherwise, in the water, (where men were in drawers and women in chemises) ; at night modesty and silence were enjoined, without noise, scandal, or derision — such was the will and pleasure of Claude de Rynach, Bailly des Vosges, representing the Duke of Lorraine. Montaigne remained ten days at Plombieres. On departing, he commanded his secretary to leave an escutcheon of his arms in wood, —which a painter of the place had executed for an ecu—in the charge of the hostess, who undertook to have it fixed carefully to the wall of the bath outside. This was " according to the humour of the nation" not, of course, to satisfy — Montaigne's vanity. At Remiremont was found good treatment at the " Unicorn." Here was a famous convent of nuns, of the same order as those of Poussay.

The abbesses pretended to the sovereignty of Remire­mont. MM. d'Estissac and Montaigne visited them at once. They were in the midst of the excitement of an election : Renee d'lnteville, the abbess, had just died ; and Barbe de Salme was a claimant for the post. Her ambition was successful, and she held her place for more than twenty years. The oldest nun of the convent was of the house of Ludre. Hearing that Montaigne was at Plombieres she sent her compliments to him, with some artichokes, partridges, and a barrel of wine. He made a call in return for this civility ; and learned in conversation that certain neighbouring villages were bound to pay the convent as rent, on every day of Pentecost, two basins of snow, or a cart with a yoke of four white oxen : the snow had never yet failed. Next day the party was already in the saddle, when the same old lady asked for another interview witb Montaigne. Having learned that he was going to Rome, the nuns had talked over the matter, and requested him to take charge of their affairs and act as their attorney ! At Bossan Montaigne and d'Estissac, dressed in linen garments lent to them for the purpose, visited some deep silver mines belonging to the Duke ; and afterwards, having been shown the eyries of the vultures on inaccessible rocks, and passed the sources of the Moselle, entered Germany at Than.

CHAPTER XIV. JOURNEY THROUGH SWITZERLAND AND GERMANY. The extent of the vineyards was the first thing that struck the Gascon travellers on their way to Mulhouse. At that city Montaigne made haste to visit the church, " for the people were not Catholics," and found it but little changed. He took infinite delight at beholding the liberty and good police of that nation ; and was interested to see his " host of the Grape " return from presiding at the Town Council, held in a magnificent gilded palace, to serve him at table. At Bale, the government showed that they knew how to appreciate the distinguished strangers who had come among them. An officer was sent with a present of wine, and made a long speech to them as they sat at table; to which Montaigne replied also in a very long speech, in presence of many Germans and Frenchmen who hap pened to be there. The landlord acted as interpreter ! This must have been an amusing scene. Montaigne visited the house of Dr. Felix Platerus, deliciously painted a la Franchise, and found that he had invented a system of preserving plants glued upon — paper the herbarium. He saw also many other learned people, as Grynceus, the author of some well-known Theatrum, and Francis Hottoman, who had escaped from the Saint Bartholomew. The people did not seem to agree in their religious opinions, some calling themselves Zuinglians, others Calvinists, others Martinists (or Lutherans). Montaigne made queries on all sides, "and thought that many were still Catho lics at heart." The question of the Sacrament was not discussed by the ministers, as likely to lead to dis sension. Outside the churches the images were left " entire, and even the old tombs, though covered with prayers for the dead." Montaigne is particular in noticing the progress of what we may call material civilisation. From Espernay to Bale, even the meanest village house had glass panes to the windows. Iron was abundant; so were good workmen in that article. "They surpass us in this by much," says Montaigne. " The smallest church, moreover, has a magnificent clock." He admired the tiles with which the roofs and floors were covered ; and the delicate stoves covered with porcelain. But they " cared more for their dinners than for anything else for whereas their dining-rooms were superb, their chambers were mean ; no curtains to the beds, three or four beds side by side in the same room ; no chim neys; no means of making a fire except in the public room ; no wooden shutters over the glass ; dirty sheets, —all these things are made the subject of complaint.

But the cookery, especially of fish, is praised. The wines were delicate, but " the gentlemen found them weaker without water than those of Gascony with." The servants ate at the table with their masters ; and the service was altogether conducted in a novel manner. Horse-radish was eaten with roast meat. Fresh-water lobsters were in great request. People washed their hands at a little spout in the corner of the room, as in French monasteries. The plates were almost always of wood —from custom, not poverty ; for by their side were great silver tankards in profusion. All wooden articles of furniture, even the ceilings, were furbished and kept bright. Montaigne here, for the first time, saw smoke-jacks in use. People sat for hours at table ; " and in truth, he observes, they eat less hastily than we do, and in a more wholesome manner." The cost of living was about the same as in France about Paris. Montaigne went afterwards to Baden, where he found magnificent hotels. There were three hundred mouths to feed daily in the one where he lodged. The town seemed to him very handsome ; for, besides that the streets were broader and opener than in France, the squares vaster, and the windows richly furnished with glass, they were accustomed to paint the outside of the houses and load them with very agreeable devices. No town, moreover, was richer in fountains. The baths were well arranged; and Montaigne says that ladies could with propriety be taken there, as they could have a room to themselves. The people of the country sat all day long in the water eating and drinking.

At Baden Montaigne made acquaintance with a Swiss gentleman, who was in the French service. He talked with him for a whole day on Swiss politics ; and was shown a letter from Harlay de Sanci, the French Ambassador, naming this gentleman as his substitute whilst he went to meet Catherine de Medici at Lyons. The Secretary describes the departure of this political agent with four horses, one for himself, one for his valet, one for his son, and one for his daughter, a tall, beautiful girl, who had a cloth housing, a French stirrup, with a porte-manteau behind, a band­bos at the saddle-bow, and no woman servant, though " she had two long days' journey before her. I think," says Montaigne, " that the dress of the women about here is as clean and nice as ours : their own hair hangs down in braids behind; and if you playfully knock off " their caps they are not offended ! He had tried that game, I suppose. " The younger girls, instead of caps, wear nothing but garlands of flowers on their heads. ... In saluting them you must kiss your hand, and offer to touch theirs. If you take off your hat, or bow ever so, they don't understand it ; and remain for the most part bolt upright : some bend their heads a little. They are in general beautiful women, tall and fair." Montaigne observed that they were a good sort of people to those who knew how to adapt themselves to their manners. For his part, "in order to experience to their full extent the diversity of manners and usages," he always got himself served according to the custom of the country he was in, however inconvenient 144 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

t it might be. In Switzerland, the only things that annoyed him were the napkins, half-a-foot square ; but then every man had a wooden spoon with a silver handle, and always carried a knife about with him. "" A Swiss," he observes, rarely puts his fingers in the dish." This reminds us of the primitive ways of France in those times, when forks were not. Mon taigne was delighted with the rooms warmed with stoves, and at last came to sleep in one. Stoves he preferred to fires : " At any rate, we don't burn our faces and our boots before them, and are quit from the smoke that torments us in France." Among the more important observations made here was this : such Catholic towns as remained in Protestant countries, or near Protestant towns, were much more strict and devout, in consequence of the neighbourhood of the contrary opinion. The secretary quotes Mon taigne's observation that such would always be the case; whereas when divisions took place in the same town nothing but confusion could arise. He talked to a minister from Zurich, who told him that the people in his parts were originally Zuinglians, but that they had recently inclined towards Calvinism, a gentler sect. As to predestination, they remained midway between Geneva and Augsburg ; but did not bother their people with this discussion. For his own part, he remained a Zuinglian, because that sect seemed to him to be nearer primitive Christianity, We shall often find the traces of these studies of contemporary doctrine in the Essays.

On leaving Baden, Montaigne observes : " the natives are a little tyrannical in exacting payment ; as, indeed, are all nations — among others the French —towards strangers." He is very particular in noticing all regu lations that affected the comfort of life, or indicated the development or otherwise of material civilisation. The watchmen of Baden patrolled about, not only on the look-out for thieves, but for fire and other dangers, and called the hours at night one to the other. The women washed by the river-side, and furbished plate much better than in French hotels. But I shall not mention all the traits of manners, the engines and ar rangements of various kinds that Montaigne describes, it being sufficient to characterise him to say that such things attracted his attention. He complains of the stupidity of the people of the country, who did not know their own curiosities. When I went first to Bordeaux to study this matter, the hotel-guide did not know the existence of the public library for which I asked. Continuing his journey, Montaigne noticed the

cataracts of the Rhine, which he compared to those of the Nile ; avoided Zurich because the plague was reported to be there; and came to Schaffhausen, where he invited the burgomaster to dinner. " The time passed not without many ceremonious harangues on both sides." A learned man of the country told Montaigne, that though some of the rich were much in the French interest, the people were violently opposed. " The Rhine spreads out to a marvellous width, like VOL. II. L

our Garonne at Blaye, and then narrows until we reach Constance." Montaigne scarcely ever comes to a place without noticing what religion was pre dominant there; and remarks when the stone crosses increased or decreased by the wayside. This novel — one which he sometimes felt convinced, until scepticism of spectacle of two rival developments of creed, — reason brought him back to doubt, was a delusion, particularly interested him. The work of his life, in as far as he cared to influence the world, was, not to reconcile these two hostile sects, but to persuade them to live quietly side by side, without seeking to tear each other to pieces. We need not wonder, therefore, if he was anxious for practical experience of a state which was thought impossible in France. " Constance," he says, " is Catholic, though it was held for thirty years by the Lutherans, who were dis lodged forcibly by Charles the Fifth. The images in the churches still bear traces of this. The Bishop, who is a gentleman of the country and a Cardinal, resides at Rome, and derives at least fifty thousand ecus of revenue. There are canonries in the church of Notre Dame worth at least five thousand florins, which are occupied by gentlemen. I saw one on horse back coming in from the country, dressed very freely like a man of war. It is true there are many Lu therans in the city." " We noticed that we were quitting the Swiss country, because a little before reaching the city we saw many gentlemen's houses, of which there are few in Switzerland. But as to private houses, both in town and country, they are, without comparison, handsomer than in France." Montaigne notices often the simplicity of the Swiss, who, not from poverty but choice, thatched their dwellings, and mixed wooden plates with silver goblets.

" Montaigne was lodged very badly" at the "Eagle," whose landlord gave them a specimen of " German freedom and barbarian pride," on occasion of a quarrel of one of his foot-valets with the guide from Baden. The matter was carried before the judges, to whom the traveller, accustomed, no doubt, to absolute servility in France, went and complained. The Provost was an Italian gentleman, who, when Montaigne asked if his own servants would be allowed to witness in his favour, replied " Yes/' if he discharged them for the moment, and took them into his service immediately afterwards. " This was a remarkable subtlety," he writes. Next day he removed to the sign of the " Pike," where he was well treated. " Having passed Smardorff, a little Catholic town," on the 10th of October, the traveller was induced, by the beauty of the weather, to change his design of going to Ravensberg that day, and turn aside to Lindau. The party started early. " M. de Montaigne never breakfasted, but they always brought him a piece of dry bread, which he ate by the way, adding sometimes a bunch of grapes, for the vintage was then going on, the country being full of vines. They trail them on poles, which make beautiful green alleys, very agreeable to see."

At Lindau two religions were followed, and Mon taigne visited the Catholic and Protestant places of worship, both of which he calls churches. All Imperial towns, if the people willed it, could, he says, exercise Catholicism or Lutheranism, according to the will of the inhabitants. " They apply themselves, more or less, to the one they favour. At Lindau were only two or three Catholics, as the Cure" told M. de Montaigne. Yet the priests are allowed their revenue free, and do their office, as do likewise the Nuns who are there. The said Sieur de Montaigne spoke also to the Mi nister, from whom he learned nothing save that he shared the common hatred against the Zuinglians and Calvinists. It seems, in truth, that there are few cities which have not something peculiar in their belief; and under the authority of Martin, whom they receive as their chief, they carry on many disputes on "

the interpretation of the sense of Martin's writings At the "Crown," Montaigne tried, \ as an experiment, of eider-down, for his coite, or bag covering as a a bed, and highly approved of the custom. He enters into details, highly illustrative by their length of his character, on the way in which the table was supplied, — enumerates the sauces, the kinds of bread, the game, the roast and the boiled, and then adds regret a that he had forgotten three things in preparing for his first and cook with him, journey foremost, to bring a : to teach him foreign cookery, and be able to introduce dishes at home; second, Germanto new a engage of of thevalet, or seek the acquaintance gentleman a country (for it was very inconvenient to be at the mercy of a rascal of a guide) ; and third, to look at the books which gave information on the rare and remark able things to be seen in each place. " He should, at least, have brought a Munster, or some such book, in his coffers." . ..." He mingled with his judgment, it is true," says his secretary, referring, apparently, to some depreciatory remarks his master had made on French " cookery, a little passion, from contempt of his country, which he hated, and turned his heart from for other considerations; but yet, it is true that he preferred the commodities of that country, without comparison, to those of France, and conformed to them so far as actually to drink his wine without water. In a regular drinking bout, however, he never joined, and was only invited to do so courteously." The Germans, apparently, did not imitate the " Let him drink and die !" of the Polish bibbers. Among them selves it was a crime to leave a goblet empty an instant ; and no water was served, even to those who

" unless it, for were very much respected." asked they " These people are proud, passionate, and drunken ; " traitors or but they are not," said M. de Montaigne, thieves." The party now turned direct towards Trent, and passed through Isne, where Montaigne, "according of his custom," immediately called doctor to on a theology, and invited him to dinner. They appear to discourse on the sacrament, of have had very subtle is a outline. which unnecessary to repeat even the it Montaigne dived into his mind, and found him to be actually guilty of leaning towards the Ubiquists. Kempten, the Essayist compares to Sainte-Foi. This name makes his thoughts revert quite home, and he pays a tacit compliment to his wife; for he says that the pewter plates were "as well scoured as at Montaigne !"...." In this part of the country," says " the secretary, we have now plenty of linen. I have always been able to hang up curtains to his bed; and if one towel has not been sufficient, I have been able to get him many." Montaigne went to the Lutheran church, fitted up much as usual. During the sermon he noticed, that whenever the name of Jesus Christ was mentioned, both preacher and people took off their hats. There was a marriage very simply conducted. The minister stood against the altar with a book in his hand. A young woman, with her hair flowing loosely, came up and made a little curtsey, and remained standing alone : a little time after came a lad, with a sword by his side, a sort of artisan, and stood at her elbow. The minister whispered a few words in their ear, then made each say the Lord's Prayer, and then began to read out of the book certain rules for people who were going to marry. Then he joined their hands, without allowing them to kiss. Having settled this matter, Johannes Tillianus, for such was his name, came and talked long with Mon taigne, and took him to his house. As they were going out of the church they heard the violins and tarn bourines preceding the new-married couple. Montaigne asked if dancing were permitted by them ; alluding, no doubt, to the extreme rigidity of the Calvinists, which so repelled French taste !

" Why not 1" exclaimed the good Johannes. " And how comes it," continued our Essayist," that I see fresh-painted pictures of Jesus Christ, and other personages ?" " We do not forbid images that serve to remind " men," was the answer ; but we only forbid the ador ation of them." " Why, then, have the old pictures been removed?" " They were not removed by us, but by the Zuing­ — lians," " incited by the Evil Spirit," adds the secretary, who also notes : " We had been given the same answer before ; and the doctor at Isne, when my master asked if he hated the figure and effigy of the cross, exclaimed, suddenly, How could I be such an atheist as to hate that figure, so happy and glorious for Christians V These be devilish opinions."

Johannes Tillianus said very cavalierly, in the midst of his dinner, that he would rather hear a hundred masses than participate in the communion of Calvin. "Here," adds the secretary to Montaigne, in his "" jumbled way, they served us white hares at table ! Further on he says they were always quarrelling with their hosts, who, in a country " where ten thousand pine-trees were not worth fifty sous," would never allow them to light a fire to air their linen morning and evening.

Montaigne turned away once more from the direct road to Trent at Frienten, and determined to make a circuit and see some other German towns. He con tinues to note chiefly things that concerned the table and the Church. At Lanspergs, belonging to the Duke of Bavaria, " if any one thought of any other religion than the Roman, he was obliged to hold his peace." The country of toleration was now past. As if for their reception, all the towns had just been newly painted ! Augsburg was reached by a broad plain, like that of the Beauce. It was esteemed the handsomest city in Germany. The first thing noticed was a sort of stair-carpet put down to protect from the dirt the steps of the winding staircase, which had just been washed. There was actually not a spider to be seen, and no dirt; and people who chose, had curtains to their windows ! Cloths were hung by the side against the walls, that they might not be spit upon, and so spoiled. Everything showed cleanliness. The windows were not fixed as in France, but moveable. Montaigne went to a Lutheran church "without images, or organs, or crosses and minutely describes the service and the ceremony of baptism. The crowd " was great ; but they saw no beautiful women." After dinner they went to a fencing-exhibition, and had to pay on entry. Here it was, as I have observed in speaking of an earlier period of Montaigne's life, that " for certain reasons," he determined to appear other than he was, forbade that their rank should be revealed, and walked alone all day through the city. " He be lieved," says his secretary, " that this served to make him honoured all the more. When he passed by the church of Notre Dame, being very cold (for the cold had begun to be sharp ever since leaving Kempten), he

it, of his handkerchief up to his held, without thinking —

believing that, being thus alone and very poorly face dressed, no one would notice him." This isa very confused I and concealed from us. The hiding of the face cannot doubt thataccount, something by the is handkerchief first stated to be accidental, or meant is protection from the cold, and then admitted itis a as Montaigne wanted to avoid notice. have already I mentioned the explanation that once occurred to me " When they became of this. The secretary goes on more familiar with him, he : was told that the people of the church had thought this behaviour odd. In fine, he was guilty of what he always especially avoided rendered himself remarkable by ways contrary to him for inasmuch as inthe taste of those who saw ; him lies he conforms himself to the manners of the place he happens be in, and wore at Augsburg padded cap on his head in the streets." a When the presence of Montaigne and D'Estissac became known the corporation sent to them, for their supper, fourteen great vessels full of wine. These by seven sergeants in livery and an honour able officer, who was invited to supper, as was the " were carried " to It also the custom," says the journal, is custom. gave them an ecu." the he somethinggive porters : The officer who supped with them said to M. de Mon taigne, that when strangers arrived, care was taken to ascertain their qualities, and presents were given ac cordingly. " They took us for barons and knights," is the naive comment. Montaigne's spirits seem now to have been reviving. He was looking out for pretty women at the churches ! Here comes another " note on their absence : We saw not a single beautiful face;" and this class of observation henceforth be comes more frequent. Franchise was far away; for, despite the boasts in the Essays, perhaps sometimes intended to "vex" her, I very much doubt whether Montaigne would have ventured on infidelity, even in " thought, near home. A young girl, rich and ugly," was married in the church. Montaigne went to the ball and received the courtesies and kisses of the dancers. Then he turns his attention once more to mechanical contrivances ; and after dwelling with plea sure on an elaborate practical joke prepared against ladies in the shape of secret fountains in a floor, quells the tumult of sensation by talking of aviaries, glass houses, and other matters of the kind. He visited a postern gate, so curious and so renowned, that Queen Elizabeth had sent to have it examined, but her envoy had been refused admission. At the church of Sainte-Croix, Montaigne went and saw, under a glass case, a little piece of red sub stance, stated to be a consecrated wafer changed into " real flesh by a miracle : of which many testimonies were alleged." Close by was the Lutheran Church.

" Here, as elsewhere, these people have lodged them selves, and erected dwellings, as it were, in the cloisters of the Catholic churches." Montaigne visited the Jesuits, and found some of them to be very learned. Winter was now rapidly coming on, and it became necessary to think of passing into Italy. Montaigne would have gone, however, to see the Danube at Ulm, but that he should have been obliged to retrace his steps a portion of the way. " He always avoided, if possible, treading the same road twice." The secretary left an escutcheon of the arms of Montaigne at the door of the room where he lodged : cost two ecus for the painter, and twenty sous the carpenter. Of course this was again to comply with the customs of the place. The party stayed a day at Munich, and proceeded on their journey. " The Jesuits, who chiefly govern this country," says Montaigne, "have made a great stir and have got into odium with the people, for having forced the priests to drive away their con cubines under heavy penalties; and to hear them complain, it would seem that formerly the practice had been so completely tolerated as to be considered legitimate : they are still making remonstrances on the subject to the Duke." A lady, near whose house Montaigne lodged, sent him some of her wine. After having passed over the Yser, the party began to ascend; and at last "penetrated into the very entrails of the Alps by ail easy road, excellently kept. The weather was fine and clear." A beautiful little mountain-lake attracted their attention. Here and there, amidst the rocks, were pleasant fields with chalets. Thus they entered the Tyrol.

Montaigne was much struck by the aspect of this province. The Valley of the Inn appeared to him "the most agreeable passage he had ever seen sometimes narrowing, the mountains almost touching, and then widening, now on the left of the river where the road was, now on the other, so that there were slopes, more or less steep, to cultivate. In many places there were two or three stories of plains, one above the other, all full of fine gentlemen's houses and churches. On one side, on a rock, inaccessible except by means of ropes, was raised a crucifix." In due time Montaigne reached Innspruck, where he finds little to note the first day, except the bed-curtains, the sheets, and the price of fish. One of the palaces of Ferdinand, archduke of Austria, was in the neighbourhood, and Montaigne, who had missed seeing the Duke of Bavaria at Munich, like a true courtier, resolved to "kiss his hands." But when he presented himself, a certain Count told him the Archduke was busy in the council-chamber. Not rebutted, Montaigne returned to the charge after dinner, and found him in a garden —"at least," says the " journal, we thought we caught a glimpse of him ; yet those who went towards him to tell him the gentlemen were there, and what for, brought back word that he wished to be excused, but that next day would be more convenient. If, however, they wanted anything, let them speak to a certain Milanese Count. This coldness, added to the fact that they were not permitted to see the castle, offended M. de Montaigne a little ; and as he complained of this the same day to an officer of the house, he was told that the said Prince had observed that he did not care to see Frenchmen, and that the House of France was inimical to him."

Proceeding on his way, Montaigne insists again on the picturesqueness of the scenery, and records the minute physical incidents of the journey. The women were dressed so like the men, that the Essayist, pretending to make a mistake, went up to a beautiful young wench in a church and asked her if she could speak Latin ! The secretary gravely sets down : " He took her for a student ;" but let us be sure, that had she been ugly the mistake, though more natural, would not have been made. At the same place he invited to the inn the Magister of the place, "but found him," he says, "to be such an ass, that he could get nothing from him." During this part of the journey he suffered much from his disease, and we have the record of his colics. At Brixen the country is described. "The plain around is not broad, but the mountains on all sides rise with such a gentle slope that they can be brushed

this and combed (is valet's to theexpression a ?) very top. Everywhere we see steeples and villages far up ; and near the city are many fine houses, well built and pleasantly situated. M. de Montaigne said, 'that all his life he had mistrusted the judgment of others as to the conveniences of foreign parts, for usually people only relish what they are accustomed to in their own villages; and he therefore cared little for information given by travellers. But in this place he still more marvelled at their stupidity ; for he had heard it said, even during the present journey, that the passage of the Alps at this point is full of difficulties, that the manners of the people would be found strange, the roads inaccessible, the lodgings wretched, the air in supportable. As to the air, he thanked God it had proved so mild ; for it was rather inclined to be warm than cold ; and during all this journey, until now, we have only had three days of cold, and about one hour of rain. For the rest, if he wished to take about his daughter, who is now only eight years old, he would as soon have charge of her on this road as in the alley of his garden. As to the lodgings, he had never seen a country in which they were handsomer and more thickly strewn : for we had every day found handsome towns, well supplied with provisions and wine, even cheaper than elsewhere.'" Montaigne's description of the Tyrol is excellent. He constantly to the peculiarity of mountainous recurs countries, which most strikes a dweller in plains the ledges of cultivation one above the other, all inhabited ; and mentions a castle on a lofty mountain, which belonged to a baron who had a fine estate and hunting-ground aloft. From Bolzan, an ugly, ill-built town, "which showed they were beginning to leave Germany/' Montaigne wrote to Francis Hottoman, whom he had seen at Basle. He said that "he had taken great pleasure in visiting Germany, that he abandoned it with great regret, though it was to Italy he was going; that strangers had to suffer there, as elsewhere, from the exactions of landlords : but he thought this might be cured by the traveller, who should take care not to put himself in the power of guides and interpreters, who betray them. In every other respect he found all kinds of convenience and courtesy." If we would understand Montaigne the Essayist and Montaigne the Man — not always the

— same person we must compare this fragment of a letter with his assertion that he never interfered with money matters in travelling, and left all, in a lordly manner, to his secretary. He was sincere in his theory, but too meddlesome by nature always to carry it out. Whilst writing to a learned friend, we see that he is actually still smarting from the heavy bills he has had to pay. Yet put his Essay-pen in his hand, and he will be at once convinced that such petty concerns do not occupy him. Is this absurd or unusual? When a party of travellers has passed an uneasy night, the only one who has snored from eve till morn sometimes honestly professes not to have slept a wink ; and a terrible chatterer frequently passes through life with the conviction that he is eminently a silent man. Biographers of Montaigne have not sufficiently remembered this unconsciousness of men to their own defects; and have registered all the statements of Montaigne, who meant to be impartial, as if he was really so.

CHAPTER XV. FROM TRENT TO PADUA. On leaving the Tyrol, Montaigne entered Italy at Trent. As might have been foreseen, there is no trace in his journal of the enthusiasm, real or affected, which most travellers bring with them to that land ; and which is oftener the echo of modern romantic literature thar connected with classical reminiscences. The Essayist looked upon the country beyond the Alps as somewhat common-place said that every valet could discourse of Florence and Ferrara and affected even to restrain — the little anxiety he might have felt to behold the scenes where the ancients, whom he admired so genu inely, lived and acted. I shall note his chief observa tions, and the reader who knows the Italy of the handbooks will be surprised to find how much it resembles the Italy of the sixteenth century. The first thing that attracted remark was the differ ence in the aspect of the towns. "Trent," says the journal, " is a little larger than Agen, but is not pleasant, and has narrow and tortuous streets; indeed, it bears no comparison with the beauty of the German cities. Two leagues before reaching it the Italian language had begun; but at Trent both languages were spoken, and there was a quarter of the city entirely German, with a church and preacher of its own. As to " the new religions," nothing more had been heard of them since Augsburg. "" The party which lodged at the Rose," a good hotel," visited the new church of Our Lady, where the famous Council had recently been held ; and admired a marvellous organ adorned with automata. The church had been built in 1520 by Cardinal Clesio, a native of the place. " M. de Montaigne," says the secretary," remarked that on this journey he had observed more than one instance of citizens benefiting the place of their birth." The same Cardinal had built also a new wing to the chateau, adorned very richly in the interior with statues and paintings ; among others, a nocturnal fete with torches, which Montaigne admired very much. And yet, in spite of this generosity to the public, and many other instances, no respect had been paid to him after his death, and he was very wretchedly buried. On leaving Trent, the party followed the widening valley between lofty uninhabited mountains, with the Adige on its right hand ; and continued travelling until late at night. Up to this time Montaigne had arranged the journey so methodically, that he and his companions were out on this occasion after dark for the first time. At Rovero they found German neatness in rooms and furniture ; and not only German windows, but German VOL. II. M

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. stoves also. The beds were adorned with curtains in festoons, very comfortably ; but, unfortunately, without those coites which were used as a covering in Germany. Freshwater lobsters failed, however, here; which M. de Montaigne noticed, because, since Plombieres, for nearly two hundred leagues they had never seen a meal served up without them. Instead were served snails, and a salad of truffles sliced, with for the taste of our — — Montaigne seems here to have given a singular instance of the uncertainty of his resolutions, unless we suppose the working of some secret feeling perhaps of fear, lest the reception of the audacious sceptic in the stronghold of Catholicism might not be agreeable. On the very threshold of Italy he talked of going back towards Cracow, or turning aside to visit Greece ! Here the secretary, no doubt setting down the sub stance of what his master spoke, says, that if Mon taigne had been alone with his suite, he would certainly have undertaken some such bold journey. "But he could never communicate to any other of the company the pleasure which he found in visiting unknown coun tries, and which was so great as to make him forget his age and the weakness of his health. All the others talked rather of going back. As for Montaigne, he was accustomed to say, that after having passed a rest less night, the mere remembrance in the morning that he had a new city or country to see made him start out of bed full of desire and joy. I never saw him less weary or complain less of his sufferings : his mind, on fastidious traveller oranges, citrons, and olives.

FROM TRENT TO PADUA. 163 the road or in the hotels, was always strained towards novelty ; and he sought every opportunity to converse with strangers : which, I think, beguiled his pain. When the others complained that he often led them by divers roads and across country, returning often towards the starting-point — which he used to do when he ob tained information of something worth seeing, or when — for some reason he changed his opinion he would answer that, for his part, the place where he was was the object of his journey ; that he could not mistake or lose his way, for his only object was to wander through unknown places ; and that, provided he did not twice go over the same road, or visit twice the same place, his design was accomplished. As for Rome, which was the aim of the others, he by so much the less desired

it, already known to every onethat and it to see was ; lackey who could not give themthere was never news a of Florence or Ferrara. He used also to compare him self to one who might be reading fine book, or a a very story, and be seized with fear lest should it pleasant for he took such delight in end soon come to an travelling, that : neighbourhood of the he hated the place which promised him repose. He often planned would travel at his ease he could how he contrive to if be alone." From Rovero the whole party, leaving all their servants, started with hired horses to visit the Lake of Garda. They slept at Torbole, and next day crossed in boat to Riva, where they saw nothing but an old a by accident, the lord of the place, Signor tower and, Hortiraato Madruccio, brother of the Cardinal of Trent. On returning, they talked much of the wonderful pros pect of the lake, shut in by the aridest mountains they had yet seen. Next day all their baggage was put upon rafts, to float down the Adige to Verona ; and Master Secretary had charge thereof, so that he parted company with Montaigne. His master, however, gave him afterwards a summary account of what took place during their ride to Verona. Among other things Montaigne asked somebody if the Tyrol were anything else besides the valley they had descended, and the moun tains on either side. They told him there were many valleys, all containing large and handsome cities ; and compared the country to a drapery gathered up in " folds. If it was spread out, the Tyrol would be a very extensive country." All the places on the way to Verona were small, and the inns wretched. At Volarno a maiden lady, sister of the absent lord, sent some wine to M. de Montaigne. Had she already heard of the Essays ? The secretary remarks, that except the southern extremity of the lake of Garda which belonged to the Signoria of Venice, and was full of parks of olives, oranges, and such-like fruit-trees, all this extent of country was sterile. On nearing Verona, it is true, there was more fertility, and vines festooned from tree to tree. The travellers had been obliged, on leaving Trent, to take "bills of health," without which they would not have been allowed to enter Verona. Yet there was no danger of plague. The thing was done in obedience

FROM TRENT TO PADUA. 165 to custom or to swindle travellers. The secretary does not allude to the plague that ravaged Trent after the breaking up of the Council, seventeen years before, and which was no doubt the origin of this precaution. At the Duomo of Verona, Montaigne was struck by the irreverent behaviour of the men during grand mass. They chatted in the centre of the church, standing with their hats on, their backs turned towards the altar, and making no sign of attending to the service except at the elevation of the host. The Italy of the sixteenth cen tury was like the Italy of to-day : devotion reigned supreme, but over the smallest possible province of human nature. Organs and fiddles accompanied the singing. Montaigne went to other churches ; and, pagan that he was, complained of the absence of re markable ornaments and beautiful women ! At the church of St. George, singularly enough, he noticed many traces of the former presence of the Ger mans at Verona ! He tells us that there was an in scription stating that one of the offerings on the altar was made by some German gentlemen, who accompanied the Emperor Maximilian when he took the city from the Venetians ; and that these noble-minded signors had not removed this testimony to former humiliation when their supremacy was restored. At Verona there was at that time a monkish order, called the Jesuits of Saint Jerome. They were very ignorant, and lived by distilling citron-flower-water, and such-like liqueurs, there and elsewhere. They were dressed in white, with little white caps and brown

cloaks : very fine young men. Their church was well fitted up ; and so was their refectory, where supper was laid out when the party arrived. The monks perfumed their cloisters in honour of the visitors, whom they also took into a little cabinet full of phials and earthen pots, and sprinkled with scented waters. Montaigne was here shown the remnants of an amphitheatre, different from the famous Arena. The latter edifice was very nearly entire, says the secretary, and the Signoria of Verona was employing some of the fines it levied on criminals to restore it ; but the funds were insufficient, and it then appeared doubtful whether the whole value of the city would pay for the work ; which has, however, since been completed. The gentlemen of Verona used the place for tournaments, and other public pleasures ; just as the Arenas of Arles, Nismes, and other places in the south of France, are at present used for bull-baiting, in imitation of the Spaniards. All this journal is full of curious notes. But it is impossible to refer to them all. Montaigne visited the Jews of Verona, and conversed with them long upon their ceremonies. The whole country was covered with inscriptions ; for it was the custom in those days never to mend even a gutter without inscribing the name of the Podesta by whose order, and the workman by whose hand, the task was executed. This was the offspring of true Republicanism, in which due respect was paid to the state and to the individual. How different from the horrible absorption of the productions of Genius and Labour into the reputation of a monarch ! Like

FROM TRENT TO PADUA. 167 the Germans, all Italian families, merchant or noble, had their arms. Neither Montaigne nor the secretary suggests any reason for turning aside here from the road to Rome ; but I have no doubt that the memory of La Boetie's partiality for Venice influenced Montaigne. " He hungered exceedingly to see that city." The road led them through Vicenza, where the fair was being held. There was another monastery of Jesuits of St. Jerome there, who dealt in perfumed waters. They whipped themselves, they said, every day. Here we are told, " The old wines are failing, which grieves me very much, on account of his (Montaigne's) colic. These troubled new wines are not good for him. We regret those of Germany, although they are aromatic, some having a flavour of sage ; which is not bad when one is accustomed." "A level, broad, straight road, with a ditch on either side, and somewhat raised above a very fertile plain, the mountains being still visible in the distance," took the travellers to Padua. Padua was at least as large as Bordeaux ; but the streets were long and ugly, and had few fine houses. There were many fencing, dancing, and riding-schools, where Montaigne counted more than a hundred French gentlemen. It seemed to him very unwise in his young countrymen who travelled there to consort together, and so, instead of acquiring knowledge of foreign customs and language, become more inveterate in their own. Students lived

at Padua for seven 6cus a-month for the master, and six for the servant, in the best boarding-houses. Montaigne noticed also with pleasure, in the church of St. Antony, the portrait of Cardinal Bembo, which expressed the amenity of his manners, and even some thing of the elegance of his mind. In the vast hall of justice was the head of Livy, of ancient workmanship, representing a meagre, studious, and melancholy man, so excellently that it seemed to lack no quality but speech ! Leaving Padua, the travellers proceeded along a handsome raised road by the river-side. On all hands spread fertile fields of wheat, shaded with trees, regularly planted and festooned with vines. Beautiful country-houses bordered the road : among others, the villa of the Contarini family, over the door of which was an inscription recording that the then reigning King of France had lodged there on his way back from Poland. People were proud in those days, as in these, of such events.

VENICE, FLORENCE, AND SIENNA.

CHAPTER XVI. VENICE, FLORENCE, AND SIENNA. At the " Chaffousine," a solitary hotel, the travellers embarked for Venice in a gondola, and arrived at last in that island city. Next day, Sunday, M. de Montaigne waited on M. de Ferrier, the French ambassador, who seems to have made a particular impression on his mind ; for he adds to his secretary's MS. in his own hand, " This old man, who has passed seventy-five years, as he says, enjoys a healthy and lively old age. His ways and his discourses have I know not what that is scholastic, with little vivacity and point. His opinions bear evidently, in what concerns our affairs, towards the Calvinistic innovations." M. de Ferrier received Mon taigne hospitably, took him to mass, despite his sup posed Calvinism, and made him stop to dinner. Among other things he said, what seemed most strange to Mon taigne, was, that he held communion with no person of the town, for the people were so suspicious by nature, that if one of their gentlemen had spoken twice to the French ambassador, he would have been mistrusted. It is worth noticing that this M. de Ferrier after wards made public profession of the Calvinistic religion, and entered the service of the King of Navarre. " M. de Montaigne," observes Duplessis " Mornay, used often to say to me, that we had gained a battle from them (the Catholics) by winning over this personage, honouring the virtue which they had despised." " Virtue," here probably stands for ability. At any rate this M. de Ferrier, returning from Italy at the age of seventy-three, delayed his recantation, which he had promised, in the hope of catching " an assignation of fourteen thousand crowns from the Court." But this not coming, he accepted Henry's seals and made public profession of the Reformed re ligion. Montaigne mentions in his Essays that an aged man had confessed to him, that, though a Pro testant in heart, he had all his life professed another creed in order to enjoy wealth and power. This was, no doubt, M. de Ferrier. Montaigne found Venice somewhat different from what he had expected, — even a little less admirable. He examined it thoroughly with the greatest diligence : hiring a gondola for his use night and day. Its police, its site, the Arsenal, the Piazza San Marco, and the throng of foreigners, seemed to him the most re markable things. La Signora Veronica Franca, a noble Venetian lady, sent him one day, whilst he was at supper, a little volume of letters which she twohad composed. Montaigne gave the messenger ecus, says the secretary; perhaps a little annoyed at

VENICE, FLORENCE, AND SIENNA. 171 this ostentatious liberality. The volume of letters, no doubt, went to join the hundred others of that class which his library contained. Montaigne was disappointed in the beauty of the Venetian ladies although he saw "the most noble of those who trafficked in their beauty." The word "noble" here is not a slip of the scribe: but a translation of the title granted to these mercenary angels by the Italian writers. The most wonderful thing to Montaigne was to see so many of them, perhaps a hundred and fifty, spending money in furni ture and dress like princesses : without any other source of revenue but one. Many of the nobility entertained them at their cost, to the knowledge of every one. But in those days the courtezans were a brilliant and often not the least estimable part of society. Men of letters vied in celebrating their magnificence, and even their generosity. Ninon de l'Enclos was but a pale reflex of the celebrated Imperia, whose house was so brilliant that the Spanish am

it, joke ofentering the bassador, repeatedon coarse Diogenes, and spat in the face of one of the servants, saying that there was no other spot where he could do so with propriety. Mingled with her lutes and her music were richly-bound books in Latin and Italian. When in the church she died public monument was raised a of St. Gregory, recording not only her beauty but her profession. The secretary notes that food was as dear at Venice as at Paris: but still, that to live there was cheap, there being no necessity for a crowd of valets, every one going alone ; and no use for horses. Mon taigne was not satisfied with this brief stay at Venice and its surrounding country, and intended to visit it once more. But he felt unable to go further without having a relish of this city of his dreams. He could not, he said, have remained quiet at Rome, or in any other place in Italy, until he had glanced at Venice. After a stay of eight days, the party left that city and returned to Padua by water, although Montaigne usually avoided a boat when he could use the saddle. At Padua, M. de Caselis left the party and took lodgings in a boarding-house, one of the best in the place. There was good company there ; among others, the Sieur de Millau, son of M. de Salignac. It was the custom of most students and residents to have no valets, but to be served by the waiter of the house or by women. Every one had his own room, very clean ; and supplied his own fire and candles. The board was excellent ; and being cheap, accounted for the residence of a great number of strangers who were not students. It was not the custom to ride about the town, or to have many followers. In Germany, all men, even of the working classes, wore a sword by their side : but no one went armed in the territories of Venice. At Padua, Mon taigne left in the hands of one Francois Bourges, a Frenchman, the works of Cardinal de Cusa, which he had bought at Venice, intending to take them in his way back.

Having visited the Baths of Aborno, where the sulphureous waters filled the air with vapour; and passed by San Pietro, where the water was purposely neglected by the Signoria, who cared not much for the visits of foreign gentry; and seen the villa of Signor Pic, where the gouty Cardinal d'Este was residing, partly for the sake of the water, but more on account of the neighbourhood of the Venetian ladies ; the party arrived at Bataglia, near which were other baths which Montaigne visited. All the natural and artificial wonders of the country are described : the roads, aqueducts, bridges, ruins, marshes which had been attempted to be drained, fields, and especially the vines trained on trees. The large grey cattle were so common, that those of the Archduke Ferdinand appeared no longer curious. As usual, the secretary notices the differences of cookery —the non-larding of meat as in France— the want of glass windows the high-piled beds with — dirty linen : single travellers, or humble ones, had none at all : the customs at ferries are also carefully noted. On arriving at Ferrara, there was the usual fuss about passports and bills of health. Over the door of every room in the hotel, moreover, was written : "Kicordati della Boletta." As soon as a traveller arrived, his name, with the number of his servants, was sent to the magistrates, who decides whether he is to be received or not. They were " paternal," then, in those days, likewise : and yet we travellers continue to complain as if of a new evil!

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. The city is described to be large as Tours, situated in a plain, with many palaces, broad straight streets, and few people. Next day after arriving, MM. d'Es­tissac and de Montaigne went to "kiss the hands" of the Duke, Alfonso d'Este, so famous in the melan choly history of Tasso. The whole formalities of the visit are described. A messenger was first despatched to the Duke, to request permission wait on him. to He immediately sent a lord of his court to meet them and lead them to his cabinet, where he was with two or three persons. " We passed/' says the journal, "through several closed chambers, where were many well-dressed gentlemen. We were ushered in. We found him standing near a table, waiting for his visitors. He put his hand to his cap when they entered; and uncovered his head during the whole time that M. de Montaigne spoke to him, which was pretty long. His first question was whether he (Montaigne) understood Italian ; and being an swered Yes,' he said, very eloquently, that he saw with pleasure gentlemen of the French nation, for he was the servant and the obliged of the Very Christian King." They had some other conversation together and " they then withdrew, the lord Duke having never once covered his head." The secretary, who is thus particular in recording this interview ; and who mentions that the party went to see in a church the bust of Ariosto, " who died aged fifty-nine, on June 6, 1533"—which bust they found fuller in the face than the portraits prefixed

VENICE, FLORENCE, AND SIENNA, 175 to the poems; forgets utterly to note that his master, not unmindful of unfortunate genius, went also to visit Tasso in his prison. There has been a great discussion as to where the poet was confined in 1580. Vulgar tradition points out a dark, damp hole, in which the gigantic Tasso would scarcely have had space to turn. But the erudite have combated this statement, without, however, alleging any probable counter-statement. It is, therefore, only safe to say that Tasso, who was sent to the Hospital of St. Ann as a madman, in March 1579, was still there in November 1580, when Montaigne came to Ferrara. That was a strange madness which allowed him to revise his poems and compose philosophical dialogues ! Montaigne, however, never doubting that his reason had given way, and making no allusion to his loves, his austerity, his persecution, in a well-known passage of the Essays, explains everything by the excess of genius. But our Essayist, admitted to Court, would naturally take the courtly view of the case. Alfonso d'Este outlived him ; and he was not the man to meddle with the domestic concerns of a reigning sovereign. The secretary, in a manuscript not in tended for publication, observes, that his master went to see the Bucentaur which the Duke had made, in imitation of that of Venice, for his new wife "beautiful, and too young for him." The journal mentions the porticoes of Padua, the churches, palaces, and private gardens, and notes that at the Jesuits' convent there was a rose-tree which

flowered once a-month all the year round. They gave one that happened to be in bloom to M. de Montaigne. They saw people walking on stilts, as in the Landea . of Gascony, on the way to Bologna a great and — populous city, where they met the young Seigneur de Montluc, just arrived from France to study arms and horsemanship there. Montaigne was thus led to go to a famous Venetian fencing-master's school, and records with pride that his most proficient pupil was a young man of Bordeaux, named Binet. Another time he went to the play, where he was so much amused that he came away with a headache, " which went away in the night." The city was less peaceable than Ferrara ; for there were old feuds between two parts of the population, and one side was espoused by the French residents, another by the Spaniards. A German having reported that he had been robbed by the Banished Men, or brigands of the duchy of Spoleto, Montaigne, instead of now going straight on to Rome, turned aside to Florence. The secretary, in the name of his master, makes long lamentations of the extortionate treatment of the hotel-keepers of Loiano. Beyond was the first really difficult road they had met on their journey, which led them to Scarperia, where Montaigne was mightily amused by the eloquence of rival inn-keepers, or rather " touters." The custom in that country was to send to meet strangers seven or eight leagues on the road, to beg them to choose their hotel. The host himself sometimes came out on horseback; and well-dressed men watched at every

VENICE, FLORENCE, AND SIENNA. 177 corner. They joined travellers, and entertained them as they went along with offers of all manner of services, some of which the secretary, more delicate than his master usually was, expresses in Italian. One offered a hare, as a gift to induce Montaigne to choose his house. They disputed also one with the other ; but all this noise ceased at the gates of the town. Montaigne listened to what was said, but sent one of his people to examine every hotel before he would get off his horse. Yet it was impossible to avoid being cheated ! The party turned aside to visit the magnificent palace of the Pratellino, its galleries, gardens, and grottoes, of which a minute description is given, full of interesting details ; and afterwards crossed the hills to Florence, which was then without a moat. Curiously enough, Montaigne's first visit was to the Duke's stables; he then examined a menagerie; then went to the church of San Lorenzo, and saw the French standards which Pierre Strozzi lost at the battle of Marciano, as well as " some excellent statues by Michael Angelo." M. de Montaigne seems to have been in an ill-humour that day; and it is set down that "he said he had never seen a country where there were so few pretty women as in Italy j" that he found the lodgings and the cooking much inferior to those of Germany and France; complained of the wooden shutters, that shut out light as well as cold ; noted the hard beds, the want of linen, the bad wines, the absence of pewter, the dirtiness of the earthenware ; and approved of nothing but the comparative cheap VOl. II. N

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. ness. Yet Florence was considered the dearest town in Italy. They lodged at the sign of the "Angel." On the whole, Florence did not please Montaigne. " " He cannot tell," he says, why it is called Beautiful above all others. It is not superior to Bologna, not much to Ferrara, and immeasurably inferior to Venice." Montaigne, as in all other places, in order to judge of the conveniences of life, visited the rooms that he saw to let, and examined the boarding-houses. They all seemed dirty, and dearer than at Paris, and even Venice. There were no schools worth anything of arms, horsemanship, or letters. They visited a palace of the Grand Duke, where he was fond of working and imitating precious stones; for he was great in alchemy, as well as the mechanical arts and architecture. The Duomo, the palace of the Strozzi and the Gondis ; the palace of the Duke, where Cosmo his father had caused the siege of Sienna, which Montluc defended, to be painted; and " where the de Medici) was born," next engaged the attention of the travellers. Messrs. d'Estissac and de Montaigne were invited to dinner by the Grand Duke. In the place of honour sat his wife, the famous Bianca Capello ; next to her the Duke ; then the sister-in-law of the Duchess ; then her brother. Montaigne knew the infamous story of Bianca and the Grand Duke, but his allusion is very slight. "This Duchess is beautiful in the Italian style, with an agreeable and imperious face, a the Pitti palace, Queen-Mother (Catherine powerful bust, and well-developed bosom." Montaigne thought it easy to understand how she had cajoled this prince, and kept him devoted to her so long. "The Duke himself is a short, dark man, about my height, big in limb, with a countenance full of courtesy. Whenever he passes amidst the crowd of his gentlemen it is always with uncovered head. He seems healthy, and is above forty. On the opposite side of the table was the Cardinal de Medici, and a young man about eighteen, one of the Duke's brothers. When the Duke or his wife drinks, a valet brings to them in a basin a glassful of wine uncovered, and a decanter of water : they empty out as much wine as they please into the basin, and fill the rest with water. The Duke put in a good deal of water, Bianco, hardly any."

Montaigne visited the country-house of the Castello, where, as in many other places, he saw extraordinary fountains, like those that were afterwards constructed at Versailles : he describes them most minutely, as he does all curious contrivances he noticed. Nothing seems to interest him more than these mechanical triumphs. The party left Florence on Nov. 24, and went in one day to Sienna, which Montaigne examined carefully because of the fine defence of his friend Montluc. He found that the Duke of Florence treated very courteously the nobles who had formerly favoured the French, and had Silvio Piccolomini always about his person. He also allowed still to subsist the ancient " marks and devices" of the city, which con

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. stantly spoke of liberty; but the tombs and epitaphs of the French had been removed to some obscure place, under pretence of some reparation. At Monte-Alcino the same thing was observed : there, too, the " French tombs had disappeared. But the people kept the memory of the French in so great veneration, that any allusion to them brought tears into their eyes ! War even seemed to them more agreeable with some form of liberty, than the peace they enjoyed under tyranny." No doubt it was the thought of liberty, and not of the French, that brought tears to the eyes of the Siennese : for the French were only accidentally engaged on the right side, and their ferocity and barbarism had even then done more harm to Italy than the gallantry of a few noble knights and adventurers could compensate for. From the time of Montaigne downwards, this strange people have yearned for the affection, the esteem, and the admiration of other nations with the passion of lovers, and all the — egotism of love — never sacrificing their appetites or desires to earn the thing they so ardently seek loading the people they protect and die for with gay contumely and amiable insult—talking of heroism and sympathy, and making out a debtor-and-creditor account, in which all their material services are set down on one hand, and none of the moral humiliations they impose on their friends on the other ; and from that time to this, too, they have wandered, self-satisfied, smirking, impertinently condescending, over the coun tries they have cursed with their friendship, gathering

VENICE, FLORENCE, AND SIENNA. 181 testimonials of affection from the venal mouths of ciceroni ! After passing La Paglia the travellers crossed a bridge built by Gregory the Thirteenth, the then reigning pope, and entered upon the States of the Church. The beauty of Montefiascone so struck Mon taigne that he would have stopped, had not the baggage-mule been far ahead. The manners of the Pontifical States pleased him altogether —I suspect he had a secret dislike for the Medicean form of government. He much approved of their custom of dining and supping late ; for in good houses nobody dined before two o'clock, or supped before nine. Where they found comedians did not begin the performances until six o'clock, at the lighting of the torches, which lasted two or three hours, and then made way for supper. Montaigne said this was a good country for idle people : —— everybody enlightened, no doubt, by experience got up late.

CHAPTER XVII. Montaigne's residence at rome. The party started next day, three hours before light; " so great was Montaigne's desire to see the walls of Rome." The nature and source of his enthusiasm is not described, but we may suppose that the country of Seneca had more of his sympathy than the country of the Papacy. The secretary carefully avoids all allusion to opinions or doctrines, and confines himself to recording the physical sensations of his master, and the material objects that struck him. Montaigne found the morning air as disagreeable as the evening air, and was ill until daylight. The city of Rome was visible once fifteen miles off, but disappeared again for a long time. There were a few villages and hotels on the road. Here and there were some pieces of road that seemed of ancient workmanship; and near the city fragments of building, evidently very ancient, and some monuments which the popes had caused to be restored for the honour of antiquity. Most of the ruins were of small bricks, much smaller HIS RESIDENCE AT HOME. 183 than those found in the old antiquities and ruins in France and elsewhere. Rome did not appear very striking from this approach. Far on the left of the road rose the Apennines, but the aspect of the country was unpleasant, covered with eminences, full of deep crevices, and "quite unfit for regular military move ments." This observation, in the spirit of a soldier, is amusing. Montaigne had already noticed that the fort of Monte-Alcino was inconveniently commanded by a near hill. The territory in the neighbourhood of Rome was naked, without trees, in great part sterile, all the country open, and for more than ten miles around all alike, and very little furnished with houses. This contrast with the populous neighbourhood of Florence sounds still more strange when related by a writer of the sixteenth century, who has every reason not to allude to the blighting influence of the Church. At the gates of Rome the travellers were delayed some time, on account of a plague reported at Genoa. This difficulty over, they went to lodge at the sign of the "Bear;" but on the 2d of December they took private lodgings in the house of a Spaniard, opposite Santa Lucia della Tinta. The house possibly still remains, and I recommend it to the attention of cice roni. The travellers had three handsome bed-rooms, with a sitting-room, pantry, stable, and kitchen, for twenty ecus a month, firing and cook included ; and by exception, linen in the French style. At Rome, lodgings were commonly a little better furnished than at Paris, and were often lined with gilded leather. They were shown one at the " Golden Vase," not far off, at

the same price ; but Montaigne did not like this mag nificence, and objected also that the rooms led one into the other, and had no private entrances. Montaigne noticed with displeasure the great num ber of Frenchmen at Rome ; he scarcely met any one in the streets who did not salute him in his own lan guage. But there was great novelty to him in the sight of so grand a court, so crowded with prelates and churchmen ; and the place seemed more peopled with wealthy men, with carriages and horses, than any other he had ever seen. The appearance of the streets in many particulars, and especially the multitude that filled them, reminded Montaigne of Paris, that city of his predilections. The city of Rome, says the secretary, generally using the third person, but writing under dictation, is situated on both sides of the Tiber. The steep quarter, which was the seat of the ancient city, and through which Montaigne made innumerable excur sions every day, was cut up by some churches and a few houses and gardens of cardinals. The traveller judged, by very clear appearances, that the form and slope of the mountains were different from what they were in ancient times, and believed that in many places the ground was raised over the roofs of entire houses. On all sides the rain, and the deep ruts made by coaches, laid bare the summits of ancient walls. With reference to the extent of Rome, M. de Montaigne " said, that the space which the walls embraced, at that time two-thirds empty, comprehending old and new Borne, might equal an enclosure that should be made round all Paris, including all the faubourgs. But that if the number and density of the houses were to be considered, he thought that Home would fall short of Paris by a third. In multitude and splendour of public places, and beauty of streets and houses, Rome surpassed Paris by much."

At first sight, Montaigne judged the government of the city to be inferior to that of Venice. His list of grievances is curious enough. First, the houses were insecure against theft, and people who arrived with a large sum were obliged to deposit it at a banker's ; second, to walk out at night was not safe; third, a General of the Cordeliers had just been removed and imprisoned for preaching in a very vague manner, in presence of the Pope and his cardinals, against the idleness and pomp of the prelates of the Church ; fourth, that his trunk had been minutely searched at the Customs, whereas in other Italian cities this was a mere formality ; fifth, that all books found in his baggage were taken away to be examined, which was done so slowly that a man in a hurry might consider them lost ; and that, moreover, they were so exclusive, that a Prayer-book of Paris, not of Rome, seemed suspicious, as did some German books written against heresy, because the errors combated were mentioned in them. Montaigne notes that in all Germany he found no book in his possession forbidden. References to the traveller's disease begin now to be frequent ; and we find him at last, despite his theories, conquered by pain and consenting to put himself in the hands of a doctor and take medicine —cassia and turpentine ! When he continued his onslaught on the healing art, he should have had the ingenuousness to

confess this weakness ; but the mind gets accustomed to attack, and often continues the forms of hostility after a compromise has been agreed upon. On Christmas-day the party went to hear the Pope's mass at St. Peter's, where Montaigne had a convenient place assigned him. His Holiness ad ministered the sacrament, with due precaution against being poisoned in the wine. Beside him sat the Car dinals Farnese, Medici, Caraffa, and Gonzaga, with other prelates. They all sat with their heads covered during the ceremony, and chatted and talked, which seemed "new" to Montaigne. "These ceremonies," " he adds, appear more magnificent than devout." By the way, he noticed no particularity in the beauty of the women, worthy of that pre-excellence which repu tation gives to this city above all others in the world ; and moreover, that, as at Paris, the most remarkable beauty is found among those who offer it for sale. " On the 29th of December, M. d'Abein, at that time ambassador, a studious gentleman, who had long been a friend of M. de Montaigne, was of opinion that he should go and kiss the Pope's foot. M. d'Estissac and he got into the carriage of the said ambassador, who went in to see the Pope, and had them called in by his Cameriere. They found the Pope, and with him the ambassador, all alone, as is the fashion. Near him is a little bell, which he rings when he wants any one to come. The ambassador sits on his left, un covered ; for the Pope never takes off his cap to any one, and no ambassador remains covered in his pre sence. M. d'Estissac entered first, and after him M. de Montaigne ; and after them M. de Mattecoulon and

M. du Hautoi. Having taken a step or two in the chamber, at the corner of which the said Pope is sitting, those who enter, whoever they may be, put one knee to the ground, and wait until the Pope gives them his blessing, which he does. After that they rise and ap proach about half-way across ; but most do not walk straight towards him, but move a little along the wall at first, and then advance in a direct line. At mid-chamber they kneel a second time, and receive a second blessiDg. This done, they draw near him until they reach a large shaggy carpet spread at his feet, seven or eight feet in front of him. On the edge of this carpet the gentlemen knelt on both knees. Then the ambassador who presented them — [can we repress a smile as we follow the Essayist through all these evolu tions ?] — put one knee to the ground, and lifted the Pope's gown off his right foot, which had on a red slip per marked with a white cross. Those who were on their knees worked their way in that position towards his foot, and stooped down to kiss it. M. de Montaigne said that he raised his foot a little for him. They made way one for the other to kiss, turning on one side, but still kneeling. The ambassador, this being done,

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. covered up the Pope's foot, and rising up, said what he thought proper to recommend M. d'Estissac and M. de Montaigne. The Pope, with a courteous coun tenance, admonished M. d'Estissac to study and virtue ; and exhorted M. de Montaigne to continue in the de votion which he had always borne to the Church and to the service of his very Christian majesty ; and added, that he would serve them both as much as he could. These be Italian phrases. They did not speak, but having received another blessing before rising, which is to signify dismissal, returned by the way they had come with similar manoeuvres. "The Pope (Gregory XIII.) is an Italian, with a Bolognese accent, the worst of Italy ; and, moreover, by nature he speaks with difficulty. He is a fine old man, of middling stature ; upright, with a countenance full of majesty, and a long white beard, more than eighty a years of age, extremely healthy, of gentle nature, little caring for the affairs of the world, but a great builder, which Rome will remember him with (for honour,) and charitable even to extravagance. He is indolent in private affairs, loving to throw them on the shoulders of others. But he gives as many audiences as are asked. His answers are brief and resolute, and it is loss of time to endeavour to return to the charge with new arguments. When he thinks a thing just he believes himself; and even for his son, whom he loves furiously, he will not depart from this justice. He advances his relatives, but without prejudice to the laws of the Church ; and, in truth, in life and manners is nothing very extraordinary one way or the other, though rather inclining to the good." This character, which shows much discrimination, and is highly favourable in an age when a cardinal was refused the Papacy be cause of his morality, was first dictated by Montaigne ; but afterwards improved, as the manuscript shows, by his own hand.

Then follows in the journal an elaborate account of a dinner given to Montaigne by the Cardinal de Sens, and the ceremonies observed thereat. All little circumstances that showed special respect for the traveller are carefully noted. On the 3d of January, 1581, the Pope, having on a red hat, a white dress, with a cape of red velvet, and mounting a white nag, with red velvet trappings and gold trim mings, passed in great pomp before his window. On the 11th, in the morning, as Montaigne was riding out of the town, on his way to the banker's, he met, coming from prison, Catena, a famous captain of brigands, whom all Italy had feared, and of whom were related enormous murders, especially of the Capuchins, whom he forced to deny God under pro mise of safety, and then massacred them without any reason of utility or vengeance. The traveller stopped to witness this spectacle. In addition to the forms of France, the Romans carried before the criminal a great crucifix, covered with a black veil. Around, too, on foot, were a number of masked men, said to be great people of the city, who devoted themselves to this •ervice of accompanying condemned wretches to the

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. scaffold. Two of them sat by him in the cart, and continually held before his face and presented to him a picture with the image of our Saviour. This pre vented his face from being seen. At the gallows — a beam supported by two uprights this picture was still held before him until he was flung off. Catena —a dark man about thirty years of age—died in an ordinary manner, without movement, and without speaking. When he was hanged they cut him in four quarters. " At Rome they rarely inflict on men more than simple death, and reserve their roughness until afterwards." Montaigne remarked what he had elsewhere observed (in the Essays), how the people are affected by rough treatment of dead bodies; for the crowd, which felt nothing at the hanging, groaned when ever the hatchet descended on the lifeless corpse. As soon as the criminal was dead, one or more Jesuits, or others, got up on some scaffolding or barrel and preached. Next day, however, Montaigne's secretary saw a sight which must have somewhat modified the opinion of his master on the absence of cruelty from Roman executions :—Two brothers, who had killed the governor of the city in the house of the Pope's son, were torn with red-hot pincers, had their hands cut off, were otherwise tortured, then beaten with clubs, and, finally, had their throats cut. Montaigne makes a singular remark, that there were few paintings in the churches, and those very recent. Some old ones had none at all. Yet where could paintings have been found towards the end of the sixteenth century, if not in the churches of Rome ?

After having paid his visits of ceremony and business, Montaigne began " to amuse himself by studying Rome." At first he had taken a French guide; but this man, from some fantastical humour, gave up the job, and so the traveller was piqued, and determined to get through himself. For this purpose he studied maps, and had books read out to him in the evening. The next morning he went and applied what he had learned, so that in a few days he says" he could easily have guided his guide." " He said," writes his secretary, " that we could now see nothing of Rome save the sky under which it had been built, and the plan of its site ; that the knowledge he had of it was an abstract and contem plative science, of which nothing fell under the senses ; that those who said that at least the ruins of Rome could be seen said too much, for the ruins of such a fearful fabric would impress the beholder with more honour and awe; that we could only see its tomb. The world, inimical to its long domination, had first broken and shattered all the pieces of this admirable body ; and then, as even dead, overthrown and dis figured, it created terror, had buried the ruin itself. These little shows of its fragments that appear above the bier had been preserved by fortune as witnesses of that infinite greatness which so many ages, many so conflagrations, the conspiracy of the whole world against repeated over and over again, had not been it, able entirely to suppress. But it was probable these disfigured members that remained were the least worthy, and that the fury of the enemies of that immortal glory had incited them first to destroy what was finest. The buildings of that bastard Rome, which are now being added to those ancient piles, though fit to ravish with admiration the present age, reminded him of the nests which sparrows and black birds hang in France to the vaults and walls of the churches which the Huguenots have just demolished. He even feared, considering the little space which the tomb occupied, that it was not all recognised, and that a great part of the tomb was already buried." In this strain did Montaigne speculate on those ruins, " deep into the antipodes," as he expresses it in the Essays j and going on, he endeavours to reconstruct for himself a picture of that wonderful city when in its might and its majesty. His observations may be read with fruit by moralists and antiquaries even now. On January 30th, Montaigne went to see "the most ancient religious ceremony known among men" — the Circumcision of the Jews. He had already visited the Synagogue, and noticed that they sung in a disorderly manner, like the Calvinists, children and all, and paid as little attention to their prayers as the Catholics, talking business all the time. Montaigne describes the ceremony he went to see most minutely. Nothing interested him more than this strange diversity of customs. Gieat liberty was granted that year for the amuse

ments at the Careme-prenant. Children, and Jews, and naked old men, raced in the streets on foot ; and children only, upon horses, asses, and buffaloes. Mon taigne had a scaffolding built, at the expense of three ecus, to see the sight, of which he did not think much. The only thing that interested him was the sight of the ladies, who were not masked as at Paris. As for perfect and rare beauty he saw none, except in three or four cases ; but commonly the women were more agreeable, and fewer were downright ugly, than in France. The Roman head-dress was far better than the French; so was the costume below the waist. But Montaigne was so accustomed to the tight waists of his own country that the easiness of these ladies made him think them all in an interesting situation. "Their countenance, however," he says, " has more majesty, gentleness, and meekness. There is no comparison in the richness of their dress and ours, — they are all over pearls and precious stones. Wherever they appear in public whether in carriages, at festivals, or in theatres they are apart from the men. Never theless, they have tolerably free interlaced dances, during which opportunities of whispering and hand-touching occur. The men are very simply dressed on all occasions, in black and serge of Florence; and because they are a little darker than we, I know not how it happens, but they do not appear like dukes, counts, and marquises, which they are, but seem rather common. Yet they are courteous and extremely amiable, whatever may be said by the vulgar among VOL. II. O

the French, who will not call amiable those who do not easily endure their licentiousness and insolence. We endeavour, in all ways, to do all we can to make our selves decried. Nevertheless, these Romans have an ancient affection and reverence for France, which makes such amongst us much respected and welcomed who in the least deserve to be so, and who just restrain themselves sufficiently not to be offensive." Is this outspoken language on national characteristics the reason why the " Travels have never been popular in France ? I once asked a bookseller if they were to be reprinted, and he answered with some indigna " tion, using, I believe, the words of the Manuel du Libraire," —" No, sir; they are of very little value." After some descriptions of banqueting and fes tivals, the journal kept by the secretary here comes abruptly to a close, and the remainder is entirely written by Montaigne himself. " Having dismissed," he says, " the servant who conducted this fine piece of work, and seeing it is far advanced, however inconve nient it may be, I must continue it myself." He begins by an elaborate description of the exorcism of a devil, who had taken possession of the body of a Notary. The scene occurred in a little chapel, and was elaborately ridiculous ; but the narrator manages to preserve his gravity. He was told, that the day before a devil had been made to jump out of a woman's mouth, bringing with him nails, pins, and leaving behind a tuft of his hair ! A new spirit " entered into her next day ; but," said the priest to

HIS RESIDENCE AT ROME. 195 Montaigne, " this second kind (for he knew the names of them, their divisions, and most particular distinctions) was easy to expel." This was all he saw. The Notary answered when he was adjured, and punched with the fist, and spit upon, and ground his teeth and twisted his mouth, and when the Corpus Domini was offered him muttered Si fata volent, for he knew a little Latin. The common people seemed to Montaigne less devout than in the good cities of France, but more ceremonious, being extremely so. " I write here in all liberty of conscience/' he says, " and shall give examples. A certain person, being alone with a lady of free manners, heard the clock strike twenty-four, and the Ave Maria sound ; she instantly sprang away from him, and fell on her knees to pray. Another time he was similarly accompanied, when suddenly an old duenna burst open the door, rushed in, and with anger and fury snatched off the girl's neck a little image of the Virgin, which she had forgotten to remove. The young one appeared very contrite at her omission." We see by this that Montaigne's ex perience at Rome ranged very widely. On March 1, Montaigne saw the ambassador of the Muscovite, clothed with a scarlet mantle and a dress of cloth of gold, with a hat shaped like a night cap, of cloth of gold furred, and beneath a skull-cap of silver cloth. This was the second Muscovite ambas sador sent to the Pope, another having come in the time of Paul the Third. The object of the negociation seems now singular, it was to move the Pope to interfere in —

the war which the King of Poland was waging against his master. For it was his (the Muscovite's) place to withstand the shock of the Turk ; and if his neighbour weakened him he would be incapable of the other war, which would be a great window opened for the Turk to get at us by. The Czar (Ivan the Terrible) offered, as a further inducement to his Holiness to protect him against Poland, to efface certain differences of religion that existed between him and the Romish Church, — in which he has since been imitated by Peter the Great. How different were the relations of Turkey with Europe in those days ! Montaigne, in his Essays, recommends young French gentlemen to go and join the armies of the Sultan, and study discipline and the art of war. The Muscovite ambassador was well received at Rome. At first he refused to kiss the Pope's foot, and only gave in when it was proved to him that even the Emperor was subject to this ceremony ; for the example of kings did not suffice for him. He could speak no language but his own, and had come without an interpreter. He had only three or four men in his suite, and said he had passed with great danger disguised through Poland. " His nation," says Mon " taigne, is so ignorant of the affairs of this part of the world, that he brought to Venice letters from his master addressed to the great Governor of the Signoria.' Being asked what was meant by this, he replied that he thought that Venice was part of the Pope's territories, and that a governor was sent there as to Bologna and

HIS RESIDENCE AT ROME. elsewhere. God knows how those magnificent gentle men (of Venice) received this ignorance. He brought with him rich and rare furs as presents." This bar barian was taken to see a Passover procession, at which he was disappointed, saying that when there was a gathering in his country there were always twenty-five or thirty thousand horses. He made fun of the whole affair, according to the person appointed as his interpreter, who told this to Montaigne. The Essayist visited the library of the Vatican, and describes its curious contents. Few travellers have been more industrious in seeing everything, or more judicious in mentioning the most remarkable things. Among the curiosities exhibited was the original of the book composed by Henry the Eighth of England against Luther, sent to Leo the Tenth. Montaigne read the two prefaces, and praises the Latin. Apropos of this manuscript, he says it was shown him without diffi culty, whereas the French ambassador, his friend,

could never get a sight of it, although he much wished to do so. " All things are thus," observes he, "easy to some inaccessible to others. Opportunity has its — privileges, and offers often to the people what refuses it to kings. Courage often hinders itself, as do greatness and power." Montaigne examined of manuscript a Virgil, which confirmed him in the opinion that four lines, then usually printed at the beginning, were spu rious. He was deeply interested in these learned points. Since his arrival at Rome he had made acquaintance with an old Patriarch of Antioch, an Arab, strong in Oriental languages, who now made him a present of a mixture for the gravel, and wrote a receipt for its use; which Montaigne transcribes in his journal, lest he should forget it. Here we find him accepting a it, aftermysterious drug, and determining to use

having scoffed at the most reasonable medical as sistance. Montaigne's old master, Muretus, was at that time in Rome of living and diswe have the record a ; cussion at M. d'Abein's table between these two and other learned men on Amyot's translation of Plutarch. Montaigne warmly undertook the defence of Amyot, and maintained that when he had missed the true sense of Plutarch he had substituted another probable one, quite consistent with the context. But examples were brought forward which convinced him that he was too partial. In the porch of St. Peter's were shown flags said to it by is King of France from taken the thehave been " but Huguenots" where not specified," notes Montaigne, ; when." In wretchedchapel heor saw aa " There picture of the battle of Moncontour. are also, in two places, representations in which the wound of M. l'Amiral his death, Chatillon and is de painted, very authentically." This enigmatic reference to the St. Bartholomew, the only one in all Montaigne's writings, most characteristic. is On March 15th the young Montluc called, accord ing to appointment, at Montaigne's lodgings, and they started together for Ostia. On the way they came to a HIS RESIDENCE AT ROME. place where it was necessary to cross the Tiber in a ferry; but there was no boat for horses, and they were about to return, when the Sieurs du Bellai, Baron de Chasai, and Marivau, rode down to the opposite bank. An exchange of animals was effected, and the journey was continued. Montaigne's observa tions on this trip are curious, but it would be too long to repeat them. " " Rome," says the traveller, is a city of courtiers and nobility ; everybody takes his share of ecclesiastical idleness. There are no trading streets, or less than in a small town ; there are only palaces and gardens. There is no street like the Rue de la Harpe, or de St. Denis. I always fancy I am in the Rue de Seine or on the Quai des Augustins at Paris. The city scarcely changes its appearance on work days and festival days. All through Lent there are Stations; they are not less followed on work-days than on others. At that time nothing is to be seen but carriages, prelates, and ladies. Montaigne went to the hot baths to be scrubbed, and rather makes a merit that he did not take a "lady-friend" with him, as was the custom of the city. On the 17th of March there were roses and artichokes to be had in Rome ; but the traveller did not suffer from the heat. He went about every day visiting churches and observing curious customs, and has succeeded in producing the best picture I know of Rome under Gregory the Thirteenth. Yet how rarely, if ever, is his testimony referred to by historians !

It is worth while quoting his opinion of the Jesuits. " How marvellous is the place their College holds in Christendom ! I think there never was a brother hood or body among us which held such a rank, nor which has produced such fruits as these will do if their designs continue. They now occupy nearly all Christendom. They are a nursery of great men, of all sorts of greatness. They form the greatest menace " for the heretics of our time ! The Romans were fond of strolling through the streets without any particular object, except to see the ladies at the windows ; and especially the Hetairse, who showed themselves with such a treacherous art that they deceived the beholder, and made him fancy them more beautiful than they were. " I have often," says Montaigne, confidentially, "got off my horse at once and obtained admission, and have been surprised to find how much I have been deceived. They know how to turn their most agreeable part to you ; some times the top of the face, or the lower part, or the side— so that at the windows not one seems ugly. Every one is there taking off his hat, making low bows, and receiving glances. The last favoured lover acquires the right to make this public demonstration ! Now and then a lady of quality shows herself, but it is easy to distinguish her. On horseback, little men like me see best." On Holy Thursday the Pope, in his pontifical robes, appeared in the portico of St. Peter, whilst a Canon read a bull " excommunicating an infinity of people,

201 among others the Huguenots (by that name), and all princes who detained any of the lands of the Church ; at which article the Cardinals de Medici and Caraffa, who sat near the Pope, held their sides with laugh ing !" After this the Pope threw down a lighted taper among the crowd, which fought with fists and sticks for pieces of it. The Veronica was shown during these days "a face of a sombre and obscure colour, in a square like a great mirror." A priest with red gloves held it up from a pulpit, assisted by others. The people pros trated themselves on the earth, mostly with tears in their eyes, and with cries of commiseration. A woman, said to be possessed, stormed at seeing this face, cried, shrieked, and wrung her arms. The priests moved round the pulpit, turning the Veronica now here now there, and wherever it was turned the people shouted. At the same time was exhibited the "lance-head" in a crystal bottle. Many times a day this ceremony was performed, with so great an assemblage of people, that the crowd stretched far out of the gates, wherever the most distant glimpse of the pulpit could be gained. " It is fine," says Montaigne, in a passage too charac " teristic and picturesque to be passed over, to see the fine ardour of so vast an assemblage for religion on such days. They have a hundred brotherhoods and more; and there is scarcely a man of quality but is attached to some one of these. . . . They traverse the streets in troops, dressed in linen garments ; each company has its fashion — some white, others red, blue, green, or black;

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. and generally their faces are veiled. The most noble and magnificent thing I have seen, here or elsewhere, is the incredible number of people spread through the city this day engaged in devotion, especially these brotherhoods. For, besides a great number of others whom we had seen in the daytime, and who had come to St. Peter's, when night began the whole city seemed on fire — the companies marching in order towards the church, each bearing a light, generally a taper of white wax. I think there passed before me twelve thousand torches at least; for from eight o'clock in the evening to midnight the street was always full of this pomp, conducted with order so good and so measured, that although the processions came from different directions there was no breach or interruption. Each body was accompanied with music, and they sang as they moved. In the midst of the ranks was a file of Penitents, who scourged themselves with cords ; of whom there were five hun dred at least, their backs all skinned and bleeding in a piteous fashion. This is an enigma I do not yet quite understand : the penitents are hurt and cruelly wounded, and torment and beat themselves incessantly ; but if we look at their countenances, the assurance of their step, the firmness of their words (for I heard several speak), and their counte nances (for many were uncovered in the street), it does not seem even that they are doing a painful or serious action : yet there were some young ones of twelve or thirteen years of age. Close by me

HIS RESIDENCE AT HOME. 203 there was quite a youth, with an agreeable counte nance : a young woman pitied him to see him thus hurt, he turned towards us, and said laughing: 'Basta! disse che fo questo per li lui peccati, nonper li miei.' Not only do they show no distress, or seem to be constrained, but they act with joy, or at least, with such indiffe rence that you see them talking of other things, laughing, hallooing, running, leaping, as in a great crowd when the ranks are broken. Among them are men with wine, who give them to drink, or wet the ends of their whips, or blow the wine on their wounds. From their shoes and stockings tbey seem to be poor people, who sell themselves for this work ; at least most of them. They told me their shoulders were greased : but I saw the wounds so raw and the sufferings so prolonged, that no medicament could have taken away feeling. More over, why do people praise them, if all this is mere sham?" The sly naivete of this question seems to suggest that, despite the evidence of his senses, Montaigne thought the whole scene a gross comedy; but the effects of enthusiasm, and even artificial excitement, in rendering the body insensible to pain, had not then been studied. The writer of these pages has seen in the East, hundreds of men and boys submit to the tram pling of a heavy horse, heavily mounted, on a similar occasion. On Holy Thursday, although the ladies had more liberty than usual, there was a cessation of all oglings and amorous intercourse. Montaigne's journal, though

desultory, is fuller of fact and observation than most descriptions of the Holy Week at Rome. He saw the heads of St. Paul and St. Peter, with flesh on, and beards, and complexion, " just as if they were living;" and describes minutely their appearance and the for malities with which they were shown : adding, how ever, that they were placed rather high, and seen through iron bars. " They light around, outside, many tapers ; but it is difficult to discover very clearly all particularities. I saw them two or three times. The polish of their faces has some resemblance to our " masks ! By this time Maldonat, the Jesuit whom Mon taigne had met at Espernay, had come to Rome : in conversation they both agreed that the poor people were, without comparison, devout in France than more there ; but the rich and courtiers a little less. Mal donat maintained against some Spaniards that " there were more men truly religious in Paris than in the whole of Spain." " I know not," says Montaigne, " how others find the air of Rome : / find it very pleasant and healthy. The Seigneur de Vialart said he had lost there his liability to the megrims ; which agrees with the opinion of the people, who maintain the climate to be bad for the feet and good for the head. Nothing is so opposed to my health as ennui and idleness : here I have always some occupation, if not so pleasant as I could desire, at least sufficient to occupy me : as visiting the antiquities, and the vineyards, which are

HIS RESIDENCE AT ROME. 205 gardens and pleasure-places of singular beauty, in which art has made rough steep places far superior in grace to our level pieces of ground. Here you may go and wander alone, or sleep, or fulfil assignations. . . . Sometimes I went to hear sermons, which are always going on, or disputes of theology ; and sometimes to the Hetairse, who make you pay a high price for their conversation : as which was all I wanted, my object was to listen to their chat and participate in their subtleties. All these amusements occupy me sufficiently. Of melancholy, which is my death, and of ennui, I have no opportunity, neither within the house nor without. Rome is therefore a pleasant residence, and I can infer, if I had known it more intimately, how it would have pleased me : for, in truth, although I have employed art and nature, I have seen only its public face, and what it offers to the meanest stranger." Montaigne was very anxious to obtain the citizen ship of Rome ; and bestirred himself for the purpose among his Italian friends, avoiding to use the influence of the embassy. The authority of the Pope was brought into play, by means of Filippo Masotti, his major-domo, who had conceived a singular affection for the Essayist, and took great pains to have his wishes accomplished. The letters of citizenship, full of com plimentary phrases —the same which had just been applied to the Duke of Sero, the Pope's son were delivered finally on the 5th of April, and are given at length in the Essays. After a visit to Tivoli, Montaigne prepared for his

206 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. departure from Rome. It is necessary here to repeat, that on his arrival all his books had been seized ; among others, a copy of the Essays. Some time after, his work was returned to him with the observations of the monkish doctors. The Maestro of the Sacred Palace had only been able to judge of it by the report of a certain French brother, as he did not understand the language. He had an interview with Montaigne, and showed himself very lenient, contenting himself so well with the excuses put forward in answer to each article of the animadversions written by the said French monk, that he left it to the Essayist's conscience " to re " write what he should see to be in bad taste ! . . . " " I begged him," says Montaigne, on the other hand, to follow the opinion of him who had made the judg ment, acknowledging some things as that I had used the word Fortune, that I had mentioned heretic poets, that I had excused Julian the Apostate, that I had said that he who prayed should be exempt from vicious inclinations at the time ; item, that I considered anything beyond simple death, cruelty; item, that a child should be brought up to do everything; and other such things, stating that such were my opinions, and that I had expressed them without knowing them to be errors. In other cases I denied that the cor rector had understood my conception." What a strange farrago must the criticism of this stupid monk have been ! The Maestro, who was an able man, took the part of Montaigne, and did his best to impress on him that he did not much agree with the

HIS RESIDENCE AT ROME. 207 proposed alterations, by pleading very ingeniously for him in his presence against another Italian who took Church, Catherine de Medici, often uses the proscribed word " Fortune," or Chance, in her letters. The Romans seized a French version of a Catholic book because the translator was a heretic ; but, on the whole, they seem to have been very lenient with Montaigne. When he went to take leave of the Maestro and his companion, they begged him to pay no attention to the censure of his book, in which censure some other Frenchmen had warned them there were many absurdities ; and assured him that they honoured his intentions, and his affection towards the Church ; also his talent; and had so high an opinion of his frankness and conscientiousness, that they left it to him

to take out of his book, when he wished to reprint it, whatever he thought too free-spoken, and, among other " things, the word Chance They seemed very satisfied " and, in order ! with me," says Montaigne to excuse ; themselves for having thus minutely examined my book and condemned some parts of it, alleged many of our by Cardinals, and others of good books time, reputation, which were censured for such imperfections, which touched in no wise the reputation of the author or the book. They begged me to help the Church my eloquence (such were their words of courtesy), and by MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. 208 to remain in this peaceable city, free from trouble, with them. They are persons of great authority, and Cardinalable." With such golden opinions did this great Free thinker depart from Rome; and proceed in a devout spirit to the miraculous shrine of Loretto.

HIS PILGRIMAGE TO LORETTO. 209

CHAPTER XVIII. Montaigne's pilgrimage to loretto. Montaigne left Rome in the afternoon, and was accompanied as far as Ponte-Mole by Messieurs de Marmouties, de la Tremouille, du Bellay, and other gentlemen. Nothing worthy of remark occurred as far as Spoleto, where the party had to show their bills of health ; not for fear of the plague, which was then no where reported, but of Petrino, a citizen of that place, the most noble bandit of Italy, of whom the most famous exploits were related, and by whom that and all neighbouring cities feared to be surprised. " This country," says Montaigne, " is strewed with many taverns ; and where there are no houses they make green arbours of branches, and lay out on ta bles under them hard eggs, cheese, and wine." He was delighted with the beauty of the country, the broad valleys and cultivated hills—olive-grown to the summit. All his comparisons are derived from his own district, and may reveal the existence of un- VOL. II. P acknowledged nostalgia. Foligno reminded him of Sainte-Foi. Here and there under the road-side trees, as the travellers advanced, they beheld monks stationed, giving holy-water in exchange for alms ; and little children with bewildering heads of hair crowded round, holding up chaplets, and promising prayers for money. Leaving the plain, Montaigne began to enter the mountains, and crossed a series of level valleys and " lofty table-lands. But early in the morning," he says," we had, for some time, a brief view of a thousand different hills, clothed everywhere with the fine shadows of all sorts of fruit-trees, and the finest wheat possible, often growing on such steep and precipitous places that it seemed a miracle how horses could have ever reached there. Most beautiful valleys, —infinite number of streams, throngs of houses and villages everywhere.I am reminded of the avenues of Florence, save that here there are no palaces or mansions of mark ; and there thegroundisdryand sterile, forthemost part,—whilst here, not an inch on the hills is useless. It is true that spring time had now come. Often, far above our heads, we saw a fine village ; then beneath our feet, as — if at the antipodes, another each with various and diverse commodities. Nor is the lustre of the scene spoiled by the uprising amidst these so fertile hills of the frowning and inaccessible Apennines, rolling forth many torrents, which, having spent their first fury, become very sweet and very pleasant streams in the valleys. Amidst the eminences, now aloft, now

HIS PILGRIMAGE TO LORETTO. 211 below, many rich plains open, which sometimes bend away out of sight. It seems to me, that no painting could represent so rich a landscape." After passing La Muccia, Montaigne showed that philosophy had not quite repressed in him the over bearing manners of the French gentleman, of which he elsewhere complains. " I gave a box on the ear to a vetturino," he says. " This is a great excess, according to the usage of the country witness the vetturino who killed the Prince of Tresignano and as I saw that he remained behind, and was a little uncomfortable lest he should make a complaint or do something else, in stead of going on to Tolentino I stopped and supped at Valchimara." Next day, this adventure having no sequel, the party proceeded to Macerata. It was easy now to see that they were on the way to Loretto, so full were the roads of comers and goers : many, who were not mere private individuals, but rich persons with followers, travelled on foot dressed as pilgrims ; some with a standard and then a crucifix preceding them, they themselves being dressed in a suitable livery. They reached Loretto in the evening. It was a little village, fortified against the incursions of the Turks, on a slight elevation, overlooking on one side a beautiful plain, on the other the Adriatic sea. The natives said, that in fine weather the mountains of Sclavonia could be descried on the eastern horizon. Loretto had few inhabitants, save those in the ser vice of the shrine, directly or indirectly ; as for example,

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. hotel-keepers, who supplied very dirty lodgings ; and dealers in wax-work images, Pater-nosters, Agnus Dei, Salvators, and " such-like waresf for which there was a great number of fine shops, richly furnished. "I laidoutformypartfiftygood crowns,"saysMontaigne, who seemed determined to exhaust every possible con tradiction, and prove that the Sceptic who comes out of the Catholic Church, makes light of revelation, and sneers at the immortality of the soul, may not only look on Protestantism with almost priestly jealousy and dislike, but wear a cross over his coat and a holy relic under his shirt. These are the facts that explain why Montaigne has rarely been repulsed, except by rigid Jansenists. He trifled with Christian doctrines, but he did not form any new opinion about them ; he laboured sometimes to reduce us to the level of beasts; but he practically acknowledged the efficacy of bits of consecrated wax, and freely spent his money at the stalls of relic-mongers. At Loretto, all the priests, the churchmen, and the College of Jesuits, resided in a great modern palace, where also lodged a Governor, an ecclesiastic under the authority of the Legate and the Pope. The place of devo tion the Santa Casa — was a very old and mean little — oblong house, built of brick. About a fifth was divided off, as especially holy. The image of Our Lady hung against one part of the wall was in wood : all the rest was covered with rich ex-votos; so that not one inch was there that did not shine with gold and silver. In the great church outside were many orna ments, but less than Montaigne expected. " I think," he says, " they melt the old ones and use them for other purposes. With great trouble," he continued, "and much favour, I could scarelyfind a place to lodge a framed tablet with four silver figures attached, repre senting Our Lady, myself, my wife, and my daughter. At the foot of mine there is inscribed on the silver :

Michael Montanus, Gallus Vasco, Eques Regii Ordinis, 1581 ;J under that of my wife, Francisco, Cassaniana, uxor;' under that of my daughter, 'Leonora Montana, filia unica.' All these are in a row kneeling before Our Lady." For the benefit of future pilgrims, Montaigne minutely describes the situation of his ex-voto ; and mentions, that instead of hanging it on a nail by a silver chain he had provided, they fastened it quite to the wall. It is useless to comment on the naivete of this extraordinary narrative, which has somewhat con firmed me in the supposition, on which, however, I would lightly insist, that to a certain extent Montaigne in his Essays played the part of the audacious infidel of our tea-parties, who directs his scorn against Moses to alarm the ladies, but goes quietly to chapel, and con descends to give a public hint that he is not quite a son of perdition — ready to mate with any strong-minded woman who worships reason — by admitting " that he would never put up with an irreligious wife!" Among the rarities noted by Montaigne at Loretto was an ex-voto sent by a Turk, who, in some extreme

danger, " determined to try all expedients," had pro mised this compliment to the Virgin. In the retired part of the chapel, to which no light of day penetrated, there was no ornament, no bench, no painting, no tapestry on the walls : no arms were allowed to be worn by those who entered ; and no respect was paid to rank or persons : " We kept our Easter in that chapel, a privilege not allowed to all. It is necessary to bespeak places before-hand. A German Jesuit said mass to me, and gave me the com munion." To this passage M. de Querlon appends a triumphant note: " Such acts of piety allow no doubt to subsist on the religion of Montaigne ; therefore the incredulous and the sceptics, who have often claimed " him, may scratch him out of their catalogue ! " This place," proceeds Montaigne, " is full of miracles, concerning which I refer to the books. But there are many very recent instances of mischances happening to those who, from devotion, have carried away any portion of this building, even by per mission of the Pope ; and a little piece of brick, which was removed at the time of the Council of Trent, has been returned. much with this ... I was pleased place, and will relate an experience of it. There was at the same time with me, Michel Marteau, Seigneur de la Chapelle, a young Parisian, very rich, with a great suite. I caused to be related to me, very particularly and curiously, the event of the cure of a leg which he said had just taken place : it is not possible to con ceive anything more exactly like a miracle. All the

HIS PILGRIMAGE TO LORETTO. 215 surgeons of Paris and Italy had failed. He had spent more than three thousand ecus ; his knee was swelled, useless, very painful, and for three years had been getting worse, redder, more inflamed, and larger. At last, having abandoned all medical aid for some days, as he was soundly sleeping, he dreamed that he was cured, and he seemed to see a flash of lightning. He awoke, cried out that he was cured, called his people, rose up, and walked. In this state of perfect health he returned to Loretto ; for it was in consequence of a previous voyage he had been cured, since which he had been with us at Rome. This was all that could be learned for certain from him and his people." It is just possible that Montaigne inserted many such passages in his journal, under the idea that it might fall under the eye of some frontier censor ; but we can scarcely adopt such an explanation without some evidence. He goes on to talk of the miraculous removal of the House of Loretto from Nazareth to Sclavonia, and then to Italy ; and tells how the people came from over the water, from the opposite coast, in troops, shouting out from afar off in their boats, prayers to the Virgin to return and inhabit with them. He insists a good deal on the disinterestedness of the priests, and even the workmen of the place ; but with circumstances that suggest the idea of art in them and incredulity in him.

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. 216

CHAPTER XIX. THE BATHS OF DELLA VILLA. Having performed his religious duties, Montaigne determined to attend to his body, and to proceed to the baths of Della Villa. Leaving Loretto, he went first to Aucona. His faith at the shrine seems not to have been strong enough to entitle him to a cure ; for he was suffering in one of his eyes, into which he had thrust his thumb at Rome one day in his hurry to salute a gentleman as he was walking with the cele brated d'Ossat. He was also in general ill health. By way of Fano and Urbino, he returned hastily into Tuscany and reached Florence. But here he stayed only a night, and proceeded on his way. The roads were full of processions : women and monks alike wore straw hats. Neither Orleans, nor Tours, nor Paris was so populous in its environs as Florence. When they had passed Pistoia they found the cherries ripening ; and villagers came and offered them bunches of straw berries for sale. By way of Lucca the Essayist at length reached THE BATHS OF DELLA VILLA. 217 Della Villa, where he proposed to make a considerable stay. " The country is hilly," says he. " By the river side there is a plain of some two or three hundred paces, beyond which, along the slope of the mountain, rises the bath. There are thirty or forty houses fitted up for the service; the chambers are handsome and private. I visited them nearly all before making a bargain, and chose the handsomest, especially as to the view, which included the valley, the river, and the moun tains around, all cultivated and green to the very summits ; covered here with chestnut and olive-trees, there with vines"planted upon the mountains, as it were in circular steps. From my chamber I could hear all night the gentle murmur of the river. Between the houses is a clear place for walking, open on one side like a terrace, with trees that form arches through which you can see the little plain I have mentioned; and some two hundred paces beneath you a pretty little village, also used by the bathers when there are many." Montaigne lodged with a Captain Paulini; and was supplied with a parlour, three rooms, a kitchen, and a sort of attic for his servants. His host allowed " him, as he minutely records, salt, a napkin every day, a table-cloth every three days, all iron utensils for the kitchen, with candlesticks, the whole for eleven ecus, — which made some sous more than ten pistoles, or fifty francs, for a fortnight." Does not this confirm the view that Michel de Montaigne was likely to meddle in household matters at his chateau far more than he chooses to confess ? He proceeds : " Pots, dishes, and

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. 218 plates of earthenware, we had to buy, also glasses and knives ;" and so on. Let us lightly pass over this residence at Della Villa, which occupies nearly all the rest of the journal. It is chiefly devoted to records of the taking of medicine and the waters, of their effects, and of the poignant physical sufferings of the writer. Many of the notes have all the effect, for a time, of humour ; but at last become pathetic from sheer naivete and earnestness. Here and there are memoranda that may be re ferred to ; as, for example, the constant comparisons instituted between the baths of Della Villa and those Montaigne had visited in France : also, what he says to the effect, that those waters took away blotches from the face: "a fact which he noted curiously for the service he owed to a very virtuous French lady." Then — he tells a story : An inhabitant of the place, a soldier named Giuseppe, being at sea in the wars was taken by the Turks. In order to gain his liberty he became a Turk, as many of the people of those parts in the mountains had done ; and married in his new country. Following the trade of piracy he came to devastate these coasts, and advancing with a small party too far inland, was surrounded and made prisoner by the peasantry. Then he exclaimed that he had given himself up purposely, for he was a Christian; and so obtained his pardon. Some days afterwards he came to Della Villa, to the house opposite where Mon taigne lodged, and entering, met his mother. She asked him gruffly who he was, and what he wanted; for he still wore his sailor's dress, and it was strange to see him there, as he had been absent ten or twelve years. At last he revealed himself, and embraced his mother. She uttered a cry, fell down in a swoon, and remained so until next day. Though she came to her senses that time, her life was shortened, and she soon died. Meanwhile, Giuseppe was well received by all, abjured his errors in the church, and received the sa crament : but all this was mere deceit. He remained a Turk in heart; and at last slipped away, went to Venice, rejoined his old friends, and continued his cruises. But he fell once more into Christian hands, and being a man of extraordinary strength, and very skilful in sea matters, was kept in chains by the Genoese as leader of a gang in one of their galleys. This narra tive reminds us of the very insecure state of the Italian coasts at that time, constantly exposed to surprisal by Muslim buccaneers. Montaigne mentions several in stances that occurred whilst he was there by the landing of pirates, and carrying away of fishermen and shep

herds into slavery. Montaigne patiently took the waters, and one day after describing their operation, says : " I was this morning writing to M. d'Ossat, when I fell into such painful thoughts of M. de la Bo'etie, and remained immersed in them so long, without coming to myself, that it did me much harm." It is an amusing illustration of Montaigne's charac ter, that about this time he determined to cease writing

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. 220 his journal in French, and to try the Italian. The least said about his proficiency in that language the better. However, his meaning is always tolerably clear. For some time he has little to say except about his drugs, his baths, and his regimen. I shall extract the few passages which may be called auto-biographical, or which in any way exhibit the Essayist as a noter of facts by the way-side : many "I never saw so serpents and toads. The children scarcely dare to go and gather strawberries on the mountain and in the brushwood for fear of being stung. . . . Living is cheap here : good veal costs three French sous a pound. The country is very up-and-down, and there are few level roads ; yet some are agreeable and even ; most of the paths among the hills are paved (with large pebbles). ... I gave in the afternoon a ball to the peasant-girls, and danced in it myself, not to appear too reserved. In certain parts of Italy the women salute in the French style, by bending the knees. . . . The people here are divided into two parties, one French, the other Spanish. This division often leads to serious quarrels, which burst out even in public. The men and women of one party wear bunches of flowers over their right ear, and jaunt over their caps, and gather their ringlets on that side : the Spaniards do exactly the reverse. ... I once got into a scrape with my friends by sticking a flower be hind my left or Spanish ear. . . . Here the peasants and their wives are dressed like the gentlefolks. No peasant-girl is without white shoes, fine linen stockings, and a light-coloured silk apron. They dance very well. ... I think these baths clear my complexion. . . . My brother Mattecoulon felt the effect of the waters. . . .

" On Sunday afternoon I gave a ball with public prizes, as is the custom at these baths ; and I was glad to be able to do this civility at the commencement of the year. Five or six days before, I caused the fes tival to be announced in all the neighbouring places: on the eve I had particular invitations sent to all the gentlemen and ladies present at the two baths; the prizes all came from Lucca. The custom is to give many, in order not to appear to favour one more than the others. In order to avoid all jealousy and suspicion, there are always eight or ten prizes for the women, and two or three for the men. I was solicited by many persons, who begged me not to forget, some themselves, some their nieces, others their daughters. Some days before, Messer Giovanni da Vincenzo Serminiati, my particular friend, sent me from Lucca, according to my request by letter, a leather girdle and a cap of black cloth for the men; and for the women, two aprons of taffetas, one green and one violet (for it is worth knowing that there are always some prizes more considerable than the others, to enable one to favour one or two women at one's choice); two other aprons of a lighter stuff; four cards of pins ; four pairs of pumps, one of which Igave to apretty girl outside the ball; a pair of slippers, to which I added a pair of pumps, to make one prize; three head dresses of gauze, and three nets, which made three MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

prizes ; and four little pearl necklaces, —making, in all, nineteen prizes for the women. The whole cost me a little more than six ecus. Besides this I had five fife-players, whom I fed all day, and gave an 6cu in ad dition for them all ; in which I was fortunate, for they are not always to be got so cheap." If Montaigne called this contempt of money-matters, what was his idea of order and prudence ?

"The prizes were hung upon a gaily-decked-out hoop, in sight of everybody. We began the ball with the women of the neighbourhood ; and I feared, at first, we should have no other company. But soon visitors came flocking in from all sides ; and especially many ladies and gentlemen of the Signoria, whom I received and entertained as well as I could, so that they seemed satisfied with me. As it was rather hot, we went into the hall of the Palazzo Buonvisi, very suited to the pur pose. When twilight came on, about twenty-two o'clock,I addressed myself to the most distinguished ladies present, and said that, being neither worthy nor bold enough to appreciate the beauty, the grace, and the amiability of all these young girls, I begged them to undertake the duty and distribute the prizes to the company as they were merited. We remained some time exchanging compliments, they refusing this deli cate employment, and taking what I said for mere civility. At last I proposed a condition, namely, that I should be admitted to their councils, and I would give my opinion. Accordingly 1 went about, looking now at one and at the other ; and I always now gave

THE BATHS OF DELLA VILLA. 223 weight to beauty and prettiness, observing that the pleasure of a ball depended not solely on the movement of the feet, but also on the countenance, the air, the good demeanour, and the grace of the whole person. The presents were then distributed, to some more, to others less, but properly. The lady who distributed them gave them in my name to the girls ; and I, on the other hand, standing by, referred all the obligation to her. The whole affair passed off well, except that one of these damsels refused the prize offered her, and sent to me begging that, for the love of her, I would give it to another : which I did not think proper to do, because the one she selected was not one of the most agreeable." [Why not, Montaigne, have rewarded this act of friend ship you, who loved so much an ugly friend ?] " The mode of distributing these prizes [this long-drawn narrative is eminently characteristic] was as follows: the girls who had most distinguished them selves were called forth : each came in her turn and stood before the lady and me, who were sitting side by side. I presented the prize which seemed to me appro

it, to the lady, who tookpriate, after having kissed it to the winner, and said, with anfrom my hand, gave it agreeable air, 'This present by this gentle is given you thank him!' 'Not at all/ said I; 'you owe the man : obligation entirely to this lady, who has judged you worthy, among so many others, of this little reward. I worthy of sucham only sorry that and is not more it such qualities; adding words adapted to each case. Im mediately after, the men were treated in the same way. 224 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. " I do not here mention the ladies and gentlemen, although they all took part in the dance. 'Tis, in truth, an agreeable and rare spectacle for a Frenchman to see so many peasant-girls, so pretty and dressed like ladies, dancing so well, that the best dancers could not surpass them, except that their figures and steps are different. I invited every one to supper, because in Italy a banquet is equivalent only to one of our lightest repasts in France. I was quit for several pieces of veal, and some pairs of chickens. I had at supper with me the Colonel of this Vicariate, M. Francesco Gam­barini, a gentleman of Bologna and my friend, with a French gentleman, and no others. But I gave a place at table to Divizia, a poor peasant woman, who lives about two miles from the baths. This woman, with her husband, lives by the labour of her hands. She is ugly, thirty-seven years of age, with a goitre in her throat, and can neither read nor write. But from her tenderest years there lived in the house of her father an uncle, who was always reading out in her presence Ariosto and some other poets; and her mind proved so adapted to poesy, that not only does she compose verses with extraordinary rapidity, but inserts in them the ancient fables, the names of the gods, of different countries, of sciences, and illustrious men, as if she had made a regular study thereof. She has made many verses for me. 'Tis true they are nothing but verses and rhymes ; but the style is elegant and easy. There were at this ball more than a hundred strangers, although the season was not favourable,

THE BATHS OF DELLA VILLA. 225 because it was harvest-time. For then all the country people labour, without regard to fast or festival, pick ing morning and evening mulberry-leaves for their silk-worms ; and the young girls are much occupied with this work." " I saw with pain the mulberry- trees stripped of their leaves, which represented winter in the midst of summer." Montaigne, ever vain, introduced at Della Villa " the custom that persons of any rank " should leave their arms fixed up at the baths ; but from this time forward his journal becomes almost exclusively a record of his ailments, and the measures he took to counteract them. In one place he says, with pleasant egotism : "Until now, on account of the little intercourse and familiarity I have had with these people, I had not very well sustained the reputation of wit and clever ness spread for me. Nobody had seen in me any very extraordinary faculty to marvel at and make much of me for." Yet he was asked to attend a consulta tion of doctors, the patient having resolved not to act on their prescription, except under Montaigne's advice. "I laughed to myself," says he, "but the thing had often happened to me before." Elsewhere he com plains that "the working of the imagination" increased his sufferings in the head. "" We do not see," he observes, among free nations the same distinction of rank as with us. Here the very humblest have something lordly in their manner. Even in asking alms they use, as it were, words of authority : as, Give me charity, will you V or Give me VOL. II. Q

226 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. charity, do you hear ? The common expression at " Rome is, Do me good for your own sake.' Getting tired of the baths, Montaigne made a trip to Florence, and saw some chariot races which pleased him, " because they reminded him of the ancient games." Again he notices the absence of beautiful

public assemblies. In conversationgirls at these a with Silvio Piccolomini he was delighted to find that that nobleman despised artillery, and adopted the opinions of Machiavelli on the subject. It is neces sary to notice, that he went to the quarter where venal beauties were to be found, but was disappointed in what he saw. Still restless and ill, he determined to return to Della Villa. On his way he passed is through Pisa, and visited the cathedral, where it interesting to reflect that he may have elbowed Galileo, at that time aged eighteen, and preluding to his great by watching the regular oscillation of discoveries lamp a swinging from the roof. He formed an acquaintance of fish. with the actresses, and made them present a a Mon One of the actors put his kit into raffle, and taigne risked an ecu. There was great fight between a ; Church of St. Francesco fisticuffs were freely exchanged, and sticks, candlesticks, in thepriests and monks hurled at one another by the combat were ants. A learned and tapers doctor maintained, in true Sangrado fashion, that with the exception of bleeding no other remedy for any disease was allowable save bathing he ; hundred times a-day, drank and went to sleep after a dinner. Offers of service and money were freely made THE BATHS OF DELLA VILLA. 227 to Montaigne, although the inhabitants had the re putation of churlishness ; " but polite men always make others polite." The stone began now to trouble him more than ever. " God knows what is the matter," says Mon taigne ; " His will be done." On reaching Lucca, he reflects on the agreeable life he had led in all his stations in Italy. " My chamber here," he goes on," was very retired. I wanted for nothing : there was no inconvenience of any kind. Politeness is often wearisome, and becomes a bore. But I was rarely visited by the inhabitants. I slept ; I studied when I pleased ; and when the fancy took me, I went out and found everywhere companies of men and women, with whom I could converse and amuse myself for hours. Then there were the shops, the public places, the churches ; all these things supplied me with means to satisfy my curiosity. Amidst these dissipations my mind was as tranquil as my infirmities and the approaches of old age allowed ; and very few external causes of trouble presented themselves. I only felt a little the want of society such as I should have desired, being forced to enjoy the pleasures I tasted, alone and with out communication." The studies Montaigne alludes to were of the Tuscan language; in which, however, he found he made little progress. Leaving Pisa at length he returned to Della Villa, where he was received with infinite caresses ; and resumed his baths at once. The increase of his suf ferings is developed before us in many pages of familiar

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. 228 writing. At one time he seems to have been on the point of death. A dreadful toothache coming in addition to his other ills, he was not able to support the pain, and took to his bed. Then, his peculiar disease kept him in a fierce state of suffering for some days ; and at last, having obtained a temporary relief, he wrote as " follows : It would be too great weakness and cowar

dice in me if, am always in danger that of perishing in this way, and knowing, moreover, that I being certain death nigh, exertion, before reaching that point, to be ready to bear I gradually drawing did is not use every it, without grief, when the moment shall have arrived. For, in fine, reason recommends us to receive gladly the good that God pleased to send to us. Now the only is remedy, the only rule, the only science, to avoid all the ills which besiege man from all sides and at all hours, whatever they may be, to be resolved to suffer them is as necessary conditions of existence, or to terminate them courageously and promptly." We thus see, that for a by his intense at least, Montaigne, moment sufferings, was once brought to contemplate suicide, at any rate as possible alternative. a AS MAYOR OP BORDEAUX. 229

CHAPTER XX. ELECTION OF MONTAIGNE AS MAYOR OF BORDEAUX HIS RETURN TO FRANCE. At last Montaigne was wearied of the baths of Della Villa, and thought of going to finish his cure elsewhere. Early in September (1581) the toothache and neuralgia returned, with such fury, that "he passed the cruellest night he ever remembered : he was almost mad. Brandy held in the mouth allayed the pain. All the gentlemen at the baths paid him visits of condolence in his bed. The world was on the point of losing the Third Book of the Essays, the crowning part of the work. But on the 7th of the same month news came that seems to have helped to effect a cure, by occupying Montaigne's imagination. By letters from M. de Tausin, dated Bordeaux, August 2d, he learned that " the preceding day he had been elected by unanimous consent to be Mayor of Bordeaux." His correspondent begged him to accept the post for love of his country. Although he seems to have hesitated, yet he set off at once for Rome to receive the official letters, the despatch of which was announced to him, and packed up on his way, at Lucca, two great cases of goods for France. Montaigne reached Rome on October 1st, and re ceived there the despatches from the Jurats of Bor deaux. He had now, at any rate, made up his mind to return immediately to France. He sent off a heavy trunk to Milan, containing many precious things : " among others, a magnificent chaplet of Agnus Dei, the finest in Rome. It had been made expressly for the Ambassador of the Empress, and one of his gentlemen had got the Pope to bless it." Mattecoulon, Montaigne's brother, obtained per mission to remain behind at Rome for five months, in order to study arms ; and received forty-three golden crowns for his expenses. Soon after he got into a difficulty. Being requested to act as second to a French gentleman, whom he scarcely knew, he fought, as was the custom in those days, with the second of the opposite party; and having disposed of his man, went and delivered his principal. The adversary appears to have been killed; and Mattecoulon, accused of unfair play, was put in prison, whence he was delivered by "a sudden and solemn recommendation from Henry the Third." Montaigne apologises for his brother's conduct in one of his Essays ; but cannot help exclaiming : " Indiscreet nation that we are ! We are not satisfied with letting the world know our vices and follies by report : we travel in order to publish them. Put three Frenchmen in the deserts of Libya, and in a month they will be squabbling and scratching each other!"

Montaigne left Kome on the 15th of October, being accompanied as far as the first post by MM. d'Estissac, de Morens, and many other gentlemen. Others, as MM. du Bellay, d'Ambres, d'Allegres, wished to go forth, and had hired horses ; but Montaigne made haste in order to save them the trouble. He evidently enjoyed all this worldly respect, paid in part to the " Essayist, in part to the new Mayor and Governor of Bordeaux." The return-journey was performed with comparative rapidity. Yet the traveller, although he gave up seeing Genoa, turned aside to visit the field of Pavia, where Francis the First was defeated ; and went to Milan," the most populous city of Italy," which he compares to Paris. Thence proceeding by way of Turin, he passed the Mont Cenis (where only he ceased to write Italian), reached Chambery, crossed the Mont du Chat which overhangs the western bank of Lake Bourget, and having paid a visit to Madame de la Fayette, arrived at " Montaigne on the last day of November, having been absent seventeen months and eight days." Montaigne alleges that he at first positively refused the honour voted him by his fellow-citizens who elected him as their Mayor, being sure, he says, that he was only chosen on account of the memory of his father's mayordom ; but remonstrances being made to him, he accepted. Soon after arriving at Montaigne, indeed, he received the following letter from the king :

" Monsieur de Montaigne,—As I hold in great esteem your fidelity and zealous devotion to my service, I have been much pleased to hear of your election as mayor of my city of Bordeaux. I have confirmed the more willingly this election, because it was brought about without intrigue in your absence. Therefore I order and enjoin you expressly, without delay or excuse, to return as soon as you receive these presents, and exercise the office to which you have been so legiti mately called. By so doing you will be very agreeable to me, and the contrary will displease me greatly. I pray God, M. de Montaigne, to have you in hissacred keeping. " Henry. Paris, Nov. 25, 1581." The mayorship of Bordeaux was a high dignity in the sixteenth century. None but gentlemen following the profession of arms could legally exercise it. Bor deaux, in fact, was the third city in importance of all France, and had many peculiar privileges. The mayor took precedence, not only of all nobles in the province, but, with few exceptions, of all nobles in the kingdom. His office was military, and he often commanded armies. There was no other city where the magistrates held so great a state. When they went forth, forty archers, with scarlet casques, marched before them and the officers of the town. The mayor, dressed in a robe of white and red velvet, with ornaments of brocade, moved two or three paces in front of the Jurats, who were dressed in white and red damask.

AS MA VOR OF BORDEAUX. 233 Montaigne gives his own account of this high dignity. The office, which was merely honourable, with out any emolument whatever, was held for two years; but a magistrate who made himself popular could be continued for two other years. This happened rarely. It happened to M. de Lansac and M. de Biron, and it happened to Montaigne. In a tone of grave irony, which some critics have mistaken for puerile boasting, the Essayist compares his own conduct, in first refusing then accepting the appointment, with the conduct of Alexander, who refused at the outset the freedom of the city of Corinth ; but when he was informed that Bac mayors appointed by the king; chus and Hercules had formerly been citizens, ac cepted ! Before the revolution of Bordeaux in 1548, the we re but in 1550,

when the privileges of the city were restored, the mayors were made elective. Since that time the city of Bor deaux, though it sometimes struggled against the ap parent toleration of the Court, had increased in favour. It was only in 1561, however, that it was allowed to replace the great bell in its tower. In 1566 the keys were returned to the city ; so that, at the time of Mon taigne's election, the office of mayor was as dignified and important as ever. When Montaigne reached his chateau on the last day of November, 1581, despite the reception of the king's letter, he exhibited no hurry to go and take the oaths and inhabit the splendid mairie of Bordeaux. When he did so at last, he seized every opportunity to be back at his chateau, where he had to write more

Essays and prepare a new edition of the first two books. There is a letter extant, dated May 21, 1582, from Montaigne, in which he excuses his absence. The Jurats, it appears, had been obliged to send one of their number to court on some important business, and wrote to Montaigne, asking him to come back. He — : replies " Gentlemen, —I hope that the journey of M. de Cursol will prove of some advantage to the city, the cause which he has to plead being so just. You have put all the order possible in the affairs which had to be transacted ; and as things are going on so well, I beg you will excuse for some time my absence, which I will, without doubt, shorten as much as the pressure of my affairs will permit me. I hope not to be long ; meanwhile, I beg you will keep me in your good graces, and will command me, if the opportunity presents itself of my being employed for the public service and yours. M. de Cursol has also written to me and told me of his voyage. I recommend myself very humbly to you, and hope God will grant you a long and happy life. "From Montaigne, this 21st of May, 1582. " Your humble friend and servant," Montaigne."

FIRST PERIOD OF HIS MAYORSHIP. 235

CHAPTER XXI. FIRST PERIOD OF MONTAIGNE' S MAYORSHIP. Montaigne, however, entered on his functions as mayor early in 1582 ; and though he did not profess any great zeal, gave great satisfaction. " As soon as I arrived," he says, " I told them what they had to expect — nono no no vigour; but also no hatred, no ambition, no avarice, and no violence." A magistrate with these qualities, and the quiet wisdom of Montaigne, was well suited for the time in which he had to serve at first. It was quite calm. There was nothing to attend to but mu nicipal duties. At that period Guienne was governed for the King Henry the Third by the Marechal de Matignon, who bore the title of Lieutenant-general; the King of Navarre, generally at war with Henry, bearing the title of Governor. The Marechal had formerly been a zealous Catholic, though he had shown soaie humanity at the St. Bartholomew. In political and religious opinions, at the time of his appointment to represent of me, memory, vigilance, experience, 236 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. the king, he seems to have agreed with Montaigne; that is, with a Catholic cherishing philosophical doubts, and inclined to toleration from humanity, but holding very strict notions on obedience to royalty. He was never, however, on good terms with the King of Na varre, even in time of peace. He had distinguished

the taking of La Fere, at the siege of which by himself Montaigne probably had some relations with him pre vious to his departure for Italy. Those who do not care much for the Essayist's political reputation, will readily assent to Dom de Vienne's assertion, which has aroused the ire of indiscriminate admirers, that he did little but obey the directions of the Marechal. The latter was sent in place of Biron into Guienne, in order to carry out the treaty of Fleix, which Henry the Third, of the Due by delivered from disquietude the departure d'Alen§on, his brother, and therefore his enemy—such the rule among kings for the Low Countries had at resolved to execute. He came to pacify, but is length found the task not easy. One of the first acts com mitted under his government was the unlawful seizure Catholic lords by of the city of Perigueux the and gentlemen of Perigord. The early part of Montaigne's mayorship was quiet the Ligue existed, had it enough, however. Although not yet commenced its public abominable career. There that discord mightseemed chance cease. of a Among the articles agreed to at the Conference Chamber of Fleix was the sending of what was called a —

is,a number of judges Justice into that Guienne selected from the Parliament of Paris, in order to replace a chamber chosen half by one party half by another, from the Catholic Parliament of Bordeaux, which had shown itself unjust and partial in its decisions. This commission was presided over by Antoine Seguier, and contained among others Claude du Puy and Jacques de Thou : the latter gives us the history of its movements. Its advocate was Loysel, and its Procureur-General Pithou. The Commissioners intended first to establish their court at Libourne, but reflecting on the poverty of the lawyers who would have had to come thither from — Bordeaux, the pleaders did not occur to them — they made up their minds to go to the capital. It was on Jan. 26, 1582, that they held their first sitting at the Convent of the Jacobins. Montaigne was present as mayor. A vast crowd had collected to welcome the new judges a way of expressing hatred of the old ones. The first sitting was occupied with a discourse or remon strance by Loysel, who displayed so much eloquence that Montaigne paid him a special compliment. He spoke of equal justice in a manner that caused some excitement at Court. The session of Bordeaux lasted six months, during which time the members of the commission spent their time in the society of the principal men of the province; and formed friendships that in many cases were lasting. It was then that De Thou made the acquaintance of Montaigne, who appears to have received hospitably at his splendid" Maine" all these strangers. "The Mayor," says De MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

Thou, "was a man of great frankness, disliking all constraint, who entered into no cabal. He was very learned in our contemporary history, but especially in that of Guienne, his country, which he knew perfectly ." De Thou tells us a good deal about the state of society and learning at Bordeaux, during the period at which it was governed by Montaigne. At that time the Rector of the College was Elie Vinet, who was occupied in retouching his "Ausonius." He was old, and talked much of his friends Turnebus, Muretus, Grouchy, Guerente, and Buchanan. De Thou saw the last letters which Buchanan managed to send him by the Scotch merchants who came to fetch wine from Bordeaux. They were written with a trembling hand, it is true, but in a firm style that showed nothing of the weakness of old age. Buchanan complained, indeed, rather of the length of life, said that he had quitted the Court, and had retired to Stirling ; and added the following words, which De Thou says he " always remembered: I now think only of withdrawing without noise and dying quietly. As I look upon myself already as a dead man, intercourse with the living is no longer proper for me." Elie Vinet's college had formerly been very flou rishing ; but it had fallen into disrepute by means of the new College of Jesuits established in the city. He used to say that of one good college two bad ones had been made. Montaigne, an admirer of the Jesuits, would not have subscribed to this opinion ; and probably patronised the order. Perhaps some of the

FIRST PERIOD OP HIS MAYORSHIP. 239 many vehement and ill-judged attempts to prove his ultra-orthodoxy are exhalations of the gratitude of that society, which forgets neither its friends nor its enemies. Claude du Puy also at this time made the acquaint ance of Montaigne. It is to him that Scaliger at tributes the saying: "What the devil do we care to know whether Montaigne liked white wine or red?" and he seems to have been a strange personage. He got information once that there were some curious MSS. in an Abbey ; and went there with several friends, who talked to the guardian whilst he threw the manu scripts out of window to his people, who carried them off. He possessed all known books — sent for every new publication in Italy — never showed his library to any one, saying it was all confusion. He lost many books during the Ligue. He was very fond of Agen ; so fond, that he quarrelled furiously with P. Pithou, a native of that place, for wishing to leave it. Whilst at Bordeaux he seems to have been on good terms with Montaigne, of whom we have a letter written to him afterwards, in 1584.

I shall it, premising that nothing give merely further is known of the circumstance to which it alludes, though we may infer that M. de Verres had committed some one of those atrocities which were so common in the civil wars, and which Montaigne, seeing that he was an old friend or dependant, wished to be dealt leniently with. Dupuy was at that time Conseiller in the Parliament of Paris, but deputed

I as a judge to Saintes : Montaigne had gone on a visit to Castera, an estate belonging to his brother Thomas, married to Jaquette d'Arsac, step-daughter of La Bo'etie. " Sir, The action of the Sieur de Verres, the prisoner, who is very well known to me, deserves that in judging him you should give way to your natural gentleness, if that can ever be exercised in such a case. He has done a thing not only excusable according to the military laws of this age, but ne it, cessary, and, as we judge, praiseworthy : he did his will.in Thehurry, and doubtless, against a remainder of the course of his life is irreproachable. beg you, sir, to direct your attention to this you : will find the character of this act to be such as way I in and that is sought If punishment a represent, itself. of anymalicious than the act it be more will add that he who has been isa service, man I brought 'up in my house, related to many respect is able families, has always lived honourably, and is very much my friend. By serving him you will lay me under obligation. beg you very humblygreat I a by to consider him as recommended me. " Montaigne." "fine missive:"Dr. Payen calls this it certainly a kindof but full of manifest informs action, a is us a is, in fact, solicitation special pleading, and to a judge to allow a criminal to escape from reasons of private friendship. Pierre Pithou, one of the most distinguished men of his times, formed one of the learned society collected at Bordeaux during Montaigne's administration, by the visit of the Commission. We have a curious collection of the sayings of his brother Francois, which will give a fair idea of the kind of conversation intro duced at the meetings of such men. "Monsieur de Thou is not learned, except in poetry and eloquence. . . My brother (Pierre) was jealous that Cujas mentioned me in his testament. . . M. Cujas used to get drunk. . . . The four great men of our age are Cujas, Ran­connet, Scaliger, Turnebus : all the rest are sellers of shells. . . Ran^onnet was poor. The Dictionary of Charles Estienne is by him. His daughter died on a dunghill ; his son was executed ; his wife was struck by lightning ; and he ended his days in a prison. . . I am now seventy years old ; I never heard of the miracles of Loyola till after the Jesuits were established. . . I said to the king, at the Conference of Fontainbleau, that images, after all, were not very ancient : he answered, Would to God there were none ! . . When Jodelle was dying, he exclaimed, Open the windows, that I may once more see that beautiful sun.' He was somewhat of a natural philosopher." This may be the origin of one of the legends of the death of Rousseau. Pithou goes on : " M. de Thou escaped from Paris during the Ligue, disguised as a Cordelier. . . Turne bus was a gentleman, Bai'f was mad, and Cujas' first VOL. II. R

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. 242 wife was a Jewess. . . Cujas used to say that he never read a book which taught him nothing, save Arnobius on the Psalms. . . I heard Cahier preach that the Virgin came to save women. . . When I had nothing to do at Paris, I used to go and see Thevet ; and I did so never that on entering he did not cry out, 'I am working at that ass of a Ptolemy again.' . . Monsieur Loysel was a good man, but not learned. . . Passerat believes that Cicero knew nothing. . . Jean Bodin was a sorcerer, as M. le President Fauchet related to me. One day they were talking of going somewhere, when a stool moved. Bodin said, That is my good angel, who " tells me it would not be prudent to do so.' . . There was, indeed, a common report in the sixteenth century that Bodin was inclined to Judaism, or much worse : and that he had a demon or familiar spirit, like that of Socrates, who always restrained him from going when " it was not expedient, but never urged him. When," says M. Antoine Allou, "he used to be talking to his friends of his affairs, and advising the undertaking of something, all at once they heard some of the furniture of his room, as a stool, or such-like article, make a noise as if shaken : then he would say, My genius does not advise me to do so.'" M. Baudrillart, in his laborious life of Bodin, omits to mention this tradition, which would have thrown great light on that extraordinary work of the superstitious and narrow-minded advocate " of monarchy, The Demonomanie." I shall only add here, that it is curious to find these allusions to spirit-rapping in the sixteenth century.

De Thou, as I have said, gives a very complete account of the residence of the Commission in Guienne, which lets us into the state of things there. In February they took a holiday ; and some of them went to visit Medoc. Loysel, Pithou, and De Thou were of the party. The last describes the Landes and the pine-trees on the borders of the sea. These Landes were full of bees and tortoises, and covered with vil lages, large but wide apart : the peasantry were rich by industry, in spite of the poverty of land. They went, among other places, to the Teste de Buch, celebrated for its oysters, by " I wager alluded to Rabelais : a hundred oysters of Buch," says the dealer in the famous bargain for the sleep with Panurge. De Thou writes : " The table was laid out on the beach : as the tide was down, oysters were brought in baskets : we chose the best, and swallowed them as fast as they were opened ; they had an agreeable violet taste, and are so wholesome that one of our valets ate a hundred without coming to any harm. As we sat, in the freedom of this repast, we talked of the beauty of the place sometimes; sometimes of affairs of state; then of the famous Captal de Buch ; and sometimes of those great men to whom Cicero alludes in a passage of his works, who did not disdain to employ a decent and necessary repose in resting their minds from great occupations, or in picking up shells on the sea-shore." This naive confession, that all these legal gentlemen thought themselves great, is very amusing. The celebrities of that age, whom posterity has forgotten

most completely, are the men who had the greatest confidence in their immortality. No one really be lieved in, or understood Montaigne ; and we have read Pithou's list of great men ! From the Teste de Buch the party was lured on, by the weather, to visit the rest of the country of Medoc, and the castle of M. de Candale at Castelnau. They found that learned and scientific nobleman there, ex amined his laboratories, and talked with him of his voyage of discovery in the Pyrenees. De Thou gives an account of several trips of this " kind. In one of them he says, I was walking with Chartier towards evening along a little path between two steep banks. Suddenly a peasant, armed as they nearly all are in this country, appeared, and called out to me, asking me if that was not Chartier who went before. I asked him the reason of his question ; he answered, I shall be glad to know it is Chartier, for the report goes he has been hanged.' I called out to Chartier to stop and hear the peasant, who, however, disappeared. This meeting was of ill omen, for shortly afterwards Chartier was, indeed, hanged." On returning to Bordeaux, De Thou found the Chamber occupied in examining criminal causes, and had to proceed to the examination of Rostaing, a gen tleman guilty of great crimes, who was condemned with much rigour, which caused it to be said throughout the city that for thirty years no example of such severity against a gentleman had been seen. De Thou tells a curious story illustrative of the state

FIRST PERIOD OF HIS MAYORSHIP. 245 of Guienne at that time. A certain Captain Guillard, a brave and determined man, was the declared enemy of a neighbour, pretending that the said neighbour had assassinated his brother in a cowardly manner. Collecting a band of scoundrels, he came at night and attacked his enemy's house, broke open the door with a petard, killed the owner, who appeared sword in hand to defend himself, massacred his wife, his brother, and servants. The crime was soon followed by punishment. His people, pillaging the house, accidentally 3et fire to a barrel of powder, which blew up, and disabled them so that they were unable to escape. They were all seized and carried in to Bordeaux, horribly mutilated, on a cart. The scene, as they traversed the streets, all burned and bloody, is described as being terrific. The minor criminals were interrogated in the cart, and at once transferred to the wheel. Guillard, wrapped up in a sheet, according to the custom of Bordeaux, was led bpfore the judges ; and as he admitted his crime with effrontery, he was speedily condemned to death. The Session of the Court lasted six months. At its conclusion, Loysel made a second long speech, in which he alluded to the illustrious lawyers who had practised in Guienne, particularly mentioning among others, Pommier, La Chassagne, La Bo'etie, and Montaigne, with great praise. The Court then trans ferred its sittings to Agen, whence Loysel sent a copy of his second speech to Montaigne, with a letter, in which he called him " one of the principal orna ments, not only of Guienne, but of all France." This

letter, which was, in fact, a dedication, called forth a present of a copy of the first edition of the Essays in quarto, which still exists with the autograph of Montaigne. Montaigne was not present to hear Loysel's second

The fact is, in August he hadRemonstrance. that " for theCourt of the city, with been sent to affairs ample Memoirs and Instructions." What were these affairs, however, has not been noted. We merely know that his mission was important, and was quite successful. We may refer to this visit to Paris, Montaigne's chief experience of the absurd and li centious devotion of Henry the Third, to which he more than once refers, and which was then in its full paroxysm. SECOND PERIOD OF HIS MAYORSHIP. 247

CHAPTER XXII. SECOND PERIOD OP MONTAIGNE^ MAYORSHIP. Montaigne seems to have been quite satisfied with / his own conduct during the period that elapsed between his first election and August 1, 1583 ; and most of the people of Bordeaux evidently agreed with him, for he was re-elected. " They did more for me in giving me the office again," he says, "than when they gave it me at first." He does not mention, however, that at the second election there was great opposition. The vali dity of the proceedings, indeed, was attacked before the Parliament of Bordeaux ; and this move proving unsuccessful, an appeal was made to the Council of State, on the plea that the renewal of Montaigne's term of office was contrary to the ordonnance of 1550. The election was confirmed ; but in the Registers of the Council of State it was expressly stated, that this was done on the understanding that it should not be taken as a precedent. Montaigne and the Jurats, however, sent up a strong protest against this minute ; (itis preserved, dated March 5, 1584) ; and they appear to have gained their point. In 1583 a rather curious incident, illustrative of the state of communications in France at that period, occurred. The chief trade of Bordeaux was carried on by the rivers, and it was very important to it that they should be free. But in this year the inhabitants of Mas de Verdun threatened to stop the loaded boats that plied between Bordeaux and Toulouse, in con sequence of which Montaigne was sent to remonstrate with the King of Navarre ; and his instructions have been preserved. A remonstrance was addressed in 1583 by Mon taigne, as mayor of Bordeaux, and the Jurats of the city, to Henry the Third, full of humane and wise suggestions. It set forth, that according to ordonnances " conform to reason, all taxes should bear equally on all persons, the strong supporting the weak ; it being reasonable that those who had large means should pay more than those who lived on chance and by the sweat of their brows;" and then went on to complain, that even the sons of Presidents and Conseillers were de clared by the Parliament exempt from taxation, so that the whole burden fell upon the poor. Further, it had been the privilege of the city of Bordeaux to appoint sworn Taverniers and Cabaretiers to sell wine, "the " only source of revenue of the inhabitants ; but now edicts had been passed, making these posts venal in order to obtain money for the Court. " Moreover, in consequence of the misery of the time, so great since the misfortune of the civil wars, many persons of all sexes and qualities are reduced to mendicity, and no thing is to be seen in the cities and the fields but an unlimited multitude of poor. This would not happen,"

" says Montaigne, if the edict issued by the late King Charles of good memory, whom God absolve, were executed, — to the effect, that every parish should be obliged to support its poor, and not allow them to wander elsewhere." This edict was equivalent to the Poor Law of Queen Elizabeth; but edicts in France were seldom executed for long, if at all. Montaigne also complains that the city was infested by crowds of pilgrims to St. Jacquesof Compostello, and other shrines ; who begged, to the great scandal of the public ; whilst the priors and administrators of hospitals, mostly of royal foundation, neglected or refused to feed them : the remedy proposed for this latter grievance is a threat, that if the pilgrims were not properly attended to by the charities instituted for that purpose, their property would be seized. We are left to conjecture the success of this remonstrance. In 1583, Henry the Third drove away Marguerite of Navarre from his court ; her coach was stopped and searched at Bourg la Reine, and Madame de Bethune and Montaigne's friend, Madame de Duras, were arrested " on account of their scandalous lives." This violent scene caused, of course, great soreness between the two Courts, although Marguerite had long ceased to have anything to do with the affections of her husband.

A little while after another disagreeable incident took place. Henry of Navarre had long claimed the surrender of Mont-de-Marsan, a portion of his patri mony : but the Marechal de Matignon, knowing the intentions of the Court, had put off complying for years. At length force was resorted to, and Mont-de-Marsan was taken. One of the first persons to whom the King of Navarre wrote to explain these proceedings was to Montaigne, in his official character as Mayor of Bor deaux ; and the correspondence, afterwards entrusted to Duplessis Morny, was long continued. Duplessis, " writing on November 25, says, The King of Navarre has written to you to explain how he entered into his town of Mont-de-Marsan, to you who, in your tran quillity of mind, are neither stirring nor to be stirred by little. We wrote to you that you may be a witness, if needs be, with those who judge ill of us." Elsewhere the same correspondent says, " Our councils depend on what goes on where you are : for we only ward off the blows aimed against us. ... I know you are doing us all the good you can." These letters contain nothing else to extract illus trative of Montaigne's biography. They are merely an additional proof that, occupying one of the highest positions in the province, he was necessarily mixed up with allimportant transactions. But the aspect of the times was now changing. The comparative tranquillity which enabled Montaigne to gain so good a reputation as a magistrate was be ginning to be disturbed ; and it was evident that his SECOND PERIOD OF HIS MAYORSHIP.

251 post would not much longer be a sinecure. The first year of his office had scarcely passed away, indeed, before he seems to have been disgusted with his dignity. He tried afterwards to persuade himself that he had " never heartily entered into his work : The Mayor and Montaigne were always two persons." This is in a passage which may have suggested the famous "All the World's a Stage." . . . . " Most of our occupations are farcical : Mundus universus exercet histrionum :"— " Le monde universel sans fin joue une farce," to use the words of Mademoiselle de Gournay's trans lation. Towards the end of 1584 Montaigne, wearied of the city and its busy life, started off for his chateau, where he seems to have passed the winter, not expect ing, doubtless, to be honoured by a royal visit. I have alluded more than once to the connexion, more or less intimate, that existed between Montaigne and the Court of Navarre. It began, possibly, by his acquaintance with Marguerite, which was of early date—before her marriage and before the St. Bar tholomew. But the Court of Navarre, held now at Pau, now at Nerac, now at Agen, now shifting over the country, was so completely neighbouring Mon taigne and the places where our philosopher was accustomed to be, that we may suppose the connexion to have existed from a very early period. Our Essayist, however, was a strict royalist ; and not only in time of war publicly declared against Henry of Navarre, but actually fought against him on many occasions. All these facts are singularly obscure, and cannot be understood if we do not remember the peculiar nature of a civil contest, in which the combatants were sometimes not divided even by animosity, and were with difficulty kept from stopping in the midst of a battle to talk of their private affairs with their enemies for the day.

By his acquaintance with Corisande d'Andoins, who at last had become the declared mistress of Henry the Fourth, Montaigne could get at the private key to favour, whenever he chose to use it. Henry was, politically speaking, a favourite with him, though judged calmly and without passion. Having men tioned a gentleman, a friend of his, who became nearly mad from excessive attention to his master's business, he says : " That master has himself described his character to me, saying that he sees the weight of accidents, like any other man; but when they are without remedy, he makes up his mind at once to endure them.' In other cases, after having ordered the necessary precautions, which he can do rapidly on account of the vivacity of his mind, he waits in repose what may follow. In truth, I have seen him thus, maintaining a great nonchalance and liberty of action and countenance in the midst of the most difficult affairs. I found him to be greater and more capable in evil than in good fortune : his losses seem more glorious than his victories his mournings than his — triumph." Elsewhere " I know a great prince who : makes a happy use of the doctrine of destiny, whether SECOND PERIOD OF HIS MAYORSHIP.

253 he believes in it, it as an excuse for or merely takes running great risks. May Fortune not be too soon " weary of backing him fair chance that Henry could reach ! This must have been written when there was a " And again know wouldthe throne. man who

I a rather be beaten than sleep whilst others are fighting for him, and who never saw without jealousy even his own people do anything great in his absence." Our Essayist, now negociator, had, in May 1584, mission from M. Marechal de Matignon been to on a Henry the Fourth at Nerac, and brought back " letter a of compliment, ending with the words, M. de Mon taigne will tell you the rest." We do not know the subject of these but the king and thenegociations ; philosopher were on excellent terms. Perhaps it was then that Montaigne received the honorary title of Gentleman in Ordinary to the King of Navarre's Bed chamber, so that thenceforth he served two masters. At any rate, in December of the same year, the truant mayor, occupied with his beloved Essays at his castle, received news that Henry of Navarre was about to visit him. Writing to the Jurats of Bordeaux, he " All the Court of Sainte-Foi said, two days before : are on my hands, and have appointed to come and see me." Henry made detour through the country, and a having dined at Gurson, came to sup and sleep at Montaigne. This event was very pleasing to its owner's He his love of travel, vanity. and argues is defending —"What," exclaim they, "is not your : with his friends house situated well, in good air, well supplied with all things, and more than sufficiently large ? Royal ma jesty has more than once lodged there in its pomp. In his journal we find the following more than usually . elaborate entry :— " December 19, 1584. —The King of Navarre came to see me at Montaigne, where he had never been before. He remained there two days, served by my people, without any of his officers : he allowed no assay (against poison), and slept in my bed. He had with him Messieurs the Prince de Conde, de Rohan, de Turenne, de Rieux, de Bethune, and his brother, de la Boulaie, d'Esternay, de Haraucourt, de Mont-martin, de Montaterre, de Lesdiguiere, de Poe, de Blacon, de Lusignan, de Clervau, Savignac, Ruat, Sallebeuf, La Rocque, Laroche, de Roux, d'Aucourt, de Luns, Frontenac, de Fabas, de Vivant and his son, La Burie, Forget, Bissouse, de Saint Sevrin, d'Auberville, and the lieutenant of the company of Monsieur le Prince, his Escuyer, who, with about ten other lords, slept here, besides the valets de chambres, the pages, and the soldiers of his guard. About as many went and slept in the villages. At the king's departure I had a stag started for him in my forest (the forest of Saint Claud, or Bretanord), which led him a chace of two days." This residence of King Henry of Navarre at Mon taigne, and the two days passed " in the fields" after wards, are mentioned in the itinerary of Berger de Xivrey. Early in February, 1585, Montaigne wrote to wish

a happy new year to the Jurats of Bordeaux, and vaguely hints that as soon as it is convenient he will return to his duties ! We cannot now expect to meet with public events that much influenced Montaigne intellectually. The formation of his mind and opinions has been seen. We have, therefore, only to trace his personal move ments, and observe his conduct in the position to — which in part his literary reputation, in part the respect entertained for his family had raised him. — I have not thought it necessary to insist much on the negociations carried on between the King of Navarre and the Marechal de Matignon, although the name of Montaigne, as mayor, now and then occurs in the correspondence ; and even the long despatches of Duplessis-Morny, addressed to the mayor on the subject of the capture of Mont-de-Marsan, seem to me, as I have said, scarcely add anything Mon to to taigne's biography. M. Griin, whose researches have been so indefatigable and meritorious, almost entirely disfigures his hero by insisting, with disproportionate emphasis, on his comings and his goings between Bordeaux and the wandering court of Henry of Navarre. Doubtless in these transactions he was

not a mere cipher ; but if he had assumed any individual attitude more traces would have remained in history. We may suppose him supplying to both parties the suggestions of his common sense and deep knowledge of human nature. Montaigne returned to Bordeaux in the spring, and found it in a state of great excitement. The Duke of Guise had already begun his famous enterprise, and was raising an army for the Ligue. A " newsletter,"

which the mayor writes (and the original of which, by the way, was discovered in England), will sufficiently paint the troubled colour of the times, and show that though Montaigne was ready to do his duty, it made him very nervous, and that he was anxious to be relieved from responsibility. " To the Governor of Guienne. " Monseigneur, I this morning received your letter, which I have communicated to M. de Gourgues, and we dined together at the house of Monseigneur de Bordeaux (the Archbishop). As to the inconvenience attending the transport of money alluded to in your memoir, you see how difficult it is to provide against it : however, we will keep an eye on this matter as much as we can. I diligently set about seeking the man of whom you spoke to me. He has not been here, but Monseigneur de Bordeaux showed me a letter, in which he says he cannot come as he meant, as he has been warned you are suspicious of him. The letter is dated the day before yesterday. If I had found him I should, perhaps, have made use of gentle means, being uncertain as to your resolution; but I beg you, nevertheless, not to doubt that I shall decline nothing on which you are resolved, and that I have neither choice nor distinction concerning

SECOND PERIOD OF HIS MAYORSHIP. 257 any business or person respecting which you give your commands. I trust you may find in Guienne many whose will is as much at your service as mine. There is great talk of the galleys of Nantes coming towards Brouage. M. le Marechal de Biron has not yet dislodged. Those who were ordered to warn M. d'Usee say that they cannot find him ; and 1 believe he is no longer here, if he has been at all. We are careful of our gates and our watch, and are a little more attentive to them in your absence, which gives me fear, not only for the preservation of this city, but also for your own, knowing that the enemies of the king's service are well aware how necessary you are to

and how badly off we should be without you. it, I fear that business will surprise you from all sides in the quarter where you are, so that you will be long in providing for everything, and that there will be many difficulties. If any new and important event happen will send you an express, and you may infer that you don't hear stirs from nothing if beg youme. I also to consider, that these kind of movements are accustomed to be so unforeseen that, if they are to by throat without warn shall be seized the I happen, ing. will all I what sides, and with this object will visit and study the tastes of all sorts of men. Up to this hour nothing has stirred. M. du Londel saw me this morning, and we discussed certain arrangements for the place, which do obtain news fromcan to I I will visit to-morrow early. this letter, I "Since VOL. ii. have learned at the began s I I 258 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. to to Chartreux that two gentlemen, professing belong M. de Guise, have passed near this city ; they came from Agen, but I have not been able to learn whither they are to have gone. At Agen they expecting you go there. The Sieur de Mauvesin went out as far as Canteloup, and returned after having learned some news. I am looking for a certain Captain Rous, to *** whom * has written, to draw him over with many promises. The news of the two galleys of Nantes ready to land in the Brouage, with two com panies of foot, is certain. The Sieur de la Courbe has told M. le President Nesmon that M. d'Elbeuf is on this side of Angers, and has lodged at his father's house, and is advancing towards Lower Poitou with four thousand foot and four or five hundred horse, having rallied the forces of M. de Brissac and others, and that M. de Mercure is to join him. There is a report that Monsieur du Maine is coming to take the command of the forces assembled in Auvergne, and that by the county of Forest he will advance upon the Rouergue and towards us ; that is to say, against the King of Navarre, against whom all this is directed. M. de Lansac is at Bourg, followed by two armed vessels. His command is naval. I tell you what I learn, and I mix the town reports that seem probable with truths, in order that you may know all. Begging you very humbly to return as soon as business will permit you, and assuring you that we shall meanwhile spare neither our care, nor, if necessary, our life, to preserve all in obedience to the king, —

" Monseigneur, I very humbly kiss your hands, and beg God to preserve you. " From Bordeaux, Wednesday, at night, May 22. " Your very humble servant," Montaigne." " I have seen nobody from the King of Navarre ; they say that M. de Biron has seen him." We see from this hurriedly-written report that Mon taigne was waking and watching over the safety of the city committed to his charge ; but how anxiously he begs the Marechal to come and relieve his anxiety ! True lovers of the Essayist will not be sorry to find him shrinking from the repulsive duties of a sub ordinate office during a civil war, which compels him to apologise for having meditated "gentle measures," instead of proceeding to the summary execution of some suspected person. We can never feel so com fortable in his society when serving the despicable Henry the Third, no matter from what motives, as when meditating new sentences in his tower, or jogging along the highways of France and Italy in search of health and experience. The picture, however, would not be complete if due importance were not given to what is known of "the public life" of Montaigne. The Chateau Trompette had been in danger of being betrayed to the Liguers, and Montaigne as sisted Matignon in his vigorous measures to preserve it for the king. M. Griin conjectures, that about this time it was that it was thought necessary to make the great display of troops which is mentioned in one of the Essays. There was some fear that the troops would mutiny and murder their officers. On this account it had been proposed to restrict them from firing a salute, but Montaigne advised that no suspicion should be shown, and the whole affair in consequence passed off well.

In April, the Mayor had been on another mission to the King of Navarre, who was at war with the partisans of the Ligue, but not exactly with Henry the Third ; and in June we find him on a similar service : but all we know of these journeys is that Henry placed as much confidence in the ambassador as did those who sent him, and that he naturally assumed the character of a mediator. One of Henry of Navarre's letters is worth quot ing :— "To my Cousin, M„le Marechal de Matignon. " My Cousin, I was very glad to hear such particular news of you by M. de Montaigne. I have charged him to give you news of me, and to assure you more and more of my entire friendship. Trusting entirely to him, I beg you to believe him as you would myself. I also the Creator to keep pray you, my Cousin, in his very holy protection." From Bergerac, April 23, 1585." There is a postscript to iterate Henry's wish that

SECOND PERIOD OF HIS MAYORSHIP. 261 Matignon should accept Montaigne's statements im plicitly : " My Cousin, I beseech you to believe M. de Montaigne." Many other letters have been published, some known to have been addressed about this time to Montaigne, others supposed to have been so ; but as no additional fact or inference can be derived from them, it seems useless here to reproduce them.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE PLAGUE OF 1585. About this time the whole province of Guienne was in a state of frightful disorder, and Perigord especially. The King of Navarre and his partisans occupied many strong places, whence they made incursions for sub sistence on every side, whilst the Catholic bands in the service of the Ligue also overran the country. From March to August, says Palma Cayet, the soldier lived upon the peasant; but there was no fighting, only pillage. To this Montaigne alludes, where he writes : " An increased weight of our troubles during several months fell right upon me. I had, on the one hand, the enemy at my gates; on the other the Picoreurs, or Marauders, a worse enemy ; and suffered all military outrages at once." That was a time of absolute anarchy, in which plunder was carried to such an extent that Montaigne feared complete ruin. " The people," he continues, " suffered largely then ; not present danger alone, but future also. The living had their share ; so had those yet unborn. They THE PLAGUE OF 1585. 263 robbed tbe people, (and me also, consequently,) even of hope, snatching from it what it had laid by for the years to come. Moreover, I suffered all the incon venience which comes from moderation in such cases. I was spoiled on all hands. To the Ghibeline I was a Guelf, and to the Guelf a Ghibeline. The situation of my house, and the acquaintance of the men of my neighbourhood, gave me one face : my life and my actions another. There were no formal accusations, for I gave no hold; but silent suspicions were rife." Matters went so far, that Montaigne began to look out among his friends for one with whom he could find " shelter for his needy and dishonoured old age." But he cast his eyes around in vain. "To fall from so high you must have the arms of a solid affection to receive you." At last he perceived that the only sure way was to depend upon himself. The weapon he found most useful was patience; and he doubts "whether he can decently acknowledge" how patiently he bore the sufferings of others as well as his own. Montaigne appears suddenly to have abandoned his official duties to go and take care of his family and property. At that time a terrible plague burst out in Bordeaux, supposed to have been engendered in a filthy bog to the west of the city; and some bio graphers seem to believe that he fled away in alarm, with so many other of the healthy inhabitants. But he very clearly implies that he was engaged in pro tecting his estate, as well as he could, when the pestilence reached that district and entered his very casile. Never was there so vehement an attack. Contagion had often approached, but, such was the salubrity of the air round his castle, had never before reached it. Now it did so, and strange effects were produced. The sight of his house beeame frightful to him. No further guard was kept ; everything was abandoned. " I, usually so hospitable," he says," was obliged, painfully, to seek out a retreat for my family. We were a wandering family, fearful to our friends and to ourselves, creating horror wherever we went. Whenever one of us felt a pain, even in the little finger, we were obliged to decamp ; for at such time every disease is supposed to be plague. All this would have touched me much less if I had not had to suffer the sufferings of others, and to serve wretchedly for six months as a guide to this caravan. Not a hundredth part of the people of the neighbourhood escaped. My revenue there depends on labour. The land a hundred men cultivated for me has long been lying idle. What an example of resolution was given by the common sort ! Generally, every one abandoned all care of life: the grapes principal produce of the country remained hanging from the vines. All with indifference prepared to meet death, that evening or next day, with a countenance and a voice so little troubled that it seemed as if it was a universal and inevitable condemnation. How the company we are in acts differently in the way we meet death ! But

— these poor creatures since they all were dying in the same month, children, youths, old men they THE PLAGUE OF 1585. 2()5

seemed no longer to wonder, neither did they weep.I saw some who feared to remain behind, looking on the world as a horrible solitude. No one appeared to care for aught save sepulture. It grieved them to see corpses strewing the fields, at the mercy of the wild beasts that flocked thither at once. Healthy men dug their graves in time ; others got into them living. One of my workmen, with his hands and feet, drew the earth over him as he was dying." In the year 1854 the cholera, and another disease called the suette, made similar ravages in those dis tricts. I heard some strange stories as I passed through the town and village, filled with refugees from Bordeaux. On arriving there the place seemed half deserted. Later, as I crossed the chestnut forests towards Mu$idan, they told me of a village where all had perished save one miserable man, and he had gone mad. The pathetic narrative of Montaigne never appeared to me so full of meaning. The " caravan" of which Montaigne speaks was composed of his mother, then aged seventy-seven, his wife, his daughter, and his servants. One of the first places he took it to was Libourne. He wished to be as near as possible to Bordeaux, whither, however, he declined proceeding, for the plague continued to rage there with terrible intensity. The Marechal de Ma­tignon, expressing the wishes of the Jurats, wrote to him, with the request that he would come and preside over the election of his successor. This was in July. Montaigne at once made up his mind not to go. He knew the terrible state of the city. No one who could go elsewhere remained within the walls. An attempt had been made to raise money to send away the poor people, but it failed. There was a general panic ; no one would subscribe or pay a tax, or buy property advertised for sale. The mortality was so great, that according to the Registers of the Parliament, eighteen thousand persons out of less than forty thousand died. " They die like flies," says a Jurat, in a report. The College was closed. " The city was a vast hospital." Some of these circumstances are accumulated by Dr. Payen, in answer to a charge of egotism and cowardice lightly made, and immediately attenuated by M. Griin.

All we need add is, that there was nothing either heroic in bad in the act of Montaigne. It exactlywas or accordance with his easy character, that moved in the middle region. The period of his office was to expire the next day. What was asked of him was mere — a formality. Very naturally, therefore, he answers: " — by have just received here accidentGentlemen, I M. by Marechal. the message sent from you to me le would spare neither life nor any other thing for your will leave you I but presence would be at the approaching election before venturing to come into the city, considering the bad to judge of what service use my ; state in which is, especially dangerous to people who it I I such good air as as near as can, to Feuillasse, will approachfrom do. come on I the disease as if Wednesday, does not reach there; and at that place, have I THE PLAGUE OF 1585. 267 written to M. de la Mothe, I shall be very glad to have the honour of seeing some one of you to receive your commands, and those of M. le Marechal. I recom mend myself very humbly to your good graces, and pray God to give you, Messieurs, a long and happy life. From Libourne, this 30th of July, 1855. " Your very humble servant and brother, " Montaigne." The election took place in the absence of the Essayist, and M. de Matignon was named as his suc cessor. Great must have been his joy at finding himself once more free at length from the burden of public employment. Despite some short-comings, he retired with honour, and the period of his administra tion was always referred to with respect, although it was generally felt that a more vigorous hand was re quired to replace his cautious one.

CHAPTER XXIV. COMPLETION OF THE ESSAYS AND JOURNEY TO PARIS. As soon as the pestilence had ceased its ravages, Mon taigne returned to his chateau and spent his time in concluding the Third Book of the Essays, in preparing a new edition, and in endeavouring to restore order to his affairs. That was one of the most difficult periods through which he had to pass. The civil war was never more fierce, nor carried on in a more cruel and irregular manner. Up to that time Montaigne's re sidence, though undefended except by his reputation, had remained unmolested. As we have seen, he had boasted of the absence of all precaution, and its excel lent results ; but the times were past when such security could be indulged in. A certain person un quidam —laid a plan for sur — prising Montaigne and his house. He arrived alone at the gate, and impatiently begged admission. Montaigne knew him by name, and had reason to confide in him as a neighbour, and something even of a relative. He ordered the gate to be opened, as he did to all. The man entered all affrighted, his horse blown and much harassed. The story he told was, that he had just been met, about half a league off, by one of his enemies — Montaigne knew this other also, and was aware of their — quarrel that this enemy had given him hot chace ; that he had been surprised, and being with a party inferior in number, had been obliged to seek shelter ; that he was very much troubled about his people, who must be either killed or prisoners. Montaigne very simply comforted, reassured him, and gave him to drink. Soon after, four or five of his soldiers pre sented themselves to enter ; and then others, and others besides, all well-equipped and armed ; so that at last there were twenty-five or thirty, all pretending to have the enemy at their heels. This mystery began to excite Montaigne's sus picions. He was not ignorant in what kind of age he lived, and how his house might be envied. Many examples presented themselves of such adventures. However, thinking it to be of no use to have begun to be civil if he did not go on, he continued his former behaviour, and received all hospitably. The party re mained in their saddles, forming a menacing group in the court. No doubt Francoise and Leonore, and the frightened servants, peered at them from the win dows. The chief was in the house with Montaigne. He had refused to have his horse sent to the stable, saying that he must go further. He had now nothing more to do but to murder his host, and take posses sion of the chateau. Suddenly he rose, went forth,

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. 270 and putting himself at the head of his men, who looked wonderingly at him, galloped away across the court, passed the little triangular space between the tower and the out-buildings, and had soon disappeared. Some time after he boldly related the story, and ac knowledged that Montaigne's confiding countenance and frank manner had restrained him. During all this period Montaigne occasionally, despite his age and infirmities, sallied forth, as all loyal gentlemen were bound to do, and joined in the partisan warfare carried on in Perigord against the Protestant lords. The allusions to these adventures, scattered through the Essays, especially towards the end, leave no doubt on the matter. We have here an additional touch to Montaigne's portrait, quite neg lected by most of his critics. He lays down the pen from time to time, puts on the cuirass, girds on the sword, mounts his horse and sallies forth, not actuated by any enthusiasm, but partly from a sense of duty, partly from a love of that kind of life, its freedom, its excitement, its very danger : even the sound of warlike music was an attraction to him. That he continued these episodes in his old age is certain. " Of late," he says in one place, "in the labours of war, when the whole night is occupied, as commonly happens, after five or six hours my stomach begins to be troubled, a vehement headache comes on, and I never reach day light without vomiting. When others go to breakfast,I go to sleep ; and after that I am as gay as before." He says he often forgot the watchword which he had "given or received" a few hours before; mentions being present at the storming of little forts ; and, in fact, leaves no doubt that he did not wear the sword as a mere ornament. All attempts, however, to discover in what "affairs" Montaigne engaged have failed. They were probably insignificant skirmishes and ob scure sieges, undertaken in the irregular warfare carried on between the royal partisans and those of Henry of Navarre, in the years 1586 and 1587. It is singularly illustrative of the character of the times that Montaigne, (who publicly boasts of the part he took in this war against the Protestants,) on the 24th of October, 1587, three days after the battle of Coutras, again received and entertained at dinner in his chateau the victorious Henry on his way to Sainte-Foi.

It may easily be imagined, that amidst cir such cumstances it was an effort of philosophy in Montaigne to continue the preparation of his Essays. He worked on, however, and at length completed the thirteen additional Essays which form the Third Book, all very important for their length and matter, and determined to go to Paris to superintend their publication. This was early in 1588. On the way he met with another adventure, of a similar kind to the one already related. There had way being been a truce published, but the country remained in a most insecure state. Montaigne was advancing by of the Limousin towards Orleans. His

abroad became known, and at once two or three " cavalcades" from various points set out to catch

him. One of these joined him on the third day ; and he was charged at once by fifteen or twenty masked gentlemen, followed by a wave of argoulets. He seems to have resisted a little and then surrendered. They led him into the depths of a neighbouring forest, dismounted him, robbed him, searched his coffers, took his money-box, shared his horses and baggage. Then began a discussion as to ransom, which they placed so high that he saw they did not understand his worldly position. There was a moment when they were on the point of putting him to death. But Montaigne did not flinch, and appealed to the truce; saying, more over, they ought to be satisfied with what they had got; and would promise no ransom. After two or three hours, they put him on a horse incapable of running away, and set a guard of fifteen or twenty arquebus-men over him. His people were given to others in charge; and the party started off with their prisoners, by different roads, through the forest. But Montaigne had not ridden three shots' distance when the chief came back to him with gentler words, stopped the troop, searched for his property, and restored it all to him, even his money-box. He could never quite understand the reason of this sudden change —for his enemies were of an opposite party, and he had boldly admitted his opinions. The chief, taking off his mask, told his name; and said the good countenance and firmness of language of Montaigne had influenced him : but it is probable that his reputation as author of the Essays may have had something to do with saving him.

However, he was set at liberty, and warned that further on he would be again attacked. But he escaped these other dangers with his life, although he appears to have been again robbed of his money, this time definitively unless we suppose the return of his — " box," mentioned in the Essays, to have been one of those little ornaments which we know he was some times fond of adding to his stories. However this may be, after many escapes he arrived penniless at Orleans, where he stopped, fearing to go further. A letter has recently been found, written by him from that city. I do not know to whom it was addressed, but it suggests that he afterwards exaggerated the magnanimity of his enemies :— " Monseigneur, — You have heard that our baggage was taken in the forest of Villebois, in our sight ; since then, after much circumlocution and scribbling, the act has been considered unjust by M. le Prince

(de Conti We do not dare, however, to go further, ?). on account of uncertainty as to the safety of our persons, of which we should be assured on our pass ports. The Liguers have done this thing, M. de Barraut and M. de : Rochefoucault me, who had my money in my box. the tempest fell la got back I upon ofit, and most my papers and things remained of none M. M. de in their hands. We did not see Prince. le Thorigny has lost money, silver spoon, and some a things of little value. He has taken post, and turned aside from his road to see the mourning ladies at vol. n. T MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. 274 Montresor, where still are the bodies of the two brothers and the grandmother, and joined us yesterday in this town, whence we are soon to depart. The journey to Normandy is put off. The King has sent MM. de Bellievre and De la Guiche to Monsieur de Guise, to summon him to come to court : we shall be there on Thursday. "From Orleans, this 16th of February, in the morning. Your very humble servant," Montaigne." It is useful to observe how the lofty, indifferent tone, with regard to worldly accidents, assumed in the Essays, disappears in these communications written on the spur of the moment.

275 A PLEA FOR THE FLESH.

CHAPTER XXV. A PLEA FOR THE FLESH. We have been obliged to follow Montaigne for some time so closely through the active scenes of life, that we have almost forgotten the valetudinarian speculator. During all this time, whither were his speculations tending ? More and more towards doubt and un certainty. Vanity of vanities such was his estimation — of the world. Having scoffed at Reason, he scoffs at Experience. Man was made to seek, but not to find knowledge. " There is no quality so universal, in this image of things, as diversity." He casts another rapid glance over the objects of all researches, and is astonished, more than ever, at their infinite variety. What hope was there of any definite conclusion ? " Nothing but our weakness," he says, " leads us to be content with what others, or we ourselves, find in this hunt after knowledge. . . There is no end to our in quisitions : our end is in the other world. No generous mind stays at home : it pretends ever, and goes beyond its strength : it has impulses incommen surate with its effects : when it does not advance, hurry, retreat, struggle, and whirl, 'tis but half alive : its pursuits are without term and without form : its food is admiration, chace, ambiguity. . . What a swarm of commentators ! how few authors ! . . Our opinions are grafted one on the other ; the first serves as a stalk for the second, the second for the third : we mount thus step by step, so that the highest has often more honour than merit, and is but raised an inch above the shoulders of the penultimate!" " I have seen in Germany," he says further on, generalising from the experience of his travels, "that Luther has left as many divisions and altercations about the meaning of his works, ay, and more, than there exist about the meaning of the Holy Scriptures. Our contestation is verbal : I ask, what is Nature, Volupty, Circle, and Substitution? the question is in words and is answered in words. A stone is a body ; but what is a body ? A substance. And what is substance ? So on to the end of the chapter. They exchange one word for another, often less known. I know better what a Man is than what is Animal, Mortal, or Seasonable. To appease one doubt they give me three." These discussions, and others more directly bearing on practical life, annoyed Montaigne. The "hunt after knowledge" began to seem wearisome to him. " The wisest plan is to follow nature as simply as possible. Oh, what a soft and delicious pillow, and how healthy, are ignorance and incuriosity, for the

repose of a well-formed head \" This is the last result of Montaigne's philosophy. Partly in a spirit of raillery against the magnificent doctors who "rode cockhorse on the epicycle of Mer cury," and treated our body as a rag in their discourses, partly in the indulgence of a playful licentiousness which had nothing to do with his manners, Montaigne sat down one day to comment the famous Virgilian passage :— Dixerat; et niveis hinc atque hinc diva lacertis Cunctantem amplexu molli fovet," x. t. X. The Essays would not have been complete without this extraordinary lucubration, which has raised the ire of monks and puritans ever since. How many must have thrilled with dangerous fear as they read — fear followed, we must suppose, by anger; for great is the number of copies found in public and private libraries with these hundred leaves or so torn out by some con vulsive hand ! One is disposed to imagine, at first, that this mutilation is the punishment of one or two coarse passages, and some few very daring Anacreontic notes here and there sounded. But such cannot be the case ; for many as audacious flights are allowed to pass untouched elsewhere. The truth is that Montaigne, having arrived at an age when he can no longer be suspected especially considering the known gravity of his manners of desiring to apologise for personal excesses, took plea

sure, whilst indulging his wanton imaginations, in making one more assault on asceticism, which would convert this world into a hospital, filled with emaciated patients, lying racked on narrow beds, or wandering drearily about the wards in expectation of a discharge, instead of one vast source of delicious sensation. As usual, he went too far, did this moderate man. What horrified the anchorites or the hypocrites who expur gated him was the utter disregard of moral obligation which this Essay in certain parts affects, the utter forgetfulness that we are not so many animals placed here to devour so much pleasure and have done with existence. We must reflect, however, that Montaigne is travelling over that boundless region Man, and describing it province by province. The real charge

is, that he lingered somewhat too long here. After all, what does he say? Old age is coming he finds himself growing heavier and thicker on : every day. On all sides, lessons of patience and hints for death crowd. His mind ever at work, is to prepare and some of the functions of the body are ceasing. He afraid the balance will be destroyed, so he " is defend myself from temperanceventures to say : I as I of yore me too far back, defended myself against volupty drawing itis : I Now, wisdom has its even to stupidity. want to be of myself in every master respect : not less in need of moderationand than is excesses, I I for fear and become ponderous by prudence, in the intervals grant me, madness. should dry, shrivelTherefore, up, which my sufferings gently turn aside and escape from the sight of that stormy and cloudy sky which spreads before me ; which, thank God, I consider without affright, but not without application and study ; and so I amuse myself with the memory of past youth." This was the crime Montaigne committed : beyond " the grave was a stormy and cloudy sky," from which he sometimes averted his glance; and sent it back, trembling with emotion, towards his early days and early loves, which were not all pure and recommendable. " He pretends that he did this purposely, to escape by a trick the chagrin of old age. But, verily," he adds, "other remedies than dreams are required. Feeble is the struggle of art against nature. . . . My philosophy lies in action, for natural and present use, little in fantasy. Oh, that I could take pleasure in playing .. . at chuck-farthing, or with a top \" The ingenuity of pious indignation discovers in this passage a desire, in despite of Frangoise, to renew the fond adventures of the court of Henry the Second. At worst he may be regretting his Italian peccadilloes. "A sombre and stupid tranquillity suffices for me; but it lulls me to sleep, and makes my head heavy; and I am not quite content with it. If there be any persons, any good company in town or country, in France or elsewhere, stationary or wayfaring, to whom my humours seem good, they have but to whistle, and I will come and supply them with Essays in flesh and " bone ! I wonder this appeal was not attended to by Pierre Van Veen, who appears to have been one of the

most ardent contemporary admirers of Montaigne. He was the brother of Otto the painter, and Gilbert the engraver ; and himself studied the arts when a youth, and showed considerable talent. In his manuscript autobiographical sketch he says : " Residing in France, in my youth, at the age of twenty-four, and being in the service of the Seigneur de Fargis, Governor of the country of Maine, in the year 1589, the works of Montaigne fell into my hands. At that time I much esteemed them, principally because I had heard that Lipsius had ventured to call their author the French Thales.' Youth willingly clings to authority. In my adolescence I had heard the said Lipsius at Leyden, and held him to be one of the greatest personages of the day, and I was one of his clients. Therefore I could not cease from reading and re-reading these Essays ; and now, in my riper years, I continue to admire them from my independent judgment." Pierre then goes on to describe how Montaigne's way of thinking was in conformity with his ; and is thus led to narrate his own adventurous life, his search at Rome for his brother Gilbert, who had began his artistic travels at the age of fourteen, his experiences at the Estats de Blois, where he might have met Montaigne, and his subsequent course of life at Leyden. This curious document is appended to an edition of the Essays of 1602. The fly-leaves are covered with notes by another hand, e.g. " Mezeray called Montaigne the Christian Seneca;" and the margin contains not only illustrative anecdotes and remarks in Van Veen's own

hand, but a profusion of very clever pen-and-ink sketches suggested by the text. Here we see Thracians shooting at the heavens, gamblers exhibiting their fury, lovers fondling, drunkards reeling, and even Mon taigne "playing with his cat." Our Essayist was so ardently hungering for a new friend, that we must blame Master Pierre Van Veen, who could wander whither he pleased, for not calling at the Castle, before return ing to his native city and taking to the study of the law. With his ardent appreciation of the Essays he would have been more welcome than the most lovely visitation of beauty, whatever may have been Mon taigne's affected yearnings : at his age, Archeanassa is always eclipsed by a disciple. " Few people will object to the license of my writ ings," says Montaigne, " who ought not to have more to object to in the license of their thoughts : I agree with their courage, but offend their eyes. ... At any rate, I have ordered myself to dare to say what I dare to do ; and thoughts that cannot be published displease me. The worst of my actions and conditions does not seem to me so ugly as the cowardice of not daring to confess it He who should undertake to tell all, would undertake to do nothing which would not bear telling If it be indiscretion thus to publish one's errors, there is no great danger that it should pass into an example and custom ; for Aristo used to say, that the winds men fear most are those that uncover them. Up with this stupid rag that hides our manners ! am weary of seeing my Essays used by ladies merely

as a common piece of furniture in their parlours : this me to chapter will introduce their private society." We expect great confessions ; but, setting aside the vague sentimental reminiscences of early loves I have given, there is nothing to reward the curiosity of scandal-mongers, and nothing worthy the indignation of those who can tolerate Marguerite of Navarre. The " Essay on Experience," the last published by Montaigne, is one of the most pregnant of all, and one of the most varied. Here we have some of the sharpest sayings by the side of some of the most familiar revelations. He runs over his whole life, and epitomises all his doctrines. Here we find a last fling at the doctors ; a last glance of regret towards the Court — where he might have been of some use as a — councillor; a curious expression of fondness for war fare —" There is no occupation so pleasant as the military" all manner of communications on the pro gress of his habits, his crotchets, his diseases,—and some more fond allusions to his loves in early life, few but steady. Sex me vix memini sustinuisse vices." He does not, however, endeavour to make himself appear in any romantic light. " What an indecent fellow I am to eat so gluttonously as I do ! I often bite my tongue, and sometimes my fingers, in my haste." It is useless to disguise it : Montaigne had become a bon vivant, and lived for the pleasures of the stomach as well as of the imagination. No matter.

Who does not wish he had given us some particulars of the three dinners he remembered with such delight as having occurred in his happy time ? Everything in its place, he says : " Shall we seek the quadrature of the circle whilst we are kissing our wives ? I hate to be ordered to have my soul in the clouds whilst my body is at table. I don't want the mind to be nailed down there, nor to wallow in the dishes ; but I want it to apply itself to them — to sit before them, not lie in them." In reality, the whole of this Essay is an apology for his moderate way of viewing things very sensible — and reasonable — but showing in its details somewhat too great a relish for material enjoyments. When he comes to state his doctrine, this " sickly Egotist," who has been described as weary of his existence —he sometimes pretends that he was—begins one of his concluding paragraphs thus : " For my part, then,I love

it, life, such as God has beenand cultivate don't regret the necessity to grant it to us. pleased I of eating and drinking, and should think myself wrong in desiring that necessity to be less." He regretted nothing, he goes on to say in somewhat too " It that gave pleasure.plain language, ungrateful is and iniquitous to complain of the desires and capacity of enjoyment given to our body. We wrong the ... great Giver in refusing his gift, in annulling and dis figuring it." Nothing stronger was ever said against the exaggerations of Asceticism and Puritanism. " They want to emerge from themselves, and escape from Man ! Madness. Instead of transform ing themselves into angels, they transform themselves into beasts ; instead of raising, they lower themselves. These transcendant humours frighten me, as do lofty and inaccessible peaks ; and I find nothing difficult to digest in the life of Socrates but his ecstasies and demonries ; nothing so human in Plato as that which makes him to be called divine." To the last he carries on his war with supernaturalism ; and how much more openly than in the earlier Essays ! It cannot be denied that, however humane his object, he was here tending to abase and vulgarise us. Not that his inter ference was altogether uncalled for in that age. But he should have thought that he wrote for all ages. Yet are there not still enthusiasts and bigots who require this check ? " We may mount upon stilts if we will, for on stilts we are still obliged to use our legs ; and on the highest throne in the world we place what we place on the lowest stool. The finest lives, to my mind, are those which agree with the common and human model, with order, but without miracle, without extravagance. Now, old age has somewhat want of more tender treat ment. Let us recommend it to the gay and social God who protects at once health and wisdom : Frui paratis et valido mibi, Latoe, dones, et, precor, integra Cum mente ; nec turpem senectam Degere, nec cithara carentem.' Thus cheerfully do the Essays conclude. But, as I

A PLEA FOR THE FLESH. 285 have said, amidst all this, at times we see traces of profound melancholy and dissatisfaction. The journey to Italy seems to have improved Montaigne's health ; his hereditary disease was less violent in its attacks. But other sources of personal discomfort were opened. The approaches of old age were now unmistakable. He thought he was old at forty ; and in the midst of his full vigour began to prepare for death whilst enjoy ing life. When death really approached, though we see no traces of childish fear, he was evidently less prepared than he expected —less prepared than he would have been many years before. Some great yearning of his life remained unsatisfied. He had sought what he wanted by the road-side and in foreign lands; he had sought it at court, in the city, and at home amidst his family or his books. But he found it not. He was devoured by passion for the Unknown.

CHAPTER XXVI. THE STORY OF MARIE DE GOURNAY. Perhaps Montaigne was made more inclined to com plain, or, at any rate, to sink deeper into melancholy, by the idea that his labours were not duly appreciated. He had printed at Bordeaux, and found that no man was a prophet in his own country. He went to Paris, in order to appeal at once to a wider public. No doubt he exaggerated his disappointment ; his book had sold well, but he had the weakness if weakness it be not to be content with the applause of unknown readers. He had announced in his Essays that one of his objects in publishing was to incite some congenial minds to offer themselves to his friendship. He scarcely expected the void left by La Boetie to be filled up. But he wanted disciples, not to say ad mirers. He was approaching the term of his career, and this solace was still denied by fortune. The pedantic, patronising approval of such men as Pas­quier, did not satisfy him. It was but fair, indeed, that the world should depute to him, as it were, a representative of the class that was to honour and cherish him evermore. Otherwise, he who doubted so much might have died doubting his own value. A messenger came to him one day in his lodgings at Paris, bearer of high-flown and enthusiastic com pliments from a lady totally unknown to him, but whose name has since been inseparably united with his. Mademoiselle le Jars de Gournay was born in 1566, at Paris. She was the daughter of a respectable Picard gentleman in the king's service, and of Jeanne de Hacqueville. Her mother had several children, but was left early a widow. The family fell into com parative distress, and was compelled to leave Paris and return to its native Picardy. Here, at Gournay-sur-Aronde, near Compiegne, in somewhat penurious style, lived Jeanne with her children. Marie, the eldest, early showed a taste for learning; and, whilst her mother would have had her pay attention only to the accomplishments of a housewife, secretly mastered the Latin language, and almost succeeded in triumph ing over the last difficulties of the Greek. From the latter, indeed, she translated the Life of Socrates by Laertius, to please a worthy neighbour desirous of knowing something about that Athenian gentleman, whose name recurred so often in the enthusiastic talk of the erudite. Marie de Gournay was not yet twenty when the reputation of the Essays of Montaigne reached her. The edition of 1580 came into her hands. It decided her fate. She was his disciple from that day forward,

and yearned for nothing so much as to see the man who could write such wise words. A sort of passion," a fatal sympathy," took possession of her. For three years the mind of the poor girl was agitated by this feeling, and no opportunity presented itself for satisfying her desire. At length, in 1588, she happened to visit Paris with her mother. Mon taigne, as we have seen, was there. No sooner had she heard this news, than she despatched the mes senger I have mentioned to declare the esteem she felt for his person and his works. We can imagine what emotions fluttered the bosom of the learned virgin whilst she waited for a reply. —Montaigne, above all men, was accessible to such attentions. He came himself on the morrow to thank her for her admiration— there is nothing that more excites our gratitude—and at once offered her the affection of an adoptive father. From that time forward she became his intellectual child, and no filial reverence ever surpassed hers. Mademoiselle de Gournay was then twenty-two years of age ; and, although wags have defended her virtue at the expense of her charms, must have been of agreeable personal appearance. She was of middling height, well made; as to complexion, a clear brunette; with an oval face set off with chestnut hair. Intellect gave character to a physiognomy in itself not strictly beautiful. It is necessary to insist on these circum stances, for we may be sure that not even adulation could have reconciled Montaigne to a very ugly dis ciple. He would as soon have had an ugly doctor.

THE STORY OF MARIE DE GOURNAY. 289 Montaigne was so pleased with his new acquaint ances, Marie and her mother, that after interchanging visits with them for some time at Paris, he accepted their invitation to repair to Gournay. Here he re mained a long while in their house three months in all, with the interval of a short journey back to Paris on business, —and enjoyed the delights of disinterested flattery. Marie de Gournay was at his feet. He could not resist the temptation to boast of this intellectual conquest; and when he returned to Paris added the following lines to his Essays, then going through the press : " I have taken pleasure in publishing in many places the hopes I entertain of Marie de Gournay le Jars, my daughter by adoption ; and, certes, loved by me more than paternally, and enveloped by me in my retreat and my solitude as one of the best parts of my own being. I look to none else in the world but her. If adolescence can foretell anything with certainty, that mind will one day be capable of the finest things ; and among others, of the perfection of that very sacred friendship to which we do not read that her sex has yet been able to ascend. The sincerity and solidity of her manners are already sufficient warrant of this. Her affection for me is more than superabundant ; and in

truth, is such, that there would be nothing to alloy it, if the apprehension of my death, on account of my being fifty-five years of age when she met me, did less cruelly disturb her. The judgment she formed about the first Essays, she being woman, and in this age, a and so young, and the only one who did so in her VOL. II. v MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. neighbourhood; and the famous vehemence with which she loved me and desired me, merely on account of the esteem she formed for me, a long time before she saw me, are accidents very worthy of consideration." Few, perhaps, will appreciate the triumphant delight of Marie de Gournay when she found herself fixed in the affections of Montaigne. To doubt for a moment the purity of their relations would be mere impertinence. Marie may have felt her young breast warm with an attachment which she did not quite understand ; and we know that she never afterwards loved anything but letters, her maid Jasmyn, and her cat Piaillon. But this passion took the form of literary enthusiasm, and was sheltered under maternal care. Moreover, although Marie never visited the chateau of Montaigne during his lifetime, she went to mingle her grief with that of Franchise afterwards, and was not repulsed. Whilst the Essayist was at Gournay, Marie com posed or began a work which seems to have been the first effort of her pen. The idea was suggested in a manner which shows that in her conversations with Montaigne she sometimes trod on dangerous ground. They were walking together some evening when the sun had ceased to glance between the tall trees on the green plains of Picardy he, no doubt, enjoying the devout admiration of this young girl ; she, perhaps, thrilling with mysterious emotion ; and they began to talk of the dangerous results that follow ill-regulated passion ! Marie understood those dangers better than the philosopher, and the result of her meditations that

THE STORY OF MARIE DE GOURNAY. 291 night was the "Pourmenoir de Montaigne." It is a sentimental romance, dealing with the adventures of Alonda the faithful and Leontin the faithless ; and culminating to a terrible catastrophe a projected murder and a double suicide. It seems to form a link between the chivalrous romances, so much in vogue towards the middle of the sixteenth century, and the sentimental narratives, in a sort of poetical prose, of the seventeenth. The book was published, with a dedication to Montaigne, in 1589. It achieved a great success; and although serious critics, not knowing the secret history of the young lady's heart, reproached her with choosing so amorous a subject, and dwelling at such length and with such elaborate minuteness on the miseries of unrequited passion, the public generally were pleased. With reason; for the "Pourmenoir" is no contemptible production ; and Montaigne's pro phecy concerning the talents of his protegee was already in part accomplished. I should add, that the title of fille d'alliance was formally bestowed on her, and " no

it, she ever afterwards used less proud being of it," she says, " than she had been mother of the if This " second father"Muses themselves!" aided in the development of her mind by and verbal counsels ; at Paris and Gournay, and no doubt by correspondence afterwards, enabled her to wield her pen with more confidence. Some old chateau of Picardy may still by to his accom contain letters addressed the Essayist plished adopted daughter. He at length, however, found it necessary to return to Paris definitively. The parting must have been a pathetic one. We can imagine the passionate grief of Marie. Perhaps in some unguarded moment she con fessed her most intimate feelings, and vowed eternal maidenhood in honour of her adored master. At any rate, there is a very singular passage in the Essays. It begins in an absurd manner, unless we suppose, as I do, that Montaigne wished first to conceal the part of France where the incident he mentions happened, and then, from inadvertence or vanity, admitted it for the benefit of keen posterity. " When I came from those famous Estates of Blois, I had seen a little while before in Picardy a young girl, who, to testify the ardour of her promises and also her constancy (or courage), drew out a bodkin she wore in her hair and gave herself four or five good stabs in her arms, which made her skin crack in good earnest." Was it likely that Montaigne could have been present at such a scene between two strangers ?

IMPRISONMENT IN THE BASTILLE.

CHAPTER XXVII. IMPRISONMENT IN THE BASTILLE AND RESIDENCE AT BLOIS. When Montaigne returned to Paris he went to lodge in the Faubourg St. Germain, whence no doubt he made constant journeys to the printing-office of Abel l'Ange-lier, where his Essays were going through the press.I have not thought it necessary to say anything about his relations with the Court at this period, because there are absolutely no facts known. He was still " gentleman in ordinary," and, of course, did his duty occasionally as long as the Court was at Paris. He alludes frequently with contempt to the absurd conduct of Henry the Third and his penitential processions through the streets. Montaigne's friend, De Thou, was at that time at Paris, and gives an animated account of its condition. All was excitement and agitation. The Ligue had at length assumed a menacing aspect. The King tem porised, and gave time for the Duke of Guise to arrive. Then the sedition began. De Thou went on foot to the Louvre, accompanied by two or three persons un armed, but known. Silence reigned everywhere: the solitude was frightful ; and alarm, which had reached the cabinet of the king, suggesting a new plan every moment, prevented any plan at all from being adopted. De Thou next hastened to the Hotel de Guise, guarded by soldiers and surrounded by people ; and saw the chief of the day with a countenance of wonderful serenity, which showed how sure he was of success. Then the historian endeavoured to return home, but found the principal streets embarrassed with barrels (barriques, whence barricades), which were being rolled into them from various directions. Every bell in Paris was ringing the tocsin. The king soon afterwards fled, never to return. Montaigne, who had always been in the Duke of Guise's good graces, feared nothing, and remained in Paris, or returned -thither, although well known to be long to the royal party. He even occasionally paid a visit to the Court at Chartres and Rouen, despite the hostility between it and the governors of Paris. His confidence, however, was too great. Returning once from Rouen, he was seized with an attack of gout, which kept him three days in bed. Between three and four in the afternoon of July 10th, a crowd came be fore his house, and, as he relates, he was made prisoner" by the captains and the people of Paris," and instantly taken away on his own horse and lodged in the Bastille. When he came to inquire the reason of this violence, he found that the Duke of Elbeuf had incited it by

IMPRISONMENT IN THE BASTILLE. 295 way of reprisals for the arrest of one of his relatives, a Norman gentleman and Liguer, whom the king held prisoner at Rouen. It happened fortunately, how ever, that the report of what had taken place reached the Queen-mother whilst she was at the Council with the Duke of Guise. M. Pinard, Secretary of State, came and told her. She instantly begged the Duke to intercede, and sent a message herself to the Provost of the Merchants. M. de Villeroy, another Secretary of State, also gave his assistance. Consequently, about eight o'clock in the evening, a maitre d'hotel of Catherine de Medici came to the Bastille, bearing a written order of release from the Duke of Guise and the Provost ; and so, by "an unheard-of favour," he " obtained his liberty from the first prison he bad ever known." The boast in the Essays that he had never seen the inside of a prison was not, however, erased after this. I have already remarked, that the inter cession of the Queen-mother proves the high esteem in which Montaigne was held by her and the Court generally. Having escaped from the Bastille, the Essayist seems to have hastened his departure from Paris, and to have joined the Court in its wanderings from Rouen to Blois. Here we find him again in company with De Thou, who calls him his " particular friend," and says that he was pressed by him very much to think seriously of the embassy to Venice, which was offered to him. Montaigne himself was meditating another journey to Venice, and promised to stay there during all the residence of De Thou.

They talked of the causes of the troubles, and Montaigne said that formerly he had acted as mediator between the King of Navarre and the Duke of Guise, when those princes were at Court ; that the latter had made all manner of advances to gain the friendship of Navarre, but having discovered that he was played with, and that, despite all he had done, the other re mained his implacable enemy, he had recourse to war as the last resource to defend the honour of his house. If this report be true, we must necessarily suppose that personally Montaigne leaned rather towards the Duke than towards Henry, whose duplicity he admitted ; whilst politically he preferred the triumph of the latter. He went on to say, that the private enmity of these two men was the origin of the war which was then waging ; that only the death of one or the other could bring it to an end ; that neither the Duke nor any of his house would believe in safety as long as the King of Navarre lived ; and that the said Duke, for his part, was persuaded that he could never assert his right to the crown during the lifetime of the Duke. " As for religion," Montaigne added, " which both put forward, 'tis a fine pretext to get followers ; but reli gion touches neither one nor the other nothing but the fear of being abandoned by the Protestants prevents the King of Navarre from returning to the religion of his forefathers; and the.Duke would have not much repugnance to the Confession of Augsburg, which was recommended to him by his uncle the Cardinal de Lorraine, if -he could follow it without prejudicing his interests. Such are the sentiments which I have perceived in these princes, when I have had to do with their affairs."

These observations prove that few better than Mon taigne understood the characters of the personages towards whose acts all attention was then directed. He came to Blois with a kind of presentiment of what was going to happen. Some have tried to make him out to have been a Deputy to the Etats; but it is certain that he was there as a mere observer and courtier. " It must have been a curious spectacle for him," says a biographer, "to behold that close game in which the destinies of France were the stake. What a study for the scrutinising eye of the moralist and the politician must have been the movement of all the passions which agitated the Court and the Ligue ! With what interest must Montaigne have watched the audacity of the Duke of Guise at the Barricades, his weakness after victory, the resentment of the king in his flight, the efforts of his government to regain lost ground, the dissimulation employed better to ensure vengeance, and finally, the solemn stage erected at Blois, whereon to strike the decisive blow ! The assembly of the Three Estates at Blois did not open until November. As we have no reason to suppose that Montaigne was present, except a as spectator, I shall not allude further to this remarkable 298 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

historical event. We have, however, the account of a conversation with Pasquier, which I shall give in the words of his interlocutor, merely omitting the examples of faulty French adduced :—" We were walking," says the self-aduiiring lawyer, "in the court of the chateau; and I happened to say to him that he had forgotten himself in not communicating his work to some of his friends before publishing it ; because there were observ able, in many places, certain traces of the Gascon dialect, which might have been pointed out to him. As he would not believe me, I took him to my room, where I had his book, and therein I showed him many forms of speech not familiar to the French but only to the Gascons. Above all, I pointed out to him his improper use of the word jouir ; with several other mistakes. And I thought that at the next edition of his book he would order these corrections to be made. Nevertheless, not only did he not do so, but also, as if he foresaw his death, he prepared it for the press care fully, just as it was. And his daughter by alliance, in her preliminary preface, announces that the lady of Montaigne gave it her exactly as her husband had wished it to be printed. I will add to this, that although he pretends to disdain himself, I never read an author who esteemed himself so much as he ; for if you were to erase all the passages he employs in speaking of himself, and of his family, his work would be reduced by a quarter, good measure, especially in his third book, which seems to be a history of his manners and actions — a thing which I attribute some

299 what to the freedom of the old age at which he composed it \" No wonder that Montaigne neither cared for the praises, nor noticed the criticisms of such a Pundit as this ! Erase all the passages in which he speaks of himself ! Verily, the age was passing by, and not understanding the Essays. I need not proceed and copy the laudations by which Pasquier endeavours to destroy the idea that he was a "professed enemy" of Montaigne ; but we may be quite sure he remained a little annoyed at the neglect of his advice. Some " touches are good, however ; as for example : He was a bold personage, who believed in himself, and as such, allowed himself to be carried away by the beauty of his mind : so that, in his writings, he took pleasure in displeasing pleasantly." It is curious to find Estienne Pasquier's son, Nicolas, afterwards defending the purity of his father's French against a Jesuit critic, in the following manner : " You blame the use of certain words: read Montaigne, Du Vair, Charron, Calvin, who all spoke good French, and you will see that they use those words in the same way as he." It is the belief of every biographer that Montaigne remained at Blois until after the assassination of the Duke of Guise. This event is recorded in his Journal as follows: "December 23, 1588.—Henry, Duke of Guise, in truth one of the first men of his age, was killed in the king's chamber."

MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

CHAPTER XXVIII. CHARRON. However, in February, 1589, Montaigne returned to his chateau, where he was present, on the 27th, at the marriage in his own chapel of M. de Belcier, Seigneur de Bonaquet, with Mademoiselle de Sallebeuf. The Essayist had affianced them two days before, in the presence of Messieurs de Mothegondrin, father and son, de Monreal, de Blancastel, and others. On July 16, another marriage took place in the chapel between a Captain Rous and Mademoiselle de Sersines. This captain formed part of the suite of Henry of Navarre when that monarch visited the chateau, and is mentioned in one of Montaigne's letters : " I am seeking a certain Captain Rous," he says. There is another entry worth quoting from Mon taigne's meagre journal :— " April 4, 1589. —Died at the chateau of Turenne, the Baron de Savignac, from the effects of an arquebus shot in the head, which he had received four days before at the siege of the house of Du Pechie. He was my CHARRON. 301 relative and friend, and singularly familiar in my family ; his sister was brought up by my wife." According to Mademoiselle de Gournay, it would appear that some of Montaigne's projected expeditions —— as, for example, his visit to Venice were prevented " by political reasons. When he returned to Guienne," she says, " the war of the Ligue, which then raged over all France, tied him there by the command and for the service of the king." It is not surprising that so wise a head on the shoulders of a man of landed property should have been considered a useful addition to the royal party in Guienne. But we do not know that Mon taigne, during the remainder of the reign of Henry the Third, was engaged in any very important transactions. After remaining some time in his chateau he went to Bordeaux, to assist his successor, the Marechal de Matignon, mayor, with his advice. His absence from home is known, partly from the report of Schomberg, an envoy from the king to Germany compelled to go round by way of Guienne to find safe roads —who having visited the battlefield of Coutras, stopped at Montaigne." The owner was then at Bordeaux, says the nar rator ; " but his wife, (sister of Pressac, who accom panied Schomberg,) received them very politely." Montaigne, however, never very anxious to display zeal in public matters, was kept at Bordeaux for a reason similar to that which attracted him to Gournay. In the year 1586 there visited him at his chateau an Abbe named Charron, who was gaining consider able reputation as a preacher. The national library of Paris possesses a copy of a work, entitled " //

Catechismo, overa Institutione Christiana, di M. Ber nardino Ochino, da Siena, in forma di Dialogo : in Basilea, 1561." On the title-page is Montaigne's sig nature, with the words, a prohibited book ;" and a little below the following words, written by Charron : " The gift to me of the said lord of Montaigne, in his castle, July 2, 1586." But the great intimacy of the gentleman-philosopher and the philosophical-theolo gian did not begin until the year 1589. Then Charron, having preached all through Lent at Angers, came to Bordeaux, where he " formed a friendship and lived very familiarly with Montaigne." The relations of these two men were very peculiar. Some seem to believe that Charron received from Mon taigne a confession of his esoteric doctrines, and stated plainly in his solemn didactic works what his master merely insinuated in his Essays. If this was the case I do not understand the Essays, which, despite a little piece of disingenuity here, a bold statement provoked by timidity there, some few palpable hesitations, appear to me on the whole "a book of good faith," as they claim to be. Montaigne was not the man to load a blunderbuss against Christianity, and leave half-a­crown to a beggarly Scotchman to fire it off after his death. He had no consistent, obstinate theory on matters philosophical. The dogged materialist, who pretends to be a sceptic, who is sure and pretends to doubt because the world is sick of the insolent — paradox it once received with wondering favour — is a production of modern times. Montaigne treated spi ritualism as a jealous lover might his mistress. He

yearned towards it and sought it, but found it sur rounded with so many equivocal circumstances and companions that he turned away, and endeavoured to immerse himself in matter; but was never able to

The conflict within him was serious conflict, forget. a from which he came out scathed and suffering. The positive philosophers, who are now so certain on matters which touched him so near, point to his doubts and hesitations as evidences of weakness, — if one as any was exempt from doubt save fools and martyrs. shall not here, near the last limits of this study, I endeavour to develope the doctrines of Charron. Their material far than the is tendency desultorymore spe culations of Montaigne. We find neither his passion but we find his common nor his high spiritual flights sense, his ; pure morality, and especially his language, deprived somewhat of its gay step and brilliant orna ments. Charron was Montaigne's disciple, but could portion of his teaching. This dependedonly receive a on the construction of his mind, and on its narrower also on the absence of that amiable, though capacity ; somewhat cautious, sympathy with mankind, which our Essayist's chief characteristic. is Montaigne returned two or three times to his chateau during the year 1589, but hastened back to enjoy the conversation and respect of Charron. He found two minds which considerable had to now a extent understood and appreciated him Charron and Marie ; and the declining years of his life were much cheered. He set to work with extreme diligence to polish and improve his Essays from beginning to end, but especially to add new observations, anecdotes, and illustrations, which largely increased the bulk of his work.

CHAPTER XXIX. montaigne's relations with henry the fourth. Henry the Third was murdered by Jacques Clement, in July 1589; and from that time forward Montaigne considered Henry the Fourth as his lawful king. He had given up all connexion with the Ligue as soon as that body became disloyal. The state of things which he now saw to be possible was that which he thought to be best,—Catholicism, the religion of the State; Protestantism living unmolested under the guardianship of the laws. He would have drawn up the Edict of Nantes. But Montaigne did not wait for the victory of Henry to communicate with him, and assure him of his support. He wrote a letter of allegiance at once, and received an answer from the king's secretary on the 30th of November, making an appointment to meet him at Tours. The rejoinder was not sent until the next year, on the plea of a delay on the part of the royal courier or secretary. Probably, Montaigne had no desire to leave his comfortable chateau in quest of VOL. II. x new adventures, and quietly let the appointed time pass by. It is unnecessary for me to sketch the political state of France in the beginning of 1590. The Valois branch had been extinct six months, and Henry the Fourth was fighting for his crown with the Ligue. Montaigne was at his chateau ; and, remembering that an answer to the king was due, sat down and wrote, with more care than usual, an epistle which is too characteristic of his character and position to be omitted : —

" Sire, You place yourself above the weight and the crowd of your affairs, by knowing how to value and attend to the little ones in their turn, according to the duty of your royal authority, which exposes you, at all hours, to all sorts and degrees of men and occupations. However, that your Majesty has deigned to consider my letters, and command them to be answered, I would rather attribute to the benignity than to the vigour of your mind. I have always foreseen whither fortune would carry you ; and you may remember that, even when I felt bound to confess it as a sin to my cure, I could not help looking on your successes with pleasure. Now, with more reason and liberty, I embrace them with a full affection. They serve you where you are by their positive results ; but they do not serve us less here by reputation : the report travels as far as the blow. We cannot derive arguments so strong to restrain and reduce your subjects, from the justice of your cause, as from the news of the prosperity of your HIS RELATIONS WITH HENRY IV.

307 enterprises ; and I can assure your Majesty, that the new changes which we see about here to your advan tage have been much assisted by your happy issue from Dieppe, seconded by the honest zeal and marvellous prudence of M. le Marechal de Mati­gnon ; from whom I persuade myself that you do not receive daily so many good and remarkable services without remembering my assurances and hopes. I expect from the coming summer, not so much the ripening of the fruits of the earth, as of those of our common tranquillity ; and trust it will pass over our affairs with the same even tenor of happiness, dissipating, as have the preceding ones, so many great promises with which your adversaries have fed the good-will of their men. The inclinations of the people always flow in masses : if the current once sets in<jn your favour, it will go on, by its own impetus, to the end. I should have desired that the private gain of the soldiers of your army, and the necessity of satisfying them, had not deprived you, especially in the case of that important city, of the fine recommendation of having treated, in the midst of victory, your rebellious subjects with more kindness than their own protectors; and that, setting aside a passing and usurped credit, you had shown that they were yours, by a paternal and truly royal protec tion. In conducting such affairs as those which you have in hand, not common ways must be used : it has always been seen that they have been conquered by their greatness and their difficulty. Arms and force being found wanting, they have been made perfect by clemency and magnificence excellent baits to draw men, especially towards the just and lawful party. If rigour and chastisement be necessary, it should be postponed until after victory. A great conqueror of the past times boasted that he gave his enemies as much reason to love him as his friends. And here we feel already some effect of the good prognostic of the impression received by our disobedient cities, by the comparison of their rough treatment with that of those under your command. Hoping for your Majesty a felicity more pleasant and less hazardous, in that you may rather be beloved than feared by your people — uniting your interests with theirs—I rejoice that the

same steps which you make towards victory are steps towards easier conditions of peace. " Sire, your letter of the last of November has only just reached me; and the time is now passed when you prescribe a meeting during your stay at Tours. I take it as a singular favour that you have deigned to express a wish to see a person so useless, but your own, more by affection still than duty. You have very praiseworthily adapted your external the manners to height of your new fortune ; but the debonnairete and facility of your internal humours, you praise are as worthy not to change. You have been pleased to consider not only my age, but my desire also, in inviting me to a place where you will be somewhat at rest from your laborious occupations. But will not

Paris, Sire, soon be that place ? No endeavour of mine shall be spared to meet you there. " Your very humble, and very obedient Servant and Subject, " Montaigne. At Montaigne, Jan. 1, 1590." There are some Machiavellian pieces of advice in this letter, — as, to use clemency as a bait, and to punish after victory which we may suppose to have been adapted purposely to the duplicit character of the chivalrous king. Montaigne knew that Henry, in clined from indolence to be merciful at most times, would relish the good actions proposed to him much better if they had a savour of deceit and dissimulation about them. Montaigne was still, we see, ready to seize any opportunity of visiting his beloved Paris ; but his slight experience of the Bastille prevented him from thinking of indulging the desire until the defeat of the Ligue, which was then triumphant. One of the things he had looked forward to with pleasure was to see the opening of the Pont Neuf. " Fortune has done me a great displeasure," he says, " in interrupting the fine structure of the new bridge of our great city, and taking from me the hope, before dying, of seeing it in use." Later in the same year, Henry the Fourth wrote to Montaigne requesting him to do something for his service apparently to influence or encourage Ma

— tignon, and afterwards to come to Paris; and, it would seem, apologising for not adequately rewarding him and offering him money for his expenses. The philosopher sturdily replied :— " Sire, — The letter which it pleased your Majesty to write to me on the twentieth of July, was only given to me this morning, and found me suffering from a very violent tertian fever, common in this country since a month. Sire, it is a great honour to me to re ceive your commands, and I have not failed to write to M. le Marechal de Matignon three times, very ex pressly stating my resolve, and the obligation I was under, to go and meet him. I even set down the road which I should take to go to him secretly, if he thought fit. But I have received no answer, and I suppose he has considered for me the length and danger of the roads. I trust your Majesty will be pleased to favour me by believing that I shall never complain of my purse in a cause in which I should not hesitate to risk my life. I have never received anything from the liberality of kings nor have I asked nor deserved any — present — and have received no payment for the steps I have taken in their service, of which your Majesty is partly aware. What I have done for your predecessorsI will do still more willingly for you. I am, Sire, as rich as I wish to be. When I have emptied my purse in the service of your Majesty at Paris, I will be bold enough to say so ; and then, if you think me worthy to be kept any longer in your suite, you will

find me a cheaper bargain than the least of your officers. " I am, &c. " Montaigne." The Essayist never performed his promised journey, and never enjoyed the pleasure, for which he so much yearned, of seeing Paris once more as he had seen it in his youth, at peace, peopled by a brilliant court, the resort of learning and genius, which, if not too rudely repelled, are always ready to associate with splendour, luxury, and dissipation. Henry the Fourth did not purchase his capital with a Mass until subsequently to Montaigne's death. After writing the above letter, indeed, Montaigne lived only two years, during which we have little in formation as to his movements. He appears to have spent his time chiefly at his chateau, but occasionally went to Bordeaux. In 1591 his daughter, Leonore de la Tour, had a daughter, who seems to have been born at la Tour. If so, Montaigne and his wife went there to the christening.

CHAPTER XXX. DEATH OF MONTAIGNE. This is all we know of the last years of the Essayist's life, and we feel that no very important fact is left in the background. No doubt he was interested in the fortunes of the Bourbon branch of the royal house of France, because they were bound up with the interests of that mitigated toleration in favour of which he had written and laboured. With reason he could claim some share in the triumph of moderate ideas. Words like his leave traces where they pass ; and if we ex amine the writings, the orations, the sayings, the general tone of society under Henry the Fourth, we shall be convinced that the Essays had become the habitual intellectual food of the best minds. There were more violent doctrines abroad, preached some times by sterner and more virtuous men than Mon taigne men formed and developed in the fiery furnace — of civil war and persecution, who made the mistake of seeking to prolong a struggle which had come to a natural end from sheer weariness on either side. When a violent quarrel is over, candid views, reasonable sen timents, tendencies to compromise, generally make their appearance. France learned to think and speak in this strain, in great part, from the Essays.

But Montaigne, despite his yearnings towards Paris, felt that his career was drawing to a close, and determined to spend the remainder of his time as easily as possible. Occasionally he went and tarried a month or so, perhaps during winter, in that quaint, quiet, snug little house at Bordeaux, which he had inherited from the thrifty and steady Pierre Eyquem ; + MONTAiaNE'S ATBORDEAUX. HOUSE but more frequently he remained at his chateau, making the last corrections in his Essays. He seems to have concluded his work in a way satisfactory to himself, and was ready to print a final edition, when, in September 1592, he was suddenly seized at Mon taigne with a quinsey, which from the first threatened to be fatal. He had no La Bo'etie near him to record the minute incidents of this crowning act of his ex istence. We know, however, one or two facts. For three whole days he lay perfectly conscious, but unable to utter a word. He was compelled to have recourse to the pen to express his wishes. The proper arrange ment of his worldly affairs occupied him a good deal. He had already made his will ; and one day he got up in his shirt, put on his morning gown, opened his cabinet, sent for all his valets and others to whom he had left legacies, and paid them in ready cash, "fore seeing the difficulties which his heirs would raise." At last, feeling his end approach, he begged his wife on a slip of paper to send for certain gentlemen, his neighbours, that he might say farewell to them. When they had arrived just as the priest was elevating the host — " this poor gentleman," says Pasquier, "leaped forward as well as he was able on his bed, with his hands clasped; and in this last act gave up his soul to God: which was a fine mirror of the interior of his mind." It is worth adding, that when Charron suddenly died in the streets, he performed a similar act of adoration. The exact date of Montaigne's de parture from this life was the 13th of September ; and

his exact age was fifty-nine years, six months, and three days. He was buried at first at Montaigne, but his ashes were afterwards removed to the chapel of the Feuillans at Bordeaux, where they still remain. When I went to see the tomb, still in excellent preservation, with the effigies and inscription intact, that quarter of the city was filled with pestilence, and none not im pelled by necessity would visit it. The narrow streets and irregular places were thronged with the heedless or pious poor; but the College, which occupies the Convent of the Feuillans, was left without a single pupil —all having fled. I could not help approving the prudence of Montaigne for holding aloof from such a dismal quarter. To see the monument you must pass under a street through a gloomy tunnel leading to the chapel. A hurried glance satisfied me. What need is there to describe a tomb, or copy its pompous language ? I have already mentioned the marriage of Leonore, Montaigne's only daughter, her departure with her husband, and the birth of her child. That she was "a very virtuous lady," as Pasquier says, there can be no doubt ; but from the suppressed complaints of Mon taigne in his Essays, we must suppose he was not quite satisfied with her. He once wished for a son-in-law to aid him in managing his estate; but M. de la Tour does not seem to have given him any assistance. The reader will not, therefore, follow the fortunes of Leonore with much interest. She became a widow after some years ; and in 1608 again married " at Montaigne, 316 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST.

Charles de Gamaches, Vicomte de Raimont." Her daughter by her first husband was affianced in 1600, being only nine years of age, to a Dusa, and afterwards died in childbirth, leaving a son, killed in 1639 at the siege of Salse, without leaving any posterity. But in 1610, Leonore de Gamaches had another daughter, Marie, " held over the font," as she notes herself, " by her grandmother, Madame de Montaigne." Leonore died in 1616; but Marie de Gamaches lived until 1683, and left three daughters, the youngest of which she made her heir. This last, Claude Magdeleine de Lur-Saluce, was married to M. Isaac de Segur, and her descend ants were lords of Montaigne up to the beginning of the present century. I think it unnecessary to trace the vicissitudes of the property, and shall only say that, as has been ingenuously remarked, " the heritage of this hater of law-proceedings gave rise to disputes which lasted more than a century." As I have had occasion to mention, Antoinette de Louppes, wife of Pierre Eyquem, actually survived her son nine years. Franchise de la Chassagne, on the other hand, survived her daughter Leonore eleven years, and died only in 1627. She seenjs to have been a good, amiable woman, who, though not capable of appreciating all the value of Montaigne, did her best to do honour to his memory. How different from Leonore, whose husband was the chief heir to the pro perty ! The first thing she did was to give away all his books, leaving not a single one at the chateau. Forty years afterwards this library was sold publicly ; and a copy of the " History of the Kings of Poland" exists with the following note inserted : " Bought at Bordeaux from the library of the late Michel de Mon taigne, author of the Essays, June 3, 1633." As might have been expected, many, perhaps most, of the books have been dispersed and lost ; but several dozen volumes have from time to time appeared, not only with Montaigne's signature on the title-page, but with manuscript notes by him, and even in one or two cases the elaborate judgments which he used some times to insert at the end when he had finished reading.

Montaigne would not leave to his daughter Leonore the right to wear his arms, but transferred that right to his faithful friend and disciple Charron. On the other hand and this is a striking instance of how firm, though short, was the friendship between these two men —when Charron died he bequeathed all his property, with the exception of a few legacies, to the sister and brother-in-law of Montaigne, M. and Madame de Camein. Meanwhile, Mademoiselle de Gournay had been left an orphan in 1591, at the age of twenty-five. She inherited a very small fortune some two thousand — — francs a-year with which she came to reside in Paris, determined to devote herself to learned pursuits. Her best solace in her loneliness was correspondence with Montaigne. That correspondence suddenly ceased ; and then a letter arrived from Francoise de la Chassagne, containing an account of Montaigne's death, and it would appear an urgent request, in compliance with his last wishes, that Marie should take charge of his literary reputation. He had forgotten to leave his books to her ; and all his property was eagerly seized by his heirs. But he had pointed out to the good Franchise two copies of the quarto edition of the Essays, 1588, most elaborately prepared for the press,

almost exact reproductions one of the other, and with about one-third additional matter on the margin. These he had told her to submit to Marie, the only person he knew in whose literary judgment and de votion to his memory he could confide. Pasquier would have erased his Gascon phrases, and polished his periods ! As soon as Marie received this letter, she abandoned all her business and occupation in Paris ; and though war raged over the country, and soldiers and marauders infested the roads, resolutely journeyed alone nearly across the whole of France to Montaigne. Here she found and Leonore. She was Franchise received most hospitably, and appears to have formed an attachment at once for " her sister by alliance," Leonore, whom she represents as somewhat touched by love of the Muses. But Marie was ready to be charmed with anything that belonged to Montaigne. When the first moments of grief had passed, she at once set about her duties as literary executrix. For fifteen months she remained at Montaigne, ex amining the materials left for the final edition of the Essays, translating the classical quotations, writing notes, preparing prefaces. Who can refuse to love DEATH OF MONTAIGNE.

319 this delightful young woman engaged in such a work ? Her enthusiam is contagious. The Essayist rises in our estimation when we see him 'the object of such posthumous worship. "Montaigne wrote this book; Apollo conceived it!" Such is the learned devise which Marie selected to be engraved on the frontis piece of her edition . Francoise de la Chassaigne, who, as I have said, if she did not relish the Essays, understood that her husband was a great man, and was resolved to do her best for his memory, gave one of the revised copies of the Essays to Marie, and deposited the other in the library of the Community of the Feuillans at Bordeaux. The latter remained unnoticed until the last century, when Anisson Duperron endeavoured in vain to obtain it from the monks, who would not part with it on any account. At the time of the Revolution it became the property of the city of Bordeaux, and still exists in the public library, where it has often been consulted with profit. The copy given to Marie de Gournay, though it can be traced long after it left her possession, has now disappeared ; but it was probably reproduced exactly in her edition. We may feel quite sure that she never wilfully altered a word or a letter that Montaigne had written. Immediately on returning to Paris she began to print a folio edition, which was not, however, ready until 1595. We do not know who defrayed the ex penses, but it seems probable that the enthusiastic girl made the venture herself.

320 MONTAIGNE THE ESSAYIST. Marie de Gournay lived to be old, and, conse quently, ridiculous. The wits and the debauches of another age, neither understanding her nor Montaigne, satirised her, slandered her, and played off practical jokes upon her. She made the mistakes of remaining simple and virtuous, of living with a humble friend as a servant, and of having a cat. Consequently, she was fit to be a butt. I have not now the heart to follow her through her whole career, not merely be cause she was often miserable and sometimes ill-used ; but because, whatever may have been her talents, they were a little out of season and unsuccessful. She failed in her ardent pursuit of a literary reputation, although no one now denies that she in some respects deserved a better fate. But she retains an undeniable claim on the grati tude of posterity. For more than half a century she fought for the reputation of Montaigne, and did much to establish it. One fervent disciple is worth ten thou sand advertisements. Marie made the Essays known, and defended them against all attacks. Almost towards the middle of the next century, when any one ventured to criticise this work of another age, the indefatigable old maid was ready to come forward and say that she had seen and conversed with Montaigne, and, despite all changes in taste, considered him the greatest man France had produced, and to announce that she was ready to defend his reputation at the peril of any hostile critic. In 1635, forty years after the appearance of her first edition, Marie de Gournay brought out another

in a magnificent style, dedicated to the Cardinal de Richelieu, who deserves more credit than has been given him for the protection he afforded to Montaigne's daughter by adoption. This was the twenty-fifth repro duction of the Essays, but most of the others had been pirated by the printers of Lyons and Paris, and were often full of gross errors. Mademoiselle de Gournay had been granted the exclusive right to print Montaigne in 1633, and by disposing of it to the publisher Camuset she recovered some of the money she had spent.I think this is all that it is necessary for me now to say. I have endeavoured to describe the career of Montaigne from beginning to end, not in an anti quarian or bibliographical spirit ; but in such a way as to throw light on the Essays, and prepare the student better to relish them. VOL. II. Y

NOTE ON THE MATERIALS FOE THE LIFE OF MONTAIGNE. In these volumes I have not thought it advisable to encumber the foot of the page with notes and refer ences. To have done so would have been to increase their bulk beyond all measure. I believe I may sayI have neglected no source of information, and that all facts bearing directly or indirectly on the life of Montaigne have been, if not used, at any rate examined by me. The Essays are, and must remain, the chief au thority. But as they are not professedly autobiogra phical, great caution is required in their use. I have endeavoured to steer clear of an error into which all, or nearly all, biographers and critics of Montaigne have fallen — the error, namely, of accepting his tes timony implicitly with respect to his own moral and intellectual qualities, as well as with respect to matters of fact. To modify such testimony, however, requires so accurate a knowledge of human nature, that I dare not venture to hope I have been always just. But it is more glorious to fail in discovering how many scruples of self-love entered into every ounce of Mon taigne's statements, than to cite with unerring ac curacy the Essay and the Book in which he informs us that he was "an enemy to falsehood" and "a hater of calumny." The Charybdis of this Scylla is the temptation to appear profound, by suggesting bad in stead of mixed and moderate motives; but self-love has preserved me from the belief that mankind is a rascal. Besides, I admit that I have a personal affection for Montaigne, so that after all I may have erred on the side of tenderness and credulity. But I have even ventured sometimes to dispute the Essayist's statements of fact, and have endeavoured to maintain my views, either by extraneous testimony or by comparing passages which had not hitherto been placed side by side. In less important cases I have not given the process of reasoning by which I have re established what appears to me to be the truth. But I have always written with perfect recollection that there is a body of men in France who absolutely call them selves " Moutaignologues," who have erected the study of their hero into a scientific pursuit, and who will have no mercy on any blunder or any false infer ence. I fearlessly challenge their criticism, because, although they may point out some errors and so earn — — my gratitude I am persuaded that this book, in the main, is solidly built as far as matter of fact goes. In England, no doubt, there are also many who have

324 NOTE. made Montaigne the study of half their lives, and on their ear any false note will grate. I may add, that if 1 had adopted the discussional tone, quoted documents, drawn elaborate inferences, piled up in genious doubts in order to overthrow them by irre — fragable testimony published my notes, in fact — I might have produced half-a-dozen volumes and been sure of the approval of a dozen erudites, and of the deserved neglect of the English public. Mere refer ences would have been unintelligible and bewildering without argument. Neither in French nor English does there exist, properly speaking, a Life of Montaigne. Dr. Payen has pronounced that it is as yet impossible to write one ; and will, perhaps, think my attempt bold. But he undervalues his own labours. What he has dis covered, with what he has provoked others to dis cover, seems to me sufficient. There is a limit at which curiosity ceases, even about the greatest men, except with enthusiasts. In 1845 I was writing this Biography of Montaigne, and published the first chapter in " Fraser's Magazine." But the materials existing were then meagre indeed. In 1846 Dr. Payen brought out his first pamphlet, " Documens Inedits ou pen Connus sur Montaigne ;" and since that time scarcely a year has passed that he has not succeeded in disinterring new materials. His enlight ened industry has been emulated by MM. Gustave Brunet, Viel-Castel, Jubinal, and many others ; and especially by M. Griin, who has brought out a really valuable series of researches on what he calls "The Public Life " of Montaigne. I have also found much useful matter in several little works by M. Leon Feugere, the editor of La Boetie. Indeed, the number of studies on the literary heroes of the sixteenth century in France is very great ; and if many exhibit a re markable absence of critical power, and a tendency to tread beaten tracks and repeat old errors, they can all be consulted with profit.

MM. Guizot, Villemain, Sainte-Beuve, and Phi­larete Chasles, have all written eloquently and authori tatively about Montaigne. I have read their pages with admiration and respect. The histories of MM. Michelet and Henri Martin have been of great use to me. I have also run through a number of purely Catholic histories and studies, and have thus been made acquainted with an amount of literary dishonesty and perverse distortion of facts which would have previously appeared to me incredible. An enormous list might be made out of eloges and appreciations of Montaigne, but they rarely contain more than an attempt to characterise, in an absolute and definitive manner, a man who seems to me too vast to be reflected in the limited mirror they hold up. Besides these, there have been a series of ill-judged attempts on the part of writers more pious than critical, to rescue Montaigne from the condemnation of Pascal and Malebranche, and prove him to be an excellent Catholic. Few are content with citing the

326 NOTE. Pilgrimage to Loretto. It seems, no doubt, more fascinating to reproduce the subtle casuistry of the Maestro del Sacro Palazzo. But when we have read all that has been written — about Montaigne a small library in itself we feel that, though we know multitudes of facts, the true character of the man, as we faintly conceived it when we first read the Essays, has been tampered with somewhat. The Montaigne of Pascal and Malebranche is an esprit fort of the seventeenth century; the Montaigne of Bayle is a gentlemanly sceptic ; the Montaigne of the Voltaireans is a scoffer ; the Montaigne of the Abbe 4 Laborderie is a Capuchin Friar ; the Montaigne of Mr. Emerson is Mr. Emerson himself; the Montaigne of Dr. Payen is the property of Dr. Payen ; and the Mon taigne of M. Grun is a Prefet of the Gironde. I have endeavoured to escape from the influence of these individual conceptions by wide excursions through the literature of the sixteenth century; and in all directions I have found materials that might be turned to imme diate use. Rabelais and the Satire Menippee ; Marot and Ronsard, and the whole Pleiad; de Francois Sc,epeaux and Marguerite of Navarre ; Pasquier and De Thou, with L'Etoile, Brantome, d'Aubigne, Du­plessis-Mornay, the Memoirs of Guise, Palma Cayet, Montluc, du Bellay, Vieilleville, the Dictionary of Verdier, the correspondence of Lipsius, the histories of Bordeaux, all contain passages more or less illustra tive of the Life and Character and Literary Value of

Montaigne ; and it is necessary to read all these, and many more, in order to be able to live freely in the same atmosphere with him. A good edition of the works of Montaigne, including the Travels, was brought out some years back by Mr. Hazlitt, with a sketch of the author's life —the most complete published up to that time. I have myself commenced a translation of the Essays, with the object of seeing whether they could be made more acceptable to modern readers than they now are. THE END. London:—Printed by G. Rabclat, Castle St. LeicesterS<1.</text>

<title>Texts:Top