MONTAIGNE 



MONTALEMBERT 



281 





Montaigne exaggerated his friend's powers. How- 

 ever this may be, the memory of La Boetie, who 

 died at the age of thirty-two, was the one thought 

 that never failed to raise Montaigne alxjve him- 

 self, and that adds the one romantic touch to his 

 epicurean temper. 



Montaigne held the office of counsellor for about 

 thirteen years ; but of this period of his life, also, 

 no definite history has been recovered. From 

 incidental remarks of his own we gather that he 

 was familiar with the court of Francis II., that he 

 saw and greatly admired Mary Queen of Scots, and 

 that at some time or other he was ' gentleman of 

 the bedchamber in ordinary,' an office that did 

 not necessitate residence at court. From Charles 

 IX. he received the order of St Michel, instituted 

 by Louis XI., and once a coveted honour, but in 

 Montaigne's day somewhat faded in its lustre. At 

 the age of thirty-four he married Francoise de la 

 Chassaine, the daughter of one of his fellow-coun- 

 sellors in Bordeaux, though in taking the step he 

 a--ur>'s us that he merely yielded to convention, as 

 of his own inclination 'he would not have married 

 Wisdom herself.' As the times went, Montaigne 

 was a faithful and considerate husband ; but he 

 makes no secret that his wife held but a sub- 

 ordinate place in his thoughts. He lost ' two or 

 three' children (the expression is his own) in their 

 infancy, and was survived by one daughter, of 

 whom, as he speaks little in his writings, it may be 

 concluded that she was Ixmnd to him by no peculiar 

 tie of affection. A year after his marriage, at 

 the request of his father, he translated the Natural 

 History of Raymond de Selxind, a Spaniard, who 

 in the preceding century had professed theology, 

 philosophy, and medicine at Toulouse. This trans- 

 lation is noteworthy as lieing Montaigne's first 

 etlort in literature, and as having afterwards sup- 

 plied the text for one of his most famous essays, 

 the Apolpyie de Raymond Sebond, in which he 

 exhibits in all its hearings the full scope of his 

 seeptieal philosophy. Two years later lie published 

 certain literary remains of his friend La Boetie. 



In 1371, his two elder brothers lx?ing dead, Mon- 

 taigne succeeded his father in the family estate, 

 ami here till his death in 1502 he lived the life of a 

 country gentleman, varied only by a few visits to 

 Paris, and by eighteen months' travel in Germany, 

 Switzerland, and Italy. It was during this period 

 that he achieved his immortality. Finding on his 

 retirement to his chateau that some mental occupa- 

 tion was imperatively necessary to save him from 

 morbid fiincies, he began those Essais which were 

 to give him a place among the first names in 

 literary history. If we know few incidents regard- 

 ing this period of his life, we have at least the 

 minutest record of his entire surroundings, of his 

 daily manner of life, of his tastes, his habits, his 

 speculations and imaginings. In June 1580, partly 

 on account of his health, and partly from his strong 

 natural curiosity to know strange countries, he set 

 out on the prolonged coarse of travel alxive men- 

 tioned. His record of this journey, dictated to his 

 secretary, and partly written in his own hand in 

 French and Italian, was discovered in his chateau, 

 ami first published in 1774. While at the baths of 

 Lucca, the announcement came to him that he had 

 been unanimously elected mayor of Bordeaux. In 

 accordance with his distaste for practical life, he 

 at first refused the appointment, but at the instance 

 of his friends and on the command of Henry III. 

 he withdrew his declinatiire. The office, which 

 boil Wri held by his father before him, was of 

 high military as well as civil rank, his immediate 

 predecessor having l>een the Due de Biron, one of 

 the marshals of France. In spite of bis natural 

 indolence and indecision, he must have performed 

 bis duties to the satisfaction of the citizens, as they 



did him the unusual honour of re-election. Of his 

 last years the only circumstance deserving special 

 record is his relation with Mademoiselle de Gournay, 

 who won his heart by her enthusiastic admiration 

 of his essays when she was only nineteen. After a 

 meeting in Paris a romantic friendship sprang up 

 between them, which lasted till Montaigne s death ; 

 and it is to Mademoiselle de Gournay, his Jille 

 if alliance, as he called her, that we owe a valuable 

 edition of his Essais, inscribed by her to Cardinal 

 Richelieu in 1635. Montaigne in his later years 

 suttered much from stone and gravel, but at the last 

 he died of quinsy after a few days' illness in his 

 sixtieth year, 13th September 1592. Notwithstand- 

 ing the free expression of scepticism in his writings, 

 he devoutly received the last otiices of the church. 



The conclusive attestation to Montaigne's varied 

 power is the fact that three centuries after his death 

 the circle of his readers widens every year, and 

 that he has now almost as large a following of anti- 

 quaries as Shakespeare himself. Of his admirers 

 in every generation it has also to be remarked that 

 they are of all types of mind and creed, and that 

 among them are found men like Pascal, who, while 

 separated from him as by an abyss on all the funda- 

 mental problems of life, have acknowledged their 

 debt to his fearless and all-questioning criticism. 

 To have thus commanded tne attention of the 

 acutest intellects of every age since his own by 

 haphazard remarks, devoid of all method, and 

 seemingly inspired by the mere caprice of the 

 moment, could 1 the privilege only of a mind of 

 the highest originality, of the very broadest sym- 

 pathies, and of a nature capable of embracing and 

 realising the largest experience of life. In acliiev- 

 ing this distinction, what are reckoned among his 

 chief defects have doubtless stood him in as good 

 stead as his merits. His inconclusive philosophy, 

 his easy opinions on many points of morals, his 

 imperfectly developed sense of duty, the total 

 alwence of any heroic strain in his nature, were 

 but the necessarv conditions of that general attitude 

 towards men and things which make him the unique 

 figure he is in the history of European literature. 



There nre English translations of Montaigne by Florio 

 (q.v. ; new ed. by Saintslmry, 1893), and another by C. 

 Cotton ( q. v. ), revised by Hazlitt ( 1805 ; new ed. 1893 ). See 

 Lives by St John and Lucas Collins ; Emerson, Rcpresen- 

 t'ltive Men ; Mark Pattison, Exmi/s ( 1889) ; Dean Church, 

 Mictllaneou Essay ( 1888 ) ; AlphonseGrun, VicPublique 

 de Michel Montaiijne (IS'xj); 1'ayen, Documents Infills 

 ( 1847-50) ; and monographs by Bonnefon ( 1893 ) and Paul 

 Stapfer ((trawls Ecriminx, IBM). There are admirable 

 editions of the Esmti/s by Courbet anil Royer (B vols. 1873- 

 91), and by Moutheau and Jouaust (7 vols. 1880-88). 



HoiltalcillO, a cathedral city of Central Italy, 

 stands on a hill ( 1900 feet), 22 miles SSE. of Siena. 

 Pop. 2353. 



Moiitnlcinbrrt, CHARLES FORBES REN DE, 



liorn in London, May 15, 1810, was the eldest son 

 of a noble French (migri and his English wife. 

 His grandfather, Mr Forl>es, a retired Indian 

 merchant, living at Stanmore, near Harrow, had 

 charge of him from an early age, as his father went 

 back to France with the restored Bourbons and 

 was rewarded for his zeal in their service by being 

 named a peer of France and minister-plenipoten- 

 tiary to Stuttgart. When Charles was eight years 

 old he was sent to school at Fulham, but was 

 there for a very short time, as the following year 

 his grandfather died, and he went to his parents in 

 Pans. He was fourteen when the head of the Col- 

 lege St Barbe induced them to place him under a 

 regular course of study. At sixteen he entered the 

 college, and left it at nineteen to join his father, 

 then ambassador at Stockholm. He returned to 

 Paris in 1829, and during a period of uncertainty as 

 to his future career occupied himself by writing au 



