MONTAGU 



5498 



MONTAIGNE 



in 1731-34 for the 2nd duke of 

 Montagu, from whose family it 

 passed by marriage to the Buc- 

 cleuchs in 1767. Practically all the 

 materials of the original structure 

 were ground down into concrete 

 for the foundations of its successor, 

 which in Dec., 1916, was comman- 

 deered by the government. 



Another Montagu House, now 

 22, Portman Square, W., and town 

 residence of Viscount Portman, 

 was designed by James Stuart for 

 Elizabeth Montagu (q.v.), who held 

 her literary salons here. It was built 

 about 1775-81. A fourth house of 

 this name was built in Bloornsbury 

 by Robert Hooke in 1675-79 for 

 Ralph, 3rd baron, and later 1st duke 

 of Montagu. Destroyed by fire in 

 1686, it was rebuilt by Puget. 

 When the 2nd duke built a new 

 house at Whitehall, the Blooms- 

 bury structure came into the hands 

 of Lord Halifax, who sold it to the 

 government in 1754 for 10,250. 

 Its site is now occupied by the 

 British Museum (q.v. ). See History 

 of the Squares of London, 1907 ; 

 and Private Palaces of London, 

 J908, E. B. Chancellor. 



Montagu Square. London 

 square. Between Upper George 

 Street and Montagu Place, W., on 

 the Portman estate, it was named 

 after Elizabeth Montagu (q.v.). 

 Built 1800-13, on ground once 

 called Ward's Field, the site of 

 Apple Village, its residents have 

 included the mother of the 1st 

 Baron Lytton, Anthony Trollope, 

 and Sir Frederick Pollock. 



Montaigne, MICHEL D'EYQUEM, 

 SIEUR DE (1533-92). French 

 essayist. He was born Feb. 28, 

 1533, at the Chateau de Montaigne, 

 near Bordeaux, in Perigord, a 

 property bought by his great- 

 grandfather, Raymond Eyquem. 

 Montaigne thought the Eyquems 

 intermarried with English residents 

 in Guienne in the time of the 

 Plantagenets. His great-grand- 

 father and grandfather were mer- 

 chants and exporters of wine, 



| woad, and dried fish ; hence the 

 gibe of Joseph Scaliger that 



| Montaigne was the son of a 

 herring-monger. The essayist's 

 father, Pierre d'Eyquem, followed 

 Francis I to Italy and returned 

 to Bordeaux when 33 to marry, 

 take up the duties of alderman 

 and mayor, carry on business as a 

 wine-seller, rebuild the chateau, 

 and help to found the college of 

 Guienne. Pierre married Antoin- 

 ette de Lopes, a lady of Jewish 

 blood. Michel was their third son, 

 and one of his brothers and two 

 of his sisters were Protestants. . 



In accord with his father's views 

 on education, Michel was put out 

 to nurse with a peasant woman, 



taught Latin by tutors who knew 

 no French, and early encouraged 

 to read Virgil, Ovid, Terence, and 

 Plautus. He was sent to the 

 college of Guienne, where George 

 Buchanan was one of his teachers, 

 and studied law, probably at 

 Toulouse. He became a magistrate 

 and attended the court of Francis 

 II. His friendship, 1557-63, with 

 Etienne de la Boetie, a young re- 

 publican thinker, with whom he 

 thought to seek a new home on 

 the other side of the Atlantic, had 

 a lasting effect on his character. 



from a contemporary portrait 



La Boetie left Montaigne his 

 library, and appointed him his 

 literary executor. Shortly after 

 his marriage to Fran9oise de la 

 Chassaigne, by whom he had five 

 children, four of whom died in 

 infancy, only a daughter surviving, 

 Montaigne succeeded to the family 

 estate, was made a knight of the 

 order of S. Michael, and, giving 

 up his magistracy, designed to live 

 in retirement, for which purpose 

 he built the famous tower con- 

 taining his study. But he served as 

 gentleman of the chamber to 

 Henry III and Henry of Navarre, 

 and had some experience of a 

 military life. 



A sufferer from stone, he sougLc 

 recovery by a visit to the baths of 

 Lucca, and in 1580-81 travelled 

 to Italy by way of Switzerland and 

 Germany, chiefly on horseback. In 

 March, 1581, he was made a 

 Roman citizen. Recalled from 

 travel by his election as mayor of 

 Bordeaux, he was re-elected and 

 retained office until 1585. During a 

 visit to Paris in 1588 he met Mile. 

 Marie le Jars de Gournay, a lady of 

 noble family and some learning, 

 who became his literary executrix. 



During his later years he formed a 

 friendship with Anthony Bacon, 

 brother of Francis, and Pierre 

 Charron. He died of quinsy, Sept. 

 13, 1592, receiving the last offices 

 of the Church. His remains, buried 

 near the chateau, and removed a 

 few months later to the conventual 

 church of S. Antoine, were, in 

 March, 1886, reinterrecl in the new 

 university buildings at Bordeaux. 



Montaigne's first literary work 

 was a translation, for his father, 

 of the Theologia Naturalis of 

 Raimond Sebond, 1568 ; it served 

 as the text of one of his essays, 

 the first two books of which ap- 

 peared in 1580 ; a second edition 

 came out in 1582, a third in 1587, 

 and a fourth, with book 3, in 

 1588. Of two copies of the 1588. 

 issue, annotated by Montaigne, one 

 provided the material for that 

 brought out by Marie de Gournay 

 in 1595. Montaigne's Journal de 

 Voyage, written in part by a 

 secretary and in part by himself, 

 was discovered in MS. at the 

 Chateau de Montaigne in 1769-70 

 and, edited by M. de Querlon, was 

 first printed in 1774. He had 

 gone to Paris in 1570 to super- 

 intend the printing of the works 

 of La Boetie. 



Montaigne lived in an a g e dis- 

 tracted by religious strife and 

 political upheaval. He, for the 

 most part, maintained the position 

 of onlooker; in religion a formal 

 adherent of the Church, at heart 

 religious without superstition, 

 tolerant without impiety. In civil 

 strife he sought also to avoid 

 extremes. His standpoint was one 

 of provisional doubt ; his attitude 

 to all knowledge was Quescais-je ? 

 (What know I ?). To him the 

 quest of truth was more engaging 

 than its possession ; the greatest 

 virtue was sincerity. Cicero, Plu- 

 tarch, Seneca, Diogenes Laertius, 

 Horace, Plato, Virgil, and Lucretius 

 are the authors most frequently 

 quoted by him. The first of 

 essayists in point of time, a prince 

 of egoists who veils his personality 

 and is apt to hide his serious 

 thought in his self-portraiture, he 

 was a founder of modern criticism, 

 and has exerted much influence on 

 his successors. As a writer he dis- 

 plays wit and a happy humour 

 even when, as in his travel jour- 

 nal, writing in physical pain. In 

 his private life he was a devoted 

 son, and as husband and father 

 was more devoted than his phil- 

 osophy would seem at first sight 



to allow. W. F. Aitken 



Bibliography. Essais, ed. E. 

 Courbet and C. Royer, 4 vols., 1872- 

 1900 ; English trans. John Florio, 

 1603, ed. H. Morley, 1885, and T. 

 Seccombe, 1908-9 ; and Charles 

 Cotton,- 1685, ed. W. Hazlitt, 1842, 



