“The first modern man,”
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, is remembered for inventing a new literary
form in his Essais—a word that means
“attempts” and that consisted of his cogent observations on religion, love,
friendship, death, and his own psyche. “Modern” in the sense that he elevated
the individual human being to a position of pre-eminence in the scheme of
things, he said when his first book of essays was published, “I am myself the
matter of my book.”
Montaigne was born February 28, 1533, to a family
of minor nobility and major wealth at the Chateau de Montaigne near Bordeaux,
France, of which his father was mayor. He was tutored at home, and in the
aristocratic manner spoke only Latin until he was six. Every morning he was
awakened by a musician playing a zither or lute. He continued his education at the College of Guyenne and the
University of Toulouse, where he studied law. Following in his father’s footsteps, he became a member of
the Bordeaux local assembly.
A turning point in his
life was meeting Étienne de la Boétie, a judge and writer
of political philosophy, who became Montaigne’s closest friend and mentor. La
Boétie died of dysentery at the age of thirty-three, and Montaigne supervised
the posthumous publication of his works.
In
1565 Montaigne married Françoise
de la Chassaigne, daughter of a colleague in a wedding pre-arranged by his
family. They had six daughters, only one of whom survived to adulthood.
In 1571, Montaigne retired
from public life and devoted himself to writing his Essais. He set up a retreat in a round room in the family castle,
lined with thousands of books, where he worked in seclusion for most of every
day. The first two books of his Essais
were published in 1580. They reflected Montaigne’s skepticism of absolute
truths in matters of religion, philosophy, and politics. He is famous for posing
the rhetorical question Que sais-je?
(“What do I know?”)
Despite his skepticism,
Montaigne remained a loyal Roman Catholic who said daily prayers and was an
important moderating influence in the hostilities between Catholic and
Protestant factions in France. He served as mayor of Bordeaux and continued his
writing with a third book of Essais
published in 1587.
In his youth Montaigne was
terrified of death; not only had his friend La Boétie died
at an early age, Montaigne’s father succumbed to kidney stones shortly afterward,
and his younger brother had a fatal hemorrhage after being hit in the head by a
tennis ball. "With such frequent everyday examples passing before
our eyes," he wrote, "how could we possibly avoid thinking of death
and of how it constantly grips us by the throat?"
He got
over that fear in an out-of-body near-death experience in his thirties. He was
thrown off his horse and knocked unconscious in a collision with another rider.
As his friends rushed to help him, he began to cough up blood and clutch at his
chest. His own recollection, however, was that he was floating on a cloud of
pleasure. He concluded from this
experience that death was a natural occurrence and worrying about it was a
waste of time.
Montaigne
had much to say about death in his Essais.
In “To Study Philosophy Is to Learn to Die,” he wrote: “Of the many benefits
that virtue confers upon us, contempt for death is one of the greatest, as the
means by which human life acquires a gentle tranquility, and a pleasant taste
for living, without which no other pleasure would exist. The end of mankind is
death; it is a necessary goal. The ignorant do not think about it—but one must
take the bull by the horns and face it squarely. We can fight death by
disarming him of his strangeness if we are familiar with him and think about
him often. That will encourage and strengthen us, even as we remember in the
midst of our jollity and feasting, that we are frail beings.”
In 1578 Montaigne had an attack
of kidney stones, which continued to plague him for the rest of his life. He disdained the advice of local
physicians and sought cures during travels to Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.
It wasn’t the stones, however, but an attack of quinsy that caused his death on
September 23, 1592.
Quinsy, also known as
peritonsillar abscess, is a rare bacterial infection, resulting in a
concentration of pus between the tonsils and the throat wall. It is accompanied
by fever, sore throat, neck pain, swollen lymph nodes, paralysis of the tongue,
and eventually an inability to swallow or even to open the mouth. Afflicted
with these symptoms and sensing that death was near, Montaigne summoned several
friends and a priest, whom he asked to say mass. Montaigne tried to raise
himself up during the elevation of the consecrated host, and he died
immediately afterward. He was fifty-nine.
Montaigne was buried on
his estate, but after some months the remains were moved to a church in
Bordeaux. During the French Revolution, what was thought to be his coffin was
moved with much fanfare to a museum—but it was later discovered it was the
wrong coffin. Today, the Bordeaux Tourist Office says that Montaigne is buried
at the Musée Aquitaine in Bordeaux, but others sources say that tomb is a
cenotaph that does not contain the body, which is at the church of Foeuillens
in Bordeaux. It is also claimed by some that Montaigne’s heart is separately
interred in the parish church near his home in the town of
Saint-Michele-de-Montaigne.
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