How to Live

by Sarah Bakewell

  20 “In exchange for this serious work”: I:28 176. “These verses may be seen elsewhere”: I:29 177. The 29 sonnets, translated into English by R. P. Runyon, can be seen in Schaefer (ed.), Freedom over Servitude 223–35.

  21 Pléiade poets: La Boétie, “Of Voluntary Servitude,” 214. “But to return to our purpose”: ibid. 208. “But to return from where”: ibid. 215.

  22 Attribution to Montaigne: Armaingaud, A., “Montaigne et La Boétie,” Revue politique et parlementaire 13 (mars 1906), 499–522 and (mai 1906), 322–48, later developed in his Montaigne pamphlétaire: l’enigme du “Contr’Un” (Paris: Hachette, 1910). Schaefer, D. L., “Montaigne and La Boétie” in Schaefer (ed.), Freedom over Servitude 1–30, esp. 9–11; and his Political Philosophy of Montaigne. On Schaefer, see Supple, J., “Davis Lewis Schaefer: Armaingaud rides again,” in Cameron and Willett (eds), Le Visage changeant (259–75). Martin, D., “Montaigne, author of On Voluntary Servitude,” in Schaefer (ed.), Freedom over Servitude 127–88 (flute: 137).

  23 Impotence trick: I:21 83–4. Montaigne’s honesty: I:9 25–30. His dull-wittedness in games: II:17 600–1.

  24 Montaigne on La Boétie: Travel Journal, in The Complete Works, tr. D. Frame, 1207.

  25 Montaigne’s letter to his father was published in his edition of La Boétie’s works: La Boétie, La Mesnagerie [etc.]; also in The Complete Works, tr. D. Frame, 1276–88, from which all following quotations are taken.

  26 “His mind was modeled”: I:28 176.

  27 Montaigne and La Boétie’s disagreement about the experience of dying: II:6 327.

  28 “Nothing but dark and dreary night”: I:28 174. “I was overcome”: “Travel Journal,” in The Complete Works, tr. D. Frame, 1207 (entry for May 11, 1581). “I have missed such a man extremely” and “No pleasure has any savor”: III:9 917.

  29 Seneca on replacing friends: Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 9. Loeb edn I:45. “Some worthy man”: III:9 911. “Is it not a stupid humor”: III:3 755.

  30 “Joined and glued”: I:39 216.

  31 Inscription to La Boétie: a conjectural reconstruction was included in the Thibaudet edition of Montaigne’s works (Montaigne, Oeuvres completes, Paris: Pléiade, 1962). English versions are found in Starobinski, Montaigne in Motion tr. Goldhammer 311 (n.32) (used here) and Frame, Montaigne 80.

  32 Find an admirable man: Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 12. Loeb edn I:63. Live for others, and for a friend: ibid. Letter 48, I:315.

  33 “He is still lodged in me”: Montaigne, dedicatory epistle (to Henri de Mesmes) in his edition of La Boétie’s works, La Boétie, La Mesnagerie [etc.], in The Complete Works, tr. D. Frame, 1291.

  6. Q. How to live? A. Use little tricks

  1 On the combination of the Hellenistic philosophies in Montaigne and in general, see Hadot.

  2 Translations of eudaimonia and ataraxia: Nussbaum 15, except ataraxia as “freedom from disturbance and anxiety,” which comes from Popkin xv.

  3 Pacuvius: Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 12. Loeb edn I:71. Lucretius’s two possibilities, cited by Montaigne: I:20 78. Source is Lucretius, De rerum natura III: 938–42.

  4 Pretend you never had it: Plutarch, “In consolation to his wife,” Moralia. Loeb edn VII:610. Pretend you have lost it: Plutarch, “On Tranquillity of Mind,” Moralia. Loeb edn VI: 469–70.

  5 Seeing the world as it is: Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 78. Loeb edn II:199.

  6 Questions asked all of a sudden: Epictetus, Discourses II:16 2–3 and III:8 1–5, cited Hadot 85. Living “appropriately”: III:13 1037.

  7 “How good it is”: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. M. Hammond (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2006), 47 (VI:13). Flying up to the heavens: ibid. 120 (XII:24).

  8 “Place before your mind’s eye”: Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 99. Loeb edn III: 135.

  9 Eternal recurrence: This idea found in Nemesius De natura hominis XXXVII: 147–8, Plato, Timaeus 39d, and Cicero, De natura deorum II:20. See White, Michael J., “Stoic natural philosophy (physics and cosmology),” in Inwood, B. (ed.), Cambridge Companion to the Stoics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 124–52, and Barnes, J., “La Doctrine du retour éternel,” in Les Stoïciens et leur logique. Actes du colloque de Chantilly 18–22 septembre 1976 (Paris, 1978), 3–20. The idea was developed further by Friedrich Nietzsche: see e.g. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, s. 341, and Stambaugh, J., Nietzsche’s Thought of Eternal Return (Washington, DC: Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology & University Press of America, 1988).

  10 “Do not seek”: Epictetus, Manual VIII: as cited and translated in Hadot 136.

  11 “If I had to live over again”: III:2 751–2.

  12 Seneca’s asthma attacks: Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 54. Loeb edn I:363–5.

  13 Lycas and Thrasylaus: II:12 444. Lycas story from Erasmus, Adages no. 1981: “In nihil sapiendo iucundissima vita.” Thrasylaus story from Aelian, Various Histories IV: 25.

  14 “A painful notion”: III:4 770.

  15 Consoling the widow: III:4 765.

  16 “I was once afflicted”: III:4 769.

  17 “I let the passion alone”: III:4 769.

  18 “Gently sidestep”: III:5 775.

  19 Zaleucus: I:43 239. Source is Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica XII: V: 21.

  20 “Don’t bother your head”: III:12 979. “Our thoughts are always elsewhere” and “barely brushing the crust”: III:4 768.

  21 Pasquier to A. M. de Pelgé, 1619, in Pasquier, Choix de lettres 45–6, as translated in Frame, Montaigne 283. Raemond, Erreur populaire 159. Expilly, C., sonnet in Goulart edition of Montaigne’s Essais (1595), and in Poèmes (Paris: A. L’Angelier, 1596), cited in Boase, Fortunes 10.

  22 “We are, I know not how, double within ourselves”: II:16 570. The idea of an internalized La Boétie was first explored by Michel Butor in Essais sur les Essais (1968).

  23 Montaigne might have published letters instead: I:40 225. Master/slave relationship: Wilden, A., “Par divers Moyens on arrive à pareille fin: a reading of Montaigne,” Modern Language Notes 83 (1968), 577–97, esp. 590.

  24 “Assiduously collected”: Montaigne’s dedicatory epistle to La Boétie’s “Vers françois” in his edition of La Boétie’s works: La Boétie, La Mesnagerie [etc]. The epistle is in The Complete Works, tr. D. Frame, 1298.

  25 Sebond translation: II:12 387–8. The original was Sebond, R. de, Theologia naturalis, sive liber creaturarum (Deventer: R. Pafraet, 1484); translated by Montaigne as Sebond, Théologie naturelle (Paris: G. Chaudière, 1569). On Sebond, see Habert, M., “Sebond, Raimond,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 898–900.

  26 “Being by chance at leisure”: II:12 388. On the time he took, see Montaigne’s dedicatory epistle to his father, in The Complete Works, tr. D. Frame, 1289.

  27 “Apology for Raymond Sebond”: II:12 386–556. Marguerite de Valois apparently asked Montaigne to write it some time around 1578–79, after reading his translation. See E. Naya, “Apologie de Raimond Sebond,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 50–4, esp. 51. On this work in general, see Blum, C. (ed.), Montaigne: Apologie de Raymond Sebond: de la “Theologia” à la “Théologie” (Paris: H. Champion, 1990).

  28 “As the rope”: Cons, L., Anthologie littéraire de la Renaissance française (New York: Holt, 1931), 143, as translated in Frame, Montaigne 170.

  7. Q. How to live? A. Question everything

  1 Estienne: he tells this story in the introduction to his edition of Sextus Empiricus, Sexti Philosophi Pyrrhoniarum Hypotyposeon libri III, ed. H. Estienne. ([Geneva]: H. Stephanus, 1562), 4–5. Hervet’s encounter is related in Popkin 33–4.

  2 “I hold back”: II:12 454. On Pyrrhonian Skepticism as transmitted to and by Montaigne, see Bailey; Popkin; and Nussbaum.

  3 Grains of sand: Bailey 21–2.

  4 Three statements of the epokhe: Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Skepticism 49–51 (Book I: 196, 197, and 202 respectively).

  5 “If you postulate”: II:12 452.

  6 Moor
e, T., Poetical Works, ed. A. D. Godley (London: H. Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1910), 278.

  7 Stories about Pyrrho: II:29 647–8. Source for all these stories, both of his indifference and of his failure to maintain it, is Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers X:52–4.

  8 “He did not want to make himself a stump,” and “regimenting, arranging, and fixing truth”: II:12 454.

  9 Montaigne’s medals or jetons: one copy survives in a private collection. His own description of it: II:12 477. See Demonet, M.-L., A Plaisir: sémiotique et skepticisme chez Montaigne (Orléans: Editions Paradigme, 2002), esp. 35–77.

  10 “Soften and moderate”: III:11 959. The puniness of knowledge and the astoundingness of the world: III:6 841. “Unassumingness” and “Deep need to be surprised”: Friedrich 132, 130.

  11 “My footing is so unsteady”: II:12 516–17. On his changing opinions: II:12 514.

  12 Effects of fever, medicine, or a cold: II:12 515–16. Socrates raving: II:2 302 and II:12 500. “All philosophy … raving mad” and “The philosophers, it seems to me”: II:12 501.

  13 Animals see colors differently: II:12 550. We may need eight or ten senses: II:12 541–2. We may be cut off by our nature from seeing things as they are: II:12 553.

  14 “We, and our judgment”: II:12 553.

  15 “Become wise at our own expense”: II:12 514.

  16 “We must really strain our soul”: III:13 1034. Taking pleasure in memory lapses: III:13 1002.

  17 On the Church’s approval of Pyrrhonian Skepticism: Popkin 3–6, 34.

  18 “An extraordinary infusion”: II:12 390. Church had the right to police his thoughts: I:56 278.

  19 “Otherwise I could not keep myself”: II:12 521.

  20 Cats hypnotizing birds: in Montaigne’s time, an interest in such powers of the “imagination” often coincided with disbelief in witches and demons, for it provided an alternative explanation for strange phenomena. “I plunge head down”: III:9 902. This passage was criticized in Arnauld, A. and Nicole, P., La Logique ou l’art de penser (Paris: C. Savreux, 1662). See Friedrich 287. “Don’t crucify people”: Quint 74.

  21 Inquisition: “Travel Journal,” in The Complete Works, tr. D. Frame, 1166. On providence, see Poppi, A., “Fate, fortune, providence, and human freedom,” in Schmitt, C. et al. (eds), The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 641–67.

  22 Fortification against heresy: Raemond, Erreur populaire 159–60. “Beautiful Apology” and “Strange things of which we do not know the reason”: Raemond, L’Antichrist 20–1. On Raemond, see Magnien-Simonin, C., “Raemond, Florimond de,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 849–50.

  23 The parrotfish and other examples of cooperation: II:12 427–8. Mathematical tuna fish: II:12 428. Repentant elephant: II:12 429. The halcyon: II:12 429–30. Octopuses and chameleons: II:12 418.

  24 “A hare without fur or bones”: II:12 430–1.

  25 Bossuet, J.-B., Troisième Sermon pour la fête de tous les saints (1668), cited in Boase, Fortunes 414.

  26 Descartes on animals: Discourse 5 of his Discourse on Method (1637) is devoted to this subject. See Gontier, T., De l’Homme à l’animal: Montaigne et Descartes ou les paradoxes de la philosophie moderne sur la nature des animaux (Paris: Vrin, 1998), and his “D’un Paradoxe à l’autre: l’intelligence des bêtes chez Montaigne et les animaux-machines chez Descartes,” in Faye, E. (ed.), Descartes et la Renaissance (Paris: H. Champion, 1999) 87–101.

  27 “When I play with my cat”: II:12 401. “We entertain each other with reciprocal monkey tricks”: II:12 401n. This passage appeared in the posthumous 1595 edition and is excluded from some modern editions (see Chapter 18 above).

  28 “All of Montaigne”: Lüthy 28. The article: Michel, P., “La Chatte de Montaigne, parmi les chats du XVIe siècle,” Bulletin de la Société des Amis de Montaigne 29 (1964), 14–18. The dictionary entry: Shannon, L., “Chatte de Montaigne,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 162.

  29 “The defect” and “We have some mediocre understanding”: II:12 402.

  30 Descartes’s crisis by the stove: Descartes, Discourse on Method 35–9 (Discourse 2).

  31 Descartes’s argument is put forward in his Discourse on Method and Meditations. “Everything I perceive clearly and distinctly cannot fail to be true”: Meditations 148–9 (Meditation 5).

  32 “The Meditation of yesterday”: Descartes, Meditations 102 (Meditation 2).

  33 The evil demon: Descartes, Meditations 100 (Meditation 1). Demons in clouds, and altering threads of brain: Clark 163. God as deceiver: Descartes, Meditations 98 (Meditation 1). See Popkin 187.

  34 “We are, I know not how”: II:16 570. “We have no communication with being”: II:12 553.

  35 Pascal’s “FIRE” notes, dated 1654: cited Coleman, F. X. J., Neither Angel nor Beast (New York & London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 59–60.

  36 “Spirit of geometry”: Pascal, B., De l’Esprit géométrique [etc.] (Paris: Flammarion, 1999).

  37 “The great adversary”: Eliot 157.

  38 Futility of fighting Pyrrhonism: Pascal, Pensées no. 164, p. 41.

  39 “He puts everything into a universal doubt” and “so advantageously positioned”: Pascal, “Discussion with M. de Sacy,” in Pensées 183–5.

  40 “Of all authors”: Eliot 157.

  41 “It is not in Montaigne”: Pascal: Pensées no. 568, p. 131.

  42 Montaigne: “How we cry and laugh”: I:38 208. Pascal: “Hence we cry and laugh”: Pascal, Pensées no. 87, p. 22. Montaigne: “They want to get out of themselves”: III:13 1044. Pascal: “Man is neither angel nor beast”: Pascal, Pensées no. 557, p. 128. Montaigne: “Put a philosopher in a cage”: II:12 546. Pascal: “If you put the world’s greatest philosopher on a plank”: Pascal, Pensées no. 78, p. 17.

  43 “A bad case of indigestion”: Bloom, H., The Western Canon (London: Papermac, 1996), 150. Borges, J. L., “Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote,” in Fictions (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1999), 33–43.

  44 “We have such a high idea”: Pascal, Pensées no. 30, p. 9. “It seems to me”: I:50 268.

  45 “Whoever looks at himself”: Pascal, Pensées no. 230, pp. 66–7. “On contemplating our blindness”: ibid. no. 229, p. 65.

  46 “What does the world think about?”: Pascal, Pensées no. 513, p. 123. “Human sensitivity to little things”: ibid. no. 525, p. 124.

  47 Voltaire: “On the Pensées of Pascal,” in his Letters on England, tr. L. Tancock (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980), Letter 25, 120–45. “I venture to champion humanity,” ibid. 120. “When I look at Paris,” ibid. 125. “What a delightful design”: ibid. 139.

  48 “I accept with all my heart”: III:13 1042.

  49 We cannot rise above humanity: II:12 556. “It is an absolute perfection …”: III:13 1044.

  50 “Convenience and calm,” and moral danger: Pascal, “Discussion with M. de Sacy,” in Pensées 188 and 191.

  51 Malebranche: Malebranche 184–90. “His ideas are false but beautiful”: ibid. 190. “The mind cannot be pleased”: 184.

  52 Montaigne the “seducer”: Guizot, Montaigne: études et fragments, cited Tilley 275. The “prodigious seduction machine”: Mathieu-Castellani, G., Montaigne: l’écriture de l’essai 255.

  53 “Thoughts which come naturally”: La Bruyère, J. de, Characters, tr. J. Stewart (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), Book I, no. 44, p. 34 (translation of Caractères, 1688).

  54 On the libertins, see Pessel, A., “Libertins—libertinage,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 588–9, and Montaigne Studies 19 (2007), which is devoted to the topic. On Marie de Gournay, see Dotoli, G., “Montaigne et les libertins via Mlle de Gournay,” in Tetel (ed.), Montaigne et Marie de Gournay 105–41, esp. 128–9. On La Fontaine, see Boase, Fortunes 396–406.

  55 La Rochefoucauld: La Rochefoucauld, F. de, Maxims, tr. L. Tancock (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959). “At times we are as different”: ibid. no. 135, p. 51. “The surest way to be taken in”:
ibid. no. 127, p. 50. “Chance and caprice”: ibid. no. 435, p. 88. “We often irritate others”: ibid. no. 242, p. 66.

  56 Bel esprit: “gay, lively, full of fire” is the definition given in Bohours, Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène (1671), 194, cited in Pessel, A., “Libertins—libertinage,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 589. Honnêteté: Académie definition as cited in Villey, Montaigne devant la postérité 339. See Magendie, M., La Politesse mondaine et les théories de l’honnêteté, en France, au XVII siècle (Paris: Alcan, 1925).

  57 “A witty coquetry”: Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, Aphorism 37, p. 41.

  58 “Freest and mightiest” and “That such a man wrote”: Nietzsche, “Schopenhauer as Educator,” in Untimely Meditations 135. “If I had to live over again”: III:2 751–2. On Nietzsche and Montaigne, see Donellan, B., “Nietzsche and Montaigne,” Colloquia Germanica 19 (1986), 1–20; Williams, W.D., Nietzsche and the French: A Study of the Influence of Nietzsche’s French Reading on His Thought and Writing (Oxford: Blackwell, 1952); Molner, David, “The influence of Montaigne on Nietzsche: a raison d’être in the sun,” Nietzsche Studien 22 (1993), 80–93; Panichi, Nicola, Picta historia: lettura di Montaigne e Nietzsche (Urbino: Quattro Venti, 1995).

  59 Arnauld and Nicole’s attack: Arnauld, A. and Nicole, P., La Logique ou l’art de penser (Paris: C. Savreux, 1662), and 2nd edn (Paris: C. Savreux, 1664). See Boase, Fortunes 410–11.

  60 Suppressed books are more marketable: III:5 781.

  61 “It is not in Montaigne”: Pascal, Pensées no. 568, p. 131.

  8 Q. How to live? A. Keep a private room behind the shop

  1 “I have never yet seen”: III:5 830. “I make advances”: III:3 755.

  2 Depressing to be accepted out of pity: III:5 828–9. Dislikes being troublesome: III:5 800. “I abhor the idea,” and the story of the frantic Egyptian: III:5 816. “In truth, in this delight”: III:5 828.

  3 “Only one buttock” and “sauce of a more agreeable imagination”: III:5 817.

  4 “In place of the real parts” and “What mischief”: III:5 791. “Even the matrons”: III:5 822. Source for latter is Diversorum veterum poetarum in Priapum lusus (Venice: Aldus, 1517), no. 72(1), f. 15v. and no. 7(4–5), f. 4v., adapted by Montaigne.