How to Live

by Sarah Bakewell

  5 “Our life is part folly,” and the Bèze and Saint-Gelais quotes: III:5 822–3. Bèze, T. de, Poemata (Paris: C. Badius, 1548), f. 54v. Saint-Gelais, “Rondeau sur la dispute des vits par quatre dames,” in Oeuvres poétiques françaises, ed. D. H. Stone (Paris: STFM, 1993), I:276–7.

  6 Françoise de La Chassaigne and her family: Balsamo, J., “La Chassaigne (famille de)” and “La Chassaigne, Françoise de,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 566–8. On Françoise and the marriage: Insdorf, 47–58. Montaigne on Aristotle’s ideal age: II:8 342. Source is Aristotle, Politics VII:16 1335a. Montaigne recorded Françoise’s birth date in his Beuther Ephemeris diary, as well as their marriage: entries for Dec. 13 and Sept. 23, respectively.

  7 “Wives always have a proclivity”: II:8 347.

  8 “I admonish … my family”: II:31 660.

  9 Socrates and the water-wheel: III:13 1010. Source is Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, II:36. Socrates’s use of his wife’s temper as philosophical practice: II:11 373.

  10 Description by Gamaches: Gamaches, C., Le Sensé raisonnant sur les passages de l’Escriture Saincte contre les pretendus réformez (1623), cited Frame, Montaigne 87. Her correspondence with Dom Marc-Antoine de Saint-Bernard: Frame, Montaigne 87–8.

  11 Françoise’s tower: Gardeau and Feytaud 21.

  12 “My thoughts fall asleep”: III:3 763.

  13 “The husband and wife must have separate bedrooms”: Alberti, L. B., On the Art of Building, tr. J. Rykwert, N. Leach and R. Tavernor (Boston, MA, 1988), 149, cited Hale 266.

  14 “Whoever supposes”: I:38 210. On differing opinions of the marriage, see Lazard 146.

  15 “Let us let them talk” and “I have, so I believe”: Montaigne’s epistle to his wife for La Boétie’s translation of Plutarch’s Lettre de consolation, in La Boétie, La Mesnagerie [etc.] and in The Complete Works, tr. D. Frame, 1300.

  16 Montaigne’s remarks on his marriage: III:5 783–6.

  17 “I have often heard the author say”: F. de Raemond’s marginalia in his copy of the Essays, cited in Boase, “Montaigne annoté par Florimond de Raemond,” 239, and in Frame, Montaigne 93, from which this translation is taken.

  18 “Aman … should touch his wife prudently,” and curdling sperm: III:5 783. Kings of Persia: I:30 179. On such theories, see Kelso, R., Doctrine for the Lady of the Renaissance (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956), 87–9.

  19 Better for a wife to pick up licentiousness from someone else: I:30 178. Women prefer that anyway: III:5 787.

  20 Ideal marriage similar to ideal friendship: III:5 785. But not freely chosen, and women not “firm”: I:28 167.

  21 “Wounded to the heart”: Sand, G., Histoire de ma vie (Paris: M. Lévy, 1856), VIII: 231. On women’s education, and Louise Labé: Davis, N.Z., “City women and religious change,” in Davis, Society and Culture 72–4. It has been suggested that Labé was a pseudonym for a group of male poets: Huchon, M., Louise Labé: une créature de papier (Geneva: Droz, 2006).

  22 “Women are not wrong”: III:5 787–8. “Males and females are cast”: III:5 831. The double standard: III:5 789. “We are in almost all things unjust”: III:5 819.

  23 “We should have wife, children, goods”: I:39 215.

  24 Entries on the deaths of children: from Montaigne, Le Livre de raison, entries for Feb. 21, May 16, June 28, July 5, Sept. 9, and Dec. 27.

  25 Montaigne on the loss of his children: I:14 50. The dating of his riding accident: II:6 326. “In the second year”: Montaigne’s dedicatory epistle to his wife for La Boétie’s translation of Plutarch’s Lettre de consolation in La Boétie, La Mesnagerie [etc], and in The Complete Works, tr. D. Frame, 1300–1.

  26 “I see enough other common occasions for affliction”: I:14 50.

  27 Essay on sadness: I:2 6–9. Date of 1572–74 given by Donald Frame in his edition of The Complete Works, p.vii. Niobe: I:2 7. The story comes from Ovid, Metamorphoses VI: 304.

  28 Léonor: see Balsamo, J., “Léonor de Montaigne,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 575–6.

  29 “The government of women,” the fouteau story, and Léonor’s “backward constitution”: III:5 790. Punishment by gentle stern words: II:8 341.

  30 “I handle the cards”: I:23 95. The game of meeting at extremes: I:54 274.

  31 “It is pitiful”: III:9 882. “There is always something”: III:9 880. “Fermenting wine”: II:17 601. On bad harvests, plague, and his using influence to sell wine: Hoffmann 9–10.

  32 “I stand up well”: II:17 591. Never studied a title deed: III:9 884.

  33 “I cannot reckon”: II:17 601.

  34 Negative catechism: cf. I:31 186.

  35 Admiring practical and specific knowledge: III:9 882–3. “Having had neither governor nor master” and “Extremely idle, extremely independent”: II:17 592. “Freedom and laziness”: III:9 923.

  36 Better to lose money than track every penny: II:17 592. Misers often swindled too: III:9 884. The marquis du Trans story: II:8 346. Montaigne does not name him; he was identified as such by Raemond in a marginal note. See Boase, “Montaigne annoté par Florimond de Raemond.”

  37 “Nothing costs me dear,” and wanting a son-in-law: III:9 883–4. “I avoid subjecting myself”: III:9 897. “I try to have no express need”: III:9 899. “I have conceived a mortal hatred”: III:9 900.

  38 Hippias of Elis: III:9 899. The story comes from Plato, Hippias minor 368 b–d, and Cicero, De oratore III:32 127.

  39 Nietzsche’s “free-spirited people”: Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, Aphorism 291, 173–4.

  9. Q. How to live? A. Be convivial: live with others

  1 “There are private, retiring, and inward natures” and “My essential pattern”: III:3 758.

  2 Conversation better than books: I:17 59. “The sharp, abrupt repartee”: III:8 871. “Wonderful brilliance”: I:26 140.

  3 “No propositions astonish me”: III:8 855. He likes being contradicted: III:8 856–7. Sweet conversation: Raemond, Erreur populaire 159. No “waiting on people”: III:3 758.

  4 Small talk bores him: II:17 587. His attention wanders: III:3 754. But he sees its value: I:13 39.

  5 Affability an art for living well: III:13 1037. “Gay and sociable wisdom”: III:5 778.

  6 Goodwill: Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, Aphorism 49, p. 48.

  7 Foix family: see Balsamo, J., “Foix (famille de),” in Desan, Dictionnaire 405–8. The man who threw too many parties: II:8 344. The man who blew his nose: I:23 96. Montaigne’s contemporary Florimond de Raemond identified them as Jean de Lusignan and François de La Rochefoucauld, respectively: see Boase, “Montaigne annoté par Florimond de Raemond.” Female dedicatees: Diane de Foix, comtesse de Gurson (I:26), Marguerite de Gramond (I:29), and Mme d’Estissac (II:8).

  8 He organized a deer hunt for Henri of Navarre in 1584: see Montaigne, Le Livre de raison, entry for Dec. 19. On jousting: III:8 871. On indoor amusements: I:54 273. The puzzles were probably similar to those described in his near-contemporary Tabourot des Accords’s collection Bigarrures: Étienne Tabourot, sieur des Accords, Les Bigarrures (Rouen: J. Bauchu, 1591), [Book 1].

  9 Millet-tosser: I:54 274. Child born with part of another child attached: II:30 653–4. Hermaphroditic shepherd: II:30 654. Man without arms: I:23 95. “Monsters” contrary to habit, not nature: II:30 654.

  10 “I have seen no more evident monstrosity”: III:11 958.

  11 Business of the estate: see Hoffmann 14–15.

  12 Not knowing whether he would be murdered in his sleep: III:9 901.

  13 Botero: Botero, G., The Reason of State and the Greatest of Cities, tr. R. Peterson and P. J. and D. P. Waley (London, 1956), 279, cited Hale 426. “A porter of ancient custom”: II:15 567.

  14 Guarded houses suffered more attacks, with explanation from Seneca: II:15 567–8. Source is Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 68. Loeb edn II:47. No glory in robbing an open household: II:15 567. “Your valet may be of the party”: II:15 568.

  15 Soldiers d
isarmed by Montaigne’s open face: III:12 988–90.

  16 The attack in the forest: III:12 990–1. This is different from the hold-up in 1588 on his way to Paris, which is also related in the Essays.

  17 Stories of confrontation and submission: I:1 1–5.

  18 The stag: II:11 383. One critic, David Quint, sees this stag story as a primal scene replayed throughout the Essays but never finally resolved. Quint 63.

  19 Seeking and granting mercy without cringing: I:5 20. “Pure and clean confidence”: I:24 115.

  20 “When weapons flash”: III:1 739. Source is Lucan VII:320–2.

  21 Epaminondas: II:36 694–6, I:42 229, II:12 415, and (for “in command of war itself”) III:1 738. See Vieillard-Baron, J.-L., “Épaminondas,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 330.

  22 “Let us take away”: III:1 739.

  23 Cruelly hating cruelty: II:11 379. Hatred of hunting: II:11 383. Chicken or hare: II:11 379. On Montaigne and cruelty, see Brahami, F., “Cruauté,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 236–8, and Hallie, P. P., “The ethics of Montaigne’s ‘De la cruauté,’ ”in La Charité, R. C. (ed.), O un amy! Essays on Montaigne in Honor of Donald M. Frame (Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1977), 156–71.

  24 “Even the executions of the law”: II:11 380–1. “I am so squeamish”: III:12 992.

  25 Frenchmen and their other halves: I:31 193. “It is one and the same nature”: II:12 416.

  26 “There is a certain respect” and “I am not afraid to admit”: II:11 385.

  27 Pascal mocked Montaigne: Pascal, “Discussion with M. de Sacy,” in Pensées 188.

  28 Leonard Woolf on Montaigne and cruelty, and the drowning of the puppies: Woolf, L., 17–21.

  29 William James: James, W., “On a certain blindness in human beings,” from Talks to Teachers on Psychology (New York: Henry Holt, 1912), in The Writings of William James, ed. J. J. McDermott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 629–45. “Zest and tingle”: 629–31. Forgetting this is the worst error: 644–5.

  10. Q. How to live? A. Wake from the sleep of habit

  1 “I remember lying”: Woolf, V., Diary I:190 (entry for Sept. 8, 1918).

  2 Examples of divergent customs: I:23 98–9; I:49 263–5; II:12 431–2.

  3 “This great world”: I:26 141.

  4 Potatoes from the Americas: Hale 173.

  5 France’s colonial prospects and adventures: Knecht, Rise and Fall 287, 297–300 (Brazil), 392–4 (Florida).

  6 Montaigne’s conversation with the Tupinambá: I:31 193. His collection of Americana: I:31 187. The servant who knew Brazil, and others to whom he introduced Montaigne: I:31 182–4.

  7 Montaigne’s reading: López de Gómara, Historia de las Indias, translated into French by Martin Fumée in 1568 as Histoire generalle des Indes. Bartolomé de Las Casas, Brevisima relación de la destruccion de las Indias, translated into French as Tyrannies et cruautés des Espagnols … (1579). Thevet, A., Les Singularitez and Léry, J. de, Histoire d’un voyage fait en la terre du Brésil (La Rochelle: A. Chuppin, 1578). Anecdotes from Léry here taken from modern English translation: Léry, History of a Voyage. Elderly people without white hair: ibid. 56–7. Fighting for honor: ibid. 112–21. Cannibal feasts: ibid. 122–33. The human foot: ibid. 163–4. Léry felt safer: ibid. 169. Cannibalism in Sancerre: Léry, J. de, Histoire mémorable de la ville de Sancerre ([La Rochelle], 1574). On Léry, see Lestringant, F., Jean de Léry ou l’invention du sauvage, 2nd edn (Paris: H. Champion, 2005).

  8 Incas and Aztecs: III:6 842.

  9 “This is a nation”: I:31 186.

  10 “Once upon a time, there was no snake”: Kramer, S. N., History Begins at Sumer (New York, 1959), 222, cited Levin 10.

  11 Typee: Melville, H., Typee, cited Levin 68–9.

  12 Stoics: Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 90. Loeb edn II: 395–431. On Stoics and primitivism, see Lovejoy, A. O. and Boas, G., A Documentary History of Primitivism and Related Ideas, Vol. 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1934), 106–7.

  13 Wild fruit: I:31 185. The two cannibal songs: I:31 191–2. “Purely natural poetry”: I:54 276.

  14 Afterlife of cannibal love song: Chateaubriand, Mémoires d’outre-tombe, ed. M. Levaillant and G. Moulinier (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), 247–8 (Book VII, chap. 9), cited Lestringant 189. Kleist, Herder and Goethe: see Langer, U., “Montaigne’s ‘coulevre’: notes on the reception of the Essais in 18th-century Germany,” Montaigne Studies 7 (1995), 191–202, and Bouillier, La Renommée de Montaigne en Allemagne 30–1. On Goethe, see Bouillier, V., “Montaigne et Goethe,” Revue de littérature comparée 5 (1925), 572–93. On German stoves: Moureau, F., “Le Manuscrit du Journal de Voyage: découverte, édition et copies,” in Michel et al. (eds), Montaigne et les Essais 1580–1980, 289–99, this 297.

  15 “They burn the victims alive”: I:30 181.

  16 “I am not sorry”: I:31 189.

  17 Coste: Montaigne, Essais, ed. P. Coste (London, 1724, and La Haye, 1727). On Coste, see Rumbold, M.E., Traducteur Huguenot: Pierre Coste (New York: P. Lang, 1991). Marveling that he had to wait so long: e.g. Nicolas Bricaire de la Dixmerie, Eloge analytique et historique de Michel Montagne (Amsterdam & Paris: Valleyre l’aîne, 1781), 2. See Moureau, F., “Réception de Montaigne (XVIIIe siècle),” in Desan, Dictionnaire 859.

  18 Diderot, D., Supplément au voyage de Bougainville (1796). English translation by J. Hope Mason and R. Wokler in Diderot, Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 31–75. Follow nature to be happy: 52–3. On Diderot, see Schwartz, J., Diderot and Montaigne: the Essais and the Shaping of Diderot’s Humanism (Genèva: Droz, 1966).

  19 On Rousseau and Montaigne: see Fleuret, and Dréano. Rousseau’s copy of the Essais is now in the University of Cambridge Library.

  20 Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. “I see an animal”: 26. Harsh conditions make him strong: ibid. 27. Civilization makes him “sociable and a slave”: ibid. 31. Savages do not kill themselves: ibid. 43. Murder under a philosopher’s window: ibid. 47.

  21 Rousseau, Émile. See Fleuret 83–121.

  22 “I place Montaigne foremost”: this preface appears in the Neuchâtel edition but not in modern ones based on the Paris manuscript. It is included as an appendix to Angela Scholar’s translation: Rousseau, Confessions, 643–9, this 644. “This is the only portrait of a man”: preface to Paris version, Rousseau, Confessions 3.

  23 “I know men”: Rousseau, Confessions 5.

  24 Montaigne “bears the entire form of the human condition”: III:2 740.

  25 Contemporary accusations: Cajot, J., Plagiats de M. J. J. R[ousseau], de Genève, sur l’éducation (La Haye, 1766), 125–6. Bricaire de la Dixmerie, N., Eloge analytique et historique de Michel Montagne (Amsterdam & Paris: Valleyre l’aîne, 1781), 209–76, this 259.

  11. Q. How to live? A. Live temperately

  1 On early nineteenth-century responses, especially to Montaigne’s friendship with La Boétie, see Frame, Montaigne in France 17–23. Sand: Sand, G., Histoire de ma vie (Paris: M. Lévy, 1856), VIII: 230–1. Lamartine: “All that I admire in him,” “because it is you,” and “friend Montaigne”: Lamartine to Aymon de Virieu, May 21 [1811], July 26, 1810, and Nov. 9, 1809, respectively, in Lamartine I:290, I:235, I:178.

  2 On visits to the tower, see Legros. On the state of the château before nineteenth century: Willett 221.

  3 Compan and Gaillon: cited Legros 65–75.

  4 “I have no great experience”: II:12 520. “I like temperate and moderate natures”: I:30 177. “My excesses do not carry me very far away”: III:2 746. “The most beautiful lives”: III:13 1044.

  5 Lamartine turns against Montaigne: Lamartine to Aymon de Virieu, 21 May [1811], in Lamartine I:290. Sand “not Montaigne’s disciple”: George Sand to Guillaume Guizot, July 12, 1868, in Sand, G., Correspondance (Paris: Garnier, 1964–69), V: 268–9.

  6 On Tasso: II:12 441. Poetry requires “frenzy”: II:2 304. But “The archer who overshoots the target”: I:30 178.

  7 “No po
et”: Chasles, P., Etudes sur le XVIe siècle en France (Paris: Amyot, 1848), xlix. “Stoic indifference”: Lefèvre-Deumier, J., Critique littéraire (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1825–45), 344. On both, see Frame, Montaigne in France 15–16. “Moderation sees itself as beautiful”: Nietzsche, Daybreak 167 (Book IV, s. 361).

  8 On Renaissance ecstasy, see Screech 10.

  9 “Transcendental humors frighten me”: III:13 1044.

  10 Mediocrity: III:2 745. Human and subhuman: III:13 1044.

  11 Living appropriately: III:13 1037. “There is nothing so beautiful”: III:13 1039.

  12 West, R., Black Lamb and Gray Falcon (London: Macmillan, 1941), II:496–7.

  12. Q. How to live? A. Guard your humanity

  1 On the question of who was behind the attack on Coligny, see Holt 83–5. On the St. Bartholomew’s massacres in general, see Diefendorf, and Sutherland, N. M., The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew and the European Conflict 1559–72 (London: Macmillan, 1972). Montaigne says nothing about the massacres in the Essays, but he may have written about them in his diary, the Beuther Ephemeris—pages are missing for August 24 and October 3, the dates of massacres in Paris and Bordeaux, respectively. Perhaps he regretted what he had written and removed the pages, or perhaps his descendants did. See Nakam, Montaigne et son temps 192.

  2 The story of the Lussaults is quoted in Diefendorf 100–2. On purification by fire and water: Davies, N.Z., “The rites of violence,” in her Society and Culture 152–87, esp. 187.

  3 On the death toll, see Holt 94 and Langer, U., “Montaigne’s political and religious context,” in Langer (ed.), Cambridge Companion 14.

  4 The Bordeaux massacres: Holt 92–4. Singing and lutes in Orléans: Holt 93. Interpretation of children’s involvement, superhuman scale of events, and Roman medal: Crouzet II: 95–8. Charles IX’s medals: Crouzet II: 122–3.

  5 Jean La Rouvière: cited in Salmon, J. H. M., “Peasant revolt in Vivarais, 1575–1580,” in Renaissance and Revolt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 221–2. See Holt 112–14.