How to Live

by Sarah Bakewell

  6 Imminent Apocalypse: see Cunningham and Grell 19–91, which also analyzes each “horseman” in turn. Werewolf, twins, and nova: Crouzet II: 88–91. “Final ruin”: Gournay, Apology for the Woman Writing [etc.] 138. Postel: Crouzet II: 335.

  7 The Devil’s last great effort: see Clark 321–6. Wier: Wier, J., De praestigis daemonum (Basel: J. Oporinus, 1564), cited in Delumeau, 251. Bodin and witches: Bodin, J., On the Demon-Mania of Witches, tr. R. A. Scott (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 1995), a translation of De la Démonomanie des sorciers (Paris: I. Du Puys, 1580), 200 (“legal tidiness”) and 198 (public rumor “almost infallible”). On revival of medieval techniques such as swimming and searing: Clark 590–1. The witch panic would remain at its height until around 1640, peaking at different times in different parts of Europe, and resulting in tens of thousands of deaths. Torture is useless: II:5 322–3. “Putting a very high price”: III:11 961.

  8 Antichrist: Africa/Babylon story reported in Jean de Nury’s Nouvelles admirables d’un enfant monstre (1587), cited Crouzet II:370. Raemond: Raemond, L’Antichrist. See Magnien-Simonin, C., “Raemond, Florimond de,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 849–50.

  9 Zeal: Crouzet II: 439–44.

  10 Radical Protestant publications of this period include François Hotman’s Francogallia (mostly written earlier, but published 1573 and very popular in the wake of the massacre), Theodore de Bèze’s Du Droit des magistrats sur leurs subiets (1574) and the Vindiciae contra tyrannos of 1579, by Hubert Languet, though some attribute it to Philippe Duplessis-Mornay. See Holt 100–1.

  11 Stories of Henri III’s sartorial and behavioral excesses are mostly based on Pierre de L’Estoile, an intermittently reliable Protestant memoirist. L’Estoile, P. de, The Paris of Henry of Navarre as seen by Pierre de l’Estoile, ed. N. Lyman Roelker (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958). Eating with forks, wearing nightclothes, washing hair: Knecht, Rise and Fall 489.

  12 Montaigne on penitential processions: I:26 140. On the vagueness of predictions: I:11 34–5. Witchcraft as imagination: III:11 960–1.

  13 Dangers of imagination: Del Rio, M., Disquisitionum magicarum libri sex (1599) and Lancre, P. 212 De l’Incrédulité et mescreance du sortilège (1622), both cited in Villey, Montaigne devant la postérité 360, 367–71. See Courcelles, D. de, “Martin Del Rio,” and Legros, A., “Lancre, Pierre Rostegui de,” both in Desan, Dictionnaire 243–4, 561–2.

  14 Politiques: Crouzet II:250–2. “He wears the skin of a lamb”: Dieudonné, R. de, La Vie et condition des politiques et athéistes de ce temps (Paris: R. Le Fizelier, 1589), 17.

  15 Politiques’ accusations against Leaguists: see e.g. Lettre missive aux Parisiens d’un Gentilhomme serviteur du Roy … (1591), 4–5, cited in Crouzet II:561. Montaigne: “Our zeal does wonders” and “There is no hostility”: II:12 393–4.

  16 Politiques thought everything would calm down: see e.g. Loys Le Caron’s De la Tranquillité de l’esprit (1588), Saint-Germain d’Apchon’s L’Irenophile discours de la paix (1594), and Guillaume du Vair’s La Constance et consolation ès calamitez publiques (1594–95). Crouzet II: 555–7.

  17 Foremost among critics who consider Montaigne’s experience as dominated by war is Frieda Brown: see Brown, F., Religious and Political Conservatism in the Essais of Montaigne (Geneva: Droz, 1963). On this issue, see Coleman, J., “Montaigne and the Wars of Religion,” in Cameron (ed.), Montaigne and his Age 107. Montaigne: “I am amazed to see” and “Whoever considers”: I:26 141. “It will be a lot”: II:16 577. “I do not despair about it”: III:9 892.

  18 Lipsius letters: Justus Lipsius to Montaigne, Aug. 30, 1588, and Sept. 18, 1589, cited Morford, M. P. O., Stoics and Neostoics: Rubens and the Circle of Lipsius (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 160.

  19 Zweig unimpressed by Essays at first: all these remarks from Zweig, “Montaigne” 8–9.

  20 Zweig’s exile: Zweig, World of Yesterday 430–2. “I belong nowhere”: ibid. xviii.

  21 “The similarity of his epoch”: Zweig to Jules Romains, Jan. 22, 1942, cited Bravo Unda, G., “Analogies de la pensée entre Montaigne et Stefan Zweig,” Bulletin de la Société des Amis de Montaigne 11, no.2 (1988), 95–106. “In this brothership”: Zweig, “Montaigne” 10.

  22 The question for a person of integrity: Zweig, “Montaigne” 14. “He has none of the rolling tirades”: ibid. 15. Montaigne’s use of his failings: ibid. 76.

  23 Rules extracted by Zweig: Zweig, “Montaigne” 55–8.

  24 Suicide note: reproduced in appendix to Zweig, World of Yesterday 437.

  25 Nothing left but one’s naked existence: Zweig, “Montaigne” 10. “Only a person”: ibid. 7. Leonard Woolf: Woolf, L. 18–19.

  26 Macé-Scaron: Macé-Scaron 76.

  27 Flaubert: Gustave Flaubert to Mlle Leroyer de Chantepie, June 16, 1857, cited Frame, Montaigne in France 61.

  13. Q. How to live? A. Do something no one has done before

  1 Details of all early Essays editions in “Sources”; also see Sayce and Maskell. Millanges: see Hoffmann 66–83. On both Millanges editions (1580 and 1582), see Blum, C., “Dans l’Atelier de Millanges,” in Blum & Tournon (eds), Editer les Essais de Montaigne (79–97). On the first edition’s print run: Desan, P., “Édition de 1580,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 297–300, this 300.

  2 La Croix du Maine: La Croix du Maine 329. The Essays also featured in Antoine Du Verdier’s similar bibliography, La Bibliothèque d’Antoine Du Verdier, seigneur de Vauprivas (Lyon, 1585), entry on “Michel de Montaigne,” 872–81. The Essays did better than Montaigne expected: III:9 895. “A public article of furniture”: III:5 781.

  3 “Sir, then Your Majesty must like me”: La Croix du Maine 329. Cf. Montaigne’s description of his book as “consubstantial with its author”: II:18 612.

  4 Red wine: Scaliger and Dupuy both cited in Villey, Montaigne devant la postérité 73. From red to white to red: III:13 1031. “Effrontery”: Malebranche, La recherche de la vérité (1674), 369, cited Marchi 48. Pascal: Pascal, Pensées no. 534, p. 127.

  5 Pattison: Pattison, M., review article in Quarterly Review 198 (Sept. 1856), 396–415, this 396. “Twaddling”: St John, B., Montaigne the Essayist (London: Chapman & Hall, 1858), I: 316–17. “The very man,” “the kernel”: Sterling 323–4.

  6 “I turn my gaze inward”: II:17 606. On this passage, see Starobinski 225–6. Also see Coleman 114–15, disputing this translation. On the Essays as a Baroque or Mannerist work, see: Buffum; Butor; Sayce, R.A., “Baroque elements in Montaigne,” French Studies 8 (1954), 1–15; Nakam, G., “Montaigne manieriste,” in her Le dernier Montaigne 195–228; Rigolot, F., “Montaigne’s anti-Mannerist Mannerism,” in Cameron and Willett (eds), Le Visage changeant de Montaigne 207–30. Montaigne: “Grotesques” and “Monstrous bodies”: I:28 164. Horace on poetry: Horace, Ars poetica 1–23.

  7 Writing with rhythm of conversation: II:17 587. He speaks of his “langage coupé” in his instructions to the printer in the Bordeaux copy: see Sayce 283.

  8 “Of a hundred members and faces”: I:50 266.

  9 “Of Coaches”: III:6 831–49. On the title of this essay: see Tournon, A., “Fonction et sens d’un titre énigmatique,” Bulletin de la Société des Amis de Montaigne 19–20 (1984), 59–68, and his entry “Coches,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 175–6. “Of Physiognomy”: III:12 964–92.

  10 Thackeray: see Dédéyan I:288. “Often they only denote it by some sign” and “words … in a corner”: III:9 925. See McKinley, M. B., Words in a Corner: Studies in Montaigne’s Latin Quotations (Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1981).

  14. Q. How to live? A. See the world

  1 “Perpetual variety of the forms of our nature”: III:9 904. “Honest curiosity”: I:26 139. Feeling presence of his classical heroes: III:9 928. “Rub and polish”: I:26 136.

  2 Sluicing out stones: Travel Journal, in The Complete Works, tr. D. Frame, 1243. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather: II:37 702. Venetian turpentine: Travel Journa
l 1143. The goat: II:37 718–19. On spas: II:37 715–16.

  3 On his route and dates of travel, see the Travel Journal, in The Complete Works, tr. D. Frame.

  4 Mattecoulon took part in two killings, while acting as second in someone else’s duel. He was saved from prison only by the French king’s direct intervention. All this, as Montaigne commented, in obedience to a code of honor that made no sense. II:27 639; Travel Journal 1257. On another young man who left in Padua, M. de Cazalis, see Travel Journal 1123.

  5 On traveling conditions: Heath, M., “Montaigne and travel,” in Cameron (ed.), Montaigne and His Age 121–32; Hale 145–8. Montaigne’s change of route: Travel Journal 1130.

  6 Montaigne’s preference for riding: III:6 833–4. On river travel: III:6 834, Travel Journal, 1092 and 1116. On seasickness: Travel Journal, 1123. Riding more comfortable during a kidney-stone attack: III:6 833–4, III:5 811.

  7 Going with the flow: III:9 904–5. “If it looks ugly on the right”: III:9 916. On Virginia Woolf: Woolf, L., Downhill All the Way(London: Hogarth, 1968), 178–9. “Roll relaxedly”: II:17 605.

  8 No path: Travel Journal, 1115.

  9 Late starts: III:9 905; III:13 1024. Eats local food in local style, and wishes he had his cook: Travel Journal 1077, 1086–7.

  10 Other travelers closed up in themselves: III:9 916–17. “In truth there entered”: Travel Journal 1087.

  11 Keeping the journal in Italian: III:5 807. His Italian was good, though not flawless, and early published editions of the Journal tidied it up somewhat. See Garavini, F., “Montaigne: écrivain italien?” in Blum and Moreau (eds), Études montaignistes 117–29, and Cavallini, C., “Italianismes,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 515–16. Handkerchief in Augsburg: Travel Journal 1096–7.

  12 Christening: Travel Journal, 1094–5. Synagogue: ibid. 1119. Circumcision: ibid. 1152–4.

  13 White beard and eyebrow: Travel Journal 1063. Cross-dressing and sex changes: ibid. 1059–60.

  14 Swiss table manners and bedrooms: Travel Journal 1072, 1077.

  15 Birdcage: Travel Journal 1085. Ostriches: ibid. 1098–9. Hair-duster: ibid. 1096. Remote-control gates: ibid. 1099–100.

  16 Fugger gardens: Travel Journal 1097–8.

  17 Michelangelo: Travel Journal 1133.

  18 The Travel Journal: after being found and published, it was deposited in the royal library and should now be in the Bibliothèque nationale, but at some point it went missing. We now have only the 1774 published version, plus a handwritten copy with a different text. See Moureau, F., “La Copie Leydet du Journal de Voyage,” in Moureau, F. and Bernouilli, R. (eds.), Autour du Journal de voyage de Montaigne (Geneva & Paris: Slatkine, 1982), 107–85; and his “Le manuscrit du Journal de Voyage: découverte, édition et copies,” in Michel et al. (eds), Montaigne et les Essais 1580–1980 289–99; and Rigolot, F., “Journal de voyage,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 533–7. “Three stools”: Travel Journal 1077. “In front and behind”: ibid. 1078. “As big and long as a pine nut”: ibid. 1243. Swiss stoves: ibid. 1078.

  19 On the secretary: see Brush, C. B., “The secretary, again,” Montaigne Studies 5 (1993), 113–38, esp. 136–8. The secretary probably came from Montaigne’s own household: he shows familiarity with local towns around the estate: Travel Journal 1089, 1105. Long speeches: Travel Journal 1068–9, 1081.

  20 Poland or Greece, and “I never saw him less tired”: Travel Journal 1115.

  21 Venice: Travel Journal 1121–2. On Franco, see Rigolot, F., “Franco, Veronica,” in Desan, Dictionnaire 418.

  22 Ferrara: Travel Journal 1128–9. Meeting Tasso: II:12 441. Fencing in Bologna: Travel Journal 1129–30. Trick gardens: ibid. 1132, 1135–6.

  23 Entering Rome: Travel Journal ibid. 1141–3.

  24 Inquisition officials: Travel Journal 1166. “It seemed to me”: 1178.

  25 Rome intolerant but cosmopolitan: Travel Journal 1142, 1173. Roman citizenship: Essays II:9 930; Travel Journal 1174.

  26 Sermons, disputations, and prostitutes: Travel Journal, 1172. Vatican library: ibid. 1158–60. Circumcision: ibid. 1152–4.

  27 Audience with Pope: Travel Journal 1144–6.

  28 Penitential procession: Travel Journal 1170–1.

  29 Exorcism: Travel Journal 1156. Execution of Catena: ibid. 1148–9; cf. II:11 382 on violence to dead bodies.

  30 Tops of walls: Travel Journal 1142. Tops of columns: ibid. 1152.

  31 Spoils of Seneca and Plutarch: II:32 661. Mental exertion required: Travel Journal 1150–1.

  32 Goethe: Goethe, J. W., Italian Journey, tr. W. H. Auden and E. Mayer (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970; repr. 1982): “All the dreams”: 129 (entry for Nov. 1, 1786); “I am now in a state of clarity”: ibid. 136 (entry for 10 Nov. 1786). Freud: Freud, S., “A disturbance of memory on the Acropolis,” in Works, tr. and ed. J. Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1953–74), 22 (1964), 239–48, this 241. “The Rome and Paris that I have in my soul”: II:12 430. “I enjoyed a tranquil mind”: Travel Journal 1239.

  33 Loreto: Travel Journal 1184–5. La Villa: ibid. 1210, 1240–6.

  15. Q. How to live? A. Do a good job, but not too good a job

  1 The jurats’ two letters and his journey to Rome: Travel Journal 1246–55.

  2 “I excused myself”: III:10 934. The king’s letter: translated in Frame, Montaigne 224.

  3 Arrival home: Travel Journal 1270, and Montaigne, Le Livre de raison, entry for Nov. 30.

  4 On his tasks as mayor, and the difficulties of the time: Lazard 282–3; Lacouture 227–8; Cocula, A.-M., Montaigne, maire de Bordeaux (Bordeaux: Horizon chimérique, 1992). Ears to everyone and judgment to no one: III:8 855.

  5 On Matignon, see Cooper, R., “Montaigne dans l’entourage du maréchal de Matignon,” Montaigne Studies 13 (2001), 99–140; and his “Matignon, Maréchal de” in Desan, Dictionnaire 640–4.

  6 On Pierre’s exhaustion by travel: III:10 935. Montaigne’s travels as mayor: Frame, Montaigne 230. His work at the château: Nakam, Montaigne et son temps 311.

  7 “This was done in my case”: III:10 934. On his reelection, against opposition: Frame, Montaigne 230.

  8 Montaigne as go-between: Frame, Montaigne 232–4.

  9 Vaillac rebellion and exile from Bordeaux: Frame, Montaigne 238–40. Letters from Montaigne to Matignon, May 22 and 27, 1585, in The Complete Works, tr. D. Frame, 1323–7.

  10 Contemporary admiration: Thou, J.-A. de, Mémoires (1714), and Duplessis-Mornay to Montaigne, Nov. 25, 1583, translated in Frame, Montaigne, 229, 233.

  11 “Order” and “gentle and mute tranquillity”: III:10 953.

  12 “A languishing zeal” and “That’s a good one!”: III:10 950. Keeping a city uneventful during “innovation”: III:10 953. True motives for apparent commitment: III:10 951.

  13 What duty commanded: III:10 954.

  14 Shakespeare, W., King Lear (written c. 1603–6). “I mortally hate to seem a flatterer”: I:40 225–6.

  15 “I frankly tell them my limits”: III:1 731. Openness draws people out, and not difficult to get on between two parties: III:1 730.

  16 Not everyone understood: III:1 731. “When all is said and done”: III:8 854.

  17 Matignon to Henri III, June 30, 1585, and to Montaigne, July 30, 1585, both translated in Frame, Montaigne 240.

  18 Montaigne’s letters to the jurats of Bordeaux, July 30 and 31, 1585, in The Complete Works, tr. D. Frame, 1328–9.

  19 Order forbidding entry to the city: see Bonnet, P., “Montaigne et la peste de Bordeaux,” in Blum and Moreau (eds), Études montaignistes 59–67, this 64.

  20 Criticism of Montaigne’s decision: Detcheverry, Grün, Feugère, and Lecomte, all cited in Bonnet, P., “Montaigne et la peste de Bordeaux,” in Blum and Moreau (eds), Études montaignistes 59–67, this 59–62. The letters were first published in Detcheverry, A., Histoire des Israélites de Bordeaux (Bordeaux: Balzac jeune, 1850).

  21 “I hold back”: II:12 454.

  22 On nihilism in this period, see Gillespie, M. A., Nihilism before Nietzsche
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

  23 Faguet: his writings are collected with a preface by A. Compagnon as Faguet, Autour de Montaigne. Champion: Champion, E., Introduction aux Essais de Montaigne (Paris, 1900): see Compagnon, A., Preface to Faguet 16.

  24 Guizot: Guizot, G., Montaigne: études et fragments. “He will not make us into the kind of men our times require”: ibid. 269. Guizot worked for 25 years to produce an edition of the Essays and a study of Montaigne’s life, and completed neither, but his friends assembled this collection of fragments after his death.

  25 Michelet: Michelet, Histoire de France (1861) VIII: 429 (“Feeble and negative” idea) and X: 397–8 (“watch himself dream”). Both as cited in Frame, Montaigne in France 42–3.

  26 Church, R. W., “The Essays of Montaigne,” in Oxford Essays Contributed by Members of the University. 1857 (London: John Parker, 1857), 239–82. “The nothingness of man … the idea of duty”: ibid. 265. “Indolence and want of moral tone”: ibid. 280. On Church, see Dédéyan I: 295–308.

  27 Halifax’s remarks are reproduced in Hazlitt’s 1842 edition of Montaigne, The Complete Works xxxv.

  28 Honoria’s edition: Montaigne, Essays, ed. Honoria (1800) (see “Sources”). It was a project along the lines of Henrietta Maria Bowdler’s The Family Shakespeare (1807), which gave the word “bowdlerize” to the English language. “If, by separating the pure ore” and “He is also so often unconnected”: Honoria’s introduction, xix. Montaigne rebuked for not mentioning the St. Bartholomew’s massacre: Honoria’s edition, 104n. Do not try waking children with music: ibid. 157n. Montaigne’s regulation of his life, his conformism, and his “many excellent religious sentiments”: Honoria’s introduction, xviii.

  29 “I doubt if I can decently admit”: III:12 975.

  30 The succession question, and the preference of the politiques: Nakam, Montaigne et son temps 329–32.

  31 Visit of Navarre, including the stag hunt: Montaigne, Le Livre de raison, entry for Dec. 19, as translated in Frame, Montaigne 235.