Michel de Montaigne [Eyquem] [1533-92, 59]
Humanist, common sense, grounded, evidence-based “man of letters”
Rightly sceptical, especially of the Learned
Democratically inclined, all have something to say
“Man cannot make a mouse but makes gods by the dozen.”
But nevertheless stayed with his God! Perhaps cultural and practical reasons?
Died planting cabbages?
Summary
Not a formal philosopher, more an inquisitive all rounder, a sensible common sense chap, especially then, as the blinkered Counter Reformation gathered pace, fanatics purveying religious extremism, not long after Bosch’s raft of admonitory dark fantasies, lingering with God in the Mediaeval paddocks, recoiling from the then well in hand Renaissance.
For Montaigne not easy making sense of it all, especially Man.
“Life part madness, part wisdom….. Truly man is a marvellously vain, diverse, and undulating object..”
Enquiring, sceptical, suspicious of the Learned, the pedantic and academic, the arrogant and overconfident.
We are all capable of thinking, insight. “1000s of village women .. live more gentle, equitable lives than Cicero..”
Humorous.
He mocked dense, hard to read books, like Plato! Saw writers hiding behind obfuscation!
His pioneering, influential proto-modern Essays [1580, 1588] a wandering discursive enquiry, “inspired by Plutarch, Lucretius”, Erasmus – “I am myself the matter of my book” – recognised later for:
1/ scepticism, his “spirit of freely entertaining doubt”, summed up by his famous “Que sçay-je?” (“What do I know?”.
2/ his questioning of authority, conventional “received wisdom”. “The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge..”
3/ but being curious all the same.. “no wish more natural than the wish to know..”
3/ and in this the importance of using one’s own judgement, faculties.
4/ his democratic inclinations: we all matter, all have something to say.
5/ and relying mainly on concrete evidence not abstract theorising.
6/ hands on active approach to life, make the most of it!
“The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use”.
Unlike many philosophers [Epicurians, Schopenhauer] he was NOT a renunciator.
7/ his early “rational” thoughts on psychology, education?
But it was not all a detached academic exercise, rather it was aimed also at authorities who might patronise / employ him.
His work made waves, reverberated, eg inspiring F Bacon’s Essays of 1596 in England.
P Desan [2018} makes a case for MM being more political than not, likely disappointed he did not achieve more? But reviewer [American] T Gregory [LRB] doubts this, aptly quotes MM in support.
I agree, based on the Essays MM was too experienced, thoughtful on the human condition, to fall for that, more interested in an Aristotelean balance. Thus “[MM} loved poetry” and TB’s quote of Horace [James Michie’s 1964 rendition of Ode 31, Book I] hits the spot:
Here’s what I crave most, son of Latona, then:
Good health, a sound mind, relish of life, and an
Old age that still maintains a stylish
Grip on itself, with the lyre beside me.
Religion?
For whatever reason Montaigne’s scepticism did make room for at least one [providential] god!
Though likely this was mainly for socio–cultural reasons, not captivation with shelves of Christian doctrines, “a function of his socially conservative instincts.. for him religion was an integral part of culture. Faith was for him a custom, so to speak.. ”.
Importantly he saw religion as mainly matter of simple faith not reason, knowledge: “fideism: minimising the role of reason in religious knowledge, and maximising the role of faith.”
Though given his Essays, the sceptical frowning vein, and resort far more to Classical sources than Christian, some [P. Desan?] see at least quasi-atheism in the background? So that his “belief” is simply cultural.
Others disagree, “we must be careful not to pull him across the Enlightenment divide.”.
So why really did he believe? Justify it?
Maybe simply because practically speaking it made life much easier? To keep one’s head below the parapet.
Life’s short and there was plenty to explore, investigate, and proclaiming atheism then would toss a mighty spanner into this, taking time, money and maybe his life.
Background
He was well born as Michel Eyquem in Aquitaine, Bordeaux, especially thanks to great grandfather Ramon who prospered as a Bordeaux herring merchant, of Jewish [Spanish / Portuguese] ancestry, who 1477 bought a manor at Montaigne, 30 miles east of Bordeaux, in Dordogne.
His family “belonged to the larger and more permeable class of lower nobility… in two ways: by inheriting his father’s seigneurial estate, and by becoming a magistrate, which made him a member of the noblesse de robe, or a robin..”
Father ordered Latin only in lessons and then had the good sense to die 1568 so our hero could [1571, age 38] retire to the family estate, to a tower therein to reflect, cogitate, alongside an epic book collection.
He published Essays 1580, age 47 [added more later, eg 3rd book 1588], partly as a job application, aimed at [Catholic] Henry III, who succeeded Charles IX in 1574. Accordingly he re-upholstered his public name, as ‘messire Michel, Seigneur de Montaigne, Chevalier de l’ordre du Roy, et Gentil-homme ordinaire de sa chambre’.
Henry was assassinated 1589, succeeded by Protestant Henry of Navarre, as Henry IV.
As Mayor of Bordeaux Montaigne “kept Bordeaux loyal” to both Henries.
Health issues arrived in 1578 and 1580-81 travelled, a long clockwise loop through France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria to Italy, and back to France, part searching a health “cure”.
His itinerary from Germany took him across the Alps through the Brenner Pass to Italy, to Padua and Venice, Bologna, Florence, Siena and Rome. On the return he veered east through Spoleto and Foligno [on the Giro route in 2021, Mon 17th May] to the Adriatic, and back through Urbino and Florence to Lucca, where he stayed for the “waters”, and where he learned his pitch to Henry III managed to have him elected Mayor of Bordeaux, if missing his preferred ambassadorship to the Holy See.
He returned to Aquitaine via Piacenza, Vercelli, Mont Cenis, Lyon and Clermont Ferrand, then served as Mayor till 1585, tackling plague and Fr Wars of Religion, starting 1562, “four decades of sieges, battles, mob violence, negotiations, assassinations, persecutions and reprisals between France’s Catholic majority and Protestant minority..”.
Aethelwulf 