And, as it happens, one La Rochefoucauld maxim provided a neat comment on Montaigne"s own seventeenth-century predicament: We often irritate others when we think we could not possibly do so.
As with Montaigne himself, much of what the libertins libertins and aphorists said revolved around the question of how to live well. and aphorists said revolved around the question of how to live well. Libertins Libertins prized qualities such as prized qualities such as bel esprit bel esprit, which might be translated as "good spirits," but was better defined by one writer of the time as being "gay, lively, full of fire like that displayed in the Essays Essays of Montaigne." They also aspired to of Montaigne." They also aspired to honnetete honnetete, "honesty," which meant a life of good morals, but also of "good conversation" and "good company," according to the French Academie"s dictionary of 1694.
Someone like Pascal did not even want to live like this; it would entail being distracted by the affairs of this world rather than keeping his eyes fixed on ultimate things. One imagines Pascal staring upwards into the open s.p.a.ces of the universe, in mystical terror and bliss, just as Descartes stared with equal intensity into the blazing stove. In both cases, there is silence, and there is a fixed gaze: eyes rounded with awe, deep cogitation, alarm, or horror.
Libertins, and all those of the company of the bel esprit bel esprit, did not stare. My dears! They would not dream of fixing anything, high or low in the universe, with gawping owl-eyes. Instead, they watched human beings slyly, from under half-closed lids, seeing them as they were-beginning with themselves. Those sleepy eyes perceived more about life than Descartes with his "clear and distinct ideas," or Pascal with his spiritual ecstasies. As Friedrich Nietzsche would remark centuries later, most of the genuinely valuable observations about human behavior and psychology-and thus also about philosophy-"were first detected and stated in those social circles which would make every sort of sacrifice not for scientific knowledge, but for a witty coquetry."
Nietzsche relished the irony of this because he abhorred professional philosophers as a cla.s.s. For him, abstract systems were of no use; what counted was critical self-awareness: the ability to pry into one"s own motivations and yet to accept oneself as one was. This is why he loved the aphorists La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyere, as well as their forefather Montaigne. He called Montaigne "this freest and mightiest of souls," and added: "That such a man wrote has truly augmented the joy of living on this earth." Montaigne apparently managed the trick of living as Nietzsche longed to do: without petty resentments or regrets, embracing everything that happened without the desire to change it. The essayist"s casual remark, "If I had to live over again, I would live as I have lived," embodied everything Nietzsche spent his life trying to attain. Not only did Montaigne achieve it, but he even wrote about it in a throwaway tone, as if it were nothing special.
Like Montaigne, Nietzsche simultaneously questioned everything and tried to accept everything. The very things that most repelled Pascal about Montaigne-his bottomless doubt, his "skeptical ease," his poise, his readiness to accept imperfection-were the things that would always appeal to this other, very different tradition, running from the libertins libertins through to Nietzsche and beyond, to many of his biggest fans today. through to Nietzsche and beyond, to many of his biggest fans today.
Unfortunately, in the seventeenth century, the resenters of Montaigne proved stronger than the devotees, especially once the former organized themselves and launched a direct campaign for suppression. In 1662, the year after Pascal"s death, his former colleagues Pierre Nicole and Antoine Arnauld unleashed an a.s.sault on Montaigne in their best-selling book Logique du Port-Royal Logique du Port-Royal. Their second edition, in 1666, openly called for the Essays Essays to be put on the Catholic Church"s to be put on the Catholic Church"s Index of Prohibited Books Index of Prohibited Books, as an irreligious and dangerous text. The call was heeded ten years later: the Essays Essays appeared on the appeared on the Index Index on January 28, 1676. Montaigne stood condemned, as much by a.s.sociation as anything else-for by now he was the favorite reading of a disreputable crew of fops, wits, atheists, skeptics, and rakes. on January 28, 1676. Montaigne stood condemned, as much by a.s.sociation as anything else-for by now he was the favorite reading of a disreputable crew of fops, wits, atheists, skeptics, and rakes.
This marked the beginning of a dramatic decline in Montaigne"s fortunes in France. From their first publication in 1580 to 1669, new editions of the Essays Essays had appeared every two or three years, together with popular reworkings by editors who often drew attention to the most Pyrrhonian pa.s.sages. After the ban, this changed. The work in its full form could no longer be published or sold in full in Catholic countries; no French publisher would touch it. For years, it was available only in bowdlerized or foreign editions, the latter often in French and designed to be smuggled home for a nonconformist readership. had appeared every two or three years, together with popular reworkings by editors who often drew attention to the most Pyrrhonian pa.s.sages. After the ban, this changed. The work in its full form could no longer be published or sold in full in Catholic countries; no French publisher would touch it. For years, it was available only in bowdlerized or foreign editions, the latter often in French and designed to be smuggled home for a nonconformist readership.
Montaigne once remarked that certain books "become all the more marketable and public by being suppressed." To some extent, this happened to him: the suppression of his book in France gave it an irresistible aura. In the century to come, it enhanced his appeal to rebellious Enlightenment philosophers and even to full-blown revolutionaries.
But, on the whole, censorship did his posthumous sales more harm than good. It confined him to a limited audience in France, while in some other countries he continued to appeal to a wider range of taste-rebels and pillars of the community alike. Astonishingly, the Essays Essays would stay on the would stay on the Index Index for almost two hundred years, until May 27, 1854. It was a long exile, and one that outlived the genuine for almost two hundred years, until May 27, 1854. It was a long exile, and one that outlived the genuine frisson frisson of alarm he provoked in the late seventeenth century. of alarm he provoked in the late seventeenth century.
Pascal"s remark, "It is not in Montaigne but in myself that I find everything I see there," could be intoned like a mantra through the whole of the story to come. The centuries go on; each new reader finds his or her own self in the Essays Essays and thus adds to the acc.u.mulation of its possible meanings. In Descartes"s case, what he found were two nightmare figures from his own psyche: a demon resistant to logic, and an animal that could think. He shrank from both. Pascal and Malebranche saw the prospect of their own seduction on a bed of Skeptic ease, and they too fled in horror. and thus adds to the acc.u.mulation of its possible meanings. In Descartes"s case, what he found were two nightmare figures from his own psyche: a demon resistant to logic, and an animal that could think. He shrank from both. Pascal and Malebranche saw the prospect of their own seduction on a bed of Skeptic ease, and they too fled in horror.
The libertins libertins, seeing the same things, responded with an amused smile and a raised eyebrow. They too recognized themselves in Montaigne. Their much later descendant, Nietzsche, would do the same, and would also return Montaigne to his philosophical homeland: to the heart of the three great h.e.l.lenistic philosophies, with their investigation of the question of how to live.
8. Q. How to live? A. Keep a private room behind the shop
GOING TO IT WITH ONLY ONE b.u.t.tOCK.
THE FLESH-AND-BLOOD Montaigne, back in the 1560s, was still getting on with that very question. He used all three of the h.e.l.lenistic philosophical traditions to manage his life and to help himself recover from the loss of La Boetie. He successfully merged his Skepticism with loyalty to Catholic dogma-a combination no one yet questioned. He finished his first major literary project, the translation of Raymond Sebond, and he worked on the dedications for La Boetie"s books and his own published letter describing his friend"s death. Another change occurred during this period too: he got married, and became the head of a family. Montaigne, back in the 1560s, was still getting on with that very question. He used all three of the h.e.l.lenistic philosophical traditions to manage his life and to help himself recover from the loss of La Boetie. He successfully merged his Skepticism with loyalty to Catholic dogma-a combination no one yet questioned. He finished his first major literary project, the translation of Raymond Sebond, and he worked on the dedications for La Boetie"s books and his own published letter describing his friend"s death. Another change occurred during this period too: he got married, and became the head of a family.
Montaigne seems, in general, to have been attractive to women. At least some of the appeal must have been physical: he makes ironic remarks about women who claim to love men only for their minds. "I have never yet seen that for the sake of our beauty of mind, however wise and mature that mind may be, they were willing to grant favors to a body that was slipping the least little bit into decline." Yet his intelligence, his humor, his amiable personality, and even his tendency to get swept away by ideas and talk too loudly, probably all contributed to his charm. So, perhaps, did the air of emotional inaccessibility hanging over him after La Boetie"s death. It presented a challenge. In reality, when he liked someone, the aloofness soon disappeared: "I make advances and I throw myself at them so avidly, that I hardly fail to attach myself and to make an impression wherever I land."
Montaigne liked s.e.x, and indulged in a lot of it throughout his life. It was only in late middle age that both his performance and his desire declined, as well as his attractiveness-all facts he bemoaned in his final Essays Essays. It is depressing to be rejected, he said, but even worse to be accepted out of pity. And he hated to be troublesome to someone who did not want him. "I abhor the idea of a body void of affection being mine." This would be like making love to a corpse, as in the story of the "frantic Egyptian hot after the carca.s.s of a dead woman he was embalming and shrouding." A s.e.xual relationship must be reciprocal. "In truth, in this delight the pleasure I give tickles my imagination more sweetly than that which I feel."
He was realistic about the extent to which he made the earth move for his lovers, however. Sometimes a woman"s heart is not really in it: "Sometimes they go to it with only one b.u.t.tock." Or perhaps she is fantasizing about someone else: "What if she eats your bread with the sauce of a more agreeable imagination?"
Montaigne understood that women know more about s.e.x than men usually think, and indeed that their imagination leads them to expect better than they get. "In place of the real parts, through desire and hope, they subst.i.tute others three times life-size." He tutted over irresponsible graffiti: "What mischief is not done by those enormous pictures that boys spread about the pa.s.sages and staircases of palaces! From these, women acquire a cruel contempt for our natural capacity." Does one conclude that Montaigne had a smallish p.e.n.i.s? Yes, indeed, because he confessed later in the same essay that nature had treated him "unfairly and unkindly," and he added a cla.s.sical quotation: "Even the matrons-all too well they know- Look dimly on a man whose member"s small."
He showed no shame about revealing such things: "Our life is part folly, part wisdom. Whoever writes about it only reverently and according to the rules leaves out more than half of it." It also seemed unfair to him that poets had more license simply because they wrote in verse. He quoted two examples from contemporaries: "May I die if your crack is more than a faint line."-Theodore de Beze "A friendly tool contents and treats her well."-Saint-Gelais
Amid the varied adventures of his friendly tool, nevertheless, Montaigne also did what all dutiful n.o.blemen must do, particularly heirs to great estates: he got himself a wife.
Her name was Francoise de La Cha.s.saigne, and she came from a family greatly respected in Bordeaux. The marriage, which took place on September 23, 1565, would have been arranged in collaboration between the two families. This was traditional, and even the spouses" ages were more or less what custom decreed. Montaigne noted that his own age (thirty-three, he says, though he was thirty-two), was close to the ideal recommended by Aristotle, which Montaigne thought was thirty-five (actually it was thirty-seven). If he was slightly too young, his wife was a little older than usual: she was born on December 13, 1544, which made her just under twenty-one on her wedding day. At that age she could still expect to have many childbearing years ahead of her. Unfortunately, children were to bring the couple mostly disappointment and sorrow. And, despite his being over a decade older than his wife, Montaigne very decidedly seems to have done what many men do: he married his mother. The choice would not make him particularly happy.
He does not mention Francoise often in the Essays; Essays; when he does, he makes her sound like Antoinette, only louder. "Wives always have a proclivity for disagreeing with their husbands," he wrote. "They seize with both hands every pretext to go contrary to them." He was probably thinking of Francoise both here and in another pa.s.sage, where he wrote that there was no point in raging uselessly at servants: when he does, he makes her sound like Antoinette, only louder. "Wives always have a proclivity for disagreeing with their husbands," he wrote. "They seize with both hands every pretext to go contrary to them." He was probably thinking of Francoise both here and in another pa.s.sage, where he wrote that there was no point in raging uselessly at servants: I admonish...my family not to get angry in the air, and to see to it that their reprimand reaches the person they are complaining about: for ordinarily they are yelling before he is in their presence and continue yelling for ages after he has left...No one is punished or affected by it, except someone who has to put up with the racket of their voice.
One can imagine Montaigne putting his hands over his ears, and heading off to his tower.
Among the many things for which he admired the philosopher Socrates was his having perfected the art of living with an aggressive wife. Montaigne presented this as a tribulation almost as great as the one Socrates suffered at the hands of the Athenian parliament, when it condemned him to death by hemlock. He hoped to emulate Socrates"s policy of forbearance and humor, and liked the reply he gave when Alcibiades asked him how he stood the nagging. One gets used to it, said Socrates, as those who live close to a mill do to the sound of the water-wheel turning. Montaigne also liked the way Socrates adapted the experience as a philosophical "trick" for his own spiritual improvement, using his wife"s bad temper for practice in the art of enduring adversity.
As well as forcefulness, Francoise had staying power. She would outlive Montaigne by nearly thirty-five years, dying on March 7, 1627, at the age of eighty-two. She also survived all her children, including the only one to make it beyond infancy into adulthood. Montaigne"s mother survived him too. One almost gets the impression that, between them, they drove him into an early grave.
Some of the best information about Francoise"s character dates from her old age, long after Montaigne"s time. By then, she had become very pious. Her daughter"s second husband, Charles de Gamaches, described her as observing fasts every Friday and for half of Lent, even at seventy-seven years old. She kept up an intense correspondence with a spiritual adviser, Dom Marc-Antoine de Saint-Bernard; several letters survive. He sent her gifts of oranges and lemons; she sent him quince marmalade and hay. She often wrote to him about her money worries and legal affairs. Her last letter shows relief over some business deal: "By this G.o.d has given me a means of supporting this house of my late husband and my children." The tone is sometimes pa.s.sionate: "Truly I do not know whether I would not rather choose to die than to know that you are going away." On the other hand, she feared for her adviser"s safety if he traveled to visit her: "I would rather die than have you take the road in this miserable weather." As a young woman, she was probably less fretful, but her preoccupation with matters of money and law may have been a constant. At the very least, one can venture to state that she was more alert to practical concerns than Montaigne. This was not difficult: so was almost everyone, if his own account is to be believed.
Francoise and her husband usually spent their days in separate parts of the chateau complex. Montaigne went to his tower and she went to hers, at the other end of the boundary wall: the "Tour de Madame." (After being converted into a pigeon loft in the early nineteenth century, the tower collapsed, and does not survive today.) This left the main building as the domain of Montaigne"s mother, who remained there through most of her son"s marriage, until about 1587. It looks as if the towers were adapted as retreats partly so the young couple could get away both from each other and from her. In his writing, Montaigne remains silent about his mother"s presence in their lives; when he mentions playing card games with his family in the evenings, he gives no indication that Granny was playing too.
This image of a family dispersed around the property is a sad one. But there must have been days when spirits were lighter, and in any case, nowhere on the estate would have felt solitary or empty. People were always around: servants, employees, guests and their entourages, sometimes children. Montaigne himself did not brood in his tower like a Gormenghast earl: he liked to be out walking. "My thoughts fall asleep if I make them sit down. My mind will not budge unless my legs move it." And separation of male and female lifestyles was normal. Husband and wife were expected to have different realms; new or modernized properties were often designed with this in mind. In 1452, Leon Battista Alberti recommended in his De re aedificatoria De re aedificatoria (On Building), "The husband and wife must have separate bedrooms, not only to ensure that the husband be not disturbed by his wife, when she is about to give birth or is ill, but also to allow them, even in summer, an uninterrupted night"s sleep." The only differences in the Montaigne household were that an entire outdoor gallery divided their "rooms," and that his tower was also his workplace. (On Building), "The husband and wife must have separate bedrooms, not only to ensure that the husband be not disturbed by his wife, when she is about to give birth or is ill, but also to allow them, even in summer, an uninterrupted night"s sleep." The only differences in the Montaigne household were that an entire outdoor gallery divided their "rooms," and that his tower was also his workplace.
Was it a good marriage, by the standards of the time? Some commentators have seen it as disastrous; others as typical of its era and even good. On balance, it does not seem to have been a terrible relationship, merely a mildly unsatisfactory one. It is probably best summed up, as Montaigne"s biographer Donald Frame suggested, by the remark in the Essays: Essays: "Whoever supposes, to see me look sometimes coldly, sometimes lovingly, on my wife, that either look is feigned, is a fool." "Whoever supposes, to see me look sometimes coldly, sometimes lovingly, on my wife, that either look is feigned, is a fool."
Genuine affection is implied in Montaigne"s decision to dedicate one of his earliest publications to Francoise: La Boetie"s translation of the letter written by Plutarch to his own wife following the death of their child. Uxorious dedications were not fashionable; they could be seen as quaint and rustic. Montaigne remarks defiantly, "Let us let them talk...You and me, my wife, let us live in the old French way." His dedication has a warm tone, and he even says, "I have, so I believe, none more intimate than you," which puts her on a level close to La Boetie"s.
Whatever affection he felt for Francoise probably built up after marriage rather than before. He had entered into wedlock like an unresisting prisoner being put into handcuffs. "Of my own choice, I would have avoided marrying Wisdom herself, if she had wanted me. But say what we will, the custom and practice of ordinary life bears us along." He did not really mind having such business arranged for him: he often felt that other people had better sense than he did anyway. But he still needed persuasion, being in an "ill-prepared and contrary" state of mind. Had he been free to choose, he would not have been the marrying kind at all. "Men with unruly humors like me, who hate any sort of bond or obligation, are not so fit for it." Later, he made the best of things, and even attempted to remain faithful-with, he said, more success than he had expected. He became contented, in a way, as he discovered was often the case with developments one would rather have avoided. "For not only inconvenient things, but anything at all, however ugly and vicious and repulsive, can become acceptable through some condition or circ.u.mstance."
Fortunately, Francoise herself was by no means ugly or repulsive. Montaigne seems to have found her attractive enough-or so his friend Florimond de Raemond a.s.serted in a marginal note on a copy of the Essays Essays. The problem lay more in the principle principle of being obliged to have regular s.e.x with someone, for Montaigne never liked feeling boxed in. He fulfilled his conjugal duties reluctantly, "with only one b.u.t.tock" as he would have said, doing what was necessary to beget children. This, too, comes from Florimond de Raemond"s marginal note, which, in full, reads: of being obliged to have regular s.e.x with someone, for Montaigne never liked feeling boxed in. He fulfilled his conjugal duties reluctantly, "with only one b.u.t.tock" as he would have said, doing what was necessary to beget children. This, too, comes from Florimond de Raemond"s marginal note, which, in full, reads: I have often heard the author say that although he, full of love, ardor, and youth, had married his very beautiful and very lovable wife, yet the fact is that he had never played with her except with respect for the honor that the marriage bed requires, without ever having seen anything but her hands and face uncovered, and not even her breast, although among other women he was extremely playful and debauched.
This sounds appalling to a modern reader, but it was conventional enough. For a husband to behave as an impa.s.sioned lover to his wife was thought morally wrong, because it might turn her into a nymphomaniac. Minimal, joyless intercourse was the proper sort for marriage. In an essay almost entirely about s.e.x, Montaigne cites the wisdom of Aristotle: "A man...should touch his wife prudently and soberly, lest if he caresses her too lasciviously the pleasure should transport her outside the bounds of reason." The physicians warned, too, that excessive pleasure could make sperm curdle inside the woman"s body, rendering her unable to conceive. It was better for the husband to bestow ecstasy elsewhere, where it did not matter what damage it caused. "The kings of Persia," relates Montaigne, "used to invite their wives to join them at their feasts; but when the wine began to heat them in good earnest and they had to give completely free rein to sensuality, they sent them back to their private rooms." They then brought on a more suitable set of women.
The Church was with Aristotle, the doctors, and the kings of Persia in this. Confessors" manuals of the time show that a husband who engaged in sinful practices with his wife deserved a heavier penance than if he had done the same things with someone else. By corrupting his wife"s senses, he risked ruining her eternal soul-a betrayal of his responsibility to her. If a married woman must must pick up licentious habits, it was better to get them from someone who had no such duty. As Montaigne observed, most women seemed to prefer that option anyway. pick up licentious habits, it was better to get them from someone who had no such duty. As Montaigne observed, most women seemed to prefer that option anyway.
Montaigne is amusingly wry on the subject of women, but he can also sound conventional. Unlike some contemporaries, however, he does not seem to have considered wives mere breeding cows. His ideal marriage would be a true meeting of minds as well as bodies; it would be even more complete than an ideal friendship. The difficulty was that, unlike friendship, marriage was not freely chosen, so it remained in the realm of constraint and obligation. Also, it was hard to find a woman capable of an exalted relationship, because most of them lacked intellectual capacity and a quality he called "firmness."
Montaigne"s opinion on women"s spiritual flaccidity can be disheartening enough to make one come over quite floppy oneself. George Sand confessed that she was "wounded to the heart" by it-the more so because she found Montaigne an inspiration in other respects. Yet one has to remember what most women were like in the sixteenth century. They were woefully uneducated, often illiterate, and they had little experience of the world. A few n.o.ble families hired private tutors for daughters, but most taught vapid accomplishments, as in Victorian times: Italian, music, and some arithmetic for household management. Cla.s.sical education, the only kind considered worth having, was almost always absent. The few truly learned women of the sixteenth century were vanishingly rare exceptions, like Marguerite de Navarre, author of the collection of stories known as the Heptameron Heptameron, or the poet Louise Labe, who (a.s.suming she really existed, and was not a pseudonym for a group of male poets as one recent hypothesis suggests) urged other women to "lift their minds a little above their distaffs and spindles."
France did have a feminist movement in the sixteenth century. It formed one side of the "querelle des femmes," "querelle des femmes," a fashionable quarrel among intellectual men who formulated arguments for and against women: were they, in general, a good thing? Those in favor seemed to have more success than those against, but such arch debate made little difference to women"s lives. a fashionable quarrel among intellectual men who formulated arguments for and against women: were they, in general, a good thing? Those in favor seemed to have more success than those against, but such arch debate made little difference to women"s lives.
Montaigne is often dismissed as anti-feminist, but had he taken part in this querelle querelle, he would probably have been on the pro-woman side. He did write, "Women are not wrong at all when they reject the rules of life that have been introduced into the world, inasmuch as it is the men who have made these without them." And he believed that, by nature, "males and females are cast in the same mold." He was very conscious of the double standard used to judge male and female s.e.xual behavior. Aristotle notwithstanding, Montaigne suspected that women had the same pa.s.sions and needs as men, yet they were condemned far more when they indulged them. His usual perspective-shifting habits also made it apparent to him that his view of women must be as partial and unreliable as women"s views of men. His feelings on the whole subject are encapsulated in his observation: "We are in almost all things unjust judges of their actions, as they are of ours."
Given such injustice, it is not surprising that he decided his own best policy at home was to absent himself from the female realm as much as possible. He let them enjoy their kind of domesticity, while he enjoyed his. In an essay on solitude, he wrote: We should have wife, children, goods, and above all health, if we can; but we must not bind ourselves to them so strongly that our happiness depends on them. We must reserve a back shop all our own, entirely free, in which to establish our real liberty and our princ.i.p.al retreat and solitude. Here our ordinary conversation must be between us and ourselves, and so private that no outside a.s.sociation or communication can find a place; here we must talk and laugh as if without wife, without children, without possessions, without retinue and servants, so that, when the time comes to lose them, it will be nothing new to us to do without them.
The phrase about the "back shop," or "room behind the shop" as it is sometimes translated-the arriere boutique arriere boutique-appears again and again in books about Montaigne, but it is rarely kept within its context. He is not writing about a selfish, introverted withdrawal from family life so much as about the need to protect yourself from the pain that would come if you lost that family. Montaigne sought detachment and retreat so that he could not be too badly hurt, but in doing so he also discovered that having such a retreat helped him establish his "real liberty," the s.p.a.ce he needed to think and look inward.
He certainly had reason to work at Stoic detachment. Having lost his friend, his father, and his brother in short order, Montaigne was now to lose almost all of his children-all daughters. He noted the sad sequence of births and deaths in his diary, the Beuther Ephemeris: Ephemeris: June 28, 1570: Thoinette. Montaigne wrote, "This is the first child of my marriage," but later added, "And died two months later."September 9, 1571: Leonor was born-the only survivor.July 5, 1573: Unnamed daughter. "She lived only seven weeks."December 27, 1574: Unnamed daughter. "Died about three months later, and was hastily baptized under pressure of necessity."
May 16, 1577: Unnamed daughter; died after a month.
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(ill.u.s.tration credit i8.1)
February 21, 1583: "We had another daughter who was named Marie, baptised by the sieur de Jaurillac councillor of parlement parlement, her uncle, and my daughter Leonor. She died a few days later."
Montaigne wrote that he had lost most of the children "without grief, or at least without repining," because they were so young. People generally did try not to get too attached to children while they were in early infancy, because the likelihood of their dying was great, but Montaigne seemed exceptionally good at staying aloof. It was an affliction he did not feel deeply, he admitted. He even wrote, in the mid-1570s, of having lost "two or three" children, as if uncertain of the figure, though this could just be his usual habit of vagueness about numbers. It is very much like his way of dating his riding accident, which he said happened "during our third civil war, or the second (I do not quite remember which)." In his dedication to his wife in the Plutarch translation, he gets the details even more startlingly wrong, writing that their first daughter had died "in the second year of her life," although she died at two months. This was probably a slip of the pen rather than of the mind. Or was it? One has the feeling, with Montaigne, that anything is possible.
There were other disasters in life that he knew would not bother him as much as they should: I see enough other common occasions for affliction which I should scarcely feel if they happened to me, and I have disdained some, when they came to me, to which the world has given such an atrocious appearance that I wouldn"t dare boast of my indifference to them to most people without blushing.
One wonders if he was contemplating the possible death of his wife, here, or perhaps of his mother. If so, he had no such luck in either case. Or perhaps he was thinking back to the death of his father, or wondering what it would be like if his castle were sacked in the wars, or his lands burned. He seems to have found almost anything manageable other than the death of La Boetie: that was the one thing that knocked him off balance and made him unwilling to become so attached again.
In reality, his detachment is likely to have been less extreme than he pretended. His written notes of his children"s deaths are plain but poignant. And he could be eloquent about fatherly grief in the Essays Essays-just not his own. His essay on sadness, written in the mid-1570s when he had already lost several children, dwells on stories of paternal bereavement in literature. He also wrote feelingly about the ancient story of Niobe, who, after losing seven sons and then seven daughters, wept so much that she changed into a waterfall of stone-"to represent that bleak, dumb, and deaf stupor that benumbs us when accidents surpa.s.sing our endurance overwhelm us." Whether or not it was losing his children that gave Montaigne this sensation, he surely knew what it felt like.
Montaigne failed in the main responsibility of a n.o.bleman, which was to have a male heir to ensure the succession. But he did have one healthy child, Leonor, and he became fond of her as she grew beyond infancy. Born in 1571, she must have been conceived not long after his ceremonial retirement in 1570. This made her the child of his midlife crisis and of his spiritual rebirth; perhaps it gave her that extra shot of life force. The sole survivor, she lived until 1616, marrying twice and having two daughters of her own.
While she was growing up, her father gave her over mostly to the female domain, as he was supposed to. "The government of women has a mysterious way of proceeding; we must leave it to them," he wrote, in a tone that suggests someone tiptoeing away from a place where he was not wanted. Indeed, when he once overheard something he thought was bad for Leonor, he did not intervene because he knew he would be waved aside with derision. She was reading a book aloud to her governess; the word fouteau fouteau came up in the text-meaning beech, but reminiscent of came up in the text-meaning beech, but reminiscent of foutre foutre, meaning f.u.c.k. The innocent child thought nothing of it, but her fl.u.s.tered governess shushed her. Montaigne felt that this was a mistake: "The company of twenty lackeys could not have imprinted in her imagination in six months the understanding and use and all the consequences of those wicked syllables as did this good old woman by her reprimand and interdict." But he kept silent.
He described Leonor as seeming younger than she was, even once she was of an age to marry. She was "of a backward const.i.tution, slight and soft." He thought this was his wife"s doing: she had sequestered the girl too much. But Montaigne also agreed to give Leonor an easy, pleasant upbringing like his own; he wrote that they had both decided she should be punished by nothing more than stern words, and even then, "very gentle ones."
Despite his a.s.sertion that he had little to do with nursery life, other pa.s.sages in the Essays Essays do give us a charming picture of Montaigne do give us a charming picture of Montaigne en famille en famille. He describes playing games together, including games of chance played for small amounts: "I handle the cards and keep score for a couple of pennies just as for double doubloons." And they amused themselves with word puzzles. "We have just now at my house been playing a game to see who could find the most things that meet at their two extremes," such as the term "sire" as a t.i.tle for the king and as a way of addressing lowly tradesmen, or "dames" for women of the highest quality and those of the lowest. This is not a cold, detached Montaigne, despiser of females and ignorer of children, but a family man, trying his best to play the genial patriarch in a home full of women who regard him most of the time with little more than exasperation.
PRACTICAL RESPONSIBILITIES.
Montaigne deserved some of this: he was, as he admitted, useless around the house. He preferred to leave its management to his wife, who, like his mother, was skilled in such affairs. He liked Francoise"s willingness to take on such responsibility when he went away on his travels or for work; he would probably have been happy to have her do the same when he was there as well. Not being able to do this was one of the main reasons he was generally so glad to leave. "It is pitiful to be in a place where everything you see involves and concerns you," he wrote.
Looking after the estate must have had its onerous side. "There is always something that goes wrong," he complained. The main business to be managed was the production of wine, of which the estate could produce tens of thousands of liters in a good year. Not all years were good. Severe weather ruined the harvests in 1572, 1573, and 1574-the years in which Montaigne wrote his first essays. Another bad patch occurred in 1586, when soldiers roamed the nearby countryside, causing havoc. Montaigne managed to recoup some of the losses by using his influence with parlement parlement in Bordeaux to sell what little remained of his wine, which shows that he could tackle difficulties when he needed to. His overall grasp of the business may be gauged, however, by his admission that he did not know, until a late stage in life, what was meant by "fermenting wine." in Bordeaux to sell what little remained of his wine, which shows that he could tackle difficulties when he needed to. His overall grasp of the business may be gauged, however, by his admission that he did not know, until a late stage in life, what was meant by "fermenting wine."
Montaigne did what he had to, but he confessed that he did not enjoy it, and that therefore he kept it to a minimum. This was why he made no attempt to expand or build on the estate. Pierre had undertaken such projects for the pleasure and challenge of the job-but that was Pierre. He was the sort of man who would today keep himself busy with DIY work, and probably leave half of it unfinished. If his type seems familiar, so too does the Montaigne type, whose two mottoes would surely be "Anything for a quiet life" and "If it ain"t broke, don"t fix it."
When he did get an urge to do something, he could apply himself to it with energy. "I stand up well under hard work; but I do so only if I go to it of my own will, and as much as my desire leads me to it." He hated exerting himself doing things that bored him. In eighteen years of running the estate, he wrote, he had never managed to study a t.i.tle deed or scrutinize a contract properly. He was a ma.s.s of inabilities and reluctances: I cannot reckon, either with counters or with a pen; most of our coins I do not know; nor do I know the difference between one grain and another, either in the ground or in the barn, unless it is too obvious, and I can scarcely distinguish the difference between the cabbages and lettuces in my garden. I do not even understand the names of the chief household implements or the roughest principles of agriculture, which children know. I know still less of the mechanical arts, of trade and merchandise, of the diversity and nature of fruits, wines, and foods, and of how to train a bird, or doctor a horse or dog. And since I must make my shame complete, not a month ago I was caught ignorant that leaven was used to make bread.
Montaigne runs through his negative catechism of failings in the same way as he later ran through the list of things absent from the lives of the "cannibals" of Brazil: servants, magistrates, contracts, and private property, but, by the same token, also lying, poverty, treachery, envy, and greed. It could be a blessing to lack such things.
It was not that Montaigne did not want to learn. In principle he approved of practical know-how, admiring all that was concrete and specific. But he could not help his own lack of interest, and any feeling of compulsion only made him more resistant. Some of this went back to the gentle lutes of his childhood: "Having had neither governor nor master forced on me to this day, I have gone just so far as I pleased, and at my own pace. This has made me soft and useless for serving others, and no good to anyone but myself." This pa.s.sage reveals some of his true motivation: it was his his life he wanted to live. Being impractical made him free. "Extremely idle, extremely independent, both by nature and by art," was the way he summed up his character. He was ruled by "freedom and laziness." life he wanted to live. Being impractical made him free. "Extremely idle, extremely independent, both by nature and by art," was the way he summed up his character. He was ruled by "freedom and laziness."
He knew that there was a price to be paid, apart from that of being berated by his wife. People often took advantage of his ignorance. Yet it seemed to him better to lose money occasionally than to waste time tracking every penny and watching his servants" tiniest movements. In any case, other people were swindled too, however much they tried to prevent it. His favorite example of foolishness was a neighbor, the powerful Germain-Gaston de Foix, marquis de Trans, who became a miser and domestic tyrant in old age. His family and servants let him rant, and put up with his tightly rationed issues of food, while all the time helping themselves behind his back. "Everybody is living it up in various corners of his house, gaming, spending, and exchanging stories about his vain anger and foresight." Still, added Montaigne on second thought, it did not matter, since the old man was convinced that he wielded absolute power in the house, and was therefore as happy as such a person could ever be.
"Nothing costs me dear except care and trouble," wrote Montaigne. "I seek only to grow indifferent and relaxed." One can imagine Pascal"s blood pressure going up on reading this line. What Montaigne claimed to want most for his old age was a son-in-law who would take all his responsibilities away. In reality, had he been patronized and pandered to by an outsider, his love of independence would probably have surged up in protest-and he does follow this remark about the son-in-law with a flurry of contrary statements: I avoid subjecting myself to any sort of obligation.
I try to have no express need of anyone...It is very pitiful and hazardous to be dependent on another.I have conceived a mortal hatred of being obliged either to another or by another than myself.
He was not thinking of household management when he wrote this: the subject is his commitments later in life to France"s new king, Henri IV, who seemed to want Montaigne at his beck and call. Montaigne would resist this with a determination verging on insolence-which was very much his att.i.tude to more homely demands. Laziness was only half of his self-description; freedom was the other half. He even fantasized about becoming like Hippias of Elis, a Greek Sophist philosopher of the fifth century BC BC, who learned to be self-sufficient, teaching himself to cook, shave, make his own clothes and shoes-everything he needed. It was a fine idea. Still: a self-sufficient Montaigne, mending his doublet with needle and thread, digging his garden, baking bread, tanning leather for his boots? Even Montaigne himself must have found this hard to picture.
As usual, he let the whole topic lie amid contradiction and a spirit of compromise. If his protestations of incompetence failed to save him from a particular responsibility, he would knuckle down and do the job anyway, and probably more conscientiously than he liked to admit.
Nietzsche wrote of certain "free-spirited people" who are perfectly satisfied "with a minor position or a fortune that just meets their needs; for they will set themselves up to live in such a way that a great change in economic conditions, even a revolution in political structures, will not overturn their life with it." He adds that such a person will tend to have "cautious and somewhat shortwinded" relationships with those around him. This sounds so much like Montaigne"s home arrangement that you almost wonder if Nietzsche was thinking of him, especially when he adds that this person "must trust that the genius of justice will say something on behalf of its disciple and protege, should accusatory voices call him poor in love."
In Montaigne"s case, his own voice was the first to p.r.o.nounce this awful accusation. Others have taken this as encouragement to repeat it ever since, in a harsh tone, and without either Montaigne"s or Nietzsche"s sense of irony. But nothing in Montaigne"s writing, or his character, was ever so straightforward. However much he tries to persuade us that he is cold and detached, other images rise up before the mind"s eye: Montaigne springing to his feet in parlement parlement to plunge into hot debate, Montaigne deep in pa.s.sionate conversation with La Boetie, even Montaigne playing games for pennies with his wife and daughter by the fireside. Some of his answers to the question of how to live are indeed chilly: mind your own business, preserve your sense of self, stay out of trouble, and keep your room behind the shop. But there is another which is almost the exact opposite. It is... to plunge into hot debate, Montaigne deep in pa.s.sionate conversation with La Boetie, even Montaigne playing games for pennies with his wife and daughter by the fireside. Some of his answers to the question of how to live are indeed chilly: mind your own business, preserve your sense of self, stay out of trouble, and keep your room behind the shop. But there is another which is almost the exact opposite. It is...
9. Q. How to live? A. Be convivial: live with others