When I Am Playing With My Cat, How Do I Know That She Is Not Playing With Me? Part 6

A seventeenth-century woodcut ent.i.tled Autumn Autumn (pictured at the start of this chapter) gives a sense of Montaigne's world, where an ageing seigneur and his wife pause during the (pictured at the start of this chapter) gives a sense of Montaigne's world, where an ageing seigneur and his wife pause during the vendange vendange or grape-picking to observe the fertile industry going on around them: the seigneur's paring knife indicating his links to the land and his people; the apples in his wife's skirt showing nature's bountiful largesse; and the cart in the background, weighed down with barrels, indicating a pension pot maturing nicely. or grape-picking to observe the fertile industry going on around them: the seigneur's paring knife indicating his links to the land and his people; the apples in his wife's skirt showing nature's bountiful largesse; and the cart in the background, weighed down with barrels, indicating a pension pot maturing nicely.

Montaigne cannot help but see his own life as similarly entwined with the natural and viticultural rhythms that surround him: It is one of the princ.i.p.al obligations that I have to my fortune, that the course of my bodily state has been conducted each according to its season: I have seen the leaf, the flower, and the fruit; and now I see the drying up...

Yet the world of the vigneron vigneron was more demanding than that of the wheat farmer, more technically difficult, requiring man-management and a firm hand on the wheel. Retirement for Montaigne thus was not necessarily as peaceful as he might originally have hoped. He complains about the poverty and fractiousness of the hundreds of people dependent on him, and quotes Horace on the winegrower's litany of woes: was more demanding than that of the wheat farmer, more technically difficult, requiring man-management and a firm hand on the wheel. Retirement for Montaigne thus was not necessarily as peaceful as he might originally have hoped. He complains about the poverty and fractiousness of the hundreds of people dependent on him, and quotes Horace on the winegrower's litany of woes: Either hail has spoiled your vines, Or the soils treachery; trees that Blame the rains, and the stars, and winter's iniquity.

He tells how 'when the vines freeze in my village, my priest declares that the wrath of G.o.d is upon the human race'. And concludes that Diogenes 'answered according to my humour' when he was asked what sort of wine he like best: 'Another man's.'

Of course Montaigne would not have necessarily been involved in the back-breaking work himself. A steward was employed to supervise the care of the vines: digging around and manuring them, pruning them so that the plant's energies flowed into the fruit. But as seigneur, Montaigne would have been responsible for calling the ban de vendange ban de vendange, the beginning of the grape harvest, a moment of great importance for the economic well-being of the community. Here large numbers of workers needed feeding and organizing. Vats and wine-presses needed to be inspected and repaired. And on top of this, Montaigne would have had the responsibility for marketing and selling his wine, through the new breed of official agents or courtiers courtiers, but inevitably through family contacts as well. As mayor he defended Bordeaux wines from foreign imports, introducing rules against them being put in the same casks. And Montaigne seems to have been experimenting with improving the quality of his product, showing an awareness of how wine 'changes its flavour in cellars, according to the changes and seasons of the vine from which it came' and recognizing the importance of the lees for keeping it alive. When travelling through Germany and Italy he begins to complain when the 'old' wine has run dry.

The language of wine and winemaking thus comes easily to Montaigne. Perhaps the first essay he composes, 'Of Idleness', opens with an image from Virgil, comparing his mind to light dancing on the ceiling, reflected off the water in a vat (a familiar sight to a winemaker), and goes on to express the hope that retirement might make his mind 'weightier and riper with time'. And when writing about the education of children, he very easily makes the transition to the training of his vines: Just as in agriculture the methods that precede the planting, and the planting itself, are certain and easy, but as soon as what is planted comes to life, there are a great variety of methods and difficulties in cultivating it. Similarly with humans: there is little industry in planting them; but as soon as they are born we are charged with diverse concerns, full of troubles and fears, in training and nouris.h.i.+ng them.

He talks of turning to another subject in terms of trying a different vat (cuvee). And addressing his own melancholy, he tells how a docile spirit needs reinforcing: 'some good sound strokes of the mallet to force down and tighten the hoops of this cask which is getting loose and weak in the seams and going completely to bits'. He writes of the difficulty of extracting any 'juice and substance' from reading Cicero, and quotes Seneca on the pleasant melancholy of the memory of dead friends: 'like the bitter taste in wine when it is old'. And in words that Shakespeare was to echo in Macbeth Macbeth, he likens the remainder of his life to the dregs of a barrel: 'I have come to the bottom of the cask, which is beginning to taste of the lees.'

In this language, however, Montaigne reflects the centrality of wine in early modern society, an everyday drink that was nevertheless blessed with a multiplicity of religious and therapeutic virtues. The country people around Montaigne thus 'make use of nothing, in all sorts of distempers, but the strongest wine they can get, mixed with a great deal of saffron and spice'. He knows from his own experience how 'there are some simples that moisten, and others that dry...that mutton nourishes me, and wine warms me'. He even admits to a moment of food-faddishness when he fed a goat only on white wine and herbs and then slaughtered it to see if the healing powers of its flesh were all they were reported to be. (He goes off the idea, when it emerges that the goat is suffering from stones itself.) But the cla.s.s a.s.sumptions behind wine are also revealed here, with the more subtly flavoured white wine being seen as more suitably upper-cla.s.s. On the other hand, the red-blooded warmth of red wine was seen as an indispensable part of the solder's armoury. Montaigne tells how French soldiers marching north to Luxembourg were so cold that that their wine rations froze; but they simply chopped it up with hatchets and carried it off in their helmets.

Wine is also seen as a common bond, something that people are a.s.sumed to understand and share despite their differences a useful thing to present by way of greeting. On his travels he thus receives from the deaconess of Remiremont a barrel of wine along with some partridges and artichokes. Signor Ludovico Pintesi sends him twelve flagons of sweet wine and figs. In Constance the burgomasters deliver wine to Montaigne's inn, and in Augsburg fourteen large vessels of wine are presented to him by 'seven sergeants in livery and an eminent officer of the crown'.

But in its universality, wine also reveals national characteristics. The French avoid the bottom of the cask, whilst in Portugal the lees are fit for a prince. In Florence the locals add snow to their gla.s.ses to cool it (elsewhere wine was often warmed). In Germany they prefer quant.i.ty rather than quality and serve it in large pitchers, even inviting their servants to dip in. There the gla.s.ses are too big; in Italy too small. And when visiting Basel, people complain to Montaigne how dissolute and drunk everyone is. As for drinking bouts, Montaigne says that he 'was never invited to any except out of courtesy, and never attempted any'.

In the body of the Essays Essays wine provides Montaigne with an umbilical link to the ancients, where Montaigne can sit down and drink with them man to man. He tells how the ancients took breaths as they drank and liked to cool wine with ice even in winter. And antiquity also had its own ranking and ratings Montaigne quotes Homer on the sublimity of wine from Chios, whose townspeople were taught the art of winemaking by Oinopion, the son of Dionysus himself (according to Pliny, 121 wine provides Montaigne with an umbilical link to the ancients, where Montaigne can sit down and drink with them man to man. He tells how the ancients took breaths as they drank and liked to cool wine with ice even in winter. And antiquity also had its own ranking and ratings Montaigne quotes Homer on the sublimity of wine from Chios, whose townspeople were taught the art of winemaking by Oinopion, the son of Dionysus himself (according to Pliny, 121 BCE BCE was a particularly good year). was a particularly good year).

Wine is therefore a constant ingredient in Montaigne's writing. But what is most revealing is when he comments on his own tastes in wine, his own likes and dislikes. Here Montaigne reflects the growth of a distinctly more modern, commercial market for wine, one devoted to providing not simply sustenance, but pleasure and taste. Traditionally winemaking expertise had been concentrated in monastic communities, but over the course of the Middle Ages there developed a wider culture of connoisseurs.h.i.+p. In the La Bataille des Vins La Bataille des Vins, by the thirteenth-century poet Jean d'Andeli, a priest samples seventy wines for the King, who wants to know which is the best. Before collapsing drunk, the priest excommunicates a number of acidic northern wines, as well as beer simply for being English. The prize eventually goes to a wine from Cyprus, with its rea.s.suringly expensive, sweet strength. Unsurprisingly, the thirteenth-century troubadour Bertrand de Born complained that the n.o.bility were getting soft with all this talk of wine rather than warfare, Dante suitably immortalizing him in The Divine Comedy The Divine Comedy holding not a gla.s.s of Chablis, but his own severed head. holding not a gla.s.s of Chablis, but his own severed head.

But among the new cla.s.s of winemakers surrounding Bordeaux in the sixteenth century the art of winemaking rose to new heights. They researched new techniques manuring the rootstocks, planting in rows, maturing in barrels and installing presses. For in this expanding and compet.i.tive market taste was at a premium. n.o.bles and city merchants did not want to drink the locals' watery piquette piquette made from the remains of the already crushed grape. They wanted something richer, finer, to complement the other symbols of n.o.bility that they actively pursued. And since labelling and branding were not yet established, taste was the sole criterion determining price as growers, merchants and sailors and crowded around the new barrels, drawing up samples in their made from the remains of the already crushed grape. They wanted something richer, finer, to complement the other symbols of n.o.bility that they actively pursued. And since labelling and branding were not yet established, taste was the sole criterion determining price as growers, merchants and sailors and crowded around the new barrels, drawing up samples in their tastevins tastevins.

(ill.u.s.trations credit 11.2) Increasing trade served as an encouragement to this continuing sophistication. In 1562, the London merchant Henry Machyn recorded the celebrations surrounding the christening of William Harvey's daughter in the parish of St Bride's, noting and the luxury of it seemed worth noting the rich choice of wines on offer: and there was as great [a] banquet as I have [ever] seen, and wa.s.sail of hipocras [spiced wine], French wine, Gascoyne wine, and Rhenish [wine] with great plenty, and all their servandes had a banquet in the hall with divers dishes.

And in 1586 William Harrison described how contemporary consumers enjoyed an even wider choice: as claret, white, red, French, etc., which amount to about 56 sorts...but also of the 30 kinds of Italian, Grecian, Spanish, Canarian etc. whereof vernage, cut, piment, raspis, muscatel, rumeny, b.a.s.t.a.r.d, tyre, osey, caprike, clary and malmsey...so the stronger the wine is, the more it is desired.

Among other wines being imported were vintages from Alicante, Burgundy, Nantes, Oleron, and Roch.e.l.le, as well as newcomers from the eastern Mediterranean like Muscatel and Sack. In the light of such compet.i.tion, the taste of a vintage could mean the difference between profit and loss. Guides were thus written to this revived science of winemaking, such as Henri Estienne's Vinetum Vinetum of 1536. And in 1601 Nicolas-Abraham de La Framboisiere advised: of 1536. And in 1601 Nicolas-Abraham de La Framboisiere advised: To judge the quality and the goodness of wine, it is necessary to carefully scrutinize the estate and const.i.tution of each wine, and to taste every year, to give a confident opinion on it. Some years the wines of Burgundy take the prize; in other years the wines of Orleans surpa.s.s; never are the wines of Anjou more excellent than any others; and most often the wines of Ay hold the first place in goodness and perfection.

In Cervantes's Don Quixote Don Quixote, this new sensitivity to taste is satirized when Sancho Panza boasts of being able to tell of a wine 'its country, its kind, its flavour and soundness, the changes it will undergo', simply from its smell, a talent he owed to one of his ancestors, who on smelling and tasting a wine described it as leathery with a touch of iron, only for the barrel to be upended to reveal a key with a leather fob.

Questions of quality and taste thus played an increasingly important role in the market for wine in the late sixteenth century. But it also seems likely Montaigne was blessed with a very sensitive palate himself, suggesting that he was what would be now called a 'supertaster', i.e. among that 25% of the population capable of tasting more intensely than anyone else, and able to detect flavours imperceptible to anyone else. Striking a Stoic note, he ostensibly distances himself from this sensitivity 'We should take the whip to a young man who amused himself choosing between the taste of wines and sauces' yet he goes on to say that in old age he is doing just that: 'At this moment I am learning it. I am much ashamed of it, but what should I do? I am still more ashamed and vexed at the circ.u.mstances that drive me towards it.'

Montaigne even coins the phrase 'science de gueule' (science of the gullet), telling how the cook of Cardinal Caraffa spoke of the art of gastronomy 'with gravity and a magisterial air', as if he were discoursing of 'the government of an empire'. And this was the beginning of the great age of French cookery, reaching its apogee in the seventeenth century when the famed chef Vatel committed suicide on eve of the King's feast when he realized he had run out of fish.

Montaigne's sense of taste is also accompanied with a very acute sense of smell (as we now know, our sense of taste is largely dependent upon the olfactory membrane in our noses). He writes an essay 'Of Smells', where he says how he likes 'very much to be surrounded with good smells, and I hate bad ones beyond measure, and detect them from further away than anyone else'. He describes his nose as a 'marvel' in how sensitive it is. He describes the sweetness of a healthy child's breath and how the whiff of his gloved hand will stay with him all day. His fondness for Venice and Paris is spoiled by the stink of their muddy marshes and he prefers the stoves of Austria to the smoky fireplaces of home. The best smell for a man or a woman, he says, is to smell of nothing.

Montaigne's olfactory and gustatory sensitivity is especially apparent in his Travel Journal Travel Journal, which becomes a veritable sixteenth-century Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide as he sniffs and tastes, swills and expectorates the winemaking efforts of other regions. In Plombieres both wine and bread are bad. In Schongau they only serve new wine, ordinarily very soon after it is made. In Augsburg 'the wines are good...and more often than not white', as are the wines of Sterzing. In Vicenza in November the old wines that they brought with them are already beginning to go off, so that: as he sniffs and tastes, swills and expectorates the winemaking efforts of other regions. In Plombieres both wine and bread are bad. In Schongau they only serve new wine, ordinarily very soon after it is made. In Augsburg 'the wines are good...and more often than not white', as are the wines of Sterzing. In Vicenza in November the old wines that they brought with them are already beginning to go off, so that: we regretted leaving those of Germany, although they were for the most part aromatic and have various scents which they find delicious, especially sage, which they call sage wine, which is not bad, when you get used to it, for otherwise their wine is good and generous.

The wines of Basel 'are so slight that our gentlemen found them even weaker than those of Gascony when these are well baptized [watered down]; and yet all the same they are very delicate'. In Florence he finds the wines 'undrinkable...for those who hate an insipid sweetness'. But at Bagni di Lucca a fellow bather, the Minister Friar of St Francis, sends him some 'very good wine' and some marzipan, and Montaigne observes how the local wine economy works: Every day one could see being brought to this place from all parts different samples of wines in little bottles, so that the visitors there who liked them might place an order. And yet there were very few good wines. The white wines were light but bitter and crude...unless you sent to Lucca or Pescia for the white Trebbiano, strong mature, though not too delicate for all that.

Later the Trebbiano, and its 'sweet, heady' taste gives him a migraine.

Montaigne also takes a professional interest in local winemaking techniques. In Ma.s.sa di Carrara he is 'forced' to drink new wines, which, he notes, are clarified 'with a certain kind of wood and the whites of eggs'; they lack none of the colour of old wines, but have 'an indefinable, unnatural taste'. He noses around vineyards, noting the start of the harvest in Lucca, and how the cardinal at Urbino has grafted his vines. He sees the carved satyr in the vineyard of Cardinal Sforza and compares the vineyards of Rome with those of Bordeaux: 'which are gardens and pleasure spots of particular beauty, and where I saw how art can make use of a rugged, hilly and uneven spot; for here they derive charms that cannot be equalled in our level places'.

But perhaps the most important thing about Montaigne's relations.h.i.+p with wine is the way it enters his bloodstream, giving him a new way to think about the whole process of 'essaying', and ultimately to thinking about life itself. For what does Montaigne mean by 'essais'? Most commentators translate it as 'trials', 'tests' or 'attempts', with the emphasis on a slightly humbled intellectual capacity, which would accord with our modern preoccupation with the sceptical element in Montaigne. But to Montaigne's contemporaries, 'essais' could also mean simply 'tastes', or 'tastings'. If we look at the history of the word 'essay' or 'a.s.say' (an early form which was also shared with English), it is thus very clearly linked to food and wine. A medieval English recipe for the spiced wine hipocras instructs the reader to add the ingredients and then 'take a pece, and a.s.say it; and yet hit be enythyng to stronge of ginger, alay it with synamon'. The fifteenth-century French chronicler Olivier de La Marche writes extensively of the whole etiquette of the 'a.s.say' of a Lord's wine in a n.o.ble household: how the cup-bearer 'carries his goblet to the prince, and puts some wine in his gla.s.s, then re-covers his goblet and makes his essay [a.s.say]'. (Montaigne had in fact read La Marche's Memoires Memoires and very possibly gained the inspiration for his t.i.tle from him.) And in his FrenchEnglish dictionary of 1611 Randle Cotgrave thus defines the French and very possibly gained the inspiration for his t.i.tle from him.) And in his FrenchEnglish dictionary of 1611 Randle Cotgrave thus defines the French essay essay as: a 'proofe, tryall, experiment; an offer, attempt; a tast, or touch of a thing to know it by; also the tast, or Essay taken of a Princes meat, or drinke' a usage that is represented in George Herbert's 'The Agonie': as: a 'proofe, tryall, experiment; an offer, attempt; a tast, or touch of a thing to know it by; also the tast, or Essay taken of a Princes meat, or drinke' a usage that is represented in George Herbert's 'The Agonie': Who knows not Love, let him a.s.say And taste that juice, which on the crosse a pike Did set again abroach; then let him say If ever he did taste the like.

Love is that liquour sweet and most divine, Which my G.o.d feels as bloud; but I as wine.

What is also interesting is that this process of essaying or a.s.saying, or tasting often to check that wine had not been adulterated was also one of the responsibilities of the local lord. In 1559 the Earl of Pembroke's rights were said to include: 'the a.s.sise and a.s.say of bread, wine, beer and other victuals; the scrutiny of weights and measures, and the amendment and correction of the same'. Taste had to be regularized in some way, and in the absence of objective standards of measurement the obvious way to do it was to follow the lines of political power and leave it to the discrimination of the local seigneur.

What seems to have happened is that, subsequent to (and obviously in great part because of) Montaigne, the word 'essay' has gained a much more rational, intellectual sense, and become synonymous with 'chapters' or short prose disquisitions. Montaigne, however, never referred to his chapters as 'essays', and initially ent.i.tled his book Essais de Messire Michel de Montaigne Essais de Messire Michel de Montaigne (i.e. not (i.e. not The Essays The Essays). What is also interesting is that this increases the reflexivity of the t.i.tle, giving it the dual sense of 'Tastes by by Michel de Montaigne', but also 'Tastes Michel de Montaigne', but also 'Tastes of of Michel de Montaigne' i.e. our tastes or samplings of him. And this reminds us of Montaigne's address 'To the Reader' where he describes his book as a means of 'nouris.h.i.+ng' the memory of himself amongst his family and friends. Michel de Montaigne' i.e. our tastes or samplings of him. And this reminds us of Montaigne's address 'To the Reader' where he describes his book as a means of 'nouris.h.i.+ng' the memory of himself amongst his family and friends.

For Montaigne the gustatory overtones of his Essays Essays are clear. He says of his working philosophy: 'I have lived long enough to give an account of the practice that has guided me so. For anyone who wants to taste it, I have tried it [ are clear. He says of his working philosophy: 'I have lived long enough to give an account of the practice that has guided me so. For anyone who wants to taste it, I have tried it [j'en ay faict l'essay] like his cup-bearer.' In this way, we can perhaps see that Montaigne saw his project as less one of sceptical 'testing', and more of a 'tasting' or sampling of different subjects. And as such, it is a process that that never simply concludes, but matures. On the t.i.tle page of the Bordeaux copy Montaigne scribbles: Viresque acquirit eundo Viresque acquirit eundo 'It gains strength as it proceeds', clearly a reference to Montaigne's growing confidence in his work, but also a thought familiar from his taste for 'old' wine that grows in strength and maturity. 'It gains strength as it proceeds', clearly a reference to Montaigne's growing confidence in his work, but also a thought familiar from his taste for 'old' wine that grows in strength and maturity.

The other word linked to wine that Montaigne relies on very heavily is the more commonplace word for taste, goust goust (the older spelling of the modern French (the older spelling of the modern French gout gout). In the Bordeaux copy Montaigne uses 'goust' and its conjugations (gouster, gouste, etc.) on 106 occasions, a quite remarkable number of times. Moreover, if we add to this figure the number of times Montaigne uses the word in earlier editions only to subsequently erase it and replace it with another such as 'appet.i.te or 'sentiment' as he perhaps becomes aware of his over-dependence on it, the number of instances increases to 146. As Montaigne's essays total around 430,000 words, this gives it a frequency of around once in every 3,000 words. If we look at Montaigne's Travel Journal Travel Journal we again find a remarkable proliferation of we again find a remarkable proliferation of goust: goust: thirty-six times in French, and seven times in its Italian form (including thirty-six times in French, and seven times in its Italian form (including gustevoli gustevoli tasty): thus forty-three times in a work of 113,000 words (one in every 2,600). tasty): thus forty-three times in a work of 113,000 words (one in every 2,600).

By way of comparison, Francis Bacon's final edition of his own Essays Essays of 1625 uses 'taste' only twice. And nowhere does Bacon use comparable synonyms such as 'flavour' or 'savour'. Bacon's essays are an eighth the length of Montaigne's (53,000 words), so that is to say he is only using it once every 26,500 words. Of course these figures are only approximations, but the point is that, although a comparable essayist such as Bacon is using the word 'taste', Montaigne is using it much more frequently of 1625 uses 'taste' only twice. And nowhere does Bacon use comparable synonyms such as 'flavour' or 'savour'. Bacon's essays are an eighth the length of Montaigne's (53,000 words), so that is to say he is only using it once every 26,500 words. Of course these figures are only approximations, but the point is that, although a comparable essayist such as Bacon is using the word 'taste', Montaigne is using it much more frequently up to ten times up to ten times more frequently than anyone else. more frequently than anyone else.

Tasting therefore looms very large in Montaigne the vigneron vigneron's vocabulary, and hence very large in his mind. During his visits to the mineral baths of Europe, he thus extends his oenological faculties to the local waters. In Baden he finds it 'a little weak and flat, as if it had been poured back and forth a lot'. In Pisa he feels 'only a little sharpness on the tongue'. In Battaglia the water has 'a slight smell of sulphur, a little saltiness'. But in Plombieres he pulls out all the stops: There are only two springs from which one can drink. That which issues from the eastern slopes and produces the bath that they call The Queen's Bath leaves a sort of sweet taste in the mouth like liquorice, without any aftertaste. But it seemed to Monsieur de Montaigne that if you paid special attention, you could detect a certain taste of iron. The other, which springs from the foot of the mountain opposite, of which Monsieur de Montaigne drank for only a day, has a little more bitterness, and one may discern in it the flavour of alum.

In Rome he even turns forensic chemist, having been given: 'a certain sort of drink that had precisely the taste and colour of almond milk', but goes on to detect 'quatre-s.e.m.e.nces-froides in it' (i.e. the four cold seeds of cuc.u.mber, gourd, melon and pumpkin). Montaigne's winemaker's palate thus becomes extended to the wider world, to water and also obviously to food, about which he is very fussy. in it' (i.e. the four cold seeds of cuc.u.mber, gourd, melon and pumpkin). Montaigne's winemaker's palate thus becomes extended to the wider world, to water and also obviously to food, about which he is very fussy.

In the Essays Essays we see this apt.i.tude manifest in a continuing preoccupation with taste. He talks of how the upper cla.s.ses spend their time at table 'talking about the beauty of a tapestry, or the taste of the malmsey' (a Madeira wine). He tells of how the natives of South America drink a drink 'made of some root, and is the same colour as our claret wines...This beverage keeps only two or three days; it has a slightly sweet taste.' He tells how we can no more persuade ourselves that the lash of a whip tickles us than we can believe that a potion of aloes a strong laxative 'tastes' like a wine of Bordeaux. we see this apt.i.tude manifest in a continuing preoccupation with taste. He talks of how the upper cla.s.ses spend their time at table 'talking about the beauty of a tapestry, or the taste of the malmsey' (a Madeira wine). He tells of how the natives of South America drink a drink 'made of some root, and is the same colour as our claret wines...This beverage keeps only two or three days; it has a slightly sweet taste.' He tells how we can no more persuade ourselves that the lash of a whip tickles us than we can believe that a potion of aloes a strong laxative 'tastes' like a wine of Bordeaux.

But the notion of taste becomes essential to the development of Montaigne's essays, in the sense that they represent the extension of Montaigne's palate beyond wine, into a more abstract, metaphorical and philosophical realm, but one that ultimately returns him to the human body. Firstly, we see the natural extension of taste as a synonym for disposition, as in 'this depends on man's particular taste: mine is not adaptable to household management'. Neither does he think he possesses 'the taste for those lengthy offers of affection and service' required of public life. But through this Montaigne shows himself increasingly alert to the varieties of human experience. Writing of fish, he says that 'the great have pretensions of knowing how to prepare it; and indeed its taste is much more exquisite that that of flesh, at least to me'. And here the very important lesson for Montaigne is that we all have our own particular particular take on the world quoting Horace on the dilemmas of entertaining: take on the world quoting Horace on the dilemmas of entertaining: Tres mihi convivae propre dissentire videntur, Poscentes vario multum diversa palato Three guests I have dissenting at my feast Requiring each to gratify his taste With different food But an awareness of this fact should, for Montaigne, be extended to politics and (by implication) religion. Varro calculated that trying to find the sovereign good gave rise to 288 sects. 'We fall to disputing, because one person differs from another as to what he hears, sees or tastes...a child tastes differently to a man of thirty, and the latter differently to a s.e.xagenarian.' As early as 1564, around six years before he started work on the Essays Essays, Montaigne makes notes on the flyleaves of his edition of Lucretius of pa.s.sages relating to taste: Quomodo fiat gustus Quomodo fiat gustus (How taste occurs); (How taste occurs); Voluptas gustus tantum est in palato Voluptas gustus tantum est in palato (The pleasure of taste is in the palate alone). Whilst elsewhere Lucretius might insist that there is no new pleasure ( (The pleasure of taste is in the palate alone). Whilst elsewhere Lucretius might insist that there is no new pleasure (voluptas) to be gained by living longer, here Montaigne, soon to take over the business of winemaking from his father, seems to be clearing a path to the idea that there is.

The idea of 'taste' thus allows Montaigne to explain how we have knowledge of the world, but, like our tastes in wine, it also explains how each of us differ. We think we have comprehensive knowledge of something, but we only have a taste. Thus of his education, he says that he 'has only tasted the outer crust of sciences in his childhood, and has retained only a vague general picture of them; a little of everything and nothing thoroughly'. All this goes towards satisfying his desire to explore what we might call the more subjective, or relativistic, side of human affairs the fact that children might not like what we like, that people's att.i.tude to death changes with time and company; the fact that we might have differing ideas about religion. And this faculty then spreads outwards, omnivorously extending his palate to the world around him. He sees travel as a means of 'tasting a perpetual variety of the forms of our nature'. He says he has never 'tasted' any tedious work and describes pedants as treating learning like birds, gathering grain, yet carrying it in their beak for their offspring without tasting it. Discussing wine gla.s.ses he says, 'I dislike all metal compared with a clear and transparent material. Let my eyes taste also according to their capacity.'

But what is also significant in the the context of Montaigne's experience as a vigneron vigneron, is that the late sixteenth century has been described as undergoing a 'mini Ice Age', in the period 15701630. This resulted in a series of terrible harvests, being particularly marked in the period in which Montaigne takes over his estate: the bad harvest of 1572 being followed by the heavy rains of 1573. The first essay that Montaigne writes 'Of Idleness' can thus be seen as not only a spiritual description his reflections on the deaths of his best friend, his father, and his first-born child but also a literal one, as his surveys the agricultural failures around him: In the same way that we see that idle land, if it is rich and fertile, becomes overgrown with a thousand kinds of wild and useless weeds, and that to set it to work we must sow it with certain kinds of seeds...so it is with minds.

But in the years after 1574 i.e. in the years in which Montaigne seems to move away from his Stoic despondency the weather and the wine harvest improve (and newly planted vines take five years to produce a full yield in any case). Thus in an early essay, 'The Taste [Goust] of Good and Evil Depends on the Opinion We Have of Them', Montaigne amplifies Seneca's idea that 'everything depends on opinion' by adding the notion of taste to the equation; he then restates this idea more strongly in a later essay, 'We Taste [Goustons] Nothing Pure' (157880). And in the essay 'Of Practice' (15734), which starts from the idea that we need Stoicism as we cannot rehea.r.s.e death, he nevertheless begins to speaks of those of the ancients who tried, in dying, 'to taste and savour it'. Although we cannot therefore experience death, we can nevertheless attempt to 'taste it' (et de l'essayer). Thus, even when he starts off intending to make a Stoic point, Montaigne is becoming acutely aware of the role of body and his sensing faculties.

But it is important to realize that Montaigne does not simply utilize this language in order to say what he thinks; through saying these things he finds out what he thinks and doesn't think. And as if to confirm this, in the changes that Montaigne makes to his use of goust goust in terms of deleting and replacing it, he often erases a usage that might seem strange to us, such as the use of 'taste' for an abstract situation (here the italics show the addition): in terms of deleting and replacing it, he often erases a usage that might seem strange to us, such as the use of 'taste' for an abstract situation (here the italics show the addition): But on how little depends our resoluteness in dying. The difference and distance of a few hours, the mere consideration of having company, makes our taste taste apprehension apprehension of it of it completely completely different. different.

Unlike the Stoics, who could live on an olive a day, Montaigne begins to explore the variety of human existence, its inconstancy, its vagueness, but also its richness. What is also interesting are those places where Montaigne simply deletes the word. In the 'Apology' he writes that: Things do not lodge in us in their form and essence...because if that were the case, we would receive them in the same way: the taste of the taste of wine would be the same in the mouth of a sick man as in the mouth of a healthy one. wine would be the same in the mouth of a sick man as in the mouth of a healthy one.

Montaigne deletes 'the taste of', to leave 'wine would be the same in the mouth' a simple enough statement in our own sceptical, relativist age; but what is clear is that Montaigne's interest in 'taste' is paving the way for such an emphasis on the subjective, even if he then decides to discard it.

What we are in effect seeing is thus the first pressing first pressing of Montaigne's essays, in which the words flow freely from his pen. This then allows him in a move that is epochal in the history of Western thought to turn that language onto himself, in terms of his whole experience of life: of Montaigne's essays, in which the words flow freely from his pen. This then allows him in a move that is epochal in the history of Western thought to turn that language onto himself, in terms of his whole experience of life: Others sense the sweetness of contentment and prosperity. I feel it as well as they do, but not as it pa.s.ses and slips away. One should study it, taste it, and ruminate upon it to give thanks to him who grants it to us.Everyone looks in front of himself; as for me, I look inside of myself, I have no concern but with myself, I consider myself continuously: I taste myself.

Montaigne's 'self-discovery', and his rejection of Stoicism, thus uses a language that comes instinctively to him as a winemaker. He then retrospectively prunes and ties back the language of his essays, grafting onto it a more intellectual register. But its first fruits are a spontaneous flowering.

As a consequence, it is not our att.i.tude towards death that becomes the overwhelming issue for Montaigne, but our ability to taste taste life to gourmandize it in effect. What is it that he sees in a horse, a book, a gla.s.s? He denies that it is an emotional attachment, and some might find his words a little cool what about his wife, his daughter? But, as he goes on to explain, the grief surrounding such losses is easy to explain. If one were to speculate, one might say that what he seems to be saying is that, in their potential loss, it is the life to gourmandize it in effect. What is it that he sees in a horse, a book, a gla.s.s? He denies that it is an emotional attachment, and some might find his words a little cool what about his wife, his daughter? But, as he goes on to explain, the grief surrounding such losses is easy to explain. If one were to speculate, one might say that what he seems to be saying is that, in their potential loss, it is the experience experience of them, his consciousness of them, the way they have a certain sensory or intellectual flavour as he would say, a certain ' of them, his consciousness of them, the way they have a certain sensory or intellectual flavour as he would say, a certain 'je ne sais quoi' which 'nourishes' in him a fear of losing them. And this becomes more evident the less emotionally complex the things are a dog, a book, a gla.s.s. For in leaving them he will not be realizing himself, as in Stoicism, but losing something far more precious the taste of life something that does not divide us from the world, but brings us closer to it. which 'nourishes' in him a fear of losing them. And this becomes more evident the less emotionally complex the things are a dog, a book, a gla.s.s. For in leaving them he will not be realizing himself, as in Stoicism, but losing something far more precious the taste of life something that does not divide us from the world, but brings us closer to it.

12.

Of Experience

(ill.u.s.trations credit 12.2)

When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep; and when I am walking alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts are sometimes elsewhere, for most of the time I bring them back to the walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, and to me.

Writing in one of his final essays towards the end of his life, Montaigne describes how, in 1586, 'a thousand different kinds of evil descended upon me, one after the other'. The Wars of Religion arrived on his doorstep, the nearby town of Castillon being besieged by the forces of the Catholic League. Thousands of soldiers poured into the area, bringing with them lawlessness and plunder: 'It comes to cure sedition, and is full of it; it would chastise disobedience, and gives an example of it...What a state we are in!' The homes of all his villagers were looted, and the agricultural reconstruction of the past century ripped up: The living had to suffer, so did those who were not yet born. They were pillaged, and myself as a consequence, even of hope, having ripped from them all they had to provide a living for themselves for many years to come.

The fields that once provided employment for a hundred men 'lay idle for a long time'.

And amidst this disaster, Montaigne found his own moderation the object of suspicion: 'The location of my house and the acquaintance of those in my neighbourhood presented me with one face; my life and actions with another.' And as a final blow, a plague 'of utmost severity' broke out within the besieged town, spreading up the hill to Montaigne, causing him and his family to flee his ancestral home, leaving it 'at the mercy of anyone who envied it'. For six months, he says, he served as guide to his family's homeless and pitiful caravan. But despite his own family's suffering, Montaigne says that it was the plight of the common people that grieved him the most. Of the villagers in his charge, 'not a hundredth part could save themselves': The grapes remained hanging on the vines, the princ.i.p.al wealth of this country, everyone indifferently preparing themselves and waiting for death that evening or the next day...I saw those who were afraid of being left behind, as in a horrible solitude, and I observed that in general they had no other care than for their burial. It distressed them to see the bodies spread over the fields, at the mercy of the creatures that freely infested them...Some, healthy, were already digging their graves; others lay down in them whilst still alive. And a labourer of mine pulled the earth over him with his hands and feet as he was dying. Was not this like covering himself up so that he might sleep more peacefully?

Yet from this terrible nightmare, Montaigne draws lessons. But not in terms of the stoical injunctions of the ancients. For he realizes that the people around him gain nothing by brooding on and antic.i.p.ating death: 'If you do not know how to die, don't worry yourself: Nature will inform you what to do on the spot, plainly and adequately...don't bother your head about it.' Although he might have once thought, with Cicero, that 'the whole life of a philosopher is a meditation on death', Montaigne now changes his tune: 'Life should be an aim unto itself, a purpose unto itself'; 'Death is indeed the end, but not therefore the goal of life; it is its finish, its limit, but not therefore its object.' The Stoics, he finally declares, are 'the surliest sect'.

And turning his back upon the goal of apatheia apatheia, he condemns the political irresponsibility of those who 'harden themselves to view resolutely and without perturbation the ruin of their country'. Of himself, he says, 'I do not approve of that insensibility, which is neither possible nor desirable. I am not pleased to be sick, but if I am, I want to know that I am...I wish to feel it.' Such sensations he sees as part of the eternal inconstancy of life itself: The world is nothing but a perennial movement. All things are in a constant motion the earth, the rocks of the Caucasus, the pyramids of Egypt both with a common motion and their own. Constancy itself is nothing more than a more languid motion...I do not paint being, I paint transience...

But in closing the slim manual of Stoicism, Montaigne opens the large volume of life. He states in his later essays that it is 'living happily, not...dying happily that is the source of human contentment'. And whilst there are no 'skyhooks' on which to hang this morality, neither is there an abyss below: 'When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep.' Montaigne is perhaps the first writer in human history to lay his hand on human consciousness, though not, like Descartes, in an attempt to achieve certainty, but in an attempt to justify life on its own terms. Thinking may allow us to part company with ourselves 'my thoughts are sometimes elsewhere' but it is the task of philosophy to 'bring them back' to the human, to slow our walk through the orchard of life, and hold in our mouths, for as long as we can, the 'sweetness' and 'beauty' of living.

Montaigne died at home on 13 September 1592. His final years were spent suffering from increasingly poor health, but he was tinkering with his essays till the end. In earlier days he had written: 'I have taken a road along which, without ceasing and without labour, I shall proceed as long as there is ink and paper in the world' and to that undertaking he remained true.

He also lived to be a grandfather. On 27 May 1590 his daughter Leonor was married at the chateau to the thirty-year-old Francois de la Tour. After staying at the chateau for a month, they left for her new home in Saintonge. And on 31 March 1591 she gave birth to a daughter, baptized Francoise in honour of her mother.

Montaigne seemed to face death with a natural, unforced equanimity, writing in his final additions to the Essays Essays of 'folding up my belongings and packing my bags'. His friend Estienne Pasquier described his final hours: of 'folding up my belongings and packing my bags'. His friend Estienne Pasquier described his final hours: He died in his house of Montaigne, where a quinsy [abscess] attacked his tongue in such a way that he remained three whole days full of understanding but unable to speak. As a result he was forced to have recourse to his pen to make his wishes, known. And as he felt his end approaching, he wrote a little note asking his wife to summon a few gentlemen neighbours of his, so as to take leave of them. When they arrived he had ma.s.s said in his room; and when the priest came to the elevation of the Corpus Domini Corpus Domini, this poor gentleman rose up as best he could in his bed, with a desperate effort, hands clasped; and in his last action gave his spirit to G.o.d. Which was a fine mirror of his inmost soul.

His heart was buried in his local church of St-Michel-de-Montaigne whilst his body was placed in a tomb in the Eglise des Feuillants in Bordeaux. But a local historian added a final and, if true, perhaps more fitting memorial: The late Montaigne, author of the Essays Essays, feeling the end of his days drawing near, got out of his bed in his nights.h.i.+rt; taking his dressing gown, opened his study, had all his valets and other legatees called in, and paid them the legacies he had left them in his will, foreseeing the difficulties his heirs would make over paying the legacies.

Montaigne's reputation grew rapidly over the following years. Before he died he was visited by Anthony Bacon, whose younger brother Francis went on to imitate Montaigne in his own Essays Essays of 1597. Montaigne's of 1597. Montaigne's Essays Essays were translated into Italian in 1590, English in 1603, Dutch in 1692, and German in 1753; and later into many other languages including Chinese, j.a.panese, Russian, Arabic and Greek. And readers and writers since then have found Montaigne the most fascinating and congenial of authors: Orson Welles describing him as 'the greatest writer of any time, anywhere'. were translated into Italian in 1590, English in 1603, Dutch in 1692, and German in 1753; and later into many other languages including Chinese, j.a.panese, Russian, Arabic and Greek. And readers and writers since then have found Montaigne the most fascinating and congenial of authors: Orson Welles describing him as 'the greatest writer of any time, anywhere'.

But perhaps the most sympathetic reader of Montaigne was Shakespeare, who quotes, almost verbatim, from John Florio's 1603 translation of Montaigne's description of the 'golden age' in 'Of Cannibals' in Gonzalo's address in The Tempest: The Tempest: It is a nation, would I answer Plato, that hath no kind of Trafficke, no knowledge of Letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politike superiorities; no use of service, of riches, or of povertie; no contracts, no successions, no part.i.tions, no occupation but idle...

And were I king on't, what would I do? ...

Florio, 1603 I' the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things; for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of magistrate; Letters should not be known; riches, poverty, And use of service, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; No occupation; all men idle, all...

The Tempest, (II, i, 148155) The influence here seems incontrovertible, yet the wider depth of Shakespeare's debt to Montaigne is more difficult to discern. Some see The Tempest The Tempest as the tip of a submerged iceberg of Montaignean influence. And one could see the whole of Shakespeare's tragic trajectory as an ill.u.s.tration of Montaigne's insistence on the paradoxical limitations of man's reason i.e. Montaigne's words in the 'Apology' seem to sum up the essence of Shakespearean tragedy as well as any critic has ever done: as the tip of a submerged iceberg of Montaignean influence. And one could see the whole of Shakespeare's tragic trajectory as an ill.u.s.tration of Montaigne's insistence on the paradoxical limitations of man's reason i.e. Montaigne's words in the 'Apology' seem to sum up the essence of Shakespearean tragedy as well as any critic has ever done: ...if it be that he alone, of all the creatures, has this freedom of imagination and this licence of thoughts, which represents to him both what is and what is not, what pleases him, false and true, it is an advantage very highly bought...

Hamlet (1603), which in an early version featured a character called 'Montano', seems to be suffused with a similar scepticism: Hamlet's 'Your worm is your only emperor for diet' recalling Montaigne's the 'heart and life of a mighty and triumphant emperor is but the break-fast of a seely [blind] little worme'. And in his most famous soliloquy, Hamlet seems to achieve something like the dramatic equivalent of an essay, balancing opposing viewpoints as a means of exploring not only whether one should live or die, but also the nature of existence itself: (1603), which in an early version featured a character called 'Montano', seems to be suffused with a similar scepticism: Hamlet's 'Your worm is your only emperor for diet' recalling Montaigne's the 'heart and life of a mighty and triumphant emperor is but the break-fast of a seely [blind] little worme'. And in his most famous soliloquy, Hamlet seems to achieve something like the dramatic equivalent of an essay, balancing opposing viewpoints as a means of exploring not only whether one should live or die, but also the nature of existence itself: To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis n.o.bler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action...

Hamlet, (III, i, 5690) In overcoming Stoic, 'resolution' and senseless martial fort.i.tude with something like a more circ.u.mspect self-awareness, Hamlet seems to undergo his own fall from his horse. And whilst the ideas themselves might now seem commonplace, prior to this, characters simply did not talk in this way seeing cognition and knowledge as central to human and therefore dramatic experience. And Shakespeare's other tragic heroes Macbeth, Oth.e.l.lo, King Lear seem to be propelled along a similar trajectory: they experience scepticism, intellectual paralysis, and lose sight of the world, but at the same time discover themselves.

Unsurprisingly, Montaigne is seen by many literary historians as marking the inception of such forms of modern individualism epitomized in Hamlet's agonized anomie, and reaching their apogee in Descartes. Virginia Woolf thus emphasizes the detachment of Montaigne's mind from his body: 'brood[ing] over the fire in the inner room of that tower which, though detached from the main building, has so wide a view over the estate'. But it could also be said that Montaigne represents the opposite, that in looking inside himself, Montaigne is not looking for constancy or escape, but rather something else company: company: He who can pour into and mix up within himself the offices of friends.h.i.+p and companions.h.i.+p, let him do so...Let him soothe and caress himself, and, above all, govern himself, respecting and fearing his reason and conscience, so that he cannot without shame stumble in their presence.

Here, Montaigne demonstrates more than any other writer that the very idea of the self is proof of our innate desire for human contact to have someone to talk to. And this is literally proven by the fact that many of his essays, like large sections of his Travel Journal Travel Journal, were dictated to a secretary Montaigne saying quite truthfully: 'I speak to my paper as I speak to the first man I meet.'

And whilst self-knowledge is not something that can be established with certainty, Montaigne nevertheless sees it as a knowledge to which we can draw near. We should examine ourselves not because we ourselves contain infallible truth, but because and this is the thought that sounds most strange to us as modern readers it is our own bodies, our own selves to which we are closest: It is likely that if the soul knew anything, it would firstly know itself; and if it knew anything outside itself, it would be its body and sh.e.l.l before other things...We are nearer to ourselves than the whiteness of snow or the heaviness of a stone. If a man does not know himself, how can he know his functions and his powers?

The task of philosophy, therefore, is not to dig down to firmer, more resolute foundations, or to rise up into the beyond, but to show us where we already stand; not to shake off the body, but to shake its hand.

And here Montaigne's circular tower undoubtedly served as a means of focusing his thinking, though not in terms of providing an escape from others, but in its sh.e.l.l-like protection, its bedroom, toilet and library, const.i.tuting a home home not a home from home but a home not a home from home but a home within within a home. Unlike the itinerant Descartes, Montaigne a home. Unlike the itinerant Descartes, Montaigne essays essays himself only when he is most at home near his books, his desk and chair, and the bell tolling above him where he is closest to himself: himself only when he is most at home near his books, his desk and chair, and the bell tolling above him where he is closest to himself: The course of our desires ought to be circ.u.mscribed and restrained to a short limit of the nearest and most contiguous commodities; and moreover their course ought not to take off in a straight line, that ends elsewhere, but in a circle, of which the two points, by a short sweep, meet and terminate in ourselves. Actions that are carried on without this reflection I mean, a near near and essential reflection such as those who are ambitious and avaricious, and so many more as run point-blank, and whose career always carries them before themselves, such actions, I say, are erroneous and sickly. [my italics] and essential reflection such as those who are ambitious and avaricious, and so many more as run point-blank, and whose career always carries them before themselves, such actions, I say, are erroneous and sickly. [my italics]

Rather than indubitability, it is thus this localness, this 'home', that is Montaigne's central concern: 'We are never at home, we are always beyond ourselves'; the mind needs to be 'called home and confined within itself'; 'Every man rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no man has arrived at himself': It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to rightfully enjoy our being. We search for other conditions because we do not understand the use of our own, and go outside of ourselves because we do not know what it is like inside.

And on last page of the Essays Essays, Montaigne adds a final, soldierly retort to the attempt to distance ourselves from ourselves: 'Even on the highest throne in the world we are still sat on our backsides.'

What allows this sort of self-knowledge to have substance and texture, however, is Montaigne's experience as a vigneron vigneron. Whereas the mathematician Descartes expects to find truths that are as 'clear and distinct' as geometrical proofs, Montaigne exemplifies the idea of a patient, tentative, c.u.mulative, sampling of life: I have a vocabulary all of my own. I 'pa.s.s the time', when it is bad and inclement; but when it is good, I do not wish it to pa.s.s, I re-taste it, I cling to it...This common phrase of pastime, and pa.s.sing time, represents the usage of those wise sort of people who do not think they can do better with their lives than to let them run away and escape...

Through the faculty of taste, Montaigne is thus able to come even closer to himself (the verb that Montaigne uses here, taster taster, could also mean to touch). Such knowledge may not be 'clear and distinct' (for how can it be separate if we are in contact with it?), but this does not mean that it is not experienced at all. And with time, and practice, our understanding of it will deepen. We must educate our palates to understand ourselves; a process that requires time, that requires life life as he writes in one of the final additions to his text: as he writes in one of the final additions to his text: Meditation is a powerful and rich study for those who know how to taste and exercise themselves vigorously; I would rather fas.h.i.+on my soul than furnish it. There is no activity that is either weaker or stronger, depending on the nature of the soul that is concerned in it, than that of entertaining one's own thoughts. The greatest minds make it their vocation, 'quibus vivere est cogitare' [for whom to live is to think Cicero].

Vivere est cogitare. For Descartes, our being is in doubt, the cogito cogito is his attempt to prove its existence; but for Montaigne our existence is unproblematic: the question is our ability to appreciate it; to savour and taste it, to bring it near. is his attempt to prove its existence; but for Montaigne our existence is unproblematic: the question is our ability to appreciate it; to savour and taste it, to bring it near.

And for Montaigne such self-tasting is a process that never simply concludes, as we ourselves are changed by that we set out to sample: 'I have no more made my book than my book has made me.' We must therefore tend and cultivate our lives, in the same way that grapes are ripened on the vine: I want to increase it [life] in weight. I wish to arrest the rapidity of its flight by the rapidity of my grasp, and by my vigour in employing it make up for the speed of its flow. In proportion to the shortness of my possession of life, I must make it deeper and fuller.

It is not an abstract, final knowledge, but an evolving acquaintance, suggesting nearness, sweetness, nourishment. In 'Of Conversation', Montaigne remarks that through conversation 'we seek the truth', only to cross it out and write: 'we seek what is what is'.

Montaigne's final essay, 'Of Experience', thus offers an amazing catalogue of the tasting notes and textures of his own being. It is one of the most amazing texts in the history of Western philosophy, an unparalleled inventory of man's sensory station. Here, Montaigne turns his back on Stoicism and received ideas, which he sees as reiterating itself like a vine-stock 'our opinions are grafted upon each another: the first serves as a stock for the second; the second to the third'. Instead, he looks to experience a 'less dignified means', but one that brings us closer to Nature, whose 'laws are more successful than those we give ourselves': For if we say that we lack authority to give credence for our testimony, we speak beside the point. For in my opinion, from the most ordinary, familiar and commonplace things, if we could see them properly, we could construct the greatest miracles in nature and the most wonderful examples, especially on the subject of human actions.

As he says in 'Of Physiognomy': 'We are each of us richer than we think.'

He goes on to sample his own particular const.i.tution. How he needs a clean napkin as he makes little use of either knife or fork. How he is unable to sleep in the day, or eat between meals, or go to bed immediately after supper. And was.h.i.+ng after a meal and curtains for his bed are 'quite essential'. He cannot take wine or water unmixed, and as for eating: I am not excessively keen either on salads or fruits, except melons. My father hated all kinds of sauces; I like them all. Eating too much bothers me; but I have no real knowledge that any kind of food disagrees with me, just as I do not notice whether the moon is full or waning, or whether it is autumn or spring. There are changes that take place in us, inconstant and unknown radishes, for example, I first found agreeable, now disagreeable, now I like them again. In many ways I feel my stomach and appet.i.te vary that way: I have changed back from white wine to claret, and then from claret to white again.

He eats greedily, bites his tongue; he likes to sleep with both legs raised.

And in the body of his writings, Montaigne adds colour and depth to this self-portrait. He is short and thickset, with a 'face not fat but full'. He has soft clear eyes, moderate nose, white and regular teeth (which he cleans every day with a napkin). He has a well-rounded head, pleasant open expression. He doesn't smell and his limbs are well set. He likes to wear black and white, like his father, but is a bit dapper: 'a cloak worn like a scarf...a neglected hose'. He is vigorous in his younger years, but can be jittery, easily distracted by a fly. He likes easy books, The Decameron, The Kisses The Decameron, The Kisses of Johannes Secondus. He sees life as 'a material and corporeal movement, an action essentially imperfect, and irregular; I make it my business to serve it according to its nature'. of Johannes Secondus. He sees life as 'a material and corporeal movement, an action essentially imperfect, and irregular; I make it my business to serve it according to its nature'.

He writes a book that is the only one of its kind in the world, a book with a wild and eccentric plan. He scratches his ears. He hates bargaining. He wants death to find him planting his cabbages. He hates being interrupted on the toilet. He smells March violets in his urine, and goes at the same time each day, his bowels never failing to make their a.s.signation 'which is when I jump out of bed'. But we should not do as he has done, and become too attached to a particular place in his case, the toilet a few steps down from his library. And yet in some of the fouler public conveniences, he asks, 'Is it not somewhat excusable to request a little more care and cleanliness?'

(ill.u.s.trations credit 12.3)

But what is most important about Montaigne's awareness of himself, the vividness of his sense of his own acquaintance, is that it does not contradict his sense of a wider responsibility to society at large, the true distinction between himself and Descartes. Because Montaigne, perhaps more than any other writer, is preoccupied with what the link between our minds and our bodies can tell us about the nature of mankind more generally. 'If men were not different,' he notes, 'we would not be able to tell each other apart; if