How To Live Or A Life Of Montaigne Part 13

MAYOR.

THE LETTER ARRIVED for Montaigne at the La Villa baths, bearing the full weight of remote authority. Signed by all the jurats of Bordeaux-the six men who governed it alongside its mayor-it informed him that he had been elected, in his absence, to be the next mayor of the city. He must return immediately to fulfill his duties. for Montaigne at the La Villa baths, bearing the full weight of remote authority. Signed by all the jurats of Bordeaux-the six men who governed it alongside its mayor-it informed him that he had been elected, in his absence, to be the next mayor of the city. He must return immediately to fulfill his duties.

This was flattering, but, according to Montaigne, it was the last thing he wanted to hear. The responsibilities would be more onerous than those of a magistrate. Demands would be made on his time. There would be speeches and ceremonies-all the things he had least enjoyed about his progress through Italy. He would need his diplomatic skills, for the mayor's job would mean managing the different religious and political factions in town, and liaising between Bordeaux and an unpopular king. It also meant he had to cut his trip short.

Disillusioned though he was with the spa life, he felt no desire to go home. By now, he had been away for fifteen months-a long time, but not long enough to satisfy him. He seems now to have tried to eke out as many remaining weeks as he could. He did not refuse the jurats' request, but neither did he hurry back to see them. First, he traveled back down to Rome, at a leisurely pace, stopping in Lucca for a while and trying some other baths on the way. One wonders why he went to Rome at all, since it meant going over two hundred miles in the wrong direction. Perhaps he was hoping to get advice on whether he could extricate himself from the task. If so, the answer was discouraging. Arriving in Rome on October 1, he found a second letter from the Bordeaux jurats, this time more peremptory. He was now "urgently requested" to return.

In the next edition of the Essays Essays, he emphasized how little he had sought such an appointment, and how strenuously he had tried to avoid it. "I excused myself," he wrote-but the reply came back that this made no difference, since the "king's command" figured in the matter. The king even wrote him a personal letter, obviously intended to be forwarded to him abroad, though Montaigne received it only when he got back to his estate: Monsieur de Montaigne, because I hold in great esteem your fidelity and zealous devotion to my service, it was a pleasure to me to understand that you were elected mayor of my city of Bordeaux; and I have found this election very agreeable and confirmed it, the more willingly because it was made without intrigue and in your remote absence. On the occasion of which my intention is, and I order and enjoin you very expressly, that without delay or excuse you return as soon as this is delivered to you and take up the duties and services of the responsibility to which you have been so legitimately called. And you will be doing a thing that will be very agreeable to me, and the contrary would greatly displease me.

It seemed almost a punishment for being so little given to political ambition-a.s.suming that Montaigne's protestations of reluctance were true.

His lack of haste in getting home certainly does not suggest a greed for power. Still taking his time, he meandered towards France via Lucca, Siena, Piacenza, Pavia, Milan, and Turin, taking around six weeks to make the journey. As he crossed into French territory, he switched back from Italian to French in the journal, and when at last he reached his estate he recorded his arrival together with a note that his travels had lasted "seventeen months and eight days"-a rare case of his getting a precise figure correct. In his Beuther diary, he also wrote a note under the date November 30: "I arrived in my house." He then presented himself to the officials of Bordeaux, obedient and ready for duty.

Montaigne would be the city's mayor for four years, from 1581 to 1585. It was a demanding job, but not an entirely thankless one. It came with honors and trappings of all kinds: he had his own offices, a special guard, mayoral robes and chain, and pride of place at public functions. The only thing he lacked was a salary. Yet he was more than a figurehead. Together with the jurats, he had to select and appoint other town officials, decide civic laws, and judge court cases-a task Montaigne found especially difficult to fulfill to his own high standards of evidence. Above all, he had to play the politics game, with care. He had to speak for Bordeaux before the royal authorities, while conveying royal policy downwards to the jurats and other notables of the city, many of whom were set on resistance.

The previous mayor, Arnaud de Gontault, baron de Biron, had upset many people, so another of Montaigne's early tasks was to smooth over the damage. Biron had governed strictly but irresponsibly; he had allowed resentment to develop between various factions, and had alienated Henri of Navarre, the powerful prince of nearby Bearn-a person with whom it was important to maintain good relations. Even Henri III himself had taken offense at Biron's obvious sympathy for the Catholic Leaguists, who were still rebelling against royal authority. Contemplating Biron makes it apparent why the city chose Montaigne to succeed him: they now had a new mayor known for his moderation and diplomatic skills, the very qualities Biron lacked. In particular, although Montaigne was affiliated with the despised politiques politiques, he knew how to get on with everyone. He was known as a man who would listen thoughtfully to all sides, whose Pyrrhonian principle was to lend his ears to everyone and his mind to no one, while maintaining his own integrity through it all.

It helped that the years of Montaigne's mayoralty were also technically years of peace. The wars halted from 1580 to 1585, a period spanning Montaigne's traveling years as well as his time in office. But this peace was not easy either, and, as usual, everyone was unhappy with the limited degree of tolerance extended to Protestant wors.h.i.+p. Bordeaux was a divided city: its own Protestant minority numbered about one seventh of the population, and it was surrounded by Protestant lands, but it had a powerful Leaguist faction too. It was hard to manage the place at the best of times. These were not the best of times, though they were by no means the worst either, as Montaigne would have been quick to point out.

He shared responsibility for maintaining peace and loyalty with the king's lieutenant-general in the area, a man named Jacques de Goyon, comte de Matignon. An experienced diplomat, eight years older than Montaigne, Matignon may have reminded him somewhat of La Boetie. They did not become intimate friends, but they got on well. Both had a talent for dealing delicately with extremists, and they were men of principle. During the St. Bartholomew's ma.s.sacres, Matignon had distinguished himself by being one of the few officials to protect Huguenots in his areas of responsibility, Saint-Lo and Alencon. Calm and firm, he was the right personality for the situation in Guyenne at the moment. So was Montaigne, though he lacked two crucial things: experience and enthusiasm.

Montaigne was anxious to forestall any expectation that he might be a copy of his own father, ruining his health with work. He remembered seeing Pierre worn out by business trips, "his soul cruelly agitated by this public turmoil, forgetting the sweet air of his home." Montaigne's own enthusiasm for traveling declined now that, like his father, he was supposed to do it out of duty. But he could not avoid it, and he did make several trips to Paris, notably in August 1582, when he went to obtain confirmation of the privileges at last fully restored to Bordeaux following the long-ago salt-tax riots. Towards the end of his second term, he became even more peripatetic. Doc.u.ments show him at Mont-de-Marsan, at Pau, at Bergerac, at Fleix, and at Nerac. He also commuted regularly between Bordeaux and his own chateau, where, happily, much of his work could be done. While there, he could carry on with his own projects too, and his second, corrected edition of the Essays Essays came out in 1582, the year after he took office. came out in 1582, the year after he took office.

Even if he did not exactly treat it as a full-time job, Montaigne must have performed well in his first term, for he was reelected on August 1, 1583. He could not help feeling pride in this, for it was unusual to be voted in for two terms. "This was done in my case, and had been done only twice before." It did meet opposition, especially from a rival who wanted to be mayor himself: Jacques d'Escars, sieur de Merville, governor of the city's Fort du Ha. Montaigne did not give in to him, which suggests that he felt more commitment to the job than he had initially professed.

Perhaps he had a change of heart because he had discovered how much of an apt.i.tude he had for political work. With Matignon, he was now responsible for keeping communication going between the officials of the king, the Leaguist rebels in Bordeaux, and the Protestant Henri of Navarre, who wielded more power than ever in the region. Increasingly, through his second term, Montaigne played the role of go-between. He built up particularly good relations with the king's officials and with the Navarre camp. The Leaguists became more difficult, since they rejected compromise with anyone and still seemed determined to maneuver Montaigne out of his job and take over Bordeaux themselves.

The most dramatic rebellion came from the baron de Vaillac, Leaguist governor of the city's Chateau Trompette. In April 1585, Matignon and Montaigne heard that he was planning a full-scale political coup in the city. They must have debated how to deal with the threat: whether to face up to it aggressively, or make overtures and try to win Vaillac over. It was one of those loggerhead scenes, again. In this case, they decided that bold opposition combined with a willingness to offer mercy was the best response. Presumably with the active collaboration of Montaigne, Matignon invited Vaillac and his men into the parlement parlement, then had the exit blocked as soon as the conspirators were inside. Matignon offered the trapped Vaillac a choice between arrest, with a probable death sentence, or giving up his rights even to the Trompette fortress and leaving Bordeaux for good. Vaillac chose the latter. He went into exile, but from just outside the city walls he set about building up League forces as if preparing to attack. That was always the risk of showing your enemies mercy.

Several anxious days followed. On May 22, 1585, Montaigne wrote to Matignon saying that he and other officials in the city were watching the gates, knowing that men were a.s.sembled outside. Five days later he wrote that Vaillac was still in the area. Every day brought fifty urgent alarms, he said.

I have spent every night either around the town in arms or outside of town at the port, and before your warning I had already kept watch there one night on the news of a boat loaded with armed men which was due to pa.s.s. We saw nothing.

In the end, there was no attack. Perhaps, seeing the preparations for defense, Vaillac slunk away, proving that Montaigne and Matignon's blend of aggression and sympathy could prevail after all. In any case, the crisis pa.s.sed. Yet the build-up to war in the region continued, as it did throughout France, and the League continued to resist Montaigne's efforts to establish a middle ground.

Many who knew Montaigne during this period admired his work. The magistrate and historian Jacques-Auguste de Thou wrote that he had "learned many things from Michel de Montaigne, a man free in spirit and foreign to factions, who...had great and certain knowledge of our affairs, and especially of those of his own Guienne." The politician Philippe Duplessis-Mornay praised Montaigne's calmness and wrote of him as a person who neither stirred up trouble nor was readily stirred himself.

As generally happened when contemporaries recorded impressions of Montaigne, this fits remarkably well with his a.s.sessment of himself. He wrote that his terms in office were characterized most of the time by "order" and by "gentle and mute tranquillity". He had enemies, but he had good friends too. And the solution to the Vaillac crisis suggests that he was capable of decisive action when it was necessary, unless this decisiveness all came from Matignon.

Some did apparently feel that Montaigne was too lax and disengaged, for a certain defensiveness on this point comes across in the Essays Essays, in which Montaigne admits that he was accused of showing "a languis.h.i.+ng zeal." He looked to some like a typical politique politique, a person who refused to commit himself in any direction. This was clearly true, and Montaigne owned up to it; the difference is that his opponents considered it a bad thing. For modern Stoics and Skeptics such as himself, it was not bad at all. Stoicism encouraged wise detachment, while Skeptics held themselves back on principle. Montaigne's politics flowed from his philosophy. People complain that his terms as mayor pa.s.sed without much trace, he wrote. "That's a good one! They accuse me of inactivity in a time when almost everyone was convicted of doing too much." With "innovation" (that is, Protestantism) having caused such mayhem, surely it was commendable to have kept a city in a mostly uneventful state for so long. And Montaigne had long since learned that much of what pa.s.sed for pa.s.sionate public commitment was just showing off. People involve themselves because they want to have an air of consequence, or to advance their private interests, or simply to keep busy so that they don't have to think about life.

One of Montaigne's problems was that he was so honest about his choices. Other people, far less conscientious than he, were praised because they pretended to be committed and energetic. Montaigne warned his employers that this would not happen with him: he would give Bordeaux what duty commanded, no more and no less, and there would be no playacting.

Montaigne here sounds remarkably like another great truth-teller in Renaissance literature: Cordelia, the daughter in Shakespeare's King Lear King Lear who refuses to wax on insincerely about her love for her father as her greedy sisters do to win his favor. Like her, Montaigne remains honest and thus comes across as gruff and indifferent. Cordelia might well have said of herself, as Montaigne did: who refuses to wax on insincerely about her love for her father as her greedy sisters do to win his favor. Like her, Montaigne remains honest and thus comes across as gruff and indifferent. Cordelia might well have said of herself, as Montaigne did: I mortally hate to seem a flatterer, and so I naturally drop into a dry, plain, blunt way of speaking...I honor most those to whom I show least honor...I offer myself meagerly and proudly to those to whom I belong. And I tender myself least to those to whom I have given myself most; it seems to me that they should read my feelings in my heart, and see that what my words express does an injustice to my thought.

It seems a rebellious position, but Montaigne and Cordelia were not really at odds with their late Renaissance world in this. The virtues of sincerity and naturalness were much admired. Also, by emphasizing his plain-speaking, Montaigne was usefully distancing himself from the accusation constantly made against politiques: politiques: that they were men of masks and silver tongues who could not be trusted. At times, in the that they were men of masks and silver tongues who could not be trusted. At times, in the Essays Essays, Montaigne can sound like the nightmare vision of a politique politique, equivocal, oversophisticated, secular, and elusive. It did him no harm to be blunt once in a while.

And, by the same kind of twist that made the lack of door locks a good security feature, Montaigne's rough honesty proved a formidable diplomatic talent. It opened more doors than the labyrinthine deceptions of his colleagues ever could. Even when dealing with the most powerful princes in the land-perhaps especially then-he looked them straight in the face. "I frankly tell them my limits." His openness made other people open up as well; it drew them out, he said, like wine and love.

As to the political difficulties of being caught between sides, Montaigne typically belittled these. It is not really difficult to get on when caught between two hostile parties, he wrote; all you have to do is to behave with a temperate affection towards both, so that neither thinks he owns you. Don't expect too much of them, and don't offer too much either. One could sum up Montaigne's policy by saying that one should do a good job, but not too too good a job. By following this rule, he kept himself out of trouble and remained fully human. He did only what was his duty; and so, unlike almost everyone else, he did do his duty. good a job. By following this rule, he kept himself out of trouble and remained fully human. He did only what was his duty; and so, unlike almost everyone else, he did do his duty.

He realized that not everyone understood his way of conducting himself. Where his att.i.tude really caused problems was not with his contemporaries but with posterity. Cordelia's choice is vindicated within the play: there is no doubt about her genuine love for her father. Montaigne, on the other hand, has suffered image problems connected with his mayoralty ever since. He knew the dangers of writing too una.s.sumingly about his actions in the Essays: Essays: "When all is said and done, you never speak about yourself without loss. Your self-condemnation is always accredited, your self-praise discredited." Perhaps the old rule against writing about yourself had something going for it after all. "When all is said and done, you never speak about yourself without loss. Your self-condemnation is always accredited, your self-praise discredited." Perhaps the old rule against writing about yourself had something going for it after all.

MORAL OBJECTIONS.

Montaigne's circ.u.mscribed sense of where his duty lay became most apparent in June 1585, when Bordeaux suffered a heat wave rapidly followed by an outbreak of plague: a particularly destructive combination. The epidemic lasted until December, and during those few months more than 14,000 people died in the city, almost a third of its population. More people were killed than in the St. Bartholomew's ma.s.sacres across the whole country, yet, as often happens with epidemics occurring in time of war, it left little trace on historical memory. In any case, plague was common. So frequent were outbreaks in the sixteenth century that it is easy to forget how catastrophic they were, each time, for those unfortunate enough to be caught up in them.

As usual, when the first rumors of plague began in Bordeaux that year, anyone who could flee the city did so. Almost no one stayed out of choice, though a few officials remained at their posts. Most of those connected with the parlement parlement left, including four out of the six jurats. Matignon wrote to the king on June 30: "The plague is spreading so in this city that there is no one having the means to live elsewhere who has not abandoned it." That was still in the early stages. A month later, Matignon told Montaigne that "every one of the inhabitants has abandoned the city, I mean those who can bring some remedy to it; for as for the little people who have stayed, they are dying like flies." left, including four out of the six jurats. Matignon wrote to the king on June 30: "The plague is spreading so in this city that there is no one having the means to live elsewhere who has not abandoned it." That was still in the early stages. A month later, Matignon told Montaigne that "every one of the inhabitants has abandoned the city, I mean those who can bring some remedy to it; for as for the little people who have stayed, they are dying like flies."

Matignon apparently did stay, but Montaigne had not been in the city to begin with. He was at home when the plague began, getting ready to travel in for a handover ceremony; his mayoralty was now over, and he was about to be succeeded by Matignon himself. The first of August 1585 was his last official date, so, when Matignon's letter was written on July 30, Montaigne had two days to go. His only task during those two days was apparently to attend the ceremony to mark the election of Matignon. Under present conditions, however, that event would be almost entirely unattended, if it took place at all.

Montaigne now had to decide whether he should go to Bordeaux for the handover or not. His own estate was unaffected by the disease; if he went to Bordeaux now, he would be entering a plague zone purely for the sake of form. What, really, did duty require? Unsure what to do, he traveled as far as Libourne, nearer to the city but outside the danger area. From there, he wrote to the few remaining jurats in town, asking for their advice. "I will spare neither my life nor anything else," he wrote. But he added: "I will leave you to judge whether the service I can render you by my presence at the coming election is worth my risking going into the city in view of the bad condition it is in." Meanwhile, he would wait in the chateau of Feuillas, just across the river from the city. From Feuillas, he wrote again the following day, repeating his question: what did they recommend?

The jurats' reply, if there was one-if indeed any of them were still there-does not survive. The only certain thing is the outcome, which is that Montaigne did not go to Bordeaux. It seems that they either told him to stay away, or did not answer. Someone must have been at work in the parlement parlement, for about this time a new order came into force: it stated that no one who was not already in the city should enter it. Had Montaigne insisted on going in, he would have been contravening this order. Evidently he cleared the matter with his conscience, and returned to his estate. By now, those two days had pa.s.sed, so his mayoralty was officially over. Instead of ending with a gratifying ceremonial and speeches of thanks, it had petered out in confusion.

No one in Montaigne's own century seems to have commented harshly on his decision. The trouble began two hundred and seventy years later, when nineteenth-century antiquarians discovered the relevant letters in the Bordeaux City Archives, published them, and exposed Montaigne to the judgment of a very different world-a world of stark new ideas about heroism and self-sacrifice.

The researcher responsible for the find, Arnaud Detcheverry, commented that Montaigne's letters displayed his well-known tendency to "nonchalant Epicureanism," and this set the tone for other critics' comments. The early biographer Alphonse Grun thought Montaigne showed a lack of courage in remaining on the safe side of the river. In a lecture course on Grun's book, Leon Feugere said that Montaigne "had the misfortune to forget his duty in the most serious situation." For him, the story discredited Montaigne's entire Essays Essays. If the book's author failed at such a moment, how could one trust what he said about how to live? The incident exposed the Essays' Essays' deepest philosophical failing: their "absolute absence of decision." Other writers agreed. The chronicler Jules Lecomte dismissed Montaigne and his entire philosophy with one word: "coward!" deepest philosophical failing: their "absolute absence of decision." Other writers agreed. The chronicler Jules Lecomte dismissed Montaigne and his entire philosophy with one word: "coward!"

What they all seemed to find intolerable was not just a lack of personal courage-after all, Montaigne had stayed for over a week by the bed of a man dying from the plague-but his failure to fulfill his public public duties. Montaigne's cool calculations and written inquiries seemed odious to a generation whose new moral strictness still preserved the lingering whiff of Romanticism. The latter made them feel that one should be prepared to make any sacrifice, however pointless. The former made them long for Montaigne to sacrifice himself in the name of work. duties. Montaigne's cool calculations and written inquiries seemed odious to a generation whose new moral strictness still preserved the lingering whiff of Romanticism. The latter made them feel that one should be prepared to make any sacrifice, however pointless. The former made them long for Montaigne to sacrifice himself in the name of work.

The source of the problem, just as in the seventeenth century, was a distaste for his Skepticism. Nineteenth-century readers were disturbed by it in a way few had been since Pascal. They did not mind Montaigne doubting facts, but they did not like him applying Skepticism to everyday life and showing emotional detachment from agreed standards. The Skeptic epokhe epokhe, or "I hold back," seemed to show an untrustworthiness in his nature. It sounded very much like the greatest bugbear of the new era: nihilism.

Nihilism, for the late nineteenth century, meant G.o.dlessness, pointlessness, and meaninglessness. It could be used as code for atheism, but it suggested something even worse: the abandonment of all moral standards. In the end, "nihilist" became almost synonymous with "terrorist." Nihilists were people who, having no G.o.d, threw bombs and advocated the destruction of the existing social order. They were a kind of revolutionary wing to the Skeptics' party, or Skeptics turned bad. If they took charge, nothing would be preserved and nothing could be taken for granted.

In the face of this, it suddenly became an urgent task for his remaining defenders to prove, not just that Montaigne had acted reasonably during the plague outbreak, but that he was not a great Skeptic after all. He was, rather, a conservative moralist and a good Christian. One influential critic, emile f.a.guet, devoted a series of articles to showing how negligible a role Skepticism played in the Essays Essays. Another, Edme Champion, thought Skeptical elements could be detected, but not the kind of destructive Skepticism that "denied" or "annihilated" everything.

The debate took on more significance because, as it happened, the Essays Essays had just come off the had just come off the Index Index in France. It was removed in 1854, just a year or two after the discovery of the first plague letter, though certainly not as a consequence of it. It was a long overdue decision. Despite Church condemnation, Montaigne was now canonical in France and had become the object of a new industry of literary and biographical research. The lifting of the ban raised his profile and opened the way for a larger readers.h.i.+p, while intensifying the question of his moral acceptability. in France. It was removed in 1854, just a year or two after the discovery of the first plague letter, though certainly not as a consequence of it. It was a long overdue decision. Despite Church condemnation, Montaigne was now canonical in France and had become the object of a new industry of literary and biographical research. The lifting of the ban raised his profile and opened the way for a larger readers.h.i.+p, while intensifying the question of his moral acceptability.

And for many, he became once again what he had been for Pascal and Malebranche: a trickster who was bad for the soul. Guillaume Guizot, who in 1866 called Montaigne a great "seducer," did his best to arm readers against such seduction. Having once fallen under Montaigne's spell himself, he now wrote to guide victims out of the web, like a deprogrammed former cultist who devotes his life to helping others escape.

He listed the dangers in Montaigne, each of which matched up to a specific character defect. Montaigne was weak-willed. He was egotistical. He was not as much of a Christian as he claimed to be. He withdrew from public life for purely selfish reasons, in order to spend more time in contemplation-and not even religious contemplation, which might have been forgivable. When this introspection turned up faults, he did not try to correct them; he accepted himself as he was. He was G.o.dless and irresponsible. He is not the kind of writer we need: "He will not make us into the kind of men our times require."

The historian Jules Michelet, one of the toughest critics Montaigne ever had, thought that all this could be blamed on Montaigne's having received too free an education, one designed to produce a merely "feeble and negative" idea of a human being, rather than a hero or a good citizen. Those plangent musical awakenings in his childhood had a lot to answer for. Michelet pictured the adult Montaigne as an invalid who isolated himself in his tower to "watch himself dream"-the inevitable consequence of a decadent, undisciplined upbringing. Over in England, the theologian Richard William Church concluded an otherwise admiring study by opining that Montaigne had too overwhelming a sense of "the nothingness of man, of the smallness of his greatest plans and the emptiness of his greatest achievements"-all a clear indication of nihilism. This made it impossible for him to believe in "the idea of duty, the wish for good, the thought of immortality." In general, he showed "indolence and want of moral tone."

A less serious moral problem also troubled Montaigne's nineteenth-century readers: his openness about s.e.x. (At least, it seems less serious to many of us today.) This was not completely new, but it now became central to the question of his authority as a writer. Even among earlier generations, his talk of b.u.t.tocks, cracks, and tools had occasionally bothered people. Lord Halifax, the dedicatee of an English translation in the seventeenth century, remarked: "I cannot abide that, after having discoursed of the exemplary life of a holy man, he should immediately talk as he does of cuckoldom and privy-parts, and other things of this nature...I wish he had left out these things, that ladies might not be put to the blush, when his Essays are found in their libraries." This last part seems ironic, since Montaigne had joked that the risque parts of his final volume would get his book out of the libraries and into ladies' boudoirs, where he would rather be.

One solution to feminine blushes was the creation of bowdlerized editions, a popular pursuit in the nineteenth century. Abridged versions of the Essays Essays had existed for a long time, but the usual aim had been to reorganize the material so that nuggets of wisdom could be more easily located. Now, the feeling was that Montaigne needed intervention on grounds of taste and morals too. had existed for a long time, but the usual aim had been to reorganize the material so that nuggets of wisdom could be more easily located. Now, the feeling was that Montaigne needed intervention on grounds of taste and morals too.

A typical sanitized Essays Essays appeared in England in 1800, recast for a female audience by an editor who called herself "Honoria." Her appeared in England in 1800, recast for a female audience by an editor who called herself "Honoria." Her Essays, Selected from Montaigne with a Sketch of the Life of the Author Essays, Selected from Montaigne with a Sketch of the Life of the Author took the standard English translation of the day, that of Charles Cotton, and cut it down to produce the perfect Montaigne for the coming century, purged of anything distressing or confusing. took the standard English translation of the day, that of Charles Cotton, and cut it down to produce the perfect Montaigne for the coming century, purged of anything distressing or confusing.

"If, by separating the pure ore from the dross, these Essays are rendered proper for the perusal of my own s.e.x," writes Honoria, "I shall feel amply gratified." The fact that, to do this, she must have pored over the "gross and indelicate allusions" herself pa.s.ses unacknowledged. She also helps Montaigne with basic writing techniques. "He is also so often unconnected in his subjects, and so variable in his opinions, that his meaning cannot always be developed." Honoria enables him to make himself clearer, and adds footnotes, sometimes to rebuke him (for not mentioning the ma.s.sacres of St. Bartholomew's Day, for example), and sometimes to warn readers not to try his more dangerous ideas at home. In particular, waking children gently by music is an "eccentric mode of education" which is "by no means here recited, as a method to be recommended."

Her preface creates a Montaigne who sounds intolerably earnest and worthy. "He was desirous that his philosophy should be more than speculation, as he wished to regulate not only his old age, but his whole life, according to its precepts." She emphasizes his political conformism, and draws attention to the "many excellent religious sentiments interspersed in his Essays." Today, this sort of thing would hardly inspire a rush to the bookshops. But Honoria was attuned to the market of the coming nineteenth century, and helped to create for it a frowning, pensive new Montaigne in a starched collar.

Of course, a lot of nineteenth-century readers continued to love the subversive, individualistic, free-as-the-wind version of Montaigne. But the efforts of Honoria and others would increasingly make him acceptable to readers of varied kinds, all chasing Montaignes of their own invention. It made it possible to read Montaigne, not only in the boudoir, or on a Romantic mountaintop, or in the library of a man of the world, but also in a garden, on a summer's day, where you might see a young lady of moral delicacy and innocence perusing Montaigne in bowdlerized octavo. And if she wanted to catch up on the naughty bits, she could always sneak into her father's library later.

MISSIONS AND a.s.sa.s.sINATIONS.

Montaigne is indeed often shocking, but not always in the places where a shock might be expected. He can unsettle the reader most when he seems to be at his mildest, as when he cheerfully says, "I doubt if I can decently admit at what little cost to the repose and tranquillity of my life I have pa.s.sed more than half of it amid the ruin of my country." It takes a few moments' thought to realize just how unusual it is for anyone to write about life in such terms, in any period of history. One might dismiss such remarks if, indeed, he had always remained pa.s.sive and tranquil. But in the 1580s Montaigne would be increasingly weighed down by war-related responsibilities, which-however he downplays them in his book-surely took a toll on his peace of mind.

The country had stayed technically at peace through his time as mayor, but by the time he retired again to his estate the Catholic Leagues were doing all they could to provoke another war. By now, the conflict was at least as much political as religious. The biggest political question was who would succeed to the French throne after Henri III. No obvious line of inheritance existed, for he had no son or suitable close relative. The monarchy was up for grabs at a moment of extreme national instability: not a good combination.

Most Protestants, as well as a few Catholics, favored Henri of Navarre, the Protestant prince from Bearn who had so much influence in the Bordeaux area and who was technically first in the royal line-but whom many thought should be disqualified by his religion. His main rival was his uncle, Charles, cardinal de Bourbon, whose claim was supported by the Leaguists and their powerful leader Henri, duc de Guise. Meanwhile, the king himself was still very much alive, and seemingly uncertain about which successor to endorse. The next stage of the war would become known as the War of the Three Henris, because it revolved around the three-cornered, crazily spinning pinwheel of Henri III, Henri of Navarre, and Henri of Guise.

Politiques, including Montaigne, were committed on principle to supporting the present king whatever he did. But, as a successor, most preferred Navarre, a choice which earned them extra hatred from the Leagues. Catholic extremists thought you might as well put the Devil himself on the throne as have a Protestant king.

As mayor, Montaigne had made attempts to broker an understanding between the two parties. Both politically, as mayor of a Catholic city near Navarre's territory, and personally, as a good diplomat, he was well placed to do this. He met and entertained Navarre from time to time, and made friends with his influential mistress Diane d'Andouins, or "Corisande." In December 1584, Navarre stayed for a few days on Montaigne's estate, at a moment when the king himself was trying to persuade him to abjure Protestantism so as to inherit the throne. Navarre refused. It thus seemed that one of the few avenues of hope for France might be to persuade Navarre to reconsider this refusal-so Montaigne tried to do just that.

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On a personal level, the visit was successful. Navarre trusted his host enough to rely on Montaigne's servants rather than his own, and to eat without having the food tested for poison in the usual way. Montaigne recorded all this in his Beuther diary: December 19, 1584. The king of Navarre came to see me at Montaigne, where he had never been, and was here for two days, served by my men without any of his officers. He would have neither tasting nor covered dishes, and slept in my bed.

It was a great responsibility, and guests of this caliber expected to be royally entertained, too. Montaigne organized a hunting trip: "I had a stag started in the forest, which led him a chase for two days." The entertainments went well (though probably not from the stag's point of view), but the diplomatic project did not. A letter from Montaigne to Matignon a month later shows that he was still working on the same task. Meanwhile, Henri III came under pressure from the Leaguists-now very powerful, especially in Paris-to introduce anti-Protestant legislation that would cut Navarre off from the throne altogether. Feeling he had no support in his own city, Henri III gave in to them, and, in October 1585, issued an edict giving Huguenots three months to abjure their faith or go into exile.

If this was an attempt to avoid war, it had the opposite effect. Navarre called on his followers to rise up and resist this new oppression. Henri III pa.s.sed further anti-Protestant laws the following spring, alienating Navarre further. The king's mother Catherine de' Medici traveled around the country trying, like Montaigne, to engineer a last-minute agreement with Navarre, but she failed too. At last, open war broke out.

This would be the last of the wars, but also by far the longest and worst of them. It lasted until 1598, which meant that Montaigne would never see peace again, since he lived only to 1592. More than ever, in this "trouble," the worst suffering was caused on a local, chaotic level, by lawless bands of soldiers and gangs of starving refugees roaming the countryside, as well as by famine and plague.

Montaigne was in a dangerous position, threatened not only by the anarchy in the countryside but by his old Bordeaux enemies. He seemed to have too many Protestant friends for a good Catholic; he was known for having entertained Navarre, and he had a brother fighting in Navarre's forces. As he put it, he was a Guelph to the Ghibellines and a Ghibelline to the Guelphs-an allusion to the two factions that had divided Italy for centuries. "There were no formal accusations, for there was nothing they could sink their teeth into," he wrote, but "mute suspicions" always hung in the air. Yet he continued to leave his property undefended, sticking to his principle of openness. In July 1586, a Leaguist army of twenty thousand men laid siege to Castillon on the Dordogne, about five miles away; the fighting spread over the borders of Montaigne's estate. Some of the army camped on his land. The soldiers pillaged his crops and robbed his tenants.

At this time, Montaigne had been trying to get back to work on his book, beginning a third volume and inserting additions into existing chapters. It was right in the midst of this that, as he wrote, "a mighty load of our disturbances settled down for several months with all its weight right on me. I had on the one hand the enemy at my door, on the other hand the free-booters, worse enemies...and I was sampling every kind of military mischief all at once." In late August, plague broke out among the besieging army. It spread to the local population, and infected Montaigne's estate.

Yet again, he found himself having to decide what to do about the threat of plague. A facile conception of heroic behavior might dictate that he should remain with his tenants in order to suffer and, if necessary, die alongside them, together with his family. But, as before, the reality of the situation was more complicated. Anyone who could avoid remaining in a plague zone would certainly do so. Very few peasants had this option, but Montaigne did, and so he left. He interrupted work on the essay he was writing at the time, "On Physiognomy," and took to the road with his family.

One could say that he was deserting his tenants in doing this. Their predicament must already have been dire before he left, for he wrote in the Essays Essays of having seen people dig their own graves and lie down in them to wait for death. Once they had reached this stage, they were beyond rescue. No doubt Montaigne took his valets and personal servants with him, but he could not have taken the whole community of agricultural workers. When they saw his family packing up and leaving, they must have felt that they were being left to die: probably about what they would expect from their supposed n.o.ble protectors. Strangely, by contrast with the savage judgments on his desertion of Bordeaux, there has been almost no criticism of Montaigne on this count. Yet, here too, it is hard to see how he could have done otherwise, and he had a responsibility to his family. of having seen people dig their own graves and lie down in them to wait for death. Once they had reached this stage, they were beyond rescue. No doubt Montaigne took his valets and personal servants with him, but he could not have taken the whole community of agricultural workers. When they saw his family packing up and leaving, they must have felt that they were being left to die: probably about what they would expect from their supposed n.o.ble protectors. Strangely, by contrast with the savage judgments on his desertion of Bordeaux, there has been almost no criticism of Montaigne on this count. Yet, here too, it is hard to see how he could have done otherwise, and he had a responsibility to his family.

Now converted into homeless wanderers, they would be obliged to stay away for six months, until they heard that the plague had subsided in March 1587. It was not easy to find six months' worth of hospitality. Montaigne knew former colleagues from his years of public life, and both he and his wife had family connections. They were obliged to use all of these. Few people had room for his whole party, though, and of those who did, most looked with horror on plague refugees. Montaigne wrote: "I, who am so hospitable, had a great deal of trouble finding a retreat for my family: a family astray, a source of fear to their friends and themselves, and of horror wherever they sought to settle, having to s.h.i.+ft their abode as soon as one of the group began to feel pain in the end of his finger."

During these wandering months, Montaigne also resumed his political activity. Perhaps, in some cases, it was the price he had to pay for accommodation. He played an increasingly major role in attempts by politiques politiques and others to defuse the crisis and secure a future for France. Leaving public office in 1570 had allowed him some s.p.a.ce to meditate on life; this time was different. His post-mayoral years drew him ever higher into the pyramid of power, towards a realm where the air was thin and the fall could be dangerous. He liaised with some of the most eminent players of the era: first with Henri de Navarre, and now with Catherine de' Medici, mother of the troubled king. and others to defuse the crisis and secure a future for France. Leaving public office in 1570 had allowed him some s.p.a.ce to meditate on life; this time was different. His post-mayoral years drew him ever higher into the pyramid of power, towards a realm where the air was thin and the fall could be dangerous. He liaised with some of the most eminent players of the era: first with Henri de Navarre, and now with Catherine de' Medici, mother of the troubled king.

Catherine de' Medici was always a believer in the idea that if everyone could just sit down and talk, problems would go away. She, more than anyone else, did her best to make this happen, and she found Montaigne a natural ally for such a plan. She summoned him to at least one in a series of meetings she held with Navarre at the chateau of Saint-Brice, near Cognac, between December 1586 and early March 1587. Montaigne brought his wife, and the couple were rewarded with a special allowance for travel expenses and clothes while there. It gave them somewhere to stay, but the pressure must have been intense. Catherine hoped to get a treaty out of these meetings; unfortunately, as so often before, talk proved not to be enough.

The Perigord plague receded during this period, so Montaigne returned with his family to find the chateau intact but the fields and vines devastated. He resumed work on the essay he had abandoned when he went away, picking up the pen and carrying on with the remark about the mighty load of disturbances. But his political commitments did not abate. That autumn, he met with Corisande, and then, separately, with Navarre, who called on the chateau in October. Montaigne apparently urged him again to seek compromise with the king. When Navarre went on to see Corisande, she tried to talk him into the same thing. She and Montaigne seem to have cooked up this strategy together: a two-p.r.o.nged attack. Navarre began to show signs of giving in.

Early in 1588, Montaigne met Navarre again; shortly afterwards, Navarre sent him on a top-secret mission to the king in Paris. Suddenly, everyone in the capital seemed to be talking about this mission and its mysterious hero, so it must have been an important one. The Protestant writer Philippe Duplessis-Mornay discussed it in a letter to his wife. Sir Edward Stafford, English amba.s.sador to France, talked about "Montigny" in his reports, describing him as "a very wise gentleman of the king of Navarre" and later adding that "all the king of Navarre's servants here are jealous of his coming." Navarre's usual entourage must have felt out of the loop: here was Montaigne on an errand from their leader, yet no one would tell them what was going on. The Spanish amba.s.sador, Don Bernardino de Mendoza, wrote to his king, Philip II, that Navarre's men in Paris "do not know the reason why he has come," and "suspect that he is on some secret mission." A few days later, on February 28, he also alluded to Montaigne's rumored influence over Corisande, adding that Montaigne was "considered to be a man of understanding, though somewhat addle-pated." Stafford mentioned the Corisande connection too. Montaigne, he said, was her "great favorite"; he was also "a very sufficient man," which in the language of the day meant a very capable one. It seems that Montaigne and Corisande had succeeded in maneuvering Navarre into some sort of a compromise, perhaps a preliminary agreement to renounce Protestantism if necessary, and that Montaigne was there to convey this message to the king.

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The sensitivity of the affair meant that both the Leaguists and Navarre's Protestant followers had every reason to want to stop Montaigne ever reaching Paris. Indeed, almost everyone seemed to dislike this mission of reconciliation and moderation. Even the English amba.s.sador feared it, for England wished to remain influential over Navarre and did not want him reconverting to Catholicism. The only people who could have felt happy were the king, Catherine de' Medici, and a scattering of politiques politiques, ever hopeful for the future of a united France.

It is no wonder, then, that Montaigne's trip did not go smoothly. Shortly after leaving home, while traveling through the forest of Villebois just southeast of Angouleme, his party was ambushed and held up by armed robbers. This was not the incident in which he was freed because of his honest face: that had evidently been a more random attack. This time the motive was political-or such, at least, was his belief. Writing to Matignon about it afterwards, Montaigne said that he suspected the perpetrators were Leaguists wanting to thwart any agreement between their two enemies. Under threat of violence, in the middle of the forest, he was forced to hand over his money, the fine clothes in his coffers (presumably intended for his appearance at the royal court), and his papers, which no doubt included secret doc.u.ments from the Navarre camp. It was fortunate that they did not finish the job by killing him. Instead he survived and, one presumes, delivered his message safely. Yet, once again, despite all that Montaigne had risked, and despite all the excitement about him, nothing came out of the deal. And things were about to get worse.

The trouble began when the duc de Guise, still the most dangerous of the king's enemies, arrived in the capital in May 1588, shortly after Montaigne. Henri III had banned Guise from the city, so this was an open challenge to royal authority, but Guise knew he had the backing of Paris's rebellious parliamentarians. The king should have responded by having Guise arrested. Instead he did nothing even when Guise called on him in person. The new Pope, Sixtus V, reportedly later commented of this meeting, "Guise was a reckless fool to put himself in the hands of a King whom he was insulting; the King was a coward to let him go untouched." It was another of those delicate balances: here, a stronger party had to decide how far to push a challenge, while the weaker had to decide whether to bow his head or offer resistance.