Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne, born Michel Eyquem on February 28, 1533, and dying on September 13, 1592, was a major figure of the French Renaissance. He is credited with making the essay a popular form of writing. His work blends personal stories and reflections with deep intellectual ideas. In his own time, people respected him more as a statesman than as a writer. His tendency to wander into anecdotes and personal thoughts was seen as a flaw, not an innovation, and his statement that he himself was the subject of his book struck contemporaries as self-centered. Only later did he become seen as a symbol of the critical thinking and open questioning that was then emerging.

Montaigne grew up on the family estate, Château de Montaigne, near Bordeaux in the Guyenne region. His family was quite rich. His great-grandfather, Ramon Felipe Eyquem, had made money as a herring merchant and bought the estate in 1477, becoming the Lord of Montaigne. His father, Pierre Eyquem, served as mayor of Bordeaux and also as a Catholic soldier in Italy. The Eyquem family is thought to have had some Marrano (Spanish and Portuguese Jewish) roots, and Montaigne’s mother, Antoinette López de Villanueva, was a convert to Protestantism. Her father, Pedro López, came from a wealthy Marrano family in Zaragoza that had converted to Catholicism, while her mother, Honorette Dupuy, was from a Catholic family in Gascony. Though Montaigne’s mother lived nearby for much of his life and even outlived him, she appears only twice in his essays. His father, however, is a frequent topic.

Montaigne’s education followed a plan his father designed, with advice from humanist friends. Right after birth, he was sent to live with a peasant family for three years, so he would know the lives of common people. Then he returned to the château. His father wanted Latin to be his first language, so a German tutor who spoke no French taught him. Only Latin-speaking servants were hired, and everyone—including his mother and father—was told to speak only the Latin words Montaigne used. He learned Greek through games, conversation, and meditation rather than books. This upbringing created a spirit of “liberty and delight” in him, making him enjoy his duties willingly. Each morning, a musician woke him with an instrument, and a zither player stayed with him and his tutor to ease boredom.

Around 1539, Montaigne went to the College of Guienne in Bordeaux, a top boarding school run by the Latin scholar George Buchanan. He finished the full curriculum by age thirteen and completed his first phase of studies in 1546. He then studied law and began working in the local legal system. What he did from 1546 to 1557 is mostly unknown.

Montaigne became a councillor of the Court des Aides of Périgueux and, in 1557, a councillor of the Parlement in Bordeaux, a high court. From 1561 to 1563, he served as a courtier to King Charles IX and was with the king at the siege of Rouen in 1562. He received the highest French noble honor, the collar of the Order of Saint Michael.

While at the Bordeaux Parlement, Montaigne became close friends with the humanist poet Étienne de La Boétie, who was three years older and already handling major political tasks, such as pacifying Guyenne during the unrest of 1561. La Boétie’s best-known work is *Discourse on Voluntary Servitude*. Montaigne planned to include it in his *Essays* but held back when Protestant groups started reading it as an attack on the Catholic monarchy. Their friendship became legendary. In the first edition of the *Essays*, Montaigne wrote that if pressed to say why he loved La Boétie, he could only answer, “because it was he, because it was I.” This line appeared in the posthumous 1595 edition, added by Montaigne in the margins of his personal 1588 copy.