Michel de Montaigne
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was born on February 28, 1533, at his family estate in Périgord, southwestern France, and died there on September 13, 1592. A French essayist, philosopher, magistrate, and public official, he is usually credited with establishing the modern personal essay. His Essais gave the form its name and made the changing self—its memories, habits, judgments, fears, and contradictions—a serious subject of literature and philosophy.
Montaigne came from a prosperous Bordeaux family that had recently acquired noble standing. His father arranged an unusual humanist education: his tutor and household spoke Latin to him from early childhood. He later attended the Collège de Guyenne in Bordeaux. His formal legal education is uncertain, but he entered public service, first at the Cour des Aides in Périgueux and then as a magistrate in the Bordeaux parlement.
There he formed an intense friendship with the writer and fellow magistrate Étienne de La Boétie. His friend’s death in 1563 deeply affected him, and Montaigne later memorialized their bond in “Of Friendship.”
After leaving judicial office, Montaigne withdrew to his estate’s tower library on February 28, 1571, his thirty-eighth birthday. Around 1572 he began the project that would occupy him for the rest of his life. His “retirement,” however, was never a complete retreat. He managed his estate, maintained court connections, undertook political missions, traveled, and later served two terms as mayor of Bordeaux.
Books I and II of the Essais first appeared in 1580. A greatly enlarged edition in 1588 added Book III and hundreds of additions to the earlier books. The title suggests attempts, trials, or tests of judgment. Montaigne did not build a fixed philosophical system. Instead, he tested his mind against classical authors, historical examples, bodily experience, custom, memory, and contradiction. The work continually questions and revises itself, allowing readers to watch thought in motion.
The question most closely associated with Montaigne is “Que sais-je?”—“What do I know?” Around 1576, he had it inscribed on a personal medal beside the Greek skeptical formula meaning “I suspend judgment.” His skepticism was not a claim that nothing matters or that knowledge is impossible. It was a discipline of intellectual humility: an effort to expose false certainty, weigh competing views, and keep judgment free from dogmatism.
Montaigne showed how strongly custom shapes what people accept as natural, reasonable, or just. Yet he was not simply a relativist. By comparing customs, examining experience, and turning judgment back upon itself, he tried to test inherited beliefs. He remained a Catholic and a royalist, but amid the French Wars of Religion he condemned cruelty and sectarian fanaticism, favored moderation, and maintained relationships across confessional and political divisions. At times he acted as an intermediary between the royal court and Henry of Navarre, the Protestant leader who later became Henry IV.
In 1580–1581, Montaigne traveled through France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Italy, seeking relief from kidney stones and observing unfamiliar customs and forms of daily life. While in Italy, he learned that he had been elected mayor of Bordeaux. He served two terms, from 1581 to 1585, amid religious conflict and plague.
Montaigne never treated the Essais as finished. He continued correcting and expanding his copy of the 1588 edition—the celebrated Bordeaux Copy—until his death. In 1595, the writer Marie de Gournay, whom he called his adopted daughter, prepared the first posthumous edition and became an important guardian of his literary legacy.
His influence spread far beyond France. Shakespeare drew closely on John Florio’s 1603 English translation in The Tempest; Pascal and Descartes confronted problems sharpened by his skepticism; Emerson devoted an essay to “Montaigne; or, the Skeptic”; and Nietzsche praised his honesty and affirmation of life. By making the ordinary, unstable individual a field of serious inquiry, Montaigne decisively shaped the modern essay and left an enduring mark on literature, skepticism, and humanism.
MORE:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Michel de Montaigne: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/montaigne/
SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Michel de Montaigne: https://iep.utm.edu/montaigne/
Bordeaux Municipal Library — Montaigne Collections: https://bibliotheque.bordeaux.fr/patrimoine/collections-patrimoniales/fonds-montaigne
University of Chicago — The Montaigne Project: https://artfl-project.uchicago.edu/montaigne-project
University of Tours — The 1588 Essays and the Bordeaux Copy: https://montaigne.univ-tours.fr/essais-1588-exemplaire-bordeaux/