Montaigne

In: Biographies nrf Gallimard

Abstract

One often imagines him removed in its tower to caress the muses and to elaborate a timeless wisdom. But Montaigne can not be reduced to the image of the philosopher devoted to contemplation. He is a lord at the head of a vast estate, with his peasants, his vineyards and his fields. A gentleman steeped in a noble culture, whose certainties he braved to replace them with an original ideal: to conquer greatness in the "mediocrity" of an ordinary existence. A former magistrate also, penetrated with a rich legal knowledge, that he put for a time in work in the Parliament of Bordeaux, city of which he will become the mayor. A political actor especially, caught up in the turmoil of the wars of religion, the violence of denominational hatred and the fear of death that bloody France. One cannot understand, writes Arlette Jouanna, the singular destiny of this exceptional man without mirroring the different figures that make up his personality and the historical terroir in which they take root. It is with a historian's eye that one must rediscover his tumultuous itinerary and the fascinating diversity of a thought that is always in motion. If Montaigne still speaks to us, it is because, in the midst of civil unrest, he calls on "public reason" to transcend intolerance; it is an invitation to free the mind from the weight of agreed conventions and invincible prejudices. Neither the vestige of a bygone past, nor the preacher of hedonistic individualism, but simply our contemporary.--Translation of page 4 of cover by Gallimard