Sarah Bakewell - How to Live - A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer

Among the small but endlessly abundant and therefore very effective things that science ought to heed more than the great, rare things, is goodwill [ Wohlwollen ]. I mean those expressions of a friendly disposition in interactions, that smile of the eye, those handclasps, the ease which usually envelops nearly all human actions. Every teacher, every official brings this ingredient to what he considers his duty. It is the continual manifestation of our humanity, its rays of light, so to speak, in which everything grows … Good nature, friendliness, and courtesy of heart … have made much greater contributions to culture than those much more famous expressions of this drive, called pity, charity, and self-sacrifice.

To Montaigne, most of the time, friendly goodwill came easily. This was fortunate, for he had much need of it both at home and in his professional life. He had to get on well with colleagues in Bordeaux; later, his work required him to charm diplomats, kings, and fearsome warlords further afield. He often had to establish a rapport with opponents blinded by religious fanaticism. Around the estate, too, it was important to socialize with the neighbors — not always easy. They appear from time to time in the Essays , often with colorful stories attached: the miserly marquis de Trans, whose family the Foix were very powerful in the region; a Jean de Lusignan, who tired himself by organizing too many parties for his grown-up children; François de La Rochefoucauld, who believed that blowing one’s nose into a handkerchief was a disgusting practice and that it was nicer to use just fingers. Some noblewomen of the area became dedicatees of individual chapters: Diane de Foix, comtesse de Gurson; Marguerite de Gramond; and Mme d’Estissac, whose son later accompanied Montaigne to Italy. Above all, Montaigne befriended the woman who became the mistress of Henri de Navarre (later to be Henri IV): Diane d’Andouins, comtesse de Guiche et de Gramont, usually known as “Corisande” after a character in one of her favorite chivalric novels.

To keep up with such friends, Montaigne had to take part in many fashionable entertainments which he privately disliked. When he had guests, he might start a deer in his forests for them, much as he recoiled from hunting. He had more success in avoiding jousting, which he thought lethal and futile. He also tried to wriggle out of the indoor amusements of the period, including poetry games, cards, and rebus-like puzzles — perhaps because, by his own admission, he was not good at them.

His home was often visited by itinerant performers: acrobats, dancers, trainers of performing dogs, and human “monsters,” all desperately trying to make a living by touring the country. Montaigne tolerated them, but remained unimpressed by clever-clogs displays such as that of a man who tossed grains of millet through the eye of a needle from a distance. He was more interested in novelties that meant something, such as the group of Tupinambá whom he met in Rouen. And he would travel considerable distances to investigate reports of anomalous births, like that of a child who was born with a headless portion of another child attached to his torso. He visited a hermaphroditic shepherd in Médoc, and met a man without arms who could use his feet to load and fire a pistol, thread a needle, sew, write, comb his hair, and play cards. Like the millet-tosser, he survived by exhibiting himself, but Montaigne found him much more interesting. People spoke of “monsters,” he wrote, but such individuals were not contrary to nature, only to habit. Where real oddity was concerned, there was no doubt where Montaigne thought the prize should go:

I have seen no more evident monstrosity and miracle in the world than myself. We become habituated to anything strange by use and time; but the more I frequent myself and know myself, the more my deformity astonishes me, and the less I understand myself.

Thus the estate was a busy crossroads, traversed by streams of people in all directions. The atmosphere was more like that of a village than of a private home. Even when Montaigne went off to his tower to write, he rarely worked alone or in silence. People talked and worked around him; outside his window horses would have been led back and forth from the stables, while hens clucked and dogs barked. In the wine-making season, the air would be filled with the sound of clanking presses. Even at the height of the wars, Montaigne kept his property more open to the world than others did — a rare decision in such dangerous times.

In some ways, Montaigne’s world became a private universe unto itself, with its own values and an atmosphere of freedom. Yet he never made it a fortress. He insisted on welcoming anyone who arrived at the gate, though he knew the risks and admitted that sometimes it meant going to bed not knowing whether he would be murdered in his sleep by some itinerant soldier or vagrant. But the principle was too important. When Montaigne wrote, “I am all in the open and in full view,” he was not alluding only to social chitchat. He meant that he wanted to remain in free, honest communication with other human beings — even those who seemed bent on killing him.

According to Giovanni Botero, an Italian political writer living in France in the 1580s, the French countryside of that decade was so rife with thieves and murderers that every house was obliged to keep “watchmen of the vineyards and orchards; gates, locks, bolts, and mastiffs.” Apparently Botero had not visited the Montaigne estate. There the only defender was a person whom Montaigne described as “a porter of ancient custom and ceremony, who serves not so much to defend my door as to offer it with more decorum and grace.”

Montaigne lived this way because he was determined to resist intimidation, and did not want to become his own jailer. But he also believed that, paradoxically, his openness made him safer. Heavily guarded houses in the area suffered far more attacks than his did. He quoted Seneca for the explanation: “Locked places invite the thief. The burglar passes by what is open.” Locks made a place look valuable, and there could be no sense of glory in robbing a household where one was welcomed by an elderly doorkeeper. Also, the usual rules of fortification hardly apply in a civil war: “Your valet may be of the party that you fear.” You cannot barricade the gates against a threat that is already inside; far better to win the enemy over by behaving with generosity and honor.

Events seemed to prove Montaigne right. Once, he invited a troop of soldiers in, only to realize that they were plotting to take advantage of his hospitality by seizing the place. They abandoned the plan, however, and the leader told Montaigne why: he had been “disarmed” by the sight of his host’s “face and frankness.”

In the outer world, too, Montaigne’s openness protected him from violence. Once, traveling through a forest in a dangerous rural area, he was attacked by fifteen to twenty masked men, followed by a wave of mounted archers — a huge assault, apparently planned in advance. They took him to a thick part of the forest, rifled through his possessions, seized his traveling cases and money box, and discussed how to divide his horses and other equipment among themselves. Worse, they then got the idea of holding him as a hostage for further gain, but could not decide how much ransom to ask. Montaigne overheard them debating the matter and realized they were likely to set the sum excessively high, which would mean his death if no one could afford to pay. He could stand it no more, and called out to interrupt them. They already had everything they were going to get, he declared. However high they set the ransom, it made no difference: they would see none of it. It was a risky way to speak, but after this the bandits underwent a dramatic change. They huddled for a moment in fresh discussion, then the leader walked over to Montaigne with an air almost of friendliness. He removed his mask — a significant gesture, since the two men could now confront each other face to face, like human beings — and said that they had decided to let him go. They even gave back some of his possessions, including the money box. The leader explained it by saying that, as Montaigne wrote later, “I owed my deliverance to my face and the freedom and firmness of my speech.” He was saved by his natural, honest appearance, combined with his bravery in facing up to aggression.