How to Live (55 page)

1
“I have never yet seen”: III:5 830. “I make advances”: III:3 755.

2
Depressing to be accepted out of pity: III:5 828–9. Dislikes being troublesome: III:5 800. “I abhor the idea,” and the story of the frantic Egyptian: III:5 816. “In truth, in this delight”: III:5 828.

3
“Only one buttock” and “sauce of a more agreeable imagination”: III:5 817.

4
“In place of the real parts” and “What mischief”: III:5 791. “Even the matrons”: III:5 822. Source for latter is
Diversorum veterum poetarum in Priapum lusus
(Venice: Aldus, 1517), no. 72(1), f. 15v. and no. 7(4–5), f. 4v., adapted by Montaigne.

5
“Our life is part folly,” and the Bèze and Saint-Gelais quotes: III:5 822–3. Bèze, T. de,
Poemata
(Paris: C. Badius, 1548), f. 54v. Saint-Gelais, “Rondeau sur la dispute des vits par quatre dames,” in
Oeuvres poétiques françaises
, ed. D. H. Stone (Paris: STFM, 1993), I:276–7.

6
Françoise de La Chassaigne and her family: Balsamo, J., “La Chassaigne (famille de)” and “La Chassaigne, Françoise de,” in Desan,
Dictionnaire
566–8. On Françoise and the marriage: Insdorf, 47–58. Montaigne on Aristotle’s ideal age: II:8 342. Source is Aristotle,
Politics
VII:16 1335a. Montaigne recorded Françoise’s birth date in his Beuther
Ephemeris
diary, as well as their marriage: entries for Dec. 13 and Sept. 23, respectively.

7
“Wives always have a proclivity”: II:8 347.

8
“I admonish … my family”: II:31 660.

9
Socrates and the water-wheel: III:13 1010. Source is Diogenes Laertius,
Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
, II:36. Socrates’s use of his wife’s temper as philosophical practice: II:11 373.

10
Description by Gamaches: Gamaches, C.,
Le Sensé raisonnant sur les passages de l’Escriture Saincte contre les pretendus réformez
(1623), cited Frame,
Montaigne
87. Her correspondence with Dom Marc-Antoine de Saint-Bernard: Frame,
Montaigne
87–8.

11
Françoise’s tower: Gardeau and Feytaud 21.

12
“My thoughts fall asleep”: III:3 763.

13
“The husband and wife must have separate bedrooms”: Alberti, L. B.,
On the Art of Building
, tr. J. Rykwert, N. Leach and R. Tavernor (Boston, MA, 1988), 149, cited Hale 266.

14
“Whoever supposes”: I:38 210. On differing opinions of the marriage, see Lazard 146.

15
“Let us let them talk” and “I have, so I believe”: Montaigne’s epistle to his wife for La Boétie’s translation of Plutarch’s
Lettre de consolation
, in La Boétie,
La Mesnagerie
[etc.] and in
The Complete Works
, tr. D. Frame, 1300.

16
Montaigne’s remarks on his marriage: III:5 783–6.

17
“I have often heard the author say”: F. de Raemond’s marginalia in his copy of the
Essays
, cited in Boase, “Montaigne annoté par Florimond de Raemond,” 239, and in Frame,
Montaigne
93, from which this translation is taken.

18
“Aman … should touch his wife prudently,” and curdling sperm: III:5 783. Kings of Persia: I:30 179. On such theories, see Kelso, R.,
Doctrine for the Lady of the Renaissance
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956), 87–9.

19
Better for a wife to pick up licentiousness from someone else: I:30 178. Women prefer that anyway: III:5 787.

20
Ideal marriage similar to ideal friendship: III:5 785. But not freely chosen, and women not “firm”: I:28 167.

21
“Wounded to the heart”: Sand, G.,
Histoire de ma vie
(Paris: M. Lévy, 1856), VIII: 231. On women’s education, and Louise Labé: Davis, N.Z., “City women and religious change,” in Davis,
Society and Culture
72–4. It has been suggested that Labé was a pseudonym for a group of male poets: Huchon, M.,
Louise Labé: une créature de papier
(Geneva: Droz, 2006).

22
“Women are not wrong”: III:5 787–8. “Males and females are cast”: III:5 831. The double standard: III:5 789. “We are in almost all things unjust”: III:5 819.

23
“We should have wife, children, goods”: I:39 215.

24
Entries on the deaths of children: from Montaigne,
Le Livre de raison
, entries for Feb. 21, May 16, June 28, July 5, Sept. 9, and Dec. 27.

25
Montaigne on the loss of his children: I:14 50. The dating of his riding accident: II:6 326. “In the second year”: Montaigne’s dedicatory epistle to his wife for La Boétie’s translation of Plutarch’s
Lettre de consolation
in La Boétie,
La Mesnagerie
[etc], and in
The Complete Works
, tr. D. Frame, 1300–1.

26
“I see enough other common occasions for affliction”: I:14 50.

27
Essay on sadness: I:2 6–9. Date of 1572–74 given by Donald Frame in his edition of
The Complete Works
, p.vii. Niobe: I:2 7. The story comes from Ovid,
Metamorphoses
VI: 304.

28
Léonor: see Balsamo, J., “Léonor de Montaigne,” in Desan,
Dictionnaire
575–6.

29
“The government of women,” the
fouteau
story, and Léonor’s “backward constitution”: III:5 790. Punishment by gentle stern words: II:8 341.

30
“I handle the cards”: I:23 95. The game of meeting at extremes: I:54 274.

31
“It is pitiful”: III:9 882. “There is always something”: III:9 880. “Fermenting wine”: II:17 601. On bad harvests, plague, and his using influence to sell wine: Hoffmann 9–10.

32
“I stand up well”: II:17 591. Never studied a title deed: III:9 884.

33
“I cannot reckon”: II:17 601.

34
Negative catechism: cf. I:31 186.

35
Admiring practical and specific knowledge: III:9 882–3. “Having had neither governor nor master” and “Extremely idle, extremely independent”: II:17 592. “Freedom and laziness”: III:9 923.

36
Better to lose money than track every penny: II:17 592. Misers often swindled too: III:9 884. The marquis du Trans story: II:8 346. Montaigne does not name him; he was identified as such by Raemond in a marginal note. See Boase, “Montaigne annoté par Florimond de Raemond.”

37
“Nothing costs me dear,” and wanting a son-in-law: III:9 883–4. “I avoid subjecting myself”: III:9 897. “I try to have no express need”: III:9 899. “I have conceived a mortal hatred”: III:9 900.

38
Hippias of Elis: III:9 899. The story comes from Plato,
Hippias minor
368 b–d, and Cicero,
De oratore
III:32 127.

39
Nietzsche’s “free-spirited people”: Nietzsche,
Human, All Too Human
, Aphorism 291, 173–4.

1
“There are private, retiring, and inward natures” and “My essential pattern”: III:3 758.

2
Conversation better than books: I:17 59. “The sharp, abrupt repartee”: III:8 871. “Wonderful brilliance”: I:26 140.

3
“No propositions astonish me”: III:8 855. He likes being contradicted: III:8 856–7. Sweet conversation: Raemond,
Erreur populaire
159. No “waiting on people”: III:3 758.

4
Small talk bores him: II:17 587. His attention wanders: III:3 754. But he sees its value: I:13 39.

5
Affability an art for living well: III:13 1037. “Gay and sociable wisdom”: III:5 778.

6
Goodwill: Nietzsche,
Human, All Too Human
, Aphorism 49, p. 48.

7
Foix family: see Balsamo, J., “Foix (famille de),” in Desan,
Dictionnaire
405–8. The man who threw too many parties: II:8 344. The man who blew his nose: I:23 96. Montaigne’s contemporary Florimond de Raemond identified them as Jean de Lusignan and François de La Rochefoucauld, respectively: see Boase, “Montaigne annoté par Florimond de Raemond.” Female dedicatees: Diane de Foix, comtesse de Gurson (I:26), Marguerite de Gramond (I:29), and Mme d’Estissac (II:8).

8
He organized a deer hunt for Henri of Navarre in 1584: see Montaigne,
Le Livre de raison
, entry for Dec. 19. On jousting: III:8 871. On indoor amusements: I:54 273. The puzzles were probably similar to those described in his near-contemporary Tabourot des Accords’s collection
Bigarrures:
Étienne Tabourot, sieur des Accords,
Les Bigarrures
(Rouen: J. Bauchu, 1591), [Book 1].

9
Millet-tosser: I:54 274. Child born with part of another child attached: II:30 653–4. Hermaphroditic shepherd: II:30 654. Man without arms: I:23 95. “Monsters” contrary to habit, not nature: II:30 654.

10
“I have seen no more evident monstrosity”: III:11 958.

11
Business of the estate: see Hoffmann 14–15.

12
Not knowing whether he would be murdered in his sleep: III:9 901.

13
Botero: Botero, G.,
The Reason of State and the Greatest of Cities
, tr. R. Peterson and P. J. and D. P. Waley (London, 1956), 279, cited Hale 426. “A porter of ancient custom”: II:15 567.

14
Guarded houses suffered more attacks, with explanation from Seneca: II:15 567–8. Source is Seneca,
Letters to Lucilius
, Letter 68. Loeb edn II:47. No glory in robbing an open household: II:15 567. “Your valet may be of the party”: II:15 568.

15
Soldiers disarmed by Montaigne’s open face: III:12 988–90.

16
The attack in the forest: III:12 990–1. This is different from the hold-up in 1588 on his way to Paris, which is also related in the
Essays
.

17
Stories of confrontation and submission: I:1 1–5.

18
The stag: II:11 383. One critic, David Quint, sees this stag story as a primal scene replayed throughout the
Essays
but never finally resolved. Quint 63.

19
Seeking and granting mercy without cringing: I:5 20. “Pure and clean confidence”: I:24 115.

20
“When weapons flash”: III:1 739. Source is Lucan VII:320–2.

21
Epaminondas: II:36 694–6, I:42 229, II:12 415, and (for “in command of war itself”) III:1 738.
See Vieillard-Baron, J.-L., “Épaminondas,” in Desan,
Dictionnaire
330.

22
“Let us take away”: III:1 739.

23
Cruelly hating cruelty: II:11 379. Hatred of hunting: II:11 383. Chicken or hare: II:11 379. On Montaigne and cruelty, see Brahami, F., “Cruauté,” in Desan,
Dictionnaire
236–8, and Hallie, P. P., “The ethics of Montaigne’s ‘De la cruauté,’ ”in La Charité, R. C. (ed.),
O un amy! Essays on Montaigne in Honor of Donald M. Frame
(Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1977), 156–71.

24
“Even the executions of the law”: II:11 380–1. “I am so squeamish”: III:12 992.

25
Frenchmen and their other halves: I:31 193. “It is one and the same nature”: II:12 416.

26
“There is a certain respect” and “I am not afraid to admit”: II:11 385.

27
Pascal mocked Montaigne: Pascal, “Discussion with M. de Sacy,” in
Pensées
188.

28
Leonard Woolf on Montaigne and cruelty, and the drowning of the puppies: Woolf, L., 17–21.

29
William James: James, W., “On a certain blindness in human beings,” from
Talks to Teachers on Psychology
(New York: Henry Holt, 1912), in
The Writings of William James
, ed. J. J. McDermott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 629–45. “Zest and tingle”: 629–31. Forgetting this is the worst error: 644–5.

1
“I remember lying”: Woolf, V.,
Diary
I:190 (entry for Sept. 8, 1918).

2
Examples of divergent customs: I:23 98–9; I:49 263–5; II:12 431–2.

3
“This great world”: I:26 141.

4
Potatoes from the Americas: Hale 173.

5
France’s colonial prospects and adventures: Knecht,
Rise and Fall
287, 297–300 (Brazil), 392–4 (Florida).

6
Montaigne’s conversation with the Tupinambá: I:31 193. His collection of Americana: I:31 187. The servant who knew Brazil, and others to whom he introduced Montaigne: I:31 182–4.

7
Montaigne’s reading: López de Gómara,
Historia de las Indias
, translated into French by Martin Fumée in 1568 as
Histoire generalle des Indes
. Bartolomé de Las Casas,
Brevisima relación de la destruccion de las Indias
, translated into French as
Tyrannies et cruautés des Espagnols
 … (1579). Thevet, A.,
Les Singularitez
and Léry, J. de,
Histoire d’un voyage fait en la terre du Brésil
(La Rochelle: A. Chuppin, 1578). Anecdotes from Léry here taken from modern English translation: Léry,
History of a Voyage
. Elderly people without white hair: ibid. 56–7. Fighting for honor: ibid. 112–21. Cannibal feasts: ibid. 122–33. The human foot: ibid. 163–4. Léry felt safer: ibid. 169. Cannibalism in Sancerre: Léry, J. de,
Histoire mémorable de la ville de Sancerre
([La Rochelle], 1574). On Léry, see Lestringant, F.,
Jean de Léry ou l’invention du sauvage
, 2nd edn (Paris: H. Champion, 2005).

8
Incas and Aztecs: III:6 842.

9
“This is a nation”: I:31 186.

10
“Once upon a time, there was no snake”: Kramer, S. N.,
History Begins at Sumer
(New York, 1959), 222, cited Levin 10.

11
Typee: Melville, H.,
Typee
, cited Levin 68–9.

12
Stoics: Seneca,
Letters to Lucilius
, Letter 90. Loeb edn II: 395–431. On Stoics and primitivism, see Lovejoy, A. O. and Boas, G.,
A Documentary History of Primitivism and Related Ideas
, Vol. 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1934), 106–7.

13
Wild fruit: I:31 185. The two cannibal songs: I:31 191–2. “Purely natural poetry”: I:54 276.

14
Afterlife of cannibal love song: Chateaubriand,
Mémoires d’outre-tombe
, ed. M. Levaillant and G. Moulinier (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), 247–8 (Book VII, chap. 9), cited Lestringant 189. Kleist, Herder and Goethe: see Langer, U., “Montaigne’s ‘coulevre’: notes on the reception of the
Essais
in 18th-century Germany,”
Montaigne Studies
7 (1995), 191–202, and Bouillier,
La Renommée de Montaigne en Allemagne
30–1. On Goethe, see Bouillier, V., “Montaigne et Goethe,”
Revue de littérature comparée
5 (1925), 572–93. On German stoves: Moureau, F., “Le Manuscrit du
Journal de Voyage:
découverte, édition et copies,” in Michel et al. (eds),
Montaigne et les
Essais
1580–1980
, 289–99, this 297.

15
“They burn the victims alive”: I:30 181.

16
“I am not sorry”: I:31 189.

17
Coste: Montaigne,
Essais
, ed. P. Coste (London, 1724, and La Haye, 1727). On Coste, see Rumbold, M.E.,
Traducteur Huguenot: Pierre Coste
(New York: P. Lang, 1991). Marveling that he had to wait so long: e.g. Nicolas Bricaire de la Dixmerie,
Eloge analytique et historique de Michel Montagne
(Amsterdam & Paris: Valleyre l’aîne, 1781), 2. See Moureau, F., “Réception de Montaigne (XVIIIe siècle),” in Desan,
Dictionnaire
859.

18
Diderot, D.,
Supplément au voyage de Bougainville
(1796). English translation by J. Hope Mason and R. Wokler in Diderot,
Political Writings
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 31–75. Follow nature to be happy: 52–3. On Diderot, see Schwartz, J.,
Diderot and Montaigne: the
Essais
and the Shaping of Diderot’s Humanism
(Genèva: Droz, 1966).

19
On Rousseau and Montaigne: see Fleuret, and Dréano. Rousseau’s copy of the
Essais
is now in the University of Cambridge Library.

20
Rousseau,
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
. “I see an animal”: 26. Harsh conditions make him strong: ibid. 27. Civilization makes him “sociable and a slave”: ibid. 31. Savages do not kill themselves: ibid. 43. Murder under a philosopher’s window: ibid. 47.

21
Rousseau,
Émile
. See Fleuret 83–121.

22
“I place Montaigne foremost”: this preface appears in the Neuchâtel edition but not in modern ones based on the Paris manuscript. It is included as an appendix to Angela Scholar’s translation: Rousseau,
Confessions
, 643–9, this 644. “This is the only portrait of a man”: preface to Paris version, Rousseau,
Confessions
3.

23
“I know men”: Rousseau,
Confessions
5.

24
Montaigne “bears the entire form of the human condition”: III:2 740.

25
Contemporary accusations: Cajot, J.,
Plagiats de M. J. J. R[ousseau], de Genève, sur l’éducation
(La Haye, 1766), 125–6. Bricaire de la Dixmerie, N.,
Eloge analytique et historique de Michel Montagne
(Amsterdam & Paris: Valleyre l’aîne, 1781), 209–76, this 259.