rarely more than a starting-point; and, though the brevity of these first essays for the most part prevents the author from journeying very far, he contrives to get to the utmost range of his tether. Quotations are very frequent.
In 1571 he had received the order of Saint-Michel; in 1574 was with the army of the duke de Montpensier; two years later was made gentleman-in-ordinary to Henry III., and next year again to Henry of Navarre. He visited Paris occasionally, and travelled for health or pleasure to Cauterets, Eaux Chaudes and elsewhere. But his health grew worse and worse, and he was tormented by stone and gravel. He accordingly resolved to journey to the baths of Lucca. Late in the 18th century a journal was found in the château of Montaigne giving an account of this journey, and it was published in 1774; part of it is written in Italian and part dictated in French, the latter being for the most part the work of a secretary or servant. Whatever may be the biographical value of this work, which has rarely been reprinted with the Essays themselves, and the MS. of which disappeared early, it is almost entirely destitute of literary interest. The course of the journey was first northwards to Plombières, then by Basel to Augsburg and Munich, then through Tirol to Verona and Padua in Italy. Montaigne visited most of the famous cities of the north and centre, staying five months at Rome, where he had an audience of the pope and was made a Roman citizen, and finally establishing himself at the baths of Lucca for nearly as long a time. There he received news of his election as mayor of Bordeaux with a peremptory royal endorsement enjoining residence, and after some time journeyed homewards. The tour contains much minute information about roads, food, travelling, &c., but the singular condition in which it exists and the disappearance of the MS. make it rather difficult to use it as a document. The best argument in its favour is the improbability of anybody having taken the trouble to forge so bald and awkward a heap of details. Of the fact of the journey there is no doubt whatever.
Montaigne was not altogether delighted at his election to the mayoralty, which promised him two years of responsible if not very hard work. The memory of his father, however, and the commands of the king induced him to accept it; and he seems to have discharged it neither better nor worse than an average magistrate. Indeed, he gave sufficient satisfaction to the citizens to be re-elected at the close of his term, and it may be suspected that the honour of the position, which was really one of considerable dignity and importance, was not altogether indifferent to him. Unfortunately, it cannot be said that “nothing in his office became him like the leaving of it.” It was his business, if not exactly his duty, to preside at the formal election of his successor, the maréchal de Matignon; but there was a severe pestilence in Bordeaux, and Montaigne writes to the jurats of that town, in one of the few undoubtedly authentic letters which we possess, to the effect that he will leave them to judge whether his presence at the election is so necessary as to make it worth his while to expose himself to the danger of going into the town in its then condition, “which is specially dangerous for men coming from a good air, as he does.” It may be urged in his favour that the general circumstances of the time, where they did not produce reckless and foolhardy daring, almost necessarily produced a somewhat excessive caution. However this may be, Montaigne had difficulty enough during this turbulent period, all the more so from his neighbourhood to the chief haunts and possessions of Henry of Navarre, who actually visited him at Montaigne in 1584. He was able, despite the occupations of his journey, his mayoralty, and the pressure of civil war and pestilence, which was not confined to the town, to continue his essay-writing. His second term of office terminated in 1585; and in 1588 after a visit of some length to Paris, the third book of the Essays was published, together with the former ones considerably revised. The new essays, as has been remarked, differ strikingly from the older ones in respect of length; and the whimsical unexpectedness of the titles reappears in but two of them: “Des Coches” and “Des Boiteux.” They are, however, identical with the earlier ones in spirit, and make with them a harmonious whole—a book which has hardly been second in influence to any of the modern world.
This influence is almost equally remarkable in point of matter and in point of form. The latter aspect may be taken first. Montaigne is one of the few great writers, who have not only perfected but have also invented a literary kind. The essay as he gave it had no forerunner in modern literature and no direct ancestor in the literature of classical times. It has been suggested that the form which the essays assumed was in a way accidental, and this of itself precludes the idea of a definite model, even if such a model could be found. Beginning with the throwing together of a few stray thoughts and quotations linked by a community of subject, the author by degrees acquires more and more certainty of hand, until he produces such masterpieces of apparent desultoriness and real unity as the essay “Sur des vers de Virgile.” in matter of style and language Montaigne’s position is equally important, but the ways which led him to it are more clearly traceable. His favourite author was beyond all doubt Plutarch, and his own explicit confession makes it undeniable that Plutarch’s translator, Jacques Amyot, was his master in point of vocabulary and (so far as he took any lessons in it) of style. Montaigne, however, followed with the perfect independence that characterized him. He was a contemporary of Ronsard, and his first essays were published when the innovations of the Pléiade had full esta lished themselves. He adopted them to a great extent, but with much discrimination, and he used his own judgment in latinizing when he pleased. In the same way he retained archaic and provincial words with a good deal of freedom, but b no means to excess. In the arrangement, as in the selection, of his language he is equally original. He has not the excessive classicism of style which mars even the fine rose of Jean Calvin, and which makes that of some of Calvin’s followers intolerably stiff. As a rule he is careless of definitely rhythmical cadence, though his sentences are always pleasant to the ear. But the principal characteristic of Montaigne's prose style is its remarkable ease and flexibility. A few years after Montaigne’s death a great revolution, as is generally known, passed over France. The criticism of Malherbe, followed by the establishment of the Academy, the minute grammatical censures of Claude Favre Vaugelas, and the severe literary censorship of Boileau, turned French in less than three-quarters of a century from one of the freest languages in Europe to one of the most restricted. During this revolution only two writers of older date held their ground, and those two were Rabelais and Montaigne—Montaigne being of his nature more generally readable than Rabelais. All the great prose writers of France could not fail to be influenced by the racy phrase, the quaint and picturesque vocabulary, and the unconstrained constructions of Montaigne.
It would be impossible, however, for the stoutest defender of the importance of form in literature to assign the chief part in Montaigne’s influence to style. It is the method, or rather the manner of thinking, of which that style is the garment. which has in reality exercised influence on the world. Like all the greatest writers except Shakespeare, Montaigne thoroughly and completely exhibits the intellectual and moral complexion of his own time. When he reached manhood the French Renaissance was at high water, and the turn of the tide was beginning. Rabelais, who died when Montaigne was still in early manhood, exhibits the earlier and rising spirit, though he needs to be completed on the poetical side. With Montaigne begins the age of disenchantment. By the time at least when he began to meditate his essays in the retirement of his country house it was tolerably certain that no golden age was about to return. As the earlier Renaissance had speciall occupied itself with the practical business and pleasures of life, so the later Renaissance specially mused on the vanity of this business and these pleasures. The predisposing circumstances which affected Montaigne were thus likely to incline him to scepticism, to ethical musings on the vanity of life and the like. But to all this there had to be added the peculiarity of his own temperament. This was a decidedly complicated one, and neglect of it has led some readers to adopt a more positive idea of Montaigne’s scepticism than is fully justified by all the facts. The attitude which he assumed was no doubt ephectic and critical chiefly. In the “Apologie de Raymund Sabunde,” he has apparently amused himself with gathering together, in the shape of quotations as well as of reflections, all that can be said against certainty in aesthetics as well as in dogmatics. It is even said by some who have examined the original (vide infra) that the text and alterations show a progressively freethinking attitude, side by side with a growing tendency to conceal it by ambiguity and innuendo. But until all the documents are accessible this must remain doubtful. The general tenor of the essays is in complete contrast with this sceptical attitude, at least in its more decided form, and it is worth notice that the motto “Que scai-je?” does not appear on the title page till after the writer’s death. Montaigne is far too much occupied about all sorts of the minutest details of human life to make it for a moment admissible that he regarded that life as a whole but as smoke and vapour. And it is almost certainly wrong, though M. Brunetière may have given countenance and currency to the idea, to regard his philosophy as in the main intended as a succour against the fear of death. The reason of the misapprehension of him which
is current is due very mainly to the fact that he was eminently a