How the Man Who Taught Me "How to Live" Lived?

In the year of Christ 1571, at the age of 38 years, on the eve of the calends of March [ie the last day of February], the anniversary of his birth, Michel de Montaigne, bored for a long time by his bondage at the Court of Parliament [in Bordeaux, where he served as an officer preparing case summaries for the magistrates] and by his public duties, still feeling full of energy, came to rest on the bosom of the learned virgins [ie the Muses] in calm and serenity; he will spend there the remaining days of his life.

Hoping that fate will allow him to complete this dwelling of sweet paternal retreats, he has dedicated them to his freedom, tranquillity and leisure.

Peter Webscott had the pleasure of visiting and writing about that tranquil place where Montaigne spent his final decades.

The estate, in the village of St Michel de Montaigne just north of the Dordogne, is still there today and so is the Tower that housed his library where he studied and wrote his Essais. The original château was built by his grandfather in the fifteenth century as a fortified Périgord house rather than a castle, and it stayed in his family until 1811 when it was bought by M Magne, Minister of Finance under Napoleon III. He had the house re-built as a fantasy Gothic Loire valley château, with turrets and steep, slate roofs, completely out of keeping with the original house and the architecture of Périgord. Only Montaigne’s Tower and the sixteenth century outbuildings which housed a laundry, stables and wine storehouse were retained.

I was disappointed that the small shop did not have a copy of the Quesnel drawing of Montaigne made in 1588 just four years before he died. It is considered to be one of the most lifelike pictures of him. He looks like a warm, friendly and wise person – exactly the way he comes across in the Essais.

You are missing out a lot on life, if you haven't read Montaigne yet. Sarah Blackwell's brilliant book How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer is an apt  place to start to get to know this wise man.