“The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is his own,” wrote Michel de Montaigne. Ridden with illness, the French nobleman decided to embark on a journey through Europe. What began as an attempt to find relief from bodily pain became a profound meditation on life that shows readers how travel can broaden one’s mind.
An Eclectic Education
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) was born in a castle mansion in Guyenne, France. He came from a wealthy family that had been ennobled two generations before his birth. His father devised an unusual pedagogic plan, on which Montaigne often reflected in his writings. As an infant, he was sent to a cottage to live with a family of farmers for three years, where he could become more sympathetic to the conditions of the lower classes he later served as a government official.When he returned home, his father wanted him to adopt Latin as his first language. He hired servants who knew Latin well and made sure Montaigne used the classical language to read, speak, and write. He eventually returned to a more traditional path, and his formal studies ended with a specialization in law.
At age 21, the sharp and articulate young man was appointed counselor in Bordeaux, France, where he used his knowledge of legal codes to climb the administrative ladder. A few years later, he became a courtier to king Charles IX. His indispensable political and military counsel earned him the collar of the Order of Saint Michael, the highest honor of the French nobility.
The First Modern Man
Montaigne’s brilliant governmental career lasted 15 years. He returned to politics later in life, but things changed completely in 1570. After a life-threatening accident and the very early death of his first child, the sociable courtier retreated from the world.He retired to the tower of his château, where he read and wrote in silence, among thousands of books and paintings. That’s where he composed the “Essays,” a groundbreaking blend of personal reflection, philosophical inquiry, and literary criticism whose introspective character earned him the title of “first modern man.”
Montaigne’s essays resemble the autobiographical “Confessions” by the Catholic bishop Saint Augustine of Hippo (354 A.D.–430 A.D.). Unlike Augustine, however, Montaigne’s writing didn’t explicitly concern his personal beliefs. The French nobleman was a devout Catholic, and he played a central role as a pacifying mediator between the Catholic king of France Henry III and the Protestant King Henry of Navarre during France’s bloody 38-year religious war.
But his literary goals weren’t religious. Instead of proving a doctrine or trying to persuade readers of a set of beliefs, Montaigne wanted to test and play with ideas, especially regarding himself. The tentative nature of his project is contained in its title: in French, “essais” means “attempts.”
As he wrote in a preface to readers, “it is my own self that I am painting. Here, drawn from life, you will read of my defects and my native form.” He wondered what it meant to be happy, to feel sorrow, and to emulate the great role models who lived in different historical epochs. He tried to observe the consequences of fear and anger on his behavior, used examples from his own education to criticize schools that favored theory over practice, and pondered the relationship between literary style and personality. His serious questions didn’t keep him from occasionally writing about more trivial topics, like carriages and bodily smells.
On Sept. 13, 1592, Montaigne died in his château of an infection to the tonsils, a tragic fate for someone who thought that “the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is conversation.”
A 1585 letter from Montaigne to the Marechal de Matignon. Public Domain
In Search of Healing
Many of the observations in “Essays” stemmed from Montaigne’s experience with illness and his attempts at finding cures. In 1580, he left home in search of a remedy for kidney stones, a condition that ran in the family. Despite his wealth and access to state-of-the-art resources, the Frenchman refused to consult doctors. He thought travel might heal him, so he set off on a two-year journey through France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy.What began as a trip to alleviate a physical ailment quickly became an intellectual expedition through the norms and customs of 16th-century Europe. Montaigne noted geographical differences and puzzled over their influence on local mores. He probed the cultural standards and legal procedures of the cities he visited, asking himself whether they seemed to help citizens thrive. His travel journal reveals a mind striving to make sense of the foreign.
A postcard of the statue of Michel de Montaigne in Bordeaux, France. Public Domain
A couple of months into the trip, Montaigne stopped in the Austrian mountain town of Kempten, which was “handsome, populous, and abounding in good lodgings.” He was annoyed at locals’ habit of neither warming “their sheets before going to bed nor their clothes before getting up” in such a cold climate.
He still praised the hospitality of the innkeepers who improved austere living conditions with a friendliness he rarely observed in his native France, though he was careful not to generalize, noting the “barbaric German arrogance” he encountered on one occasion.
Indeed, Montaigne wasn’t afraid to cast harsh judgments on what he deemed backwards, be it French, German, or whatever else. In Rome, he decried the inefficient and arbitrary nature of court proceedings, which dangerously undermined justice with red tape. Yet he recognized that condemning the foreign and praising the familiar only becomes possible and useful once the foreign, too, has become somewhat familiar.
One of his longest stays was in Lucca, a town near Florence still known for its thermal springs dating to ancient Rome. He spent 74 days taking long baths in bathhouses and natural pools. Montaigne’s meticulous descriptions of his routine and its consequences on his kidney stones suggest that the baths had a positive effect. He also recorded his daily water intake, meals, and sleep duration, offering readers a detailed medical manual.
Lucca, Italy, as seen from the rooftops of the homes in the district. Myrabella/CC BY-SA 3.0
This particularly restorative period was enhanced by interactions with cordial and cheerful locals. Although the people of Lucca seemed much simpler and poorer than Montaigne’s French compatriots, he found their simplicity refreshing: “It was a rare and charming sight to us Frenchmen to look upon these comely peasants dancing so well in the garb of gentle-folk.” As he wrote years after his stay in Lucca, “The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness.”
Opening His Eyes to Complexity
Montaigne showed an openness unusual for his time. He lived in an age where knowledge of foreign cultures was severely limited and often accepted with suspicion. He was also very orderly and detail-oriented, two traits that usually make people averse to new experiences. Yet, driven by intellectual curiosity, he embraced the unfamiliar at every turn.As he later noted in an essay on education, the purpose of travel was “to be able chiefly to give an account of the humours, manners, customs, and laws of those nations where he has been, and that we may whet and sharpen our wits by rubbing them against those of others.”
"Portrait of Michel de Montaigne by unknown painter in the Musée Condé," circa 1578, Anonymous. Oil on canvas. Conde Museum, France. Public Domain
Whether he was commenting on the more or less hospitable customs of taverns, the procedures of local courts, or the propriety of public religious rituals, the Frenchman showed exemplary sensitivity to the variance in human behavior he observed. He treated each experience as an opportunity to deepen his understanding of the world. Although travel didn’t fully heal his medical maladies, it became an opportunity to practice tolerance and humility, and to open his eyes to the complexity that defines humanity.
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