(In)Frequently Asked Questions

1. Was Montaigne a Stoic?
2. Was Montaigne Jewish?
3. Was Montaigne gay?
4. Was Montaigne a recluse?
5. What is the Essays about?

Was Montaigne a Stoic?

No, Michel de Montaigne was not a Stoic philosopher. He is sometimes mistaken for one because many of his essays discuss elements of Stoic philosophy or invoke Stoic philosophers, and because early chapters of his book reuse and restate their ideas. Taken out of context, some of his writings appear to extol Stoic virtues, particularly with respect to illness and death.

But Montaigne was equally interested in Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism, and he admired Socrates above all other ancient philosophers.

What’s more, he rejected dogmatic thinking and heroic self-mastery, and was critical of the Stoic worship of virtue and of Seneca’s posturing (as Montaigne sees it). His own philosophy, rooted in his Christian faith as much as in classical values, often emphasized pleasure, compromise, uncertainty, change, and the importance of self-reflection grounded in personal experience.

For seeing philosophy has not been able to find out any way to tranquillity that is good in common, let every one seek it in particular. — On Glory (book 2, chapter 16)

Was Montaigne Jewish?

Michel de Montaigne was not Jewish. He was Catholic. But the question continues to arise because of the origins of his mother’s family.

In 1529, Michel’s father married Antoinette de Louppes, the daughter of a merchant from Toulouse, Pierre de Louppes, himself the son of an Antonio Lopez—Montaigne’s great grandfather—who had lived in Saragossa, Spain, in the late fifteenth century. (Antoinette’s mother, Honorette Dupuy, was from a local Catholic family.)

Since the mid-fourteenth century, Spain and Portugal had become increasingly hostile to their Jewish populations. Most Jews had had little choice but to convert to Christianity to avoid physical violence or death, but some continued to practice their original faith in secret.

By the late fifteenth century, these crypto-Jews (historically referred to as marranos) became the target of the Spanish Inquisition leading many to flee to France—Toulouse and Bordeaux in particular—and Flanders. In 1492, the Edict of Expulsion ordered all remaining practicing Jews to leave Spain.

Some historians have suggested that Antoinette’s father and uncle, and perhaps Antoinette herself, could have been marranos. It is possible. Their ancestral ties to Aragon, their proximity to other families of Spanish descent who may have been marranos, and their age seem to connect them to the Jews, New Christians (conversos), and crypto-Jews who had had to leave the Iberian Peninsula to survive.

But, while there is some evidence that Antoinette’s grandfather’s sister may have married a marrano, the historical records about Montaigne’s maternal family available today only show them to have been Catholics in good standing.

Was Montaigne gay?

Homosexuality was a crime punishable by death in Early Modern Europe. No one could have spoken or written publicly about being gay or engaging in same-sex acts in the late sixteenth century, not even Montaigne who liked to write so openly about himself.

With him long dead, any knowledge we have of his sexuality comes only from his writings and from contemporary accounts and historical records of him. Judging from those, including several references to homosexuality in the Essays, Montaigne scholars generally do not assume that he was gay.

Nevertheless, the question arises sometimes when new readers of his book come across Montaigne’s description of his friendship with Étienne de La Boétie. His words may remind them of the language we use nowadays to speak of romantic love. In On Friendship (book 1, chapter 27), he famously wrote:

If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him [Étienne de La Boétie], I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I. There is, beyond all that I am able to say, I know not what inexplicable and fated power that brought on this union. →

When reading a passage like this, we should keep in mind that modes of expression change and try to read Montaigne’s words in context. First, in the Early Modern period, what we might consider gushing and sometimes even sexual language was not uncommon between heterosexual men expressing, in letters for instance, their friendship or allegiance to each other.

Second, in the context of On Friendship specifically, Montaigne used classical ideas of friendship to portray his relationship with La Boétie as a literary and philosophical union between idealized and flattering versions of the two. (His friend had been dead for more than ten years when Montaigne wrote this chapter, which gave him the freedom to define their relationship to fit this narrative.)

The cultural distance that separates us from the Essays, Montaigne’s weaving of facts and literary tropes, and La Boétie’s illness and death at the age of thirty-three, which lends their friendship an air of tragedy, can easily warp our understanding of Montaigne’s affection for his friend.

Was Montaigne a recluse?

Montaigne is sometimes thought of as a man working alone in his library, a man who cut himself off from a world he rejected, a kind of literary recluse. But this idea is largely a product of the Romantic era when his avowed distaste for politics fit contemporary portrayals of artists and literary figures as lone, inspired individuals. Historical records and his own writings paint a much more nuanced picture.

Montaigne did complain in the Essays about the obligations of public life and about the insincerity it required of its participants. And he did make a point of marking his retirement, in 1570, from the Parlement of Bordeaux to enjoy the company of his books in his newly renovated study.

But he also had social ambitions, and retirement suited him less than he had anticipated. So Montaigne continued to be involved in local and national affairs for most of his life. He was active in a network of political figures who tried to manage and end the civil war that consumed France. He also served as mayor of Bordeaux for two terms (1581–1585).

He continued to travel between his estate, Bordeaux, and Paris and famously took a seventeen-month trip through eastern France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. He did not travel alone and his travel journal shows him meeting people and seeking the company of others along the way.

Montaigne did not truly work alone either, nor did he write only for himself. Writing connected him to others: one or two secretaries to whom he dictated early essays; Marie de Gournay, who helped him with later revisions of the book; patrons and notable friends alluded to in his text and to whom he dedicated some chapters.

Finally, his estate was a busy place. His famed tower was only yards away from a courtyard and fields where men and women worked, people who farmed his land and ran his house, people who depended on him for their livelihood as he depended on them for his comfort and wealth. Montaigne also regularly received guests—the future king of France and his entourage among them—with whom he sometimes shared drafts of his chapters.

What is the Essays about?

The Essays is not about any topic in particular. Montaigne wrote about what interested him and, initially at least, about subjects that allowed him to demonstrate his judgment of worldly affairs, often classical and contemporary examples of remarkable people and events.

However, the more Montaigne wrote, the more personal his writing became. His topics remained varied, but his approach seemed to change. He not only revealed more of himself but also sought to understand and explain, in this discursive literary form he was creating and which we now call the essay, how his experiences shaped his opinions. Famously, as Montaigne himself discovered, he became the subject of his own book.

In spite of the variety of topics, Montaigne often returned to the same themes: that we are, by nature, limited in what we can know and understand; that the natural world and human customs are diverse and always in flux; that we should approach the unknown with curiosity and humility; that cruelty is our greatest sin; that knowledge without judgment and experience is futile; and that we are ourselves, like our natural and social environments, diverse and in flux, and, therefore, ought to examine, safeguard, marvel at, and enjoy, with the same sense of curiosity and humility, who we are and who we become.

Have a question about Montaigne or the Essays you’d like to see answered here? Drop us a line at m2m@hyperessays.net.