Note 85 — Chapter XV · THE LITERARY PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Lacépède, referring to Montaigne’s Essays, says: “In a work that one reads again with delight and self-improvement, Michel de Montaigne has given a new glory to France.” Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, was born at Périgord, of an ancient and noble family, in 1533. Perhaps the finish of his Essays, his principal work, is due to his early training, his father having so managed his education, that at the age of five he spoke the purest Latin, and, as an old book gives it, “was also taught Greek by way of recreation.” He was married at the age of thirty-three. He lived at the court of Francis II and Henry VIII. He became mayor of Bordeaux in 1581 and in 1592; according to one old chronicle, “he died a constant and philosophic death, when he was some months short of sixty.” His Essays were first published in 1580; the edition of 1588 was the last to be published in the author’s lifetime.