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Michel De Montaigne THE DOCTOR'S ESSAYIST: MICHEL HE MONTAIGNE. H. S. CARTER, m.d., d.p.h. Sydenham, asked by one starting the study of medicine what books he should read, answered Don Quixote, meaning, said Osier, that the only book of physic worth permanent study is the book of Nature. Osier himself, a modern Sydenham, would probably have suggested Religio Medici or Montaigne's Essais. In his bedside library for the student he placed all three, whose authors have this in common, that they surveyed the human spectacle and mankind's stupidity with sterling unwinking commonsense and a full measure of that aequanimitas which Osier regarded as such a desirable constituent of the philosophy of a doctor. But really none of these books is a young man's book ; they are books that we come to when we are older, especially Montaigne. Montaigne, whom Madame de Sevigue thought such capital company, displays this urbane, sceptical, discursive matter-of-factness to the greatest degree, and the instantly ' ' famous essays that he wrote in his backshop contain much that bears directly and indirectly on medicine and on matters interesting to medical men. Michel Eyquem, Sieur de Montaigne, was a man of the Renaissance ; a Gascon and a Jew. His grandfather was a seller of dried fish and of wine; his father a wine-merchant, and his mother a Protestant of Jewish blood from Spain. There were physicians among his maternal ancestors. It is jnst possible that he had a trace ot English blood in him derived from the days of the occupation of Guienne. He was born in 1533 on the estate near Bordeaux that gave him his name, when France was at war with the Hapsburgs ; and his life stretched through the time of the civil wars of religion between Huguenots and Catholics, through that exciting period depicted by Dumas in his Valois romances, the times of Charles IX, Henri III and Henri IV : when Chicot jested and intrigued, and on occasion flashed his long sword against great odds ; when Bussy d Aniboise, swashbuckling exquisite, fought and died in epic style ; and Brantome, an abbe at sixteen, was hanging round the Court amassing that celebrated collection of scandalous anecdotes of the boudoir contained ' 111 his Vies des Dames (ialantes.' Medicine at this time was represented by great names. Ambroise Pare (1530-90), who reformed military surgery ; Jerome Cardan (1501-70), ?ne of the great Renaissance doctors who visited Edinburgh in 1552 ; Jean Kernel (1497-1558), the subject of Sir Charles Sherrington's later 409 410 GLASGOW MEDICAL JOURNAL studies, who was the leading physician in Paris in 1550, and adviser of Catherine de' Medici ; John Caius, who in England was studying the ' ' sweating sickness and re-founding a college ; and others whose names are signposts in the history of medicine, but whose practice was conducted with little light and less imagination. The essayist's early education was peculiar. He prattled in Latin, and spoke practically no French until he was six;. He knew more Latin than his masters when he went to the College of Guienne. He was awakened each morning by music because his dilettante father had an idea that the infant brain should not be jarred by rude shocks. Montaigne says he was not brilliant at school and had a slow and inert mind. He seems to have worked a lot at home with tutors, including that learned old Scottish historian and scholar, George Buchanan. Little is known about his early manhood except that he probably studied law at Toulouse and about the age of twenty-four formed his famous friendship with Etienne de la Boetie the poet, a minor follower of Ronsard and one of the small fry of the Pleiade movement. In his young days la Boetie was a rebel who wrote a pamphlet against monarchy which achieved notoriety. He lives only by his acquaintance with Montaigne, but his early death affected Montaigne profoundly and coloured his whole life. Montaigne watched at his friend's death bed trying to resolve his perplexities and afterwards described the episode with painful clarity, the event having cut into his memory with intaglio depth and sharpness. He was never able to forget this death and Boetie's approach to it. Boetie was Montaigne's Arthur Hallam, who, if he did not inspire a poem, inspired eloquent writing on friendship. After Boetie's death Montaigne gave ' himself up to amusement for a year or two ; but, as he said, did not venture far from home,' even in his more questionable distractions. At some time in his early years Montaigne probably served in one or more campaigns. He was a Councillor in the Parliament of Bordeaux as early as 1554 and later in life was Mayor of Bordeaux. In 1585, during his mayoralty, plague attacked the city, and in a few months killed more than a quarter of the population. Montaigne's antidotes seem to have been resolution and patience, but he noticed the evil effects of fear. He is said to have kept out of the city as far as possible during the pestilence. Although he had little to do with the Court and probably thought ' himself fortunate therein, he was styled gentleman in ordinary to the ' King and enjoyed considerable social standing. He was friendly with Henri III who made him a Knight of St. Michael, and with Henri Quatre who twice stayed and hunted at Montaigne's chateau. Montaigne was nobody's fool and though at times embarrased by opposite sides claiming his allegiance, managed to steer clear of trouble with rival factions while walking a little way with both on occasions. He never MONTAIGNE?CARTER 411 ' lost touch. He knew men. He was a hedonist, leaned to the sunny side,' and made his way safely. All the same, late in life, in 1588 he was in Paris when that town was temporarily deserted by the King in his struggle with the Iyigue, and was clapped in the Bastille by Guise and his partisans ; when he had gout in his left foot too, as if that was not enough. However, he was promptly and fittingly released by order of Catherine de' Medici, that wickedly clever but perhaps too much maligned woman. Earlier, when travelling in search of health, he had earnestly sought the citizenship of Rome which was then conferred by Papal Bull. He got it, and printed the text of the proclamation in his essays. But why did he desire it so much ? Was it because he was so much soaked in the Latin classics that he wished to be able to say Civis Romanus sum ? It is said he left Rome complaining there were too many Frenchmen there. Montaigne, when he was thirty-three, married Fran^oise de Chassaigne. It appears to have been a satisfactory marriage on the whole, but whether the lady found it so may be doubted. ' A man does not marry for himself, whatever say ; he marries people ' quite as much, if not more, for his posterity and his family . Marriage meaneth a kind of converse which cooleth, easily' through propinquity?a converse which is harmed by assiduity.' A happy marriage, if there be such, rejecteth the company and conditions of love.' None the less, he had six children, all girls, only one of whom, L,eonora, achieved womanhood. Montaigne, within three years, lost much affection for his domestic scene, and retired to the country of the mind. Madame Montaigne probably had a dull time, but she managed the estate and evidently had a reasonably free hand. According to her husband one of ' her hobbies was doctoring the villagers with a store of paltry drugs and medicines ; she used the same medicine for fifty different maladies.' At any rate Montaigne determined to retire on his thirty-eighth birthday. So on one side of his house, which he had inherited from his father, he built his famous tower as a refuge for his soul. He must have been an exasperating man to live with, for he could never remember how many ' children he had had, and even wrote : I have never thought that to be without children was a lack which would make life less complete and contented. The vocation of sterility certainly has its advantages.' The tower that he built on to his house in the little sun-baked rambling old village in the land of peach-blossom and wine, had on the ground-floor a chapel, so that its owner could hear mass while lying in for the chamber above. Higher up was his famous library, large those days, of more than a thousand books : the best sort of country library, the he calls it ; where he meditated the years away and wrote epoch- ttiaking essays. He has described his library. ' is 110 more wall than what The figure of my study is round, and there open so that all the of the is taken up by my table and my chair, remaining parts circle present me a view of all my books at once, ranged upon five rows of shelves round about me. It has three noble and free prospects and is sixteen paces in diameter.' 412 GLASGOW MEDICAL JOURNAL The library walls were adorned with musical instruments, and the rafters covered with quotations from the Bible and the classics, such as ' ' Be not wise above that which is usual, but be soberly wise,' and I ' suspend judgment ; I examine,' and It may be, and it may not be.' The nucleus of his library was left him by La Boetie, and the remainder, largely classical, included the poetry of his time.
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