How to Live

How to Live Plot Summary

Introduction

In the tumultuous religious wars of 16th-century France, one man retreated to a circular tower on his family estate to embark on an unprecedented literary experiment. Michel de Montaigne, a former magistrate and nobleman, began writing short pieces he called "essais" — attempts or trials — examining everything from cannibals to thumbs, from friendship to death. But regardless of his nominal subject, Montaigne was always writing about himself, using his own experiences as a laboratory for understanding the human condition. "I am myself the matter of my book," he declared, inaugurating a revolutionary approach to writing that would transform Western thought. What makes Montaigne startlingly modern is his comfort with uncertainty in an age obsessed with certainty. While his contemporaries killed each other over religious doctrines, Montaigne questioned everything, including his own opinions. His famous question — "What do I know?" — wasn't an expression of despair but a method for living freely. Through his unique education, his profound friendship with Étienne de La Boétie, his experiences in public service, and his wide-ranging travels, Montaigne developed a philosophy that embraced human imperfection and found wisdom in everyday life rather than abstract systems. His voice speaks across centuries with remarkable intimacy, offering not rigid answers but a model for navigating an uncertain world with grace, curiosity, and humanity.

Chapter 1: Early Life and Unconventional Education

Michel de Montaigne was born on February 28, 1533, at his family's estate near Bordeaux in southwestern France. His father, Pierre Eyquem, was a wealthy merchant who had risen to nobility through commercial success and had served as mayor of Bordeaux. Determined to give his son the finest possible education, Pierre implemented an educational plan so unusual for its time that it would influence Montaigne's thinking for the rest of his life. From birth, young Michel was sent to live with peasant foster parents to instill humility and connection with common people. When he returned to the family château, Pierre arranged for him to be awakened each morning not by harsh alarm but by the gentle sounds of music, believing this would nurture a gentle disposition. Most remarkably, Pierre decided that his son would learn Latin as his first language. He hired a German tutor named Horstanus who spoke only Latin to the boy, and instructed the entire household to address Michel solely in Latin as well. By age six, Montaigne spoke Latin fluently while his French remained rudimentary – a complete reversal of normal language acquisition. At six, Montaigne was sent to the prestigious Collège de Guyenne in Bordeaux, where he would spend the next seven years. Despite the school's excellent reputation, he later criticized its rigid methods, claiming they had actually diminished his Latin fluency rather than enhancing it. The contrast between his early unconventional education and the formal schooling that followed would later inform Montaigne's skeptical attitude toward established learning methods. He developed an independent intellectual stance, preferring to form judgments based on personal experience rather than received wisdom. After completing his studies, Montaigne likely continued his education at the University of Toulouse, studying law in preparation for a career in public service. This traditional path reflected his family's rising social status and his father's ambitions for him. However, the young Montaigne was developing his own perspective on learning—one that valued personal reflection over academic credentials. He would later write that "we take other men's knowledge and opinions upon trust; which is an idle and superficial learning. We must make them our own." This early educational experience profoundly shaped Montaigne's intellectual development. His immersion in Latin from infancy gave him direct access to classical authors without the mediation of translations or commentaries. He developed a lifelong love for ancient writers like Plutarch and Seneca, whose moral essays would become touchstones for his own writing. More fundamentally, the contrast between his father's innovative methods and conventional schooling taught him to question authority and trust his own experience—qualities that would define his later philosophical approach.

Chapter 2: The Friendship That Changed Everything

In 1558, while serving as a magistrate in the Bordeaux Parliament (regional court), Montaigne met Étienne de La Boétie, a fellow magistrate three years his senior. Their connection was immediate and profound, developing into what Montaigne would later describe as the defining relationship of his life. La Boétie was already known for his controversial manuscript "On Voluntary Servitude," which questioned why people submit to tyranny when they could simply withdraw their cooperation. This bold political thinking impressed Montaigne, who was drawn to La Boétie's independent mind and moral courage. Their friendship transcended ordinary social bonds. "If you press me to tell why I loved him," Montaigne would later write in one of his most famous passages, "I feel that this cannot be expressed, except by answering: Because it was he, because it was I." This enigmatic statement captures the mysterious chemistry of their connection—something that exceeded rational explanation. They shared a love of classical literature and philosophy, engaging in constant conversation about ideas. For Montaigne, who valued conversation as "the most fruitful and natural exercise of our mind," these exchanges were intellectually transformative. The intensity of their bond was matched only by its brevity. In August 1563, just five years after they met, La Boétie contracted dysentery while visiting a mutual friend. Montaigne rushed to his bedside and remained there through his friend's final days. He later wrote a detailed account of La Boétie's death in a letter to his father, describing how his friend faced mortality with philosophical composure, discussing ideas until the end. La Boétie died on August 18, 1563, at the age of thirty-two, leaving Montaigne devastated. "Since I have lost him," Montaigne later wrote, "I only drag on a weary life." His grief seemed to intensify rather than diminish with time. Nearly eighteen years later, while traveling in Italy, he noted in his journal that he had been "overcome by such painful thoughts about Monsieur de La Boétie" that it "did me much harm." He described his life after La Boétie's death as "nothing but dark and dreary night." Yet this profound loss ultimately proved creatively productive. Montaigne began his literary career by editing and publishing La Boétie's works, adding his own dedications. More significantly, the absence of his conversational partner may have led directly to the creation of the Essays. "If I had had someone to talk to," Montaigne suggested, he might never have written at all. Without La Boétie as his intellectual companion, he turned to writing as a form of dialogue with himself and with absent friends. Through this process, he transformed his grief into one of literature's most enduring works.

Chapter 3: Retreat to the Tower: Birth of the Essays

In 1570, at the age of thirty-seven, Montaigne made a decision that would transform both his life and the course of Western literature. He resigned his position as magistrate, sold his parliamentary office, and withdrew to his family estate, determined to dedicate himself to contemplation and writing. This retreat was commemorated by a Latin inscription he placed in his private library: "In the year of Christ 1571, at the age of thirty-eight, on the last day of February, anniversary of his birth, Michel de Montaigne, long weary of the servitude of the court and of public employments, has withdrawn entirely into the bosom of the learned virgins, where in calm and freedom from all cares he will spend what little remains of his life." Montaigne's library became the center of his new existence. Located in a circular tower separate from the main château, it offered both physical and psychological distance from household affairs. The space reflected his intellectual world—with about a thousand volumes lining the curved shelves and Latin and Greek inscriptions painted on the wooden beams of the ceiling. These quotes, drawn from classical and biblical sources, expressed skeptical and Stoic sentiments that would guide his thinking. Among them was his famous motto: "Que sais-je?" ("What do I know?"). Here, surrounded by his books and with views of the estate through the windows, Montaigne began the experiment in self-examination that would become his Essays. The first two books of Essays, published in 1580, represented something genuinely innovative in literature. Rather than presenting a systematic philosophy or compiling classical wisdom, Montaigne created a new form of writing—personal, digressive, and exploratory. The very word "essay" came from the French essai, meaning "attempt" or "trial," reflecting his approach of testing ideas rather than asserting fixed conclusions. His subjects ranged widely, from canonical topics like friendship and education to seemingly trivial matters such as smells, thumbs, or coaches. Whatever the ostensible subject, the true focus remained Montaigne himself—his reactions, judgments, and the workings of his mind. Montaigne's retreat was not motivated by misanthropy but by a desire for authentic self-knowledge. "I study myself more than any other subject," he wrote. "That is my metaphysics; that is my physics." This introspection was revolutionary in an age when the individual consciousness was rarely considered worthy of such sustained attention. Yet Montaigne insisted that by examining one particular human specimen thoroughly—himself—he could reveal something universal about the human condition. "Each man bears the entire form of the human condition," he famously declared. Despite his withdrawal from public office, Montaigne's retreat was not absolute isolation. He maintained correspondence with friends, received visitors, and managed his estate. The religious wars continued to rage around him, occasionally bringing violence close to his doorstep. His tower provided perspective rather than escape, allowing him to observe human affairs with a degree of detachment while remaining engaged with the world. This balance between involvement and withdrawal would characterize his approach to life—a middle path that avoided both the frenzy of ambition and the extreme withdrawal of the hermit.

Chapter 4: The Skeptical Mind: Questioning Everything

Montaigne's most distinctive philosophical trait was his radical skepticism—not the destructive doubt that seeks to undermine all belief, but a humble recognition of human limitations. Drawing on ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism, which he encountered through his reading of Sextus Empiricus, Montaigne adopted the practice of suspending judgment on matters beyond certain knowledge. This approach emerged partly as a response to the dogmatic certainties tearing France apart during the Wars of Religion. "Man is certainly stark mad," he observed. "He cannot make a worm, yet he makes gods by the dozen." The Essays demonstrate this skeptical approach in action. Montaigne constantly qualifies his statements with phrases like "perhaps," "it seems to me," and "I think"—not as rhetorical flourishes but as essential components of his thought. He questioned everything, including his own opinions, frequently contradicting himself as his ideas evolved. "If my mind could gain a firm footing," he wrote, "I would not make essays, I would make decisions; but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial." This willingness to change his mind and acknowledge uncertainty was rare in an age that valued consistency and certainty. Montaigne's skepticism extended to human nature itself. He challenged the prevailing belief that humans were superior to animals, arguing through numerous examples that animals often displayed greater intelligence, morality, and skill than humans. His stories about the cleverness of elephants, the loyalty of kingfishers, and the astronomical knowledge of tuna fish served to undermine human vanity. When he played with his cat, he wondered: "Who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?" This questioning of human exceptionalism anticipated later ecological thinking by centuries. Perhaps most radically, Montaigne extended his skeptical gaze to reason itself. Unlike many Renaissance humanists who celebrated human rationality, he emphasized its limitations. "Reason has taught me that to condemn a thing thus, dogmatically, as false and impossible, is to assume the advantage of knowing the bounds and limits of God's will and of the power of our mother Nature," he wrote. Human reason, he suggested, was neither as powerful nor as reliable as most people assumed. Our judgments are influenced by custom, passion, and physical condition—a recognition that anticipated modern psychology's understanding of cognitive biases. Montaigne's skepticism also made him remarkably tolerant in an age of religious warfare. While officially adhering to Catholicism, he showed little interest in theological disputes and maintained friendships across religious divides. "Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice," he observed, recognizing the cultural relativity of moral judgments. In an era when people killed each other over doctrinal differences, Montaigne's ability to suspend judgment and respect different perspectives was both rare and courageous. The skeptical mind that Montaigne cultivated wasn't merely an intellectual position but a way of living. By questioning everything, including his own certainties, he developed a humane wisdom that valued experience over abstraction, diversity over uniformity, and honest doubt over false certainty. His approach would later influence thinkers from Descartes to Nietzsche, though many would struggle with the implications of his radical skepticism.

Chapter 5: Living Through Religious Wars

Montaigne lived through one of the most violent periods in French history, as religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants tore the country apart. Beginning in 1562 and continuing intermittently until 1598, the French Wars of Religion claimed thousands of lives, devastated the economy, and created deep social divisions. The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, in which thousands of Protestants were killed throughout France, occurred just as Montaigne was beginning to write his Essays, providing a dark backdrop for his reflections on human nature. Born into a Catholic family in a region with strong Protestant influences, Montaigne was well-positioned to understand both sides of the religious divide. His own family was known for its unusual religious tolerance; while most remained Catholic, some converted to Protestantism without causing family ruptures. This domestic harmony stood in stark contrast to the national chaos, where religious differences were used to justify extreme violence. Montaigne observed that people were "Christians by the same title that we are Périgordians or Germans," recognizing how accident of birth determined religious affiliation. Montaigne's response to sectarian violence was shaped by his skeptical outlook. While remaining nominally Catholic himself, he questioned whether humans could claim certain knowledge about divine matters that transcended human understanding. "It is setting a high value on one's conjectures," he wrote, "to roast a man alive for them." This skepticism led him to advocate religious tolerance at a time when most saw it as dangerous compromise. He aligned himself with the politiques—moderates who prioritized civil peace over doctrinal purity—and maintained friendships with people on both sides of the religious divide. When Montaigne served as mayor of Bordeaux from 1581 to 1585, his moderate approach faced practical tests. He worked to maintain the city's neutrality and protect it from the worst violence of the civil wars. His administrative style emphasized restraint and balance rather than partisan zeal. Though criticized by hardliners for his lack of enthusiasm in persecuting heretics, he maintained that his primary duty was to preserve civic harmony. When plague struck the city near the end of his term, he faced difficult decisions about personal safety versus public duty—choices that would later be scrutinized by critics. The religious conflicts directly affected Montaigne's estate as well. In 1586, his château was pillaged by armed bands, and he and his family were forced to flee when plague broke out among soldiers camped on his lands. These personal experiences reinforced his philosophical conviction that dogmatic certainty leads to violence, while doubt can foster peace. He observed that the most fervent believers on both sides shared the same intolerant psychology, differing only in the content of their beliefs. Despite the chaos around him, Montaigne maintained his commitment to examining life without illusions. He continued to revise and expand his Essays throughout the wars, adding a third book in 1588 and making further additions until his death. His writing became a space where he could maintain intellectual freedom amid external constraints. Rather than offering grand solutions to the conflicts of his time, he modeled a way of living thoughtfully through them—accepting uncertainty, practicing moderation, and preserving humanity in inhumane circumstances.

Chapter 6: Travels and Cultural Encounters

In 1580, shortly after publishing the first edition of his Essays, Montaigne embarked on an extensive journey through Europe that would last seventeen months. His motivations were multiple: he sought relief from painful kidney stones at famous mineral baths, desired to escape the religious conflicts in France, and was driven by genuine curiosity about foreign customs and places. The journey took him through France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Italy, with Rome as his ultimate destination. Throughout his travels, he kept a detailed journal, partly dictated to a secretary and partly written in his own hand. Unlike many aristocratic travelers of his era who followed prescribed routes and focused on confirming preconceptions, Montaigne embraced spontaneity and openness to new experiences. "Travel is, in my opinion, a very profitable exercise," he wrote. "The soul is continually exercised in observing new and unknown things." He frequently changed plans on impulse, took detours to visit local curiosities, and showed little concern for fixed itineraries. This flexibility allowed him to immerse himself in the present moment rather than rushing toward predetermined destinations. Montaigne criticized French tourists who clustered together, complaining about local customs and seeking familiar foods. Instead, he immersed himself fully in each place he visited, learning local languages, eating local cuisine, and observing customs with genuine interest rather than judgment. In Rome, he even applied for and received citizenship, a distinction that pleased him enormously despite his usual skepticism about honors. His travel journal reveals his fascination with the minutiae of daily life in different regions—he noted everything from the design of German stoves to Swiss dining customs, from Italian bathing practices to the mechanics of city gates. Religious diversity particularly intrigued Montaigne during his travels. Though Catholic himself, he attended Protestant services in Germany and Jewish ceremonies in Italy with equal curiosity. He engaged in theological discussions with people of various faiths, more interested in understanding their perspectives than in converting them to his own. This openness was remarkable in an age when religious differences were tearing Europe apart. His observations reinforced his growing conviction that human diversity should be appreciated rather than condemned. Rome held special significance for Montaigne as the physical embodiment of the classical world he had inhabited intellectually since childhood. He approached the eternal city with reverence, writing that he had "known its face and name" from books long before seeing Paris. During his two extended stays there, he explored ancient ruins, attended religious ceremonies, and gained access to the Vatican Library. Through the intervention of the French ambassador, he even secured an audience with Pope Gregory XIII, who granted him the honorary title of Roman Citizen. The journey took an unexpected turn when, while in Rome, Montaigne received news that he had been elected mayor of Bordeaux in his absence. Though initially reluctant to accept this responsibility, he ultimately returned to France to take up the position. His travels had broadened his perspective and reinforced his philosophical outlook. The experience of being a foreigner had taught him to see his own culture from the outside, enhancing his ability to question received wisdom. Moreover, his encounters with religious diversity deepened his commitment to tolerance in an age of sectarian violence.

Chapter 7: Legacy: The First Modern Voice

Montaigne died in 1592, leaving behind a work that would grow in significance over the centuries. The immediate reception of the Essays was mixed—some contemporaries appreciated their wisdom and originality, while others were scandalized by their informal style and frank discussions of personal matters. The Catholic Church placed the Essays on its Index of Prohibited Books in 1676, ironically ensuring their notoriety and continued readership. Despite such official disapproval, Montaigne's influence spread throughout Europe, with translations appearing in English, Italian, German, and other languages. The English reception of Montaigne proved particularly significant. John Florio's vibrant 1603 translation introduced the Essays to Elizabethan England, where they influenced writers including Shakespeare, whose play "The Tempest" contains passages clearly inspired by Montaigne's essay "Of Cannibals." Francis Bacon developed the essay form in English, though his more systematic approach differed from Montaigne's exploratory style. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, English writers embraced Montaigne as a model for personal, reflective prose, establishing a tradition of the familiar essay that continues to this day. By the mid-seventeenth century, Montaigne's reputation had become more controversial. Religious thinkers like Blaise Pascal recognized his profound influence but viewed it with alarm. Pascal was simultaneously attracted to and repelled by Montaigne, copying passages from the Essays into his own notebooks while warning against their seductive power. "Montaigne is a fog, a gas, a fluid, insidious element," wrote T.S. Eliot, capturing Pascal's anxiety. "He does not reason, he insinuates, charms, and influences." This ambivalence reflected growing concern about Montaigne's skepticism and his seemingly casual attitude toward religious matters. During the Enlightenment, Montaigne was reclaimed as a pioneer of rational skepticism and tolerance. Voltaire defended him against Pascal's criticisms, praising "the delightful design Montaigne had to portray himself without artifice." Denis Diderot and other encyclopedists saw him as an ally in their campaign against superstition and dogmatism. His influence extended to political thought as well; his ideas about cultural relativism and the limits of human knowledge informed Enlightenment critiques of European ethnocentrism. In the nineteenth century, Romantic writers appreciated Montaigne's individualism and his attention to inner experience. Ralph Waldo Emerson considered him a spiritual mentor, writing that "no book before or since was ever written that so adequately reported the thoughts of a man." Friedrich Nietzsche called him "this freest and mightiest of souls" and declared that "that such a man wrote has truly augmented the joy of living on this earth." These thinkers recognized in Montaigne a kindred spirit who valued authentic self-expression over conformity to external standards. The twentieth century saw Montaigne's influence extend into psychology, with his self-examination anticipating Freudian introspection. Virginia Woolf recognized him as the first writer to capture the stream of consciousness, while Michel de Certeau and other postmodern thinkers found in his work an early critique of absolute truth claims. Today, Montaigne continues to be read not just as a historical figure but as a contemporary—a voice that speaks directly to modern concerns about identity, diversity, and how to live meaningfully in an uncertain world. His gentle skepticism, his curiosity about difference, his acceptance of human limitation, and his insistence on thinking for oneself offer a model for navigating uncertainty with grace.

Summary

Michel de Montaigne's enduring significance lies not in any system of thought but in his embodiment of a particular way of being in the world—curious, self-aware, tolerant of difference, and committed to examining life without illusions. Through his Essays, he demonstrated how the close observation of one individual consciousness could reveal universal aspects of human experience. His famous declaration, "I am myself the matter of my book," announced a revolutionary approach to understanding humanity through introspection rather than abstract theory. This approach has influenced fields ranging from literature and philosophy to psychology and education. The wisdom Montaigne offers modern readers is both practical and profound. He teaches us to embrace uncertainty as the beginning of wisdom rather than a failure of knowledge. He shows how to maintain intellectual independence while engaging with tradition, how to question authority without descending into cynicism, and how to accept human limitations without abandoning the pursuit of self-improvement. Perhaps most valuably, he demonstrates how to remain fully human during troubled times—maintaining perspective, practicing moderation, and preserving one's capacity for joy amid suffering. In an age of polarization and absolutism, Montaigne's tolerant skepticism, his embrace of complexity, and his refusal to sacrifice humanity for ideology make him not just a historical figure but a necessary companion for navigating our own uncertain times.

About Author

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Sarah Bakewell

Sarah Bakewell was a bookseller and a curator of early printed books at the Wellcome Library before publishing her highly acclaimed biographies The Smart, The English Dane, and the best-selling How to Live: A Life of Montaigne, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. In addition to writing, she now teaches in the Masters of Studies in Creative Writing at Kellogg College, University of Oxford. She lives in London.

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