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Monday, April 06, 2020

Montaigne and the plague


In the days of Montaigne, life-disturbing epidemics were nothing exceptional. Of course, Montaigne didn’t know about the coronavirus. This virus is new, and as such viruses ̶ and bacteria as well ̶ were phenomena that had yet to be discovered. In Montaigne’s days it was especially the plague that could ruin lives and society as a whole.
Some say that Montaigne’s friend Étienne de La Boétie died of the plague, but I think that this is unlikely. Probably La Boétie died of dysentery. However, there are two famous cases that Montaigne was confronted with the plague. During a big part of his life France was plagued, so to speak, by one religious war after another. Altogether nine religious wars were fought during Montaigne’s life, especially just in his region, which was a bulwark of Protestantism. Because of these wars social life was often disturbed, and the plague had become endemic in France. And so it happened that there was another outbreak of this disease when Montaigne was mayor of Bordeaux. It was in June 1585. 14,000 inhabitants of the town would die of the plague, which was about half of the population. When the outbreak begun, Montaigne wasn’t in Bordeaux. He had just finished a mission outside the town and then he had returned to his castle. It was at the end of his term of office. In July he had to lead yet only the meeting in which the new mayor and aldermen would be elected. The name of his successor was already known. Actually the meeting was a formality. Should he take the risk to die for such a thing? No. Montaigne wrote a letter that he wouldn’t come and that he wanted to turn over his office somewhere just outside the town. And so it happened. Some accuse Montaigne of cowardice. But in other situations Montaigne had always shown courage. Why taking a risk for an office that would last yet only a few days? As Montaigne says somewhere in his Essays: The mayor and Montaigne have always been two different persons.
But the real misery had yet to come for Montaigne. The plague didn’t go away, and although Montaigne writes that he lived in a healthy region, the plague reached also his castle. It was September 1586. He doesn’t give details, but in his essay “Of physiognomy” (Book III, chapter 12) Montaigne writes that he was visited by the plague both within and outside his house. Apparently one or more members of his personnel had died because of the disease. Therefore, Montaigne sees only one way out: To flee. Again, he doesn’t give details. But, following his biographer Bardyn, I think that we must imagine that he travelled around with some wagons and carts and horses: Montaigne on his horse, his wife, his daughter and his seventy years old mother on a cart, and some servants. Where did he go? We don’t know, and actually Montaigne himself didn’t know where to go. Nowhere he was welcome. Everybody was afraid that this caravan could bring the plague. As soon as one of the travellers had caught a cold everybody had to go in quarantine; for forty days. He, so Montaigne complains, who always had been prepared to receive others, couldn’t find a place stay. His money run out. He couldn’t buy new clothes or new horses. However, he was not forgotten. Catherine de Medici heard of Montaigne’s misery and she sent him money; not just a fee but a substantial amount. Of course, this was not only out of pity, for again she needed Montaigne as a mediator between her son Henri III, King of France, and Henri of Navarra, the leader of the Huguenots. So even during his ramble Montaigne was involved in political affairs.
In March 1587, six months after he had left his castle, Montaigne and his family and servants returned home. The plague had gone and the region had been pacified by the Huguenots. Because of his good relations with Henri of Navarra it was safe for Montaigne to go home, although he was a Roman Catholic. However, his castle was in bad condition and his lands had been neglected, with the grapes still hanging on the vines. Not many people there had survived the plague, but Montaigne and his caravan had overcome the misery. And one year later Montaigne published a new edition of his Essays, with a new book added.

“We have abandoned Nature, and will teach her what to do; teach her who so happily and so securely conducted us.” (Essays, III, 12)

Sources
- Bardyn, Christophe, Montaigne. La splendeur de la liberté. Paris: Flammarion, 2015; pp. 381-2, 398-403.
- Desan, Philippe, Montaigne. Une biographie politique. Paris: Odile Jacob, 2014

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