Montaigne’s Father

Most of us owe much to their parents and so did Montaigne. It is striking, however, that Montaigne’s mother is completely absent in his Essays, while he regularly mentions his father and praises him as the “best father in the world”. Even more, thanks to his father Montaigne got the education that made him the philosopher we know today. So, good reason to ask the question: Who was Montaigne’s father, Pierre Eyquem?
Like later his son, Pierre Eyquem was born in the Château de Montaigne, on 29 September 1495. The castle had been owned by the family since his grandfather Ramon Felipe Eyquem (1402-1478) bought it. Ramon Felipe was a merchant from Bordeaux who had become rich through the trade in fish, wine and indigo. The business was continued by his son Grimon Eyquem (1450-1519). Grimon was also a councillor in the Bordeaux city council for some time. Because he pursued nobility for his family and because a noble could not be a merchant, Grimon Eyquem broke with this family tradition at a later age and decided that his son Pierre should be educated as a knight. Therefore, he sent him to Jean de Durfort, Viscount of Duras, to serve as a page. In 1518 Pierre joined king France I’s army, where he was a soldier for ten years. He joined a company of archers that only accepted noblemen. The army service brought Pierre Eyquem to Italy, where he came into contact with the Renaissance and with Humanism. This gave him all kinds of ideas that would strongly influence him in his actions and thinking, such as in the upbringing of his son Michel.
Back at his castle, Pierre Eyquem began to expand his estate with the purchase of new land. His wife, a strong personality, helped him managing the sites. For in 1529 he had married Antoinette de Louppes de Villeneuve (1514–1603), probably a daughter of a family of Spanish Jews who had been converted  to Christianity (voluntarily or by force) and who had moved to France. The couple had six children, of which Michel was the eldest, apart from two children who had died early. Pierre Eyquem also took part in the administrative life of Bordeaux and held there various important positions. In 1530 he was appointed first jurat and provost of Bordeaux. A jurat was what we would now call an alderman or councillor. Moreover, the jurats chose the mayor. A provost was a kind of tax administrator but also oversaw the management of the city’s buildings and goods and had a number of legal powers. In 1536 Pierre Eyquem was elected deputy mayor of Bordeaux and re-elected provost. In 1554 he was elected mayor. As mayor, he had the particularly difficult task of going to King Henry II to recover the city rights, which Bordeaux had lost in 1548 after a popular uprising against the salt taxes. Pierre Eyquem had to try to reconcile the king with the city. As a gesture of reconciliation, he had brought twenty barrels with Bordeaux wine with him. Some time later Bordeaux did indeed get its old rights back. Although he often stayed in his city house in Bordeaux, Montaigne’s father did not forget his status as a nobleman and chatelain. He continued to physically train himself as a true knight and he received distinguished guests at his castle. One of them was Pierre Bunel, a scholar from Toulouse. On a visit in 1542, Bunel left behind the book Theologia Naturalis by Raymond Sebond as a gift. This work would later exert great influence on young Michel.
In 1554, the year he became mayor, Pierre Eyquem was also allowed to fortify his castle with a wall and towers. Until then it was no more than a large mansion. This was also necessary because of the violent religious discords in the region, which were getting stronger and stronger.
Pierre Eyquem died on 18 June 1568 in Bordeaux, possibly from the effects of a kidney stone attack, an ailment that his son Michel would also suffer from.
Pierre gave his eldest son Michel a special upbringing that was strongly influenced by his contact with the Renaissance and Humanism in Italy. Immediately after his birth, Michel was taken to a nurse in a nearby village. He would stay there for two years. Pierre then decided that his son’s mother tongue would be Latin. This was recommended by Erasmus in his book De Pueris from 1529. Pierre Eyquem appointed a German educator for his son, who did not know French and had to raise him in Latin. Moreover, everyone in the castle had to speak Latin with the young Michel. It was only when Michel went to the prestigious Collège de Guyenne at the age of six to continue his education that he started speaking French again, but because of his knowledge of Latin he was allowed to skip two classes. Although Montaigne says in his Essays that his knowledge of this language later subsided, the level remained sufficient to read Latin works in the original language. In order to prevent that Michel would forget his Latin after his time at the Collège de Guyenne, his father asked him to translate the Theologia Naturalis. Michel did so and published the translation, a year after the death of his father. Sebond’s work would, as said, exert great influence on Montaigne, and he wrote a long treatise on the Theologia Naturalis. It has become by far the longest essay in the Essays. Pierre Eyquem managed it also that his son got a job as a lawyer at the Cour des Aides of Périgueux, a kind of court dealing with tax matters. This institution was later merged with the Parliament of Bordeaux and transferred to that city. Also Montaigne was transferred to Bordeaux. 

Sources
- Desan, Philippe, Montaigne. Une biographie politique. Paris: Odile Jacob, 2014
- “Montaigne, Michel de (1533-1592)”, https://mediatheque.sainthilairederiez.fr/node/597440?&from=/node/597440
- “Pierre Eyquem de Montaigne”, in Wikipedia, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Eyquem_de_Montaigne