Long after the sixteenth-century Stoic Montaigne was forgotten, readers in troubled times continued to think of him as a role model. His Essays offered practical wisdom on questions such as how to face up to intimidation, and how to reconcile the conflicting demands of openness and security. He also provided something more nebulous: a sense of how one could survive public catastrophe without losing one’s self-respect. Just as you could seek mercy from an enemy forthrightly, without compromising yourself, or defend your property by electing to leave it undefended, so you could get through an
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