Other aspects of Montaigne’s early life were governed by similar principles of ease. It was thought that “it troubles the tender brains of children to wake them in the morning with a start,” so Pierre had his son charmed out of bed like a cobra every day by the plangent sound of a lute or other musical instrument. Corporal punishment was almost unknown to him; in his entire boyhood, he was only twice struck with a rod, and then very gently. It was an education of “wisdom and tact.”
