How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer

by Sarah Bakewell

There was a tiredness and a sourness in Montaigne’s generation, along with a rebellious new form of creativity. If they were cynical, it is easy to see why: they had to watch the ideals that had guided their upbringing turn into a grim joke. The Reformation, hailed by some earlier thinkers as a blast of fresh air beneficial even to the Church itself, became a war and threatened to ruin civilized society. Renaissance principles of beauty, poise, clarity, and intelligence dissolved into violence, cruelty, and extremist theology. Montaigne’s half-century was so disastrous for France that it took another half-century to recover from it—and in some ways recovery never came, for the turmoil of the late 1500s stopped France from building a major New World empire like those of England and Spain, and kept it inward-looking. By the time of Montaigne’s death, France was economically feeble, and ravaged by disease, famine, and public disorder. No wonder young nobles of his generation ended up as exquisitely educated misanthropes.