…the house I live in…

I thought it fitting to start this little project by considering Montaigne’s writings on solitude. I say this because this summer, like the past half dozen summers, I am again out in the woods and in the mountains. Though this existence isn’t solitude in the extreme, it is a degree of solitude. There are far more trees than people. And my world interactions lean considerably heavier to the birds and bears than to my companion species.

But before I dive in, let me give you a short backstory. From Philippe Desan’s biography, “Montaigne, A Life”, (2017 Princeton University Press): “Montaigne held several public offices. He was a member of the parliament of Bordeaux, mayor of the same city, and served as a negotiator for Henry III, Catherine de Medici, and Henry of Navarre.” He made many trips to Paris as a government official (on horseback)¹, and by all accounts was popular and well-liked. Indeed, even after he retired to his estate to read and write in 1572 at age 38 he was repeatedly called upon to serve his country and his community. In 1577 he was made gentilhomme de la chamber (“gentleman-in-ordinary”) by King Charles IX. You won’t read much of this in his essays, however. “The mayor and Montaigne have always been two, with a very clear separation,” he wrote. Nor will you discover much about his home life. What Montaigne chose to write about and what to reveal is something we will explore going forward.

I want to first visit his essay “On Solitude”. Keeping my goal of simple and short in mind, I look will at this essay in parts. Indeed, Montaigne structures his argument for solitude into (at least) two parts: why solitude is important, and what one should do, and not do, while experiencing it. (Montaigne’s writing is notoriously unsystematic so my use of the word “structure” must be qualified.)

No doubt thinking of his years of service to the crown, Montaigne opens this essay, “Let us leave aside the usual long comparison between the solitary and the active life….” Of the ambition to which the active life is given, he writes, “Let us reply to ambition that it is she herself that gives us a taste for solitude.” He continues:

“It is not as if the wise man cannot live anywhere content…but if he has a choice…he will flee even the sight of a throng. He will endure it, if need be but if it is up to him, he will choose solitude.”

This essay appears in Book I (there are three) and is early in the book at number 39 (there are 107). As the essays stretch into the ensuing years Montaigne speaks more frequently and openly about himself, but is less revealing in the early essays. Here it is obvious that he is talking about himself. He was ambitious, and in his ambition he was able to put up with all that that entailed. But now he has an option, and he chooses solitude.
“Now the aim of all solitude,” he writes, “is the same: to live more at leisure and at one’s ease.”

But there are steps to be taken when one chooses solitude. He warns that “whatever the mind is all wrapped up in, it is all wrapped up in.” That is, the individual might choose solitude, but that does not mean the mind will go along willingly. “…by getting rid of the court and the marketplace we do not get rid of the principal worries of our life….They follow us even into the cloisters….”

In my next post we will investigate how Montaigne suggests we best “sequester ourselves and repossess ourselves.” We’ll also take a look at the solitude he choose and how he designed it around his task of inventing the modern literary essay.

¹ “He was a good horseman–he was still young–and he could make the 550-kilometer trip between Bordeaux and Paris in less than seven days.” Philippe Desan, Montaigne, A Life, 2017, p. 126.