…the house I live in…

“The fact that such a man [as Montaigne] has written truly adds to the joy of living on this earth…” ~ Nietzsche

Let’s consider the life Montaigne carved out for himself after his civic duties ended. It was 1571, February 28, to be precise, Montaigne’s thirty-eighth birthday; the place, the tower of his family castle in Bordeaux. He called it his “citadel”. He esconced his wife, Francoise de la Cassaigne, and daughter, Leonor, the only surviving child of 6, in tower number two. Of Leonor, he wrote, “All my children die at nurse; but Leonor, our only daughter, who has escaped this misfortune, has reached the age of six and more, without having been punished, the indulgence of her mother aiding, except in words, and those very gentle ones.”

He built a library containing over 1500 volumes of what we would call the classics. It was, in essence, the rediscovery of these works, the Greeks in particular, which fueled the Renaissance, of which Montaigne was a bleeding-edge participant. Over his desk he had a series of quotes inscribed on the ceiling beams, including his world-be motto from Pliny:

“There is nothing certain but uncertainty…”

He would labor in his tower, in self-imposed solitude and in exile from almost all socal and family obligations, for ten years. The result: a new literary form and a lasting contribution to humanity, The Essays.

As we consider his essay, “On Solitude” (Book I, essay 39), we might envision Montaigne climbing the circular stairs to his study, as he did the day previously, and the day before that, pulling a volume off the shelf, pacing then pausing to stare out a window (there are three); then he turns and, sitting down, dips his quill and begins to write. “It is time to turn my back on company,” he writes, “and retire into my shell like a tortoise.”

“In my library I spend most of the days of my life, and most of the hours of the day. I am never there at night. Adjoining it is a rather elegant little room, in which a fire may be laid in winter, very pleasantly lighted by a window. And if I feared the trouble no more than the expense, the trouble that drives me from all business, I could easily add on to each side a gallery a hundred paces long and twelve wide, on the same level, having found all the walls raised, for another purpose, to the necessary height.”

(III.3)

But solitude is not a release into freedom, as one might think, as perhaps he once thought.

“We take our chains along with us; our freedom is not complete; we still turn our eyes to what we have left behind, our fancy is full of it.”

So what is to be done when the mind does not follow the intentions into solitude? Montaigne quotes Horace: “The soul’s at fault, which ne’er escapes itself.” Consequently, Montaigne concludes that we must “bring it [the soul] back and withdraw it into itself.

“That is the real solutude, which may be enjoyed in the midst of cities and the courts of kings; but it is enjoyed more handily alone….Now since we are undertaking to live alone and do without company, let us make our contentment depend on ourselves; let us cut loose from all the ties that bid us to others; let us win from ourselves the power to live really alone and to live that way at our ease.”

It is encouraging that Montaigne declares that solitude “may be enjoyed in the midst of cities and courts of kings….” This suggests a fashion of protecting oneself, a moderation of behavior, when not alone. I am reminded of Marcus Aurelius who wrote of protecting his “inner citadel” when in the act of ruling an empire. Yet, soltude “is enjoyed more handly when alone.”

Philosophically speaking, Montainge was taking a hard turn into Epicurieanism. Epicurus set up his school of philosophy outside of ancient Athens in his garden home. There, he and his students were, unlike his philosophical competitors, the social Stoics, removed from the hustle and bustle of city and social life. Montaine’s embrace of this notion comes as no surprise as, Lucretius, the poet of Epicureanism, was, along with Plutarch, a major influence on Montaigne’s thought.

• “We must untie these bonds [social and family obligations] that are so powerful, and henceforth love this and that, but be wedded only to ourselves…

In the next and final installment of reflections on this essay we will look at Montaigne’s advice about what to do after making the commitment to solitude. “Let us not fear that in this solitude we shall stagnate in tedius idleness.”

Thanks for reading, and remember:

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”