The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne

influential family. The Louppes, a pious Christian family, were descended from Iberian Jews.
     
1530 Pierre Eyquem is
premier jurat
(first magistrate) and Provost of Bordeaux. Birth of Etienne de la Boëtie.
     
1533
28 February
: birth of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne at the family estates.
     
1534 A brother, Thomas, is born.
     
1535 Montaigne’s German tutor’s aim is to make Latin his first language.
This continues his father’s scheme from the outset.
Another brother, Pierre, is born.
     
1536 A sister, Jeanne, is born.
     
1539/40 Montaigne enters the Collège de Guyenne at Bordeaux, where the tutors include Mathurin Cordier, Buchanan (the humanist playwright and future Scottish Reformer) and Elie Vinet. He stays there for six years. His understanding tutors encouraged his delight in Latin poetry. He acquired some Greek, but Latin was his literary language.
     
1546 Montaigne probably studies philosophy in the Faculty of Arts at Bordeaux.
     
1548 Civil disobedience and riots in Bordeaux, fiercely suppressed. Mayors now to be elected for periods of two years only. The Huguenots become established and numerous in the City and its environs.
     
1552 Birth of Montaigne’s second sister, Lénor.
     
1554 Michel follows his father and becomes counsellor at the Cour des Aides at Périgueux. This Cour is suppressed three years later and the counsellors join the Parlement of Bordeaux. His father becomes Mayor of Bordeaux.
Birth of third sister, Marie.
     
1557/8 Montaigne meets Etienne de la Boëtie, also a member of the Parlement de Bordeaux; their deep and special friendship begins.
     
1559 Montaigne visits Paris, and follows King François II to Bar-le-Duc. Amyot’s translation of Plutarch: it greatly influences Montaigne both in thought and style.
     
1560 Birth of Montaigne’s brother, Bertrand.
     
1561 Second visit to Paris and the Royal Court, partly in connection with the serious religious strife in Guyenne.
     
1562 Proclamation of the
Edict of the Seventeenth of January 1562
granting limited rights of assembly to members of the ‘so-called Reformed Church’. In June, Etienne de la Boëtie writes a
mémoire
on that Edict. Montaigne, still in Paris, makes a public profession of Roman Catholicism before the First President of the Parlement de Paris. In October he follows the Royal Army when Rouen is retaken from the Huguenots; he meets there Indians from Brasil. Massacre of Huguenots at Wassy.
     
1563
February
: Montaigne returns to Bordeaux.
18 August
: death of La Boëtie at Germinant at the home of Montaigne’s brother-in-law, Lestonnat. Montaigne writes of it to his father. Assassination of François de Guise.
     
1564
16 October
: Montaigne finishes reading the
De Rerum Natura
of Lucretius and notes at the end the date and 31 (his age). The flyleaves are all covered with dense Latin notes. Several topics in the
Essays
go back to that initial reading. On a subsequent reading Montaigne made many notes on the pages of the text in French. This edition of Lucretius by Lambinus had been published either late in 1563 or early in 1564.
     
1565
January
: visit of Charles IX to Bordeaux.
Marriage of Montaigne to Françoise de la Chassaigne, the daughter of a colleague in the Parlement de Bordeaux.
     
1568 Death of Montaigne’s father, Pierre. Montaigne becomes Seigneur de Montaigne and inherits the domain. (Difficulties with his mother over the inheritance.)
     
1569 Montaigne publishes his French translation of the
Theologia Naturalis
of Raimon Sebon (Raymundus de Sabunde), with the printer G. Chaudière of Paris.
     
1570 Montaigne sells his counsellorship of the Parlement de Bordeaux. Goes to Paris to publish works left by Etienne de la Boëtie (Latin, then French).
Birth of his first daughter, Toinette, who dies three months later.
     
1571 Montaigne returns to his estates, to consecrate his life to the Muses: to scholarship, philosphy and reflection. He receives the Ordre de Saint-Michel and is named