A major intellectual figure who has stood the test of time, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, famous author of the “Essays”, has also distinguished himself as mayor of Bordeaux.

From him, History has chosen to retain, above all, a literary work – his famous “Essays”, retouched many times over the years – and his unwavering friendship with the writer and poet Etienne de la Boétie, the unforgettable author of the « speech of voluntary servitude ». Considered as a major philosopher, a remarkable thinker, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne also distinguished himself in a role that he is less familiar with, that of aedile. A little-known facet of the life of the great man who has yet, and twice, donned the costume of mayor of Bordeaux. 

It was in 1581 that his first term of office began. Montaigne, then 42 years old, has been traveling for several months across Europe. Suffering from gravel, a disease caused by the presence of stones in the urinary tract, he tries to cure the ailment that is gnawing at him by performing spa treatments in the most famous spa towns of the Old Continent. After putting down his luggage in Switzerland and then in Germany, he decided to head for Lucca in Italy. It is in this small fortified town in Tuscany that he will learn, with astonishment, his appointment. 

Little delighted at the idea of returning to Guyenne * for the sole purpose of fulfilling these new functions, Montaigne initially decided to decline the offer. A choice to which he will very quickly come back, constrained and forced, covertly, by a letter from King Henry III instructing him, certainly in the manner but without possible discussion, to take the way back. Parachuted a strongman from Bordeaux, the man of letters will put his talents as an orator and negotiator at the service of peace, thus attempting to give a semblance of serenity to this end of France in the grip of bloody religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants.

Reelected in 1983, an exceptional event for the time, Montaigne deserted the town hall a few weeks before the end of his second term. Refugee in « the bookshop » of his castle of Saint-Michel-de-Montaigne in Dordogne, he witnesses, as a spectator, the spread of a terrible epidemic of plague which is preparing to decimate the population of the city of Bordeaux. Sensed, in spite of everything, for a third term, the child of the country opposes it, this time, with vigor, eager to leave behind him this episode of his life to return to his dear books. Reassured by the tranquility of the family home, Montaigne can once again devote himself to the study of these ancient texts that he is so fond of and work on the new edition of his Essays. Weakened by illness, he died on September 13, 1592, three years before their publication. 

* Former South-West province whose capital was Bordeaux

Par Sophie Danger