This book deals with the life andworks of "Montaigne, the founder of the modern essay". He was known as one of themost significant philosophers and writers of the Western literature.
The French author of the Essays was born, as he informs ushimself, between eleven and twelve o'clock in the day, the last of February1533, at the chateau of St. Michel de Montaigne. His father, Pierre Eyquem,esquire, was successively first Jurat of the town of Bordeaux (1530),Under-Mayor 1536, Jurat for the second time in 1540, Procureur in 1546, and atlength Mayor from 1553 to 1556. He was a man of austere probity, who had"a particular regard for honour and for propriety in his person and attire. . . a mighty good faith in his speech, and a conscience and a religiousfeeling inclining to superstition, rather than to the other extreme."