Montaigne ‘chef de part’: Study on the chapter ‘De la modération’

Abstract

In an intriguing passage in chapter «De la modération» of the Essays, Montaigne surprisesus posing himself as a possible «chef de part» (head of school?), capable of taking a different route, more natural. Our aim in this paper is to propose a «diligent» reading exercise (the term comes fromMontaigne himself) to help us clarify the meaning and scope of these words. The analysis of the contextin which they appear, complemented with consideration of parallel or related pages of the author’s work,leads us to conclude that Montaigne, often regarded as a conservative writer —and Catholic by dint ofconservatism—, here seems to think nothing less than an alternative to Christianity, the «spiritual medicine» dominant in his time.