Politician and great thinker, Michel de Montaigne was a man who advocated reflection. Because one of his convictions consisted in thinking that it is better to have a well-made head than a very full head.
A great friend of Etienne de La Boétie, emblematic figure of Sarlat, Montaigne was in his time a precursor who paved the way for humanism. Moreover, his thought is still today of an insolent modernity and our post-human species would do well to draw inspiration from the philosophy of his Essays.
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It is therefore in the tower that he lived and in which he wrote that one can enter, a few hundred meters from the vineyards of the estate which still produces wine today. A wine that Montaigne liked, it is said, to taste a lot!
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On the ground floor, the chapel, with its ceiling painted with a starry sky, symbol of God. On the upper floor: the bedroom of the man of letters. A position that the facetious Montaigne liked to comment on, willingly saying that he slept like this “above God”. A quasi blasphemy for this time governed by religion.
One more floor higher, we discover Montaigne’s office, or rather his library. This is where it all happened. It is said that he dictated his writings there, his nose in the air, while pacing in this place where he had had inspirational quotes written on the ceiling, quotes that stimulated his mind.
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And finally, a bit of wisdom that has such a contemporary resonance. “When someone upsets me, they arouse my attention, not my anger”, he wrote. A way of conceiving the exchange of ideas that would do well to inspire us, nowadays!
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Article produced thanks to the competition of the magazine “L’Edition Périgord”.