Montaigne, who, in his thirty-eighth year, 'long weary of the bondage
of Court and of public employment, while yet in the vigour of life,
hath withdrawn himself into the bosom of the Learned Virgins (Doctarum
Virginum),' [13] so as to be able to spend the rest of his days in
his ancestral home, in peaceful, undisturbed devotion to ennobling
studies, and to present the world with a new book, in which he means
to give expression to his innermost thoughts--Montaigne, in his Essay
'On Prayers,' calls his writings 'rhapsodies,' which he submits
to the judgment of the Church, so that it may deal with anything he,
'either ignorantly or unadvisedly, may have set down contrary to the
sacred decrees, and repugnant to the holy prescriptions of the Catholic,
Apostolic, and Roman Church, wherein I die, and in which I was born.'

Let us not dwell too long on the contradictions of a man who professes
to think independently, and who yet is content with having a
mind-cramping dogmatic creed imposed upon him. Let us look at a few
other, not less irreconcilable, inconsistencies of his logic.

Montaigne, the Humanist, advocates toleration. Justice, he says, is
to be done to every party, to every opinion. 'Men are different in
feeling and in strength; they must be directed to their good, according
to themselves, and by diverse ways.' [14] He bears no grudge to anyone
of heterodox faith; he feels no indignation against those who differ
from him in ideas. The ties of universal humanity he values more than
those of national connection. He has some good words for the Mexicans,
so cruelly persecuted by the Spaniards. 'I hold all men to be my
compatriots; I feel the same love for a Pole as for a Frenchman.' [15]

But when we read what the Roman Catholic Montaigne writes, there is a