. "I am disgusted by novelty, whatever aspect it may
assume, and with good reason," he would say, "for I have seen some very
disastrous effects of it." Outside as well as within himself, Montaigne
studied mankind without regard to order and without premeditated plan.
"I have no drill-sergeant to arrange my pieces (of writing) save
hap-hazard only," he writes; "just as my ideas present themselves, I heap
them together; sometimes they come rushing in a throng, sometimes they
straggle single file. I like to be seen at my natural and ordinary pace,
all a-hobble though it be; I let myself go, just as it happens. The
parlance I like is a simple and natural parlance, the same on paper as in
the mouth, a succulent and a nervous parlance, short and compact, not so
much refined and finished to a hair as impetuous and brusque, difficult
rather than wearisome, devoid of affectation, irregular, disconnected,
and bold, not pedant-like, not preacher-like, not pleader-like." That
fixity which Montaigne could not give to his irresolute and doubtful mind
he stamped upon the tongue; it came out in his Essays supple, free, and
bold; he had made the first decisive step towards the formation of the
language, pending the advent of Descartes and the great literature of
France.

The sixteenth century began everything, attempted everything; it
accomplished and finished nothing; its great men opened the road of the
future to France; but they died without having brought their work well
through, without foreseeing that it was going to be completed. The
Reformation itself did not escape this misappreciation and discouragement
of its age; and nowhere do they crop out in a more striking manner than
in Montaigne. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Rabelais is a
satirist and a cynic, he is no sceptic; there is felt circulating through
his book a glowing sap of confidence and hope; fifty years later,
Montaigne, on the contrary, expresses, in spite of his happy nature,
in vivid, picturesque, exuberant language, only the lassitude of an
antiquated age. Henry IV. was still disputing his throne with the League
and Spain. Several times, amidst his embarrassments and his wars, the
king had manifested his desire to see Montaigne; but the latter was ill,
and felt "death nipping him continually in the throat or the reins." And
he died, in fact, at his own house, on the 13th of September, 1592,
without having had the good fortune to see Henry IV.