The editor of what was for centuries the standard text of Montaigne's Essays, published in 1595, was a young woman named Marie le Jars de Gournay. From an elite family but penniless, she taught herself Latin by laying ancient texts side by side with French translations and working out what the Latin words must mean. When she read the Essays she was, she says, so transported that her mother thought she had gone mad and tried to give her hellebore. (An herb traditionally used to treat mania.) She eventually managed to meet Montaigne and convey this passion in person. Montaigne later wrote of this encounter that
to show the ardor of her promises, and also her constancy, she struck herself with the bodkin she wore in her hair four or five lusty stabs in the arm, which broke the skin and made her bleed in good earnest.
The eventual outcome of this was that formed some sort of relationship, although what sort is very much disputed. Eventually de Gournay took to calling herself Montaigne's adopted daughter, and this is how she described herself in her preface to the famous edition.
1 comment:
From an elite family but penniless, she taught herself Latin by laying ancient texts side by side with French translations and working out what the Latin words must mean.
Having studied Latin, I can attest that this would be a terrible way to learn even just Church Latin - but I suppose knowing a very broken form of Latin is better than knowing no Latin at all. It probably also helps considerably to learn starting from French, rather than from English.
Also, "penniless" is evidently a rather subjective thing, given she had ready access to matching texts in both French and Latin (a single book circa 1600 would have been something like two months wages for the average person), as well as having had the tutoring to be able to read in French to begin with...
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