Paste your essay in here..With decades of civil war causing mass destruction and the recent discovery of the New World, France in the late 1500’s was a place of chaos, confusion and false hope. A huge divide emerged between Catholics who for the most part were supported by the King, and the Huguenots which made the country one of feelings of mutual distrust and tension. With deception and false pretences at every corner, Frances view of life and society was warped and without order. Michel de Montaigne recognised this fault in French society and used what he saw as the only reliable source for storytelling- his own view and opinion- as his lens by which he wrote his essays. He acted as a mediator as the two sides began to fracture into smaller groups and eventually became associated with the ‘Politiques’ (a group of moderate Catholics who favoured peace with the protestants rather than overall victory) . For this reason, “Des Coches” (despite its very argumentative tone) doesn’t promote violence as a way of restoring unity and order in society, it simply expresses Montaigne’s views on society and civilisation in a new style of writing that often persuaded his readers that he was the voice of reason in nation ridden with chaos.
As an extremely significant philosopher of the French renaissance, Montaigne’s views were not without corroboration. However, his very strong and persuasive writing shocked the French audience as it was a style never seen before in French literature. His willingness to speak about somewhat controversial happenings such as colonization and the New World in “Des Coches” and voice it in such a clear and structured way was an extremely innovative and contemporary style to adopt which is perhaps why his writing is seen as far more accessible to modern readers than that of other French Renaissance philosophers. The creation of this style that we now call an ‘essay’ has been credited to Montaigne (who is now nicknamed ‘The Father of the Essay’ ) and is an extremely important aspect of “Des Coches” as it allows Montaigne to express his views in an argumentative tone and therefore draw the reader’s attention to ideas they may have not considered prior to reading. When reading the entirety of Montaigne’s chapter ‘’Des Coches”, it could at first be mistaken for a travelogue or report due to his description of fervent and fertile land in the Americas, however soon clearly develops into an essay with the argumentative aims of criticising colonization, bringing out a new model for what civilisation should be, a comparison between new and old and a glimmer of hope for the future.
Despite the high profile of all of Montaigne’s essays, the title, structure and themes of “Des Coches” have triggered more discussion than any of them . Author ‘Pierre Villey’ labelled it as three separate essays joined end-to-end to reflect life in France at the time' , however other critics claim that this cannot be the case due to the very organised and rigid structure of the essays themselves which clearly do not reflect society at the time. In the extract, each paragraph is of a similar length and introduces a new idea; therefore, creating a very structured and continuous pattern. As Montaigne used his writing as a medium between the divided nation, it is possible that this structure is his attempt to depict a model of an order and continuity which could encourage people to realise the importance of structure in society and use it as the basis of civilisation. In order to sustain his promotion of the idea of unity and restoration of society, Montaigne uses many literary and linguistic features. The extract opens with the personal pronoun ‘nostre’, immediately placing both the author and the reader in one collective body and initiating the sense of a need for a community.
In Chapter 6 of Book III, the title seems almost unrelated to the essay. Montaigne dryly discusses transport related problems at the beginning of the essay, however, the focus quickly slips towards the ostentation of the old emperors, the idea of justice in society and the conquest of America in order to question the legitimacy of colonization. Further on in his essays, he says “Les noms de mes chapitres n’en embrassent pas toujours la matiere: souvent ils la denotent seulement par quelque marque”, suggesting that he intentionally chose titles which weren’t over explicit of the following content. Here, the title “Des Coches”, a mode of transport, has connotations of movement, travelling forward and change which links very closely to Montaigne’s message in the essay regarding change in society and a want progress; not to mention the desire to become like the just discovered New World, however is not clearly related at first glance.
With this recent discovery, it is of no surprise that Montaigne’s essays often reference and focus on the abundance and purity of the untouched Americas. In the extract, his admiration for the nations is clear when he mentions “L’espouventable magnificence des villes de cusco et de Mexico […] le jardin de ce Roy où tous les arbres, les fruicts […] estoyent excellemment formez en or”. It seems as if Montaigne (and therefore most likely the majority of Europe) had very idealised views of what the Americas were and assumed that this ‘untouched’ land was the fulfilment of every man’s desire in a time of discombobulation in France.
Montaigne is critical of colonization and the way in which man believes he knows all despite having only just discovered a whole New World. Montaigne questions how we will ever be sure that there isn’t another unknown world as “les daemons, les sybilles et nous, avons ignore cettuy-cy jusqu’asture”. Here, he ponders the real purpose of the powerful bodies and people in the world, basically questioning their real purpose as they claim to know all, but really, know very little. He alludes to the naivety of the world, noting how recently it was that we were all in the early stages of life (“il n’y a pas cinquante ans qu’il ne sçavoit ny lettres, ny pois, ny mesure […]”). Discussing how the indigenous people were approached by the Europeans, it soon becomes clear the Montaigne is not in favour of colonization in the Americas, especially regarding the unnegotiable order to follow a Catholic religion. He says how they preached to the people that there is “un seul Dieu” and about “la verité de nostre religion, laquelle ils leur conseilloient d’accepter, y adjoustans quelques menasses”. The word “menasses” adds the sinister tone to this sentence as shows that their preaches were done made in an act of good will, more as to force their religion on to these people with little knowledge in order to gain power and create what they believed was real civilisation .
Although the indigenous people choose not to convert religion, despite the proposition having ‘pleased them well’, Montaigne labels the threats as a “signe de faute de jugement d’aller menassant ceux desquels la nature et les moyens sont incconeux” and in this, chastises the Europeans for carrying out this act.
“Des Coches” addresses a multitude of issues and happenings in the world at the time of Michel de Montaigne. The importance of the circumstances at the time for this essay is indispensable, as they allowed him to write in such an emotive and argumentative way in the style of the Essay. Focusing on the religious wars and the discovery of the new world, he took political and religious questions as the premise for his reflections and constructed his portrayal of the conditions of society from the events unfolding around him as he wrote. Throughout the extract of “Des Coches”, he focuses on the inability of man to find absolute truths beyond those given to them by the Bible and through religious teachings and questions how much mankind really knows. Readers of this essay were encouraged to doubt the higher powers and authorities as his pondering thoughts about colonization, religion and war advocated scepticism and helped people to see truth amongst a world full of mistrust and deception.