Excerpt from Michel De Montaigne All dates of writings given are those of first publication, unless otherwise stated. The date, 1580 - 1588 - 1595, refers to three successive edi tions of the Essays. The titles of books and other writings have been translated into English, ex cept in cases where translation would be mislead ing; but the original French titles follow the translated titles in parentheses, the first time each occurs. I have endeavoured as far as possible to go to the sources, but my chief source has been the Essays themselves. I have interwoven them with my narrative in many places. The Bibliography, derived almost exclusively from books on my own shelves, may assure the reader that I have not' written without much preparatory study. What ever its merits or defects may be, I believe it would not be presumptuous to say of this volume Montaigne's word: C'est icy um Livre de bonne foy, Lecteur. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.