Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592)
remains the most famous member
of illustrious Bordeaux personalities;
his fame that has lasted for more
than four centuries has spread
throughout the world.
He
was an exceptionally intelligent
man, his extraordinary knowledge
and culture is clear in reading
his "Essays", his wisdom
endowed with great humanism.
He was a man of action,
a well appreciated magistrate,
a curious traveller, a skilled
diplomat as well as a good administrator,
and was Mayor of Bordeaux for
four years during difficult times.
A whole block of houses belonged
to Eyquem; indeed, the l’impasse
Fauré used to be called
"rue Montaigne". Montaigne
was councilor for thirteen years
in the old fortress of the Palais
de l’Ombrière that
was home to the Sovereign Court
of the Guyenne Parliament, destroyed
in 1800.
He would see activity at
the market exchange, built from
1564, around the "Place du
Change", what is now the
Place du Palais. Then, taking
the rue Neuve, he reached the
hôtel du Président
de Carles and that of Conseiller
de Ferron-Carbonnieux, his good
friends, then, via rue Teulère,
the Grosse Cloche, once the town
belfry, a beautiful artifact of
the Middle Ages.
How many times Montaigne must
have visited the City Hall, while
he was mayor, from 1581 to 1585,
to the Saint Eloi Church. In Rue
Saint James he visited his printer
Simon Millanges, and his friend
Etienne de la Boétie, in
what is now rue Pierre de Coubertin.
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Pierre
COUDROY DE LILLE
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