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Montaigne's Fat Man and the Meaning of ‘Des Coches’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Morris Parslow
Morris Parslow*
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago
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Extract

In an addition to Chapter VI, Book III of the 1588 edition of his Essais, Montaigne writes: ‘De mon temps, un Gentil-homme, en l'une de nos frontieres, impost de sa personne et ne trouvant cheval capable de son poids, ayant une querelle, marchoit par païs en coche de mesme cette peinture, et s'en trouvoit tres-bien.’ Although it is impossible to date this passage precisely, it is likely that Montaigne wrote it near the end of 1588, since in another addition a few sentences further on he speaks of Catherine de Medicis, who died early in 15 89, as though she were still living.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance News , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , Spring 1959 , pp. 10 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1959

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References

1 Pierre, Villey, ed. Les Essais de Michel de Montaigne (Paris: Alcan, 1930-31), III, 236.Google Scholar

2 Mimoires de Jacques-Auguste de Thou in Collection complete des mimoires relatifs a l'histoiredeFrance, ed. Petitot (Paris: Fourcault, 1823), XXXVII, 396.

3 Ibid.,p. 398.

4 The words ‘coche’ and ‘carrosse’ were practically synonymous in the sixteenth century. See Franklin, A., Dictionnaire historique des arts, metiers et professions (Paris: Welter, 1906), p . 737.Google Scholar

5 De Thou, p. 399.

6 See Andre, du Chesne, Histoire geneologique de la Maison de Montmorency et de Laval (Paris: Cramoisy, 1624), p. 642.Google Scholar

7 See, e.g., Bullet, Dissertation sur Vorigine des carrosses in Collection de pikes relatives a Vhistoire de France (Paris: Dentu, 1838), x, 493; H. BaudriUart, Histoire du luxe (Paris: Hachette, 1881), p. 443.

8 Ambroise, Pare, Voyages etApologie (Paris: Gallimard, 1928), pp. 102–103.Google Scholar

9 Villey, III, 229.