June 22, 1580. A wealthy 47-year-old gentleman leaves his castle near Bordeaux, bound for Italy. He suffers from frequent kidney stones—flatulence and phlegm, kidney stones, pebbles, and sand—so whenever possible he stops at spas where he drinks waters good for the kidneys and takes baths. This gentleman is Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), who has just become famous among scholarly and aristocratic circles for the publication of two books he has called EssaysWith these works, he inaugurates a literary genre: that of self-experimentation in order to understand oneself and the world. Man, and no longer God, has come to occupy the center of existence. And man has concrete, prosaic needs.

Saint-Michel-de-Montaigne (in Occitan, Sent Miqueu de Montanha) is a tiny rural town, a small pearl of an unquestionably proud Frenchness. The language of Occitan has long since passed away. The national flag is still present on the façade of the town hall, nor is an additional one in the small square opposite, at the foot of the monument to the fallen of the First World War. Did no one attend the Second World War? Perhaps, following the penetrating skepticism of their historical and philosophical patron, they had already become disillusioned with military honors. In this hamlet of the purple Périgord, within the leafy Dordogne, the author of the fabulous poems lives on in the shadow of the author of the fabled poems. Essays. Everything?