A French Writer Visits

Abstract

This chapter focuses on French essayist Michel de Montaigne, who is considered a logical point of departure since his account of same-sex relationships is by far the most well known today. It recounts the contended process of Montaigne's Journal de voyage as the abbé Prunis found much of its content distasteful. It also cites a passage in Journal de voyage concerning same-sex marriages in Rome that embarrassed Canon Guillaume-Vivien Leydet, just as parts of the manuscript had embarrassed the abbé Prunis. The chapter discusses Montaigne's anecdote that was intended to surprise and amuse the worldly, cultivated visitor in search of diverse customs and unusual happenings. It highlights the influence of Montaigne's Essais on his early free-thinking readers in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.