Montaigne reminds his reader constantly of the need to look closely, to ‘regarder de pres’, in order to uncover the diversity and doubleness latent in oneself, in others, in ways of writing and in the world. The doubleness of the Essais has been brought to the surface in a number of the passages discussed already in this study: in Montaigne’s shuffling of the uncertain categories of the three ‘genres’ of philosophers in Chapter 1; in the doubling up of authorial associations, of what is ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’, in Chapter 2; in his shifting relationships with ‘chronologie’, ‘fagotage’, ‘eschantillons’ and the direction of understanding in Chapter 3.

But as well as telling his reader to look closely, Montaigne also stressed the importance of taking one’s time. A reader has to sit with his writing long enough, and consider a sufficiently large portion of his fragmentary text, for thought – his own and his reader’s – to get moving. In his own reading of Plutarch, Montaigne found himself unable to resist snatching up a ‘cuisse ou aile’ [drumstick or wing] (III.5.875/666) – portions, certainly, but not meagre ones.