1. Essays (III:6, 693b). All references to Montaigne's Essays are taken from the Donald M. Frame translation of The Complete Essays of Montaigne, Stanford University Press, 1965 (passages are italicized by the present author). In most cases we shall give, in parentheses, the text, the volume number (in Roman numerals), followed by the number of the chapter and the page (in Arabic numbers). The let ters a, b, and c shall serve, according to tradition, to differentiate between the edi tions of 1580 (a), 1588 (b) as well as the manuscript additions (c). Montaigne wrote in his personal copy of the 1588 edition (the famous “Bordeaux copy”) a text which differs from that of Marie de Gournay in the edition she procured in 1595.

2. The first version of this text appeared on July 14, 1993 in Paris, for the collo quium, “Readings of Montaigne,” organized by UNESCO with the help of the Ecoles normales supérieures.

3. Today we prefer to speak of the “encounter” between the two worlds, or even the “invasion” of the “new” by the “old.” Cf. the very controversial work by James Axtell, Beyond 1492. Encounters in Colonial North America (Oxford University Press, 1992) and the article by Pauline Maier, “Have We Lost our Bearings or Found Them?”, The New York Times Book Review, (September 13,1992, pp. 15-18). We should add the expulsion of the Jews from Spain to the other two commemorations, which is perhaps not without importance here, given Montaigne's maternal parentage.

4. The bibliography is too long to be given here in detail. We refer the reader to one of the most recent studies of this subject, notably the works of Marcel Bataillon, Gérard Defaux, Marcel Gutwirth, Raymond Lebégue, Gérard Nakam, Jean-Claude Margolin, and André Tournon; Frank Lestringant, “l'Amerique des ‘Coches,' fille du Brésil des ‘Cannibals': Montaigne à la rencontre de deux tradi tions historiques” (“The America of ‘Coches,' daughter of the Brazil of ‘Cannibales': Montaigne's encounter with two historical traditions”) in Montaigne et l'Histoire, edited by Claude-Gilbert Dubois, Paris: Klincksieck, 1991, p. 143-160.

5. To simplify, let us remember that the chapter “Des Cannibales” I:31 (“Of Cannibals”) draws especially from André Thevet, Les Singularitez de la France antarctique, 1557, and from Jean de Léry, Histoire d'un voyage fait en la terre du Bresil, 1578, and Urbain Chauveton, translator and commentator of Girolamo Benzoni, Histoire nouvelle du Nouveau Monde, 1579. On the other hand, in the later chapter, “Des Coches,” III: 6 (“Of Coaches”), Montaigne is surely drawing from the Historia general de las Indias by Francisco López de Gómara, 1552, in the French translation by Martin Fumée, 1569, as well as, in all probability, the Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias, 1552, by Bartolomé de Las Casas, Spanish champion of the Indians, in the translation by Jacques de Miggrode, 1579. CF. Pierre Villey, Les Livres d'histoire moderne utilisé par Montaigne. Contribution á l'étude des sources de Montaigne, Paris, Hachette, 1908, p. 76-77, which is completed by the study by Juan Durán Luzio, “Les Casas y Montaigne: escritura y lectura del Neuvo Mundo,” Montaigne Studies I, nov. 1989, pp. 88-106.

6. For a recent treatment of this sort see Edgar Montiel, “Amérique-Europe: Le miroir de l'altérité,” Diogenes 159, July-September 1992, p. 31.

7. For an illuminating study of Las Casas's possible influence on Montaigne, see Juan Durán Luzio, op. cit., ibid.

8. See note 2. Montaigne's passage cited here draws from l'Histoire générale des Indes de Gómara, in the French translation by Fumée, II, 7.

9. Cf. Juan Durán Luzio, op. cit., p. 104.

10. De Rerum natura, I, v.102. This line is cited in an addition to the “Defence of Raymond Sebond” (II, 12, 521c).

11. This passage draws closely from Gómara, probably from the Italian transla tion, Istoria di don Fernando Cortez, Venice, 1576, pp. 66, 73, and 85.

12. See the already old but ever illuminating thoughts of Richard Sayce on this subject, in his work The Essays of Montaigne, A Critical Exploration, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972, pp. 194-197, 216-7. See as well a small work pub lished by UNESCO, in which Ruggiero Romano regroups all the passages in the Essays dealing with America: Montaigne: De America, Paris, Ed. Utz, 1991, pp. 18-19. For a diachronic study of this issue, see the already cited study by Edgar Montiel, pp. 28-40.

13. Nous et les autres. La réflexion française sur la diversité humaine. Paris: Ed. du Seuil, 1989, pp. 60-61.

14. This is precisely what Gérard Defaux demonstrates in his article entitled “Un Cannibale en haut de chausses: Montaigne, la différence et la logique de l'identité,” Modern Language Notes 97, may 1982, pp. 919-957, reprinted in Marot, Rabelais, Montaigne: l'écriture comme présence, Paris, Geneva: Champion-Slatkine, 1987, pp. 145-177.

15. As Edwin M. Duval indicates, “Drawing on his own pluralistic background, he is able [ … ] to consider a foreign culture on its own terms, and to judge his own culture from the point of view of another”. “Lessons of the New World: Design and Meaning in Montaigne's ‘Des Cannibales' and ‘Des Coches',” Yale French Studies 64, 1983, p. 95.

16. For a bibliography of Münster, see Karl Heinz Burmeister, Sebastian Münster. Eine Bibliographie, Wiesbaden: Guido Pressler, 1964. The first edition of the Cosmographie in French dates back to 1552. The sixth edition, which dates from 1575, was reprinted (or precisely,“rescratched”) by François de Belleforest. For more on the latter, see the thesis by Michel Simonin, Vivre de sa plume au XVIeme siècle. La carrière de François de Belleforest, Geneva: Droz, 1992.

17. Basel: Heinrich Petri, 1568 [Rés. Fol. Z Payen 494]. Montaigne's signature is on the bottom of the frontespiece of this copy. See Pierre Villey, Les Sources et l'Evolution des Essais de Montaigne, Paris: Hachette, 1908, t.I, p. 180-181. Frank Lestringant has added useful details on this subject in “Montaigne topographe et la description de l'Italie,” Montaigne e l'Italia [Atti del congresso internazionale di studi di Milano-Lecco, 23-30 Oct. 1988] Geneva: Slatkine, 1991, p. 640, n. 30.

18. Journal de voyage, edited by F. Rigolot, Paris: P.U.F., 1992, p. 32.

19. This is not to say that Montaigne wished to imitate the content and the style in his Journal de Voyage (Travel Diary). On the contrary! But he must have recog nized its usefulness - even if, as F. Lestringant believes, the underlinings and anno tations in the margin of the signed copy are not in his hand. Cf. “Montaigne topographe …,” op.cit., p. 640-641, n.30.

20. Our position is quite different from that of F. Lestringant in his work, André Thevet, cosmographe des derniers Valois, Geneva: Droz, 1991, chapter III, “Entre Allemagne et Angleterre,” p. 65sq.

21. Here and from now on we shall give the page number of this work in paren theses after each citation. We have added italics better to indicate the parallel between Spaniards and Cannibals.

22. See the book by Alfred Glauser on this subject, Montaigne paradoxal, Paris: Nizet 1972.

23. This idea has come up several times in scholarly criticism. See the recent arti cle by Andrée Comparot, “De l'ouverture àl'humanisme à la responsabilité poli tique : l'apparentement maternal de Montaigne,” in Le Lecteur, l'auteur et l'ecrivain: Montaigne 1492-1592-1992, edited by Ilana Zinguer, Paris: Champion, 1993, pp. 104-118.

24. On this point, see Géralde Nakam, “Ibériques de Montaigne. Reflets et images de la péninsule ibérique dans les Essais,” in Montaigne l'Europe [Actes du colloque international de Bordeaux, 1992], collected and introduced by Claude-Gilbert Dubois, Mont-de-Marsan, Editions Interuniversitaires, 1992, pp. 153-175.

25. The italics are ours.

26. On this matter see, among others, Thevet, Léry, and Chauveton on “Of Cannibals;” Martin Fumée and Jacques de Miggrode on “Of Coaches.” See above, note 5.

27. This phrase is used by Jean-Antoine de Baïf to evoke his feeling of disorienta tion in Mimes, Book I, V,33.