of them spoke
to me in no other language but Latin. As to the rest of his family,
it was an inviolable rule, that neither himself nor my mother, man
nor maid, should speak any thing in my company, but such Latin
words as every one had learned only to gabble with me. It is not to
be imagined how great an advantage this proved to the whole family:
my father and my mother by this means learned Latin enough to
understand it perfectly well, and to speak it to such a degree as
was sufficient for any necessary use, as also those of the servants
did, who were most frequently with me. In short, we Latined it at
such a rate, that it overflowed to all the neighboring villages,
where there yet remain, that have established themselves by custom,
several Latin appellations of artisans and their tools. As for what
concerns myself, I was above six years of age before I understood
either French or Perigordin ["Perigordin" is Montaigne's name for
the dialect of his province, Perigord (Gascony)], any more than
Arabic; and, without art, book, grammar, or precept, whipping, or
the expense of a tear, I had, by that time, learned to speak as
pure Latin as my master himself, for I had no means of mixing it up
with any other.

We are now to see how, helped by his wealth, the father was able to
gratify a pleasant whimsey of his own in the nurture of his boy. Highly
aesthetic was the matin _reveille_ that broke the slumbers of this
hopeful young heir of Montaigne:--

Some being of opinion that it troubles and disturbs the brains of
children suddenly to wake them in the morning, and to snatch them
violently and over-hastily from sleep, wherein they are much more
profoundly involved than we, he [the father] caused me to be
wakened by the sound of some musical instrument, and was never
unprovided of a musician for that purpose.... The good man, being
extremely timorous of any way failing in a thing he had so wholly
set his heart upon, suffered himself at last to be overruled by the
common opinions:... he sent me, at six years of age, to the College
of Guienne, at that time the best and most flourishing in France.

In short, as in the case of Mr. Tulliver, the world was "too many" for
Eyquem _pere_; and, in the education of his son, the stout Gascon,
having started out well as dissenter, fell into dull con