The suspense will continue to build a little. Research to identify the supposed bones of Montaigne found in the reserves of the Aquitaine Museum in Bordeaux has ended but “without absolute certainty”, archaeoanthropologist Hélène Réveillas said on Friday.
After more than three years of investigations that she led, she validates with “80%” the hypothesis that the remains are indeed those of the former mayor of Bordeaux, who died on September 13, 1592 at the age of 59, in the castle family from Saint-Michel-de-Montaigne, in Dordogne.
At the request of his widow, the philosopher’s remains were transferred to the Feuillants convent in Bordeaux in 1593. He rested there until the 19th century but in 1870, the convent burned and the buried remains were transferred to a Bordeaux cemetery, says Hélène Wake up.
Experts examined the bones
The destroyed convent then makes way for the Faculty of Letters where the cenotaph of the philosopher is exhibited, and where the supposed coffin of Montaigne is transferred, in a vault specially built in the basement, then fallen into oblivion.
In 2018, Laurent Védrine, the director of the Aquitaine Museum which replaced the former Faculty of Letters, found by chance in the museum’s reserves the vault containing a wooden coffin bearing a metal plaque in the name of Michel de Montaigne, and housing a lead sarcophagus containing bones. This discovery triggers investigations carried out by around twenty experts from 2019 to the end of 2022, to verify that they are indeed those of Montaigne.
“There is a bundle of clues, such as the dating of the bones, the funerary treatment (sarcophagus, embalming) testifying to a certain social rank,” explains Hélène Réveillas. “And the remains are indeed a man over 30 years old. The skeleton also revealed excellent dental hygiene, rare for the time, and a single missing tooth, mentioned by the philosopher in his writings,” she adds.
But “certain elements are not conclusive enough”, nuance Hélène Réveillas who only validates “80%” of the hypothesis. Genealogical research into possible descendants of Montaigne to compare the traces of DNA found on the remains were unsuccessful. No more than research on hair or eye color, due to a lack of sufficiently “reliable” existing portraits, deplores the expert.
The 3D facial reconstruction is no more conclusive: “The shape of the ears and the skull does not match” with the face of the recumbent figure on the cenotaph, she notes. The enigma is therefore not resolved, “but the research has allowed us to know more about the funerary practices of the time,” she consoles herself.
The crypt of Montaigne’s supposed tomb will be open to the public on the occasion of Heritage Days on Saturday and Sunday.