Montaigne died in 1592, at Bordeaux. Enthusiastic and devoted, Mademoiselle de Gournay set off as soon as she was informed of it, and, providing herself with passes, crossed almost the whole kingdom of France alone, to visit his widow and daughter, to console them as best she might--and to weep with them the loss they had sustained. Madame de Montaigne gave her the Essays, enriched with notes in her husband's hand-writing, in order that she might prepare a new and complete edition of them. This was a labor of love to Marie: she revised all the proofs, which were executed with so much correctness, that she is well entitled to call it, as she does, "le bon et vieux exemplaire." It remains to this day the principal edition as regards authenticity of text, and one of the handsomest as regards typography. It appeared in 1595 (Paris, Abel Langlier). Mademoiselle de Gournay wrote a preface, which is not without eloquence. She vigorously repels all the objections that had been raised against the work, and alludes to her adoption by Montaigne with genuine feeling. We translate the passage: "Reader, having the desire to make the best of myself to thee, I adorn myself with the noble title of this adoption. I have no other ornament, and I have a good right to call him my true father, from whom all that is good or noble in my soul proceeds. The parent to whom I owe my being, and whom my evil fortune snatched from me in my infancy, was an excellent father, and a most virtuous and clever man--and he would have felt less jealousy in seeing the second to whom I gave this title of father, than he would have felt pride in seeing the manner of man he was." The good lady's style is of the most intractable to render into common language.