One of today’s outstanding literary scholars, Professor Antoine Compagnon of the Collège de France (born 1950), devoted two major studies to Michel de Montaigne. In 2012 he prepared for France Inter radio a series of forty short broadcasts covering the main themes of the Essais—Montaigne’s only work (aside from his letters), which made him one of the founders of modern thought and the creator of the essay genre. The book “Summer with Montaigne,” compiled from the texts of these broadcasts, was published in France a year later and became a bestseller. By strolling carelessly through the whimsical and boundless landscape of the Essais—like through his own hometown—Compagnon conveys to us, his companions, the pleasure of recognizing its monuments and oddities.