Reviewed by: Lectures du Troisième Livre des Essais de Montaigne ed. by Philippe Desan Gregory B. Stone Desan, Philippe, éd. Lectures du Troisième Livre des Essais de Montaigne. Champion, 2016. ISBN 978-2-7453-3556-2. Pp. 382. This collection is indispensable for any serious student of Montaigne. Following two introductory chapters that provide a wealth of primarily philological discussion clarifying the composition of Book III, the collection includes a treatment of each of that book's thirteen essays. There are several common characteristics, beginning with the fact that the chapters are of roughly uniform length, that give this collection more coherence and organic unity than is often the case: each chapter provides substantial bibliographical reference to important previous and often quite recent discussions of the essay under consideration; the general aim in most cases is to make manifest the given essay's implicit underlying organizing principles; in line with recent scholarship's emphasis on the social and political dimensions of Montaigne's project, there is a consistent attention to the Wars of Religion as a chief motivating context for the Essais. Overall, the collection is successful at avoiding one of the pitfalls of Montaigne criticism—the tendency to offer paraphrase of rather than insight concerning Montaigne's writing. Each of the book's fifteen chapters is strong and insightful. Desan's introduction shows that, with the 1588 addition of Book III and later manuscript additions in the Exemplaire de Bordeaux, Montaigne fundamentally changed the nature of Books I and II, which had originally been conceived largely as reflections on issues involving politics, morality, and diplomatic and military strategies. After 1588 the first two books become more consonant with the personal and politically disengaged discourse of Book III. Amy Graves Monroe argues convincingly that the apparently meandering itinerary and disconnected subject matters of "Des coches" (III, 6) are motivated and unified by a pun involving cochon ("pig,""hog"): the essay [End Page 251] is artfully constructed by drawing upon a series of philosophical anecdotes featuring pigs in texts by Diogenes Laertius, Plato, and Plutarch. In a similar vein, Alexandre Tarrête teases out the order of the apparently disorderly "De l'art de conférer" (III, 8) by considering various senses of the verb featured in the essay's title, conférer. Jean Balsamo reads "De la vanité" (III, 9) in the context of Montaigne's reception of an honorary Papal grant of Roman citizenship in 1581, juxtaposing that honor's quality as a gratuitous end-in-itself with the mercantile logic of quid pro quo exchange that drove the ostentatious bestowal of honors during the French Wars of Religion. Véronique Ferrer regards Montaigne's declarations of apathy and disengagement in "De ménager sa volonté" (III, 10) as a surreptitious mode of political engagement targeting violent partisan conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Bruno Méniel argues that the"lame"or"unstable"persons to whom Montaigne alludes with the title of "Des boiteux" (III, 11) are those leading jurists of Montaigne's time who pretend that legal judgments are rational and objective truths rather than matters of personal opinion. The collection is an invaluable resource for the study of the individual essays of Book III and of the Essais as a whole. Gregory B. Stone Louisiana State University Copyright © 2018 American Association of Teachers of French