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Gender Imprinting in Montaigne’s Essais

South of France, adding that it is a “ langage alteré” (Donald Frame translates this as “ a corrupted language” ) that would offend “ les oreilles pures françoises” of those Northern Frenchmen who were born and reared in la langue d ’oïl. After noting that he has no more command of the Perigordian dialect spoken in the countryside around his château than he has of German, he expresses his admiration for the Gascon dia­ lect that is spoken up towards the mountains: “ Il y a bien au dessus de nous, vers les montaignes, un Gascon, que je treuve singulièrement beau, sec, bref, signifiant, et à la vérité un langage masle et militaire plus qu’autre que j ’entende” (639a). These remarks map out a spatial economy that permits Montaigne to distinguish between two sites, a here where the “ I” is located and a there that is inhabited by an “ Other.” The text articulates space by means of a grid composed of two axes: one is horizontal (“ altered” French is spoken in “ des contrées de deçà” [639a], that is to say, on this side of the linguistic boundary that separates southern from northern France); the other is perpendicular (Gascon is spoken above us [“ au dessus de nous” ]). In the geography of the text, sites situated along the horizontal axis are similar to or different from each other, but none is superior or inferior to any of the others. When Montaigne wishes to establish a hierarchy of value, he situates sites along the perpendicular, not the hori­ zontal, axis. What is situated “ on high” (one of Cotgrave’s definitions of au dessus) is superior to what is “ down below” or “ underneath.” Situating Gascon “ above” the corrupted French he speaks (“ above” in both a literal and a figurative sense, for Gascon is not only the more admirable of the two languages, it is spoken at a higher geographical alti­ tude, up towards the mountains), Montaigne gives it a paradigmatic status. At the same time, the text registers the difference between Gascon and French in the syntax of gender. Gascon, which is more beautiful, concise and expressive (“ signifiant” ) than French, is a “ langage masle.” In accord with the mechanics of diacriticality that shapes thought and