French museum has `probably` found remains of philosopher Montaigne
(Artdaily.org)

A French museum said Wednesday that a tomb opened this week in an unprecedented operation `probably` contains the remains of the great 16th-century philosopher Michel de Montaigne, but that further tests are needed to be sure. The Musee d`Aquitaine in the southwestern city of Bordeaux extracted the tomb from a basement of the museum, which occupies the premises of a convent where Montaigne, famed for his lofty but highly readable `Essays`, was buried. Local authorities had announced a year ago that human remains had been discovered in the basement of the museum, which also houses Montaigne`s cenotaph as one of its exhibits. This prompted the painstaking operation to discover whether the remains inside the tomb belonged to Montaigne, one of the city`s most famous sons, and who served as its mayor from 1581 to 1585. `We are probably in the presence of Michel de Montaigne,` the museum`s director Laurent Vedrine said after the opening of the tomb earlier