Charron, Pierre (1541-1603)

French writer and preacher. A close friend of Montaigne, he is best known for his book De la Sagesse/Wisdom (1601), in which he argued for religious tolerance. The book's sceptical claim that it is impossible to know anything for certain - a view severely censured by the Sorbonne and leading figures in the Catholic Church - made him a forerunner of 17th-century deism.

Born in Paris, the son of a bookseller, he was one of a family of 25 children. After studying law at Orléans and Bourges he practised as an advocate, but became disenchanted with the profession. He turned to the church and enjoyed a distinguished career as a preacher, becoming chaplain-in-ordinary to Margaret of Valois, first wife of Henry of Navarre. In 1588 he returned to Paris determined to join a religious order, but, when none would accept him because of his age, he retired to Bordeaux where he became a close friend of Montaigne, whose scepticism he shared.

Charron published anonymously the treatise Les Trois vérités/The Three Truths (1593), which combined an apology for Catholicism with an attack on the Protestant religious leader Philippe du Plessis-Mornay.