The essay examines how parts of the Swedish bourgeois public viewed the French Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne and his essays that appeared in a Swedish translation in 1923. The essay covers the period 1850–1925, a period marked by rapid technological and economic development as well as an ideological battle between conservative idealist-religious and radical materialist-liberal currents of thoughts. In the essay Jürgen Habermas´ concept of the "bourgeois public" and Franklin L. Baumer's concept of "the new enlightenment" are used in the theoretical platform. The source material consists of articles in the press, private notes of cultural dignitaries and various literary works. The essay shows that Montaigne and his essays influenced two different Enlightenments, first as a precursor to original Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire, and later as a source of inspiration for later currents of ideas within the Swedish New Enlightenment during the 19th century. Montaigne was introduced by the radicals of the new enlightenment in a Sweden that started the journey towards modernity, while it was a conservatively oriented intellectual elite that in a significantly modernized Sweden who adopted him in connection with the translations. This implied that the view of Montaigne changed from a progressive Renaissance force to a view of him as a thoughtful Stoic thinker but still with a strong emphasis on his humanism.