Montaigne’s Essais, a “spiritual exercise”?

Does the notion of “spiritual exercise” enable the analysis of the meditative dimension of the Essays: what does Montaigne ponder, how and for what purpose? Though he repeats such practices, he renews their form and objectives by developing a method that mixes influences and establishes a new relationship with oneself. He returns to his own nature (his “complexion naturelle” or “forme maîtresse”) rather than to Nature, and artificially reconstructs a simpler and natural relation to himself.