In 1571 Montaigne quitted his job at the Parliament of Bordeaux and retired to his castle. He had enough of his work, as we saw last week. But there was also another reason that he resigned: He still missed his late friend Étienne de La Boétie, who had died eight years before. They had a close friendship and they had had deep conversations. One has the impression that one reason that Montaigne wrote his Essays is that they were a kind of continuation of his discussions with his friend. The influence of La Boétie can be seen in many places in the Essays; only in the Third Book, which Montaigne wrote much later, this influence is fading away. La Boétie’s impact on Montaigne was not only intellectual and spiritual, but it had also a material component, for Montaigne inherited La Boétie’s library, which the latter gave to his friend when he was dying. So it is not surprising that Montaigne dedicated both his Essays and his library to his late friend. But who was this man, who – outside France – is hardly known?
Étienne de
La Boétie was born on 1 November 1530 in Sarlat, a town in the Périgord in
southern France. He belonged to a patrician family that had worked its way up over
the course of several generations. Not much is known about his childhood. We do
know that Étienne's father died when he was young, and that he was raised then by
his uncle Étienne, who has given him an excellent education. We can only guess which
school La Boétie has visited. It may have been the famous Collège de Coqueret
in Paris. Anyway, we do not come across his name again until 23 September 1553,
when, according to the register of the University of Orléans, La Boétie had
been granted a licentiate in law. His first teacher at this university was Anne
du Bourg, who was then already leaning towards Protestantism, but was not yet
that active fighter for the new religion, which he would later become in his
time as a counsellor at the Parliament of Paris. Maybe La Boétie was also
attracted to Protestantism at the time, but this is uncertain. What is certain
is that he eventually remained Catholic, but was always moderate in his views. Before
his university studies, La Boétie had already written his famous Discourse
on Voluntary Servitude, possibly already at the age of sixteen, but the
latest when he was 18 years old.
Apparently
La Boétie had acquired a good reputation during his studies, for he was
appointed counsellor of the Parliament of Bordeaux at the age of 23, although
the minimum age for this was actually 25 years. He immediately lived up to this
reputation, showed great commitment and soon received special assignments,
followed by his first major commission in 1560. Soon other special commissions
followed. In the meantime, he was married to Marguerite de Carle, a widow from a
distinguished family with two children. At a large festive gathering in Bordeaux,
probably in 1557, La Boétie met Michel de Montaigne. It was Montaigne who took the
initiative, curious to get to know the person who had written the Discourse. It immediately clicked
between them. Their friendship would last until La Boétie's death. However,
they will not have seen each other often, because La Boétie regularly had to
make long trips for the Parliament. An order from his colleagues to talk to the
king about a better payment of salaries led him to Paris in 1560. Another time,
in 1561, he had to go to the region of Agen, this time as an assistant to the
king’s envoy, who had to settle the religious disputes there. This envoy had
chosen La Boétie as his assistant precisely because of his moderate views.
Partly thanks to La Boétie, the disputing parties reached an agreement. According
to his biographer Bonnefon, La Boétie was one of the few thinkers then who took
conscientious objection seriously. Even among those who advocated tolerance towards
Protestantism, this tolerance was usually only a political means of preventing
worse.
The peace in
Agen, but also in Bordeaux and elsewhere, turned out to be no more than
temporary. Because the Bordeaux Parliament feared an attack by Protestant
troops, it was decided to recruit 1200 soldiers and to place every 100 of them
under the command of a counsellor. One of these counsellors was La Boétie. It showed
that the Parliament had a great confidence in his sense of justice and his
ability to enforce authority. It would be Étienne de La Boétie’s last public
act. Not long thereafter, he suddenly became ill. We do not know exactly what
illness he had, but within ten days he died on 18 August 1563, aged 32, in the
presence of his family and Montaigne.
Readers of
Montaigne’s Essays will know Étienne
de La Boétie mainly as a friend of Montaigne, but his importance is much wider.
Outside of France and outside the circle of Montaigne readers he is best known for
his Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, particularly
among peace activists and those who study the idea and practice of nonviolence.
In his time already this work was famous and it circulated both among intellectuals
and in Huguenot circles. It helped the latter in their fight for religious
freedom and their opposition to the French king. It is questionable whether La
Boétie intended it that way. Also after his death the work has not been
forgotten. It has been reprinted many times to date, especially since the
middle of the 19th century. Since then, it has influenced those seeking nonviolent
means to resist violent oppression, such as Tolstoy and Gandhi and Dutch peace
activist Bart de Ligt. But the Discourse is
not the only work that La Boétie has written. Especially within France he is
also known by his poems and his translations into French of several works by
the classical writers Plutarch and Xenophon and by the Italian Ariosto. In
France, La Boétie is seen as one of those who brought antiquity to the
attention of his contemporaries. Both through his Discourse and by his contribution to the Renaissance, the influence
of La Boétie has become permanent and in France many streets and schools bear
his name.
Sources
- Cocula,
Anne-Marie, Étienne de La Boétie, Sud Ouest, Bordeaux, 1995.
- Delacomptée, Jean-Michel, Et qu’un seul soit
l’ami. La Boétie,
Gallimard, Parijs, 1995.
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