La Boétie's Montaigne

Abstract

In 1940, addressing in his journal of exile a France fallen victim to fascism, profoundly complicitous in its victimage, Bernanos evokes at the horizon of a collective guilt the 'legistes crasseux de la Renaissance', literally f i l thy wi th the classics, and their responsibility in the emergence of the French state. 2 The accusation by the quirky monarchist may seem erratic indeed, an even more anachronistic and delirious saw than the nineteenth century's 'C'est la faute a Voltaire! c'est la faute a Rousseau!' Yet it is precisely the untimeliness of Bernanos's observation that I offer as a context for what fol lows: part fable for our literary-critical times, part reading of Montaigne, part programme for future enquiry. No doubt the perfect example of Bernanos's bemired jurist was Etienne de la Boetie. In 1562, for example, he advised the King against religious tolerance in the name of the unity of the State. His memoire to that effect begins ominously: 'Le sujet de la deliberation est la pacification des troubles' 3 (Bonnefon, 1917: 11). Yet as a young man, La Boetie authored a text , the Discours de la servitude volontaire, more or less contemporaneous wi th and astonished at the emergence Bernanos would rail against centuries later. That text served as the occasion of his celebrated friendship wi th Montaigne, the latter tells us, and we shall soon turn to the structure of its absence in the Essais.