Friendship, Loss, and The Final Dialogue Between Michel de Montaigne and Étienne de La Boétie
The intensity and enduring impact of the brief friendship between Étienne de La Boétie and Michel de Montaigne has both fascinated and confounded scholars. This essay draws on selected chapters of the Essais, biographical evidence and correspondence to examine the central importance of Montaigne’s friendship with La Boétie in his life and work. It will additionally investigate the implications that the loss of La Boétie had for Montaigne’s perspective on the philosophical question that most occupied and haunted him: can a man ever make peace with his own death?
This analysis will ultimately be articulated through a Renaissance dialogue depicting the final conversation between Montaigne and La Boétie, complete with an introduction and annotations by a modern scholar . The dialogue sheds light on the key debates and points of consensus between the two friends, while unravelling the characteristics of a bond that continues to transcend conventional understandings of human relationships.
The friendship between Étienne de La Boétie and Michel de Montaigne was so idiosyncratic as to be unparalleled in history. At least, that is what Montaigne himself would have us believe; frequently comparing their bond to the classical models that he desired to emulate, he nonetheless affirms that “les discours mesmes que l'antiquité nous a laissé sur ce subject, me semblent laches au pris du sentiment que j'en ay”.[1] The tone here is not without a hint of frustration: Montaigne spends most of the chapter trying and failing to describe a relationship that is so whole and perfect that it appears to transcend the limits of human language.
As Pozen[2] affirms, La Boétie, under Montaigne’s authorship, becomes a construct that is idealised and self-sustaining beyond death. The Essais, therefore, do not only act as one-sided dialogues through which Montaigne compensates for the loss of his closest interlocutor[3] – La Boétie is kept alive between their pages. This raises the question of how reliable a narrator Montaigne truly is. Could the relationship between the two men, which is estimated to have only lasted for four to six years, have possibly been as ideal as he describes? Did La Boétie even return Montaigne’s feelings with the same intensity? We will now turn to the principal concern of this essay – the recent discovery of a dialogue that could profoundly deepen our understanding of the two men and their friendship.
Written sometime between 1592-1645, the dialogue depicts the final conversation between Montaigne and La Boétie, directly preceding the former’s death on 18th August 1563.[4] In keeping with the traditional features of Renaissance dialogue, it contrasts the friends’ philosophical and intellectual attitudes in an exchange of ideas,[5] with the subjects discussed ranging from marriage and liberty to the place of philosophical concepts such as stoicism when faced with death.
The rise of the dialogue in the Renaissance period was a central aspect of intellectual life, representing the revival of classical culture and the prevalence of humanist thought.[6] The conversational aspect of the genre allowed humanists to explore moral and philosophical concepts through the fragmentation of the self, characterised by a process of learning rather than an affirmation of truths. Indeed, this format is highly apt when considering Montaigne’s belief that humans are dialogical beings: “ne nous tenons les uns aux autres que par la parole”.[7]
The dialogue is here translated to English in full. My annotations make reference to selected chapters of the Essais that appear to have influenced the dialogue, together with biographical and textual evidence that concerns the central importance of Montaigne’s friendship with La Boétie in his life and work. Numerous chapters explore the concepts of friendship and death in the Essais, as well as their intersection. I will focus on the chapters that are most emblematic of these themes, ‘De l’amitié’ (III.3) and ‘Que philosopher, c'est apprendre à mourir’ (I.20), as well as others where relevant. The discovery of this dialogue enriches our understanding of how the loss of La Boétie influenced Montaigne’s philosophical outlook, including the question that most occupied and haunted him: can a man ever make peace with his own death?
La Boétie: Worry not about me, Montaigne. I have lived quite long enough: healthily and happily, and without malice.[8] Though my departure may be sudden, I leave no loose ends behind. With this understanding, I have overcome any lingering fear of my approaching end – death, indeed, is nothing to me.[9]
Montaigne: My dear friend, I am moved by your calm resolve, which does not falter even while Pain rears its ugly head and Death waits in the shadows[10]. Although it is nothing but the greatest honour to have kept vigil by your bedside, I must confess how sorry I am to have witnessed your suffering. Through their ignorance and folly, your doctors have taken a friend from me that is worth far more than the lot of them.[11]
La Boétie: Though I appreciate your anger on my behalf, it is only a vain man who believes that he can rise above the human condition. Death is inevitable: it comes to us all, and is perfectly capable of killing us without the help of sickness.[12] What would be the use of prolonging my life, when eventually something else would have come along to take me? The only crime of disease is its theft of liberty: like a cruel master, the effects of illness cast us under an iron fist from which we are unable to escape.
Montaigne: I see your point. Indeed, my father and my father’s father both passed from the stone: I would not be surprised if the fear of encountering the disease around every corner I turn worsens my life far more than the disease itself would, casting its dark spectre over my thoughts even while I remain in perfect health.[13] However, I rather think that the cure is far worse than the disease. Freed from the tyranny of doctors, it is equally possible to live a good life as a sick man than as a healthy one, chiefly by finding contentment in simplicity. After all, our ultimate goal is pleasure, even in virtue.[14]
La Boétie: Friend, it is all well and good to preach the virtues of a simple life, yet you would no sooner choose to renounce your position in order to embrace the ways of the plebian masses as I.[15] You must admit that you are a servant to your customs, unable to be truly happy without good wine or curtains around your bed.[16] Is this preoccupation with worldly pleasures not a sort of tyranny? I have said before that a life of toil and effort is far more virtuous than one of ease, comfort and leisure.[17] It is only by liberating yourself from excess and frivolous distractions that you can truly be free. Augustine teaches us that ruinous temptations can be eradicated through entering into marriage: however, I fear you will not heed my words and instead continue down a path of debauchery.
Montaigne: While I welcome your advice, friend, I find it difficult to reconcile your praise of liberty on the one hand, and your desire to have me held captive by the constraints of a binding marriage contract on the other. My disposition is not suited to marriage, for I am naturally opposed to obligation and restraint.[18] Moreover, if a good marriage exists, it models itself not after the ideals of love, which is fickle and inconsistent, but of friendship, which is constant and only improves with time.[19] I do not believe, however, that women have the qualities needed to sustain such a partnership. They do not have the constancy of mind that is required to maintain the communication that takes place between men – if such an example exists, I have not yet seen it.[20]
La Boétie: These objections to marriage are all well and good – but for all your claims of possessing a libertine streak, naturally suspicious as you are of any constraint on your freedom, I find it contradictory that you are opposed to the overthrow of absolute monarchy,[21] an institution that represents the very worst of our wilful obedience under the tyrant’s rule. Arbitrary power cannot be checked by our institutions, nor by the rule of law; we must withdraw consent and emancipate ourselves.[22] This is the sole way through which we can achieve true freedom, yet despite the injustice of the state, you value stability above all else, and would rather obey in silence than advocate for the establishment of a better regimen.[23]
Montaigne: On the contrary, I do not find any incongruity between the opinions I have raised. If I ever were to wed, I would observe the laws of marriage as strictly as any; for even the men who are pushed into such an obligation have nevertheless pledged to remain within the laws of common duty, and those that do so with defiance and hatred have committed a traitorous injustice.[24] In the same way, as Socrates reminds us, we must in some ways renounce our natural liberty and adhere to the laws that the social contract subjects us to.[25] I have at times been more outspoken than even you on the deficiencies of state power and the folly of our laws, subject as they are to myriad interpretations, thus opening the door to the most gross violations of justice.[26] I often feel that it would be better to have none at all, than the hundreds that are currently in place. Yet in all matters I prefer to avoid extremes; any reasoning, no matter how just it may seem, is capable of falling prey to the intransigence of dogma.
But come, my friend. While I enjoy our sparring, I fear I have digressed, as is my custom. Let us return to the subject at hand.
La Boétie: Very well, friend. I wish to leave you my library and my papers, in the hope that you may find a few works worthy of publication. I only ask of you one thing. I must admit that your high praise raises the spirits of a weary man. But do not paint a portrait of me in death that deceptively displays a perfect image, devoid of the defects that were present in life. Held within the confines of a frame, the painted image of a man remains suspended in a moment, untarnished by the travails of life.[27] A skilled artist can obscure the most disfiguring blemish and blot out the darkest elements of a man’s character to permit a duplicitous glory to masquerade in its place. Do not allow your words to consign our friendship to the same fate.
By way of example: it will not be unknown to you, having read the poetry that I have addressed to you, that to me our friendship is a sacred name, a holy thing,[28] and that I believe it is indeed a perfect union, despite the disbelief of our acquaintances that such a short-lived friendship could have been forged with such intensity.[29] But could it not be said that the ideal friendship you speak of can only find its foundation in true equality?[30] The gulf of the years between us, not to mention our wholly dissimilar temperaments and my role as your mentor, have rendered our positions unequal.[31] Furthermore, had the grace of God afforded me a greater number of years, perhaps your tender affections towards me would have waned, or the fickle rivers of circumstance would have carried us in separate directions. You know as well as I that the whims of Fate cannot be known or understood – we all are at her mercy.
Montaigne: The events you describe would indeed be typical of ordinary and lesser friendships. Ideal friends as we are, inequality of the body has no bearing on the confluence of the soul. Rather, we are two parts of the same whole; I know your mind as well as my own.[32] Furthermore, your depiction of our inequality is greatly exaggerated. There is but two years between us, and unless I am mistaken, I believe that you have had as much to learn from me as I from you.[33] Our deepest selves are reflected in each other, allowing us to gain self-knowledge in a manner that is impossible to achieve alone.[34] In short, we are in all important ways equal, save in ability; you surpass me infinitely in every virtue.[35]
But let us remain on this subject no longer: I see you are growing weak, and you can no longer hear my words. What is it that you are saying? Come closer to me.
La Boétie: My brother, will you not give me a place?[36]
Montaigne: As long as you are still speaking to me and breathing, you have your place in this world. Yet why do you repeat yourself, my friend? You should not wear yourself out by making this request so vehemently. In truth, I know not what you mean. Though I had a mind to honour your legacy by publishing your excellent work,[37] my words of tribute would be as grotesques around a sublime centre.[38] Indeed, any service I had to offer you in death would be but a pale ghost of what you have done for me in life. But if there is anything that puts you at ease, friend, I will do it.
Do not speak any longer – I see you are in pain. My dear friend, what will I be without you? I will do nothing but drag wearily on through an endless, dreary night.[39] Life’s pleasures, failing to console me, will only redouble my grief. I rather think that once you have gone, I should rid myself of all attachments and extricate myself from this world as fully as I can. Better not to love at all, than to suffer such a painful loss again.[40]
Madison James is an MA Newspaper Journalism student at City, University of London, and a graduate in Politics and French from the University of Bristol. She has previously written for publications such as Islington Now, Marlborough News, Epigram and Empoword.
Bibliography
Boétie, Étienne de La, ‘Discours de La Servitude Volontaire/Édition 1922/Texte Entier’, Wikisource (Bossard, 1970) https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Discours_de_la_servitude_volontaire/%C3%89dition_1922/Texte_entier [Accessed 3 May 2024]
Caudron, Vincent, ‘Recapturing the Self: Montaigne on Friendship, Self-Knowledge, and the Art of Living’, The Marriage of Aesthetics and Ethics, 2015, 27–45 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004298811_004
Cottrell, Robert D, Montaigne Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum, 1st and 2nd edn (Amherst, Massachusetts: Hestia Press, 1991), iii
Epictetus, Discourses, Thomas Wentworth Higginson ed., Epictetus, Discourses, Book 4 http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0557.tlg001.perseus-eng2:4 [Accessed 3 May 2024]
Ferguson, Gary, ‘Perfecting Friendship: Montaigne’s Itch’, Montaigne Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum, 9 (1997), 105–20
Frame, Donald M., Montaigne: A Biography (Berkeley: North Point Press, 1984)
Heitsch, Dorothea, and Vallee, Jean-Francois, eds. Printed Voices : The Renaissance Culture of Dialogue (2004). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Jordan, Constance, ‘Montaigne on Property, Public Service, and Political Servitude’, Renaissance Quarterly, 56 (2003), 408–35 <http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1261852>
Lefèvre, Daniel, ‘Montaigne et La Boétie : Deux Images de l’amitié’, Imaginaire & Inconscient, n° 20 (2008), 15–21 http://dx.doi.org/10.3917/imin.020.0015
Les ‘Essais’ de Michel de Montaigne, édition conforme au texte de l’exemplaire de Bordeaux, par Pierre Villey, rééditée sous la direction et avec une préface de V.-L. Saulnier (Paris, PUF, 1965), digitized edition with Corresponding Digital Page Images from the Bordeaux Copy www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/ARTFL/projects/montaigne/, I, 1, p. 8
Magnien, Michel, ‘La Boétie and Montaigne’, The Oxford Handbook of Montaigne, 2016, 97–116 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190215330.013.6
Newman, Saul, ‘La Boétie and Republican Liberty: Voluntary Servitude and Non-Domination’, European Journal of Political Theory, 21 (2019), 134–54 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474885119863141
Poemata XX, v. 1–11, ‘To Michel de Montaigne,’ trans. Robert Cottrell, Montaigne Studies 3 (1) (1991)
Pozen, David E., ‘Friendship without the Friend: The Many Meanings of La Boétie for Montaigne’, Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 34 (2003), 135–49 http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cjm.2003.0019
Rigolot, Francois, ‘Montaigne’s Purloined Letters’, Yale French Studies, 1983, 145-166
Schaefer, David L., ‘Montaigne and the Classical Tradition’ in International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 8(2) (2001), 179–194
[1] Les ‘Essais’ de Michel de Montaigne, édition conforme au texte de l’exemplaire de Bordeaux, par Pierre Villey, rééditée sous la direction et avec une préface de V.-L. Saulnier (Paris, PUF, 1965), digitized edition with Corresponding Digital Page Images from the Bordeaux Copy (www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/ARTFL/projects/montaigne/), I, 1, p. 8. All references hereafter will be to this edition and will be given in short form.
[2] David E. Pozen, ‘Friendship without the Friend: The Many Meanings of La Boétie for Montaigne’, Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 34 (2003), 135–49 (p. 147).
[3] François Rigolot, ‘Problematizing Renaissance Exemplarity: The Inward Turn of Dialogue from Petrarch to Montaigne’, in Printed Voices: The Renaissance Culture of Dialogue, ed. by Dorothea Heitsch, and Jean-François Vallée, University of Toronto Press (2004), 3-24 (p.16).
[4] Robert D. Cottrell, Montaigne Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum, 1st and 2nd edn, Amherst, Massachusetts: Hestia Press (1991), iii (p 3-5).
[5] Heitsch, p.114.
[6] Heitsch and Vallée, p.ix-xx.
[7] Heitsch, p.115; Essais: 1965: I:9:36.
[8] Donald M. Frame, ‘Montaigne: A Biography’, Berkeley: North Point Press, (1984) (p.78).
[9] Francois Rigolot, ‘Montaigne’s Purloined Letters’, Yale French Studies, 1983 (p.146). La Boétie is later quoted as worrying about the loved ones he will leave behind in an ‘obsessive fashion’. This leads us to question how far stoicism can help to assuage fear at the moment of death.
[10] David L. Schaefer, ‘Montaigne and the Classical Tradition’ in International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 8(2) (2001), 179–194 (p.182). In Essais: 1965: I:14:51, Montaigne tests out Epictetus’ maxim concerning stoicism in the face of life’s greatest evils: death, poverty and pain. Here, he expounds on his belief that humans can make peace with their own mortality and show indifference or defiance when faced with death, a view that was almost certainly influenced by the fate of La Boétie.
[11] Essais: 1965: II:37:774.
[12] Essais: 1965: III:13:1091.
[13] Essais: 1965: III:13:1091.
[14] Essais: 1965: I:20:82
[15] For my part, by ‘finding contentment in simplicity’, Montaigne is not referring to a renunciation of worldly pleasures – rather a life that rejects extravagance and all-consuming ambition, with a focus on ensuring one’s own comfort and ease in relative solitude, as affirmed in Essais: 1965: I:39:237.
[16] Essais: 1965: III:13:1084
[17] Cottrell, p.7-10. La Boétie dedicated three Latin poems to Montaigne, of which two served as warnings to his friend against decadence.
[18] Essais: 1965: III:5:852.
[19] Essais: 1965: III:5:851.
[20] Gary Ferguson, ‘Perfecting Friendship: Montaigne’s Itch’, Montaigne Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum, 9 (1997), 105–20 (p.108).
[21] Rigolot, ‘Problematizing Renaissance Exemplarity’, p.14.
[22] Saul Newman, ‘La Boétie and Republican Liberty: Voluntary Servitude and Non-Domination’, European Journal of Political Theory, 21 (2019), 134–54. (p.145).
[23] Essais: 1965: II:17:656.
[24] Essais: 1965: III:5:853.
[25] Constance Jordan, ‘Montaigne on Property, Public Service, and Political Servitude’, Renaissance Quarterly, 56 (2003), 408–35.
[26] Essais: 1965: III:13:1070.
[27] Daniel Lefèvre, ‘Montaigne et La Boétie : Deux Images de l’amitié’, Imaginaire & Inconscient, 20 (2008), 15–21 (p.19). This image reflects Lefèvre’s view that Montaigne constructed an idealised, ‘modèle inaltérable’ of friendship following La Boétie’s death.
[28] Étienne de La Boétie, ‘Discours de La Servitude Volontaire/Édition 1922/Texte Entier’, Wikisource (Bossard, 1970) (p.98) [Accessed 3 May 2024].
[29] Poemata XX, v. 1–11, ‘To Michel de Montaigne,’ trans. Robert Cottrell, Montaigne Studies 3 (1) (1991) (p.21).
[30] La Boétie, p.98
[31] Michel Magnien, ‘La Boétie and Montaigne’, The Oxford Handbook of Montaigne, 2016, 97–116 (p.98).
[32] Vincent Caudron, ‘Recapturing the Self: Montaigne on Friendship, Self-Knowledge, and the Art of Living’, The Marriage of Aesthetics and Ethics, 2015, 27–45 (p.35).
[33] Rigolot, ‘Montaigne’s Purloined Letters’, p.147.
[34] Caudron, p.37.
[35] Magnien, p.103.
[36] Cottrell, p.4. In a letter to his father, Montaigne writes that La Boétie requested to be ‘given a place’, the meaning of which remains open to interpretation.
[37] Having published 29 of La Boétie’s unpublished poems at the centre of the Essais, Montaigne dramatically crossed each one of them out prior to the publication of 1588 edition of the essays and instead wrote the single sentence “ces vers se voient ailleurs” (Essais: 1965: I:29:196). Perhaps he wished to step out from the shadow of La Boétie and assert the worth of the Essais as a standalone work, as stated by Rigolot in ‘Montaigne’s Purloined Letters’, (p.154). I believe it could signal that Montaigne had begun to move on from the devastating loss.
[38] Essais: 1965: I:28:183.
[39] Caudron, p.33.
[40] Epictetus, Discourses, Thomas Wentworth Higginson ed., Epictetus, Discourses, Book 4 [Accessed 3 May 2024].
This emotive confession brings to mind a revealing passage from the Essais: 1965: I:20:88-9: “Je me desnoue par tout; mes adieux sont à demi prins de chacun, sauf de moy. ” A more literal reading would suggest that Montaigne has prepared for death in a practical sense. However, in the previous paragraph, he discusses the prospect of missing the presence of loved ones following a loss. The use of ‘desnouer’ additionally implies a sense of liberation from all attachments. This mindset would perhaps explain why Montaigne does not express comparative sorrow at the loss of family members, including his daughters; it is also very much in keeping with Stoic thought on emotional detachment, notably articulated by Epictetus, who suggests that we own nothing that is external and that we cannot be devoted to anything that we will eventually lose.