Author

Étienne de La Boétie

1530-1563 · French judge, poet and political writer, friend of Montaigne

About Étienne de La Boétie

Étienne de La Boétie (1530–1563) was born at Sarlat in the Périgord and trained in law at the University of Orléans. From 1554 he served as a counsellor in the Parlement of Bordeaux, where he met Michel de Montaigne, who became his closest friend. He translated works of Xenophon and Plutarch and wrote French and Latin verse. He died near Bordeaux in August 1563, aged thirty-two, with Montaigne at his bedside.

Notable works

On this site

Discourse on Voluntary Servitude

Étienne de La Boétie

c. 1548 (published 1576) · Renaissance Early Modern · Political Theory

The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude is a short essay asking one question with unusual persistence: how can so many men, cities and nations put up with a single tyrant, who has no power except what they give him? La Boétie, writing as a young law student around 1548 (some scholars date it to about 1552-53), addresses the question to a friend named Longa and answers it in stages.

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