Etienne of Boétie , born with Sarlat on November 1st 1530 and deceased with Germignan the August 18th 1563, was a writer French.

Biography

Wire of a particular lieutenant of the seneshal of Périgord, and of a family of magistrates, Etienne of Boétie grows in an enlightened medium. Its entourage is mainly made up of cultivated middle-class men. Little information on most of the life of Boétie (its childhood, its education, first years of its magistrature) is preserved. What is certain, it is that Boétie still extremely young person with died of his/her father. The child is thus raised by his uncle Estienne, who takes the greatest care of the education of his nephew. It is for the latter second father, which makes to say to Etienne “that he owes him his institution and all that he is and could be”. Many authors claim that Boétie made its traditional humanities with the College of Guyenne to Bordeaux. However the historian of this institution there forever met the name of Boétie among the pupils of this establishment. Towards the end of its humanities, Boétie develops a passion for the ancient philology which attracts it as it attracts all its century besides. It composes of manner of relaxation, of the French worms, Latin or Greek. It writes twenty-nine sonnets in love and becomes later the translator of the works of Plutarque, Virgile and Arioste. Thereafter it starts studies of right to the university of Orleans. At the beginning of his academic works this eighteen years old young man only, writes its first work, which will become later most famous of its works, famous “the Speech of the Voluntary Constraint or Contr' one”.

Thanks to the reputation that Boétie is done during its studies, it is allowed in quality to advise at the Parliament of Bordeaux in January 1553, two years before the lawful age. December 13rd of the same year, it is high with the office of Advising in the court. As from 1560, Boétie is charged by Michel with Hospital with intervening in various negotiations to arrive at peace in the wars of religion opposing Catholiques and Protestant. Meanwhile Boétie Marie with Marguerite de Carle, a widow resulting from a family considered, and mother of two children. The latter are the fruit of the marriage between the brother of Michel de Montaigne, Thomas, and marries it of Boétie.

About the middle of the year a 1563 terrible evil terrace Boétie; “it is a flow of belly with trenches”. It is about a dysentery which worsens quickly. The plague and the famine had burst in Périgord. Montaigne supposes that his/her friend brought back the germ of it. Etienne of Boétie tries to regain the Medoc, where the grounds of his wife are located. He hopes that the fresh air of the fields will hasten its re-establishment, but he must stop on the way, so much the pains are strong. It is in his/her colleague in the Parliament, Richard de Lestomac, brother-in-law of Montaigne, that it rests. He dies shortly after. Realizing of the gravity of his state, Etienne of Boétie dictates his will. He awaits the exit of the fight with courage and philosophy until his last hour. In a letter addressed to his/her father, Montaigne describes the characteristics of this disease and the end of his/her friend. It starts to calculate and finishes its letter in moving terms: “The 18 of August of the year 1563, Etienne of Boétie expires. He is old only 32 years 9 months 17 days”.

The Speech of the voluntary constraint or Contr' a is a short indictment against the Tyrannie, which surprises by its scholarship and its depth, since written by an young man of hardly 18 years. Montaigne seeks to know the author of it: from its meeting with Boétie, is born then a friendship which will last until the death of this last.

Montaigne returns a very beautiful testimony of their friendship in his Tests, in chapter 27 of book 1. After having lengthily developed the question about the friendship which bound it with Boétie, it ends up saying: “Moreover, which we call usually friendly and amitiez, they are only accoinctances and familiaritez nouees by some occasion or convenience, by the means of which our hearts discuss. In the friendship dequoy I speak, they meslent and confuse one in the other, of a so universal meslange, that they erase, and do not find any more the cousture which has them joinctes. If one presses to me to say to pourquoy I it aymoys, I feel that cannot be expressed, that while respondant: By what it estoit luy, what it estoit moy”.

The text of Boétie raises the question of the legitimacy of any authority about a population and tries to analyze the reasons of the tender of this one (domination ratio/constraint). The many examples drawn from the Antiquité which, like habit at the time, illustrate its text, enable him to criticize, under cover of scholarship, the situation Politique of its time. Its manuscript was published in 1576.

Speech of the voluntary constraint

The Discours of the voluntary constraint constitutes a questioning of legitimacy of controlling, that Boétie calls " maîtres" or " tyrans". Whatever the way in which a tyrant rose with the capacity (elections, violence, succession), it is never its good government which explains its domination and the fact that this one perdure. For Boétie, controlling them rather tend to be characterized by their impéritie. More than the fear of the sanction, it is initially the practice which the people of the constraint have which explains why the domination of the Master perdure. Then the Idéologie comes (that Marx will call Opium of the people) and the Superstition S. But these the first two means make it possible to dominate only the ignoramuses. The " comes; secrecy of all domination" : to make take part dominated in their domination. Thus, the tyrant throws crumbs with the Courtisans. If the people are constrained to obey, the courtiers should not only obey, but precede the desires of the tyrant. As, they are even less free as the people himself, and voluntarily choose the constraint. Thus a pyramid of the capacity is established: the tyrant dominates five of them, which dominates hundred of them, which themselves dominates thousand of them… This pyramid crumbles since the courtiers cease giving each other body and heart to the tyrant. Then this one loses any acquired capacity.

In this major text of the political Philosophy, taken again through the ages by parties of various colorings, Boétie opposes the balance of terror which is established between gangsters, equal by their power and who share the spoils of the armed robberies for this reason, with the Amitié which only makes it possible to live free. The tyrant, as for him, lives in permanent fear: not having the equal ones, all fear it, and consequently, it risks the assassination at every moment. Elias Canetti will make a similar painting of the “paranoiac despot” in his chief of work, Masse and power .

If Boétie always remained, by his functions, faithful servant of the law and order, it is however regarded by much as a intellectual precursor of the Anarchisme and civil disobedience.

To include/understand the intentions which lead Etienne of Boétie to write the “Speech of the Voluntary Constraint or Contr' one”, it is necessary to go back to the drama which takes place about 1548. “In 1539, François Ier, king de France, tries to unify the gabelle one. It imposes attics on salt close to the Spanish border, in the areas which are deprived by it. In reaction of this attempt of risings take place. The first in 1542, then largest in 1548 in Bordeaux”. The constable of Montmorency restores the pitiless order of manner. If one refers of it to the writer Jacques Auguste de Thou, it would be under the impression of these horrors and cruelties made in Bordeaux, that Boétie composes the “Speech of Voluntary Constraint”.

Much thinks that the constraint is forced, whereas it is very voluntary. In any case it is what Boétie wants to prove in its “Speech”. Indeed, the question which it raises, touches with the gasoline even of the policy: “why does one obey? ”. One generally admits as self evident the existence of an absolute capacity and one omits to wonder from which obedience comes. A man cannot control people if these people do not submit initially itself. Although violence is its specific means, it only is not enough to define the State. It is because of the legitimacy which the company grants to him that the crimes are committed. It would be enough with the man not to more want to be used for to become free; “Be determined not to serve, and you more here are free”. In this respect Boétie tries to include/understand for which reasons the man lost the desire to find his freedom. The purpose of the “speech” is to explain this tender.

First of all Boétie distinguishes three kinds of tyrants: “The ones reign by the election of the people, the others by the force of the weapons, the last by succession of race”. The two first behave as in conquered country. Those who are born kings, in general are hardly better, since they grew within tyranny. These is the latter case which interests Boétie. How is it made that the people continue to obey the tyrant blindly? It is possible that the men lost their freedom by constraint, but it is nevertheless astonishing that they do not fight to regain their freedom.

The first reason for which the men are voluntarily useful, it is that there are those which never knew freedom and which are “accustomed with subjection”. Boétie describes in its “Speech”: “The men born under the yoke, then nourished and raised in the constraint, without looking at front, are satisfied to live as they were born and other goods nor other rights do not think of having that those which they found; they take for their state of nature the state of their birth”.

The second reason, it is that under the tyrants people become “loose and effeminate”. Subjected people have neither heat nor pugnacity with the combat. They do not fight any more for one cause but by obligation. This desire for gaining their is removed. The tyrants try to stimulate this pusillanimity and maintain the men stupid in their giving “bread and plays”. These absolutists will go even until saying that they have the capacity to cure certain diseases; for example Hugues Capet, first King de France, claimed to have the capacity to cure the disease of the scrofula.

The last reason is undoubtedly most important, because it reveals us the spring and the secrecy of the domination, “the support and base of any tyranny”. The tyrant is supported by some faithful men who subject all the country to him. These men are called by the tyrant to be “the accomplices of his cruelties” or precisely approached the tyrant in order to be able to handle it. These faithful has in their turn of the men who are to them obeying. The latter have with their dependence of other men whom they raise in dignity. To the latter the government of the provinces or “the handling of the sums of money is given”. This handling is allotted to these men “in order to hold them by their greed or their cruelty, so that they exert them at named point and do so much difficulty besides than they can be maintained only under their shade, than they can exempt laws and sorrows only thanks to their protection”.

Everyone is regarded as tyrant. Those which are in bottom of the pyramid, the farmers and the workmen, are in a certain free direction `': they carry out the orders of their superiors and make remainder of their spare time what they like. But “to approach the tyrant, is this other thing that to move away from its freedom and, so to speak, to embrace and tighten with two hands its constraint”? In other words, those which are in bottom of the level are much happier and to some extent much more `free' that those which treat them like “convicts or slaves”. “Is this there to live happy? Is this to even live? ”, wonders Boétie. These favorites should less remember those which gained much near the tyrants that those which, “being gorged some time, lost there shortly after the goods and the life”.

In addition it is impossible to bind friendship with a tyrant, because it is and will be always above. “One should not await friendship of that which has the enough hard heart to hate a whole kingdom which does to nothing but obey him. But it is not the tyrant whom the people accuse of the evil that he suffers, but well those which control it. ” To complete its “Speech” Boétie has recourse to the prayer. He requests “good God and liberal so that he holds over there purposely, for the tyrants and their accomplices, some particular sorrow”.

Quotations

• There are three kinds of tyrants. The ones reign by the election of the people, the others by the force of the weapons, the last by succession of race.
• Be thus determined not to be useful more and you will be free.
• They are large only because we are with knees.
• So that the men, as long as they are men, let themselves fix, one needs of two things one: or that they are constrained there, or that they are misled.
• There is no doubt that the nature directs us where she wants, well or badly parcelled out, but it is necessary to acknowledge which she less has of being able on us that the practice.
• if all things become natural with the man when it is accustomed to it, only remainder in its nature that which wishes only the simple and nonfaded things.
• the first reason of the voluntary constraint, it is the practice.
• when I think of these people who flatter the tyrant to exploit his tyranny and the constraint of the people, I almost as often am amazed of their spite as apitoyé of their stupidity.
• The Catholic church is marvelously corrupted of infinite abuses.
• … I think that those which misused the religion for evil to make will still find there with better sign.

Works

• complete Works , Editions William Blake & Co., 1991. ISBN 2-905810602
• Raoul de Cambrai (1580),
• Memory concerning the Edict of January 1562.
• Speech of the voluntary constraint , Paris: Thousand and One Nights, 1997. ISBN 2-910233944
• Speech of the voluntary constraint , Paris: Flammarion, 1993. ISBN 2-080703943
• Speech of the voluntary Constraint , Paris: Payot, collection Small library, 2002. (two versions of the text + complementary studies (Abensour, Clastres, Lefort…). ISBN 2-228-89669-1

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• BELY (Lucien), modern France (1498-1789), Paris, University Presses of France, 1998

• BERTHELOT (Anne) & CORNILLIAT (François), Literature the Middle Ages/XVIe century, Paris, ED. Nathan, 1988
• FAGUET (Emile), Around Montaigne, Geneva, ED. Slatkine, 1999
• DAY (Hem), Etienne of Boétie; Outline on its Life and its Work, Paris - Brussels, ED. Ensée & Action, 1954
• DEFAUX (Gerard), Montaigne and the work of the friendship, Orleans, Paradigm, 2001
• the BOETIE (Etienne), Speech of the Voluntary Constraint or Contr' one, Geneva, Droz Bookstores, 1987
• MAGNIEN (Michel), Bibliography of Etienne of Boétie, Paris, ED. Diffusion CNRS, 1997
• MONTAIGNE (Michel), the Tests I 28 “Of the friendship”, Paris, University Presses of France, 2004
• TETEL (Marcel), Etienne of Boétie: Wise revolutionist and poet périgourdin; Acts of the International symposium Duke University (26- March 28th, 1999), Paris, ED. Champion, 2004 Anonymous
• , Etienne of Boétie or importance of insubordination, Brussels, 2006

External bonds

• Full text in French modernized of the '' Discours of the voluntary constraint ''

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