Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
The Discours sur la servitude volontaire
of
ÉTIENNE DE LA BOÉTIE,
1548
There are many editions of this classic work.
In addition to La Boetie's book,
here is Murray Rothbard's long article,
"The Political Thought of Etienne de La Boetie."
The version below was rendered into English by
HARRY KURZ
[Published under the title
ANTI-DICTATOR]
New York: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS: 1942.
DEDICATION
COPYRIGHT 1942
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK
First printing, January, 1942
Second printing, June, 1942
[Copyright not renewed, so now in public domain.]
Foreign agents:
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, Humphrey Milford, Amen House, London, E.G. 4, England,
AND B. I. Building, Nicol Road, Bombay, India
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
This call to freedom ringing down the corridors of four centuries is sounded
again here for the sake of peoples in all totalitarian countries today who dare
not freely declare their thought.
It will also ring dear and beautiful in the ears of those who still live
freely and who by faith and power will contribute to the liberation of the rest
of mankind from the horrors of political serfdom.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Dr. Royal S. van de Woestyne, formerly at Knox College, where I knew him,
and now teaching at the Universities of Chicago and of Buffalo, first stirred
an abiding interest in La Boétie by his expressed admiration for the
spirit of liberty in the sixteenth century.
Mr. Gilbert H. Doane, formerly at the University of Nebraska, where I knew
him, and now Director of Libraries at the University of Wisconsin, urged me
effectively to undertake the work of giving to our new world a new rendering of
La Boétie's old cry for freedom.
Grace Cook Kurz, my wife, lent her luminous intelligence and beautiful
literary style to the perfecting of the translation of the essay.
To Roy, Gilbert, and Grace, I express here gratitude for their inspiration
and comradeship.
To Matilda L. Berg of the Columbia University Press I wish to make a special
acknowledgment of her skilful and close scrutiny of the manuscript of this book
and her excellent guidance.
HARRY KURZ
Queens College
February, 1942
INTRODUCTION
Unique Qualities of This Discourse
La Boétie's essay against dictators[1]
makes stirring reading. A clear analysis of how tyrants get power and maintain
it, its simple assumption is that real power always lies in the hands of the
people and that they can free themselves from a despot by an act of will
unaccompanied by any gesture of violence. The astounding fact about this tract
is that in 1948 it will be four hundred years old. One would seek hard to find
any writing of current times that strips the sham from dictators more
vigorously. Better than many modern political thinkers, its author not only
reveals the contemptible nature of dictatorships, but he goes on to show, as is
aptly stated by the exiled Borgese [2] "that
all servitude is voluntary and the slave is more despicable than the tyrant is
hateful." No outraged cry from the past or present points the moral more
clearly that Rome was worthy of her Nero, and by inference, Europe of her
present little strutters and the agony in which they have engulfed their world.
So appropriate to our day is this courageous essay that one's amazement is
aroused by the fact that a youth of eighteen really wrote it four centuries
ago, with such far-sighted wisdom that his words can resound today as an
ever-echoing demand for what is still dearest to mankind.
Life of the Author
La Boétie [3] was born at Sarlat,
southwestern France, on November 1, 1530. He came from the provincial nobility,
his father being an assistant to the governor of Perigord. His uncle, a priest,
gave him his early training and prepared him for entrance to the School of Law
at the University of Toulouse, where in 1553 he received his degree with
special honors. During these years of study he steeped himself also in the
classics so that later he translated from the Greek and composed poetry in
Latin. Early in this period he wrote his immortal essay, presumably in 1548.
His reputation as a scholar procured for him at graduation, although he was
under age, appointment as a judge attached to the court of Bordeaux. He was
named to a post vacated by an illustrious predecessor, Longa,[4] who was summoned as justice to Paris. During the next
ten years we find La Boétie's name on the official records of the court
in connection with a number of difficult cases.
A justice of that day had to perform a wide variety of duties. La
Boétie was called in as literary critic and censor when the
Collège de Guyenne wanted official sanction for the presentation of some
plays. A little later he was entrusted with the delicate mission of traveling
to Paris to petition the king, Henry II, for special financial arrangements for
the regular payment of the salaries of the court. He was successful in this
quest and brought back also a personal message from the great Chancellor of
France, Michel de l'Hospital, who was trying to pacify Catholics and
Protestants and prevent fratricidal bloodshed. By the age of thirty our
magistrate had achieved considerable renown as a specialist in arranging
compromise between these religious factions, with a scrupulous fairness that
inspired confidence. For the next three years, till 1563, he was extremely
active at Agen, a hotbed of angry dispute where churches were violently entered
and images destroyed. La Boétie was himself a devout Catholic with a
liberal point of view. His sense of fairness generally led him to assign to the
disputants different churches, and, in towns with only one place of worship,
different hours for religious services. He wrote an approving Mémoire
when the great Chancellor in 1562 issued an edict conferring greater freedom of
worship upon the Huguenots.
La Boétie's efforts might have borne fruit, but at one of his trips
to Agen while some form of dysentery was raging in that region, he caught the
germ, as his great friend Montaigne believes. This was in the spring of 1563.
By August of that year our judge was far from well and decided to go for a rest
to Médoc. Despite his illness he set out from Bordeaux but he was able
to travel only a few kilometers. At Germignan, in the home of a fellow
magistrate, he took to bed and grew rapidly worse. A week later, on August 14,
he made his will, leaving all his papers and books to Montaigne, who
courageously stood by him to the moment of his death. These deeply moving final
hours are related by Montaigne in a touching letter written to his own father.
A superb testimony to a Christian death, it is worthy to take its place beside
other great documents of supreme farewell to life. In the early morning of
Wednesday, August 18, 1563, La Boétie left this world at the very
youthful age of less than thirty-three years.
Friendship of Two Men
The relationship between Montaigne and La Boétie is so impressive
that their coming together seems, according to the former, to have been
predestined. So irresistibly were they drawn to each other that, when they met,
their earlier careers appeared as paths converging toward their union.
Michel de Montaigne succeeded his father at the court of Périgueux
just before this court was merged with the one at Bordeaux. When in September,
1561, Montaigne began his judicial functions in Bordeaux, La Boétie had
already served the tribunal there for eight years. It was natural for
Montaigne, who was two years younger, to look up to the colleague whose tract
on Voluntary Servitude he had already read in manuscript. In his essay
on Friendship [5] he tells us of his
feeling: "If I am urged to say why I loved him, I feel that it cannot be
put into words; there is beyond any observation of mine a mysterious,
inexplicable and predestined force in this union. We sought each other before
we had met through reports each had heard about the other, which attracted our
affections more singularly than the nature of the situation can suggest. I
believe it was some dispensation from Heaven. When we met we embraced each
other as soon as we heard the other's name.... We found we were so captivated,
so revealed to each other, so drawn together, that nothing ever since has been
closer than one to the other."
In various Latin epistles addressed to his friend, La Boétie pays
similar tribute. And even in the essay on Voluntary Servitude, written
before they met, we get a glimpse of what friendship could mean to a man whose
spirit habitually dwelt on a high plane of integrity. Thereafter, these two
made a perfect exchange of exalted love in a relationship for which their
joined names have become a symbol. It is small wonder then that Montaigne will
add to his immortal essay, some twenty-five years after the death of his
friend, his sad but beautiful conclusion to the ineffable nature of their
friendship: "We loved each other because it was he, because it was
I." There is nothing left to say.
We can begin to understand what the loss of such a friend meant to
Montaigne. During the earlier years of mourning he languishes. Pleasure revives
his pain for he wants his friend to share it at his side. His work at the court
of Bordeaux becomes distasteful and he finally gives up his post to dedicate
himself to his departed friend and to perpetuate his memory. First he prepares
for publication all the manuscripts left him by La Boétie.[6] Very gradually he welcomes solitude and gives himself
to the slow elaboration of his own sagacious essays.
It is to the honor of Montaigne that all his life he showed his gratitude
for this unique friend bestowed upon him; and it is to the glory of La
Boétie that he fully deserved the immortality into which their two names
are forever fused by love.
Curious History of the Essay
Between 1560 and 1598 there were many outbreaks of religious war in France.
Three brothers were crowned kings of France during this time, Francis II
(1559-1560), Charles IX (1560-1574), and Henry III (1574-1589). That all three
were ineffective rulers is largely due to the machinations of their mother,
Catherine de Medici, who finally contrived the infamous massacre of St.
Bartholomew's Day, 1572. It was only after the Bourbon Henry IV abjured his
Protestant faith a second time and entered Paris that some semblance of order
was gradually restored, eventuating in the famous Edict of Nantes, 1598, that
granted freedom of worship in the realm. Such was the period during which the
Servitude volontaire was to play an extraordinary role.
Montaigne tells us it was composed in 1548, a date he later changed to 1546.
In all likelihood La Boétie wrote it as a literary essay inspired by his
Greek and Latin studies and conceived in the nature of a tribute to the
classical spirit. There was no immediate event which drove the young author to
this cry for freedom. It was circulated among friends at the University of
Toulouse and copies of it were presumably made. When in 1563 Montaigne
inherited the original among other books and papers, he placed these precious
reliques in his own library. These memorabilia must have spoken to him, he must
have fingered them as he composed his own essay on Friendship in the years just
before 1580. He had already in 1571 published most of these manuscripts, but it
occurred to him that the Servitude volontaire would make a fitting
pendant to his chapter on Friendship and reveal to the world the heart and mind
of his friend. He says at the beginning of his Chapter XXVIII: "It is a
treatise which he entitled Voluntary Servitude, but those who did not
know this have neatly renamed it Anti-One. He wrote it in his early
youth, before reaching his eighteenth year, as a sort of discourse in honor of
liberty opposed to tyranny. It has for some time been circulated among people
of culture and not without great and deserved appreciation, for it is as
pleasing and spirited as possible.... But of his writing there remained only
this discourse (and even that by accident, for I believe he never saw it after
it got away from his hands) and certain remarks on the Edict of January, famous
during our civil wars, which will find their place elsewhere.[7] That is all I could find in the papers he left except
the volume of his works that I have already published. I am myself especially
indebted to the essay on Servitude, for it became the means of our first
acquaintance. It was shown to me before I met him and gave me my first
knowledge of his name...." Montaigne then goes on to celebrate the virtues
of friendship, cites examples of it, and after speaking touchingly of his own
attachment to his departed friend, he summons the young author of eighteen to
speak. Then, suddenly, he adds: "Because I have discovered that this work
has since been published, and with an evil purpose, by those who seek to
disturb and change the form of our government without caring whether they
better it, and who mixed it in with other grist from their own mills, I have
decided not to print it here.' Instead he substitutes a sequence of twenty-nine
sonnets already printed in the earlier volume of La Boétie's works,
sonnets in honor of a lady.[8]
The essay was thus suppressed by the man who had the original in his hands
and was therefore most capable of giving an authoritative version. This is to
be regretted, as pirated editions had appeared. We must concede that Montaigne
had ample justification for a decision taken merely to keep the good name of La
Boétie out of civil strife. The fact is that the Servitude
volontaire had appeared anonymously in print five times between 1574 and
1578,[9] largely as an instrument in the hands of
Protestants to foment rebellion after the massacre of St. Bartholomew. No
wonder then that Montaigne decided to withhold this document and the
observations on the Edict of January, 1562, because, as he said, of the
"brutal unpleasant atmosphere of this most disagreeable season."
These writings officially included by Montaigne in his own pages might have
added fuel to the flame and wronged the reputation of his friend, whose inmost
nature was opposed to violence. La Boétie was very far from imagining
when he composed his classical discourse that it would transform its author ten
years after his death into a champion of Huguenot resistance.
After Henry IV succeeded in quieting the realm by granting freedom of
worship, the Servitude volontaire seemed to have ended its unexpected
role. It was still mentioned in connection with Montaigne's chapter on
Friendship but readers were forgetting why the essayist had decided not to
print it. Richelieu, in the early seventeenth century, was curious enough to
want to read it but he had great difficulty in procuring a copy. A book dealer
finally detached it from the Protestant Mémoires into which it
had been set, and bound it separately for the Cardinal. We have no record of
Richelieu's impressions, but we can surmise that he must have smiled at the
impetuous eloquence against tyranny. Throughout the century nothing further is
heard of the essay. But in 1727, in Geneva, when the publisher Coste was
getting out a five volume edition of Montaigne, he had the bright idea of
adding La Boétie's discourse as a tailpiece in the last volume. His
example has since been followed in all the better editions of the
Essais. The Servitude volontaire thus became again generally
available to readers. An English translation, the only one before the rendering
contained in this book, appeared in London in 1735. The editor has discovered
only one copy of this in the United States.[10]
It is not without emotion that one picks up this early tribute to liberty,
which antedates our Revolution. Since this London edition, the Servitude
volontaire has appeared twice in Italian and in French many times at
peculiar dates, 1789, 1835, 1845, 1863 — in periods marked by agitation
preceding popular revolt. In this way, it would seem that the mildest and most
just of men has become through one inspired essay an instigator of revolution,
a role that has been the historic mission of other humble spirits dedicated to
peace.
The translation given here is not based upon the rather inaccurate printings
of the essay in the sixteenth century but upon the manuscript once possessed by
Henri de Mesmes (1532-1596), Privy Counsellor to Henry II. De Mesmes, then
active in behalf of conciliation between Christian sects, had read this copy of
the Servitude and had written comments in the margin. The manuscript
[11] may well be the original once owned by
Montaigne and lent to his friend Henri de Mesmes, to whom he also dedicated one
of the fragments of La Boétie's works in the volume he published. The
previous English translation was based upon the Protestant version printed in
1577. The differences are matters of detail rather than of spirit.
Interpretation of the Essay
This manifesto from a free spirit fits very well into its century, a period
of geographical exploration, mental inquiry, political dispute, and religious
warfare. The turbulent second half of the sixteenth century, with its growing
Protestantism and its spreading Renaissance, can be viewed as a gathering
effort at emergence from the intellectual trammels of the Middle Ages. We can
discern in France not only authors like Rabelais, Ronsard, and Montaigne, who
all present a new vitality in thought, but also politcal protesters, pleading
for a larger measure of individual freedom in the state. There were tracts like
the Franco-Gallia (1573) of François Hotman, who tries to show
that in becoming hereditary the French monarchy deviated from the principles of
its founding; the Republique (1576) of Jean Bodin, who proposes an
enlightened Catholic government; the Vindiciae contra tyrannos (1578) of
Hubert Languet, wherein royal policies are vigorously attacked; the Discours
politiques et militaires (1587) of the one-armed sea captain
François de la Noue, who found time between campaigns for Henry IV to
preach tolerance. A little later Milton and Hobbes in England will be
discussing similar political questions, Milton with devastating effect in his
Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649). La Boétie would appear as
an inspired ancestor to this distinguished line of political pamphleteers.
Most scholars are agreed that the Servitude volontaire is not to be
considered a transitory political document written to fit some particular
emergency. It seems to be instead a serious contemplation of man's relation to
government, which fact makes it indeed the living document it is today and ever
will be. Just as Machiavelli's system may be termed autocratic, and Calvin's
theocratic, La Boétie's is obviously one of the earliest Christian
demonstrations of a new ideal in government, the democratic, for the author
clearly states that men are born free and equal. The title he chose for his
tract, Voluntary Servitude, proves that he considers the people
responsible for their enslavement to a despot. He feels scorn for the tyrant
but also contempt for the nation submitting to him. La Boétie's genius
consists in realizing and stating succinctly to his times the idea of the
inalienable rights of the people, the very rights claimed for us in the
Preamble to our American Constitution. The entire discourse breathes with this
sentiment of the dignity and intrinsic independence of the individual.
It would be a mistake, however, to consider La Boétie a firebrand
intentionally inciting to revolt against oppression. He has taken every
precaution to prevent the application of his thinking to the government of
France. His terms of deference are too sincere to permit any notion of
hypocritical subservience. The truth is he was not a rebel. We know not only
from his words but also from his judicial record that he was the declared enemy
of violence. His method of redress against dictators is much more subtle and
effective than violence, and might be substantially described as "passive
resistance." He sought political reform not by overt deeds involving
bloodshed, but by a refusal of obedience to the orders of tyrants. Pastor
Niemöller of Germany would be the perfect modern exponent of the doctrine
of the discourse, which teaches essentially a peaceful method of obtaining
liberty by the use of a moral weapon against which no dictator can prevail. La
Boétie paints in lurid and clownish colors the complexion of tyranny,
explains its unstable and contemptible basis, and then shows serenely the way
to its overthrow by patience, passive resistance, and faith in God.
It is not too much to assert that, if this four hundred-year-old essay could
be placed in the hands of the oppressed peoples of our day, they would find a
sure way to a rebirth of freedom, a manifestation of a new spirit that would
almost automatically obliterate the obscurantist strutters who today throttle
their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
ANTI-DICTATOR
[Note on this online edition: Kurz inserted sidebar comments which we
present in the HTML version as the Alt attribute of a graphic image, which
can be read in many browsers by passing the cursor over the image.]
I see no good in having several lords;
Let one alone be master, let one alone be king.
These words Homer puts in the mouth of Ulysses,[1] as he addresses the people. If he had said nothing
further than "I see no good in having several lords," it would have
been well spoken. For the sake of logic he should have
maintained that the rule of several could not be good since the power of one
man alone, as soon as he acquires the title of master, becomes abusive and
unreasonable. Instead he declared what seems preposterous: "Let one alone
be master, let one alone be king." We must not be critical of Ulysses, who
at the moment was perhaps obliged to speak these words in order to quell a
mutiny in the army, for this reason, in my opinion, choosing language to meet
the emergency rather than the truth. Yet, in the light of reason, it is a great
misfortune to be at the beck and call of one master, for it is impossible to be
sure that he is going to be kind, since it is always in his power to be cruel
whenever he pleases. As for having several masters, according to the number one
has, it amounts to being that many times unfortunate. Although I do not wish at
this time to discuss this much debated question, namely whether other types of
government are preferable to monarchy,[2] still I
should like to know, before casting doubt on the place that monarchy should
occupy among commonwealths, whether or not it belongs to such a group, since it
is hard to believe that there is anything of common wealth in a country where
everything belongs to one master. This question, however, can remain for
another time and would really require a separate treatment involving by its
very nature all sorts of political discussion.
For the present I should like merely to understand how it happens that so
many men, so many villages, so
many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no
other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the
extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them
absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than
contradict him.[3] Surely a striking situation!
Yet it is so common that one must grieve the more and wonder the less at the
spectacle of a million men serving in wretchedness, their necks under the yoke,
not constrained by a greater multitude than they, but simply, it would seem,
delighted and charmed by the name of one man alone whose power they need not
fear, for he is evidently the one person whose qualities they cannot admire
because of his inhumanity and brutality toward them. A weakness characteristic
of human kind is that we often have to obey force; we have to make concessions;
we ourselves cannot always be the stronger. Therefore, when a nation is
constrained by the fortune of war to serve a single clique, as happened when
the city of Athens served the thirty Tyrants,[4]
one should not be amazed that the nation obeys, but simply be grieved by the
situation; or rather, instead of being amazed or saddened, consider patiently
the evil and look forward hopefully toward a happier future.
Our nature is such that the common duties of human relationship occupy a
great part of the course of our life. It is reasonable to love virtue, to esteem good deeds, to be
grateful for good from whatever source we may receive it, and, often, to give
up some of our comfort in order to increase the honor and advantage of some man
whom we love and who deserves it. Therefore, if the inhabitants of a country
have found some great personage who has shown rare foresight in protecting them
in an emergency, rare boldness in defending them, rare solicitude in governing
them, and if, from that point on, they contract the habit of obeying him and
depending on him to such an extent that they grant him certain prerogatives, I
fear that such a procedure is not prudent, inasmuch as they remove him from a
position in which he was doing good and advance him to a dignity in which he
may do evil. Certainly while he continues to manifest good will one need fear
no harm from a man who seems to be generally well disposed.
But O good Lord! What strange phenomenon is this? What name shall we give to
it? What is the nature of this misfortune? What vice is it, or, rather, what degradation? To see an
endless multitude of people not merely obeying, but driven to servility? Not
ruled, but tyrannized over? These wretches have no wealth, no kin, nor wife nor
children, not even life itself that they can call their own. They suffer
plundering, wantonness, cruelty, not from an army, not from a barbarian horde,
on account of whom they must shed their blood and sacrifice their lives, but
from a single man; not from a Hercules nor from a Samson, but from a single
little man. Too frequently this same little man is the most cowardly and
effeminate in the nation, a stranger to the powder of battle and hesitant on
the sands of the tournament; not only without energy to direct men by force,
but with hardly enough virility to bed with a common woman! Shall we call
subjection to such a leader cowardice? Shall we say that those who serve him
are cowardly and faint-hearted? If two, if three, if four, do not defend
themselves from the one, we might call that circumstance surprising but
nevertheless conceivable. In such a
case one might be justified in suspecting a lack of courage. But if a hundred,
if a thousand endure the caprice of a single man, should we not rather say that
they lack not the courage but the desire to rise against him, and that such an
attitude indicates indifference rather than cowardice? When not a hundred, not
a thousand men, but a hundred provinces, a thousand cities, a million men,
refuse to assail a single man from whom the kindest treatment received is the
infliction of serfdom and slavery, what shall we call that? Is it cowardice? Of
course there is in every vice inevitably some limit beyond which one cannot go.
Two, possibly ten, may fear one; but when a thousand, a million men, a thousand
cities, fail to protect themselves against the domination of one man, this
cannot be called cowardly, for cowardice does not sink to such a depth, any
more than valor can be termed the effort of one individual to scale a fortress,
to attack an army, or to conquer a kingdom. What monstrous vice, then, is this
which does not even deserve to be called cowardice, a vice for which no term
can be found vile enough, which nature herself disavows and our tongues refuse
to name?
Place on one side fifty thousand armed men, and on the other the same
number; let them join in battle, one side fighting to retain its liberty, the
other to take it away; to which would you, at a guess, promise victory? Which men do you
think would march more gallantly to combat — those who anticipate as a
reward for their suffering the maintenance of their freedom, or those who
cannot expect any other prize for the blows exchanged than the enslavement of
others? One side will have before its eyes the blessings of the past and the
hope of similar joy in the future; their thoughts will dwell less on the
comparatively brief pain of battle than on what they may have to endure
forever, they, their children, and all their posterity. The other side has
nothing to inspire it with courage except the weak urge of greed, which fades
before danger and which can never be so keen, it seems to me, that it will not
be dismayed by the least drop of blood from wounds.
Consider the justly famous battles of Miltiades,[5] Leonidas,[6]
Themistocles,[7] still fresh today in recorded
history and in the minds of men as if they had occurred but yesterday, battles
fought in Greece for the welfare of the Greeks and as an example to the world.
What power do you think gave to such a mere handful of men not the strength but
the courage to withstand the attack of a fleet so vast that even the seas were
burdened, and to defeat the armies of so many nations, armies so immense that
their officers alone outnumbered the entire Greek force? What was it but the
fact that in those glorious days this struggle represented not so much a fight
of Greeks against Persians as a victory of liberty over domination, of freedom
over greed?
It amazes us to hear accounts of the valor that liberty arouses in the
hearts of those who defend it; but who could believe reports of what goes on
every day among the inhabitants of some countries, who could really believe
that one man alone may mistreat a hundred thousand and deprive them of their
liberty? Who would credit such a report if he merely heard it, without being
present to witness the event? And if this condition occurred only in distant
lands and were reported to us, which one among us would not assume the tale to
be imagined or invented, and not really true? Obviously there is no need of
fighting to overcome this single tyrant, for he is automatically defeated if
the country refuses consent to its own enslavement: it is not necessary to
deprive him of anything, but simply to give him nothing; there is no need that
the country make an effort to do anything for itself provided it does nothing
against itself. It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or,
rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they
would put an end to their servitude. A people enslaves itself, cuts its own
throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it
deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery,
or, rather, apparently welcomes it. If it cost the people anything to recover
its freedom, I should not urge action to this end, although there is nothing a
human should hold more dear than the restoration of his own natural right, to
change himself from a beast of burden back to a man, so to speak. I do not
demand of him so much boldness; let him prefer the doubtful security of living
wretchedly to the uncertain hope of living as he pleases. What then? If in
order to have liberty nothing more is needed than to long for it, if only a
simple act of the will is necessary, is there any nation in the world that
considers a single wish too high a price to pay in order to recover rights
which it ought to be ready to redeem at the cost of its blood, rights such that
their loss must bring all men of honor to the point of feeling life to be
unendurable and death itself a deliverance?
Everyone knows that the fire from a little spark will increase and blaze
ever higher as long as it finds wood to burn; yet without
being quenched by water, but merely by finding no more fuel to feed on, it
consumes itself, dies down, and is no longer a flame. Similarly, the more
tyrants pillage, the more they crave, the more they ruin and destroy; the more
one yields to them, and obeys them, by that much do they become mightier and
more formidable, the readier to annihilate and destroy. But if not one thing is
yielded to them, if, without any violence they are simply not obeyed, they
become naked and undone and as nothing, just as, when the root receives no
nourishment, the branch withers and dies.
To achieve the good that they desire, the bold do not fear danger; the
intelligent do not refuse to undergo suffering. It is the
stupid and cowardly who are neither able to endure hardship nor to vindicate
their rights; they stop at merely longing for them, and lose through timidity
the valor roused by the effort to claim their rights, although the desire to
enjoy them still remains as part of their nature. A longing common to both the
wise and the foolish, to brave men and to cowards, is this longing for all
those things which, when acquired, would make them happy and contented. Yet one
element appears to be lacking. I do not know how it happens that nature fails
to place within the hearts of men a burning desire for liberty, a blessing so
great and so desirable that when it is lost all evils follow thereafter, and
even the blessings that remain lose taste and savor because of their corruption
by servitude. Liberty is the only joy upon which men do not seem to insist; for
surely if they really wanted it they would receive it. Apparently they refuse
this wonderful privilege because it is so easily acquired.
Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own
misfortune and blind to your own good! You let yourselves
be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields
are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. You live in
such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as your own; and it would seem
that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your property, your families,
and your very lives. All this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon
you not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as
powerful as he is, for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do
not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death. He who thus domineers over you
has only two eyes, only two hands, only one body, no more than is possessed by
the least man among the infinite numbers dwelling in your cities; he has indeed
nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you. Where has
he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves?
How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from
you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are
not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would
he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you? What could he do to you
if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were
not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you were not traitors to
yourselves? You sow your crops in order that he may ravage them, you install
and furnish your homes to give him goods to pillage; you rear your daughters
that he may gratify his lust; you bring up your children in order that he may
confer upon them the greatest privilege he knows — to be led into his
battles, to be delivered to butchery, to be made the servants of his greed and
the instruments of his vengeance; you yield your bodies unto hard labor in
order that he may indulge in his delights and wallow in his filthy pleasures;
you weaken yourselves in order to make him the stronger and the mightier to
hold you in check. From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the
field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking
action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are
at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him
over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like
a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight
and break in pieces.
Doctors are no doubt correct in warning us not to touch incurable wounds;
and I am presumably taking chances in preaching as I do to a people which has
long lost all sensitivity and, no longer conscious of its infirmity, is plainly
suffering from mortal illness. Let us
therefore understand by logic, if we can, how it happens that this obstinate
willingness to submit has become so deeply rooted in a nation that the very
love of liberty now seems no longer natural.
In the first place, all would agree that, if we led our lives according to
the ways intended by nature and the lessons taught by her, we should be
intuitively obedient to our parents; later we should adopt reason as our guide
and become slaves to nobody. Concerning the obedience given instinctively to one's father and
mother, we are in agreement, each one admitting himself to be a model. As to
whether reason is born with us or not, that is a question loudly discussed by
academicians and treated by all schools of philosophers. For the present I
think I do not err in stating that there is in our souls some native seed of
reason, which, if nourished by good counsel and training, flowers into virtue,
but which, on the other hand, if unable to resist the vices surrounding it, is
stifled and blighted. Yet surely if there is anything in this world clear and
obvious, to which one cannot close one's eyes, it is the fact that nature,
handmaiden of God, governess of men, has cast us all in the same mold in order
that we may behold in one another companions, or rather brothers. If in
distributing her gifts nature has favored some more than others with respect to
body or spirit, she has nevertheless not planned to place us within this world
as if it were a field of battle, and has not endowed the stronger or the
cleverer in order that they may act like armed brigands in a forest and attack
the weaker. One should rather conclude that in distributing larger shares to
some and smaller shares to others, nature has intended to give occasion for
brotherly love to become manifest, some of us having the strength to give help
to others who are in need of it. Hence, since this kind mother has given us the
whole world as a dwelling place, has lodged us in the same house, has fashioned
us according to the same model so that in beholding one another we might almost
recognize ourselves; since she has bestowed upon us all the great gift of voice
and speech for fraternal relationship, thus achieving by the common and mutual
statement of our thoughts a communion of our wills; and since she has tried in
every way to narrow and tighten the bond of our union and kinship; since she
has revealed in every possible manner her intention, not so much to associate
us as to make us one organic whole, there can be no further doubt that we are
all naturally free, inasmuch as we are all comrades. Accordingly it should not
enter the mind of anyone that nature has placed some of us in slavery, since
she has actually created us all in one likeness.
Therefore it is fruitless to argue whether or not liberty is natural, since
none can be held in slavery without being wronged, and in a world governed by a
nature, which is reasonable, there is nothing so contrary as an injustice. Since freedom is our natural state, we are not only in possession
of it but have the urge to defend it. Now, if perchance some cast a doubt on
this conclusion and are so corrupted that they are not able to recognize their
rights and inborn tendencies, I shall have to do them the honor that is
properly theirs and place, so to speak, brute beasts in the pulpit to throw
light on their nature and condition. The very beasts, God help me! if men are
not too deaf, cry out to them, "Long live Liberty!" Many among them
die as soon as captured: just as the fish loses life as soon as he leaves the
water, so do these creatures close their eyes upon the light and have no desire
to survive the loss of their natural freedom. If the animals were to constitute
their kingdom by rank, their nobility would be chosen from this type. Others,
from the largest to the smallest, when captured put up such a strong resistance
by means of claws, horns, beak, and paws, that they show clearly enough how
they cling to what they are losing; afterwards in captivity they manifest by so
many evident signs their awareness of their misfortune, that it is easy to see
they are languishing rather than living, and continue their existence more in
lamentation of their lost freedom than in enjoyment of their servitude. What
else can explain the behavior of the elephant who, after defending himself to
the last ounce of his strength and knowing himself on the point of being taken,
dashes his jaws against the trees and breaks his tusks, thus manifesting his
longing to remain free as he has been and proving his wit and ability to buy
off the huntsmen in the hope that through the sacrifice of his tusks he will be
permitted to offer his ivory as a ransom for his liberty? We feed the horse
from birth in order to train him to do our bidding. Yet he is tamed with such
difficulty that when we begin to break him in he bites the bit, he rears at the
touch of the spur, as if to reveal his instinct and show by his actions that,
if he obeys, he does so not of his own free will but under constraint. What
more can we say?
"Even the oxen under the weight of the yoke
complain,
And the birds in their cage lament,"
as I expressed it some time ago, toying with our French poesy. For I shall
not hesitate in writing to you, O Longa,[8] to
introduce some of my verses, which I never read to you because of your obvious
encouragement which is quite likely to make me conceited. And now, since all
beings, because they feel, suffer misery in subjection and long for liberty;
since the very beasts, although made for the service of man, cannot become
accustomed to control without protest, what evil chance has so denatured man
that he, the only creature really born to be free, lacks the memory of his
original condition and the desire to return to it?
There are three kinds of tyrants; some receive their proud position through
elections by the people, others by force of arms, others by inheritance. Those
who have acquired power by means of war act in such wise that it is evident
they rule over a conquered country. Those who are born to kingship are scarcely
any better, because they are nourished on the breast of tyranny, suck in with
their milk the instincts of the tyrant, and consider the people under them as
their inherited serfs; and according to their individual disposition, miserly
or prodigal, they treat their kingdom as their property. He who has received
the state from the people, however, ought to be, it seems to me, more bearable
and would be so, I think, were it not for the fact that as soon as he sees
himself higher than the others, flattered by that quality which we call
grandeur, he plans never to relinquish his position. Such a man usually
determines to pass on to his children the authority that the people have
conferred upon him; and once his heirs have taken this attitude, strange it is
how far they surpass other tyrants in all sorts of vices, and especially in
cruelty, because they find no other means to impose this new tyranny than by
tightening control and removing their subjects so far from any notion of
liberty that even if the memory of it is fresh it will soon be eradicated. Yet,
to speak accurately, I do perceive that there is some difference among these
three types of tyranny, but as for stating a preference, I cannot grant there
is any. For although the means of coming into power differ, still the method of
ruling is practically the same; those who are elected act as if they were
breaking in bullocks; those who are conquerors make the people their prey;
those who are heirs plan to treat them as if they were their natural slaves.
In connection with this, let us imagine some newborn individuals, neither
acquainted with slavery nor desirous of liberty, ignorant indeed of the very
words. If they were permitted to choose between being
slaves and free men, to which would they give their vote? There can be no doubt
that they would much prefer to be guided by reason itself than to be ordered
about by the whims of a single man. The only possible exception might be the
Israelites who, without any compulsion or need, appointed a tyrant.[9]
I can never read their history without becoming angered and even inhuman enough
to find satisfaction in the many evils that befell them on this account. But
certainly all men, as long as they remain men, before letting themselves become
enslaved must either be driven by force or led into it by deception; conquered
by foreign armies, as were Sparta and Athens by the forces of Alexander [10] or by political factions, as when at an earlier
period the control of Athens had passed into the hands of Pisistrates.[11] When they lose their liberty through deceit they are
not so often betrayed by others as misled by themselves. This was the case with
the people of Syracuse, chief city of Sicily (I am told the place is now named
Saragossa [12]) when, in the throes of war and
heedlessly planning only for the present danger, they promoted Denis,[13] their first tyrant, by entrusting to him the command
of the army, without realizing that they had given him such power that on his
victorious return this worthy man would behave as if he had vanquished not his
enemies but his compatriots, transforming himself from captain to king, and
then from king to tyrant.
It is incredible how as soon as a people becomes subject, it promptly falls
into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to
the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly that one is led
to say, on beholding such a situation, that this people has not so much lost
its liberty as won its enslavement. It is true that in
the beginning men submit under constraint and by force; but those who come
after them obey without regret and perform willingly what their predecessors
had done because they had to. This is why men born under the yoke and then
nourished and reared in slavery are content, without further effort, to live in
their native circumstance, unaware of any other state or right, and considering
as quite natural the condition into which they were born. There is, however, no
heir so spendthrift or indifferent that he does not sometimes scan the account
books of his father in order to see if he is enjoying all the privileges of his
legacy or whether, perchance, his rights and those of his predecessor have not
been encroached upon. Nevertheless it is clear enough that the powerful
influence of custom is in no respect more compelling than in this, namely,
habituation to subjection. It is said that Mithridates[14] trained himself to drink poison. Like him we learn to
swallow, and not to find bitter, the venom of servitude. It cannot be denied
that nature is influential in shaping us to her will and making us reveal our
rich or meager endowment; yet it must be admitted that she has less power over
us than custom, for the reason that native endowment, no matter how good, is
dissipated unless encouraged, whereas environment always shapes us in its own
way, whatever that may be, in spite of nature's gifts. The good seed that
nature plants in us is so slight and so slippery that it cannot withstand the
least harm from wrong nourishment; it flourishes less easily, becomes spoiled,
withers, and comes to nothing. Fruit trees retain their own particular quality
if permitted to grow undisturbed, but lose it promptly and bear strange fruit
not their own when ingrafted. Every herb has its peculiar characteristics, its
virtues and properties; yet frost, weather, soil, or the gardener's hand
increase or diminish its strength; the plant seen in one spot cannot be
recognized in another.
Whoever could have observed the early Venetians,[15] a handful of people living so freely that the most
wicked
among them would not wish to be king over them, so born and trained
that they would not vie with one another except as to which one could give the
best counsel and nurture their liberty most carefully, so instructed and
developed from their cradles that they would not exchange for all the other
delights of the world an iota of their freedom; who, I say, familiar with the
original nature of such a people, could visit today
the territories of the man known as the Great Doge, and there
contemplate with composure a people unwilling to live except to serve him, and
maintaining his power at the cost of their lives? Who would believe that these
two groups of people had an identical origin? Would one not rather conclude
that upon leaving a city of men he had chanced upon a menagerie of beasts?
Lycurgus,[16] the lawgiver of Sparta, is reported
to have reared two dogs of the same litter by fattening one in the kitchen and
training the other in the fields to the sound of the bugle and the horn,
thereby to demonstrate to the Lacedaemonians that men, too, develop according
to their early habits. He set the two dogs in the open market place, and
between them he placed a bowl of soup and a hare. One ran to the bowl of soup,
the other to the hare; yet they were, as he maintained, born brothers of the
same parents. In such manner did this leader, by his laws and customs, shape
and instruct the Spartans so well that any one of them would sooner have died
than acknowledge any sovereign other than law and reason.
It gives me pleasure to recall a conversation of the olden time between one
of the favorites of Xerxes, the great king of Persia, and two
Lacedaemonians. When Xerxes[17] equipped
his great army to conquer Greece, he sent his ambassadors into the Greek cities
to ask for water and earth. That was the procedure the Persians adopted in
summoning the cities to surrender. Neither to Athens nor to Sparta, however,
did he dispatch such messengers, because those who had been sent there by
Darius his father had been thrown, by the Athenians and Spartans, some into
ditches and others into wells, with the invitation to help themselves freely
there to water and soil to take back to their prince. Those Greeks could not
permit even the slightest suggestion of encroachment upon their liberty. The
Spartans suspected, nevertheless, that they had incurred the wrath of the gods
by their action, and especially the wrath of Talthybios,[18] the god of the heralds; in order to appease him they
decided to send to Xerxes two of their citizens in atonement for the cruel
death inflicted upon the ambassadors of his father. Two Spartans, one named
Sperte and the other Bulis, volunteered to offer themselves as a sacrifice. So
they departed, and on the way they came to the palace of the Persian named
Hydarnes, lieutenant of the king in all the Asiatic cities situated on the sea
coasts. He received them with great honor, feasted them, and then, speaking of
one thing and another, he asked them why they refused so obdurately his king's
friendship. "Consider well, O Spartans," said
he, "and realize by my example that the king knows how to honor those who
are worthy, and believe that if you were his men he would do the same for you;
if you belonged to him and he had known you, there is not one among you who
might not be the lord of some Greek city."
"By such words, Hydarnes, you give us no good counsel," replied
the Lacedaemonians, "because you have experienced merely the advantage of
which you speak; you do not know the privilege we enjoy. You have the honor of
the king's favor; but you know nothing about liberty, what relish it has and
how sweet it is. For if you had any knowledge of it, you yourself would advise
us to defend it, not with lance and shield, but with our very teeth and
nails."
Only Spartans could give such an answer, and surely both of them spoke as
they had been trained. It was impossible for the Persian to regret liberty, not
having known it, nor for the Lacedaemonians to find subjection acceptable after
having enjoyed freedom.
Cato the Utican,[19] while still a child under
the rod, could come and go in the house of Sylla the despot.
Because of the place and family of his origin and because he and Sylla were
close relatives, the door was never closed to him. He always had his teacher
with him when he went there, as was the custom for children of noble birth. He
noticed that in the house of Sylla, in the dictator's presence or at his
command, some men were imprisoned and others sentenced; one was banished,
another was strangled; one demanded the goods of another citizen, another his
head; in short, all went there, not as to the house of a city magistrate but as
to the people's tyrant, and this was therefore not a court of justice, but
rather a resort of tyranny. Whereupon the young lad said to his teacher,
"Why don't you give me a dagger? I will hide it under my robe. I often go
into Sylla's room before he is risen, and my arm is strong enough to rid the
city of him." There is a speech truly characteristic of Cato; it was a
true beginning of this hero so worthy of his end. And should one not mention
his name or his country, but state merely the fact as it is, the episode itself
would speak eloquently, and anyone would divine that he was a Roman born in
Rome at the time when she was free.
And why all this? Certainly not because I believe that the land or the
region has anything to do with it, for in any place and in any climate
subjection is bitter and to be free is pleasant; but merely because I am of the
opinion that one should pity those who, at birth, arrive with the yoke upon
their necks. We should exonerate and forgive them, since they have not seen
even the shadow of liberty, and, being quite unaware of it, cannot perceive the
evil endured through their own slavery. If there were actually a country like
that of the Cimmerians mentioned by Homer, where the sun shines otherwise than
on our own, shedding its radiance steadily for six successive months and then
leaving humanity to drowse in obscurity until it returns at the end of another
half-year, should we be surprised to learn that those born during this long
night do grow so accustomed to their native darkness that unless they were told
about the sun they would have no desire to see the light? One never pines for
what he has never known; longing comes only after enjoyment and constitutes,
amidst the experience of sorrow, the memory of past joy. It is truly the nature
of man to be free and to wish to be so, yet his character is such that he
instinctively follows the tendencies that his training gives him.
Let us therefore admit that all those things to which he is trained and
accustomed seem natural to man and that only that is truly native to him which
he receives with his primitive, untrained individuality.
Thus custom becomes the first reason for voluntary servitude. Men are like
handsome race horses who first bite the bit and later like it, and rearing
under the saddle a while soon learn to enjoy displaying their harness and
prance proudly beneath their trappings. Similarly men will grow accustomed to
the idea that they have always been in subjection, that their fathers lived in
the same way; they will think they are obliged to suffer this evil, and will
persuade themselves by example and imitation of others, finally investing those
who order them around with proprietary rights, based on the idea that it has
always been that way.
There are always a few, better endowed than others, who feel the weight of
the yoke and cannot restrain themselves
from attempting to shake it off: these are the men who
never become tamed under subjection and who always, like Ulysses on land and
sea constantly seeking the smoke of his chimney, cannot prevent themselves from
peering about for their natural privileges and from remembering their ancestors
and their former ways. These are in fact the men who, possessed of clear minds
and far-sighted spirit, are not satisfied, like the brutish mass, to see only
what is at their feet, but rather look about them, behind and before, and even
recall the things of the past in order to judge those of the future, and
compare both with their present condition. These are the ones who, having good
minds of their own, have further trained them by study and learning. Even if
liberty had entirely perished from the earth, such men would invent it. For
them slavery has no satisfactions, no matter how well disguised.
The Grand Turk was well aware that books and teaching more than anything
else give men the sense to comprehend their own nature and to detest
tyranny. I understand that in his territory there are
few educated people, for he does not want many. On account of this restriction,
men of strong zeal and devotion, who in spite of the passing of time have
preserved their love of freedom, still remain ineffective because, however
numerous they may be, they are not known to one another; under the tyrant they
have lost freedom of action, of speech, and almost of thought; they are alone
in their aspiration. Indeed Momus, god of mockery, was not merely joking when
he found this to criticize in the man fashioned by Vulcan, namely, that the
maker had not set a little window in his creature's heart to render his
thoughts visible. It is reported that Brutus, Cassius, and Casca, on
undertaking to free Rome, and for that matter the whole world, refused to
include in their band Cicero,[20] that great
enthusiast for the public welfare if ever there was one, because they
considered his heart too timid for such a lofty deed; they trusted his
willingness but they were none too sure of his courage. Yet whoever studies the
deeds of earlier
days and the annals of antiquity will find practically
no instance of heroes who failed to deliver their country from evil hands when
they set about their task with a firm, whole-hearted, and sincere intention.
Liberty, as if to reveal her nature, seems to have given them new strength.
Harmodios and Aristogiton,[21] Thrasybulus,[22] Brutus the Elder,[23]
Valerianus,[24] and Dion[25] achieved successfully what they planned virtuously:
for hardly ever does good fortune fail a strong will. Brutus the Younger and
Cassius were successful in eliminating servitude, and although they perished in
their attempt to restore liberty, they did not die miserably (what blasphemy it
would be to say there was anything miserable about these men, either in their
death or in their living!). Their loss worked great harm, everlasting
misfortune, and complete destruction of the Republic, which appears to have
been buried with them. Other and later undertakings against the Roman emperors
were merely plottings of ambitious people, who deserve no pity for the
misfortunes that overtook them, for it is evident that they sought not to
destroy, but merely to usurp the crown, scheming to drive away the tyrant, but
to retain tyranny. For myself, I could not wish such men to prosper and I am
glad they have shown by their example that the sacred name of Liberty must
never be used to cover a false enterprise.
But to come back to the thread of our discourse, which I have practically
lost: the essential reason why men take orders willingly is that they are born
serfs and are reared as such. From this cause
there follows another result, namely that people easily become cowardly and
submissive under tyrants. For this observation I am deeply grateful to
Hippocrates, the renowned father of medicine, who noted and reported it in a
treatise of his entitled Concerning Diseases. This famous man was
certainly endowed with a great heart and proved it clearly by his reply to the
Great King,[26] who wanted to attach him to his
person by means of special privileges and large gifts. Hippocrates answered
frankly that it would be a weight on his conscience to make use of his science
for the cure of barbarians who wished to slay his fellow Greeks, or to serve
faithfully by his skill anyone who undertook to enslave Greece. The letter he
sent the king can still be read among his other works and will forever testify
to his great heart and noble character.
By this time it should be evident that liberty once lost, valor also
perishes. A subject people shows neither gladness
nor eagerness in combat: its men march sullenly to danger almost as
if in bonds, and stultified; they do not feel throbbing within them that
eagerness for liberty which engenders scorn of peril and imparts readiness to
acquire honor and glory by a brave death amidst one's comrades. Among free men
there is competition as to who will do most, each for the common good, each by
himself, all expecting to share in the misfortunes of defeat, or in the
benefits of victory; but an enslaved people loses in addition to this warlike
courage, all signs of enthusiasm, for their hearts are degraded, submissive,
and incapable of any great deed. Tyrants are well aware of this, and, in order
to degrade their subjects further, encourage them to assume this attitude and
make it instinctive.
Xenophon, grave historian of first rank among the Greeks, wrote a book
[27] in which he makes Simonides speak with
Hieron, Tyrant of Syracuse, concerning the anxieties of the tyrant. This book
is full of fine and serious remonstrances, which in my opinion are as
persuasive as words can be. Would to God that all despots who have ever
lived might have kept it before their eyes and used it as a mirror! I cannot
believe they would have failed to recognize their warts and to have conceived
some shame for their blotches. In this treatise is explained the torment in
which tyrants find themselves when obliged to fear everyone because they do
evil unto every man. Among other things we find the statement that bad kings
employ foreigners in their wars and pay them, not daring to entrust weapons in
the hands of their own people, whom they have wronged. (There have been good
kings who have used mercenaries from foreign nations, even among the French,
although more so formerly than today, but with the quite different purpose of
preserving their own people, considering as nothing the loss of money in the
effort to spare French lives. That is, I believe, what Scipio [28] the great African meant when he said he would rather
save one citizen than defeat a hundred enemies.) For it is plainly evident that
the dictator does not consider his power firmly established until he has
reached the point where there is no man under him who is of any worth.
Therefore there may be justly applied to him the reproach to the master of
the elephants made by Thrason and reported by Terence:
Are you indeed so proud
Because you command wild beasts? [29]
This method tyrants use of stultifying their subjects cannot be more clearly
observed than in what Cyrus[30] did with the
Lydians after he had taken Sardis, their chief city, and had at his mercy the captured Croesus, their
fabulously rich king. When news was brought to him that the people of Sardis
had rebelled, it would have been easy for him to reduce them by force; but
being unwilling either to sack such a fine city or to maintain an army there to
police it, he thought of an unusual expedient for reducing it. He established
in it brothels, taverns, and public games, and issued the proclamation that the
inhabitants were to enjoy them. He found this type of garrison so effective
that he never again had to draw the sword against the Lydians. These wretched
people enjoyed themselves inventing all kinds of games, so that the Latins have
derived the word from them, and what we call pastimes they call
ludi, as if they meant to say Lydi. Not all tyrants have
manifested so clearly their intention to effeminize their victims; but in fact,
what the aforementioned despot publicly proclaimed and put into effect, most of
the others have pursued secretly as an end. It is indeed the nature of the
populace, whose density is always greater in the cities, to be suspicious
toward one who has their welfare at heart, and gullible toward one who fools
them. Do not imagine that there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor
any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all these poor fools
neatly tricked into servitude by the slightest feather passed, so to speak,
before their mouths. Truly it is a marvellous thing that they let themselves be
caught so quickly
at the slightest tickling of their fancy. Plays, farces,
spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such
opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of
their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements
the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke,
that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures
flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so
creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture
books. Roman tyrants invented a further refinement. They often provided the
city wards with feasts to cajole the rabble, always more readily tempted by the
pleasure of eating than by anything else. The most intelligent and
understanding amongst them would not have quit his soup bowl to recover the
liberty of the Republic of Plato. Tyrants would distribute largess, a bushel of
wheat, a gallon of wine, and a sesterce: [31] and
then everybody would shamelessly cry, "Long live the King!" The fools
did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own
property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were
receiving without having first taken it from them. A man might one day be
presented with a sesterce and gorge himself at the public feast, lauding
Tiberius and Nero for handsome liberality, who on the morrow, would be forced
to abandon his property to their avarice, his children to their lust, his very
blood to the cruelty of these magnificent emperors, without offering any more
resistance than a stone or a tree stump. The mob has always behaved in this way
— eagerly open to bribes that cannot be honorably accepted, and
dissolutely callous to degradation and insult that cannot be honorably endured.
Nowadays I do not meet anyone who, on hearing mention of Nero, does
not shudder at the very name of that hideous monster, that disgusting and vile
pestilence. Yet when he died — when this incendiary, this executioner,
this savage beast, died as vilely as he had lived — the noble Roman
people, mindful of his games and his festivals, were saddened to the point of
wearing mourning for him. Thus wrote Cornelius Tacitus,[32] a competent and serious author, and one of the most
reliable. This will not be considered peculiar in view of what this same people
had previously done at the death of Julius Caesar, who had swept away
their laws and their liberty, in whose character, it seems to me, there was
nothing worth while, for his very liberality, which is so highly praised, was
more baneful than the crudest tyrant who ever existed, because it was actually
this poisonous amiability of his that sweetened servitude for the Roman people.
After his death, that people, still preserving on their palates the flavor of
his banquets and in their minds the memory of his prodigality, vied with one
another to pay him homage. They piled up the seats of the Forum for the great
fire that reduced his body to ashes, and later raised a column to him as to
"The Father of His People." [33] (Such
was the inscription on the capital.) They did him more honor, dead as he was,
than they had any right to confer upon any man in the world, except perhaps on
those who had killed him.
They didn't even neglect, these Roman emperors, to assume generally the
title of Tribune of the People, partly
because this office was held sacred and inviolable and also because it had been
founded for the defense and protection of the people and enjoyed the favor of
the state. By this means they made sure that the populace would trust them
completely, as if they merely used the title and did not abuse it. Today there
are some who do not behave very differently: they never undertake an unjust
policy, even one of some importance, without prefacing it with some pretty
speech concerning public welfare and common good. You well know, O Longa, this
formula which they use quite cleverly in certain places; although for the most
part, to be sure, there cannot be cleverness where there is so much impudence.
The kings of the Assyrians and even after them those of the Medes showed
themselves in public as seldom as possible in order to set up a doubt in the
minds of the rabble as to whether they were not in some way more than man, and
thereby to encourage people to use their imagination for those things which
they cannot judge by sight. Thus a great many nations who for a long time dwelt
under the control of the Assyrians became accustomed, with all this mystery, to
their own subjection, and submitted the more readily for not knowing what sort
of master they had, or scarcely even if they had one, all of them fearing by
report someone they had never seen. The earliest kings of Egypt
rarely showed themselves without carrying a cat, or
sometimes a branch, or appearing with fire on their heads, masking themselves
with these objects and parading like workers of magic. By doing this they
inspired their subjects with reverence and admiration, whereas with people
neither too stupid nor too slavish they would merely have aroused, it seems to
me, amusement and laughter. It is pitiful to review the list of devices that
early despots used to establish their tyranny; to discover how many little
tricks they employed, always finding the populace conveniently gullible,
readily caught in the net as soon as it was spread. Indeed they always fooled
their victims so easily that while mocking them they enslaved them the more.
What comment can I make concerning another fine counterfeit that ancient
peoples accepted as true money? They believed firmly that the great toe of
Pyrrhus,[34] king of Epirus, performed miracles
and cured diseases of the spleen; they even enhanced the tale further with the
legend that this toe, after the corpse had been burned, was found among the
ashes, untouched by the fire. In this wise a foolish people itself invents lies
and then believes them. Many men have recounted such things, but in such a way
that it is easy to see that the parts were pieced together from idle gossip of
the city and silly reports from the rabble. When Vespasian,[35] returning from Assyria, passes through Alexandria on
his way to Rome to take possession of the empire, he performs wonders: he makes
the crippled straight, restores sight to the blind, and does many other fine
things, concerning which the credulous and undiscriminating were, in my
opinion, more blind than those cured. Tyrants themselves have wondered that men
could endure the persecution of a single man; they have insisted on using
religion for their own protection and, where possible, have borrowed a stray
bit of divinity to bolster up their evil ways. If we are to believe the Sybil
of Virgil, Salmoneus,[36] in torment for having
paraded as Jupiter in older to deceive the populace, now atones in nethermost
Hell:
He suffered endless torment for having dared to
imitate
The thunderbolts of heaven and the flames of Jupiter.
Upon a chariot drawn by four chargers he went, unsteadily
Riding aloft, in his fist a great shining torch.
Among the Greeks and into the market-place
In the heart of the city of Elis he had ridden boldly:
And displaying thus his vainglory he assumed
An honor which undeniably belongs to the gods alone.
This fool who imitated storm and the inimitable thunderbolt
By clash of brass and with his dizzying charge
On horn-hoofed steeds, the all-powerful Father beheld,
Hurled not a torch, nor the feeble light
From a waxen taper with its smoky fumes,
But by the furious blast of thunder and lightning
He brought him low, his heels above his head.[37]
If such a one, who in his time acted merely through the folly of insolence,
is so well received in Hell, I think that those who have used religion as a
cloak to hide their vile-ness will be even more deservedly lodged in the same
place.
Our own leaders have employed in France certain similar devices, such as
toads, fleurs-de-lys, sacred vessels, and
standards with flames of gold.[38]
However that may be, I do not wish, for my part, to be incredulous, since
neither we nor our ancestors have had any occasion up to now for skepticism.
Our kings have always been so generous in times of peace and so valiant in time
of war, that from birth they seem not to have been created by nature like many
others, but even before birth to have been designated by Almighty God for the
government and preservation of this kingdom. Even if this were not so, yet
should I not enter the tilting ground to call in question the truth of our
traditions, or to examine them so strictly as to take away their fine conceits.
Here is such a field for our French poetry, now not merely honored but, it
seems to me, reborn through our Ronsard, our Baïf, our Bellay.[39]
These poets are defending our language so well that I dare to believe that very
soon neither the Greeks nor the Latins will in this respect have any advantage
over us except possibly that of seniority. And I should assuredly do wrong to
our poesy — I like to use that word despite the fact that several have
rimed mechanically, for I still discern a number of men today capable of
ennobling poetry and restoring it to its first lustre — but, as I say, I
should do the Muse great injury if I deprived her now of those fine tales about
King Clovis, amongst which it seems to me I can already see how agreeably and
how happily the inspiration of our Ronsard in his Franciade [40]
will play. I appreciate his loftiness, I am aware of his keen spirit, and I
know the charm of the man: he will appropriate the oriflamme to his use much as
did the Romans their sacred bucklers and the shields cast from heaven to earth,
according to Virgil.[41] He will use our phial of
holy oil much as the Athenians used the basket of Ericthonius;[42] he will win applause for our deeds of valor as they
did for their olive wreath which they insist can still be found in Minerva's
tower. Certainly I should be presumptuous if I tried to cast slurs on our
records and thus invade the realm of our poets.
But to return to our subject, the thread of which I have unwittingly lost in
this discussion: it has always happened that tyrants, in order to strengthen
their power, have made every effort to train their people not only in obedience
and servility toward themselves, but also in adoration. Therefore all that I
have said up to the present concerning the means by which a more willing
submission has been obtained applies to dictators in their relationship with
the inferior and common classes.
I come now to a point which is, in my opinion, the mainspring and the secret
of domination, the support and foundation of tyranny. Whoever thinks that
halberds, sentries, the placing of the watch, serve to protect and shield
tyrants is, in my. judgment, completely mistaken.
These are used, it seems to me, more for ceremony and a show of force than for
any reliance placed in them. The archers forbid the entrance to the palace to
the poorly dressed who have no weapons, not to the well armed who can carry out
some plot. Certainly it is easy to say of the Roman emperors that fewer escaped
from danger by the aid of their guards than were killed by their own archers.
It is not the troops on horseback, it is not the companies afoot, it is not
arms that defend the tyrant. This does not seem credible on first thought, but
it is nevertheless true that there are only four or five who maintain the
dictator, four or five who keep the country in bondage to him. Five
or six have always had access to his ear, and have either gone to him of their
own accord, or else have been summoned by him, to be accomplices in his
cruelties, companions in his pleasures, panders to his lusts, and sharers in
his plunders. These six manage their chief so successfully that he comes to be
held accountable not only for his own misdeeds but even for theirs. The six
have six hundred who profit under them, and with
the six hundred they do what they have accomplished with their tyrant. The six
hundred maintain under them
six thousand, whom they promote in rank, upon whom they confer the government
of provinces or the direction of finances, in order that they may serve as
instruments of avarice and cruelty, executing orders at the proper time and
working such havoc all around that they could not last except under the shadow
of the six hundred, nor be exempt from law and punishment except through their
influence.
The consequence of all this is fatal indeed. And whoever is pleased to
unwind the skein will observe that not the
six thousand but a hundred thousand, and even millions,
cling to the tyrant by this cord to which they are tied. According to Homer,
Jupiter boasts of being able to draw to himself all the gods when he pulls a
chain. Such a scheme caused the increase in the senate under Julius,[43] the formation of new ranks, the creation of offices;
not really, if properly considered, to reform justice, but to provide new
supporters of despotism. In short, when the point is reached, through big
favors or little ones, that large profits or small are obtained under a tyrant,
there are found almost as many people to whom tyranny seems advantageous as
those to whom liberty would seem desirable. Doctors declare that if, when some
part of the body has gangrene a disturbance arises in another spot, it
immediately flows to the troubled part. Even so, whenever a ruler makes himself
a dictator, all the wicked dregs of the nation — I do not mean the pack
of petty thieves and earless ruffians[44] who, in
a republic, are unimportant in evil or good — but all those who are
corrupted by burning ambition or extraordinary avarice, these gather round him
and support him in order to have a share in the booty and to constitute
themselves petty chiefs under the big tyrant. This is the practice
among notorious robbers and famous pirates: some scour the country, others
pursue voyagers; some lie in ambush, others keep a lookout; some commit murder,
others robbery; and although there are among them differences in rank, some
being only underlings while others are chieftains of gangs, yet is there not a
single one among them who does not feel himself to be a sharer, if not of the
main booty, at least in the pursuit of it. It is dependably related that
Sicilian pirates gathered in such great numbers that it became necessary to
send against them Pompey the Great,[45] and that
they drew into their alliance fine towns and great cities in whose harbors they
took refuge on returning from their expeditions, paying handsomely for the
haven given their stolen goods.
Thus the despot subdues his subjects, some of them by means of others, and
thus is he protected by those from whom, if they were decent men, he would have
to guard himself; just as, in order to split wood, one has to
use a wedge of the wood itself. Such are his archers, his guards, his
halberdiers; not that they themselves do not suffer occasionally at his hands,
but this riff-raff, abandoned alike by God and man, can be led to endure evil
if permitted to commit it, not against him who exploits them, but against those
who like themselves submit, but are helpless. Nevertheless, observing those men
who painfully serve the tyrant in order to win some profit from his tyranny and
from the subjection of the populace, I am often overcome with amazement at
their wickedness and sometimes by pity for their folly. For, in all honesty,
can it be in any way except in folly that you approach a tyrant, withdrawing
further from your liberty and, so to speak, embracing with both hands your
servitude? Let such men lay aside briefly their ambition, or let them forget
for a moment their avarice, and look at themselves as they really are. Then
they will realize clearly that the townspeople, the peasants whom they trample
under foot and treat worse than convicts or slaves, they will realize, I say,
that these people, mistreated as they may be, are nevertheless, in comparison
with themselves, better off and fairly free. The tiller of the soil and the
artisan, no matter how enslaved, discharge their obligation when they do what
they are told to do; but the dictator sees men about him wooing and begging his
favor, and doing much more than he tells them to do. Such men must not only
obey orders; they must anticipate his wishes; to satisfy him they must foresee
his desires; they must wear themselves out, torment themselves, kill themselves
with work in his interest, and accept his pleasure as their own, neglecting
their preferences for his, distorting their character and corrupting their
nature; they must pay heed to his words, to his intonation, to his gestures,
and to his glance. Let them have no eye, nor foot, nor hand that is not alert
to respond to his wishes or to seek out his thoughts.
Can that be called a happy life? Can it be called living? Is there anything
more intolerable than that situation, I won't say for a man of mettle nor even
for a man of high birth, but simply for a man of common sense or, to go
even further, for anyone having the face of a man? What condition is more
wretched than to live thus, with nothing to call one's own, receiving from
someone else one's sustenance, one's power to act, one's body, one's very life?
Still men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could
acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to
themselves, or as if anyone could possess under a tyrant a single
thing in his own name. Yet they act as if their wealth really belonged to them,
and forget that it is they themselves who give the ruler the power to deprive
everybody of everything, leaving nothing that anyone can identify as belonging
to somebody. They notice that nothing makes men so subservient to a tyrant's
cruelty as property; that the possession of wealth is the worst of crimes
against him, punishable even by death; that he loves nothing quite so much as
money and ruins only the rich, who come before him as before a butcher,
offering themselves so stuffed and bulging that they make his mouth water.
These favorites should not recall so much the memory of those who have won
great wealth from tyrants as of those who, after they had for some time amassed
it, have lost to him their property as well as their lives; they should
consider not how many others have gained a fortune, but rather how few of them
have kept it. Whether we examine ancient history or simply the times in which
we live, we shall see clearly how great is the number of those who, having by
shameful means won the ear of princes — who either profit from their
villainies or take advantage of their naïveté — were in the
end reduced to nothing by these very princes; and although at first such
servitors were met by a ready willingness to promote their interests, they
later found an equally obvious inconstancy which brought them to ruin.
Certainly among so large a number of people who have at one time or another had
some relationship with bad rulers, there have been few or practically none at
all who have not felt applied to themselves the tyrant's animosity, which they
had formerly stirred up against others. Most often, after becoming rich by
despoiling others, under the favor of his protection, they find themselves at
last enriching him with their own spoils.
Even men of character — if it sometimes happens that a tyrant likes
such a man well enough to hold him in his good graces,
because in him shine forth the virtue and integrity that inspire a certain
reverence even in the most depraved — even men of character, I say, could
not long avoid succumbing to the common malady and would early experience the
effects of tyranny at their own expense. A Seneca, a Burrus, a Thrasea, this
triumvirate [46] of splendid men, will provide a
sufficient reminder of such misfortune. Two of them were close to the tyrant by
the fatal responsibility of holding in their hands the management of his
affairs, and both were esteemed and beloved by him. One of them, moreover, had
a peculiar claim upon his friendship, having instructed his master as a child.
Yet these three by their cruel death give sufficient evidence of how little
faith one can place in the friendship of an evil ruler. Indeed what friendship
may be expected from one whose heart is bitter enough to hate even his own
people, who do naught else but obey him? It is because he does not know how to
love that he ultimately impoverishes his own spirit and destroys his own
empire.
Now if one would argue that these men fell into disgrace because they wanted
to act honorably, let him look around boldly at others close to that same
tyrant, and he will see that those who came into his favor and maintained
themselves by dishonorable means did not fare much better. Who has ever heard tell of a love more centered, of an affection
more persistent, who has ever read of a man more desperately attached to a
woman than Nero was to Poppaea? Yet she was later poisoned by his own
hand.[47] Agrippina his mother had killed her
husband, Claudius, in order to exalt her son; to gratify him she had never
hesitated at doing or bearing anything; and yet this very son, her offspring,
her emperor, elevated by her hand, after failing her often, finally took her
life.[48] It is indeed true that no one denies she
would have well deserved this punishment, if only it had come to her by some
other hand than that of the son she had brought into the world. Who was ever
more easily managed, more naive, or, to speak quite frankly, a greater
simpleton, than Claudius the Emperor? Who was ever more wrapped up in his wife
than he in Messalina,[49] whom he delivered
finally into the hands of the executioner? Stupidity in a tyrant always renders
him incapable of benevolent action; but in some mysterious way by dint of
acting cruelly even towards those who are his closest associates, he seems to
manifest what little intelligence he may have.
Quite generally known is the striking phrase of that other tyrant who,
gazing at the throat of his wife, a woman he dearly loved and without whom it
seemed he could not live, caressed her with this charming comment: "This
lovely throat would be cut at once if I but gave the order." [50] That is why the majority of the dictators of former
days were commonly slain by their closest favorites who, observing the nature
of tyranny, could not be so confident of the whim of the tyrant as they were
distrustful of his power. Thus was Domitian [51]
killed by Stephen, Commodus by one of his mistresses,[52] Antoninus by Macrinus,[53] and practically all the others in similar violent
fashion. The fact is that the tyrant is never truly loved, nor does he
love. Friendship is a sacred word, a holy thing; it is never
developed except between persons of character, and never takes root except
through mutual respect; it flourishes not so much by kindnesses as by
sincerity. What makes one friend sure of another is the knowledge of his
integrity: as guarantees he has his friend's fine nature, his honor, and his
constancy. There can be no friendship where there is cruelty, where there is
disloyalty, where there is injustice. And in places where the wicked gather
there is conspiracy only, not companionship: these have no affection for one
another; fear alone holds them together; they are not friends, they are merely
accomplices.
Although it might not be impossible, yet it would be difficult to find true
friendship in a tyrant; elevated above others and having no companions, he
finds himself already beyond the pale of friendship, which receives its real
sustenance from an equality that, to proceed without a limp, must have its two
limbs equal. That is why there is honor among thieves (or so it is
reported) in the sharing of the booty; they are peers and comrades; if they are
not fond of one another they at least respect one another and do not seek to
lessen their strength by squabbling. But the favorites of a tyrant can never
feel entirely secure, and the less so because he has learned from them that he
is all powerful and unlimited by any law or obligation. Thus it becomes his
wont to consider his own will as reason enough, and to be master of all with
never a compeer. Therefore it seems a pity that with so many examples at hand,
with the danger always present, no one is anxious to act the wise man at the
expense of the others, and that among so many persons fawning upon their ruler
there is not a single one who has the wisdom and the boldness to say to him
what, according to the fable, the fox said to the lion who feigned illness:
"I should be glad to enter your lair to pay my respects; but I see many
tracks of beasts that have gone toward you, yet not a single trace of any who
have come back."
These wretches see the glint of the despot's treasures and are bedazzled by
the radiance of his splendor. Drawn by this brilliance they come near, without
realizing they are approaching a flame that cannot fail to scorch them. Similarly
attracted, the indiscreet satyr of the old fables, on seeing the bright fire
brought down by Prometheus, found it so beautiful that he went and kissed it,
and was burned; so, as the Tuscan [54] poet
reminds us, the moth, intent upon desire, seeks the flame because it shines,
and also experiences its other quality, the burning. Moreover, even admitting
that favorites may at times escape from the hands of him they serve, they are
never safe from the ruler who comes after him. If he is good, they must render
an account of their past and recognize at last that justice exists; if he is
bad and resembles their late master, he will certainly have his own favorites,
who are not usually satisfied to occupy in their turn merely the posts of their
predecessors, but will more often insist on their wealth and their lives. Can anyone be
found, then, who under such perilous circumstances and with so little security
will still be ambitious to fill such an ill-fated position and serve, despite
such perils, so dangerous a master? Good God, what suffering, what martrydom
all this involves! To be occupied night and day in planning to please one
person, and yet to fear him more than anyone else in the world; to be always on
the watch, ears open, wondering whence the blow will come; to search out
conspiracy, to be on guard against snares, to scan the faces of companions for
signs of treachery, to smile at everybody and be mortally afraid of all, to be
sure of nobody, either as an open enemy or as a reliable friend; showing always
a gay countenance despite an apprehensive heart, unable to be joyous yet not
daring to be sad!
However, there is satisfaction in examining what they get out of all this
torment, what advantage they derive from all the trouble of their wretched
existence. Actually the people never blame the tyrant for the evils
they suffer, but they do place responsibility on those who influence him;
peoples, nations, all compete with one another, even the peasants, even the
tillers of the soil, in mentioning the names of the favorites, in analyzing
their vices, and heaping upon them a thousand insults, a thousand obscenities,
a thousand maledictions. All their prayers, all their vows are directed against
these persons; they hold them accountable for all their misfortunes, their
pestilences, their famines; and if at times they show them outward respect, at
those very moments they are fuming in their hearts and hold them in greater
horror than wild beasts. This is the glory and honor heaped upon influential
favorites for their services by people who, if they could tear apart their
living bodies, would still clamor for more, only half satiated by the agony
they might behold. For even when the favorites are dead those who live after
are never too lazy to blacken the names of these man-eaters with the ink of a
thousand pens, tear their reputations into bits in a thousand books, and drag,
so to speak, their bones past posterity, forever punishing them after their
death for their wicked lives.
Let us therefore learn while there is yet time, let us learn to do good. Let
us raise our eyes to Heaven for the sake of our honor, for the very love of
virtue, or, to speak wisely, for the love and praise of God Almighty, who is
the infallible witness of our deeds and the just judge of our faults. As for me, I truly believe I am right, since there is
nothing so contrary to a generous and loving God as dictatorship — I
believe He has reserved, in a separate spot in Hell, some very special
punishment for tyrants and their accomplices.
Notes in the Introduction:
[1] The title now generally given is
Discours sur la servitude volontaire ou Contr'un. See p. xv, below.
[2] G. A. Borgese, Goliath, or the March of
Fascism, Viking, New York, 1937.
[3] The name of the author should be pronounced
with the "t" sounding like "ss" and riming with
"poesy" accented on the last syllable.
[4] William de Sur, known as Longa among his
associates at Bordeaux. Mention is made here of this judge because La
Boétie revered him and refers to him by name twice in the course of his
essay.
[5] Book I of the Essays, Chapter
XXVIII.
[6] In 1571, eight years after La
Boétie's death, Montaigne published these manuscripts with dedicatory
epistles at the head of each, inscribed to those who had known his friend and
could appreciate his rare qualities. He kept out only two of these documents,
the Mémoire on the Edict of 1562, and the Voluntary
Servitude.
[7] They did indeed, for they disappeared
entirely from all ken till they turned up in 1917 and were then published by
Paul Bonnefon, the greatest of La Boétie scholars.
[8] Available in a beautiful English rendering
by Louis How, Twenty-nine Sonnets of La Boétie, Houghton Mifflin,
Boston, 1915.
[9] The first time in Latin, a fragment
incorporated into the Dialogues of Eusebio Philadelpho Cosmopolito,
Edimburgi (Basel?), 1574; the second, almost complete, in French, Le
Réveille-Matin des François, Paris, 1574; the third, fourth,
and fifth, in three successive editions of the Mémoires de I'estat de
France sous Charles neufiesme, Meidlebourg, 1577-78. All but the second
edition were put out under Protestant auspices as an incitement to revolt.
[10] Listed as x 27.20.56 in the rare bookroom
of the Widener Library of Harvard University.
[11] Available in the Bibliothèque
Nationale as Number 839 in the Department of Manuscripts.
Notes in the Main Text:
[1] Iliad, Book II, Lines 204-205.
[2] Government by a single ruler. From the Greek
monos (single) and arkhein (to command).
[3] At this point begins the text of the long
fragment published in the Reveille-Matin des François. See
Introduction, p. xvii.
[4] An autocratic council of thirty magistrates
that governed Athens for eight months in 404 B.C. They exhibited such monstrous
despotism that the city rose in anger and drove them forth.
[5] Athenian general, died 489 B.C. Some of his
battles: expedition against Scythians; Lemnos; Imbros; Marathon, where Darius
the Persian was defeated.
[6] King of Sparta, died at Thermopylae in 480
B.C., defending the pass with three hundred loyal Spartans against Xerxes.
[7] Athenian statesman and general, died
460 B.C. Some of his battles: expedition against Aegean Isles; victory over
Persians under Xerxes at Salamis.
[8] See Introduction, p. x.
[9] The reference is to Saul anointed by Samuel.
[10] Alexander the Macedonian became the
acknowledged master of all Hellenes at the Assembly of Corinth, 335 B.C.
[11] Athenian tyrant, died 527 B.C. He used ruse
and bluster to control the city and was obliged to flee several times.
[12] The name Syracuse is derived from Syraca,
the marshland near which the city was founded. The author is misinformed about
"Sarragousse," which is the Spanish Zaragoza, capital of
Aragón.
[13] Denis or Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse,
died in 367 B.C. Of lowly birth, this dictator imposed himself by plottings,
putsches, and purges. The danger from which he saved his city was the invasion
by the Carthaginians.
[14] Mithridates (c. 135-63 B.C.) was next to
Hannibal the most dreaded and potent enemy of Roman Power. The reference in the
text is to his youth when he spent some years in retirement hardening himself
and immunizing himself against poison. In his old age, defeated by Pompey,
betrayed by his own son, he tried poison and finally had to resort to the
dagger of a friendly Gaul. (Pliny, Natural History, XXIV, 2.)
[15] This passage probably suggested to
Montaigne that his friend would have been glad to see the light in Venice. See
Essays, Book I, Chapter XXVIII.
[16] A half-legendary figure concerning whose
life Plutarch admits there is much obscurity. He bequeathed to his land a rigid
code regulating land, assembly, education, with the individual subordinate to
the state.
[17] The Persian fleet and army under Xerxes or
Ahasuerus set out from Sardis in 480 and were at first successful, even taking
Athens and driving the Greeks to their last line of defense in the Bay of
Salamis. Darius, the father of Xerxes, had made a similar incursion into Greece
but was stopped at Marathon.
[18] The messenger and herald of Agamemnon in
the Iliad.
[19] Marcus Porcius Cato, often called the
Utican from the city where in 46 B.C., after reading the Phaedo of
Plato, he ended his life. He was an uncompromising reformer and relentlessly
attacked the vicious heirs to the power of Lucius Cornelius Sylla, the Roman
dictator (136-78 B.C.). The Utican, born in 95 B.C., was only seventeen years
old when Sylla died.
[20] Cited from Plutarch's Life of
Cicero.
[21] Tradition made of Harmodios and Aristogiton
martyrs for Athenian liberty. They plotted the death of the tyrant Hippias but
were betrayed and put to death by torture, c. 500 B.C.
[22] Athenian statesmen and general (died 388
B.C.) who ousted the Thirty Tyrants from power in Athens and restored the
government to the people.
[23] Lucius Junius Brutus was the leader of the
Roman revolution which overthrew the tyranny of Tarquinius Superbus, c. 500
B.C., and established the republic under the two praetors or consuls. As one of
these magistrates it became his dolorous duty to condemn to death his two sons
because they had plotted for the return of the Tarquins.
[24] Publius Licinius Valerianus was a brilliant
military leader chosen by his troops to be Emperor during a time of great
anarchy. He met his death in Persia (260 A.D.).
[25] Dion of Syracuse (400-354? B.C.) was famous
for his protection of Plato in Sicily and for his expedition in 357, which
freed his city from the tyranny of Denis.
[26] Artaxerxes.
[27] The Hieron, a youthful didactic
work, consisting of a dialogue between Simonides and the Tyrant of Syracuse.
The latter confesses his inner doubts and misgivings, his weariness at the
dangers constantly besetting him, his sadness at not being loved by anyone.
Even if he gave up his power, he would be in danger from the many enemies he
has made. Simonides advises him to mend his ways and try kindness and
generosity as a way of government.
[28] Publius Cornelius Scipio (235-183 B.C.) led
the brilliant campaign in Africa which caused Hannibal's recall from Italy and
his final defeat.
[29] The Eunuch, Act III, Scene 1.
[30] Cyrus the Great (died 528 B.C.), founder of
the Persian Empire, attacked Croesus before the latter could organize his army,
and drove him in mid-winter out of his capital of Sardis. The episode here
mentioned is related in Herodotus, Book I, chap. 86.
[31] A Roman coin (semis-half, tertius-third) of
variable value, originally of silver, later of bronze.
[32] In his Histories (Book I, chap. 4)
which cover the period (69-96 A.D.) from the fall of Nero to the crowning of
Nerva.
[33] Suetonius, Life of Caesar,
paragraphs 84-88.
[34] The great dreamer of empire whose costly
victory at Asculum wrecked his hopes of world domination. He was finally killed
(272 B.C.) by a tile dropped on his head by an old woman. This story of the toe
conies from Plutarch's Life of Pyrrhus.
[35] Titus Flavius Vespasianus left his son
Titus to complete the capture of Jerusalem while he, newly elected Emperor by
his armies, turned back to Rome after the death of Galba in 69 A.D. The
reference here is found in Suetonius, Life of Vespasian, Chapter VII.
[36] In Greek mythology, Salmoneus, King of
Elis, was the son of Aeolus and the brother of Sisyphus. He was reckless and
sacrilegious and claimed to be the equal of Zeus by imitating his thunderbolts.
Zeus threw him into Hades.
[37] Aeneid, Chapter VI, verses 585 et
seq.
[38] These are references to heraldic emblems of
royalty. The sacred vessel contained the holy oil for the coronation of the
kings of France, said to have been brought by an angel from heaven for the
crowning of Clovis in 496. The fleur-de-lis is the well-known heraldic flower
dating from the 12th century. In its earlier forms it has other elements
besides petals, such as arrow tips, spikes, and even bees and toads. The
oriflamme or standard of gold was also adopted by French royalty. Originally it
belonged to the Abbey of St. Denis and had a red background, dotted with stars
surrounding a flaming sun. Some scholars have noted in the three branches of
the fleur-de-lis a heraldic transformation of toads which formed presumably the
totem of the ancient Francs.
[39] These three were the most inspired of the
Pléiade, a group of seven poets of the Renaissance in France. La
Boétie's boast is impulsive but natural when one thinks of the vigor and
hope of this period. Du Bellay (1548) published a Defense of the French
Language which explained the literary doctrines of the group. The reference
in the text to this Defense helps date the Contr'un.
[40] This unfinished epic has only four cantos;
it attempts to relate how to Francus, son of Hector, is revealed the glorious
future of France. He beholds a visionary procession of her kings descending
from him all the way to Charlemagne. King Clovis (465-511), of whom many tales
are told, was baptized after the miracle of Tolbiac and founded the Merovingian
dynasty. Although the poem was not published till a few days after the Massacre
of St. Bartholomew, Ronsard had spoken of his project more than twenty years
before. He had even read the finished Prologue to Henry II in 1550. La
Boétie's early reference bespeaks his close relations with the poets of
his day.
[41] Aeneid, Canto viii, verse 664.
[42] Ericthonius, legendary King of Athens
(1573-1556 B.C.) was the son of the earth. He is at times represented in the
guise of a serpent carried by the Cecropides maidens to whom Athens had
entrusted him as a child. The allusion here is to the Panathenaea festival when
maidens carried garlanded baskets on their heads. Races were also held for
which the winners received olive wreaths as prizes.
[43] Under Caesar the power of the Senators was
greatly reduced and military leaders were permitted to share with them
legislative and judicial powers.
[44] The cutting off of ears as a punishment for
thievery is very ancient. In the middle ages it was still practiced under St.
Louis. Men so mutilated were dishonored and could not enter the clergy or the
magistracy.
[45] Plutarch's Life of Pompey.
[46] Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.-65 A.D.) was
exiled from Rome to Corsica for eight years by the intrigues of Messalina, wife
of Claudius. Agrippina had him recalled and entrusted to him jointly with
Burrus the education of her son Nero. Seneca ended his life some fifteen years
later when Nero, suspecting him of conspiracy, ordered him to die. Burrus
similarly tried to restrain the tyrant but he lost his power after the murder
of Agrippina, a crime which he had prevented once before. He died in 62 A.D.
suspecting he had been poisoned. Thrasea, unlike these two teachers of Nero,
refused to condone the crime of matricide. He attacked Nero in the Senate but
finally in 66 A.D. he was condemned by that august body and, after a
philosophic discourse celebrated with his friends by his side, he opened his
veins.
[47] She was really killed by a kick, according
to Suetonius (Life of Nero, chap. 35) and Tacitus (Annals, Book
XVI, chap. 6). She abetted Nero in many of his crimes; the murder of his
mother, of his gentle wife Octavia. After the brutal death inflicted on
Poppaea, Nero shed many tears.
[48] Suetonius, op. cit., chap. 34, and
Tacitus, op. cit., Book XII, chap. 67.
[49] Messalina (15-48 A.D.) was the fifth wife
of the emperor Claudius. At first honorable, mother of two children, she
suddenly turned to vice and has transmitted her name to the ages as a synonym
for the lowest type of degraded womanhood. While still the wife of Claudius,
she married a favorite with his connivance. The Emperor, finally convinced of
her treachery, permitted the killing of his wife and her lover. He then married
Agrippina who persuaded him to adopt Nero as his son, thereby signing his own
death warrant, for his new wife, by giving him a plate of poisonous mushrooms,
opened the way for her son's succession to the throne.
[50] Suetonius, Life of Caligula, Chapter
33.
[51] Suetonius, Life of Domitian, Chapter
17. The tyrant died in 96 A.D. after three years of bestial government inspired
by abject fear of conspirators. Finally Domitia, his wife, hatched the plot
which led an imperial slave to stab his royal master to death.
[52] Herodian, Book I, chap. 54. Commodus
(161-192 A.D.) unworthy son of Marcus Aurelius, had planned to put to death his
concubine, Marcia. She poisoned him first.
[53] Ibid., Book IV, chap. 23. The
reference is to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Bassianus, better known as Caracalla,
who was killed (217 A.D.) in a plot arranged by his own praetor, Macrinas, who
succeeded him to power, lasted a year, and was killed in his turn by his own
soldiers.
[54] Petrarch, Canzoniere, Sonnet XVII.
La Boétie has accurately rendered the lines concerning the moth.
