Discours de la Servitude

Étienne de La Boétie wrote the Discourse on Voluntary Servitude when he was only 18 years old. A great friend of Montaigne, he was a humanist and a precocious thinker. In this essay, La Boétie analyzes the reasons for the submission of the population and demonstrates that servitude is not forced but voluntary. Otherwise, how can we understand that a small number of individuals take power over a very large number and force them to obey slavishly? By questioning power and "tyrants", the legitimacy of rulers, this text is surprisingly topical. La Boétie is today considered by many to be an intellectual precursor of civil disobedience. Daniel Mesguich let's us hear all the intelligence and strength of this founding text.