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Brief Lives

Etienne de la Boétie (1530-1563)

Martin Jenkins looks at the life of an influential early political philosopher.

Etienne de la Boétie is probably best known in the English-speaking world through a footnote in his friend Michel de Montaigne’s essay ‘On Friendship’ [see last issue for Montaigne’s Brief Life, Ed]. Even in France, La Boétie is a shadowy figure. No portrait of him survives, though Montaigne compares him to Socrates as a beautiful soul behind an ugly face. His life is poorly documented. Yet he is arguably the most influential French political theorist of the sixteenth century.

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