The «Discourse of Voluntary Servitude» as seen by Pascal Couchepin

Etienne de La Boétie wrote this 16th-century text between the ages of 16 and 18, and according to Pascal Couchepin, there's «something refreshing» about it. Every month, the former federal councillor shares a reading that struck a chord with him.

Without Montaigne, the name Etienne de La Boétie (1530-1563) would probably be unknown. But even with Montaigne, few of us have read the Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, which La Boétie wrote between the ages of 16 and 18.

The text is intense and short. It's well worth devoting a few hours to reading. Each page of this work is a feast for the mind, best read in modern French! La Boétie's culture is based on a mastery of the great Latin and Greek authors, but he also has an acute knowledge of the events of his time, marked by the Wars of Religion. The question that preoccupies him is that which emerges from