Posthumous images of a friendship: or, how encounter turned into recognition

Through an analysis of the historical sources, we aim to examine Montaigne’s political and literary strategy to re-shape the image of his Sarladais friend tarnished by his connection with an incendiary polemical tract, La Servitude volontaire. In so doing, Montaigne bestows on La Boétie an identity of his own, a standing and a readability, and transforms the memory of his concrete encounters into an act of recognition.