Montaigne and la boetie: "Coustume," "loi," "justice" and "police" Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Green, Sheila Mary Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 05/10/2021 22:03:07 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/288723 INFORMATION TO USERS This nuinuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. 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Contact UMI directly to order. TTtk/rWUiVU A Bell & Howell Informatioa CompaiQr 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Aibor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/76M700 800/521-0600 MONTAIGNE AND LA B0ETI2: 2QtiSIia5E, LQl, jygTIgE MQ POLICE by Sheila Mary Green Copyright ® Sheila M. Green 1996 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH AND ITALIAN In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WITH A MAJOR IN FRENCH In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 1996 DMI Number: 9720712 Copyright 1996 by Green, Sheila Mary All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9720712 Copyright 1997, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against miauthorized copying wider Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA ® GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Sheila Mary Green entitled MONTAIGNE AND LA BOETIE: COUSTUME, LOI, JUSTICE AND POLICE and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Dr. Jonathan Beck, Diss. Directi li-U / -/ y I Dr. Lise Leibacher / Date Dr. Jean Goetinck Date Date Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate's submission of the final copy of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requiremeit. { ^ Disse^a;(ion Director Date 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT 5 INTRODUCTION 7 I. SOME LAWS 10 II. MONTAIGNE 58 III. THE ESSAIS 94 IV. RHETORIC AND PHILOSOPHY 118 V. SOME INTERTEXTS 159 VI. COUSTUME, POLICE AND LAW 178 VII. THE ANCIENNE COUSTUME 216 VIII. FRANCOGALLIA AND RESISTANCE .... 257 IX. SERVITUDE AND APOLOGIE 285 X. THE TROUBLES AND THE MEMOIRS. ... 327 XI. LQX AND JUSTICE 377 CONCLUSION 401 NOTES 410 REFERENCES 416 ABSTRACT Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592) was a humanist and a jurist, whose mother tongue was Latin. The Essais (1570-1588) are basic conversational humanism based on historical memory. They were written in French, when everything sacred or learned was written in Latin. They are a quasi-professional polemic against efforts to change the government of France which was occurring on the philosophical and legal levels of jurisprudence, both in teaching and in treatises, and on the political level by the Catholic League and by Protestants, who set up independent governments in the Midi. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the rhetorical effort of the Essais to defend the public law of France, the ancienne coustume. as the remedy to govern and preserve the Kingdom as a traditional Christian Monarchy and to end the civil and religious strife. The Essais are metaphor in the tradition of tropical philosophy, to focus thought, to capture the attention of the audience to persuade them to consider truth, or a truth, and to reorient their thinking so they will act for the purpose for which he was attempting to persuade them. The effect depends in part upon the reader or hearer. They are dialogues which are not dialogues. The texts dialogue with each other, and with intertexts. The Essais set forth coustume in its various meanings of habit, usage, custom, and customary law (case law of judicial decisions) as the guardian of tradition, and relate it to law, justice and government fpoliced, according to Montaigne's knowledge and experience. 7 INTRODUCTIOH The tem Essais evokes lessons and attempts of scholeurs to present knowledge as well as to discuss it. In reading Montaigne one Bust consider what he says, what it •eant for hia, what it aeant in the context in which he said it, what it aeemt for his readers, and how they aay have considered the original authors. Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews says that God set forth truth in the Old Testament in a frag•ent^u:y Banner, and that is what Montaigne seeas to do. It is a procedure of insinuatio. that is to adopt the teras of the other to persuade hia. For his the civil wars were a reversal of history. Truth was not known until Christ explained it in the New Testaaent. Montaigne spoke in tens of every aspect of the culture known to his tiae, to help to find a reaedy for the disorders of the civil wars in France. He shared his specialized knowledge. The meanings of exempla and sentences are conditioned by their context in t^e Essais. much as humanistic commentaries in a legal pleading displace the quotation from its original meaning, and they become metaphors. In his argument for coustume and the ancienne coustume. he presents diversity, and sets forth a unity to restore order. Aristotle says that in metaphysics multiplicity of beings is unified by the oneness of their cause. Cousttime is a cause of order. Philosophers try to 8 reconcile unity and multiplicity in the real, and in our knowledge of the real (Regis, 1946, p. 84, n. 64). "A multitude of truths is possible" (p. 47). For a multitude of truths there must be multiple principles, and multiple acts of knowledge (p. 50). Saint Thomas Aquinas says "that knowledge is presented as a remedy for the ontological poverty of every creature" (p. 94, n. 91). It permits man to break his limitations, and to participate in the imitation of God, which imitation is the ultimate explanation of man's activity. Man lives by art and reasoning, which sets him apart from the animals (Mclnemy, 1981, p. 24). However, since a being possesses knowledge according to its nature, the operation which comes from that knowledge will be according to its nature as well (Regis, 1946, p. 50). Man possesses knowledge through the senses, and all his operations reflect that dichotomy of body and soul. One of Montaigne's principal rhetorical procedures is disjunction, displacement of terms. It seems a trace of the Calvinist idea of a remnant, a covenant people, who have the truth. The persons who possessed the truth to a greater extent, that is knowledge which conforms to reality, were humanists and magistrates. As philosophers, they could or should "convey the sense and purpose of life, the fundamental orientation of a person to a goal" (Mclnerny, 1981, p. 6). Montaigne intended to sketch a complete artistic example of a Renaissance person. It is artistic rather than discursive, since for the most part he presented matters in an imaged rather than in a discursive manner. Discursive passages discuss coustume. and matters related to it. He did not dwell long on most matters, or those which did not concern him, an aspect of good manners. He has been read according to current historical memories, or current intertextual knowledge. La Bo6tie, through his library and his writings, provided a pretext and an intertextuality for the Essais. His M6moire sur les troubles (1983), was published only at the beginning of the twentieth century. Saint Louis of France is the exemplar of a Christian King, according to the ancienne coustume of France, known to Montaigne and his contemporaries at least from Joinville. In the century of civil and religious strife, the ancienne coustume evokes Saint Louis, and the time of Cathedrals and Crusades, of saints and scholars.