You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
At this point, La Boétie inserts his one and only reference to<br />
contemporary France. It is on its face extremely damaging, for<br />
he asserts that "our own leaders have employed in France certain<br />
similar [quasidivine] devices, such as toads, fleurs-de-lys, sacred<br />
vessels, and standards with flames <strong>of</strong> gold [oriflammes]." 39 He<br />
quickly adds that in this case he does not "wish, for my part, to<br />
be incredulous," for French kings "have always been so generous<br />
in times <strong>of</strong> peace and so valiant in time <strong>of</strong> war, that from birth<br />
they seem not to have been created by nature like many others,<br />
but even before birth to have been designated by Almighty God<br />
for the government and preservation <strong>of</strong> this kingdom." 40 In the<br />
light <strong>of</strong> the context <strong>of</strong> the work, it is impossible not to believe<br />
that the intent <strong>of</strong> this passage is satirical, and this interpretation is<br />
particularly confirmed by the passage immediately following,<br />
which asserts that "even if this were not so," he would not<br />
question the truth <strong>of</strong> these French traditions, because they have<br />
provided such a fine field for the flowering <strong>of</strong> French poetry.<br />
"Certainly I should be presumptuous," he concludes, surely<br />
ironically, "if I tried to cast slurs on our records and thus invade<br />
the realm <strong>of</strong> our poets." 41<br />
Specious ideology, mystery, circuses; in addition to these<br />
purely propagandistic devices, another device is used by rulers to<br />
gain the consent <strong>of</strong> their subjects: purchase by material benefits,<br />
bread as well as circuses. The distribution <strong>of</strong> this largesse to the<br />
people is also a method, and a particularly cunning one, <strong>of</strong><br />
duping them into believing that they benefit from tyrannical rule.<br />
39 p. 74.<br />
40 Ibid.<br />
41 pp. 74-75. Bonnefon seizes the occasion to claim his subject as, deep down and in spite<br />
<strong>of</strong> his radical deviations, a good conservative Frenchman at heart: "It was not the<br />
intention <strong>of</strong> the young man to attack the established order. He formally excepts the king<br />
<strong>of</strong> France from his argument, and in terms which are stamped by deference and respect."<br />
Bonnefon, op. cit., p. xli. See also the critique <strong>of</strong> Bonnefon's misinterpretation by<br />
Mesnard, op. cit., p. 398.<br />
26
Change language