Étienne de LA BOÉTIE. Vers François de feu Estienne De La Boetie... Small booklet in-4, burgundy morocco, triple fillet, double ribbed spine decorated with the title in full, interior lace, gilt edges (Godillot). De Backer, 326 // Tchemerzine-Scheler, III-784 // USTC, 29152. 19 f. / A-E4 (the last blank) / 100 x 162 mm. Extremely rare first edition dated 1571. Étienne de La Boétie lived a short life, but he left us his poetry and his Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, one of the masterpieces of French literature. Born in Sarlat in 1530, he was orphaned at an early age and sent to the Collège de Bordeaux, where he received a solid education. Appointed councillor to the Bordeaux Parliament in 1552, he befriended Montaigne, who was then a member of the Court of Aides in Périgueux, and Montaigne wrote of the touching friendship between the two men in his Essais. He embarked on a literary career at the same time as practising law, translating Xenophon and Plutarch, before composing his most famous work, his Discours... in protest against the tyranny of kings. He contracted an illness at a very young age and died in 1563, at the age of thirty-three, in the arms of Montaigne. This rare volume of poems was published by Montaigne as a tribute to La Boétie, following on from Xenophon's Mesnagerie, which he had also edited the same year. François de La Boétie's Verses are preceded by an epistle from Montaigne to M. de Foix, ambassador to Venice (f.2-4) in which he recalls the memory of the dearly departed and his wish to publish his writings for fear that they might disappear: i'ai prins party qu'il serait bien plus excusable à luy, d'avoir ensevevely avec soy tant de rares favours du ciel, qu'il ne serait à moi d'enseve encore la cognoissance qu'il m'en avait donné. [I have] collected everything I could find from his scraps and papers scattered here and there, the wind and his studies... This collection of verses by La Boétie opens with a long address to his wife Marguerite de Carle, in which he denies ever wanting to translate: Si mal i'escris n'ayant prins de personne To none but to me the blasphemy I give it If I have the honour to invent it I am content with this honour of mine But for her, and because she wants him to, he will translate Ariosto's song of Bradamant: But to this blow by your command I've turned Bradamant's mourning over to you [... ] I won't turn verse for you But well ie believe everything backwards [... ] To obey the blink of your eye I'd turn on it under the skies... The said Chant XXXII of Bradamant's complaints, a song and 24 sonnets follow. The whole is in decasyllables, except for the sonnets written in alexandrines. Copies with the date 1571 are very rare. The following year, the publisher printed a new title, dated 1572, in order to add this volume of verse to La Mesnagerie de Xenophon, which he had just published. The USTC lists only three copies kept in institutions. A very good copy despite minor marginal restorations.