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Discours de la servitude volontaire
Étienne de La Boétie · 1576
Original text in French. In English: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude.
A young humanist asks why peoples obey a single man, and answers that they consent to their servitude.
Essay · about 13 000 words · about 55 min of reading
About this text
Étienne de La Boétie († 1563): public-domain work. The text is that of Wikisource (Bossard, Paris, 1922). Its transcription, by Wikisource volunteers (contribution history), is published under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence; so are this reading page and the EPUB file. Erostrate has not changed a single word: only the layout and the division into pages are ours.
Note on the edition (in French): Texte de l'édition Paul Bonnefon (Bossard, 1922) ; le Discours seul, sans l'introduction ni les notes de l'éditeur.
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