De la nation divisee a la confrairie: L'art de la conciliation dans les 'Essais' de Montaigne.

摘要

Two types of religious edicts alternate with each other during the wars of religion: edicts of pacification or of provisional toleration, and edicts of concord and union. Throughout the conflict, even temporary measures of toleration were accepted in the hopes of an eventual religious reunification. As far as a great majority of Catholics was concerned, religious diversity was to be avoided for the sake of political stability. In his Essais , Montaigne does indeed appeal for respect of the religion of the country while tempering his respectful posture with a degree of irreverence, as he insists on freedom of conscience, and espouses conciliatio. The notion of conciliation counts among its synonyms agreement, arbitration, and mediation. Conciliation stands in contrast with the concept of toleration, which implies suffering or enduring the other, the different, the Protestant, and refuses to grant Protestantism equal standing with Catholicism. Conciliation also differs from the concept of concord, which hopes to unify the two religions.;Chapter 1 deals mostly with Montaigne's skepticism that condemns our presumption and certitude in one truth with the hope of promoting difference and contradiction. This contradiction produces an indeterminable signification that first challenges reason as an elucidating process in the reception of his text. Montaigne favors the middle road, the mediocritas that recognizes that all opinions are of equal value, and that also acknowledges that customs, and habits form the basis of our judgment and decisions. In this way, his ethos wants to divest itself of all artifice, stripping down the sacredness of power and of rhetoric. Thus he hopes that the king will spend government money more wisely. From this beginning, chapter 2 moves to consider Montaigne's attempts to redirect of the reader's attention from the wars of religion towards more concrete problems like the economy. This step allows him to address the subject of the king's responsibility towards his subjects by raising the example of the sumptuary laws.;Chapter 3 is the core chapter to understand conciliation as a rhetorical device that raises the same issues as the Greek term ethos. The Latin noun conciliatio (like ethos) means the action of gaining favor for oneself or the action of disposing one's audience favorably. In contrast, logos describes the attempt to convince with arguments and pathos implies persuasion by appealing to the emotions. Montaigne chooses the more subtle ethos because of his mistrust of rhetoric as a demagogic device. As a capitatio benevolentiae, he wants to gain the favor of his readers without corrupting their individual judgment.;The question I explore in the last 2 chapters (4 and 5), on the question of "don" et "pardon", emerges from the context of the Wars of Religion and the several attempts to impose an amnesty on these never-ending conflicts. I investigate Montaigne's attitude to the edicts stipulating that citizens should forget the massacres. Avowing that forgetting cannot be imposed, Montaigne's own naturally weak memory serves him to emphasize the ethical purpose of his writing. Thus, he promotes forgiving as an expression of the ethos of conciliation: giving to the other is for oneself a greater victory over all forms of tyranny. In this fight against tyranny, "De l'amitie" becomes the hope for a confrairie based on the idea of "liberte volontaire" echoing La Boetie's Discours de la servitude volontaire . I conclude, therefore, that the Essais constitute a rejection of servitude by promoting a political resolution to the conflict in the form of a mutual obligation (King-subject, and fraternite ).