The Essays of Montaigne Ch. 28: Love Letters from a Lost

Michel de Montaigne

Love Letters from a Lost Friend

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Summary

This chapter is not an essay but a brief editorial note on twenty-nine love sonnets by Étienne de La Boétie, dedicated to Madame de Grammont. Montaigne does not print the poems here; an editor's note says they contain little but amorous complaints in a rough style, full of jealousy, fear, and suspicion.

The sonnets belonged to the 1588 edition but are of slight interest now; the dedicatory epistle moved to the correspondence. Montaigne had copies made to forward to friends, preserving a youthful voice very different from the political treatise that opened their friendship.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Preserving a Friend's Whole Voice

Grief makes us keep what is left of a person, even when the artifact is awkward or immature. Montaigne notes that La Boétie's sonnets are rough amorous complaints, yet he had copies sent to friends all the same.

Honor the people you love by saving their real traces, not only the version that flatters your memory.

Coming Up in Chapter 29

Montaigne leaves La Boétie's love poetry for a harder virtue. He will ask how even goodness becomes vicious when we grasp it too violently and call excess wisdom Montaigne argues that we corrupt good things by handling them too fiercely: virtue grasped too tightly becomes vice. Those who deny excess in virtue are playing with words; a man may love justice or piety so.

Lesson

What this chapter proves — the pattern beneath the scene

In this chapter, the lesson is A Bond With No Invoice.

The card below names the pattern this chapter proves — carry it with you into the original text.

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A Bond With No Invoice

Twenty-nine love poems, rough, jealous, full of suspicion: Montaigne preserves them without pretending they are the political masterwork. Even a perfect friend arrives with an earlier, embarrassing self. The bond includes that archive. Legend is a later edit.

Key Insight

Friendship that requires a cleaned biography is still a performance. Keep the jealous verses. The person before the legend is part of the recognition.

“amorous complaints, expressed in a very rough style, discovering the follies and outrages of a restless passion, overgorged, as it were, with jealousies, fears and suspicions.”

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Original text

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Chapter 28

Love Letters from a Lost Friend

NINE AND TWENTY SONNETS OF ESTIENNE DE LA BOITIE TO MADAME DE GRAMMONT, COMTESSE DE GUISSEN. [They scarce contain anything but amorous complaints, expressed in a very rough style, discovering the follies and outrages of a restless passion, overgorged, as it were, with jealousies, fears and suspicions.—Coste.] [These....contained in the edition of 1588 nine-and-twenty sonnets of La Boetie, accompanied by a dedicatory epistle to Madame de Grammont. The former, which are referred to at the end of Chap. XXVIL, do not really belong to the book, and are of very slight interest at this time; the epistle is transferred to…

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Critical Thinking Exercise

10 minutes

Create a Real Person Memorial

Think of someone you've lost or someone important to you. Write two versions of how you'd remember them: first, a 'perfect' version that only mentions their best qualities and achievements. Then write a 'real' version that includes their quirks, flaws, and human contradictions alongside their good qualities. Notice which version feels more like the actual person you knew.

Consider:

•Which version would help someone who never met them understand who they really were?
•Which version honours their memory in a way that feels authentic to your relationship?
•How does including imperfections actually make someone more memorable and loveable?

Journaling Prompt

Write about a time when someone shared an imperfect but real memory of a person you both knew. How did that flawed detail make you feel closer to that person's memory rather than further away?

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Michel de Montaigne

Love Letters from a Lost Friend

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Summary

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story