The “quiet refusal” aspect of On Voluntary Servitude’s politics had an obvious appeal for Montaigne. He agreed that the most important thing in confronting political abuse was to maintain one’s mental freedom—and that could mean opting out of public life rather than engaging with it. With its insistence on avoiding collaboration and on guarding one’s integrity, the Voluntary Servitude could almost be one of Montaigne’s own Essays, perhaps one written at an early stage when he was still polemical and had not yet perfected the art of sitting on every part of the fence at once.
