ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on practical ends such idealistic friendships in fact fulfilled in the early modern France of Michel de Montaigne's time and explains their popularity. It examines how Montaigne transforms perfect friendships practical, if hidden, function into a claim for absolute exclusivity that must ultimately lead one to qualify the popular impression of its authors affability. Discussion of the short-lived but apparently intense friendship with Etienne de La Boetie has tended to concern itself with Montaigne's decision to remove his friends masterpiece, The Will to Serve, from its originally projected place in the Essays, immediately following Of friendship. The three pieces by Plutarch that most attracted La Boetie, and their interrelated themes of sexuality, friendship, and marriage, found their counterpart in the triangular relationship the two men established around each others amorous involvements. True, Justus Lipsius was 14 years Montaigne's junior, but so was Pierre de Brach.
