This conception of history as casuistry informs the practice of life writing in the Essais, which is based on the recounting of anecdotes, of things seen, experienced, read or heard, forming so many little tales with the value of examples to nourish reflection.
The chapter "Divers evenemens de mesme conseil" (I, 24) presents, in a chiasmus-like structure, two opposing cases of magnanimity that support the moral of fides proposed by Montaigne. Introduced in an addition from 1588, in the aftermath of the rereading, these two examples develop the narrative of two contradictory personal experiences that illustrate an ethic of the outstretched hand: the first provides a counter-example based on a scene of which Montaigne was once an eyewitness, while the second, based on an anecdote in which he was the protagonist, shows its success.
The first "moment of life" is introduced by the moral it is intended to illustrate: "It is an excellent means of winning the heart and will of others to go under submission and be proud, provided that it is done freely and without constraint of any kind, and that it is done on condition that one's trust is pure and clear, with one's forehead at least free of all scruples". The narrative opens, without transition, with a testimonial formula common in the Essays : "Je vis en mon enfance un gentihomme" ("I saw a gentleman in my childhood"), which introduces a key historical episode, that of the killing of Tristan de Moneins during the popular revolt against the gabelle tax in Bordeaux in 1548. The story of the event itself is dispatched in a single sentence, in order to get to the denouement more quickly, which is all that matters in terms of the lesson Montaigne intends to draw from it. This model of brief narrative, condensed into a single, complex sentence based on the accumulation of infinitives and past and present participles, is a recurrent feature of the Essais : the rapid succession of facts reveals a syntax that goes straight to the point, on the model of magistrate's style.
Montaigne simplifies events to the point of abstraction, in order to challenge the passive, submissive attitude of the "gentleman", which, he claims, had the effect of inciting the crowd against him. Here again, the aim is to examine the relationship between the council and the event, to penetrate the "secrets" of the attitude - of the council - adopted by Tristan de Moneins that led to the event, his killing.
Without mentioning the bloody repression that followed, he goes on to recount the second experience, which provides a counter-example and illustrates the same lesson. This second tale shows Montaigne, then mayor of Bordeaux, in a situation comparable to the one he witnessed as a child: in the context of a troop review in a climate of tension between the Catholic League and the City, in 1585, he was able to recall the scene from his childhood and dread the possibility of suffering the same fate as Tristan de Moneins. After a narrative just as economical as the first, he comments on his own example in the manner of ancient history: the outcome of the event is determined by Montaigne's decision, against majority opinion, to take a "secrete fiance" that Tristan de Moneins had once lacked. The episode is said to be the source of La Boétie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude , as an example of the subordination of men to the powers that govern them.
