Spiritual exercises and parrhesia in Montaigne's Essays

In his late work Michel Foucault stressed the importance of parrhesia (libertas, franc-parler, frankness of speech) in the philosophical practices of the Anciens, through a broader reflection on "spirituality" inspired chiefly by the work of Pierre Hadot. The notion of parrhesia emerges as an interesting matter also in a approach of Montaigne's Essays, where we can recognize a series of "spiritual exercises", in the sense given to the expression by Hadot: practices, not only intellectual, intended to effect a transformation in the subject who practice them. The "essay", in Montaigne, appears as a "writing of the self" exercise, based upon the reading of ancient philosophers, mainly from the Hellenistic period. This philosophic ascesis in the essay has also called Foucault's attention.