THE GREAT FRENCH WRITERS 
 
 MONTESQUIEU
 
 @reat jFremj) Outers 
 
 MONTESQUIEU 
 
 BY ALBERT, SOREL 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 MELVILLE B. ANDERSON 
 
 AND 
 
 EDWARD PLAYFAIR ANDERSON 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A. C>ICCLURG AND COMPANY 
 ^ 1888
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 BY A. C. MCCLURG AND COMPANY 
 
 A. D. 1888
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 CHARACTER OF MONTESQUIEU 7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE " PERSIAN LETTERS " 30 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SOCIETY 48 
 
 "THE TEMPLE OF GNIDOS " 51 
 
 THE ACADEMY 55 
 
 TRAVELS 57 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CAUSES OF THE 
 
 GREATNESS AND DECLINE OF THE ROMANS " 63 
 " DIALOGUE OF SULLA AND EUCRATES "... 73 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PLAN AND COMPOSITION OF "THE SPIRIT OF 
 
 THE LAWS " 80 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS " 108 
 
 POLITICAL LAWS AND GOVERNMENTS .... 109 
 
 2234809
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PACK 
 
 "THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS" 139 
 
 CLIMATE AND LAWS 141 
 
 CIVIL LAWS 143 
 
 INTERNATIONAL LAW 145 
 
 ECONOMIC LAWS 149 
 
 THE THEORY OF FEUDAL LAWS 155 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CRITICISM AND DEFENCE OF "THE SPIRIT OF 
 
 THE LAWS " 162 
 
 MONTESQUIEU'S LAST YEARS 169 
 
 His INFLUENCE IN EUROPE UNDER THE OLD 
 
 REGIME 171 
 
 His VIEWS ON FRENCH GOVERNMENT .... 1 75 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 MONTESQUIEU AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 179 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MONTESQUIEU'S FOLLOWERS IN POLITICS AND 
 
 HISTORY 193 
 
 MONTESQUIEU AND CRITICISM 203 
 
 INDEX .... . . 211
 
 MONTESQUIEU 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HIS CHARACTER. 
 
 HT^HE "Persian Letters" appeared in 1721, 
 and created a wonderful sensation. 
 Never has a writer better caught the secret 
 spirit of his age, nor has any revealed with a 
 defter or an airier touch longings hitherto un- 
 spoken and thoughts hitherto confused. The 
 author saw decaying around him social insti- 
 tutions many centuries old. The beliefs, the 
 manners, and the customs by which the mon- 
 archy in France had been formed and sup- 
 ported were crumbling to ruin. Montesquieu 
 wished to diagnose this disease, and tried to 
 cure it. He was not aware that by describing 
 it as he did he spread the contagion, and that 
 his work was the gravest symptom of the crisis 
 which he wished to avert. Far from being an 
 appeal and a warning to reform, it was the sig-
 
 8 Montesquieu. 
 
 nal for a revolution, the presentiment of which 
 was present in all hearts, and its causes appar- 
 ent in every event. The " Persian Letters " 
 contain the germs of " The Spirit of the Laws." 
 Montesquieu was thirty- two years old when he 
 published these letters. His birth, education, 
 and early mental development belong to the 
 seventeenth century. The life and writings of 
 no man better explain how a democratic revo- 
 lution, unexpected even by those who paved 
 the way for it, came to succeed that reign of 
 Louis XIV. which seemed to have established 
 the institution of monarchy in France upon 
 imperishable foundations. Let us, then, con- 
 sider what Montesquieu was at the period when 
 he composed his first work, and let us try to 
 define the character of his genius before in- 
 quiring how that genius was revealed. 
 
 The family of Montesquieu belonged to the 
 genuine nobility, both of the sword and of the 
 gown. It had accepted the reformed doctrine 
 in its time, and, with Henry IV., had abjured 
 it. Jacques de Secondat, second son of the 
 Baron de Montesquieu, Chief-Justice of the 
 court of Guyenne, married in 1686 Franchise 
 de Penel, who brought him the estate and the 
 castle of La Brede, near Bordeaux. It was 
 here that Charles Louis, the future author of 
 " The Spirit of the Laws," was born, as the
 
 His Character. 9 
 
 fruit of this marriage, on the i8th of January, 
 1689. His father had an aristocratic severity 
 like that of Vauban and Catinat; his mother 
 was a pious woman ; both were nobles of the 
 kind who class themselves with the people, and 
 who are impelled by Christian sentiment as 
 well as by virtue of their rank to seek popu- 
 larity. At the moment when Charles Louis 
 was born, a beggar presented himself at the 
 castle gate, and the Secondats kept him to 
 be godfather to the child, "that such a god- 
 father might remind him all his life long that 
 the poor are his brethren." Thus Montaigne's 
 father, the fellow-countryman of the father of 
 Montesquieu, had done in days of yore. 
 
 Charles Louis bore at first the name of La 
 Brede, from the estate he inherited. He passed 
 three years at nurse among the peasants, thus 
 strengthening his constitution and learning to 
 speak the patois. He returned to his parents 
 at the Castle of La Brede, with which his mem- 
 ory is still connected. It is a great thirteenth- 
 century manor-house in the form of a castle- 
 keep, a massive battlemented structure, its 
 dark walls irregularly pierced with windows, 
 and rising from the edge of a broad moat filled 
 with water, over which you cross by a draw- 
 bridge. Here Charles Louis lived until he was 
 seven ; then he lost his mother, and was sent
 
 io Montesquieu. 
 
 to live with the Oratorian Brethren at Juilly, 
 where he remained from 1700 to 171 1. 1 
 
 This education, apart from family intercourse, 
 was not suited to develop in him a very tender 
 heart, and he was not inclined that way, being 
 of a cheerful disposition, thoughtful, but not at 
 all melancholy. It would seem that this eccle- 
 siastical training ought to have made him a be- 
 liever, or at least have disposed him to religious 
 ideas. His mother had inspired him with re- 
 spect for the Christian religion ; but the edu- 
 cation that he received, so wholly literary, 
 classical, and Roman, prepared him through 
 indifference for incredulity. At the age of 
 twenty he composed an essay to prove that 
 the heathen philosophers did not deserve 
 eternal damnation. The groundwork of Stoi- 
 cism, which he retained all his life, and which 
 was always his chief philosophical depend- 
 ence, came to him directly from his Latin 
 studies. He supplemented this, as soon as he 
 had control of his own reading, with a very 
 strong dose of Pyrrhonism, traditions of which 
 were preserved in the Temple Club ; and in 
 spite of the Sorbonne, the censorship, and 
 
 1 This sentence implies something that the dates contra- 
 dict. Young La Brede appears not to have been sent to the 
 Oratorian school until some four years after his mother's 
 death. TR.
 
 His Character. 1 1 
 
 the police, this scepticism became generally 
 known. 
 
 La Brede studied law, and was admitted to 
 the parliament of Bordeaux in 1714, with the 
 title of counsellor. The following year he 
 married Mademoiselle Jeanne de Lartigue, who 
 was of a military family and of Calvinistic 
 extraction. This lady was more candid than 
 beautiful, more timid than winning, more vir- 
 tuous than agreeable. She presented him with 
 a son, and subsequently with two daughters. 
 The son was born in 1716, and in the same 
 year La Brede became Chief-Justice. His 
 father's elder brother, who had held that office, 
 bequeathed it to La Brede, with all his prop- 
 erty, on condition that La Brede should take 
 the name of Montesquieu. Never was a legacy 
 better bestowed, at least as to the name, 
 for as to the office, Montesquieu showed little 
 taste for it. Neither the family nor the court 
 occupied a very important place in his life ; 
 he spoke of both with respect, he behaved 
 in both with propriety, but he forgot their 
 existence as much as possible. He freed 
 himself from their trammels as soon as he 
 thought he was in a position to do so. He 
 was fond of society and of pleasure, and this 
 fondness drew him away from home ; he took 
 no interest in lawsuits, and detested the legal
 
 12 Montesquieu. 
 
 profession, regarding barristers with scorn and 
 solicitors with contempt. He did not think 
 himself an orator, and did not find himself 
 suited to formal speech-making, nor even to 
 the ostentatious reports which were the pecul- 
 iar pride of the bench. His mind found its 
 highest activity in the satisfaction of its alert 
 curiosity and in the delights of reflection. He 
 found his best food in the society of Bordeaux, 
 in which his birth and his position gave him a 
 foremost place. 
 
 " This profession of the law, holding an in- 
 termediate position between the high nobility 
 and the people," opened the widest field to 
 the political observer. It formed the centre of 
 cultivated society in the provinces. Bordeaux 
 was one of the cities in which intellectual cul- 
 ture seemed most highly honored. An acad- 
 emy had been established there " to polish and 
 perfect the admirable talents that Nature be- 
 stows so liberally upon men born in this clime," 
 as the founder of the society expresses it. To 
 this academy Montesquieu was admitted almost 
 as a matter of course, and he at once plunged 
 into scientific studies. 
 
 Owing to the impulse given by Newton, the 
 observation and study of Nature was becoming 
 free from confused compilation and legend. 
 Montesquieu, who had written an essay on
 
 His Character. 13 
 
 " The Policy of the Romans in Religious Mat- 
 ters," and another on " The System of Ideas," 
 devoted himself for some time to anatomy, 
 botany, and physics. He studied the kidneys, 
 the causes of the echo, and of transparency in 
 bodies. But the constant weakness of his eye- 
 sight rendered experiments difficult for him, 
 while the constant impatience of his mind ren- 
 dered them unprofitable and laborious. He 
 was not capable of that minute attention which 
 forms a part of the genius for scientific dis- 
 covery, and which, in Goethe, was combined 
 with the creative imagination. Montesquieu 
 rushed at once to his conclusions ; he was 
 eager to paint on a grand scale and with 
 dashing strokes. He conceived, before Buf- 
 fon, the idea of a " Physical History of the 
 Earth, Ancient and Modern." In 1719 he 
 addressed circulars to all the learned world, 
 asking for observations. In the course of this 
 reconnaissance of the world's past, he redis- 
 covered men and humanity, and paused to 
 consider them. This was the subject for 
 which his genius destined him ; he was drawn 
 to it by a natural inclination, and became 
 wedded to it forever. But after these incur- 
 sions upon scientific territory, and his brief 
 period of laboratory practice, he retained a 
 conception of science, a method of work, and
 
 14 Montesquieu. 
 
 a bias toward experiment, which reveal them- 
 selves in his works on politics and history. 
 
 Such was his mental training. Allowing for 
 slight differences in intensity, he was at thirty 
 what he remained till the end. There are few 
 writers who have exercised so much influence 
 on their age, and yet have had so little to do 
 with the affairs of that age. The private life 
 of Montesquieu has no interest; it throws no 
 light whatever on his works. He was a gentle- 
 man and a thinker. He would have deemed 
 inquiries about his person intrusive, just as he 
 would have considered it intrusive to trouble 
 himself about the person of another. He 
 wished to be known only through his works ; 
 and except through his works it would, in- 
 deed, hardly be possible for us to form any 
 idea of his life and of his sentiments. 
 
 He was of medium height, thin and sinewy, 
 his face long, refined, with a very marked 
 profile, the profile for a medallion, a large 
 nose, a small mouth mocking and sensuous, 
 the forehead slightly receding, the eyes wide 
 open, and, though early weakened and prema- 
 turely veiled, full of fire, full of genius, eager 
 for light. " It is with a kind of rapture," said 
 he, " that I behold the light." It is a good 
 French face, with strongly marked Gascon fea- 
 tures ; in him the two natures are blended.
 
 His Character. 15 
 
 The Gascon element formed the original 
 groundwork of Montesquieu's character, and 
 determined his disposition. He retained not 
 only the Gascon accent, which he affected, 
 but the ways, the gasconade, in the good 
 sense of the term, making it a point of honor 
 to be witty. His conversation was full of sal- 
 lies, surprises, and irregular flights. His style 
 retains much of this conversational manner; 
 it is marked by rather abrupt transitions, mul- 
 tiplied digressions, outbursts of familiar elo- 
 quence, gleams of playfulness and raillery, 
 in a word, by the freedom of informal chat, 
 and, owing to an overcrowded memory and 
 an excess of animation, by an abandonment to 
 impulse sometimes bordering upon license. 
 
 Montesquieu was fond of Montaigne; he 
 placed him among the great poets, he de- 
 lighted in him, he fed upon him, and at 
 intervals seems Montaigne himself alive again. 
 He has, like him, an insatiable curiosity, and 
 that thirst for knowledge which is the un- 
 changing youth of the mind : " I pass my 
 life in investigation ; . . . everything arouses 
 interest and wonder. I am like a child whose 
 organs, still sensitive, are deeply affected by 
 the most insignificant objects." Filled with 
 a passion for reading, he travels about his 
 library; there he makes his excursions, there
 
 1 6 Montesquieu. 
 
 he follows the chase, there he seeks his booty ; 
 he scribbles his books full of notes. By thus 
 scouring the woods his mind is constantly in- 
 vigorated and fertilized. He is delighted with 
 significant anecdotes, with traits characteristic 
 of a man or of a country, or even with little 
 stories serving only to amuse and merely illus- 
 trating the perennial folly or good-nature of 
 man. These he collects and retains, and when- 
 ever the occasion is at all inviting he can- 
 not resist the pleasure of relating them. Many 
 odd sayings, strange assertions and quotations, 
 surprising us even in the most serious chapters 
 of " The Spirit of the Laws," proceed from no 
 other source than this Gascon humor. Mon- 
 tesquieu cites, in connection with the laws 
 " providing for political liberty in its consti- 
 tutional relations," Arribas, King of Epirus, 
 and the laws of the Molossians. What is the 
 use of Arribas and the Molossians here? asks 
 a critic. Their use is to show that the author 
 has read Montaigne and is from the same 
 country. 
 
 But he is, at the same time, French, in- 
 tensely French, a serious and contemplative 
 Frenchman. Montaigne scattered his thoughts ; 
 Montesquieu felt the need of connected think- 
 ing; he eagerly desired order, method, con- 
 tinuity. In all his cases he must have counsel,
 
 His Character. 17 
 
 testimony, chains of causes. The most won- 
 derful collection of rarities is not enough for 
 him. He was not contented with showing 
 amateurs through his museum, and slyly en- 
 joying their amazement at the variety of forms 
 and the endless succession of contrasts. He 
 wished to explain to himself and to others this 
 marvellous diversity in Nature, to discover laws 
 amid apparently conflicting facts, and to sur- 
 prise by harmonizing instead of contrasting. 
 " Man's mind is made for thought, that is, for 
 perception ; now, such a being must have curi- 
 osity; for as all things are linked together in 
 a chain in which each idea has one before it 
 and one after it, we cannot enjoy the sight of 
 one thing without desiring to see another." 
 This is the curiosity of the scholar and 
 historian. 
 
 This curiosity implies an entire indepen- 
 dence of judgment, and this Montesquieu 
 always possessed. His mind is one of the 
 most unprejudiced, one of the freest, imagina- 
 ble. But if he never had the prejudices of 
 superstition, he did have at one time those of 
 unbelief. Under the influence of the reaction 
 that took place in the days of his youth 
 against the orthodoxy of the latter years of 
 Louis XIV., he showed himself a freethinker, 
 pushing freedom of thought to irreverence,
 
 1 8 Montesquieu. 
 
 and independence of belief to hostility. He 
 did not continue to entertain such views. His 
 very contemplation of the order existing in 
 Nature and in ideas tended to banish scep- 
 ticism. His profound study of social insti- 
 tutions led him to have respect for religious 
 beliefs. But, as Sainte-Beuve has remarked, in 
 his very homage " to the elevation and ideali- 
 zation of human nature " he always remained 
 eminently a politician and a historian. He 
 understood and accepted the ideas of justice 
 and religion from the practical and positive 
 side rather than in their " virtual and essential 
 selves." He had no aptitude for metaphysics. 
 First causes seeming to him beyond our ken, he 
 did not try to find them, and rested content 
 with secondary causes, those whose effects 
 reach our senses and are objects of expe- 
 rience. His scrutiny was limited to this world, 
 and did not extend beyond humanity. As to 
 things that are beyond history and beyond 
 this world, he relied upon his sense of life and 
 consciousness. He rested, as a last resort, in 
 those sublime commonplaces of human hope, 
 which, even in their mystery, still seemed to 
 him the most satisfactory solution that men 
 had found to the problem of their destiny. 
 
 "What avails all this philosophizing? God 
 is so high that we do not perceive even His
 
 His Character. 19 
 
 shadow. We know Him in fact only in His 
 precepts." These precepts are written within 
 us ; and the social instinct develops them in 
 proportion as it leads us to form the social 
 state. " Even were there no God, we ought 
 always to love justice; that is, endeavor to 
 resemble the being of whom we have such a 
 sublime conception, and who, if He existed, 
 would be forever just. However free we might 
 be from the yoke of religion, we ought not to 
 be free from that of equity." " Even if the 
 immortality of the soul were an error, I should 
 be loath to disbelieve in it. I acknowledge that 
 I am not so humble as the atheists. I do not 
 know how they think of it, but for my part I 
 am not willing to barter the idea of immortal- 
 ity for that of transient bliss. I am delighted 
 with the thought that I am immortal as God 
 himself. Independently of revelation, meta- 
 physical arguments give me a very strong 
 hope of eternal blessedness, and this hope I 
 should not be willing to renounce." 
 
 Practically he almost closes with the wager 
 of Pascal, 1 not out of agony of heart and de- 
 spair of reason, but out of prudence, out of 
 
 1 Pascal (" Thoughts," iii. i) says, "Not to wager that God 
 exists, is equivalent to wagering that He does not exist." 
 See the remainder of the passage, and Voltaire's note upon 
 it, in which he taxes Pascal with irreverence. TR.
 
 2O Montesquieu. 
 
 contempt for the hypotheses of schoolmen and 
 for dogmatic systems; above all, out of his 
 conscientiousness as a law-giver, out of his 
 good sense as a citizen, out of his perception 
 of the needs of society, out of regard for 
 human-kind. His natural inclination drew 
 him toward the ancients, toward Marcus 
 Aurelius and the Antonines, whom he calls 
 " Nature's greatest work." " Born for society, 
 they believed that their destiny was to labor 
 for it." In all his works we find this spirit of 
 Stoicism, improved by French urbanity and 
 tempered with modern humane feeling. 
 
 I do not mean charity. Montesquieu, hav- 
 ing never succeeded in quite understanding 
 the part of Christianity in civilization, appears 
 to have remained unaffected by this Christian 
 sentiment. He was kind, and he showed him- 
 self generous. He said : " I have never seen 
 any one's tears flow without being touched by 
 them ; I feel compassion for the wretched, as if 
 they alone were men." But he dreaded to let 
 it appear. He considered " that a noble ac- 
 tion is one that shows kindness, and requires 
 effort for its performance," and he pushed 
 such effort to the point where it becomes af- 
 fectation. His scorn of sham sensibility took 
 the form of coldness. He carried so far his 
 fear of appearing the dupe of his feelings, and
 
 His Character. 21 
 
 of seeming vain of his good deeds, as to de- 
 prive himself of gratitude. 
 
 Some stiffness and much bashfulness com- 
 plicated this constraint. " Bashfulness has 
 been the scourge of my life." He confesses 
 that he suffered with it most of all before 
 blockheads. We should imagine that he 
 suffered with it sometimes in the presence 
 of women. He was long their lover, and 
 some of them loved him in return. As a 
 lover he was passionless, imperturbable, un- 
 romantic, but sprightly and witty, more eager 
 for amusement than for affection, more super- 
 ficial in love than in study, but exhibiting 
 here the same curiosity and much more self- 
 indulgence. If he had passions, they dis- 
 turbed him little ; if he had disappointments, 
 he was soon consoled ; if he often yielded to 
 impulse, he never gave himself completely 
 up. " I was in my young days so fortunate 
 as to form attachments for women who, I 
 thought, loved me ; as soon as I ceased to 
 believe this, I promptly broke with them." 
 There was in him something of the libertine. 
 This must here be acknowledged, because a 
 trace of it at once the stamp and the stain 
 of his time remains in his works. We 
 should not know Montesquieu if we did not see 
 him, at least in passing and by stealth, as the
 
 2 2 Montesquieu. 
 
 wit of the boudoir, the gay magistrate rival- 
 ling Judge Renault and Judge De Brosses 
 in stolen gallantries. 
 
 " The society of women," he has somewhere 
 said, "depraves our morals and forms our 
 taste." We could reverse the statement with 
 regard to the women whom he knew. His 
 moral sense was not blunted in their society, 
 and his taste was depraved. It was to please 
 them that he composed certain opuscules 
 which disfigure his works, and that he sowed 
 his finest chapters with licentious witticisms 
 which spoil them. This is what induced the 
 fashionable world of those days to read his 
 books, and is what would probably repel the 
 fashionable world of to-day. It is not that 
 society is now less frivolous in its thoughts or 
 more fastidious in its morality ; but the fashion 
 has changed, and fashion, in this matter and 
 in this atmosphere, is the most intolerant of 
 censors. Licentiousness, musk-scented and full 
 of cant in Fontenelle, ironical and prudent in 
 Montesquieu, degrading and cynical in Vol- 
 taire, lustful in Rousseau, loose and wanton 
 in Diderot, became magniloquent with Cha- 
 teaubriand, theatrical with the romantic school, 
 pedantic, pathological, and dismal with the 
 school that has followed. This school, with 
 its gibberish from the hysterical hospital, is
 
 His Character. 23 
 
 far removed from the tone of sportive gal- 
 lantry into which Montesquieu is fond of re- 
 laxing. Our recent literature reeks with a 
 gross vapor that would have nauseated the 
 contemporaries of Montesquieu ; worse yet, it 
 would have bored them, and to do this was 
 in those days the worst of offences. 
 
 This is an offence which Montesquieu never 
 commits; for though he jests in these inter- 
 ludes, he does not keep always at it, and is 
 too wise to confound the design of the vig- 
 nette with the subject of the chapter. He 
 trifles just as he lugs in curious learning, from 
 versatility, and with the freakishness of Gascon 
 humor; but the thinker soon brings back the 
 truant to the high-road. The philosopher 
 always has the last word. 
 
 He attached much importance to the dignity 
 of his name. This liberal nobleman was 
 very proud of his birth and of his descent 
 from a race of conquerors. " Our ancestors, 
 the Germans, warlike and free," is a thought 
 which often recurs, under many forms, in his 
 writings. This thought lurks in his heart, and 
 is the expression of an inborn prejudice which 
 he nurses, and which, far from criticising, he 
 tries to confirm by his reading. He is wont 
 to say complacently, " my domain," " my 
 vassals." The dry subject of fiefs, which was
 
 24 Montesquieu. 
 
 distasteful and baffling to his contemporaries, 
 has for him all the personal attractiveness of 
 genealogy. 
 
 But the feudal lord was combined in him 
 with the magistrate; and if he had no liking 
 for his duties, he did have a passionate sense 
 of the prerogatives of his class. As he had a 
 classical training, he carried into his demands 
 for the feudal liberties a sort of haughty re- 
 publican spirit derived directly from Rome. 
 " I have had a distant view, in the books of 
 Plutarch, of what great men were." From this 
 intercourse with the ancients he acquired that 
 impulse toward great actions, that fortitude of 
 soul, that worship of the political virtues, the 
 tradition of which was becoming extinct in the 
 France of his day, and which he contributed 
 in no small degree to restore. He hated the 
 sneering spirit, and liked to admire heartily. 
 He composed pen-portraits of great national 
 characters, " of those rare men who would 
 have been acknowledged by the Romans," of 
 those of whom it could be said, as of Turenne, 
 that their existence " was a hymn of praise to 
 humanity." His noblest pages are portraits of 
 the founders of empires. 
 
 He is before all, and above all, a citizen. " Is 
 it not a noble aim to endeavor to leave men 
 after us happier than we have been?" "I
 
 His Character. 25 
 
 naturally loved the well-being and the honor 
 of my country. ... I have always felt a secret 
 joy when any law was made which conduced 
 to the common welfare." He sought this 
 common welfare ; he would have delighted in 
 laboring for it ; it would have been his glory ; 
 and we can see that he once coveted this glory. 
 The court disdained him. He was wounded 
 by it. Bitter and abiding resentment betrayed 
 itself in passages which, both in thought and 
 expression, remind one of La Bruyere. " At 
 first I had in most cases a puerile dread of 
 the great; as soon as I had found them out, I 
 began almost immediately to despise them. . . . 
 I was wont to say to a man, Fie ! fie ! your 
 sentiments are as low as those of a man of 
 quality." 
 
 He must have suffered all the more from 
 this rude rebuff at Versailles, because he was 
 really modest. All pretension to superiority 
 offended him. " Authors strut like the dra- 
 matis persona; of the stage." He had no con- 
 ception of hatred, which seemed to him a 
 painful thing: " Wherever I find envy, I take 
 pleasure in badgering it." He threw off re- 
 serve only among intimates, " in houses where 
 he could get along with his every-day wit." 
 This wit was amazingly prompt, nimble, spark- 
 ling. His friends were charmed and dazzled
 
 26 Montesquieu. 
 
 by it. His mere acquaintances, whom he 
 treated with indifference, and who heard only 
 the echo of his conversation, reproached him 
 with being chary of his wit in their company. 
 He was often content to keep his thoughts to 
 himself, seeming to agree with bores in order 
 not to have to hear them, or, worst of all, to 
 contradict them. Thus escaping discussion, 
 he went on making observations from his own 
 high standpoint, and " composing his book in 
 society," as was remarked, not without irrita- 
 tion, by a great lady in whose company he is 
 said to have been too reflective. 
 
 Though the best of friends, the most amia- 
 ble and the most beloved, he knew how to 
 accommodate himself to retirement, and even 
 sought it when his vocation as a thinker made 
 him feel the need of it. He had a contented 
 disposition, regular health, ability to think 
 clearly with promptness and continuity, and 
 the power to bury himself endlessly in his 
 studies. " I have never had a vexation which 
 an hour's reading has not dissipated. ... If 
 people only wanted to be happy it would be 
 very easy ; but they want to be happier than 
 other people, and this is almost always diffi- 
 cult, because we imagine other people happier 
 than they really are." He showed prudence, 
 too much prudence indeed, in those matters
 
 His Character. 27 
 
 of the imagination and of the heart which ad- 
 mit so little of it. Kind and humane without 
 being susceptible, he never pushed any attach- 
 ment so far as to cloud his mind or break his 
 heart. There is always the same groundwork of 
 Stoicism concealed, and, as it were, sprinkled 
 with the salt of Gascon levity. Plants spring- 
 ing from such soil are gorged with sap and 
 produce wonderfully juicy fruit, but they de- 
 velop no verdure and they give no shade. 
 
 Montesquieu would have been profound and 
 brilliant indeed, but unattractive, had not the 
 observer, the scholar, and the thinker, each 
 been coupled in him with the artist. He not 
 only has the political opinions of antiquity, 
 he has its estimate of poetry. " These ancient 
 times enchant me, and I am always ready to 
 say with Pliny, ' It is to Athens that you are 
 bound ; revere its gods.' " He enjoys " that 
 cheerful air diffused through all mythology." 
 He calls " Telemaque " " the most exquisite 
 work of this age." With the single exception 
 of " Manon Lescaut," which he could not have 
 read before mature years, and which he must 
 have enjoyed, the novels of his time were so 
 long-drawn-out, and so deficient in imagina- 
 tion and style, that they repelled him from im- 
 aginative literature ; while the dull, cold, and 
 mechanical versification of his contemporaries
 
 28 Montesquieu. 
 
 repelled him from their poetry. He found 
 his poetry only in Montaigne and in the an- 
 cients. Moreover, as he prides himself upon 
 writing like a gentleman and not like a gram- 
 marian, he dashes down his thought, just as it 
 occurs to him, in metaphors and sallies of wit; 
 but he returns to it often, spending a long time 
 on it. He revises, erases, corrects ; he writes, 
 in short, as an author who has a reason for his 
 taste, and a definite style. " What usually 
 characterizes a great thought is, that it states 
 an idea that brings to mind a great many 
 others, and enables us to discover at one 
 stroke what we could only hope for after 
 protracted reading." 
 
 Thus Montesquieu appears to us about 1720, 
 in the maturity of his powers. A wonderful 
 moderation of heart, of mind, and of character, 
 reigned in him and offset some qualities by 
 other very different ones which Nature very 
 rarely combines in the same man. These 
 qualities do not comprehend all of French 
 genius, but they do comprehend all of French 
 reason and wit. We have had sublimer philoso- 
 phers, bolder thinkers, more eloquent writers, 
 sadder, more pathetic, and more fertile crea- 
 tors of fictitious characters, and authors richer 
 in the invention of images. We have had no 
 more judicious observer of human societies,
 
 His Character. 29 
 
 no wiser counsellor regarding great public 
 interests, no man who has united so acute a 
 perception of individual passions with such 
 profound penetration into political institutions, 
 no one, in short, who has employed such 
 rare literary talent in the service of such per- 
 fect good-sense. 
 
 " My mind," said Montesquieu, "is a mould ; 
 the same set of portraits is always obtained 
 from it." These portraits had their prepara- 
 tory studies and sketches, and many originals 
 have sat for the great historic figures making 
 up Montesquieu's portrait-gallery. Let us 
 take a look at the first models who presented 
 themselves to him, and whom he proposed to 
 depict. They are the men and the events of 
 the Regency. No society has been more will- 
 ing to display itself nakedly, none has chal- 
 lenged satire with more effrontery.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE " PERSIAN LETTERS." 
 
 LOUIS XIV. had just departed. His de- 
 clining years resembled a gloomy and 
 majestic sunset. Contemporaries did not stop 
 to admire the twilight of a great reign ; they 
 were glad to be set free. No one regretted 
 the king; he had too strictly imposed on all 
 Frenchmen " that dependence which subjected 
 all." " The provinces," says Saint-Simon, 
 " rallying from despair at their ruin and anni- 
 hilation, breathed free and trembled for joy. 
 The higher courts and the whole magisterial 
 caste had been reduced to insignificance by 
 edicts and appeals ; now the former hoped to 
 make a figure, the latter to be exempt from 
 royal intermeddling. The people, ruined, 
 crushed, and desperate, thanked Heaven with 
 scandalous openness for a deliverance touch- 
 ing the reality of which their eagerness ad- 
 mitted no doubts." In the society in which 
 Montesquieu lived, among the wits and free- 
 thinkers, there was none who, like the common
 
 The "Persian Letters" 31 
 
 people, thought of thanking Heaven. On the 
 other hand, the so-called liberty which arose 
 removed all checks from a freethinking ten- 
 dency which passed beyond all bounds. 
 
 This freedom of thought had never disap- 
 peared. The tradition of it descended, " di- 
 rect and uninterrupted," from the Renaissance 
 to the Fronde, and from the Fronde to the 
 Regency, through Retz, Saint- fivremond, Ven- 
 dome, Bayle, the epicureans and the sceptics. 
 " The reign of Louis XIV. is honeycombed by 
 it." This prince and his councillors of state 
 thought they did wonders by suppressing dis- 
 senters. Huguenots, Jansenists, all those who 
 professed to believe according to their own 
 consciences and the grace they received from 
 Heaven, were persecuted, proscribed, annihi- 
 lated. But infidelity remained, and, cher- 
 ished in the depths of the heart, became the 
 most fearful adversary that the Church had 
 faced since the days of Leo X. ; for it was 
 quiet, self-possessed, imperturbable as the 
 spirit of the age. Infidels carried into their 
 denial the magisterial fulness and certainty of 
 a Bossuet in his faith. " The great heresy of 
 society," wrote Nicole, " is no longer Calvin- 
 ism or Lutheranism ; it is atheism." 
 
 The Reformation and Jansenism, both pro- 
 ceeding from the Christian spirit, had been
 
 32 Montesquieu. 
 
 crushed ; and thus the way was best opened 
 for the spirit of the Renaissance, which was 
 that of pagan antiquity. The king had revived 
 Olympian morals, an example more efficacious 
 than all the edicts in the world. The political 
 creed derived by Bossuet from Holy Writ 
 could not prevail over the moral code derived 
 by Louis XIV. from mythology. The king, 
 grown old, converted and devout, found no 
 remedy for this except penitence ; but how- 
 ever sincere his own penitence might be, he 
 succeeded in forcing upon his subjects only 
 hypocrisy. Dissoluteness went masked, or 
 kept within doors. 
 
 The Regency freed it from every restraint. 
 The display of vice succeeded the show of 
 devotion; the rivals of Don Juan occupied 
 on the front of the stage the place recently 
 held by the rivals of Tartuffe. Everything 
 was called in question, discussed, unsettled. 
 The imposition of the bull Unigcnitus upon 
 the clergy passionately excited all believers; 
 the intestinal broils of the Church opened a 
 breach for freethinkers. Dubois debauched 
 politics ; Law, the finances of the state. There 
 had been gambling-hells only for the nobil- 
 ity and gentry; henceforth the people have 
 them. And yet no one suspected that this 
 inundation of ideas and passions would wash
 
 The "Persian Letters." 33 
 
 away the old foundations in France. The new 
 reign inspired boundless hopes; all rash 
 schemes became possible because none of 
 them seemed formidable. 
 
 Thus thought Montesquieu, as he was hur- 
 ried along by these movements of the age. A 
 nobleman and a magistrate, sly and critical, 
 but magnanimous withal, an ardent reformer, 
 and one who confided in illusions, eager for 
 fame, anxious to please, dreaming that he 
 would enlighten his countrymen and shine in 
 the world of fashion, smitten, moreover, " with 
 that mania for writing books " which deter- 
 mined his calling, yet at the same time 
 careful of his person, scrupulous about the 
 proprieties of his rank, without love for scan- 
 dal and still less for the rack, he sought a veil 
 for his ideas so flexible and so discreet that 
 his work might stimulate inquiring minds 
 without offending the official wariness of the 
 censors. He supposes that two Persians, one 
 of whom, Rica, is the more lively and satirical, 
 while Usbek, the other, is the more meditative 
 and reflective, come to visit Europe. They 
 exchange impressions, inform their Persian 
 friends about the affairs of Europe, and are 
 informed by them about those of Persia. The 
 plot was not entirely new. It is of little con- 
 sequence to know whether Montesquieu bor- 
 3
 
 34 Montesquieu* 
 
 rowed it from Dufresny. Montesquieu was 
 capable of inventing it; at all events, he has 
 made it his own. His idea of Persia he got 
 from Chardin. He was fond of reading this 
 traveller's pleasant stories; he derived from 
 them his theory of despotism and his theory 
 of climates ; they suggested the species of 
 romance which he inserted in the " Persian 
 Letters," and the personal details about his 
 characters. This is the most questionable 
 part of his book. It was then quite the fash- 
 ion, but is now wholly out of date. 
 
 Montesquieu enjoyed the " Arabian Nights," 
 and might have found in them all the elements 
 necessary to form an agreeable imitation of the 
 Oriental tale. He did not think of it. His 
 romance recalls the younger Crebillon's writ- 
 ings, though it has less of licentious grace, and 
 Hamilton's tales, though it has less of ease and 
 of pleasing improbability. There is in these 
 ticklish stories an effort at exact portrayal en- 
 tirely uncalled for, and consequently offensive 
 enough. If Montesquieu had confined himself 
 to reproducing the details of Persian manners 
 collected by Chardin, such details would pass, 
 in case of need, for local color. But he did 
 nothing of the kind. Montesquieu embel- 
 lished the traveller's picture and arranged it to 
 suit the fancy of the dissolute judge. Chardin
 
 The" Persian Letters" 35 
 
 says somewhere, " Modesty forbids me even 
 to recall what I have heard on such a sub- 
 ject." Montesquieu has imagined more than 
 he has heard, and has described it without 
 regard to propriety. All the paraphernalia 
 of a harem more Gascon than Persian, and a 
 system of polygamy more European than 
 Oriental, are displayed in a travestied, tar- 
 nished, antiquated picture which vexes and 
 chills us. 
 
 Montesquieu not only makes Chardin's pic- 
 ture licentious, he makes it tragical. His 
 Persians have a gloomy and restless jealousy. 
 " Wretched man that I am ! " exclaims Usbek ; 
 " I long to see again my native land, perhaps 
 only to become more wretched still. Alas ! 
 what should I do there? . . . entering my 
 seraglio, I must demand an account of the try- 
 ing time of my absence . . . what if punish- 
 ments which I shall myself impose must be 
 lasting tokens of my disgrace and of my 
 despair?" He speaks with a sinister tone 
 of those " fatal doors opening only for him." 
 Those who guard them are not the " old 
 slaves, odd and deformed," observed by Char- 
 din; they are the grandiloquent victims of a 
 fatal destiny. There is in them something 
 resembling a posthumous Abailard and an 
 anticipated Triboulet. These eunuchs, as it
 
 36 Montesquieu. 
 
 appears, were very learned, and acted as tu- 
 tors to Persians of quality. One of them 
 must have come as far as Valais and have 
 taken charge of the education of Saint- 
 Preux. 1 
 
 These are the weak points of the work ; they 
 partly explain its success. This fashion has 
 gone out; ours, too, will go out. Let us fix 
 our attention upon what is abiding. And first 
 the style, which is wonderfully nervous, brief, 
 suggestive, above all precise; it is, moreover, 
 temperate, and of admirable propriety in its 
 turns of phrase ; it is livelier, easier, bolder in 
 movement than that of Saint-Evremond ; less 
 strained and less elaborate than that of La 
 Bruyere. Montesquieu does not seek orna- 
 ments and figures of rhetoric as he will later 
 on, when he treats of drier subjects, since he 
 thinks, and rightly thinks, that the variety of 
 the thought is here enough for the amusement 
 of the reader. Here the pure current of French 
 wit flows over a bed rather stony, it is true ; 
 but what limpidity in its waters, what joy, 
 what grace and light in its ripples and its 
 little cascades ! This is the stream which 
 is to pass on to Voltaire and Beaumarchais ; 
 Stendhal and Merimee, in our time, are to 
 
 1 The selfish, grandiloquent hero of Rousseau's " New 
 Heloisa." TR.
 
 The "Persian Letters"' 37 
 
 receive it and turn it toward us, but with a 
 more restrained flow, over a drier and more 
 tortuous bed. 
 
 Pictures of character and manners abound 
 in the " Persian Letters." Montesquieu, who 
 afterward shows such a sagacious knowledge 
 of man in his social relations, shows in these 
 letters the penetrating and ironical observation 
 of the man of the world. Tradition will have 
 it that in Usbek he portrayed himself. Usbek 
 reasons much about affairs and pries much into 
 causes ; he preaches divorce, thinks highly of 
 suicide, praises the Stoics ; but he is very rest- 
 less in love, very melancholy in his jealousy, 
 and fiercely gloomy when satiated with pleas- 
 ure. This could never be the true picture of 
 a Gascon quite fancy-free, who formed attach- 
 ments with sprightliness, broke them off with- 
 out bitterness, and had no trouble that could 
 hold out against a page of Plutarch or Mon- 
 taigne. Rica resembles Montesquieu at least 
 as much, but is in reality only the same per- 
 son as Usbek in another guise. These two 
 Persians are twin brothers. Usbek holds the 
 pen when Montesquieu preaches morality to 
 his contemporaries ; Rica takes it when Mon- 
 tesquieu satirizes them. And how delicate 
 his satire ! 
 
 His gallery of fools is equal to the most
 
 38 Montesquieu. 
 
 celebrated collections of the kind. Here is 
 the great lord, "the man of all the kingdom 
 who best maintains the dignity of his station, 
 taking snuff so loftily, blowing his nose so 
 remorselessly, spitting so unconcernedly, ca- 
 ressing his dog so odiously," that we cannot 
 weary of admiring him. Here is the director 
 of consciences, here the literary snob, more 
 willing to endure a sound drubbing than the 
 criticism of his works ; here is the oracle fur- 
 nishing the subject of one of the liveliest 
 sketches in the work : 
 
 " I happened the other day into a company 
 where I saw a man very well satisfied with 
 himself. In fifteen minutes he decided three 
 questions in morals, four historical problems, 
 and five points in physical science. I never 
 saw so universal an oracle ; his mind was 
 never troubled by the slightest doubt. We 
 left the sciences and spoke of the news of the 
 day, he was an oracle on the news of the 
 day. I wished to catch him, and said to my- 
 self, ' I must take refuge in my stronghold and 
 have recourse to my country.' I spoke to him 
 of Persia; but scarcely had I spoken four words 
 when he gave me twice the lie, relying on the 
 authority of Messrs. Tavernier and Chardin. 
 'Ah! good Heavens,' said I to myself, 'what 
 a man this is ! Before long he will be better
 
 The " Persian Letters." 39 
 
 acquainted with the streets of Ispahan than I 
 am myself.' I soon made up my mind to keep 
 silence and let him talk ; and he still plays the 
 oracle." 
 
 Montesquieu's Persians are severe upon 
 women ; I mean upon such as Montesquieu 
 associated with in the society where he amused 
 himself, and whose weaknesses he had per- 
 haps himself observed. He accuses them of 
 devoting themselves to gaming in order to 
 " facilitate a dearer passion " while they are still 
 young, and to supply the loss of this passion 
 when they feel themselves growing old. He 
 was to say later on, and more bluntly, " Every 
 man makes use of their charms and of their 
 passions to advance his fortunes." He is im- 
 placable toward men who arrive at prominence 
 by this road. He withers with his scorn those 
 bullies of the closet, the prototypes of Love- 
 lace and Valmont, who openly run a depraved 
 career and insolently boast of their profligacy: 
 " What do you think of a country where such 
 people are tolerated, and where a man who 
 plies such a trade is allowed to live ; where 
 infidelity, treachery, abduction, perfidy, and 
 injustice lead to consideration?" The man 
 now speaking is no longer the frivolous world- 
 ling; he is the noble and the magistrate, and 
 his language reminds us of the speech of Don
 
 40 Montesquieu. 
 
 Louis to Don Juan, and the majestic remon- 
 strance of the father of the " Menteur." 1 
 
 It is this same spirit, much more nearly 
 allied to Saint-Simon than to Voltaire, which 
 is caught sight of in his continual satire of the 
 king, the court, and the great. Montesquieu 
 denounces Louis XIV., whom he saw in his 
 decrepitude, when, infatuated with his own 
 reign and flattered by his officials, he coveted 
 the simplicity of the Grand Turk's govern- 
 ment. He allows to Louis only the outward 
 form of justice, public policy, and devotion, 
 only the semblance of a great king. Unjust 
 to the master, he is not less so to his servants. 
 I find in La Bruyere himself no more severe 
 touch than the following: "The class of 
 lackeys is more respectable in France than 
 anywhere else; it is a nursery for great lords; 
 from it the gaps in the other classes are filled. 
 The men composing it take the place of the 
 unfortunate great, of ruined magistrates, of 
 noblemen killed in furious wars ; and when 
 the lackeys cannot fill the void themselves, 
 they exalt all the great houses by means of 
 their daughters, who are, as it were, a kind of 
 fertilizer for the barren uplands." 
 
 1 " Le Menteur" (The Liar), Corneille's famous comedy. 
 Don Louis is the father of Don Juan in Moliere's tragi- 
 comedy " Don Juan." The speech referred to is in the 
 fourth scene of Act iv. TR.
 
 The "Persian Letters-' 41 
 
 Montesquieu shows us the monarch a despot, 
 his ministers without a system, his government 
 precarious, his high courts in desuetude, family 
 ties relaxed, the ruin of the higher orders, the 
 jealousy of the privileged classes, all the 
 signs, in fact, of the approaching dissolution 
 of the social system. What a contrast between 
 Versailles, where "all is little," and Paris, 
 where " all is great ; " where reign " liberty 
 and equality," the " eagerness for labor," econ- 
 omy ; where " the passion for growing rich 
 is passed along from rank to rank, from the 
 artisans to the great " ! This rivalry cannot 
 arise without a substratum of envy; neverthe- 
 less, it is one of the causes of the fermenting 
 activity of the nation. " Even to the lowest 
 day-laborers they dispute about the excellence 
 of the calling they have chosen ; each one 
 exalts himself above him who is of a different 
 occupation, in proportion to the conception 
 that he has formed of the superiority of his 
 own calling." And this Paris is only the mir- 
 ror of the nation. Nothing is seen in France 
 but " labor and industry." " Where, then," 
 writes Usbek to his friend, " is this effeminate 
 race of whom you talk so much?" 
 
 These are Frenchmen, at once eager for 
 wealth and passionately fond of equality. 
 Montesquieu did not perceive in them the
 
 42 Montesquieu. 
 
 elements of a democracy which was forming 
 undefr the shadow of the throne, destined to 
 develop a totally different character from that 
 of the ancient democracies. French of the 
 French, he will always remain content with 
 the Roman liberty and the political virtue of 
 Lycurgus. By effective contrasts and by 
 satirical illustrations he opposed the republic 
 to the monarchy; but his was the ancient 
 republic ; he dreamed of no other. As soon 
 as he touches upon this great subject he is 
 lost in revery, and we see forming the strange 
 ties which connect this reformer of the old 
 regime with the apostles of the Revolution. 
 " Monarchy," says Usbek, " is an abnormal 
 condition which always degenerates into des- 
 potism. . . . The sanctuary of honor, reputa- 
 tion, and virtue, seems to be established in 
 republics and in countries where each can say 
 my country." 
 
 " I have often heard you say," wrote one of 
 his friends to Usbek, " that men were born to 
 be virtuous, and that justice is a quality which 
 is as much their own as existence. Explain 
 to me, I pray you, what you mean." Mon- 
 tesquieu did not explain it very clearly. This 
 question of the origin and basis of right always 
 embarrassed him, and made him wandering 
 and obscure. For lack of a better way he gets
 
 The "Persian Letters? 43 
 
 out of it by a fable, the story of the Troglo- 
 dytes proving that " happiness can only be 
 secured by the practice of virtue." He con- 
 structs a Salentum, but one very different from 
 that of Fenelon, which was the ideal future 
 government of the Duke of Burgundy under 
 the ministry of Beauvilliers. Montesquieu's 
 Troglodytes are the precursors of Mably's city 
 and Rousseau's republic. 
 
 Satirical and paradoxical in politics, Mon- 
 tesquieu, in his " Persian Letters," is wholly a 
 freethinker in religion. He was young, con- 
 fident of his reason, confident of health, con- 
 fident of life. He is cutting and keen as 
 steel, pitiless toward worldly compromises and 
 eleventh-hour conversions. He has a light 
 touch which seems to graze the skin and 
 yet cuts without mercy. All the germs of 
 Voltaire's polemics appear in the letters on the 
 changes in the universe and the proofs of 
 Islamism, but it is Voltaire at his strongest and 
 tersest. Montesquieu speaks of the Church 
 with irony, of theologians with scorn, of monks 
 with contempt. Even missionaries find no 
 quarter: "It is a fine scheme to send two 
 capuchins to breathe the air of Casbin ! " 
 
 Montesquieu did not think it good, either 
 for the state or for society, that new religions 
 be propagated; but wherever different ones
 
 44 Montesquieu. 
 
 exist they ought to be constrained to live in 
 peace. This indirect and imperfect toleration 
 is very far removed from liberty of conscience ; 
 yet contemporaries would have been very well 
 suited with it. Great merit was shown in pro- 
 posing it, and great courage in sustaining it 
 openly. Montesquieu makes an eloquent de- 
 mand for it. His letters on the autos-da-fe, his 
 views on the persecution of the Jews, his allu- 
 sion to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
 are among the pages which do him the high- 
 est honor. They announce the author of " The 
 Spirit of the Laws." 
 
 The author reveals himself by more and 
 more marked indications as the correspond- 
 ence between the two Persians goes on. Ro- 
 mance, conventionality, Oriental trumpery, the 
 tinsel of the opening pages, gradually disap- 
 pear from his work. The side-lights of the 
 historian, the generalizations of the moralist, 
 replace the detached observations and dis- 
 paraging touches of satire. Here we detect 
 Montesquieu in the act of making reflections 
 in the course of his reading. It would seem 
 that the latter part of the " Persian Letters " 
 gives us the best and completest idea of the 
 notes he took, part of which are said to be 
 preserved at La Brede. In these letters Mon- 
 tesquieu developed whatever came into his
 
 The "Persian Letters? 45 
 
 head, just as it occurred to him. He touches 
 in a sidelong and passing way on most of the 
 problems which he will soon wish to probe 
 more deeply, and which he will endeavor to 
 reduce to system. His ideas on international 
 law and on conquest, on the advancement of 
 science, on the classification of governments, on 
 the feudal and Teutonic sources of liberty, are 
 here and there caught sight of; and sometimes 
 they disclose themselves with a real grandeur 
 through the thin veil of these letters. His 
 opinions with regard to the dissolution of the 
 Turkish Empire and the declining power of 
 Spain, which he discerned with so keen a 
 glance, have often been cited. I cannot help 
 extracting from his letter on the Spaniards a 
 few lines plainly marked by the qualities which 
 made Stendhal an admirer of the "Persian 
 Letters." The emulators of Montesquieu in 
 our day have certainly not surpassed him in 
 this large and incisive manner of handling the 
 graver: 
 
 " There never was in the seraglio of the 
 Grand Turk a sultaness so proud of her beauty 
 as the oldest and ugliest Spanish rascal who 
 sits with folded arms at his door in a Mexican 
 town is of the olive whiteness of his complex- 
 ion. A man of such consequence, a creature 
 so perfect, would not work for all the treasures
 
 46 Montesquieu. 
 
 of the world, and could never make up his 
 mind to compromise the honor and dignity 
 of his skin by vile and mechanical industry. 
 . . . But although these invincible enemies of 
 work make a show of philosophical tranquil- 
 lity, there is none of it in their hearts, for they 
 are always in love. They are the first men in 
 the world to die of languishing beneath their 
 mistresses' windows ; and no Spaniard without 
 a cold in his head could pass for a lover. 
 They are bigoted in the first place, and in the 
 second place, jealous. . . . They say that the 
 sun never sets in their territory; but it must 
 be added that he beholds in his course only 
 deserted fields and desolate regions." 
 
 I shall mention one more feature, the essen- 
 tial feature of the book and of the whole man ; 
 namely, perfect temperance in his judgment, 
 and prudence in his desires. In Montesquieu, 
 the legislator's cautiousness constantly tempers 
 severity of opinion and Utopian enthusiasm. 
 Such a spirit dictates to Usbek that famous 
 doctrine, " It is sometimes necessary to 
 change certain laws, but this rarely happens ; 
 and when it does, they must be touched with 
 a timid and a reverent hand." It is in the 
 same spirit that he announces and sums up the 
 work of the future: "I have often sought to 
 discover what government is most conformable
 
 The " Persian Letters? 47 
 
 to reason. That government seems to me the 
 most perfect which attains its object at the least 
 expense, and which therefore governs men in 
 the way best suited to their disposition and to 
 their inclination." Thus we have all the pub- 
 lic policy of " The Spirit of the Laws " in the 
 " Persian Letters." In the following we find 
 its philosophical doctrine : " Nature always 
 works slowly, and, as it were, with thrift ; its 
 operations are never violent; even in its pro- 
 ductions it exhibits moderation ; it never car- 
 ries on its processes except by rule and meas- 
 ure ; if it is hurried it soon languishes." 
 

 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SOCIETY. " THE TEMPLE OF GNIDOS." 
 THE ACADEMY. TRAVELS. 
 
 THE " Persian Letters " could only appear 
 anonymously, under the imprint of a 
 foreign publisher. The censorship put up 
 with such subterfuges, which deceived nobody. 
 Printed at Rouen, like their illustrious fore- 
 runner the " Provincial Letters," the " Persian 
 Letters" received the imprint of an Amster- 
 dam publisher. Montesquieu practised, and 
 inspired in those about him, the toleration he 
 preached. He had as secretary the Abbe 
 Duval, who did not lack intelligence, and for 
 a friend the Oratorian, Father Desmolets, in 
 whom there was nothing of the inquisitor. 
 The Abbe Duval corrected the proofs of his 
 book; Father Desmolets sought to dissuade 
 him from publishing it ; but as this Father was 
 an intelligent man and a good prophet, he 
 added, " It will sell like bread." And so it did. 
 The "Persian Letters" presented, under a form 
 flattering to all the tastes of the time, thoughts
 
 Society. 49 
 
 which corresponded to the inclinations of all 
 contemporaries. The work appeared in 1721. 
 Four authorized editions and four pirated ones 
 were published within a year. 
 
 Such success could not fail to provoke cen- 
 sure and awaken jealousies. The name of the 
 author forthwith became known. Society, 
 while amused by the book, cherished a grudge 
 because one of its own members had com- 
 posed it. It was the business of a lampooner, 
 and not of a chief-justice, to censure in this 
 way their government, their morals, and their 
 religion. Men of letters write such pamphlets, 
 men of the world are amused by them, cour- 
 tiers condemn them, the author goes to prison, 
 and the reader rubs his hands. D'Argenson 
 said, " These are reflections of a kind which a 
 witty man can easily make, but which a pru- 
 dent man ought never to allow to be printed." 
 " A man must be sparing of his wit on such 
 subjects," wrote Marivaux in his " French 
 Spectator." Envy outdid criticism. " When I 
 had in some degree gained the esteem of the 
 public," Montesquieu reports, "that of the offi- 
 cial classes was lost, and I met with a thousand 
 slights." People thought he had too much 
 wit, and they made him feel it, not by treating 
 him as a satirist, but as an infidel, and almost 
 as a traitor. He suffered from this to such 
 4
 
 50 Montesquieu. 
 
 a degree that he refused to publicly acknowl- 
 edge this work, which was his glory. " I 
 have a mania for writing books," said he, 
 " and for being ashamed of them when they 
 are written." 
 
 This was the bitter after-taste of success ; he 
 enjoyed, too, all its gratifications, and they 
 were adapted to console him. He came to 
 Paris ; he was thirty-three, and, as he took care 
 to say, he was still a lover; he mingled with 
 that gay and lettered society, the delight of 
 his age and its abiding ornament. He knew 
 Maurepas, the Count de Caylus, the Chevalier 
 d'Aydies whom he esteemed so much, and for 
 whom he seems to have written this sentiment : 
 " I am enamoured of friendship." He fre- 
 quented the houses of Madame de Tencin, 
 Madame de Lambert, Madame du Deffand. 
 He had entry at Chantilly, the palace of the 
 Duke of Bourbon, and met there Madame de 
 Prie, who dispensed the honors both of this 
 prince's hospitality and of his government. 
 Montesquieu managed to win the good graces 
 of this favorite. He would have liked, they 
 say, to receive more special favor at the hands 
 of the Duke's sister, Marie-Anne of Bourbon, 
 Mademoiselle de Clermont. Her age was 
 twenty-seven, and she had beauty, brilliancy, 
 and, above all, sprightliness. Nattier has
 
 " The Temple of Guides? 5 1 
 
 painted her as a naiad with rosy cheeks and 
 winning grace. Tradition will have it that 
 Montesquieu was dazzled by her charms, and 
 that to pay court to her he composed " The 
 Temple of Gnidos." 
 
 This is a little prose poem which he sup- 
 poses to be translated from the Greek. " It 
 is only well-frizzled and well-powdered heads," 
 says he, " that know all the merit of ' The Tem- 
 ple of Gnidos.' " Thus he allows its artificial 
 and antiquated character; he classes it among 
 the baubles which the frivolity of his age 
 has bequeathed to the curiosity of ours. Of 
 this bouquet of voluptuous fragrance which 
 was to enrapture Chantilly, scarcely more re- 
 mains than a very faint aroma as from a dry 
 scent-bag in a rococo cabinet. Leonard and 
 Colardeau have versified these quintessential 
 madrigals, and their amorous rhetoric is, in its 
 kind, more pleasing than that of Montesquieu. 
 This is not said in praise of their work. 
 
 Yet even this failure indicates Montesquieu's 
 superiority. He is too terse, too exact, too 
 rich in ideas, for such allegorical trifling. He 
 only reveals himself at intervals, when, forget- 
 ful of his fair curled and powdered readers, 
 and taking his imitation seriously, he really 
 translates in his beautiful prose some fragment 
 of antique poetry which sings in his memory
 
 52 Montesquieu. 
 
 and inspires him. His great familiarity with 
 the ancients, his wonderful insight into their 
 genius for politics, reveal to him by snatches 
 their poetry and freshness. This artless note 
 was then unique ; neither Leonard nor Colar- 
 deau heard it; their shrill harpsichord could 
 never have rendered a tone so clear and full. 
 Nearly a century must pass ere this note, 
 restoring youth and freshness to literature, 
 should find its echo. 
 
 "There are times when she kisses me and 
 says, ' You are sad.' ' True,' I reply, ' but 
 the sadness of lovers is sweet; I know not 
 why my tears flow, for you love me; I have 
 no cause to mourn, and yet I lament. Do not 
 arouse me from my weakness ; let me sigh 
 away at once my sorrows and my joys. In 
 love's exaltation my soul, invited to a feast 
 it cannot taste, is unrestful ; while now I find 
 savor even in sadness. Bid me not dry my 
 tears; what matter though I weep, since I 
 am happy ? ' " 1 
 
 1 Since this passage is cited wholly for its style, it seems 
 best to give the original : " Quelquefois elle me dit en 
 m'embrassant : Tu es triste. II est vrai, lui dis-je : mais la 
 tristesse des amants est delicieuse; je sens couler mes 
 larmes, et je ne sais pourquoi, car tu m'aimes ; je n'ai point 
 de sujet de me plaindre, et je me plains. Ne me retire point 
 de la langueur ou je suis; laisse-moi soupirer en meme 
 temps mes peines et mes plaisirs. Dans les transports de
 
 " The Temple of Gnidos" 53 
 
 Might this not pass for the prose argument 
 of an elegy by Andre Chenier? The baccha- 
 nal of Canto VI. makes us think of the unfin- 
 ished draughts of eclogues by the author of 
 " The Beggar." Chenier drew his inspiration 
 from the same sources. He was a great reader 
 of Montesquieu, as may be seen from his prose. 
 It seems to me that the point of agreement 
 between the greatest prose-writer of the cen- 
 tury and its greatest poet is here detected. 
 Montesquieu, though not able to " sigh forth 
 a verse full of love and of tears," had at least 
 been touched by a ray of light from Greece. 
 His was a mind that outran its age ; this 
 most marked of his characteristics is displayed 
 even here. In this little work he is merely 
 trifling, yet we perceive the flash of his ge- 
 nius. We perceive also the jargon and the 
 display of theatrical frippery, which awkward 
 imitators assume to be the style and the 
 garb of antiquity, "a joy and innocence " 
 somewhat unexpected among the nymphs of 
 Venus ; " a patriotic heart " figuring more 
 oddly still; and the " daughters of proud 
 Lacedaemon," sketched rather roguishly as by 
 
 1'amour, mon a~me est trop agitee ; elle est entrainee vers son 
 bonheur sans en jouir ; au lieu qu'a present je goute ma 
 tristesse meme. N'essuie point mes larmes : qu'importe que 
 je pleure, puisque je suis heureux?" TR.
 
 54 Montesquieu. 
 
 some satirical artist after leaving a Directory 
 reception. 
 
 " The Temple of Gnidos " appeared at Paris 
 in 1725, with the royal license to print. Mon- 
 tesquieu took good care not to sign it. He 
 had every reason to congratulate himself for 
 his discretion ; indeed, the Abb6 de Voisenon 
 intimates that his pasticcio brought him many 
 favors which were conditioned upon his con- 
 cealment of them. He made bold to present 
 himself to the French Academy, although he 
 had but lately made game of that illustrious 
 assembly. He belonged to the society whence 
 it recruited its members, and he was elected ; 
 but as he passed for the author of the " Persian 
 Letters," the king refused his consent to the 
 Academy's choice on the pretext that Montes- 
 quieu was not a resident of Paris. Montesquieu 
 went back to Bordeaux and took pains to 
 make himself eligible. In 1725 he read to 
 the local Academy of Bordeaux fragments of 
 a stoical treatise on " Duties," and his " Re- 
 flections on Distinction and Reputation." He 
 delivered an " Address on the Motives that 
 Should Encourage us in the Pursuit of Knowl- 
 edge," which is full of fine touches of hu- 
 manity. This done, he sold his office as chief- 
 justice and came to establish himself at Paris. 
 At this time he was beginning to sketch in his
 
 The Academy. 55 
 
 mind the design of " The Spirit of the Laws." 
 His installation came before his masterpiece. 
 
 In 1727 he presented himself to the Acad- 
 emy a second time. Cardinal Fleury had still 
 half a mind to keep him out; but Montesquieu 
 and his friends succeeded in quieting the 
 ministerial scruples. He was elected on the 
 5th of January, 1728, and admitted on the 24th 
 of the same month. It could not be said of 
 his address, as of some others, that it was 
 a sufficient title to membership. There is 
 nothing in it to praise except its conciseness, 
 and a beautiful sentence on peace and on the 
 blood of men, " that blood ever dyeing the 
 earth afresh." Out of politeness, and to con- 
 form to custom, Montesquieu extolled Riche- 
 lieu, whom he detested, and Louis XIV., whose 
 character he had torn to pieces. Mallet, who 
 gave the address of welcome, challenged him 
 to justify his election by speedily making his 
 works public. He added somewhat mali- 
 ciously, " The public will anticipate you unless 
 you forestall it. The genius which it perceives 
 in you will induce it to attribute to you anony- 
 mous works, in which it finds imagination, 
 sprightliness, bold satire ; and to do honor to 
 your wit, it will assign them to you in spite of 
 the precautions which your prudence may sug- 
 gest." Mallet himself, when, in 1715, he took
 
 56 Montesquieu. 
 
 the place of the Chevalier de Tourreil, had 
 only composed a single ode. Of this lonely 
 ode posterity would probably have known 
 nothing if chance had not afforded to its 
 barren author an opportunity to taunt Mon- 
 tesquieu with the insufficiency of his title. 
 
 Montesquieu was weak enough to take of- 
 fence at this. He seldom appeared at the 
 Academy ; it is hinted that he did not feel at 
 his ease there; he did not meet with such a 
 welcome as he could have desired. He wished 
 to travel in order to study for himself the in- 
 stitutions and customs of nations. He set out 
 to make the tour of Europe. He began with 
 Germany. and Austria, in the company of an 
 English diplomatist, the Earl of Waldegrave, 
 nephew of Marshal Berwick. Montesquieu 
 had formed the acquaintance of this Marshal 
 Berwick at Bordeaux, and admired him much. 
 
 Montesquieu was heartily welcomed at 
 Vienna, where he met Prince Eugene. The 
 agreeable and easy manners, the pleasure of 
 observing, the brilliancy of court life, and the 
 prestige of great public business, fascinated 
 him for a time, and he desired the privilege of 
 entering upon an embassy. The ministry at 
 Versailles did not think him worthy of it, and 
 thus showed itself hard to please ; but we 
 ought not to regret it. Montesquieu would
 
 Travels. 57 
 
 have wasted his fine genius in the ruthless 
 game of politics in which humanity is always 
 the dummy. The world would have lost 
 " The Spirit of the Laws," and it is not certain 
 that France would have gained a diplomatist 
 
 Montesquieu had the characteristics of the 
 political observer, but these form only the bare 
 canvas on which the statesman embroiders his 
 tapestry. He lacked the incessant activity, 
 the attention to externals, the pride of power, 
 the selfish national spirit, without which no 
 negotiator and of course no minister can 
 succeed. He had too much human sympa- 
 thy for this harsh trade of harrowing nations. 
 "When I travelled in foreign countries," he 
 says, " I became attached to them as if they 
 were my own. I took an interest in their wel- 
 fare, and was pleased when I saw them in a 
 flourishing condition." This is the law-giver's 
 spirit, not that of the politicians of the time, 
 who from their high towers kept a lookout 
 for passing foreigners for the sole purpose of 
 drawing them into ambush and extorting heavy 
 ransoms. 
 
 " If I knew of anything," he said again, 
 " advantageous to my family but not to my 
 country, I should try to forget it. If I knew of 
 anything advantageous to my country which 
 was prejudicial to Europe and to the human
 
 58 Montesquieu. 
 
 race, I should look upon it as a crime." This 
 is quite opposed to Macchiavelli, and it is also 
 opposed to diplomacy as then understood, 
 and as it has been almost universally under- 
 stood since then. One who held such opinions 
 was not suited to the trade in human beings 
 which his contemporaries practised ; he would 
 have made a sorry antagonist to a gamester 
 like Frederic. The fact is that as he passed 
 through Germany, while considering its weak- 
 nesses he only thought of how to cure them, 
 desiring that country to reform its constitution, 
 to gather strength, and to form a vigorous 
 confederation. All this would have been the 
 undoing of the treaty of Westphalia and of 
 the French policy. The clerks in the foreign 
 office would have shown little taste for these 
 dreams, and would have sent Montesquieu 
 back to his " Temple of Gnidos." Let us 
 agree that this career was not suited to him ; 
 it would have offered him too many induce- 
 ments to become a dupe at the expense of his 
 country, and too few chances to employ his 
 talents in her service. 
 
 He visited Hungary, where he could study 
 feudalism and serfdom; he beheld from a 
 distance over the frontier the republic of Po- 
 land, and inquired into the causes of the an- 
 archy which was bringing it to ruin ; then he
 
 Travels. 59 
 
 went over to Italy. Venice was like a merry 
 inn for the rest of Europe, and the place of 
 refuge for fallen greatness. Montesquieu did 
 not fail to find amusement here. Here he 
 met Law, who was teaching political economy 
 backward ; Bonneval, who was preparing to put 
 into practice in their simplicity the precepts 
 of the " Persian Letters ; " and Lord Chester- 
 field, who formed a close friendship with our 
 French traveller. He observed the aristoc- 
 racy, the Council of Ten, the Venetian police, 
 and the government inquisitors. He watched 
 them quite persistently ; he thought that they 
 watched him in turn with the same care; at 
 this he took umbrage, suddenly left Venice, 
 and threw his notes into the sea. Italy en- 
 chanted him ; it opened his eyes to the fine 
 arts. He prided himself upon being an eclec- 
 tic in regard to friendship. He was known to 
 associate, at one and the same time, and in the 
 same cordial way, with the French ambassa- 
 dor, Cardinal Polignac, author of the " Anti- 
 Lucretius," with the Calvinist pastor, Jacob 
 Vernet, and with several Italian Monsignors. 
 He enjoyed their society, being very intimate 
 for some time with a Piedmontese abbe, Count 
 Guasco, who did not pose precisely as a grave 
 doctor, but who was justly reputed to be the 
 gayest and most gentlemanly of churchmen.
 
 60 Montesquieu. 
 
 Montesquieu completed the year 1728 in 
 Italy; he employed the early months of 1729 
 in travelling through Switzerland, the Rhine- 
 lands, and Holland, where he met Lord Ches- 
 terfield again. This lord took him to Eng- 
 land, and there Montesquieu remained from 
 October, 1 729, to August, 1731. He frequented 
 Parliament, and learned to read the political 
 writings of Locke. Thus he discovered free 
 government, and conceived the design of re- 
 vealing it to Europe. It would seem that up 
 to this time hardly any one except a few 
 French refugees had dreamed of this new 
 world in politics. In 1717, and again in 1724, 
 Rapin de Thoyras had published a very clever 
 description of it. Montesquieu became ac- 
 quainted with this book, and profited by it so 
 well that he made posterity forget it. Nothing 
 escaped his scholarly scrutiny ; he had a keen 
 eye for details, while in the search for causes 
 and the pursuit of conclusions his vision was 
 wide and sweeping. His memoranda, hastily 
 jotted down, are such masterpieces of exact- 
 ness, brevity, and perspective as we should ex- 
 pect from the La Rochefoucauld of politics. 
 
 This sentence is ascribed to Montesquieu 
 as summing up his travels: "Germany is the 
 land to travel through ; Italy the land to so- 
 journ in; England the land to think in;
 
 Travels. 6 1 
 
 France the land to live in." He came back 
 to La Brede after more than three years' ab- 
 sence; he rejoined his family, busied himself 
 about his affairs, cultivated his vines, had his 
 genealogy prepared, and transformed his park 
 into an English garden. Henceforth his chief 
 occupation was the composition of the book 
 which he had carried in his head throughout 
 Europe. It was only in his provincial quiet 
 and leisure that he found himself able to com- 
 plete it. He wished to write the social history 
 of mankind, the history of man in his political 
 and legal relations. He had sketched many 
 fragments of it : an " Essay on the Finances 
 of Spain," " Reflections on the Universal Mon- 
 archy in Europe," a " History of Louis XI." 
 From what has remained of this last work, we 
 can say of it as Montesquieu said of Michael 
 Angelo, " Even in his sketches, as in the 
 verses left unfinished by Vergil, there is an 
 element of greatness." 
 
 He was filled with the spirit of Rome. "The 
 ruins of so tremendous a fabric " did not im- 
 press his imagination by their picturesque ap- 
 pearance or their sepulchral character as they 
 did that of Montaigne. Under these scattered 
 fragments Montesquieu had caught a glimpse 
 of the city, and from all these pieces of skel- 
 eton he reconstructed in thought this extinct
 
 62 Montesquieu. 
 
 mammoth. More as historian than painter, 
 and more as philosopher than narrator, he 
 sought the secret of the life and death of this 
 powerful organism. Probably he planned to 
 make this merely a part of his work on the 
 laws. It was to form the main episode because 
 it was his principal proof. But as the episode 
 threatened to overrun the book, he detached 
 it, and then polished and chiselled it as his 
 favorite work. He enjoyed writing. He had 
 chosen the noblest subject in the world, and he 
 set himself the task, according to the saying 
 of Florus, of including " in a miniature like- 
 ness the entire image of the Roman people." 
 Accordingly in 1734 appeared his " Consid- 
 erations on the Causes of the Greatness and 
 Decline of the Romans ; " and some years later, 
 in 1745, the "Dialogue of Sulla and Eucrates." 
 This dialogue forms an admirable appendix to 
 the " Considerations," and cannot be treated 
 separately.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CAUSES OF THE 
 GREATNESS AND DECLINE OF THE ROMANS." 
 " DIALOGUE OF SULLA AND EUCRATES." 
 
 "\17HAT attracted and held Montesquieu's 
 attention to Rome was his pursuit of 
 the most complete political phenomenon that 
 history presents for our observation. Several 
 phenomena of this kind, thus observed, would 
 furnish a key to all the rest. Politics has its 
 laws, which experience develops and history 
 ascertains. History is a science only in so far 
 as it collects, classifies, and connects phe- 
 nomena, and points out the connecting links. 
 "As men have at all times had the same 
 passions," wrote Montesquieu, " the occasions 
 giving rise to great changes have been differ- 
 ent, but their causes always the same." The 
 investigation of these causes in Roman history 
 is the chief aim of his book. 
 
 He had had illustrious predecessors in his 
 study of Rome. Polybius, whom he had thor- 
 oughly analyzed, Tacitus, by whom he was so
 
 64 Montesquieu. 
 
 inspired as sometimes to equal him, had each 
 shown sequence and consequence in Roman 
 affairs ; but the idea of a higher general law 
 had not entered their minds. Macchiavelli, in 
 his " Treatise on Titus Livius," advanced no 
 farther. He is wholly empirical, and is not so 
 much occupied with grouping events together 
 as with deducing their lesson. " Chance," said 
 Macchiavelli, " does not so govern the world 
 that foresight has no share in what takes 
 place." To increase this share by dint of skil- 
 fully forecasting the future, and to learn this 
 art in the school of the ancients, was the aim 
 he proposed to himself. Causes matter little 
 to Macchiavelli, institutions hardly occupy him 
 at all, the difference in the times does not im- 
 press him ; he analyzes the facts and draws 
 from them rules for managing men. History 
 to him is only that great " political dispen- 
 sary " of which Mirabeau was wont to talk after 
 devoting too much study to " The Prince." 
 
 Macchiavelli was a politician, and had plunged 
 into revolutions; Saint- Ivvremond had hardly 
 more than passed them in the spirit of curios- 
 ity and adventure. In his " Reflections on the 
 Several Talents of the Roman People," he 
 deals principally with men and their charac- 
 ters. The bond of connection escapes him. 
 Bossuet at once discovers this bond of con-
 
 " Considerations on the Romans'" 65 
 
 nection. By reason of its continuity, its con- 
 sistency, its constant and regular course, Ro- 
 man history was a subject well suited to the 
 majestic logic of Bossuet's genius. No one 
 has equalled him in his exposition of Rome's 
 greatness. The wealth of his language is in 
 harmony with the magnitude of his subject. 
 Men and their passions are not forgotten ; but 
 Bossuet leaves to them only the details of 
 events, the variable and transitory externals 
 of history. He wishes his reader to grasp " the 
 thread connecting all events." This thread he 
 really makes visible, as it runs through the 
 course of human affairs ; but the men who 
 twist and wind it do not guide it. Bossuet 
 traces it to the hand of God himself, from 
 whom it comes, and to whom it returns. What- 
 ever influence Bossuet attributes to " the in- 
 dividual genius of those who have caused 
 great movements," and however constantly the 
 historian in his nature gets the better of 
 the theologian, it is the theologian who has 
 the first and last word. He remains always 
 the very humble subject and adorer of that 
 Providence to whom, as has been wittily said, 
 he boasts of being privy councillor. God 
 planned, he declares, " that the course of 
 human events should be connected and duly 
 proportioned." But this same connection and 
 5
 
 66 Montesquieu. 
 
 proportion has for its only object the triumph 
 of the Church. Witness " the secret decrees 
 of God concerning the Roman Empire, that 
 mystery which the Holy Spirit revealed to 
 Saint John, and which that great man, apostle, 
 evangelist, and prophet set forth in the Apoca- 
 lypse." The " Discourse on Universal His- 
 tory " is, in fine, a pious and solemn application 
 to history of the doctrine of final causes. 
 
 Montesquieu made no pretence to theology, 
 and paid no attention to final causes. Like 
 Bossuet he allows a very large share to men's 
 free choice, and to the activity of individuals 
 in carrying out their designs; like Bossuet 
 he recognizes that things go in politics " as 
 in gaming, where the cleverest player is, in 
 the long run, the winner;" but he conceives 
 that the game has its rules, a table at which 
 it is played, circles which engage in it ; even 
 cleverness can only be exercised under given 
 conditions, and none of these things is the re- 
 sult of chance. The entanglement of causes 
 and effects provides history with a plot ; the 
 reciprocal relations and attractions connecting 
 men and ideas, and the general trend of events, 
 determine its working out. " It is not chance 
 that rules the world," says Montesquieu ; 
 " witness the Romans, who had a constant 
 succession of triumphs while they managed
 
 " Considerations on the Romans"' 1 67 
 
 their government on a certain plan, and an 
 uninterrupted series of reverses when it was 
 conducted upon another. There are general 
 causes, either moral or physical, at work in 
 every monarchy, exalting, maintaining, or over- 
 throwing it. All accidents are subordinate to 
 these causes, and if the chance of a battle, that 
 is to say a special cause, has ruined a state, 
 there was a general cause which made it possi- 
 ble for the state to perish by a single battle ; 
 in a word, the general tendency controls every 
 particular accident." 
 
 It is owing to this wholly scientific concep- 
 tion that Montesquieu is reckoned among the 
 great masters of modern history. The perfec- 
 tion of his style has made him one of our 
 literary classics. Nowhere has he been more 
 entirely himself more thoroughly Latin and 
 more unaffectedly French than in his " Con- 
 siderations on the Greatness and Decline of the 
 Romans." Critics have praised the lively and 
 vigorous style of this book, the firmness and 
 grandeur of its movement, the breadth of its 
 treatment, the brief and grand imagery used 
 in exposition, that conciseness which recalls 
 Sallust and Tacitus, that art of " steeping 
 words in their primitive dyes and restoring 
 to them all their pristine color," of eliciting 
 their full meaning by dashing them into the
 
 68 Montesquieu. 
 
 phrase in their original figurative sense, of 
 doubling the effect by the unexpected appli- 
 cation to a great subject of a simple and popu- 
 lar expression, dimmed and worn by use and 
 tarnished by time. " Nothing served Rome 
 better than the respect that she imposed upon 
 the world. She at once stopped the mouths 
 and stupefied the minds of kings." 1 Passages 
 like this could be cited from every page of the 
 " Considerations." 
 
 Montesquieu's judgments as a whole, like 
 his style, and like his historical method, have 
 proved correct. If one were to frame a run- 
 ning commentary to the " Considerations," and 
 so put the book abreast of modern research, 
 the notes would swamp the text. The same 
 would hold true of Cuvier's " Epochs of Na- 
 ture," if the attempt had been made to keep 
 the work abreast of the progress of science 
 from Cuvier to Darwin. But why undertake 
 such a thing? The recent histories of Rome 
 will be read, but they will never be under- 
 stood so well as after reading Montesquieu ; 
 and Montesquieu will never be understood so 
 
 1 It is difficult, in matters of style, to make a translated 
 illustration illustrate. Montesquieu's words are : " Rien 
 ne servit mieux Rome que le respect qu'elle impritna & la 
 terre. Elle mit d'abord les rois dans le silence, et les rendit 
 comme stupides." TR.
 
 " Considerations on the Romans" 69 
 
 well as after reading the recent histories. We 
 might compare his book to an ancient temple 
 whose sill has half crumbled away : the parti- 
 tion walls have fallen in, and the interior is 
 open to all the winds ; but the marble columns 
 surrounding it yet stand, the capitals have not 
 suffered, the pediment remains, the frieze is 
 intact, and, beheld at a proper distance, the 
 edifice preserves all the noble outlines of its 
 architecture. If you should attempt its resto- 
 ration to correspond with the models and the 
 fragments of the museums, you might make 
 the structure totter, but you could in no wise 
 enhance its beauty. 
 
 Montesquieu cared not for the criticism of 
 antiquaries. He was ignorant of archaeology, 
 which made possible the reconstruction, stone 
 by stone, of what fable had perverted and 
 criticism annihilated. Livy's stories about 
 the early days of Rome he took literally. 
 Strangely enough, the man who was to specu- 
 late and discourse so complacently about cli- 
 mates, appears not to have concerned himself 
 about that of Rome, any more than about the 
 character of the men who founded the city. 
 Michelet, and after him Duruy and Mommsen, 
 utilized the soil and race as aids to their re- 
 flections. M. Fustel de Coulanges has shown 
 the intimate relation existing between the
 
 70 Montesquieu. 
 
 history of the city and that of its religion. 
 Hardly any of these things were perceived in 
 Montesquieu's time, and he had no taste for 
 examining them more closely than his contem- 
 poraries. The social questions, and what may 
 be called Rome's political economy in the ear- 
 liest period of the republic, also escaped his 
 notice. As he had not observed any revolu- 
 tions of this sort, he lacked the essential factor 
 for inductive reasoning. All that the history 
 of England especially that of Cromwell's 
 England taught him, he made good use of. 
 But even in England the side which was fanati- 
 cal and revolutionary, in the modern sense of 
 the word, did not impress him. He never 
 dwells on anything but political crises. These 
 furnish him with remarkable reflective pas- 
 sages. For example, this : " No state is so apt 
 to threaten others with conquest as one in the 
 throes of civil war. . . . Never was England 
 so much feared as under Cromwell." 
 
 Montesquieu does not show his real grasp of 
 the subject until he reaches Chapter V., where 
 he gives a masterly picture of the world at the 
 period of its conquest by Rome. In the fol- 
 lowing chapter he investigates the methods 
 of this conquest. These are the classic pages 
 of the book. In this analysis of the Roman 
 genius and of the causes of Rome's greatness,
 
 " Considerations on the Romans" 7 1 
 
 he notes the attachment of each citizen for 
 his city, the love of all the citizens for their 
 country, their constant practice of war, their 
 discipline, the way in which their constitution 
 concentrated the power in time of war and 
 allowed every abuse of this power to be cor- 
 rected in time of peace, the logical sequence 
 and due proportions of their designs, the talent 
 of the Romans for dividing their enemies, their 
 readiness to adopt all the useful inventions of 
 other races, their skill elsewhere unknown in 
 ancient times in blending with themselves sub- 
 jected nations and making the most of con- 
 quered countries, their amazing fortitude in 
 defeat, the firmness of their senate, that fortu- 
 nate concurrence of circumstances, that " gen- 
 eral tendency " which turned everything to 
 their advantage, even their mistakes, because 
 they were able to understand them and repair 
 them, the continuous application of these 
 two maxims to which all else was subordi- 
 nated, " Maintain the general welfare at home, 
 extend our conquests abroad," in a word, 
 everywhere and always the public interest. 
 As Montesquieu finely says, " It is upon this 
 stage that one should witness the drama of 
 human affairs ; " and no one has presented 
 this drama more nobly than Montesquieu. 
 Admirable though it is, perhaps he admires
 
 72 Montesquieu. 
 
 too much that terrible play of stern and deliber- 
 ate force, those political virtues " which were 
 destined to be so fatal to the world." The 
 philosopher is too much eclipsed by the ob- 
 server. Montesquieu will soon disclose in his 
 " Spirit of the Laws " the supreme and decisive 
 sanction of this conquest; here he describes 
 its phenomena and notices its implacable and 
 barbarous character : " As they never made 
 peace in good faith, and as, owing to their 
 purpose of encroaching on all, their treaties 
 were properly only temporary suspensions of 
 war, they inserted conditions which always 
 began the ruin of the government accepting 
 them. . . . Sometimes they negotiated with 
 a prince for peace on reasonable terms, and 
 when he had carried them out, they added 
 such conditions that he was forced to begin 
 the war anew. . . . Rome constantly grew 
 richer, and each war put her in condition 
 to undertake another. The Romans became 
 masters of Africa, Asia, Greece, and scarcely 
 kept a city for themselves. Seemingly they 
 conquered only to give away; but they re- 
 tained such a thorough mastery, that when 
 they made war on some prince they crushed 
 him, as it were, by the weight of the whole 
 world." 
 
 Montesquieu, not content with analyzing the
 
 " Sulla and Eucrates" 73 
 
 genius of Rome, displays it in action. He 
 felt, as he studied the Romans, their deep and 
 concentrated passions; and unable to resist 
 his desire to depict them, he composed the 
 " Dialogue between Sulla and Eucrates." The 
 endeavor has been made to discover here a 
 settled determination to defend, by paradox 
 and irony, the policy of aggrandizement and 
 audacity in crime. It is more just to see in it 
 simply a flash of genius from a great histo- 
 rian who for the nonce becomes a poet and 
 brings his characters upon the stage. Mon- 
 tesquieu represents them according to his 
 taste and the spirit of his age. Mommsen, if 
 inspiration had thus impelled him, would 
 doubtless have sought in a similar case to com- 
 pose something Shakspearian. Mommsen's 
 Sulla is a sort of romantic hero of fiery tem- 
 per, with a fair complexion coloring at the 
 slightest emotion, piercing blue eyes, and fine 
 features ; a generous, ironical, witty man, oscil- 
 lating between a passionate frenzy for action 
 and intervals of calm. Montesquieu's Sulla is 
 a Frenchman, one of the classic age ; brought 
 up on Macchiavelli, he speaks like the terrible 
 adventurers who served as originals for Mo- 
 liere's Don Juan : 
 
 " Eucrates, if I am no longer a spectacle to 
 the world, it is not my fault, but that of the
 
 74 Montesquieu. 
 
 necessary limits of human affairs. ... I was 
 not framed to govern peaceably a nation of 
 slaves. I love to carry off victories, to found 
 or destroy states. ... I have never pretended 
 to be either the slave or the idolater of the 
 society of my fellows ; and this love so much 
 extolled is too vulgar a passion to be com- 
 patible with my loftiness of soul. I have been 
 guided only by my own thoughts, and above 
 all by my scorn of men." 
 
 How weary he is of it all, in spite of his pride, 
 sick of men, as they said toward the close of 
 the century, but yet unsatisfied and insatiable ! 
 Corneille has grandly expressed the supreme 
 satiety that boundless power leaves : 
 
 " How gorged ambition fills me with disgust ! . . . 
 I longed for empire, and obtained it too, 
 But what I longed for little then I knew." 
 
 " And for my part, Eucrates," adds Montes- 
 quieu's Sulla, still more bitterly and harshly, 
 " I never was so discontented as when I beheld 
 myself absolute master of Rome; when I looked 
 around me and saw neither rivals nor ene- 
 mies. I thought that some day people would 
 say that I chastised only slaves." The weari- 
 ness he feels inspires him with his most sur- 
 prising resolve : he lays aside the dictatorship 
 at the very time when it was thought that the 
 dictatorship was his only safeguard. All the
 
 " Sulla and Eucrates." 75 
 
 Romans are dumb before him, and he finds 
 himself alone, impatient and unsatisfied as 
 before. He concludes with these words : " I 
 have astonished mankind, and that is much." 
 It is enough in order to secure victims, not 
 enough to make a man happy. 
 
 Montesquieu might have found Sulla again 
 in Caesar and have given us a sequel, but 
 he appears not to have thought of it. Since 
 we have known Danton and Robespierre, the 
 Gracchi are invested for us with new life, and 
 we see them in all Roman revolutions; and 
 since Bonaparte, Caesar has encroached on 
 Roman history. The great modern revolution 
 has changed all the points of view, even those 
 from which we behold antiquity. Montesquieu, 
 who judged from so high a standpoint and 
 penetrated so well the genius of Alexander 
 and of Charlemagne, seems inclined to depre- 
 ciate that of Caesar. He seems to say with 
 Shakspeare's Cassius : 
 
 " Brutus and Caesar : what should be in that ' Caesar ' ? 
 Why should that name be sounded more than yours ? . . . 
 Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, 
 That he is grown so great ? " 
 
 Montesquieu recognizes the great captain and 
 politician who would have ruled in whatever 
 republic he might have had his birth. But he 
 is willing to see in Caesar only a tool of des-
 
 j6 Montesquieu. 
 
 tiny, one of those men who accomplish what is 
 inevitable without deciding the great changes 
 of empire and without altering the course of 
 history. " If Caesar and Pompey had thought 
 as Cato did, others would have thought with 
 Caesar and Pompey, and the doomed Republic 
 would have been dragged to ruin by another 
 hand." 
 
 Thus Montesquieu couples the names of 
 Caesar and Pornpey, and he makes no great 
 difference between the two characters. In this 
 regard he shows the species of historical pre- 
 possession by which Corneille was blinded and 
 Bossuet influenced. Montesquieu tells us that 
 " Pompey had a less prompt and a more mod- 
 erate ambition than Caesar's. . . . He aspired 
 to the dictatorship, but only by the suffrages 
 of the people. He could not consent to usurp 
 power, but would have liked to have it placed 
 in his hands." Such is the appearance Moreau 
 presents to us in his rivalry with Bonaparte. 
 
 Montesquieu praises Brutus, and even goes 
 so far as to discover in political assassination 
 a sort of necessary though criminal remedy 
 for usurpation. He condemns the Empire, 
 and yet shows us that it was inevitable. He 
 judges Augustus and his reign as would a 
 Roman senator who continued to extol the 
 ancient Republic while freely avowing that it
 
 " Considerations on the Romans? 77 
 
 could not now be sustained. This is the 
 most eloquent part of Montesquieu's " Con- 
 siderations." 
 
 The taint of decay was everywhere present 
 in Rome. Order was now no more than " un- 
 broken servitude " calculated " to make men 
 feel the blessedness of knowing but one ruler." 
 Tyranny crept in under the mask of liberty; 
 the very notion of liberty was sophisticated 
 and falsified. The principles which had given 
 Rome its strength became perverted by being 
 carried to excess. The Romans had fought 
 too many battles, made too many conquests. 
 " Ceaselessly engaged in action, struggle, and 
 violence, they wore away like a weapon always 
 in use." Civil broils, such as used to maintain 
 public spirit, had degenerated into factions 
 which perverted it. Wealth corrupted private 
 morals. Tyranny was founded upon these 
 degraded souls, and subjection finally crushed 
 them. Rome's nerve-centre atrophied, her 
 extremities were paralyzed. Her bulk had 
 become unwieldy. The conquered races re- 
 volted against her armies scattered along the 
 frontiers, and her armies, concentrating, fell 
 back on the central government and crushed 
 it. They ceased to be armies of citizens from 
 the moment when they usurped the govern- 
 ment of the city. The mainspring of war was
 
 78 Montesquieu. 
 
 weakened by its own activity. Rome grew 
 great by absorbing conquered races, but was, 
 in turn, dissolved in her conquests. She tried 
 to resume her natural limits ; but that massive 
 world-force with which she overwhelmed others 
 finally crushed her in turn. We see the Em- 
 pire constantly shrinking until Italy becomes 
 again the frontier. 
 
 Montesquieu had not perceived the part 
 religion played in the early history of Rome ; 
 nor does he, in the latter part of his work, 
 give sufficient prominence to the influence of 
 Christianity. He is all admiration for the 
 Antonines, but the revolution which was to 
 transform the ancient world does not impress 
 him. On the other hand, as he proceeds with 
 his picture of the Empire, economical questions 
 take up more and more space in his book. 
 This is because he possessed in the " Pandects " 
 a document from which he obtained a concep- 
 tion of the social state of imperial Rome, as 
 well as a knowledge of her laws. His views 
 on the commercial revolutions, the monetary 
 crises, the abuse of taxation and the conse- 
 quent abandonment of landed estates, the 
 downfall of provincial administrations, are so 
 many discoveries of his own, and remain the 
 permanent acquisitions of history. 
 
 The chapters on Byzantium involved little
 
 " Considerations on the Romans." 79 
 
 more than a cursory glance and the summary 
 of what it revealed ; but it was the cursory 
 glance of a genius and the summary of a mas- 
 terpiece. To appreciate the value and origi- 
 nality of these chapters we must compare them 
 with the corresponding chapters of Voltaire's 
 " Essay on Manners." Voltaire's thin texture 
 sets off by contrast all the strength of Mon- 
 tesquieu's firm web. It is impossible not to 
 suspect some allusion to the theological quar- 
 rels of the eighteenth century in the irony 
 with which Montesquieu speaks of the Byzan- 
 tine Church and its disputes. His Justinian, 
 pretending to unity of law, unity of reign, and 
 unity of faith, borrows more than one trait 
 from Louis XIV. " He thought he had increased 
 the number of believers, while he had only 
 diminished the number of men." He makes a 
 more direct comparison between the struggle 
 of Moslems with Greeks and that of Cromwell's 
 sectaries with the Irish. As to later times, 
 Montesquieu does no more than throw out his 
 ideas, and he concludes by showing that the 
 Turks inherited the causes of the decline of 
 the Byzantine Empire at the very same time 
 when they conquered its capital. 
 
 Thus he reaches modern times, the natural 
 goal of his thought, where it was to dwell for 
 the remainder of his life.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PLAN AND COMPOSITION OF "THE SPIRIT OF 
 THE LAWS." 
 
 TV /TONTESQUIEU was about forty when 
 1VJL he began the construction of his great 
 work. He had long been collecting the ma- 
 terial. " I may say that I have worked at 
 it all my life," he wrote. "When I left 
 school, law books were placed in my hands 
 and I sought to find their spirit." This word 
 " spirit," which he was to affix to his work, 
 did not belong to him alone. Domat, in his 
 " Treatise on the Laws," had devoted a chap- 
 ter to the " Nature and Spirit of the Laws," but 
 he meant by this the real and deep meaning 
 of legislative enactments, " that spirit which 
 in natural laws is equity, and in arbitrary laws 
 the intention of the legislator." Montesquieu 
 would not have had far to seek for such a 
 spirit of the laws, and Domat would have im- 
 mediately supplied him with it; but he wished 
 to reveal something quite different, the 
 reason for the existence and efficacy of law.
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws" 8 1 
 
 The problem thus propounded ceased to be le- 
 gal and became historical. It was not enough 
 to ransack his inner consciousness, to interro- 
 gate his reason, and to analyze the texts of the 
 laws ; he must plunge into history and ask 
 civilization to reveal its great state secret. 
 
 Montesquieu was for some time at a loss: 
 " I pursued the subject without forming a 
 plan, for I knew neither rules nor exceptions." 
 Read over the essay " Of Custom," in Mon- 
 taigne, and you will gain an idea of the notes 
 Montesquieu had gathered from all sources 
 and accumulated in drawers. Montaigne scat- 
 ters such notes at random, taking a secret 
 pleasure in printing them in a disorder which 
 appears to him in the highest degree like 
 Nature. He glories in this medley of men and 
 things, of times, countries, and governments, 
 of stories, legends, witticisms, and fine maxims. 
 He has no trouble in deducing from this hu- 
 man miscellany something wherewith to hu- 
 miliate man and to tear his robes to tatters. 
 There is not a line in the essay but exhibits 
 the infirmity of our reason and the wretched 
 contradictions of our judgment. This strange 
 arsenal that Montaigne constructed to dis- 
 quiet man and to unsettle every basis of cer- 
 tainty, Pascal appropriates to revive men's 
 faith. In an incomparable demonstration by 
 6
 
 82 Montesquieu. 
 
 means of the absurd, Pascal overwhelms the 
 human intelligence in order to reduce it to 
 nothingness before God. Montesquieu is not 
 content with the diffuse and desultory reason 
 of Montaigne, and is not resigned to the baf- 
 fled and prostrate reason of Pascal. He must 
 have an explanation, and one of human origin. 
 " First I observed men, and thought that in 
 this boundless diversity of laws and manners 
 they were not guided merely by their fancy." 
 The search for the idea which guides them is 
 the work not merely of the investigator but of 
 the legislator and friend of humanity. Mon- 
 tesquieu does not separate these two elements. 
 He regards men as " rogues individually, but 
 good honest people as a whole." In his opin- 
 ion it holds in life as upon the stage, that only 
 noble actions are applauded and only good 
 precepts universally agreed to. He aims to 
 work in the interest of all, his object being "to 
 instruct men." He wishes to enter each state 
 and become a citizen of it in order to give 
 each nation the reason for its customs and 
 maxims, to make each man love his country 
 and government better, to teach the people 
 how states are imperilled and how they are 
 preserved. He writes for the man that he 
 fashions in his own image, " the man," in his 
 words, " who seeks the public good ; " and he
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws" 83 
 
 r 
 
 considers that " the public good, like moral 
 good, is found between two extremes." 
 
 Though he has all mankind in view, yet he 
 gives special attention to France. He sees it 
 inclining toward despotism, and is apprehen- 
 sive lest despotism may lead to anarchy ; that 
 is, to the most terrible form of decline. He 
 wishes to warn his fellow-countrymen, to re- 
 animate their love of liberty, to rediscover and 
 restore their title to citizenship. After having 
 shown the designs of God in the world, Bos- 
 suet deduces from these same designs the 
 teaching which was to serve both as a founda- 
 tion for the Christian monarchy and a lesson 
 to his " Most Christian King." Montesquieu, 
 having shown how a great social institution 
 was organized, how it increased, prospered, 
 declined, and went to ruin, wishes in his turn 
 to draw a lesson from it for all human legis- 
 lation. He meditated a purely scientific work, 
 which should be to his " Considerations on the 
 Romans" what Bossuet's " Politics derived from 
 Holy Writ " is to his " Discourse on Universal 
 History." This is the noblest enterprise a 
 legislator could undertake, but also the bold- 
 est and most difficult. Montesquieu, when he 
 had executed it, could proudly write this motto 
 for his work : Prolem sine matre creatam, 
 " A work without a predecessor."
 
 84 Montesquieu 
 
 His difficulty was not the lack of material, of 
 which there was such an immense amount that 
 it escaped his grasp from its very immensity ; 
 it was the lack of tools to work with, the sieve 
 and the scales to collect, test, and weigh the 
 components. Montesquieu did not tarry long 
 to examine these components by themselves 
 and investigate their origin. Later on he was 
 to say, speaking of himself, " He does not talk 
 of causes and does not compare causes ; but 
 he talks of effects and compares effects." The 
 religious basis on which Domat's " Treatise on 
 the Laws " is erected, concealed from Montes- 
 quieu the depth and solidity of that writer's 
 teachings. Domat harmonizes his observations 
 with his faith ; the transposition of a few terms 
 would be enough to deprive of its mystic 
 veil this work in reality so practical. Rebel- 
 ling against Domat's mysticism, Montesquieu 
 rebels none the less against Hobbes's material- 
 ism. He recognizes an eternal justice inde- 
 pendent of human conventions: "Before laws 
 were made, the relations of justice were possi- 
 ble. To say that there is nothing just or unjust 
 except what positive laws command or pro- 
 hibit, is to say that before the circle was traced 
 all the radii were not equal." 
 
 As Montesquieu had failed to have recourse 
 to archaeology and textual criticism in his study
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws" 85 
 
 of primitive Rome, so now, in like manner, he 
 failed to utilize anthropology in his study of 
 primitive society. Why could he not have 
 read Buffon ? The " Seventh Epoch of Nature " 
 would have explained primitive humanity and 
 the origin of customs to him in a very simple 
 way : 
 
 " The first men, witnesses of the recent and 
 still very frequent convulsions of the earth, 
 having no refuge from floods but the moun- 
 tains, and often driven from these places of 
 refuge by volcanic fires, trembling while the 
 earth trembled beneath their feet, naked both 
 in body and in mind, exposed to the violence 
 of the elements, victims of the fury of wild 
 beasts whose prey they could not avoid be- 
 coming, all shuddering alike with the common 
 thrill of mortal terror, all equally hard pressed 
 by necessity, were speedily driven to unite: 
 first, to defend -themselves by numbers; next, 
 to aid each other by laboring together to make 
 weapons and to construct a dwelling-place." 
 
 Montesquieu has only given us an imperfect 
 glimpse of the truth. For lack of clear ideas 
 he lets his imagination have free play. He 
 allows himself to conceive of a state of nature 
 in which timid, weak, and amorous savages 
 enjoyed a sort of brute contentment. Peace 
 was in his opinion the first law of humanity ;
 
 86 Montesquieu. 
 
 war was the second, and began from the time 
 when the societies into which men had grouped 
 themselves began their struggle for existence ; 
 as if the social instinct which inclines men to 
 love their fellows and to unite with them was 
 not as primordial as the selfish instinct which 
 inclines them to quarrel and hate. Montes- 
 quieu remains perplexed and confused about 
 this great subject. A few lines from one of 
 his " Persian Letters " present perhaps, after 
 all, the clearest statement he has made with 
 regard to it : "I never heard a discourse upon 
 public law which was not ushered in by a care- 
 ful investigation of the origin of society. This 
 seems to me absurd. If men did not associate 
 together, if they parted and fled from one an- 
 other, it would be necessary to ask the reason 
 and to investigate why they remain apart ; but 
 their very birth connects them together ; a son 
 is born by his father's side, and remains there, 
 this is society, and the cause of society." 
 
 Yet as he absolutely must present an opinion 
 and adopt a formula, he takes refuge in the 
 vaguest and most general one. "Laws, in the 
 widest sense of the term, are the necessary 
 relations derived from the nature of things." 
 He rightly intimates that this definition is very 
 wide. It is so wide that it eludes analysis and 
 reaches out toward infinity. It is an algebraic
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws" 87 
 
 formula, applying to all real quantities and 
 expressing none of them exactly. It is rigor- 
 ously true of mathematical and natural laws ; 
 its application to political and civil laws is only 
 remote and rather indistinct. To ascertain this 
 application we must pass through the whole 
 course of change and perversion in the mean- 
 ing of the word "law" itself. Montesquieu 
 does not hesitate at this difficulty. He lays 
 down his formula, leaps over all intermedi- 
 ate ideas, and reaches his subject, legislation 
 properly so called. 
 
 Here, facts are his masters ; but the facts 
 overwhelm and stifle him. He may be seen 
 laboring on with difficulty, straying from his 
 course, returning to it wearied, setting forth 
 on his journey, and straying again. " Many 
 times I began, and many times abandoned this 
 work; a thousand times I scattered to the 
 winds the leaves I had written. ... I found 
 truth only to lose it" At last he sighted the 
 pole-star. He found his path, and had only 
 to advance toward the light. 
 
 We are authorized in placing this critical 
 epoch in Montesquieu's career at about the 
 year 1729. He then discovered what he called 
 " the majesty of my subject," and was of opin- 
 ion that henceforth, if he could maintain this 
 loftiness of view, he should see " the laws as
 
 88 Montesquieu. 
 
 they issued from their fountain-head." " When 
 I discovered my principles, all that I sought 
 came to me. ... I laid down my principles 
 and saw the particular cases fall into smooth 
 conformity with them." Let us take time to 
 examine these principles ; they furnish the key 
 to the work. 
 
 " Men are governed by various things, 
 climate, religion, laws, governmental maxims, 
 precedents, morals, manners; and from all of 
 these is formed, as a resultant, the general so- 
 cial spirit." These elements making up all 
 human society, and this general spirit animat- 
 ing it, are connected, and form a single entity. 
 It is not a fortuitous aggregation of lifeless 
 materials; it is a living organism. The laws 
 are the nerves of this body politic ; they must 
 correspond to the nature and uses of the organs 
 they animate. They are dependent on certain 
 elements which man cannot change, and on 
 certain others which he can change only after 
 many efforts, and very slowly. 
 
 " They must have relations to the physical 
 characteristics of a country, to the climate, 
 frigid, torrid, or temperate, to the nature of 
 the land, its situation, its extent, to the people's 
 mode of life ; . . . they must have relations to 
 the degree of liberty that the constitution can 
 admit of; to the religion of the inhabitants,
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws? 89 
 
 their inclinations, their wealth, their number, 
 their commerce, their morals, their manners. 
 Finally, they have relations one to another, to 
 their origin, to the aim of the legislator, to the 
 order of things under which they were estab- 
 lished. They must be considered from all 
 these points of view, and I undertake so to 
 consider them in this work. I shall examine 
 all these relations ; together they form what I 
 have called the Spirit of the Laws." 
 
 The social institution thus considered ap- 
 pears to Montesquieu the very soul of hu- 
 man society. If this soul is vigorous and sound, 
 society prospers ; if it is weak and corrupted, 
 society is dissolved. Upon men's comprehen- 
 sion of this social fabric, upon the skill with 
 which it is established or sustained, depend 
 the reforms that regenerate society and the 
 revolutions that overwhelm it. Moreover, there 
 is no sort of constitution which is, in itself, 
 superior to others. There are conditions of 
 existence, public and private morals, a national 
 spirit, a general tendency, to which every con- 
 stitution is subordinate. The best and most 
 legitimate for each nation is that which is 
 most appropriate to the character and tradi- 
 tions of the people for which it is designed. 
 
 From this point of view Montesquieu ex- 
 amines the different kinds of government, and
 
 90 Montesquieu. 
 
 distinguishes in each its nature and its princi- 
 ple. The nature of the government is what 
 gives it existence ; its principle is what gives 
 it activity. To define the nature of a govern- 
 ment is to determine its structure ; to define 
 its principle is to analyze the morals and pas- 
 sions of the men who practise it. 
 
 From the nature of governments, Montes- 
 quieu divides them into republican, monarchi- 
 cal, and despotic. If the people as a whole, 
 or a part of the people, is sovereign, we have 
 democracy or aristocracy; if the power is 
 exercised by one alone in accordance with 
 fixed and stable laws, we have monarchy; 
 if it is exercised arbitrarily at the will or ca- 
 price of the sovereign alone, we have despot- 
 ism. This classification has been objected 
 to. Montesquieu confounds the constitution 
 of the state, which can be either autocratic, 
 oligarchic, aristocratic, or democratic, with the 
 government of the state, which is necessarily 
 either monarchical or republican. These fun- 
 damental types of constitution and government 
 may combine and produce mixed systems. 
 But there is no need here of insisting upon 
 these distinctions. To Montesquieu they are 
 only a framework, and the important thing is 
 to see how he has arranged his picture. 
 
 In it we notice two main groups : the laws
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws'.' 91 
 
 resulting from the nature of government, 
 these are the political laws ; and those result- 
 ing from the principle of government, these 
 are, more particularly, the civil and social laws. 
 Montesquieu displays the causes of the dura- 
 tion and decay of each class. " The decline 
 of every government almost always begins on 
 the side of its principles." It is on this sub- 
 ject that he rises to his highest point, and that 
 he gives us, in truth, the very essence of his 
 thought, the great and serviceable counsel of 
 his work. " Custom," Pascal had said after 
 reading Montaigne, " by the very fact of being 
 received, creates all equity, and is the mystic 
 basis of its authority ; he who refers law to 
 its origin annihilates it." Law is derived from 
 the nature of things, replies Montesquieu; the 
 necessity for its existence is the basis of its 
 authority ; he who refers it to its origin 
 strengthens it. Montesquieu's view is the 
 more just and the more profound. 
 
 The study of governments fills the first 
 eight books of " The Spirit of the Laws." 
 Montesquieu passes from fundamental laws to 
 subordinate enactments, and considers them 
 successively in their different relations to the 
 defence of the state, to the political liberty of 
 citizens, to taxes, climate, land, morals, man- 
 ners, civil liberty, population, and religion.
 
 92 Montesquieu. 
 
 Such is the object of Books IX. to XXVI. 
 Books XXVII. to XXXI., whatever importance 
 they may have in themselves, form a mere 
 supplement devoted to an essay on the Roman 
 laws concerning inheritance, and to an unfin- 
 ished history of feudal laws in France. In 
 reality, the work ends with Book XXVI. The 
 strong coherence which gives the work the 
 stamp of majesty is completely felt only in 
 the first part. In the development of the 
 later books the chain of connection becomes 
 weaker, and digressions multiply. 
 
 The reason for this is that, however vast 
 Montesquieu's genius, it could not embrace in 
 one connected whole the formidable mass of 
 notes gathered during thirty years' reading. 
 Though the frame was so large, the picture 
 was larger; the canvas projects at the sides 
 and swells out in places on the surface. 
 Montesquieu perceived this. So long as he 
 worked upon the earlier books he was all joy 
 and ardor. " My great work is going forward 
 with giant strides," he wrote in 1744 to the 
 Abbe Guasco. Then was the time when " all 
 he sought came to him of itself." But little 
 by little masses of facts accumulated at the 
 outlets and blocked them up. He forces the 
 facts. " Everything yields to my principles," 
 he wrote toward the last ; but he does not see
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws, " 93 
 
 " particular cases smoothly conforming to 
 them," as formerly. He makes an effort, can- 
 vasses the texts, arrays analogies, heaps up, 
 but he no longer welds together. He settles 
 himself doggedly to the task; he grows fa- 
 tigued. " I am reaching an advanced age ; 
 and because of the vastness of the undertaking 
 the work recedes," he wrote in 1745 ; and in 
 1747, " My work grows dull. ... I am over- 
 come by weariness." The concluding books 
 on feudalism exhaust him. " This will make 
 three hours' reading; but I assure you that 
 the labor it has cost me has whitened my 
 hair." " This work has almost killed me," he 
 wrote, after revising the final proofs ; " I am 
 going to rest; I shall labor no more." 
 
 This fatigue made him especially anxious 
 about the perfection of his work. He had 
 written, to be placed at the beginning of the 
 second volume, before Book XX., an invoca- 
 tion to the Muses, in which this sentiment is 
 expressed in some of those exquisite phrases, 
 wholly antique in form and wholly fresh in 
 thought, that give us a foretaste of Andr6 
 Chenier's prose: "Virgins of the Pierian 
 mount, do you hear my invocation? Inspire 
 and hearten me. The race is long and I am 
 sad and weary. Instil into my spirit the 
 sweetness and delight which once I knew and
 
 94 Montesquieu. 
 
 which are now so far from me. ... If you 
 will not soften the ruggedness of my task, con- 
 ceal at least all trace of labor; let me not 
 appear to teach, and yet let my reader be 
 instructed; let what is strenuously carved by 
 thought seem but the bloom of feeling. . . . 
 The waters of your fountain, springing from 
 the rock you love to haunt, do not rise in air 
 merely to fall again; they flow through the 
 gladdened meadow." 
 
 The artist in Montesquieu was as exacting 
 as the thinker. The literary composition of 
 the work gave him as much anxiety as his 
 method and his search for principles. He de- 
 sired perfect order in the book, but an order 
 which steals into the reader's mind without 
 imposing a burden upon his attention ; and 
 with it a ceaseless variety in the movement of 
 the style in order to divert the reader from the 
 monotony of the route and the weight of the 
 baggage. He was less anxious " to be read 
 than to stimulate thought." He always de- 
 sired to leave something to be guessed, that the 
 reader might be complimented and his discern- 
 ment be flattered, by thus becoming a partner 
 in the work. " We remember," he says some- 
 where, " what we have seen, and begin to im- 
 agine what we shall see; the mind is elated 
 with a sense of capaciousness and penetra-
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws." 95 
 
 tion." He is a master, and an incomparable 
 master, in the art of planning by-paths, of 
 opening up vistas, of making the most of 
 resting-places, of distributing clumps of trees 
 and grassy seats. When the way is level and 
 easy, he discloses all points of the compass at 
 a glance ; when it is steep and difficult, he 
 keeps his views in reserve and allures by an- 
 ticipation. He knows wonderfully well the 
 fashionable people for whom he writes, their 
 impatient curiosity, their desultory way of 
 reading, their dread of fatigue, their desire to 
 reach the goal, their haste to leave it when 
 once reached, and their constantly extempo- 
 rized reflections. Hence all the divisions and 
 subdivisions of the book, those chapters 
 which state a great problem in three lines, 
 those multiplied titles and subtitles, the con- 
 tinual reminders to the fugitive memory, the 
 sauce for palling curiosity, the constant appeal 
 to the frivolous. He interrupts himself, in- 
 terrogates his readers, begs pardon, so to say, 
 for keeping them so long, and asks them still 
 to follow him : " I must turn to the right and 
 to the left till I find my way out and reach the 
 light. ... I should like to float upon a tranquil 
 stream, but am carried away by a torrent." 
 
 Montesquieu was absent-minded ; he had 
 weak eyes and short breath. He dictated,
 
 96 Montesquieu. 
 
 and conversed while dictating. His mode of 
 expression was formed from his very nature. 
 " I see," said he, " that some people are 
 shocked at digressions; but it seems to me 
 that those who know how to make them are 
 like those who have long arms : they reach far- 
 ther." Montesquieu's digressions sometimes 
 transcend due limits, but it is not safe to 
 ignore either their art or their value. Com- 
 pare " The Spirit of the Laws " with " Democ- 
 racy in America." There is the same inner 
 structure in both works, the same elevation of 
 thought, the same breadth of view. Whence 
 comes that degree of tension and austerity, 
 that sort of Jansenistic melancholy permeat- 
 ing Tocqueville's book, in marked contrast 
 to the easy manner, the cheerful and affable 
 style, which so adorn Montesquieu's pages ? 
 It comes from the fact that Tocqueville is from 
 Normandy, a foggy land, from whose moist 
 valleys you look out upon a sea forever storm- 
 tossed. He is a man of but one task and one 
 purpose ; he no more sought diversion for the 
 mind in reading, than he wasted his time in dis- 
 sipating amusements. He lacks vagrant eru- 
 dition, chance anecdotes, witty sallies coming 
 one knows not whence, in a word, spright- 
 liness and color; he is not of the tribe of 
 Montaigne.
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws" 97 
 
 The division one might almost say the 
 mincing of Montesquieu's books and chap- 
 ters is found even in his sentence structure. 
 It is brisk, sometimes too concise. Montes- 
 quieu likes to fling his darts, but he soon loses 
 breath. As he multiplies the darts, he multi- 
 plies the pauses. Buffon himself broad of 
 chest and sound in wind, unable to break up 
 his paragraphs or cut down his phrases, seeing 
 everything in great movements, by epochs, 
 in majestic ebb and flow like the sea re- 
 proached Montesquieu with this constant frag- 
 mentariness of thought and style. " Because 
 of this," said he, in his famous address to the 
 Academy, " the book appears clearer to the 
 eye, but the author's design remains obscure." 
 This is hypercriticism. It is not obscurity 
 that should be criticised in Montesquieu, but 
 rather an excessive concentration of light and 
 a continual play of converging lenses upon 
 certain points. Madame du Deffand for the 
 sake of a jest, 1 and Voltaire out of professional 
 jealousy, reproached him with having put too 
 
 1 The witticism is well known to all readers of French. 
 It turns upon the fact that the word esprit (spirit) means also 
 "wit." Madame du Deffand had to change but a word in 
 the title of Montesquieu's great work (L'Esprit des Lois) 
 to make it mean "Wit upon the Laws" (L'Esprit sur les 
 Lois). TR. 
 
 7
 
 98 Montesquieu. 
 
 much wit into his book. He had to make up 
 for the lack of wit in all the authors who had 
 written on legislation before him, and in most 
 of those who have written since. If he needed 
 an excuse, posterity would accept this one. 
 
 Let us acknowledge, nevertheless, that 
 though there is an infinite amount of art in 
 "The Spirit of the Laws," and exquisite art 
 too, there is also some artifice. Montesquieu 
 felt himself forced into it in order to cajole the 
 censors, to baffle the Sorbonne, and to secure 
 free circulation for his book throughout France 
 without imperilling his own peace of mind. 
 He disliked to be obliged to disavow his work, 
 as in the case of the " Persian Letters." As 
 he was doing the work of the moralist, and no 
 longer that of the satirist, he was anxious to 
 have the public honor of it. To the license 
 and irreverence of his youth had succeeded 
 the respectful tone of a man taking life seri- 
 ously, and devoting himself to the task of 
 instructing mankind. Not that the freethink- 
 ing tone has entirely disappeared. It becomes 
 noticeable here and there, especially in the 
 digressions, and when the plan of the book 
 leads the author to Oriental countries and 
 polygamous morals. These are only episodes ; 
 and though lingering over them with some 
 fondness, Montesquieu does not linger long.
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws? 99 
 
 But though infidelity has disappeared, no ex- 
 clusive tone of veneration has taken its place. 
 Montesquieu treats religions with gravity, as 
 he does all human institutions. In his " Con- 
 siderations upon the Romans," he had, as it 
 were, banished Providence from history; he 
 does not divorce religion from society, but he 
 places it among the various elements of social 
 life, after the army, after the political constitu- 
 tion, after climate, soil, morals, along with com- 
 merce, population, and police. This accords 
 neither with the true historical proportions, 
 nor with just estimates of social life; more- 
 over, this is by no means the teaching of the 
 Church; but it is really the spirit of the 
 book, and this spirit is opposed to orthodoxy. 
 Montesquieu well knew this; he was far 
 from agreeing with Rome and the Sorbonne, 
 and the circumstance did not fail to disturb 
 him. 
 
 He tried to conform to the rules and to take 
 precautions. He had no choice of means, and 
 employed those which Montaigne had used 
 and which Buffon was soon to use. He scat- 
 tered here and there through his book re- 
 strictive phrases, learned reservations, and 
 high-sounding professions of faith. These 
 formed an impertinent excrescence upon the 
 body of his discourse; but taken alone, de-
 
 ioo Montesquieu. 
 
 tached and extracted, they were intended to 
 remove all suspicions as to the author's teach- 
 ings. Montaigne had employed this literary 
 subterfuge with ironical and sceptical good- 
 humor. Buffon brought to it a lofty and easy 
 manner suited to delude the simple. Montes- 
 quieu, less indifferent than Montaigne to the 
 pledges he made, and less bold than Buffon in 
 confronting those in authority, employed it 
 with a sort of awkward timidity, savoring of 
 cant phraseology, caricature, and extravagance. 
 No one could be deceived by such shifts. He 
 placed " the true religion," he declared, apart 
 from all the rest; but this reservation was 
 merely parenthetical, and through the whole 
 body of the book he spoke of it as of the 
 rest, namely, in the tone of a layman, a 
 statesman, and a legislator. He admitted 
 that some religions were of more or less 
 use, and that the most perfect, the " revealed 
 religion itself, . . . which has its root in 
 heaven," produced more or less happy effects 
 according to the countries where it was propa- 
 gated and the men who practised it. " When 
 Montezuma so obstinately insisted that the 
 religion of the Spaniards was good for their 
 country, and that of the Mexicans for his, he 
 did not utter an absurdity." But he pro- 
 nounced a heretical opinion; and though
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws'' 101 
 
 Montezuma could not be expected to know 
 this, Montesquieu was quite aware of it 
 
 Yet he hoped that the censors would be 
 satisfied, so far as the faith was concerned, 
 with these verbal reservations. He thought 
 that as to politics they would show themselves 
 more exacting. He suppressed, as too open 
 to suspicion, a chapter on the royal warrants 
 for arbitrary imprisonment or banishment. 1 
 He skilfully veiled observations which might 
 appear seditious, and comparisons which would 
 perhaps shock the patriotism of fools. It may 
 be that this is one reason why he described in 
 a wholly general and cosmopolitan way, with- 
 out a trace of technical terms or proper names, 
 the merely local phenomenon of England's 
 constitution. He seems to be summing up 
 the results of numerous observations regarding 
 different countries, and referring to a common 
 type a number of similar institutions ; and this 
 generalization, so arbitrary in itself, has often 
 been considered the result of prudence. In 
 other cases he proceeds by suggestion. The 
 chapter entitled " Fatal Consequences of Lux- 
 ury in China " is simply a " Chinese Letter; " 
 he talks of none but Frenchmen. 
 
 There is no more singular instance of these 
 oratorical precautions than the chapter one 
 1 Lettres de cachet
 
 IO2 Montesquieu. 
 
 of the profoundest in the book in which 
 Montesquieu explains " how the laws may 
 co-operate in forming the morals, manners, 
 and character of a nation." England alone is 
 concerned, and Montesquieu does not once men- 
 tion that country. He represents the case as 
 hypothetical, and this mode of reasoning leads 
 to strange circumlocutions like the following: 
 
 " If this nation lived in an island, it would 
 not seek conquests, because isolated conquests 
 would weaken it. ... If this nation was situated 
 toward the north and had a great many super- 
 fluous commodities, since it would also lack 
 a great many articles which its climate would 
 refuse, it would carry on a necessary and ex- 
 tensive trade with southern countries. ... It 
 might be that it had at some time subjugated 
 a neighboring nation which by its favorable 
 situation, excellent harbors, and the nature of 
 its wealth, had caused jealousy; so that al- 
 though the conquerors should have given it 
 their own laws, it would be held in complete 
 dependence." 
 
 Here is seen the excess, the strain, and the 
 abuse of the process. By wishing to refine 
 upon insinuations and to speak in riddles to 
 the knowing, Montesquieu attains the worst 
 results, he becomes embarrassed and heavy 
 in his very subtlety. How much greater he is
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws'' 103 
 
 when he dares to be himself, and to call things 
 by their right names ! Why did he not write 
 all of that profound study of England's politi- 
 cal morals with the same pen which, a few 
 pages farther on, exhibits in masterly strokes 
 the " Spirit of England in respect to Com- 
 merce " : " Other nations have made their 
 commercial interests give way to politics; 
 England has always made political interests 
 give way to commerce. No other people in 
 the world has equal reason to boast of possess- 
 ing at one and the same time these three 
 great things, religion, commerce, and lib- 
 erty." Instead of a picture in the style of 
 Paul Veronese, as Voltaire has finely said, a 
 picture "with brilliant colors, ease of manner, 
 and some defects in costume," Montesquieu 
 might have left a painting like one of Rem- 
 brandt's, a luminous and concentrated image 
 of reality. 
 
 If Montesquieu sometimes generalizes in 
 this way out of circumspection, he does it of- 
 tener out of taste and the coquetry of wit. A 
 shade of mystery in one's language is a mark 
 of breeding, and sets off a subject in itself un- 
 promising and difficult. Generalization, which 
 is sometimes a discreet veil to his thought, is 
 more often its stage drapery, and it is the 
 fashionable drapery. Montesquieu naturally
 
 1 04 Montesquieu. 
 
 clothes his ideas with it by a mental tendency 
 which he shares with his contemporaries and 
 by a secret inclination to flatter their caprices. 
 He has his own vocabulary and his own rhetoric. 
 To read him intelligently we should familiarize 
 ourselves with his words and his figures of 
 speech. As for the words, the task is easy: 
 he is an excellent writer, and never employs a 
 word without a full sense of its meaning; once 
 possessed of his usage, we always know what 
 he means. The application of his figures is 
 more uncertain : we need sometimes to make 
 transpositions, to put two things together, to 
 guess his riddles, to translate fine general prop- 
 ositions into individual names and cases, but 
 all this must be done with a great deal of 
 prudence. 
 
 We should make ourselves liable to serious 
 mistakes, disparage Montesquieu, and miss his 
 purpose, if we applied to the whole work a 
 system of interpretation authorized only in 
 certain very special and particular instances. 
 Montesquieu has a genius for generalization, 
 this is his strength and his weakness. Let us 
 take him for what he professes to be. Let us 
 read the book as it stands, without commen- 
 tary and almost without notes. Montesquieu 
 had his reasons for publishing so few of the 
 innumerable notes he had gathered. If in
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws'' 105 
 
 several passages he wished the reader to say, 
 "This is England," or "This is Versailles," he 
 also meant the reader to think, regarding the 
 same passages, " The conditions being the 
 same, this is what will happen wherever people 
 act as they do in England or at Versailles." 
 Montesquieu wished to present his types in 
 such a way that they might apply to different 
 cases ; the reader was not to know precisely 
 whether he had Rome, Athens, or Sparta be- 
 fore his eyes, he was simply to feel himself 
 in the presence of democracy and in the heart 
 of the republic. Similarly, in the picture of 
 the monarchy the reader was to recognize the 
 features of Spain by the side of those of 
 France, while sensible that he had to deal, 
 after all, neither with Spain nor with France, 
 but with the conditions common to both. In 
 this respect Montesquieu intended that his 
 whole work should resemble a certain chapter 
 in Book XIII., " How Depopulation can be 
 Remedied." Read it with your eyes toward 
 the south, and you will recognize Spain ; turn 
 to the east, and Poland will seem to be sug- 
 gested. The truth is that the examples are 
 drawn from several countries at once, that the 
 conclusion is general, and that the lesson ap- 
 plies with equal pertinence to these nations and 
 to all others where the conditions are the same.
 
 io6 Montesqtiieu. 
 
 In a word, Montesquieu's work is classic. 
 He does not follow governments through their 
 historical development and their successive 
 revolutions; he exhibits them settled, com- 
 plete, statical, as if the essential features of all 
 the epochs of their history were combined. 
 There is no chronology or perspective ; every- 
 thing stands upon the same plane. This is 
 unity of time, place, and action, transferred 
 from the theatre to legislation. Montesquieu 
 considers only the laws, their aim, their influ- 
 ence, their destiny; the rest is the foundation 
 for his work, it is not the edifice. He has 
 constructed his underpinning with solidity, 
 and has driven his piles deep enough to find 
 the earth firm and the foundation sure ; but 
 all this is hidden from sight. He studied 
 and painted the monarchy or the republic as 
 Moliere studied and painted the Miser, the 
 Misanthrope, or the Hypocrite ; or La Bruyere 
 the Great, the Politicians, the Freethinkers. 
 It is an honor to him, as well as to the 
 classics, his masters, to show how history sus- 
 tains the correctness of his portrayal, and how 
 we can put names and dates under each of his 
 pictures; but we should pervert his meaning 
 by adding further particulars. 
 
 Again, we should misconstrue it by repre- 
 senting it as abstract. Montesquieu endeavors
 
 " The Spirit of the Laws" 107 
 
 to form his general ideas by means of facts 
 that he has observed ; he does not pretend to 
 conceive, by dint of pure speculation, absolute 
 and universal ideas. He tries to form a com- 
 mon type from the monarchies or republics he 
 knows ; he does not deduce from an a priori 
 ideal, monarchy in its essence, nor the rational 
 republic. It follows that the principles he 
 lays down, and the laws he develops from 
 them, derive all their meaning and application 
 from the relation they sustain to reality.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS," POLITICAL 
 LAWS AND GOVERNMENTS. 
 
 THE book on " Governments " begins with 
 democratic government ; that is, with the 
 kind in which the people are sovereign. Mon- 
 tesquieu's conception is modelled after Rome, 
 in the ages when the Republic was still the 
 city ; after Athens and Lacedaemon, " at a 
 time when Greece was a world and the Greek 
 cities nations." The republic, so constituted, 
 is suited only to a narrow territory; the citi- 
 zens, few in number, are divided into classes ; 
 they own slaves, and busy themselves with 
 nothing but politics and war. Thanks to their 
 freedom from private cares and to the narrow 
 limits of the city, they are able to attend to 
 the innumerable and absorbing duties of mu- 
 nicipal life. They carry on little or no com- 
 merce, enough only to arouse a spirit "of 
 frugality, good management, moderation, labor, 
 wisdom, tranquillity, order, and regularity." 
 The land is divided among them in equal por-
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 1 09 
 
 tions. By too extensive estates, or by busi- 
 ness on too large a scale, wealth would be 
 amassed by private individuals, and equality 
 would consequently be destroyed. The social 
 hierarchy keeps up a strict barrier between the 
 classes. " It was only by the corruption of 
 certain democracies that artisans came to be 
 citizens." 
 
 The people as a whole that is, the assembly 
 of citizens make the laws and exercise the 
 sovereign power. " Their votes declare their 
 intentions." They choose their magistrates 
 from men whose minds they know and whose 
 administration they continually control. They 
 practise real equality, which consists " in obey- 
 ing and commanding one's equals." They en- 
 joy that kind of liberty which Bossuet before 
 Montesquieu had admirably defined in describ- 
 ing a government " where no one is subject to 
 anything but the law, and where the law is 
 more powerful than men." This was a very 
 singular government, which could in no wise 
 satisfy our modern notions of freedom. Our 
 freedom is before all else civil and individual ; 
 that of the ancients was exclusively civic, and 
 pertained wholly to the state. Freedom of 
 conscience is, in our view, the first and most 
 essential of our liberties ; but the ancients had 
 not even conceived of such a thing. Liberty,
 
 1 10 Montesquieu. 
 
 in their view, consisted solely in the exercise 
 of sovereignty. The individual had no rights 
 beyond his vote, and casting his vote ex- 
 hausted his rights ; that done, he remained in 
 everything in his beliefs, his family, his 
 property, his labor, and in each of his acts 
 subject to the majority of votes, which was 
 the highest law of the land. This, according 
 to Montesquieu, is the nature of a republican 
 form of government in a democracy. 
 
 Such a government could not be set up 
 except in a society where the deep sense of 
 social solidarity, the general conception of 
 social needs and interests, and the equal devo- 
 tion of all to the common weal, permitted the 
 foundation of institutions so contrary to every 
 man's insubordinate, selfish, and covetous in- 
 stincts. The reason for the existence of demo- 
 cratic governments is found in these moral 
 conditions. This is why Montesquieu con- 
 cludes that the principle of this form of gov- 
 ernment is virtue, and then defines this virtue as 
 " the love of the republic . . . the love of the 
 laws and of country . . . the love of country, 
 that is, the love of equality." 
 
 The virtue which has established such insti- 
 tutions is the only thing capable of sustaining 
 them. The laws ought therefore to teach citi- 
 zens such virtue, and oblige them to practise
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 1 1 1 
 
 it. The omnipotent power of the state over 
 the family, the compulsory education of chil- 
 dren, the apportionment of the land, the limi- 
 tation of inheritance, the sumptuary laws, form 
 the spirit of these crushing enactments. Every- 
 thing in them derives from this maxim : " The 
 popular welfare is the highest law." 
 
 Yet in spite of these heroic remedies, 
 whether because not employed in time or be- 
 cause of abuse, democracy is susceptible of 
 decay. This occurs when the spirit of equality 
 becomes perverted, and ambition is no longer 
 confined " solely to the happiness of rendering 
 to one's country greater services than other 
 citizens ; " personal covetousness corrupts am- 
 bition, and pride perverts it; private wealth 
 increases, and with it indifference to the public 
 welfare; the sentiment of personal indepen- 
 dence is substituted for that of civil liberty; 
 solidarity is lost; jealousy manifests itself 
 openly ; the bonds of discipline are relaxed ; 
 equality degenerates into anarchy; that aus- 
 terity, which by suppressing so many selfish 
 passions only gave more strength to the social 
 passions it fostered, now disappears from view; 
 in a word, the citizen loses that self-renuncia- 
 tion which was the active principle of all re- 
 publican virtue. Then all is over, and even re- 
 medies become fatal ; for the artificial strength
 
 H2 Montesqu ieu . 
 
 they give the state is profitable only to tyranny, 
 and hastens the ruin of the republic. 
 
 "When the principles of the government 
 are once corrupted, the best laws become bad, 
 and injurious to the state ; while these princi- 
 ples remain sound, bad laws produce the effect 
 of good ones ; the vigor of the principle per- 
 vades the whole. . . . The vital principle of 
 democracy becomes corrupt, not only when 
 the spirit of equality is lost, but also when it is 
 carried to extremes, when each one desires 
 equality with those whom he chooses to com- 
 mand him. . . . There can then be no more 
 virtue in the republic." 
 
 Montesquieu's democracy seems very far re- 
 moved from our modern civilization. It takes 
 on, when we picture it to our minds, a sort 
 of paradoxical and Utopian aspect. In fact, 
 Montesquieu, on looking about him for some 
 surviving example of these vanished republics, 
 discovered nothing analogous except in Para- 
 guay, or among monks in convents. Nothing 
 is really more opposed to our modern concep- 
 tions of country, religion, and labor; to our 
 ideas of the incessant transformation of institu- 
 tions, beliefs, fortunes, and even manners ; to 
 the doctrine of progress and the " Declaration 
 of Human Rights," than the spirit of these 
 ancient republics, with their social hierarchy,
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 1 1 3 
 
 their slaves, and their state despotism. Mon- 
 tesquieu did not foresee the speedy advent and 
 prodigious development of modern democracy. 
 Still less would he believe it possible to or- 
 ganize democratic republics in vast countries. 
 " This perfect organization cannot be prom- 
 ised," said he, when treating of Greek institu- 
 tions, " amid the confusion, the oversights, the 
 vast extent of a great nation's affairs. . . . Greek 
 politicians, living under a popular form of 
 government, recognized no other power as 
 capable of sustaining it except the power of 
 virtue. The politicians of our day talk of 
 nothing but manufactures, commerce, wealth, 
 and even luxury." 
 
 Montesquieu did not suspect that these man- 
 ufactures, this commerce, this wealth, and 
 even this luxury, which he considered incom- 
 patible with democracies, would one day be- 
 come their corner-stone, and that this revolu- 
 tion would be effected in his own country and 
 permeate all Europe. Yet there are, in all 
 democracies, organic and permanent charac- 
 teristics subsisting in spite of differences of 
 form. Montesquieu viewed them from so high 
 a standpoint, and with a glance so penetrat- 
 ing, that he discerned the most essential of 
 these characteristics. Many counsels which 
 he derived from his inspection of ancient
 
 114 Montesquieu. 
 
 democracies apply with as much justice to the 
 democracies of to-day. There is danger lest 
 governments be corrupted by the same ex- 
 cesses. The government depends on the plu- 
 rality of votes, and this plurality is composed 
 of individuals whose selfish passions are con- 
 stantly at work to blind them to the public 
 interest. These individuals are naturally in- 
 clined to confound liberty with participation 
 in power, the public treasury with the common 
 inheritance of private persons, progress with 
 perpetual innovation, and right with numbers, 
 that is, with might; so that in a constitu- 
 tion based on the equality and liberty of the 
 individual, the majority tends to subjugate the 
 minority, and the state to absorb the nation. 
 It must then be constantly repeated that free- 
 dom derives its only value from those who 
 make use of it, the law from those who estab- 
 lish it, the government from those who direct 
 it, the state, in fine, from the nation, that is, 
 from the individuals who make up the state. 
 Each one is responsible for the common wel- 
 fare, and each is charged with the interests of 
 all. If the majority of the citizens are greedy, 
 jealous, insubordinate, equality engenders spo- 
 liation, ostracism, anarchy, and necessarily 
 brings about the decline of the state. The 
 more the rights of the individual are extended,
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 1 1 5 
 
 the more imperious his passions become. The 
 more extensive becomes the sway in society 
 of that pitiless law of the struggle for exist- 
 ence, the more necessary it becomes to satu- 
 rate democracies with the principles of na- 
 tional unity, paramount love of country, social 
 combination for the public good. What else is 
 this but virtue, as defined by Montesquieu? 
 
 Such virtue would not be less necessary to 
 aristocracies, that is, republics where the sov- 
 ereign power is in the hands of a few. Mon- 
 tesquieu treats these aristocracies at length, 
 but the subject has now no interest for us ; 
 republics of this kind have vanished from 
 Europe. But in the days of Montesquieu this 
 political phenomenon still existed ; he had ob- 
 served it at Venice, and studied it in the case 
 of Poland. Touching this latter republic, his 
 views are far-reaching. He said that it was the 
 most imperfect of aristocracies, " one in which 
 those who obey are in civil bondage to those 
 who rule." In Poland, the republic only ex- 
 isted for the nobles, and they ruined it. To 
 sustain it, " the families of the aristocracy 
 ought to be of the people so far as possible." 
 Their privileges must be ceaselessly renewed 
 and rendered legitimate by new services, or 
 else the republic is only a " despotic govern- 
 ment with several despots." The independence
 
 1 1 6 Montesquieu. 
 
 of each of them becomes the object of the 
 laws, and the result is the oppression of all. 
 The nobles being very numerous, if corruption 
 affects them, the last resource of the state is 
 gone. " Anarchy degenerates into annihila- 
 tion." An aristocracy so organized must con- 
 stantly be kept awake by some fear. " The more 
 security such states have, the more subject they 
 are, like stagnant waters, to become corrupt" 
 
 Occasions for uneasiness were lacking nei- 
 ther in Venice nor in Poland; but these re- 
 publics, weak and blind, trusted an illusory 
 law of nations that no one respected. Behold- 
 ing the division of their enemies, they dis- 
 missed their fears. The Venetians abdicated, 
 as it were; the Poles, more divided by faction 
 than their neighbors by rivalry, surrendered of 
 themselves. An agreement was more easily 
 reached between Russia, Prussia, and Austria, 
 for partitioning the republic, than among the 
 Poles for their own defence. The appeals of 
 the Doge Renier in 1780, and the attempt the 
 Polish patriots made in 1790 to regenerate 
 their country, are only a commentary on Mon- 
 tesquieu's precepts. The fall of these two aris- 
 tocracies is the justification of his conclusions. 
 " If a republic is small, it is destroyed by force 
 from without ; if large, by vice within," he had 
 said. Venice and Poland were put in jeopardy
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 1 1 7 
 
 by vice within, and annihilated by force from 
 without. 
 
 Democracy, which to Montesquieu was only 
 a historical phenomenon, rules to-day in some 
 of the greatest nations of the world, and tends 
 to be introduced among the rest; the mon- 
 archy which he described was the most wide- 
 spread form of government in Europe, and in 
 our day has almost completely disappeared. 
 Montesquieu studied it fondly, and devoted a 
 chapter to prove its excellence. We cannot 
 doubt that in composing this part of his work 
 his mind was constantly taken up with the 
 French monarchy and the decline with which 
 it seemed threatened. France was tending 
 toward despotism, and nothing was more dif- 
 ferent from despotism than monarchy as he 
 conceived it. Bossuet had distinguished abso- 
 lute monarchy, in which the prince governs ac- 
 cording to the laws, from arbitrary monarchy, 
 in which he governs according to his caprice. 
 This arbitrary government Montesquieu calls 
 despotism, and styles as monarchy proper the 
 government in which " one person governs by 
 fixed and established laws." 
 
 It is the nature of monarchy to be founded 
 upon laws. The monarch is the source of all 
 power, political and civil; but he exercises 
 this power by means of channels " through
 
 1 1 8 Montesquieu. 
 
 which his power flows." These are " the in- 
 termediate, subordinate, and dependent pow- 
 ers," moderating " the shifting and capricious 
 will of a single person." The two foremost 
 of these powers are the nobility and clergy ; 
 the third is a body of magistrates, serving as a 
 repository for constitutional laws, and remind- 
 ing the prince of them when he seems to 
 forget them. This hierarchy of rank is the 
 necessary condition of monarchical government. 
 If it is destroyed, the inevitable tendency is 
 toward either despotism or democracy. 
 
 While virtue is the essential principle of 
 republics, the essential principle of monarchy 
 is honor: not that honor is opposed to vir- 
 tue ; honor is pre-eminently the political virtue 
 of monarchy. Virtue, for the republican, con- 
 sists in love of country and of equality; for 
 the monarchist, it consists in love of the mon- 
 arch and of privilege, a love that causes 
 men to serve the monarch, and by their ser- 
 vice to restrain him. Monarchy was estab- 
 lished because the nation was not capable of 
 governing itself. The nation intrusted the 
 government to a chief and to his descendants. 
 Such a government is based upon obedience; 
 and in order to sustain it obedience must be 
 glorious and must not degenerate into sub- 
 jection. To supply the lack of independence
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 119 
 
 there must be the greatness of soul which 
 results from a high sense of honor. To un- 
 derstand this chapter well one should refer 
 continually to the " Memoirs of Saint-Simon." 
 
 The laws derived from this principle, laws 
 which consequently give stability to monarchy, 
 are those sustaining the sentiment of honor and 
 the prerogatives on which it rests ; namely, those 
 relating to privileges, primogeniture, entail, 
 prohibition to nobles to engage in commerce. 
 
 Since monarchy maintains itself by the op- 
 position of the various intermediate powers, 
 the spirit of this form of government is mod- 
 eration. If it ceases to be moderate, it ex- 
 poses itself to danger, and perishes by the 
 corruption of its principle. Honor turns into 
 vanity, obedience degenerates into servitude, 
 and is no longer a virtue, but a means of win- 
 ning success. Service to the court swallows 
 up service to the state. " If the prince loves 
 free souls," says Montesquieu, " he will have 
 subjects; if he loves base souls he will have 
 slaves." Such base souls he finds, and he de- 
 grades them by subjecting them to his caprices ; 
 he reduces magistrates to silence ; he suppresses 
 constitutional laws ; he governs arbitrarily ; and 
 this despotism finally corrupting the court, 
 the court corrupts the people by its example. 
 The morals which made monarchy possible
 
 1 20 Montesquieu. 
 
 disappear; official bodies lose their dignity, 
 privileges their propriety, the privileged classes 
 their authority; and all tends, just as if privi- 
 leges had been abolished, to one or the other 
 of those inevitable alternatives of a monarchy 
 in its decline, democracy or despotism. 
 
 Montesquieu abhors despotism. He draws 
 a frightful picture of it, but it is not a lifelike 
 picture. Montesquieu did not observe the 
 facts himself, and documents were wanting. 
 He considered only Oriental despotism, that 
 of Ispahan and Constantinople, that of the 
 " Persian Letters," with its mysterious seragl- 
 ios, its terrible harems, its jealous sultans and 
 melancholy eunuchs. If he had only known 
 Russia, it would have revealed to him a much 
 more interesting type, and one, too, much more 
 accessible to Europeans, a despotism tem- 
 pered by religion. Montesquieu gives only 
 very distant and very confused glimpses of the 
 autocracy of the tzars. What Russia had then 
 already shown, and what she has shown since, 
 unsettles many of his maxims and overthrows 
 some of them. 
 
 " No one," said he, concerning despotisms, 
 " loves either the state or the sovereign." 
 Russia is an empire in which the ruler is the 
 living and arbitrary law; but the love he in- 
 spires in the people gives the government all
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 121 
 
 its strength. Montesquieu thinks such a gov- 
 ernment inconsistent with greatness of soul ; 
 but Catherine II. and her grandson Alexander 
 have proved the contrary. He considers that 
 the liberty the tzar has in choosing his suc- 
 cessor renders his throne tottering, " since the 
 order of succession is one of the things most 
 important for the people to know." But, 
 though the most fantastic disorder in the suc- 
 cession to the throne prevailed during the 
 whole eighteenth century, the throne grew 
 constantly stronger, and the Russian people 
 only inquired the name of its master in order 
 to change, in its prayers, the name of its 
 patron saint. In order to have done with 
 despotism, Montesquieu wrote that withering 
 chapter consisting of only three lines, and yet 
 containing so grand an image : " When the 
 savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they 
 cut down a tree and pluck the fruit. Such is 
 despotic government." This is the despotism 
 of the Sultan, not that of the Tzar Peter or of 
 Catherine the Great. 
 
 It may be asked why, though treating almost 
 wholly of the monstrous Oriental despotisms, 
 he has so dwelt upon the subject, and how he 
 could discuss with so much interest their na- 
 ture, their vital principle, and the corruption 
 of this principle. Symmetry doubtless was
 
 122 Montesquieu. 
 
 one consideration; his impression from read- 
 ing Tavernier and Chardin also counts for 
 something. It is likewise allowable to think 
 that Montesquieu sought an effective contrast, 
 that he wished to set off by a sort of relief the 
 excellence of monarchy and its danger of de- 
 generating, and so to prepare minds by a natu- 
 ral transition for a better comprehension of his 
 ideas on political liberty. 
 
 He has treated of this in a book by itself, 
 apart from forms of government. Political 
 liberty is, indeed, compatible with several 
 forms, and is not necessarily attached to either 
 of those with which it is compatible. Mon- 
 tesquieu distinguishes it from national inde- 
 pendence, which is the freedom of a people 
 from foreign control, and from civil liberty, 
 which is free control of person and property 
 among the people. He defines political lib- 
 erty as " the right to do all that the laws per- 
 mit . . . Liberty can consist only in being able 
 to do what one ought to desire, and in not be- 
 ing forced to do what one ought not to desire." 
 This definition is obscure and inadequate. 
 The law may be, and has been, a tool of des- 
 potism. It may demand of me what I ought 
 not to desire, and forbid what I ought to desire. 
 The acts of Parliament oppressing the Cath- 
 olics and the English Dissenters were laws.
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 123 
 
 Freedom of conscience was enjoyed in the 
 dominions of Frederick the Great, where the 
 king reigned without control ; but was not 
 enjoyed in England, where there was a parlia- 
 ment and responsible ministers. 
 
 Where, then, is liberty to be found? "Po- 
 litical liberty is not to be found except in mod- 
 erate governments. But it does not always 
 exist in moderate governments ; it exists only 
 when power is not abused. ... In order that 
 power may not be abused it must be so dis- 
 tributed that power shall check power." 
 
 This is the famous theory of the distribution 
 of powers. Montesquieu sums it up in the 
 following terms : " When, in the same person 
 or in the same legislative body, the law-making 
 power is combined with the administrative 
 power, there is no liberty, because there is 
 room for fear lest the same monarch or the 
 same senate make tyrannical laws for the pur- 
 pose of executing them tyrannically." This 
 has been illustrated in France under the sway 
 of monarchy pure and simple, and under that 
 of assemblies. The revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes, the law of " arrest on suspicion," and 
 the law of " hostages," afford proof of it. The 
 legislative and executive powers, then, must 
 be separated ; but if this is necessary to se- 
 cure liberty, it is nevertheless not sufficient.
 
 1 24 Montesquieu. 
 
 " There is still no liberty, if the judicial power 
 be not separated from the legislative and ex- 
 ecutive. If the judicial were combined with 
 the legislative power, the judge would have ar- 
 bitrary control over the lives and liberties of 
 citizens, for he would also be the law-giver; 
 and if the judicial were combined with the 
 executive power, the judge might employ op- 
 pressive violence." This separation had, in 
 fact, already taken place in several European 
 governments, in the French government, 
 for example, and this is why Montesquieu 
 termed these governments moderate. 
 
 Montesquieu did not invent this system : 
 Aristotle had proposed it ; but none had set it 
 forth in a form so simple and so convincing. 
 Montesquieu transported it from the region of 
 theory to that of practice, and popularized it. 
 He had not seen all these rules applied, except 
 in England, and it is England he describes 
 when he wishes to present an example of a 
 nation " which regards political liberty as the 
 direct object of its constitution." 
 
 He does not give the history of this consti- 
 tution, and touches on the problem of its 
 origin only in order to repeat once more, in 
 " The Spirit of the Laws," a favorite paradox 
 from the " Persian Letters " : " If you will read 
 the admirable work of Tacitus called ' Germa-
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 1 2 5 
 
 nia,' you will see that it is from the Germans 
 that the English derived their idea of political 
 government. This fine system was found in 
 the woods." Montesquieu boasted of descend- 
 ing from those Goths who, " after conquering 
 the Roman Empire, established everywhere 
 monarchy and liberty." He had his public 
 reasons for seeking in Tacitus the elements of 
 the English constitution, and his private satis- 
 faction in finding them there. Very grave and 
 learned men have sought them since in the 
 same quarter, have found them in their turn, 
 and displayed them to other learned person- 
 ages who are confident of having seen them. 
 It would be impertinent to rally Montesquieu 
 upon this ancestral prejudice, and we ought to 
 be grateful to him for having displayed it so 
 good-humoredly and with so little pedantry. 
 I will try to imitate him by not insisting upon 
 the subject, and will refer the reader to Gneist 
 and Freeman, the one a German the other an 
 Englishman, both of whom stand up for Taci- 
 tus and the forests; and to M. Guizot and 
 his more recent disciple and successor, M. 
 Boutmy, who seem to me to refute Montes- 
 quieu's prejudice by his own method. The 
 two latter here apply that method with more 
 breadth than Montesquieu himself, showing 
 that the origin of the English constitution is
 
 1 26 Montesquieu. 
 
 rather historical than ethnological, and that it 
 sprang neither from forests nor from fields, but 
 " from necessities created by circumstances." 
 
 Montesquieu analyzes this constitution in its 
 maturity, when it had reached such a stage of 
 development that other states were capable of 
 assimilating it. He assumes it as settled. He 
 collects and generalizes its elements as he had 
 done in the case of the ancient republics. He 
 throws the strongest light upon that portion 
 of England's institutions which can be trans- 
 ferred to other countries. And this transfer- 
 ence has actually occurred on all sides, not 
 only in the case of monarchies, but, with some 
 formal changes, in that of republics wnose 
 territory is too great for the people to govern 
 it directly. 
 
 The following is Montesquieu's conception 
 of the constitution on which the English gov- 
 ernment is based. To make the laws and 
 control their execution, there is a body of 
 legislators composed of representatives of the 
 people elected by a system of suffrage almost 
 universal, for it must include " all citizens . . . 
 except those who are in such a low condition 
 that they are considered to have no will of 
 their own ; " there is an upper chamber com- 
 posed of hereditary members sharing with the 
 legislative assembly in making the laws, except
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 127 
 
 those relating to taxes, in regard to which the 
 upper chamber is granted only the right to 
 oppose for fear lest it be corrupted by the 
 crown ; there is an executive power intrusted 
 to a monarch, because just as legislation de- 
 mands deliberation, which is the act of several 
 persons, so execution requires volition, which 
 properly belongs to but one ; the executive 
 has not necessarily the power of originating 
 the laws, and takes no part in debates, but has 
 the right to veto new laws; if there is no 
 monarch, the executive power must not be 
 intrusted to members of the legislative assem- 
 bly, because then the two powers would be 
 blended ; the legislative assembly can judge 
 neither the conduct nor the person of the 
 monarch, because this would be a confusion 
 of powers ; but though the monarch is invio- 
 lable and sacred, his ministers can be called 
 to account and punished. The two chambers 
 meet at stated times, and each year vote on 
 the amount of the taxes and the number of 
 soldiers. 
 
 The very general character which Mon- 
 tesquieu gave to this theory has helped to 
 propagate it; but this general application 
 stamps it as literature with a sort of dryness. 
 This chapter is all made up of maxims. It is 
 a masterpiece of design, but lacks life and
 
 1 28 Montesquieu. 
 
 color. It must be supplemented by that 
 chapter of Book XIX., in which Montesquieu 
 describes the English political morals and ana- 
 lyzes their public spirit, the real author, inter- 
 preter, and guardian of their constitution. He 
 shows the vigor and constancy of their love 
 for their liberties. Against this political virtue 
 he sets off the defects connected with it, con- 
 stant uneasiness in the body politic, inconsist- 
 ency in government, corruption in elections 
 and in public business, impatience of authority, 
 commercial jealousy, sharp bargains, haughti- 
 ness at all junctures, and such arrogance that, 
 even in peace, the English seem to " negotiate 
 with none but enemies." He is doubtless a 
 little too hasty in his generalization when he 
 decides that the English are not conquerors 
 by nature, and that they are free from " de- 
 structive prejudices." They have conquered 
 one of the vastest empires of the world, and de- 
 stroyed enormous numbers of the aborigines. 
 Montesquieu speaks of Ireland and the des- 
 potism there with too much indulgence ; but 
 as a whole his views are sound. 
 
 He detected and laid bare that terrible Eng- 
 lish energy which so long escaped the attention 
 of continental Europe. He refuted with one 
 stroke of the pen the delusion which so long 
 misled the French, deceived the members of
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 129 
 
 the Convention, and destroyed Napoleon. In 
 a word, he foresaw Pitt and discerned the for- 
 midable character of the twenty-three years' 
 war, when he pronounced that judgment 
 which, inferred from facts and confirmed by 
 history, deserves to be compared with the 
 soundest scientific theories. " If any foreign 
 power threatened the state and put the na- 
 tional fortune or glory in jeopardy, for the 
 time being smaller interests would yield to 
 greater, and all would unite to support the 
 executive power. . . . This nation would be 
 passionately enamoured of its liberty, because 
 this liberty would be real ; and it might hap- 
 pen that the people would sacrifice in its de- 
 fence property, ease, and personal interests ; 
 that they would load themselves with the 
 heaviest taxes, such as the most absolute 
 monarch would not dare to impose on his 
 subjects. . . . They would have undoubted 
 credit, because they would borrow of them- 
 selves and pay themselves. They might under- 
 take what was beyond their natural resources 
 and utilize against their enemies an immense 
 fictitious wealth which their credit and the na- 
 ture of their government would render real." 
 
 We should like to pause before this far- 
 reaching perspective ; but we should still have 
 but a partial conception of Montesquieu's 
 9
 
 1 30 Montesquieu. ^ 
 
 views on governments and on the laws result- 
 ing from the nature and essential principle of 
 constitutions. He also examines these laws 
 in their relations to crimes and their penalties, 
 and to the raising of taxes and government 
 revenues. We have just now seen by what 
 intimate bonds this question of the national 
 finances is connected with the political liberty 
 of the citizens. Montesquieu's definition of 
 taxes has become classical. " Each citizen 
 contributes to the revenues of the state a por- 
 tion of his property in order that his tenure of 
 the rest may be more secure." He demon- 
 strates the advantages of indirect taxation, and 
 appears to be partial to a progressive tax. 
 This partiality is perhaps explained by his 
 illusions with regard to the ancient republics, 
 but more especially by the example of the 
 poll-tax as it was applied in his time to the 
 privileged orders. It was graduated not ac- 
 cording to fortune, but according to the 
 tax-payer's dignity and rank in the state. 
 Montesquieu condemns the excise, and pro- 
 tests vigorously against the salt-tax and extor- 
 tionate imposts. " All is lost," said he, " when 
 the lucrative trade of the farmer of the revenue 
 succeeds by its wealth in becoming an honor- 
 able profession." 
 
 His studies on the criminal laws are justly
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 131 
 
 reckoned among his clearest titles to the grati- 
 tude of humanity. He has nowhere displayed 
 more force of thought or more refinement of 
 style than in the chapter on the efficacy of 
 penalties. It is one of those in which there 
 are so many evidences of his kinship with 
 Montaigne: "We must not proceed at once 
 to extreme measures in controlling men ; we 
 should husband the means that Nature gives 
 us for their guidance. If we examine the 
 cause of all defiance of law, we shall see that 
 it is to be found in the failure to punish crime, 
 not in the moderation of the penalty." 
 
 It is a stroke of purely eighteenth-century 
 wit to comment on this maxim in the following 
 chapter, a chapter crammed with allusions 
 and insinuations, under the unexpected title, 
 " Inefficacy of Japanese Laws." " Exces- 
 sive penalties may corrupt despotism itself." 
 A wise legislator should seek " to win over 
 men's minds by a just balance of penalties and 
 rewards; by philosophical, moral, and relig- 
 ious maxims ... by the proper application 
 of the rules of honor ; by the penalty of dis- 
 grace." Really, some one will say, this is 
 our fathers' philosophic idyll, and their senti- 
 mentality ! Nevertheless, the positive science 
 of our day has discovered no more efficacious 
 method of reclaiming criminals; and we saw
 
 132 Montesquieu. 
 
 at the end of the last century, after the Terror 
 and the Directory, what excessive measures of 
 repression lead to. Montesquieu had foretold 
 the result : " A vice engendered by this severity 
 remains among the people; their minds are 
 corrupted, and they become accustomed to 
 despotism." 
 
 Every one knows that Montesquieu had the 
 honor of contributing to the abolition of tor- 
 ture. The peremptory arguments he brings 
 forward against confiscations have been less 
 frequently noticed. It took courage to bring 
 them forward in his day. Confiscation was 
 quite the regular thing in the criminal courts. 
 It was suppressed in 1790, only to be again 
 legalized some time after, and to be pushed to 
 an excess beyond the worst of its kind in the 
 unhappiest years of the Old Regime. As to the 
 lettres de cachet, Montesquieu condemns them 
 indirectly by praising the habeas corpus. 
 
 He lays down the true principles of the 
 liberty to think and to write : " The laws un- 
 dertake to punish only overt acts. . . . Pun- 
 ishment is not intended for words, but for a 
 deed done in which words may be employed. 
 Words become criminal only when they pre- 
 pare for, accompany, or follow a criminal ac- 
 tion." The Old Regime did not recognize this 
 freedom of speech; it was loudly proclaimed
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 133 
 
 by the Revolution, and shamefully violated. 
 Montesquieu was treating of the abuses of 
 monarchical legislation only, but he condemned 
 beforehand the abuses of revolutionary legisla- 
 tion when he said : " Nothing renders the charge 
 of treason more arbitrary than when indis- 
 creet words become the foundation for it. ... 
 It is then a crying abuse to give the name of 
 treason to an action which is not treason." He 
 does not admit that this term applies either to 
 intrigues against ministers, as under Richelieu ; 
 or to spurious coinage, as under Valentinian, 
 Theodosius, Arcadius, in cases which he cites ; 
 or to the forgery of royal papers, which was 
 declared treason by a decree of 1720. This 
 last case Montesquieu does not cite, but it was 
 remembered in the time of the assignats. 
 
 The worst abuse is to extend the name of 
 treason to sacrilege and heresy. This was 
 common law at the time when Montesquieu 
 wrote. The cases of La Barre and of Galas 
 have made so much noise that no one is igno- 
 rant of them. The decree of 1724, confirming 
 and comprising the most implacable measures 
 of Louis XIV. against the reformed believers, 
 was in full force. A more cruel law cannot 
 be imagined ; that against Roman Catholics in 
 England was not more so. Heretics were still 
 burned at the stake in Portugal and Spain.
 
 1 34 Montesquieu. 
 
 "The trouble," says Montesquieu, " has come 
 from this idea that the Deity must be avenged." 
 Simple sacrilege, a merely religious offence, 
 can be punished only by expulsion from the 
 temple and exclusion from the society of the 
 faithful. As to sacrilege which causes a dis- 
 turbance in religious services, it is a crime like 
 that of disturbing the peace, and must be 
 classed with such crimes. In other words, the 
 civil law does not recognize sacrilege, and can- 
 not repress it. 
 
 Montesquieu does not dwell long upon the 
 repression of heresy, but condemns this re- 
 pression in a few lines of haughty raillery, by 
 withering comparisons. " Important maxim : 
 the prosecution of magic and heresy must 
 be conducted with great circumspection." 
 Moreover, of what use are persecutions and 
 punishments? " Men who believe in sure re- 
 wards in the other world will escape the legis- 
 lator ; they will have too much contempt for 
 death." With this conviction he addresses a 
 " Very humble remonstrance to the inquisitors 
 of Spain and Portugal," in which the pathos of 
 the thought is hidden under a veil of irony. 
 He puts it into the mouth of a Jew, and, if 
 taken literally, it is concerned with Israelites 
 alone; but Montesquieu has his mind on 
 France. He makes an indirect appeal to the
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 135 
 
 persecutors of reformed believers when, in the 
 following chapter, he pretends to explain 
 " Why the Christian religion is so odious in 
 Japan." " The Law of Japan punished se- 
 verely the least disobedience. When ordered 
 to renounce the Christian religion, not to re- 
 nounce it was to disobey ; this crime was pun- 
 ished, and continued disobedience appeared 
 to merit additional punishments. Punishments, 
 in Japan, are regarded as vengeance for insults 
 offered to the prince." They were so regarded 
 in France, if any were so insolent as to show 
 that they did not believe in the king's religion. 
 
 As to toleration, the counsels of " The Spirit 
 of the Laws" make no substantial advance 
 beyond the insinuations of the " Persian Let- 
 ters." Montesquieu demands the Edict of 
 Nantes, the whole Edict, and nothing but the 
 Edict. He fears religious propagandism, be- 
 cause, in his opinion, it disturbs states and 
 overthrows paternal authority in families. He 
 dreads the retaliation of persecuted sects which 
 begin to persecute as soon as they cease to 
 be oppressed. " This," he concludes, " is the 
 fundamental principle of political law with re- 
 gard to religion. When it is in our power to 
 receive into the state a new religion or to re- 
 fuse to receive it, we should not establish it ; 
 once established, however, it must be toler-
 
 136 Montesquieu. 
 
 ated." If it is judged expedient to destroy it, 
 gentle and wily means are the only efficacious 
 ones. " The surest way to attack a religion is 
 by favor, by the comforts of life, by the hope 
 of fortune ; not by what makes men vigilant, 
 but by what makes them forgetful; not by 
 what excites indignation, but by what lulls to 
 indifference, when other passions act upon the 
 soul, and when those inspired by religion are 
 chilled. As a general rule in regard to change 
 of religion, invitations are stronger than penal- 
 ties." Such were the views of Richelieu, who 
 was a great disciple of Macchiavelli in these 
 matters; such the views of politicians like 
 Saint- Simon, who reproached Louis XIV. for 
 having spoiled by his violence and pride the 
 work of patience and suggestion. 
 
 Some readers would perhaps be inclined to 
 see in this passage merely irony. I believe 
 that they would be in error, and that Montes- 
 quieu says here just what he thinks. A state 
 religion, tempered by the indifference of the 
 majority and the incredulity of the select few, 
 seems to him preferable, at bottom, to the 
 rivalry of different sects. He regards the 
 clergy as an order useful to the state, but to 
 be kept within bounds. Their wealth, which 
 in France seemed to him excessive, ought to 
 be limited by the state. Montesquieu dreads
 
 Political Laws and Governments. 137 
 
 the clergy's influence in political affairs, about 
 which, he says, they know nothing. For 
 monks he has an inveterate contempt, and 
 does not mince his expression of it. He goes 
 so far as to compare them somewhere to con- 
 querors; that is, in his opinion, to the most 
 harmful of all men. 
 
 All things considered, Montesquieu deserves 
 to be praised, and very highly praised, for 
 composing these chapters. In the age in 
 which he lived it was much to treat these 
 burning questions as subjects of public dis- 
 cussion and as articles of politics. It required 
 as much boldness to speak of them with free- 
 dom before the Church, as to speak of them 
 with respect before freethinkers. Montesquieu 
 rises at once above Voltaire, who can never in 
 religious matters separate history wholly from 
 polemics, or polemics from ridicule. Montes- 
 quieu writes in reference to Bayle, that " it is 
 fallacious reasoning to put together in a great 
 work a long enumeration of the evils religion 
 has produced, without enumerating at the same 
 time the benefits it has accomplished. If I 
 wished to recount all the evils produced by 
 civil laws, monarchy, republican government, 
 I should have frightful things to relate." 
 
 These reflections on criminal laws and on 
 toleration are grave and austere. Why need
 
 1 38 Montesquieu. 
 
 he, led away by some strange aberration of 
 taste, introduce among these noble essays, in 
 the way of diversion and interlude, the most 
 useless, most mawkish, and most offensive of 
 digressions ? It is the chapter entitled " Viola- 
 tion of Modesty in the Repression of Crimes ; " 
 one might add, " and in ' The Spirit of the 
 Laws.' "
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS," CLIMATE, CIVIL 
 LAWS, INTERNATIONAL LAW, ECONOMIC 
 LAWS; THE THEORY OF FEUDAL LAWS. 
 
 NO part of Montesquieu's work has been 
 more criticised, especially by his con- 
 temporaries, than that in which he treats of 
 "the Relations existing between Laws and 
 Climate." " This theory," said Voltaire, " is 
 taken from Chardin, and is none the truer 
 for that." Chardin, moreover, only presented 
 it under the form of a digression in the 
 chapter devoted to the " Palace of the King's 
 Wives." He borrowed it from Galen, who was 
 himself inspired by Hippocrates. The idea 
 was no novelty, and no one could be aston- 
 ished to see it dealt with by a historian of in- 
 stitutions, except critics living in an age when 
 those who boasted of legislating according to 
 natural laws began by eliminating from their 
 speculations the most natural elements, air, 
 soil, country, and race. Montesquieu's error is 
 not that he investigated the influence of the
 
 140 Montesquieu. 
 
 elements, but that he considered only one of 
 them, and that, too, with very inadequate data. 
 His notes on climates, collected at random and 
 arranged very arbitrarily, abounding in doubt- 
 ful statements, sown with paradoxes and in- 
 genious observations, would have furnished 
 Montaigne with material for an agreeable 
 essay. Montesquieu endeavored to build a 
 system upon them, and the whole scaffolding 
 went down under the weight. 
 
 It is a very simple matter to pick up the 
 pieces and determine the cause of the frac- 
 tures. " The government of a single sovereign 
 is oftenest found in fertile countries, and the 
 government of the many in barren ones ; " 
 parliamentary government has been set up in 
 a rich agricultural country, while the sand- 
 pits of northern Germany have to this day re- 
 mained impenetrable to it. A cold climate, 
 adds Montesquieu, will produce together 
 with more strength more self-reliance, more 
 consciousness of superiority, and thus less de- 
 sire for vengeance ; more confidence in secu- 
 rity, and thus more freedom, less suspicion, 
 less policy and cunning. Behold the numer- 
 ous virtues that spring from frost and moisture ! 
 It may be that all these virtues have been thus 
 engendered, but a combination of them all is 
 far to seek. The qualities first mentioned
 
 Climate and Laws. 141 
 
 strength, self-reliance, the spirit of enterprise 
 go well together, and I recognize them in the 
 Normans, in the Anglo-Saxons, and in the 
 Germans; but the sequel bewilders me, and 
 to cite only accepted and proverbial truths 
 explains neither the Norman shrewdness, the 
 perfidy of Albion, nor the German quarrel- 
 someness. 1 A little farther on we find heat 
 producing among Asiatics the same effects 
 that had to be referred to cold among the 
 Russians. I shall not press the matter further. 
 It is enough to have shown in these indiscre- 
 tions one side of Montesquieu's character, that 
 in which to adopt his own theory we are 
 inclined to suspect the influence of the capri- 
 cious climate of Gascony. 
 
 To tell the truth, Montesquieu cast upon 
 this side of Nature only a curious glance, an 
 unceremonious and stolen glance. He did not 
 see that these different conditions of human 
 society, climate, country, race, the last very 
 uncertain and obscure in its data, the two for- 
 mer very precarious in their effects and dis- 
 tinguishable only in great bodies and masses 
 of men are only primary causes, vague and 
 inaccessible. He did not see that from these 
 
 1 Une qiierelle cCAllemand (a German quarrel) is the 
 French idiom for a groundless quarrel, a quarrel which 
 is all on one side. TR.
 
 142 Montesquieu. 
 
 primary causes flow secondary causes produ- 
 cing by the cumulative force of their effects 
 the real and vital elements of social phenom- 
 ena; namely, manners, passions, prejudices, in- 
 stincts, in a word, the national character of 
 the individual and of the people. Montesquieu 
 was not to be expected to know a science 
 which has yet to formulate its methods, to 
 arrange its collections, and to define its boun- 
 daries; but 'he discerned its principal object 
 when he wrote, " The different needs of differ- 
 ent climates have formed different ways of 
 living, and these different ways of living have 
 formed divers kinds of laws." This view was 
 sufficient to throw light on his pathway, and 
 among our most learned modern anthropolo- 
 gists there is not one of whom it can be said 
 that he has done more than Montesquieu 
 for our knowledge of man in his relation to 
 society. 
 
 He considers civil laws " in the relations they 
 should have with the order of things on which 
 they are based." These chapters present a 
 great picture of the efforts of men to organize 
 human society, and would merit the title of 
 an " Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Na- 
 tions " much better than Voltaire's work so 
 entitled. They both made the same excursion 
 through the history of mankind ; but Voltaire,
 
 Civil Laws. 143 
 
 as has been very well said, prepares a compen- 
 dious chart of it, while Montesquieu composes 
 a rational account of it. He sees the under- 
 tow of currents of which Voltaire observes 
 merely the surface. Voltaire does not seek 
 the necessary relations of things, but likes to 
 point out everywhere the work of chance ; 
 and in his eagerness to exile God from history, 
 he banishes logic, consistency, conscience, 
 and human judgment. To these Montesquieu 
 allows their proper place. 
 
 Montesquieu gives excellent counsel with 
 regard to the manner of drawing up and word- 
 ing the laws. In his chapters on the laws con- 
 trolling private life may be found his views 
 on divorce, of which he was a partisan; on 
 bodily constraint, which he would abolish in 
 civil causes ; on registration of births, mar- 
 riages, and deaths, of which he was one of the 
 promoters ; and on expropriation, 1 the princi- 
 ples of which he laid down. We should honor 
 him greatly for his ideas on slavery. To point 
 out its abuses and dangers, especially in a 
 democracy, was no useless task. Slavery was 
 a recognized institution in the republic of the 
 
 1 We have retained the French word expropriation, which 
 means either the forcible seizure of the goods of a debtor, or 
 the seizure of property for public purposes in consideration 
 of an indemnity. TR.
 
 144 Montesquieu. 
 
 United States, which did not get rid of it until 
 after nearly a century's experience and a strug- 
 gle wherein the nation almost foundered. It 
 took a revolution to suppress slavery in the 
 French colonies. It required the exhausted 
 condition of governments after the Empire and 
 the great truce of Vienna in 1815, to make 
 official Europe pay any attention to the blacks, 
 or heed the appeal that Montesquieu addressed 
 to it more than half a century before. " Nar- 
 row minds exaggerate too much," said he, with 
 his biting irony, " the injustice done to the 
 Africans; for if this injustice were such as 
 they pretend, would it not have entered the 
 minds of Europe's rulers, who make so many 
 useless treaties, to make a general one in favor 
 of mercy and pity?" 
 
 Europe's rulers have listened to this humane 
 counsel; but they have despised the wise ad- 
 vice that Montesquieu gave them in his chap- 
 ters on " International Law." We have still 
 to choose, in this respect, between an ideal law 
 deduced by theorists from the abstractions of 
 the schools, and the practical jurisprudence 
 followed by politicians. Voltaire styled this 
 the "jurisprudence of highwaymen; " and 
 Montesquieu, always more deferential to hu- 
 man nature and more regardful of political 
 decorum, defined it as " a science which teaches
 
 International Law. 145 
 
 princes to what extent they can violate justice 
 without interfering with their own interests." 
 
 " Is it anything else? " asked Voltaire in his 
 dialogue on Hobbes, Grotius, and Montesquieu. 
 " ' Is there a law of nations? ' ' I am sorry for 
 it/ replies one of the speakers, ' but there is 
 none, except to be continually on one's guard. 
 All kings and ministers are of this opinion; 
 and thus it is that now, in Europe, twelve 
 hundred thousand mercenaries parade every 
 day in time of peace. Let a ruler disband his 
 troops, permit his fortifications to go to ruin, 
 and pass his time in reading Grotius, and you 
 shall see whether, within a year or two, he will 
 not have lost his kingdom.' ' That would be 
 a great injustice.' ' I agree with you.' ' And 
 is there no remedy for it? ' ' None, except to 
 put himself in a position to be as unjust as his 
 neighbors. Then ambition is restrained by 
 ambition; then dogs of equal strength show 
 their teeth, and tear each other only when 
 they have some prey to dispute.' " Such was 
 the wisdom of Europe in the middle of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 And this is still the last word of the wisdom 
 of the nineteenth century, after a hundred and 
 fifty years of further experience. Millions of 
 men have again been sacrificed without one 
 step of progress. The empirics in charge of
 
 146 Montesquieu. 
 
 nations have got no farther in their political 
 hygiene than the frightful blood-letting of 
 Broussais's time. " Each monarch," wrote 
 Montesquieu, " keeps on foot all the armies 
 he could have if his people were in danger 
 of extermination, and calls by the name of 
 peace this constant straining of all against all. 
 And thus Europe is so ruined that private 
 persons, whose affairs were as badly involved 
 as those of the three richest nations of this 
 part of the world, would have nothing to live 
 on. We are poor, in spite of the wealth and 
 commerce of the whole world ; and soon, by 
 dint of having soldiers, we shall have nothing 
 but soldiers, and shall become like the Tartars." 
 Montesquieu cannot be resigned to this ; he 
 seeks a remedy, and seeks it in the very nature 
 of the complaint. He does not separate him- 
 self from the actual world. He enters it, min- 
 gles with it, sees it, not as the world ought to 
 be, but as it is and as it acts. " In Europe 
 the nations are well matched with one another, 
 those which are adjacent having almost equal 
 courage. This is the chief cause ... of the 
 freedom of Europe." Respect for the law 
 here results, not in harmony of views, but in 
 opposition of powers. " Rulers who cannot 
 live together under civil laws are not free; 
 they are governed by force; they must con-
 
 International Law. 147 
 
 tinually exert force or submit to force. . . . 
 A ruler in this position cannot complain of 
 a treaty which has been thrust upon him by 
 violence. This would be to complain of his 
 natural condition." Force even decides the 
 reputation of nations : " Victory alone decreed 
 that we must say Punic faith instead of Roman 
 faith." War is the basis of these barbarous 
 relations : wars offensive and defensive, wars 
 of conquest, wars to anticipate an attack that 
 is feared, and to avoid a conquest that seems 
 threatened. Everything in this so-called law 
 of nations may be reduced to self-interest. 
 
 Self-interest is its only sanction. War is not 
 a right, it is an act of violence ; conquest of it- 
 self creates no right. " It belongs to the con- 
 queror to repair a part of the evil he has done. 
 I define the right of conquest thus : a neces- 
 sary, legitimate, and unfortunate right, which 
 always leaves an immense debt to humanity 
 unpaid." It is only on these conditions that 
 conquest is justified, and that the conqueror 
 acquires any rights over the conquered peo- 
 ple. The conqueror gains a people by gov- 
 erning it well. Consequently there is a natural 
 limit to conquest, namely, power of assimilation. 
 That only should be conquered which can be 
 kept and identified with the realm. States 
 have their natural proportions ; and the limits
 
 148 Montesquieu. 
 
 of the territory they can well govern cannot be 
 overstepped without exhausting their strength 
 and destroying their vital principle. 
 
 All the rules of international law may be 
 reduced to this maxim and summed up in 
 this precept: "That different nations ought 
 in peace to do each other the most good, 
 and in war the least harm, possible without 
 detriment to their own highest interests." It 
 is enough to compare these observations of 
 Montesquieu with the practice of govern- 
 ments, to show how far politicians still are 
 from conformity with humanity, with good 
 sense, and with experience. 
 
 Montesquieu hardly did more than point 
 out some aspects of this great subject, which 
 he looked at from so high a standpoint; on 
 the other hand he delighted in economic 
 questions, in which conjecture has so large 
 a share, and in which facts, incompletely ob- 
 served, and, as it were, heaped up around 
 him, dim his sight and too often mislead him. 
 His greatest merit here is his priority, his 
 attempt, before Adam Smith, to give a scientific 
 form to the problems of political economy. 
 
 The most important and durable part of this 
 division of " The Spirit of the Laws " is the 
 history of commerce which Montesquieu has 
 here inserted. It is broadly planned, and flows
 
 Economic Laws. 149 
 
 on in a noble stream. It is a study of progress 
 in the relations between the communities of 
 men, and forms a grand though detached chap- 
 ter in the history of civilization. Here we see 
 commerce gradually advancing from " vexa- 
 tion and despair " to reach security. But at 
 the cost of what bloody and terrible experi- 
 ences, like the persecution of the Jews and 
 that of the Huguenots in France, did people 
 arrive at conclusions confirming by the lessons 
 of self-interest all the lessons of policy ! " It 
 is discovered by experience that nothing gives 
 prosperity except good government." 
 
 Montesquieu's theory of trade is based upon 
 a very subtle distinction between " trade in 
 luxuries " designed to furnish to nations what 
 flatters their pride, the commerce of great 
 monarchical states ; and " thrifty trade," sub- 
 sisting on what is paid for transportation and 
 commission, the commerce of republics and 
 countries of small extent. Although Montes- 
 quieu discerns England's commercial great- 
 ness, he deems trade essentially the business 
 of an inferior government and of inferior men. 
 The Romans disdained it, and the French 
 monarchy had nobler cares. Doubtless wealth 
 is an important matter, and the wealth of the 
 state tends to change its character, owing to 
 the more extensive use of transferable securi-
 
 1 5 o Mon tesquieu. 
 
 ties. Montesquieu is quite aware of this, and 
 says, moreover, that " the nation which pos- 
 sesses the most of these transferable securities 
 is the richest." But he does not covet this 
 superiority for his native land. Honor and 
 wealth, that is, honor and trade, cannot subsist 
 together, I mean that feudal honor which is 
 the vital principle of monarchical government. 
 
 As to the other kind, the popular or middle- 
 class honor, Montesquieu thinks it the life and 
 backbone of trade. If his opinions on com- 
 merce show the prejudices of the aristocracy 
 of the robe, his decisions show us the good 
 judge. His reflections on the dangers of 
 speculation and gambling as substitutes for 
 laborious business, and on the necessity for 
 maintaining in all its rigor the legislation with 
 regard to bankrupts, deserve to be given all 
 the more consideration, because the facts have 
 most forcibly justified his anticipations. He 
 has also very correct views touching free rates 
 of interest and touching exchange. 
 
 More clearly than any other writer Montes- 
 quieu sets forth in a few lines the problem of 
 tariffs and of commercial treaties. The hither- 
 to insoluble question of protection and free- 
 trade is reduced to its real terms, and Mon- 
 tesquieu indicates the way in which it is best 
 to seek its solution : " Where there is com-
 
 Economic Laws. 151 
 
 merce there are customs. The object of com- 
 merce is the exportation and importation of 
 goods, for the advantage of the state ; and the 
 object of customs is a certain duty on the said 
 exportation and importation, also for the ad- 
 vantage of the state. The state must then 
 maintain an even balance between its customs 
 and its commerce, and not allow these two 
 things to conflict." 
 
 I cite in connection with these maxims the 
 example which illustrates them : " A merely 
 accidental tribute, not depending on the in- 
 dustry of the nation, on the number of its 
 inhabitants, or on the cultivation of its soil, is 
 a poor kind of wealth. The King of Spain, 
 though he receives vast sums from his custom- 
 house at Cadiz, is only in this respect a single 
 very wealthy person in a very poor nation. . . . 
 If some provinces of Castile yielded him a 
 sum equal to his receipts from the custom- 
 house at Cadiz, his power would be much 
 greater : his riches would be merely the result 
 of the wealth of his country ; these provinces 
 would animate all the rest, and they would all 
 be in better condition to sustain their respec- 
 tive burdens. Instead of a great treasure, he 
 would have a great people." 
 
 Montesquieu discerned all the import of 
 commercial relations between nations : " Two
 
 152 Montesquieu. 
 
 nations trading together become mutually de- 
 pendent." Well-managed relations and well- 
 arranged commercial treaties bind nations to- 
 gether in the most salutary way; but the 
 contrary is not less true, as experience has 
 very frequently proved. Montesquieu, then, 
 seems to have generalized too hastily when he 
 affirmed that " the natural effect of commerce 
 is a tendency toward peace." Commerce has 
 need of peace, but engenders a spirit of very 
 rude, jealous, and suspicious competition, im- 
 pelling to conflicts as bitter as those caused 
 by political rivalries, and to tariff struggles as 
 implacable as wars concerning boundaries. 
 
 If Montesquieu could have known the con- 
 stitution of the United States, he would have 
 improved his chapters on democracy in more 
 than one particular; and if he had observed 
 American manners, he would have modified 
 several of his opinions about commerce. I do 
 not mean that he had no presentiment of the 
 future awaiting great industrial nations. He 
 pointed out the principal difficulties such na- 
 tions experience in sustaining their public 
 morals ; they must contend against the effects 
 of the very labor by which they live. " In 
 countries where men are affected only by the 
 commercial spirit, they make a traffic of all 
 human actions and of all moral virtues ; the
 
 Economic Laws. 153 
 
 most trifling things, things demanded by mere 
 humanity, are done or given for money. The 
 commercial spirit produces in men a certain 
 exacting sense of justice, opposed on the one 
 hand to extortion, and on the other to those 
 moral virtues which prevent us from always 
 insisting inflexibly upon our own interests, and 
 which allow us to sacrifice them to the inter- 
 ests of others." As a curiosity, and to finish 
 up this subject, let us note this reflection from 
 the close of the chapter on " Grecian Com- 
 merce " : " How much prosperity Greece de- 
 rived even from the games to which she drew, 
 so to speak, the whole world ! " Montesquieu, 
 the inventor of universal expositions ! what 
 an interesting note to add to the story of 
 Pascal's omnibus ! * 
 
 By isolating Montesquieu's grand and gen- 
 erous views on the duties of society toward 
 its members, we might discover in him a pre- 
 cursor of the modern state socialism. " A man 
 is not poor because he has nothing, but be- 
 cause he does not work," he says at the begin- 
 ning of his chapter on " Hospitals and Work- 
 houses ; " and he goes on : " The state owes to 
 
 1 More than a century and a half before the final intro- 
 duction of the omnibus, this great scientific thinker and re- 
 ligious recluse seems to have been for a time the manager 
 of an omnibus line at Paris. TR.
 
 154 Montesquieu. 
 
 all its citizens an assured subsistence, food, 
 suitable clothing, and a way of living that is 
 not opposed to health." The state is bound 
 to avert industrial crises, " in order to prevent 
 both suffering and revolt." The method is to 
 open manual training-schools, to facilitate the 
 practice of the manual arts, and to insure the 
 workmen against attendant risks. In commer- 
 cial countries, " where many people possess 
 nothing but their trade, the state is often 
 obliged to provide for the necessities of the 
 aged, the sick, and the orphans. A well- 
 organized government will derive the subsist- 
 ence of such persons from the funds of the 
 trades themselves; it will assign to skilled 
 workmen the labors they are capable of, and 
 by teaching the rest to labor, will straightway 
 create another employment." Yet let us not 
 be deceived : Montesquieu has in view neither 
 national workshops nor the right of employ- 
 ment ; and what he sets up as a principle is 
 simply the practice of the monarchs of the 
 Old Regime. Compare with this chapter on 
 " Hospitals and Workhouses," Tocqueville's 
 chapter on " Methods of Administration under 
 the Old Regime," and Montesquieu's meaning 
 will be plain. 
 
 The monarchy he thinks of is always the 
 paternal monarchy; his opinions on the duties
 
 The Theory of Feudal Laws. 1 5 5 
 
 of the government to the subjects of the prince 
 are a part of the same conception as his hie- 
 rarchy of privileged orders and his system of 
 prerogatives. All these things are logical con- 
 sequences of the essential principle of mon- 
 archy and the feudal character of its origin. 
 A history of feudal institutions, that is to say, 
 of the historic source of monarchy and privi- 
 leged classes, thus formed the necessary com- 
 plement to Montesquieu's work, having many 
 bonds of connection doubtless intricate some- 
 times, but yet perfectly well-defined with all 
 parts of " The Spirit of the Laws." 
 
 Though very much opposed in this respect, 
 as in many others, to his contemporaries, 
 and, let us add, very much above them, Mon- 
 tesquieu was interested in mediaeval history. 
 He sought the law of his country's destinies in 
 the obscure beginnings of France. The noble- 
 man's pride was piqued, as well as the thinker's 
 curiosity. Both attracted him toward those 
 mysterious forests whence issued along with 
 the Germans, his alleged ancestors, the elements 
 of political liberty. He set out in quest of 
 discoveries. His toil was severe, his inves- 
 tigations slow and painful. " I seem," he 
 remarked, " all at sea, and in a shoreless sea. 
 All these cold, dry, tasteless, and difficult writ- 
 ings must be read, must be devoured. . . .
 
 156 Montesquieu. 
 
 The feudal law presents a noble spectacle. It 
 is like an ancient oak-tree raising high its far- 
 seen tower of foliage ; approaching, we behold 
 the trunk but not the roots ; to find these we 
 must delve deep in the earth." 
 
 A very keen controversy, which meanwhile 
 broke out, confirmed Montesquieu's passion 
 for this undertaking. In 1727, five years after 
 the death of their author, appeared Count 
 Boulainvilliers' " Historical Memoirs on the 
 Ancient Governments of France." His thesis 
 was the Germanic conquest and liberty by 
 means of the States-General. The conquerors 
 who had subjected Gaul were, according to 
 Boulainvilliers, invested by the very fact of 
 conquest with the right and duty of restraining 
 the royal power. The Abbe Dubos, life sec- 
 retary of the French Academy, sustained just 
 the opposite thesis in his " Critical History of 
 the Establishment of the French Monarchy in 
 Gaul," which appeared in 1734. In his opin- 
 ion the Germans, besides being few in num- 
 ber, had entered Gaul not as conquerors, but 
 as allies of the Romans ; and their settlement 
 in the country brought in no new institutions. 
 The chiefs of these bands received from the 
 Romans the control of the territories they 
 occupied, and governed them according to 
 Roman usages. The revolution which created
 
 The Theory of Feudal Laws. 157 
 
 France took place only very slowly, and con- 
 sisted in the transformation of governors into 
 lords. It was the rise of feudalism that estab- 
 lished in Gaul, for the benefit of the lords, the 
 system of rule by right of conquest. 
 
 Montesquieu prided himself on his German 
 descent, but his whole spirit was Roman ; and 
 he appeared destined to harmonize these two 
 conflicting theories. " Count Boulainvilliers 
 and the Abbe Dubos," said he, " have each 
 framed a system ; the one seems to conspire 
 against the Third Estate, and the other against 
 the nobility." He endeavored to occupy mid- 
 dle ground. His prejudice inclined him 
 toward the side of Boulainvilliers, whom he 
 treated as a gentleman, and alienated him from 
 Dubos, whom he regarded in spite of their 
 being brother academicians as an upstart 
 and a library pedant. He criticised Boulain- 
 villiers with respect; he never agreed with 
 Dubos except with an air of disdain, and dis- 
 puted his propositions only by ridicule. 
 
 He took a turn around his subject, as it were, 
 before entering upon it. In Book XVIII., 
 while dealing with the laws in their relations 
 to the nature of the soil, he treats of the 
 Prankish kings, of their coming of age, of 
 their long hair, and of the national assemblies 
 during their reigns. He takes up the subject
 
 158 Montesquieu. 
 
 again in Book XXVIII., " On the Origin and 
 Changes of the Civil Laws among the French." 
 He defines the subject broadly, touches upon 
 one side of it, and all at once leaves it. " I 
 was about to have inserted a great work in 
 another great work. I am like the antiquary 
 who left his country, went to Egypt, cast one 
 glance at the pyramids, and went home." 
 But the pyramids had an irresistible attraction 
 for him; he returned to them, and this time 
 wished to penetrate their secret. After finish- 
 ing Books XXX. and XXXI. in 1748, he wrote : 
 " I think I have made discoveries in the most 
 obscure of subjects, though it is after all a 
 magnificent subject." 
 
 After treating of the origin of feudal laws, 
 taking Caesar and Tacitus as his authorities, 
 and the codes of the barbarians as their com- 
 mentary, he joins battle with Dubos. He en- 
 deavors to prove, in opposition to Dubos, that 
 the lands occupied by the barbarian chiefs 
 paid no tribute. This is the point on which 
 the whole debate hinges. " In these pages, in 
 which he affirms rather than discusses, and 
 ridicules rather than refutes," says M. Vuitry, 
 who is one of the most prudent and judi- 
 cious arbitrators of this great historical dis- 
 pute, " Montesquieu does not destroy the 
 proofs collected by Dubos, at least those
 
 The Theory of Feudal Laws, 1 5 9 
 
 touching the maintenance of the Roman trib- 
 utes imposed upon the Gallo-Romans under 
 the early Prankish kings. But his reasoning is 
 more conclusive and peremptory as regards the 
 Franks, and we cannot fail to acknowledge that, 
 if the kings often tried to subject these latter to 
 tribute, they did not succeed in the attempt" 
 
 Montesquieu studies in succession the ori- 
 gins of feudal dues, of vassalage, and of fiefs ; 
 the question of the military service of freemen ; 
 the jurisdiction of the lords ; the transforma- 
 tion of benefices into fiefs ; and the revolution 
 that rendered fiefs hereditary. This revolution 
 ushered in feudal government, and Montes- 
 quieu connects it with that other revolution 
 changing the reigning dynasty, and uniting 
 with a great fief the royalty which, in the dis- 
 persion of power, had lost its domain. From 
 these two contemporaneous and connected 
 events he deduces as a first consequence the 
 right of primogeniture. Before this, the fiefs 
 had been held at the pleasure of the crown 
 which shared them. Thenceforward the crown 
 became hereditary, as the fiefs had become. 
 Then followed the transfer of the fiefs to 
 strangers, and the peculiar rights of suzerainty, 
 the right of lods et -ventes} the right of re- 
 
 1 The right of the lord to a payment from any one pur- 
 chasing an estate within his manor. TR.
 
 1 60 Montesquieu. 
 
 purchase, the right of garde-noble?- the laws 
 of homage, and that principle of old French 
 law that inherited real estate does not retro- 
 cede. " I end my treatment of fiefs," Montes- 
 quieu then writes, "where most writers begin 
 it." He abruptly suspends his task on this 
 page; and with this fine piece of juridical ex- 
 position, he closes these three books in which, 
 according to the judgment of a master, " he 
 has thrown out his views on the origin of our 
 social institutions with so much power, but in 
 so capricious and disorderly a manner." 
 
 Since Montesquieu's time the study of the 
 Middle Ages, then still a subject of much grop- 
 ing and conjecture, has brought forth a science 
 which now occupies an important place in our 
 historical schools. The deeper studies that 
 have been undertaken, based upon the inves- 
 tigation of original sources, have renewed and 
 extended in a very remarkable way the dis- 
 sensions that divided the learned Frenchmen 
 contemporary with Montesquieu. These con- 
 troversies are still carried on with great vigor 
 among us ; and if the lists appear to be closed, 
 the tilting is not yet over. Montesquieu, al- 
 though seamed with many scars and withdrawn 
 
 1 The right of a surviving noble parent to enjoy the in- 
 heritance of the children until they should reach a certain 
 age. TR.
 
 The Theory of Feudal Laws. 161 
 
 from the contest, still makes a great figure. 
 He marked off the ground, and gave the first 
 impulse to investigation. " History," said he, 
 " must be explained by the laws, and the laws 
 by history." He really founded a science, and 
 left a method for his followers. 
 
 These two great episodes on commerce and 
 feudal laws do not, as readily as the preceding 
 chapters, admit of literary by-play and orna- 
 mental flourishes. They form, as it were, long 
 galleries very well lighted, but rather cold and 
 bare. To adorn them, Montesquieu could do 
 no more than arrange busts and statues at in- 
 tervals ; and this is what he has done. There 
 are two of these statues that stand higher than 
 all the rest, both by reason of the greatness of 
 the subjects and the beauty of the execution, 
 Alexander and Charlemagne, conquerors and 
 civilizers. In the likeness of these heroes 
 Montesquieu personifies whatever his historic 
 genius has shown him that is great and noble 
 in the art of government 
 
 " Italiam ! Italiam ! " he exclaims as he 
 reaches the goal he had set to his journey. 
 He does not conclude, he does not shut the 
 book, but leaves it, as it were, open toward 
 the future. 
 
 ii
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CRITICISM AND DEFENCE OF " THE SPIRIT OF 
 THE LAWS." MONTESQUIEU'S LAST YEARS. 
 - HIS INFLUENCE IN EUROPE UNDER THE 
 OLD REGIME. HIS VIEWS ON THE FRENCH 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 " nr^HE Spirit of the Laws " was printed at 
 1- Geneva, where it appeared in the month 
 of November, 1748, in two quarto volumes. The 
 author's name was not given, but everybody 
 supplied the name of Montesquieu. The book 
 found its way into the hands of all respectable 
 people in France, although the censors had 
 not authorized its circulation. Its success was 
 very decided, but critics were not lacking. 
 Montesquieu was really too great a man not 
 to be envied. He shocked too many preju- 
 dices and exploded too many accepted notions, 
 not to arouse protests. He gave a special 
 shock to the prejudice of pure reason, and 
 exploded the arbitrary perfection of those re- 
 formers who would make a clean sweep and 
 begin anew. This class of speculators has al- 
 ways rebelled against experience. They con-
 
 Criticism and Defence. 163 
 
 demned " The Spirit of the Laws " without a 
 hearing, and scouted the historic method with- 
 out attempting to apply it. 
 
 Montesquieu had one friend in this school. 
 This was Helvetius, who composed a treatise 
 on " Mind " : in general, but did not under- 
 stand the mind of Montesquieu. What he 
 lacked in profundity he made up in assurance ; 
 and he summed up in a few lines all the ob- 
 jections of abstract political theorists against 
 "The Spirit of the Laws": "You often 
 ascribe to the world a reasonableness and a 
 wisdom which is really only your own. ... A 
 writer desiring to be useful to men ought to be 
 too busy with maxims true for the future, to 
 lend his sanction to those which endanger the 
 present order of things. ... I know but two 
 classes of governments, the good and the bad ; 
 and the good are yet to be formed." Helve- 
 tius thought that Montesquieu made politics 
 too complicated; that his remedies acted too 
 slowly and required too much patience on the 
 part of the physician, too much virtue on the 
 part of the patient. Why such minute direc- 
 tions as to diet and regimen? A good pre- 
 
 1 " De 1'esprit." At the close of the paragraph there is an 
 allusion to the word esprit (spirit, mind, wit) occurring in the 
 titles of the two books, that by Helvetius and that by 
 Montesquieu. TR.
 
 1 64 Montesquieu. 
 
 scription was so easy to find, and a good 
 panacea so easy to take ! " My intention," 
 said Montesquieu of some one who criticised 
 him in this fashion, " was to do my work, and 
 not his." Helvetius, who dreaded the effect 
 of " The Spirit of the Laws " on his friend's 
 reputation, would have gained by exchanging 
 with him. 
 
 Montesquieu had shown that he despised 
 tax-farming, publicans, and revenue contrac- 
 tors of every kind ; and one of them, Claude 
 Dupin by name, wished to be avenged, and 
 compiled in 1749 certain "Reflections on Some 
 Parts of a Book entitled ' The Spirit of the 
 Laws.' " This title was foolish, and the book 
 was no better. " If you aspire to a position," 
 said Dupin, " you will do well to take another 
 road ; this will not lead to one." The position 
 Montesquieu aspired to was one that the Du- 
 pins do not control. " Behold me," he wrote 
 to a friend, " cited before a tax-gatherer's tri- 
 bunal." Dupin dared not carry the matter 
 through, and contented himself with seeing his 
 two volumes in secret circulation. Though 
 there were no reflections in this book, there 
 were at least just remarks. Montesquieu was 
 not free from inadvertences and oversights. 
 Dupin pointed out these mistakes, and Vol- 
 taire took advantage of this when he aimed
 
 Criticism and Defence. 165 
 
 at Montesquieu the composition called "The 
 ABC," in 1768, and his " Commentary on the 
 Spirit of the Laws," in 1777. 
 
 Voltaire was preparing his " Essay on Man- 
 ners " when " The Spirit of the Laws " ap- 
 peared, and it seems that this masterpiece 
 annoyed him. He did not like Montesquieu ; 
 and Montesquieu showed little taste for Vol- 
 taire, seeing in him scarcely more than a lit- 
 erary blackguard. " It would be a disgrace to 
 the Academy if Voltaire were a member: and 
 it will one day be his disgrace that he was not 
 one. . . . He has too much wit to understand 
 me," added Montesquieu. Voltaire only half 
 listened and half understood. He was arrested 
 by trifles, and hardly perceived the main drift. 
 When Montesquieu was attacked, Voltaire 
 praised him; and when Montesquieu was 
 praised, Voltaire attacked him, always galling 
 even when he appeared to caress, and after- 
 ward covering the wound with little flowers. 
 Yet he uttered this fine saying, the antidote to 
 many epigrams : " The human race had lost 
 its titles ; M. de Montesquieu found them 
 again and restored them." 
 
 What Voltaire enjoyed most about " The 
 Spirit of the Laws " was the opposition it 
 aroused among the clergy. The Jesuits con- 
 demned it with civil phrases in the "Trevoux
 
 1 6 6 Mo n tesquieu. 
 
 Journal ; " the Jansenists attacked it with acri- 
 mony in the " Ecclesiastical News " for the 
 months of April and October, 1749. Both 
 parties took Montesquieu to task concerning 
 Spinozism, climates, the Stoics, suicide, Mon- 
 tezuma, polygamy, divorce, and Julian the 
 Apostate. But these were only preliminary 
 skirmishes. They directed all the strength of 
 their argument against the chapter on religion, 
 which was in their view the weak point; and 
 against the one on toleration, in which Mon- 
 tesquieu had laid himself open to attack. 
 Montesquieu, said they, considers all religions 
 as matters of policy; he does not distinguish 
 the true religion, which has all rights, from the 
 false religions, which have none. They branded 
 him as an infidel, and convicted him of con- 
 tradictory statements. " The parentheses that 
 the author inserts to inform us that he is a 
 Christian give slight assurance of his Catholi- 
 cism," wrote the editor of the " News." " The 
 author would laugh at our simplicity if we 
 should take him for what he is not." Mon- 
 tesquieu was inclined to tolerate the Huguenots 
 in France, and to prohibit the missions to 
 China. The " Trevoux Journal " and the " Ec- 
 clesiastical News " advocated precisely the op- 
 posite policy. They therefore concluded that 
 " ' The Spirit of the Laws ' gave up the case
 
 Criticism and Defence. 1 6 7 
 
 against the ancient and modern persecutors of 
 the Christian religion." The Jansenist review 
 wound up with a hearty denunciation, and an 
 appeal to the secular arm against a book 
 " which teaches men to regard the incentives 
 of virtue as useless in monarchies." 
 
 Montesquieu, sensitive to such insinuations, 
 published a " Defence of the Spirit of the 
 Laws," which appeared in April, 1750. The 
 piece is brilliant, and full of fine irony. Mon- 
 tesquieu does justice to his thought, garbled 
 by fragmentary citations. He disproves most 
 of the detailed criticisms, but he does not dis- 
 pose of the fundamental points. To establish 
 his orthodoxy and make his submission, he 
 would have had to disavow the essential prin- 
 ciple of his " Spirit of the Laws," and burn 
 half his work. He did not submit, and ended 
 as he should have begun, by despising such 
 criticism. " To condemn the book would be 
 nothing," he wrote to a friend ; " I should have 
 to destroy it." The Sorbonne was not equal 
 to the emergency. It took up the matter, 
 but the doctors could not agree on the main 
 counts in the indictment. The work was de- 
 nounced to the assembly of the clergy, who 
 gave but little heed to the accusers. The con- 
 gregation of the Sacred College put the book 
 upon their index ; but little was said of this,
 
 1 68 Montesquieu. 
 
 and no one minded it. Malesherbes, meanwhile, 
 gained control of the censorship, and removed 
 the injunction excluding " The Spirit of the 
 Laws " from France. This masterpiece of 
 French genius thus received, toward the close 
 of 1750, its naturalization papers. Twenty-two 
 editions were printed in less than two years, 
 and it was translated into all languages. 
 
 The Italians were enthusiastic over it; the 
 English paid it signal homage ; the King of 
 Sardinia had his son read it; Frederick the 
 Great, who had annotated the " Considerations 
 on the Romans," did not fail to make some 
 reservations with regard to " The Spirit of the 
 Laws." " M. de Maupertuis has informed 
 me," wrote Montesquieu, " that he [Frederick] 
 had found some passages he could not assent 
 to. I answered that I would wager confi- 
 dently that I could put my finger on the pas- 
 sages." But Frederick, who appropriated 
 what suited him from every source, was careful 
 not to neglect Montesquieu's counsels; and 
 the history of his government of Silesia may 
 serve as a commentary on the wise maxims 
 of " The Spirit of the Laws " with regard to 
 conquests. 
 
 Montesquieu lived to have a foretaste of his 
 great fame. In his old age he enjoyed the 
 admiration of all Europe. He wrote little
 
 His Last Years. 169 
 
 more. " Lysimachus," a fine Stoic fragment ; 
 the charming tale of " Arsaces and Ismene ; " 
 and an " Essay on Taste," intended for the 
 " Encyclopaedia," are all that are left of his 
 later years. He divided his time between 
 Paris and La Brede, enjoying his estate, but 
 enjoying still more the society of his friends. 
 He became blind, and endured this great trial 
 with serenity. " It seems to me," said he, 
 " that the little light left me is but the dawning 
 of the day when my eyes shall close forever." 
 It was one of the aims of his life and his 
 heart's desire to die, as he expressed it, " with 
 hope on his side." He had a stoical soul, 
 but closed his life as a submissive and rev- 
 erent Christian. He expired at Paris on the 
 loth of February, 1755, in his sixty-seventh 
 year. 
 
 His fame was not overestimated. It has 
 only grown stronger and greater with time. 
 He thought much about the judgment of 
 posterity and the future of his book. " My 
 work," said he, " will be more approved than 
 read." He might have added, oftener read 
 than understood, and oftener understood than 
 applied. Montesquieu's Hippocratic hygiene, 
 despised by theorists, exasperated mere em- 
 pirics. Moderation was the key-note of his 
 advice to princes, and all the governments of
 
 1 70 Montesquieu. 
 
 Europe were on the verge of decline through 
 the abuse of power. In practice, the drift of 
 the time was toward enlightened despotism ; 
 in doctrine, toward natural rights. Thinkers 
 and politicians accepted in Montesquieu what 
 suited their turn, but his method escaped them. 
 They may be seen invoking his authority in 
 details, while despising his spirit; and putting 
 into practice reforms that he advocated, while 
 violating the rules he prescribed. 
 
 D'Alembert wrote a " Eulogy " of Montes- 
 quieu, and appended to it an " Analysis of the 
 Spirit of the Laws," in which he connects the 
 book and its author with the Encyclopedists. 
 Beccaria, whose book was inspired by the 
 chapters on the criminal laws, is a mere jurist, 
 who makes deductions but no observations. 
 Filangieri imitates Montesquieu and endeavors 
 to improve upon him : " Montesquieu is ab- 
 sorbed in giving reasons for what has been 
 done; and I try to deduce rules for what 
 ought to be done." Bielfeld derives from 
 Montesquieu all that is essential in his " Po- 
 litical Institutions," but floods the work with 
 natural rights, and tries by this mixture to har- 
 monize " The Spirit of the Laws " with the 
 system of Wolf. 
 
 Princes as well as philosophers found a use 
 for Montesquieu. " His work is my manual,"
 
 His Influence in Europe. 171 
 
 said Catherine the Great She made extracts 
 from it, and presented them for the considera- 
 tion of her pompous commission on the Rus- 
 sian code. But if she lavished on her subjects 
 showy maxims on the equality and liberty of 
 mankind, she was practically imbued with the 
 rule of the master " that an extensive em- 
 pire naturally implies unlimited power in the 
 ruler." From this she concluded that the 
 best way to sustain the Russian government 
 was to strengthen its main-stay, namely, the 
 autocracy. 
 
 The framers of the Prussian Code of 1792 
 did not escape the influence of " The Spirit of 
 the Laws." Their work as a whole breathes 
 nothing but enlightened despotism ; but the 
 administrative councils, controlling and re- 
 straining one another, the life-tenure of the 
 state officers, assuring their independence, the 
 considerable part taken by the nobles in 
 the administration of local affairs, the rigorous 
 maintenance of the hierarchy and of castes, 
 the exclusion of the nobility from commercial 
 pursuits, all recall Montesquieu's proposed 
 measures for maintaining the vital principle of 
 monarchy. 
 
 In France, Montesquieu was always consid- 
 ered seditious by pedants and pious people. 
 They accused him of unsettling the altar and
 
 172 Montesquieu. 
 
 the throne. Crevier undertook to demonstrate 
 this with illustrative citations, and published 
 in 1764 a volume entitled " Observations on 
 the Book called ' The Spirit of the Laws.' " 
 Crevier knew ancient history, and he had little 
 trouble in detecting mistakes, here and there, 
 in Montesquieu ; but his mind being naturally 
 heavy, he had still less trouble in demonstrat- 
 ing his own dulness. He took up the argu- 
 ment of the " Ecclesiastical News," and seeing 
 in Montesquieu only a literary man desirous 
 of an unwholesome notoriety, he found noth- 
 ing in " The Spirit of the Laws " but the 
 spirit of vanity, paradox, and faction. " In 
 order to love mankind, he neglects to love 
 his country as he should. . . . Englishmen 
 may be flattered by reading this work, but 
 good Frenchmen can only be mortified by 
 its perusal." 
 
 Crevier was right in thus speaking of the 
 English. They showed they were flattered by 
 the book, and what was better they profited 
 by it. Till then they had made practical 
 use of their constitution without analyzing it. 
 Montesquieu gave them a reason for their laws. 
 He gained disciples among them, one of whom 
 was Blackstone; and all commentators on the 
 English constitution depend on Blackstone. 
 Among these disciples we must include De
 
 His Influence in Europe. 173 
 
 Lolme, of Geneva, whose work appeared in 
 1771, and gave a detailed description of the 
 English constitution, of which Montesquieu 
 had presented only the principles and general 
 rules. 
 
 Long before Europeans thought of apply- 
 ing these maxims to the ancient monarchical 
 institutions of the Continent, Americans, by a 
 bolder experiment, applied them to a democ- 
 racy. Montesquieu had foreseen that Eng- 
 land's American colonies would separate from 
 the mother country, and had pointed to a fed- 
 eral constitution as the only device to harmo- 
 nize those elements which antiquity had never 
 exhibited in combination, extensive territory, 
 democracy, and a republican form of govern- 
 ment. Washington was acquainted with " The 
 Spirit of the Laws ; " and the influence of this 
 book on the framers of the Constitution of the 
 United States cannot be denied. The Amer- 
 icans profited by Montesquieu's views on the 
 distribution of power'; they established democ- 
 racy within the narrower limits of the States of 
 the Union, and made the federal government 
 a republic. They were able to organize this 
 democracy and this republic because of the 
 simplicity of their manners. They inherited 
 from their Puritan ancestors the intense re- 
 ligious feeling, the spirit of subordination, the
 
 1 74 Montesquieu. 
 
 self-denial, which were, according to Mon- 
 tesquieu, the essential republican virtues. 
 Though modifying the provisions of the laws 
 which Montesquieu advised republics to adopt, 
 they justified his underlying thought and com- 
 pleted his work. 
 
 The traditions and the manners that gave 
 the Americans their strength in the Revolution 
 did not exist in France. Everything consid- 
 ered, the country was nearer to the Rome 
 of Caesar than to the England of Cromwell. 
 Montesquieu never thought of France as either 
 a democracy or a republic. It was in the old 
 French laws that he found the spirit of mon- 
 archy. He never thought of importing Eng- 
 lish institutions into his country, this would 
 have been contrary to his system of climates ; 
 his intention was merely to revive the essen- 
 tial principles of the "fundamental laws" of 
 France. 
 
 In Montesquieu's ideal French monarchy 
 we should see the king restrained by the privi- 
 leged and dependent classes; no States-Gen- 
 eral, but a magistracy, the guardian of the 
 fundamental laws; a nobility forbidden to 
 engage in trade; no great commercial com- 
 panies, because these would destroy the sa- 
 cred order of intermediate classes by array- 
 ing wealth against political power ; a paternal,
 
 Views on French Government. 175 
 
 enlightened, intelligent government, guiding 
 the French not only generously but judiciously, 
 putting no constraint either upon their man- 
 ners or their virtues, above all, never boring 
 them, for that would be unendurable, and 
 allowing them to do frivolous things seriously 
 and serious things gayly; honor in everything, 
 toleration for believers, glory for noblemen, 
 civil liberty for the people ; no distant expe- 
 ditions and few colonies ; no more of those 
 enterprises increasing absolute power only at 
 the expense of our relative strength ; in a 
 word, moderation abroad as well as at home, 
 " since France is of exactly the size it ought 
 to be." Good kings and wise ministers are 
 the main dependence of such a government. 
 France has furnished illustrious examples of 
 both : Charlemagne, the central figure in his- 
 tory; Saint Louis, representing "law, justice 
 and magnanimity;" Louis XII., "the best 
 citizen ; " Henry IV., " who needs but to be 
 named;" then, Coligny, Turenne, and Catinat; 
 on the other hand, as a contrast and a warn- 
 ing, Richelieu and Louvois the instruments of 
 despotism, and Louis XIV. the despot. 
 
 Montesquieu outlined his ideal without per- 
 ceiving that France as he described it rendered 
 impossible France as he conceived it. He 
 would fain restore vigor to dying institutions.
 
 1 76 Montesquieu. 
 
 Their vital principle was corrupted, and he had 
 himself proved that when the principle be- 
 comes corrupt the government is near its fall. 
 The crown levelled all and encroached on all. 
 It absorbed all powers, and brought all ranks 
 into the same cringing posture before itself. 
 The nobles were degraded to the position of 
 courtiers; now, "the character of the majority 
 of courtiers is marked by indolent ambition, 
 mean-spirited pride, lust for wealth without 
 labor, antipathy to truth, flattery, treachery, 
 perfidy, neglect of all engagements, contempt 
 for civic duties, dread of virtue in the prince, 
 and hope based upon his weaknesses, above 
 all, an ingrained habit of sneering at virtue : 
 such, I believe, at all times and places is the 
 shameful brand." Even honor fails to take 
 the place of the missing virtues, for their spuri- 
 ous and servile honor is only another mark of 
 their degradation. " They can be at the same 
 time covered with infamy and with honors." 
 These nobles " consider it an honor to obey a 
 king, but regard it as a supreme disgrace to 
 share their power with the people." Even 
 were they willing, they could not do this. 
 " Their natural ignorance, their inattention, 
 their contempt for civil government," render 
 them incapable of it. The magistracy, dis- 
 credited by the crown, could not assume the
 
 Views on French Government. 177 
 
 duties of the nobility. All was crumbling, and 
 the fall of the buttresses announced the speedy 
 ruin of the edifice. 
 
 This was readily seen when, under Louis 
 XVI., the attempt was made to govern accord- 
 ing to Montesquieu's plan by restoring author- 
 ity to the courts and influence to the privileged 
 classes. The maxims of " The Spirit of the 
 Laws " were cited against Turgot and his re- 
 forms, and the resistance to these reforms 
 finally precipitated the Revolution. This at- 
 tempt to return to the Old Regime only tended 
 to make monarchy more unpopular and the 
 privileged classes more odious. 
 
 Only in respect to foreign policy did Mon- 
 tesquieu's counsels prevail and produce their 
 beneficial effect. The policy of Vergennes is 
 an excellent application of "The Spirit of 
 the Laws " to diplomacy. When we read the 
 state papers that this wise minister addressed 
 to Louis XVI. with reference to the Bavarian 
 succession, we seem to be reading an exposi- 
 tion of this sentence, closing the chapter on 
 War in the book on International Law : " People 
 should not talk of the glory of a prince, or 
 rather say his vainglory ; he may have a pas- 
 sion for glory, but has no legitimate right to 
 it. His reputation for power might indeed in- 
 crease the strength of his government, but his
 
 178 Montesquieu. 
 
 reputation for justice would strengthen it as 
 much." 
 
 This brings us to the French Revolution, 
 which Montesquieu did not foresee though he 
 contributed to pave the way for it, and which 
 he often inspired but never guided.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MONTESQUIEU AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 AT the close of the last century every en- 
 lightened Frenchman had in his library 
 a Montesquieu, a Voltaire, a Rousseau, and a 
 Buffon. The convocation of the States-Gen- 
 eral invited every Frenchman to give his views 
 on governmental reforms, and each ran to his 
 favorite authors to prime himself with ideas 
 or arguments in favor of the principles he 
 wished to see prevail. Rousseau and Mon- 
 tesquieu were the ones most often consulted ; 
 Rousseau gained more disciples, but Montes- 
 quieu furnished more quotations; Rousseau 
 expounded only one system, his own, 
 while Montesquieu set forth all those which 
 history had garnered. " The Spirit of the 
 Laws" became a sort of digest; all parties 
 drew from it maxims and precedents to sup- 
 port their wishes or their claims. 
 
 The intelligent nobles adopted its inner 
 spirit as well as quoted its letter. The votes 
 of these nobles form nothing less than Mon-
 
 180 Montesquieu. 
 
 tesquieu's memorial to the States-General. In 
 them may be perceived his predilection for 
 monarchical liberty, and his conviction that 
 this liberty could in France be based only upon 
 the prerogatives of the privileged classes. The 
 Third Estate borrowed from him the system 
 of division of power; but it claimed equality 
 and civil liberty as the basis of political lib- 
 erty, and all Montesquieu's plan of French 
 government was thus annihilated. 
 
 In the Revolution the principles of the 
 Third Estate prevailed. After the night of 
 August 4, Montesquieu's monarchy was but 
 a Utopian dream of the emigrated nobility. 
 " Abolish in a monarchy," said he, " the pre- 
 rogatives of the lords, the clergy, the nobility, 
 and the towns, and you will soon have either 
 the government of the people or of a despot." 
 " The Spirit of the Laws " had propounded 
 this periodically-recurring problem of French 
 government. Citizens who were loyal to the 
 monarchy and yet did not mean to sacrifice 
 liberty sought a compromise, and found it in 
 " The Spirit of the Laws." They appealed to 
 the example of England, and formed Montes- 
 quieu's second line of succession in revolu- 
 tionary times. 
 
 Great minds have their posterity ; and among 
 their descendants, as in dynasties, the eldest-
 
 The French Revolution. 181 
 
 born do not always gain the finest fortunes nor 
 promote the glory of the house. There are 
 younger brothers founding families in their 
 turn, whose castles eclipse those of the elder 
 line ; and there are portionless brothers who 
 go off to the colonies, discover mines, make 
 rich marriages, and return to restore the abode 
 of their ancestors. Certain children disowned 
 as uncouth or scandalous have sometimes 
 added to the celebrity of a name, if not to its 
 honor. Such was the case with the political 
 progeny of Montesquieu. The elder branch 
 emigrated, and was seen sitting at princes' 
 council-boards, and inspiring Burke's famous 
 " Reflections on the Revolution in France." 
 The whole picture of the old monarchy and 
 its possible reform, traced by the fiery English 
 orator, is drawn from " The Spirit of the 
 Laws." The partisans of two Chambers, the 
 monarchists, as they are called, Necker, in 
 the administration ; Mounier, Lally, Bergasse, 
 Clermont-Tonnerre, and Malouet, in the As- 
 sembly; and Mallet du Pan and Rivarol out- 
 side, form the second branch. It soon gave 
 way before the storm; and though it did not 
 die, it required years to recover its sap and 
 send out fresh shoots. 
 
 The public mind turned in another direc- 
 tion. It turned to Sieyes, that is, to Montes-
 
 1 82 Montesquieu. 
 
 quieu's antipode. " Many others," said this 
 famous theorist, perhaps having in mind 
 " The Spirit of the Laws," - " have made it 
 their business to put together certain servile 
 notions always in harmony with events. Po- 
 litical science is not the science of what is, but 
 of what ought to be." Yet by entering upon 
 paths which Montesquieu would have shunned, 
 the Revolution did not wholly escape his guid- 
 ance. It was at this time that his indirect 
 influence was exerted, and that followers ap- 
 peared upon the stage of his distracted coun- 
 try who were none the less naturally his own 
 because rashly dissenting from a master cer- 
 tain to disown them had he known them by 
 their works. 
 
 This defender of monarchy, this restorer of 
 the ancient political rights of the French, was 
 destined to become, in the hands of such dis- 
 ciples, the prophet of a levelling democracy 
 and of a government like the Roman Republic. 
 This strange transformation depended less 
 upon Montesquieu's essential thought than 
 upon the form he gave it and upon the ideas 
 with which his readers interpreted his work. 
 " When I have recalled antiquity, I have 
 sought to catch its spirit." In his efforts to 
 resuscitate the ancients he animated them with 
 his own spirit, and with the spirit of his age.
 
 The French Revolution. 183 
 
 To tell the truth, he did not call up the ghost 
 of an antiquity forever dead; he brought to 
 light rather a certain form of thought con- 
 ceived by his own age, and destined for the 
 time being to renovate the politics, the litera- 
 ture, and even the art of France. Montesquieu 
 is not so much the restorer of antiquity as the 
 herald of French ideas derived from the Greek 
 and Latin, an order of ideas that prevailed 
 from Andre Chenier to David, from Vergniaud 
 to Napoleon, and produced Robespierre, Saint- 
 Just, and Charlotte Corday. The explanation 
 of what seems on his part the result of a 
 strange divining power, or of an influence even 
 more wonderful, is found in the similar mental 
 state existing in him and among his revolu- 
 tionary disciples, in spite of the difference in 
 their epochs and their surroundings. This is as 
 much a problem of psychology as of history. 
 
 At the time when Montesquieu formed his 
 theory of the republic, the conception was 
 taking root in men's minds and the word " re- 
 public " was creeping into use among the peo- 
 ple. Classic education fostered this spirit; 
 classic literature popularized its vocabulary. 
 "Will any one dare," wrote d'Argenson in 
 1747, " to propose to take steps toward a re- 
 publican form of government? I see no apti- 
 tude for it in the people : the nobles, the lords,
 
 184 Montesquieu. 
 
 the tribunals, accustomed to servitude, have 
 never turned their attention to it; and yet 
 such ideas are coming, and a new habit quickly 
 makes its way among the French." It made 
 its way noiselessly, under ground that had 
 been all levelled and paved in Roman style by 
 the monarchy. A shock occurred, opening an 
 outlet for these hidden streams ; they burst 
 forth and flowed freely in the bed which 
 seemed their natural channel. 
 
 The same tendency that had prompted 
 Montesquieu to describe the Roman republic 
 and to become its literary citizen, prompted 
 the French revolutionists to restore this re- 
 public in France and to become its actual 
 citizens. Their hereditary instincts, guided by 
 Montesquieu's writings, suggested to them 
 what the historic imagination had disclosed 
 to him. They brought to their task the same 
 habits of mind, when impelled to organize 
 democracy, that Montesquieu had brought to 
 the composition of the history of democracy. 
 They derived their conception of it from the 
 same sources; they understood the ancients 
 as Montesquieu understood them; and found 
 them described in his works as suited their 
 desires and their needs. They meant to realize 
 what Montesquieu described. He analyzed the 
 laws that constitute a republic and give it life ;
 
 The French Revolution. 185 
 
 they enacted these laws, and in their opinion 
 the necessary result must be a republic. They 
 took into account none of the conditions that 
 Montesquieu had laid down as essential to his 
 theory, neither climate, nor morals, nor 
 general tendency. Montesquieu had already 
 blended into one view the republics of all 
 times; but they, taking this ideal legislation 
 from a time twenty centuries distant, imported 
 it into a land that is very different, and into 
 the midst of a civilization of a quite opposite 
 character. Their method was contrary to 
 that of " The Spirit of the Laws," but in har- 
 mony with the spirit of the age ; and it was 
 in this way that most Frenchmen understood 
 Montesquieu. 
 
 They applied to him the interpretative pro- 
 cesses it had been their wont to apply to the 
 classics : taking isolated maxims and deducing 
 from them, by the dialectic method, all the 
 consequences that logically flow from them. 
 Out of his general ideas they make abstract 
 and universal ideas, that is, a mould for their 
 passions to fill. Montesquieu had, as it were, 
 made himself a citizen of each nation in suc- 
 cession in order to cure each people of its 
 worst prejudice, self-ignorance. His inter- 
 preters made of him the citizen of the world 
 and the cosmopolitan legislator. Far from
 
 1 86 Montesquieu. 
 
 seeking in his works a cure for their prejudices, 
 they sought only to be confirmed in them; 
 and transferring his work from the relative to 
 the absolute, they made of it a prophetic code, 
 of laws for their Utopia. 
 
 The whole terrorist revolution has been 
 summed up in a sentence, and this sentence 
 was directly suggested by the republican max- 
 ims of "The Spirit of the Laws." In the 
 words of Robespierre, " If in peace the strength 
 of a popular government depends on virtue, in 
 a revolution it depends both on virtue and on 
 terror; for without virtue terror is baneful, and 
 without terror virtue is impotent." In fact, 
 terror was the only lever strong enough so 
 to force the nature of things as to constrain 
 Frenchmen to transform their national charac- 
 ter and morals, oblige them to go back from 
 the age of Louis XV. to the age of Lycurgus, 
 and compel Paris to endure what Montesquieu 
 himself has called " Sparta's stupendous bore- 
 dom." All this required " those terrible mag- 
 istracies " mentioned in " The Spirit of the 
 Laws," " restoring by force the liberty of the 
 state ; " it required the law of the public safety, 
 " which is the highest law," and that doctrine 
 invoked by sophists for all tyrannies that 
 " there are cases when liberty must for the 
 moment be veiled, like the veiled statues of
 
 The French Revolution. 187 
 
 the gods ; " it required those arrests of " sus- 
 pected citizens, losing their liberty for a time 
 only to preserve it forever; " it required uni- 
 form education, equal distribution of property, 
 that salutary restriction of wealth which cor- 
 rects the natural iniquity of fortune. 
 
 Why did they not consider those chapters 
 on the corruption of principles, on the useless- 
 ness of violence against established manners, 
 and the impotence of penalties against the 
 nature of things? That some few perceived 
 their oversight was Montesquieu's revenge, 
 the revenge of history and humanity. The 
 Girondins understood that the Republic per- 
 ished because it had despised his teachings. 
 While Saint-Just was parodying his maxims 
 and caricaturing his pictures, Camille Desmou- 
 lins discovered in his " Considerations on the 
 Romans " the secret of republican eloquence; 
 and it was through Montesquieu that he bor- 
 rowed from Tacitus his most eloquent invec- 
 tives against tyranny. The persecuted and 
 decimated nobles recovered before the guillo- 
 tine their proud sense of honor, that monarchi- 
 cal virtue which Montesquieu had reproached 
 them with having renounced before the crown. 
 Everything confirmed his dark forebodings as 
 to the decline of political morals in France ; 
 everything confirmed the opinion he had
 
 1 88 Montesquieu. 
 
 thrown out in passing as to " the speculative 
 sciences that restore men to savagery," and as 
 to the terrible consequences of the despotism 
 which should be established amid the ruins of 
 monarchy: "In this fair quarter of the globe 
 human nature would suffer, at least for a time, 
 the insults now heaped upon it in the three 
 others." 
 
 When men tried to return to order, modera- 
 tion, liberty, they returned to him. There 
 certainly was much more of his spirit in the 
 constitution of the year III. than in that of 
 1791. Some of his disciples were called to sit 
 in the assemblies: Portalis, Barbe-Marbois, 
 Mathieu-Dumas, Simeon, Camille Jordan ; and 
 in the Directory itself was a diplomatist brought 
 up on the counsels of Vergennes, the prudent 
 Barthelemy. Montesquieu's works were re- 
 printed. Pastoret in the Council of the Five 
 Hundred, and Goupil de Prefeln in the Coun- 
 cil of the Ancients proposed to vote him the 
 honors of the Pantheon. But the violent party 
 did not give them time, and the political crisis 
 of Fructidor again exiled "The Spirit of the 
 Laws " from the Republic. 
 
 The constitution of the year VIII. had noth- 
 ing in common with liberty as Montesquieu 
 conceived it. If we may believe Stendhal, 
 Bonaparte had done little more than turn the
 
 The French Revolution. 1 89 
 
 leaves of this great man's writings ; but he 
 held Montesquieu's disciples in high esteem. 
 Though he forbade them to talk politics, he 
 intrusted to their care the courts, the civil 
 government, and civil legislation. The famous 
 council of state that drew up the Civil Code, 
 and whose most industrious member was Por- 
 talis, was inspired in substance as well as in 
 form by the precepts of Montesquieu. 
 
 But the emperor's policy violated all Mon- 
 tesquieu's maxims, while at the same time it 
 justified all his conclusions. A more complete 
 demonstration of the existence of historical 
 laws could not be found, nor a more decisive 
 proof of those Montesquieu had inferred. He 
 had shown how a country during revolution 
 becomes more formidable abroad than it can 
 ever be at other times ; how, in a nation where 
 monarchical customs are concealed under re- 
 publican laws, war begun as in republics must 
 end as in monarchies. " As soon as the army 
 depends only on the legislative assembly, the 
 government will become military." At a time 
 when there were so few good captains in 
 France that the king had to seek out Marshal 
 Saxe, a great mercenary leader, to bear his 
 sword, Montesquieu penned this remarkable 
 phrase : " France will be ruined by warriors." 
 It was Denmark that had suggested the fol-
 
 1 90 Montesquieu. 
 
 lowing thought, so exactly applicable to the 
 France of 1804: "No authority is more ab- 
 solute than that of the prince who succeeds 
 a republic ; for he finds himself in possession 
 of all the power of a people that had been 
 unable to restrain its own power." 
 
 The chapter on the Roman policy in regard 
 to conquest contains, in substance, Bonaparte's 
 whole policy. It is just because the First 
 Consul was wholly Roman and wholly classic 
 in his genius that he so well understood the 
 Frenchmen of his time, and so easily per- 
 suaded them that in obeying his wishes they 
 were still exercising their sovereign power. 
 There certainly were reminiscences of Alex- 
 ander, and probably of Montesquieu's Alex- 
 ander, in the wondrous dreams cherished by 
 the commander-in-chief at Ancona, impelling 
 him toward Greece and the Orient. We rec- 
 ognize more than one feature of Charlemagne 
 as portrayed in " The Spirit of the Laws " in 
 the colossal vision of this emperor formed by 
 Napoleon and constantly haunting his imagi- 
 nation after the Consulate. 
 
 How can we help discerning the French 
 empire in those pictures of Rome which, if 
 composed afterward, would pass for allusion 
 or satire, and which, composed as they were 
 half a century before, seem to be fragments of
 
 The French Revolution. 191 
 
 prophecy? We see it in that overweening pas- 
 sion of a whole people for glory ; in that need 
 of dazzling men in order to subject them ; in 
 that "war for reputation " which the boldest 
 and most ambitious leader makes upon his 
 rivals ; in that art of attacking these rivals 
 " with their own weapons, that is, by gaining 
 victories over the enemies of the Republic ; " in 
 that picture of imperial Rome, properly speak- 
 ing neither empire nor republic, but the head 
 of a body formed by all the nations of Europe ; 
 in the association of these nations, which have 
 nothing in common but their common alle- 
 giance, and which bind themselves by the very 
 bonds of their conquest; in the kings that 
 Rome had everywhere planted only to make 
 them slaves, who finally turn against her 
 the resources she has dealt out to them ; in 
 the impossibility of sustaining " to the very 
 last an enterprise that could not fail in one 
 country without failing in all the rest, nor 
 fail for one moment without failing forever; " 
 finally, in the destruction of Rome by the com- 
 bined attack of all the nations investing and 
 assailing it on all sides, that fatal result of 
 the Roman policy of which Montesquieu fore- 
 warns any one who shall enter again upon the 
 same career. " If a ruler should now make 
 such ravages in Europe, the nations, driven
 
 192 Montesquieu. 
 
 toward the north, would stand at bay at the 
 ends of the world until the moment when they 
 could deluge Europe and conquer it a third 
 time." Let us conclude with the words of 
 " Eucrates," that is, of Montesquieu : " To 
 give one man supremacy over mankind costs 
 all other men too dear."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MONTESQUIEU'S FOLLOWERS IN POLITICS AND 
 HISTORY. MONTESQUIEU AND CRITICISM. 
 
 THE restoration of royalty in France in 
 1814 restored to politics that second 
 line of Montesquieu's followers which the Rev- 
 olution had proscribed and which the Empire 
 had absorbed in the senate or in the council. 
 They regained power under conditions per- 
 mitting them to make a thorough test of the 
 constitutional monarchy that had broken down 
 in 1791. 
 
 Chateaubriand at first aspired to compose a 
 new " Spirit of the Laws " in his " Essay on 
 Revolutions ; " but he accomplished little more 
 than to transpose Montesquieu's formulas and 
 exaggerate to a ridiculous degree his manner- 
 isms. He suitably praised and admired Mon- 
 tesquieu in "The Genius of Christianity;" and 
 developed many select maxims in his " Mon- 
 archy as Based on the Charter." Benjamin 
 Constant, in his " Reflections on the Constitu- 
 tion," was inspired by the chapters on political 
 13
 
 1 94 Montesquieu. 
 
 liberty in "The Spirit of the Laws." The 
 Doctrinaires tried to correct Montesquieu's 
 classification of governments by applying 
 to democracy and monarchy the following 
 thought from Pascal : " The many, when not 
 subject to one, produce anarchy; the one, 
 when independent of the many, produces 
 tyranny." Louis XVIII. had read " The Spirit 
 of the Laws " merely as a man of intelligence, 
 when he was but a claimant to the crown; 
 once upon the throne he interpreted it with 
 royal prudence. The ministries of the Duke 
 de Richelieu and of M. de Martignac, the fine 
 episode of Count de Serre's discussion of the 
 laws controlling printing, the speeches of the 
 Duke de Broglie and of Royer-Collard against 
 the disastrous law of sacrilege, all manifest 
 Montesquieu's spirit in a government which 
 was no doubt at that time just what he would 
 have desired. 
 
 Talleyrand carried this same spirit into diplo- 
 macy. From his youth he had been imbued 
 with it. The paper he wrote at London, in 
 November, 1792, on the objections to a policy 
 of conquest, proves this statement. This spirit 
 is again found, expressed with a loftiness of 
 view and a skill in composition perhaps never 
 equalled in a diplomatic document, in the " In- 
 structions" which Talleyrand caused to be
 
 His Followers. 195 
 
 given to himself for the Congress of Vienna in 
 1814, and which were drawn up by La Besnar- 
 diere under his direction. The conception of 
 Europe and the definition of international law 
 are borrowed from Montesquieu. The picture 
 of Prussia is one of the most brilliant pieces of 
 this literary school. In fact, we seem to rec- 
 ognize a quotation in the passage beginning : 
 " Poland restored to independence would be 
 inevitably restored to anarchy." The elucida- 
 tion of this is like an unpublished chapter of 
 " The Spirit of the Laws." We find the very 
 essence of that work in this maxim summing 
 up the whole drift of the " Instructions " : 
 " France is so happily situated as not to find 
 it desirable that justice and advantage should 
 part company, and not to seek its private ad- 
 vantage apart from the justice which is the 
 advantage of all." 
 
 Not only Montesquieu's thought, but his 
 manner and even his comparisons, revive 
 spontaneously under the pen of Talleyrand. 
 The latter in one of his Vienna notes avails 
 himself of a very beautiful but rather bold 
 figure from the " Considerations," amending 
 it as he adopts it. " France," says Talley- 
 rand, " had no ambitious aim nor personal 
 interest to bring to the Congress. Restored 
 to her ancient boundaries, she no longer
 
 1 96 Montesquieu. 
 
 dreamed of extending them, like the sea, 
 which breaks over its banks only when it has 
 been lashed by tempests." Montesquieu had 
 written less aptly when he made the following 
 reflection : " It is wonderful that after so many 
 wars the Romans should have lost only what 
 they had voluntarily abandoned, like the sea, 
 which never contracts its limits except by its 
 own proper ebb." 
 
 This allusion to the " Considerations " leads 
 us to history, in which Montesquieu's following 
 is quite as large as in politics. In history he 
 has taught the concatenation of facts, the rela- 
 tion of causes, the ramification of events, the 
 explanation of the laws by history, and the 
 interpretation of history by manners and cus- 
 toms. From him evidently proceed the whole 
 school of constitutional history and that of the 
 modern philosophy of history. Guizot is not 
 in the direct line of descent from Montesquieu ; 
 but though he is the most independent and 
 original of disciples, he is still a disciple of the 
 author of " The Spirit of the Laws." He was 
 Montesquieu's successor during the first half 
 of this century, in the character of initiator and 
 founder of the science of history. " Guizot, 
 as the historian of our ancient institutions, 
 began," says Augustin Thierry, " the scien- 
 tific era, properly so called ; before him, Mon-
 
 His Followers. 197 
 
 tesquieu alone excepted, there had been only 
 systems." Guizot applied to history the idea 
 of progress of which Montesquieu had a pre- 
 sentiment, but no clear conception; Turgot 
 and Condorcet set it forth clearly; Guizot 
 made of it the very spirit of civilization which 
 he defines as " the progress of society and 
 humanity toward perfection." This idea of 
 progress formed the very woof of history, as 
 he unfolded it with admirable fulness in his 
 lectures in 1828. 
 
 Madame de Stael had been among the first 
 to adopt this conception of perfectibility. She 
 had combined it, in her " Influence of the 
 Passions," with many thoughts derived from 
 " The Spirit of the Laws." She again took up 
 this idea in her book on " Germany," and set 
 it forth with a hearty warmth and a kind of re- 
 ligious enthusiasm wanting in Montesquieu's 
 less sensitive and more rational humanity. 
 Her latest and strongest work, " Considera- 
 tions on the French Revolution," begins with 
 a maxim which, according to "The Spirit of 
 the Laws," lies at the basis of French history : 
 " Liberty is ancient, and despotism modern." 
 By writing the history of liberty from 1789 to 
 1814, Madame de Stael really composed the 
 history of Montesquieu's ideas through the 
 period of the Revolution and the Empire.
 
 198 Montesquieu. 
 
 The monarchical branch of Montesquieu's 
 sons attained its highest fortune under the 
 Restoration. They had founded that govern- 
 ment; they only would have been capable of 
 maintaining it and keeping it constantly true 
 to its principle. In this attempt they failed. 
 These moderate politicians did not succeed in 
 making the theocrats of the restored monarchy 
 understand that the abstract word "legitimacy" 
 means nothing in itself; that the right they 
 claim to derive from it is merely a prescrip- 
 tive right, which, in order not to be annulled, 
 must be continually renewed ; that new gov- 
 ernments become legitimate, according to Bos- 
 suet, and old ones sustain themselves, accord- 
 ing to Montesquieu, " only through the lapse 
 of time and by the consent of the people." 
 " The government which is most conformable 
 to nature," Montesquieu had said, " is the one 
 whose peculiar constitution answers best to 
 the disposition of the people for whom it is 
 established." 
 
 Montesquieu's royalist disciples fell from 
 power with the fall of the constitutional mon- 
 archy. France once more had to choose be- 
 tween " a democratic and a despotic govern- 
 ment." Democracy was here developed on 
 old monarchical ground, in a nation of more 
 than thirty million souls, a nation civilized to
 
 His Followers. 199 
 
 the point of refinement, conceiving of no so- 
 cial progress without progress in wealth, a 
 commercial, industrial people, loving luxury 
 and living in it. Such a democracy put to 
 rout all the notions of " The Spirit of the 
 Laws." Montesquieu, after being his coun- 
 try's beneficent adviser upon so many grave 
 occasions, would have failed her at this junc- 
 ture if his genius had not raised up a man to 
 continue his work and to propagate his ideas 
 in modern France. This man was Tocqueville. 
 He represents the last branch of Montesquieu's 
 intellectual descendants. This branch of the 
 family maintained throughout the Revolution, 
 the Empire, and the Restoration an attitude 
 of opposition sometimes eager, sometimes re- 
 served, always uneasy, and often melancholy. 
 Attached heart and soul to liberty, loving it 
 for its own sake, desiring it for their country, 
 and considering the advent of democracy as 
 henceforward inevitable, these far-sighted pa- 
 triots sought to harmonize this revolution with 
 French traditions. They sought from the 
 United States instruction analogous to that 
 which their elders had sought from England 
 when the question was how to harmonize 
 monarchy with the national liberties. 
 
 Tocqueville's mind, like Montesquieu's, was 
 fitted for generalization and the assertion of
 
 2OO Montesquieu. 
 
 dogmas. He was at heart less of a legislator, 
 and above all less of a politician, than he was 
 a moralist. As to method and division in 
 the treatment of his subject, his procedure is 
 wholly based upon Montesquieu's. He, too, 
 has his great historical study, "The Old Re- 
 gime and the Revolution," corresponding to 
 the " Considerations on the Romans ; " and he 
 has his " Democracy in America," correspond- 
 ing to " The Spirit of the Laws." During the 
 second half of the century he gave to political 
 and historical studies an impulse less signal 
 doubtless, and less acknowledged, but as effica- 
 cious and as fruitful in results, as that given 
 during the first half by Guizot Through 
 him Montesquieu is connected with contem- 
 porary France, where he still exerts an influ- 
 ence more widespread than we are inclined 
 to believe. We have to thank his wholly his- 
 torical and experimental spirit, gradually per- 
 vading our institutions and our habits, that 
 the rational mechanism of Sieyes has been 
 abandoned in favor of the applied mechan- 
 ism of practical men; that the Republic has 
 become parliamentary, and has been estab- 
 lished in France as the result of a constitu- 
 tion the most summary in its text, the most 
 customary in its application, the most nat- 
 ural outcome of our manners and of the
 
 His Followers. 201 
 
 force of circumstances, that France has yet 
 possessed. 
 
 Montesquieu's influence on Europe is com- 
 mensurate with his influence on France. From 
 the end of the last century it is everywhere 
 apparent. It is the very genius of " The Spirit 
 of the Laws " that seems to inspire, in the 
 work of regenerating his adoptive country, the 
 greatest statesman that Germany has produced. 
 Never was the ruin of a government by the 
 corruption of its principles more clearly ex- 
 emplified than by the downfall of the Prussian 
 monarchy after Jena ; never was the art of re- 
 trieving a nation's losses and restoring a mon- 
 archy by going back to first principles and by 
 renewing these principles where they had been 
 altered, practised with more depth and insight 
 than by Baron von Stein. 
 
 Constitutional government passed over from 
 England to the continent, conveyed by Mon- 
 tesquieu's work, and was there propagated by 
 French example. The two chapters of " The 
 Spirit of the Laws " on England and her con- 
 stitution have thus become a distinct work, 
 and have marked one stage in the history of 
 human society. It is often less by their direct 
 rays than by their diffused light and by the 
 reflection of their satellites that great thinkers 
 enlighten men.
 
 202 Montesquieu. 
 
 Much has been written about Montesquieu. 1 
 It would seem difficult to be more liberal in 
 defence than was Villemain in his " Eulogy " 
 and his " Lectures on Literature in the Eigh- 
 teenth Century ; " or to be narrower and more 
 trenchant in contradiction than Destutt de 
 Tracy in his " Commentary on the Spirit of 
 the Laws." Tracy's criticism, wholly specula- 
 tive and a priori, is not such as we look for 
 to-day. A comparison between a great au- 
 thor's writings and the theory which the critic 
 may have constructed for his private guidance 
 is of little value to us. This procedure implies 
 on the critic's part a definitive science such as 
 no one has ever possessed, and on the reader's 
 part a boundless deference such as is cherished 
 only by dunces. We ask of criticism to make 
 us acquainted with men, to explain the origin 
 
 1 A bibliography of Montesquieu's original editions and of 
 the works written concerning him may be found by the reader 
 at the end of M. Vian's " History of Montesquieu." I have 
 made use of this book, keeping in view the strictures that 
 have been made upon it by M. Brunetiere and M. Tamizey de 
 Larroque, as well as the researches of M. Tourneux. I have 
 placed under contribution the inexhaustible stores of Sainte- 
 Beuve's " Mondays " and " Port-Royal." I have found most 
 useful information and guidance in the " Ancient City," by 
 M. Fustel de Coulanges, and in " Civilization and its Laws," 
 by M. Funck-Brentano, particularly in Book I. of this work, 
 entitled " Manners and Laws : Political Customs in Democ- 
 racies and in Monarchies."
 
 Criticism. 203 
 
 and real meaning of their works. M. Paul 
 Janet in his " History of Political Science," 
 M. Laboulaye in the " Notices " of his great 
 edition of Montesquieu, M. Taine in a few mas- 
 terly pages of his " Old Regime," have shown 
 how this fruitful method of criticism should 
 be applied to the author of " The Spirit of the 
 Laws." All three admire his genius, praise 
 his method, and in general agree with his 
 main conclusions. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve only half agrees, and this with 
 endless restrictions. We find in his writings 
 the gravest objections that have been made to 
 Montesquieu, under their most winning guise. 
 Besides his formal notice of Montesquieu, 
 Sainte-Beuve has referred to him again and 
 again, approaching the subject from all sides 
 and in all its bearings in his " Mondays " and 
 his " Port-Royal." He is fascinated by the 
 man, charmed by the writer, disquieted by the 
 work, provoked by the historian, bewildered 
 by the legislator. 
 
 He accuses the legislator of having too high 
 an estimate of average humanity, of sacrificing 
 too much to social distinctions and to regard 
 for public opinion, of not taking sufficient ac- 
 count of the original depravity always latent in 
 man, of concealing more than he ought 
 beneath the drapery of society the human gar-
 
 204 Montesquieu. 
 
 ment of rags. Sainte-Beuve does not see that, 
 in the great sanitary science of politics, optim- 
 ism is the essential condition, the soul of the 
 whole enterprise. How shall we govern man 
 if we believe him ungovernable ; how improve 
 him if we believe him incapable of improve- 
 ment ; how stimulate him to effort, and by this 
 very effort restore activity to his muscles, if we 
 believe him enervated and paralyzed forever? 
 Supposing him really sick, how cure him or 
 subject him to treatment if we begin by prov- 
 ing that his vitality is exhausted, that his dis- 
 ease is incurable, and that vitality and cure 
 are, after all, mere figures of speech ; that we 
 do not know exactly what either health or dis- 
 ease is; that in the last analysis all science 
 consists in the description of a healthy man, 
 and all practice in saying to suffering human- 
 ity, " Do try to feel better " ? 
 
 Sainte-Beuve thought that Montesquieu, as 
 a historian, neglected too much men's incon- 
 sistencies and fortune's caprices. In his opin- 
 ion Montesquieu makes matters too simple and 
 arranges everything too methodically, takes no 
 account of accidents, sets apart certain episodes 
 in the struggle to give them a show of reason 
 which they never had ; he considers only those 
 operations that have produced results, and 
 leaves out all those that have broken down
 
 Criticism. 205 
 
 under way; amid the thousand ways in which 
 an event might have turned out, he chooses 
 only the way in which it did turn out; he 
 suppresses the unforeseen; he disregards "the 
 truth concealed in the intrigue and masquerade 
 of human life ; " and though he professes to be 
 blazing out highways, really only bends his 
 way his great royal highway " in quest of 
 illustrious men." Leaving out of view Provi- 
 dence, which reveals none of its secrets, there 
 is nothing in this disorderly world, according 
 to the author of " Port-Royal," but strength, 
 skill, and luck. Pascal had seen the Fronde, 
 reflected on the Revolution in England, and 
 sought the heart of things ; and he saw every- 
 where only the play of chance, Cleopatra's 
 nose, Cromwell's grain of sand. Such was the 
 inevitable conclusion reached by this great 
 thinker. This applies to the men who claim 
 to be leaders ; as for those who are supposed 
 to be led, those obscure masses accomplish 
 great things, but are not conscious of it 
 Great revolutions and great victories are the 
 work of unconscious actors ; all depends on 
 the motions of unknown blind men as they 
 grope about in their darkness. 
 
 Such are the objections. Mystic and Epi- 
 curean, devotee and doubter, Pascal and Mon- 
 taigne, Hobbes and La Rochefoucauld, meet
 
 206 Montesquieu. 
 
 on this ground, and though they do not all 
 agree, here make common cause. Frederick 
 liked to teach such Pyrrhonism, and had mo- 
 tives for his left-handed support of the ironical 
 doctrine that in this world " success clothes it- 
 self with right as best it can." " Ordinarily," 
 said he, " we get a superstitious notion of great 
 revolutions in government; but when we can 
 go behind the scenes, we see that the most 
 magical effects are produced by the move- 
 ments of common springs and worthless ras- 
 cals." People are fond of cherishing the vain 
 thought that they are admitted behind the 
 scenes; how many chroniclers have ascribed 
 great effects to trifling causes, solely to be 
 able to boast that they had perceived them ! 
 Voltaire put faith in Frederick's sally and 
 served Frederick's designs, thinking himself, 
 as Frederick persuaded him, merely in the 
 service of chance. Of this service the philoso- 
 pher was proud, and the king treated him, as 
 such famous leaders of men are wont to treat 
 their dupes, as a political cat's-paw. Sifted 
 by the principle he stated, what would remain 
 of Frederick himself, of his campaigns and 
 his policy? Montesquieu confutes him with 
 a line, and restores him to himself and to his 
 proper glory. " Fortune never exhibits this 
 kind of constancy."
 
 Criticism. 207 
 
 It is true of the phenomena of history, as of 
 those of physical nature, that chance alone 
 cannot cause them to be repeated in regular 
 succession under identical conditions. This 
 succession has its laws: facts are not merely 
 thrown together or isolated; they are inter- 
 dependent and connected. Only the form of 
 the event depends on chance. The waters of a 
 river issue from the mountain and flow toward 
 the sea: a stone may turn them aside, but 
 does not drive them back to their source; it 
 does not change the general course imposed 
 upon them by all the undulations of the earth's 
 surface. Thus a'bove individual action the 
 action of the isolated human cause there is 
 social action, the living resultant of individual 
 causes taken together. This is " the general 
 tendency involving all special accidents." By 
 virtue of this principle, if Caesar had not come 
 some other man would have taken Caesar's 
 place. Montesquieu never made it clearer 
 than by this instance : " So impossible was it 
 that the Republic should be again set up, that 
 an unheard-of thing occurred, a time came 
 when neither tyrant nor liberty longer existed, 
 for the causes which had destroyed liberty 
 subsisted still." 
 
 The historian determines and unfolds these 
 causes. He follows, as is said, the king's high-
 
 208 Montesquieu. 
 
 ways of history, but these are also the nation's 
 and the people's highways. The historian 
 traces upon his map the path humanity has 
 trod. It is the broad and direct road of his- 
 tory. Why leave it to beat about the bush? 
 Why wander over all the hill-slopes and vainly 
 strive to track all stragglers ? The first-comers, 
 as they crossed the mountains on foot, made 
 paths by the torrents' courses ; the roads fol- 
 lowed these paths ; the highways enlarged the 
 roads; and the railroad engineers, in their 
 turn, have followed the lines of the highways. 
 
 Between Montaigne, that brimming flood of 
 human irony, and Pascal, that abyss of reason 
 ingulfed by its own profundity, there is a sci- 
 entific middle ground in reflection and com- 
 mon sense, and this ground is occupied by 
 Montesquieu. He is pre-eminently the social 
 and political man of honor, thinking nothing 
 human alien to him, seeking self-knowledge 
 that he may know others better, and making 
 known to men their condition, that he may 
 teach them to render it more endurable. His 
 works abide because they are historical and 
 rest upon observation of Nature. That his gen- 
 eral views are correct is the essential thing; 
 his errors in detail are of little importance. 
 Villemain has well said : " In a work of this 
 kind such errors are of no more account than
 
 Criticism. 209 
 
 fractions in a large reckoning." Montesquieu 
 left something better th^n precepts, he left 
 a method making it possible to develop his 
 thought, and to apply it to cases that he 
 could never have foreseen. He produced a 
 deep and lasting effect upon his own time, and 
 is still full of instruction for ours. His name is 
 associated with many of the best reforms that 
 have been brought about within the past cen- 
 tury. He is representative of the French na- 
 tional mind in all that is exactest, broadest, 
 wisest, and most liberal.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ACADEMY, The French, Montesquieu 
 elected a member and thrown out 
 by the king, 54; final election and 
 installation, 55. 
 
 America. See Democracy, United 
 States. 
 
 Americans, their debt to Montesquieu, 
 173. (See United States.) 
 
 Anthropology, Montesquieu's inferior- 
 ity to Buffon in knowledge of, 85, 
 86. 
 
 Antiquity, Montesquieu's reverence 
 for, 27 ; powerful influence of his 
 conception upon the French Revo- 
 lution, 182-185. 
 
 Antonines, Montesquieu's admiration 
 for, 78. 
 
 "Arabian Nights," Montesquieu's 
 failure to utilize, 34. 
 
 Archaeology, Montesquieu's ignorance 
 of, 69. 
 
 Aristocracy, conditions and dangers 
 of, 1 15, 1 16 ; corruption of, in France 
 under the Old Regime, 175-177. 
 
 BBCCARIA, his indebtedness to Mon- 
 tesquieu, 170. 
 
 Bielfeld, his indebtedness to Montes- 
 quieu, 170. 
 
 Blackstone, a disciple of Montesquieu, 
 172. 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, his esteem for 
 Montesquieu's writings, 188, 189 ; 
 violates Montesquieu's maxims and 
 justifies his conclusions, 189, 190 
 his imperial policy anticipated by 
 
 Montesquieu's description of the 
 Roman policy of conquest, 190-192. 
 
 Bossuet, his study of Rome, 64-66 ; 
 his conception contrasted with Mon- 
 tesquieu's, 66; his "Discourse on 
 Universal History," 83. 
 
 Boulainvilliers, his " Historical Me- 
 moirs on the Ancient Governments 
 of France," 156; Montesquieu's 
 criticism of, 157. 
 
 Boutmy, on origin of English consti- 
 tution, 125. 
 
 Brunetiere, his strictures on Vian's 
 " History of Montesquieu," 202. 
 
 Brutus, Montesquieu's praise of, 76. 
 
 Buffon, his explanation of the origin 
 of the social union, quoted, 85 ; his 
 unjust criticism of Montesquieu, 97 ; 
 his lofty vein of religious subterfuge, 
 
 100. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, inspired by Montes- 
 quieu, 181. 
 
 Byzantine Empire, Montesquieu's 
 chapters on, 79. 
 
 CAESAR, Montesquieu's estimate of, 
 
 75. 76- 
 
 Catherine the Great, her use of Mon- 
 tesquieu's " Spirit of the Laws," 
 170, 171. 
 
 Chardin, debt of the " Persian Let. 
 ters " to, 34. 
 
 Chateaubriand, his licentiousness, 22 ; 
 his imitation and praise of Montes- 
 quieu, 193. 
 
 Chenier, Andre, compared with Mon- 
 tesquieu, 53.
 
 212 
 
 Index. 
 
 Chesterfield, Lord, friendship with 
 Montesquieu, 59; takes Montes- 
 quieu to England, 60. 
 
 Christianity, Montesquieu fails to see 
 its real importance in Roman his- 
 tory, 78 ; his evasive and false atti- 
 tude in "The Spirit of the Laws," 
 99-101. (See Religion.) 
 
 Church, its relation to the state, 135- 
 137; its attack, through the Jesuits 
 and the Jansenists, upon " The 
 Spirit of the Laws," 165-167. (See 
 Religion.) 
 
 Clergy, their influence in a state, 1361 
 
 '37- 
 
 Climate, its relation with law, 139-142. 
 
 Code, the Civil, owes much to Mon- 
 tesquieu, 189. 
 
 Commerce, Montesquieu's history ofi 
 148, 149; the spirit it fosters, 152, 
 'S3- 
 
 Confiscation, Montesquieu's peremp- 
 tory arguments against, 132. 
 
 " Considerations on the Causes of the 
 Greatness and Decline of the Ro- 
 mans " (published 1734), 62; intro- 
 duction of the scientific conception 
 of history, 66, 67 ; the perfection of 
 the style, 67, 68 ; the general cor- 
 rectness of the judgments, 68, 69 ; 
 shortcomings, 69, 70 ; Montesquieu's 
 picture of the world at the time of 
 the Roman conquest, 70, 71 ; analy- 
 sis of the Roman policy, 71, 72 ; the 
 Roman genius displayed in action, 
 73~76; the most eloquent part of 
 the book, 77; the decline of Rome, 
 77, 78 ; original views and discover- 
 ies, 78 ; Byzantium, 79 ; compari- 
 son with Voltaire's " Essay on 
 Manners," 79. 
 
 Constant, Benjamin, his " Reflections 
 on the Constitution" inspired by 
 Montesquieu, 193. 
 
 Constitutional history. See England. 
 
 Coulanges, Fustel de, his "Ancient 
 City," 202. 
 
 Cre'billon, the younger, 34. 
 
 Crevier, his criticism of "The Spirit 
 of the Laws," 171, 172. 
 
 Criminal law, humanity of Montes- 
 quieu's studies of, 130, 131; folly 
 of excessive penalties, 131, 132 ; 
 torture, 132 : freedom of speech, 
 133; treason, 133; sacrilege and 
 heresy, 133-135. 
 
 Criticism, its true function, 202. 
 
 Cromwell, Montesquieu's familiarity 
 with his time, 70. 
 
 D' ALBMBBRT, his " Eulogy "of Mon- 
 tesquieu, 170; his "Analysis of the 
 Spirit of the Laws," 170- 
 
 D'Argenson, his opinion of the " Per- 
 sian Letters," 49; his prophecy of 
 the Republic, 183, 184. 
 
 Deffand, Madame du, her jest at 
 Montesquieu's expense, 97. 
 
 De Lolme, his indebtedness to Mon- 
 tesquieu for his work on the Eng- 
 lish constitution, 172, 173. 
 
 Democracy, Montesquieu's conception 
 of, 108-110; founded upon virtue, 
 no, in; causes of decay, in, 112; 
 Montesquieu's democracy some- 
 what Utopian, 112 ; at least not 
 modern, 113; permanent character- 
 istics, 113; weighty criticism and 
 counsel, 114, 115; application of 
 Montesquieu's principles in the 
 American, 173; attempt of the 
 French revolutionists to realize the 
 republic that Montesquieu had de- 
 scribed, 183-185 ; failure of Montes- 
 quieu to foresee the character of the 
 present French Republic, 198. 199. 
 
 Desmolets, Father, his opinion of the 
 "Persian Letters," 49. 
 
 Desmoulins, Camille, his indebtedness 
 to Montesquieu, 187. 
 
 Despotism, Montesquieu's Oriental 
 picture of, 120-122. 
 
 " Dialogue between Sulla and Eu- 
 crates," 73-76. 
 
 Diderot, his licentiousness, 22. 
 
 Diplomacy, Montesquieu unsuited to, 
 57- 
 
 Domat, his "Treatise on the Laws," 
 80, 84.
 
 Index. 
 
 213 
 
 Dubos, the Abbe", his " Critical His- 
 tory of the Establishment of the 
 French Monarchy in Gaul," 156; 
 Montesquieu's controversy with 
 him, 157, 158. 
 
 Dupin, Claude, his foolish attack upon 
 Montesquieu, 164. 
 
 Duval, the Abb^, secretary to Montes- 
 quieu, 48. 
 
 ECONOMY, Political, Montesquieu's 
 contributions to, 148-154. 
 
 Edict of Nantes, Montesquieu de- 
 mands it, 135. 
 
 Empire, the first. See Bonaparte. 
 
 England, Montesquieu's sojourn in, 
 60; his use of her history, 70; his 
 allusive and cautious treatment of 
 her constitution, 101, 102 ; bold de- 
 scription of her commercial spirit, 
 103 ; no freedom of conscience there 
 in Montesquieu's time, 122, 123; 
 paradox touching the origin of her 
 constitution, 124-126 ; analysis of 
 the constitution, 126, 127; political 
 virtue of the English, 128 ; defects 
 of their system, 128 ; their energy in 
 opposition to foreign aggression, 
 128, 129 ; their public debt foreseen 
 by Montesquieu, 129; his influence 
 upon their publicists. 172; English 
 constitutional government revealed 
 to Europe by Montesquieu, 201. 
 
 English, the. See England. 
 
 Expositions, universal, did Montes- 
 quieu suggest them? 153. 
 
 FEUDAL laws, Montesquieu's theory 
 of, 155-161. 
 
 Filangieri, imitated and endeavored to 
 surpass Montesquieu, 170. 
 
 Fleury, Cardinal, his scruples about 
 admitting Montesquieu to the Acad- 
 emy, 55. 
 
 Fontenelle, his licentiousness, 22. 
 
 France. See Democracy, Monarchy, 
 Revolution. 
 
 Frederick the Great, freedom of con- 
 
 science under, 123 ; his use of 
 Montesquieu's works, 168 ; on his- 
 toric causes, 206. 
 
 Freedom of speech. See Freedom of 
 thought. 
 
 Freedom of thought in France, 3 1 ; 
 Montesquieu lays down the true 
 principles of, 132, 133. 
 
 Freeman, E. A., on origin of English 
 constitution, 125. 
 
 Free-trade and protection, Montes- 
 quieu's solution of the problem, 150, 
 151. 
 
 Funck-Brentano,his " Civilization and 
 its Laws, " 302. 
 
 GAMBLING, commercial, Montes- 
 quieu's reflections upon, 150. 
 
 Germany, Montesquieu's attitude 
 toward, 58; his influence in, 201. 
 
 Gneist, on origin of English constitu- 
 tion, 125. 
 
 Governments, nature and classifica- 
 tion of, 89, go ; proper distribution 
 of powers in, 123, 124 ; the ideal 
 French government, 174, 175 : op- 
 timism essential in the science of 
 government, 204. 
 
 Guizot, on origin of English constitu- 
 tion, 125 ; an independent disciple 
 of Mentesquieu, 196, 197 ; his influ- 
 ence compared with Tocqueville's, 
 200. 
 
 Habeas corpus, Montesquieu's ap- 
 proval of the, 132. 
 
 Hamilton's " Tales," the " Persian 
 Letters " compared to, 34. 
 
 Happiness, Montesquieu's remark 
 upon, 26. 
 
 Helvetius, his criticism of "The 
 Spirit of the Laws," 163, 164. 
 
 Heresy, Montesquieu on the suppres- 
 sion of, 1 33 et seq. 
 
 History, Montesquieu founder of the 
 scientific treatment of, 160, 161 ; his 
 successors, 196, 197, 199, 200 ; 
 chance in, 204-206 ; laws of, 206-208.
 
 2I 4 
 
 Index. 
 
 Hobbes, his materialism rejected by 
 Montesquieu, 84. 
 
 Hospitals and Workhouses, Montes- 
 quieu's chapter on, 153, 154. 
 
 INQUISITORS of Spain and Portugal, 
 Montesquieu's "very humble re- 
 monstrance to," 134, 135. 
 
 International law, Montesquieu's an- 
 alysis of, 144-148. 
 
 JANET, Paul, his fruitful criticism of 
 
 Montesquieu, 203. 
 Jansenists, their attack upon " The 
 
 Spirit of the Laws," 166, 167. 
 Japan, criticism of France under the 
 
 name of, 135. 
 Jesuits, their attack upon "The Spirit 
 
 of the Laws,'* 165, 166. 
 Justinian, compared to Louis XIV., 
 
 79- 
 
 LABOULAYE, his great edition of Mon- 
 tesquieu, 203. 
 
 La Brede, Castle of, 9. 
 
 LaBruyere, Montesquieu's resentment 
 against the court like his, 25 ; 
 Montesquieu's style less elaborate, 
 36. 
 
 Larroqne, Tamizey de, his strictures 
 on Vian's " History of Montes- 
 quieu," 202. 
 
 Law, definition of, 86 ; humanity of 
 Montesquieu's principles of criminal 
 law, 130 et seq. (see criminal law); 
 its relation with climate, 139-142; 
 international law, 144-148 ; theory 
 of feudal laws, 155-161 ; historical 
 laws, 206-208. 
 
 Lettres de cachet, Montesquieu's con- 
 demnation of, 132. 
 
 Liberty, political, defined and distin- 
 guished, 122, 123 ; exemplified in 
 England, 124. (See Freedom.) 
 
 Licentiousness, different schools of 
 in France, 22. 
 
 Locke, John, read in England by 
 Montesquieu, 60. 
 
 Louis XIV., state of France in his 
 
 last years, 30, 31 ; his immorality, 
 32 ; Montesquieu's denunciation of 
 him, 40 ; Montesquieu's hypocriti- 
 cal praise of him, 55 ; compared to 
 Justinian, 79 ; Saint-Simon's re- 
 proach against him, 136. 
 
 Louis XV., interposes to exclude 
 Montesquieu from the Academy, 
 54- 
 
 Louis XVIII., his perusal and use of 
 " The Spirit of the Laws," 194. 
 
 MACCHIAVELLI, contrasted with Mon- 
 tesquieu, 64. 
 
 Mallet, welcomes Montesquieu to the 
 French Academy, 55, 56. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius and the Antonines, 
 Montesquieu's opinion of, 20. 
 
 Marivaux, his remark upon the " Per- 
 sian Letters," 49. 
 
 Mommsen, contrast between his Sulla 
 and Montesquieu's, 73. 
 
 Monarchy, satirized in the " Persian 
 Letters," 41, 42 ; Montesquieu's pre- 
 dilection for, 117; the monarch the 
 source of power, 117; the estates, 
 118; honor the essential principle 
 of, nS, 119; causes of decline, 119, 
 120 (and see Despotism) ; its feudal 
 honor inconsistent with the com- 
 mercial spirit, 149, 150; the true 
 wealth of such a state, 151 ; its 
 feudal origin, 154, 155; France 
 nearer the Rome of Caesar than the 
 England of Cromwell, 174; ideal 
 French monarchy, 174, 175 ; cor- 
 ruption of the real French mon- 
 archy, 175-177 ; Montesquieu's ideal 
 shattered by the Revolution, 180. 
 (See Restoration.) 
 
 Montaigne, influence upon Montes- 
 quieu. 15, 16 ; his essay " Of Cus- 
 tom," 81 ; his ironical religious sub- 
 terfuge, 100 ; his position relatively 
 to Pascal and Montesquieu, 208. 
 
 Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secon- 
 dat, Baron de La Brede et de (1689- 
 1755), his family, 8; birth, 9; child- 
 hood and education, 9, 10 ; early in-
 
 Index. 
 
 credulity, 10 ; marriage, n ; Chief- 
 Justice of the Court of Bordeaux, 
 ii ; contempt for the legal profes- 
 sion, 12 ; fondness for society, 12 ; 
 scientific studies, 12-14 ; his private 
 life of no interest, 14 ; personal ap- 
 pearance, 14 ; his Gascon character, 
 15; fondness for Montaigne, 15; 
 method of study and work, 15, 16; 
 a connected thinker, 16, 17 ; his in- 
 dependence, 17 ; ultimate respect 
 for religion, 18; his political and 
 historical estimate of religion, 18- 
 20 ; humanity without charity, 20 ; 
 his diffidence, 21 ; attachments for 
 women, 21, 22; the occasional fri- 
 volity of his tone, 22 ; contrast be- 
 tween his license and that of the 
 naturalistic school, 22, 23 ; his pride 
 of descent, 23 ; haughty republican 
 spirit, 24 ; civic virtue, 24, 25 ; re- 
 jected by the court, 25 ; his real 
 modesty, 25 : his every-day wit, 25, 
 26; his happy disposition, 26; his 
 Stoicism, 27 ; a great literary artist, 
 27, 28 ; the admirable balance of his 
 faculties, 28, 29 ; his character as 
 manifested in the " Persian Let- 
 ters," 33 ; anticipates and equals 
 Voltaire's religious satire, 43 ; his 
 toleration, 44 ; not only preaches 
 but practises toleration, 48 ; his in- 
 tercourse with the fashionable world, 
 50; elected to the Academy and 
 thrown out by the king, 54 ; final 
 election, 55 ; not at ease there, 56 ; 
 begins his travels, 56 ; wishes to 
 enter the diplomatic corps, 56, 57 ; 
 a citizen of the world, 57, 58 ; Ven- 
 ice and Italy, 59 ; goes to England 
 with Chesterfield, 60 ; summary of 
 his travels, 60, 61 ; filled with the 
 spirit of Rome, 61, 62 ; cause of 
 Rome's attraction for him, 63 ; his 
 predecessors in this study, 63-66 ; 
 his conception of history contrasted 
 with Bossuet's, 66 ; his conception 
 scientific, 67 ; perfection of the style 
 of the "Considerations," 67, 68; 
 correctness of the judgments, 68, 69 ; 
 
 his ignorance of archseology, and of 
 the social questions in Rome, 69, 
 70 ; his masterly picture of the 
 world at the time of the Roman 
 conquest, 70, 71 ; his " Sulla and 
 Eucrates," 73-76; his chapters on 
 Byzantium compared with Vol- 
 taire's " Essay on Manners," 79 ; 
 begins his great work at the age of 
 forty, So; compared with Montaigne 
 and Pascal, 81, 82 ; his motive phil- 
 anthropic as well as scientific, 82, 
 83 ; groping for the light, 84-87 ; 
 reaches the light (about 1729), 87; 
 his fundamental principles, 88-91 ; 
 his vast task begins to weary him 
 (about 1745), 93 ; the artist as exact- 
 ing as the thinker, 94, 95 ; mode of 
 composition, contrasted with that of 
 Tocqueville and Buffon, 96, 97 ; 
 artifice, evasion, subterfuge, 98- 
 102 ; artistic coquetry, 103, 104 ; 
 genius for generalization, 104, 105 ; 
 his work classic, its reality, 106, 
 107; his title to the gratitude of 
 humanity for his treatment of the 
 criminal laws, 130 et seq. ; his bold- 
 ness and freedom in these chapters, 
 137 ; his interest in feudal law, 155, 
 156 ; his German descent and Ro- 
 man spirit, 157; the founder of a 
 science of history, 160, 161 ; his 
 opinion of Voltaire, 165 ; his last 
 years, 168, 169 ; bibliography, 202 ; 
 extended and frequent criticism of 
 him by Sainte-Beuve, 203-205 ; the 
 objections answered, 205-208 ; his 
 representative position, 208, 209. 
 
 NAPOLEON. See Bonaparte. 
 
 PANDECTS (the), Montesquieu's debt 
 to, 78. 
 
 Pascal, his wager, 19 ; his opposition 
 to Montaigne, 81, 82 ; his omni- 
 bus, 153; his disbelief in historic 
 laws, 205 ; his position relatively to 
 Montaigne and Montesquieu, 208. 
 
 Penal laws, folly of excessive, 130-135.
 
 2l6 
 
 Index. 
 
 Persecution, religious, 133-135. 
 
 "Persian Letters," their revolution- 
 ary tendency, 7, 8 ; the freedom of 
 thought current in France at the 
 time of their appearance (1721), 30- 
 
 33 ; their aim and conception, 33, 
 
 34 ; fanciful and licentious details 
 of Persian manners, 34, 35 ; admi- 
 rable style of the book, 36 ; delinea- 
 tion of character, 37 ; the dandy, 
 37, 38 ; the universal oracle, 38, 39 ; 
 pictures of the depravity of French 
 society) 39; the lords the king's 
 lackeys, 40, 41 ; the social system 
 rotten, the people sound, 41 ; the 
 monarchy contrasted with the re- 
 public, 42 ; freedom of speech about 
 religion, 43, 44 ; tolerance, 44 ; the 
 increasingly serious tone of the 
 book, 44 ; revelation of the author's 
 deeper political ideas, 45 ; the Span- 
 ish character, 45, 46 ; the author's 
 temperance, prudence, and caution, 
 46 ; anticipation of " The Spirit of 
 the Laws," 47 ; anonymous publi- 
 cation at Amsterdam, 48 ; success 
 of the book, 48, 40, ; D'Argenson's 
 remark, 49 ; Marivaux's remark, 
 49 ; quotation from, on the origin of 
 the social union, 86. 
 
 Pitt, William, foreseen by Montes- 
 quieu, 129. 
 Poland, causes of its downfall, 115- 
 
 " 7 : 
 
 Political Economy, Montesquieu's 
 contributions to, 148-154. 
 
 Politics, Montesquieu's influence in 
 French. See Bonaparte, Restora- 
 tion, Revolution. 
 
 Pompey, Montesquieu's estimate of, 
 76. 
 
 Portalis, inspired by Montesquieu in 
 drawing up the Civil Code, 189. 
 
 Protection and free-trade, Montes- 
 quieu's solution of the problem, 
 150, 151. 
 
 Prussian Code of 1792, Montesquieu's 
 influence upon, 171. 
 
 Public debt (the English), foreseen 
 by Montesquieu, 129. 
 
 READING, Montesquieu's delight in, 
 26. 
 
 Religion, Montesquieu's attitude 
 toward it, 18, 19 ; treatment of it 
 in "The Spirit of the Laws," 99- 
 101 (see Christianity) ; persecution 
 on account of it, 133 et seq. 
 
 Republic. See Democracy, United 
 States. 
 
 Republicanism, character of Montes- 
 quieu's, 24. 
 
 Restoration (of monarchy in 1814), 
 Montesquieu's spirit abroad in its 
 politics, 193-196 ; failure of his dis- 
 ciples in, 198. 
 
 Revolution, the French, Montesquieu 
 a precursor of, 178 ; Montesquieu 
 furnished quotations for the revolu- 
 tionists, 179; what the different es- 
 tates owed Montesquieu, 179, 180; 
 the two classes of Montesquieu's 
 followers, 180, 181 ; how Montes- 
 quieu was converted into the prophet 
 of the Revolution, 182, 183 ; Montes- 
 quieu's antique conception of the 
 republic adopted by the revolution- 
 ists, 183-185 ; their mistaken inter- 
 pretations of Montesquieu's theory, 
 185 ; their reductio ad terrorcm of 
 his maxims, 185-187 : their impor- 
 tant oversights, 187, 188 ; the party 
 of moderation based upon Montes- 
 quieu, iS8. 
 
 Robespierre, his great maxim de- 
 rived from Montesquieu, 186. 
 
 Romantic School (the), its licentious- 
 ness, 22. 
 
 Rome, its attraction for Montesquieu, 
 61, 63 ; its policy of conquest com- 
 pared with Bonaparte's, 190-192. 
 (See " Considerations.") 
 
 Rousseau, J. J., his licentiousness, 22. 
 
 Russia, Montesquieu's inadequate 
 treatment of, 120, 12 1 ; source of 
 the Czar's power, 120, 121. 
 
 SACRILEGE, the civil law cannot re- 
 press it, 133, 134. 
 Sainte-Beuve, quoted, 18 ; his criti-
 
 Index. 
 
 217 
 
 cisros upon Montesquieu mentioned, 
 202 ; the same outlined, 203-205 ; 
 the same answered, 205-209. 
 
 Saint-fivremoud, his study of the 
 Roman character, 64. 
 
 Saint-Simon, on the state of France 
 after Louis XIV., 30; his reproach 
 of Louis XIV., 136. 
 
 Shakespeare, his conception of Caesar 
 like Montesquieu's, 75. 
 
 Sieyes, the political antipode of Mon- 
 tesquieu, 181, 182; his rational 
 mechanism of government aban- 
 doned through the influence of 
 Montesquieu and Tocqueville, 200. 
 
 Slavery, Montesquieu's views of, 143, 
 144. 
 
 Smith, Adam, anticipated by Montes- 
 quieu, 148. 
 
 Socialism, Montesquieu's views touch- 
 ing, 153, 154. 
 
 Society, origin of, 85, 86 ; chance ver- 
 sus law in, 204-208. 
 
 Spaniards, character of the, 45, 46. 
 
 Speculation, commercial, Montes- 
 quieu's reflections upon, 150. 
 
 " Spirit of the Laws, The," antici- 
 pated in the " Persian Letters," 44, 
 45, 47; author's aim, 82, 83 ; vast- 
 ness of the materials, 84 : the author 
 inferior to Buffon in knowledge of 
 anthropology, 85, 86 ; conception 
 of law, 86, 87 ; the real basis of 
 law, 88, 89 ; nature and principle of 
 governments, 89, 90 ; political and 
 social laws, 91 ; subordinate laws, 
 91, 92 ; want of cohesion in the lat- 
 ter part of the work, 92, 93; its 
 artistic character, 93-95 ; mode of 
 composition, 95, 96 ; subdivision, 
 conciseness, wit, 97, 98 ; artifice as 
 well as art, 98 ; evasions and sub- 
 terfuge touching religion, 98-101 ; 
 touching politics, 101, 102 ; weak- 
 ness and strength of generalization, 
 103-105 ; a classic, based upon real- 
 ity, 106, 107 ; treatment of dem- 
 ocratic government, 108-115'; of 
 aristocracy, 115-117; of monarchy, 
 117-119; of despotism, 119-122; of 
 
 political liberty by distribution of 
 power, 122-124 : f the English 
 constitution, 124-129; of taxation, 
 130 ; of the abuse of criminal law, 
 1 3<>-i33 ; of religious persecution, 
 133-135; of religious toleration, 135, 
 136 ; of the influence of the clergy, 
 'S^i 137 ; an offensive digression, 
 138; of climate and law, 139-142; 
 civil laws, 142, 143 ; of slavery, 143, 
 144; international law, 144-148; 
 history of commerce, 148, 149; the- 
 ory of trade, 149, 150; tariffs and 
 commercial treaties, 150-152 ; pub- 
 lication of the work at Geneva 
 (Nov. 1748), 162 ; its reception, 162 ; 
 Helvetius' criticism of it, 163, 164 ; 
 Dupin's attack, 164 ; Voltaire's atti- 
 tude, 165; clerical attacks, 165-167; 
 Montesquieu's " Defence," 167 ; re- 
 ception of the work abroad, 168; 
 its influence with philosophers, 169, 
 170; with monarchs,. 170, 171; in 
 England, 172 ; in America, 173; 
 upon the French Revolution, 179- 
 192 ; the two chapters on England 
 revealed constitutional government 
 to Europe, 201 ; Tracy's " Com- 
 mentary," 202 ; other criticisms, 
 202, 203 ; the objections best stated 
 by Sainte-Beuve, 203-205 ; answered 
 by the author, 205-209. 
 
 Stae'l, Madame de, inspired by Mon- 
 tesquieu's conception of human 
 progress, 197. 
 
 Stein, Baron von, his statesmanship 
 inspired by the genius of Montes- 
 quieu, 2OI. 
 
 Sulla, Mommsen's picture and Mon- 
 tesquieu's, 73 ; his gorged ambition, 
 74, 75- 
 
 TAINE, his masterly criticism of Mon- 
 tesquieu, 203. 
 
 Talleyrand, profoundly imbued with 
 the spirit of Montesquieu, 194-196. 
 
 Taxation, Montesquieu's views upon, 
 130 ; his celebrated definition, 130. 
 
 Tele'maque, Montesquieu's admiration 
 for, 27.
 
 218 
 
 Index. 
 
 "Temple of Gnidos. The," its arti- 
 ficial character, 51 ; its occasional 
 grace, 51-53 ; suggestive of Andr 
 Che'nier, 53 ; publication, 54. 
 
 Thoyras, Rapin de, his description of 
 the English constitution, 60. 
 
 Tocqueville, A. de, contrasted with 
 Montesquieu, 96 ; cited, 154 ; a 
 great continuer of the work of 
 Montesquieu, 199 : his intellectual 
 character and influence, 199, 200. 
 
 Toleration in religion, Montesquieu's, 
 44, 48 ; counsels of " The Spirit of 
 the Laws," 135-137- 
 
 Torture, Montesquieu's opposition to, 
 132. 
 
 Tourneux, his researches concerning 
 Montesquieu, 202. 
 
 Tracy, Destutt de, his narrow criticism 
 of Montesquieu, 202. 
 
 Treason, abuse of the charge of, 133. 
 
 Turenne, Montesquieu's opinion of, 
 24. 
 
 Turgot, Montesquieu quoted against 
 his reforms, 177. 
 
 UNITED STATES (the), slavery in, 143, 
 144 ; the commercial spirit in, 152, 
 153 ; Montesquieu's influence upon 
 the founders of, 173, 174 ; Tocque- 
 ville seeks here the instruction 
 Montesquieu sought in England, 
 199. 
 
 VENICE, visited by Montesquieu, 59 ; 
 his abrupt departure, 59 ; causes of 
 its downfall, 115-117. 
 
 Vergennes, his foreign policy based 
 upon Montesquieu, 177. 
 
 Vian, his " History of Montesquieu," 
 202. 
 
 Vienna, visited by Montesquieu, 56. 
 
 Villemain, his liberal defence of Mon- 
 tesquieu, 202 ; quoted, 208. 
 
 Voltaire, his licentiousness, 22 ; his 
 polemics anticipated and equalled 
 by Montesquieu, 43 ; his " Essay 
 on Manners " compared with part 
 of Montesquieu's "Considerations," 
 79; his professional jealousy of 
 Montesquieu, 97 ; compares Mon- 
 tesquieu to Paul Veronese, 103 ; 
 Montesquieu's superiority to him in 
 the treatment of religion, 137 ; 
 quoted, 139 ; his " Essay on Man- 
 ners " compared with Montes- 
 quieu's chapters on the Civil Laws, 
 142, 143 ; on international law, 144, 
 145 ; his attacks upon Montesquieu, 
 164, 165 ; duped by Frederick the 
 Great, 206. 
 
 Vuitry, his opinion touching the Mon- 
 tesquieu-Dubos dispute, 158, 159. 
 
 WASHINGTON, acquainted with "The 
 Spirit of the Laws," 173. 
 
 Women, Montesquieu's relations 
 with, his wife, 1 1 ; his attachments, 
 21 ; his cynical opinion of female 
 society, 22 ; his severity in the 
 " Persian Letters " toward women 
 of fashion, 39.
 
 A 000 1 1 1 307 5