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Great French Writers

Edited by J. J. Jusserand


Great French Writers



Cranslateir ig



(French Academy). Translated by H. L. WILLIAMS.
3. VICTOR COUSIN. By JULBS SIMON (French Academy).
4. GEORGE SAND. By Professor E. CARO (French Academy).
g. VILLON. By Professor GASTON PARIS (French Institute).
10 D'A UBIGNE. By Professor G. GUIZOT (College of France).
12.ROUSSEA U. By M. CHERBULIEZ (French Academy).
if&gt;.SAINTE.BEUVE. By M. TAINS (French Academy).




OUR nineteenth century, now drawing to a close, has shown from the first, and wi
bequeath to the next age, a vivid taste for historical research, to which it has
an ardour, a method, crowned by a success unprecedented in former times. The
story of the World and its inhabitants has been entirely re-written. The pickaxe
of the archaeologist has restored to light the bones of the heroes of Mycenae an
d the
very features of Sesostris. Ruins explained, hieroglyphs translated, have led to
stituting the life of the illustrious dead, sometimes to penetrating into their
With a still more intense passion, because it was blended with affection, our ce
tury has applied itself to reviving the great writers of all literatures, those
sitaries of national genius and interpreters of national thought. France has not
lacked scholars to undertake this task ; they have published the works, and clea
up the biography of those illustrious men we cherish as our ancestors, and who c
tributed, even more efficiently than princes and captains, to the formation of m
France, not to say of the modern world.
For it is one of our glories that the sway of France has prevailed less by the
power of arms than by the power of thought; and the action of our country
upon the world has ever been independent of her military triumphs ; indeed,
she has been seen to predominate in the most distressing hours of her national
history. Hence the great thinkers of our literature have an interest not only fo
their direct descendants, but also for a large European posterity scattered beyo
our frontiers.
Initiators first, then popularisers, the French were the foremost, in the turmoi
prevalent at the opening of the Middle Ages, to begin a new literature; the firs
songs heard by modern society in its cradle were French songs. Like Gothic art
and the institution of universities, mediaeval literature commences in our count
thence expands throughout Europe. Here was the beginning.
But this literature was ignorant of the value of form, moderation, and reserve ;
was too spontaneous, not sufficiently reflective, too heedless of questions of A
The France of Louis the Fourteenth gave due honour to form, and was in the mean-
wh le the age of the revival of philosophy, of which Voltaire and Rousseau were
to be the European apostles in the eighteenth century, awaiting the eclectic and
scientific era in which we live ; it was the period of the diffusion of literary
trines. Had not this task been carried out as it was, the destiny of literatures
would have been changed ; Ariosto, Tasso, Camoens, Shakespeare, or Spenser, all
the foreign writers together, those of the Renaissance and those subsequent, wou
not have sufficed to bring about this reform ; and our age would perhaps never h
known those impassioned poets, who have been at the same time perfect artists, f
than their precursors of old, purer in form than Boileau had ever dreamed : the
Cheniers, Keats, Goethes, Lamartines, Le"opardis.
Many works, the publication of which is amply justified by all these reasons,
have therefore been devoted in our days to the great French writers. And yet, do
these mighty and charming geniuses occupy in the present literature of the world
the place which is due to them? In no wise, not even in France; and for sundry
In the first place, after having tardily received in the last century the revela
of Northern literature, feeling ashamed of our ignorance, we became impassioned

foreign works, not without profit, but perhaps to excess, to the great prejudice
at all
events of our national ancestors. These ancestors, moreover, it has not been pos
as yet to associate with our lives as we should have wished, and to mingle them
in the
current of our daily ideas ; and this, precisely on account of the nature of the
that have been devoted to them, it has been no easy thing to do. For where do th
dead revive? In their works, or in treatises on literature? That is a great deal
no doubt ; and the beautiful and scholarly editions and the well-ordered treatis
have rendtred in our days this communion of souls less difficult. But that is no
yet sufficient ; we are accustomed nowadays to have everything made easy for us
grammars and sciences, like travelling, have been simplified ; yesterday's impos
bilities have become to-day's matters of course. This is why the old treatises o
literature often repel us and complete editions do not attract. They are suitabl
e for
those studious hours, too few in the lives of busy men, but not for the leisure
moments, which are more frequent. Thus the book to which all turn, and which
opens of itself, is the latest novel ; while the works of great men, complete an
d fault-
les., motionless like family portraits, venerated^ but seldom contemplated, stan
d in
their fine array on the high shelves of our libraries.
They are loved, yet neglected. Those great men seem too distant, too different,
too learned, too inaccessible. The idea of an edition in many volumes, of the no
which divert our attention, of the scientific display which surrounds them, perh
the vague recollection of school and classic studies, the juvenile task, oppress
mind ; the idle hour we had to dispose of, has already flown away, and thus we
acquire the habit of laying aside our old authors, like silent kings, careless o
f familiar
converse with them.
The object of the present collection is to recall to pur firesides those great
men, whosr temples are too rarely visited, and to revive between descendants
and forefathers that union of ideas and purposes which alone can secure, notwith
standing the changes wrought by time, the unalloyed preservation of our national
genius. In the volumes that are being published wi'l be found precise informa-
tion on the life, works, and influence of each of the writers conspicuous in uni
literature, or representing an original side of French intellect. These books wi
ll be
short, their price moderate ; they will thus be ao essible to everyone- They wil
be uniform in size, paper, print, with the specimen now before the reader. They
will sup ply on doubtful points the latest results of literary research, and the
may be useful even to the well read ; they will contain no notes, as the name of
authors for each work will be a sufficient guarantee, the co-operation of the mo
able contemporary writers having been secured for the series. Finally, an accura
reproduction of an authentic portrait will enable readers to make in some degree
acquaintance by sight of our great writers.
In s-hort, to recall the part they played, now better known, thanks to erudite
researches ; to strengthen their action on the present time ; to tighten the bon
ds and
revive the affection uniting us to the past ages of our literature ; by contempl
the past, to inspire confidence in the future, and silence, if it be possible, t
he doleful
voices of the disheartened, such are our chief objects. We also believe that thi
s series
will have several other advantages. It is right that every generation should rec
up the riches bequeathed to it by its ancestors, learning thus to make a better
use of
them. Finally, there is no better test of the quality, power, and limitations of
an age,
than the verdict which it passes on the productions of the past. It judges itsel
f while
giving judgment on others. It is hoped that tiis series maybe at once useful iu
facilitating the comprehension of former periods, and helpful to a knowledge of
present, if the scheme, favourably received by the public, should be carried on
final completeness.


FEW modern French philosophers were better qualified

than M. Albert Sorel to discuss the merits of Montesquieu,
and assign to him his place in Messieurs Hachette's collec-
tion : Les Grands Ecrivains Franqais. By his admiration
of England, its constitution and its government, the illus-
trious author of VEsprit des Lois was, on the other hand,
specially entitled to the notice of the English public ; and it
is, therefore, with the fullest confidence and the sincerest
pleasure, that we introduce to our readers the biography of
one of the greatest thinkers of the last century, written by
the gentleman to whom we are indebted for a most valu-
able work : P Europe et la Revolution Fran^aise. No one,
assuredly, could appreciate more accurately the share which
Montesquieu had in inspiring, directing, and modifying the
progress of the great political crisis begun in 1789, and
destined to influence, more or less, all the countries in the
We have added to this translation a few notes on points
less familiar to ourselves than to French readers, and
an alphabetical index.
November 1887.


1689 (January i8th) Birth of Montesquieu . j R ^^ tt !(^? 1&gt;W ' P erformed
1700 Studies at Juilly under the Oratorians . -| ^j^- P roclaimed Kin 8 of
1711 Leaves Juilly Death of the Dauphin.
1714 (February 24) Councillor at the Bordeaux ) B n Unife , litus
Parliament . . . . . )
1715 Marries Jeanne de Lartigue (April 3) . Death of Louis XIV.
1716 (July 13) Named President a Mortiei ) Law proposes his Financial
member of the Academic of Bordeaux ) System.
719 Sends to Ae press his " Histoire physique ) D h f Madarae de Ma i ntenon .
de la Terre ancienne et moderne . )
1721 " Les Lettres Persanes" .... Plague at Marseilles.
1725 "Le Temple de Gnide." Pronounces at :) Dea(h of the Czar p eter the
Bordeaux an address on the duties of ) Q rea t
barristers )
1726 Leaves the magistracy .... Voltaire in England.
lected a member of the .,
Francaise. Goes to Italy .
1729-31 Resides in England

1728 Elected a member of the Acadtmie\ Dean Swift publishes his "Gul-
. } liver."
''' '"" *""
1745 " Dialogue de Sylla et d'Eucrate" . . Battle of Fontenoy.
f Treaty of Aix - la - Chapelle.

( Treaty of Aix - la - Chapelle

1748 " L'Esprit des Lois" &lt; Richardson publishes hi
\ " Clarissa Harlowe."
L'Esprit des Lois" attacked both by the } Buffon b-
Jesuits (Journal de Trevoux) and the &gt; of his gr
Jansenists (Nouvelles Ecctesiastiques)} History.

" L'Esprit des Lois" attacked both by the') Bnffon b-gins the publication
reat work on Natural

1750 "Defense de TEsprit des Lois.'" . . Death of Marshal Saxe.

1755 (February loth) Death of Montesquieu . Earthquake at Lisbon.


Page 9, line 10, for " dying away in oblivion," read " crumbling
into ruins."
P. 10, 1. 13, for "its modus operandi" read "how it manifested
P. ii, 1. 2. for " Charles's birth," read " the birth of Charles Louis."
P. ii, 1. 13, for "of which he ever," etc., read "which still
reminds us of him."
P. n, 11. 14-17, for " was . . . towered," read "is ... towers."
P. 12, 1. 17, for ". denunciation," read "censure."
P. 12, 1. 19, /or " Montesquieu of La Brede," read " Montesquieu,
La Brede."
P. 13, I- Si/or "aptitude," read "taste."
P. 13, 1. 16, for "special reports," read "reports made for dis-

Lettres Persanes appeared in 1721. This book

JL created a marvellous sensation. Never was writer
more in touch with his time never were the secrets of
society more delicately unveiled, its confused aspirations
and hidden desires expressed with more trenchant clear-
ness. Around him the author saw decay and ruin : social
institutions venerable with the age of centuries, tottering
to their fall; beliefs, customs, and manners, which
had established and strengthened the monarchy in
France, dying away in oblivion. He desired to analyse
these growing evils and seek a remedy for them, not per-
ceiving that in thus describing he was really helping to
spread them ; that his work, far from averting the dreaded
crisis, was actually its gravest symptom. It was in no
wise a warning or an appeal for reform, but rather the
signal of a revolution for which each soul was already
longing, as every passing event seemed to indicate more
plainly the causes producing the threatened destruction.

io Montesquieu.
In the Lettres Persanes is contained the germ of the
Esprit des Lois. Montesquieu published them at the
age of thirty-two. By birth, education, and earlier cast of
thought, he belongs to the seventeenth century, and he
shows in his life and works, as none has shown more clearly,
how a democratic revolution sprang, while even its
authors were unconscious of it, from the reign of Louis
XIV, that reign which seemed to have established the
throne in France on indestructible bases. Let us, there-
fore, briefly consider the character and circumstances of
the man at the time of the production of his first work,
and try to define the nature of his genius, before we
study its modus operandi,
Montesquieu was of gentle blood, of the noblesse tfepee
et de robe, being born of a family distinguished by its
soldiers and its lawyers. His house had in its time first
embraced the Reformation and abjured it under Henry IV.
Jacques de Secondat, the second son of the Baron de
Montesquieu, president &amp; mortier in the parliament of
Guyenne, married in 1686 Franchise de Penel, who
brought him the castle and estates of La Brede, near Bor-
deaux. Here, on the i8th January 1689, was born their
son Charles Louis, the future author of Esprit des Lois.
His father had the rare high-bred austereness charac-
teristic of Vauban and Catinat ; his mother was devout ;
both were of the autocratic type which seeks, as well from
a fine sense of the duties and responsibilities of rank as
from a feeling of religious obligation, to identify itself
with the people and popular interests. A beggar chanced

The Character of Montesquieu. 1 1

to present himself at the Castle at the moment of
Charles's birth : he was requested to become the god-
father of the child, who was thus to be through life
reminded that "the poor are his brothers." So had
formerly reasoned and acted Montaigne's father, a com-
patriot of the father of Montesquieu.
Charles bore at first the name of his patrimony, La
Brede. His infancy was passed in the country, under the
charge of some peasants to whom he was entrusted, and
with whom he spent three years, gaining by their care
strength of body and a practical knowledge of the patois
of the district. He then returned to the castle of La
Brede, of which he ever held a tender remembrance.
This home of his childhood was a great thirteenth-century
manor-house, absolutely without architectural ornament,
consisting of a donjon, of which the massive, frowning,
battlemented walls towered above a deep moat filled with
water, and crossed by a drawbridge. Charles lived here
until the age of seven years, when his mother died : he
was then sent to the Oratorians at Juilly, where he re-
mained from 1700 to 1711. The educational system to
which he was now subjected, involving, as it necessarily
did, a complete detachment from family life, was by no
means conducive to the development of the affections.
And, indeed, this nature with which the Oratorians had
to deal was in no wise one sensitive or susceptible, but
was rather characterised by a contented reflective humour,
untinctured by the least melancholy. We might natu-
rally suppose that a mind, exposed during its earlier
B 2

1 2 Montesquieu.
development to ecclesiastical influence, would be strongly
drawn to religion, or at least inclined in the direction of
spiritual thought. In the present instance, this was not
so. Notwithstanding a predisposition to a respectful
mental attitude towards religion, induced by the early
teaching of his mother, the education in Letters and in
the Classics which Montesquieu received at the Oratory
led the way to indifference and scepticism. At the age
of twenty he produced a work in refutation of the view
that the philosophers of the heathen world merit eternal
damnation. The leaning to Stoicism apparent in Mon-
tesquieu throughout his life, forming the substratum of
his philosophy, was the direct result of his studies in
the Latin authors ; and once emancipated from control, he
added thereto a strong commixture of Pyrrhonism, of
which a tradition still lingered in the society of the
Temple, in defiance of denunciation, the Sorbonne, and
the lieutenant of police.
Montesquieu of La Brede as he ought still to be called
at this period of his life went through a course of legal
study, and was entered as Counsellor in the parliament
of Bordeaux in 1714. In the following year he married
Mademoiselle Jeanne de Lartigue, whose family, with its
military traditions, was of Calvinistic origin. This young
lady was more distinguished by her goodness than by her
beauty, and was too timid and retiring in disposition and
manner to be attractive. Of this marriage three children
were born a boy and two girls. In the year of his son's
birth (1716) La Brede became president a mortier ; his

The Character of Montesquieu. 13

uncle, the head of the family, who held this office, having
bequeathed it to him, together with all his property, con-
ditionally on his taking the title of Montesquieu. Never
was legacy more fitly devised, at least as regards the title :
for the official post Montesquieu showed little aptitude.
His family and profession occupied but little place in his
life, and while duly discharging the duties required of
him in his relations to each, he dismissed them from his
mind as speedily as was compatible with decorum.
Society and its attractions were very pleasant to him, and
he liked to be lured by their charms. To legal suits and
actions he showed an absolute indifference, detested the
Basoche^ and held all advocates and petitioners in high dis-
dain alike. Possessing no gift of oratory, he felt himself
equal neither to the delivery of solemn addresses, nor even
to the special reports so dear to the pride of the magis-
tracy. In the quest of knowledge and the joy of
thought, his mental activity was absorbed, and he found
a congenial atmosphere in the social life of Bordeaux, in
which, by virtue of his rank and position, he held a fore-
most place.
"The profession of the law, holding, as it did, a
middle place between the Grande noblesse and the peo-
ple," opened out the widest sphere to the keen political
observer. In the provinces it formed a centre for the
enlightened community, and Bordeaux was a town in
which intellectual culture was peculiarly honoured. It
possessed an Academy for " polishing and bringing to
perfection the admirable talents that nature so freely

1 4 Montesquieu.
bestows upon the men born in this climate." So run the
words of the founder of the society. Montesquieu was,
in some sort by right, received therein : he produced an
essay entitled La Politique des Romains dans la Religion^
and another treating of Le Sys&amp;me des Idees, and then
threw himself into the study of science. Through the
impetus given by Newton, the observations on and study
of nature were in process of emancipation from the
trammels of confused compilations and mythical idea.
Montesquieu devoted himself for a time to researches in
anatomy, botany, and natural philosophy : applying him-
self to the study of the renal glands, and investigating the
causes productive of echo, and the rationale of trans-
parency in bodies. But the weakness of sight, from
which he always suffered, made all experiments difficult
to him, and his impatient spirit led him to be intolerant
of their laboriousness and sterility.
He was incapable of the minuteness of attention which
forms so essential a part of the genius of scientific dis-
covery, and which Goethe associates with creative
imagination. Montesquieu would at once deduce an in-
ference. He delights in broad sketch and boldness of out-
line. Of him was the conception prior to that of Buffon
of a physical history of the ancient and modern globe ;
and in 1719 he sent forth circulars throughout the
scientific world inviting observations on the subject. In
the course of his explorations in the past of the universe
he encountered Man, and paused to make him the object
of his contemplation : here, becoming conscious of the

The Character of Montesquieu. 15

true bent of his genius, he then and henceforth set
himself to the accomplishment of its destiny. But
from his scientific excursions and experiments he
reaped the benefit in a conception of science, a
method of work, and an instinct in experiment, of
which the traces are perceptible in his political and
historical works.
Thus did he form himself. The mental individuality
of the man at the age of thirty was that which, with but
slight modification, distinguished him at the end of his
life. Few writers so profoundly influencing their century
have associated themselves so little with the course of
events in that century. The private life of Montesquieu
is void of interest : in no sense is it illustrative of his
works. Both as gentleman and thinker he would have
considered as an impertinence all speculation concerning
his personality : he would have felt guilty of a like im-
pertinence in seeking to occupy the attention of others
with the subject. By his works he desired to be known,
and by his works only can we form an idea of his opinions
and of his life.
Of middle height, of slight and nervous frame, his face
was refined and somewhat long, with a strongly marked
profile the profile of a medal ; the nose was large, the
mouth delicate, satirical, and sensual ; the forehead tend-
ing slightly to recede, the eyes widely opened, and, though
prematurely dimmed and weakened, always full of fire
and genius, and hungering for light. " I look at the light,"
he says, " with a kind of rapture." His was a French

1 6 Montesquieu.
physiognomy with distinctively Gascon modifications : he
possessed the characteristics of each type.
The radix is Gascon, and the Gascon nature pre-
dominates. Of his origin Montesquieu retains not only
the accent, which he much affects, but the manner, the
gasconnade, using the term in a favourable sense ; wit is,
as it were, a point of honour with him. His conversation
was rich in surprise, in sally, and in brilliant repartee;
much of his conversational verve is traceable in his style :
the somewhat abrupt ellipses, the numberless digressions,
the flashes of simple eloquence and sparkle of frolic and
raillery, in a word, the carelessness of familiar talk. A
freedom occasionally bordering on licence is observable :
it is the effect of a redundant memory and an exuberant
spirit. Montesquieu finds in Montaigne a perpetual
charm : he delights in him, feeds on his spirit, and at times
almost reproduces him. Like Montaigne, he has the in-
satiable curiosity, the thirst for knowledge, which give to
the mind a perennial youth. " I spend my life in examin-
ing; everything interests, everything surprises me; I am like
a child whose organs, still tender, are vividly struck by
the most insignificant objects." Possessed by the passion
of reading, he travels through his library ; he walks in it,
hunts in it, and in it gathers spoil ; his books are defaced
with notes. This battue constantly animates and fertilises
his thought. He is charmed with all significant anecdote,
with the idiosyncrasies of a man or a country, even with
the slight and merely amusing story illustrative of the
folly and good-nature of man in every age. These he

The Character of Montesquieu. 1 7

collects and treasures up, and when opportunity occurs,
cannot resist the pleasure of retailing them. Many of
the oddities, allegations, and strange citations with which
we are so unexpectedly confronted in the profoundest
chapters of the Esprit des Lois proceed solely from the
natural sense of humour so strong in Montesquieu.
Thus with respect to the laws " which form political
liberty in its relation to the constitution," he cites
Arribas, king of Epirus, and the laws of the Molossi.
What business have Arribas and the Molossi here ? asks
a critic. They show us that our author has read Mon-
taigne and is of his country. But Montesquieu is at the
same time French of France in earnest and reflecting.
Montaigne's thought is discursive : Montesquieu's thought
is, as it were, impelled to concentration. He has a
passion for order, method, and continuity ; with him there
must be deliberation in all things, and a grasp of the
correspondence and correlation of causes. The most
wonderful collection of rarities does not content him; nor
is he satisfied with conducting amateurs through his
gallery, and maliciously enjoying their astonishment at
the variety of form and infinite renewal of contrast pre-
sented to their view. He must perforce explain to them
and to himself the prodigious diversity of nature, discover
laws in the apparent confusion of facts, and surprise by
similitudes even more than by oppositions. " Our soul
is formed for thought, that is to say, for perception : now
such a being ought to possess curiosity ; for, as all things
are linked together, forming a chain in which each idea

1 8 Montesquieu.
is preceded and followed by another, one cannot wish to
see one thing without desiring to see another." This is
the curiosity of the scholar and historian.
But such curiosity implies complete independence of
judgment : this Montesquieu essentially possessed. It is
impossible to conceive a more truly liberal and un-
prejudiced mind. Still, though exempt from superstitious
errors, he was at one time influenced by those of scep-
ticism. During his youth, in the reaction resultant on the
orthodoxy of the latter years of Louis XIV, he announced
himself a freethinker, carrying liberty of thought and
independence in matters of faith to the verge of irrever-
ence, if not to hostility. But this disposition of mind
was not a lasting one. The mere contemplation of the
inherent order in facts and ideas shook his scepticism,
and the closer study of social institutions inspired him
with respect for religion. Nevertheless, as Sainte-Beuve
has remarked, it was chiefly as a political thinker and
historian that he paid homage to "the elevation and
idealisation of human nature"; he received and accepted
the ideas of justice and religion in their positive and
practical sense, rather than by virtue of their essence.
For metaphysics he had positively no aptitude ; primary
causes seemed to him inaccessible, and he did not seek to
apprehend them, but confined his attention to secondary
causes, which produce effects plainly visible, being,
indeed, matters of experience. He restricted his specu-
lations to the earth, not extending them beyond the
earthly life of man ; and, in regard of all that lies outside

The Character of Montesquieu. 19

the world and its history, was content to leave it to in-
tuition the instinct of a sentient and accountable being,
clinging, as a last resource, to the beautiful visions which
nourish human hope, and which, in their very mystery,
seemed to him the most satisfactory solution of the
problem of his destiny that man has yet discovered.
" What is the need of so much philosophy ? God is
so high that we do not perceive even the clouds which
surround Him. We know Him well, only through the
precepts which He has given us. These precepts are
engraved in us, and social instinct develops them in our
souls in proportion as it leads us to make up a society.
Supposing there was no God, we should still cherish
justice, that is to say, do our best to resemble that Being
of whom we have so grand an idea, and who, if He
existed, would be continually just. Free from the yoke
of religion, we ought not to be free from that of equity.
Supposing the immortality of the soul were an error, I
should be sorry not to believe in it. I acknowledge
that I have not reached the humility of atheists. I know
not how they think ; but, for my part, I will not barter the
idea of my immortality for that of a happiness which lasts
one day. I am delighted at believing myself immortal as
God Himself. Independently of revealed ideas, meta-
physical ones give me a very strong hope of my eternal
happiness a hope which I would not renounce."
Thus we find Montesquieu almost in virtual agreement
with Pascal from a practical point of view, led thither
not by anguish of mind and despairing reason, but by

2O Montesquieu.
the direction of wisdom and a scorn of the hypotheses of
schoolmen and of arbitrary systems, by the good-sense of
the citizen, and, above all, by the perception of the legis-
lator : by a recognition of social needs, and by the esteem
in which he holds the human species. He had a marked
leaning to the spirit of the ancients ; of Marcus Aure-
lius and the Antonines " the greatest subject in nature"
he says : " Born for society, they believed it to be their
destiny to work for it." In all his works one finds this
vein of Stoicism, modified by French urbanity, and im -
pregnated with the modern feeling for humanity, but
hardly with charity. Montesquieu, who never entirely
understood the nature of the mission of Christianity to
the civilised world, appears to have never been influenced
by Christian loving-kindness. His disposition was kindly,
and he was much inclined to generosity. " I have never,"
he says, "seen tears shed by anyone without being touched.
I feel compassion I have a feeling of humanity for
those who are unhappy, as if mankind was composed of
such alone." But he dreaded the manifestation of
emotion : he thought that " a fine action must of necessity
be a good one, and one that calls forth effort in the per-
formance." Still, his self-imposed constraint amounted to
affectation; his contempt of false sentiment expressed
itself practically in coldness ; and the exaggerated fear of
seeming to be the dupe of feeling, and appearing to seek
a reputation for benevolence, deprived him of the grateful
thanks of those whom he served.
A certain shyness and much timidity formed part of this

The Character of Montesquieu. 2 1

reserve. Montesquieu himself tells us that this shyness
was the scourge of his life, and that he suffered from it
especially in the presence of such as were of dull under-
standing. One can fancy that he sometimes suffered from
it also when in the society of women, in which at all times
he found pleasure. He delighted in feeling the power of
a woman's charm, and sometimes made his own fascination
acknowledged; though he loved without fire, without fear
in a word, without romance his love was full of brightness
and radiant with wit, seeking rather to be amused than
to expend itself in tenderness. More intense in study than
in love, he displayed in the matter of feeling the same
curiosity, tempered however by society ; if he had love-
affairs, they troubled him little ; if deceived, he speedily
found consolation ; and if he often yielded to fascination,
he never abandoned himself to its sway. He says : " I was
happy enough in my youth to be possessed of an attach-
ment for women, and I thought they returned my affec-
tion ; as soon as I ceased to believe this, I immediately
broke off all intercourse with them." Montesquieu was
inclined to libertinism, and as his writings bear traces of it
this notice of the fact was necessary here. It is the sign
and the special vice of his time. Our knowledge of him
would be but imperfect did we not glance, in passing by,
at this new aspect in which he is presented to us as the
leading spirit of the boudoir and the gallant president,
the rival, so far as merry-making parties were concerned,
of his brother presidents Henault and de Brosses.

2 2 Montesquieu.
He has somewhere remarked, that "the society of
women injures the moral sense and forms the taste"; but
in his own case it would seem that such society, though
it did not deaden the moral sense, did vitiate the taste.
It was for the pleasure of the women he found so attrac-
tive that certain pamphlets, unworthy of his reputation,
were written, and that his finest work is sullied by a
licentious touch. This blemish, indeed, was the cause of
his being read by the fashionables of that time ; and though
at the present day it is the obstacle to the knowledge of
Montesquieu in the fashionable world, the reason is not to
be sought in its graver thought and purer taste ; it is simply
change of fashion, and fashion in such an atmosphere and
in like matters is the most intolerant of critics. The tone
of libertinism studied and affected in Fontenelle, ironical
and deliberate in Montesquieu, cynical and degrading in
Voltaire, gross in Rousseau, and shamelessly coarse in
Diderot became ceremonious and pompous in Chateau-
briand, theatrical in the Romanticists, and pedantic,
pathological, and melancholy in the school which followed.
There is infinite distance between the hysterical jargon
of this school and the freedom in which Montesquieu
indulges ; both he and his contemporaries would have
been overpowered by the noxious vapours engendered by
that literature, and would have turned in unutterable dis-
gust from the insufferable dulness which would have pro-
duced in them, what of all things they dreaded boredom.
Of this unpardonable offence Montesquieu is never
guilty. This is because he is amusing in such interludes,

The Character of Montesquieu. 23

never wearying by monotonous reiteration, and heedful not
to confound the motive of the vignette with the subject
of which he is treating. He is frivolous as he is curious,
purely by way of diversion, and in the frolic of his Gascon
vivacity; but the thinker always recalls the vagrant
to the highway the philosopher always has the last
Montesquieu's pride in the dignity of his name was
great. This well-born gentleman gloried in his birth, and
his descent from a conquering race. " Our ancestors the
Germans, warriors and freemen " this thought, recurring
so often and in so many forms in his writing, is with him
a fundamental idea, the expression of a primordial preju-
dice or prepossession in which he delights, not seeking
to make it a subject of self-remonstrance, but on the con-
trary strengthening it by study. He says complacently :
" My lands, my vassals"; and the dry subject of fiefs,
which disconcerts and alarms his contemporaries, is to
him full of a personal and genealogical charm.
But the feudalist is allied to the legist : if he has no
pleasure in his office, he has a passionate belief in the
prerogatives pertaining to the body of which he is a mem-
ber ; and the spirit of antiquity on which he was nourished
infuses into his revendication of feudal liberties a certain
republican pride directly proceeding from Rome : " I have
seen, from afar, in Plutarch's works, what constituted
great men." His communing with the ancients had
developed in him the intuitive perception of what is great
also a vigour of soul, and an ardent admiration for

24 Montesquieu.
political virtues of which the tradition had almost died out,
but which he contributed not a little to revive in France.
He has a hatred for depreciation and the faculty of ad-
miration ; he forms for himself a gallery of national heroes
" the exceptional men who would have been acknow-
ledged by the Romans" those of whom one can say,
as has been said of Turenne, that their life has been
a "hymn in praise of humanity." Montesquieu's
grandest pages are portraits of the founders of empires.
He is above all, and before all things, a citizen. " Is
it not," says he, " a noble design to do our best to leave
after us men happier than we have been ourselves?"
" I have naturally felt anxious for the welfare and the
honour of my native country ; I have always felt a secret
joy whenever some rule was laid down tending to the
common weal."
To have been an instrument in that direction would
have brought sweetness into his soul, and at one time he
eagerly desired to give himself to this service, esteeming
it the highest honour. But he was contemned at court :
the slight wounded him not a little ; and the bitterness
which this treatment produced in him is manifest in
many a touch, recalling La Bruyere in feeling and ex-
pression : " I began by entertaining a childish dread of
all persons of high social rank ; as soon as I became
acquainted with them, I went on without transition to
contempt." " I said to one man : ' For shame ! your
sentiments are as base as those of a man of quality.' "
The affront coming from Versailles must have wounded

The Character of Montesquieu. 25

Montesquieu the more deeply inasmuch as his nature was
essentially modest. All affectation of superiority offended
his taste ; "authors," he remarked, "are theatrical
He could not comprehend the feeling of hatred, which
seemed to him a really painful one : " Wherever I find
envy, I take a delight in driving it to despair." Only
with such as were on intimate terms with him did he
unbend ; in those families where he could get on with
" his every-day humour." His humour was marvellously
quick, supple, and sparkling, completely fascinating and
even dazzling his friends ; but his indifferent acquaintance,
to whom only the echo of his conversation was allowed
to reach, were wont to accuse him of economising this
brilliancy. It pleased him often to abstract himself, thus
avoiding the trouble of listening to, and the still greater
trouble of contradicting, obtrusive persons; he therefore
appeared singularly tolerant of them. Keenly observant
from his higher level, he shunned discussion and sat
" composing his work in society," as was somewhat
resentfully remarked by a lady of rank, in whose company,
so the story runs, he indulged too much in meditation.
Montesquieu was the best of friends the kindest, the
most lovable, and the most beloved ; but he knew the
value of retirement, and sought it, whenever he felt it
necessary to him in his vocation of thinker. With a
placid temperament, he had uniformly good health ; the
current of his thought was clear and rapid, and he pos-
sessed, in an unlimited degree, the faculty of absorbing

26 Montesquieu.
himself in study, " for I have never had any sorrow
which an hour's reading did not dissipate. . . ." " If we
merely wished to be happy, the problem would be soon
solved ; but we aim at being happier than others, and
there is the difficulty, because we fancy others happier
than they really are." This may be a theory of profound
wisdom, possibly too profound to be applied where the
imagination and the heart, so apt to disconcert theory,
are concerned. But, though benevolent and humane,
Montesquieu had no sensitive temperament, and never
allowed an attachment to bring grief to his soul or pierce
his heart with anguish : we can always perceive the foun-
dation of stoicism partly hidden, or, as it were, sprinkled
with the lightness of the Gascon nature. Plants which
grow in such a soil overflow indeed with sap, and bear
fruit of richest juiciness, but they neither put forth ver-
dure nor give shade.
Though profound and brilliant, Montesquieu might have
been dry, had not his genius comprehended the artist as well
as the observer, the inquirer, and the thinker. He has the
cult of the poetry of antiquity as he has the cult of its
polity. " Antiquity delights me, and I always feel ready
to exclaim, with Pliny : ' You are going to Athens ;
well, respect the gods.'" He enjoys that "smiling
air spread throughout mythology." Telemaque he con-
siders " the divine work of this century." With the ex-
ception of Manon Lescaut, which must have pleased him,
but which he could only have read in his maturer years,
the much-spun-out romances published in his lifetime,

The Character of Montesquieu. 27

devoid, as they were, of either observation or style, de-
terred him from seeking to know the contemporary
imaginative literature : the dreary, cold, and mechanical
versification of the period indisposed him for the study
of its poetry : in Montaigne and the ancients only, he
thought, is poetry to be found. He piques himself on
writing as a gentleman and not as a pedant : his
thought rushes forth as it arose spontaneously, glowing
in sally and imagery ; but he reviews it deliberately and
often, he revises, alters, corrects, till in the end he writes
as an author who has criticised his task and determined his
style. " The quality which, as a rule, characterises a
great thought, is when a thing is said which reveals to us
a number of other things, and when some one causes us
to discover at once what we could not hope to find out
except after long reading."
Thus does Montesquieu appear to us in his maturity,
towards the year 1720. In soul, mind, and character
reigned an admirable moderation, balancing one by the
other an extraordinary diversity of gifts rarely bestowed
by nature on one man ; and if this combination of quali-
ties falls somewhat short of supreme French genius, it
embraces at least the deepest thought and intelligence of
France. And France may have had sublimer philoso-
phers, bolder thinkers ; writers of more eloquence, more
pathos, and more painful vividness; art-creators, with
greater wealth of imaginative power and more redundancy
of ornament ; but she has had no more judicious ob-
server of human society, no wiser counsellor in great
c 2

28 Montesquieu.
matters of public import ; and no son of hers has united
so subtle a sense of individual passions with such a vast
comprehension of the institutions of a state, finally giving
to the service of his perfect good-sense such pre-eminent
literary talent. " My mind," said Montesquieu, " is as a
mould ; there is no variety in the portraits you get out
of it." These portraits have been preceded by their
respective studies and sketches, and many of the great
historical figures which compose Montesquieu's gallery
are drawn from the life. Let us consider the first sub-
jects that present themselves for his portrayal : they are
the foremost men and events of the Regency, than which
no society more readily discloses its secrets, and more
audaciously provokes satire.

LOUIS XIV has just passed away. His sun has set in
lurid and majestic splendour, but his contemporaries
pause not to admire the twilight of a great reign, for
they are glad with the joy of a great deliverance. No one
regrets the king; he has too pitilessly enforced "that
dependence which has reduced all to subjection."
Saint-Simon tells us that "the provinces, given up to
despair in their utter ruin and annihilation, breathed once
more freely, and trembled with gladness ; the parliaments
and the judicature in general, crushed by edicts and
evocations, rose with renewed hope of life and power ;
the people, heart-stricken, suffering, and hopeless, gave
thanks to God, amid ungovernable rejoicing, for a deliver-
ance no longer pictured in their wildest dreams." But
in Montesquieu's world, among the wits and free-
thinkers, no one thought of thanking God ; there, on the
contrary, the prevailing sense of liberation expressed
itself in an unbridled libertinism which overleaped every
barrier in its career.
Indeed, the career of libertinism had never been inter-
rupted ; the tradition of it, as Sainte-Beuve remarks, came

3O Montesquieu.
" directly and uninterruptedly" from the Renaissance to
the Fronde, from the Fronde to the Regency, through
Retz, Saint-vremond, Vendome, Bayle the Epicureans
and Pyrrhonists. " The reign of Louis XIV is, so to
speak, undermined by it." This prince and his eccle-
siastical counsellors thought their extermination of
heterodoxy a grand and wonderful work : Huguenots,
Jansenists, all who claimed, in matters of faith, the right
of following the dictates of conscience and the leading of
heavenly grace, were persecuted, proscribed, and ruined ;
but the foe who made every soul his fastness was un-
heeded : the spirit of incredulity, of all enemies that had
threatened the Church since the day of Leo X, the most
formidable ; for it was calm, deliberate, and imperturbable
as the Zeit-geist. The atheists in their negation pro-
fessed an assurance absolute and magnificent as that of a
Bossuet in his faith. " The great heresy of the world,"
wrote Nicole, " is no longer Calvinism or Lutheranism
it is Atheism."
By the suppression of the spirit of Christianity as mani-
fested in Reform and Jansenism, freer play was given
to the spirit of the Renaissance, which was, after all, that
of pagan antiquity. The king had introduced the
manners of Olympus, and the effect of his example was
of course more powerful than any number of edicts.
Bossuet's Scriptural polity could not prevail against the
code of morals borrowed from mythology by Louis. And
though in the conversion of his old age the king sought
by penance to atone for the evil he had caused, he could

The "Lettres Persanes" 31

compel his subjects to no mote than an odious mockery
of amendment. Profligacy went forth masked, or lay hid-
den at home. But under the Regency all need for dis-
simulation ceased. The triumph of Vice succeeded the
parade of devotion, and the disciples of Tartuffe had
promptly to make way for the followers of Don Juan.
And now, everything is called in question, discussed,
shaken to the very foundation. The faithful, absorbed
in the overwhelming interest called forth by the Bull
Unigenitus, leave their mother the Church exposed, by
the breaches in her defences caused by her children's
quarrels, to attacks from the unfriendly. Politics are
being utterly corrupted by Dubois, while the Social
economy is recklessly endangered by Law. The vices of
the nobility only have been hitherto promoted, but now
the hideous encouragement of evil is extended to all
classes. And yet no one suspects, no one foresees, that
this mad tumult of thought and passion threatens the
very existence of France. Hope dawns brightly on the
new reign, and in the sense of infinite possibility which
it brings, no peril is seen, or, if seen, is not feared.
Montesquieu, carried away by the general movement,
shares the prevailing spirit. A noble, and an adminis-
trator of the law ; zfrondeur to boot, and crafty but generous
withal ; ardent for reform, and given to the indulging of
illusion ; eager for glory, anxious to please, his most
cherished dreams the enlightenment of his country and
the creation of a brilliant reputation in society, this
Montesquieu is attacked with "the disease of making

32 Montesquieu.
books " a fate, indeed, to which he was born ; but,
careful of his person, and fearful of sinning against the
bienseances of his order, wishful, moreover, to avoid
scandal, and still more wishful to avoid any risk, he seeks
for the expression of his thoughts a medium sufficiently
transparent to stimulate curiosity, yet subtle enough to
lull the suspicions of censors. So he supposes that two
Persians Usbek, the blithe and sarcastic, and Rica, the
sedate and contemplative come to visit Europe, naturally
communicate their impressions thereof, enlighten their
Persian friends on European affairs, being by them
apprised of Persian news. The conceit was not original,
but it signifies little to us whether or no Montesquieu
borrowed from Dufresny : he was doubtless equal to the
conception, and, at all events, he made it his own.
Chardin suggested Persia to him. He found a special
charm in this traveller's pleasant chronicles, from whence
he derived his theory of despotism and his ideas on
climate. The species of story or romance interwoven
with the letters, and the choice of its surroundings, may
also be traced to the same source, and this portion of the
work is the most controvertible : it was then all the
fashion, but now is quite out of date.
In the Thousand and One Nights, in which Montesquieu
delighted, he would have found the essential components
of a charming picture of Eastern legend ; but this thought
did not occur to him. His novel reminds us, though it
has less voluptuous grace, of the writings of Crdbillon^/f /
to a certain extent, but with less ease and agreeable

The "Lettres Persanes" 33

improbability, of Hamilton's style. There is a wholly
unnecessary attempt at precision in this doubtful and
rather unpleasing narrative. Had Montesquieu simply
reproduced the details of Chardin's information on
manners and customs, such minutice would perhaps have
been admissible as supplying local colouring ; but he did
nothing of the kind. Retouching the traveller's sketches,
he extravagantly colours them in libertine fashion.
" Modesty," Chardin somewhere observes, " forbids us
even to remember what we have heard on such a subject."
But Montesquieu has not this personal knowledge ; he
merely indulges in flights of fancy, and his descriptions
are not always seemly. The gaudily-coloured harem-
pictures have about them more of the Gascon than of the
Persian elements, and the illustrations of polygamy are
more European than Oriental; the result of his work
is a caricature so weak, extravagant, and, if one may say
so, stale, that it irritates and disgusts. Montesquieu
evolves tragedy as well as licentiousness from Chardin's
ill-used chronicle : his Persians are the victims of a dark
and corroding jealousy. " Unhappy man that I am !" cries
Usbek, " I long again to see my country ; and there,
perhaps, I shall be more unhappy still ! Ah, what should
I do there !....! shall enter the Seraglio, then must
I hear of that fatal period of my absence. . . . Woe is me,
should Destiny will that the condemnation pronounced
by myself be the eternal sign of my confusion and despair !"
He speaks in an awful voice of " those fatal doors that
open but to him." They who guard them are not " the

34 Montesquieu.
aged slaves, fantastic and deformed," to whom Chardin
alludes, but the ranting victims of a remorseless Fate :
verily they suggest to us the idea of posthumous Abelards
and of anticipated Triboulets ! These eunuchs, we find,
were profoundly learned, and acted as tutors to the high-
born youth of Persia : one of them, indeed, must have
travelled as far as the Valais, and there undertaken the
education of Saint-Preux.
Such are the weaknesses of the book, and they con-
tributed at the time to its success ; but the fashion has
changed, as ours will presently do. Let us now consider
the excellences of the work which have made it live.
And, first, we must note the style. How wonderfully
vigorous, crisp, and suggestive it is ! well-weighed, and
singularly exact, with an admirable propriety of tone
and expression : it is more lively, easy, and vehe-
ment than Saint-vremond's prose, and less stiff and
laboured than that of La Bruyere. Montesquieu does
not indulge in flowers of speech and metaphor, as he will
do later on, when treating of graver subjects ; he thinks,
and justly, that here the infinite variety of thought and
idea is sufficient for the amusement of the reader. Here
we see the French spirit at its purest : the stream flows
on a rocky bed, but how crystalline-clear are its waters, as
they play in sparkling eddies, and in sheer gladness fall
in cascades of radiant brightness ! It is flowing towards
Voltaire and Beaumarchais : Stendhal and Me'rime'e will
meet it in our century, and turn its course towards us ;
but there will be many windings in it, and the stream will
flow less free and full.

The "Lettres Persanes" 35

In the Lettres Persanes there are numberless sketches
of character and manners. Montesquieu, who eventually
proved himself so deeply versed in the study of social
man, here appears in the light of a keen and ironical
observer of the man of the world. Tradition would have
us believe that in Usbek he drew himself. Now, Usbek
is unsurpassed in exhaustive analysis of causes, unap-
proachable in disputation, he commends divorce, extols
suicide, and chants the praises of the Stoics; but his
loves are agitated, his jealousies desperate, and he is
splenetic to ferocity when pleasure palls. This is hardly the
portrait of a light-hearted Gascon, who would carelessly
give his affections and as carelessly and secretly withdraw
them, one whose most poignant grief could be soothed by
a few pages of Plutarch or Montaigne. Rica bears quite
as much resemblance to Montesquieu, but he is, in point
of fact, merely another representation of the same per-
sonage : these two Persians are twin brothers, Usbek
holds the pen when Montesquieu moralises, Rica takes
it when he treats his contemporaries to a little mockery ;
and how delicate is his satire !
His studies of ridiculous people deserve a place in the
most celebrated galleries. One is never weary of the
grand seigneur " one of the men in this kingdom who
make the best show, who takes his pinch of snuff
with so much hauteur, blows his nose so mercilessly,
spits so unconcernedly, and caresses his dog in a way so
obnoxious to others, that one cannot help admiring him ;
the spiritual director, the literary coxcomb, who more

36 Montesquieu.
willingly suffers chastisement of his body than criticism
of his mental productions ; and the decisionnaire, the dog-
matist, who supplies the subject for one of the most vivid
sketches in the work : " I found myself the other day in
company with a man whose self-satisfaction was supreme.
In a quarter of an hour he had decided three ethical
points, had solved four problems in history and five
in physics. Till then I had never met with so absolute
a dogmatist; he was not troubled with the smallest
doubt. The subject of science being presently aban-
doned, the conversation turned upon the news of the day ;
his opinion on these topics was equally infallible. I
wanted to catch him, so I took refuge in my own country,
thinking that there I must surely be at home, and there-
fore I spoke to him of Persia : but scarcely had I
uttered three words, when he twice gave me the lie
direct, on the authority of MM. Tavernier and Chardin.
' Great Heaven ! ' said I to myself, ' what manner of
man is this ? He will soon know the streets of Ispahan
better than I do myself.' So I thought I would even
hold my tongue, and let him lay down the law at his
pleasure, and he is doing it still."
Montesquieu's Persians are severe upon women the
women in particular, be it understood, with whom Mon-
tesquieu was most familiar ; consequently, the descriptions
of their foibles are probably the result of his own obser-
vation. He accuses them of being addicted to the
passion of gaming, in order, he says, as long as they are
young, to "encourage a passion still more dear," and,
The "Lettres Persanes" 37
when youth is past, to fill the void created by that passion.
There is more severity in his remarks upon the craving
for success by any means. " Every one," he says, " makes
use of their gifts and passions to advance his fortunes."
Furthermore, he holds up to execration the spadassin
d' alcove, prototypes of Lovelace and Valmont profligates
who lie in wait to commit deeds of shameful violence, and
make a profession of vice, insolently boasting of their
infamy. "What will you say of a 'country where such
atrocity is tolerated, where a man practising such a trade
is suffered to exist, where faithlessness, treachery, foul
outrage, hypocrisy, and injustice lead to distinction?"
This is no longer the frivolity of the world of fashion, we
are confronted with the majesty of the Law, and one is
irresistibly reminded of Don Louis's harangue to Don
Juan, and the solemn remonstrance of the father of the
The same spirit, savouring more of Saint-Simon than
of Voltaire, is manifested in the persistent satire of the
king, the court, and the great in general. Montesquieu
abhorred Louis XIV, whom he saw in his decrepitude,
intoxicated with power and adulation, and envying the
Sultan the extremely simplified form of government in
Turkey. He denies that Louis was either just, devout,
or even a politician, save in appearance ; that he was a
great monarch, save in aspect. But if he is unjust to the
master, he is not so to the servants. There is no severer
touch to be found in La Bruyere than this : " The body
of lackeys is more worthy of respect in France than

38 Montesquieu.
it is elsewhere ; it is, in fact, a seminary of very exalted
personages, and helps to fill the vacancies in other pro-
fessions. Those who form part of it take the place of
the illustrious and unhappy, of ruined magistrates, and
of noble gentlemen who have fallen on the battle-field.
When unable to supply its own vacancies, it raises up
great families by means of their daughters, who are thus
treated as a kind of dressing for their native mountain-
soil, making that fertile which was before dry and barren."
Montesquieu shows us a despotic king, a disorganised
ministry, and uncertain government, the fall of the par-
liament, the loosening of family ties, the ruin of the
religious orders, and the bitter jealousies among the
privileged classes in a word, all the signs in the existing
monarchy of its approaching dissolution. What a striking
contrast between Versailles, where "all is small and
trivial," and Paris, " where all is great and momentous";
where "liberty and equality," "the passion for work," and
economy reign ; and where the " lust of gain permeates
the whole community, from the artisan to him of high
degree !" Such rivalry cannot be without envy, but it is,
none the less, one of the exciting causes of the national
activity. " Even the lowest workman maintains, in face
of all opposition, the pre-eminence of his particular craft;
and each, in proportion as his idea of the superiority of his
profession is lofty, esteems himself in that degree better
than his fellow." Now Paris is the correct representation,
in miniature, of the whole country ; nothing but " work
and industry" is to be seen in France. No wonder that

The "Lettres Persanes" 39

Usbek, in writing to his friend, asks " where to find this
effeminate people of whom he has heard so much !"
They are indeed Frenchmen ; they combine an eager
desire for predominance with a passion for equality.
Montesquieu did not perceive in them the elements of a
democracy which was, even then, growing and developing
under the shadow of the throne a democracy wholly
dissimilar to those of antiquity. His ideas on liberty and
political virtue came directly from Rome and Greece,
and they remained unaltered. It is true that, by way of
antithesis, and with rather satirical word-play, he treats of
republicanism as opposed to monarchy from the repub-
lican stand-point ; but then, his is the republicanism of
antiquity : he knows no other. As soon as he approaches
the great problem, he is lost in dreams ; and among the
fantastic visions of the Lettres Persanes we can trace the
gradual formation of the bonds which so strangely con-
nected this would-be reformer of the old monarchy with
the apostles of the Revolution. "Monarchy," says
Usbek, " is a violent form of government, which always
degenerates into despotism The sanctuary of
honour, reputation, and virtue is to be found in repub-
lican states, and in countries where the word patrie is to
be heard."
" I have often heard you say," writes one of Usbek's
friends, " that man's life is only given him that he may
be virtuous, and that justice is as inherent in his being as
is its existence. I beg that you will explain to me what
you mean by this." Montesquieu never explained him-

4O Montesquieu,
self clearly on this question ; his expositions on the origin
and foundation of Law were always embarrassed, evasive,
and obscure. Here, failing a better expedient, he avoids
the difficulty by the introduction of a fable the history of
the Troglodytes which undertakes to prove " that happi-
ness is attainable only in the practice of virtue." But
his Salentum is very different from the Salentum of
Fe"nelon's creation. Fenelon's vision was of the future
government of the Due de Bourgogne with Beauvilliers'
ministry : Montesquieu's dreams are akin to those of
Rousseau and Mably.
A Jrondeur, and paradoxical as a political thinker,
Montesquieu, in the Lettres Persanes, shows himself a
latitudinarian in religion. He is young, has implicit con-
fidence in his mental and bodily powers, and is wholly
satisfied with that which life has to offer : of decided nature
and keen perception, compromise with the world and
death-bed conversion arouse in him a pitiless scorn ; and
though the hand that wields the weapon is so light and
swift that it almost seems to glance aside, the wound it
inflicts is deep indeed. In the letters on change in the
Universe, and on Islamism, we have the germ of the entire
" Voltairian" controversy; but though the style savours of
Voltaire, it is more succinct and powerful. Montesquieu
speaks with irony of the Church, with disdain of theolo-
gians, and with contempt of monks ; even missionaries
find no grace in his sight. " It is a fine project, this, of
sending two Capuchin monks to enjoy the air of
Casbin !"

The lt Let ires Persanes" 41

Although he considers that the propagation of new
religious belief is good neither for the state nor for
society, Montesquieu is of opinion that, where different
forms of faith already exist together, they ought to be un-
molested. This indirect and imperfect tolerance is still
far from real freedom of conscience ; still, Montesquieu's
contemporaries would have welcomed it readily. There
was courage in suggesting, and still greater courage in
defending it publicly, and his defence is eloquent. His
letters on the autodafes, his views on the persecution
of the Jews, and his allusions to the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, redound most truly to his honour, they
announce the author of the Esprit des Lois.
He reveals himself still more clearly as the correspon-
dence between the two Persians continues. The conven-
tionalism, the oriental frippery, the gaudy colouring, and
the story gradually disappear, and the views of the historian
and reflections of the moralist replace the disconnected
observations and sneering touches of the satirist. In
those concluding letters we arrest the thought of the
writer, as it rises refreshed from study, and is even yet on
the wing. Here, too, we gain the best and completest
idea of the notes taken by him in the course of the work :
some of them are still, it is said, in existence, and are
preserved at La Brede. Most of the questions of which
the classification and investigation were hereafter the
objects of his deepest study, are touched upon in passing:
he pours forth his ideas as he conceives, and while he
conceives them. His views on the rights of nations and

42 Montesquieu.
on conquest, his opinions on the advancement of science,
the classification of governments, and the sources,
feudal and Teutonic, of liberty discover themselves con-
tinually, and give strength and solidity to the fragile
fabric of the Lettres. Montesquieu's reflections on the
dissolution of the Turkish Empire, and the decadence of
Spain, which his penetrating glance so plainly discerned,
have often been quoted. And here the temptation of
giving a few lines of the letters on the Spaniards is too
strong to be resisted ; they fully account for Stendhal's
admiration of the Lettres Persanes. Certainly Montes-
quieu's rivals in this country have not yet surpassed
him in breadth and force of style.
" Never was there in the seraglio of the grand Sultan
a Sultana as proud of her beauty as the ugliest and
most pitiable old man in a Mexican town can be of the
olive whiteness of his complexion, as he sits with folded
arms at his door. A being of such consequence, a
creature so perfect, would not work for all the treasures
of the world ; nor could he ever resolve to sully the glory
and honour of his skin by vile and mechanical labour ....
But though these implacable enemies of work boast of
their philosophical tranquillity, it finds no abode in their
hearts, for they are always in love. Distinguished are
they above all other men in languishing under the win-
dows of their mistresses : no Spaniard who has not a cold
could be mistaken for a ladies'-man. They are devout
above all, and after that jealous .... They say that the
sun rises and sets in their country ; but it is necessary

The "Lettres Persanes" 43

to add, that he sees naught on his way but ruined habita-
tions and desert lands."
One point remains to be noticed, and it is the special
characteristic of the book and of the man also. It is the
supreme moderation of judgment and wisdom of aspiration.
In Montesquieu we see the caution of the legislator per-
petually tempering the severity of the judge, and sobering
the golden dreams of the utopist ; of this spirit is the
celebrated precept which we receive from the mouth of
Usbek : " It is sometimes necessary to alter certain laws,
but the necessity rarely occurs. If, however, it should
arise, the change must be made with a fearful and trem-
bling hand." The same calm, far-seeing judgment also
dictates the following maxims, which seem to foreshadow,
and in some sort foreshow, the future work : " I have
often tried to discover what form of government is most
in accordance with reason, and it has seemed to me
that the perfect government is that which attains its object
with the least outlay : therefore, the perfect government
is that which guides men in the way most suited to their
habits and inclinations." Thus we have, in the Lettres
Persanes, the sum of the polity of the Esprit des Lois.
Here also we have its philosophy : " Nature always acts
slowly, and, so to speak, sparingly. Her operations are
never violent, and she is moderate even in production.
She never moves save by rule and measure, and, if hurried,
she soon becomes exhausted."

D 2

IT was impossible that the Lettres Persanes should be
published in France, or appear otherwise than
anonymously. Printed at Rouen, like their illustrious
predecessors the Provinciates, they were published at
Amsterdam, and, though the stratagem deceived no one,
they thus escaped proscription.
Montesquieu not only himself practised, but disposed
those around him to practise, the tolerance which he
preached. A certain Abbe Duval, who had both intelli-
gence and capacity, acted as his secretary, and his chief
friend was a priest of the Oratory Father Desmolets
a man incapable of playing the inquisitor. The abbe
corrected the proofs of the Lettres Persanes: Father
Desmolets tried to dissuade him from publishing them,
but, being possessed of a quick wit and much sagacity,
in voluntarily added : "they will sell like bread." This is
precisely what did take place. The Lettres Persanes
expressed, in a manner peculiarly seductive to the current
taste, thoughts peculiarly in harmony with the current

The World. 45
humour. They appeared in 1721, and within a year
four editions and four pirated reprints were sold.
This brilliant success did not fail to attract much cen-
sure, and not a little jealousy. The author's name was
speedily in everybody's mouth, and society, while keenly
relishing the book, was certainly wroth that it had been
composed by one of its votaries. Strictures on the state
politics, religion, and morals were the business of a satirist;
they were manifestly out of the province of a president a
mortier: men of letters pen them ; men of the world enjoy
them ; men in power condemn them ; the author finds
himself in prison, and his readers rejoice. "Such sketches,'"'
observed d'Argenson, " are easily dashed off by a skilful
hand, but no man of sense would dream of giving them
to the world." " One should be careful in the use of one's
wit," wrote Marivaux in his Spectateur Fran$ais. And envy
was more pitiless than criticism, as Montesquieu tells us
" No sooner did I obtain some encouragement from the
general public, than officialism turned against me ; I had
to bear a thousand mortifications." His talents were
suddenly found to be of a dangerous order ; he was not
merely treated as z.frondeur y but as a very firebrand. So
much did he undergo, that all idea of publicly acknow-
ledging the authorship of the brilliant work was renounced
by him : "I am afflicted with the passion of writing books,
and with the weakness of being ashamed of them when
they are finished."
This was the bitterness of success, but Montesquieu
freely tasted of its sweetness. He went to Paris still

46 Montesquieu.
young and susceptible to love, as he is careful to tell us
and was received into that exquisitely polished and cul-
tivated society which will ever be accounted as the chief
and special charm of the last century. Here he became
acquainted with Maurepas, the Comte de Caylus, and
the Chevalier d'Aydie, of whom he probably thought
for he honoured him greatly in his graceful idea that
he was " in love with friendship." A welcomed guest of
Madame de Tencin, Madame de Lambert, and Madame
du Deffand, he was also received by the Duke de Bour-
bon at Chantilly, where Madame du Prie reigned supreme,
and he speedily won her favour. It was whispered that
he would rain have attracted the notice of the duke's
sister, Marie Anne de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Cler-
mont. This lady had reached her twenty-eighth year,
was brilliant, beautiful, and full of vivacity : Nattier has
represented her as a water-nymph, with wonderful glow
of colour and charm. Montesquieu was certainly dazzled
by her beauty, and tradition says that, in token of homage,
he composed the Temple de Gnide.
This is a little prose-poem supposed to be translated
from the Greek. Montesquieu says that "its merits can
be thoroughly appreciated only by curled and powdered
heads"; in these words indicating the artificiality and
anachronism of the work, including it among the trifles
which the frivolity of his century has bequeathed to ours.
Of this bouquet which shed its languid sweetness to
ravish Chantilly, naught remains but the faint and subtle
perfume of a sachet long hidden in a rococo cabinet.

The World. 47
Leonard and Colardeau have versified the dainty ma-
drigals, and the phraseology of gallantry is possibly more
pleasing as treated by them, although this is doubtful
praise of Montesquieu's work.
But the apparent defect is really a proof of superiority.
Montesquieu is too crisp and terse in style, too rich in
thought, to lend himself readily to these allegorical con-
ceits. Only now and then, as the powdered curls are
forgotten for a time, does he betray himself, and, taking
\i\s pastiche seriously in hand, gives in his beautiful prose
the translation of some fragment of an ancient poem
which once inspired him and still sings in his memory.
His great familiarity with the ancients, and his wonder-
fully sympathetic perception of their genius, reveal to him,
in transient gleams, their poetry and its freshness. His
hand only touched this chord neither Leonard nor
Colardeau were thrilled by its power, and their instru-
ment was too frail to render it depth and fulness.
Nearly a century elapsed ere its sound was heard
again in the literature which its influence invigorated
and reinspired.
" Often would she say while embracing me, ' Thou art
sad.' ' It is true,' I said ; ' but the sadness of lovers is
delightful : I feel that my tears are falling, and I know not
why, for thou lovest me, and I have no cause for self-pity,
yet I pity myself. Seek not to deliver me from the de-
licious languor; let me sigh out my pain and my pleasure.
In the transports of love my soul is restless the very in-
tensity of happiness stays her gladness, and now even my

48 Montesquieu.
sadness is pleasant to me. Dry not these tears : what
matter if I weep, since I am happy?'"
Is not this like a prose rendering of one of Andre*
Che"nier's elegies ? The bacchanalian strains of Chant II
remind one of the eclogue-fragments of the author of
the Mendiant. Che"nier had drunk of the same stream :
he had, besides, as his prose shows us, a thorough and
appreciative knowledge of Montesquieu. And here we
find the point of union between the greatest prose writer
and the supreme poet of the eighteenth century. Montes-
quieu could not, indeed, " soupirerun vers plein d' amour
et de larmes" but he had been touched by a reflection of
the pure light of Greece. His is an initiative mind an
esprit precurseur; and we discern his special charac-
teristic even in the slight work under notice, where one can
see that the author is merely at play. Genius flashes
from its pages, but there is also much of the tawdry and
theatrical; and this will doubtless be considered by
clumsy imitators as a faithful study from antiquity, a joy
and innocence, "coming no one knows whence," ap-
propriate to the nymphs of Venus ; an " honest citizen-
nature" un cceur citoyen still more strangely incon-
gruous; and a questionable description which might
have been sketched by a comic draughtsman at some
fete of the Directory of the "girls of proud Lacede-
The Temple de Gnide appeared in Paris in 1725,
receiving the privilege du rot. Montesquieu was too wise
to let his name appear, and he had every reason to
The " Temple de Guide" 49
congratulate himself on his prudence. The Abbe de
Voisenon says that the pastiche " brought him many love-
affairs, with the caution, however, that he must keep silence
thereupon." Emboldened by his success, Montesquieu
presented himself to the Academy, and though he had
formerly dared to ridicule that illustrious body, he was of
the circle whence its members were recruited, and was
therefore elected. But the reputed author of the Lettres
Persanes could not be suffered thus to triumph : the king
refused to confirm the choice of the Academy, on the
ground that Montesquieu did not live in Paris. He
accordingly returned to Bordeaux, where he devoted him-
self to the ordering of his affairs. In the same year (1725)
he read before the Academy of that town some fragments
of a treatise des Devoirs, and some Reflexions sur la conside-
ration et la reputation ; he also delivered a Discours sur
les motifs qui doivent nous encourager aux sciences, which is
rich in noble thought. Then disposing of his president-
. ship, he went to settle in Paris. To this period we may
assign his first rough sketches of the masterpiece the
Esprit des Lois : the crown of honour came to him before
his chef d'ceuvre was given to the world.
In 1727 he again presented himself to the Academy,
and though Cardinal Fleury yet wavered, Montesquieu
and his friends succeeded in lulling the ministerial
scruples, and the distinguished candidate was at length
elected on the 5th January 1728, and admitted on the
24th of the same month. The address at his reception
was not especially remarkable ; yet its brevity is com-

50 Montesquieu.
mendable, together with some fine reflections on Peace,
and a phrase on the blood of mankind " that blood
which always stains the earth." For the sake of decorum,
and in order to conform to established usage, he pane-
gyrised Richelieu, whom he detested, and Louis XIV,
whom he had held up to reprobation. Montesquieu
was admitted by Mallet, who invited him to justify his
election by immediately acknowledging his works, mali-
ciously adding : " Unless you do so, the world will an-
ticipate your avowal, and, perceiving your genius, will
attribute to you all the anonymous works which possess
the least life, animation, or vigour, thus thinking to honour
your ability ; and you will find all precautions suggested
by your prudence to be utterly useless." Mallet himself
had only produced an ode when, in 1715, he took the
place of the Chevalier de Tourreil. This discreet ver-
sifier would probably have been unknown to fame, had
not chance afforded him an opportunity of distinguishing
himself by taunting Montesquieu on the insufficiency of
his title to distinction.
Montesquieu was weak enough to take offence at this
petty and unworthy spite. He rarely appeared at the
Academy : it was said that he did not feel at ease there,
and that he was, further, inclined to resent the coldness
of his welcome. Desiring to travel, that he might him-
self examine the customs and institutions of different
nationalities, he started on a journey through Europe,
going first to Germany and Austria. He was accom-
panied by an English diplomatist, the Earl of Walde-

Travels. 5 1
grave, nephew of Marshal Berwick, whom Montesquieu
had known at Bordeaux, and profoundly admired.
At Vienna, where he saw Prince Eugene, his recep-
tion was eminently flattering. The charm and ease of
Viennese society, the pleasure of exercising his powers of
observation, the brilliancy of court-life, and the prestige
attached to the profession of diplomacy, completely fasci-
nated him. He went so far as to seek a diplomatic
appointment, but his capability for such a post was ques-
tioned by the home-government, and he was refused.
We have every cause to rejoice in this ultra-fastidiousness :
had Montesquieu been accepted, he would have wasted
his splendid genius in the hard and absorbing game of
politics that game which the play is all on one side,
and mankind is the dummy. The world would have
lost the Esprit des Lois, and it is by no means certain that
France would have gained a diplomatist.
Montesquieu had the stuff of the political observer,
but this is merely the raw material from which statesmen
are made. He lacked the incessant activity, the ready
judgment, the pride of power and national egoism, without
which no man can be a successful negotiator, still less a
skilful strategist ; he had too much sympathy with hu-
manity to drive it as one of its taskmasters. "When
travelling in foreign countries," he says, " I have felt that
I cared for them as for my own ; I have rejoiced in their
prosperity, and have wished that they should continue in
a flourishing condition." The legislator speaks here, but
not the politician ; certainly not the politician of that day,

5 2 Montesquieu.
who considered all foreigners as his lawful prey, to be
taken at a disadvantage, if possible lured into the snare
laid for them, and there complacently despoiled. " If I
knew of anything that I considered would benefit my
family, but would be prejudicial to the good of my
country," he says again, " I would strive to forget it : if I
knew of anything that would benefit my country, though
it would cause evil to Europe and to mankind in general,
I should consider that, in acting on that knowledge, I
committed a crime." These opinions are utterly irre-
concilable with Machiavelisrn, and equally impossible
to diplomacy, as understood and practised both in
Montesquieu's time and since. All who held such views
could never have been successful in the traffic of men,
then carried on universally : he would have been a feeble
antagonist to so consummate a player as Frederick.
Indeed, while travelling in Germany, Montesquieu had
sought to discover the causes of its weaknesses, and to
seek for them a remedy : he desired that this country
should reform its constitution, concentrate its strength,
and earnestly attempt confederation : this course of pro-
cedure would have destroyed the Treaty of Westphalia,
and have utterly subverted the policy of France : the
Minister for Foreign Affairs would have had small
sympathy with such universal benevolence, and Mon-
tesquieu would have been sent back to the Temple
de Gnide. Let us allow .that he was in no wise
fitted for the career of politics : too often duped at
the expense of his country, he would have found too

Travels. 53
few occasions in which he could employ his talents for
her service.
Montesquieu visited Hungary, where he was able to
study feudal life and serfdom : he contemplated, from a
distance, the republic of Poland, and investigated the
causes of the anarchy that was bringing her to destruc-
tion ; and then went to Italy. Venice was at that time a
pleasant rendezvous the auberge joyeuse of Europe a
refuge for all fallen Powers. Montesquieu, who mean-
while lost no opportunity of amusing himself, there en-
countered Law, who was engaged in teaching or rather
in perverting political economy ; Bonneval, who was
preparing to put into practice the Letires Persanes ;
and Lord Chesterfield, who contracted a warm friendship
with the French traveller. Montesquieu scrutinised the
aristocracy, the Council of Ten, the sbirri, and the state
inquisitors ; his scrutiny was somewhat marked, and he
felt that he was himself the object of some attention: this
offended him, and he suddenly left Venice, throwing his
notes into the sea. Italy enchanted him, and taught him
to love Art. He prided himself on eclecticism in matters
of friendship, associating at the same time, and on equally
cordial terms, with Cardinal de Polignac, the French Am-
bassador and the author of the Anti-Lucrhe, the Calvinist
pasteur Jacob Vernet, and several Monsignors. He had
long known the Abbe Comte de Guasco, a Piedmontese,
who, though he did not aspire to the reputation of a
" grave doctor," was widely and deservedly popular as
the most admirable of churchmen.

54 Montesquieu.
Early in 1729, Montesquieu left Italy, and spent some
months in Switzerland, the Rhine-country, and Holland.
There he rejoined Lord Chesterfield, and accompanied
him to England, where he stayed from October 1729 until
August 1731. During this visit he lost no opportunity
of hearing debates in Parliament, and acquainted
himself also with the political writings of Locke. By
these means he discovered the principles of liberal govern-
ment, and conceived the idea of making them known to
the European world. The existence of this new political
region had hitherto been scarcely suspected, save by
a few French refugees, though Rapin de Thoyras had, in
1717 and 1724, attempted its description in a highly
ingenious study, of which Montesquieu knew : he made,
indeed, so good a use of it, that it is now wholly forgotten.
Observing all, and observing keenly, with the penetrating
glance of a scholar, he was untiring in the close examin-
ation of detail and the investigation of cause and effect.
His notes, taken as he observed exact, concise, and
vigorous are models of their kind : the style is of a
political La Rochefoucauld.
"One should travel in Germany, sojourn in Italy,
think in England, and live in France." This aphorism is
attributed to Montesquieu, and would seem to epitomise
the experiences of his pilgrimage. He returned to
France after three years' absence, and joined his family
at La Brede, where he resumed his usual employments,
cultivated his vines, directed the drawing up of his
pedigree, and transformed his grounds into an English

Travels. 5 5
garden. Henceforward his chief occupation was the
elaboration of his great work, of which the thought had
been ever present with him through all his wanderings in
Europe : this could only be achieved in the leisure
of a country life, and in solitude. His purpose was to
write the history of man as a social being his history as
illustrated by politics and law, and much of the subject-
matter had been already handled in an Essai sur les
finances de I'Esfagne, in some Reflexions sur la monarchic
universelle en Europe, and in a History of Louis XI.
From that which survives of this last work, one may say
of it as Montesquieu said of Michael Angelo : " Even in
his rough sketches as in fragments of Virgil there is
Montesquieu was completely penetrated with the spirit
of Rome. " The ruins of so terrible a machine" did not
impress his imagination as they did that of Montaigne
by their picturesque appearance and sepulchral cha-
racter : beneath the wreck and desolation he sought rather
to obtain a glimpse of the former city, and to reconstruct
from the scattered skeleton-fragments that great existence
of the past. An historian and philosopher, rather than a
painter or chronicler, he strove to discover the secrets of
the life and depth of this magnificent organism. This
was probably, for him, only a part a principal argument
in the original plan of the Esprit des Lois ; but as it
threatened to overpower the main subject, Montesquieu
detached it from the work ; then, as writing was pleasant
to him, and from the love of his theme the finest the

56 Montesquieu.
world affords he set himself to beautify and bring it to
perfection, resolving, as Florus expresses it, to attempt
to give, in miniature, a faithful portrait of the Roman
"people." Thus appeared (in 1734) the Considerations
sur les causes de la grandeur et de la decadence des
Remains, and a few years later (in 1745) the Dialogue de
Sylla et d'Eucrate. This dialogue forms an excellent
appendix to the Considerations, and should not be sepa-
rated from it.

THE secret of Montesquieu's attraction to Rome is
the opportunity there to be found of studying the
most wonderful political phenomenon which history pre-
sents to our view. The observations of several like
phenomena would give a clue to the explanation of all
others. There are laws in politics : experience discovers
and history defines them. History is a science only in
so far as it collects phenomena, classes them, connects
and ascertains the conditions of their connexion. " As
men," observes Montesquieu, "have in all ages been
subject to the same passions, the occasions which produce
great changes may be different, but the causes are always
the same." The pursuit of these causes in Roman his-
tory is the primary object of his books.
In this study of Rome Montesquieu had had distin-
guished predecessors : Polybius, with whom he was in-
timately acquainted ; Tacitus, whose spirit rested on, and
raised him even to his level; Florus, his master in rhetoric,
his beloved teacher, all had shown, indeed, the order

58 Montesquieu.
and connexion of events in Roman history : they had not
even suspected the existence of a general and superior
law regulating those events. Machiavelli, in his Dis-
courses upon Livy, holds the same superh'cial view. He
is an empiric, and occupies himself less with the grouping
of events than in drawing lessons from them. " Chance,"
says he, "does not so entirely govern the world as to
leave no part for prudence to play therein" ; and his design
is to learn in the school of the ancients how, by means
of skill and calculation, that part may be accentuated.
Concerning himself little with causes, less with existing
institutions, and disregardingthe changes wrought by time,
he confines himself simply to the analysis of facts as
they are, seeking to obtain from them receipts for the
guidance of men. History is to him but a " political
pharmacy," as Mirabeau said, after a too prolonged
meditation on the Prince.
Montesquieu was a politician, and had had, besides, a
profound experience of revolutions; Saint-fivremond's
knowledge of them was rather that of an inquirer and an
adventurer. In his Reflexions sur les divers genies dupeuple
Romain, he deals chiefly with men and their characteristics :
the main point escapes him. Bossuet seized it at once.
The connexion, the harmony, the steady and regular
course of events in Roman history, was congenial to the
majestic logic of his genius. No one has equalled
Bossuet in his exposition of the greatness of Rome ; its
breadth and fulness correspond to the grandeur of the
subject. Men and their passions are not ignored, but

" Grandeur et Decadence" 59

he assigns to them merely the detail of events, the variable
and transitory accident of history. His great desire is
that his readers should perceive the " thread that runs
through all," showing its endless convolutions, and how,
though men may twist and wind, they cannot direct it.
God controls and orders its course; it begins and ends in
Him. Howsoever great the influence that Bossuet allows
to " the individual genius of those who have caused great
movements," and though the historian in him constantly
dominates the theologian, the theologian always has the
first and last word. He is ever the most humble servant
and adorer of that Providence whose Councillor of
State, as has been felicitously remarked, he considered
himself. "God has willed," he concludes, "that the
course of human affairs should be directed and defined "-
the end of this direction being the triumph of the Church.
In this light we are to read the " Divine judgment on the
Roman empire: a mystery revealed by the Holy Spirit
to St. John, and explained by this great man Apostle,
Evangelist, and Prophet in the Apocalypse." The Dis-
cours sur F histoire universelle is, in fine, a pious and solemn
application of the system of final causes to history.
Montesquieu did not pretend to be a theologian, and
knew nothing of final causes. He allows, as does
Bossuet, wide scope to the liberty of man, to his power
of choice, and to the action of individuals in the conduct
of affairs ; he sees, as does Bossuet also, that matters go
in politics as in " a game where the most skilful wins in
the long run"; but he believes that the game has its rules,
E 2

60 Montesquieu.
that it must be played at a table, and that it admits of
plan and combination ; he also believes that there are
conditions to the exercise of the players' skill, and that
chance has no part whatever in the game. The inter-
section of cause and effect forms the historical plot the
reciprocal attraction of men and of ideas the universal
gravitation of events to decide its tendency. " It is not
Fortune who governs the world," says Montesquieu;
" this is proved in the history of the Romans, who had an
unbroken succession of triumphs as long as their govern-
ment was conducted upon a certain principle, and an
uninterrupted series of reverses when the principle of
government was changed. There are general causes at
work in every monarchy, raising and maintaining, or
producing its downfall : accidents are entirely subject
to these causes. If the accident of a battle that is,
a particular cause ruins a state, it is because of the
existence of a general cause which makes the ruin of
that state by a single battle inevitable : it is, in a word,
to a general cause that particular accidents are to be
It is by these just and logical views that Montes-
quieu is entitled to rank among the great masters of
modern history. The perfection of his style makes him
one of the classic writers of French literature, and his
individuality is nowhere more strongly marked he is
nowhere more thoroughly Latin yet more unaffectedly
French than in the Considerations.
This work is admired for the animation and vigour of

"Grandeur et Decadence" 61
its style, the force and grandeur of movement, the com-
prehensive exposition, and the clear and stately imagery
in the illustration of the subject ; for a conciseness which
suggests Sallust and Tacitus ; for an art in the " revival of
expressions, restoring to them all their primitive strength,"
boldly dashing them into a sentence endowed with all
their original freshness and power, and enhancing the
effect thus produced by the unexpected use, in the treat-
ment of a lofty subject, of a simple homely word a word
of the people of which the meaning has been obscured
and half-destroyed by use and the rust of time. " Nothing
was of greater service to Rome than the respect with
which she inspired the earth. Kings were silenced and
made stupid by their awe." One discovers similar traits
in every page of the Considerations.
The ensemble of Montesquieu's conclusions remains un-
impeachable as his method and his style. A commentary
on the Considerations answering the requirements of
modern erudition would completely overpower the text ;
it would be the same with the Epoques de la Nature, were
this work to be adapted to the progress of science from
Cuvier's day to that of Darwin. And where would be
the good ? The modern historians are never so intelli-
gible to us as after the study of Montesquieu, and they, in
their turn, throw fresh light upon his meaning. His
book might be compared to an ancient temple of which
the threshold is partly destroyed ; the partition-walls have
crumbled away, and the interior is open to the sky, but
the marble columns that encircle it are standing, the

62 Montesquieu.
capitals have not suffered, the pediment endures, the
frieze is intact, and, viewed from the necessary distance,
the grand outline is perfect as ever. An attempted re-
storation from museum-fragments and models would
endanger the monument, without in any way adding to its
Montesquieu was not nice in his scrutiny of authori-
ties : he was ignorant of the science of archaeology, which
enables us faithfully to reproduce what tradition has per-
verted and criticism has annihilated. It is a singular
thing, that he who so pleasantly speculates upon, and
treats of the effects of climate, should have been as de-
void of curiosity respecting the climate of Rome as he
was about the nature of the founders of the city.
Michelet, and following him Duruy and Mommsen, have
drawn important conclusions from the consideration of
soil and race ; and M. Fustel de Coulanges has shown
the intimate connexion existing between the history of
Rome and that of religion. But in Montesquieu's time
such ideas were yet almost unheard of, nor was he in
such speculations in advance of his contemporaries. He
entirely ignores the social state, and what may be called
the political economy of Rome in the first period of the
republic. The essential element of induction was lacking :
the opportunity of observing revolution of the kind. He
utilises all that the history of England in general and of
Cromwell in particular has taught him ; but even in
English history he overlooks the fanatical and (in the
modern sense of the word) revolutionary element. Only

" Grandeur et Decadence" 63

political crises arrest his attention, and such emergencies
suggest to him many striking thoughts ; for example :
" A state is never more to be feared in a threatened
invasion than when itself is suffering from the horrors of
civil war .... England has never been more respected
than under Cromwell."
Montesquieu does not seem to dominate his subject
till after chapter v, where he gives a graphic account
of the state of the world at the time of the Roman con-
quest. The next chapter is devoted to a study of the
process of conquest a masterly study, which has immor-
talised the work. He analyses the Roman genius and
the cause of Roman greatness : the attachment of each
citizen to the city ; the love of the whole community for
the country ; their constant exercise in the art of war ;
their discipline; the constitution of their government,
arbitrary in time of war, but in time of peace taking
cognisance of and punishing all abuse of power; the
order and proportion of their schemes ; their talent in
dividing their enemies ; their skill in applying to their
own needs the useful inventions of other nations ; their
art unique among the ancients of absorbing the people
whom they subjugated, and of improving the countries
under their sway ; their marvellous resolution in adverse
fortune ; the firmness of their senate ; that happy con-
course of circumstances the " allure principale" which
turned all to their advantage, even their mistakes, be-
cause they were capable of recognising and correcting
them ; the perpetual application of the principles, to

64 Montesquieu.
which everything gave way the public weal within, con-
quest without the empire ; everywhere and always, in a
word, the raison d'etat. " It is here," Montesquieu
finely says, "that humanity should be viewed and
judged "; and he, better than any other, has cleared the
way to that view.
Montesquieu here is supreme. He may perhaps ap-
pear to have too strong an admiration for the terrible
working of a dry and reasoned power ; for those political
virtues " destined to prove so fatal to the world." The
historian may temporarily triumph over the philosopher ;
but, as he sets forth in the Considerations the implaca-
bility and barbarity of conquest, so in the Esprit des
Lois he brings into notice the numberless benefits which
it produces. Treating now of its darker side, he says :
"As they never made peace in good sooth, and that,
as their design was universal conquest, a treaty was
merely, in their view, a suspension of hostilities, they
always imposed conditions which they knew must ine-
vitably bring about the ruin of any state desiring to make
terms with them. . . . Occasionally they would make
peace with some nation on reasonable terms ; but imme-
diately the required conditions were fulfilled, additional
ones of such severity were imposed that a renewed appeal to
arms was unavoidable. . . . Rome was continually adding
to her wealth; each war in which she engaged supplied
her with the means of undertaking others. She ruled
Africa, Asia, and Greece, though hardly possessing any
cities in those countries. The Romans seemed to con-
"Dialogue de Sylla." 65
quer but for the purpose of giving; but their power was,
in reality, so world-wide and absolute, that any prince
with whom they were at war was crushed, as it were, with
the weight of the universe."
Not contented with analysing the genius of Rome,
Montesquieu attempted its illustration. In the course of
his study of the Roman people he had recognised and been
impressed by the depth and intensity of their passions,
and could not resist his desire of giving, in some way, ex-
pression to the result of his consideration : this is done
in the Dialogue de Sylla et d'Eucrate. It has been said
that this dialogue is intended as an apology a para-
doxical and ironical apology for the Roman state policy
and boldness in crime. We shall judge of it more cor-
rectly if we consider it as a flash of genius the concep-
tion of a great historian upon whom the fire of poetry has
descended for the time, inspiring him with dramatic art.
Montesquieu improvises as his taste and the fashion of the
time direct. Had Mommsen been thus borne aloft on
the wings of imagination, he would no doubt have sought
the spirit of Shakespeare : his Sylla " of ardent tempera-
ment, of a fair complexion which the lightest emotion
flushed, blue-eyed and beautiful-featured generous, ironi-
cal, spirituel now given up to the passionate intoxication
of action, now yielding himself to repose," is a very hero
of romance. Montesquieu's Sylla is essentially French
of the classic period : he is a disciple of Machiavelli, and
talks like the bold adventurers who suggested Moliere's
Don Juan.

66 Montesquieu.
" Eucrate, if I am no longer a spectacle for the universe,
the fault is not mine : rather is it that human nature
is finite. ... I was not formed for the tranquil govern-
ment of an enslaved people. I was destined to conquer
to found and destroy nations. ... I have never
boasted of being a slave to, and idolising the society of
my equals : such feeling, though so highly extolled, is
too ignoble for a soul lofty as mine. I have been
guided solely by my own reflections, and, above all, by the
contempt which I have felt for mankind."
And how weary he is, notwithstanding his pride ! SoM
des hommes as will be said towards the end of the
century he is satiated, not satisfied. Corneille has mag-
nificently expressed the unmeasurable disgust produced
by unlimited power :
" L'ambition deplait quand elle est assouvie . . .
J'ai souhaite 1'empire et j'y suis parvenu,
Mais en le souhaitant, je ne 1'ai pas connu. . . ."
" And I," says Montesquieu's Sylla, still more bitter and
morose, "and I, Eucrate, was never less content than
when I beheld myself the absolute master of Rome ; when,
looking around me, I saw neither rivals nor enemies. I
thought that one day it would be said that I had only
chastised slaves." This unbearable thought stimulates
him to his most surprising resolution the resignation of
the Dictatorship at a time when that seemed to be his
sole remaining refuge. Yet Rome is still mute before
him, and he perceives that he is solitary, impatient, and

" Dialogue de Sylla." 67

unsatisfied as heretofore. He concludes with these
words : " I have astonished mankind, and that is much."
He may have astonished the world; he cannot bring
content to his soul.
Montesquieu might have pursued and developed his
study of Sylla in Caesar, but he does not appear to have
thought of this. Now that we have known Danton and
Robespierre, we have seen the resuscitation of the
Gracchi first in all Roman revolution ; now that we
have seen Bonaparte, Caesar's place in Roman history
seems supreme. The great revolution of modern times
has modified all received ideas, even as regards the
ancient world. Montesquieu, despite his keen and ap-
preciative perception of the genius of Alexander and
Charlemagne, seems disposed to underrate that of Caesar ;
instead of treating him as one apart, he seeks rather to
replace him among the ordinary run of men, and to judge
him by ordinary standards. Like Shakespeare's Cassius,
he would say
" What should there 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 recognises in Caesar, indeed, the general
and politician who would have attained to the supreme
government of any republic under which he lived, but he
refuses to consider him as more than an instrument of
destiny, one of those men who, though they may be

68 Montesquieu.
instrumental in the accomplishment of the inevitable, in
no way decide the fate of empires or alter the course of
history. " Had Caesar or Pompey thought as did Cato,
others would have thought as did Caesar and Pompey,
and the republic, which was destined to perish, would
have been drawn to the precipice by another hand."
Caesar is ever thus associated with Pompey; Mon-
tesquieu makes no great difference between the two.
He had on this subject the kind of historical prejudice
which blinded Corneille, and in some degree influenced
Bossuet. " Pompey had," says he, " a slower and gentler
ambition than Caesar's. . . . He aspired to the Dicta-
torship, but he could only reach it through the suffrages
of the people : he could not consent to the usurpation of
power, though he might have wished that power should
be placed in his hands." Thus does Moreau appear to
us in his rivalry with Bonaparte.
Montesquieu extols Brutus, even going so far as to
consider the political assassination as a necessary, though
criminal, remedy to the coup d'etat. He condemns the
Empire even while showing that it was unavoidable, and
judges Augustus and his reign from the point of view
of a senator who would have persistently lamented
the ancient republic, while acknowledging that it could
not nave survived. These are the finest pages of the
Symptoms of the decadence of Rome are everywhere
to be seen. Order is now but a " continual servitude,"
destined "to show the happiness produced by autocratic

" Dialogue de Sylla" 69

government." Tyranny creeps in, wearing the mask of
Liberty, and the idea of liberty is falsified and perverted.
The principles which made the strength of Rome are, by
extravagant application, corrupted ; the Romans have
fought and conquered to excess, "they were being
destroyed by the never-ceasing strain of action and of
violence, as a weapon is destroyed by the strain of con-
stant use." The civil disturbances which occupied and
entertained the body politic develops into open strife
which leads to its perversion ; private morality is deteriorated
by wealth. Tyranny triumphs in the corruption of the
people, and oppression finishes the work of ruin; the vital
organs are diseased, and now the mischief begins to
spread. Rome is weakened by her vast dominions ; the
conquered nations rebel against the armies disposed
along the frontiers ; and the armies, in concentrating their
strength, overrun and overpower the state : their loyalty
declines from the moment they assume the government
of the city.
The motive-power is impaired : Rome had strengthened
herself by annexing the nations she had conquered ; but
what was once a source of strength is now a cause of
weakness. Therefore, she falls back upon her internal
resources, crushed by the overwhelming weight of her
own power that power which formerly crushed her
enemies ; and the empire gradually contracts, until Italy
is once more its frontier.
Montesquieu, who seems to have had no perception
of the important action of Christianity on early Roman
70 Montesquieu.
history, does not in the latter part of his work lay sufficient
stress upon it. Given up to admiration of the Antonines,
he fails to note the approach of that revolution which
transformed the ancient world. Indeed, as he advances
in the history of the empire, questions of economy are
dwelt upon with more insistence, for he is studying the
Digest, and has drawn from it not only a comprehension
of the laws of Imperial Rome, but also an understanding
of Roman social life. His views on revolution, on com-
merce, on financial crises, the abuse of taxation, together
with the neglect of agriculture which results from that
abuse, and the ruin of provincial administrations, are so
many novelties brought forward by him, and of signal
importance to history. The chapters on Byzantium are
scarcely more than an aperfu and summary, but they are
unmistakably the work of genius. In order to appre-
ciate their value and originality, they ought to be com-
pared with the corresponding chapters of the Essai sur les
Mxurs : Voltaire's slight treatment brings into relief the
vigorous handling of Montesquieu. It is impossible not
to suspect some allusion to the theological quarrels of
the eighteenth century in the ironical mention of the
dissensions in the Byzantine Church. Justinian, with
his pretensions to unity of law, unity in reign, and unity
in faith, in more than one respect resembles Louis XIV :
" He thought to increase the number of the faithful; he
diminished the number of men." There is a still more
pointed comparison between the struggles of Mussulman
and Greek, and those of Cromwell's adherents and the

"Grandeur et Decadence" 71
Irish. Montesquieu merely glances at the later period,
and concludes by showing how the Turks inherited the
causes of the decay of the Byzantine empire, even while
they conquered the capital of that empire.
So he reaches the modern time, and in this, the study
of his choice, he persists during the remainder of his

MONTESQUIEU had reached the age of forty when
he began the working out of his great conception.
He had long been collecting the necessary materials. " I
may say that I have been engaged upon it all my life,"
he writes. " As soon as my college life was ended, legal
books were put into my hands : I strove to discover the
spirit of law.'' This expression, so well known in con-
nexion with Montesquieu's work, was not entirely his
own. We meet with it first in Domat's Traite des Lois,
where a chapter is devoted to the nature and to the
esprit des lois ; but Domat understands thereby the true
sense, the real significance, of legislation, " that which is
in the law of nature, equity, and in law arbitrary, the in-
tention of the legislator." Taken in this sense the spirit
of law is intelligible enough, and Domat had already
dealt with it ; but Montesquieu looked further he sought
to determine the raison d'etre of law and of its efficacy.
The subject thus viewed was no longer juridical, but
historical; for its thorough elucidation, the scrutiny of
the conscience, the interrogation of the reason, and the

The "Esprit des Lois'' 73

analysis of various tests did not suffice ; it was necessary to
sound the depths of history, and discover the great secret
of civilisation.
Montesquieu was for some time bewildered in his
quest. " I pursued my object without plan or design ; I
had neither rules nor exceptionstoguideme." Byreferring
to the chapter de la Coutume in Montaigne we could form
some idea of the notes gathered from all sides and accu-
mulated by Montesquieu. Montaigne shuffled his, cast
them hap-hazard to the winds, and then maliciously chose
to print them in the confusion which is, in his eyes, an
inherent law in nature. He glories in this medley of men
and things, of times, of countries, of governments, of
anecdotes, of legends, of witticisms, and of fine maxims ;
and it is not difficult to extract from this hotch-potch
some means of defaming humanity and tearing its
frippery to pieces : the impotence of our reason, the
miserable inconsistency of our judgment, are exposed in
every line of the chapter. In this strange armoury, con-
structed by Montaigne to disquiet man and shake his
confidence in any certainty or security, Pascal finds
wherewith to reconduct him to the faith ; in an incom-
parable reductio ad absurdum he confounds the human
reason and proves its nothingness before God. But
Montesquieu cannot be satisfied with Montaigne's erratic
and wayward reason, nor will he resign himself to the
prostrate and humiliated reason of Pascal : the pro-
blem must be solved, and its solution must be found in

74 Montesquieu.
" In the first place, I proceeded to a careful scrutiny
of men ; and I formed the opinion that, in this infinite
diversity of laws and customs, they were not only guided
by caprice." To seek the principle that guides them is
not the mere pastime of an idler : it is the work of a
legislator and of a benefactor of the human species ; for
Montesquieu does not distinguish the two. He considers
that men are " rogues individually, but honest in the
mass," and that it is in life as on the stage, where only
noble actions and fine sentiments are applauded. Pro-
fessing to work in the interest of mankind in general,
he would seek citizenship in every state, that he may
study and explain the bearings of its customs and maxims ;
that he may inspire each individual with a stronger love
for his country and government, and teach all nations
both how a state is endangered and how its well-being
may be secured. He writes for a typical being, whom
he represents to himself as the " homme de bien politique"
the man politically just and upright, and he conceives
that the "political, as the moral good, is to be found
within two limits."
But if Montesquieu's general object is the common-
weal, his special object is the weal of France. He sees
her tendency towards despotism, and fears that despotism
will lead to anarchy the most ominous form of decline ;
therefore would he warn his countrymen, revive their
love of liberty, and restore to them the title of citizen.
Bossuet, after a demonstration of the purposes of God
as manifested in the world, draws from these very pur-

The "Esprit des Lois." 75

poses the doctrine which should serve as a foundation to
Christian monarchy, and as a lesson to the most Christian
king. Montesquieu, who has shown the process of
organisation in a great social institution how it grows
and prospers, decays and perishes, seeks in his own
turn to read a lesson to all human legislators. He
dreams of a purely scientific work a work which shall
be to the Considerations sur les Romains as the Politique
tiree de I'Ecriture sainte is to the Discours sur Thistoire
universelle. No legislator has conceived a nobler or a
more daring and difficult design, and Montesquieu,
when he had accomplished it, proudly distinguished his
work with the epigraph Prolem sine matre creatam.
He finds no lack of subject-matter, but rather a super-
abundance 'of material, such as almost precludes investiga-
tion : he needs the implements of work the sieve and
the balance to sift and to weigh the component parts.
He loses no time in analysing these elements and trac-
ing their origin. " He does not speak of causes, nor does
he compare causes," says he, later on, of himself; " but
he speaks of effects, and compares effects." The religious
foundation of Domat's Traite des Lois blinds Montes-
quieu to the depth and soundness of the author's prin-
' ciples. Domat brings his observations to bear upon his
faith : with the alteration of a few terms his book, in
reality naturally human, would lose its theological tinc-
ture. But though he rebels against Domat's mysticism,
Montesquieu is equally opposed to Hobbes' materialism ;
he acknowledges " an eternal justice," wholly independent
F 2
76 Montesquieu.
of human conditions. " Relations of justice existed be-
fore the making of laws. To say that there is no right or
wrong but that which is commanded or forbidden by
positive laws, is as contrary to reason as it would be to
say that before the drawing of the circle all radii were
not equal."
Montesquieu's inquiries into the origin of society
would have been as much aided by a knowledge of the
science of man as would have been his study of the early
history of Rome by some acquaintance with archaeology
and some exercise of textual criticism. If he could have
read Buffon, the Septtime epoque de la nature would have
given him a clearer perception of the state of primitive
man and of the genesis of custom. "The first of our race,
witnessing the yet recent and very frequent convulsions
of the earth, driven by floods to take refuge in the moun-
tains the only place of safety, and often driven away
from thence by volcanic fire, trembling upon the earth
that itself trembled beneath them, naked and helpless
in body and mind, defenceless against the fury of the
elements and the rage of wild beasts, all equally over-
whelmed by a feeling of awful terror, all equally pressed by
necessity, did they not speedily seek to join themselves
together, at first for mutual defence, and, as time went
on, for mutual help, in the construction of dwellings and
fashioning of weapons ? "
But in the absence of definite knowledge, Montesquieu
allows himself to be carried away by imagination. So he
is pleased to suppose conditions of nature in which a

The "Esprit des Lois." 77

race of men weak, timid, and affectionate enjoyed a
kind of animal happiness. He considers that a ten-
dency to peace is inherent in man, but that on the union
of individuals in societies, and the consequent struggle for
existence, warfare between such societies followed as an
immediate and necessary result ; as if the social instinct
which attracts man to his fellow were not as fundamental
a law in his nature as the selfish instinct which prompts
him to hate and destroy his kind. Montesquieu is un-
certain and perplexed as regards this great question. The
following extract from a Lettre Persane may, perhaps,
more clearly show his point of view. "I have never
heard a discussion on public rights when the subject was
not complicated by inquiries into the foundations of
society. This seems to me ridiculous. If men, instead of
associating themselves in communities, fled from each
other, such desire for mutual separation would need
explanation ; but they are joined together from birth. A
son is born near his father, and abides with him : here we
have society, and the cause of society."
Still, as he must of necessity give an opinion and adopt
a formula, he shelters himself behind the vaguest and
most obscure definition: "Laws are, in the widest sense,
the necessary relations which proceed from the nature of
things." Truly is this the widest sense, a sense so wide
hat it defies analysis, and loses itself in the infinite. It is
an algebraical formula, which can be applied to all cases,
but exactly expresses none. Strictly true of mathematical
Jaws and the physical laws of nature, it is only remotely

78 Montesquieu.
and relatively so of civil and political laws ; and even
then its correct application would involve the going back
to the original meaning of the word law through all the
transmutations and degradations which it has undergone.
Montesquieu is not arrested by this difficulty. He states
his formula, passes over all intermediate ideas, and goes
straight to legislation, properly so called his real object.
Here he is overwhelmed with facts completely em-
barrassed and overcome. We see him toiling at his work,
losing himself, then returning harassed to the right way,
recovering breath and starting again, only to lose himself
once more. " Many times did I begin this work, many
times did I abandon it, and a thousand times did I
scatter to the winds the pages I had written I
found the truth, but to lose it again." At last the polar-
star appeared : he found his way, and henceforth had but
to walk to the light.
The year 1729 marks this important era in Montes-
quieu's career. What he has called " the majesty of his
subject" was then revealed to him, and he felt that from
the standpoint to which he had attained he should (as he
expresses it) see "laws flowing as from their source."
" When I had discovered my principles, all that I sought
came to me. ... I found that particular cases adapted
themselves, as it were, spontaneously to these established
principles." Let us consider them, for they give the key
to the work.
" Men are governed by many things : climate, religion,
law, the maxims of government, the example of past

The "Esprit des Lois." 79

things, customs, manners; and from the union of such
influences a general spirit is produced. These elements,
which enter into the composition of every human society,
and the spirit which animates that society, are connected and
correlative : it is not a fortuitous concourse of atoms, but
a living organism. Laws are the nerves of this social body,
and must be suited to the nature and functions of the
organs which they animate. They are subject to certain
causes, of which some are insusceptible of change, while
others are modifiable, though the process of modification
is slow and very difficult.
" They ought to be fitted to the physical conditions of a
country, to its climate, whether hot, cold, or temperate; to
the nature of its soil, to its situation and extent, and to the
way of life of its people ; they ought to respond to the degree
of liberty which the constitution can bear, to the religion of
the inhabitants, to their idiosyncrasies, their wealth, their
commerce, their number, and to their habits and manners.
Finally, they have relations with each other, with their
origin, with the design of the lawgiver, and with the
order of things on which they are established. From all
these points of view must they be considered, and I
shall so consider them in this work, examining them in
all the relations which form collectively what is called
the ' spirit of the laws.' "
The social institution thus regarded is, in Montesquieu's
eyes, the soul of human societies. If it is healthy and
vigorous, the community prospers ; if feeble and corrupted,
it decays. The reforms that regenerate and the revolu-

8o Montesquieu.
tions that destroy societies are dependent on the degree
of knowledge which is possessed concerning the social
institution. Furthermore, no institution is, in itself, su-
perior to another: there are conditions of existence, public
and private usages, a national spirit, and, so to speak, a
general tendency, to all of which a particular institution
must adapt itself ; and each nation will find that the best
and most reasonable which is most in harmony with the
character and traditions of its inhabitants.
From this point of view Montesquieu examines the
different species of government, in each case distinguishing
the nature from the principle. The nature of a govern-
ment is that which gives it being ; its principle is that
which causes action. To define the nature of a govern-
ment is to determine its structure ; to define its principle
is to analyse the nature and passions of the men who
conduct it.
First, as regards the nature of governments. Mon-
tesquieu divides them into three classes : republican,
monarchic, and aristocratic. If the whole body politic,
or a portion of it, has the power, the government is
democratic or aristocratic ; if the power is exercised by
one only, according to fixed and permanent laws, the
government is monarchic ; if it is exercised arbitrarily, by
the individual will or caprice of the sovereign, the
government is despotic. This classification has been
criticised : Montesquieu confuses the constitution of a
state which may be autocratic, oligarchic, aristocratic, or
democratic, with the government of a state which is

The "Esprit des Lois" 81

necessarily monarchic or republican. The fundamental
types of constitution and government amalgamate and
produce mixed systems. But it is unnecessary to insist
on these distinctions : Montesquieu considered them as
merely the frame to his picture, and the essential thing
is to ascertain the disposition of the picture.
It contains two principal groups : the laws which result
from the nature of the government these are political
laws ; and those which result from the principle of the
government these are more particularly civil and social
laws. Montesquieu shows the causes of stability and
decay in both kinds. " The corruption of a government,"
says he, " nearly always begins by the corruption of its
principles." Here he is very grand, giving forth the very
essence of his thought, the great and beneficent counsel
of his work. "Custom," said Pascal, after a study of
Montaigne, " makes equity, simply because it is received ;
this is the mystic cause of its authority. He who brings
it back to its principle destroys it." " Law proceeds from
the nature of things," answers Montesquieu ; " its raison
d'etre is the cause of its authority. He who brings it
back to its principle strengthens it." Montesquieu's judg-
ment is truer and more profound.
The study of the nature of governments fills the first
eight books of the Esprit des Lois. Montesquieu pro-
ceeds from these fundamental laws to secondary laws, and
he considers them successively in their relation to the
defence of the state, to the political liberty of its citizens,
to the taxes, the climate, the soil, the morals, manners,

82 Montesquieu.
civil liberty, the population, and religion. This is the
subject of Books ix xxvi. Books xxvi xxxi, im-
portant as they are in themselves, are scarcely more
than a supplement to an essay on the Roman laws of
inheritance, and to an unfinished history of feudal laws in
France. And there is a pause in the work at the end
of chapter xxvi. The wonderful cohesion which has
hitherto given it so majestic an air is lessened in the
further development of the subject, and there are nume-
rous digressions in the later books.
For though the author's mind is vast indeed, it cannot
comprehend within its limits the enormous mass of notes
collected during thirty years of study. The frame is not
large enough for the picture, large though it be ; we see
that the canvas is distended here and there, and stretched
beyond it. Montesquieu felt this himself. As long as he
was engaged upon the earlier books he was full of joyful
ardour. "My great work advances with giant strides," he
tells the Abbe de Guasco in a letter written in 1744 : this
was the time when " all that he sought came to him."
But little by little the accumulation of facts' obstructs the
issues he forces them to his purposes. " I see that all
adapts itself to my principles," he writes towards the
conclusion of the work : but he can no longer say, as
formerly, that he sees " individual cases adapting them-
selves as if spontaneously." So his efforts are redoubled :
he consults and compares texts, and amasses, but no
longer succeeds in welding his materials, and he becomes
tired and excited. " My life is advancing, and my work

The "Esprit des Lois" 83

is receding because of its immensity," he writes in 1745 :
and in 1747: "My work becomes heavier. ... I am
overcome with weariness." The feudal books the final
ones exhaust him entirely. " It will take perhaps
three hours to read them, but I assure you that they
have cost me so much toil that my hair has turned
white." " This work has nearly killed me," he concludes,
after revising the last proofs, " now I must rest ; I shall
work no more."
This fatigue was chiefly caused by Montesquieu's
anxiety that his work should be perfect ; and an invoca-
tion to the Muses, which he intended to insert at the
beginning of the second volume, and before Book xx,
expresses this feeling in exquisite phraseology, in form
antique and fresh in spirit, a foretaste of Andre Chenier's
prose : " Virgins of Pieria, hear ye the name that
I give you? Inspire me. The race I am running is
long : I am bowed down with sadness and weariness.
Pour into my soul the delight and sweetness which it
knew once, though they flee from it now. If ye will
not that the severity of my toil be lightened, yet let not
the toil itself be visible ; let it be that the world learn, but
that I teach not ; that I think while I seem but to feel. . . .
When the waters of your fountain gush from the rock
that ye love, they rise not into the air to fall to the earth
again ; they flow through the mead. . . ."
The artist in Montesquieu is as exacting as the thinker ;
he gives as much anxious thought to the literary com-
position of his work as to the method and the search for

84 Montesquieu.
principle. He desires that perfect order should reign in
his book, but would have no obtrusion of order it must
only be felt ; he contrives perpetual variety to refresh the
reader during his monotonous journey, and to divert his
attention from the heavy load he has to carry. Wishing
" to induce thought rather than to be read," he always
leaves something for his reader to divine, and by this
means flatters his keenness. "We remember," he says
somewhere, " what we have seen, and we begin to imagine
what we shall see ; our soul rejoices in its greatness and
penetration." Montesquieu is unrivalled in the skill
which he shows in designing alleys and opening avenues,
in providing for rest in shady groves by the way, in sud-
denly pointing to a fine prospect when the road is level
and easy, and in causing delightful anticipations of such
when it is steep and difficult. Having a thorough know-
ledge of the men of the world for whom he writes, he is
well aware of their impatient curiosity, the desultoriness
of their reading, their horror of being wearied, their desire
to reach the end, their haste to start again ; he knows, too,
that with them reflection is ever impromptu. Hence the
numerous divisions in the book, the chapters, which in
three lines state a great problem, the multiplication of
titles and sub-titles a constant memento to the fugitive
memory, a stimulus to surfeited curiosity, a perpetual
admonition to frivolity. He interrupts himself, calls his
reader's attention, apologises, so to speak, for keeping him
so long, and beseeches him to come still further : " I am
obliged to wander to the right and left to find my way to

The "'Esprit des Lois." 85

the light ... I should like to glide down a peaceful river :
I am carried away by a torrent."
Montesquieu was absent-minded, he was short-breathed,
and his sight was weak. He therefore dictated, and
could talk while dictating. " I see," he remarked once,
" that some people take fright at digressions; now, I think
that they who know how to make use of them are like
people with long arms they can reach farther." Mon-
tesquieu certainly abuses his power in this direction ; but
we ought neither to depreciate his skill nor the value of
digression. Compare the Esprit des Lois with the
Democratic en Amerique : there is the same harmony in
organisation, the same loftiness of thought, the same
breadth of view in both. Whence comes it, then, that
an indescribable stiffness and austerity, a kind of Jan-
senist melancholy, pervade Tocqueville's work, while
Montesquieu's is so graceful in its careless manner and
joyous, pleasant air ? It is because Tocqueville is of
Normandy, that land of clouded sky and humid valleys
opening to an ever-troubled sea. Besides, he is a man
of one task and one object ; he has neither dissipated his
thought in reading nor wasted his life in amusement : he
lacks the wandering curiosity, the chance anecdote, the
flash of wit, springing from one knows not where ; he lacks
colour and, in a word, wit. He is not of the race of
The division one might almost say the dismember-
ment of the books and chapters in Montesquieu's work
is even carried out in his phraseology, which is brisk, and
86 Montesquieu.
at times almost too concise. He delights in flinging a dart,
but he is soon out of breath, and as the darts multiply
the pauses multiply also. Buffon who was deep-chested
and long-winded, who could never resolve to punctuate
his paragraphs or divide his sentences, and to whom every-
thing appeared in grand, periodic movement with the ma-
jestic ebb and flow of the sea has reproached Montesquieu
with his abrupt transitions of thought and style. " The
book," he says, in his famous speech before the Academy,
"appears clearer thereby, but the author's meaning remains
obscure." This is an exaggerated criticism : it is not for
obscurity that Montesquieu can be criticised, but rather
is it for an excessive concentration of light a continued
reflection from converging lenses. Madame du DefTand,
by way of a bon mot, and Voltaire from jealousy, have
accused him of putting too much wit in his book. He
has certainly furnished a supply of wit for all the authors
who wrote on the subject of law before his time, and for
most of those who have treated of it since. If it were
necessary to find an excuse for him, this one would doubt-
less be accepted by posterity.
Still, let us recognise this fact : if there is infinite and
exquisite art in the Esprit des Lois, there is also some
artifice. Montesquieu thought thereby to propitiate cen-
sorship, baffle the Sorbonne, and obtain a free circulation
for his book in France, without detriment to himself.
He did not wish, if it could be otherwise ordained, to be
obliged not to acknowledge it, as he had formerly been
obliged not to acknowledge the Lettres Persanes ; for,

The "Esprit des Lois" 87

writing now as a moralist, not as a satirist, he distinctly
desired the meed of praise. The licentiousness and
irreverence of his youth had given place to the respect-
ful tone of a man who takes life seriously, and sets him-
self to instruct humanity ; and though a touch of liber-
tinism is still perceptible notably in the digressions and
when in the development of his subject the author goes
back to the East and treats of polygamy, still these are
but few episodes in the work, and if he pauses some-
what complacently to consider them, the pause is a brief
one. But profanity has not been followed by exclusive
veneration. Montesquieu treats of religion, as he treats
of all human institutions, with gravity. In his Considera-
tions sur les Remains he had, as it were, eliminated Provi-
dence from history : he does not eliminate religion from
society, but counts it as one of the many elements that
compose the life of a state : he assigns to it a place after
the army, after the political constitution, after the climate,
the soil, and the manners, and between the commerce, the
population, and the police. This is not a just historical
proportion or a true measure of society, still more is it at
variance with the teaching of the Church; but it is
thoroughly in harmony with the spirit of the book a
spirit the reverse of orthodox. Montesquieu was well
aware of this : he knew that he was in bad odour with
Rome and the Sorbonne, and was disturbed that such
should be the case.
He therefore proceeded to seek a remedy the only
available one the expedient which Montaigne had em-

88 Montesquieu.
ployed (as did Buffon subsequently): scattering here and
there throughout his work prudent limitations, wise reser-
vations, and fine professions of faith. These were abso-
lutely irreconcilable with its spirit, but judged separately,
as extracts, were calculated to lull any suspicion of the
author's doctrines. Montaigne had brought to this
literary subterfuge an ironical and sceptical bonhomie.
Buffon enacted his part therein with an ease and haughti-
ness intended to mystify the simple ; but Montesquieu is
neither so careless as Montaigne as to what he pledges
himself, nor so bold as Buffon in affronting the powers
that be ; he proceeds with an awkward timidity which
instantly betrays him, and which could and did deceive
no one. He declares that he considers the "true religion"
as quite apart from all others; but this is only parenthe-
tically : in the body of the work he speaks of it, as he does
of other forms of faith that is, in the secular and impartial
tone of a legislator. He admits that some religions are
in themselves less good than others, and that the
"revealed religion" the most perfect of all "that of
which the root is in Heaven" does produce more or less
happy results, which vary according to the nature of the
countries in which it is propagated and that of the men
who practise it. "When Montezuma asserted that the
religion of the Spaniards was the best for their country,
and the religion of Mexico the best for his, he
uttered no absurdity," but he uttered a heresy ; and
though he could not know this, Montesquieu was per-
fectly aware of it.

The "Esprit des Lois" 89

He hoped, however, that as regarded religion he
might escape censure by means of these verbal reser-
vations. In political matters he felt that there would
be more difficulty, so he suppressed, as being quite too
dangerous, a chapter on the lettres de cachet, and skil-
fully veiled any observations which might be considered
seditious, and any comparisons which might offend a
foolish patriotism. This may be one of the reasons that
induced him to describe the very local phenomenon of
the constitution of England in a general, or as it were a
cosmopolitan manner, without the use of technical terms
or proper names appearing to present the result of his
observations in different countries, and to reduce to a
common type a number of analogous institutions. This
generalisation, though not quite allowable, has been often
cited as an act of prudence. In some other cases he
deals in veiled allusion. The chapter entitled, Fatale
conscience du luxe a la Chine, is simply a Chinese letter :
he alludes to Frenchmen only.
The chapter one of the most profound in the book
in which Montesquieu explains Comment les lots peuvent
contribuer a former les mxurs, les manieres et le caractere
d'une nation, affords a striking instance of these rhetorical
precautions. England is in question, but is not men-
tioned : Montesquieu proceeds by way of hypothesis, and
is thereby obliged to strange circumlocutions :
" If this nation inhabited an island it would not be a
conquering nation, as the conquest of distant countries
would weaken it. ... If this nation were situated

90 Montesquieu.
towards the north, and possessed superfluous staple com-
modities, needing, at the same time, much that its internal
resources could not supply, it would carry on a vast and
necessary commerce with the people of the South. . . .
It might be that this nation, envying the situation and
the excellent ports of a neighbouring country, together
with the special nature of its wealth, had subjugated that
country : while it conceded to the vanquished country its
own laws, it would keep it in a state of complete depend-
ence. . . ."
Here we feel the effort, and see the exaggeration and
abuse of the method. This striving after ultra-refinement,
these covert allusions intended for the wise, lead to the
worst result a heaviness and awkwardness in the midst
of the subtlety. How much grander is Montesquieu when
he dares to be himself, and to call things by their right
name ! Why did he not give to this profound study of the
English political system the style of the masterly disquisi-
tion on the Esprit de PAngleterre sur le commerce, which
is to be found a little farther on in the following book ?
"Other nations have made commercial interests subser-
vient to political interests : this nation has always made its
political interests yield to the interests of its commerce.
This people, of all others, has best known how to enlist
in its service these three great things religion, commerce,
and liberty." Had Montesquieu uniformly written thus,
instead of a picture after the manner of Paul Veronese
as Voltaire felicitously said a picture of " brilliant
colours, facile treatment, and some defects of costume,"

The "Esprit des Lois." 91

we should have had a painting after Rembrandt a lumin-
ous and vivid representation of reality.
But if Montesquieu adopts this method sometimes by
way of prudence, it is more frequently the taste and
humour of the wit which dictate it. A certain mystery
of language and expression is in good style, and, be-
sides, sets off a dry and thankless subject. The gene-
ralisation which sometimes discreetly veils his thought
is more often an ostentatious drapery, the drapery in
fashion, and Montesquieu naturally clothes his ideas
therewith, being influenced by the current taste, and by
a secret desire of flattering the caprice of his contempo-
raries. He has his own vocabulary and rhetoric, and to
understand him thoroughly it is necessary to familiarise
oneself with his expressions and figures of speech. As
regards the expressions the task is an easy one. Mon-
tesquieu is an excellent writer, and knows well what he
is about : when his method is once grasped, one always
knows what he means. It is otherwise with his imagery.
Sometimes it is necessary to transpose and write again,
to guess the allusion and give distinctive names to the
grand general proposition ; but this must be done with
excessive circumspection.
We should depreciate Montesquieu, and entirely mistake
his design, running, besides, the risk of grievous mistake,
were we to apply to his work as a whole a system of interpre-
tation which is only reasonable in a few individual cases.
Montesquieu has a genius for generalisation : in that lies
both his greatness and his weakness. Let us take him as
G 2

92 Montesquieu.
he presents himself to us ; let us read his book as it is
written, without commentary, almost without notes. It is
not without some motive that Montesquieu, who had col-
ected so vast an amount of notes, has published so few. If,
in several places, he wished that the reader should say to
himself: "This is England, or this is Versailles," he has
also wished him to think in the same passages : " This is
what will happen everywhere if the same course of action
is pursued, under the same conditions, as in England or
at Versailles." He wished that everyone should be able
to apply the instances he has presented in a different
way : that one should not know whether one is at Rome,
Athens, or Sparta, but only that one is under the in-
fluence of a democracy, and in the midst of a republic ;
that the features of Spain should be recognised side by
side with those of France in the painting of monarchy,
yet that the representation should not be of Spain her-
self, or of France herself, but of the features common to
both. He hoped that it would be with the whole of his
work as with a chapter in Book xin, entitled, Comment
on pent rem'edier a la depopulation. Read it while turn-
ing towards the south, and, lifting your eyes, you will
recognise Spain ; turn towards the east, and you will
think that Poland is intended. The fact is that the ex-
ample was drawn from several countries, that the conclu-
sion is general, and that the lesson may be as well applied to
these nations as to any others in the same circumstances.
Montesquieu had, in a word, produced a classic work.
He does not follow the different governments through all

The ''Esprit des Lois" 93

the stages of their historical development and through
their successive revolutions, but he shows them in
a finished state and well-defined an illustration, so to
speak, of all the epochs in their history. There is neither
chronology nor perspective all is on the same scene
a unity of time, place, and action, as one can see it on the
stage. Montesquieu considers the laws only, their object,
their influence, and their destiny ; all other matter is the
groundwork not the edifice itself. He has constructed
the basement as solidly, and driven in the piles as deeply
as he had to toil anxiously to find terra firma but he dis-
guises this labour. He has studied and painted the mon-
archy and the republic, as Moliere studied and painted the
Avare,\ho. Misanthrope, or Tartuffe; as La Bruyere studied
his Grands, his Politiques, and Esprits forts. We honour
him, as we do his masters, the classic authors, in showing
how his gallery is preserved to history, and how one could
attach name and date to each of his pictures : we should
force his thought in particularising further.
But we should pervert it by considering it as only ab-
stract. Montesquieu strives to form general ideas by
means of the facts which he has observed ; he does not
pretend to evolve by pure speculation absolute and uni-
versal ideas. He tries to exhibit a general type from the
monarchies and republics which he has known, and
deduces no a priori ideal, the monarchy in itself or the
republic in itself; whence it follows that the principles
laid down and the laws flowing from them can only be
understood and appreciated fully in their relation to facts.

THE book on governments begins by the Demo-
cratic one, that is to say, by the government where
the people, as a body, enjoys sovereignty. Montesquieu
appreciates it from Rome, in the times when the republic
was still identified with the city ; from Athens and Sparta,
" at a time when the Greek people was a world in itself,
and when the Greek towns were nations." The republic,
thus constituted, implies a limited territory ; the citizens,
few in numbers, and subdivided into classes ; they possess
slaves ; their only occupation is politics and war ; they are
at liberty, in the leisure which their private life allows
them, and thanks to the small extent of the city, to apply
themselves, directly and constantly, to the numerous and
engrossing functions of a citizen's life. No commercial
pursuits, or very little of them, and those only which
imply the spirit of " frugality, economy, moderation, wis-
dom, quiet, order, and rule." The land is equally divided
amongst them ; if the properties were too large and trade
too developed, the result would be the increase of private
wealth, and, consequently, the ruin of equality. Hier-

Political Laws and Governments. 95

archy is strictly maintained between the classes ; " only
in the corruption of certain democracies was it possible
for the handicraftsmen to become citizens."
The people, as a body we mean the assembly of the
citizens makes laws and exercises sovereign power. "Its
suffrages are the expression of its will." The magis-
trates are selected from men whose opinions are known,
and whose transactions are subjected to a continual su-
pervision. The people act according to the spirit of
true equality, which consists in both " obeying and
commanding their equals." They enjoy that kind of
freedom which Bossuet had admirably defined before
Montesquieu, " a state where no one is subject except
to the law, and where law is more powerful than man."
This is a very singular condition, to which cannot be
applied the ideas we, in our modern times, have of liberty.
Our liberty is essentially civil and individual ; that of the
ancients is exclusively civic, and depending upon the
state. Freedom of conscience is according to us the
foremost and most essential of all ; the ancients did not
even conceive it. Liberty, for them, consisted solely in
the exercise of sovereignty. The individual had no other
right but his suffrage, and his suffrage exhausted all his
right ; in other respects he was bound to acknowledge as
a rule in all things the plurality of suffrages, in his
creed, his family, his property, his work, and his every
act, the plurality of the suffrages being the law of the
state. Such, if we believe Montesquieu, are the charac-
teristics of the republican government under a democracy.

96 Montesquieu.
A government of that kind could be established only
in a society of men where the deep-seated sense of
social solidarity, the common view as to the interests and
needs of society, the equal devotedness of all to the com-
monwealth, have allowed the establishment of institutions
so antagonistic to the instinct of rebellion, selfishness, and
concupiscence which is innate in us all. These moral
conditions of democratic government are its raison d'etre-
This explains Montesquieu's final summing up, \hati. virtue
is the principle of such a government ; hence also his defini-
tion of democratic virtue : "The love of the republic . . .
the love of the laws and of the fatherland . . . the love of
the fatherland, that is to say, the love of equality."
The virtue of which we speak, after having created the
institutions, is alone capable of carrying them on. The
laws, therefore, should train the citizens to virtue, and
oblige them to practise it. The omnipotence of the
state over the family, the compulsory education of
children, the division of property, the limitation of inherit-
ances, the sumptuary laws such is the spirit of these
crushing legislations. Everything in them is the corol-
lary of the maxim, "The safety of the people is the
supreme law."
And yet, despite these terrible remedies, whether it is
that they have not been applied in time, or that a bad use
has been made of them, a democracy can become corrupt.
This occurs when the spirit of equality takes a wrong
direction, when a man's ambition is no longer limited to
the " sole happiness of rendering to his native country

Political Laws and Governments. 97

greater service than the rest of his fellow-citizens"; per-
sonal covetousness taints ambition and pride perverts it ;
private riches increase, and, with them, indifference as to
the public good ; the sense of individual liberty takes the
place of that which the liberty of the state carries along
with it ; solidarity is lost ; jealousy creeps in ; no more
discipline ; equality dwindles into anarchy ; morals have
got rid of that austerity which cut at the root of so many
selfish passions, only with the view of strengthening the
social ones which it allowed to subsist ; the citizens, in
one word, have not that feeling of " self-abnegation," the
spirit of all republican virtues. Then it is all over, and
even the remedies become fatal, because the artificial
strength which they give to the state only benefits tyranny,
and completes the ruin of the republic.
"When the principles of the government are once cor-
rupted, the best laws become bad and turn against the
state ; when, on the other hand, these principles are
sound, bad laws produce the effect of good ones ; every-
thing is affected by the strength of the leading principle."
. . . . " The principle of democracy becomes tainted, not
only when the spirit of equality is lost, but when it is
carried to extremes, and when everyone aims at being on
a level with those whom he selects as his rulers. ... In
such a republic virtue is impossible."
Montesquieu's conception of democracy seems widely
different from the spirit of our modern civilisation. If we
compare the two together, the democracy of the ancient
world seems a paradox and a Utopia. The fact is that
98 Montesquieu.
Montesquieu, in his endeavour to find around him some
surviving specimens of these societies which have long
ago disappeared, can discover nothing similar to them
but convents or the political world of Paraguay. If, in-
deed, we think for a moment of our modern views of the
fatherland, religion, labour ; if we reflect upon the inces-
sant transformation of institutions, creeds, fortunes, even
of manners, can we imagine anything more opposed to
the doctrine of progress, and to the Declaration of the
Rights of Man, than the spirit of those old democracies,
with their hierarchy, their slaves, and their official despot-
ism ? Montesquieu did not foresee the rapid advent and
wonderful development of modern democracy, still less
did he believe in the establishment of democratic
republics in extensive countries. Alluding to the institu-
tions of the Greeks, " We cannot look for this," said he,
" in the confusion, the turmoil, the multiplying of busi-
ness which belong to a thickly populated country." " The
Greek politicians, who lived under the government of the
people, acknowledged no other sustaining force but that
of virtue. Those of the present day speak to us only of
manufactures, trade, riches, even luxury."
Montesquieu little suspected that those manufactures,
this trade, these riches, the very luxury which he deems
incompatible with democracies, would become in course
of time their fundamental element ; that this revolution,
after having permeated his own country, would spread
throughout Europe. There may, nevertheless, be found in
every democracy organic and permanent characteristics

Political Laws and Governments. 99

which subsist, notwithstanding the external difference.
Montesquieu has considered his subject from so lofty a
standpoint, and with so deep a search, that he has dis-
cerned the most essential of those characteristics. Many
of the advices drawn by him from the sight of ancient
democracies apply with equal force to those of the
present day. The same excesses threaten to corrupt
the government now as they did then. The state rests
upon plurality; now plurality consist of individuals who
are constantly being blinded by their selfish passions as
to what constitutes public interest. These individuals
are always inclined to confound liberty with the right of
enjoying a share in authority, the public exchequer with
the common patrimony of private citizens, progress with
continual innovations, and right with number, that is to
say with force. Thus, under the regime of a constitution
founded upon equality and individual liberty, the majority
aims at enslaving the minority, and the state at absorbing
the nation. We must therefore never be tired of re-
peating to ourselves that the worth of liberty is in the
same proportion as the character of those who exercise
it, and that the same relation exists between the law and
those who make it, the government and those who are
at its head, the state, finally, and the nation, that is to
say, the individuals who compose it. Each one is respon-
sible for the common good, and accountable for the
interests of all. If the majority of the citizens is greedy,
jealous, insubordinate, equality produces spoliation, os-
tracism, and anarchy ; hence, as a necessary result, the

i oo Montesquieu.
decay of the state. The more extensively spread are the
rights of each individual, the more exacting do his pas-
sions become. In proportion as the implacable law of
struggle for existence stretches its empire over societies,
it becomes more necessary that democracies should seek
fresh strength in their fundamental principle : national
solidarity, the real love of the country, social union for
the furtherance of the common good. Now what is all
this but virtue, according to Montesquieu's definition ?
The virtue we have thus described would not be less
necessary to aristocracies, to the republics, we mean,
where the sovereignty is in the hands of a few. Montes-
quieu discusses at considerable length this subject, but
it possesses no interest for us, oligarchies having dis-
appeared from Europe. They still existed in Montes-
quieu's time ; he had observed the working of that form
of government at Venice, and studied it as it appeared
in Poland. It is, says he, the most imperfect of aristo-
cracies, "for the part of the nation which obeys is in
a position of civil slavery to that which rules. The
republic subsists in Poland for the benefit of the nobles,
and they ruin it. If it must be kept up, the aristocratic
families should as much as possible identify themselves
with the common people." Their privileges must be
perpetually renewed and justified by fresh services,
otherwise the republic is nothing else but "a despotic
state subject to a number of despots." The indepen-
dence of each one of them becomes the object of the
laws, and the oppression of all is the final result. The

Political Laws and Governments. 101

nobles being very numerous, if they are tainted by cor-
ruption, every spring is broken in the state. " Anarchy
degenerates into annihilation." An aristocracy thus
constituted needs some motive of fear to keep it con-
stantly on the watch. "The greater security of these
states, the more liable are they to be corrupted, like
stagnant waters."
Causes for anxiety abounded both at Venice and in
Poland, but in the blindness resulting from their weak
condition, they trusted to a deceitful public right which
no one respected. The division prevailing amongst their
enemies was also for them a motive of security. The
Venetians abdicated, if we may so say ; the Poles sur-
rendered, being more divided in their factions than the
neighbouring states in their rivalries. An agreement
was more easily come to between Russia, Prussia, and
Austria for the dismemberment of Poland, than be-
tween the Poles for the defence of their country. We
find a ready comment of Montesquieu's principles in the
appeal of the Doge Renier(i78o) and the attempt made
in 1790 by the Polish patriots for the regeneration of
their country. The downfall of both these aristocracies
justifies his opinion. "If a republic is small," said he, "it
is destroyed by a foreign power ; if it is extensive, it falls
the victim to an internal disease." Venice and Poland
got into danger by the internal disease, and were de-
stroyed by foreign might.
Democracy was only for Montesquieu a kind of his-
torical phenomenon : it reigns now in some of the greatest

iO2 Montesquieu.
nations of the world, and aims at invading all the others ;
the monarchy he describes was in his days the prevailing
form of government in Europe : it has now almost entirely
disappeared. Our author studies it out of a spirit of pre-
dilection, devoting a chapter to point out its excellence.
We cannot doubt that, whilst composing that part of his
book, he was constantly thinking of the French monarchy
and of the decay by which he believed it to be threatened.
France was on the road to despotism, and nothing was
more contrary to despotism than monarchy such as he
conceived it. Bossuet had drawn a line between absolute
monarchy where the prince governs in agreement with
the laws, and arbitrary monarchy where he follows no
dictates but those of his caprice. This latter form
Montesquieu calls despotism, and he applies the epithet
monarchy to the state where "one person alone rules
according to fixed and established laws."
It is in the nature of a monarchy to have fundamental
laws. The monarch is the source of all political and
civil power, but he exercises his authority "through canals,
so to say, which transmit that power." The intermediate
agents, subordinate and dependent, moderate and tem-
per the "capricious and momentary will of the king."
The nobility and the clergy are the first two of these
powers ; the third is a body of magistrates who have com-
mitted to their care the fundamental laws, and remind
the prince of them whenever he seems inclined to forget
what they are. This hierarchy is the necessary condition
of monarchical government.

Political Laws and Governments. 103

Honour forms the principle of a monarchy, in the
same way as virtue is the basis of a republic ; honour is
not opposed to virtue ; it is par excellence the political
virtue of a monarchy. In the opinion of a republican,
political virtue consists in the love of the country, and in
that of equality. Devotedness to the king and love of
privilege are the political virtue of a monarchist ; thus he
serves the king, and whilst serving him keeps him up to
his duty. If monarchy was formed, the reason is that
the nation was not capable of self-government ; the power
was thus delegated to a chief and to his descendants.
As obedience is the substratum of that government, in
order to maintain it, it was imperative that obedience
should be glorious, and that it should not degenerate
into subjection. For want of independence, light-minded-
ness was a necessary requisite. Such is the effect of
honour. If we wish to understand this chapter, we must
read its comment in the Memoirs of Saint- Simon.
The laws which flow from that principle, and which
are, consequently, the spring of monarchical institutions,
are those which form the sense of honour and the prero-
gatives upon which honour remains established. These
are privileges, the rights belonging to the eldest son of
the family, substitutions, and the exclusion of the aristo-
cracy from commercial pursuits.
As a monarchy subsists by the very opposition of the
intermediate powers, its essence is moderation. If it
ceases to be moderate, it runs a serious danger, and it
perishes from the corruption of its principle. Honour

IO4 Montesquieu.
becomes vanity, obedience dwindles into servitude ; in-
stead of being a virtue, it is a means of getting on. The
voice of the court absorbs that of the state. " If the prince
likes the souls of free men," says Montesquieu, " he will
have subjects ; if he is fond of depraved souls, he will
have slaves. These he is sure to have, and he degrades
them by subjecting them to his caprices ; he reduces the
magistrates to silence, suppresses the fundamental laws,
governs arbitrarily ; thus absolutism corrupts the court,
and by its example the court in its turn corrupts the
people. The manners which had made the monarchy
disappear \ the corporate bodies lose their dignity ;
privileges have no further raison d'etre, the privileged
classes are shorn of their authority, and thus the nation is
carried on, as it would have been by the suppression of
privileges, to one or the other of those inevitable goals of
decrepit monarchies : the popular state, or despotism."
Montesquieu detests despotism; he makes of it a fright-
ful picture, but it is a picture which lacks life. He has
not observed facts, and has been unable to consult trust-
worthy documents. The only despotism with which he is
acquainted is that of Eastern countries, of Ispahan or Con-
stantinople, the despotism of the Lettres Persanes, with
its mysterious seraglios, its formidable harems, its jealous
sultans, and its melancholy eunuchs. He should have
known Russia: it would have revealed to him the nature
of despotism tempered by religion, a form much more
accessible to Europeans. Montesquieu has had only a
distant and confused glimpse of the autocracy of the Tzars.

Political Laws and Governments. 105

The condition of Russia then, and its state since, weakens
many of his maxims, and destroys some.
" In despotic governments," he remarks, " no one is
attached to either the state or the prince." Now, here is
an empire where the prince is the living and arbitrary law,
and where the affection which he inspires in the people con-
stitutes all the strength of the state. Montesquieu does not
believe that such a government implies magnanimity; but
Catherine II and her grandson Alexander have proved the
contrary. He thinks that the right which the Czar enjoys
of appointing his successor gives unsteadiness to the
throne, " the order of succession being one of those things
which it is most important that the people should know."
During the whole of the eighteenth century the order of
succession to the throne of Russia has been subjected to the
greatest anomaly, and yet this throne has constantly gained
in strength ; and if the Russian people have inquired what
the name of their new master was, it is for the purpose of
changing in their prayers the name of the saint they were
in the habit of invoking. Asa withering conclusion of his
views of despotism, let us note that famous chapter which
has only three lines, and presents so grand an image :
" Whenever the savages of Louisiana want to get some
fruit, they cut down the tree at the root, and gather the
fruit. Such is despotic government." Yes, it is the
despotism of the Sultan ; but it is not that of the Czar
Peter or of Catherine the Great.
We ask ourselves why, discussing hardly any despotic
governments besides the monstrous one of the East,

1 06 Montesquieu.
Montesquieu has so dwelt upon them, why he examined
with such interest their nature, their principle, and the
corruption of that principle. We must, no doubt, allow
something for symmetry ; nor must we forget to take into
account the impression resulting from the perusal of
the works of Tavernier and Chardin. It is likewise natural
to believe that Montesquieu was looking out for an effect
of contrast; he wished to show thus the excellence of
monarchy, the danger of its degenerating ; and thus, by
a natural transition, he prepared his readers the better to
grasp his views on political liberty.
This special subject has been discussed by him in a
separate book ; for political liberty is compatible with
several forms of government, without being necessarily
bound to any of them. Montesquieu distinguishes it
from national independence, which means the freedom of
the nation with reference to foreigners, and from civil
freedom, that is to say, from liberty as it affects both per-
sons and property in the nation itself. He defines politi-
cal liberty " the right of doing all that is permitted by the
laws "; " liberty can consist only in the ability of doing
what we wish to do, and of not being compelled to do
what we should not wish to do." This definition is vague
and insufficient. The law may be, and has been, an
instrument of despotism : it might order me to do what
I ought not to wish to do, and vice versd. The Acts
against Roman Catholics and Dissenters in England were
laws. Freedom of conscience reigned in the dominions
of Frederick the Great, where the king's power was uncon-

Political Laws and Governments. 107

trolled ; it did not reign in England, despite a responsible
parliament and responsible ministers.
Where, then, is liberty? "Political liberty can be
found only under moderate governments ; but it is not
always there : its presence requires that power should not
be abusetj, and in order to this, it is necessary that
power should, if necessary, keep power in check. Such
is the famous theory of the separation of powers.
Montesquieu sums it up as follows : " When, in the same
person, or in the same body of magistrates, the legislative
and executive power are combined, no liberty is possible,
because it may be dreaded lest the same king and the
same senate should make tyrannical laws with the view of
executing them tyrannically." This circumstance has
been seen in France, both under the regime of absolute
monarchy, and under that of political assemblies, witness
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the Loi des suspects^
the Loi des otages. There must be, then, a separation of
the executive from the legislative powers, as a guarantee
of liberty, but an insufficient one. "There is still no
liberty if the judicial power, too, is not a distinct one."
For if it was united to the legislative power, the life and
freedom of the citizens could be arbitrarily disposed of,
the judge being also a legislator. If it was associated
with the executive, the judge might turn oppressor. Such,
in fact, was the case in many of the governments of
Europe, the French one, for instance, and that is why
Montesquieu called them moderate governments.
He had not invented that system; Aristotle had
H 2

io8 Montesquieu.
expressed it before him, but no one had done so in so
simple and evident a manner. Montesquieu caused it
to pass from theory to practice, and rendered it popular.
It is only in England that he saw the application of these
rules, and it is England which he describes when he pre-
sents to his readers the example of a nation " the direct
aim of whose constitution is political freedom."
Montesquieu does not write the history of that consti-
tution, and if he glances at the problem of origins, it is
merely for the purpose of repeating in the Esprit des
Lois a paradox which he was very fond of, and which had
already appeared in the Lettres Persanes. " If you will take
the trouble of reading the admirable work of Tacitus, de
Moribus Germanorum, you will see that the English
borrowed from the Germans the idea of their political
government. That splendid system has been discovered
in the woods." Montesquieu boasted of being descended
from the Goths, who, " conquering the Roman Empire,
founded everywhere monarchy and liberty." He had
special reasons for seeking in Tacitus the elements of the
English constitution, and special privileges for discovering
them. Learned men have made the same search, with the
same results, after him, and have shown these elements to
a number of very clever persons, who are convinced that
they have seen them. It would be impertinent to jeer
Montesquieu on hisflrejuge about his birth, and we must
be obliged to him for having stated it with so much good-
humour and so little pedantry. Let us imitate him, and,
without dwelling upon the problem, let us refer the

Political Laws and Governments. 109

reader to Messrs. Gneist and Freeman, the one a Ger-
man, the other an English historian, who stand up for
Tacitus and the forests ; to M. Guizot, and to his most
recent disciple and continuator, M. Boutmy these seem
to me to have refuted Montesquieu by making use of his
own method : they apply this method more widely than
Montesquieu did himself, when they show that the
origins of the English constitution are much more
historical than ethnical, and that they sprang, not from
the woods or the meadows, but from "necessities created
by circumstances."
Montesquieu examines that constitution when it has
reached its maturity, and in the degree of transformation
when it can be compared to other states. He assumes
that it is definitive ; he collects and generalises its
elements, as he did for the republics of antiquity. He
insists specially upon that part of the institutions which
can be transferred elsewhere. The English constitution,
indeed, has found its way, notr only in monarchies, but
also, with a few outward changes, in the republics, where,
owing to the extent of the territory, the people cannot
govern directly.
Montesquieu describes as follows "the fundamental
constitution" of the English government : a legislative body
composed of the representatives of the people, selected
according to a very wide system of suffrage, for it should
" include all the citizens except those who have sunk to
such a state of degradation that they are deemed
irresponsible" ; to this legislative body belongs the right

i io Montesquieu.
of making the laws and seeing that they are duly carried
out : there is an upper house, consisting of hereditary
members ; it helps with the legislative body to make the
laws, except in the matter of taxes, lest it should be
corrupted by the court ; here they only enjoy the right
of veto ; finally we have an executive power placed in
the hands of a monarch; for if legislation requires
deliberation, and accordingly the co-operation of several
persons, the carrying out of the laws implies one will. The
executive power does not necessarily take the initiative ;
it does not enter into the details of business, but enjoys
the right of veto. Supposing there is no monarch, the
executive power cannot be entrusted to members of
the legislature, for there would be then a confusion of
powers ; for the same reason the legislative body can
judge neither the conduct nor the person of the king ; but
if the monarch is inviolable and sacred, his ministers are
liable to be prosecuted and punished. Both houses
meet periodically, and vote every year the amount of the
taxes and the number of soldiers required for the public
The very general character given by Montesquieu to
this theory has helped to propagate it, but at the same
time it imparts to the chapter a literary dryness ; it con-
sists of nothing but maxims : a capital sketch, but lacking
both colour and life. It should be completed by the
perusal of the nineteenth chapter, where our author de-
scribes the political habits of the English, and analyses
that public spirit which is the real author, interpreter, and

Political Laws and Governments. 1 1 1

guardian of their constitution. He points out the vigour
and constancy of their love for political freedom, without
forgetting the defects which that love implies. The state
is in a continual turmoil; want of consistency characterises
the government ; corruption prevails in the elections and
in business ; authority is impatiently borne ; jealousy and
sharpness interfere with commercial pursuits ; social inter-
course is marred by that hauteur, that pride, which make
it seem as if, even in times of peace, the English " were
negotiating only with enemies." No doubt he carries too
far the spirit of generalisation when he says the English
are not conquerors by nature, and they are free from "de-
structive propensities." Why ! have not the English con-
quered one of the largest empires in the world, and made
on the largest scale the destruction of native populations ?
Montesquieu speaks too leniently of Ireland and of the
despotism which reigns there ; but, after all, he has well
caught the ensemble of the picture.
He has brought out and exhibited that terrible nationa
spring of the English which the Europeans of the con-
tinent had failed to see. With a stroke of the pen he has
refuted the prejudice which, after having so long deceived
the French, made the Conventionnels blunder, and ended
by driving Napoleon to his ruin. In one word, he anti-
cipated Pitt, and found out the formidable character of
the twenty-three years' war, when he expressed the follow-
ing opinion, which, deduced from facts and confirmed by
history, deserves to be placed on the same level as the
strongest scientific hypotheses.

U2 Montesquieu.
"If some foreign power were to threaten the state,
and imperil both its fortune and its glory, all minor
interests giving way to the superior ones, there would be
a general union to support the executive power. . . .
That nation would be enthusiastically attached to its
liberty, because liberty for the citizens would be the
true one ; and it might happen that, in order to defend
their liberty, the nation would not hesitate to sacrifice
property, comforts, interests. They would suffer the
heaviest taxes, such as the most absolute sovereign would
not venture to impose. . . . Their credit would be
unshaken, because they would borrow from their own
resources, and be their own creditors. It might happen
that such a people would go beyond their natural strength,
and employ against their enemies immense riches existing
only in fiction, but becoming real through the strength
and the character of the government."
We should like to dwell before this vast prospect, but
then we should have only an incomplete idea of Montes-
quieu's views on the nature and principle of political
constitutions. He further examines these laws in their
relation with crimes and penalties, the raising of the
taxes, and the national income. We have just seen what
close bonds connect the question of public finances with
that of political freedom. Montesquieu's definition of
the taxes has become classical. " The revenues of the
state consist of the portion which each citizen gives of
his fortune in order to enjoy securely the rest." He
proves the advantage of indirect taxes, and seems to

Political Laws and Governments. 113

incline towards a progressive system of taxation. His
illusions respecting the republics of antiquity perhaps
led him in that direction ; but he was chiefly influenced
by the example of the capitation such as it was applied,
in his time, to the privileged classes ; that capitation was
settled, not according to the fortune, but according to
dignity and the social rank of the taxpayers. Montes-
quieu condemns the regie, and protests vigorously against
the gabelle and the maltote. " Everything is lost," says
he, " when the lucrative profession of a trailant becomes
an honoured one from the riches it implies."
Montesquieu's studies on criminal laws are justly
considered amongst his proudest titles to the gratitude
of mankind. Nowhere has he manifested greater
strength of thought and a more delicate touch than in his
chapter on the nature of penal enactments. Here his
affinity to Montaigne appears very vividly. " We must
not lead men on by extreme ways; we should be
chary as to the means given to us by nature to conduct
them. Let us examine the causes of all disorders, and
we shall see that they arise from the impunity of crimes,
and not from moderation in the inflicting of punishments."
The next chapter, bearing the startling title, Inefficiency of
the Japanese Laws, and forming the comment on the above
maxim, embodies the real spirit of the eighteenth century.
" Exaggerated penalties can corrupt even despotism itself."
"A wise legislator should endeavour to lead people in
the right path by a just admixture of penalties and rewards,
by maxims of philosophy, ethics, and religion .... by the

1 14 Montesquieu.
due application of the rules of honour ; by the torture
which shame inflicts." Critics will say, no doubt, that is
the philosophic idyll and the maudlin sentimentality of
our fathers ; well, the politicians of our age had not
discovered a more efficacious means of dealing with
criminals ; and, towards the end of the last century, after the
Reign of Terror and the Directoire, the result of excessive
repressions was clearly seen. Montesquieu had foretold
it : " There remains in the state a vice which such
relentlessness has produced ; the minds are corrupted,
and have accustomed themselves to despotism."
We all know that Montesquieu had the honour of
contributing to the abolition of torture, but readers have
less noticed his irrefutable arguments against confiscations.
It was an act of boldness to put forth these arguments
then. Confiscation was the universal law in criminal
courts; suppressed in 1790, it was re-established a short
time after, and enforced with far greater excesses than
during the worst period of the old monarchy. As for the
lettres de cachet, Montesquieu condemns them indirectly
when he praises the Habeas Corpus Act.
He lays down the true laws about freedom of thought
and freedom of the press, "Only outward acts are
amenable to the laws. . ." " It is not words that are
punished, but deeds in the performance of which the
words are uttered. Words become crimes when they
prepare, accompany, or follow a criminal action." The
old monarchy knew nothing of that ; it was loudly pro-
claimed during the Revolution, and shamefully violated

Political Laws and Governments. 115

by the Revolution itself. Montesquieu only considered
the abuses of monarchical legislation, but he condemned
by anticipation the abuses of the Revolutionary lawgivers
when he said : " Nothing renders the crime of high
treason more arbitrary than when it is grounded upon
indiscreet words." "It is another evident abuse to
denounce as high treason an action which has nothing
to do with it." He denies the application of the word
to intrigues against cabinet ministers, as under Richelieu,
or to coining, as under Valentinian, Theodosius, and
Arcadius. He quotes Arcadius, as a declaration of 1720
did in the case of the forging of royal papers, but he
does not name that declaration, which, however, was
remembered at the time of the assignats.
The worst abuse is when the accusation of high treason
is applied to heresy and sacrilege. In Montesquieu's
days this was the universally recognised law. The
episode of La Barre and that of Galas made noise enough
to impress everyone on that point. The declaration of
1724, which confirmed and summed up the most implac-
able measures of Louis XIV against the Huguenots, was
in full activity. No more cruel law can be imagined ;
that which existed in England against the Papists was
not worse. Autodafes were still practised in Spain and
in Portugal. "The idea that the Deity should be
avenged," says Montesquieu, "is at the root of this
scandal." As the mere crime of sacrilege is a religious
one, it can be punished only by expulsion from the place
of worship, and the cutting off of the delinquent from the

1 1 6 Montesquieu.
society of the faithful. As for the sacrilege which leads to
disturbances in religious services, it participates in the nature
of offences against public tranquillity, and must be classed
along with them. In other words, civil law is not cog-
nisant of sacrilege, and is not qualified to repress it
Montesquieu does not dwell upon the suppression of
heresy, but he condemns it in a few words of lofty
jesting, by parallels which are tantamount to a stigma.
" This is a maxim worth considering : we should be very
circumspect in the prosecution on a charge of sorcery
and heresy ... of what use, besides, are persecutions
and penalties? Men who believe in the certainty of
rewards beyond the grave will slip through the fingers of
the legislator ; their contempt of death is too great."
Under the impression of this idea, he addresses a very
humble remonstrance to the inquisitors of Spain and
Portugal, disguising the pathos of the thought under the
irony of the style. This remonstrance he places in the
mouth of a Jew, and if you take it in a strictly literal
sense, it applies to the Jews alone, but Montesquieu is
thinking of France. He appeals indirectly to the
persecution of the Huguenots, when in the next chapter
he attempts to explain why " Christianity is so hateful in
Japan." " The slightest act of disobedience is severely
punished by the Japanese laws ; if you will not abjure
Christianity, you are guilty of disobedience, the sentence
is accordingly pronounced, and if you persist in remaining
a Christian, this fresh act of disobedience calls for further
punishment. Punishments are regarded by the Japanese

Political Laws and Governments. 117

as the vengeance taken for an insult offered to the
prince." It was exactly the same in France for those
who carried impertinence so far as not to believe in the
religion practised by the king.
With reference to toleration, the advice contained in
the Esprit des Lois does not go beyond the insinuations
of the Lettrcs Persanes. Montesquieu wants the Edict
of Nantes, the whole of it, and nothing but it. He dreads
religious propagandism, because, according to him, it
sows the seeds of discord in the state and destroys paternal
authority in families. He dreads the retaliations of
proscribed sects, which become persecuting when they
cease to be oppressed. " Such is," he says in conclusion,
"the fundamental principle of political laws, in matters
pertaining to religion. If you are at liberty to receive a
new religion in a state or not, do not sanction its
establishment ; if it is established, tolerate it. Should you
think it expedient to destroy it, gentle and crafty means
are the most efficacious. It is safest to attack a
religious creed by favour, by the conveniences of life, by
the hope of pecuniary advantages ; not by warnings, but
by encouraging forgetfulness ; not by exciting indignation,
but by fostering lukewarmness, when other passions act
upon our soul, and when those which religion inspires
are silent. As a general rule, invitations are better than
penalties to bring about a change of faith." Such was
the opinion of Richelieu, the great follower of Machiavelli
in those matters ; such was that of the politicians who,
like Saint-Simon, blamed Louis XFV for having spoiled

1 1 8 Montesquieu.
by his violence and his pride the work of patience and of
Some readers might perhaps feel inclined to look upon
the above passage as merely ironical ; they would, we
believe, be mistaken, and Montesquieu expresses his
whole thought. A state religion tempered by the in-
difference of the majority and the unbelief of the higher
ranks seems to him preferable, after all, to the competi-
tions of petty sects. He deems the clergy a useful order
in the state, but its pretensions must be under restraint ;
its riches should be limited ; now they were, at that time,
far too great in France. Montesquieu dreads the influence,
in political questions, of the priests, who, he says, under-
stand nothing about politics. As for the monks, he
despises them thoroughly, nor does he spare them the
expression of his contempt. He goes somewhere so far
as to place them in the same rank as conquerors, the
most mischievous, he says, of all mortals. We must,
nevertheless, praise him, and praise him very much for
having composed these chapters. In the age in which
he lived, it was already a great step in advance to treat
publicly these grave points as matters of discussion and
as a political article. It required as much boldness to
speak of them freely in the presence of the Church as to
deal with them respectfully amongst a company of
libertines. Montesquieu rises at once above Voltaire,
who, in matters pertaining to religion, could never
entirely separate history from polemics, and polemics
from jokes. A propos of Bayle, Montesquieu remarks :

Political Laws and Governments. 119

"He argues badly against religion who in a voluminous
work makes a long list of the evils which it has produced,
if he does not give an equally full enumeration of the
benefits it has conferred. If I wanted to relate all the
evils which have resulted in the world from civil laws,
monarchies, republican governments, etc., I could reveal
frightful things."
These considerations on criminal laws and on toleration
are grave and austere. Why is it that, carried away by
some strange aberration of taste, Montesquieu introduced
in those magnificent essays, as a kind of interlude, the
most useless, the silliest, and the unkindest of digressions ?
We mean the chapter entitled : On Outrages against
Modesty in the repression of Crime ; we might add : On
Outrages against Modesty in the " Esprit des Lois,"

NO part of Montesquieu's works has undergone a
severer criticism, especially from his contempo-
raries, than the one in which he treats of the laws in their
relation to the nature of climate. That theory, says
Voltaire, is borrowed from Chardin, and is none the truer.
Chardin, besides, introduced it merely as a digression, in
his chapter on the "Palace of the King's Wives." He
refers his reader to Galen, who himself had caught his
inspiration from Hippocrates. The idea is no new one,
and if critics were astonished at seeing it revived by an
historian of political institutions, it is because they lived
in an age when those who prided themselves on legislat-
ing from the principles of natural law began by eliminating
the most elementary components of nature the air, the
soil, the country, the race. Montesquieu's error does
not consist in his having inquired into the influence ot
these various elements, but in having studied only one
of them from very insufficient data. His notes on
climates, taken at random, and brought together in the

Climates. 121
most arbitrary manner, full of uncertain facts, of ingenious
paradoxes and observations, could have supplied materials
for a pleasant essay in Montaigne's style. Montesquieu's
aim was to deduce a system from it, and the whole
scaffolding fell to the ground.
It is an easy task to pick up the debris and to deter-
mine the causes of the fractures. " The government of a
single man is most frequently to be found in fertile
countries, and the government of several in barren ones" ;
parliamentary rule established itself on a rich agricultural
soil ; the sandy districts of Northern Germany have up to
the present day been untouched by it. According to
Montesquieu, a cold climate will produce, together with
more strength, greater self-reliance and the consciousness
of one's own superiority; that is to say, a smaller disposition
to revenge, a more serious opinion of one's security; that
is to say, more frankness, fewer suspicions, less political
scheme, less cunning. What a number of virtues
ascribed to frost and damp ! These elements may
produce them all, but they have seldom been associated.
The first qualities enumerated : strength, self-con-
fidence, the spirit of enterprise, go well together, and we
identify them at once with the Anglo-Saxon, the North-
men and the Germans, but we are puzzled by what
follows ; and, to mention only truisms and proverbs, we
can explain to ourselves neither the wiliness of Normans,
nor the perfidiousness of Albion, nor German quarrels. A
little further on, heat produces amongst the tribes of Asia
all the effects which we should expect from cold in

122 Montesquieu.
Russia. We shall not dwell further on this point, but be
satisfied with having brought to light in these imprudent
assertions one side of Montesquieu's character, the one,
namely, where to share his views, one is inclined to sus-
pect the influence of the capricious climate of Gascony.
To tell the truth, Montesquieu has cast on that part
of nature only the glance of an inquirer, indiscreet and
stealthy. All those various conditions of human society
climate, country, race are nothing else but elementary
causes, vague and inaccessible ; the last is very uncertain
and confused in its data ; the two others are extremely
precarious in their elements, and can only be observed
in masses of population ; now that is what Montesquieu
failed to see ; at the same time, from these primary causes
originate secondary ones, which by accumulating their
effects, produce the real and living effects of social
phenomena, we mean the manners, the prejudices, the
passions, the instincts, the character, in one word, of
individuals, and of the nationalities which these individuals
contribute to make up. Montesquieu was not bound to
be familiar with a science only just now in search of a
method, classifying its collections and determining its
frontiers ; but he discerned its principal object, when he
wrote as follows : " From the different wants in different
climates have arisen the different ways of living ; and
these different ways of living have resulted in different
kinds of laws." This flash of light has sufficed to guide
him on his way, and amongst our most learned modern
anthropologists there is not one of whom we can say

The Composing of Laws. 123

that he has done more than Montesquieu for the progress
of social science.
He studies civil laws in the relation which they should
have with the order of subjects on which they decide :
it is a vast picture of the efforts of men to organise
mankind into societies. These chapters would deserve
more than Voltaire's work the title of Essai sur les mceurs
et Fesprit des nations. Of that excursion made by both
writers through the annals of mankind, Voltaire, as some
one has very wisely said, has only drawn the elementary
chart, Montesquieu has composed the substantial account.
He sees in depth what Voltaire only perceives on the
surface. Voltaire does not care to inquire into the
" necessary relations of things"; he delights in pointing
out everywhere the work of chance ; and, in his determina-
tion to exclude God from history, he likewise eliminates
logic, consecutiveness, conscience, and human judgment ;
all these Montesquieu brings back.
He gives excellent advice on the way of composing
and drawing up laws. The chapter on legislation as
applied to private individuals contains remarkable views
on divorce, which he approved of; on imprisonment,
which he would have suppressed in civil litigation ; on the
necessity of keeping civil registers, which he was one of
the first to advise ; and on expropriation, the principle of
which was laid down by him. His views on slavery do
him the greatest honour. It was not useless to point
out the abuses rising from slavery and the dangers
belonging to it, especially in a democracy. Slavery
I 2
1 24 Montesquieu.
gave birth to the republic of the United States, which
only freed itself from it after the experience of a century,
and a struggle where it nearly perished. A revolution
has been necessary to suppress slavery in the French
colonies. If official Europe troubled itself about the
negroes, and listened to the appeal which Montesquieu
made more than half a century before, it was in conse-
quence of the extreme weariness which all the governments
felt after the Empire and the great truce of Vienna
in 1815. "Narrow-minded people," he remarks, with
bitter irony, " are fond of over-estimating the injustice
committed against the natives of Africa. For if it was
such as it is stated to be, would it never have occurred to
the princes of Europe, who make such useless conven-
tions, to make a general one in favour of mercy and
The European princes have followed that suggestion
inspired by pity ; they have misunderstood the wise
counsels given to them by Montesquieu in his chapters
on international rights. On that subject we are still
hesitating between an ideal law which speculative thinkers
are endeavouring to deduce from scholastic abstractions,
and a realistic jurisprudence which politicians follow in
society. Voltaire used to call that jurisprudence "the
system of highwaymen " ; whilst Montesquieu, always
more full of deference towards human nature, and more
respectful to political decorum, defines it as a " science
which teaches princes how far they can violate justice
without damaging their own interests."

Jurisprudence. 125
Is there anything else, Voltaire asked in his dialogue
between Hobbes, Grotius, and Montesquieu ? Is there
an international law ? "I am grieved to have to say
so," answers one of the interlocutors, " but there is no
international law except that of being constantly on the
watch. All kings, all cabinet ministers think exactly as we
do, and that is why twelve hundred thousand mercenary
troops parade about in Europe, at this moment, in time
of peace. Let a prince disband his army, allow his
fortresses to fall in ruins, and spend his time in reading
Grotius, you will see if in a year or two he has not lost
his kingdom. That would be a shameful injustice.
Granted. And is there no remedy? None, unless that
a monarch should put himself in a position to be as
unjust as his neighbours. Then ambition is kept in
check by ambition, dogs of equal strength show their
teeth, and fall upon each other when they have prey to
devour." Such was the wisdom of Europe in the
eighteenth century. After a century and a half of
additional experience, such are the ultima verba of the
wisdom of the nineteenth. Fresh millions of men have
been sacrificed, and yet not one step forward can be
adduced. The empiricists who have nations under their
care will keep in their political hygiene to Broussais-
bleeding. " Every monarch," says Montesquieu, " retains
under arms all the force he would require if his subjects
were threatened with extermination : and this state of
efforts made by all against all is called peace. Accordingly
the whole of Europe is ruined, and so much so, that if

126 Montesquieu.
private individuals were circumstanced as these most
opulent powers in this part of the world, they would not
have whereupon to live. We are poverty-stricken, not-
withstanding the riches and the commerce of the whole
possess nothing else but soldiers, and we shall be in the
same condition as the Tartars."
Montesquieu is not inclined to accept this state of
things ; he looks for a remedy, and seeks it in the very
nature of the disease. He does not take up his position
outside the real world ; he enters into it, raises himself
up with it, and beholds it, not as it should be, but as it
actually is. " In Europe nations are opposed, the strong
to the strong ; those which are contiguous to each other
are nearly equal in point of courage. That is the grand
reason ... of the liberty which we enjoy in Europe. The
respect of what is right results here not from the
conciliation of wars but from the opposition of forces."
"The princes who do not hold intercourse with each
other by virtue of civil laws, are not free; they are
governed by force, and are continually liable either to
force others or to be forced themselves ... a prince
living always in such a state, has no right to complain of
having been compelled to make a treaty ; it is as if he
complained of his natural state . . . force even disposes of
the reputation of nationalities." It was only war which
decided which of the two expressions was the right one,
the Punic faith or the Roman faith. War is at the
bottom of all these barbarous relations. Men launch

The Right of Conquest. 127

into war, for the purpose of attacking their neighbours
or of protecting themselves ; they do it with the view of
conquering, or, on the other hand, in order to prevent a
dreaded attack, and avoid the conquest by which they
think themselves threatened. In that pretended right all
reduces itself to interest.
Interest is the only sanction of that right. War is not a
right, it is a deed of violence ; conquest creates no right
per se. " It is a conqueror's business to repair part of
the evil which he has done. I thus define the right of
conquest : a necessary, legitimate, and unfortunate right,
which always leaves an immense debt to be paid if we
would discharge the claims which human nature demands;
on these conditions alone is conquest justified, and a right
established for the conqueror over the conquered people.
The conqueror wins over that people by good govern-
ment. There is accordingly a natural limit to conquest,
it is the faculty of assimilation. A prince should conquer
only that which he can retain and identify with himself.
States have their proportions ; and it is a mistake to go
beyond the limits of the territory which we can govern
without exhausting the strength and ruining the principle
of the government."
All the rules of international law are reduced to the
following maxim, and summed up in the following precept .
"The various nations, in a state of peace, should do
to each other the greatest amount of good, and, in a
state of war, should inflict upon each other the smallest
amount of harm consistent with their real interests."

128 Mo ntesquieu.
If we contrast these views of Montesquieu with what is
the actual practice of the various states, that will be
enough to show us how far politicians still are from
humanity, common-sense, and experience.
Montesquieu did little else but propound general
views on a subject which he considered from so lofty a
height ; on the other hand, he was fond of economical
remarks, in which too much is allowed for conjecture,
and in which facts incompletely observed, and accumu-
lated, so to say, around him, dazzle his sight and too often
lead it astray. His greatest merit here is to have antici-
pated Adam Smith, and endeavoured before him to reduce
into a scientific shape the problems of political economy.
The capital and most lasting chapter in this part of the
Esprit des Lois is the history of commerce which our
author has inserted into it ; it is full of breadth, and has
a majestic flow. It constitutes a history of the re-
lations between the various societies of mankind, and is
a chapter detached from the history of civilisation. We
see commerce finding gradually its way out of "vexation
and despair," to arrive at security. But what has mankind
had to pay in sanguinary and atrocious experiences,
such as the proscription of the Jews and Huguenots in
France, to grasp that conclusion which confirms all the
lessons of politics by those of self-interest ? " It is a well-
known truth that the kindness of the government is the
only source of prosperity." Montesquieu's theory on
commerce rests upon a very subtle distinction between
"the commerce in articles of luxury," destined to supply

Trade and Commerce. 129

nations with what flatters their pride, and the " commerce
of economy" resulting from transports and commissions.
The former is the trade of great monarchical states, the
latter constitutes the trade of republics and smaller
nationalities. Although Montesquieu discovers greatness
in the commercial enterprise of England, trade seems to
him, viewed in itself, a matter of petty government and
of low-born people. The Romans spurned it, and France
should have nobler cares. Riches are something, no
doubt, and the public wealth tends to be transformed
by the extension of movable property. This is what
Montesquieu sees very well, but he goes further. " The
nation which possesses most of that movable property
is the richest," and yet he does not covet those riches
for his own country. Honour and riches, or, in other
words, honour and trade, do not stand on the same
level; that feudal honour, he means, which is the
principle of monarchical government.
As for the other form of honour, the popular or bourgeois
one, Montesquieu believes, on the contrary, that it is the
soul and prop of commerce. If he pronounces on trade
with the prejudices of a parlementaire, he decides about
it as a good magistrate. His considerations on the
dangers of speculation and gambling substituted in the
place of work, on the necessity of maintaining in all
their severity the laws on bankruptcy, deserve all the
more to be meditated, because facts have strongly justified
his previsions. Nothing can be truer than his reflections
on the rate of interest and on money-exchanges.

1 30 Montesquieu.
A few lines of his state more clearly than ever
was done the problem of tariffs and that of commercial
treaties. The everlasting conflict between protection
and free-trade is reduced to its legitimate terms, and
Montesquieu indicates how we must arrive at the solu-
tion of the difficulty. " Wherever there is commerce,
there are customs and dues. The object of commerce
is the export and import of merchandise for the benefit
of the state, and the purpose of customs is the levying
of a certain duty, also for the benefit of the state, on
that same export and import. The state must therefore
occupy a neutral position between its tolls and its com-
merce, so that these two elements should not interfere
with each other."
Let us exemplify these maxims by an illustration of
Montesquieu's : " When a tribute is merely accidental,
and depends neither on the industry of the nation, nor
the population, nor even the cultivation of the soil, the
riches such a tribute brings in are of a bad kind. The
King of Spain, who receives great sums from his Cadiz
customs, is, in this respect, merely a very wealthy private
individual in a very poor country. ... If some provinces
in Castile supplied him with a sum equal to that furnished
by the Cadiz customs, his power would be far greater,
his wealth could be only the result of that belonging to
these countries ; all the other provinces would thus be
animated by the prosperity of them, and all united would
be better able to bear their respective burdens. Instead
of a large exchequer, there would be a great people."

Trade and Commerce. 131

Montesquieu has discerned all the importance of inter-
national commercial relations. " Two nations trading
together are in a position of mutual dependence.
Properly conducted relations and commercial treaties
soundly framed prepare between two nations the most
beneficent connection ; but the reverse is equally true, and
experience verifies it more constantly." Montesquieu seems
thus to have generalised too hurriedly when he affirms
that "the natural effect of commerce is to incline people
in favour of peace." Commerce requires peace, but it
genders a spirit of competition extremely bitter, extremely
jealous, and extremely suspicious ; this spirit leads to con-
flicts as severe as political rivalries, and to struggles about
tariffs as implacable as wars about the delimitation of
If Montesquieu could have been acquainted with the
constitution of the United States, he would on more than
one point have modified the chapters in which he
discusses democracy ; if he had observed the manners of
the Americans, he would have altered some of his views
on commerce. Not that he failed to anticipate the future
reserved to the great industrial nations. He has
observed the chief difficulties which these communities
have in maintaining their public morality ; they are bound
to struggle against the very effects of the industry which
is the source of their life. " In the countries imbued
solely with the commercial spirit, all human actions and all
moral virtues are treated as objects of trade ; the smallest
things, even those required by humanity, have a money-

132 Montesquieu.
value. The spirit of commerce produces amongst men
a certain sense of strict justice, opposed on the one
hand to robbery, and on the other to those moral virtues
which lead us not to be always too strict about our own
interests, but to neglect them occasionally for the
interests of others." As a point of curiosity, and before
finishing this part of our subject, let us quote the remark
which concludes the chapter on the commerce of Greece :
" How those games contributed to the prosperity of the
nation, which the Greeks, so to say, offered to the world ! "
Montesquieu, as the inventor of international exhibitions,
deserves to be placed side by side with Pascal, originator
of omnibuses !
If we isolated the noble and generous remarks of
Montesquieu, and the duties by which society is bound
to all its members, we might see in him the forerunner
of our modern state-socialism. At the beginning of his
chapter on hospitals, he says : "A man is not poor
because he has nothing, but because he does not work";
he then goes on : " The state owes to all citizens a secure
subsistence, food, proper clothing, and a healthful kind of
life." The state is bound to prevent industrial crises,
"to prevent the people either from suffering or from
rebellion. In order to this result, schools should be
opened for the teaching of manual professions, the exer-
cise of those professions should be made easy, and the
workmen should be secured against the risks attending
them in commercial countries ; when many people have
no other resource but their craft, the state is often

State Socialism. 133

obliged to provide for the wants of the old, the sick, and
the orphan. A well-regulated state derives these
requirements from the crafts themselves ; it provides
some with the work which they are capable of doing, it
teaches others to work, and that, in itself, is already a
work." The reader, however, must not be mistaken ;
Montesquieu contemplates neither " national workshops"
nor the famous " right to work." He wants simply to
revert to the practice of the ancien regime monarchies.
Compare this chapter on Hospitals with de Tocqueville's
chapter on Administrative Habits under the Old Monarchy,
and you will have Montesquieu's real thought.
The monarchy which he always has in view, is the
paternal one ; his opinions on the duties of the state
towards the subjects of the prince, are the result of his
notions on the hierarchy of privileged bodies and his
system of prerogatives. All these consequences proceed
from the very fundamental principle of the monarchy,
and the feudal character of its origins. A history of
feudal institutions, that is to say, the historical raisin
d'etre of monarchy and its privileges, was thus the natural
complement of Montesquieu's work ; and innumerable
bonds, somewhat confused, no doubt, but yet perfectly
fastened, connected it with all the portions of the Esprit
des Lois.
Montesquieu felt a great deal of interest in the history
of the middle ages, very much opposed and very superior
to his contemporaries, in this as well as in many other
subjects. He endeavoured to discover in the obscure

1 34 Montesquieu.
origin of France, the law of the destinies of his native
country. The pride of the gentilhomme was equally con-
cerned with the curiosity of the thinker. Both forces
drew him towards those mysterious fastnesses from which
the elements of political freedom had issued, together
with the Germans, his reputed forefathers. He started
on a voyage of discovery. The work was toilsome, the
investigations slow and painful. " It seems," he says,
" that there is nothing but sea, and that the sea itself
has no shores. All these cold, dry, insipid, and hard
works must be read, assimilated. . . ." "Feudal laws
are a splendid sight. An old oak rises, the eye sees its
foliage from afar ; we approach, we behold the stem, but
we cannot perceive the roots ; if we want to find them,
we must dig the ground."
Montesquieu became passionately fond of his work
in consequence of a very sharp controversy which broke
out in the meanwhile. The historical memoirs of
Count Boulainvilliers on the ancient governments of
France were published in 1727, five years after the
author's death. The subject was the German conquest
and the granting of liberty through the medium of the
states-general. According to Boulainvilliers, the con-
querors who had reduced Gaul into subjection had, by
the very fact of the conquest, assumed the right and the
duty of limiting the power of the king. The Abbe Dubos
perpetual secretary of the Academic Franfaise, maintained
a diametrically opposed view in his Critical History of the
Establishment of the French Monarchy in Gaul. This

Boulainvilliers and Diibos. 135

work came out in 1734. According to Dubos, the
Germans, few in number besides, had entered Gaul, not
as conquerors, but as allies of the Romans ; their instal-
lation in the country led to no fresh institutions. The
chiefs of these bands received from the Romans the
government of the territories they occupied, and they
governed those territories according to Roman customs.
The revolution which created France took place only
later on ; it consisted in the transformation of offices into
lordships ; the regime of the conquest was introduced into
Gaul by the advent of feudalism, for the benefit of the
Montesquieu prided himself on his Teutonic origin,
but his spirit was essentially Roman. He seemed
destined to reconcile the two conflicting theories. " Count
Boulainvilliers and the Abbe Dubos," says he, "have
each produced a system, the one of which seems a
conspiracy against the third estate, and the other a
conspiracy against the aristocracy." He wanted to stand
between the rivals. His passions drew him towards
Boulainvilliers, whom he treated as a gentilhomme, and
estranged him from Dubos, whom, despite their academical
confraternity, he regarded as little better than a parvenu
and a college scullion. He criticised Boulainvilliers with
respect ; if now and then he approves Dubos, it is only
disdainfully ; his discussion with him is nothing else but
He thus turned round the subject, so to say, before
dealing with it. In Book xvm, alluding to the laws

1 36 Montesquieu.
in their relation with the nature of the soil, he treats of
the Prankish kings, their majority, their long hair,
and the national assemblies under their reign. He
reverts to the same question in Book xxviu, on the Origin
and the Revolution of t/ie Civil Laws amongst the French.
After a broad definition of the subject, he grapples with
it on one side, and then stops suddenly short. " I could
have inserted a large work in a large work. I am like that
antiquary who left his country, arrived in Egypt, cast a
glance at the Pyramids, and went off." Yet the Pyramids
fascinated him ; he returned to them, and, this time,
wished to dive into the secrets of the monument. After
having terminated Books xxx and xxxi, that is to say,
his theory of the feudal laws, he said, in 1748 : "I believe
I have made discoveries on the obscurest subject we
have, and notwithstanding, a magnificent one."
Montesquieu discusses the origin of feudal laws which
he finds in Caesar and Tacitus, he then comments on
the codes of the Barbarians, and challenges Dubos, en-
deavouring to prove against him that the lands occupied
by the Teutonic leaders paid no tribute. The whole effort
of the debate is there. One of the most judicious and
prudent umpires in this great historical controversy, M.
Vuitry, remarks that " Montesquieu does not destroy the
ensemble of the proofs put forth by Dubos, at any rate as
to the continuance under the early Prankish kings of the
taxes imposed by the Romans upon the Gallo-Roman
population. But his arguing is more conclusive and
more peremptory with regard to the Franks; and it must

Feudal Law. 137

be acknowledged that if the kings endeavoured to oblige
these to the payment of the public tributes, it was with-
out success."
Montesquieu studies in due order the origin of feudal
dues, that of vassalage, that of fiefs. He discusses the
question of military service on the part of freemen, the
justice rendered by the lords, the transformation of
benefices into fiefs, and the revolution which gave to
these fiefs an hereditary character. This revolution
brought about feudal government, and Montesquieu
connects it with the other revolution which changed the
reigning family, and united to an important fief the king-
dom deprived of all domanial property in consequence of
the dispersion of power. From these two circumstances,
contemporaneous and united together, he deduces one
leading consequence, namely, the right of primogeniture.
Fiefs, originally, were capable of being transferred, and
the kingdom was liable to be divided. Henceforth both
crown and fiefs are hereditary. The transference of
fiefs to foreigners is another result. Hence, for the
suzerains, private rights : that of lod and of sale, that of
redemption, that of garde-noble, the settling of the forms
of homage, and the principle of old French juris-
prudence that landed property cannot be alienated from
the branch of the family to which it belongs. " I finish,"
says Montesquieu, " this treatise on fiefs at the point
where most writers have begun it." He abruptly concludes
there, and winds up by that splendid juridical develop-
ment the three books, where, if we may believe a master,

138 Montesquieu.
" he has stated with so much power, but in so capricious
and desultory a manner, his views on the origin of our
social institutions."
Since Montesquieu, the study of mediaeval history,
then in its early stage, and limited to conjecture, has pro-
duced a science which occupies an important place in
our historical schools. Deeper researches, and the inves-
tigation of original documents, have remarkably renovated
and extended the discussions which divided the erudite
French scholars contemporary of Montesquieu. These
controversies are still alive, and if the battle-field seems
closed, the fight has not come to an end. Although
wounded in many places, Montesquieu is still imposing
in the distance at which we see him. He has examined
the ground of the contest, and given the impulse. " We
must," says he, "elucidate history by legislation, and
elucidate legislation by history." He was really creating
a science and a method which he bequeathed to his
These two capital episodes of commerce and feudal
laws did not lend themselves, as the previous ones did,
to literary amenities and to pictorial illustrations. They
form long galleries, very open, but somewhat cold and
bare. In order to embellish them, Montesquieu could
place in them only busts and statues ; that is what he has
done. Two of these statues override all the rest, both by
the importance of the personages represented, and by the
finish of the execution ; they are those of Alexander the
Great and Charlemagne, who were both conquerors and

Alexander and Charlemagne. 139

civilisers. Under the image of these heroes Montes-
quieu has embodied the noblest and greatest qualities
which his historical genius inspired him with in the art of
governing men.
Italiam ! Italiam ! Such is his exclamation on reach-
ing the goal which he had fixed for his excursion. No
conclusion ; he does not shut his book, but leaves it
open, so to say, towards the future.

THE Esprit des Lois was printed at Geneva, and
published there in November 1748, in two quarto
volumes. It bore no author's name, but everyone affixed
to it that of Montesquieu. The work soon found its way
to the studies of all respectable persons, although the
government censors had not authorised its circulation.
The success it obtained was extreme, yet critics rose up
in large numbers. Montesquieu was too unpretendingly
a great man not to excite much jealousy. He attacked
too many prejudices and disconcerted too many habits not
to suggest many protestations. Above all, he waged war
against the prejudice of pure reason, and interfered with
the arbitrary decisions of those reformers who delight
to work in tabula rasa. That school of speculative
philosophers has always been restive against experience.
They condemned the Esprit des Lois without taking the

Helvttius. 141
trouble to understand it, and the historical method with-
out trying to apply it.
Montesquieu had one friend among the members of
the coterie to which we are alluding : it was Helvetius. He
composed a treatise on esprit in general, but failed to
comprehend that of Montesquieu. He possessed as-
surance for lack of depth, and summed up in a few lines
all the objections of abstract politicians against the Esprit
des Lois. " You often lend to the world a reason and a
wisdom which are really only yours ... a writer aiming at
being useful to mankind wishes rather to busy himself
with true maxims in a state of things to come, than to
perpetuate those which are dangerous. . . I only know
two kinds of government : the good ones and the bad
ones ; the former have not yet entered an appearance."
According to the opinion of Helvetius, Montesquieu's
system of politics was too complicated ; his hygiene was
too slow, and required too much patience on the part of
the physician, too much virtue on that of the patient.
Why all these minute counsels on dietary and mode of
living ? It was so easy to find a well-sounding formula,
and to follow a good universal remedy. " My aim," said
Montesquieu to some one who criticised him thus, " has
been to write my work, and not his." Helvetius, who
dreaded the Esprit des Lois for the sake of his friend's
reputation, would certainly have benefited by the change.
Montesquieu had always shown his contempt for the
farming of the taxes, the/ermiers and traitants in general.
One of them attempted to wreak his vengeance upon the

142 Montesquieu.
philosopher. His name was Claude Dupin, and he
compiled in 1740 some Reflexions on certain parts of a
book entitled V Esprit des Lois. None but a fool could
have selected such a title, and the work was on a level
with the title. " If you are looking out for some situation,"
said Dupin, "you had better take another direction ; the
one which you follow would not lead you anywhere."
The situation which Montesquieu aimed at was not one
of those which are in the gift of the Dupin race. " Here
I am," he wrote to a friend, " summoned before the court
of tax-collectors." Dupin dared not carry the business to
extremities, and was contented with securing for his two
volumes a clandestine circulation. A few just remarks, if
notreflections, might be found in ihefac/um. Montesquieu
had his fits of absence and of carelessness. Dupin noted
them, and Voltaire turned these criticisms to account in
the writings which he composed about Montesquieu,
the A, E, C (1768), and the commentary on F Esprit des
Lois (i-m}.
Voltaire was busy upon FEssai sur les Mceurs when F Es-
prit des Lois appeared. It seems as if that masterpiece
annoyed him ; he disliked Montesquieu, who in his turn
had but little taste for Voltaire, in whom he saw scarcely
anything but a literary scamp. "It would be a disgrace for
the Academic" said he, "if Voltaire belonged to it; and it
will be one day a disgrace for Voltaire not to have been
made an academician." " He is too witty to understand
me," added Montesquieu. Voltaire only half-listened
and half-understood. He stopped at the jokes, and

Religious Criticism. 143

scarcely perceived the gist of the matter. He praised
Montesquieu when others attacked him, and attacked
him when the rest heaped praises upon him ; whilst
pretending to caress him, he contrived to scratch, and
then covered the wound with small flowers'. The following
beautiful appreciation, which makes up for many epigrams,
is Voltaire's, however : " The human race had lost its
titles; M.de Montesquieu found them and testored them."
What Voltaire enjoyed most in the Esprit des
Lois is the opposition it met with on the part of
the clergy. The Jesuits condemned it, but courteously,
in the Journal de Trevoux, the Jansenists attacked
it bitterly in the Nouvelles Ecdesiastiques for April
and October 1749. Both called Montesquieu to account
a propos of Spinosism, climate, the Stoics, suicide,
Montezuma, polygamy, and Julian the Apostate.
These, however, were only outpost skirmishes ; the brunt
of their attack was directed against the chapter on religion,
where they showed themselves extremely weak, and
toleration, where Montesquieu himself had opened the
breach. Montesquieu, said they, considers all religions
as matters of police ; he does not distinguish the true
one to which all rights belong, from the false ones which
have no rights at all. They branded him with impiety,
and convicted him of contradictions. " The parenthesis
which the author inserts to say that he is a Christian,"
the Nouvelliste wrote, " is a weak evidence of his
catholicity. He would laugh at our simplicity if we took
him for what he is not." Montesquieu was inclined to

1 44 Montesquieu.
tolerate the Huguenots in France, and to forbid missions
in China ; that was the very reverse of what the Journal
de Trevoux and the Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques wanted, and
therefore they came to the conclusion that the Esprit des
Lois "was written in favour of the old and modern
persecutors of Christianity." The Jansenists wound up
by a regular denunciation, and by an appeal to the se-
cular power against a book " whose aim it is to teach men
that virtue is a useless motive of action in monarchies."
Montesquieu felt that kind of insinuation ; he published
a Defense de V Esprit des Lois, which appeared in April
1750. It is brilliantly written, and of well-sustained
irony. The author's thought, disfigured by fragmentary
quotations, is restored; on most criticisms of detail he
triumphs, but he has less success in those which bear upon
the subject-matter. If he had wished to establish his
orthodoxy and to submit, he must have disowned the
very spirit of the Esprit des Lois, and committed half the
work to the flames. That he would not do, and he
ended as he ought to have begun by contempt. " To
condemn the book is nothing," said he, writing to a
friend, " it must be destroyed." The Sorbonne was not
equal to the task ; they took cognizance of the case ; but
the doctors could not agree as to the chief heads of the
indictment. The work was denounced to the assembly
of the clergy, when the plaintiffs were scarcely listened to.
The congregation of the Sacre- College placed the work
on the Index list ; this step was very little talked about,
and no one paid any attention to it. Meanwhile

Last Years. 145

Malesherbes had assumed the direction of the bookselling
office, and removed the interdict which stopped the Esprit
des Lois at the frontier. This masterpiece of French
genius thus received its letters of naturalisation towards
the end of 1750. Twenty-two editions of it were
published in less than two years, and it was translated
into all languages.
The Italians were enthusiastic about it ; the English
paid to it a brilliant homage ; the King of Sardinia made
his son read it. Frederick the Great, who had annotated
the Considerations sur les Remains, made some reserve on
the Esprit des Lois. " M. de Maupertuis sends me word,"
says Montesquieu, " that he (Frederick) has found certain
things about which he does not share my opinion. I
answered that I should not mind betting that I would
put my finger on those things." Frederick, however, who
seized his own property wherever he found it, took care
not to neglect Montesquieu's precepts, and the history of
his government of Silesia may be regarded as a comment
on the wise maxims of the Esprit des Lois respecting con-
Montesquieu lived enough to enjoy all his glory ; he
grew old amidst the admiration of the whole of Europe.
He wrote little now : a fine fragment, dictated by the
spirit of Stoicism Lysimaque ; an agreeable novel
Arsace et Ismenie ; an essay on taste, destined for the
Encyclopedic, are all the remains we possess of the literary
activity of his later years. He divided his time between
Paris and La Brede, enjoying his fortune, enjoying still

1 46 Montesquieu.
more the society of his friends. He was becoming blind,
and bore calmly that great trial. " It seems to me," he
said, " that the little light I still have, is only the dawn
of the day when my eyes shall have closed for ever."
The scheme of his life and his inward feeling led him
to die, as he had said, " on the side of hope." His soul
was that of a Stoic; he ended as a submissive and
respectful Christian. He was sixty-six years old when
he breathed his last in Paris, February loth, 1755.
His glory was not overrated; time has only strengthened
and increased it. He was only anxious about the verdict
of posterity and the future of his book. "My work,"
said he, " will be more approved than read." He might
have added, more frequently read than understood, and
more frequently understood than reduced into practice.
His Hippocratic hygiene, spurned by speculative men,
irritated the empiricists.' He recommended moderation
to princes at a time when all the governments of Europe
were becoming corrupted through the abuse of power.
The tendency was practically towards enlightened des-
potism, theoretically towards natural law. Thinkers and
politicians took out of Montesquieu whatever they found
within their reach; they could not grasp his method.
We see them quoting his authority on points of detail,
and disregarding the general spirit of his doctrine ; they
apply the reforms which he recommends, and violate the
ruleshe lays down.
D'Alembert composed his tloge, and added to it an
Analyse de f Esprit des Lois, where he endeavours to

His Sziccess.
draw both author and book in the direction of the
EttcydopttKe. Beccaria, seeking his inspiration from the
chapters on criminal laws, is a mere jurist ; he deduces
consequences, but is no observer. Filangieri imitates
Montesquieu, and pretends to correct him : " Montes-
quieu aims at explaining the reasons of our actions ; I,
on the other hand, want to establish the rules of what we
should do." Bielfeld borrows from Montesquieu the essence
of \i\?, Institutions politiques, but he drowns it, so to say,
in natural law, and by this admixture he endeavours to
reconcile the Esprit des Lois with Wolfs system.
Princes behave like philosophers. " His book," says
Catherine the Great, "is my breviary." She makes of it
extracts which she commits to the meditations of her
pompous commissioners for the drawing up of the
Russian code of laws ; but if she lavishes upon her
subjects glowing maxims on human liberty and equality,
in practice she acts according to the master's rule, namely,
" that an extensive government naturally supposes un-
limited power in him who governs"; and she concludes
that the best way of maintaining the Russian state is to
strengthen its principle, that is to say, autocracy. The
compilers of the Prussian code of 1792 felt the influence
of the Esprit des Lois, and the ensemble of their work
manifests an enlightened despotism ; but the measures
which Montesquieu proposed to maintain the monarch-
ical principle have inspired the following details in the
Prussian code : Administrative colleges controlling each
other and keeping each other in check ; the independence

1 48 Montesquieu.
of the agents of the government secured by a kind of
permanence ; the great share allowed to the aristocracy in
communal administration ; the strict upholding of the
hierarchy and of castes ; the prohibition enforced upon
noblemen to exercise trade and commerce.
In France, pedants and pietists always considered
Montesquieu as a preacher of sedition ; they accused
him of shaking the foundations both of Church and State.
This proposition Crevier undertook to demonstrate with
elucidatory documents, and he published in 1764 a
volume entitled Obsewations sur le livre de r Esprit des
Lois. Crevier knew ancient history very well, and he
easily caught Montesquieu tripping here and there. His
mind was naturally a dull one, and of this fact he had
still less difficulty in furnishing a proof. He took up the
arguments of the Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques ; seeing in
Montesquieu a mere litterateur greedy of an unhealthy
kind of glory, he discovered in the Esprit des Lois nothing
but the spirit of vanity, of paradox, and of faction. " By
dint of being the friend of mankind," says Crevier, " the
author of the Esprit des Lois ceases to love his country as
much as he ought ; the English cannot but feel flattered
in reading that work, but the perusal of it is capable only
of annoying good Frenchmen."
Crevier was true enough in speaking thus of the
English ; they were flattered by the book ; they did
better, they profited by it. Up to that time they had
worked out their constitution without analysing it &gt;
Montesqueiu gave them the raison d'etre of their laws ; he

His Influence in England. 149

trained disciples in England. Blackstone was one of
them, and all the commentators of the English con-
stitution follow Blackstone. We must include amongst
them the GeneveseDelolme; his work, published in 1771,
gave a minute description of the English regime, the
principles and maxims alone of which Montesquieu had
Long before Europeans had thought of appropriating
these maxims to the time-honoured monarchical in-
stitutions, the Americans, by a bolder experiment, had
appropriated them to democracy. Montesquieu had
foreseen that the English colonies in America would
shake off the yoke of the mother country ; and he had
indicated the federative system as the only means of
conciliating political elements which antiquity had never
combined, viz., extensive frontiers, a democracy, and a
republic. Washington was acquainted with the Esprit
des Lois, and the influence of the work upon the authors
of the constitution of the United States cannot be
questioned. On the separation of the various powers
the Americans have been enlightened by Montesquieu ;
they have placed democracy in the states of the Union
with their restricted limits ; they have placed the republic
in the federation of the states. If they have organised
this democracy and this republic, it is because their
political training enabled them to do so. Of their
Puritan origin they retained a very deep religious feeling,
submission to rule and the spirit of self-abnegation, which,
according to Montesquieu, constituted the essence of

1 50 Montesquieii.
republican virtues. Whilst altering the arrangement of
the laws recommended by our author to republican
governments, they justified his leading thought, and
completed his work.
These traditions and these habits, which constituted
the strength of the Americans in their revolution, did not
exist in France. If we take everything into account,
the French were nearer to Caesar's Rome than to
Cromwell's England. When Montesquieu thought of
France he never considered either a democracy or a
republic. It is, said he, in the old French institutions
that we find the spirit of the monarchy. His system on
climates prevented him from thinking of introducing
into his native country the institutions of England ; he
only was anxious to reduce the " fundamental laws" of
the French to their peculiar principle.
A king kept within proper bounds by privileged and
dependent bodies ; no states-general, but a magistracy
entrusted with the guardianship of the fundamental
laws ; an aristocracy which may not exercise commercial
pursuits ; no great trading companies which would destroy
the hierarchy of intermediate corporations, by placing
political power on the one side and fortune on the
other; a paternal government, enlightened, intelligent,
leading the French not only with kindness, but with
intelligence, not endeavouring to interfere with their
habits, so as not to interfere with their virtues;
avoiding especially the temptation of wearying them,
for that is what they tolerate the least ; full liberty to do

The Ideal of France. 1 5 1

frivolous things seriously, and serious things gaily;
honour everywhere; toleration for believers, glory for
the gentilshommes ; civil liberty for the people ; no foreign
expeditions, few colonies; none of those enterprises
which increase absolute power only at the expense of
the relative one; finally, moderation with reference to
foreigners as well as at home. " France being precisely
of the dimensions best suited to it, such," says
Montesquieu, " is the ideal of the French monarchy."
Good kings and wise cabinet-ministers are the great
spring of that government. France has supplied notable
instances of both : Charlemagne, who overrules history ;
Saint-Louis, "law, justice, greatness of soul"; Louis XII,
" the best citizen" ; Henry IV, " whom it is enough to
name "; Coligny, Turenne, Catinat ; then, by way of
contrast, and in order to demonstrate by bad instances,
Richelieu, Louvois, Louis XIV : despotism and its in-
Montesquieu gives us that ideal sketch, and he fails to
perceive that France, such as he describes it, makes
France, such as he conceives it, impossible. He would
impart strength to institutions which are in a dying state ;
the principle is tainted, and he himself has proved that
whe-n the principle is tainted, the government is on the
brink of ruin. The crown has levelled everything and
invaded the whole country. It has concentrated all the
powers in itself, and brought together all the classes of
society by debasing them before the throne. The nobles
have become degraded to the rank of courtiers ; now,

1 5 2 Montesquieu.
what is a courtier ? " Ambition combined with idleness,
and baseness with pride; the anxiety to become rich
without work ; the hatred of truth ; flattery, treachery,
perfidy, neglect of all duties, contempt of all the virtues
which should characterise a citizen ; dread lest the prince
should be a virtuous man, the hope that he is full of
weaknesses ; more than all that, the continual habit of
making virtue look ridiculous, such, I believe, is and
has been the character of the majority of courtiers in all
ages and all places." Honour does not even make up
for the virtues which they lack ; their honour, false and
servile, is only one form of their degradation. "It is
possible to be covered at the same time with infamy and
with dignities. . . ." Nobles of that sort " consider it an
honour to obey a king, but deem it the greatest degrada-
tion to share the power with the people." Nay, supposing
they wished to do so, they would find it impossible.
" Their natural ignorance, their want of attention, their
contempt for civil government," incapacitate them. The
parliaments, discredited by the crown, cannot take the
place of the aristocracy. Everything is perishing, and
the destruction of the edifice is announced by the
downfall of the buttresses.
The fact we have thus stated was soon perceptible
under Louis XVI, when an endeavour was made to
govern in conformity with Montesquieu's plan, by
restoring authority to the parliament and influence to
the privileged classes. They invoked against Turgot
and his schemes of reform the maxims of the Esprit des

Foreign Policy. 153

Lois, and by opposing these reforms they hurried on the
Revolution. This attempt to revive the old monarchy
only helped to render the monarchy more unpopular,
and the privileged classes more hateful.
On one point alone, namely foreign policy, Mon-
tesquieu's advice prevailed, and resulted in a benefit.
Vergennes' policy is an application of the Esprit des Lois
to diplomacy. When we read the memoirs which that
wise minister addressed to Louis XVI about the
succession to the throne of Bavaria, we think we are
perusing a development of the following sentence, which
concludes the chapter on war, in the book treating of
international law : " Let no one, especially, mention the
glory of the prince; his glory would be his pride; now
pride is a passion, not a legitimate right. It is true that
the reputation of his power might increase the strength
of his kingdom, but a reputation for justice would increase
it to the same extent."
This brings us to the French Revolution, which
Montesquieu had not foreseen, but which he nevertheless
helped to prepare, and which he often inspired, without
even directing its progress.

AT the end of the last century, every enlightened
Frenchman had in his library the works of Montes-
quieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Buffon. As the convoca-
tion of the states-general invited all the citizens to give
their views on the reform of the state, everyone rushed
to his books, and applied to his favourite authors for
ideas or arguments which might help him in bringing
forth the principles he wished to see prevail. Rousseau
and Montesquieu were the most frequently consulted
Rousseau had more disciples, but Montesquieu supplied
most quotations. The former explained only one system
his own ; the latter developed all those which history
has collected. The Esprit des Lois became a kind of
Digest ; the various parties drew from the book maxims
and precedents in support of their wishes or their pre-
The intelligent portion of the nobility appropriated
both the inmost thought and the letter ; their wishes
are exactly " Montesquieu's cahiers " at the states-
general ; we there find his predilection for monarchical

Montesquieu and the Revolution. 155

freedom, his firm conviction that this freedom could not
be founded in France except on the prerogatives of
privileged bodies. The tiers-'etat borrowed from him the
system of the separation of powers, and many a special
reform ; but as at the same time they claimed civil
equality and liberty as the basis of political freedom, the
whole doctrine of Montesquieu on the government of
France was at once destroyed.
The Revolution caused the views of the tiers-etat to
prevail. After the night of August 4th, Montesquieu's
monarchy was merely the Utopia of an 'emigre. " If in a
monarchy you suppress the privileges of the church, the
nobility, and the towns, you will soon have nothing but
a popular state or a despotic one." Such was the
dilemma laid down in the Esprit des Lois, and which has
become the periodical problem of the French govern-
ment. Politicians who held by the monarchy, but at the
same time did not mean to sacrifice liberty, went in quest
of a transaction, and found it in the Esprit des Lois.
They proposed the example of England. These were, so
to say, the second generation of Montesquieu's followers
during the period of the Revolution.
Great minds have their families, and it is the same
case with them as with royal dynasties : it is not always
the eldest sons who rise to the highest fortunes and
secure the glory of the house ; there are younger sons
who have descendants of their own, and whose chateaux
surpass in importance those of their brothers ; others,
penniless, go to the colonies, discover mines, marry into
L 2

1 5 6 Montesqu leu.
rich families, and come back to restore the ancestral
mansion. Certain young " scamps," strange or scan-
dalous in their behaviour, have nevertheless contributed,
if not to the honour, at any rate to the celebrity of their
family name. Such was the case with Montesquieu's
political descendency. The elder branch emigrated ;
it was seen sitting in the counsels of princes, and
inspiring Burke's famous work ; the whole sketch there
drawn by the enthusiastic English orator, of the ancient
monarchy and of possible reforms, is taken from the
Esprit des Lois. The next generation includes the
supporters of two legislative bodies, the monarchistcs, as
they were called, Necker in the government ; Mounter,
Lally, Bergasse, Clermont-Tonnerre, Malouet, in the
assembly ; and amongst the outsiders, Mallet Du Pan
and Rivarol. The tempest soon swept that second branch
away ; it did not die, but it required many years to
resume its growth and put forth fresh buds.
Public opinion was moving in another track : it was
going towards Sieyes, the very opposite of Montesquieu.
Thinking, perhaps, of the Esprit des Lois, that famous
specialist said : " Too many have busied themselves in
combining servile ideas always in accordance with events.
Political science is not the science of what is, but of
what ought to be." However, if the Revolution stepped
into paths which Montesquieu had not wished, it did not
entirely escape from his influence. This is the very time,
when that influence is exercised indirectly, when we see
stalking forward, amidst the general confusion in which

Montesquieu and the Revolution. 157

France was plunged, venturesome and dissenting fol-
lowers, whom he would certainly have disowned if he
had seen them at work ; but who nevertheless owed to
him their political origin.
That apologist of monarchy, the restorer of the old
public law of the French, was destined to become in
their hands the prophet of egalitaire democracy and of a
republic after the Roman type. This curious metem-
psychosis derives less from the very substance of
Montesquieu's thought, than from the shape he gave to
it, and from the ideas with which his readers interpreted
his work. " When I was drawn towards antiquity," he
said, " I endeavoured to catch its spirit." Whilst trying
to resuscitate the ancients, he animated them with his
own soul, the soul of his times. He did not really
conjure up the ghost of an antiquity which is dead
beyond the power of a new life ; he elicited from it a
certain form of thought which his own times carried
along with them, and which was destined to renovate in
France, for a season, politics, literature, and even art
Montesquieu is less a restorer of antiquity than a
precursor of that new Hellenic and neo- Latin France
which flourished from Andre Chenier to David, and from
Vergniaud to Napoleon ; taking on its way Robespierre,
Saint-Just, and Charlotte Corday. That which seems on
his part the result of a kind of divination, or of an
influence more wonderful still, is explained by the same
inward state exhibited both in himself and in his

1 5 8 Montesquieu.
revolutionary disciples in different circumstances and at
different epochs. It is quite as much a psychological as
an historical problem.
At the time when Montesquieu was drawing up his
theory of a republic, the instinct of such a form of
government was rising in everyone's mind, and the
word itself was finding favour amongst the people.
Classical education fostered that instinct, classical
literature popularised the vocabulary. D'Argenson wrote
as follows in 1747: "Shall anyone venture to propose
that we should take a few steps in the direction of
republican government? I see no disposition towards
it in the people. The nobility, the courts of law,
accustomed to slavery, have never thought about
republican institutions, and yet these ideas are springing
up, and habit works speedily in France." Habit indeed
undermined the soil stealthily that soil which the mon-
archy had levelled and paved after the Roman fashion.
A movement took place which opened an issue to the
subterranean springs of water ; these flowed out and ran
spontaneously in the channels which seemed destined
for them.
The same vocation which had called Montesquieu to
describe the Roman republic and to become, so to say,
its literary citizen, called the Frenchmen of the
Revolution to renew that republic in France, and to
constitute themselves its literary citizens. Their hereditary
instinct, guided by Montesquieu's writings, suggested to
them what his historical imagination had made him
Montesquieu and the Revolution. 159
perceive. Led on to organise democracy, they brought
to the task the same dispositions of mind which
Montesquieu had shown in writing its history. They
conceived it from the same originals, they understood
the ancients as Montesquieu had done; they found
them in his works such as they wished to find them, and
as they were best fitted for them. Montesquieu analysed
the laws which constitute a republic and give it vitality ;
the people decreed these laws ; according to them, the
republic is their natural result. They took no account
of any of the conditions laid down by Montesquieu as
essential to his theory, as climate, manners, general
Montesquieu had already confounded all times and all
republics together ; they transferred that ideal legislation
to a distance of more than twenty centuries in the most
different climates and the most dissimilar civilisations.
This method is the reverse of that adopted in the Esprit
des Lois, but it was in accordance with the spirit of the
age, and it is thus that Montesquieu was understood by
most Frenchmen of those days.
They applied to him the system of interpretation which
they were in the habit of applying to classical authors :
isolating the maxims, and deducing from them, by a
process of dialectics, the consequences which are their
logical result. They transform his general ideas into
abstract and universal ones, that is to say, into a mould
for their own passions. Montesquieu had made himself
in succession the citizen of every nation, in order to cure

1 60 Montesquieu.
each community of the worst of all prejudices self-ignor-
ance. His interpreters made of him a citizen of the
world and a cosmopolitan legislator ; far from seeking in
his book the means of getting rid of their prejudices, they
endeavoured to find in it a strengthening power for those
prejudices, and giving to it an absolute instead of a
relative character, they made of it the prophetic code of
their Utopia.
The whole of the Terrorist revolution is contained
in one sentence, and that sentence is directly inspired
by the republican maxims of the Esprit des Lois,
" If," says Robespierre, " the motive-principle of popular
government in times of peace is virtue, in revolutionary
days it is both virtue and terror : virtue without which
terror is fatal; terror without which virtue is powerless."
There is not, indeed, any other means than terror ; to do
such violence to the nature of things, compel a French-
man thus to transform his character and his habits, oblige
him to go back from the age of Louis XV to that of
Lycurgus, and reduce Paris to put up with what Montes-
quieu designated " the prodigious &lt;?;ztfz of Sparta." Those
a terrible magistracies" are needed which the Esprit des
Lois alludes to, which " bring back violently the state to
freedom"; the law of public safety must be enforced as
the supreme law, and the following precept must be
applied, invoked by the sophists of every species of
tyranny. "There are circumstances when a veil must be
thrown for a moment over liberty, just as in the case of
the statues of the gods." Ostracism must be practised,

Montesquieu and the Revolution. 161

and arrests of " suspected' citizens who lose the liberty for
a season, only to recover it afterwards for ever." We
must have a uniform system of legislation, equality of
property, and that wholesome mediocrity which corrects
the natural wickedness of fortune.
Why did not those Utopists meditate on the chapters
on the corruption of principles, the futility of violence
against established customs, and the powerlessness of
punishments against the nature of things? Some felt
this truth : it was the retaliation of Montesquieu, history,
and humanity. The Girondists understood that the
republic was perishing for having spurned our author's
lessons ; whilst Saint-Just parodied his maxims and
caricatured his metaphors, Camille Desmoulins found
in the Considerations sur les Romains the secret of
republican eloquence ; he borrowed from Tacitus inter-
preted by Montesquieu his most eloquent denunciation
of tyranny. Persecuted and decimated, the nobles
recovered at the foot of the guillotine that pride of
honour, the virtue of monarchies, which Montesquieu
reproached them for having abdicated in the presence
of the crown. Everything confirmed the gloomy
anticipations he had conceived as to the decay of political
manners in France ; everything justified the opinion he
had casually expressed on the "speculative sciences
which transform men into savages," and on the terrible
consequences of the despotism which might establish
itself amongst the ruins of the monarchy. " For that
beautiful part of the world human nature would suffer, at

1 62 Montesquieu.
least for a time, from the insults offered to it in the three
A return to Montesquieu took place when the French
endeavoured to restore moderation, order, and liberty.
There was certainly 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 national
assemblies, Portalis, Barbe-Marbois, Mathieu-Dumas r
Simeon, Camille Jordan; and in the very Directoire, the
prudent Barthelemy, a diplomatist trained at the school
of Vergennes. Montesquieu's works were reprinted.
Pastoret, in the Cornell des cinq-cents, %&amp;&amp; Goupil de PreTeln,
in the Conseil des anciens, proposed to grant to his remains
the honours of the Pantheon. The violent politicians,,
however, did not allow time for that measure to be
carried out, and the Fructidor coup d'etat once more
expelled the Esprit des Lois from the republic.
The constitution of the year VIII had nothing in
common with liberty such as Montesquieu understood it.
If we may believe Stendhal, Bonaparte had merely glanced
at that great man's writings, but he had the highest
esteem for his disciples. He prohibited them, it is true,
from discussing politics ; on the other hand, he entrusted
to them the magistracy, the administration, and civil
legislation. The illustrious council of state which drew
up the Code Civil, and had Portalis as its principal
secretary, caught its inspiration from Montesquieu's
precepts, both as to the substance and as to the form of
its compilation.

Montesquieu and the Revolution. 163

Yet the emperor's policy upset all Montesquieu's
maxims whilst it justified all his conclusions. It is
impossible to find elsewhere a more complete demon-
stration of the existence of the laws of history, or a more
conclusive proof of those which our author had laid
down. He had shown how a country in a state of
revolution is more formidable to its neighbours than it
was in other times ; how in a nation where monarchical
traditions are concealed under the laws of a republic,
war begun as in a republic must end as under a
monarchy. "As soon," he said, "as the army is
accountable solely to the legislative body, the government
becomes a military one." He had written the following
sentence, which sounds strange at a time when France
was so deficient in captains that it had been necessary
to commit the king's sword to an illustrious mercenary,
Marshal Saxe, " Soldiers will be the ruin of France. '
The condition of Denmark had suggested to him this
thought, which is so strictly applicable to the France of
1804 : "There is no authority more absolute than that
of the prince who succeeds to a republic ; for he finds
himself in possession of all the power of the people who
had not been able to limit their own authority."
The chapter on the politics of the Romans with refer-
ence to conquests gives us in substance all Bonaparte's
political system. It is precisely because the nature of
his genius was essentially Roman and classical, that the
First Consul so well understood the French of his times,
and persuaded them so easily that whilst obeying his
1 64 Montesquieu.
will they still exercised their sovereignty. There were
reminiscences of Alexander, and probably of Montes-
quieu's Alexander, in the wonderful dreams which the
general-in-chief of the army of Italy indulged in at
Ancona, and which carried him towards Greece and
towards the East. We recognise more than one charac-
teristic feature of Charlemagne as the Esprit des Lois
portrays him to us, in the colossal vision which Napoleon
conjures up, a vision which constantly haunted his
imagination after the consulate.
How is it possible not to perceive the Empire in these
pictures of Rome, which, composed after the events,
would pass for an allusion, a satire, but which, sketched
more than half a century before, seem like the fragments
of a prophecy ! The master-passion of glory permeating a
whole people ; the necessity of astonishing men in order
to reduce them to submission ; that " contest for fame,"
which the boldest in the career of ambition carries on
against his rivals ; the art of attacking these rivals " with
their own weapons, that is to say, with victories won over
the enemies of the republic" ; that imperial Rome, which
is, to speak correctly, neither an empire nor a republic,
but the head of a body made up of all the nations in Europe ;
these nations, associated together, having nothing in
common but their common obedience, and bound the
one to the other by the very bonds of conquest ; those
kings whom Rome had disseminated everywhere to make
of them so many slaves, and who direct against her the
resources with which she had supplied them ; " the

Montesquieu an.i the Revolution. 165

impossibility of maintaining to the end an enterprise
which cannot fail in one country without failing in all
the others, or fail for one moment without failing for ever";
Rome, finally destroyed because all the nations attack
her at once, invade her on all sides, so fatal a result of
Roman policy that Montesquieu foretells it to all those
who might be tempted to follow the same career : " If now-
adays a prince made the same ravages in Europe, the
nations, driven towards the North, resting against the
limits of the world, would hold their ground firmly there,
till the moment came for them to overrun Europe, and
conquer it a third time." Let us conclude with Eucrates,
or rather with Montesquieu : " For a man to be raised
above mankind, the cost is too keavy for his fellow-

ON the restoration of royalty to France in 1814,
that younger branch of Montesquieu's lineage
proscribed during the Revolution and absorbed during
the Empire in senate and council of state again made
its influence felt in the political world. The conditions
of the new government permitted the carrying out of the
experiment of constitutional monarchy, which had failed
in 1791.
Chateaubriand began withthe pretension of recommenc-
ing the Esprit des Lois in the Essai surles Revolutions : he
merely transposed the formulae and absurdly exaggerated
Montesquieu's artifices of composition. But in the Genie
ditCtiristianismehepa.idduehoma.gQto him, and developed
many of his favourite maxims in the Monarchic selon la
Charte. The study on political liberty in the Esprit des
Lois suggested to Benjamin Constant much for his Reflex-
ions sur la Constitution. The doctrinaires undertook to
correct Montesquieu's classification of governments by
applying to the democratic and monarchical forms this

Talleyrand, 167
thought of Pascal : " Multitude which cannot be reduced
to unity is confusion ; unity which does not depend on
ivmltitud? is tyranny." Louis XVIII, while still a
pretender, had read the Esprit des Lois as a mere lei esprit
when seated on the throne he interpreted it as a
prudent king ; and under a government which would,
unquestionably, at that time, have been the government
of Montesquieu's choice in the ministry of the Duke
de Richelieu and that of M. de Martignac, in the
battle-royal of the Comte de Serre, in the discussions
on the freedom of the press, and in the speeches
of the Duke de Broglie and Royer-Collard against
the disastrous law on sacrilege his spirit is plainly
Talleyrand, whom it had influenced from his youth,
introduced it into the region of diplomacy. The memo-
randum written in London (in November 1792) on the
inexpediency of a policy of conquest, proves this ; and
the same spirit with a loftiness of thought and an art in
composition never equalled, perhaps, in any diplomatic
document pervades the Instructions for the Congress of
Vienna, drawn up by La Besnardiere under his direction.
The conception of Europe, and the definition of public
right therein contained, are borrowed from Montesquieu ;
.and the sketch of Russia ranks among the most brilliant
productions of his school in literature. In the passage
beginning with this sentence "Poland restored to
independence would be inevitably restored to anarchy,"
\ve almost recognise a quotation from Montesquieu : the
1 68 Montesquieu.
further development of the subject might almost have
been taken from an inedited chapter of .the Esprit des Lois.
Indeed, the very spirit of that work is apparent in the follow-
ing maxim, entirely expressive of the general drift of the
Instructions: " France is in that happy condition in which
she needs not to desire that justice and utility should be
divided, nor seek her individual good outside that justice
which is the good of all."
But not only Montesquieu's views, his style, and even
his comparisons, are almost unconsciously suggested by
Talleyrand. In one of his Vienna memoranda he repro-
duces, and even improves in the reproduction, a striking
though rather bold simile used in the Considerations.
11 France," says he, " brought to the Congress no
ambitious views or personal interests. Replaced within
her ancient limits, she no longer sought to extend them,
like unto the sea which only passes its boundaries when
agitated by tempests." Montesquieu himself had less
justly observed : " It is remarkable that, after so many
wars, the Romans lost only what they chose to leave so
is the expanse of the sea never narrowed save when it
draws back of itself."
This allusion to the Considerations recalls our
attention to history. Montesquieu also founded an
historical school, teaching therein the correlation of facts,
the association of causes and correspondence of events,
the interpretation of laws by history, and the inter-
pretation of history by custom. From him proceed both
the school of legal historians and that of the modern

Montesquieu s Disciples. 169

philosophical historians. Guizot is not of the direct
line ; but, though a most original and independent
disciple, yet he is a disciple of the author of the Esprit
des Lois, and during the first half of the present century
he stepped into the place and continued the work of the
initiator and founder of the science of history. " As the
historian of our ancient institutions," says Augustin
Thierry, " he has inaugurated the era of science properly
so called ; before his day, if we except the single instance
of Montesquieu, there had been but a succession of
systems." Guizot applies to history the idea of progress
which Montesquieu felt, yet hardly understood. Turgot
and Condorcet developed the idea. Guizot himself
considers it the soul of civilisation, defining this as the
"perfecting of society and humanity": it forms the web
of history, as is shown in his admirable and exhaustive
treatment of the subject in his lectures of 1828.
Madame de Stael had been one of the first to grasp
this idea of perfectibility. We see this noting also
many thoughts taken from the Esprit des Lois in her
work on the Influence des Passions, and the idea is further
worked out in her book, de VAllemagne. She unfolds it
with an ardour and an almost religious enthusiasm which
Montesquieu's sarcastic and excessively analytical nature
entirely lacked. In her last and most powerfully conceived
work, the Considerations sur la Revolution Franfaise,
occurs the following reflection, which, according to the
Esprit aes Lois, discovers the foundation of the history of
France : " Liberty is ancient ; it is despotism that is

1 70 Montesquieu.
modern." Indeed, in writing the history of liberty from
1789 to 1814, Madame de Stael traces the progress of
Montesquieu's ideas through the Revolution and the
The fortunes of the monarchical branch of Mon-
tesquieu's line culminated in the Restoration. His
intellectual descendants of this branch established that
government, and could perhaps have maintained it by
constantly recalling its principle : this, however, they
failed to do. These moderate politicians could not
succeed in persuading the theocrats of the restored
monarchy that legitimacy, abstractly considered, means
little or nothing the rights claimed therefrom being
simply prescriptive rights which only constant reiteration
can preserve inviolate ; also that it is " the progress of
time and consent of the people" which, according to
Bossuet, legalise new forms of government, and, according
to Montesquieu, maintain long-established administra-
tions. " The government most in harmony with nature,"
Montesquieu had said, "is that of which the special cha-
racteristic adapts itself most readily to the idiosyncrasies
of the people for which it is established."
Montesquieu's royalist disciples fell with the constitu-
tional monarchy, and France had once more to choose
between "the popular and the despotic state." Demo-
cracy was surely gaining ground in this country of
monarchical traditions, with its thirty millions of inhabi-
tants, a people whose existence was a refinement of
civilisation : a people who could not conceive the

De Tocgueville. 171
possibility of social progress apart from the progress of
wealth : a commercial and manufacturing people, who
delighted in luxury, and lived upon it. This democracy
completely disconcerted all the ideas of the Esprit des
Lois, and Montesquieu, who had wisely counselled his
country in so many grave crises, would have failed her on
this occasion, if his genius had not raised up a continuator
and propagator of his views in modern France. Tocque-
ville represents the last remaining branch of the
intellectual descendants of Montesquieu. During the
Revolution, the Empire, and the Restoration, this portion
of the family maintained an attitude of opposition, in
which it appeared sometimes enthusiastic and sometimes
indifferent, often depressed, and always uneasy. Drawn
by heart and conscience towards liberty, loving it for its
own sake as well as desiring it for their country, and
believing, moreover, that the advent of democracy was
inevitable, these prudent patriots sought to adapt this
revolution to the traditions of France. They applied for
help in their undertaking to the United States, remember-
ing that their predecessors had, in the difficulty of recon-
ciling the claims of monarchy with those of national
liberty, sought the help of England.
In Tocqueville's mind as in that of Montesquieu
there is a tendency to generalisation and dogmatism :
he is rather a moralist than a legislator or a politician.
As regards method and classification of subjects, his
work is entirely derived from that of Montesquieu.
Tocqueville has produced a great historical study, the
M 2

172 Montesquieu.
Anden Regime et la Revolution, which corresponds to
the Considerations sur les Romains ; his Democratic en
Amerique answers to the Esprit des Lois. The impetus
which he has given to historical and political studies,
though less decided and brilliant than that of which
Guizot was the cause in the first half of this century, has
been no less productive of result. Through him Montes-
quieu is connected with, and influences the France of the
present day, has his hold upon it, and this influence is more
powerful than one would at first be inclined to suppose.
As an historical and experimental influence it has
gradually modified existing customs and institutions ; it
has conduced to the adoption of the applied mechanics
of practical workers, in the place of the theoretical
mechanics of Sieyes ; and through its power the republic
has become not only parliamentary, but persists by virtue
of a constitution which is the most compact in form,
the most comprehensive in application, and the most
natural product of national tendencies and needs that
France has yet possessed.
The influence exercised by Montesquieu in Europe
equals that which he has exercised in France, and may
be traced everywhere. It is the genius of the Esprit des
Lois that seems to have inspired the greatest statesman of
Germany in his work of regenerating his adopted country.
Never has the ruin of a government by the corruption of
its principle been more clearly shown than in the con-
dition of the Prussian monarchy after Jena, nor has the
art of raising a nation and reinstating a monarchy by
Influence Abroad. 173
restoring and renewing its principle ever been practised
with greater skill and penetration than by Baron Stein.
Thus has constitutional government reached the Con-
tinent : carried thence by Montesquieu's book, it has been
propagated by the French. The two chapters devoted
to England and her constitution in the Esprit des Lois
have therefore become a separate work, marking an
epoch in the history of human societies. Great thinkers
often shed a brighter lustre by reflection and by the light
of their satellites than by the rays which proceed directly
from themselves.
Much has been written concerning Montesquieu.* We
shall hardly meet with a more comprehensive apology
than Villemain's in his Eloge and his Lemons sur la
Litterature au XVII siecle, or with a more prejudiced
and unreasonable attack than that of Destutt de Tracy
in his Commentaire de VEsprit des Lois. But Tracy's
* The reader will find a history and description of the
original editions of Montesquieu, and of the works that have
been written upon him, at the end of M. Vian's Histoire de
Montesquieu. I have made use of this book in considering
the criticisms of MM. Brunetiere and Tamizey de Larroque
and the researches of M. Tourneux; I have laid under contri-
bution the inexhaustible treasures of the Lundis and Port-
Royal, and am much indebted to the useful directions and
indications contained in the Cite' Antique of M. Fustel de
Coulanges, and in the Civilisation et les Lois of M. Funck-
Brentano particularly 'in Book i of this latter work, Les
Mceurs et les Lois : des Mceurs pohtiques dans les De'mo-
craties et dans les Monarchies.

1 74 Montesquieu.
speculative and a priori criticism no longer satisfies us.
We take but a slight interest in the comparisons which
an author may choose to institute between the works of
great men atid his individual theories as regards those
works ; such a mode of procedure supposes on the part
of the critic a positive knowledge which no one possesses,
and on the part of the reader an unlimited deference
which none but a Boeotian could render. The object
of criticism is to increase our knowledge of authors, and
to explain the raison d'etre and the real signification of
their works ; and M. Paul Janet in his Histoire de la
Science politique, M. Laboulaye in the Notices of his
large edition of Montesquieu, and M. Taine in a forcible
review in his Ancien Regime, have shown how this
fruitful method of criticism should be applied to the
author of the Esprit des Lois. They all admire his
genius, extol his system, and, on the whole, accept his
Sainte-Beuve only accepts them conditionally, and
with innumerable modifications : it is in his writings that
the gravest objections which can be brought forward
against Montesquieu are to be found, expressed in
the most insinuating manner. Besides his personal
notice of Montesquieu, Sainte-Beuve has approached
him on all sides and on every opportunity in his
Lundis and Port-Royal. The man attracts and the writer
charms him ; but the work disquiets him, the historian
irritates him, and the legislator bewilders him.
As a legislator, he considers that Montesquieu places

Sainte-Beuve. 175
the average man on too high a level, as he does not
sufficiently believe in the primordial wickedness ever
latent in mankind ; that he is too ready to conceal the rags
that is, the real human stuff beneath the social
drapery ; and that he allows himself to be too much
influenced by merely external polish and a too great
respect for humanity. Sainte-Beuve does not see that this
optimism is the very foundation of the politic hygiene.
How is one to direct man if one does not believe that he
can be directed ; how work for his improvement if one
believes that he is not capable of improvement ; or how
urge him to effort, and thereby restore activity to his
muscles, if one believes that he is hopelessly enervated
and paralysed ? Also, how cure a sick person, or
persuade him to submit to treatment, if one begins by
telling him that his strength is exhausted and his illness
is incurable, that, after all, strength and restoration are
but figures of speech, as no one precisely knows what is
health or what is sickness ; and that, after searching
analysis, we find that all which science can do is to try
to prove that man is in a state of health, and all which
medicine can do for him in sickness is to say, " Try to
be well"?
Sainte-Beuve thinks that Montesquieu is, as an
historian, too little cognisant of the inconsistencies of
men and the caprices of fortune. He considers that
Montesquieu too deliberately simplifies and arranges
thereby excluding the action of chance ; that he selects
certain episodes from the melee, connects and gives them

1 76 Montesquieu.
the semblance of a rationality which they do not possess ;
that he takes account only of events which have been
productive of effect, leaving aside all others ; and that of
a thousand ways by which an event might have been
developed, he notices but one the actual means of its
development. He suppresses the unexpected, and
disregards "the truth of the intrigue and hypocrisy of
man" ; desiring to discover the great highways, he merely
directs his own, " his great royal roads, "through the most
obvious channel. Apart from Providence, whose secrets
are undiscoverable, the moving-springs in this world of
confusion are, according to the author of Port-Royal,
strength, skill, and chance. Pascal saw the Fronde,
meditated upon the English Revolution, sought to
determine the cause of all things, and he was everywhere
confronted by chance Cleopatra's nose or Cromwell's
grain of sand. This great thinker arrived at the
conclusion to which we must all come. So much for
the men who desire to lead their fellows ; as for those
whom they think they lead the multitude, these
actually perform the great achievements, though they
know it not. Great revolutions and brilliant victories
are the work of unconscious actors, who involuntarily
accomplish that of which they have no cognisance.
Such are the objections. The mystic and the
Epicurean, the dogmatist and the sceptic Pascal and
Montaigne, Hobbes and La Rochefoucauld meet here,
and, without in the least agreeing, make common cause
together. Frederick favoured this Pyrrhonism ; he had

Causes and Effects. 177

reasons for quietly inclining to the ironical doctrine
which teaches that fact in this world must "justify
itself as it best may." "People usually have super-
stitious ideas on the great revolutions of empires," said
he ; " but when one is behind the scenes one sees that
as a general rule the most wonderful effects are produced
by common means and by ignominious beings . . . ."
To be behind the scenes this is the vanity of the
world. How many chroniclers have attributed great effects
to slight causes for no other reason than that they might
boast of having perceived them ! Voltaire believed in
Frederick's idea, and Frederick moulded Voltaire to his
wishes by persuading him that he was serving fortune ;
the philosopher gloried in this, and the king treated him
as famous leaders of men are accustomed to treat
their dupes as a political tool. In this universal sifting,
what could remain of Frederick himself, of his campaigns
and of his policy ? Montesquieu confounds him in one
word by recalling him to himself and to his fame : " For-
tune has not this kind of constancy."
As with phenomena in nature, so is it with phenomena
in history : chance alone cannot produce their repetition
and succession under precisely similar conditions.
There are laws in this succession ; facts are not simply
consistent and isolated, but they hold together and are
mutually related. Chance can only order the form of
the event. A river flows from a mountain in the
direction of the sea : a rock may slightly alter its course,
but cannot make the waters reascend to their source,
178 Montesquieu.
and in no way alters its general direction, which is
determined by the movements of the soil. Above the
action of individuals the isolated human cause, there is
the action of societies the combination of accumulated
individual causes. This is the allure principale, the
mainspring to which all particular accidents are subor-
dinate : thus, if Caesar had not existed, another would
have taken the place of Csesar. Montesquieu never
showed this more clearly than by the following example :
" It was so impossible that the republic should be
restored, that that happened which had never before
been seen : there remained neither tyrant nor liberty.
The causes which had pro'duced its destruction were still
in existence."
The historian determines and develops these causes.
He is supposed to follow the highroads of history,
which are also national and popular roads. Man
has travelled on these roads ; the historian shows us
the traces of his journeyings. Why leave them to
wander among the byways? Why ascend every hill,
and vainly exhaust oneself in trying to discover the
track of all previous wanderers ? The first pedestrians
who crossed the mountains followed the course of the
mountain torrents ; the paths they made were converted
into roads highways took the place of those roads, and
now side by side with these run the railways.
Between Montaigne and Pascal the excess of human
irony and the abasement of self-annihilated reason
there is space for silence, reflection, and common-sense.

General Summary. 179

Montesquieu's place is here. He is above all, both
politically and socially, a gentleman a man to whom
nothing human is strange, who seeks to know himself,
that he may more thoroughly know others, and who
strives to show men their condition, that he may teach
them how to make it more endurable. His writings
live, because they are historical and founded on observa-
tions of nature. His general views are just this is the
important point ; errors of detail signify little. Villemain
has very well said, that " in a work of this nature such
errors are of no more importance than the fractions in
a great calculation." Montesquieu has left us something
more than precepts ; he has left a method which enables
us to develop his thought and apply it to contingencies
that he could not foresee. He exercised a deep and
permanent influence in his own time, and is full of
teaching for ours. His name is associated with many of
the most excellent reforms which this century has seen
in France, and he is the representative of the French
spirit in all its clearness, breadth, generosity, and wisdom.

(Page 10, line 25.) Characteristic of Vauban and Catinat.
"Vauban, le plus honnete homme de son siecle, le plus
simple, le plus vrai, le plus modeste .... incapable de se
porter a rien de faux, ni de mauvais." (Saint-Simon.)
(Catinat) " Philosophe dans la veritable acception du mot,
religieux sans auste'rite', courtisan sans intrigues, ndgligeant
sa fortune, et toujours pret a donner." (FieVe"e, Biog.
(P. n, 1. 4). That the poor are his brothers. See Mon-
taigne, Essais, ii, 8.
(P. 12,1. 1 6.) The Society of the Temple. A reunion of poets,
wits, and. grands seigneurs, who met usually at the palace of
the Temple in Paris, under the presidency of the Prince de
Vendome, grand-prior. He and his brother, the Duke de
Vendome, set before their guests an example of the grossest
debauchery and of the most unblushing impudence. These
meetings took place during the last years of the seventeenth
century, and at the beginning of the eighteenth ; the poet
La Fontaine has described one of them in a letter to the
Duke de Vendome (Sept. 1689). La Fare, Chaulieu, Sainte-
Aulaire, and several other distinguished writers, besides a
considerable number of questionable abbfc, belonged to the
Soci^ti du Temple.
(P. 13, 1. 13.) The Basoche. This expression, here applied
by contempt to the law, originally designated a corporation
of lawyers' clerks established by Philip the Fair, King of
France. (Etym.^ L. Basilica.)

1 82 Montesquieu.
(P. 18, 1. 17.) Sainte-Beuve. See his Causeries du Lundi,
vol. vii.
(P. 21,1. 28.) Henault .... de Brasses. These two anti-
quaries and critics were almost as celebrated for the
brilliancy of their wit, and the occasional decollett style of
their conversation, as for their real literary talent. It is
reported of Renault that, becoming converted towards the
end of his life, and having made a full confession of his
sins, he exclaimed : " On n'est jamais si riche que quand on
(P. 26, 1. 27.) Manon Lescaut, the celebrated novel of the
Abbd PreVost. The vigour with which the passion of love is
delineated, and the genuine accent of truth which prevails
throughout that extraordinary book, are the only causes of
the interest we cannot help feeling in the adventures of two
worthless characters a swindler and a courtesan.
(P. 28, 1. 10.) Evocation : the act by which a high court of
justice assumed the right of trying certain special cases
which would naturally have come before inferior tribunals.
(P. 31, 1. 6.) Don Juan .... Tartuffe. See Moliere's plays.
(P. 32,1. 14.) Montesquieu borrowed from Dufresny (Charles
Riviere}, 1648-1724. The work of Dufresny, from which
Montesquieu was supposed to have borrowed the idea of
the Lettres Persanes, is entitled les Amusements SJrieux *.
Comiques d?un Siamois (Paris, 1707, I2mo).
(P. 16, 1. 17.) .... this traveller's pleasant chronicles.
1'he title of Chardin's work is Journal des Voyages du
Chevalier Chardin en Perse, et aux Indes Orientales
(Amsterdam, 1711, 3 vols. 410, and 10 vols. i2mo).
(P. 34. 1. 4.) .... oj anticipated Triboulels. See Victor
Hugo's play, le Roi s' amuse.
(P. 16, 1. 8.) The education of Saint-Preux. The hero of
Rousseau's novel, la Nouvelle Heloise.
(P- 37) ! 6.) Prototypes of Lovelace and Valmont. See
Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe, and Laclos's Chevalier de
(P. 1 6, 1. 15.) Don Louis 's harangue to Don Juan, and

Notes. 183
the solemn remonstrance of the father of " le Menteur." In
Moliere's Festin de Pierre (iv, 4), the address of Don Luis
is justly considered one of the most remarkable specimens
of honest and legitimate indignation. Respecting the
remontrance in Corneille's play, le Menteur (v, 3), Voltaire
truly observes : " Dans la scene ou Geronte fait rougir
son fils du vice auquel il s'abandonne, on retrouve la meme
main qui peignit le vieil Horace et Don Diegue."
(P. 40, 1. 2.) .... akin to those of Rousseau and Mably.
See especially Mably's Entretiens de Phocion, and Jean
Jacques Rousseau's Contrat Social.

Amongst many appreciations of the Lettres Persanes by

English critics, we have selected the following one : " It is
not too much to say that the entire spirit of the philosophe
movement in its more moderate form is contained and
anticipated in the Lettres Persanes. All the weaknesses of
France in political, ecclesiastical, and social arrangements
are here touched on with a light but sure hand, and the
example is thus set of attacking ' les grands sujets.' From
a literary point of view the form of this work is at least as
remarkable as the matter. Voltaire himself is nowhere
more witty, while Montesquieu has over his rival the inde-
finable but unquestionable advantage of writing more like
a gentleman. There is no single book in which the admir-
able capacity of the French language for jesting treatment
of serious subjects is better shown than in the Lettres
Persanes." (Saintsbury, A Short History of French Lite-
(P. 46, 1. 20.) The Temple de Gnide. " This is half a narra-
tive, half an allegory, in the semi-classical, or rather pseudo-
classical taste of the time, decidedly frivolous and dubiously
moral, but of no small elegance in its peculiar style."
(Encyclop&amp;dia Britannica, i, 6.)
(P. 51,1. i.) The Earl of Waldegrave. " With unbounded
benevolence, and the most flowing courtesy to all men, Lord
Waldegrave, whose penetration no weakness could escape,

1 84 Montesquieu.
nor art impose upon, though vice he overlooked, and only
abstained sometimes from connecting with black and bad
men .... possessed sound sense and respectable abilities.
He was highly esteemed by his contemporaries, and few
men have passed through life, and above all, public life,
with a character so entirely unblemished." (Walpole's
Memoirs of the Reign of George III, vol. i, pp. 267, 268.)
(P. 53,1. 12.) Bonneval, who was preparing to put into
practice the " Lettres Persanes.^ Bonneval's life is most
interesting. After serving in turns France and Austria, and
compromising himself by his impertinence and his disagree-
able temper, he offered his services to the Porte, professed the
Mahomedan faith, and took the name of Achmet. He was
made a pasha of three tails, and appointed to the com-
mand of the artillery. He rendered valuable services to the
Sultan in his war with Russia, and with the famous Kouli
Khan. See on him an amusing article in Sainte-Beuve's
Causeries du Lundi, vol. v.

(P. 71,1. 6.) .... during the remainder of his life. "In
1734, this remarkable man published what may be truly called
the first book in which there can be found any information
concerning the real history of Rome ; because it is also the
first in which the affairs of the ancient world are treated in
a large and comprehensive spirit" (Buckle, History of Civil-
isation, vol. i). " The Grandeur et Decadence des Remains
is as original as the Principia, and laid the foundation of a
science as sublime, and perhaps still more important to
man, than the laws of the planetary bodies" (Alison,
(P. 89, 1. 5.) ... lettres de cachet, otherwise called lettres
doses, by opposition to the lettres patentes. They were so
folded that it was impossible to open them without breaking

Notes. 185
the seal. Signed by the king, and countersigned by one of
the secretaries of state, they generally contained a sentence
of exile or of imprisonment against the persons to whom they
were addressed.

(P. 107, 1. 17.) Loides suspects, passed by the Convention,
Nov. 17, 1793. Loides otages, directed against the royalists ;
passed July 12, 1799; cancelled Nov. 16 following, a few
days after the i8th Brumaire.
(P. 1.13, 11. 8-10.) R&lt;?&lt;rie . . . gabelle . . . maltote . . .
traitants. Regie: interference on the part of the state in the
execution of public works. Gabelle : the salt tax, the most
arbitrary and odious of all (from the Saxon gapel or gavel
= tribute). Maltote (from the L. L. mala tolta, badly or
unfairly raised) : originally a tax raised on the cities ; sub-
sequently all kinds of taxes. Traitant : a collector of the
taxes, so called on account of the traite (agreement) he had
to make with the farmers-general of the revenue.

(P. 121,1.26.). . . . the iviliness of Normans, "Normandy
was called Pays de Sapience, originally on account of the
wisdom of Rollo's laws, and afterwards because of the
prudent and even suspicious character of the Normans.
(P. I2i,l. 27.) . . . . nor Germ in quarrels . . . . Querelle
d'Allemand. A quarrel which nothing justifies, arising from
(P. 125, 1. 24.) . ... a la Broussais. Broussais (Victor),
1772-1838 ; celebrated French physician, enthusiastically
fond of bleeding his patients.
(P. 137,1. 21.) .... the right of "lods." A due paid by
the vassal to the lord when he sold any of his property.
(P. 137, 1. 22.) .... that of garde-noble, that is to say, the
right of the suzerain to protect the fief belonging to his
vassal when a minor. In that quality he enjoyed the
revenues of the fief.

1 86 Montesquieu.
(P. 137, 1. 25.) .... the branch of the family to -which it
belongs. " Les propres ne remontent point," says the jurist
Loysel, " mais retournent aux plus proches parents du cot
dont ils sont venus au defunt."

(P. 147,1. 28.) .... they profited by it. "The immense
merit of the Spirit of Laws is, indeed, incontestable, and can-
not be affected by the capricious attempts made to diminish
it by those minute critics, who seem to think that when they
detect the occasional errors of a great man, they in some
degree reduce him to their own level. It is not such petty
cavilling which can destroy an European reputation ; and the
noble work of Montesquieu will long survive all attacks of the
kind, because its large and suggestive generalisations would
retain their value even if the particular facts of which the
illustrations consist were all unfounded. Still, I am inclined
to believe, that in point of original thought it is barely equal
to his earliest work (Considerations sur les Romains), though
it is unquestionably the fruit of much greater reading ....
This was the first great merit of Montesquieu, that he
effected a complete separation between biography and
history, and taught historians to study, not the peculiarities
of individual character, but the general aspect of the society
in which the peculiarities appeared .... In addition to
this, Montesquieu made another great advance in the
method of creating history. He was the first who, in an
inquiry into the relations between the social conditions of a
country and its jurisprudence, called in the aid of physical
knowledge in order to ascertain how the character of any
given civilisation is modified by the actions of the external
world.'' (Buckle, History of Civilisation, i, 754, 755).

(P. 173, 1. 30.) .... dans les monarchies. We have already
quoted in these notes several extracts from English works
on Montesquieu. Further appreciations or mentions of this

Notes. 187
great writer will be found in the essays, letters, etc., of Sir
James Mackintosh, Lord Jeffrey, Gibbon, H. Walpole, Lord
Brougham, and others.
The Esprit des Lois was translated into English by Nugent,
with an index, 6th edit., 1793. That part of the work which
related to the constitution of England has been translated
and published separately by Baron Maseres, Lond.. 1781.
Complete works of Montesquieu, translated from the
French, Lond., 1777, 4 vols. 8vo.


ARGENSON (Rend Louis, Marquis d'), 1694-1757 ; on the " Leltres Persanes,"
AYDIE (N., Chevalier d') ; a friend of Montesquieu, 46.
BAYLE (Pierre), 1647-1706 ; the traditions of libertinism found in him, 30 ; and

Montesquieu, 118.
BEAUMARCHAIS (Caron de), 1731-1799 ; his style, 34.
BEAUVILLIKRS (Paul, Ducde), 1648-1714; governor of the Duke of Burgundy ; 40.
BERWICK (James Fitzjames, Duke of, Marshal of France), 1660-1734 ; admired
by Montesquieu, 51.
BONNEVAL (Claude Alexandre, Comte de), 1675-1747 ; a celebrated adventurer,
BoSSUnT (Jacques Benigne), 1627-1704 ; on politics, 59 ; and Montesquieu, 58-64.
BOULAINVILLIERS (Henri, Comte de), 1658-1722 ; and Montesquieu, 134, 135.
BOURBON (Louis Henri de Conde", Due de), 1692-1740 ; Montesquieu visits him
at Chantilly, 46.
CATINAT (Nicolas de), 1637-1722 ; Marshal of France ; "an austere aristocrat,"
CAYLUS (Anne Claude Philippe, Comte de), 1692-1765 ; a friend of Montesquieu,
CHARDIN (Jean), 1643-1713 ; a celebrated traveller, 33 ; and climate, 152.
CHATEAUBRIAND (Frangois Auguste, Vicomtede), 1768-1848; style of his novels,
1 22 ; on Montesquieu, 166, 167.
CHENIER (Andre" Marie de), 1762-1794 ; a celebrated poet, 48.
CHESTERFIELD (Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl o'), 1694-1773 ; meets Montes-
quieu in his travels, 53, 54.
CLERMONT (Marie Anne deBourbon, styled Mademoiselle de), 1697-1741; admired
by Montesquieu, 46.
COLARDEAU (Charles Pierre), 1731-1776; his poetry, 47.
" Considerations sur les Causes de la Grandeur et de la Ddcaden.ee des Remains,"
CREBILLON (Claude Prosper Jollyot de), 1707-1777 ; a French novelist, 32.
DE BROSSES (Charles), 1709 1777 ; "magistral galant," 21.
" Defense de I' Esprit des Lois," 144.
DEFFAND (Marie de Vichy Chambon, Marquise du), 1697-1780; Montesquieu
frequents her house, 46.
DESMOLETS (Pierre Nicolas), 1678-1760 ; an Oratorian priest, friend of Montes-
quieu, 44.
DESTUTT DE TRACY (Antoine Louis Claude), 1754-1836 ; on Montesquieu, 173.
" Dialogue de Sylla et d'Eucrate" 65-67.
DIDEROT (Denis), 1713-1784 ; character of his novels, 22.
DOMAT (Jean), 1625-1695 ; on legislation, 72.
DUBOIS (Guillaume, Cardinal), 1656-1723 ; a corrupt politician, 71.
DUBOS (Jean Baptiste, Abbe"), 1670-1742 ; and Montesquieu, 134, 135.
DUFRESNY (Charles Riviere), 1654-1724 ; a dramatic writer, 32.
DUPIN (Claude), 1700-1769 ; on the " Esprit des Lois" 142.
" Esprit des Lois," 72-139 ; severely criticised by the Jesuits and the
Janseni-,ts, 143, 144 ; by Frederick the Great, 145 ; by Beccaria, 147 ;
by Filangieri, 147 ; by Crevier 148.
FENELON (Francois de Salignac de la Mothe), 1661-1715 ; Archbishop of
Cambrai ; his "Salentum," 40.



FLKURY (Andrd Hercule, Cardinal de), 1653-1743 ; opposes Montesquieu's

election to the A cademie Franfaise, 49.
FONTENELLE (Bernard le Bovier de), 1657-1757 ; character of his free writings ,
GUASCO (Ottaviano de), 1712-1781 ; a friend of Montesquieu, 53.
GUIZOT (Francois Pierre Guillaume), 1787-1874 ; on Montesquieu, 169.
HBLVETIUS (Claude Adrien), 1715-1771 ; on the "Esprit des Lois," 141.
HENAULT (Charles Jean Franjois), 1685-1770 ; " magistral galant," 21.
LA BREDE, castle of, described, n.
LA BRUYERE (Jean de), 1645-1696 ; his style, 24.
LAMBERT (Marie TheVese de Marguenat de Courcelles, Marquise de), 1647-1733 ;
Montesquieu frequents her house, 46.
LAW (John), 1671-1719; an unprincipled financier, 31 ; Montesquieu meets him
at Venice, 53.
LEONARD (Nicolas Germain), 1744-1793; poet and novelist. 47.
" Lettres Persanes" true character of the book, i ; an account of it, 34 ; its
success, 46.
Louis XIV (1638-1715), state of France towards the close of his reign, 29 ; and
Montesquieu, 50.
Louis. Due de Bourgogne, grandson of Louis XIV (1682-1712) ; the ideal ruler
of France, 40.
MABLY (Gabriel Bonnot, Abbe de), 1709-1785 ; a well-known historian, 40.
MALLET (Jean Roland), died 1736 ; an Academician, 50.
" Manon Lescaut," a novel by the Abbe Prevost, 26.
MARIVAUX (Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de), 1688-1763; on the " Lettres
Persanes" 45.
MAUREPAS (Jean Frederic Phelypeaux, Comte de), 1701-1781 ; a statesman,
friend of Montesquieu 46.
MERIMEE (Prosper). 1803-1870 ; a novelist, 34.
MONTAIGNE (Michel Eyquen de), 1533-1592; of the same intellectual family as
Montesquieu, 16, 17 ; and Montesquieu, 73.
MONTESQUIEU (Jacques de Secondat de), father of the following, 10.
(Charles Louis Secondat, Baron de la Brede et de), his birthj 10 ;
sent to Juilly, n ; his education, 12 ; early free-thinking, 12 ; president
&amp; mortier, 13 ; his distaste for the law, 13 ; studies nature, 14 ; his
personal appearance, 15; fond of Montaigne, 16; his character, 18, 25;
fond of study, 17 ; and Pascal, 19 ; set aside by the Court of Versailles,
24; writes the "Lettres Persanes," 29-43; an esprit fort in religion,
40 ; on the Spaniards, 42 ; writes the " Temple de Gnide," 46-49 ; travels,
51 ; member of the Acade'mie Franfaise, 49 ; in England, 54 ; writes
the " Considerations," 58-64 ; and Bossuet, 58-60 ; and Machiavelli, 58 ;
writes the "Dialogue de Sylla et d'Eucrate" 65-67 ; writes the ^'Esprit
des Lois,'' 1 72-139 ; and the Sorbonne, 149 ; on the various forms of
government, 94-119; on the English constitution, 109, no; on America,
149; "Defense ae f Esprit des Lois" 144; his death, 146; and the
French Revolution, 154 ; his most recent followers and disciples, 165-175.
NATTIER (Jean Baptiste), 1678-1726 ; portrait-painter, 46.
NICOLE (Pierre), 1625-1695 ; quoted, 30.
PASCAL (Blaise), 1623-1662 ; and Montesquieu, 19.
PENEL (Franchise de;, wife of Jacques de Secondat, 10.
POLIGNAC (Melchior, Cardinal de), 1661-1741 ', a friend of Montesquieu, 53.
PRIE (Agnes Berthelotde Pleneuf, Marquise de), 1698-1727 ; mistress of the Due
de Bourbon, 46.
RAPIN DE THOYRAS (Paul), 1661-1725 ; historian, 154.
Regency oj the Due d'OrUans, 25.
RETZ (Jean Frangois de Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de), 1614-1679 ; the 'tradition
of libertinism found in him, 30.
RICHELIEU (Armand Jean Duplessis, Cardinal de), 1585-1642; Montesquieu's
opinion of him, 50.
ROUSSEAU (Jean Jacques). 1712-1778 ; his novels, 22.
SAINT-VREMOND (Charles de Marquetel de Saint-Denys de), 1616-1703 ; the
tradition of libertinism found in him, 30 ; his style, 58.
SAINTE-BEUVE (Charles Augustin), 1804-1869; on Montesquieu, 174, 175.
STAK'L-HOLSTEIN (Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne de), 1766-1817;
and Montesquieu, 169, 170.

1 90 Montesquieu.
STENDHAL (Henri Beyle, better known as), 1783-1842 ; a sceptic, 34; why he
admires the "Lettres Persanes," 42.
TALLEYRAND-PERIGORD (Charles Maurice de), 1754-1838; and Montesquieu,
167, 168.
TAVKRNIER (Jean Baptiste), 1605-1689 ; celebrated traveller, 36.
" TfUmaque," "1'ouvrage divm de ce siecle," 26.
" Temple de Gnide" (le), 46, 49.
TENCIN (Claudine Alexandrine Guerin, Marquise de), 1681-1749; Montesquieu
frequents her house, 46.
TOCQUEVILLB (Alexis Charles Henri CleVel de), 1803-1859 ; a disciple of
Montesquieu, 171, 173.
TOURREIL (Jacques Ide), 1656 1714; Academician, 50.
" Troglodytes (let)," a tale, by Montesquieu, 40.
TURENNE (Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de), 1611-1675 ; Marshal of
France, 24.
VAUBAN (Scbastien Le Prestre, Marquis de), 1633-1707 ; " an austere aristo-
crat," 10.
VERNET (Jacob), 1728-1790 ; a Genevese /&amp;; meets Montesquieu, 53.
VERGENNES (Charles Gravier, Comte de), 1717-1787 : his merits as a diplomatist,

VILLEMAIN (Abel Frangois), 1790-1867 ; on Montesquieu, 173.

VOISENON (Claude Henri de Fuzee, Abbd de), 1708-1755 ; a novelist, 49.

VOLTAIRE ^Frangois Marie Arouet de), 1694-1778 ; style of his works, 22 ; his
ticism, 142, 143 ; and Montesquieu, 142 ; criticises the "Esprit des

Lois" 143.
WALDKGRAVE (Lord), travels with Montesquieu, 51.


A 000 675 699 3

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