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Homework Help: English: Authors: Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
by Danielle Bostian
French writer and publicist, b. in the Château de la Brède near Bordeaux, 18
January, 1689; d. at Paris, 10 February, 1755. His family was of noble rank; his
grandfather, President of the Bordeaux Parliament, his father, a member of the
royal bodyguard, and his mother, Marie de Penel, who died when he was eleven,
traced her ancestry to an old English family. Young Charles de la Brède, as he
was then known, was sent to the Oratorian College at Juilly (1700-11), where he
received a wholly literary and classical education in which religion held but a
minor place. When, at twenty-five years of age he returned home, after having
been called to the bar, he received from his paternal uncle the style and title of
Baron de Montesquieu, by which he was afterwards known, and became
councillor of the Bordeaux Parliament. He married a Protestant, Jeanne Lartigue,
and they had three children; but neither his profession nor his family seem to
have claimed much of his attention. At the end of nine years he sold his office,
and gave himself up entirely to study which henceforth became his life's one and
only passion. "Study", he wrote afterwards, "has been my sovereign remedy
against the worries of life. I have never had a care that an hour's reading could
not dispel". As a matter of fact the story of his life is but the chronicle of the
preparation and composition of his books. His earliest productions were read
before the Academy of Bordeaux, of which he became a member (1716). They
deal with a variety of subjects, but mainly with scientific topics, history, and
politics. For a time he thought of writing a "physical history of the Earth" for
which he began collecting material (1719), but two years later was busy in a very
different direction, publishing the "Lettres persanes" (Amsterdam, 1721), so
named because it pretended to be a correspondence between two Persian
gentlemen travelling in Europe, and their friends in Asia, who sent them the
gossip of the seraglio.
Under this fictitious guise the writer goes on to describe or rather satirize
French, and especially Parisian manners between 1710 and 1720. The king, the
absolute monarchy, the Parliament, the Academy, the University, are all very
transparently ridiculed; but it was the Catholic religion, its dogmas, its practices,
its ministers from pope to monks that came in for his bitterest raillery. Because
of its ideal of celibacy, the Catholic Church is accused of being a cause of
depopulation, and because of its teaching concerning this world's goods, it is
charged with weakening the prosperity of the nation, while its intolerant
proselytism is a source of disturbance to the state. On the other hand
Protestantism is held up as more favourable to material progress. Coming
ostensibly from Mohammedans these criticisms may have seemed less
shocking to thoughtless minds, but they were none the less one of the first and
rudest attacks directed against the Church during the eighteenth century. In
them, he showed himself as incapable of understanding the Church's dogmas as
he was of appreciating her services to society. Though in later years he was to
find a juster point of view, his witty criticisms in their lively setting of romance
and sensualism, quite to the taste of that age, assured a great success for the
"Lettres persanes". Eight editions were published within a year. Montesquieu
had not signed his name to them, but the author was quickly discovered, and
the public nominated him for the French Academy. He was elected in 1726, but
owing to the scandal the "Lettres persanes" had caused, the king did not
approve and an excuse was given that the author did not live in Paris, as the
rules of the Academy required. Whereupon Montesquieu took up his residence
in Paris, and was elected once more, and admitted in 1728.
Side by side with their frivolous levity the "Lettres persanes" contain some
profound observations on history and politics. They show even then
Montesquieu's meditation on the laws and customs of mankind, from which was
to result his later work, "L'Esprit des lois". As a preparation for this work, he set
out (1728) on a long series of travels through Europe, and visited Vienna, and
Hungary, spent some time in Venice, Florence, Naples, Genoa, and Rome,
where he was received by Cardinal de Polignac and Benedict XIII. In the suite of
Lord Chesterfield he went to England where he remained eighteen months, and
was the guest of Prime Minister Walpole, of Swift, and Pope. Wherever he went
he made the acquaintance of statesmen, took copious notes of what he saw and
heard, and read with avidity. After an absence of three years he returned to his
family, his business, his vineyards and the farming of his estates at Château de
la Brède. As a relaxation he paid occasional visits to Paris, and mixed with
literary men and their friends in the salons of Madame de Tencin, Madame
Geoffrin, and Madame du Deffand. Yet he studiously avoided over familiarity with
what was known as the philosophical set. Though his religious convictions were
not deep, his serious and moderate turn of mind had nothing in common with the
noisy and aggressive impiety of Voltaire and his friends.
Henceforth, his great aim in life was to write the "Esprit des lois", and all his
spare time in the studious seclusion at La Brède was devoted to it. To begin
with, ancient Rome gave him ample material for thought, but took up so much
space in his work that in order not to mar the proportions of his book he
published all that concerned it as a distinct work, "Les Considérations sur les
causes de la grandeur et de la décadence des Romains" (Amsterdam, 1734). In
this book he shows successively the glorious progress and slow decay which
the Empire experienced from the foundation of Rome to the capture of
Constantinople by the Turks. He does not narrate events, but supposing that
they are already known, he seeks to discover the links in the chain of events,
and to point out the sources from which they sprang, choosing preferably
political causes, that is, institutions. By exhibiting them in their natural
relationships he throws unexpected light on certain events of ancient history and
those of more recent date. Bossuet had already devoted two chapters of his
"Histoire Universelle" to explaining "the sequence of changes at Rome".
Montesquieu treats the same subject in a larger way and with closer correlation
of facts. His point of view is that of the statesman rather than of the moralist, and
every religious preoccupation is left aside. Such indeed is his indifference that he
has not a word about religion. This concession to the prejudices of his age was
a mistake, as modern criticism has shown, especially in the works of Fustel de
Coulanges, that religion played a greater part in the political conduct of the
Romans than Montesquieu credited it with.
"Les Considérations" was but an advance chapter of "L'Esprit des lois" which
Montesquieu published after twenty years of labour (2 vols., Geneva, 1748). In
this second work the author studies human laws in their relationships with the
government, climate, and general character of the country, its customs, and its
religion. He undertakes, not to examine various laws and discover their meaning,
but to point out their underlying principles and to lay down the conditions which
must be verified if such laws are to work for the happiness of man in society. In
his judgments and conclusions Montesquieu is careful to take into account
experience and tradition. He believes that laws can be enacted only for men in
definitely known conditions of time and place. In so far he differs from the
theorizers and utopians of his day and of a later age, who had no hesitation in
drafting laws for man in the abstract or for a humanity freed from all spatial and
temporal determinations, and who took as the basis of their deductions either
the idea of a social contract in primitive times, or of a state of nature which had
to be developed or restored. He thus avoids the errors of Hobbes, Locke, and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
His personal sympathies went rather with the liberal ideas which have triumphed
almost everywhere in the civilized world of today, but which were novelties then.
He declared himself in favour of separating the executive, legislative, and
judiciary powers (XI, vi), condemned slavery and torture, and advocated gentler
treatment of criminals, toleration in religious belief, and freedom of worship. But
in this work he treats the religious issue with more gravity than he had done in
the "Lettres persanes". True, he passes over the truth of its teaching and the
sanctity of its moral precepts, and treats of it "only as regards its advantages for
civic life". But far from thinking that there can be a conflict between religion and
society, he insists that the one is useful to the other. "Something", he says,
"must be fixed and permanent, and religion is that something." He says again,
more clearly: "What a wonderful thing is the Christian religion! it seems to aim
only at happiness in a future life, and yet it secures our happiness in this life
also." He does not dream of separating Church and State, nor of subjecting the
former to the latter: "I have never claimed that the interests of religion should give
way to those of the State, but that they should go hand in hand." Nevertheless
on various points he seriously misunderstood Catholic teaching: "Les Nouvelles
Ecclésiastiques" (Oct., 1749) called attention to several statements of this sort,
and the Sorbonne drew up a list of passages from his writings that seemed to
call for censure (August, 1752). Before this (March, 1752), "L'Esprit des lois"
had been placed on the Roman Index. But these measures created no great stir.
The success of the book was enormous, its political influence world-wide. The
early American statesmen were very familiar with "L'Esprit des lois" and from it
(XI, vi) derived much of their idea of federal government. Jefferson, the author of
the Declaration of Independence, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, who wrote in the
"Federalist" in defence of the new Constitution, were all enthusiastic readers of
Montesquieu. Montesquieu's reputation became universal, and he was able to
enjoy peacefully the homage it brought him until his death, for which he prepared
himself by receiving the sacraments of the Church, and showing every outward
mark of perfect obedience to her laws. The influence of his ideas was to be felt
long afterwards both in France and elsewhere.
Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu was a
French political thinker who lived during the
Enlightenment and articulated the theory of separation of powers
which is the basis for the United States Constitution. Born in 1689
at Chateau La Brede near Bordeaux, he was president of the
"parlement" of Bordeaux by the age of twenty-seven, and shortly
afterwards achieved literary success with the publication of his
Lettres persanes 1721, a satire based on the imaginary
correspondence of an Oriental visitor to Paris, pointing out the
absurdities of contemporary society. He travelled widely, spending
two years in England (1729 - 31), but was troubled by poor
eyesight, and was completely blind by the time of his death in
1755. His great work, De l'esprit des lois 1748, was published
anonymously and was enormously influential. He argued that the
aristocracy Voltaire would decry protected the state from the
absolutist despot (or monarchy) and from the despotism of the
many (or (anarchy). His was a purely political and rational defense,
conveniently non-economic. Montesquieu's motto was,
freedom-Liberty is the stepchild of privilege. This allowed
Montesquieu to defend the constitutional monarch as he claimed it
was governed by honor. Montesquieu argued that the monarchs
could become too passionate and the commons were too big and
too egalitarian to rule properly. However, he portrayed the
aristocracy as having and maintaining the honor that kept
monarchies constitutional. But, he also warned that the aristocracy
is doomed when it becomes self-interested, arrogant and parasitic.
Montesquieu's most radical work situated the three French classes
into a "checks and balances" A termed he coined. of three
sovereignties; the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the commons.
Montesquieu saw two types of powers existing; the sovereign and
the administrative. The administrative powers were the legislative,
the executive, and the judiciary. These powers were to be divided
up amongst the three classes so that each would have a power over
the other. This is so radical because it completely eliminates the
clergy from the estates and because it erases any last vestige of a
feudalistic structure.
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