THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY— MONTESQUIEU

The eighteenth century is emphatically le siècle français in the intellectual sphère as in the political. It may be designated, both conveniently and accurately, so far as its spiritual and moral characteristics are concerned, the âge of the philosophes, for the school of French thinkers known by that name gave it its distinctive tone and colour. They vvere everywhere read and admired, and the whole continent was penetrated by their ideas. Other countries exercised but little influence on the world's thought. Germany may be said to hâve been dumb from Leibniz to Lessing, As to the south of Europe during the eighteenth century, it was sunk in neutral torpor. Intellectually considered, Italy and Spain vvere a great void. England, it is true, produced a school of writers whose influence upon European thought was of the greatest moment. It was, however, through the médium of the French intellect that this influence was exercised. The doctrines dominant throughout Europe a hundred years ago may ail be traced from Locke's famous Essay. But Europe learnt them from the English thinker's French disciples, who bettered his instruction. (Lilly, Chapters in European Hisiory.)

i6o Lettres Persanes

There is no absolutely best form of government. If law generally is the reason of mankind, the civil and political laws of each nation should be the application of that reason to particular cases. The laws should correspond to the character and principles of the established government, and like it must dépend upon and suit the climate and physical conditions of the country. But it is not the illustration and practical application of this gênerai principle that Montesquieu has most at heart. He believes that the salvation of France dépends upon the possibility of undoing the evil work of Richelieu and Louis XIV., and returning to the old monarchy, as he conceives it to hâve existed under Henry IV. or Louis XII. The danger which threatens France is despotism, leading to anarchy. He would warn his countrymen, renew and invigorate their love of liberty. He is a libéral conservative, who would temper monarchy by aristocratie institutions, the antithesis of d'Argenson, one of the first advocates of démocratie and socialistic despotism. Montesquieu is convinced that ail undivided sovereignty is bad — whether in the hands of the one or of the many ; it leads to despotism, and despotism to anarchy. The best form of government accordingly is a carefuUy balanced constitution, such as that of Englànd. (P. F. Willert, in The Cambridge Modem History.)

Rational and experienced men tolerably well know, and bave always known, how to distinguish between true and false liberty, and between the genuine adhérence and the false pretence to what is true. But none except those who are profoundly studied can comprehend the elaborate contrivance of a fabrick fitted to unité private and publick liberty with publick force, with order, with peace, with justice, and, above ail, with the institutions formed for

Passages for Translation into French i6i

bcstowing permanence and stability through âges, upon this invaluable whole. Place, for instance, before your eyes, such a man as Montesquieu. Think of a genius not born in every country, or evcry time ; a man giftcd by nature with a penetrating acquiline eyc ; with a judgment prepared with the most extensive érudition ; with an herculean robustness of mind, and nerves not to be bioken with labour ; a man who could spend twenty years in one pursuit. Think of a man like the universal patriarch in Milton, a man capable of placing in review, after having brought together from the east, the west, the north and the south, from the coarseness of the rudest barbarism to the most refined and subtle civilisation, ail the schemes of government which had ever prevailed amongst mankind, weighing, measuring, coUating, and comparing them ail, joining fact with theory, and calling into council, upon ail' this infinité assemblage of things, ail the spéculations which hâve fatigued the understandings of profound reasoners in ail times ! Let us then consider that ail thèse were but so many preparatory steps to qualify a man, and such a man, tinctured with no national préjudice, with no domestick affection, to admire and to hold out to the admiration of mankind the constitution of England ! (Burke's Works, 1808, vol. vi.)

Montesquieu must be regarded as the father of that school of reformers, including Necker, Lally-Tollendal and others, who at the commencement of the French Révolution wished to establish in France a constitution on the English model. Hcnce, in the vain pursuit of institutions which, it may be confidently asserted, would never havc suited the genius and habits of the French nation, they were Icd to assist the beginnings of a movement which it was not afterwards in their power to stop. There was no analoj^y whatever between the France of 1789 and England at any period of its history. The want of an aristocracy, influential

through its dignities and wealth, yet without particular privilèges, except that of an hereditary peerage, and identified in its private interests with the great mass of the people, would alone hâve rendered English institutions impossible in France. The démocratie inclinations of the French, their military habits, their large standing army, ail tended the same way. The principles of Montesquieu obtained, however, at length, a sort of triumph in the Charter of 1814, which appears to hâve been founded on the scheme of a Constitution modelled on that of England, and submitted by Lally - Tollendal to the Constituent Assembly. (Dyer, Modem Europe.)