MONTESQUIEU'S "ESPRIT DES LOIS

Coming events cast their shadows before. Les considérations prepared the way for a still more grave and more elaborate work, which was published at Geneva in the autumn of 1748, in two volumes quarto, under the title of De fesprit des lois. The publication of this great work was preceded by one of those odd incidents which in literature illustrate Clive's well-known saying about courtsmartial in war. Montesquieu summoned a committee of friends, according to a very common practice, to hear and give an opinion on his work. The members of this eminently compétent tribunal unanimously, though for différent reasons and in différent forms of expression, advised the author not to publish a book, which has been described by Sir Horace Walpole as "the best book that ever was written, — at least I never learned half so much

i66 Lettres Persanes

from ail I ever read," and recently by a judge of certainly no less compétence as one of the most important books ever written, — and which, when importance of matter and excellence of manner are jointly considered, may be almost certainly ranked as the greatest book of the eighteenth century in France.

The De Vesprit des Lois represents the reflexions of a singularly clear, original, and comprehensive niind, corrected by forty years' study of men and books, arranged in accordance with a long deliberated plan, and couched in language of remarkable freshness and idiosyncrasy. The real importance of this work is, however, not that of a formai treatise on law, or even on polity. It is that of an assemblage of the most fertile, original, and inspiriting views on légal and political subjects, put in language of singular suggestiveness and vigour, illustrated by examples which are always apt and luminous, permeated by the spirit of temperate and tolérant désire for human improvement and happiness, and almost unique in its entire freedom at once from doctrinarianism, from visionary enthusiasm, from egotism, and from an undue spirit of System. As for the style, no one who does not mistake the définition of that much used and much misused word can deny it to Montesquieu. He has in the Esprit little ornament, but his composition is wholly admirable.

MONTESQUIEU'S POPULARITY

For a génération after his death Montesquieu remained the idol and the great authority of the moderate reforming party in France, and at such times as that party recovered power during the revolutionary period he recovered vogue

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with it. But the tendency of the century and a half which hâve passed since his death has been to reduce the numbers and position of this party ever more and more, and Montesquieu is not often quotable, or quoted, cithcr by Republicans, Bonapartists, or Legitimists at the présent time. Again, his serious works contain citation of or allusion to a vast number of facts, and the exact criticism of our time challenges the accuracy of thèse facts. Although he was really the founder, or at least one of the founders, of the sciences of comparative politics and of the philosophy of history, his descendants and followers in thèse sciences think they hâve outgrown him. In France his popularity has alvvays been dubious and contested. He is, his chief admirers assert, hardly read at ail in France to-day, and they attempt to explain the fact by confessing that Montesquieu, great as he is, is not altogether great according to French principles. It is not only that he is an Anglo-maniac, but that he is rather English than French in style and thought. His work, at least the Esprit^ is lacking in the proportion and the almost ostentatious lucidity of arrangement which a Frenchman demands. (Adapted from G. Saintsbury.)