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Charles de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu Biography

Charles de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu Image

MONTESQUIEU, Charles de Secondat Baron de la Brède et de (1689-1755). One of the most celebrated politico-philosophical writers of France. He was born Jan. 18, 1689, at his father's Chateau of Brède, near Bordeaux, of a distinguished family of lawyers. He was a brilliant, versatile scholar, illuminating solid legal attainments by au ardent love of classics and science. In 1714 he was appointed a councilor of the Parlement of Bordeaux, and two years later, president of the Parlement. He cared nothing, however, for the routine of legal practice or for the requirements of official duty, and as his fortune was ample he was enabled to gratify his taste for study, travel, and observation without hindrance. His first published work was the famous Lettres persanas (1721), in which he ridicules, with exquisite humor and perspicuous criticism, the religious, political, social, and literary life of his countrymen, a proceeding involving some risk of persecution but for his device of placing his comments in the mouths of two Persians of distinction supposed to be traveling in Europe. Although he did not spare the Academy in these letters, he was made a member of it in 1728. In 1726 Montesquieu resigned his office in the Parlement of Bordeaux and spent some years in foreign countries. A two years' sojourn in England, in the course of which he moved in influential circles and had an opportunity to observe English political conditions, made him an admirer of the English political system, which inspired his greatest work, L'Esprit des lois. After his return to France he published his Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur et de la, décadence des Romains (1734), a masterly review of Roman history. It was followed after a long interval by his Dialogues de Sylla et d'Eucrate, et de Lysimaque (1748), published under an assumed name, in which the motives and feelings of a despot are skillfully analyzed. In the same year appeared his great work, on which he had been engaged for 20 years, the Esprit des lois, in which he attempted to discover the relation between the laws of different countries and their local and social circumstances. The book proved immensely popular.

The Esprit des lois is one of the classics of political science, one of the path-breaking works in establishing the science of politics upon an historical rather than an a priori basis. It has assured Montesquieu a place among the foremost political philosophers of all times. Without adopting Voltaire's hypereulogistic criticism, that "when the human race had lost their charters, Montesquieu rediscovered and restored them," it may be said that it was the first work in modern times in which the questions of civil liberty were ever treated in an enlightened and systematic manner. The Esprit des lois, next to Locke's Essay on Government, was probably the political work best known to the statesmen of the American Revolution and early constitutional period, and its influence was marked in the discussions attending the adoption of the Constitution. It was bitterly attacked in Montesquieu's own day for its radical attitude in regard to the Church and religion and for its alleged Anglomania, but it was admired by the reform party in France and by the Moderates of the French Revolution, though not popular in France in later days. It is divided into 31 parts. The first eight deal with laws in general, their nature and principles; the next five with laws relating to offense and defense, political liberty, and taxation; the next twelve with laws in relation to climate, soil, manners and customs, commerce, population, and religion; the twenty-sixth deals with laws in their relation to the affairs which they determine; the remaining five books, relating to Roman, French, and feudal law, are a kind of historical supplement. The collective editions of his works are numerous. The best is that of Laboulaye in seven volumes (Paris, 1875-79). All of his important works have been translated in numerous editions. The best short work on Montesquieu, is Sorel, Montesquieu, translated by Masson (London, 1887); the standard authority is Vian, Histoire de la vie et des œuvres de Montesquieu (Paris, 1879). There are good essays by Doumic, Brunetière, and Zevort. Consult also: E. J. Lowell, Eve of the French Revolution (Boston, 1893); C. P. Ilbert, Montesquieu (Oxford, 1904); E. P. Dargan, Æsthetie Doctrine of Montesquieu (Baltimore, 1907 . A complete bibliography of the literature dealing with Montesquieu has been published by L. Dangeau (Paris, 1874).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XVI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 197-198.