Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/814

Rh 784 MONTESQUIEU the first important essay in the philosophy of history. The point of view is entirely different from that of Bossuet, and it seems entirely improbable that Montesquieu knew anything of Vico. In the Grandeur et Decadence the characteristics of the Esprit des Lois appear with the neces sary subordination to a narrower subject. Two things are especially noticeable in it : a peculiarity of style, and a peculiarity of thought. The style has a superficial defect which must strike every one, and which was not overlooked by those who were jealous of Montesquieu at the time. The page is broken up into short paragraphs of but a few lines each, which look very ugly, which irritate the reader by breaking the sense, and which prepare him to expect an undue and ostentatious sententiousness. The blemish, however, is chiefly mechanical, and, though no editor has hitherto had the perhaps improper audacity so to do, it would be perfectly possible to obliterate it without changing a word. On the other hand, the merits of the expression are very great. It is grave and destitute of ornament, but extraordinarily luminous and full of what would be called epigram, if the word epigram had not a certain connotation of flippancy about it. It is a very short book ; for, printed in large type with tolerably abundant notes, it fills but two hundred pages in the last edition of Montesquieu s works. But no work of the century, except Turgot s second Sorbonne Discourse, contains, in proportion to its size, more weighty and original thought on historical subjects, while Montesquieu has over Turgot the immense advantage of style. Although, however, this ballon d essai, in the style of his great work, may be said to have been successful, and though much of that work was, as we have seen, in all probability already composed, Montesquieu was in no hurry to publish it. He went on &quot; cultivating the garden &quot; diligently both as a student and as an improving landowner. He had lawsuits, sometimes on his own account, sometimes on that of others, and in one case he won from the city of Bordeaux no less than eleven hundred arpents of, it is true, the un productive landes of the country. He is said to have begun a history of Louis XI., and there is a story that it was completed but burnt by mistake. He wrote the sketch of Lysimaque for Stanislaus Leczinski; he published new and final editions of the Temple de Gnide, of the Lettres Persanes, of Sylla et Eucrate (which indeed had never been published, properly speaking). After allowing the Grandeur et Decadence to be reprinted without alterations some half dozen times, he revised and corrected it. He also took great pains with the education of his son Charles and his daughter Denise, of whom he was extremely fond. He frequently visited Paris, where his favourite resorts were the salons of Madame de Tencin and Madame d Aiguillon. But all the time he must have been steadily working at his book, indeed, a contemporary accuses him of having only gone into society to pick up materials for it. But it seems that he did not begin the final task of composition till 1743. Two years of uninterrupted work at La Brede finished the greater part of it, and two more the rest. It was finally published at Geneva in the autumn of 1748, in two volumes quarto. The publication was, however, pre ceded by one of those odd incidents which in literature illus trate Clive s well-known saying about courts-martial in war. Montesquieu summoned a committee of friends, according to a very common practice, to hear and give an opinion on his work. It was an imposing and certainly not an unfriendly one, consisting of Henault, Helvetius, the financier Silhouette, the dramatist Saurin, Crebillon the younger, and lastly, Fontenelle, in fact, all sorts and conditions of literary men. The members of this eminently competent tribunal unanimously, though for different reasons and in different forms of expression, advised the author not to publish a book which has been recently described by a judge of certainly not less competence as &quot;one of the most important books ever written,&quot; and which, when importance of matter and excellence of manner are jointly considered, may be almost certainly ranked as the greatest book of the French 18th century. Montesquieu, of course, did not take his friends advice. In such cases no man ever does, and in this case it was certainly fortunate. The Esprit des Lois represents the reflexions of a singularly clear, original, and comprehensive mind, cor rected 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 title has been somewhat cavilled at, and, like that of the Considerations, it gave a handle to the somewhat malicious frivolity of the salons. But if it had been preserved in full it would have escaped much of the criticism which it has received. In the original editions it runs L Esprit des Lois : ou du Rapport que les Lois doivent avoir avec la Constitution de chaqiie Gouvernement, les Moeurs, le Climat, la Religion, le Commerce, etc. It consists of thirty-one books, which in some editions are grouped in six parts. This division into parts is known to have entered into the author s original plan, but he seems to have changed his mind about it. Speaking summarily, the first part, containing eight books, deals with law in general and with forms of government ; the second, containing five, with military arrangements, with taxation, &c. ; the third, containing six, with manners and customs, and their dependence on climatic conditions ; the fourth, containing four, with eco nomic matters; and the fifth, containing three, with religion. The last five books, forming a kind of supplement, deal specially with Roman, French, and feudal law. The most noteworthy peculiarity of the book to a cursory reader lies in the section dealing with effects of climate, and this indeed was almost the only characteristic which the vulgar took in, probably because it was easily susceptible of parody and reductio ad absurdum. But this theory is but the least part of the claims of the book to attention. Its vast and careful collection of facts, the novelty and brilliancy of the generalizations founded on them, the constructive spirit which penetrates it, its tolerance, its placid wisdom lighted up by vivacious epigram, could only escape the most careless reader. The singular spirit of moderation which distinguishes its views on politics and religion was indeed rather against it than in its favour in France, and Helvetius, who was as outspoken as he was good-natured, had definitely assigned this as the reason of his unfavourable judgment. On the other hand, if not destructive it was sufficiently critical, and it thus raised enemies on more than one side. Montesquieu was thought too English in his ideas by some, the severe defenders of orthodoxy considered him latitudinarian, and one zealous Jansenist informed him that he was &quot;a pig.&quot; It was long suspected, but is now positively known, that the book (not altogether with the goodwill of the pope) was put on the Index, and the Sorbonne projected, though it did not carry out, a regular censure. To all these ob jectors the author replied in a masterly defense ; and there seems to be no foundation for the late and scandalous stories which represent him as having used Madame de Pompadour s influence to suppress criticism. The fact was that, after the first snarlings of envy and incompetence had died away, he had little occasion to complain. Even Voltaire, who was his decided enemy, was forced at length to speak in public, if not in private, complimentarily of the Esprit, and from all parts of Europe the news of success arrived. Montesquieu enjoyed his triumph rather at La Brede than at Paris. He was becoming an old man, and, unlike Fonte-