Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/149

Rh Augustus, Vespasian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius and Pertinax, were economists. Under good emperors the state resumed its principles; all other treasures were supplied by that of honor.

CANNOT conclude this book without making some applications of my three principles.

It is a question, whether the laws ought to oblige a subject to accept of a public employment. My opinion is, that they ought in a republic, but not in a monarchical government. In the former, public employments are attestations of virtue, depositums with which a citizen is intrusted by his country, for whom alone he ought to live, act, and think; consequently he cannot refuse them. In the latter, public offices are testimonies of honor; now such is the capriciousness of honor, that it chuses to accept of none of these testimonies but when and in what manner it pleases.

The late king of Sardinia inflicted punishments on his subjects that refused the dignities and public offices of the state. In this he unknowingly followed republican ideas: but his manner of governing in other respects sufficiently proves that this was not his intention. Rh