Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/212

160 old age, there will be none soon for parents; deference to husbands will be likewise thrown off, and submission to masters. This licentiousness will soon taint the mind; and the restraint of command be as fatiguing as that of obedience. Wives, children, slaves, will shake off all subjection. No longer will there be any such thing as manners, order, or virtue.

We find in Xenophon's banquet a very lively description of a republic in which the people abused their equality. Each guest gives in his turn the reason why he is satisfied. "Content I am with myself, says Chamides, because of my poverty. When I was rich, I was obliged to pay my court to informers, knowing I was more liable to be hurt by them, than capable of doing them harm. The republic constantly demanded some new sum of me; and I could not decline paying. Since I am grown poor, I have acquired authority; no body threatens me, I rather threaten others. I can go or stay where I please. The rich already rise from their seats and give me the way. I am a king, I was before a slave: I paid taxes to the republic, now it maintains me: I am no longer afraid of losing; I hope to acquire."

The people fall into this misfortune, when those in whom they confide, desirous of concealing their own corruption, endeavour to corrupt. To prevent them from seeing their own ambition, they speak to them only of their grandeur; to conceal their own avarice, they incessantly flatter theirs.

The corruption will increase among the corrupters, and likewise among those who are already Rh