Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/219

Rh It is corrupted when the prince changes his justice into severity; when he puts like the Roman emperors a Medusa's head on his breast ; and when he assumes that menacing and terrible air which Commodus ordered to be given to his statues.

Again it is corrupted, when mean and abject souls grow vain of the pomp attending their servitude; and imagine that the motive which induces them to be entirely devoted to their prince, exempts them from all duty to their country.

But if it be true, (and indeed the experience of all ages has shewn it) that in proportion as the power of the monarch becomes boundless and immense, his security diminishes; is the corrupting this power, and the altering its very nature, a less crime than that of high treason against the prince?

HE danger is not when the state passes from one moderate to another moderate government, as from a republic to a monarchy, or from a monarchy to a republic; but when it precipitates from a moderate to a despotic government.

Most of the European nations are still governed by principles of morality. But if by a long abuse Rh