Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/220

168 of power, or the fury of conquest, despotic sway should prevail to a certain degree; neither morals nor climate would be able to withstand its baleful influence: and then human nature would be exposed, for some time at least, even in this beautiful part of the world, to the insults with which she has been abused in the other three.

HE English nobility buried themselves with Charles the first, under the ruins of the throne; and before that nine, when Philip the second endeavoured to tempt the French with the allurement of liberty, the crown was constantly supported by a nobility who think it an honor to obey a king, but consider it as the lowest infamy to share the power with the people.

The house of Austria has used her constant endeavours to oppress the Hungarian nobility; little thinking how serviceable that very nobility would be one day to her. She wanted money from their country which it had not; but took no notice of the men with which it abounded. When a multitude of princes fell to a dismembering of her dominions, the several pieces of her monarchy fell motionless, as it were, one upon the other. No life was then to be seen but in that very nobility, who resenting the injuries done to their sovereign, and forgetting those done to themselves, took up arms to avenge her cause, and considered it as the highest glory bravely to die and to forgive. Rh