Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/255

Rh When a monarchy has extended its limits by the conquest of some neighbouring provinces, it should treat those provinces with great lenity.

If a monarchy has been a long while endeavouring at conquests, the provinces of its ancient demesne are generally ill-used. They are obliged to submit both to the new and to the ancient abuses; and to be depopulated by a vast metropolis that swallows up the whole. Now if after having made conquests round this demesne, the conquered people were treated like the ancient subjects, the state would be undone; the taxes sent by the conquered provinces to the capital would never return; the inhabitants of the frontiers would be ruined, and consequently the frontiers would be weaker; the people would be disaffected; and the subsistence of the armies designed to act and remain there, would become more precarious.

Such is the necessary state of a conquering monarchy; a shocking luxury in the capital; misery in the provinces somewhat distant; and plenty in the most remote. It is the same with such a monarchy as with our planet; fire at the center, verdure on the surface, and between both a dry, cold, and barren land.

OMETIMES one monarchy subdues another. The smaller the latter, the better it is checked by fortresses; and the larger it is, the better it is preserved by colonies. Rh