Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/328

276 be easily detected. Words joined to an action assume the nature of this action. Thus a man who goes into a public market place to incite the subjects to revolt, incurs the guilt of high treason, because the words are joined to the action, and partake of its nature. It is not the words that are punished, but an action in which words are employed. They do not become criminal, but when they prepare for, accompany, or follow a criminal action: every thing is confounded, if words are construed as a capital crime instead of considering them only as a mark of a capital crime.

The emperors Theodosius, Arcadius, and Honorius wrote thus to Rufinus who was præfectus prætorio. "If a man speaks amiss of our person, or government, we do not for all that intend to punish him ; if he has spoke through levity, we must despise him; if through folly, we must pity him; and if he wrongs us, we mujst forgive him. Wherefore leaving things as they are, you must inform us accordingly, that we way be able to judge of words by persons, and that we may well consider whether we ought to punish or overlook them."

N writings there is something more permanent than in words; but when they are no way preparative to high treason, they are not a subject of that crime. Rh