Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/409

Rh And yet there are countries where the magistracy is intirely in their hands: "In Tonquin, says Dampier, all the mandarins civil and military are eunuchs." They have no families, and though they are naturally avaricious, the master or the prince in the end takes advantage of this very avarice.

Dampier tells us too, that in this country, the eunuchs cannot live without women, and therefore marry. The law which permits their marriage, may be founded on the one hand, on their respect for these eunuchs, and on the ether, on their contempt for women.

Thus they are trusted with the magistracy, because they have no family; and permitted to marry, because they are magistrates.

Then it is that the sense which remains, would fain supply that they have lost; and the enterprizes of despair become a kind of enjoyment. So in Milton, that spirit who has nothing left but desires, enraged at his degradation, would make use of his impotency itself.

We see in the history of China a great number of laws to deprive eunuchs of all civil and military employments; but they always returned to them again. It seems as if the eunuchs of the east were a necessary evil. Rh