Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/451

Rh in that general situation, of which we have been speaking, and are therefore free: whilst the Tartars (the most singular people on earth) are involved in a political slavery. I have already given some reasons for this, and shall now give others.

They have no towns, they have no forests, and but few marshes; their rivers are almost always frozen, and they dwell in an immense plain. They have pasture for their herds and flocks, and consequently property; but they have no kind of retreat, or place of safety. A Khan is no sooner overcome than they cut off his head; his children are treated in the same manner, and all his subjects belong to the conqueror. These are not condemned to a civil slavery; they would in that case be a burthen to a simple nation, who have no lands to cultivate, and no need of any domestic service. They therefore augment the nation; but instead of civil slavery, a political one must naturally be introduced amongst them.

It is apparent, that in a country where the several clans make continual war, and are perpetually conquering each other; in a country, where by the death of the chief, the body politic of the vanquished clan is always destroyed, the nation in general can enjoy but little freedom: for there is not a single party that must not have been a very great number of times subdued.

A conquered people may preserve some degree Rh