Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/479

Rh employed were needless; he would have attained his end as well by milder methods.

He himself experienced the easiness of bringing about these alterations. The women were shut up, and in some sort slaves; he called them to court; he sent them silks and stuffs, and made them dress like the German ladies. This sex immediately relished a manner of life which so greatly slattered their taste, their vanity, and their passions, and by their means it was relished by the men.

What rendered the change the more easy was, their manners being at that time foreign to the climate; and their having been introduced amongst them by conquest, and by a mixture of nations. Peter I. in giving the manners and customs of Europe to an European nation, found a facility which he did not himself expect. The empire of the climate is the first, the most powerful of all empires.

He had then no occasion for laws to change the manners and customs of his country; it would have been sufficient to have introduced other manners and other customs.

Nations are in general very tenacious of their customs ; to take them away by violence is to render them unhappy: we should not therefore change them, but engage the people to make the change themselves.

All punishment which is not derived from necessity, is tyrannical. The law is not a mere act of power; things in their own nature indifferent are not within its province. Rh