Montesquieu

mon-tes-ku' (1689-1755), a French philosopher. He was born near Bordeaux. He came of good family and was educated for the law. His real name was Charles de Secondat. An uncle left him a fortune and the title of Baron de Montesquieu by which he is known. He held a judicial position. He became a member of the Bordeaux academy to which he contributed numerous papers. He sent a manuscript to Amsterdam for publication. It appeared under the title of Persian Letters. In the guise of letters exchanged by two Persians, he satirized church, state, and society, creating not a little amusement, but arousing the apprehension of the authorities. Voltaire, moved, no doubt, by jealousy, called it a volume of "trumpery" that anybody might write. The reputation of the Letters brought Montesquieu to Paris. He was elected a member of the French Academy. He traveled widely from England to Turkey. He then settled down on his estate near Bordeaux to collect rents, improve his property, and indulge his literary taste. He had a fine library and study, fifty feet wide by sixty long, in which he collected the books he coveted. In this delightful retirement he wrote a number of works. His reputation rests on the Spirit of the Law: or the Relation that Laws Ought to Bear to the Constitution of Each Government, the Manners, Climate, Religion, etc. It is not a formal treatise on law, but "An assemblage of the most fertile, original, and inspiriting views on legal and political subjects, put in language of singular suggestiveness and vigor, illustrated by examples which are always apt and luminous, permeated by the spirit of temperate and tolerant desire for human improvement and happiness." This work was read widely, not only in France, but abroad. It was without doubt one of the influences that brought on the French Revolution. See Montaigne