Washington Irving

Biography

Wire of Jacques de Secondat, baron of Montesquieu (1654-1713) and Marie-Francoise de Pesnel, baroness of Brède (1665-1696), Montesquieu is born in a family from magistrates from the good nobility, with the Château of Brède (close to Bordeaux in the Gironde) of which it bears initially the name and to which it always will be very attached. His/her parents choose a beggar for godfather to him so that he remembers all his life which the poor are his/her brothers.

After a schooling with the College of Juilly and studies of right, he becomes adviser of the Parlement of Bordeaux in 1714. In 1715, it marries at 26 years Jeanne de Lartigue, a Protestant woman resulting from a rich person family and recent nobility which brings an important dowry to him. It is in 1716, with died of his/her uncle, that Montesquieu inherits a true fortune, load of President to mortar of the Parliament of Bordeaux and baronnie of Montesquieu, of which it takes the name. Forsaking its load as soon as it can it, it is interested in the world and the pleasure.

At that time the England was constituted in constitutional monarchy following the Glorieuse revolution (1688-89) and was linked with the Scotland in 1707 to form the the United Kingdom. In 1715, the Sun king Louis XIV dies out after a very long reign and succeed to him of the weaker monarchs. These national transformations influence Montesquieu largely; it will often refer to it.

It is impassioned for the Science S and undertakes scientific experiments (Anatomie, Botanique, Physique…). He writes, on this subject, three scientific papers which give the measurement of the diversity of its talent and its curiosity: causes of the echo , renal glands and the cause of gravity of the bodies .

Then it directs its curiosity towards the policy and the analysis of the company through the Littérature and the Philosophie. In the Lettres Persians , which it anonymously publishes (although nobody is mistaken there) in 1721 in Amsterdam, it depicts admirably, on a humorous and satirical tone, the French company through the glance of visitors Perses. This work is a considerable success: the exotic side, sometimes erotic, the satirical vein but on a spiritual and amused tone on which plays Montesquieu, like.

In 1726, Montesquieu sells its load to pay its debts, while prudently preserving the rights of its heirs on this one. After its election with the French Academy (1728), it carries out a series of long voyages through the Europe, at the time which it goes in Austria, in Hungary, in Italy (1728), in Germany (1729), in Holland and England (1730), where it remains more than one year. At the time of these voyages, it attentively observes the Géographie, the economy, the Politique and the Mœurs of the countries which it visits. Before 1735, it had been initiated with freemasonry in England.

Of return to the castle of Brède, in 1734, it publishes a historical reflection entitled Considérations on the causes of the size of the Romans and of their decline , dense monument, crowning of its years of voyages and it accumulates many documents and testimonys to prepare the work of its life, Of the spirit of the laws . Initially anonymously published in 1748 thanks to the assistance of Mrs. de Tencin, the book acquires a major influence quickly whereas Montesquieu is 59 years old. This Master-delivers, which meets an enormous success, establishes the basic principles of the economic scenes and social and concentrates all the substance of the liberal thought. He however is criticized, attacked and shown finger, which leads its author to publish in 1750 the Défense of the Spirit of the laws . The Roman Catholic church prohibits the book - just as many other works of Montesquieu - in 1751 and the registered voter with the Index (the religion part had been written as well as the others). But through Europe, and particularly in Great Britain, Of the spirit of the laws is covered with praises.

As of the publication of this monument, Montesquieu is surrounded by a true worship. It continues to travel in particular in Hungary, in Austria, Italy where it remains one year, with the the United Kingdom where there remain 18 months. There continues its life of notable, but remains afflicted by the almost total loss with the sight. It however finds the means of taking part in the Encyclopédie, that its statute will make it possible to make known, and writes the article “Taste” which it will not have time to finish.

It is on February 10th 1755 which he dies of a Yellow fever.

Philosophy

Principles

See a detailed analysis of work in the article: Of the spirit of the laws .

In this capital work, which meets an enormous success, Montesquieu tries to work out the basic principles and the Logique of the various political institutions by the study of the Loi S considered as simple relationship between social realities. However after its death, its ideas were often radicalized and the principles of its monarchical government were diverted. It is only at the time of the French revolution that the revolutionists monarchiens will vainly try to make them adapt by the constituent Assembly to counter the Abbé Sieyès in favor of the rupture with any heritage and very model.

Its work, which inspired the authors of the Constitution of 1791, but also of the following constitutions, is at the origin of the principle of distinction of the capacities legislative, executive and legal, of all Démocratie bases.

He is also regarded as one of the fathers of the Sociologie, in particular by Raymond Aron.!

However, in spite of the vastness of its contribution to the modern theory of the parliamentary democracy and the Liberalism, it is necessary to replace a certain number of its ideas in the context of its work, Of the spirit of the laws :

it spoken forever about separation of the capacities , but about distribution of the capacities . This distribution is used well to oppose the capacities;
it did not have a reflection really pushed on the central role of the judicial power ;
it spoken forever about doctrines of the human rights ;
the reflection on the freedom has less of importance in its eyes than that on the formal rules which enable him to be exerted.

Distribution of the capacities

Montesquieu envisages the “distribution of the capacities” in chapter 6 of Of the spirit of the laws . Montesquieu sees existing three capacities: “legislative power”, “legal power of the things which depend on the law of nations”, in charge particularly with the foreign affairs and defense, and the “power executer of those who depends on the civil law”, i.e. the Législatif, the Exécutif and the Judiciaire. Those should be separate and dependant from/to each other so that the influence of the one of the capacities does not take the ascending one on the two others. This design was radical in what it eliminated the structure in three States from French monarchy: the Clergy, the Aristocracy and the People, represented within the General states, thus erasing the last vestige of the Feudalism.

According to Pierre Manent, there are mainly at Montesquieu only two capacities: the executive and the legislature, that an institutional play must mutually restrict. The principal danger to freedom comes from the legislature, more suitable for increase its capacity. The two capacities are supported by two parties which cannot mechanically take the advantage one on the other. It is a question according to Manent “of separating the will from what she wants”, thus in fact the compromise controls, and the citizens are all the more free.

Political regimes

Montesquieu supports the importance of the representation. The intermediate bodies are the guarantors of freedom - the French revolution shows all its ambiguity when it removes the corporations, defending at the same time the freedom to the work and dissipating the intermediate bodies, leaving the individual alone vis-a-vis the State - and the people must simply be able to elect leaders.

Montesquieu then distinguishes three forms from government, each one supported by a principle:

monarchy (constitutional), free mode directed by a hereditary figure, which rests on the principle of honor,
the republic, including/understanding two types:

free Democracy mode or the people is sovereign and prone. The representatives are drawn with the fate among the citizens who all are equal. Rest on the principle of virtue (moral devotion, patriotism, behaviors and austerity traditionalist) Montesquieu sees this system like more adapted to the communities of small size.
Aristocratie a type of people is favoured through the elections. Rest on the principle of moderation to avoid the slip with monarchy.

In both cases the transparency is essential.

despotism, mode of control directed by a dictator not subjecting himself to the laws, which rests on the fear.

Currently it is surprising to note that for Montesquieu monarchy allows more freedom than the republic since in monarchy it is allowed to do all that the laws do not prohibit whereas in republic morals and devotion force the individuals.

The free modes depend on fragile institutional arrangements. Montesquieu assigns four chapters Of the spirit of the laws to the discussion of the English case, a contemporary free mode in which freedom is ensured by the balance of power. Montesquieu worried that, in France, the intermediate capacities, like the nobility, which moderated the capacity of the prince eroded.

Like many its contemporaries, Montesquieu held certain opinions which would lend today to controversy. Whereas it shared the idea that a woman could control, it held that she could not be with the head of the family. It firmly accepted the role of a hereditary aristocracy and primogeniture. At our time, its remarks could be taken out of their context to make believe that it was in favor of slavery whereas it denounced this practice very in advance.

Whereas, according to Thomas Hobbes, the man has as a passion natural the search to be able, Montesquieu sees danger only in the abuse the capacity of which that which has which it is naturally carried. It is consequently advisable to organize the institutions: “So that one cannot misuse the capacity, it is necessary that, by the provision of the things, the capacity stops the capacity. ”

Influences on Catherine II

Montesquieu particularly influenced Catherine II of Russia which abundantly drew from spirit of the laws to write the Nakaz, a whole of principles. She acknowledged in Alembert which brought it back: “For the utility of my empire, I plundered president de Montesquieu without naming it. I hope that if, other world, it sees me working, it will forgive me this plagiarism, for the good of twenty million men. He liked too humanity to formalize himself some. Its book is my breviary”. The Empress took again of him the principle of the separation of the legislative powers, executive and legal and condemned serfdom failing to abolish it, but unfortunately during its reign, the conditions made to the serfs were rather worsened.

Montesquieu and the inequality of races: discusses

Although Montesquieu is a consensual figure today, polemics turn around some of its writings.

Slave system

Montesquieu is not put up with the idea of Esclavage. It thus decides to ridicule the slave ones in chapter 5 of book XV of Of the spirit of the Laws : " If I had to support the right which we had to return the negros slaves, here what I dirais". A list of caricatural arguments follows then, of which squeaking it " if we suppose them men, one would start to believe that we are not ourselves chrétiens" , precursor of the " Pangloss" of Ingenuous . It is however in this same book, entitled How the laws of civil slavery have relationship with the nature of the climate , that Montesquieu starts to develop its sociological theory of the climates.

Montesquieu would have had several interests in the ports slave traders of Bordeaux

In the famous quoted satire, Montesquieu turns in derision slavery. By a strange return of the things, this text is wrongly sometimes interpreted with the first degree:

If I had to support the right which we had to return the negros slaves, here what I would say:
The people of Europe having exterminated those of America, they had to put in slavery those of Africa to make use of it to clear grounds so much.
Sugar would be too expensive, if one did not make work the plant which produces it by slaves.
Those in question are black since the feet to the head; and they have the nose if crushed that it is almost impossible to feel sorry for them.
One can put oneself in the spirit only God, who is a very wise being, put a heart, especially good, in a very black body. It is so natural to think that it is the color which constitutes the gasoline of humanity, that the people of Asia which make of eunuques, always deprive the blacks of the report/ratio that they have with us in more marked way.
One can judge color of the skin by that of the hair, which, among Egyptians, the best philosophers of the world, was of a so great consequence which they made die all the red-headed men who fell to them between the hands.
A proof that the negros do not have the common direction, it is that they make more case of a collar of glass than of the gold, which, at organized nations, is of a so great consequence.
It is impossible that we suppose that these people-there are men; because, if we suppose them men, one would start to believe that we are not ourselves Christian.
Small-minded persons exaggerate too the injustice which one makes to the Africans. Because, if it were such as they say it, wouldn't it have come in the head from princes d' Europe, which make between them useless conventions so much, to make general in favor of the mercy and pity?
Montesquieu, Of the Spirit of the laws , XV, 5

Quotations on slavery: Of the spirit of the laws (1748)

“is useful neither for the Master nor with the slave; with this one because it can nothing make by virtue; with that one, because it contracts with the slaves all kinds of bad habits, that it is imperceptibly accustomed to miss with all the virtues morals, that it becomes to trust prompt, hard, anger, voluptuous, cruel”. (Book XV, Chapter I)

“In the despotic countries, where one is already insane of political slavery, civil slavery is more tolerable than elsewhere. Each one must there be rather glad to have the subsistence and the life there. Thus the condition of the slave is there hardly more with load that the condition of subject. But in a monarchical government (...) one does not need slaves”. (XV, I)

“There are countries where heat irritates the body and weakens courage so extremely, which the men are carried to a painful duty only by fear of the punishment: slavery thus shocks there less the reason. Aristote wants to say that there are slaves by nature; and what he says hardly proves it. I believe that, if there is of such, these are those from which I come to speak. But, as all the men are born equal, it should be said that slavery is against nature, though, in certain countries it is founded on the natural reason; and it is necessary well to distinguish these countries from with those where the natural reasons even reject them, as the countries of Europe where it was so fortunately abolished”. (Book XV, chap. VII)

The theory of the climates

One of the most exotic ideas of Montesquieu, underlined in Of the spirit of the laws and outlined in the Letters Persians , is the theory of the climates, according to which the climate could substantially influence the nature of the man and his company. It goes until affirming that certain climates are higher than others, the moderate climate of France being the ideal. It supports that the people living in the hot countries tend to be irritated whereas those in the countries of north are rigid. Montesquieu could have been influenced by the Germanic one of Tacit, one of its favorite authors.

Of the spirit of the laws (1748)

“the people of the hot countries are timid as the old men are it; those of the cold countries are courageous like are young people. (...) we feel well that the people of north, transported in the countries of midday, did not make as beautiful actions there as their compatriots who, combatant in their own climate, enjoy all their courage there. (...) You will find in the climates of the north of the people which have few defects, enough virtues, much sincerity and frankness. Approach the countries of midday you will believe to even move away from morals; passions plus sharp multiply the crimes (...) the heat of the climate can be so excessive that the body will be there absolutely without force. For at the time the abatement will even pass to the spirit: no curiosity, no noble company, no generous feeling; the inclinations will be very passive there; the idleness will be happiness there”. (Book XIV, chap. II)

“the majority of the people of the coasts of Africa are wild or cruel. I believe that comes much from what almost uninhabitable countries separate from small countries which can be inhabited. They are without industry; they do not have arts; they have in abundance of the noble metals which they immediately hold with the hands of nature. All the organized people are thus in a position to negotiate with them with advantage; they can make them estimate many the things of null value, and receive very a Grand Prix from it”. (Book XXI, chap. II)

Point of view on Montesquieu

The Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser describes it like a " libertin" divided between the idealization of the problems of the feudal countervailing powers and the parliamentary desire of size, which is very understanding with respect to the particular idiosyncrasies.

Work of Louis Desgraves and Pierre Gascar showed, that contrary to Voltaire, he was a man integrated well into the company of his time, and by no means revolts some against its world: good aristocrat and good catholic, heir without problem and good manager of his goods, quite married, concerned academician of his reputation, accustomed “living rooms”. Its complex thought escapes the radical and dogmatic character from philosophy from the Lumières. Its inconsistencies and its ambiguities are the beneficial marks of a work stripped of system, which tries to combine the reason and progress with the traditions and other “irrationality” that the history carts.

According to several lawyers, Montesquieu is the first specialist in comparative literature of the right. The Right compared, which is increasingly popular is thus an indebted discipline mainly with Montesquieu. The writings of this thinker are always of topicality and they will remain certainly readings essential with the professionals of the right.

Quotations

“In a free nation, it is very often indifferent that the private individuals reason well or badly: it is enough that they reason; from there the freedom leaves, which guarantees effects of this same reasoning. ” in Of the spirit of the laws
“Today we receive three different or contrary educations: those of our fathers, those of our Masters, that of the world. What one says to us in the last shift all the ideas of the first. ” (Of the spirit of the laws, delivers 4, IV)
“the men, rascals in details, is wholesale very decent people: they like morals. ”
“manners always make better citizens that the laws. ” Letters Persians, letter CXXIX)
“to make large things, one should not be a so great genius: one should not be with the top of the men, it is necessary to be with them”.
“best is the enemy mortal of the good”
“Roy which has only one head! ” (Letters Persians, letter CIII)
“the effect of the richnesses of a country, it is to put ambition in all the hearts. The effect of poverty is there to give birth to despair. The first is irritated by work; the other is comforted by the idleness. ”
“the love of the democracy is that of the equality. ”
“espionage would be perhaps tolerable if it could be exerted by decent people. ”
“a moderate government can, as long as he wants, and without danger, to slacken its springs. It is maintained by its laws and its force even. But when, in the despotic government, the prince ceases one moment to raise the arm; when it cannot destroy at the moment those which have first places 1, all is lost: because the spring of the government, which is fear, not being there any more, the people does not have any more a guard. ” ( Of the spirit of the laws )
“the judge is the mouth which pronounces the words of the law.” ( Of the spirit of the laws , Delivers XI, chapter VI, Of the Constitution of England ).
“It is an eternal experiment which any man who has of the capacity is carried to deceive. ”

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