Montesquieu

Lore & Background

Montesquieu was born at the Château de la Brède in southwest France, 25 kilometres south of Bordeaux. His father, Jacques de Secondat (1654–1713), was a soldier with a long noble ancestry, including descent from Richard de la Pole, Yorkist claimant to the English crown. His mother, Marie Françoise de Pesnel (1665–1696), who died when Charles was seven, was an heiress who brought the title of Barony of La Brède to the Secondat family. After her death he was sent to the Catholic College of Juilly, where he remained from 1700 to 1711. His father died in 1713, and he became a ward of his uncle, the Baron de Montesquieu. In 1714, he became a counselor of the Bordeaux Parlement. In 1715 he married the Protestant Jeanne de Lartigue, with whom he eventually had three children. The Baron died in 1716, leaving him his fortune, his title, and the office of président à mortier in the Bordeaux Parlement, a post he held for twelve years. He achieved literary success with the publication of his 1721 Persian Letters, a satire representing society as seen through the eyes of two Persian visitors to Paris. In 1726 he sold his office, bored with the parlement and turning more toward Paris. He was elected to the Académie Française in January 1728. In April 1728, with Berwick's nephew Lord Waldegrave as his traveling companion, he embarked on a grand tour of Europe, including Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, a brief visit to Germany, a year in Italy, and England from the end of October 1729 until the spring of 1731. In England he was initiated into Freemasonry at the Horn Tavern Lodge in Westminster. In 1734, he published Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline. In 1748, he published The Spirit of Law, which was denounced by the Sorbonne and, in 1751, by the Catholic Church. He died from a fever on 10 February 1755 and was buried in the Église Saint-Sulpice, Paris.

Reader's Guide

Montesquieu's most influential work, The Spirit of Law (De l'esprit des lois, 1748), first translated into English by Thomas Nugent in a 1750 edition, was received well in both Great Britain and the American colonies, where it influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States in drafting the U.S. Constitution. The theory of the separation of powers largely derives from this work. In it, he argued that in every state there are three kinds of power: the legislative authority, the executive authority for things that stem from the law of nations, and the executive authority for those that stem from civil law (the judiciary power). He argued that each power should only exercise its own functions, stating that when legislative authority is combined with executive authority, there is no freedom, and that there is no freedom if the authority to judge is not separated. His political anthropology gave rise to his view that forms of government are supported by governing principles: virtue for republics, honor for monarchies, and fear for despotisms. Montesquieu is credited as being among the progenitors of anthropology, as being among the first to extend comparative methods of classification to the political forms in human societies.

Did You Know?

• Montesquieu was initiated into Freemasonry at the Horn Tavern Lodge in Westminster during his stay in England.
• His mother died when he was seven, and he was sent to the Catholic College of Juilly from 1700 to 1711.
• He married the Protestant Jeanne de Lartigue in 1715 and had three children.
• The Spirit of Law was denounced by the Sorbonne and, in 1751, by the Catholic Church.
• He sold his office in 1726, bored with the parlement, and turned more toward Paris.