But the author's reputation as a jester stuck to him, and the salons affected to consider the Lettres persanes and the new book respectively as the "grandeur" and the "decadence de" M. de Montesquieu; but more serious readers at once perceived its extraordinary merit, and it was eagerly read abroad. A copy anno tated by Frederick the Great, was abstracted from the Potsdam library by Napoleon. The book is (putting Bossuet and Giovanni Vico aside) almost the first important essay in the philosophy of history. The point of view is entirely different from that of Bos suet, and it seems entirely improbable that Montesquieu knew anything of Vico. It is grave and destitute of ornament, but extraordinarily luminous. Printed in large type with tolerably abundant notes, it fills but two hundred pages in the standard edi tion of Montesquieu's works. But no work of the century, except Turgot's second Sorbonne Discours, contains, in proportion to its size, more weighty and original thought on historical subjects, while Montesquieu has over Turgot the immense advantage of style.
Montesquieu, though he was now advanced with his magnum opus, L'Esprit des Lois, published in the interim new editions of his earlier works, and made frequent visits to Paris. He did not begin the final task of composition till 1743. Two years of un interrupted work at La Brede finished the greater part of it, and two more the rest. It was finally published at Geneva in the autumn of 1748, in two volumes quarto. Before publication Montesquieu summoned a committee of friends, according to a very common practice, to hear and give an opinion on his work.
It consisted of Henault, Helvetius, the financier Etienne de Sil houette, the dramatist Saurin, Crebillon the younger, and Fon tenelle. They unanimously advised the author not to publish a book which has been described as "one of the most important books ever written," and which may be almost certainly ranked as the greatest book of the French 18th century.
Montesquieu, of course, did not take his friends' advice. The Esprit des lois represents the reflections of a singularly clear, original, and comprehensive mind, corrected by forty years' study of men and books, arranged in accordance with a long deliberated plan, and couched in language of remarkable freshness and idio syncrasy. In the original editions the full title runs L'Esprit des lois: on du rapport que les lois doivent avoir avec la constitution de chaque gouvernement, les mceurs, le climat, la religion, le com merce, etc. It consists of thirty-one books, which in some edi tions are grouped in six parts. Speaking summarily, the first part, containing eight books, deals with law in general and with forms of government ; the second, containing five, with military arrange ments, with taxation, etc. ; the third, containing six, with manners and customs, and their dependence on climatic conditions; the fourth, containing four, with economic matters; and the fifth, containing three, with religion. The last five books, forming a kind of supplement, deal specially with Roman, French and feudal law. The spirit of moderation which distinguishes its views on politics and religion was indeed rather against it than in its favour in France, and Helvetius had definitely assigned this as the reason of his unfavourable judgment. On the other hand, if not destruc
tive it was sufficiently critical, and it raised enemies on more than one side. The book (not altogether with the goodwill of the pope) was put on the Index, and the Sorbonne projected, though it did not carry out, a regular censure. Opposition gradually died away; even Voltaire, who was his decided enemy, was forced at length to speak in public, if not in private, complimentarily of the Esprit, and from all parts of Europe the news of success arrived.
Montesquieu enjoyed his triumph rather at La Brede than at Paris. He spent much of his later years in the country, though he sometimes visited Paris, and on one visit procured the release of his admirer La Beaumelle from an imprisonment which La Beaumelle had suffered at the instance of Voltaire. The curious little romance of Arsace et Ismenie, a short and unfinished treatise on Taste, many of his published Pensees, and much unpublished matter date from the period subsequent to the Esprit des lois. At the end of 1754 he visited Paris, with the intention of getting rid of the lease of his house there and finally retiring to La Bride. He died on Feb. io, 1755, and was buried in the church of St. Sulpice.
At the beginning of the next century the vicomte de Bonald classed Montesquieu with Racine and Bossuet, as the object of a "religious veneration" among Frenchmen. The statement requires qualification; it is true of the moderate reforming party in France of the generation after the death of Montesquieu. Professor Saintsbury has said that "the real importance of the Esprit des lois, however, is not that of a formal treatise on law, or even on polity. It is that of an assemblage of the most fertile, original and inspiriting views on legal and political subjects, put in language of singular suggestiveness and vigour, illustrated by examples which are always apt and luminous, permeated by the spirit of temperate and tolerant desire for human improvement and happi ness, and almost unique in its entire freedom at once from doctrin airism, from visionary enthusiasm, from egotism, and from an undue spirit of system." The best edition of Montesquieu is that of Edouard Laboulaye (7 vols., Paris, 1875-79), the best biography that of Louis Vian (Paris, 2nd ed., There is a good modern edition of the Lettres persanes by H. Backhausen (2 vols., .1913), for the Soc. des textes francais modernes. The bibliography of Montesquieu was dealt with by L. Dangeau in 1874. There is known to exist at La Brede a great mass of MS. materials for the Esprit des lois, additional Lettres persanes, essays, and fragments of all kinds, diaries, letters, notebooks and so forth ; in 1891 Baron Charles de Montesquieu published Deux opuscules of his ancestors, and in 1899 Baron Gaston de Montesquieu added Pensies, etc. See Correspondance de Montesquieu ed. F. Gebelin and A. Morize (2 vols., 1914) ; also Ch. Oudin, Le Spinozisme de Montesquieu (1911) ; and H. Knust, Montesquieu and die V erfassungen der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika (Munich, 1922).