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Updated: June 28, 2025
The dictator saves liberty by temporarily abrogating it: by momentary gagging of the legislative power he renders it truly vocal. The events of the French Revolution form a tragic commentary on these theories. In the first stage of that great movement we see the followers of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau marching in an undivided host against the ramparts of privilege.
And with these ideas, "with reverence to God and good conscience to men," the first General Assembly in 1682 enacted a common code of sixty-one laws, in which the foundation-stones of the civil and criminal jurisprudence of this broad commonwealth were laid, and a style of government ordained so reasonable, moderate, just, and equal in its provisions that no one yet has found just cause to deny the wisdom and beneficence of its structure, whilst Montesquieu pronounces it "an instance unparalleled in the world's history of the foundation of a great state laid in peace, justice, and equality."
Like his oracle, the sage Montesquieu, he thought, 'Who assembles the people causes them to revolt. He took fright at the manifesto, as he was pleased to dignify the simple programme in this morning's 'National, and so, early in the sitting, it was announced that the reform banquet was utterly prohibited by M. Delessert, Préfect of Police, on the express injunction and responsibility of M. Duchatel, Minister of the Interior, by and with the advice of M. Hebert, Minister of Justice."
There this first awakening consciousness of an Imperial destiny declares itself in a very dramatic and pronounced form indeed. Yet Burke's range in speculative politics, compared with that of such a writer as Montesquieu, is narrow. His conception of history at its highest is but an anticipation of the picturesque but pragmatic school of which Macaulay is coryphaeus.
However, Montesquieu somewhere says that the chief objection to heaven is its monotony; so possibly there may be something in the Ouida-Steele philosophy but of this I really can't say, knowing nothing about the subject, myself. Happy is the man who has no history. The reign of Antoninus Pius was peaceful and prosperous.
Pastoret, who spoke after Vergniaud, quoted the saying of Montesquieu, "There is a time when it is necessary to cast a veil over the statue of Liberty, as we conceal the statues of the Gods." To be ever on the watch, and to fear nothing, should be the maxim of every free people. He concluded by proposing repressive, but moderate and gradual measures, against the absentees.
They were thus led to take an interest, not only in facts of a political order, but in the evolution of the arts, the sciences, of industry, and in manners. Montesquieu and Voltaire personified these tendencies. The Essai sur les moeurs is the first sketch, and, in some respects, the masterpiece of history thus conceived.
The ancient philosophers treated of government commonly under three heads; the Democratic, the Aristocratic, and the Despotic. Their attention was chiefly occupied with the varieties of republican government, and they paid little regard to a very important distinction, which Mr. Montesquieu has made, between despotism and monarchy.
His chief French friends were ladies Madame de Vasse, Madame de Talmond, and others. Montesquieu, living in their society, and sending wine from his estate to the Jacobite Lord Elibank; rejoicing, too, in an Irish Jacobite housekeeper, 'Mlle. Betti, was well disposed, like Voltaire, in an indifferent well-bred way.
Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rabelais, Diderot, Heine, Beaumarchais had it. Carlyle had it for other ages, and in a historic spirit. There have been far greater satirists, men like Fielding and Thackeray, who have drawn far more powerful pictures of particular characters, foibles, or social maladies.
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