Charles de Montesquieu

Charles de Montesquieu (1689-1755), French writer and jurist, born in the Château of La Brède, and educated at the Oratorian school at Juilly and later at Bordeaux. He became counsellor of the Bordeaux parliament in 1714 and was its president from 1716 to 1728. Montesquieu first became prominent as a writer with his Lettres persanes (1721; Persian Letters 1961); in this work, through the device of letters written to and by two aristocratic Persian travellers in Europe, Montesquieu satirized contemporary French politics, social conditions, ecclesiastical matters, and literature. The book won immediate and wide popularity; it was one of the earliest works of the movement known as the Enlightenment, which, by its criticism of French institutions under the Bourbon monarchy, helped bring about the French Revolution. The reputation acquired by Montesquieu through this work and several others of lesser importance led to his election to the Académie Française in 1728. His second significant work was Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur et de la décadence des Romains (Thoughts on the Causes of the Greatness and the Downfall of the Romans, 1734), one of the first important works in the philosophy of history. His masterpiece was L'Esprit de lois (1748; The Spirit of Laws 1750), one of the great works in the history of political theory, in which he examined the three main types of government (republic, monarchy, and despotism) and states that a relationship does exist between an area's climate, geography, and general circumstances, and the form of government that evolves. Montesquieu also held that governmental powers should be separated and balanced to guarantee individual rights and freedom.