A brother of his father, perpetual president of the Parliament of Bordeaux, an able judge and virtuous citizen, the oracle of his own society and of his province, having lost an only son, left his fortune and his office to M. de Montesquieu.
Some years after, in 1722, during the king's minority, his society employed him to present remonstrances upon occasion of a new impost. Placed between the throne and the people, like a respectful subject and courageous magistrate he brought the cry of the wretched to the ears of the sovereign--a cry which, being heard, obtained justice. Unfortunately, this success was momentary. Scarce was the popular voice silenced before the suppressed tax was replaced by another; but the good citizen had done his duty.
He was received the 3d of April, 1716, into the new academy of Bordeaux. A taste for music and entertainment had at first assembled its members. M. de Montesquieu believed that the talents of his friends might be better employed in physical subjects. He was persuaded that nature, worthy of being beheld everywhere, could find everywhere eyes worthy to behold her; while it was impossible to gather together, at a distance from the metropolis, distinguished writers on works of taste. He looked upon our provincial societies for belles-lettres as a shadow of literature which obscures the reality. The Duke de la Force, by a prize which he founded at Bordeaux, seconded these rational views. It was decided that a good physical experiment would be better than a weak discourse or a bad poem; and Bordeaux got an Academy of Sciences.
M. de Montesquieu, careless of reputation, wrote little. It was not till 1721, that is to say, at thirty-two years of age, that he published the 'Persian Letters.' The description of Oriental manners, real or supposed, is the least important thing in these letters. It serves merely as a pretense for a delicate satire upon our own customs and for the concealment of a serious intention. In this moving picture, Usbec chiefly exposes, with as much ease as energy, whatever among us most struck his penetrating eyes: our way of treating the silliest things seriously, and of laughing at the most important; our way of talking which is at once so blustering and so frivolous; our impatience even in the midst of pleasure itself; our prejudices and our actions that perpetually contradict our understandings; our great love of glory and respect for the idol of court favor, our little real pride; our courtiers so mean and vain; our exterior politeness to, and our real contempt of strangers; our fantastical tastes, than which there is nothing lower but the eagerness of all Europe to adopt them; our barbarous disdain for the two most respectable occupations of a citizen--commerce and magistracy; our literary disputes, so keen and so useless; our rage for writing before we think, and for judging before we understand. To this picture he opposes, in the apologue of the Troglodytes, the description of a virtuous people, become wise by misfortunes--a piece worthy of the portico. In another place, he represents philosophy, long silenced, suddenly reappearing, regaining rapidly the time which she had lost; penetrating even among the Russians at the voice of a genius which invites her; while among other people of Europe, superstition, like a thick atmosphere, prevents the all-surrounding light from reaching them. Finally, by his review of ancient and modern government, he presents us with the bud of those bright ideas since fully developed in his great work.
These different subjects, no longer novel, as when the 'Persian Letters' first appeared, will forever remain original--a merit the more real that it proceeds alone from the genius of the writer; for Usbec acquired, during his abode in France, so perfect a knowledge of our morals, and so strong a tincture of our manners, that his style makes us forget his country. This small solecism was perhaps not unintentional. While exposing our follies and vices, he meant, no doubt, to do justice to our merits. Avoiding the insipidity of a direct panegyric, he has more delicately praised us by assuming our own air in professed satire.
Notwithstanding the success of his work, M. de Montesquieu did not acknowledge it. Perhaps he wished to escape criticism. Perhaps he wished to avoid a contrast of the frivolity of the 'Persian Letters' with the gravity of his office; a sort of reproach which critics never fail to make, because it requires no sort of effort. But his secret was discovered, and the public suggested his name for the Academy. The event justified M. de Montesquieu's silence. Usbec expresses himself freely, not concerning the fundamentals of Christianity, but about matters which people affect to confound with Christianity itself: about the spirit of persecution which has animated so many Christians; about the temporal usurpation of ecclesiastical power; about the excessive multiplication of monasteries, which deprive the State of subjects without giving worshipers to God; about some opinions which would fain be established as principles; about our religious disputes, always violent and often fatal. If he appears anywhere to touch upon questions more vital to Christianity itself, his reflections are in fact favorable to revelation, because he shows how little human reason, left to itself, knows.
Among the genuine letters of M. de Montesquieu the foreign printer had inserted some by another hand. Before the author was condemned, these should have been thrown out. Regardless of these considerations, hatred masquerading as zeal, and zeal without understanding, rose and united themselves against the 'Persian Letters.' Informers, a species of men dangerous and base, alarmed the piety of the ministry. M. de Montesquieu, urged by his friends, supported by the public voice, having offered himself for the vacant place of M. de Sacy in the French Academy, the minister wrote "The Forty" that his Majesty would never accept the election of the author of the "Persian Letters" that he had not, indeed, read the book, but that persons in whom he placed confidence had informed him of its poisonous tendency. M. de Montesquieu saw what a blow such an accusation might prove to his person, his family, and his tranquillity. He neither sought literary honors nor affected to disdain them when they came in his way, nor did he regard the lack of them as a misfortune: but a perpetual exclusion, and the motives of that exclusion, appeared to him to be an injury. He saw the minister, and explained that though he did not acknowledge the 'Persian Letters,' he would not disown a work for which he had no reason to blush; and that he ought to be judged upon its contents, and not upon mere hearsay. At last the minister read the book, loved the author, and learned wisdom as to his advisers. The French Academy obtained one of its greatest ornaments, and France had the happiness to keep a subject whom superstition or calumny had nearly deprived her of; for M. de Montesquieu had declared to the government that, after the affront they proposed, he would go among foreigners in quest of that safety, that repose, and perhaps those rewards which he might reasonably have expected in his own country. The nation would really have deplored his loss, while yet the disgrace of it must have fallen upon her.
M. de Montesquieu was received the 24th of January, 1728. His oration is one of the best ever pronounced here. Among many admirable passages which shine out in its pages is the deep-thinking writer's characterization of Cardinal Richelieu, "who taught France the secret of its strength, and Spain that of its weakness; who freed Germany from her chains and gave her new ones."
The new Academician was the worthier of this title, that he had renounced all other employments to give himself entirely up to his genius and his taste. However important was his place, he perceived that a different work must employ his talents; that the citizen is accountable to his country and to mankind for all the good he may do; and that he could be more useful by his writings than by settling obscure legal disputes. He was no longer a magistrate, but only a man of letters.
But that his works should serve other nations, it was necessary that he should travel, his aim being to examine the natural and moral world, to study the laws and constitution of every country; to visit scholars, writers, artists, and everywhere to seek for those rare men whose conversation sometimes supplies the place of years of observation. M. de Montesquieu might have said, like Democritus, "I have forgot nothing to instruct myself; I have quitted my country and traveled over the universe, the better to know truth; I have seen all the illustrious personages of my time." But there was this difference between the French Democritus and him of Abdera, that the first traveled to instruct men, and the second to laugh at them.