Short biography - Great figure of the Age of Enlightenment, Montesquieu (1689-1755) is a French writer and philosopher, author of two major works which ensured his posterity:one literary, Les lettres Persanes , the other policy, The spirit of the Laws . The first marks the beginnings of Enlightenment thought. The second will be a source of inspiration for the writers of the first French constitutions, in search of balance and separation of powers. Montesquieu is also one of the founders of political sociology and social sciences in general.
Bordeaux childhood and travels of Montesquieu
Born near Bordeaux on January 18, 1689 to a captain of the light horses, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brède and Montesquieu spent his early childhood at the Château de La Brède, before being a pupil of the Oratorians of Juilly. Then he studied law in Bordeaux, where he became a lawyer in 1708. After the death of his father in 1713, he became an adviser to the parliament of Bordeaux and then inherited the office of his uncle, president in Mortier. In 1716, he entered the academy of Bordeaux, founded recently, and reserved his first writings for it. Of a political, economic but also scientific nature, these reveal a balanced, very intellectual nature, which believes in the value of experimental methods in all fields of knowledge.
This concern for critical analysis, Montesquieu applies it to sociological phenomena in the piquant Lettres persanes , the epistolary novel that he published in 1721 in Amsterdam and whose anonymity deceives no one. The impact of this book, which makes fun of the faults and of French society and borders on scandal, is enormous. The Parisian salons opened their doors to him and, from 1722 to 1725, Montesquieu led a worldly life.
But, to better devote himself to his literary work, he sold his office in 1726 and leased his lands thanks to which, after his election to the French Academy in 1727, he undertakes journeys through Europe. In 1728-1729, Montesquieu traveled to Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland. Holland then, from 1729 to 1731, stayed in England where he studied the parliamentary system. From this journey inspired him his Consideration on the causes of the greatness of the Romans and their decadence , published in 1734.
Montesquieu, father of the social sciences
From 1735 to 1748, he lived sometimes at La Brède, sometimes in Paris, continued to frequent the salons, but above all prepared what would be his great work, L' Spirit of Laws (1748) , published in Geneva, again without the author's name. The success is also considerable. The work, already condemned by the Sorbonne, was blacklisted by the Church (1751).
Armed with working hypotheses (his "principles"), but devoid of any fanaticism, Montesquieu elaborates a theory of public and private law as well as a sociological analysis which will dominate the Age of Enlightenment and inspire Chateaubriand in the Essai sur les Révolutions , Talleyrand at the Congress of Vienna, Benjamin Constant, Mme de Staël, Tocqueville.
According to him, each civilization forms an original whole where geography, customs and religion, economic life and political institutions interfere. From the interplay of these different series of causes results a "general spirit" specific to each nation at the various periods of its history. The historian must bear these different relationships in mind if he wishes to make a sound judgment of mores, customs and institutions:they constitute precisely the “spirit of the laws”.
End of life and legacy of Montesquieu
Montesquieu devoted the last years of his life to several trips between Bordeaux and Paris and, despite the near-blindness that overcame him, to the writing of more strictly literary works. He died in Paris in 1755 without having had time to shape much of his work. He is considered one of the founders of sociology and even of the social sciences in general.
Philosophy and political science also owe him a lot. Some of his ideas, such as the need to separate the three powers, inspired the Constituents of 1791, helping to fix the definition of fundamental freedoms. But his thought was deeply reactionary by the solutions advocated which took as a model an ancient past and aimed to maintain the privileges of the aristocracy.
Bibliography
- Montesquieu:Politics and History, by Louis Althusser. PUF, October 2003.
- Montesquieu, biography of Louis Desgraves. Fayard, 1998.