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Montesquieu's View of Despotism and His Use of Travel Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

David Young
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Extract

Montesquieu's L' Esprit des lois, first published in 1748, was an innovative and often paradoxical work. Almost as soon as a reader opened it, he was likely to be struck by a singular typology of governments: despotism, monarchy, and republic (subdivided into democracy and aristocracy). This represented a marked departure from the traditional division of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy which Aristotle and Polybius had bequeathed to later students of government. As Robert Shackleton remarks in his definitive biography of Montesquieu, “No major political writer before Montesquieu had founded his work on such an analysis.” Several commentators have remarked on the uniqueness of this typology, and it certainly offers grounds for puzzlement. If Montesquieu had meant to distinguish regimes by the number of those who hold power, then he would have followed tradition by conflating monarchy with despotism while distinguishing aristocracy from democracy more sharply. On the other hand, if he meant to introduce a moral criterion by dividing monarchy from despotism, then he should have continued by differentiating aristocracy from oligarchy and democracy from ochlocracy. The understanding of Montesquieu's typology is made no easier when he assures his readers that the most important political dichotomy is that between despotism and all other regimes. Compared to despotism, both monarchy and republic are good forms of government, and both may be called moderate.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , July 1978 , pp. 392 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1978

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References

1 All notes to Montesquieu refer to the Oeuvres complètes, ed. Caillois, Roger, 2 vols. (Paris, 1949, 1951)Google Scholar. References to the Lettres persanes, which is in the first volume of this edition, are given as Lettres, followed by the letter's number. Citations of Montesquieu's unpublished notes and fragments, his Pensées, which are likewise in the first volume, are followed by the number which Caillois gave them and, parenthetically, the numbers of the respective entries in Montesquieu's own notebooks. References to the Esprit des lois in the second volume are given as Lois, followed by the book and chapter numbers. All translations are my own.

2 Lois II, 1, p. 239.

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4 Caillois, Roger, n. 1 to Lois II, 1, p. 1498Google Scholar; Voltaire, , “Pensées sur le gouvernement,” in Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, ed. Moland, Louis, vol. XXIII (Paris, 1879) 530Google Scholar; Pangle, Thomas L., Montesquieu's Philosophy of Liberalism. A Commentary on the Spirit of the Laws (Chicago, 1973), p. 50Google Scholar; Durkheim, Emile, “Montesquieu's Contribution to the Rise of Social Science,” in Montesquieu and Rousseau: Forerunners of Sociology, ed. and trans. Cuvillier, A. (Ann Arbor, 1965), pp. 24–25Google Scholar.

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6 Lois II, 4, p. 247; V, 15, pp. 297–299; VIII, 8, p. 356; 10, p. 357; 21, pp. 365–368; see also Pangle, pp. 70–71.

7 Hulliung, Mark, Montesquieu and the Old Regime (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1976)Google Scholarpassim.; Pangle, passim.

8 See, inter alia, Pensées 633 (934) p. 1153; 1793–1795 (831, 892, 918) pp. 1429–1430; Lettres LXIII, pp. 222–223; XC, pp. 265–267; CXIV, pp. 299–301; CXXXI, pp. 327–329; Lois II, 5, pp. 249–250; V, 14, pp. 296–297; see also Weil, Françoise, “Montesquieunet le despotisme,” in Actes du Congrès Montesquieu (Bordeaux, 1956), p. 193Google Scholar; Kassem, Badreddine, Décadence et absolutisme dans l'oeuvre de Montesquieu (Geneva, 1960), pp. 110–111Google Scholar.

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20 Ibid., pp. xii–xiii.

21 Chardin I: 256; cf. Lettres CXXXI, p. 327.

22 Ricaut, pp. 16–30; Tavernier, I: 643–646; Chardin, I: 256; Tournefort, II: 267–268.

23 Ricaut, p. 21.

24 Lois II, 4–5, pp. 247–250; V, 11, pp. 290–291; 16, pp. 299–300; VI, 3, p. 311; XXVI, 2, p. 752; cf. Lettres CXXXI, pp. 327–331.

25 Tavernier, I: 643; III: 434–435; Ricaut, pp. 69–70, 173–182; Tournefort, II: 77; Chardin, II: 39, 212–213.

26 Ricaut, pp. 10–12.

27 Lois II, 4–5, pp. 247–250; V, 9–15, p p. 288–297; Lettres LXXXIX, pp. 263–265.

28 Tavernier, I: 94, 661–662; III: 482–487; Ricaut, pp. 168–171, 175–177, 401–403; Lois VI, 1, pp. 306–309; V, 14–15, p p. 292–299.

29 Lois III, 9, p. 259; V, 14, pp. 294–296; Tavernier, I: 683, 687; III: 436; Chardin, II: 211–214; see also Ricaut, pp. 110–126.

30 Lois II, 4, pp. 247–249; V, 11, pp. 290–291; 16, pp. 299–300; see also Hulliung, pp. 25–53.

31 Tournefort, II: 298–300; see also Tavernier, I: 679; III: 435–437.

32 Ricaut, pp. 12–13, 200–202; see also Tavernier, I: 588, 643–646, 681, 685.

33 Lettres LXXX, pp. 252–253; Lois II, 5, pp. 249–250; III, 8, p. 258; VI, 1–2, pp. 309–310.

34 Tournefort, II: 287–292; Ricaut, pp. 12, 14, 120–126, 395–396; Tavernier, I: 94–95; III: 435, 482.

35 Chardin, II: 39; see also pp. 212–213.

36 Lois III, 5–10, pp. 255–261.

37 Ricaut, p. 24.

38 Tournefort, II: 268–269, 274, 383–385.

39 Lois XXIV, 3–4, pp. 716–718; cf. Pensées 1475 (100), p. 1353; 2186 (2157), p. 1568.

40 Ricaut, pp. 18–21; Tournefort, II: 296–304, 383–386.

41 Chardin, II: 212; cf. Lois III, 10, p. 260.

42 Lois XXIV, 3–4, pp. 716–717; 11, p. 722; XXV, 8, p. 743; see also Plamenatz, I: 270–271.

43 Chardin, II: 40, 275–276.

44 Ibid., II: 40.

45 Lois, XIV, 1–3, pp. 474–478; XV, 1, p. 490; 6, p. 495; 12, p. 499.

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47 Wittfogel, Karl A., Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven, 1957), pp. 13, 101–108, 135–157, 414–420Google Scholar. Wittfogel's analysis of what he terms “hydraulic societies” parallels Montesquieu's discussion of despotism at many points. See also Durkheim, pp. 26–35.

48 Plamenatz, I: 271.

49 Vernière, Paul, “Montesquieu et le monde musulman d'après l'Esprit des his,” in Actes du Congrès Montesquieu (Bordeaux, 1956), pp. 175, 189–190Google Scholar; Kassem, pp. 110–111; see also Venturi, Franco, “Despotismo orientale,” Rivista storica italiana, 62 (1960), 119–121Google Scholar.

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55 Tavernier, I: 645–646, 661.

56 Tournefort, II: 270, 297–301.

57 Tavernier, I: 683, 687; III: 436; Chardin, II: 211–214.

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59 Chardin, II: p. 213.

60 Weil, pp. 191–193, 213–214; Kassem, pp. 110–111; Vernière, pp. 188–190; Stelling-Michaud, pp. 338–341. Critics such as Weil seem to go too far in asserting that Montesquieu's ideas on despotism owed little or nothing to his readings. As we have seen, he could thoroughly support many of his assertions with the aid of travel literature.

61 Kassem, pp. 110–126; Vernière, pp. 186–187.

62 Young, David, “Libertarian Demography: Montesquieu's Essay on Depopulation in the Lettres persanes,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 35 (1975), 674–677Google Scholar; see also [Gaultier, Jean-Baptiste,] “Les Lettres persanes convaincues d'impiété” (Pamphlet) (n.p., 1751), pp. i–ii, 44–46, 61–63, 82–84Google Scholar. The Abbe Gaultier was a very perceptive, if rather vehement, critic of the Lettres and, by implication, of at least parts of the Esprit des lois.

63 Durkheim, pp. 51–54; Vernière, pp. 188–190; Kassem, p. 136.

64 Davy, Georges, “Durkheim, Montesquieu, and Rousseau,” in Montesquieu and Rousseau: Forerunners of Sociology, ed. and trans. Cuvillier, A. (Ann Arbor, 1965), pp. 151–153Google Scholar.

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66 Stelling-Michaud, pp. 336–337; see also Rothkrug, Lionel, Opposition to Louis XIV: The Political and Social Origins of the French Enlightenment (Princeton, 1965), pp. 249–254Google Scholar.

67 Lettres XXXVII, pp. 184–185.

68 Bossuet, VII, 2, i–ii, pp. 291–293; see also Hulliung, pp. 21–24, 95–99; Krieger, pp. 74–75.

69 Pensées 595–596 (1302, 1306) pp. 1120–1124; 1613–1614 (1145, 1218) pp. 1389–1390; Lois III, 10, pp. 260–261; V, 10, p. 289; VIII, 8, p. 356; Lettres XXXVII, pp. 184–185; C. pp. 278–280; see also Weil, p. 191; Kassem, pp. 105–110.