The Spirit of Laws

This masterpiece of political philosophy was widely read throughout Europe, attracted an especially enthusiastic readership in England, and had a profound effect on the framers of the American Constitution. Montesquieu (1689-1755), already famous and controversial through his Persian Letters, a work of his youth in which he humorously satirized the foibles of French society, turned in his later years to this serious treatise on the nature of law. But though the subject itself was profound, this gravitas did not inhibit the famous Montesquieu wit. Master of the pithy bon mot, he managed to survey a great deal of political and philosophical territory while keeping his readers charmed with memorable and artfully turned phrases. "Liberty," he says, "consists in the ability to do what one ought to desire and in not being forced to do what one ought not to desire." Concerning the unpopularity of the English in France, he