MONTEIL
MONTESQUIEU
his return he accepted the office of Mayor
of Bordeaux ; and he published the third
volume of the Essays in 1588. To the end
of his life Montaigne professed Catholicism,
and there is no explicit questioning of its
doctrines in his work. When he was
dangerously ill he sent for a priest, which
reminds one of a passage in the Essays
where he says that " you can at any time
get a priest to hold your head and rub
your feet." Catholic writers have at times
sought to show that he was really a Chris
tian, but the majority even of Catholics
never had any illusion on that point, and
the Essays was put on the Index in 1676.
The pervading disdain of things and doc
trines ecclesiastical denotes a mind far
removed from them, but unable to speak
freely. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew
had occurred in his time, and he was a
friend of Charron. " What do I know? "
was his favourite phrase ; and he pointedly
observes that he is not going to express
" illegitimate and punishable " views which
may be to his personal taste. See Robert-
son s History (i, 475-80), where sufficient
evidence of his Deism is given. The
Catholic authorities enjoined him to modify
some passages of the Essays, but he does
not appear to have done so. D. Sep. 13.
1592.
MONTEIL, Charles Francois Louis Edgar, French journalist. B. Jan. 26, 1845. Ed. Lycees de Lyon and St. Etienne. Monteil, who was on the staff of the Bappel, took a prominent part in the struggle against the reaction of the second Empire. He held a commission in the Communist army, but he afterwards returned to journalism, writing on the Eepublique Franqaise and the Petite Hepublique. For a violent attack on the Christian Brothers (Histoire d un Frere Ignorantin) he was in 1874 condemned to a year in prison and ten thousand francs damages. In later years he held less advanced political opinions, but he has not moderated his Rationalism, as one sees in his Manuel d instruction for schools. In
523
1883 he was made a Chevalier of the
Legion of Honour.
MONTESQUIEU, Charles de Secondat,
Baron de la Br6de et de, French jurist. B. Jan. 18, 1689. Ed. Paris. Montesquieu was educated in law, and in 1714 he became a councillor of Bordeaux Parle- ment. Two years later, though he was only twenty-seven years old, he was appointed President of it. He was, how ever, more interested in letters and philo sophy than in law, and he opened his literary career with his (anonymous) Lettres persanes in 1721, which greatly excited the clergy by its disdainful refer ences to religious matters. He founded the Bordeaux Academy, and in 1728 he was admitted to the Academy at Paris. Montesquieu resigned his legal functions in 1726, and travelled extensively over Europe, studying the laws and constitu tions of various countries. He was admitted to the Royal Society at London, and he gathered material, year by year, for his great work, De I esprit des lots. It appeared, in two volumes, in 1748, the fruit of twenty years of study, and was translated into most of the languages of Europe. Like Montaigne, he never explicitly attacked religion, and Catholics claim that he never deserted it. He was a man of very generous and philanthropic disposition, and very far from audacious ; and it was an age when the Jesuits were still powerful. Helvetius, to whom he submitted his manuscript, vainly asked him to be bolder. But ecclesiastical writers of the time described the book as " Atheistic," and the high praise of it by Voltaire is an indication of what was known in philosophical circles about Mon tesquieu s real views. The entirely secular spirit of the book, coupled with the positive expressions in his Lettres persanes and the pagan sympathies of his Grandeur et decadence des Eomains (1734), leaves no doubt about his Rationalism. His posthu mously published Pensees is openly Deistic (see Robertson s History, ii, 218). The 524
