n
themselves; but as to the procedure I did not understand anything about
it. I paid attention to it, nevertheless; but what disgusted me most was
to see fools with that very talent which, so to speak, shunned me." He
resolved to deliver himself from the yoke which was intolerable to him,
and resigned his office; but by this time the world knew his name, in
spite of the care he had taken at first to conceal it. In 1721, when he
still had his seat on the fleurs-de-lis, he had published his _Lettres
persanes,_ an imaginary trip of two exiled Parsees, freely criticising
Paris and France. The book appeared under the Regency, and bears the
imprint of it in the licentiousness of the descriptions and the witty
irreverence of the criticisms. Sometimes, however, the future gravity of
Montesquieu's genius reveals itself amidst the shrewd or biting
judgments. It is in the _Lettres persanes_ that he seeks to set up the
notion of justice above the idea of God himself. "Though there were no
God," he says, "we should still be bound to love justice, that is to say,
make every effort to be like that Being of whom we have so grand an idea,
and who, if He existed, would of necessity be just." Holy Scripture,
before Montesquieu, had affirmed more simply and more powerfully the
unchangeable idea of justice in every soul of man. "He who is judge of
all the earth, shall not He do right?." Abraham had said when
interceding with God for the righteous shut up in Sodom.

The success of the _Lettres persanes_ was great; Montesquieu had said
what many people thought without daring to express it; the doubt which
was nascent in his mind, and which he could only withstand by an effort
of will, the excessive freedom of the tone and of the style scared the
authorities, however; when he wanted to get into the French Academy, in
the place of M. de Sacy, Cardinal Fleury opposed it formally. It was
only on the 24th of January, 1728, that Montesquieu, recently elected,
delivered his reception speech. He at once set out on some long travels;
he went through Germany, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, and ended
by settling in England for two years. The sight of political liberty had
charmed him. "Ambassadors know no more about England than a six months'
infant," he wrote in his journal; "when people see the devil to pay in
the periodical publications, they believe that there is going to be a
revolution next day; but all that is required is to r