he belief that kings are an evil, and not a necessary
evil, and that their time was running short. His visit to Walpolean
England taught him a plan by which they might be reprieved. He still
confessed that a republic is the reign of virtue; and by virtue he
meant love of equality and renunciation of self. But he had seen a
monarchy that throve by corruption. He said that the distinctive
principle of monarchy is not virtue but honour, which he once
described as a contrivance to enable men of the world to commit almost
every offence with impunity. The praise of England was made less
injurious to French patriotism by the famous theory that explains
institutions and character by the barometer and the latitude.
Montesquieu looked about him, and abroad, but not far ahead. His
admirable skill in supplying reason for every positive fact sometimes
confounds the cause which produces with the argument that defends. He
knows so many pleas for privilege that he almost overlooks the class
that has none; and having no friendship for the clergy, he approves
their immunities. He thinks that aristocracy alone can preserve
monarchies, and makes England more free than any commonwealth. He lays
down the great conservative maxim, that success generally depends on
knowing the time it will take; and the most purely Whig maxim in his
works, that the duty of a citizen is a crime when it obscures the duty
of man, is Fenelon's. His liberty is of a Gothic type, and not
insatiable. But the motto of his work, _Prolem sine matre creatam_,
was intended to signify that the one thing wanting was liberty; and he
had views on taxation, equality, and the division of powers that gave
him a momentary influence in 1789. His warning that a legislature may
be more dangerous than the executive remained unheard. The _Esprit des
lois_ had lost ground in 1767, during the ascendancy of Rousseau. The
mind of the author moved within the conditions of society familiar to
him, and he did not heed the coming democracy. He assured Hume that
there would be no revolution, because the nobles were without civic
courage.

There was more divination in d'Argenson, who was Minister of Foreign
Affairs in 1745, and knew politics from the inside. Less acquiescent
than his brilliant contemporary, he was perpetually contriving schemes
of fundamental change, and is the earliest writer from whom we can
extract the system of 1789. Others before him had perceived the
impending revolution;