Power is organized force, the connection of force with an organ. The universe is teeming with forces that, in order to become power, are in search of organs. Wind and water are forces; through their effect on a mill or a pump, which serve as their tools, they become power.
This distinction between force and power explains authority in the state. The people are the force, and their government is the tool; their connection creates political power. If the force is separated from its tool, the power vanishes. When the tool is destroyed but the forces remain, there is only twitching, convulsion, or fury; and when the people separate from their tool, that is, from their government, there is revolution.
Authority is sustaining power. The formation of authority presupposes power. Now, power, as the unity of the tool with the force, can only exist within the government. The people possess only forces, and these forces, incapable of sustaining anything once they have separated from their tool, turn toward destruction. The goal of authority, however, is preservation; and therefore, authority does not reside in the people, but it endures in the government.
An empire cannot be reshaped overnight.
Law is the marriage of light with force. From the people comes the force, from the government comes the light.
Rights are goods founded on power. As power diminishes, so do the rights.
The people require tangible, not abstract, truths.
The strikes of kings are like lightning bolts in their momentary force, while popular uprisings are like earthquakes, whose tremors propagate into unpredictable distances.
Discipline should weigh like a shield, not like a yoke.
The people grant their favor, but remain fickle.
The most civilized nations are no further from barbarism than the finest iron is from rust. Both peoples and metals are only polished on the surface.
Philosophy, as a late-ripened fruit of the mind and the autumn of life, should not be offered to the people, who remain perpetually in childhood.
Revolutions are fostered by a combination of widespread ignorance with a small amount of enlightenment.
One must aim to counter opinions with equal arms, for rifle shots are useless against ideas.
The will is a robust slave, at times serving the passions, at others serving reason. Too often, it channels the sum of our energies toward the passions, to which it is intimately bound, while easily abandoning reason. Pleasure, cruelty, and ambition command; reason pleads or orders. Women live entirely within currents of will. Weak willpower is called velleity. When one advances from the age of feelings and passions to that of ideas, the will diminishes, but it is precisely then that political judgment is gained.
The state belongs to those entangled, ambiguous concepts to which one must become accustomed: in truth, we know no others. Humanity is inconceivable without land, and the state is inconceivable without land and people. A rider cannot be imagined without a horse, and the concept of horsemanship includes both horse and rider. The form of the bridle is determined by the measurements of both horse and rider, just as the form of government is determined by the relationship between territory and population.
It may be that conspiracies are sometimes instigated by brilliant minds, but they are always carried out by beasts.
Where the army depends on the people, eventually the government will depend on the army.
A government bad enough to incite rebellion and weak enough to fail in suppressing it is followed by revolution, as naturally as disease appears as a last resort of nature—yet no one has ever proclaimed disease as a virtue.
Harmony in the state is based on a hierarchy of rivalry and competition, from the laborer to the capitalist and from the common soldier to the field marshal. On the dual ladder of rank and wealth, each strives to emulate the person directly ahead, separated only by a degree of dignity or wealth. Such ambition is reasonable—but philosophers have abruptly linked the extremes, setting the soldier against the marshal and the worker against the wealthy man; the backlash has brought everything crashing down.
The state reaches into the dead hand of the past. In this sense, everything is rent and usufruct, and thus it was once said: "The king remains forever a minor, and crown property is inalienable."
Philosophers like to base equality on anatomical similarities. They argue that since the nerves, muscles, and outward appearance of two citizens are similar, they must be equal—but when similarity is confused with equality, one falls into a disastrous error.
A people is always full of desires, many of which contradict the welfare of the state—for peoples never outgrow their childlike state. If, like the Jews of old, they leave their land and follow a leader into the wilderness, it requires magic to enchant them, and miracles to save them.
When a people chooses a general or a king, this great act contains no more politics than is fatefully necessary to select a leader. However, the choice between one or another, as dictated by preference, is often under an ill-fated star.
Perfect security and inviolability of property and person: that is what true social freedom looks like.
Freedom outside of society does not include security, which cannot be conceived without either freedom or society.
People often ask whether kings were made for the people or the people for the kings. The answer is simple: the people were made for the state, of which they form the body, while the government is the head. Both exist for the whole. The hand of a clock is no more made for the gears than the gears are for the hand; both are made for the clock.
If the prince is devout, the confessor must be a statesman.
Despotic states wither from a lack of despotism, just as cultivated people wither from a lack of culture.
One must sharply distinguish between the arithmetic and the political majority in the state.
Nature forces us to slaughter a chicken or starve; this is the basis of our right. The origin of political authority is as follows: needs establish rights, and rights establish authority. In France, however, the people have been granted authorities to which they are not entitled, and rights they do not need.
As superstition diminishes among the people, the government must increase vigilance and pay stricter attention to authority and discipline.
In England, the mind is overall healthier, whereas in France it is more elegantly shaped; hence, in England, the people as a whole are better, while in France, one is more likely to encounter better individuals.
For a subordinate, politeness is a sign of their station, while for a noble, it is a mark of education. Thus, despite the revolution, the nobleman has retained good manners, since they reflect his upbringing. The common man, however, becomes rude to prove he has changed his status. He curses and insults because he once obeyed and flattered; this is how he understands equality.
The absolute ruler can be a Nero, but sometimes he is also a Titus or Marcus Aurelius. The people, however, are often Nero and never Marcus Aurelius.
In peaceful times, reputation is determined by hierarchy. During revolutions, it depends on the mob; that is the time of false greatness.
It is well known that, from our vantage point on Earth, the movements of other planets appear irregular and chaotic; thus, one must imagine standing at the center of the sun to understand the system's order. Similarly, the private individual judges the state in which they live less accurately than the one at the helm.
The order of nature is marvelous. Yet, just as insects are crushed in its machinery, so too are individuals crushed by states.
A great misfortune for both individuals and nations lies in remembering too strongly what they once were but can no longer be. Modern Rome adopted consuls and tribunes. Time is like a river; it does not return to its source.
A great people in passionate turmoil is capable of nothing but massacres.
There are times when the government loses the trust of the people, but rarely times when it can trust the people.
A perfect government would be able to allocate reason to power in equal measure, just as it would balance force with wisdom.
It would be foolish and cruel kindness to consult with children about their future. We must decide for them and spare them the indecision that would rob them of their confidence in us, rather than increasing their strength. The same is true for peoples and their governments.
On the Revolution: Of all the French, we were the first to wield the pen against the Revolution, even before the storming of the Bastille. Burke himself acknowledged this in his excellent letter to my brother, which was later published, and we are proud of it. Not without peril, but with confidence in the reward we would find in our convictions and conscience, we dared to fight at a time when everyone still saw the Revolution as the great benefit of philosophy, the high harmony, the fruit of enlightenment. The National Assembly, whose power was based on the king's weakness and whose arrogance was rooted in the capital's insubordination, intoxicated by its successes and the incense burning for it in the provinces and abroad, indulged in excesses and, in its blindness, foresaw neither the fruits of its sowing nor the successors it was cultivating.
In vain, we spoke and wrote for religion, morality, and politics in the name of humanity and the experience of all centuries. Our voice was lost amid the colossal collapse; we fell silent.
Our "Political Journal" is limited to the first six months of the Revolution. The major blows had already been struck. Reason had already become a crime, having first become superfluous. The king was imprisoned in Paris, the nobility and clergy were scattered and fleeing. Laws gave way to decrees, coins to assignats; the Jacobins were in permanent session. What resources remained for honorable hearts and good minds in a state where hope and prospects were reserved only for madmen and brigands? Thus, we had to leave France while the Jacobins still preferred our escape to our death, and we carried our misery to princes and peoples who tolerated us.
At the same time, the fate of the nation was reflected in the army. Despite their noble status, the officers more or less desired change. Their soldiers had formerly been mere automatons, and when they became democrats, the officers reverted to aristocrats, as if they had only supported the revolution to be destroyed by it. Almost universally, the clergy, nobility, and parliaments, like all prominent figures, had wished for the revolution when the nation at large was still slumbering—but when the masses rose up at their urging, they fled or mounted the scaffold. I disapproved of emigration and did not leave my homeland until 1791. The king desired it: my pen could be of service to his brothers. I am prepared for ingratitude in return.
If the revolutionary course were to repeat itself, the oppressed would still not seek valuable lessons from our writings, and the wrongdoers would find their model in the machinations of the Jacobins. In 1789, I saw members of the Legislative Assembly eagerly studying Clarendon, whom they had never before read, to learn how the Long Parliament dealt with Charles I.
Incidentally, I believe that, since self-interest and passions are indestructible, neither kings nor peoples learn from history, and if Louis XVI were to have successors from his lineage, his misfortune and mistakes would not even serve as a warning to them.
Instead of proclaiming human rights, it would have been better to establish principles of statecraft. That was the duty of the Constituent Assembly, which, as we know, constituted nothing but our misfortune. However, in this realm, they feared criticism, so they preferred to arm the passions, especially vanity, by taking up the subject of human rights without considering that no constitution is possible under that title. Within it lies not only the Revolution, but also the seeds of all future revolutions, and a constitution founded solely on human rights condemned itself from the outset to impotence against them. All powers, including the king, were swallowed up because they clung to the letter of the constitution against the spirit of the Revolution. The Constituent Assembly, instead of saying "Hoc est jus" ("This is the law"), said "Jus esto" ("Let there be law"), and from then on, it equally violated its own constitution and the monarchy.
The great metaphysician Sieyès, with his nonsensical axiom of universal reason as the world's ruler, reversed all the principles of metaphysics: he disregarded both the theory of passions and the power of foolishness.
One must distinguish between property and sovereignty. Kings used possession and rule formulas in their decrees that were more absolute than reality allowed. All this was based on the right of first occupation and on the fact that they gradually extended the tone they had adopted in their personal rule to the entire kingdom. And finally, as people developed, the words became too strong. The rulers should have strengthened their authority while yielding in form. This was also the folly of the revolutionaries: they should have concealed their power from the people, restraining it with reverential forms towards the sovereign, and these forms would have, in turn, concealed the king’s weakness.
If one had investigated the will of all French people before the convening of the Estates-General, one would have discovered that everyone wished for a small part of the Revolution. Fate seems to have gathered these desires to realize them in full. Now, each person secretly thinks, "This is too much."
According to the philosophers, this is not a mere dispute between men, nor a clash of passions and parties, but a great event within the human spirit. One should take them at their word. In that case, the Revolution would be a great experiment of philosophy, in which it loses its case against politics. Revolution comes from "revolvere," which means "to turn the upper down."
The French preferred liberty over security. Yet, man left the forests, where liberty outweighs security, to move into cities, where the opposite holds true.
There was always a majority of the envious and a minority of the ambitious within both the nation and the National Assembly—since the highest ranks are unreachable for the majority, and only a few have a legitimate claim to them. Ambition seeks to grasp its goal, while envy seeks to destroy it, and the majority’s will to destroy has triumphed.
The true speaker in the people's assembly is passion.
The misfortune of the noble Bourbon lineage and the misery of the émigrés brought immense joy to foreign courts. Frederick of Prussia remarked, "We kings of the North are petty nobles; the kings of France are great lords." Thus, envy led to hatred, and perhaps, to crime.
The foreign powers in 1789 were like colonists who comfortably gossiped about the Revolution in Paris without foreseeing it in Saint-Domingue.
At the start of the Revolution, the minority said to the majority, "Submit to order," to which the majority replied, "Let us be equals." This has now been terribly avenged.
Voltaire claimed that the more enlightened people became, the freer they would be. His followers, however, preached to the people that the freer they were, the more enlightened they would become. This has destroyed everything.
The aristocracy forgot the principle that things must be preserved in the same way they were created. The aristocrats fought with the sword for their spirit and with the pen for their status.
There is a striking similarity between the English and French revolutions: the Long Parliament and the death of Charles I, the Convention and the death of Louis XVI, then Cromwell and Bonaparte. Should there be a restoration, would we see another Charles II die in his bed and another James II flee his kingdom, followed by a foreign dynasty? There is nothing extraordinary in such predictions, but rulers should be advised to consider them. Charles I and Louis XVI completely neglected this; despite their virtues, they died on the scaffold. The virtues of princes must not be those of private men: a king who limits himself to being an honorable man inspires pity.
If Louis XVI had fallen with weapons in hand on August 10, his blood would have fertilized the lilies more richly than it has done. His death on the scaffold, under the silence of the people, will always remain a mark of shame – for the nation, for the throne, and even for the imagination.
Bonaparte carried out on the 13th Vendémiaire what Louis XVI was falsely accused of after August 10. He succeeded Robespierre and Barras, which was not difficult.
Bonaparte governs because he let his troops shoot at the people and because he truly committed the crime of which Louis XVI was wrongly accused. France plunged from cliff to cliff toward the abyss. It sought to cling to bayonets; a handful of soldiers was already enough. Moreover, Paris had completely changed; there was no longer any public opinion. It had become merely a large hideout with a police force.
Our poets wished to see in Bonaparte a new Augustus – under the delusion that they would transform themselves into Virgil and Horace in the process. But he has less spirit than Augustus, especially less order in his thinking. His speeches have always harmed him – he should have an officer in his entourage who admonishes him to be silent.
Weary of order, the French began to massacre one another; and tired of the massacres, they submitted to the yoke of Bonaparte, who allows them to be slaughtered on the battlefield.
The best proof that Bonaparte is superior to Lannes, Ney, Soult, Moreau, and Bernadotte lies in the fact that they serve him instead of disposing of him.
The overwhelming power suddenly granted to a citizen of a republic creates a monarchy, indeed more than a monarchy. If one inherits the power of the people, one becomes a despot.
Bonaparte has an unfortunate hand in his hatreds and friendships. The regicides and revolutionaries will bring him to ruin if he draws them to himself. He has more power than dignity, more splendor than greatness, more audacity than genius, and it is harder to praise him than to congratulate him.
Had the revolution occurred under Louis XIV, Cotin would have had Boileau guillotined, and Pradon would have taken his revenge on Racine. Through my emigration, I escaped the vengeance of some Jacobins I had portrayed in my Almanac of Great Men.
The French have always had a preference for foreigners, which betrays their jealousy of one another. Examples include: Ornano, Broglio, Rose, Lowendhal, Marshal of Saxony, Necker, Besenval, and Bonaparte.
The despotism of Titus, Trajan, and Marcus Aurelius was not less than that of Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian. With a nod of their heads, they moved the known world from the Euphrates to the Danube: they were despots but not tyrants, as Montesquieu has mistakenly claimed.
When I was asked in 1790 about the outcome of the revolution, my answer was: "Either the king will have an army, or the army will produce a king." I added: "We will see some fortunate soldier emerge from it, for revolutions are always concluded by the sword: Sulla, Caesar, Cromwell are examples."
The allies were always a year, an army, and an idea behind.
It would be a spectacle to see philosophers and atheists one day gritting their teeth following Bonaparte to mass, and the republicans crawling before him. They had indeed sworn to overthrow anyone who coveted the crown. It would be a sight to see him one day bestowing grand crosses to honor kings, appointing princes, and binding himself to a royal house through marriage... But woe to him if he does not remain victorious.
Every thinker who ponders constitutional questions is pregnant with a Jacobin: this is a truth that Europe must never forget.
Politics resembles the Sphinx of the fable: it devours all who cannot solve its riddles.
The earth is the playground for political entities. The full realization of the state depends on the correct relationship between population and territory. In North America, where settlement in space vanishes, the state has not yet reached its highest development. In contrast, in Europe, where population and surface area correspond optimally, the states are at the zenith of power. In China, where an excess of people crowd into too small a space, the state deteriorates.
States always begin anew; they live on remedies.
The state resembles a tree that, in proportion to its growth, needs both the earth and the heavens.
A people without land and faith would wither like Antaeus suspended between heaven and earth.
Reason encompasses truths that must be spoken and those that must be kept silent.
Gold is the king of kings.
Princes must never forget that, since the people never grow out of childhood, governance must always be paternal.
The king's person is like the images of the gods: only the first blows strike the god, the last fall on shapeless marble stone.
War is the judgment of kings; victories are its verdicts.
For the mob, there is no age of enlightenment. It is neither French nor English nor Spanish; it is the same at all times and in every land: always cannibalistic, intent on devouring its fellow man, and when it takes revenge on the government, it punishes crimes that are not always proven with open acts of disgrace.
When the people are more enlightened than the crown, the revolution is at the door. Such was the case in 1789 when the brilliance of the throne was extinguished in a flood of light.
To the agitators: When Neptune wishes to calm the storms, it is not the waves but the tempests that he conjures.
A government that is considered infallible like Providence must, like it, don a despotic form.
If the government of a large and highly developed empire wishes for the people to be represented, this can happen through supporters of the existing power, who will regard the people as their enemies, or through their opponents: then a revolution will ensue.
In every country, border cities enjoy less freedom than those that lie inland: thus, the security of freedom takes precedence.
In the hierarchy of nature, between two people like Voltaire and a water carrier, what they have in common is admirable and significant, while what distinguishes them is hardly noticeable.
The existence and duration of a state are guaranteed solely by fear, as it is the most powerful of passions. It ensures welfare when it operates mutually between the people and the king. For when the people fear the king, there are no uprisings, and when kings fear the people, they refrain from oppression. However, there will always be anarchy or despotism if fear is one-sided.
The parable of the shepherd and the flock is politically useless. Religion has only seized upon it because it is God who turns to humanity. A shepherd among his sheep is a person surrounded by provisions: this is not an image of kingship.
The state begins to ail when kings behave like owners and owners act like kings.
The state has, as mentioned, needs, rights, and powers. However, the relationship between these three principles is such that the people can never derive a right from things they are not capable of. Thus, the fact that they cannot gather and cannot be unanimous means that they can neither make a decision, determine the form of government, nor be sovereign.
The representative constitution assumes that all representatives can gather in one room, no matter how large the realm is. It must also be considered that the majority of the people may consistently be in the minority in parliament. It is the parliamentary majority that governs.
A constitution has been given to the uprising; however, fever does not correspond to human constitution. It is often unavoidable, but it must always be pushed back.
It remains the privilege of nature to link reward and punishment in each of its laws, as its commandments are also drives. Society cannot proceed so magnificently: its laws threaten and chastise.
Since princes form the visible part of the government, their private lives—their games, their habits, their pleasures—should only be open to those who are initiated into this symbolic relationship. It must be closed to the people. This applies even more strictly to the popes.
Benedict XIV, esteemed by the intellectual elite, enjoyed no respect among the Roman people.
With the words "order" and "freedom," one will repeatedly lead mankind from despotism to anarchy and back from anarchy to despotism.
A courtier replied when Louis XV asked what time it was:
"It is as late as Your Majesty wishes."
In the notorious necklace affair, there were two guilty parties: Madame de la Mothe and Monsieur de Breteuil. One was driven by a lust for intrigue and by necessity, the other by revenge. There were also two victims: the queen and the cardinal, but the queen was more innocent.
In France, one could no longer have success at court unless one possessed some charming quirks or rendered oneself bearable through complete insignificance.
It is now so fashionable to speak ill of princes that one comes under suspicion of knowing them intimately when one praises them.
Just as Rousseau undermined the monarchy through his writings, one could also say that he prepared sources of support for the émigré nobility by having his nobleman learn the carpenter's trade.
The first parliament deprived the king of the kingdom, the second deprived the kingdom of the king, and the third liquidated both the king and the kingdom. The Constituent Assembly subjugated the king, Paris, and the army. It was in turn subjugated by Paris. Finally, the Jacobins decimated Paris, the army, and the Convention.
The Constituent Assembly destroyed the royal dignity; the death of the king had to follow. The Convention killed only the man. The first assembly was royalist, the second was parricidal. The victim was already prepared; the Jacobins only had to strike with the axe.
As a king, Louis XVI deserved his misfortune because he did not understand his craft. As a man, he did not deserve it. It was his virtues that alienated him from the people.
An army used for oppression must first be subjugated itself. The hammer must endure as many blows as the anvil.
Louis XIV illuminated all areas of administration so well that, if the word is permitted, his installation lasted until 1789. His decrees and the reports of his intendants testify to this. Our uniformly excellent administrative heads lived off the traditions of their predecessors. During the revolution, the branches of administration resembled well-kept forests, where everyone plundered without fear or scruple. This is the origin of colossal fortunes whose sight provokes disgust.
The peoples can lament like Dido that they have become enlightened.
The task of every government lies in protecting society; and society could have no other goal since its beginnings than to ensure safety and property. This clear, sharp, and comprehensive definition would have excluded any contradiction had the ambiguous and contentious word "freedom" not been clumsily added as a pleonasm.
If we had not obtained a ruler after the League, it would have been the end of the House of Bourbon. The Fronde could have been extremely dangerous, but the young king grew into his stature, and everything returned to order. What kind of Bourbon would consequently follow our terrible revolution? It is foreseeable that sooner or later legitimacy will unite the kings and destroy Napoleon.
We live in a time when insignificance protects more than laws and provides a better conscience than innocence.
Courts sometimes devote themselves to great minds, much like the godless in times of need call upon the saints, and just as ineffectively. There is no medicine against stupidity.
France needs a strong hand more urgently than any other state. The sovereign people will kill any king who wears the crown in front of his eyes instead of on his forehead.
One could compare society to a theater: the box seats require a higher admission.
With his statement, "There is no monarchy without nobility," Montesquieu has taken a weak position; there is something vague and arbitrary about it, making it polemical material.
Was he thinking of a powerful nobility or of a nobility that only represents?
For the nobility, there are four possible modes of existence. It can be sovereign like in Germany, feudal like in Poland, constitutional like in England, or form a sacred caste like in India. In Spain and France, the nobility was hardly more than a pleasant way of life.