Editing Montesquieu (section)

==Biography==
[[File:Chateau la brede.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.09|[[Château de la Brède]], Montesquieu's birthplace]]
Montesquieu was born at the [[Château de la Brède]] in southwest France, {{convert|25|km}} south of [[Bordeaux]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.google.com/maps?client=safari&oe=UTF-8&q=bordeaux+map&ie=UTF-8&hq&hnear=0xd5527e8f751ca81:0x796386037b397a89,Bordeaux,+France&gl=us&ei=J4tmUrypF8u4kQe1-oDIBA&ved=0CC4Q8gEwAA|title=Bordeaux · France|website=Bordeaux · France}}</ref> His father, Jacques de Secondat (1654–1713), was a soldier with a long noble ancestry, including descent from [[Richard de la Pole]], [[House of York|Yorkist]] claimant to the [[King of England|English crown]]. His mother, Marie Françoise de Pesnel (1665–1696), who died when Charles was seven, was an heiress who brought the title of Barony of [[La Brède]] to the Secondat family.<ref>Sorel, A. ''Montesquieu''. London, George Routledge & Sons, 1887 (Ulan Press reprint, 2011), p. 10. {{ASIN|B00A5TMPHC}}</ref> 

His family was of [[Huguenot]] origin.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GvETDAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Montesquieu%22+%22huguenot%22&pg=PA269 | isbn=978-0-19-927922-7 | title=Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752 | date=12 October 2006 | publisher=OUP Oxford }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vCclEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Montesquieu%22+%22huguenot%22&pg=PT186 | isbn=9781907909085 | title=Agreeable Connexions: Scottish Enlightenment Links with France | date=5 November 2012 | publisher=Casemate Publishers }}</ref> After the death of his mother he was sent to the [[Catholic]] [[College of Juilly]], a prominent school for the children of French nobility, where he remained from 1700 to 1711.<ref>Sorel (1887), p. 11.</ref> His father died in 1713, and he became a ward of his uncle, the Baron de [[Montesquieu, Lot-et-Garonne|Montesquieu]].<ref>Sorel (1887), p. 12.</ref> In 1714, he became a counselor of the Bordeaux [[Parlement]]. He showed a preference for Protestantism.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EHNqDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Montesquieu%22+%22protestantism%22&pg=PA194 | isbn=9781108552691 | title=Montesquieu's Liberalism and the Problem of Universal Politics | date=23 August 2018 | publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=po6UVzZ1WAAC&dq=%22Montesquieu%22+%22protestantism%22&pg=PA194 | isbn=9781139492614 | title=Civil Religion: A Dialogue in the History of Political Philosophy | date=25 October 2010 | publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref> 

In 1715 he married the [[Protestant]] Jeanne de Lartigue, with whom he eventually had three children.<ref>Sorel (1887), pp. 11–12.</ref> The Baron died in 1716, leaving him his fortune as well as his title, and the office of [[président à mortier]] in the Bordeaux Parlement,<ref>Sorel (1887), pp. 12–13.</ref> a post that he held for twelve years.

Montesquieu's early life was a time of significant governmental change. England had declared itself a [[constitutional monarchy]] in the wake of its [[Glorious Revolution]] (1688–1689), and joined with Scotland in the [[Union of 1707]] to form the [[Kingdom of Great Britain]]. In France, the long-reigning [[Louis XIV]] died in 1715, and was succeeded by the five-year-old [[Louis XV]]. These national transformations had a great impact on Montesquieu, and he referred to them repeatedly in his work.

[[File:Montesquieu, De l'Esprit des loix (1st ed, 1748, vol 1, title page).jpg|thumb|upright=0.73|Montesquieu's 1748 ''[[:File:Montesquieu, De l'Esprit des loix (1st ed, 1748, vol 1).pdf|De l'Esprit des loix]]'']]

Montesquieu eventually withdrew from the [[lawyer|practice of law]] to devote himself to study and writing. He achieved literary success with the publication of his 1721 ''[[Persian Letters]]'' ({{langx|fr|Lettres persanes}}), a satire representing society as seen through the eyes of two [[Persians|Persian]] visitors to [[Paris]], cleverly criticizing absurdities of contemporary French society. The work was an instant classic and accordingly was immediately pirated. 

In 1722, he went to Paris and entered social circles with the help of friends including the [[James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick|Duke of Berwick]] whom he had known when Berwick was military governor at Bordeaux. He also acquainted himself with the English politician [[Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke|Viscount Bolingbroke]], some of whose political views were later reflected in Montesquieu's analysis of the English constitution. In 1726 he sold his office, bored with the parlement and turning more toward Paris. In time, despite some impediments he was elected to the ''[[Académie Française]]'' in January 1728.

In April 1728, with Berwick's nephew [[James Waldegrave, 1st Earl Waldegrave|Lord Waldegrave]] as his traveling companion, Montesquieu embarked on a [[grand tour]] of Europe, during which he kept a journal. His travels included Austria and [[Hungary]] and a year in Italy. He went to England at the end of October 1729, in the company of [[Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield|Lord Chesterfield]], where he was initiated into Freemasonry at the ''Horn Tavern'' Lodge in Westminster.<ref>{{Harvnb|Berman|2012|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=oQTvxkhqomsC&pg=PA150 150]}}</ref> He remained in England until the spring of 1731, when he returned to La Brède. Outwardly he seemed to be settling down as a squire: he altered his park in the English fashion, made inquiries into his own genealogy, and asserted his seignorial rights. But he was continuously at work in his study, and his reflections on geography, laws and customs during his travels became the primary sources for his major works on political philosophy at this time.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Li|first=Hansong|date=25 September 2018|title=The space of the sea in Montesquieu's political thought|journal=Global Intellectual History|volume=6|issue=4|pages=421–442|doi=10.1080/23801883.2018.1527184|s2cid=158285235}}</ref> 

In 1734, he published ''[[Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline]]'', among his three best known books. In 1748, he published ''The Spirit of Law'', quickly translated into English. It quickly rose to influence [[political thought]] profoundly in Europe and America. In France, the book met with an enthusiastic reception by many, but was denounced by the Sorbonne and, in 1751, by the Catholic Church ([[Index Librorum Prohibitorum|Index of Prohibited Books]]). It received the highest praise from much of the rest of Europe, especially Britain.

[[File:Lettres familieres a divers amis d'Italie.tif|thumb|upright=0.73|''Lettres familières à divers amis d'Italie'', 1767]]
Montesquieu was highly regarded in the British colonies in [[British North America|North America]] as a champion of liberty. According to a survey of late eighteenth-century works by [[political scientist]] Donald Lutz, Montesquieu was the most frequently quoted authority on government and politics in colonial pre-revolutionary British America, cited more by the American founders than any source except for the [[Bible]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Lutz|1984}}.</ref> Following the [[American Revolution]], his work remained a powerful influence on many of the American founders, most notably [[James Madison]] of [[Virginia]], the "Father of the [[U.S. Constitution|Constitution]]". Montesquieu's philosophy that "government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another"<ref>Montesquieu, [https://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=MonLaws.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=137&division=div2 ''The Spirit of Law'', Book 11, Chapter 6, "On the English Constitution."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928071427/https://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=MonLaws.xml&images=images%2Fmodeng&data=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fmodeng%2Fparsed&tag=public&part=137&division=div2 |date=28 September 2013 }} Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, Retrieved 1 August 2012</ref> reminded Madison and others that a free and stable foundation for their new national government required a clearly defined and balanced separation of powers.

Montesquieu was troubled by a cataract and feared going blind. At the end of 1754 he visited Paris and was soon taken ill. He died from a fever on 10 February 1755. He was buried in the [[Église Saint-Sulpice, Paris]].