Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, was the French Enlightenment's foremost political theorist and one of the founders of modern political science and sociology. His Persian Letters (Lettres persanes, 1721) used the device of two fictional Persian travellers in France to satirise French society, the Catholic Church, and absolutist government with devastating irony — the first major work of the French Enlightenment and an instant success. His masterwork, De l'esprit des lois (The Spirit of the Laws, 1748), synthesised twenty years of study of ancient and modern legal systems into a comparative analysis arguing that laws must be adapted to the 'spirit' of each society's geography, climate, and history; its most enduring contribution was the theory of the separation of legislative, executive, and judicial powers, drawn from his idealised reading of the English constitution, which he had studied during a visit to London in 1729–1731. The separation of powers doctrine shaped the Constitution of the United States (1787), the French constitutions of the Revolution, and virtually every subsequent liberal constitutional settlement. The book was placed on the Catholic Index immediately upon publication, which guaranteed its European circulation.
- Lived: 1689 CE – 1755 CE
- Nationality: french
- Roles: philosopher, jurist, political theorist, writer
