Against Depotism a Republica#v Sullivan

AGAINST THE DESPOTISM OF A REPUBLIC:MONTESQUIEU’S CORRECTION OF MACHIAVELLI INTHE NAME OF THE SECURITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL1

Vickie B. Sullivan2

Abstract: Montesquieu calls Machiavelli a ‘great man’ in his Spirit of the Laws, andcommentators have demonstrated his knowledge of and indebtedness to theFlorentine. Careful consideration of his treatment of Machiavelli in this work, how-ever, suggests that Montesquieu has grave misgivings regarding Machiavelli’s form ofrepublicanism. Indeed, far from regarding Machiavelli’s republicanism as an embodi-ment of liberty, the Frenchman suggests that it is actually despotic because it tooreadily sacrifices the security of the individual in the name of the state’s political inter-est in longevity. Montesquieu indicates that one of his very purposes in the Spirit is tosubstitute his own middle way for the ugly extremes of Machiavelli’s harsh form ofrepublicanism.

Machiavelli’s republicanism has been invoked recently as the model of a par-

ticular type of freedom or liberty.3 His republicanism, it is said, contains a

classical and vigorously political notion of liberty that stands as an alternative

to modern, liberal notions of freedom as non-interference. Scholars also iden-

tify Montesquieu as part of the same tradition,4 but even before scholars had

placed Montesquieu in this tradition, commentators had identified the French-

man as a particular friend of freedom.5 Indeed, one commentator describes his

HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XXVII. No. 2. Summer 2006

1 A version of this article was presented at the Northeastern Political Science Associ-ation Annual Meeting, Boston, 13 November 2004. The author thanks Paul Carrese,Flagg Taylor, Sharon Krause and Michael Zuckert for their helpful comments on earlierdrafts.

2 Department of Political Science, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA.Email: [email protected]

3 Quentin Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge, 1998) includes Machiavelliin the neo-roman conception of liberty that demands that free persons are defined by theircapacity for self government (pp. 10 and 26).

4 See particularly, Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Govern-ment (Oxford, 1999). Pettit describes his variant of a republican theory of freedom as onethat emphasizes non-domination and includes both Machiavelli and Montesquieu as par-ticipants (e.g. pp. 5 and 19). Skinner notes his particular debt to the work of Pettit (Skin-ner, Liberty before Liberalism, p. xi).

5 See David W. Carrithers, ‘Introduction: An Appreciation of The Spirit of Laws’, inMontesquieu’s Science of Politics: Essays on ‘The Spirit of Laws’, ed. David W.Carrithers, Michael A. Mosher and Paul A. Rahe (Lanham, MD, 2001) for a descriptionof The Spirit of Laws as an attempt to advance ‘the cause of human liberty’ (pp. 1–40,p. 5, see also pp. 23–8). For treatments that emphasize Montesquieu’s efforts to analysepolitical despotism and to describe an alternative or alternatives to this system, see MarkHulliung, Montesquieu and the Old Regime (Berkeley, 1976), who focuses particular

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History of Political Thought, Volume 27, Number 2, 2006 , pp. 263-289(27)

political thought as an effort to oppose despotism of all types: political, sexual

and religious.6

264 V.B. SULLIVAN

attention on Montesquieu’s radical critique of the absolutism of France and his admirationof England; Thomas L. Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Liberalism: A Commen-tary on ‘The Spirit of the Laws’ (Chicago, 1973), who focuses both on Montesquieu’sembrace of England as a new form of government that is exclusively devoted to libertyand on his criticism of the ancient republics as ultimately inimical to liberty; DavidLowenthal, ‘Montesquieu and the Classics: Republican Government in The Spirit of theLaws’, in Ancients and Moderns: Essays of the Tradition of Political Philosophy inHonor of Leo Strauss, ed. Joseph Cropsey (New York, 1964), pp. 258–87, who similarlyargues that England is the ‘freest society that has ever existed’ (p. 271) and delineatesMontesquieu’s objections to the ancient republics devoted to virtue; Judith N. Shklar,Montesquieu (Oxford, 1987), who makes a similar case: ‘A close comparison of Romanand English liberty proved to him that the latter was not only more attainable, but alsoinherently superior’ (p. 52; see also p. 86); Nannerl O. Keohane, ‘Virtuous Republics andGlorious Monarchies: Two Models in Montesquieu’s Political Thought’, Political Stud-ies, XX (1972), pp. 383–96, who argues that ‘liberty was a value particularly dear to’Montesquieu and that in his view it could only be enjoyed in moderate governments asopposed to despotism, and who thereby finds that Montesquieu favours both the virtuousrepublic and the monarchial model of his time, in this way Keohane disagrees withcommentators who find his preference in modern, liberal England; Sharon Krause, ‘ThePolitics of Distinction and Disobedience: Honour and the Defense of Liberty inMontesquieu’, Polity, XXXI (1999), pp. 469–99, who argues that Montesquieu foundhonour as it existed under monarchy to be a powerful means of resisting encroachmentson political liberty. On Montesquieu’s notion of natural liberty in contrast to his earlymodern philosophical predecessors, see Harvey C. Mansfield, Taming the Prince: TheAmbivalence of Modern Executive Power (New York, 1989), pp. 218–24 and 232–3.Mansfield argues that in Montesquieu’s view their too vehement assertion of natural lib-erty, which relied ultimately on the passion of fear to construct political life, resulted indespotic rule.

6 Diana J. Schaub uses this formulation in her analysis of the Persian Letters (EroticLiberalism: Women and Revolution in Montesquieu’s ‘Persian Letters’ (Lanham, MD,1995), pp. 17 and 19). If part of Montesquieu’s intention is, in fact, to oppose the despot-ism exercised by the ruling religion and its priests, Machiavelli can certainly be said tohave initiated some of the battle plans on this front when he indignantly laid bare the typeof rule the Christian priests exercise: ‘they give [the people] to understand that it is evil tosay evil of evil, and that it is good to live under obedience to them and, if they make anerror, to leave them for God to punish. So they do the worst they can because they do notfear the punishment that they do not see and do not believe’ (Niccolò Machiavelli, Dis-courses on Livy, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov (Chicago, 1996), 3.1.4;this work will be cited hereafter by book, chapter and paragraph numbers preceded by theabbreviation D). See also Judith N. Shklar, ‘Montesquieu and the New Republicanism’,in Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner and MaurizioViroli (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 265–79, p. 265. Francis Bacon testifies to Machaivelli’simportance on this score: ‘And one of the doctors of Italy, Nicholas Machiavel, had theconfidence to put in writing, almost in plain terms, that the Christian faith had given upgood men in prey to those that are tyrannical and unjust’ (Francis Bacon, The Essays(London, 1985), pp. 96–7). For analyses that contain a particularly pointed analysis of


AGAINST THE DESPOTISM OF A REPUBLIC 265

Although commentators might array the Florentine secretary and the presi-

dent of the parlement of Bordeaux in the same battle lines in this particular

strike for freedom, Montesquieu could be said to be arrayed against his erst-

while ally in another important battle against despotism. Far from seeing

Machiavelli’s republic as the locus of some important and laudable notion of

freedom, Montesquieu suggests that Machiavelli’s republic is itself despotic.

In the Frenchman’s view, Machiavelli’s form of republican justice is too

harsh, too arbitrary and too immoderate. These characteristics of

Machiavelli’s republicanism, in Montesquieu’s judgment, align it with the

type of rule he tries to overcome. Therefore, before today’s friends of freedom

too eagerly embrace the model of Machiavelli’s republic, it is necessary to

hear what this other friend of liberty has to say.7

Moreover, Montesquieu’s response to Machiavelli promises to be valuable

because commentators on Montesquieu’s works have long pointed out that he

manifests a deep knowledge and understanding of Machiavelli’s writings.8

Many of the most insightful and distinguished of these commentators point

out that the learned Montesquieu is far removed from the conventional and

Montesquieu’s efforts to describe and overcome the religious tyranny of the Christianchurch, see, among others, Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosophy, pp. 256–67, 284; DavidLowenthal, ‘The Design of Montesquieu’s Considerations on the Causes of the Great-ness of the Romans and their Decline’, Interpretation, I (1970), pp. 145–68, particularlypp. 151 ff; and Robert C. Barlett, ‘On the Politics of Faith and Reason: The Project ofEnlightment in Pierre Bayle and Montesquieu’, The Journal of Politics, LXIII (2001),pp. 1–28, 13–27. For the view that Montesquieu’s response to Christianity is more mea-sured, see Rebecca E. Kingston, ‘Montesquieu on Religion and on the Question of Toler-ation’, in Montesquieu’s Science of Politics: Essays on ‘The Spirit of Laws’, ed.Carrithers, Mosher and Rahe, pp. 375–408.

7 Pettit broaches this important difference between Machiavelli and Montesquieu,whom he otherwise equates: ‘The association of freedom with subjective and oftenintersubjective status — the association of freedom with a feeling of independence andimmunity — goes back a long way in the republican tradition . . . It is even there inMachiavelli, who is more tolerant of coercion and terror than most writers.’ He contin-ues: ‘Montesquieu . . . seems to offer a gloss on Machiavelli when he writes, over twocenturies later: “Political liberty in a citizen is that tranquility of spirit which comes fromthe opinion each one has of his security, and in order for him to have this liberty the gov-ernment must be such that one citizen cannot fear another citizen” ’ (Pettit, Republican-ism, p. 71). Thus, Pettit here suggests that Montesquieu feels compelled to respond toMachiavelli’s tolerance for coercion of and terror in the citizenry, suggesting that suchtactics are incompatible with his understanding of liberty. This article could be said to bean attempt to elaborate the significance of Pettit’s identification of this differencebetween the two thinkers.

8 E. Levi-Malvano, Montesquieu e Machiavelli (Paris, 1912). A. Bertière, ‘Montesquieu,lecteur de Machiavel’, Actes du Congrès Montesquieu (Bourdeaux, 1956), pp. 141–58,maintains that Montesquieu’s views of Machiavelli were shaped by Loius Machon’sApologie pour Machiavel: ‘Machon n’a pu qu’aider Montesquieu à prendre de l’œuvrede Machiavel une vue plus impartiale que ne le comportait le milieu antimachiavéliste oùil s’est formé’ (p. 156).


hackneyed denunciations of the immoral or amoral ‘devil Machiavel’ so prev-

alent, before and after Montesquieu’s time, in France and elsewhere in

Europe.9 Although he may be much more familiar with the range of Machia-

velli’s writings and much more sophisticated than many of Machiavelli’s

detractors, Montesquieu does, nevertheless, voice his own warnings against

the effects of Machiavelli’s teachings — even his republican teachings.

That Montesquieu, the opponent of despotism, criticizes Machiavelli’s rec-

ommendations for princely rule in The Prince cannot be surprising. In a pas-

sage that Montesquieu later removed from the final text of his De l’esprit des

lois, he declares: ‘But it is the delusion of Machiavelli to have given to princes

for the maintenance of their grandeur some principles which are only neces-

sary in a despotic government and are unhelpful, dangerous and impractical in

a monarchy. This comes from the fact that he did not recognize well the nature

of distinction; this is not his dignity and his great spirit.’10 What might be sur-

prising, however, is that Montesquieu’s charge here against Machiavelli’s con-

ception of princely government — that is, that he blurs the distinction between

despotic and nondespotic regimes — also encapsulates his criticism of

Machiavelli’s provision for republics. Therefore, it is not merely the cunning

266 V.B. SULLIVAN

9 Robert Shackleton, ‘Montesquieu and Machiavelli: A Reappraisal’, ComparativeLiterature Studies, I (1964), pp. 1–13, pp. 5 ff.; Robert Shackleton, Montesquieu: ACritical Biography (London, 1961), pp. 142–3. See also Paul Carrese, who links Montes-quieu’s theory of the separation of powers with Machiavelli’s advocacy of factional poli-tics in a republic (Paul Carrese, ‘The Machiavellian Spirit of Montesquieu’s LiberalRepublic’, in Machiavelli’s Liberal Republican Legacy, ed. Paul Rahe (New York,2005), pp. 121–42; see also Paul Carrese, The Cloaking of Power: Montesquieu,Blackstone, and the Rise of Judicial Activism (Chicago, 2003), pp. 39–40; see also NealWood, ‘The Value of Asocial Sociability: Contributions of Machiavelli, Sidney andMontesquieu’, in Machiavelli and the Nature of Political Thought, ed. Martin Fleisher(New York, 1972), pp. 282–307; Sergi Cotta, ‘L’idée de parti dans la philosophiepolitique de Montesquieu’, Actes du Congrès Montesquieu (Bourdeaux, 1956),pp. 257–63. Paul Rahe draws a distinction between Montesquieu’s and Machiavelli’sevaluation of Rome’s expansionist foreign policy (Paul Rahe, ‘The Book that NeverWas: Montesquieu’s Considerations on the Romans in Historical Context’, History ofPolitical Thought, XXVI (2005), pp. 43–89, pp. 73–80. For Hulliung’s depiction ofMontesquieu’s attack on Machiavellianism, see particularly, Montesquieu, pp. 46,148–67, 181, 185–8. Hulliung defines Machiavellianism both as a rage for war waged forconquest and as princely rule in the form of despotism. Both facets, Hulliung shows,were embraced by the French monarchy. Hulliung describes Montesquieu’s intent as oneto subvert the French ancien régime by using Machiavellian ‘power politics’ to installthe anti-Machiavellian programme of a liberal society, at one point describing Montes-quieu as ‘plying his sometime trade of packaging anti-absolutist ideas in the protectivecovering of Machiavellian semblance’ (pp. 186 and 198). My analysis of Montesquieu’santi-Machiavellianism focuses on different concerns than Hulliung’s, but is, neverthe-less, compatible with it.

10 My translation from ‘Dossier de l’esprit des lois’, Oeuvres complètes, Vol. 2, ed.Roger Caillois (Paris, 1958), p. 996.



advisor to tyrannical majesty of The Prince and the apparently servile peti-

tioner to Medicean rule, who elicits Montesquieu’s objections, but also the

republican citizen of the Discourses and the protector of republican Florence

against the princely encroachments of the Medici. Montesquieu deems that

his Italian predecessor fails to make distinctions between republics and des-

potisms; or, in other words, his republicanism is too despotic.11

Montesquieu’s criticism of Machiavelli’s republicanism originates in

Book 6 of Spirit of the Laws, which offers his first consideration of ‘criminal

laws, the forms of judgments, and the establishment of penalties’.

Montesquieu’s criticism of Machiavelli’s republicanism grows out of his con-

cern that the Florentine recommends accusations and punishments that are

extremely harsh and sometimes arbitrary. The significance of this criticism

blossoms to much greater dimensions because, later in the work, Montesquieu

defines liberty as a feeling of security in the citizen and declares that the cor-

rect way to proceed in criminal judgments is the most important knowledge

available to human beings. Moreover, both Machiavelli’s exhortation to

embrace the extremes by avoiding the middle way and Montesquieu’s substi-

tution of the middle for the extremes relate particularly to their divergent view

of punishments. When articulating his response to Machiavelli on these

issues, Montesquieu recalls his reader’s attention to his Preface to Spirit of the

Laws, where he broaches what he hopes to accomplish with his work. In this

manner, Montesquieu suggests that one particular intention of his work is to

correct the despotic and ugly implications of Machiavelli’s republicanism.

Montesquieu’s Initial Praise and Criticism of Machiavelli

The first time that Montesquieu mentions Machiavelli in the final version of

Spirit of the Laws, he appears to speak with great reverence. At one point in

11 Although Carrese documents Montesquieu’s respect for and reliance on Machia-velli, he notes the Frenchman’s divergence from Machiavelli on issues relating tohumane judging and administration of justice for individuals (Carrese, ‘MachiavellianSpirit of Montesquieu’s Liberal Republic’, pp. 126, 135–40). Levi-Malvano, who main-tains that Montesquieu both had a deep knowledge of Machiavelli and relied heavily onhis predecessor’s thought, particularly with respect to Rome and to his republican dic-tates, nevertheless discerns an aspect of the ‘antimachiavellismo’ of Montesquieu. Thisaspect he links to Montesquieu’s opposition to the maxims of The Prince (Levi-Malvano, Montesquieu e Machiavelli, pp. 112–23). Indeed, Levi-Malvano discerns twodifferent Machiavellis: one is the profound analyst of republics and the other the advisorto tyrants. According to Levi-Malvano, Montesquieu approves of the former and disap-proves of the latter (ibid., p. 126). My argument differs from these findings by examiningMontesquieu’s disapproval of Machiavelli’s form of republicanism that originates in hiscommentary on the Roman republic. Conversely, Krause’s brief discussion of Montes-quieu’s opposition to Machiavelli’s approval of ‘great acts of terror’ finds a basis in theDiscourses as well as in The Prince (Krause, ‘Politics of Distinction and Disobedience’,pp. 480–1 and 484).


the passage he declares: ‘I would gladly adopt this great man’s maxim.’ The

Frenchman deems the Italian great;12 he even envisions the possibility that he

could make one of his maxims his own. This is explicit praise of Machiavelli.

No wholesale decrier of the devil Machiavel is he. Nevertheless, an examina-

tion of the content of Montesquieu’s discussion of his predecessor’s maxim

reveals that Montesquieu intends to challenge his authority. This conclusion

cannot be surprising given that Montesquieu uses the conditional voice in

explaining how he could embrace one of the Italian’s maxims. Although he

does not, in fact, adopt Machiavelli’s maxim, he would have no general objec-

tion to so doing. By this statement, Montesquieu seems to distinguish himself

from all the anti-Machiavels who castigate the propagator of immoral poli-

tics. Despite this distinction, however, Montesquieu does have a particular

objection to Machiavelli. In this particular instance — in the case of this par-

ticular maxim — he finds that Machiavelli fails to consider the ‘security of

individuals’.13

268 V.B. SULLIVAN

12 This is Montesquieu’s first reference to a great man since his Preface (confirmedthrough a search conducted on FRANTEXT Database). In the Preface, when speaking ofhis work, he declares: ‘When I have seen what so many great men (tant de grandshommes) in France, England, and Germany have written before me, I have been filledwith wonder, but I have not lost courage. “And I too am a painter”, have I said withCorreggio’ (pr, xlv; De l’esprit des lois, in Oeuvres complètes, Vol. 1, p. 231).Montesquieu does not here name the predecessors who have authored the works withwhich his own can stand. Although he almost immediately takes issue with a writer fromEngland, Hobbes, he does not call him a great man (Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws,trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller and Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge,1989), 1.2, p. 6; this work will be cited hereafter by book and chapter numbers followedby page numbers and preceded by the abbreviation SL). Therefore, the first named per-son whom Montesquieu calls a ‘great man’ (ce grand homme) in the work is Machiavelli.This reservation of the appellation for Machiavelli, which is, indeed, a compliment, sug-gests that the Italian is among those with whom Montesquieu believes he can stand, andperhaps even surpass.

13 SL 6.5, pp. 77–8. As do many commentators who are ready to associate Montes-quieu with Machiavelli, Levi-Malvano concentrates on the implication of his use of theterm ‘great man’ here. ‘Si noti chi il Montesquieu non si perita di dire del Machiavelli “cegrand homme”; ciò che era segno già di una certa libertà di spirito, in un secolo in cui ilnome del Machiavelli era ancora sinonimo di perverso e ipocrita’ (Levi-Malvano,Montesquieu e Machiavell, p. 26). Although Levi-Malvano is certainly right to claimthat this appellation signifies that Montesquieu is not a conventional anti-Machiavel, hefails to examine the reasons for Montesquieu’s refusal to adopt this great man’s maxim.Montesquieu may not be a conventional anti-Machiavel, but it may very well be the casethat he is a rather unconventional one. Lowenthal makes passing reference to the pos-sibility of Montesquieu’s fundamental reliance on Machiavelli’s thought and points tohis terming Machiavelli ‘this great man’ (David Lowenthal, ‘Book I of Montesquieu’sThe Spirit of the Laws’, American Political Science Review, LIII (1959), pp. 485–98,p. 49 n.18; see also Lowenthal, ‘Montesquieu and the Classics’, p. 282). For the view thatMontesquieu takes Machiavelli’s effectual truth as his guide see Mansfield, Taming the



This discussion of the great man Machiavelli and of his maxim occurs in

the book devoted to the principles of the various governments as they relate to

civil and criminal laws and punishments. The topic of the specific chapter in

which this discussion occurs is ‘In which governments the sovereign can be

the judge’, where Montesquieu delineates the degree to which the ruling

authority — be it the people, the monarch or the despot — renders decisions in

criminal cases.14 The principle of despotisms is fear,15 and fear is engendered

in such states in part by the role the despot plays in judging: ‘In despotic states

the prince himself can judge.’ This role of the despot contrasts sharply with

that of the monarch: ‘[The monarch] cannot judge in monarchies: the consti-

tution would be destroyed and the intermediate dependent powers reduced to

nothing.’ In describing the results of a monarch who took for himself the role

of judge, Montesquieu actually proceeds to describe despotism: ‘fear would

invade all spirits; one would see pallor on every face; there would be no trust,

honour, love, security, or monarchy’.16 Therefore, when a monarch judges,

monarchy becomes a despotism.

Montesquieu also examines republics in this chapter. In fact, he treats them

first, and it is here that he invokes Machiavelli’s authority. Indeed, Machia-

velli’s name is the first word of the chapter: ‘Machiavelli attributes the loss of

liberty in Florence to the fact that the people as a body did not judge the crimes

of high treason committed against them, as was done in Rome.’ Before Flor-

ence lost its liberty, it was, of course, a republic. According to Montesquieu,

Machiavelli claims that Florence would have maintained its liberty had it

been more like Rome in having the people judge. Although Florence had

established eight judges for the purpose, such a small number does not satisfy

the Florentine, a point which the Frenchman corroborates by adducing one of

Machiavelli’s maxims: ‘But, states Machiavelli, few are corrupted by few.’17

It is at this point that Montesquieu calls Machiavelli a great man, declaring

that he ‘would gladly accept’ his ‘maxim’. Nevertheless, Montesquieu, in

fact, rejects the very maxim that he ‘would gladly accept’. By way of explain-

ing his hesitation, Montesquieu continues: ‘but, as in these cases of treason,

political interest forces civil interest, so to speak (for it is always a drawback if

the people themselves judge their offenses), the laws must provide, as much

Prince, pp. 215, 223, 232; Paul A. Rahe, ‘Forms of Government: Structure, Principle,Object, and Aim’, in Montesquieu’s Science of Politics: Essays on ‘The Spirit of Laws’,ed. Carrithers, Mosher and Rahe, pp. 69–108, p. 70; and Michael Zuckert, ‘Natural Law,Natural Rights, and Classical Liberalism: On Montesquieu’s Critique of Hobbes’, inNatural Law and Modern Moral Philosophy, ed. Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller, Jr.and Jeffrey Paul (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 227–51, p. 239.

14 SL 6.5, p. 77.15 SL 3.9, p. 28.16 SL 6.5, p. 78.17 SL 6.5, p. 77; emphasis in original.


as they can, for the security of individuals in order to remedy this drawback’.18

This is a rather ambiguous statement, to say the least. Montesquieu specifies

neither the political nor the civil interest in question. Presumably, because

treason is the crime that Montesquieu has identified in this instance — a crime

that is a threat to the very existence of a state — the political interest is the

state’s continued survival.

In the continuation Montesquieu helps to clarify what he means by the civil

interest and how it may be protected when he offers examples of practices

from ancient Rome: ‘Using this idea [the notion that the laws must try to pro-

vide for the security of individuals], the Roman legislators did two things:

they permitted accused men to exile themselves before the judgment and they

wanted the goods of condemned men to be made sacred so that the people

could not confiscate them.’19 Both expedients of the Romans are means of

protecting the accused. The civil interest, then, is the security of the individu-

als accused, which must be protected to the extent allowed given the priority

of the political interest. In particular, Rome’s prevention of the confiscation

of the property of the condemned was a way to protect against wrongful con-

viction. In so being, it illustrates a particular manner in which the body of the

people as judges might act to the detriment of the security of the accused. The

people in their capacity as judges, according to Montesquieu, can sometimes

act also against the civil interest. If the people were likely to receive the prop-

erty of those whom they condemn, the people may be all the more disposed to

vote for a conviction, perhaps even in cases in which the evidence is not so

very compelling. Citizens who are innocent could lose their liberty or their

lives as a result of this inducement for a guilty verdict.20

This suggestion on Montesquieu’s part that the people’s judgment could be

corrupted by the prospect of lucre is completely absent from Machiavelli’s

270 V.B. SULLIVAN

18 SL 6.5, pp. 77–8.19 SL 6.5, p. 78.20 The parenthetical statement (‘for it is always a drawback if the people themselves

judge their offenses’) seems to refer to a different inconvenience altogether. HereMontesquieu treats the possibility that the people might judge themselves, or alterna-tively, might judge some of their number or others whom they believe represent theirinterests. Thus, when the people are judges in cases of treason, the possibility also lurksthat the people as judges might be ill disposed to convict even when the guilt of theaccused is manifest. A political interest — the punishment of the treasonous — might bethreatened in such cases. Montesquieu suggests in this glancing way another drawback toMachiavelli’s demand that the many serve as judges: the people may not convict whentheir interests are in accord with those of the accused. Whereas this inconvenience worksagainst the political interest, the other inconvenience, the possibility of an ill-consideredconviction at the hands of the people and the actual focus of the broader discussion,works against the civil interest. Both contrary inconveniences suggest the same defi-ciency on the part of the people as judges: the possibility of a lack of impartiality. Cf.Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosophy, p. 94.



maxim, as Montesquieu presents it here.21 Indeed, that seems to be the

Frenchman’s very point; Machiavelli’s maxim is entirely devoid of concern

for the security of individuals — a concern that Montesquieu himself

manifests.

Machiavelli and Montesquieu on Accusations

Consideration of Machiavelli’s chapter from which Montesquieu draws the

maxim shows that Machiavelli is not addressing the topic of judgments, as is

Montesquieu; rather, Machiavelli’s declared topic is accusations. Montes-

quieu, though, considers the topic of accusations in another chapter of Book

6. A comparison of their respective treatments of accusations reveals that

whereas Machiavelli promotes accusations, Montesquieu expresses reserva-

tions about accusations given the power that the accuser can exert over the

accused. Indeed, the Frenchman’s treatment of this topic suggests that repub-

lics, when they are too ready with accusations, can be despotic.

The discussion from which Montesquieu extracts Machiavelli’s maxim

occurs in Chapter 7 of Book 1 of the Discourses entitled ‘How Far Accusa-

tions May Be Necessary in a Republic to Maintain It in Freedom’. To

Machiavelli’s mind ‘one cannot give a more useful and necessary authority

than that of being able to accuse citizens to the people, or to some magistrate

or council, when they sin in anything against the free state’. The Italian further

explains that such an ‘order produces two very useful effects for a republic’.

First, as a result of fearing that such an accusation may be lodged against

them, ‘citizens do not attempt things against the state’. Second, even if citi-

zens do make such attempts, ‘they are crushed instantly and without respect’.

Machiavelli admires the ability of a republic to act quickly and decisively

against such threats emanating from the republic’s own citizens. He continues

that a third consideration in favour of accusations is that ‘an outlet is given by

which to vent, in some mode against some citizen, those humours that grow

up in cities; and when these humours do not have an outlet by which they may

be vented ordinarily, they have recourse to extraordinary modes that bring a

whole republic to ruin’.22 The people, he explains, must be appeased by the

ability to accuse the prominent men in a republic.

Machiavelli applies this general concern to the specific example of the

downfall of the republic of Florence, which he served as secretary. He

observes that there should have been a mechanism by which the people could

have accused Piero Soderini, the gonfalonier of the Florentine republic and

the official to whom Machiavelli reported as a secretary of the republic. In

Machiavelli’s view, Florence’s republic was defective because it lacked a

21 See also Carrese’s treatment of this chapter in ‘Machiavellian Spirit of Montes-quieu’s Liberal Republic’, pp. 138–9.

22 D 1.7.1.


‘mode of accusation against the ambition of powerful citizens’. By way of

explanation, Machiavelli offers: ‘For to accuse one powerful individual

before eight judges in a republic is not enough; the judges need to be very

many because the few always behave in the mode of the few.’23 This is the

very passage from which Montesquieu draws the Machiavellian maxim.24

Machiavelli suggests here that whereas the many might well have con-

victed Soderini, the few would not. Therefore, it seems that in Machiavelli’s

judgment Florence’s defect was that it lacked an effective method of accusa-

tion, and failed to earn the people’s confidence as a result. If an effective

method had existed in the republic ‘either the citizens would have accused

him, if he were living badly, and by such means they would have vented their

animus without having the Spanish army come; or, if he were not living badly,

they would not have dared to work against him for fear of being accused

themselves’.25 Machiavelli’s concern is that citizens of the republic not call in

a foreign power to satisfy their animus against their leaders; his concern is

with the survival of the republic. With this concern in view, Machiavelli pro-

motes accusations. He wants to encourage the people to vent their animus

against their superiors. To use Montesquieu’s terms in 6.5, this is very much a

political — as opposed to a civil — concern. It may not protect the security of

the accused, but, to Machiavelli’s mind, it may very well preserve the

republic.

When Montesquieu devotes his own chapter to Machiavelli’s topic in his

Book 6, he points to Rome as a state in which accusations were particularly

prevalent, but he strongly blames the practice. Unlike Machiavelli, he shows a

marked interest in limiting accusations for the sake of the accused.

Montesquieu’s chapter begins with his observation that ‘In Rome citizens

were permitted to accuse another. This was established in the spirit of the

republic, where each citizen should have boundless zeal for the public good,

272 V.B. SULLIVAN

23 D 1.7.4. A reference to the Otto di Guardia, as Mansfield and Tarcov note(Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, p. 25 n.5). This particular passage of the Discoursesfigures prominently in John P. McCormick, ‘Machiavellian Democracy: ControllingElites with Ferocious Populism’, American Political Science Review, XCV (2001),pp. 297–313, pp. 305–6. Specifically, McCormick recommends such public accusationsas a means of rendering ‘all citizens, but especially, elites, accountable’. More generally,McCormick argues that the ‘antagonistic political culture’ exemplified in Machiavelli’sdepiction of ancient Rome can instruct contemporary democratic theory (p. 297). Such acontemporary recommendation in favour of this aspect of Machiavelli’s republicanismmakes Montesquieu’s concerns all the more important.

24 Montesquieu replaces Machiavelli’s ‘behave in the mode of the few’ (D 1.7.4)(fanno a modo de’pochi) (Niccolò Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di TitoLivio, in Tutte le opere, ed. Mario Martelli (Florence, 1971), p. 88) with ‘are corruptedby few’ (SL 6.5, p. 77) (sont corrompus par peu) (De l’esprit des lois, p. 313).Montesquieu’s change in wording emphasizes the possibility that so small a number ofjudges could be easily bought off.

25 D 1.7.4.



where it is assumed that each citizen has all the rights of the homeland in his

hands.’ Of course, ‘boundless zeal for the public good’ in the general citi-

zenry seems to be a rare and laudatory thing, but as the short chapter contin-

ues, Montesquieu shows how this zeal can be perverted in a way that becomes

inimical to the safety and security of the accused. Such perversion requires

correction, because the ill effects of this practice were especially visible later,

when the ‘maxims of the republic were followed under the emperors, and one

saw a dreadful kind of man, a band of informers, immediately appear’. Here,

Montesquieu equates an element of the civil procedure — but perhaps not the

spirit — of the Roman republic with the despotism of the emperors when he

claims that the emperors followed the ‘maxims of the republic’.26 The Roman

republic and the empire are similar in that each was rife with potential

accusers.

Montesquieu unequivocally condemns the informers under the emperors,

who, in order to advance themselves and to slake their ‘ambitious spirit,

would seek out a criminal whose condemnation might please the prince’. He

notes here that modernity does not see this phenomenon of informers accus-

ing criminals for their own advancement: a body of informers is ‘a thing that

we never see among ourselves’. Indeed, modern princes appoint ‘an officer in

each tribunal who will pursue all crimes in his name’. Montesquieu calls this

an ‘admirable law’.27 This admirable law not only replaces the informers

under the emperors, but also the civic enthusiasm of the citizenry of the repub-

lic; the officer, not every citizen, is an accuser. Montesquieu, in contrast to

Machiavelli, praises the limitation of accusations.

Montesquieu on Improvement in Individual Securityand Its Significance

In praising this modern limitation on accusations, Montesquieu underscores

his interest in the protection of ‘the security of individuals’. Indeed, in both of

these chapters of Book 6 — Chapter 5 in which he cites Machiavelli’s maxim

and Chapter 8 in which he treats the topic of Machiavelli’s own chapter in

which that maxim appears — Montesquieu points to a modern improvement

that protects the security of individuals in ways unknown to the ancients. In

Chapter 8 it is the officer who undertakes the role of accuser. In Chapter 5,

after pointing to the two methods by which the Roman republic sought assur-

ances for the security of the individual given the people’s prominent role in

judging, he announces: ‘Other limitations placed on the people’s power to

judge will be seen in Book 11.’28 His discussion of those limitations in this

later book, in fact, entails limitations on the people’s power both to judge and

26 SL 6.8, p. 81.27 Ibid.28 SL 6.5, p. 78.


to accuse; and those limitations occur in a modern regime, not in the republic

of Rome. In that book he will point to England as the state that best protects

liberty. His discussions of liberty, which define liberty as a feeling of security,

point to the notion of progress.29 Although Montesquieu notes that some pro-

gress on this score occurred in the Roman republic, he shows how Rome’s

improvements are eclipsed by the example of England. England has discov-

ered and applied the most important knowledge, according to Montesquieu —

the knowledge of how to safeguard the security of individuals.30

Famous Book 11 of The Spirit is devoted to ‘the laws that form political lib-

erty in relation with the constitution’. Montesquieu defines ‘[p]olitical liberty

in a citizen’, as ‘that tranquility of spirit which comes from the opinion each

one has of his security, and in order for him to have this liberty the govern-

ment must be such that one citizen cannot fear another citizen’.31 He identifies

England here as the ‘one nation in the world whose constitution has political

liberty as its direct purpose’.32 When Montesquieu repeats in Book 12 the

definition of political liberty that he provides in Book 11, he adds the follow-

ing consideration: ‘This security is never more attacked than by public or pri-

vate accusations. Therefore, the citizen’s liberty depends principally on the

goodness of the criminal laws.’ ‘The knowledge already acquired in some

countries’, continues Montesquieu, ‘and yet to be acquired in others, concern-

ing the surest rules one can observe in criminal judgments, is of more concern

274 V.B. SULLIVAN

29 By speaking of progress on this particular score, I do not intend to make a generalclaim regarding Montesquieu’s view of history. For a consideration of his approach tohistory in several of his works see David Carrithers, ‘Montesquieu’s Philosophy of His-tory’, Journal of the History of Ideas, XLVII (1986), pp. 61–80. Carrithers, in fact,rejects the notion that Montesquieu possessed a teleological view of history, see particu-larly ibid., pp. 79–80. On this point, see also Shklar, Montesquieu, p. 50.

30 In the assessment of Pierre Manent, ‘the end of the political institution’, forMontesquieu, ‘is to ensure the security of persons and goods’ (Pierre Manent, An Intel-lectual History of Liberalism, trans. Rebecca Balinski (Princeton, 1995), p. 53; emphasisin original). For a contemporary assessment of the importance of criminal procedure, seeJudith N. Shklar, ‘The Liberalism of Fear’, in Liberalism and the Moral Life, ed. NancyL. Rosenblum (Cambridge, MA, 1989), pp. 21–38, p. 37.

31 SL 11.6, p. 157.32 SL 11.5, p. 156. See Michael Zuckert, ‘Natural Rights and Modern Consti-

tutionalism’, Northwestern University Journal of International Human Rights, II (2004),pp. 42–66, for the argument that Montesquieu was a natural rights thinker and the secu-rity that what he has ‘in mind’ when treating the British Constitution ‘is assurance thatone will not be accosted by the ruling authorities or other citizens in one’s person or pos-sessions, i.e., in the objects of one’s rights’ (ibid., p. 49); cf. David W. Carrithers, ‘Intro-duction: Montesquieu and the Spirit of Modernity’, in Montesquieu and the Spirit ofModernity, ed. David W. Carrithers and Patrick Coleman (Oxford, 2002), pp. 1–33,pp. 25–6. Rahe questions the extent to which the English, on Montesquieu’s account, areindeed free, because of the inquiétude they feel, which is very much akin to fear (Rahe,‘Forms of Government’, pp. 80–90).



to mankind than anything else in the world.’33 Montesquieu has chosen the

strongest possible superlative to underscore the importance of such knowl-

edge. Moreover, Montesquieu does not in any way modify, and thereby limit,

the type of knowledge of which he speaks. He does not say, for example, that

it is the most important knowledge to be had in criminal matters or, more gen-

erally, the most important political knowledge. He simply says that it is the

most important knowledge. In addition, by this statement Montesquieu sug-

gests that on this topic progress can and in fact has been made. In other words,

there is a certain definitive body of knowledge to be had. While some coun-

tries have attained much of that knowledge, others have not.

Although some modern regimes have made tremendous progress on this

score, a modicum of progress is evident even in the regimes of antiquity,

according to Montesquieu’s assessment. For example, ‘[a]mong the Greeks in

heroic times’, ‘[i]t had not yet been discovered that the prince’s true function

was to establish judges and not to judge’.34 At this time the ancients’ political

knowledge was rudimentary. Due to this ill-conceived role in judging, these

kings had overweening power in a manner identical to the despot Montes-

quieu describes in Book 6, Chapter 5. Those overly powerful kings among the

Greeks were eventually driven out; the Greeks then had made improvements

in their politics. Still, the republics that replaced these kings lacked important

knowledge about political arrangements that the moderns were to attain.35

Moreover, within his extensive examination of the distribution of the three

powers of government in ancient Rome, Montesquieu highlights progressive

improvements. One such improvement is the limits that came to be put on the

power of the Roman consuls to judge crimes of high treason. Montesquieu

observes that the Roman ‘kings kept for themselves the judgment of criminal

suits, and the consuls succeeded them in this’. This power of the earliest con-

suls of the Roman republic, Montesquieu notes, ‘was related to the Greek

kings of heroic times’.36 Such a relation to heroic times is far from compli-

mentary to the Romans because, as he has already explained, the Greeks of

that period had not yet discovered that ‘the prince’s true function was to estab-

lish judges and not to judge’.37 The Roman consuls in the earliest times of the

republic utilized precisely this type of extensive power. ‘As a consequence of

this authority the consul Brutus had his children put to death as well as all who

had conspired on behalf of the Tarquins.’ When employed, this power of each

of the Roman consuls — of a single man to decide whether another citizen

33 SL 11.2, p. 188; emphasis in original.34 SL 11.11, p. 169.35 ‘The ancients did not know at all’, for example, the type of monarchy in which ‘the

government founded on a legislative body formed the representatives of a nation’ (SL11.8, p. 167).

36 SL 11.18, pp. 180–1.37 SL 11.11, p. 169.


lives or dies — draws Montesquieu’s censure: ‘This power was exorbitant’,

and when used ‘even’ in ‘the public business of the town’, the ‘proceedings,

devoid of the forms of justice, were violent actions rather than judgments’.38

He condemns the early Roman republic on this score.

The Roman republic, though, improved itself quite quickly by enacting the

Valerian law, ‘which permitted an appeal to the people of all the ordinances of

the consuls that might imperil the life of a citizen’. Thus, the early republic,

still threatened by conspirators who wished to bring back the kings, instituted

a safeguard for individual security: ‘One sees in the first conspiracy to rein-

state the Tarquins that the consul Brutus judges the guilty; in the second, the

senate and the comitia are convened to judge.’39 Rome improved itself, in

Montesquieu’s assessment, by instituting limits on the power of one man to

judge and punish the accused. It formalized the procedures for criminal prose-

cution in such a way as to minimize the capriciousness of a single all-

powerful ruler who rendered judgment.40

Even after this turn away from the exorbitant and despotic power that origi-

nated from the Greek kings, the ancient republic of Rome, it turns out, was

hardly a bastion of individual security when it comes to the knowledge most

important to humankind, according to Montesquieu’s judgment. Indeed, from

the vantage point of Books 11 and 12, and hence of the precautions taken by

England, these improvements in the Roman republic are not only primitive,

but ultimately woefully ineffective in protecting the liberty of citizens.

Indeed, notwithstanding these improvements, the Roman people remained

both judges and accusers. Montesquieu’s reference to the comitia, the assem-

bly of the people of Rome, points to the people’s power in judging that was

introduced very early in the republic and continued to persist through its vari-

ous constitutional changes. Montesquieu specifies, for example, that ‘[t]he

people themselves judged public crimes’ in Rome.41 In discussing the distri-

bution of powers in the republic, he says that ‘the people had . . . part of the

276 V.B. SULLIVAN

38 SL 11.18, p. 180.39 Ibid.40 A comparison of Montesquieu’s treatment of Rome with that of Machiavelli

points to an apparent contradiction in Machiavelli’s Discourses. In 1.7 of the DiscoursesMachiavelli praises Rome for the people’s extensive role in judging treason, wishing thatFlorence had the same type of provision, but in 3.1, he recommends Brutus’s supremepower in rendering judgments in such cases. Historically, as Montesquieu points out, theabsolute power of the consuls was circumscribed when the people’s role in judging wasenlarged. Thus, at different points in the Discourses Machiavelli seems to embrace eachof these mutually exclusive provisions. What is important for my analysis is thatMontesquieu ultimately rejects both: both the original provision and the so-calledreform.

41 SL 11.18, p. 181.



power of judging’.42 Not only were the people judges they were also accusers;

Montesquieu notes that in Rome, ‘citizens were permitted to accuse one

another’.43 Because everyone was an accuser, a citizen had to fear every other

citizen. This state of affairs contravenes his very definition of liberty as he

presents it in Book 11: ‘one citizen cannot fear another citizen’. Fear of

another citizen, which undermines that opinion of security, arises in particular

from ‘the power of judging’, which Montesquieu says is ‘so terrible among

men’. This contrasts sharply with England where the power of judging is

‘null’ because it is unattached ‘to a certain state’ or ‘to a certain profession’.44

Montesquieu delineates a particular ‘advantage’ of England ‘over most of the

ancient republics, where there was the abuse that the people were judge and

accuser at the same time’.45 Therefore, even in its improvements, Montes-

quieu’s analysis shows that Rome persisted in violating its citizens’ liberty.46

Montesquieu and Machiavelli on Rome’s Punishments

Montesquieu focuses ever more acutely on the despotic elements of republics

in order to delineate how they can be remedied. In so doing, he trembles for

the security of the individual accused, fearing the horror of the punishments

that might be exacted. By contrast, Machiavelli advocates accusations and the

harshest punishments in the name of the longevity of a republic. Indeed, the

contrast to Machiavelli’s evaluation of the powers of the Roman republic

could not be starker. Far from condemning Brutus’s power as ‘exorbitant’ or

‘violent’ and being relieved when the power of the consuls became less abso-

lute, Machiavelli recommends not only to new republics but to all states at all

42 SL 11.18, p. 182, 179; 6.4, p. 76. Montesquieu’s concern with the danger of thepeople as a body performing the task of judging is implicit in his earlier discussion inBook 6. It will be recalled that in Chapter 5 Montesquieu deems despotism terriblebecause the sovereign judges. In monarchy, the sovereign — that is, the monarch — can-not judge and remain a monarch; where the monarch judges despotism resides. The ques-tion implicit in this chapter is whether this is the case in a republic where the peoplejudge. The people in a republic, of course, are the sovereign (SL 2.2, p. 10). As in adespotism, then, in a republic the sovereign would also be judge. Machiavelli desired thepeople’s broadest possible participation in judging. By Montesquieu’s own criterion inthe chapter, this participation on the part of the people would be despotic. Therefore, byMontesquieu’s lights, such a republic is akin to despotism because it is the sovereign whojudges.

43 SL 6.8, p. 81.44 SL 11.6, pp. 157–8. He is apparently speaking of English juries, but he does not use

the term here; Mansfield, Taming the Prince, p. 235. Montesquieu does, however, referto the English jury system in an earlier discussion, see SL 6.3, p. 76. On Montesquieu onthe judicial power in England, see Carrese, Cloaking of Power, pp. 47–53 and Manent,Intellectual History, p. 56.

45 SL 11.6, p. 164.46 Shklar, Montesquieu, p. 64.


times the model of Brutus’s judgment that he rendered as consul against his

own sons precisely because of its exorbitant and violent character. Indeed, the

Florentine enjoins states to ‘kill the sons of Brutus’.47 For Machiavelli, Brutus

is a model to be followed at all times. The old Roman’s judgment becomes, in

Machiavelli’s hands, an enjoinder — indeed, another maxim — that tran-

scends time. Thus, whereas Montesquieu allows the modern regime of Eng-

land to eclipse even the reformed Rome in winning his approbation,

Machiavelli lauds the unreformed Rome and goes so far as to recommend its

atavistic reappearance in contemporary times.

In the first book of his Discourses, Machiavelli considers the difficult posi-

tion of a fledgling republic that has recently thrown off kingship. Because a

republic tends to reward only those who deserve the recognition, its bene-

ficiaries do not feel particularly obligated to their government. As a result,

republics in general do not win ‘partisan friends’. New republics do have par-

ticularly troublesome ‘partisan enemies’, however: those who were espe-

cially favoured by the prior kingship and who are not going to receive such

undeserved windfalls from the new republic. Machiavelli offers a solution to

this persistent problem for republics: ‘If one wishes to remedy these inconve-

niences and the disorders that the difficulties . . . might bring with them, there

is no remedy more powerful, nor more valid, more secure, and more neces-

sary, than to kill the sons of Brutus.’48 This injunction is one of Machiavelli’s

maxims.

Machiavelli, however, does not recommend this bloody expedient only to

the new state. Later in the Discourses, he observes that older states engender

complacency among the citizens because a well-established state has made

them feel too secure. Such complacency is dangerous because it makes the

state vulnerable to enemies — either from outside or inside its borders. To

counteract this complacency, states need to be brought back to their ‘begin-

ning’ (principio).49 When he refers to the beginning of a republic, he has in

mind ‘that terror and that fear’ that people felt before and immediately after

the state was founded.50 Without such recourses to the ‘beginning’, people

‘dare to try new things and to say evil’. As the remedy for this alarmingly dan-

gerous vulnerability, he prescribes particularly violent ‘executions’. One

278 V.B. SULLIVAN

47 D 1.16.4.48 D 1.16.3–4.49 Machiavelli, Discorsi, p. 195.50 Although conceding that Machiavelli’s use of the term principio in Discourses 3.1

and Montesquieu’s use of the term principe, which he delineates for each of the threegovernments, have ‘significantly different literal meanings’, Levi-Malvano proceeds tofind similarities in the way the two thinkers discuss the importance of virtue and good-ness to republics. On this basis, Levi-Malvano concludes that ‘an idea of Machiavelliexercised a real and direct action on the thought of Montesquieu’ (Levi-Malvano,Montesquieu e Machiavelli, pp. 50–4; my translation). Shackleton, Montesquieu, pp. 268–9also draws this connection.



such execution he offers as a model is ‘the death of the sons of Brutus’.51 In

antiquity as well as in modernity, new states as well as old are in need of such

violence — of deeds that, according to Machiavelli himself, partake of

despotism.

The contrast between Machiavelli and Montesquieu is quite striking.52

Machiavelli recommends the unreformed, the unalloyed Roman republic —

the republic at its most violent. He does not countenance the improvements in

Rome that helped to provide for the security of the individual that

Montesquieu praises. But even the reformed Rome, which Machiavelli

ignores, is a far cry, indeed, from the security and liberty that modern England

affords its citizens, according to Montesquieu.

Montesquieu presents us with a Machiavelli who wishes for the Florentine

republic to imitate the Roman by allowing the people the widest possible

scope for participation in judgments and who manifests no interest in the type

of protections that primitive Rome took for the security of individuals. Now

we know that, whereas Montesquieu strongly prefers the reformed Rome,

Machiavelli recommends the unreformed version. The result of these distinc-

tions is that of the three types of provisions (those of the historical Rome with

its reforms; those Machiavelli recommends for a republic, which consist of

broad powers of the people to accuse and of a single leader to sentence citi-

zens to death; and finally those of England with the most well-defined consti-

tutional provisions known for the political liberty of the citizen), the most

negligent of the individuals’ security — indeed, the most despotic — are

those that Machiavelli praises and recommends.53

51 D 3.1.3.52 Carrese, ‘Machiavellian Spirit of Montesquieu’s Liberal Republic’, p. 136.53 Mansfield notes that Montesquieu is somewhat ambivalent towards the ancient

Roman republic, particularly in Book 6: ‘[Montesquieu] says, “I am strong in my max-ims when I have the Romans for me”, when he claims that their punishments were mild inaccordance with the natural spirit of a republic (VI.15). But this contradicts his earlierstatement that the republican spirit in Rome produced . . . zealous accusations’ (Mansfield,Taming the Prince, p. 228). Pangle also notes the apparent contradiction betweenMontesquieu’s praise of the Romans for being humane and mild in punishing on the onehand and his noting their ‘terrible punishments’ on the other (Pangle, Montesquieu’s Phi-losophy, pp. 96–7). My reading of Book 6, emphasizing the degree to which Montes-quieu is contrasting his notions of punishment with those of Machiavelli, perhaps throwsadditional light on Montesquieu’s perplexing contradictions regarding his depiction ofthe manner in which the Romans punished. Because Machiavelli is so much the focus ofBook 6, even when his name is not explicitly invoked (as the next sections will show),perhaps the Romans — the Romans of the historical Roman republic — give Montesquieustrength in opposing the harshness of Machiavelli’s republicanism. The historicalRomans are, indeed, more mild than are Machiavelli’s recommendations for a republic.This contrast between Machiavelli’s maxims and actual Roman practice could very wellgive Montesquieu strength in his endeavour to articulate an even milder approach topunishments.


An Unnamed Challenge to Machiavelli in Montesquieu’sRecommendation of the Milieu

After his reference to Machiavelli’s maxim in Chapter 5, Montesquieu does

not mention the Florentine’s name again in the remainder of Book 6,54 but he

does clearly evoke him in Chapter 18 of that book when he pronounces the

general rule that ‘[a] good legislator takes a middle way’ (un juste milieu).55

Machiavelli is famous for instructing precisely the opposite — for teaching

the necessity of avoiding the ‘middle way’ by ‘turn[ing] to extremes’.56

In praising the Romans for avoiding the ‘the middle way’, Machiavelli

explains that it is necessary to understand the nature of government, which is

‘nothing other than holding subjects in such a mode that they cannot or ought

not offend you’. As a result, a governor can secure himself ‘against [the ruled]

altogether, taking from them every way of hurting you, or by benefiting them

in such a mode that it would not be reasonable for them to desire to change

fortune’.57 Thus, the extremes that eschew the middle way are, on the one

hand, extreme leniency that benefits the governed so that they have no desire

whatsoever for a different type of government and, on the other, the strongest

measures possible — measures that eventuate in severe punishment that at

once eliminates the rebellious and produces incapacitating fear in those who

remain — so that any means for rebellion are entirely removed. Machiavelli

posits either of these two extremes as the necessary alternative to the middle

way. He illustrates the route of extreme leniency in this chapter with the

example of Rome’s decisions to accept for citizenship the people of the Italian

cities it had subdued.58

Machiavelli’s understanding of government stands in stark contrast to

Montesquieu’s statement that ‘governing men by making men happier will

always be a fine thing (toujours beau de gouverner)’.59 Whereas Montesquieu

considers government from the perspective of the governed, Machiavelli con-

siders it from that of the governors. In addition, Montesquieu also expresses

an interest in the fineness, the beauty, of what is thereby rendered.

280 V.B. SULLIVAN

54 Montesquieu next refers to Machiavelli much later in the work. He places his namein a footnote when referring to his Florentine Histories (SL 28.6, p. 541 n.48). He refersto Machiavellianism earlier (SL 21.20, p. 389).

55 Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois, p. 330.56 D 2.23.2.57 Ibid.58 Elsewhere he describes Rome’s method with respect to its Italian ‘partners’ as a

‘deception’ on Rome’s part by which these cities ‘came to subjugate themselves by theirown labors and blood without perceiving it’ (D 2.4.1). This seeming leniency, then, maycome with a heavy price for those who receive the so-called benefit. This possible resultshould not come as a surprise, for as we have just seen, Machiavelli defines governmentin Discourses 2.23 entirely from the perspective of the governor, whose purpose heunderstands to be exclusively that of holding the governed subject to the governor’s rule.

59 SL 4.6, p. 37. Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois, p. 269.



The truly shocking aspect of Machiavelli’s chapter is his description of the

extreme of punishment. To be succinct, Machiavelli teaches here that one’s

rebellious or insolent subjects ‘cannot . . . offend you’, when the ruler has

killed them.60 This latter alternative is extreme, indeed, and Machiavelli rec-

ommends it vigorously — much more vigorously than the extreme of

leniency — elsewhere in the Discourses, as we shall see.

In this particular chapter he discusses the case of the Florentine republic

when it attempted to hold the city of Arezzo subject to its rule. When its sub-

ject city rebelled, the Florentines chose a ‘middle way that is very harmful in

judging men: they exiled part of the Aretines, fined part of them, took away

from all of them their honours and former ranks in the city, and left the city

intact’. Machiavelli recommends strongly against this approach: ‘Honour

consists in being able and knowing how to punish [the city], not in being able

to hold it with a thousand dangers, for the prince who does not punish who-

ever errs in such a mode that he can err no more is held to be either ignorant or

cowardly’. The only remedy to Arezzo’s rebellions, he counsels, was ‘to

eliminate it’.61 Thus, Machiavelli here recommends the harshest possible

extreme.

In a closely related discussion in a later chapter of the Discourses, Machia-

velli adduces the manner in which the Florentine republic dealt with another

subject city, Pistoia.62 The challenge in this case for Florence’s rule was that

Pistoia was divided into two warring factions. He discerns three different

methods of dealing with such a problem: ‘to kill the heads of the tumults’, the

method used by ‘the Roman consuls’ in ancient times; ‘or to remove them

from the city; or to make them make peace together under obligations not to

offend one another’. These three alternatives offer an extreme of punishment,

a middle way and an extreme of leniency. By contrast to the ancient Romans,

the Florentines, in dealing with divided Pistoia, ‘always used that third mode

with them; and always greater tumults and greater scandals arose from it’. The

Florentines chose here the extreme of leniency. Eventually, when this method

failed them, the Florentines had recourse to the second method of removing

the leaders from the city. This was the compromise between the two extremes;

it was the middle way, but this method also failed. Machiavelli vigorously

recommends the harshest method: ‘But without doubt the first [mode] would

have been secure.’ In recommending the security of this method, Machiavelli

recommends the method used by the Roman consuls ‘who reconciled the

60 D 2.23.2.61 Ibid.62 In addition to the general subject matter, the two chapters are also related in the fact

that Machiavelli speaks again about the example of Arezzo, but from a different perspec-tive.


Ardeans together’ by ‘none other than kill[ing] the heads of the tumults’.63 He

recommends the most extreme punishment.

In making this recommendation here, Machiavelli seems to make reference

to a benefit to the ruled: ‘Because such executions have in them something of

the great and the generous, however, a weak republic does not know how to

do them and is so distant from them that it is led to the second remedy only

with trouble.’64 Machiavelli’s choice of such terms in describing such execu-

tions is striking in its peculiarity. Executions are usually described neither as

generous nor great. Reflection on these terms suggests that his claim that the

killing of the factions’ leaders partakes of generosity means that these killings

could benefit the other residents of the town, who, as a result of the extreme

action, would no longer suffer from the adverse effects of the city’s inter-

necine division. The action would appear to be ‘great’ precisely because it

requires firmness and strength to so benefit others in this particular manner.

Here, in judging government from the perspective of the ruled rather than that

of the ruler, Machiavelli appears to take the perspective that Montesquieu

takes. This way of producing benefit to the ruled — that is, of executing the

leaders of the warring factions — however, is not beautiful or fine, as in the

picture that Montesquieu paints of rule. Whereas Machiavelli’s way of bene-

fiting the ruled demands greatness, Montesquieu’s seeks fineness or beauty.65

The lesson that Montesquieu teaches about punishment in the chapter, in

which he gainsays Machiavelli by counselling against the extremes and rec-

ommending a middle way, could not be more different from Machiavelli’s

approach to punishment. In this short chapter entitled ‘On pecuniary penalties

and corporal penalties’, he begins by appearing to recommend against capital

punishment entirely: ‘Our fathers the Germans admitted almost none but

pecuniary penalties. These men, who were both warriors and free, considered

that their blood should be spilled only when they were armed.’ After reporting

the objection of the Japanese to fines, which maintains that the rich thereby

escape punishment, he counters their objection, lending further support in

favour of these softer penalties. Having spoken only in favour of pecuniary

penalties, not at all in favour of corporal ones, he embraces the middle: ‘A

good legislator takes a middle way; he does not always order pecuniary penal-

282 V.B. SULLIVAN

63 D 3.27.1–2. Thus, the Roman consuls retained that absolute power over life anddeath with respect to non-citizens that Montesquieu notes they lost with respect to citi-zens early in the history of the republic.

64 D 3.27.3; my emphasis.65 For the political significance of a pleasing — perhaps beautiful — social existence,

see 19.5–6 and 8–9, where he seems to be describing the French. Among such a people, ataste reigns and there is a particular joie dans la vie (Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois,p. 558). This gaiety in life should be contrasted with the way of life of the English, whichhe describes in 19.27. I am indebted to Sharon Krause for this point.



ties; he does not always inflict corporal penalties’.66 The contrast to Machia-

velli’s view of punishment is indeed quite sharp. Whereas Montesquieu

recommends a middle way, Machiavelli demands it be avoided by embracing

either of two extremes. Although Machiavelli seemingly recommends either

extreme (the soft or the harsh), he focuses much of his efforts on inducing his

readers to see the benefits and the grandeur of the harsh — of the one that

demands executions. Although Montesquieu’s understanding of the middle

way demands that both alternatives be embraced and used (the soft and the

harsh), he concentrates his efforts here on arguing exclusively for the soft.67

Montesquieu’s Subsequent Discussion of the Tyranny ofExtreme Punishments

Later, Montesquieu offers further reflections on the topic of extreme punish-

ments. This additional treatment not only contrasts sharply with Machia-

velli’s thought on the topic, but is, in fact, an extension of the topic of ‘crimes

of high treason’, the very context where he first mentions Machiavelli’s

name.68 This later discussion occurs in Book 12, where Montesquieu’s pur-

pose is to examine ‘political liberty in relation to the citizen’. In discussing

extreme punishments in the context of liberty in relation to the citizen,

Montesquieu explicitly treats the possibility that such harshness in a republic

can result in tyranny. Because Machiavelli recommends precisely such pun-

ishment for a republic — indeed, he insists that frequent recourse to such pun-

ishment is necessary for a republic’s longevity — Montesquieu suggests that

tyranny resides at the heart of Machiavelli’s recommendations for a republic.

66 SL 6.18, p. 93.67 In commenting on Book 6 generally, Pangle notes Montesquieu’s peculiar approach

to penalties: ‘Nothing reveals Montesquieu’s own interest, in contrast to that of a goodrepublican, more clearly than this emphasis on the penalties. Montesquieu is almostcompletely uninterested in the moral effect of criminal law. In fact, he seems more inter-ested in the danger to the individual from criminal penalties than he is in moral educationaltogether’ (Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosophy, p. 95). In commenting on Montes-quieu’s doctrine of the separation of powers, Mansfield draws its implication for his viewof punishment as well as distinguishing it from Montesquieu’s modern predecessors:‘Montesquieu subtracts the power of punishment from the emergency and foreign policypowers of the executive. He thereby separates punishment from politics, and so preventsor constrains the political use of punishment devised by Machiavelli and extended (inmore legal fashion) by Hobbes and Locke’ (Mansfield, Taming the Prince, p. 216; seealso pp. 241–3). For an assessment of Montesquieu’s position on criminal prosecutionsin the ancien régime, see David W. Carrithers, ‘Montesquieu and the Liberal Philosophyof Jurisprudence’, in Montesquieu’s Science of Politics: Essays on ‘The Spirit of Laws’,ed. Carrithers, Mosher and Rahe (Lanham, MD, 2001), pp. 291–334. For Montesquieu’sopposition to torture and brutal punishments, see Carrithers, ‘Jurisprudence’, pp. 309and 319 and Shklar, Montesquieu, p. 5.

68 SL 6.5, p. 77.


In Chapter 18 of Book 12 Montesquieu continues his themes of the security

of the individual and of moderation in punishing when he emphasizes not the

danger that the treasonous pose to a republic, but rather the danger to a repub-

lic of punishing those convicted of this crime too harshly and extensively.

Entitled ‘How dangerous it is in republics to punish excessively the crime of

high treason’, the chapter begins with the thought that ‘[w]hen a republic has

destroyed those who want to upset it, one must hasten to put an end to

vengeances, penalties, and even rewards’. Montesquieu here acknowledges

the necessity for harshness in such circumstances; the republic may very well

destroy those who endeavour ‘to upset it’. Nevertheless, Montesquieu does

not relish this necessity. Instead, he issues a warning: ‘One cannot inflict great

punishments, and consequently, make great changes, without putting a great

power into the hands of a few citizens . . . On the pretext of avenging the

republic, one would establish the tyranny [la tyrannie] of the avengers.’69

Montesquieu here explicitly claims that a republic can be tyrannical, particu-

larly when it undertakes to punish great crimes.

This is a return to the very topic that induces Montesquieu to cite Machia-

velli by name in 6.5; indeed, it is in the context of a discussion of ‘crimes of

high treason’ that Montesquieu rejects Machiavelli’s maxim. Montesquieu

associates Machiavelli with the punishment of the treasonous.

The topic of the punishment of the treasonous is also one that induces

Machiavelli in the Discourses to be his most extreme. As we know,

Machiavelli recommends in 3.1 of the Discourses that such extreme punish-

ments occur quite regularly so that the citizens of the republic do not forget

the fear and terror that they felt at the ‘beginning’. One example that

Machiavelli provides of such executions in Rome is that of the death of

Brutus’s sons, but he provides other examples of other such executions

against those, who in Montesquieu’s terminology, had attempted ‘crimes of

high treason’ against the republic, such as those of the members of the

decemvirate, ‘Maelius the grain dealer’ and Capitolinus.70 In recommending

frequent ‘excessive and notable’ executions, Machiavelli encourages the

placement of such great power to punish in the hands of a few citizens.

Whereas Machiavelli recommends enthusiastically, Montesquieu warns

direly. At precisely this moment Montesquieu worries about the possibility of

‘the tyranny of the avengers’.71 By contrast, Machiavelli worries about the

possibility that the absence of fear will lead to complacency. This continual

284 V.B. SULLIVAN

69 SL 12.18, pp. 202–3. Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois, p. 447.70 D 3.1.3. For the crimes of the decemvirate, see Discourses 1.40–45 and Livy

3.32–58. Of all the punishments Machiavelli describes in 3.1, his version of this one dif-fers most from the historical account. According to Livy, The Ten were not executed inthe city; some went into exile and others killed themselves in prison, cf. Discourses1.45.1. For those of Maelius the grain dealer, see Discourses 3.28 and Livy 4.13–6. Forthose of Capitolinus Discourses, 1.8, 24, 58 and 3.8 and Livy 6.11–20.

71 SL 12.18, p. 203.



renewal of fear cannot be the way of Montesquieu’s republic, because fear,

after all, is the principle of despotism, according to Montesquieu.

Montesquieu’s Correction of Machiavelli’s Correction

Whereas Machiavelli counsels extreme harshness, Montesquieu counsels

moderation, even softness.72 Moreover, Montesquieu reveals that he regards

Machiavelli as a legislator, and he warns that the corrections that legislators

undertake can be too extreme — that in some such cases their corrections

require correction. One such legislator whose provision needs correction is

Machiavelli, Montesquieu suggests. Blinded by his desire to overcome the

defects and abuses that he discerned around him, the Italian took too extreme

a path; Machiavelli’s extremes expose people to despotism and thereby cor-

rupt their spirits. Indeed, so concerned is Montesquieu to moderate Machia-

velli’s intended correction that he suggests that it is one of his guiding

purposes in the work.

Much later in the work, in Book 29, Montesquieu reveals that he regards

Machiavelli as a legislator. In a chapter entitled ‘On legislators’, Montesquieu

declares that ‘[t]he laws always meet the passions and prejudices of the legis-

lator’. In that short chapter, he illustrates this phenomenon with the example

of five different legislators. All five are writers, and one is Machiavelli.73 As

an example of the passions and prejudices of a legislator Montesquieu offers

that ‘Machiavelli was full of his idol, Duke Valentino’.74 Montesquieu’s point

here seems to be that Machiavelli was too taken by his regard for the ruthless,

murderous man of action, Cesare Borgia. But he makes another very impor-

tant point here. By assuming that these philosophic writers are legislators,

Montesquieu tacitly announces his understanding that writers can be legisla-

tors — that writers can give laws to human beings. To Montesqueiu’s mind,

one such legislator — one such giver of laws — is Machiavelli.75

In Book 6 Montesquieu suggests that it is with regard to punishments that a

legislator’s harshness is particularly evident. In a chapter entitled ‘On the

power of penalties’, he declares:

A legislator who wants to correct an ill often thinks only of that correction;his eye is on that object and not on its defects. Once the ill has been cor-rected, only the harshness of the legislator is seen; but a vice produced by

72 For an extensive treatment of the issue of moderation in Montesquieu’s Spirit ofthe Laws, see Paul Carrese, ‘Montesquieu’s Complex Natural Right and Moderate Liber-alism: The Roots of American Moderation’, Polity, XXXVI (2004), pp. 227–50.

73 ‘Mais n’est-il pas en assez bonne compagnie, puisque figurent à ses côtés Aristote,Platon et Thomas More?’ (Bertière, ‘Montesquieu’, p. 144).

74 SL 29.19, p. 618.75 Levi-Malvano, Montesquieu e Machiavelli, p. 26.


the harshness remains in the state; spirits are corrupted; they have becomeaccustomed to despotism.76

In a chapter devoted to the power of penalties, Montesquieu announces his

concern that a legislator’s harshness in correcting a defect corrupts human

beings. Such harshness is itself despotism. This statement also corroborates

his statement six chapters later that a legislator — such as Machiavelli —

should always take the middle way.

No more arresting example of Machiavelli’s extreme teaching exists in the

Discourses than Chapter 27 of Book 1 of the Discourses entitled ‘Very Rarely

Do Men Know How to Be Altogether Wicked or Altogether Good’. Predict-

ably, Machiavelli advocates the extremes — either wickedness or good-

ness — but again the particular extreme he advocates entails murder. This

particular discussion is important not merely as a means of further illustrating

the type of extreme harshness that Machiavelli recommends, but also the type

of abuses that induce such vehemence — indeed, such vengeance — in the

writer-legislator. To use Montesquieu’s language, this discussion reveals the

type of abuses that Machiavelli thought needed correction; moreover, this dis-

cussion shows Machiavelli thinking only of his correction. By considering

only his object, he neglects its defects.

The single example of the failure to be either completely wicked or com-

pletely good in Discourses 1.27 that Machiavelli offers is that of

Giovampagolo Baglioni, ‘tyrant of Perugia’. Baglioni, although he lived an

immoral life, having committed incest with his sister and having ‘killed his

cousins and nephews so as to reign’, was unable to kill Pope Julius II, who had

come to his city to remove him from power. In his ‘rashness’, Julius could not

have presented Baglioni with a better opportunity to slay him, entering Perugia

without his army. Machiavelli regrets Baglioni’s failure in such terms that he

brazenly advocates the slaughter of churchmen: Baglioni ‘did not dare, when he

had just the opportunity for it’

to engage in an enterprise in which everyone would have admired his spiritand that would have left an eternal memory of himself as being the first whohad demonstrated to the prelates how little is to be esteemed whoever livesand reigns as they do; and he would have done a thing whose greatnesswould have surpassed all infamy.77

Here Machiavelli resolves the apparent difficulty that arises from his repeated

recommendations for either of the two extremes — of goodness or wicked-

ness, of softness or harshness — but his persistent amplification of only the

latter of the extremes. He here resolves that difficulty by teaching that

hardness and wickedness can sometimes produce goodness. In this particular

case, at least, he is not recommending either goodness or wickedness as such,

286 V.B. SULLIVAN

76 SL 6.12, p. 85.77 D 1.27.1–2



but instead is suggesting that some wickedness properly understood can be

goodness. To so rid the world of such prelates would be a supreme good,

Machiavelli teaches. The churchmen’s form of rule is so contemptible that

they deserve death, Machiavelli forthrightly declares. Indeed, he here uses the

same terminology he had used in speaking of murdering the leaders of divi-

sions within a subject city. Baglioni’s failure to kill the Pope and cardinals

illustrates that ‘when malice has greatness in itself or is generous in some part,

[human beings] do not know how to enter into it’, he laments.78 Machiavelli

desires to rouse men’s spirits for the extreme acts he deems great and generous.

How central to Machiavelli’s own purposes is this particular desire is evi-

dent in the continuation of his discussion in Discourses 3.27 of how to deal

with divided cities. Machiavelli declares that the inability of rulers to kill in

order to produce great and generous results is of the utmost significance for

him, announcing that his very purpose in writing is to attempt to promote the

resoluteness that can produce — to his mind — such favourable results. He

explains: ‘These are among the errors I told of at the beginning that the

princes of our times make who have to judge great things, for they ought to

wish to hear how those who have had to judge such cases in antiquity gov-

erned themselves.’79 The beginning to which he here refers is the preface to

the first book of the Discourses where he explains his intention in comment-

ing on Livy’s history. Machiavelli announces there his desire to overcome, by

his commentary on the Romans, the general view that ‘imitation’ of antiquity

‘is not only difficult but impossible’.80 One such imitation is that of the

Roman method of punishment. He laments, though, in his consideration of the

Florentines’ failure at Pistoia: ‘But the weakness of men at present, caused by

their weak education and their slight knowledge of things, makes them judge

ancient judgments in part inhuman, in part impossible.’81 Machiavelli takes it

upon himself to attempt to overcome the education that informs such infirm

reactions to political events. When he offers an alternative education in his

Discourses, his eyes are only on that correction. He wishes to make human

beings capable of taking extreme actions — particularly the extreme actions

that result in violent and bloody acts. Politics, he insists, would be improved.

Montesquieu announces in his own Preface his particular concern with correc-

tions that leave problems, which themselves need correction. ‘One feels the old

abuses and sees their correction, but one also sees the abuses of the correction

itself.’82 When this epigrammatic statement is uttered in the preface, without

78 Ibid., my emphasis.79 D 3.27.2.80 D pr.1.2.81 D 3.27.2.82 SL pr, p. xliv. Justin Race, in a seminar on Montesquieu’s political thought that I

taught at Tufts University, suggested that Montesquieu’s assessment of the need for acorrection derived from his desire to moderate Hobbes’s oppressive leviathan. Cf.


either context or example, its meaning is unclear. Its presence, though, in that

place where Montesquieu broaches — if not explicitly explains — his purposes

in writing The Spirit suggests its centrality to his intention.

This ambiguous statement of Montesquieu’s Preface is, in fact, an abbrevi-

ated version of his declaration in Book 6, which we have already encountered:

A legislator who wants to correct an ill often thinks only of that correction;his eye is on that object and not on its defects. Once the ill has been cor-rected, only the harshness of the legislator is seen; but a vice produced bythe harshness remains in the state; spirits are corrupted; they have becomeaccustomed to despotism.83

It appears that ‘the abuses of the correction itself’84 relate to the ‘harshness of

the legislator’, which result in the corruption of spirits that ‘have become

accustomed to despotism’.85 Therefore, Montesquieu later provides what is

missing from his discussion in the Preface; he provides a specific instance as

well as the motivations of the actor that gives rise to a correction that engen-

ders abuses that subsequently require correction. At least one of the abuses

Montesquieu identifies is punishments that are so overly harsh that they are

despotic. It is also clear that Machiavelli is often on his mind. As we know, he

names him, takes issue with his maxims, and declares that a legislator’s

method of correcting an abuse itself produces despotism. Moreover, we find

out much later in the work that Montesquieu regards Machiavelli as a legisla-

tor. The statement of the preface also differs from its later articulation in its

emphasis that ‘one’ (on) feels the old abuses and sees both their correction

and the abuses of that correction.86 The person who sees these things is

Montesquieu himself.

Therefore, punishment is one area in particular that requires amelioration,

according to Montesquieu. Just as does Machiavelli, then, Montesquieu links

his later amplification of punishment to his very purpose in writing. There is a

critical distinction, of course, between their two purposes with respect to pun-

ishment. Montesquieu’s discernment of the need for correction arises from

Machiavelli’s own ill-considered attempt at correction. Montesquieu deems

that Machiavelli’s own recommendations for harshness in judging and pun-

ishing human beings require particular correction. That very correction is one

of Montesquieu’s purposes in The Spirit. To Montesquieu’s mind, the impor-

tance of his amelioration cannot be overstated. Indeed, as the Frenchman

288 V.B. SULLIVAN

Mansfield, Taming the Prince, pp. 217–18, who links Montesquieu’s correction to hisdecision not to oppose classical virtue openly, as did his modern predecessors.

83 SL 6.12, p. 85.84 SL pr, p. xliv.85 SL 6.12, p. 85.86 Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois, p. 230.



declares, the ‘knowledge’ ‘concerning the surest rules’ ‘in criminal judg-

ments, is of more concern to mankind than anything else in the world’.87

Conclusion

Montesquieu’s recommendations regarding judgments and penalties in the

context of his invocation of Machiavelli’s name and his challenges to

Machiavelli’s dictates, serve to emphasize the harshness, the arbitrariness,

even the tyrannical character of Machiavelli’s republicanism. Given

Montesquieu’s concerns for the security of individuals, for the happiness of

citizens, and for the gentlest possible approach to punishments, what could be

further from Montesquieu’s spirit than the recommendations that spectacular

executions against not only the treasonous but also against the outstanding

youth serve to reinvigorate a republic? After all, the harsh republicanism of

the Florentine recommends the example of the execution of ‘the death of the

son of Manlius Torquatus’, whose high crime against the Roman republic had

consisted merely in skirmishing (and victoriously) with the enemy against

military orders. As we know, Machiavelli explains that these ‘excessive and

notable’ ‘executions’ induce ‘terror’ and ‘fear’ in the spectators, so that peo-

ple will hesitate ‘to dare to try new things and to say evil’.88 Again, this cannot

be the way of Montesquieu’s republic, because fear, after all, is the principle

of despotism, according to Montesquieu. Montesquieu’s responses to

Machiavelli in Book 6 of The Spirit of the Laws and the renewed discussion of

the same topic in Book 12 all point to the tyrannical or despotic character of

Machiavelli’s republic. He warns against its abuses in such a manner as to

recall his declaration in his Preface to the work: ‘One sees the old abuses and

sees their correction, but one also sees the abuses of the correction itself.’89

Perhaps because Montesquieu sees the abuses of Machiavelli’s correction and

the way to oppose them, he can declare confidently, but characteristically

ambiguously: ‘One has begun to be cured of Machiavellianism, and one will

continue to be cured of it. There must be more moderation in councils. What

were formerly called coups d’état would at present, apart from their horror, be

only imprudences.’90 Perhaps Montesquieu’s correction of Machiavelli’s cor-

rection has initiated the cure.

Vickie B. Sullivan TUFTS UNIVERSITY

87 SL 12.2, p. 188.88 D 3.1.3.89 SL pr, p. xliv.90 SL 21.20, p. 389. Mansfield also links Montesquieu’s use of the term ‘coups d’état’

here to Machiavelli’s ‘great strokes of authority’, but also to the Italian’s own manner ofinitiating modernity: ‘Does [Montesquieu] mean to imply that Machiavelli’s own pro-ject of changing the world by a great stroke of authority was somehow unnecessary?’(Mansfield, Taming the Prince, p. 216).


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Against Depotism a Republica#v Sullivan

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