Charles-Louis Montesquieu (FRA)

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (/ˈmɒntɨskjuː/; French: [mɔ̃tɛskjø]; 18 January 1689 – 10 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Age of Enlightenment. He is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He did more than any other author to secure the place of the word despotism in the political lexicon, and may have been partly responsible for the popularization of the terms feudalism and Byzantine Empire.

Montesquieu was born at the Château de la Brède in the southwest of France, 25 km south of Bordeaux. His father, Jacques de Secondat, was a soldier with a long noble ancestry. His mother, Marie Françoise de Pesnel, who died when Charles was seven, was an heiress who brought the title of Barony of La Brède to the Secondat family. 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. His father died in 1713 and he became a ward of his uncle, the Baron de Montesquieu. In 1715 he married Jeanne de Lartigue, a Protestant, who eventually bore him three children. The Baron died in 1716, leaving him his fortune as well as his title, and the office of Président à Mortier in the Bordeaux Parliament.

Montesquieu's early life occurred at a time of significant governmental change. England had declared itself a constitutional monarchy in the wake of its Glorious Revolution (1688–89), and had 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; he would refer to them repeatedly in his work.

He achieved literary success with the publication of his Lettres persanes (Persian Letters, 1721), a satire based on the imaginary correspondence of a Persian visitor to Paris, pointing out the absurdities of contemporary society. He next published Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence (Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans, 1734), considered by some scholars as a transition from The Persian Letters to his master work. De l'Esprit des Lois (The Spirit of the Laws) was originally published anonymously in 1748. It quickly rose to have enormous influence. In France, the book met with an unfriendly reception from both supporters and opponents of the regime. The Catholic Church banned l'Esprit – along with many of Montesquieu's other works – in 1751 and included it on the Index of Prohibited Books. It received the highest praise from the rest of Europe, especially Britain.

Montesquieu was also highly regarded in the British colonies in North America as a champion of liberty (though not of American independence). Political scientist Donald Lutz found that 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. Following the American revolution, Montesquieu's work remained a powerful influence on many of the American founders, most notably James Madison of Virginia, the "Father of the Constitution". Montesquieu's philosophy that "government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another" reminded Madison and others that a free and stable foundation for their new national government required a clearly defined and balanced separation of powers.

Besides composing additional works on society and politics, Montesquieu traveled for a number of years through Europe including Austria and Hungary, spending a year in Italy and 18 months in England before resettling in France. He was troubled by poor eyesight, and was completely blind by the time he died from a high fever in 1755. He was buried in the Église Saint-Sulpice, Paris.

Principal works: 
Memoirs and discourses at the Academy of Bordeaux (1718–1721): including discourses on echoes, on the renal glands, on weight of bodies, on transparency of bodies and on natural history.
Spicilège (Gleanings, 1715 onward)
Système des idées (System of Ideas, 1716)
Lettres persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)
Le Temple de Gnide (The Temple of Gnidos, a novel; 1725)
Histoire véritable (True History, a reverie; c.1723–c.1738)
Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence (Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, 1734) at Gallica
Arsace et Isménie (Arsace and Isménie, a novel; 1742)
De l'esprit des lois ((On) The Spirit of the Laws, 1748), volume 1 , volume 2
at Gallica
La défense de «L'Esprit des lois» (In Defence of "The Spirit of the Laws", 1750)
Essai sur le goût (Essay on Taste, pub. 1757)
Mes Pensées (My Thoughts, 1720–1755)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montesquieu