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Charles de Secondat MONTESQUIEU

L'esprit des loix

Chez Les libraires associés, à Leyde 1749, In 4 (21,5x27cm), viij (16) 369pp. ; (2) 396pp. (14), 2 tomes en un volume relié.

New edition after the original of 1748 in Geneva of a rarity badge; there will be a second edition corrected in 1748 by the same publisher, also very rare; the one we present is the third edition in 4 according to Tchemerzine, it is rare, especially in very good condition. It contains the two errata and changes made by the author on the first edition. Some sources present this edition as Lyonnaise.
Binding in full marbled basane of time. Back with ornate nerves. Title piece in red morocco. Epidermures on the boards. Back rubbed. 2 blunt corners.
The emblematic and lighthouse book of the eighteenth century, The spirit of laws, that is, the principles and tendencies by which laws are made, will have a decisive influence on political life, and will be a guide for the drafting of the Constitution of 1791 and that of the United States. The general thesis of Montesquieu (1689-1755) is that laws are not only a creation of men. The spirit of laws is "the various relations of laws with various things" the forms are multiple; there are therefore physical causes (the climate), moral causes (religion, morals ...); moreover a primitive justice is at the origin of the laws; There is, then, a spirit of laws. But the book is not only a treatise of the spirit which animates the laws, it is above all a treatise of governments, and above all, of liberty. Although the book was widely read, it was received with a certain coldness (by the philosophers, who did not recognize in Montesquieu one of their own and reproached him for his conservatism) and much criticism (on the part of the ecclesiastics).

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