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French jurist and political philosopher. He was councillor of the parlement of Bordeaux and its president after the death of an uncle, whom he succeeded in both title and office. He gained a seat in the French Academy in 1728. His Persian Letters brought him immediate fame. In these letters, supposedly written by Persian travelers in Europe and by their friends, he satirized and criticized French institutions. In 1734 he produced a scientific historical study of the rise and fall of Rome, Consid?ations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur d?adence. His greatest work, The Spirit of Laws (1748), is a comparative study of three types of government-republic, monarchy, and despotism-and shows John Locke's influence on Montesquieu.
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