He went first to Vienna, where he often saw the celebrated Prince Eugene.  This hero, so fatal to France (to which he might have been so useful), after having checked the advance of Louis XIV. and humbled the Ottoman pride, lived without pomp, loving and cultivating letters in a court where they are little honored, and showing his masters how to protect them.

Leaving Vienna, the traveler visited Hungary, an opulent and fertile country, inhabited by a haughty and generous nation, the scourge of its tyrants and the support of its sovereigns.  As few persons know this country well, he has written with care this part of his travels.

From Germany he went to Italy.  At Venice he met the famous Mr. Law, of whose former grandeur nothing remained but projects fortunately destined to die away unorganized, and a diamond which he pawned to play at games of hazard.  One day the conversation turned on the famous system which Law had invented; the source of so many calamities, so many colossal fortunes, and so remarkable a corruption in our morals.  As the Parliament of Paris had made some resistance to the Scotch minister on this occasion, M. de Montesquieu asked him why he had never tried to overcome this resistance by a method almost always infallible in England, by the grand mover of human actions—­in a word, by money.  “These are not,” answered Law, “geniuses so ardent and so generous as my countrymen; but they are much more incorruptible.”  It is certainly true that a society which is free for a limited time ought to resist corruption more than one which is always free:  the first, when it sells its liberty, loses it; the second, so to speak, only lends it, and exercises it even when it is thus parting with it.  Thus the circumstances and nature of government give rise to the vices and virtues of nations.

Another person, no less famous, whom M. de Montesquieu saw still oftener at Venice, was Count de Bonneval.  This man, so well known for his adventures, which were not yet at an end, delighted to converse with so good a judge and so excellent a hearer, often related to him the military actions in which he had been engaged, and the remarkable circumstances of his life, and drew the characters of generals and ministers whom he had known.

He went from Venice to Rome.  In this ancient capital of the world he studied the works of Raphael, of Titian, and of Michael Angelo.  Accustomed to study nature, he knew her when she was translated, as a faithful portrait appeals to all who are familiar with the original.

After having traveled over Italy, M. de Montesquieu came to Switzerland and studied those vast countries which are watered by the Rhine.  There was the less for him to see in Germany that Frederick did not yet reign.  In the United Provinces he beheld an admirable monument of what human industry animated by a love of liberty can do.  In England he stayed three years.  Welcomed by the greatest men, he