learn something; he endeavored, like
Socrates, to find out their genius; he appeared as happy thus as in the
most brilliant assemblies, especially when he made up their differences,
and comforted them by his beneficence.

Nothing does greater honor to his memory than the economy with which he
lived, and which has been blamed as excessive in a proud and avaricious
age. He would not encroach on the provision for his family, even by his
generosity to the unfortunate, or by those expenses which his travels,
the weakness of his sight, and the printing of his works made necessary.
He transmitted to his children, without diminution or augmentation, the
estate which he received from his ancestors, adding nothing to it but
the glory of his name and the example of his life. He had married, in
1715, dame Jane de Lartigue, daughter of Peter de Lartigue,
lieutenant-colonel of the regiment of Molevrier, and had by her two
daughters and one son.

Those who love truth and their country will not be displeased to find
some of his maxims here. He thought: That every part of the State ought
to be equally subject to the laws, but that the privileges of every part
of the State ought to be respected when they do not oppose the natural
right which obliges every citizen equally to contribute to the public
good; that ancient possession was in this kind the first of titles, and
the most inviolable of rights, which it was always unjust and sometimes
dangerous to shake; that magistrates, in all circumstances, and
notwithstanding their own advantage, ought to be magistrates without
partiality and without passion, like the laws which absolve and punish
without love or hatred. He said upon occasion of those ecclesiastical
disputes which so much employed the Greek emperors and Christians, that
theological disputes, when they are not confined to the schools,
infallibly dishonor a nation in the eyes of its neighbors: in fact, the
contempt in which wise men hold those quarrels does not vindicate the
character of their country; because, sages making everywhere the least
noise, and being the smallest number, it is never from them that the
nation is judged.

We look upon that special interest which M. de Montesquieu took in the
(Encyclopedic) as one of the most honorable rewards of our labor.
Perhaps the opposition which the work has met with, reminding him of his
own experience, interested him the more in our favor. Perhaps he was
sensible, without perce