Monarchy, form of government in which an individual rules according to fixed and settled laws.

A monarchy is a state in which the sovereign power, and all of the rights that are essential to it, reside indivisibly in one man who is called king, monarch, or emperor.

Let us follow M. de Montesquieu in setting forth the basis for this form of government, how it is maintained, and how it declines. [1]

The nature of monarchy is that the monarch is the source of all political and civil power, and that he alone governs the state according to fundamental laws; for, a state that is governed according to the momentary caprices of an individual, without any fundamental laws, has a despotic government in which one man controls everything according his will alone; monarchy, however, commands according to laws that are placed in the charge of the political bodies of the state, whose task it is to announce the laws when they are made and to call attention to them when they have been forgotten.

Monarchy, unlike the republican form of government, is not based upon morality. In a monarchy, the laws take the place of the virtues, and the laws do not concern themselves with love of country, the desire for true glory, self- abnegation, the sacrifice of one's dearest interests, or any of the heroic virtues of the ancients that we have only heard tell of. Morals are never so pure in a monarchy as they are under republican governments, and the virtues that are displayed in a monarchy are always less concerned with what one owes to others than with what one owes to oneself. The monarchic virtues do not so much bring us closer to our fellow citizens as they distinguish us from them; honor, that is to say, the prejudices of each person and each social class, is, in a monarchy, the substitute for political virtue. Honor enters into all the ways of thinking and feeling. It whimsically expands or contracts the duties of individuals, even those duties imposed by religion, policy or morality. Honor, however, can inspire the most beautiful actions; it can even, when incorporated into the laws, achieve the goals of government just as virtue does.

Such is the strength of monarchic government that it employs all of its component parts just as it pleases. Because all wealth, honors and rewards flow from the prince, the desire to merit these things maintains his throne. In addition, because all public affairs are directed by one individual, order, diligence, secrecy, subordination, the greatest goals and the most efficient execution are certain to result. Even in crises, the safety of the prince is connected to the incorruptibility of all the different social orders; and subversives who have neither the will to overthrow the state nor the hope of doing so, cannot and do not wish to overthrow the prince.

If the monarch is virtuous, if he distributes rewards and punishments with justice and discernment, then all will be eager to merit his favors, and his reign will be the golden age; but if the monarch is not such, then the same principle that would have lifted the souls of his subjects to participate in his graces, to rise above the crowd with fine deeds, will degenerate instead into baseness and slavery. Romans, you triumphed under the first two Caesars; under the rest, you became the vilest of mortals.

A monarchy is in decay when the highest honors are the insignia of the highest level of slavery; when the respect of the people is taken away from their leaders, and when those leaders become the instruments of arbitrary power.

It is in decay when singularly cowardly souls are proud of their slavish grandeur; when they believe that to owe everything to the prince means owing nothing to one’s country; and all the more when flattery, bearing a cosmetic jar in its hand, spares no effort to convince the one who holds the scepter that men are to their sovereigns what all of nature is to its Author.

The foundation of a monarchy is rotten when the prince turns his justice into severity, when he places, as did the Roman emperors, the head of Medusa on his chest; when he affects the menacing and terrible appearance that Commodus caused to be graven on his statues.

Monarchy is lost when the prince believes that he can make more of a demonstration of his power by changing the order of things than by following it; when he deprives the branches of government of their authority; when he takes away a function that is the natural responsibility one branch and assigns it arbitrarily to another; and when he is in love with his frivolous whims.

A monarchy is lost when the monarch involves himself directly in everything, and summons the whole state to the capital, the capital to his court, and his court to his own person.

A monarchy is lost when a prince misunderstands his authority, his position, and the love of his people, and does not feel that a monarch should consider himself to be safe, just as a despot should consider himself to be in danger.

A monarchy is lost, when a prince, deceived by his ministers, comes to believe that the poorer his subjects are, the larger their families will be, and that the more they are weighed down with taxes, the better able they will be to pay them. These are two false precepts that I consider to be crimes against the crown: they have always ruined and always will ruin all monarchies. Republics are destroyed by luxury; monarchies, by poverty and decline in population.

Finally, a monarchy is absolutely finished when it lapses into despotism, a form of government that quickly throws a nation into barbarity, and from there into an abyss of destruction into which the despot’s heavy yoke will also fall.

But, if someone should say to the subjects of a monarchy whose foundation is crumbling, “A Prince has been born to you who will reestablish that foundation in all its glory. Nature has endowed this successor with all of the virtues and with personal qualities that will delight you. All that you need do is help them to develop.” Alas! I fear that your hopes will be disappointed. There are monsters who will cause this beautiful flower to wilt, who will smother it even as it is being born. Their poison breath will extinguish the faculties of this heir to the throne so that they can bend him to their will. They will fill his soul with errors, prejudices and superstitions. They will fill him with ignorance and with their pernicious maxims. They will infect him with the will to power that obsesses them.

These are the principal causes of the decline and of the fall of the most flourishing monarchies. Heu! quam pereunt brevibus ingentia causis! [2]

1. Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755). The discussion in this article is taken from De l’esprit des lois (The Spirit of Laws) (1748).

2. “Alas! From such slight causes are great things destroyed.”