27. Of the Manners of a Monarch. The manners of a prince contribute as much as the laws themselves to liberty; like these he may transform men into brutes, and brutes into men. If he prefers free and generous spirits, he will have subjects; if he likes base, dastardly souls, he will have slaves. Would he know the great art of ruling, let him call honour and virtue to attend his person; and let him encourage personal merit. He may even sometimes cast an eye on talents and abilities. Let him not be afraid of those rivals who are called men of merit; he is their equal when once he loves them. Let him gain the hearts of his people, without subduing their spirits. Let him render himself popular; he ought to be pleased with the affections of the lowest of his subjects, for they too are men. The common people require so very little condescension, that it is fit they should be humoured; the infinite distance between the sovereign and them will surely prevent them from giving him any uneasiness. Let him be exorable to supplication, and resolute against demands; let him be sensible, in fine, that his people have his refusals, while his courtiers enjoy his favours.

　　28. Of the Regard which Monarchs owe to their Subjects. Princes ought to be extremely circumspect with regard to raillery. It pleases with moderation, because it is an introduction to familiarity; but a satirical raillery is less excusable in them than in the meanest of their subjects, for it is they alone that give a mortal wound.

　　Much less should they offer a public affront to any of their subjects; kings were instituted to pardon and to punish, but never to insult.

　　When they affront their subjects, their treatment is more cruel than that of the Turk or the Muscovite. The insults of these are a humiliation, not a disgrace; but both must follow from the insolent behaviour of monarchs.

　　Such is the prejudice of the eastern nations that they look upon an affront from the prince as the effect of paternal goodness; and such, on the contrary, is our way of thinking that besides the cruel vexation of being affronted, we despair of ever being able to wipe off the disgrace.

　　Princes ought to be overjoyed to have subjects to whom honour is dearer than life, an incitement to fidelity as well as to courage.

　　They should remember the misfortunes that have happened to sovereigns for insulting their subjects: the revenge of Ch?rea, of the eunuch Narses, of Count Julian, and, in fine, of the Duchess of Montpensier, who, being enraged against Henry III for having published some of her private failings, tormented him during her whole life.

　　29. Of the civil Laws proper for mixing some portion of Liberty in a despotic Government. Though despotic governments are of their own nature everywhere the same, yet from circumstances - from a religious opinion, from prejudice, from received examples, from a particular turn of mind, from manners or morals - it is possible they may admit of a considerable difference.

　　It is useful that some particular notions should be established in those governments. Thus in China the prince is considered as the father of his people; and at the commencement of the empire of the Arabs, the prince was their preacher.76

　　It is proper there should be some sacred book to serve for a rule, as the Koran among the Arabs, the books of Zoroaster among the Persians, the Veda among the Indians, and the classic books among the Chinese. The religious code supplies the civil and fixes the extent of arbitrary sway.

　　It is not at all amiss that in dubious cases the judges should consult the ministers of religion.77 Thus, in Turkey, the Cadis consult the Mollahs. But if it is a capital crime, it may be proper for the particular judge, if such there be, to take the governor's advice, to the end that the civil and ecclesiastical power may be tempered also by the political authority.

　　30. The same Subject continued. Nothing but the very excess and rage of despotic power ordained that the father's disgrace should drag after it that of his wife and children. They are wretched enough already without being criminals: besides, the prince ought to leave suppliants or mediators between himself and the accused, to assuage his wrath or to inform his justice.

　　It is an excellent custom of the Maldivians78 that when a lord is disgraced he goes every day to pay his court to the king till he is taken again into favour: his presence disarms the prince's indignation.

　　In some despotic governments79 they have a notion that it is trespassing against the respect due to their prince to speak to him in favour of a person in disgrace. These princes seem to use all their endeavours to deprive themselves of the virtue of clemency.

　　Arcadius and Honorius, by a law80 on which we have already descanted,81 positively declare that they will show no favour to those who shall presume to petition them in behalf of the guilty.82 This was a very bad law indeed, since it is bad even under a despotic government.

　　The custom of Persia, which permits every man that pleases to leave the kingdom, is excellent; and though the contrary practice derives its origin from despotic power, which has ever considered the subjects as slaves83 and those who quit the country as fugitives, yet the Persian practice is useful even to a despotic government, because the apprehension of people's withdrawing for debt restrains or moderates the oppressions of pashas and extortioners.

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　　1. Politics, ii. 8.

　　2. Tarquinius Priscus. See Dionysius Halicarnassus, iv.

　　3. As early as the year 560.

　　4. Aristotle, Politics, ii. 12. He gave his laws at Thurium in the 84th Olympiad.

　　5. See Aristides, Orat. in Minervam.

　　6. Dionysius Halicarnassus on the judgment of Coriolanus, vii.

　　7. Minerv? calculus.

　　8. St. Louis made such severe laws against those who swore that the pope thought himself obliged to admonish him for it. This prince moderated his zeal, and softened his laws. See his Ordinances.

　　9. Father Rougerel.

　　10. Nicetas, Life of Manuel Comnenus, iv.

　　11. Ibid.

　　12. Theophylactus, History of the Emperor Maurice, 11.

　　13. Secret History.

　　14. Father Du Halde, i, p. 43.

　　15. Father Parennin in the Edifying Letters.

　　16. Book xxix.

　　17. Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius. This is the second in the Cod. de crimin. sacril.

　　18. Sacrilegii instar est dubitare an is dignus sit quem elegerit imperator. - Cod. de crimin. sacril. This law has served as a model to that of Roger in the constitution of Naples, tit. 4.

　　19. Leg. 5, ad leg. Jul. Majest.

　　20. Arcadius and Honorius.

　　21. Memoirs of Montresor, i, p. 238, Cologne, 1723.

　　22. Nam ipsi pars corporis nostri sunt - The same law of the Cod., ad leg. Jul. Majest.

　　23. It is the 9th of the Cod. Theod. de falsa moneta.

　　24. Etiam ex aliis causis majestatis crimina cessant meo s?culo - Leg. 1. Cod., ix, tit. 8, ad leg. Jul. Majest.

　　25. Alienam sect? me? solicitudinem concepisti. - Leg. 2, Cod., iii, tit. 4, ad leg. Jul. Majest.

　　26. Leg. 4, § 1, ff. ad leg., Jul. Majest., xlviii, tit. 4.

　　27. See Leg. 5, § 2, ff. ibid.

　　28. Ibid., § 1.

　　29. Aliudve quid simile admiserint - Leg. 6, ff. ad leg. Jul. Majest.

　　30. In the last law, ff. ad leg. Jul. de adulteriis.

　　31. See Burnet, History of the Reformation.

　　32. Plutarch, Dionysius.

　　33. The thought must be joined with some sort of action.

　　34. Si non tale sit delictum in quod vel scriptura legis descendit vel ad exemplum legis vindicandum est, says Modestinus in Leg. 7, § 3, ff. ad leg. Jul. Majest.

　　35. In 1740.

　　36. Nec lubricum lingu? ad poenam facile trahendum est. - Modestinus, in Leg. 7, § 3, ff. ad leg. Jul. Majest.

　　37. Si id ex levitate processerit, contemnendum est; si ex insania, miseratione dignissimum; si ab injuria, remittendum. - Leg. unica. Cod. si quis Imperat. maled.

　　38. Tacitus, Annals, i. 72. This continued under the following reigns. See the first law in the Cod. de famosis libellis.

　　39. Tacitus, Annals, iv. 34.

　　40. The law of the Twelve Tables.

　　41. Suetonius, Life of Tiberius, 61.

　　42. Collection of Voyages that Contributed to the Establishment of the East India Company, v, part II.

　　43. Ibid., p. 496.

　　44. Dio, in Xiphilin., lv. 5. Tacitus, Annals, ii. 30, iii. 67, attributes this law, not to Augustus, but to Tiberius.

　　45. Flavius Vopiscus in his Life, 9.

　　46. Sulla made a law of majesty, which is mentioned in Cicero's Orations, Pro Cluentio, art. 3; In Pisonem, art. 21; and against Verres, art. 5. Familiar Epistles, iii, 11. C?sar and Augustus inserted them in the Julian Laws; others made additions to them.

　　47. Et quo quis distinctior accusator, eo magis honores assequebatur, ac veluti sacrosanctus erat. - Tacitus,Annals, iv. 36.

　　48. Deut., 13. 6-9.

　　49. Collection of Voyages that Contributed to the Establishment of the East India Company, v, part II, p. 423.

　　50. Dionysius Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, viii.

　　51. Tyranno occiso quinque ejus proximos cognatione magistratus necato. - Cicero, De Invent. ii. 29.

　　52. Cook viii, p. 547.

　　53. Of the Civil Wars, iv.

　　54. It is not sufficient in the courts of justice of that kingdom that the evidence be of such a nature as to satisfy the judges; there must be a legal proof; and the law requires the deposition of two witnesses against the accused. No other proof will do. Now, if a person who is presumed guilty of high treason should contrive to secrete the witnesses, so as to render it impossible for him to be legally condemned, the government then may bring a hill of attainder against him; that is, they may enact a particular law for that single fact. They proceed then in the same manner as in all other bills brought into parliament; it must pass the two houses, and have the king's consent, otherwise it is not a bill: that is, a sentence of the legislature. The person accused may plead against the hill by counsel, and the members of the house may speak in defence of the bill.

　　55. Legem de singulari aliquo rogato, nisi sex millibus ita visum. - From Andocidis,De Mysteriis. This is what they call Ostracism.

　　56. De privis hominibus lat?. - Cicero,De Leg., iii. 19.

　　57. Scitum est jussum in omnes. - Ibid.

　　58. See Philostratus, i: Lives of the Sophists: Æschines. See likewise Plutarch and Phocius.

　　59. By the Remnian law.

　　60. Plutarch, in a treatise entitled. How a Person May Reap Advantage from his Enemies.

　　61. "A great many sold their children to pay their debts." - Plutarch, Solon.

　　62. Ibid.

　　63. It appears from history that this custom was established among the Romans before the Law of the Twelve Tables. - Livy, dec. 1, ii. 23, 24.

　　64. Dionysius Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, vi.

　　65. Plutarch, Furius Camillas.

　　66. See below, xxii. 22.

　　67. One hundred and twenty years after the law of the Twelve Tables: Eo anno plebi Roman?, velut aliud initium libertatis factum est, quod necti desierunt. - Livy, viii. 38.

　　68. Bona debitoris, non corpus obnoxium esset. - Ibid.

　　69. The year of Rome 465.

　　70. That of Plautius who made an attempt upon the body of Veturius. - Valerius Maximus, vi, 1, art. 9. These two events ought not to be confounded; they are neither the same persons nor the same times.

　　71. See a fragment of Dionysius Halicarnassus in the extract of Virtues and Vices [Historica]; Livy's Epitome, ii., and Freinshemius, ii.

　　72. Plutarch, Comparison of some Roman and Greek Histories, ii, p. 487.

　　73. Leg. 6, Cod. Theod. de famosis libellis.

　　74. "Nerva," says Tacitus, "increased the ease of government."

　　75. State of Russia, p. 173, Paris, 1717.

　　76. The Caliphs.

　　77. History of the Tartars, part III, p. 277, in the remarks.

　　78. See Francis Pirard.

　　79. As at present in Persia, according to Sir John Chardin, this custom is very ancient. "They put Cavades," says Procopius, "into the castle of oblivion; there is a law which forbids any one to speak of those who are shut up, or even to mention their name."

　　80. The fifth law in the Cod. ad leg. Jul. Majest.

　　81. In the 8th chapter of this book.

　　82. Frederick copied this law in the Constitutions of Naples, i.

　　83. In monarchies there is generally a law which forbids those who are invested with public employments to go out of the kingdom without the prince's leave. This law ought to be established also in republics. But in those that have particular institutions the prohibition ought to be general, in order to prevent the introduction of foreign manners.
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