Les Éloges de Montesquieu par Barère

Koichi Yamazaki : Barère s Eloges de Montesquieu. (A brief analysis by J. Ehrard of an article that was too long to publish in full). One Eloge de Montesquieu by Barère was already known ; this article shows, using both the 1806 printed version and manuscripts in Tarbes and Bordeaux, that the future member of the Convention had, just before the Revolution, competed for three successive Bordeaux Academy prizes on this subject. He also shows that the three analyses of the Esprit des lois were to a large extent dictated by contemporary events. In the third Eloge, Barère used the work against feudalism while he had quoted it against despotism in the second one. He nevertheless considered it to some extent to have been overtaken by unprecedented events. The France of 1789 needed «another Montesquieu ».Yamazaki Koichi. Les Éloges de Montesquieu par Barère. In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°21, 1989. Montesquieu et la Révolution. pp. 97-99